In the season’s first blockbuster, Cliff Lee and a prospect was dealt to the Texas Rangers for Justin Smoak and 3 prospects. Naturally, this was not discussed at all in the Hot Stahoviak. Through the process, my Twins were the alleged leader in the race for Lee. The Yankees almost had a deal done today. The Reds apparently had a pretty good offer on the table as well. Let’s look at those poor teams.

Twins: Good news, Twins fans! Cliff Lee wasn’t going to help the team win the World Series anyways, because Cliff Lee wasn’t going to pitch every game (and all 5 starters are scuffling). Cliff Lee wasn’t going to improve Joe Mauer, Denard Span, Michael Cuddyer or JJ Hardy’s uninspiring batting averages. Cliff Lee wasn’t going to relieve the other starters. Cliff Lee wasn’t going to keep Nick Punto out of the lineup. Cliff Lee wasn’t going to assemble a lineup that makes sense for the Twins roster. So, hey, Minnesota didn’t over pay for him!

Yankees: Apparently the Yankees are upset with how the Mariners let the Rangers sweep in and nab Lee. This is the first time it has ever happened to the Yankees of course. Everyone else has had it done to them, but somehow, nobody is feeling sorry for you. This is because it’s usually you sweeping in at the last minute. Now, however, the sweeper has become the sweepee and the Randers did the sweeping when the swpt in and swiped Lee. Sweet.

Reds: Good rotation, break out year, doing all you can. I don’t know what to tell you. You should have got him. Sucks to be in Ohio today.

Out of the six teams playing tonight, which two do you think MLB hates the most? Yeah, I also would have guessed the Royals and the Nationals, but no, it’s the Yankees and the Diamonbacks Reds and the A’s. I’m watching the game for free courtesy of MLB.TV’s At Bat app (that I paid for), which is all well and good, until you come to the commercial breaks…

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There have been rumors swirling that the higher ups in Major League Baseball have wanted to reformulate the divisional structure in baseball. Well, things have really taken off, if you haven’t been paying attention. Here is a chronological rundown of the events as they happened.

- After rumors that the AL Central may want to expand to 6, 8 or even 10 teams, in order to increase the “footprint” of the league to put it’s TV network, FSN North in more houses. They have obviously long coveted the Milwaukee Brewers, but the rumors circulate that they will instead look to expand into some other major TV networks. People suspect that the teams invited will be the Cardinals, Mets and one last pitch to the Brewers.

- The AL West jumps the gun, and says they would like to expand to 8 teams as well, and invites the Astros, Cubs, Reds and Pirates.

- The Astros immediately join the AL West. Nobody cares.

- The Cardinals, who have wanted to play in the AL Central tell everyone how awesome it will be when they go to the AL Central. The AL Central adds the Rockies, say they are done expanding.

- The rest of the NL Central, especially Cardinals and Brewers, lobby the rest of the division to stay together and not join the Astros in the new, larger AL West. The decision will come down to the Cubs, clearly the financial behemoth of the division.

- In a stunning change, the Reds claim to be interested in joining the NL East, escaping the shadow of the Cubs.

- Despite Tim Kurkjian’s reports, the NL Central decides to hold together at the last minute, rather than creating the first 8 team super division in the AL West, leaving the Cardinals and Brewers adrift. The key factor in the deal? The Cubs get their own, highly profitable TV network, WGN.

- Embarrassed, humbled, but still eager to add the coveted 6th member, the AL West invited the Salt Lake Bees, who eagerly accept.

It’s been a whirlwind, that’s for sure, but at least the super divisions didn’t come to be. Outside the AL East, anyways.

Squirrels breed twice a year, usually with 2-6 babies born in a litter. The biological cause of splitting gametes and whatnot leads to the high possibility that every squirrel born will have a genetically identical partner. What am I getting at? There is a good chance that the squirrel that attacked Brendan Harris early this week was, in fact, a twin. Couple this with the fact the Sean Rodriguez from Tampa was recently stung by a ray while at the beach, then, well, you have a trend. Team mascots are going after utility players. Here are a few more scenarios:

While at a local Houston area theme park with his family, a group of performers in Jetsons costumes entertain the Keppinger family. The Jetsons’ dog, Astro, excitedly bites Jeff.

After donning his nicest suit before a friend’s wedding, Chicago infielder Omar Vizquel suffers a panic attack while sifting through his dresser hoping to complete his wardrobe.  He is found rocking in a corner, muttering “I only have white socks. White socks…. white socks….”

After a full two months of being competitive, Pittsburgh’s Bobby Crosby goes on a Mediterranean cruise, which is hijacked by increasingly daring Somali pirates.

On a Sunday in San Diego, David Eckstein goes to church after the game. After a spiritually uplifting service, Eckstein decides to go to the sacristy to express his appreciation. The priest (or “padre”) is having fun with his altar boys, and David accidentally interrupts their game of darts. The padre throws his dart as Eck walks in front of the dartboard, and it gets stuck in his glove hand. (What did you think I meant by “having fun with his altar boys”?)

Julio Lugo gets lost while driving in Baltimore and decides to pull off the road in a seedy part of town. A beautiful black and orange bird, an oriole descends and lands on a fence post . While he is admiring the beautiful creature, Lugo is viciously mugged.

Kevin Frandsen and friends are at a bar in southern California. The LAA utility man doesn’t realize, however, that this is a biker bar, and they don’t take kindly to the scrappy type. He is chased out by a mob of ornery Hell’s Angels.

Tiger Woods sleeps with Don Kelly’s girlfriend.

Reds infielder Paul Janish is overthrown as head of his local homeowners association in favor of a communist regime.

I guess what I’m saying is, if you play infield positions to give other players off days, be careful out there, all right?

Resident miserable Reds fan checking in today. Yesterday as you watched Sportscenter and saw us fall victim to a walk-off grand salami in Atlanta, you had to be thinking about the poor sucker out there who roots for the Reds. If you were wondering the inner thoughts of a crazy man or if you were wondering what that felt like, I’ll be the guy who tells you.

It hurt. It hurt damn bad.

Not even a week’s time has elapsed since I was glowing about this same group, and now here I am telling it like it is like I have so often for the past decade or so. Hell, let’s go ahead and call it 20 years even since that was the last time we truly won anything.

A sackless, gutless effort. I don’t care how many walk-off or last at-bat wins that this team has scraped together in the first two months of the season. Yesterday’s collapse erases it all. We’re back at square one, whether we’re above .500 by five games or not.

Good teams don’t lose yesterdays game. Good teams that become something special usually aren’t the answer to trivia questions like the trivia that will be invented due to yesterday’s folly. That shit doesn’t happen to the Dodgers, the Yankees, or the Rays, or teams that are going to go on to play in October. It happens to my team. It happens to the group I bleed for and get in fights with my girlfriend over.

Yesterday’s loss takes a special type of pussification by a group of 25. And for those of you who want to make some money, we play the Indians, Pirates, and Astros in the next three series. Two of those are at home. I promise you if you take the dog in all 10 of those games; you’ll make money.

Trust me, this team is about to fold like a dollar in a wallet. This season is over.

I have been away for a while, but I’m back due to the fact hours ago the Reds took it to the St. Louis Cardinals to overtake first place. If it weren’t for that fat-shit, 15-game loser to be Aaron Harang we’d have swept their asses in front of as close to sell out crowds as we’re going to see. The Reds are for real and they’re not going away. The next 14 games are against teams that are .500 or worse. The Reds are going to build a lead and put a strangle-hold on the NL Central. Baseball Tonight is going to be forced to give us more then 15 seconds of air time at some point.

Jay Bruce hasn’t even begun to hit yet and he’s been over .300 and .900 OPS since the first 7 games of the season. Brandon Phillips has done little at the plate. Drew Stubbs is just now starting to get wood on the ball (as St. Louis found out last night).

Remember your boy Mevs told you–the Cincinnati Reds are gonna go Cinderella on us all–and they’re not going away all season long.

If you are a person who likes to root for the underdog, follow our box scores for a few nights. Finally this town (even though I live two hours up I-71 North) has a team that they can be proud of. A team of grinders. A team that wins ugly. A team that to date has still been outscored by a run. Dusty’s team.

This is as close to real life Major League the movie as it gets.

This is day 39 of the “7th Inning Stache”s 100 days of MLB mustaches. All of the Staches will be cataloged in our MLB Mustache Hall Of Fame. If you have any tips on some fielding first basemen follicle follies please email us the tip @ NESWblogs-at-gmail.com.

It’s Cinco de Mayo, so it’s only fitting that today we honor a great Mexican baseball player — and his mostacho.

Last year, ESPN came up with the following analogy: Jorge Cantu is to Mexico, as Ichiro is to Japan, as Derek Jeter is to the United States, and as Alex Rodriguez is to the Dominican Republic. Frankly I thought it was insulting to Cantu. In 2005, Cantu set Devil Rays single-season franchise records for RBI record (117), game-tying or go-ahead RBI (37), multi-HR games (4), and HR by a 2nd baseman (19). In 2006, in the first ever World Baseball Classic, Jorge Cantu drove in both of Mexico’s runs off Roger Clemens, as Mexico eliminated the heavily-favored United States team that was led by Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, and The Shaved Emasculated Shell of Johnny Damon. And Cantu did it with a spectacular mustache. So on this day when the world celebrates Mexico’s independence from France, please don’t forget this Mexican hero, or this Mexican hero’s mustache.

Each day we describe the stache in one word.

Jorge Cantu’s stache = Mexcellent

Did you know that MLB tells us which teams they think are the least popular (and hence suck the most)?

They do!

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