Phillies Sign AJ Burnett

Burnett and Halladay 

The Phillies have signed right handed starting pitcher AJ Burnett to a 1 year $16 Million deal. Burnett is coming off 2 good season with the Pirates after being traded by the Yankees. With the Yankees Burnett had 4.79 ERA although he pitched 584 innings in 3 seasons. When moving to Pittsburgh Burnett pitched to a 3.41 ERA in 393 innings over 2 seasons. With the retirement of Roy Halladay Burnett will be filling the big shoes of his former teammate with the Toronto Blue Jays. With Cole Hamels, Cliff Lee, and Kyle Kendrick Burnett is probably a number three starter, but can expect an inflation in his ERA pitching in Philadelphia, a ballpark smaller than PNC in Pittsburgh.

   

Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting

What a busy Saturday April 21, 2012. A perfect game, a 9-0 comeback win, a double header between two powerful teams, and several great pitching performances.

Lets start off with The Humber Games. The 21st perfect game in MLB history goes to the 29 year old Phillip Humber. Collecting 9 strikeouts against The Seattle Mariners Humber enters baseball history as another pitcher to complete baseball immortality. A very exciting game for baseball fans all over the country and congratulations to Phillip Humber.

The next thing to talk about is the greatest rivalry in sports history. The Yankees beat the Red Sox in the first game of a 3 game set 6-2. In game 2 of the weekend series The Red Sox looked dominant through the first 6 innings. Starter Felix Doubront pitched 6 innings and gave up just 1 run, a solo home run to Mark Teixeira. Doubront was taken out after the 6th inning with a 9-1 lead. The problem for The Red Sox this season has been the bullpen and yes they did not perform well. A grand slam and a 2 run double for Nick Swisher and a 3 run homer and a 2 run double for Teixeira lead The Yankees to  an momentous 15-9 victory over The Red Sox.

A double header between The Tigers and The Rangers took place on Saturday as well. In the first game Rick Porcello got rocked pitching only 1 inning while giving up 8 runs. The Rangers got an easy victory in that game. In the night game Justin Verlander took the hill for The Tigers and Neftali Feliz took the hill for The Rangers. Feliz went 8 innings giving up 3 runs and Verlander went 6 innings giving up only 1 unearned run. The two teams split the double header.

AJ Burnett made his first start of the season after recovering from an injury in spring training. He pitched 7 shutout innings against The Cardinals. He was acommponied by Justin Verlander, Stephan Strasburg, Clayton Kershaw and Phillip Humber as starters to not allow a run on Saturday.





What will Sunday hold?

The Pittsburgh Pirates

The Pirates finished the 2011 season with a 72-90 record. They don't seem to be making much progress in the off season, but they're chances of a winnings season may improve in 2012.

Yesterday The Pirates traded 2 young minor league players and $13 million in salary relief to The Yankees. In return The Pirates received veteran pitcher AJ Burnett. The Pirates are hoping to get better results over the remaining 2 years in Burnett's contract than the Yankees did. AJ is an innings eater; pitching close to 200 innings a season. Since the Pirates don't have very effective pitching AJ will be a big help.

The Pirates don't really have any notable offensive players besides Andrew Mccutchen. Mccutchen is only 25 and his statistical trends are looking good. He is a great defensive center fielder and with the offense he provides, he is great overall center fielder. Look at the positive progression of his stats:

2009: 108 games, .365 OBP, 12 HR, .471 SLG, 22 SB
2010: 154 games, .365 OBP, 16 HR, .449 SLG, 33 SB
2011: 158  games, .364 OBP, 23 HR, .456 SLG, 23 SB

Mccutchen has been very consistent and now the home runs are starting to enter his game. If the Pirates can get more players on base, Mccutchen can drive them in and win more games.

With the NL Central looking like the dullest division, The Pirates may have a chance to break that curse of 19 consecutive loosing seasons. All they need is a record of 81-81.