You do realize that We are officially out of the Wild Card

As well as legitimately in the AL East race.

There is more to come.

Norris has been horrible, Tillman bad. We have lost our starting C, SS, and 2B for most of the year. Pearce has been a shell of what he was. I see things turning around for this team for sure.

Norris has been horrible, Tillman bad. We have lost our starting C, SS, and 2B for most of the year. Pearce has been a shell of what he was. I see things turning around for this team for sure.

It's not like we are worse off than we were last season. And Cruz was just sinking into his Ryan Howard abyss at this point last year.

My view is, get over .500 first, then worry about the competition. Sub-.500 teams don't go to the playoffs.

My view is, get over .500 first, then worry about the competition. Sub-.500 trams don't go to the playoffs.

Absolutely. Hence my bump of the win five in a row thread.

It's not like we are worse off than we were last season. And Cruz was just sinking into his Ryan Howard abyss at this point last year.

Cruz?s batting average peaked at .361 on May 14. Over his past 19 games, that average has plummeted rapidly, down to .319. While that is still a great average, the drop of over 40 points is significant when considering whether or not Cruz, a career .271 hitter, can keep up the high average when he has batted over .270 in a full season only once.

To determine whether Cruz was due for a big regression, you need to turn your attention to his fly balls this season. Cruz has seen 23.7% of his fly balls go for home runs this season. After batting .184 on fly balls last season, he is batting .255 on fly balls this season. Neither of those numbers is sustainable. Cruz is continuing to rake on line drives, perhaps better than any hitter in the game of baseball. Over the past two seasons, Cruz has hit 22 home runs on line drives and batted .736 when making line drive contact. That does say something about his ability to hit the ball on the nose with power.

Most of the noise surrounding Cruz?s eventual downfall this offseason centered around his age. Cruz is nearly 35-years-old, and is nearing the age when high-strikeout rate type power hitters like himself begin to slow down. If you want to try and look for this type of decline, check a hitter?s pull rate. If a hitter?s bat is slowing down, he will not be pulling the ball as much. With the Orioles last season, Cruz pulled the ball or hit it up the middle 65% of the time. In 2015, he has done that only 54% of the time. To me, that is a significant decline, and a big red flag for the future. Cruz has good opposite field power, but as he ages and his bat slows, that will be the first thing to go.

http://www.baseballessential.com/news/2015/06/05/nelson-cruz-aboard-regression-train/

I can't get optimistic until we at least win a series from someone again or better yet, sweep one. How about a nice 8 game winning streak. Seems like we've been spinning our wheels all season long.

And We have been without several components all year. Maybe we can give it a run in July.

I do think we will play better. Hard to play much worse. However, I think the AL East as a whole is also going to improve. All five East teams won last night. Unfortunately, I think the MFYs are having one of those years where everything turns their way no matter how it might look from the outside, I think Tampa Bay has the best pitching in the division and that alone will keep them from any long losing streaks, Toronto can hit the ball, even Boston can certainly play better than what we have seen. So even playing better doesn't necessarily get us to where we want to be given how poorly we have played thus far.

As well as legitimately in the AL East race.

There is more to come.

You're lying! I thought this team was done?

I can't get optimistic until we at least win a series from someone again or better yet, sweep one. How about a nice 8 game winning streak. Seems like we've been spinning our wheels all season long.

Pretty much...up and down all season. Hitting great, pitching terrible. Pitching great, hitting terrible. Of course it's going to be hard to string some wins together when 2 of the 5 starters have been downright awful.

http://www.baseballessential.com/news/2015/06/05/nelson-cruz-aboard-regression-train/

Blasphemer! Cruz is a savior and he walks on water...something...something...Duquette sucks!

My view is, get over .500 first, then worry about the competition. Sub-.500 teams don't go to the playoffs.

My thoughts as well. With the return of our injured players and Buck will sort out the pitching.

We are capable of making a run here.

I am excited

Which is why we have to add an OF. The division is there for the taking.

Yankee series this weekend is a big series for this early in the season. Also need to beat ERod on Tuesday.

The time to really do well was when other AL East teams were doing poorly (like most of the season so far) (and head to head with them). Toronto well on its way to 4th win a row pounding the Astros this afternoon (where is all that daggone pitching that ate us up?). Jered Weaver pitches like Cy Young against us...goes against the MFYs last night- gives up 8 runs.

I hope we can make up some ground, but for now, we just need to focus on one game at a time and see if we can get back to .500.