That's more like it

It seems that baseball is returning to normal. The Red Sox have shaken off a horrible start and are beginning to win with regularity. The starting pitching has begun to pitch as advertised and the team is hitting. Now we should be able to watch the talent in the American League East come to the surface and provide exciting baseball. Adrian and Carl Crawford haven't really begun to heat up. Just wait. And the Orioles have come down to earth. I still like their club. Pitching will be the key. I'm still not a fan of Mark Reynolds or Derrek Lee.

May is usually a time when teams bring up some of their better minor league talent. I'm particularly interested in what the Padres have in mind for 1B prospect Anthony Rizzo who is really hitting the ball well at AAA. Dustin Ackley should be making his debut soon as well. We'll just have to be prepared and then wait and see.

Sunday saw some fantastic pitching in both leagues. Scherzer, Westbrook, Freddy Garcia, Doc Halladay, James Shields, and Randy Wolf to name just a few. Shields has changed his entire mound mechanics and his "finish." That changes the trajectory of the ball, providing more movement. He was awfully straight with his pitches when he was pitching poorly.

Tonight begins a 10 game home stand for the DBacks. I'll be there. Cliff Lee pitches for the Phillies tonight and I'll be watching.
I hope to spend some time talking with Charlie Manuel if he's available.

Back to normal? You bet. That crash was the Indians on the road against the Twins. They just can't beat that club. Now the Tribe has two starting pitchers with injuries as Carlos Carrasco has gone down with an elbow issue. It's possible the team may turn to David Huff, a lefty to fill the spot. However, I wouldn't count out right- handed Alex White, a top draft choice and a prospect who is having a good campaign so far at AAA Columbus.

The New York Mets got a personal get well greeting when the Diamondbacks visited this past weekend. The sweep of the DBacks brought some much needed confidence to the Mets. Now they just have to play well moving forward.

Brandon Wood could take some at-bats away from SS Ronny Cedeno in Pittsburgh. Wood might get some at-bats when the team plays in Colorado this week. Because of the Coors factor, I put him in my lineup. This is the time, if ever.

A friend called to tell me he heard that Shin-Soo Choo and Sue-Shin Choo are in love and want to get married. He said they decided to get married on a train. I told him to shut up and please, never call me again.

The Rangers will try to piece together a closer by committee until Naftali Feliz is back. It looks like a combination of Arthur Rhodes, Darren Oliver and Pedro Strop might all get a call. Strop is the righty of the group.

I'm trying to figure out what happened to Rafael Soriano? After using him along with Joba Chamberlain and Mariano Rivera until I thought all 3 of their arms would fall off, Joe Girardi has changed the late game mix. Soriano has been skipped in the trio and guys like Boone Logan and David Robertson have slipped into Soriano's spot. Maybe there have been too many bad outings for Girardi to give Soriano the ball. We need to watch that closely. I'm just wondering.

Edinson Volquez looked like he had an injured knee or groin in the Sunday Night ESPN game of the week. He stayed in and continued to pitch through it.

There should be concern in Los Angeles about the recent poor starts by Ervin Santana. It's tough to beat the starts of Jared Weaver and Dan Haren, but Santana has been really off lately. Watch that carefully.

Not much has been made of the contract extension given Ryan Braun. He's set for eternity. He's one fine ballplayer.

I wouldn't want to be around Ozzie Guillen in the morning. Or afternoon. Or evening. Imagine what must be going through his mind? What's up with the offense? When, (when, not if) Adam Dunn gets hot, so will the White Sox. Let's not forget that the weather has been awful. Big guys like hot weather. I'm just sayin.

Is Tony La Russa a good manager? He started Miguel Batista in a game where the weather report called for rain. Batista threw one pitch or something ridiculous like that. It rained. Batista was gone and La Russa could then play his normal game after the rain delay. Very smart.

Jerry Sands has knocked in some important runs for the Dodgers. He still has a long way to go to make adjustments to major league pitching. So far, he's done pretty much as expected. High velocity pitchers beat his slowish bat. But he's still learning. I think we should like what we've seen. He'll just get better.

Brett Myers pitches extremely well in his home Minute Maid Park. Keep your eye on that when filling out your lineups.

The home run hit on Sunday by Michael Stanton is just a sign of things to come. I've said before he is one of the strongest men I've seen come along in a while. He could be a home run king in the very near future.

Darwin Barney will be the subject of my weekly prospect profile on RotoWire. I hope you'll give it a read. The scrappy Cubs 2B is an important part of the team. Should be on the site later this week.

I hope you will follow me on Twitter @BerniePleskoff.