It is August 10, and the pennant races are getting REAL interesting as the finish line to this unique sports marathon comes into focus.  The Braves just took two out of three from the Mets, in NY.  The young Mets, with all their talent might be feeling the heat that the Braves are putting on them. The acquisition of Mark Texeira may prove to be the lightning in a bottle formula that general manager, John Schuerholz, was seeking to spark this team.  The mainstay of this team has been, since his rookie year, Chipper Jones.  A steady presence in the lineup (when not injured) since 1995 when he broke into the league with 23 home runs. His 376^th homerun yesterday was all too familiar to the Mets as he hit the go ahead home run in a game that the Braves would go on to win 7-6. 

Texeira his a home run as well, his 4^th in a Braves uniform, achieving an instant comfort level with his new team reminiscent of Fred McGriff when he joined the team at the trade deadline in 1993, catapulting the team to 104 wins, edging out the Giants from the postseason by one game when there were only two divisions in each league and no wild card entries.   But it was defensive play that put the exclamation point on the Braves victory, a game saving catch by Willie Harris, a relatively unknown player outside Atlanta, robbing Carlos Delgado of a home run to the amazement of all in the ball park except himself.  He says he knew he had it all the time, though no one else did.

Similarly the Cubs may have caught their own brand of lightning in a bottle, having acquired catcher Jason Kendall ten days prior to the trade deadline.  He is hitting .286 with a .385 on base percentage, compared to his Oakland number of .226 and .261 respectively.  An amazing turnaround for a player who some writers deemed was finished.  His skills with handling a pitching staff were never in doubt as the Oakland pitchers are feeling the effects, and the Cubs pitchers are ecstatic. 

The Cubs got it right, jettisoning Michael Barrett (who fought with Carlos Zambrano) and soon thereafter acquiring Kendall.  The heat of a pennant race will bring out the best in Kendall and there are more heroics to come during this final month and half of the regular season.  A mere half game behind the Brewers, this might be the most interesting race of all.

The Seattle Mariners now lead the wild card standings, a mere one game lead over both the Yankees and Tigers.  Who would have guessed at this point in the season they would have a real shot for the post season after two extremely disappointing seasons. Their team stats do not reveal the story, as they are 10^th in the league in ERA and only sixth in runs scored, though their defense is good, ranking fifth in the league.  So what is the story in Seattle.  Obviously it is Ichiro, the best player in baseball today.  In fact, as good as he will billed when he came to this country six years ago to play baseball, he is better competing here in the major leagues than he was in Japan.  His numbers are better, he is more dominant, and getting more hits. He is on a pace to well exceed 200 hits again, for the sixth consecutive season. 

It is possible that if he had played in the States from the beginning of his career, that we would be closing in 3000 hits already, at the tender age of 33.  While Derek Jeter’s 2300 base hits at age 32 have provoked some writers to speculate on his chances to reach the 4000 hit plateau, clearly Ichiro’s 1519 hits to date in less than six full seasons is a real eye opener.   Ichiro had only 1278 base hits in seven seasons in Japan, reaching 200 hits only once.  And writers downgrade the accomplishment of Sadaharu Oh’s 868 homeruns, denigrating the quality of the Japanese competition?  Think again, guy, as the Japanese team destroyed the all stars from the States in the World Baseball Classic last year and has always played fundamentally sound baseball compared to the quest for individual stats that seems to permeate the American game these days.

The worst news for the San Francisco Giants this week was the extension of Eric Byrnes’ contract with the Arizona Diamondbacks for another three years.  Byrnes openly stated that he wanted to sign with the Giants after this season, as he grew up on the peninsula, just 20 miles south of Candlestick Park and had always been a Giants fan.  His energetic style of play would have been welcomed by the Giants faithful, a stark contrast to the plodding style of play that has been all too often this year. 

The arrival of Rajai Davis in San Francisco, an athletic speedster has raised the eyebrows of quite a few people, but as one writer observed, his arrival in Arizona would have gone unnoticed given the young and energetic talent on the Diamondbacks roster.  Byrnes is the oldest outfielder they have, at 31 years old.  But Davis already has four stolen bases in only 8 games, and is an extremely exciting player to watch, no matter where where, or when.