The Chalk Talk with Dan and the Dawg

The offensively challenged Arizona Diamondbacks have struggled to a .227 team batting average in 2018. It has certainly been a season of ups and downs in Phoenix, Arizona as the Diamondbacks find themselves standing in first place in the NL West with a 40-33 record, up two games on the surging Los Angeles Dodgers. After starting the season on a 20-8 tear, the Diamondbacks slipped to a .500 record over their next twenty-seven games, going 8-19 in the month of May. Since then, though, they've managed a 12-6 record, displaying much of the same form that propelled them to the second best record in baseball on May 1st. Will the Diamondbacks be able to keep up the pace and challenge for a NL West crown? It's tough to say at this point. The Los Angeles Dodgers have been division champions in seven of the past ten years (including the past five seasons) and have gone 22-8 since enduring a six game losing streak in mid-May. It was only a matter of time before Dave Roberts' tea...

How are the Braves going improve as they approach the MLB trade deadline and what are they going to do with their surplus of starting pitching? - AJ, Magnolia, DE As we find ourselves roughly midway through June and rapidly nearing the season's midway point, the Atlanta Braves sit atop the NL East standings, sporting a 42-29 record and a 3.5 game lead on the Washington Nationals. Despite featuring one of the league's youngest rosters (with an average age of 27.8 years), the "Baby" Braves are most definitely a legitimate playoff contender. With an offense powered by infielders Freddie Freeman, Ozzie Albies, and outfielder Nick Markakis, the Braves currently rank fourth in runs scored (344), sixth in on-base percentage (.325), and fifth in slugging percentage (.424). Their pitching staff, which is yielding 3.9 runs per game, has done an excellent job limiting the long ball (69 home runs allowed in 641.2 innings) as well as putting opposing batters away via the stri...

To contend or to pretend? That is the question. In a season that has been full of surprises, from the two-way success of Shohei Ohtani, the prolonged slumps of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Cleveland Indians, and the much faster than anticipated arrival of the new "Baby" Braves, the biggest surprise may be the early season success of the Seattle Mariners. Sixty-three games in, the Mariners are setting the pace in the AL West with a 40-23 record. For a team that struggled to a 78-84 record in 2017, the early season results in Seattle have to be encouraging. The Mariners have been a baseball pundit darling for years, but have rarely been able to reach expectations for their talented squad. Whether it be inconsistent pitching, streaky hitting, or shaky defense, the Mariners have only managed to put together three seasons of .500 baseball or better in the past decade and haven't reached the 90-win mark since 2003. Thus far in 2018, the newest iteration of the "Boys in...

Gabe Kapler has a deer in the headlights look to him that surely isn't sitting well in Philadelphia. Oh, Philadelphia. You had to have known that this would happen. I mean, lets be honest, did you really expect anything else? The first three games of the 2018 season for the Philadelphia Phillies have gone about as poorly as they possibly could have. It's a sobering reality check for a city that was still flying high from their historic run to a Super Bowl Championship this past winter. Now, let me start with this, the fact that the Phillies are 1-2 isn't all that surprising. It's a widely accepted fact that the Phillies are in the midst of a organizational rebuild, starting from the top (management and coaching) and trickling down throughout the ranks. Free agent signings Carlos Santana, Jake Arrieta, and Pat Neshek were a means to perhaps speed up the process, but it was expected that the Phillies probably weren't going to be very good this year. Seventy-s...

It's almost here! With the 2018 now less than twelve hours away from kicking off (the season's first game will be between the Cubs and Marlins with a 12:40 PM start time), team sites and fan blogs are busy churning out MVP and World Series projections (MLB's Joe Posnanski has a particularly entertaining column on his craziest predictions for 2018 ). While my personal musings may lack some of the wild speculation of others, here are my five personal predictions for the 2018 season. 1. Bryce Harper Notches his First Career 100 RBI Season Bryce Harper is going into a walk year in 2018, a situation that has yielded some fantastic results in the past. With 768 big league games under his belt, Bryce Harper has evolved into one of the game's best young talents. Pairing a powerful bat (career .515 slugging percentage) with an unusually patient approach at the plate (455 career walks in 3,262 plate appearances), Harper has accomplished much in his MLB career to date (...