Three Up, Three Down: Thoughts from the Dugout
We are over a third of the way through the baseball season, and I’m averaging about one baseball column every three weeks. Three might as well be a theme of the column this week, and while I apologize for leaving my dedicated baseball readership bereft of material (to all five of you — sorry guys!), I am glad to announce that we’re back this week with as much topical news as I can muster. Unfortunately, the most topical thing is tremendously sad, so I’ll save that for last.
At this point in the season, we can start to see team narratives developing, and whether certain teams are flukes or not. Rather than do an all-out power rankings (of which I have one planned for the All-Star break), we’ll take a look at just six teams. (Well, five, but again, we’ll get there.) Three of these teams are doing quite well, exceeding expectations, or have a nice story going for them. Three of them are in the doldrums, fading, or have been beset with loss. As always, the baseball season is a marathon, not a sprint, but we’re far enough along to take a look at some things and say “Hmm, well, that doesn’t seem so bizarre anymore”.
Enough about this. Time for a game of Three Up, Three Down.