All-star game

The first half of the season has come and gone. And boy did it fly. Obviously you could say that a surprise of the first half has been the Houston Astros. Ahead of schedule, the Astros came out of the gate quickly in the AL West, leading the division for almost the entire first half. Now only a half-game behind the Angels, they look to make a push in the second half to make the post season a year ahead of schedule. The Astros still have young, talented prospects waiting their turn for major-league ball, but who knows? Maybe they can prove themselves by the end of this year and make the postseason. One of the disappointments of the year so far has been the San Diego Padres. With a huge overhaul on players over the offseason, this year was supposed to be world series title or bust for the Pad-Squad. Nine games under .500, the second half has always proved to bring success to Padres teams of recent past. Recall back in 2009, a year after the most losses of any padres team this millennium, things were looking pretty bad but then Kyle Blanks hit his stride and Clayton Richard brought a spark to a struggling pitching staff. Last year, the worst offense in franchise history turned things around and ended the season with the best home record at Petco Park history. Then again, there have been disastrous seasons. The 2010 team had a dominating record through August but collapsed in September. So we'll just have to wait and see what happens this year. We needed this all-star break.

As for the game, Mike Trout led off with a home run and the AL went on to win in Cincinnati, 6-3. Trout won the game's MVP award for the second straight year with the most at-bats of anyone in the game at 3. Andrew McCutcheon and Brian Dozier also had homers in the game. Pete Rose made an appearance and was welcomed with some boos in his old confines. Next year is in San Diego! I plan on going. Do you?

Season half way mark

With the MLB reaching it's halfway mark through the entire season (already), there have been many surprises throughout the league. The Astros were expected to be a year away from postseason contention, instead of them leading the AL West by 5 games over the Angels. The entire AL East has been surprising with the top 4 teams separated by one game. Teams flip-flop in the standings all the time. On the other side of expectations, the padres were expected to be in contention at this point -- and maybe even a favorite to win the division -- but have definitely underperformed. The Mariners are another team that was expected to compete but they have struggled to score runs. The Marlins signed Giancarlo Stanton to a monster 10-year $300 million deal over the offseason and now the Marlins have underperformed, although they have been playing better baseball of late. With the all-star game looming ahead, I look forward to the madness of playoff baseball in the second half of the season.

The Padres.... They are an interesting topic. Injuries keep piling up (Spangenberg to the DL, Middlebrooks out day-to-day), and the team's field play hasn't exactly been outstanding. Now with the team 7 and a half back of the Dodgers in first place, it will be tough to make a run at a playoff birth, but just as James Shields said, if the Royals could make a second-half surge into the world series, the Padres are definitely poised to do the same. Sure Matt Kemp has struggled all season and Justin Upton has recently slowed in performance. Hopefully we can get some of these players off the DL in order to be the team that we intended on being prior to the season. Well, after last night's win in St. Louis (another surprise team), we are 5 games under .500 and look to finish the first half of the season with a winning road trip of 10 games against winning teams (St. Louis, Pittsburgh and Texas). This will put us in position to make the desired second-half run that we are very capable of having. I will be bold enough to say that it will happen.

In other news, the US women's national soccer team will play Japan in a rematch of the 2011 world cup final in this year's world cup final. The game is Sunday night. These women are tenacious. They have not surrendered a goal in 513 minutes during this world cup. Defense will definitely show here in this game as probably the eventual winner. In 2011, the US team was 3 minutes away from winning the title, but surrendered a goal in the final few minutes. Let's find out if this year is different, shall we? Have a great 4th everybody!