Player of the week… a young 3b with upside potential rarely seen.  David Wright of the first place Mets who have the best record in baseball.  No.  Ryan Zimmerman, the highly touted 3b for the Washington Nats?  No chance.  Garrett Atkins of the Rockies?  Who???  Yes.  A hitter out of UCLA, in only his 3^rd major league season has emerged from obscurity to be the NL Player of week 2.  Batting .432, he has helped power the Rockies out of their traditional cellar spot to #1 in the West (actually a 1/2 game out as of last night), an honor of little weight considering it is known as the mild, mild West.    Still David Wright impresses, carrying the Mets offense, along with Delgado, LoDuca, Reyes and other to the best record in baseball!  Can they continue?  Who knows, but the winter moves they have made seem to be paying off so far.

As mentioned before, the Red Sox have some pitching.  Curt Schilling, while not throwing 96 mph anymore is pitching the daylights out of the ball and former Marlin phenom, Josh Beckett finally has a mentor with whom to hang during games, and talk baseball and learn from a veteran.   Their combined 5-0 record speaks for itself and clearly, if they can remain injury free, the Sox will be a force throughout the season with such a formidable 1-2 combination on the mound.  The way they hit in spite of losing cf Johnny Damon and 3b Bill Mueller along with their pitching will ensure an interesting late season for Boston fans.  The Yankees rotation is weak, their pitching corps dreadfully lacking in comparison to their every day lineup in terms of star power.  Curious that Steinbrenner did not do something more dramatic with their pitching staff other than sign set up man, Kyle Farnsworth.  Very curious, actually.

Slumping stars Chase Utley of the Phillies and Jeff Francoeur (Braves) have caught fire, finally.  Curious that such young players are considered linchpins of their respective organizations, but they are.  Both were members of Team USA, starters on an all star squad of 30 players.  Utley has homered in consecutive games recently and appears to have broken out of his early season slump.  Francoeur is fighting the sophomore slump, as scouts around the league study his approach at the plate, looking for the inevitable holes in his swing.  

Apparently they have found a few, and now it is time for the young Francoeur to make an adjustment, and he did the other night, hitting two homeruns.  He brought his average up from .081 to .200 and appears to be on his way to putting together another decent season.  He will probably not accrue so many outfield assists as he had last year (runners will stop testing his cannon like arm!), but he will be a force out there nevertheless.

The return of Jim Thome makes White Sox gm Ken Harrelson look like a genius.  Already with six home runs after he hit seven all last year in an injury plagued season.  A mountain of man, apparently the steroids scandal is not applicable to Thome.  On the other hand, the slumping Bonds is being watched (and pitched to) carefully.  With a federal investigation pending, his future in the game is tenuous.  GM Brian Sabean did stack his outfield, trading the ineffective Edgardo Alfonso (5 AB for the season, no hits) for Steve Finely (2 triples among his 3 hits so far this season), providing insurance for the possibility that Bonds

will break down this year, which will undoubtedly be his last.  If not for his quest to pass Babe Ruth, one figures if he had just disappeared from baseball, the steroids scandal would have disappeard too.  But given his bad reputation and racist comments about Ruth’s achievements, Bonds will be hounded out of the game eventually.   With Ruth’s “record” jeopardy (the magic number, 714, how many people really know how many homeruns Hank Aaron hit??) in jeopardy, now the government AND George Mitchell (Selig’s personal investigator who has been curiously quiet these days) are after Barry.

Staff ace, Jamie Wright??  He pitched a one hitter for eight innings last night in LA, after a 2 hour rain delay.  Sounds like ace material to me.  Signed to a minor league deal in the off season, Wright has emerged as real force for the Giants.  He has had two solid outings, teaming with the real ace of the staff, Matt Morris (a free agent acquisition taken from the Cardinals, who is obviously flourishing with Mike Matheney behind the plate, his

Cardinal battery mate from two years ago), to carry the Giants to first place in the NL West.  Jason Schmidt is still feeling a power outage and apparently will never regain the scintillating dominance he displayed two years ago as a legitimate Cy Young award candidate.   If Matt Cain can get untracked and put together a solid outing, the Giants pitching staff suddenly looks rather formidable compared to those in the same division.