Strange. I think you're right.

I thought baseball's playoff schedule was 2-2-1-1-1 (instead of 2-3-2).

So that would mean a Sat schedule would be: Sat-Sun-(mon off)-Tue-Wed-(thurs off)-Fri-(sat off)-Sun-(mon off)-Tues

A Wed schedule would be: Wed-Thurs-(fri off)-Sat-Sun-(mon off)-Tues-(wed off)-Thurs-(fri off)-Sat

In that case, the Wed schedule avoids both Monday and Friday.

Lots of rumblings of Troy Glaus being shipped to the Dodgers on the local radio stations

Maddux is pitching a gem for the Pads. 5.1 ip, 0 hits on 51 pitches.

Dusty Baker and Rick Sutcliffe in the same booth for the Mets/Cubs game tonight. It almost seemed like a contest to see who could say the stupidest thing. Sutcliffe pointed out that Theriot won the college world series at LSU and then he won minor league championships 4 straight years. Its clearly all because he gets dirty and is a "winner".

ESPN's baseball coverage is a joke. Joe Morgan, John Kruk, Sutcliffe, Dusty, Steve Philips. Is there anyone they could possibly hire that is worse than these guys?

We haven't had a WS get past 5 games since 2003 (last year it went 5, but a rainout threw everything out of whack), and in 2003, the format was 2-3-2. Game Six was played on a Saturday.

Now, I don't know if they changed the format since then and we just haven't seen it in action, but I don't recall there being a change. But at this point, we'd have to remember it as an announcement, since we have not gotten to that point in several years.

I had Mets World Series tickets last year to home games 2 & 3, which were also preprinted with "games 4 & 6" since we knew the AL had home field beforehand.

I think it just proves that baseball players aren't smart. And the smart ones stay away from ESPN.

Joe Theismann?

Kruk has to be the happiest guy at ESPN. He used to be a total buffoon, but now he actually looks respectable when guys like Sutcliffe, Dusty, and especially Phillips are around.

I was listening to ESPN on the drive home, with the guy who replaced Kuselias, and he had Kruk on, and after Kruk finished, the guy was like, "You are so good, you are just so good. You are the best." It was so bizarre and awkward, even Kruk didn't know how to respond. For a second I thought Kruk was going to say, "Are you out of your mind?" But he just politely accepted the compliment and left.

Ricky Henderson.

No way - Rickey would be miles better than Sutcliffe and Kruk.

Tim McCarver.

Ok, I'll give ya that one. McCarver is annoying in that he is always trying to think of something profound and clever to say, but it never makes sense. He adds absolutely nothing to a game he calls.

Rex Hudler is terrible, and being down here in Angel's country I get to listen to him entirely too much.

I can barely watch baseball, but never when that asshead is on.

If you refuse to watch Tim McCarver, then you missed him getting doused with water by Deion Sanders, which was worth the hefty price to see.

To give him credit, he did nail the game-winning WS hit by Luis Gonzalez by noting, moments before the hit, that Jeter was playing in and was susceptible to a weak flare over his head.

I like Rex's enthusiasm.

Hey Chief, what's up with Vlad not playing tonight? Is he hurt, or has he come down with "Felix Flu"?

A) Selig is bribing us to keep the division close?
B) A "thank you" to Bavasi for the 2002 WS squad?
C) I don't have a clue?

I am leaning toward C. The announcers haven't said anything yet that I have heard, and no one seems to know at our main forum.

Vlad DH'd yesterday, which was supposed to be like a rest day. My guess is he has some minor injury and Sciosc decided to give him an actual day off.

As for "Felix Flu", if there is anyone who isn't afraid of facing good pitching, it's Vlad. He swings and kills bad pitches way out of the strike zone. Good pitching would intrigue him. :)

I wish the M's played the Angels every game this year - Jose Guillen would shatter all hitting records if that were the case...

He's still an ass. No shock there. Might as well put him to good use while you can, though. I give him another two months before Ichiro and Johjima are cussing him out to each other in Japanese, if they aren't already. There's no such thing as a bridge that man can't burn.

Too bad you guys are wasting a terrific performance by King Felix tonight. You coulda won with Weaver on the mound.

Man, the Angels played last night's game like they really didn't want to be there. I hope they keep it up tonight since I'm going to the game. I'm not going to get my hopes up though since it's Lackey going for Anaheim and Baek for us.

Oh, and while Guillen may or may not be an ass, he's not universally disliked in the Angels clubhouse.

Of course he isn't. Most of the guys he fought with aren't on the Angels anymore actually. BTW, how is Washburn getting along with Guillen? That's not an idle question.

No one is universally disliked, and some guys enjoy players with passion. Also, some guys will get the benefit from their own as well--I am certain, for instance, that fellow Spanish speaking islander Angels like Guerrero and the Molinas still get along with Guillen.

So I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. He's still an utter ass. Don't let the Mariner team-fan groupthink fool you. We let ourselves be fooled that the Pirates, D'Rays, Red, A's and others were all doofuses for letting him go, and that he turned a new leaf. Umm, not quite...

As for last night, well, when your best hitter sits and your pitcher gets blown up early, it's hard to keep the enthusiasm up, especially in the middle of a road trip. Vlad was just getting a rest, BTW (according to the local paper). He should be in tonight along with Lackey, which is a good thing for you, because I would hate to think something called a "Baek" would be the pitcher you go to see. :)

Like I said, I'm not saying he's not necessarily an ass. But it's only certain players, and primarily the manager that Guillen has a problem with on the Angels. Kelvim Escobar happens to be one of Guillen's best friends in the game.

Washburn and Guillen have apparently mended fences enough for the situation to not be a distraction. As long as Guillen isn't a cancer in the clubhouse and is helping the team on the field, I'm happy, and so far both seem to be the case.

Except that the pitcher got blown up early because it appeared he and many of his teammates just weren't into the game.

The tickets tonight were a gift from several weeks ago, so I had no idea going in who'd be starting. That said, Baek pitched pretty well (and probably shouldn't have been yanked when he was). The M's just couldn't get anything going off of Lackey, and failed in the two opportunities they had to score some runs.

Mets looking pumped in the regular season.



Lino Urdaneta, a minor league pitcher who was on the Mets’ 25-man roster two days ago, tested positive for a performance-enhancing substance and was suspended for 50 games, Major League Baseball said yesterday.

....

Urdaneta, a 27-year-old Venezuelan, pitched in two games for the Mets this season, allowing two hits and one run. Before this year, he had pitched in one major league game, for the Detroit Tigers in 2004, allowing six runs and five hits and recording no outs.

Urdaneta is the sixth member of the Mets’ organization to test positive for a performance-enhancing drug since 2006. The Class A Savannah pitcher Jorge Reyes was suspended for 100 games earlier this month after testing positive for the second time. Reyes was the first minor leaguer to receive a 100-game suspension for a second violation.

The others suspended were the major leaguer Guillermo Mota, and the minor leaguers Yusaku Iriki, Timothy Haines and Waner Mateo.

Ouch. Cubs give up 5 in the 9th and lose 6-5. That's gotta sting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/17/sp...tml?ref=sports


I know they're saying it's "marketing". But I think it's "desperate attempt to hang onto dear life."

Move this team to New York, expand Keyspan Park and be done with it. Or expand Bears Stadium in Newark. Do something, but get them out of that terrible ballpark. Retirees might be cool, but where else can they dictate getting major league sports on the basis of being able to watch the Yankees and Red Sox in person for most of the year.

BP posted an article today discussing potential markets for a MLB team looking to move. Suprisingly, Charlotte rated #1 in terms of projected attendence and TV viewers.

Right now the Rays and Marlins really aren't competing financially and it doesn't look like its going to change any time soon, but I would be shocked if baseball ever did anything about it.

Yeah, Charlotte's mayor has been saying forever that they don't a team yet, tht they're not ready. Don Beaver wanted to put the Twins between Charlotte and the Triangle so that you could draw from both areas, but from what I've read..the problem is, people down there aren't going to be as likely to want to go to baseball games when it's hot out, let alone to sit in traffic to get to the stadium by and large.

But I do think that they ought to find another southeastern city, non-Florida city besides Atlanta to get a team.

Dola --

Thanks for mentioning that BP article, though. I'm heading over there. I love reading about this subject.

Rob Neyer had a good article today about what the Rays are doing. They're trying to draw TV viewership interest from Orlando and the West Coast of Florida. Combined, they would have the 12th biggest market in MLB. They aren't so much concerned about people coming to games as they are building TV viewership.

I don't know if anything is going to work there, but it's worth a shot.

I do think it's a smart strategy given that Orlando is never going to be a MLB market realistically.

I tivo'd the game and just watched the end of it, awesome!!!

"Appearances" can be deceiving. Escobar is not the type of player to just give up on a game. I think you're ability to read Angels' players minds is impressive, at least in your own mind.

Baek actually did pitch pretty well, and he shouldn't have been yanked. You may not have won keeping him in there, but Hargrove made certain you lost it with some odd decisions with his staff last night.

It was great seeing Guillen being the one to blow the M's biggest opportunity when he swung at a pitch even Vlad couldn't have hit.

And as for "only certain players and primarily the manager" having a problem with Guillen, isn't, you know, more than maybe one player or staffer too much? Heck, I'll even give you everyone has three or four others in the clubhouse who may not like them. Guillen had at least half that team hating on him, and deservedly so.

I don't know if it is because you're a M's fan or what, but, honestly, this isn't a guy you should be defending. You have far better and more worthy players on your team to talk up (such as King Felix) than this guy.

I obviously have no idea what they're actual state of minds were. What's not disputable is that the Angels played poorly from the start of that game - the error by Figgins, the wild pitch by Escobar in the first; the error by Izturis, the second wild pitch by Escobar, the weak efforts by Napoli to defend the consecutive stolen bases by Beltre, the lousy pitch Carrasco served up to Lopez in the third, and that was basically the ballgame.

Did they just have an off-day? Could be. I certainly can't imagine them purposely taking that game lightly and intentionally mailing it in - I'm just saying it sure didn't look like their best effort, whether it was intentional or not.

Hargrove sucks. I'd bet he ends up costing the M's 5 wins minimum per year with bad moves. I couldn't figure out why he was yanking Baek - he only had 94 pitches at that point and it didn't seem from my vantage point like he was losing effectiveness.

No question, that was a hugely disappointing ending to what had started off a very promising at-bat in a hugely critical situation.

I'm not seeing how I've been defending him all that much, but I'll say this - a fiery guy who pisses off some of his teammates and seems to thrive on being angry at somebody as a means of motivation is preferable (to me) to wife-abusers, law-breakers, steroid abusers and many others. On the scale of players to dislike, I can't get too upset about Guillen. In my book, a guy like Julio Mateo is far more worthy of my scorn than Guillen. And yes, part of that is because we've only had Guillen for a short time and there doesn't appear (at least not yet) to be any major clubhouse issues surrounding him being here. And considering he's probably not going to be here long-term anyway, I don't suspect Guillen is someone I'm going to feel compelled to actively dislike much.

And yeah, there are other players I'm more inclined to talk up than Guillen - Ichiro, Hernandez, Putz, Morrow, Lowe (if he returns healthy), Lopez, Johjima - but you can't argue that so far, Guillen has been a pretty successful signing for Bavasi (pretty much his only successful transaction of the past off-season).

I can certainly understand why an Angel fan would feel scorn for him, but you have to understand your view is inherently tainted by your fandom for the Angels.

Tim Lincecum put in a great start tonight in Houston, allowing only the one run on a sac fly in the 4th. Sure looks like the real deal.


7.0 IP 93 P 2 H 1 ER 1 BB 10 K

Fixed it for ya.

I have a serious man-crush on the guy kid.

Somehow, the Sox are now Nine and a half games up on the Yankees a quarter of the way into the season.

If you told me that
A) Julian Tavarez was going to start the first game of a doubleheader
B) Curt Schilling was going to look like he was 75 years old in the nightcap
C) The offense was going to score SIX runs in the doubleheader

I'd assume that the Sox LOST both ends of the double header, not WIN both ends of the double header.

Now, I KNOW that the Sox PROBABLY won't win 112 games (that's what they're on pace for, at 28-12 through 40 games), but just.. wow.

Sox have to hope that this continues to put pressure on Steinbrenner to make a move he'll eventually regret. Something along the lines of firing Cashman or Torre and bringing Raul Mondesi out of retirement to replace Abreu.

It'll be interesting to see how much of an impact Clemens has on the Yankees. They're paying him $28 million (prorated) for 2/3 of a season. Last time he was with the Yankees he had an ERA over 4 over the course of 5 seasons. I think we'll get a better idea of how much age has affected Clemens than we did when he was in Houston.

I have a feeling the Sox run away with this and the Yankees hover around .500 the entire season.

The Yanks' luck has been bad. Based on their RS/RA differential, they should be 5 games over .500, while the Sox are dead-on theirs. Unfortunately, I expect them to rebound some, but I think our only hope is that they fall short of the WC. I would love to see a .500 Yankees team, but I seriously doubt it will happen.

Thanks. I tuned in late and thought the run was earned. Even better :)

They have had some bad luck, but run differential really isn't useful until around the midway point in the season. Right now were still have a relatively small sample size. A couple blowout wins can really throw things off this early in the season.

I do think they'll rebound, but I don't think rebounding for this team is even 90-win pace. They have major pitching issues that Clemens isn't going to fix. Their bullpen is absolutely horrible and incredibly overworked.

They're also dealing with regression from Cano, nagging injuries from Damon, and an aging Abreu. I've been waiting on Jeter to regress a bit, considering he had one of the highest BABIP over the past 20 years last season, but I'm actually starting to wonder if its ever going to happen.

You, me, and every Giants fan with a brain. :D

Watched part of the game tonight and Lincecum is nasty.

Woo! Royals have won 4 of 5.

SI

And 3 of 4 of them were from the A's. Thanks!

Watched the end of the Yankees game. So much fun. They lose the first game against the Mets with Pettitte on the mound, and now have to face Glavine and Maine with Razner and some dude making his MLB debut.