On The Flip Side - With Mr. Opposite

Why Tampa Bay is the best team in baseball:

What can $21 Million dollars buy you nowadays? It can pay Arod's salary for a season and it can also pay for The entire Tampa Bay staff for one season, I don't know about you, but I would much rather the latter.

Who would have thought it? Tampa Bay has a streak of 10 wins, and are 10-1 in interleague play, which just so happens to be the best record in the majors. The most surprising part is that it hasn't been against teams with offence that resembles Death Valley, like the Expos (yes I am fully aware that they managed to scrape together 17 runs against the White Sox. Shocking). It has been against productive teams like the Padres and the Rockies and Barry Bonds, oh wait, I mean the Giants. They rallied twice against Chacon, granted that isn't the hardest thing to do, and a lot of the games were won in the ninth or in extras, proving that they handle themselves well in clutch situations, something that even the greatest of teams can't always do.

Here are some nice stats: 2-7 2 BB's (1 HBP), those are Bonds' stats. At the end of the series they had, not one IBB. This is after Lou said that they would pitch to Barry, something which most team managers go back on. The most amazing of these coming in the tenth inning of the second game, with Barry leading off, I, like most other people was expecting an intentional, but no, they pitch to him, and he does nothing with it. Pinella told Paul C. Smith of MLB.com "We did a nice job on him. He might be a little tired from swinging the bat." Cruz drove in the winning run. I just love seeing Bonds fail. Take that ESPN.

They then followed up the 2-1 series win over the Giants by getting out the brooms for San Diego and Colorado. For me, the most impressive win so far would have to be taking it to Randy Johnson. He was quite a streak since his perfect game, little did he know that he was going to suffer a loss to "The most under-rated team in baseball".

Now I am fully aware that this trend may not continue, but I had tipped the D-Rays to be 3rd when the season is over. So far that's is looking like a great tip.

The reason for their success is quite simple, they don't have a highly-paid player that they have to look to in order to get wins. They have a nice mix of speedy young players (Crawford and The Pride of Rhode Island), power hitters (Martinez and McGriff) and all-round great players like Aubrey Huff . All of that mixed with the greatest coach of all time, Big-balled Piniella, and you get "The Best Team In Baseball".