Ladies and gentlemen, Joker here! I have been gone for a bit with a short stint at Arkham and unfortunately, all I get is 2 second updates on ESPN (actually, I've been lurking but busy with graduation and finding a job. I did, by the way!). Anyways, its a joy to see this team still playing competative baseball and pitching strong. The bats? They're awakening. Having a blue-chip like Bryce Harper looks to be doing his job, gettting on base and generating (some) offense. And Ian Desmond, holy cow, didn't see that one coming! I was in the boat of shipping Desi or using him in the utility role for Danny Espinosa and Anthony Rendon as our MIFs of the future. Right now, I'd love to see Lombo get more airtime. He looks to be gettting solid contact and not as susceptible to the strikeout. We've had enough Ks from this lineup the last several years.

Moving on from saying things we all have taken notice to, how about that Battle of the Beltway! As a lifelong Orioles-hater, there was a certain joy in this series. Competative baseball, good pitching, opportunistic offenses. Both teams came out and played to the hype of the series and gave it new life. The O's have the edge in the overall series, but this budding rivalry isn't totally out of hand similar to what the Phillies rivalry was only a couple years ago. The Os had their stars (Adam Jones and Nick Markakis) perform and we had ours. Granted, our stars got a lot more noise in the highlight reels. "Hey Bryce, you got a triple? I'll show you my HR trot!" Or was it more of a lumber?

Like I said, not an O's fan, nor a Baltimore fan of any kind. But having both teams playing division leading baseball is awesome for the DMV. People down here in Texas are taking notice of both teams and I get a swell of excitement knowing that both clubs are making national noise. Granted, that is until a Rangers fan wants to tell me how superhuman Josh Hammer-ton is. Mention steroids or drugs and you would think they would murder you if they weren't afraid of the death penalty. Even in our most heated exsacerbation during the game, there's a lot more excitement postgame that we've all been looking forward to, but it's nice to know that it is finally here! So SMILE!