Predictable?? NOT!

Is anybody else having trouble keeping track of all these games? Baseball playoffs are going hot and heavy. If you’ve been a baseball fan all season, you have a team you favor in each playoff series. Me, I’ve been rooting hardest for the Cards. Beating the pitching-heavy Phillies would be just outstanding. But the NFL Week 4 games have been going head-to-head with baseball on at least a few occasions, If you like all the football action too, you’ve really worn down that “last” button on your remote.

As this is written, the Phillies are still having trouble putting away these pesky Cards. In the bottom of the sixth, there is still no score. Cards pitcher Jaime Garcia is pitching a gem but so is Cole Hamels of the Phils. What a great series this one is turning out to be. This game followed another nail-biter, that between the Rays and Rangers which the Rangers won, thus eliminating the miracle Rays.

The best 3 of 5 format of the ALDS/NLDS games is outrageous. Anything really can happen. And it usually happens in the blink of an eye. It’s not just the home runs either. Sometimes it’s a play at the plate or grabbing a Texas Leaguer. Of course, if one guy hits 3 homers in the same game as Adrian Beltre did earlier today, that’s pretty friggin’ noteworthy. (No, not quite sponge-worthy).

Indicative of the frantic nature of these festivities is that I haven’t even mentioned the Yankees yet. They surely were looking good as Ivan Nova finished off those Tigers in Game 1 behind Sabathia and the rain. But then they played Game 2. It sure seemed like Game 3 as Game 1 had seemed like two different games. Be that as it may, the very unlikely hero Max Scherzer outdueled Freddy Garcia (and didn’t Yank pitching seem a little thin)?

Then the Tigers ace Verlander outdid CC and a bunch of relievers. One of those relievers, Soriano, took the loss. Before you could say “Robinson Cano”, the Yanks were one loss away from elimination. And, in a wonderful twist of fate, all Yank hopes now reside in the one pitcher Yanks fans have hated all year, AJ Burnett.

And if all that isn’t ironic enough, if the Yanks do manage to emerge from the Motor City, it’ll be Ivan Nova taking the mound for the Yanks in Game 5, probably facing Doug Fister again. If that winds up being the case, it’ll probably be a Rangers-Yankees ALCS. The winner there, probably the Rangers as things shape up right now, will face the Phillies in the World Series. The only way the Milwaukee Brewers can get by Philadelphia is if all the games could be played in Milwaukee.

While all this baseball stuff was going on, the Giants seemed to get better and the Jets got incredibly worse. Both turnarounds could be attributed to the respective offensive lines. The Jets OL was terrible. They made everybody else terrible and, if not for the Jets defense playing pretty well, there’s no telling what the score might have been.

Joe Namath says they picked all the wrong guys. He’s probably right. Oh, and he did mention Vern Gholston, the muscle-bound totally inept defensive lineman from yesteryear. I tend to agree. Rex Ryan even conceded the Super Bowl, saying they’re not even a playoff team. Mark Sanchez was shell-shocked. Any QB would have been. Can you say Vlad Ducasse five times fast?



I don’t think we’ll be seeing either local football team in the playoffs this year. It looks as if those Bills from Buffalo will take the Jets place while the Giants spot can be handled by the Detroit Lions. The entire NFC East is terrible though so I suppose it’s theoretically possible for the G-Men to win the division.

Whatever else happens in the NFC, the North looks like the strongest division to me. Green Bay, Detroit and even Chicago all seem pretty formidable compared to the low-lifes in the East and NFC West. The Packers look like a good bet to be the NFC rep in the Super Bowl once again, probably facing the Baltimore Ravens.

The real NFL excitement this year has been in Buffalo. What could be better than watching a perennial doormat win their first three games, one of which was their division nemesis New England? While the Bills obviously didn’t circle the wagons tightly enough to prevent their loss to Cincinnati last week, I think those Bengals will prove to be one of the better defenses in the league this year. Look for the Bills to get back on-track really soon.

But not just in Buffalo have there been success stories. I love that the 49ers seem to be making a comeback under new head coach Jim Harbaugh. The Titans and Mike Munchak are hitting like crazy and are 3-1. Oakland looks as if they could run the ball through a brick wall. And finally, Houston has a defense that can match their offensive capability.

Other teams have been fascinating for their failures. Philadelphia, Dallas, Atlanta, even New England to a degree have been colossally disappointing, much as have the Steelers.

Michael Vick has been far and away the biggest story on all the networks, especially ESPN and the NFL Network. I’d say his name is mentioned about once every ten minutes. Blah-blah-blah. The same can be said for Tony Romo. The NFL seems to have designated those two especially as NFL reality shows. And neither Michael nor Tony have done anything to step out of the spotlight.

Vick doesn’t want to get hit. He feels he doesn’t get the calls the other signal-callers get. Romo gives a game away by fumbling on the one, then snatches victory the very next week, then remarkably jumps right back into a deep hole by feeding the hungry Lions two INT’s for touchdowns.

It all seems kind of predictable, doesn’t it? Yeah, you’d think so.

But it’s not.

Disappointing...Exhilarating...Maddening

Disappointing, exhilarating, maddening……these are the first words that come to mind this beautiful Saturday morning as I contemplate the action thus far in these 2010 MLB playoffs.

There are at least three disappointments to me at this juncture, the failures of the Twins to take even one game from the Yanks , the fold perpetrated last night by the SF Giants against the Atlanta Braves and the very similar choking done by the Cincinnati Reds against the Phillies.

For sheer exhilaration, there was Tim Lincecum’s pitching gem of a complete game pulled off against the Braves in the first game of that Braves-Giants series. I also felt very much the same watching the Giants’ Matt Cain blank those same Braves over 7 innings or so. And then there’s Josh Hamilton of the Rangers who only does something great every single time. (Okay, he was the star of my fantasy team).

It was the umpires that were responsible for my maddening. But the umpires continue to blow calls, easy calls, game-altering calls, that your sister could have made correctly. (Okay, sisters, no mail please)..

Let’s take it from the top again. The single most disappointing team thus far has been the Minnesota Twins. What a sorry bunch. I’m sorry. When they see the Yankees on the field, they just go into choke mode. They had Sabathia on the ropes and they let him go. Then they did absolutely nothing against the old man with the mad stare, Andy Friggin’ Pettite.

Yeah, I know, the Reds did some fancy folding themselves. (The Rays were just outplayed totally, a result I was completely happy with). But I expected the Reds to fold. Didn’t everyone? There was real hope for the Twins, especially after their early good fortunes against the big guy Sabathia.

In the history of baseball, was there ever a worse location for a pitch? I’m referring to the ball left on a tee for Yanks first baseman Mark Teixeira late in that first game, the pitch that made it 6-4 after the Twins had been up 3-0. And did they have to pitch so boldly to Granderson or Berkman? And then there were the pitching decisions made overall by the Twinkies, who are doing everything possible to justify that name.

Francisco Liriano pitched valiantly for those Twins in that first game and was up 3-zip going into the 6th. The idiots in the dugout left him in way too long. They waited until it all unraveled, despite the Yanks killing him softly, with hit after hit after hit. When they finally brought in the relief in the person of Jose Mijares, they managed to snuff the rally but, by then, it was too late. The Yanks had taken the lead.

Then the Twins gave us Yankee-haters hope once again by staging a 2-out rally that featured another Cuddyer big bang enveloped by bases on balls, a strange way to score, I thought at the time, but the Twins would surely have better luck in their spanking new stadium than they ever had in that old dome.

But the Twins inserted still another pitcher into the mix, one Jesse Crain, who failed colossally. He managed to get Jeter out in the 7th on a hard line drive to center but he then gave up another hit to Swisher. His pitches had nothing. And the pitch that had the most “nothingness” was that ball up and in the middle of the plate for Teixeira.

The Twins had Yanks reliever Kerry Wood in a lot of trouble in the eighth inning, managing to get the tying and winning runs on 2nd and 3rd but then Girardi called in a guy named Mariano, you may have heard of him, last name of Rivera? He promptly ended things….again.

It seems as if it’s always the same guys, Posada and Pettite, Rivera and Jeter. The Twins see these guys and fold. Posada didn’t do too much in the victory yesterday but then he didn’t need to. In that first game he was pretty clutch. Pettite just scared the bejeezus out of them, possibly with that ridiculous stare. And of course Rivera just shuts them down. Jeter? Well, there’s still Game 3.

Okay, that’s enough about disappointing, I think. I have to focus on the finer things in life, such as, for example, Tim Lincecum. A little slip of a guy, that’s Lincecum. A bit of a flake, the Prince Valiant hair, the laid-back attitude, they all seem to contribute to the aura of the man, if that’s what you could call it.

The man just knows how to throw the baseball. Every ounce of his body gets behind every pitch to the plate. So he can overpower with his fastball when needed or he can just flick his wrist, take something off and watch the batter flail. Lincecum did it all in that first game and he did it for 9 innings.

How about some more on exhilaration? The Rangers have been awesome in all phases. For pitching, there were Cliff Lee and C.J. Wilson and Neftali Feliz For hitting, there were, well, just about everybody, Vladimir Guerrero and Michael Young, Ian Kinsler and Nelson Cruz and Bengie Molina. Hell, even Jeff Francoeur joined the festivities. Oh yeah, and there was Josh Hamilton.

Hamilton just does it all. Five tools? Is that all? It seems like more. He’s the best hitter in both leagues, both for average and for power. He’s a fast runner. He stole a base in Game 1 and made two great catches in Game 2, both to his left and right, and went sliding on his belly, broken ribs be damned.

Hamilton hasn’t shown off that throwing arm yet. And he hasn’t hit any tape measures yet. But there’s always Game 3 for that.

No Time to Panic

Okay, the Mets are stinkin’ out the joint but at least there’s Phil Mickelson. And that pilot who landed in the Hudson River with all passengers totally fine. There are lots of contemporary heroes. But don’t look for any at Citi Field.

Oh sure, things looked great after that first game. Johan pitched a gem. I haven’t forgotten that. But then there was Maine. Maine did the same thing he always does, disappoint. But what the hell, I expected that. And the Mets came back in that one, to tie it at 6, but the scoring was illusory as they did it with walks, and some truly horrible Marlins relief pitching.

Then Niese went out and pitched great but the Mets bats weren’t really there. Pagan and Francoeur got a couple of hits each but the rest of the lineup got just four more. Still, to that time, the Mets were just 1-2, and maybe it was just good pitching from the Marlins that got them.

But then Pelfrey looked better than expected, and showed a nice new pitch in his repertoire. So things are looking up, I think, when Pelfrey starts in the future. The Mets bats were back too, with new catcher Rod Barajas banging two homers and Jeff Francoeur continuing his hot hitting with two homers of his own. Now the Mets were even again, with a 2 and 2 record after four.

Crazy Ollie was up next though, another John Maine, only crazier. Perez had a typical Perez performance but he did go 5 2/3 giving up just 4 runs. And Igarashi, Perpetual Pedro and new guy Jennry Mejia gave up just 1 hit over the last 3 innings. Mets bats weren’t there again, however, except for Francoeur . Even with that though, they could have won and lost only because they got robbed by a great fielding play. So they could have been 3 and 2. Only bad fortune made them 2 and 3. And Santana would be going the next day.

But Johan threw some bad pitches and gave up a big homer to Willingham. The Mets bats produced just two runs. They got those two runs from a most unlikely source too, from Mike Jacobs, who will hit a homer once in a while, but more often will pop up or fan completely. Francoeur once again had a multi-hit game but with less actual effect, as things turned out.

So the Mets are 2 and 4. Manager Jerry Manuel assumed responsibility later on, needlessly I thought, but what the hell, what difference does it make when you’ve got guys like Mike Jacobs hitting behind Jason Bay, or Gary Matthews? Come on, would you pitch to Bay? If you would, what kind of pitch would you be throwing?

Let’s recap though. The Mets lost two games by one run and one game by two runs. The pitching really hasn’t been too bad. But Matthews and Mike Jacobs aren’t the answers. Angel Pagan should play center, not Matthews. And Tatis could play first, if you really want a lineup. Here we go…Reyes, Castillo (or Cora, they both have similar games), Wright, Bay, Francoeur, Barajas, then Tatis (playing first) and Pagan batting eighth, just to get some speed at the back of the order.

The Mets are currently 18th in batting average among the 30 MLB teams, about the same in runs scored, but significantly better in on base average. They’re pretty bad in slugging pct and home runs as you’d expect. What this all indicates to me is that they need some power (they need Beltran back pretty badly) obviously but they could improve things a lot with a better lineup. And that lineup doesn’t include Matthews or Jacobs.

I don’t understand their thinking. Didn’t any fantasy player know that Mike Jacobs and Gary Matthews were real reaches? Did they really think Gary Matthews was a significant improvement over Angel Pagan? Did they think Mike Jacobs was going to be more consistent? And how long are they going to stay with these guys? Sure, Jacobs hit one out yesterday, but with him, it’s a roll of the dice, loaded dice against the roller.

The Mets have been unlucky too, I might add. Yeah, they lost three games of four by tight margins, but they’ve also been victimized by nice plays and they haven’t had much luck at third base defensively, with Wright unable to come up with hard ground shots to the third base side twice that I can remember. Tatis can’t really play a nice third base either. So put him at first.

But there’s no reason to panic. For Manuel to say they weren’t ready isn’t really accurate to my mind. They were ready. They just aren’t good enough hitters as a group to hit Livan Hernandez, who pitched a beauty of a game. He apparently was “up” for the game, facing his former teammates, for most of whom he’s pretty familiar.

Francesa is saying this afternoon that Manuel is feeling the heat, that he needs a good start, and that after six games, pressing the panic button indicates your job is in jeopardy. And maybe that’s true. Jerry says a lot of stuff, including yesterday something about revelation that was particularly pithy, I thought.

Rather than feeling for his job though, I think Manuel was just trying to take the heat away from the players, some of whom have really been pitiful and most of whom have been average. Maybe he’s taking responsibility for that stupid lineup he’s been putting on the field. Maybe he’s protecting Minaya, who, if there is a culprit in these proceedings, should really be at fault.

The roster is unbalanced really, with too many outfielders and not enough corner infielders. With this team, to have either Pagan or Matthews on the bench while guys like Jacobs and Tatis are in the lineup, is not really sensible.

And yes, I know Daniel Murphy’s coming back to play first.

What's Goin' On Here??

Okay. What’s this? Check out the leaders of each of the 6 MLB divisions this Sunday after about a week of play:

NL East – Atlanta Braves and Florida Marlins – 5-1
NL Central – St. Louis Cardinals – 5-2
NL West – San Diego Padres - 5-2

AL East – Toronto Blue Jays – 5-2
AL Central – Detroit Tigers – 4-3
AL West – Seattle Mariners – 5-2

Gimme a break…the Braves?

I can understand the Marlins leading the NL East. They’ve got all those stud-ly guys, Uggla, Hermida, and how about Hanley Ramirez? Then there’re some nice pitchers too, such as the young Josh Johnson and Anibal Sanchez.

But the Braves don’t have that much, do they? I mean…..Chipper Jones is great when he plays and Brian McCann is a nice catcher, Yunil Escobar ain’t too shabby either, and oh yeah, Jeff Francoeur can drive them in. But Kelly Johnson and ol’ Garrett Anderson? Not exactly Murderers Row.

And yeah, they picked up Derek Lowe for big bucks, but then there’s Jari Jurrjens as the number two. Do I really have to learn how to spell Jurrjens? And Vasquez and Campillo….c’mon, this can’t be happening. Of course, they did just finish with the Nats.

The Mets and Phils, they’re both starting a little slow. Mr. Santana lost a tough one today. And Daniel Murphy, so impressive in so many ways, today we learn he needs a new pair of sunglasses. The Phils have to live with that pitching.

In the AL East, the lowly Blue Jays are knockin’ em dead. The mighty Yankees, upstart Rays and Red Sox Nation are all looking up at those fellas from Canada. Of course, after watching the Yanks today, they deserve whatever they get. Has a pitching staff ever been handled more stupidly?

Has an organization ever in the history of the major leagues been more infatuated with pitch counts? Joba was doing great. Woops! Let’s take him out ! His pitch count, his pitch count! Let’s get those second-tier relief guys in there. I mean, really. Bruney’s okay but if you’re going to get relievers on the cheap, you should forget about pitch counts. Do things really go better with Coke? I don’t think so.

The Red Sox are 2-4 and I don’t know what their story is. I do know Ortiz and Ellsbury and Pedroia really aren’t tearing it up yet. I hope it’s not Papi’s wrist, and, if not, you have to think all those guys will start hitting soon. And they did just finish with the Angels, not exactly a piece of cake.

I could analyze each and every division, of course, but that would be boring. This kind of thing seems to happen every year. The favorites take a hike. They’re not really paying attention, not as are the underdogs. Those teams come in with a built-in chip on their shoulders and are hard to beat.

But some of these teams are for real. Take the Mariners….please? No. really. They’ve got some terrific pitchers, some players who can make you pay, Chavez, Beltre, Griffey, and he hasn’t really gotten started yet.

Then there’re just some inexplicable things. Why did Tim Lincecum get bombed today? What did Peavy do yesterday that he missed in his first start? The same goes for the Yankees CC. Except in his case, we know the reason.. He shortened his stride and everything else just fell right into line, his fastball got faster, his control returned and all was right with the world.

Baseball is such a great game if only because it can turn on so many different variables. In a given week, or even as long as a month, a team can get some breaks and then just ride that momentum to achieving some remarkable feats. Anybody who watched Reed Johnson, now with the Cubs, rob Prince Fielder of a grand slam last night by perfectly timing his jump to snag Fielder’s drive from the fans side of the rightfield wall can attest to that.

Things can work the other way around too. The Indians had really high hopes for this season but starting out 0 and 5 surely didn’t do anything to brighten their outlook. But you can bet that opening up against that powerful Rangers lineup and then having to face all those Blue Jay arms was a big factor in their season-opening demise.

They avoided 0-6 yesterday and it was nice to see Travis Hafner hit one out after his troubles from last year. Equally nifty was Kerry Wood’s first save for the Tribe. Before you can say “Rocky Colavito”, the Indians will be back. Facing the perennially downtrodden Royals for a 3-game set next week should do a lot to bring them back to respectability.

Yes, you have to play the games. It’s great that the paper says you’re a better team, but you still have to go out there and prove it. Over the course of 162 games, eventually probability rears its ugly head. The Royals of the world come back to the pack and the cream eventually rises. Only sometimes it does not.

So, despite the wonders of brand new expensive stadiums and a very fancy MLB network, the attraction is still just the game. It’s really a good one, baseball is. You never really know what awaits your favorite team on the field that day.

For me, it was nice to see Boston’s Josh Beckett get banged around by the Angels after he threw at Abreu’s head and nice to see him take the loss. But it was just as good to see Big Papi finally get a 2-4 day and an RBI too.

You do get some insights though after that first week or two. A Mets fan can feel that Pelfrey and Maine and Livan Hernandez could all come through this season even if Oliver Perez might still be in and out at best.

Yanks fans, they can feel that CC and AJ are the real deal, that third baseman maybe not.

It's Friday the 13th....

It’s Friday the 13th and I guess there’s enough bad luck to go around, just in general, but for the Houston Astros and New York Yankees, the fortunes of the day hit especially hard.

The Astros Miguel Tejada, one of the best shortstops in Major League Baseball, has now admitted to buying steroids but then throwing them out. They cost about $6500 but he threw them out. When was the last time you bought ANYTHING for $6500 and then not used it? Maybe I can become his garbage man.

Oh, and he’s not really the age that he told his employers, the Houston Astros. He’s at least two years older than that. I’m pretty sure that makes him about 37. Oh, and by the way, Tejada’s numbers fell a bit in his first Houston year. Just to give you an idea, his homer totals were as follows for the seven years from 2000 through 2006: 30, 31, 34, 27, 34, 26 and 24. In his last year with Baltimore, 2007, he managed to hit 18 homers in only 133 games.

In 2008, he hit 13 homers in 158 games and a full 632 at-bats. He did have 38 doubles though and scored 92 runs. The really bad news is in the RBI department though. His ribbies declined to 66 while he averaged well over 100 ribbies from 2000 through 2007. Wonder what round he’ll be drafted in Fantasy Baseball this year?

If I’m Ed Wade, the Astros GM, I’m feeling a little blue. Oh, and Miguel will play in the World Baseball Classic. What the hell….it probably won’t add to the wear and tear on a 37 or 38 year-old body, one that is possibly weaning itself off God-only-knows what. And he’s only making 13 million per year, so what’s the big deal?

As baseball fans, we have to have a little fun with this stuff. It’s, after all, not showing many signs of going away. Maybe when spring training really gets rolling, it’ll be largely forgotten. I certainly hope so.

You have to chuckle, you really do. Clemens just took another hit when a judge ruled that his case against McNamee would have to be re-formulated. The judge found that evidence shows prosecutors threatened McNamee that if he did not talk to Mitchell, he could have become a target of a criminal investigation. The judge therefore ruled McNamee was compelled to speak to Mitchell as part of a government proceeding and could not be sued for defamation for his comments.

I had another hearty grin as I read my local newspaper. Apparently, this great baseball mind who writes for the Star-Ledger thinks Arod will now be a force in the fight against drugs. He’ll be speaking to the kids out there, letting those little ones know how bad steroids are, and why they shouldn’t follow his example.

Somehow, I just can’t see Arod doing that. I can’t imagine Arod being a force for good in any way, shape or form! Maybe you have to be a Yankees fan to believe this inane nonsense. (not that there is any other kind of nonsense).

Meanwhile, Barry Bonds’s case seems to be getting better and better. And I can’t say I’m sorry to see it. Does he really deserve to go to jail? Maybe the folks taking the taxpayer’s money, both the Congressmen and the lawyers, deserve jail (or worse-how about a slow roasting), but Bonds probably doesn’t.

The only straight guy in this whole mess has been Jose Canseco. Now, I’ve read both his books. MLB has been trying to get him thrown into jail for quite some time now, and I actually think they succeeded on at least one occasion.

I wish a different organization ran professional baseball. Is that so much to ask? Get rid of the shyster Selig, and while we’re at it, we could get rid of Fehr and Orza too. Let’s get some new leadership in there. Enough is enough.

Some people are asking that all 104 names (actually 104 positive tests – whatever that means….why there wouldn’t be a virtual 1 to 1 correspondence between tests and players quite escapes me) be released. Not me.

Let’s just drop it, ok. Keep on testing, try to test for everything under the sun, and if some players are smart enough to keep beating the grim reaper, mazeltov. Testing would be a lot like locks, they would keep honest people honest, which, by the way, would not necessarily include Messrs. Bonds, Rodriguez and certainly not Tejada, or his buddy Palmiero, McGuire, Sosa…et al….

I was most gratified to see that Paul White of USA Today Sports Weekly is picking the Mets to finally win the NL East, although his reasoning for same seemed quite specious. White must be very impressed with Freddy Garcia; that’s all I have to say. He also mentions an improved bench, but except for Alex Cora and Angel Pagan, I don’t really see it.

Unhappily though, there’s a cloud in every silver lining, especially on Friday the 13th. The rest of the USA Today staff feels that the Mets are just the third best team in the National League, and picks them to finish 2nd again in the NL East.

Gee whiz, there certainly seems to be enough Yankees Kool-Aid to go around. The same weekly newspaper is picking the Yankees narrowly over the Rays as the premiere team in Major League Baseball. I guess if they’re making Arod some kind of evangelist, they can pass muster as the favorite.

They do have some pitching now though. I have to admit that much. And I love C.C. Sabathia and A.J. Burnet. Wang is coming back. Joba will probably be Joba again, but as a starter or premium set-up guy remains to be seen. Mariano will be a year older and pardon me for saying so but Jeter, Damon, Matsui, Posada, Pettite and some others are already a little long in the tooth.

I like the Mets.