Key injuries impact playoff races

• Barry Bonds says he's not retired. Is it me, or is he starting to sound more and more like Rickey Henderson?

• I am not ready to pull the plug on the Cardinals. I may not do that until Sept. 30, if then. (I learn lessons, too.) But I will say that losing two of three against the Cubs last weekend at Wrigley did not help their life expectancy any.

• Padres outfielder Brian Giles turned down a chance to leave San Diego for Boston, reportedly vetoing a trade that the Padres and Red Sox had worked out. If you're simply talking places to live, this is entirely understandable. Especially in January. If you're talking teams to play for, it's completely baffling. It just goes to show you that ballplayers are human, too, and balancing personal life and professional life is not any easier for them than it is for the rest of us. Seems to me that Giles is going to regret passing up the chance to play for a great organization that has a good chance at the World Series. But he won't regret the pain of moving and leaving his family behind for a stretch of time and getting used to new teammates and all that.

• Watch out, AL. Here comes Ichiro. In his last 15 games, he's hitting .409 with 12 runs, a double, three triples and a home run. He's upped his average to .310 in his bid for his eighth straight .300-plus season. He needs 47 hits in the Mariners' final 44 games for 200 hits, another mark he's never failed to reach in America.

• As well as Manny Ramirez is hitting with the Dodgers (.459, four homers, 11 RBIs in nine games), and Xavier Nady with the Yankees (.365), and Jason Bay with the Red Sox (.333, eight RBIs in nine games) ... Ken Griffey Jr. is not so good with the White Sox. He has four hits in 20 at-bats (.200) with no extra-base hits and didn't play Saturday or Sunday against the Red Sox.

I'm a Braves fan and if anything your column was a lot kinder than I would have been. The whole organization has been delusional for about a decade now. They've tried to win with offense and no pitching, all pitching and no offense, offense and starting pitching but no bullpen and maybe even another one I am forgetting.

The current owners are better than AOL/Time Warner, but still it costs money to win and the owners aren't willing to spend enough. So we get an endless parade of rental players (Gary Sheffield, J.D. Drew, Mark Teixeira) with no real plan to build for the future, just a hope that player X will put the team back into the playoff now because they are going to lose him to free agency in the offseason. I think GM Frank Wren is OK (frankly, Schuerholz was getting old and he had lost a LOT of his "magic"), but I still think that rather than understanding that they are in serious rebuilding mode that they think that they are another Mark Kotsay away from going back to the playoffs and I just don't see that happening.

-- Jason Shumate, Atlanta

It was an Atlanta kind of week in the inbox, and you speak for a lot of Braves' fans, Jason, who see some hard times ahead. I think the one thing that the Braves have going for them -- their saving grace, if they have one -- is their scouting and player development. The Braves realize that it all starts there. Unfortunately, it may take some time for whatever talent they have, and whatever talent they'll find, to rise to the major-league level (more on that below). But the Braves have the infrastructure in place. So a complete rebuilding is probably not necessary.

I'd like to understand more about how you came to the conclusion that the Braves aren't likely to re-sign Mike Hampton. Seems to me, given the investment made so far, and Hampton's good nature, there's a real chance for a considerable hometown discount, and a real possibility Hampton might put together a quality season or two. Dude's certainly well rested.