AL East

1.     Boston Red Sox

2.     Tampa Bay Rays (Wildcard)

3.     New York Yankees

4.     Toronto Blue Jays

5.     Baltimore Orioles

AL Central

1.   Minnesota Twins

2.   Detroit Tigers

3.   Chicago White Sox

4.   Kansas City Royals

5.   Cleveland Indians

AL West

1.   Texas Rangers

2.   Los Angeles Angels

3.   Oakland Athletics

4.   Seattle Mariners

ALDS 1: Red Sox over Twins (4 games)

ALDS 2: Rays over Rangers (5 games)

ALCS: Red Sox over Rays (6 games)

MVP: Dustin Pedroia

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Franco is the mastermind behind Next Level Ballplayer, a website designed to help turn guys who play baseball into ballplayers who play the game the right way. During his four-year career as a scholarship player at Miami University (OH), they won the league division three times, the overall league championship once, and participated in the NCAA Regionals (and were knocked out by the eventual National Champion Texas Longhorns). He has been teammates with over 25 guys who have been selected in the MLB draft (three of whom have made their MLB debuts) and has played against numerous guys that are currently playing in the big leagues.

We are officially less than 24 hours away from one of the best weekdays of the year. The first two rounds of March Madness, the first round of the MLB playoffs, and MLB Opening Day. Are there any other weekdays throughout the year that offer multiple, energy filled games during the work/school day? If so, please remind me in the comments section. Onto my top 10 reasons opening day can’t get here soon enough…

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Let’s just say that Adam LaRoche has had better games than Friday night’s contest against Clayton Kershaw and the Los Angeles Dodgers.  The strikeout-prone first baseman, who has cooled off after a productive month of August, notched four strikeouts in four atbats in Friday’s loss.

As if wearing the golden sombrero wasn’t humiliating in itself, LaRoche looked utterly bewildered in his three at-bats against Kershaw.  However, it was his third and final at-bat against the young lefthander that truly epitomized the extent of LaRoche’s struggles at the plate.

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On Thursday night, the visiting Los Angeles Dodgers surrendered a 5-run lead against the Philadelphia Phillies, giving up 3 runs in both the 8^th and 9^th innings and ultimately losing 10-9.  Although many of the Dodgers’ players lent a helping hand in making the late-inning collapse exceedingly memorable, the brunt of my focus is on Ronald Belisario’s mental error- a blunder so rare that it baffled every umpire on the field, as well as the manager of both teams.

With nobody out in the bottom of 8^th inning, Belisario opted to do a 3^rd-to-1^st pickoff move, hoping to catch an anxious Jayson Werth with too large a lead.  There was just one slight problem, there was no a runner on 3^rd base.  The only guy on base was Werth…and he was on 1^st.  That’s right, this means that Belisario made a move to an unoccupied base(3^rd) in an attempt to deceive Werth.  BALK.  However, this was no ordinary balk, it was arguably one of the most bone-headed and unthinkable balk in baseball history; it should have counted for a run, not just a single base.  If we refer to a players’ mental errors as “brain farts,” then Belisario’s gaffe should be recognized as “brain explosive-diarrhea.” Here’s why:

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