Major League Baseball First Half Recap

The first half of the 2010 Major League Baseball Season has come and gone and nnow might be the perfect time to take a look back at the first half of this season. Some of the events that have taken place this season have been pretty surprising. Here are the league standings through the first half of the season:

AL East:
New York Yankees 56 32 .636
Tampa Bay Rays 54 34 .614
Boston Red Sox 51 37 .580
Toronto Blue Jays 44 45 .494
Baltimore Orioles 29 59 .330

AL Central:
Chicago White Sox 49 38 .563
Detroit Tigers 48 38 .558
Minnesota Twins 46 42 .523
Kansas City Royals 39 49 .443
Cleveland Indians 34 54 .386

AL West:
Texas Rangers 50 38 .568
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim 47 44 .516
Oakland Athletics 43 46 .483
Seattle Mariners 35 53 .398

NL East:
Atlanta Braves 52 36 .591
New York Mets 48 40 .545
Philadelphia Phillies 47 40 .529
Florida Marlins 42 46 .477
Washington Nationals 39 50 .438

NL Central:
Cincinnati Reds 49 41 .544
St. Louis Cardinals 47 41 .534
Milwaukee Brewers 40 49 .449
Chicago Cubs 39 50 .438
Houston Astros 36 53 .404
Pittsburgh Pirates 30 58 .341

NL West:
San Diego Padres 51 37 .580
Colorado Rockies 49 39 .557
Los Angeles Dodgers 49 39 .557
San Francisco Giants 47 41 .534
Arizona Diamondbacks 34 55 .382

So that is where everybody is currently sitting in baseball right now. As some people may have figured there have been managerial changes that took place during the year. The biggest name to take over as a manager is the Arizona Diamondback's new bench boss Kirk Gibson. Gibson, as most people probably know by now, hit that famous walk off home run for the Dodgers in the 1988 World Series off A's closer Denis Eckersly.

Now lets take a look at the league leaders in both leagues as of this point in time:
American League Leaders
AVG-Miguel Cabrera-DET & Josh Hamilton- TEX .346
HR-Jose Bautista- TOR 24
RBI-Miguel Cabrera- DET 77
R-Carl Crawford- TB 70
H-Ichiro Suzuki- SEA & Josh Hamilton TEX 118
SB-Juan Pierre- CWS 32

Pitching leaders
W-David Price- TB & CC Sabathia- NYY 12
L-Jeremy Guthrie- BAL 10
ERA-David Price- TB- 2.42
K-Jered Weaver- LAA 137
IP-Felix Hernandez- SEA 137.2
SV-Joakim Soria- KC 25

A stat worth noting is that Miguel Cabrera of the Tigers has a shot at becoming Baseballs first Triple Crown Winner since Carl Yastrzemski in 1967. Cabrera is trailing in the home run department but leads in RBI's and is teid for the lead in batting average, so he still has the outside shot at it.

Now lets take a look at the NL Leaders to this point in the year.

NL Batting:
AVG-Rafael Furcal-LAD .333
HR-Joey Votto-CIN & Adam Dunn-WAS 22
RBI-David Wright-NYM, Ryan Howard-PHI, & Corey Hart-MIL 65
R-Brandon Phillips-CIN 66
H-Martin Prado-ATL 121
SB-Michael Bourn-HOU 28

Pitching leaders
W-Ubaldo Jimenez-COL 15
L-Wandy Rodriguez-HOU 11
ERA-Josh Johnson-FLA 1.70
K-Tim Lincecum-SF 131
IP-Roy Halladay-PHI 148.0
SV-Francisco Cordero-CIN & Heath Bell-SD 24

Of the stats listed above, really there are no surprises. The fact that David Wright of the Mets is leading the National League in some kind of offensive catagory is really saying something to me, as a Mets fan. Its finally starting to show that he can hit in a lineup where he really is the focal point for the opposing pitchers.

Now I think would be a good time to take a look at the 4 biggest pitching performances of the first half. First up were the 2 perfect games that have been thrown. The first perfecto came on Mother's Day May 9th when Dallas Braden of the Okland A's threw the 19th perfect game in Major League Baseball history, defeating the Tampa Bay Rays 4–0. It was also the second perfect game in Oakland A's history; the first coming on May 8, 1968 when Jim "Catfish" Hunter beat the Minnesota Twins, 4–0. Then exactly 20 days later, Roy Halladay of the Phillies threw perfection, the Florida Marlins 1–0. This achievement marked the first time in the modern (post-1900) era that two perfect games were pitched in the same season. In 1880, both Lee Richmond and John Montgomery Ward both hurled a perfect game five days apart. It was also the first perfect game for the Phillies since Jim Bunning's Father's Day perfect game on June 21, 1964. The big story was the near perfect game thrown by Armando Galarraga of the Detroit Tigers. Galarraga was able to retire 26 straight Cleveland Indians, but had trouble getting the 27th. What happend was first base umpire Jim Joyce made an errant call on Galarraga's coverage of first base on a flip throw by first baseman Miguel Cabrera, which would have been the final out. Jim Joyce later stated that he did make the mistake and blew the call.

Besides that, 2 no hitters have been thrown during the year. Ubaldo Jimenez of the Rockies threw the first no-hitter in the Rockies 18-year history by blanking the Atlanta Braves 4–0 on April 17. It was also his first career no-hitter and the first no-hitter of the season. The 2nd No-no came from Edwin Jackson of the Arizona Diamondbacks when he blanked the Tampa Bay Rays in a 1-0 win on June 26th. It was the second no-hitter in Diamondbacks history and his first in his career. The only other pitcher to have a no-hit game was Randy Johnson against Atlanta, and that was a perfect game in 2004.