September Is Looking Good

Oh good, it’s not raining.

And the Yanks are fielding their irregulars for the day after late-night game with the Orioles. It’s Nunez leading off, then Martin, Swisher, Arod, Andruw Jones, the rook Montero, then Laird, Golson and Pena. So far, Arod looks good and Montero got caught lunging at a low and away slider. But there’s more fun in store with that 7 thru 9 lineup….Laird, Golson and Pena, whew!

It should be interesting to see what A.J. Burnett gives up today. So far it doesn’t look good. First baseman Laird just muffed an easy grounder to give the Birds another run. It could be a long day.

The Mets took one in unusual fashion last night from the Marlins. Parnell failed as a closer yet again, giving up two runs to allow Florida to tie the game at four. It took 3 more innings of work to finally win it 7-4. Pagan, Bay, Evans and Reyes combined to score three big runs in the top of the 12th to win it.

Not that any of these heroics mean anything, but, what the hell, it is still baseball. Nominally.

The big stir for me today is the NFL opener tomorrow night between the Saints and the Packers, the super Bowl champs against the champs of two years ago. There’ll be Saints rookie running back Mark Ingram to check out in his first real game and, of course, Drew Brees and Aaron Rodgers. Sounds good.

The Football Giants can’t get a break, unless you count bones. Now their linebacker Goff is gone too. He’ll join the rookie corner who went down after about one play in pre-season and the other 2nd-year LB Clint Sintim on the DL. And let’s not forget Terrell Thomas.

Yes, folks, that same defense that gave up all those second half points to the Eagles last year, that same horrible excuse for a defense, will be right back this year. Oh well, at least they tried to fix things. It’s just that anybody who could have helped is hurt. I won’t even mention the offensive losses of Steve Smith and Kevin Boss. As things turned out, they’re both injured anyway. But you would be forgiven for forgetting the names of the guys playing middle linebacker and one of the corners.

But the Giants do have the advantage of playing against the Redskins, lo these many years low these many years. The current Redskins under Mike Shanahan feature Rex Grossman as its quarterback. Donovan McNabb is off in the wilds of the north and I hope Shanahan will be happy now. As he already divested himself of Haynesworth the Ugly, this is a Redskins team that might be very close to a Shanahan ideal, good running game, zone blocking, yada yada ya. But what about the Skins defense?

(Montero, the Yankee rookie who looked so bad in his first AB, just hit a long single to right to score two and tie the game up for AJ and the Bombers).

The Jets have had a lot more luck with just about everything. They return an offense that ‘ll be remarkably identical to last year’s, the exception being Plaxico Burress taking over for Braylon Edwards at wide receiver. On defense, they’ll probably wind up being less consistent than last year’s group, as veterans have been let go but big things are expected from two big bodies in Kenrick Ellis and Muhammad Wilkerson.

The Jets will be facing the Cowboys. Who knows where this score could end up? If you told me it’d be high-scoring, I’d believe you. If you said it’d be a scoreless tie, I could entertain that idea too. The Cowboys are just all over the place. Romo is back and he’ll be trying to find Jersey boy Miles Austin and the sometimes sensational Dez Bryant. They’ll score points for sure but their running game will probably be harder for this Jets defense to stop. Expect to see a lot of Felix Jones and Tashard Choice. Look for those two rookies. They may be on the ground a lot.

Meanwhile, back to baseball, the MVP race in the American League seems to be tightening. Curtis Granderson, Adrian Gonzalez and Robinson Cano, to my mind, could all stake a legitimate claim to the title but there’re still quite a few games to go. Cano especially seems to be coming on, and have you seen him play the field? It seems he’s a human highlight reel.

Who’ll be the playoff teams in each league? While the wildcard teams will come from the East in both the NL and AL, the only real question marks will be who’ll win the West . In the AL West Texas is still only 3 games up on the Angels while in the NL West, the upstart Arizona Diamondbacks are a full 6 games up on the World Series Champs SF Giants.

The D’Backs have the pitching to lock out the Giants, both on the starting and relieving end. Ian Kennedy, Daniel Hudson, Joe Saunders and Josh Collmenter are all well below the 4.0 ERA marker and they seem to finally have the lineup to back up that pitching.

Justin Upton is the closest thing to Curtis Granderson in the National League, batting .297 with 27 homers and 93 runs scored. Miguel Montero is perhaps the best hitting catcher in the NL while other role players such as Chris Young, Ryan Roberts and Willie Bloomquist keep on keeping on.

The Angels are looking old though, and despite some pretty awesome pitching, just don’t have the firepower to knock out the resilient Texas Rangers. The Rangers have just enough pitching to see themselves to the Promised Land, especially with their beefing up of the relief corps with Mike Adams.

September is looking good if you discount all the rain. The baseball playoffs should be riveting, especially those involving the Red Sox and Yankees. Let’s hope the Giants and Jets can keep the month interesting.