June 2010

This past week, I came across an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that caught my eye. It’s titled “A Tale of Two Disasters” and it‘s written by Paul H. Rubin, professor of economics at Emory University. From the ring of the title, I expected Rubin’s article to be an engaging “compare/contrast” essay on the current government’s controversial response to the BP oil spill disaster and the oft-ridiculed government response to the all-too recent devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. Unfortunately, after reading the piece, I was disappointed to discover that the article is merely another whining session about the media’s perceived pro-Obama bias and its continued anti-Bush sentiment, the kind of journalistic moaning and bellyaching that pops up all-too frequently in the Journal’s op-ed section.

The Philadelphia Phillies seem to have found their way out of their extended scoring slump. In the last week, through 6 games, the batting order has scored 36 runs. That's 6 runs per game, and it's also the third-highest number of runs scored in the majors over the last seven days. But just what is it that the team is doing now that they couldn't do back when they were scoring only 10 runs per week? The answer lies in in how the Phillies score their runs.

Wow. That was probably the most satisfying and the most frustrating episode of Lost that I’ve ever seen. To a certain extent, I don’t even know where to begin a review because I’ve spent most of the last 24 hours trying to make sense of the ending. Seriously, I didn’t sleep at all last night.

I'm sure the Nationals starting pitchers can't wait to put this week behind them. They've pretty much been taken to the cleaners. At the beginning of the season, the starters were surprisingly effective and the Nationals rode their rotation to a promising 20-15 start. They've struggled mightily since then, with this past week's 1-5 road trip being the lowest point so far. Here are some numbers that show just how bad it's been.