Monday, October 31, 2011
Halloween Hopeful
So given that I haven't posted anything in the last. . . I don't know. . . ten months, I thought it might be time to fill you in on a few things (you being whatever small number of readers this post might entertain). I've been writing a lot for my college newspaper, editing the sports section and doing a little work on the side as a play-by-play announcer for the football team, which has been surprisingly satisfying. That being said, I am, believe it or not, still thinking of ways to keep this blog relevant, dormant though it's been. Anyway, I'll be sure to post any good brainstorms that I have on here, and if not, will secondly attempt to direct attention to those posts elsewhere on the Web. That's all for now, sports fans.
Monday, January 31, 2011
More Brian Wilson Hilarity: Giants Closer Goes Nautical with George Lopez
Shout-out to my buddy Ryan from Virginia Tech, who directed me to yet another installment of San Francisco Giants pitcher Brian Wilson's preposterous off-the-field antics. Wilson fields the inevitable Chuck Norris comparison, discusses his seafood preferences, and remarks on the importance of his "release". Just to put things in perspective, Wilson is set to earn $15 million in the next two seasons, which means he isn't even in the top 5 among highest paid relievers. I realize comic relief is a difficult talent to appraise, but he really needs deserves more funding to maintain the attire of The Machine and other characters that he breaks out on occasion. Where's the love, Brian Sabean?
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Qatar "Makes It Rain," Beats USA Soccer, 2022-0
ZURICH - On a cold and cloudy morning in a neutral country, FIFA made clear its own biases.
The world's governing body for soccer awarded the 2022 World Cup home site to Qatar on Thursday morning, drawing cheers from a Connecticut-sized country that will become the first nation in the Persian Gulf region to host the sport's biggest tournament. The cheers, due to the country's small population, were not loud enough to be heard by anyone in the area, but the people carried on nonetheless.
"This is an enormous win for us," said Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, the country's emir. "We would be shouting from the tops of mountains if we had any."
Qatar, which won the committee's final vote 14-8 over the US, assuaged concerns about climate and crowd control by reasoning that their budget for the tournament would more than cover any health and safety measures that needed to be put in place to ensure a good experience for players and fans alike. Russia, which won the bid for the 2018, had similar justifications for its own ability to host; both countries rank in the top 3 in proven natural gas reserves, and the export of such resources remains the driving force behind each country's economy.
"It took a lot of convincing,'' Al-Thani admitted. "We were not sure that [FIFA's executive committee] would consider us a worthy candidate because of our small physical size, population and average summer temperature of 118 degrees Fahrenheit. But once we made the final round of voting, we knew that our financial capabilities were starting weigh heavily on their minds.''
"Yeah, they've got money," FIFA president Sepp Blatter said. "We like that. The decision to host this year's cup in South Africa was more sentimental than fiscal. We don't intend to go back any time soon if we can help it - the financial constrains are just too difficult to work through."
FIFA's announcement gave a huge boost to wealthy underdog countries that have hopes of hosting future tournaments. Luxembourg, Singapore and Hong Kong, all of which share with Qatar a top-15 worldwide ranking in per-capita GDP (purchasing power parity, 2009), were rumored to have already begun talks with the federation regarding hosting possibilities for post-2030 tournaments.
***
If your brain is half the size of a Jabulani, you've intuited by now that the above 300+ words were tongue-in-cheek satire (though the linked facts are real). The emotion, however, was legitimate, and I know there are many frustrated soccer fans across the country that would agree.
I'd be doing soccer fans a disservice if I counted myself among their ranks, but for one day this past May, I put myself in their shoes and walked into Lincoln Financial Field to watch the US take on Turkey in a pre-Cup friendly. The US won, 2-1, but even more than the win, what struck me was the atmosphere. You hear about it from people who have attended matches and you see the chaos on TV, but it's impossible to appreciate the feeling in the building unless you're actually there. Even when Turkey was winning, the fans were on their feet, smoke bombs going off now and again, beach balls surfing the crowd and chants resounding from section to section. There was as much noise and more passion in that stadium - for an exhibition, mind you - than you would find at any regular season NFL game. That level of excitement, coupled with watching Landon Donovan's improbable goal (props to Ian Darke on a masterful call), had me thinking "Hey, this is pretty fun!"
You can imagine, then, the disappointment I shared with millions of other American supporters when I heard FIFA's decision. The bid had slipped to the back of my memory until last week, and I had forgotten the surge of enthusiasm I'd felt this summer. It never really hit me that there was a good chance that we wouldn't get it. It made sense: we've got the stadiums, the accomodations, the transportation, the people - and a good team, to boot. Why not US?
I failed to remember, however, what is becoming increasingly clear in sports: money talks, and when you need it, the talk is louder than any sports-related motive every will. It is its own language and native speaker, fluent in every dialect and more persuasive than the shiniest of trophies. It can buy you your health, your house, and your car, and it can buy things for others if you want it to. It won't give you happiness, but it can buy a lot of things with it that will make you happy. Best of all, money doesn’t tell you what to do – it only asks what you want and if it can help; only when you answer does it stop talking.
For FIFA, and to be fair, for many other letter combinations, the answer is yes. NFL. BCS. ESPN. The list is long. Michael Crabtree. Pete Rose. Frank and Jamie McCourt. Cecil Newton is just the most recent example. I'm not pretending this theme is going to die away anytime soon, because it won't. But it's infuriating when there are unequivocal dangers in seeking that kind of compensation and people and organizations choose to follow their wallets anyway; it is particularly upsetting when there is a smaller payday in sight that makes much more sense. No matter. The glint of a whole lot of coin is blinding.
"There's no way around it: I am disappointed," Sunil Gulati, president of US Soccer, wrote in an email sent out on behalf of GoUSABid.com. "Millions of U.S. soccer fans worked hard to bring the World Cup to our country. To come up short is very difficult to take."
Indeed. I'm sure it hit these fans hardest; it's gonna be a while before they have something to cheer.
The world's governing body for soccer awarded the 2022 World Cup home site to Qatar on Thursday morning, drawing cheers from a Connecticut-sized country that will become the first nation in the Persian Gulf region to host the sport's biggest tournament. The cheers, due to the country's small population, were not loud enough to be heard by anyone in the area, but the people carried on nonetheless. "This is an enormous win for us," said Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, the country's emir. "We would be shouting from the tops of mountains if we had any."
Qatar, which won the committee's final vote 14-8 over the US, assuaged concerns about climate and crowd control by reasoning that their budget for the tournament would more than cover any health and safety measures that needed to be put in place to ensure a good experience for players and fans alike. Russia, which won the bid for the 2018, had similar justifications for its own ability to host; both countries rank in the top 3 in proven natural gas reserves, and the export of such resources remains the driving force behind each country's economy.
"It took a lot of convincing,'' Al-Thani admitted. "We were not sure that [FIFA's executive committee] would consider us a worthy candidate because of our small physical size, population and average summer temperature of 118 degrees Fahrenheit. But once we made the final round of voting, we knew that our financial capabilities were starting weigh heavily on their minds.''
"Yeah, they've got money," FIFA president Sepp Blatter said. "We like that. The decision to host this year's cup in South Africa was more sentimental than fiscal. We don't intend to go back any time soon if we can help it - the financial constrains are just too difficult to work through."
FIFA's announcement gave a huge boost to wealthy underdog countries that have hopes of hosting future tournaments. Luxembourg, Singapore and Hong Kong, all of which share with Qatar a top-15 worldwide ranking in per-capita GDP (purchasing power parity, 2009), were rumored to have already begun talks with the federation regarding hosting possibilities for post-2030 tournaments.
***
If your brain is half the size of a Jabulani, you've intuited by now that the above 300+ words were tongue-in-cheek satire (though the linked facts are real). The emotion, however, was legitimate, and I know there are many frustrated soccer fans across the country that would agree.
I'd be doing soccer fans a disservice if I counted myself among their ranks, but for one day this past May, I put myself in their shoes and walked into Lincoln Financial Field to watch the US take on Turkey in a pre-Cup friendly. The US won, 2-1, but even more than the win, what struck me was the atmosphere. You hear about it from people who have attended matches and you see the chaos on TV, but it's impossible to appreciate the feeling in the building unless you're actually there. Even when Turkey was winning, the fans were on their feet, smoke bombs going off now and again, beach balls surfing the crowd and chants resounding from section to section. There was as much noise and more passion in that stadium - for an exhibition, mind you - than you would find at any regular season NFL game. That level of excitement, coupled with watching Landon Donovan's improbable goal (props to Ian Darke on a masterful call), had me thinking "Hey, this is pretty fun!"
You can imagine, then, the disappointment I shared with millions of other American supporters when I heard FIFA's decision. The bid had slipped to the back of my memory until last week, and I had forgotten the surge of enthusiasm I'd felt this summer. It never really hit me that there was a good chance that we wouldn't get it. It made sense: we've got the stadiums, the accomodations, the transportation, the people - and a good team, to boot. Why not US?
I failed to remember, however, what is becoming increasingly clear in sports: money talks, and when you need it, the talk is louder than any sports-related motive every will. It is its own language and native speaker, fluent in every dialect and more persuasive than the shiniest of trophies. It can buy you your health, your house, and your car, and it can buy things for others if you want it to. It won't give you happiness, but it can buy a lot of things with it that will make you happy. Best of all, money doesn’t tell you what to do – it only asks what you want and if it can help; only when you answer does it stop talking.
For FIFA, and to be fair, for many other letter combinations, the answer is yes. NFL. BCS. ESPN. The list is long. Michael Crabtree. Pete Rose. Frank and Jamie McCourt. Cecil Newton is just the most recent example. I'm not pretending this theme is going to die away anytime soon, because it won't. But it's infuriating when there are unequivocal dangers in seeking that kind of compensation and people and organizations choose to follow their wallets anyway; it is particularly upsetting when there is a smaller payday in sight that makes much more sense. No matter. The glint of a whole lot of coin is blinding.
"There's no way around it: I am disappointed," Sunil Gulati, president of US Soccer, wrote in an email sent out on behalf of GoUSABid.com. "Millions of U.S. soccer fans worked hard to bring the World Cup to our country. To come up short is very difficult to take."
Indeed. I'm sure it hit these fans hardest; it's gonna be a while before they have something to cheer.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
When "Welcome Back" Means "Duck and Cover"
I'm sure you're aware that Lebron James returns to Cleveland this week (with Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh in tow) for the first time since leaving his hometown team this summer. If he's hoping for the warm welcome that Donovan McNabb got when he went back to Philadelphia as a member of the Redskins, he's about as naive as James Harrison was to think that he wouldn't get fined after stating his intention to "hurt people" in his violent and often questionable collisions on the gridiron. There's enough James-related vitriol in northern Ohio right now to light the Cuyahoga River on fire (again), though I don't think fans/arsonists will actually be dumb enough to set the Quicken Loans Arena aflame no matter how badly they want Lebron to feel their heat; in any case, he's certainly not feeling his own Heat right now, given Miami's barely .500 winning percentage nearly a quarter of the way through the season. If James is really serious about proving his doubters wrong, he won't be affected by angry fans or needling chants, but he should definitely take note of what Michael Jordan says in the video response to his "What Should I Do?" commercial (posted below). Jordan is as savvy and as fiery as they come, and the used-to-be-number-23 James would do well to heed anything his numerical predecessor says. I, for one, hope James plays well and that there are no extracurricular incidents that might throw a wet towel on an already stormy night.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Bear-ing Down: Robert Griffin, Art Briles & Baylor's Quest for Big 12 Respect
Since losing to conference opponent Missouri on Saturday night, the Oklahoma Sooners have fallen all the way to number nine in the BCS standings, momentarily boxed out of the national championship picture by the seven undefeated teams still remaining in college football. They also ceded their position atop the Big 12 North because of the in-conference loss.
The new tenants? The Baylor Bears.
Baylor?
Yes, that Baylor, the school that has yet to post a winning record in 14 seasons as a member of the Big 12. Although it may seem like a sick joke to the other 11 public universities that populate the conference, this is no hoax. In a little less than three seasons, head coach Art Briles has lured the Bears (6-2, 3-1 in Big 12 play) out of their bottom-feeding cave and steered them to bowl-eligible status despite playing in a division that includes two of the last four BCS National Championship participants. These are not uncharted waters for Briles: when he took over as head coach at Houston (his alma mater) in 2003, the Cougars had won eight games in the previous four years, but he managed to lift the program to a 34-28 overall record and four bowl appearances in the next five seasons.
That said, the turnaround at Baylor is not born solely out of Briles' wisdom. The coach does possess one commodity not afforded to any Bears coaches before him: believe it or not, the most valuable quarterback in the Big 12, Robert Griffin III, goes to class in Waco.
"You know, Robert brings a dynamic, energetic quality to your football team," Briles said before this season. "Without a question, we are a different football team [with him playing]."
Hello, understatement.
In his 2008 true freshman campaign, the 6'3" signal-caller from Copperas Cove, TX wowed the whole league, drawing all-conference freshman honors despite playing for an overmatched squad that finished 4-8, not to mention 2-6 in the conference. Griffin's playmaking abilities were prominently displayed even against a schedule that included six bouts with ranked opponents, among them No. 1 Oklahoma, No. 4 Texas, No. 7 Texas Tech and No. 8 Oklahoma State; he threw only three interceptions in those games (they were his only picks of the season) while completing 81 passes, often using his feet to gain ground while covering up shoddy blocking on the offensive line. His end-of-year stats (2,091 yards passing, 843 yards rushing, 28 total touchdowns), though not eye-popping from a yards perspective, established him as an up-and-coming player that belonged in the same category as Ryan Broyles, DeMarco Murray, Kendall Hunter and Roy Helu Jr.
Despite his claim that he "couldn't have had those stats or all the accolades without the 10 other guys on the field," Griffin's importance was highlighted last year when he tore his ACL in a blowout win at Northwestern State. Without Griffin under center, the Bears went 2-7.
"I felt like I let the community down, the fans and those seniors from last year," Griffin said in an interview after the season. He refused to let that disappointment shake his focus. "I don't wanna come back with that 'I'm back' mentality, trying to prove that I'm still the man. I just want to come back, have fun with the guys. I don't think it'll be a drastic change [from before the injury]."
"What we do fits him to a T," Briles said, "so we're just gonna cut loose and play and let Robert do his thing along with everybody else."
After a year of surgery, physical rehabilitation and lots of practice, the political science major returned to the Floyd Casey Stadium turf on September 4th, throwing for 242 yards with two touchdowns and running for another score in the Bears' season-opening win. RG3 was still himself.
""He is the same Rob," offensive tackle Danny Watkins said after the game. "He's still the wizard back there. I mean, at times we weren't clicking on offense but we're going to get better every week."
For the most part, the Bears have done that. They won their next game against Buffalo, with Griffin throwing for 230 yards in the first half of 34-6 victory; since then, Baylor has only been held under 30 points once, dropping a tough game to No. 4 TCU on September 18th in Fort Worth. (The vaunted Horned Frogs defense held Griffin to just 164 yards passing and one touchdown.) Even in a painful 45-38 loss to a streaky Texas Tech team, Griffin passed for 384 yards and two scores and added a pair of touchdowns on the ground.
The bad news for the Bears at this point in the season is that the meat of their schedule is right in front of them. Baylor, which plays 12 straight games from September through November without an idle week, is about to go toe-to-toe with Texas (in Austin) and No. 17 Oklahoma State (in Stillwater) before returning home for games against Texas A&M and No. 9 Oklahoma. In their bid to win the division, the loss to Texas Tech was a huge blow, but there is still some scratching and clawing left in these Bears. Though it's doubtful that Briles' guys will run the table, it isn't ridiculous to believe that they can go 2-2 over that stretch. Texas has trouble scoring; OSU struggled mightily against dual-threat quarterback Taylor Martinez; the Sooners are relatively weak against the run and play suspect red-zone defense; the Aggies have turnover issues. With the right combination of balanced playcalling and on-the-money execution, the Bears can steal a win in any one of these games.
"Like we said from day one: every week is a new season and we are just trying to become a better football team each week," Briles told the media yesterday after beating Kansas State 47-42. "We haven't peaked and that is the encouraging part as a team member and a coach."
Clearly, Griffin and running back Jay Finley need to be playing their best brand of mistake-free football if the Bears are to finish November with a winning record. They need one more win to complete a turnaround season on which they can lay the foundations for next year, but Briles doesn't sound as though he'll be happy with just one. It won't be easy, but the Bears certainly seem capable and motivated to finish the job.
While Griffin remains overshadowed by Terrell Pryor and Darron Thomas, fellow 2008 recruits leading their own November charges at Ohio State and Oregon, he will keep doing 'his thing' for the No. 25 Bears, who are ranked in the Associated Press Poll for the first time since 1991. A win against Texas, OU or Oklahoma State would be huge, though it would totally blow Griffin's cover as an underdog diamond-in-the-rough and potential 2011 Heisman candidate. But that's alright - Baylor believes they still have yet to play their best football. The Big 12 had better take notice.
The new tenants? The Baylor Bears.
Yes, that Baylor, the school that has yet to post a winning record in 14 seasons as a member of the Big 12. Although it may seem like a sick joke to the other 11 public universities that populate the conference, this is no hoax. In a little less than three seasons, head coach Art Briles has lured the Bears (6-2, 3-1 in Big 12 play) out of their bottom-feeding cave and steered them to bowl-eligible status despite playing in a division that includes two of the last four BCS National Championship participants. These are not uncharted waters for Briles: when he took over as head coach at Houston (his alma mater) in 2003, the Cougars had won eight games in the previous four years, but he managed to lift the program to a 34-28 overall record and four bowl appearances in the next five seasons.
That said, the turnaround at Baylor is not born solely out of Briles' wisdom. The coach does possess one commodity not afforded to any Bears coaches before him: believe it or not, the most valuable quarterback in the Big 12, Robert Griffin III, goes to class in Waco.
"You know, Robert brings a dynamic, energetic quality to your football team," Briles said before this season. "Without a question, we are a different football team [with him playing]."
Hello, understatement.
In his 2008 true freshman campaign, the 6'3" signal-caller from Copperas Cove, TX wowed the whole league, drawing all-conference freshman honors despite playing for an overmatched squad that finished 4-8, not to mention 2-6 in the conference. Griffin's playmaking abilities were prominently displayed even against a schedule that included six bouts with ranked opponents, among them No. 1 Oklahoma, No. 4 Texas, No. 7 Texas Tech and No. 8 Oklahoma State; he threw only three interceptions in those games (they were his only picks of the season) while completing 81 passes, often using his feet to gain ground while covering up shoddy blocking on the offensive line. His end-of-year stats (2,091 yards passing, 843 yards rushing, 28 total touchdowns), though not eye-popping from a yards perspective, established him as an up-and-coming player that belonged in the same category as Ryan Broyles, DeMarco Murray, Kendall Hunter and Roy Helu Jr.
Despite his claim that he "couldn't have had those stats or all the accolades without the 10 other guys on the field," Griffin's importance was highlighted last year when he tore his ACL in a blowout win at Northwestern State. Without Griffin under center, the Bears went 2-7.
"I felt like I let the community down, the fans and those seniors from last year," Griffin said in an interview after the season. He refused to let that disappointment shake his focus. "I don't wanna come back with that 'I'm back' mentality, trying to prove that I'm still the man. I just want to come back, have fun with the guys. I don't think it'll be a drastic change [from before the injury]."
"What we do fits him to a T," Briles said, "so we're just gonna cut loose and play and let Robert do his thing along with everybody else."
After a year of surgery, physical rehabilitation and lots of practice, the political science major returned to the Floyd Casey Stadium turf on September 4th, throwing for 242 yards with two touchdowns and running for another score in the Bears' season-opening win. RG3 was still himself.
""He is the same Rob," offensive tackle Danny Watkins said after the game. "He's still the wizard back there. I mean, at times we weren't clicking on offense but we're going to get better every week."
For the most part, the Bears have done that. They won their next game against Buffalo, with Griffin throwing for 230 yards in the first half of 34-6 victory; since then, Baylor has only been held under 30 points once, dropping a tough game to No. 4 TCU on September 18th in Fort Worth. (The vaunted Horned Frogs defense held Griffin to just 164 yards passing and one touchdown.) Even in a painful 45-38 loss to a streaky Texas Tech team, Griffin passed for 384 yards and two scores and added a pair of touchdowns on the ground.
The bad news for the Bears at this point in the season is that the meat of their schedule is right in front of them. Baylor, which plays 12 straight games from September through November without an idle week, is about to go toe-to-toe with Texas (in Austin) and No. 17 Oklahoma State (in Stillwater) before returning home for games against Texas A&M and No. 9 Oklahoma. In their bid to win the division, the loss to Texas Tech was a huge blow, but there is still some scratching and clawing left in these Bears. Though it's doubtful that Briles' guys will run the table, it isn't ridiculous to believe that they can go 2-2 over that stretch. Texas has trouble scoring; OSU struggled mightily against dual-threat quarterback Taylor Martinez; the Sooners are relatively weak against the run and play suspect red-zone defense; the Aggies have turnover issues. With the right combination of balanced playcalling and on-the-money execution, the Bears can steal a win in any one of these games.
"Like we said from day one: every week is a new season and we are just trying to become a better football team each week," Briles told the media yesterday after beating Kansas State 47-42. "We haven't peaked and that is the encouraging part as a team member and a coach."
Clearly, Griffin and running back Jay Finley need to be playing their best brand of mistake-free football if the Bears are to finish November with a winning record. They need one more win to complete a turnaround season on which they can lay the foundations for next year, but Briles doesn't sound as though he'll be happy with just one. It won't be easy, but the Bears certainly seem capable and motivated to finish the job.
While Griffin remains overshadowed by Terrell Pryor and Darron Thomas, fellow 2008 recruits leading their own November charges at Ohio State and Oregon, he will keep doing 'his thing' for the No. 25 Bears, who are ranked in the Associated Press Poll for the first time since 1991. A win against Texas, OU or Oklahoma State would be huge, though it would totally blow Griffin's cover as an underdog diamond-in-the-rough and potential 2011 Heisman candidate. But that's alright - Baylor believes they still have yet to play their best football. The Big 12 had better take notice.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Brian Wilson: The Will Ferrell of Baseball Interviews
Today is October 15th. This is an interview from September 3rd, and how it has escaped my viewing until this week is beyond me. Maybe it was on SportsNation when I wasn't watching, or maybe it was just too preposterous to be taken seriously. Whatever the case, in this clip from Rome is Burning, Giants closer Brian Wilson presents himself as the Will Ferrell of baseball interviews. His style is more eclectic, and his tone has more edge and less play, but I'll be damned if he's not equally absurd. The phrases spilling out of his mouth are unbelievable, and Jim Rome eats it all up. Whether or not Wilson is actually the resident I-dare-you man in the San Francisco clubhouse is irrelevant; he plays the part like a champ. It's really a shame that he had to tone down his Twitter account - I can only imagine the things he might have to say if the world were not so politically correct. In any case, I think I know who I'm rooting for in the NLCS. Enjoy the yucks.
Friday, October 1, 2010
San Diego's Salvation Series: Padres Desperate to Keep Their Season Alive
If divine intervention services are required in Major League Baseball, clearly the San Diego Padres are the leading candidate at the moment.
As of this morning, San Diego is 3 games behind the San Francisco Giants in the race for the NL West division crown. There are only three games remaining for the Padres, all of them in San Francisco.
For a team that Sports Illustrated's Tom Verducci described as "the closest [team] to a sure thing [to make the playoffs]" just one month ago (they sported the best record in the National League at the time), time has not flown quite as quickly as the Padres had hoped. In the month of September, San Diego was just 13-16, inluding an 8-9 mark against division rivals. The starting rotation has just six wins in that timespan, including one by the newly activated Chris Young, who's been on the DL for almost the entire season. To complicate the matter, the Giants are not the Pads' only competition at this point - if Atlanta wins two of its next three, they will pull the wild card rug right out from under Petco Park. The Braves, of course, are playing a three-game homestand against Philadelphia, and there's a good chance that the Phillies, owners of the best record in the either league, will be looking to rest their starters as they prepare for a postseason run.
I wish there were room enough for all three teams. Statistically, the Padres are worse than the Giants and the Braves, but they've worked awfully hard this season to come away with nothing. For a team that finished 19 games out of first place last year, they deserve a bid for turning the ballclub around as they have. The Giants have made remarkable progress since the All-Star break, rising from 3 games above .500 to a 91-68 record atop the West, buoyed by the development of catcher Buster Posey (.313 BA/.365 OBP/.511 SLG) into a future franchise backstop. The Braves are trying hard to claw their way into a playoff spot for retiring manager Bobby Cox, hoping to allow for an appropriate October exit for a man who ranks 4th on the all-time managerial wins list. It's difficult to pick a villian in that group.
That said, I'm pulling hard for the West. It would be cool to see the Padres and Phillies take 2 of 3 on the road, forcing a San Diego-Atlanta one-game playoff next week. Here are the pitching matchups for this weekend:
Phillies @ Braves
FRI: Kyle Kendrick (10-10, 4.76 ERA) vs. Brandon Beachy (0-1, 2.89 ERA)
SAT: Cole Hamels (12-11, 3.09) vs. Tommy Hanson (10-11, 3.41)
SUN: Vance Worley (1-1, 2.25) vs. Tim Hudson (16-9, 2.76)
Padres @ Giants
FRI: Clayton Richard (13-9, 3.71) vs. Matt Cain (13-10, 2.95)
SAT: Tim Stauffer (5-5, 1.89) vs. Barry Zito (9-13, 4.08)
SUN: Mat Latos (14-9, 2.92) vs. Jonathan Sanchez (12-9, 3.15)
If the Phillies are going to win 2, it will probably have to be the first two, given the inexperience of Beachy and the fact that Hamels' only complete game this season has been away, at night, on grass. The Richard-Cain duel should keep you glued to your seat; whatever happens, the Padres absolutely have to win on Sunday and steal a win tonight or tomorrow. Let's hope this weekend is as good as it gets.
Baseball gods, are you listening?
As of this morning, San Diego is 3 games behind the San Francisco Giants in the race for the NL West division crown. There are only three games remaining for the Padres, all of them in San Francisco.
For a team that Sports Illustrated's Tom Verducci described as "the closest [team] to a sure thing [to make the playoffs]" just one month ago (they sported the best record in the National League at the time), time has not flown quite as quickly as the Padres had hoped. In the month of September, San Diego was just 13-16, inluding an 8-9 mark against division rivals. The starting rotation has just six wins in that timespan, including one by the newly activated Chris Young, who's been on the DL for almost the entire season. To complicate the matter, the Giants are not the Pads' only competition at this point - if Atlanta wins two of its next three, they will pull the wild card rug right out from under Petco Park. The Braves, of course, are playing a three-game homestand against Philadelphia, and there's a good chance that the Phillies, owners of the best record in the either league, will be looking to rest their starters as they prepare for a postseason run.
I wish there were room enough for all three teams. Statistically, the Padres are worse than the Giants and the Braves, but they've worked awfully hard this season to come away with nothing. For a team that finished 19 games out of first place last year, they deserve a bid for turning the ballclub around as they have. The Giants have made remarkable progress since the All-Star break, rising from 3 games above .500 to a 91-68 record atop the West, buoyed by the development of catcher Buster Posey (.313 BA/.365 OBP/.511 SLG) into a future franchise backstop. The Braves are trying hard to claw their way into a playoff spot for retiring manager Bobby Cox, hoping to allow for an appropriate October exit for a man who ranks 4th on the all-time managerial wins list. It's difficult to pick a villian in that group.
That said, I'm pulling hard for the West. It would be cool to see the Padres and Phillies take 2 of 3 on the road, forcing a San Diego-Atlanta one-game playoff next week. Here are the pitching matchups for this weekend:
Phillies @ Braves
FRI: Kyle Kendrick (10-10, 4.76 ERA) vs. Brandon Beachy (0-1, 2.89 ERA)
SAT: Cole Hamels (12-11, 3.09) vs. Tommy Hanson (10-11, 3.41)
SUN: Vance Worley (1-1, 2.25) vs. Tim Hudson (16-9, 2.76)
Padres @ Giants
FRI: Clayton Richard (13-9, 3.71) vs. Matt Cain (13-10, 2.95)
SAT: Tim Stauffer (5-5, 1.89) vs. Barry Zito (9-13, 4.08)
SUN: Mat Latos (14-9, 2.92) vs. Jonathan Sanchez (12-9, 3.15)
If the Phillies are going to win 2, it will probably have to be the first two, given the inexperience of Beachy and the fact that Hamels' only complete game this season has been away, at night, on grass. The Richard-Cain duel should keep you glued to your seat; whatever happens, the Padres absolutely have to win on Sunday and steal a win tonight or tomorrow. Let's hope this weekend is as good as it gets.
Baseball gods, are you listening?
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