THE TWILIGHT ZONE

I'm convinced that the supposed stars shown in the Twilight Zone picture are actually baseballs from this year in which Rod Serling is manipulating from the heavens above us.  It's been a very strange baseball year thus far (now, close to the first third of the 2012 season).  Teams like the Yankees & Phillies are not dominating, while teams like the Dodgers, Mets, & Orioles are.  The Yankees do have the most home runs, but the team with the 2nd most is the 1st-place Orioles!  The Yankees are hitting, but it seems to be only when the bases are empty.

More evidence of the strangeness is that the Mets' Johan Santana threw the franchise's first no-hitter in their 51st year of existence!  Their fans have been waiting for quite a long time to finally celebrate something sensational, since they have not won a World Series in over 25 years (sorry, Mets' fans, I just couldn't resist.)  I do offer my kudos to Johan as he deserves a lot of credit for throwing the no-hitter (or arguably a 1-hitter) especially after having major shoulder surgery just two seasons ago.

As alluded to above, this past Friday's no-hitter by Johan didn't happen without controversy.  In the sixth inning, a lined shot by former Mets' player Carlos Beltran was hit onto the foul line, but the 3rd-base umpire (Adrian Johnson) called the ball foul even though the ball hit the foul line just a few feet in front of him where the chalk erupted into the air and left its marked impact!  In the end, it proved to help the game's results as becoming an official no-hitter in the records.

It certainly wasn't the first no-hitter with a wrong call!  Two years ago, the opposite affect happened when Detroit Tigers' pitcher, Armando Galarraga, lost his chance at pitching a perfect game (a step above a no-hitter, but still a no-hitter) when Jim Joyce called a runner safe at 1st base on what would have been the final out of the game.  It would have been part of the rare perfect games thrown, only 21 as of today.  I can easily go on about other impacted poor calls, but that topic will be detailed in an upcoming blog.

Will the year continue with more unexpected happenings in the Major Leagues?  I'm sure it will, but I hope some things will turn back to expectations, such as the divisional placement of teams in the standings before the season is over.  It seems as though the Cubs, Padres, and Pirates are the only teams truly following the original script before most of the other teams entered into the Twilight Zone.  Hopefully, at least the Yankees will get back into their prior dimension!