The MLB "Survivor" Challenge: Week 3

Week 3 has arrived in the "survivor" challenge and Ted and I are ready to end two more teams season early. This week I'll be making my 2nd NL elimination while Ted takes care of the AL. For a refresher on the rules click here.

Here are the teams we've each eliminated thus far:
BD
Washington
Seattle
Ted
Kansas City
Pittsburgh

Now onto this week's eliminations.

Leaving The Diamond: San Francisco Giants
Reasoning: Looking at the Giants and Barry Bonds it's hard to imagine how they've fallen. Bonds is the poster child for steroids while the Giants as a whole are the poster children for Life Alert. Every season they seem to get older and every season they suck. Every time Ray Durham gets up from a slid the dugout let's out a collective sigh of relief. As he didn't break his hip.

As I child I was a big time Bonds fan, growing up seeing the man he is off the field has done nothing but make me sick. Whether or not Bonds used steroids I still wouldn't want him to break Hank's record. He's a prick and seeing guys like him succeed is never really a good thing.

This past off-season the Giants gave Barry Zito a massive contract, almost as if to say they were willing to pay big to win. Yet that singing will make little difference this season as the lineup remains mostly intact. I like Matt Cain a lot and I think he'll be great in another uniform in a few years, as it's unlikely he stays in SF for good. Cain is the youngest Giant by 2 years over reliever Jon Sanchez. While playing with all of these veterans will teach Cain about Viagra, Life Alert and many other geriatric necessities. It won't help he and Zito win games. So it is with an ecstatic middle finger in Bonds' direction that I send these Giants into 2007 obscurity.

And now Ted's AL elimination.

Leaving The Diamond: Baltimore Orioles
Reasoning: This one hurts a bit. I went to college in DC pre-Nationals, so my friends and I took in quite a few games in the "friendly confines" of Camden. I once screamed at Kenny Lofton enough - the glorious summer of 2002, when he was with the White Sox (I think? He might have been on 10 teams that summer) - that he actually reacted. As such, I became a kinda sorta Orioles "fan," in the sense that I have an Orioles hat and a Brian Roberts poster, and I display them both frequently enough to vaguely be associated with the organization.

I also once had a multiple e-mail exchange with Jim Beattie.

Anyway, I digress. The Orioles looked good early, but now they look too much like the normal Orioles. As of Wednesday morning, they've lost 3 in a row, are 2-8 in their last 10, had a chance to rumble with the Tigers this week - when the defending AL Champions wanna fight, goddamn it you fight - and instead "fagged out" and no punches were thrown, and bright spots like Daniel Cabrera are beginning to become eyesores. Cabrera looked good in that same Tigers game, then walked six and threw 2 wild pitches. It's cool if you throw 98, bro, but get it under control, joo know?

Even though the Yankees suck right now and everything under the sun bad is happening to them, they'll recover. The D-Rays won't win the division, but they have enough young talent to not get eliminated by BD or I for a little while. The Red Sox might be headed towards another '04. But the Orioles? No chance, not this year. Goodbye, sweet prince.