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It’s not secret that my baseball loyalties lie with the team 200 miles north of my current residence here in NYC.  While I passionately root for them and follow their every move, I actually also spend quite a bit of time watching two other teams.  One is obvious, the NY Yankees - you can’t avoid them living in NY, and after all, it’s good to keep an eye on the competition.  The other team I follow is the Mets. Sure, there’s ‘86, but that’s been forgiven, and baseball experts will tell you that the Mets were just simply a better team.  Many of my friends are BIG Mets fans, and there’s nothing like hitting up Shea on a nice spring afternoon for beer and baseball…so I guess I sometimes share a small piece of my baseball love for the team in Queens (when they’re not playing the Sawx).

So now that the first week of the 2007 MLB season is in the books, I thought I’d take a look back and reflect upon these three teams.  Each team traveled a very different path over the past few days, and somewhat surprisingly, the Mets ended the week ahead of the Sox and Yanks.

So the biggest question going into the 2007 season for the Mets (4-2) was regarding their starting pitcher.  Some said they were too young (Maine, Perez, Pelfry) - some said they were too old (Glavine, El Duque, Pedro).  While the quality of their offense was never in doubt, many have wondered if the rotation, minus Pedro for now, could keep the team in the game.  The answer has been a resounding yes.  In their first four games, the Mets’ starting pitching allowed a mere THREE runs.  Glavine, Maine, El Duque, and Perez all pitched masterfully and were supported by 31 runs worth of offense.  Even in their two losses against the braves, Glavine and Hernandez only gave up 3 ERs.  The Mets home opener is today, against their division rivals, the Phillies.  Jimmy Rollins claims they’re the team to beat…this should be a great series.  Mets Grade for the week:  A

My beloved Sox didn’t perform nearly as well as the Mets did this past week.  I felt the team was well balanced on paper, but their performance just didn’t match the hype.  Besides Curt’s opening day debacle, our starting pitching has been pretty good, not counting Julian Tavarez’s crappy start (Lester should be a much better 5th).  Dice-K pitched a great first game, and Beckett looked controlled and solid.  Wakefield continued his run from last year by again getting virtually no run support.  This guy has no luck.  Our bullpen has been so so…Papelbon looks like, well, Papelbon in the closer spot.  But our middle and late inning help just isn’t there yet.  I’m definitely not sold on Piniero yet, and some of the other aging guys like Romero and Donnelly haven’t shown any real flashes of brilliance.  My biggest fear with this team though is its completely ineffective offense.  While we have mustered up 19 runs in 6 games, 7 came in one game against the lowly Royals.  We have two batters hitting over 300 - JD Drew, who’s been pretty solid at the plate, and get this, Dustin Pedroia.  Yes, little Dustin is hitting the ball better than Manny, Youk, Lugo and the others.  If it weren’t for Papi’s two dingers last night, we’d only have 1 HR on the books.  Worse off, Coco Crisp and VTek are batting below the Mendoza line with Youk, Papi, and Manny being Manny just a few points above it.  If this team wants to make a run for the division crown, they’ll have to learn how to put some real runs up on that board to support their pretty good pitching staff.  Sox grade for the week:  B-

And finally, we come to the Yanks (2-3).  Being a player (or a fan for that matter) of the Bombers must be like riding a roller coaster.  On paper, this team looks awesome.  But day after day something comes up to rock the boat.  If its not the booing, or cheering, or booing A-Rod, it’s the injury problems to Matsui, Damon, and Wang.  But the big story coming out of the Bronx is the ABYSMAL play of the starting pitching.  Not a single starter lasted longer than 5 innings, severely taxing their bullpen.   It’s been so bad in fact, that Pettitte had to come in for an inning yesterday to fill in…fortunately it was his scheduled workout day.  Check out the line on the Yanks starters:

Ouch.  Is that the best rotation $180M can buy?  If it weren’t for their explosive offense, powered by none other than Alex Rodriguez, the Yanks could have ended up in the cellar of the east.  Sports writers are already ready for Phil Hughes to be brought up, and it seems the whole world is already penciling in the Rocket into their rotation.  And don’t forget, we’re still waiting for Wang to come back from the DL. There’s enough talent on that staff to do better than what we saw last week, but with age problems and injury issues, it could be a long season for their staff.  Yanks grade for the week:  B

I’m heading up to Boston tomorrow for the home opener against the M’s with my beloved Blohards - all NY Sox fans should get on the BH bandwagon.  Should be a fun time, especially if they pull of a fun win.  For all three teams, this is making to be one hell of a season, if they get their stuff in order.  Play ball!