Doing my part for the D

It’s not often we as fans get the chance to directly affect a player or a game (bleacher seat heckling notwithstanding).

Now is one of those times, and for my favorite MLB player no less.

Go VOTE INGE into the All Star Game.

Now, probie!

Binary Duet in KC; Conchords file suit

I don’t know about you, but I’m a sucker for a pitcher’s duel and some small ball.   Let’s bunt the man over, manufacture a run.  Let’s hit-and-run, let’s take the extra bag and get thrown out trying to stretch a double into a triple.  And if you’re of the same persuasion as me (asians and baseball obvs), you’ll enjoy tonight’s matchup on MLB.tv from Kansas City.

In a battle of #1 and #4 in AL ERA (min. 30 innings) Royals’ ace Zach Greinke (7-1 0.82) will be taking on Tigers’ newcomer, and German-born African-American, Edwin Jackson (4-2 2.88) at 8:10pm Eastern.  Get ready for some zeros folks.

When comparing their WHIP’s, we can see that Jackson’s is a little bit bigger at 1.10 to 0.91, while Greinke gets paid a bit more at 3.25M to Edwin’s 2.2M.

Since April 24, Zach’s given up 1 run (unearned by the Tigers) and amassed 36 K’s.  In the same timeframe, Jackson has been nearly as impressive to the tune of 5 ER and 13 K’s in 3 games.

With fastballs busting inside at 95 mph and two quick-working pitchers, tonight should be a fun one.  My guess is it will come down to the respective setup-closer performance.

Until then, sit back, relax, and watch the zeros get hung.  I’ll meet you on the patio.

Can This Actually Be Happening?

Brady...Harbaugh...Grbac...Henne...This Guy?

Irony hates me.  It absolutely wants to watch me squirm and burn in hell.  When all of you were ripping on Greg Paulus for the last four years while he flopped around Duke, I was trying to take the high road.  “He’s the type of guy you hate to watch play for someone else, but if he were on your team you would absolutely love him… He’s a coach’s dream.”  Yeah, whoops.  ESPN relays this quote,

“There has been an opportunity given there,” Paulus said Thursday morning on a conference call with reporters. “I thought it was a really good visit. It was really helpful to get to be on a campus and meet with coach [Rich] Rodriguez and see the system and understand what types of opportunities are out there.”

Now, as a Michigan Football fan, I am forced to come to grips with myself.  Can I actually root for this tiny bastard?  Hmm… do the numbers 3-9 mean anything to you?  Look, if the guy can win the Wolverines some more games, I could care less how many times he was getting dunked on in Cameron Indoor.  And as hard as it is to say, the guy is a hell of a leader.  He has played on some of the lesser Duke teams, but that’s still not an easy job to have.  Then, when forced into a backup role midway through this past season, he took his demotion gracefully.  So, I guess I’ll support the little guy.  What the hell else do Michigan fans have to lose?  10 games in a season?

[ESPN]

Opening Week: Best and Worst, episode 2

Best Math: Yahoo! Sports’ Jeff Passan.  According to Passan, the Cleveland Indians have hit the “Panic Number.”  Which is 1-6.  Which is technically two numbers. 

See why we call 1-6 the Panic Number?

It gets uglier when looking at the full seasons of the wild-card era. Since 1996, only three teams have finished above .500 after starting 1-6: the ’04, ’06 and ’07 Phillies, who seem to have a knack for reversing ugly starts.

It’s an interesting read.  Check it out.

Worst season opening scheduling:  Detroit.  The Tigers are in the midst of a 6-game 1pm start time streak, to be followed by 10pm, 9pm, 4pm (Sunday) and then three more 10pm games.  What’s a guy got to do to watch the Tigers on the back porch after work and not be up til 3am?  Sheesh.

Best Relief Pitcher-Hitter:  Nick Swisher.  In the throws of a 15-5 rout by the Rays, Swish pitched a scoreless 8th inning for the Yanks (oh, and homered).  He’s also hitting .458 with 4 dingers so far on the year.  And Eday had a beer with his dad in 2006.  What a guy!

Worst Relief Pitcher Hitter: Gabe Kapler.  Struck out against the first non-pitcher to throw in a game since Wade Boggs did it in 1997 (also for the Yankees).

Best APIAS homers surprise:  BobWicket’s Reds.  They’ve looked good and they are above .500.  Those two things haven’t been said in the same season since 2005.  I love the makeup of this team, now if only Dusty B would play more small ball.

Worst APIAS disappointment:  TIE Smooth’s Metropolitans and 2SL’s Cubbies.  The Mets have struggled in the close ones (3-4 overall), but the pitching is coming around and Johan is going to be fantastic.  The Cubs didn’t go undefeated.

Best Week Ever Ever:  Patrick Schuster. All Schuster did last week was throw 3 no-hitters.  No shit.  THREE NO HITTERS!  And his coach couldn’t be less enthused.  “He’s on a roll and he’s got confidence in every pitch he’s throwing right now,” Mitchell head coach Scot Wilcox said of his ace. “That’s why we’re seeing so much success out of him.”  Yeah, and I guess Scarlett Johanssen isn’t the ugliest girl in the bar tonight.  Schuster is a University of Florida signee, but something tells me he might not make it to Gainesville.

NOTE:  MLB has forced the takedown of all Youtube video of Nick Swisher pitching.  I’m thinking Steinbrenner had something to do with that…

Opening Week: Best and Worst, episode 1

The long-awaited opening week is halfway over.  We are now securely in the throws of regular season baseball. Let’s take a minute to review the weeks highs and lows, bests and worsts.

Worst $161 Million spent:  CC Sabathia.  The newest gazillionaire in pin-stripes (Main St, not Wall St people) showed up for his first day of work to a battery of hazing, delivered by the MLB equivalent of annoying 5th graders–the Orioles.  4.1 innings, 6 runs (that’s a 12.47 ERA).  Sabathia explained it this way, “We swung the bats well today and scored five runs. We should win the game when we swing the bats like that. It was just one of those days – a bad day.”  One would think, for $100+Million, you could buy what you needed to avoid bad days.  Just ask A-Rod.

Best Mustache:  Brian Tallet. Not only has Mr. Tallet had a good week on the hill, (2 games, 6 batters faces, no hits or walks) but he showed up to the dance with the best set of facial hair since Rollie Fingers.  I mean if I could grow a lip collar like that, I would do it in a heartbeat, sex with females be damned.

Worst off-season defensive upgrade: Adam Everett.  The Tigers blamed a lot of ’08s failures on lack of range, and defensive weakness, namely Edgar Renteria.  They planned to remedy the situation by signing Everett away from the Twins (who played all of 48 and 66 games the last 2 years).  His contribution so far 3 assists, 1 error (that led to a 5-4 loss), and no hits.  Stay loose Ramon Santiago.

Best Opening Day Starter: Roy Halladay.  Halladay has the B-Jays  4-3 on opening days (meaning, yes, Doc has gotten the nod 7 straight years).  The 2003 Cy Young winner, and last year’s runner-up, continued this feat going 7 strong Monday for the W.  He’s now halfway to Jack Morris’ record of 14 straight opening day starts.

 Worst New Closer:  TIE Brandon Lyon and Brian Fuentes.  Lyon spent most of spring training giving up 8th and 9th inning runs and ended up losing the closer job to Fernando Rodney before camp broke.  Fuentes won the job, but has already blown 2 saves in 2 tries.  Watching these guys try to get 3 outs is like watching Iraqis try to do jumping jacks.

It’s all becoming clearer

I knew something wasn’t right here.  Think back… Have you ever seen Retired Nolan Ryan and Phil Fulmer in the same place at the same time?

I think not.

Venezuela Tigers have Puerto Rico on ropes

No doubt longing for the smoky halls of Joker Marchant. (SB Nation)

The team from the Rich Port is in danger for the first time in this tournament, losing 2-0 last night.  Stymied by a solid pitching effort out of Venezuelans Felix Hernandez, Enrique Gonzales, and K-Rod himself throwing 1 1/3 hitless to close it out, Pudge’s boys are one loss from elimination.

Tonight’s game between the ‘Ricans and the ‘Merkins will be the second time in 4 days the two teams have met with PR taking a 11-1 mercy-rule win back to the HoJo on Saturday.

In the past two days, the United States has seen four players go down with ailments — Dustin Pedroia (left oblique strain), Chipper Jones (right oblique strain), Ryan Braun (right side) and Matt Lindstrom (strained right rotator cuff).

Scheduled to pitch for the injury-riddled USA is Ted Lilly, who gave up only 3 hits and 1 run–a solo homer–in his first start (against Venezuela).

Call me unpatriotic (and if you do, say the same thing about Todd Helton, Andy Sonnanstine, Tim Lincecum, etc), but tonight I’m just hoping for a game that goes the full 9-innings. 

The Tigers are already in the semis.

[WBC]

I’ve been to Tampa, though never to Bora

Here are a few SEC East seeding scenarios surrounding the APIAS homer teams.  Tiebreaker rules are listed at the bottom.  Currently, the SEC East In-division standings are as follows: Tenness  7-2, South Carolina 5-3, Kentucky 5-3, Florida 4-5.

When the Tourney starts on March 12, the East #1 plays Friday at 7pm.  East #2 plays Friday at 3pm.  East #3 plays Thursday at 10pm.  East #4 plays Thursday at 1pm.

Scenario Pearl

UT – wins @SC and ALA
UK – wins GA and FL
FL – wins @MS loses @UK
SC – loses UT and wins GA

#1 UT 11-5
#2 SC 10-6 (2 wins over UK)
#3 UK 10-6
#4 FL 9-7

More after the short layover in Atlanta

Geriatric hoopster ruled ineligible

Photo credit: News-Sentinel

An NJCAA school in East Tennessee must forfeit its last game due to the use of an ineligible player.  I’m not sure which is more troubling, that a JuCo has eligibility rules, or that the player in question is 73 years old.

Ken Mink has been on the Roane State Community College team for just this one season, but his career spans over a half-century when he was kicked off the Lees Junior College team in 1956 for (allegedly) shaving-creaming the coach’s office.

The latest bout of controversy is due to a failing grade in Spanish and the attempt to make up the credits at online Strayer University.  But alas, his exploits were revealed, and thus endeth his dream of trading sweat with young African-American males everyday at 3pm.

Just goes to show you, once a trouble-maker, always a trouble-maker.

By the way, did anyone know JuCo’s had academic review boards? 

Learn something every day.

[Knoxville News-Sentinel]

… steers and racism? That can’t be right.

I expected this from Ole Miss… not a Travis Ford coached Oklahoma State.

From last nights Ok State vs. Texas Tech game.  Nobody thought to mention anything when they waved him through the gate, into the student section, and then down to the 3rd row? 

Then again, Ed Gallagher and Henry Iba always were pro-free speech.