Team USA To Face Japan

Team USA will play the defending Champion Team Japan Sunday Night. Barry Larkin talks about preparing for the game.

Phillies Win NL East

The Philladelphia Phillies have won the National League East for the second straight season.

Brad Lidge was perfect in his save opportunities in 2008.


Ryan Howard should win the National League MVP Vote.

I Can't wait to see how Philly plays in the postseason.

Jimmy Rollins: National League MVP Alex Rodriguez: American League MVP

Jimmy Rollins edged out Matt Holliday in National League MVP Voting.

The American League MVP Was No Contest, with Alex Rodriguez picking up all but two votes. The two No votes came from two Detroit Sportswriters who voted for Magglio Ordonez.

Jimmy Rollins won the National League MVP award Tuesday, edging Matt Holliday in a close race after propelling the Philadelphia Phillies to their first playoff berth in 14 years with his speed and steady all-around play.

The Gold Glove shortstop received 16 of 32 first-place votes and finished with 353 points in balloting by the Baseball Writers' Association of America.

Holliday, the left fielder who led Colorado's surprising charge to the World Series, got 11 first-place votes and 336 points. Milwaukee slugger Prince Fielder came in third, with five first-place votes and 284 points.

In The American League, Alex Rodriguez won his third American League MVP Award. Rodriguez received 26 first-place votes and 382 points in balloting by the Baseball Writers' Association of America, while Ordonez had two firsts and 258 points.

Rodriguez won his first MVP in 2003, his last season with the Texas Rangers. He also won an AL MVP Award with the Yankees in 2005.

The 2007 New York Mets: One of The Biggest Chokers in Baseball History

The Mets are coming apart at the seams, and if they can't right the sinking ship, there will be no October Baseball for them.

Thank goodness for the Cubs, they are not the biggest chokers in baseball this season.

The New York Mets' lead in the NL East is gone. They might not even be in the playoffs if they can't snap out of their near historic funk.

The spiralling Mets managed just three hits off Joel Pineiro and Jason Isringhausen in a 3-0 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals on Thursday night that dropped them into a first-place tie with Philadelphia in the division.

New York has led the division alone every day since May 16.

The Mets were ahead by seven games on Sept. 12 with 17 remaining but have lost 10 of 14 overall and seven straight at home, a monumental tailspin for a team that counted on being in the playoffs.

No major-league team has failed to finish first after having at least a seven-game lead with 17 to play. But with three games remaining in the regular season - a weekend series at home against Florida - the Mets might fail to win the division or qualify as the wild card.

Philadelphia, which beat Atlanta 6-4 on Thursday, closes the season with three games at home against Washington. San Diego, which beat Milwaukee 9-5 in the opener of a four-game series Thursday, leads the Mets, Phillies and Colorado Rockies by one game in the NL wild card standings.

The Mets are having a historic collapse. The Mets are injured, angry, and struggling. As a result, they have allowed Jimmy Rollins, Ryan Howard and the Philladelphia Phillies to catch up to them. This was a team that everyone expected would be back in the National League Championship Series, particularly since they have the "Thunder and Lightning" combo of Carlos Beltran and Carlos Delgado. Well, Beltran and Delgado have been on the Disabled List, and Jose Reyes and David Wright, as good as they are, can't pick up the slack. The Mets bullpen has also been a huge letdown for them. Last season, the Mets were pitching to use their bullpen. This season, their trying to keep their bullpen out of the game because of the number of leads the bullpen has blown for them this season.

If the Mets don't right the ship, The 2007 New York Mets will go down as the biggest chokers in baseball history. Will the Mets wake up in time of starve off the surging Phillies? Or will New York prove Jimmy Rollins correct when he said in the beginning of the year that the Phillies were the team to beat?