As one of the most successful managers in baseball history, Joe Torre tends to have an interesting take on a lot of things, and I’ve always found it intriguing over the last couple years that he tends to gauge his team based on its relationship to the .500 mark, not to the standings.

Of course, when we get to September, you need to be at the top of the division, but when we struggled early, he kept saying that the goal was to get to .500 and then after that, it was five games over and now 10 games over.

I guess if you worry about your own team more than your competition, you don’t tend to freak out at the peaks and valleys.

First pitch is a couple minutes away here on FOX…and don’t forget, the first-half finale against the Cubs tomorrow is at 5:10, not the usual 1:10 Sunday time.