Wow, I haven't blogged since the All-Star Game

Sorry I haven't been posting as much since the All-Star break, but there really hasn't been much to report on. We've had terrible losing streaks and big win streaks. Through it all, we enter our last 19-game stretch only 4.5 games out of a Wild Card berth. Detroit will need to finish off the year on a low note, as well as Atlanta and Omaha (not to mention we'll need to kick it up a notch to finish the year). We're not dead yet, and until we're eliminated I will hold out hope.

That said, let's take a look back at how things have been going over the past few weeks:

- At the halfway mark, Cyrus Torres was the king of baseball. He had an ERA in the mid 2's, no losses on his record, and became the first rookie ever to start the All-Star game. At the time, it looked like he would be a top-3 Cy Young candidate. These days, he'll be lucky if he can even steal a Rookie of the Year win. His ERA has ballooned to 4.10 and his record sits at 13-5. He has looked positively shaky on the mound and is pitching worse than Ive ever seen him since the break. Hopefully he can turn it around, because without those 5 losses we'd be in the playoffs right now. Let's see if we can get our old Torres back for the stretch run.

- On the other side of the coin, Ebenezer Brett has been the best pitcher on the team in the second half. Since coming over from the Wood Chippers, he has sported a 3.91 ERA and a 6-2 record. Not exactly up to his old Cy Young standards, but at age 30, he is showing us that last year's injury hasn't stopped him from being an infinitely useful rotation piece. I believe Fargo gave up on Brett too early; he's got a great contract ($5.8 mil a year through season 11, at which point he'll turn 33 and we can dump him for free before he gets old) and he has been showing that his early season struggles were mostly just temporary rust. Max Guillen will likely be a very good major league player someday, but after the additions of Jose Moreno, Bart Hamelin, and Omar Gabriel through trades this year (not to mention draftees Jeremi Rice, Raymond Rossy, and Cedrick Pickering, as well as IFA Alex Romano) I certainly think it was understandable to part with one of our many minor league arms in order to get a piece that could help us right now.

- Speaking of our newly-acquired minor leaguers, we only got one big young bat this year, but it's a good one: Josh Nixon has been an absolute monster in rookie ball, hitting .441 with 36 home runs and 49 doubles over the course of 76(!) games. He finished with a 1.483 OPS and had 7 multi-homer games (or roughly 11% of the games in which he played). He is on the fast track to a Rookie league MVP, and if his stats this year are any indication, that may not be the last MVP award this guy wins.

- Taking a look at potential ML awards, besides Torres' newly uphill battle for Rookie of the Year, the only real possiblity is a Gold Glove for Rob McNamara. His 3 recent errors will hurt him, but if he plays consistent and solid defense through the end of the year, I wouldn't count him out of an award that, to my eyes, he has rightly earned.

Well, that's about it for now. I am on the edge of my seat waiting to see whether our playoff aspirations this season will actually bear fruit... stay tuned for end-of-the-year team awards and other notes, whether or not we make the playoffs.