Weekend Roundup

-Yanks win a pretty good game 6 and it will be Yanks-Phils in the World Series. We'll get up a preview on that soon. Is it really that intimidating to play the Yankees this year? Every game their opponents have made either a really bad error or a big base-running mistake. Again, last night the Angels made three mistakes you just can't make as a major leaguer. Vlad got doubled off first base on a routine line-out to right field, Howie Kendrick drops a ball at first base that hits him right in the glove on a bunt and Scott Kazmir makes maybe the worst throw a major leaguer has ever made in a game on the very next bunt.

The defending champion Phillies are not going to be intimidated by the Yanks. No one seems to be giving them a chance, but I don't see why. They have the lefty bats to neutralize the Yanks home-field advantage and the starting pitching might be a coin flip.

-Not much to discuss from college football, it has become quite the uneventful year. Alabama again proved to me that they are the exact same team they were last year, barely beating Tennessee. Florida escaped narrowly in a battle with former offensive coordinator Dan Mullen. Texas made the biggest statement of the week pounding a weak Missouri team. TCU crushed BYU and made themselves to appear the best non-BCS team out there (still don't think they're very good). Iowa snuck past Michigan St. but stop worrying everyone, no way does Iowa run the table, we aren't going to have to watch them in the championship game, I promise.

-The Giants season is about to crumble before our eyes. I felt strongly that the Cardinals would cover the spread and maybe win, but the Giants continue to look like the injuries are taking their toll. We will get a much better idea of who is going to win this division when we find out if Philly's loss to the Raiders was a complete aberration or serious cause for concern, because I think Philly is a top-5 team in the NFL, but I've also seen the Raiders 3 times this year - Eagles, you've got some explaining to do.

Billllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllls

Pittsburgh and Minnesota are very good.

The Saints are very good, offensively.

Dallas is good again, and Miles Austin has become a major fantasy football sleeper.

Seriously, nothing of much surprise value happened yesterday in my opinion, so what did all of you think?

Weekend Roundup

In the words of Larry David: pretty, pretty good.

This weekend did not really disappoint the viewer.

Friday kicked off with a vintage playoff pitcher's duel as Pedro threw 7 scoreless innings that made you think it was the 90's again. Him and Vicente Padilla were painting corners, changing speeds and overall just throwing everything but the kitchen sink at guys to get them out - and it worked. Just a fun game to watch that the Phillies bullpen predictably lost. And that is the difference between this series being 3-0 Phils after last night's bloodbath.

Yanks took game 1 Friday behind the masterpiece CC turned in. Then came back Saturday in what will go down as one of the more epic ALCS games ever played. Fitting end to a game littered with errors that the second baseman throws one away to end the game, but am I the only one who found that to be a bit anti-climatic? Lots of questionable managerial decisions in my opinion, but pretty much all worked out. The only thing that didn't work out? Turns out 0-2 to A-Rod up a run isn't a great time to throw a belt high 91 MPH fastball down the middle.

Saturday gave us some good college football (before that classic Yanks/Angels game stole the show)...Texas knocked out Bradford early, looked like the lesser team for most of the game, but gutted out a 16-13 win in the Red River Rivalry. It wasn't the shootout we hoped for, but finally we had a hyped up college football game that was watchable.
USC/Notre Dame then gave us a more exciting game, though honestly I thought USC should have won by 20+. Props to Notre Dame for hanging tough but they looked much out-classed to me.

A young Bobby Petrino led Arkansas team went into Florida and gave them all they could handle. Ryan Mallett looked good and this Arkansas team is going to be a National force next year. Of course Tim Tebow and company found a way to win, but much like Ole Miss did last year, Arky stripped a bit of their invincibility from them.

The big teams to lose were: Ohio St to Purdue in a real shocker. The Ohio St offense continued to sputter and their defense looked terrible. I can't figure out the Big Ten. Iowa sucks, Ohio St sucks, Penn St sucks. The whole conference is terrible...but who will emerge? I still don't think it's Iowa when all is said and done. And Va Tech fell to Georgia Tech in a less shocking defeat.
A lot of arguing about "what if this team goes undefeated, what if these two go undefeated, who plays in the championship game?" I think I'll make a post about that later in the week with a little preview of next weekends games, but none of this matters if Florida and Alabama win out.

NFFFFL SUNNNDAY:

No 48, NYG 27: My GGGGGGGGGGGG-Men got destroyed. They looked completely over-matched and it turns out the defense can't just turn it on when they need to. This was a game I fully expected to lose but the way which the Giants did so was very alarming. They couldn't get to Brees and even when they did he would just throw it up to receivers that were bigger and way too physical for our d-backs. Even when guys were covered they would come down with the catch. Defensively, the Saints are very much smoke and mirrors. The Giants could have run it all over them if they didn't fall behind early...and Eli missed a couple receivers (including once Steve Smith who had about 5 steps on the entire Saints defense) and this could have turned into a closer, complete shootout.

Houston 28, Cincy 17: So the Bengals aren't that good? Shocking.

Green Bay 26, Detroit 0: Drew Stanton and Daunte Culpepper got shut out? I don't believe it!

Jax 23, St. Louis 20, OT: Alright guys, I admit it, you were right, my prediction of 12-4 for the Rams was off the mark.

Minnesota 33, Baltimore 31: Told you Baltimore's defense is no more. Can't say I saw this type of shootout coming.

Pitt 27, Cleveland 14: Yahoo's spotlight player for Cleveland? Lawrence Vickers (I believe about a 5th year FB out of LA Tech or Colorado, how do I confuse those two schools? I don't know..but I recall wanting the Giants to draft him in the 6th round or something one year, pewch). Vickers stats: 1 catch, 1 yard, 1 TD. At least Derek Anderson raised his completion percentage to 37.5% this week.

Lina 28, Tampa 21: I don't even believe this game was played, I think they just did a Madden simulation.

KC 14, Wash 6: So Washington isn't winning the NFC East?

Oakland 13, Philly 9: Still not convinced this actually happened either. I'm waiting for the NFL to release a statement: "Sorry fans, we were just kidding. Come on, you didn't really believe the Raiders beat the Eagles, did you?"

Arizona 27, Seattle 3: Nothing to say.

New England 59, Tennessee 0: That damn Madden simulation again? I guess we can stop hearing about how Tennessee is a "good" 0-5 team (and not just because they're 0-6)?

Buffalo 16, Jets 13: After I sent out an en masse text message to most people from school including a bunch of Bills fans and a few others proclaiming "Wide Right Bitches" after Lindell missed the would-be game-winner at the end of regulation my responses varied from "lol" to "im glad, we want a better draft pick" to "die" (the last of which being a female respondent - welcome to ruff buff)...of course, more responses were added after the conclusion in which the Bills won in OT after Sanchez threw his 6th int of the game. It took until about 8:30 for a Bills fan to be wise enough to rip into my Giants, but hey, congrats Bills fans, you just missed out on a franchise QB! But Ryan Fitzpatrick looked great!

Atlanta 21, Chicago 14: I actually found this to be a compelling game. Just a good battle between evenly matched teams. I thought Ryan and Cutler were better than their numbers and though they each threw some picks on balls they let fly, both can really sling it when they get in a groove.

Long Weekend Roundup

With a ton of games this weekend I must admit to being a bit of a poor sports fan this weekend. My girlfriend was here and I spent more time looking at ancient artifacts at the Museum of Natural History Saturday than I did watching Florida/LSU or Alabama/Ole Miss...fortunately for me neither game really lived up to the hype. Huge weekend in college football this Saturday including Texas/Oklahoma and I plan on touching on that a bit later in the week.

As for the NFL yesterday: The Broncos beat New England and have officially entered way overrated territory. Look, they beat a struggling, overrated team, by three points at home in a game they probably should have lost. Champ Bailey did an excellent job on Randy Moss but they are going to have a hell of a time defending the multitude of weapons that San Diego will be giving them in Cali this week (I think that is the Monday night game).

The Giants are good, the Eagles are good. The Raiders are bad, the Bucs are really bad.

I thought Seattle would beat Jacksonville this weekend but is there a stranger team than the Jags in all of sports? One week they'll look like the '07 Pats and the next they'll look like the current Raiders.

Talk of Dallas being terrible I think is a little overrated at this point. Yes the Chiefs are terrible. No, they don't usually get blown out in back-to-back weeks at Arrowhead. Dallas has some problems, but how about Miles Austin. Credit at least one Pewch Revolution reader who picked up Miles Austin Sunday morning and inserted him into his lineup en route to mashing his opponent in my league (thumbs down on dropping Hester to do it though).

Indy, New Orleans, Giants, Philly. Those are the best 4 teams in football. Luckily two of them square off this weekend (New Orleans and NYG).

The Jets defense looked painfully average against a once again surging Dolphins team. But, on the bright side for the Jets, Braylon Edwards is away from Lebron James and once again ready to play football.

Other than that yet another pretty bland weekend in football.

What I really wanted to get to...the MLB playoffs..

Sweep, Sweep, Sweep, 4 games? With a bunch of intriguing Divisional Series matchups who could have guessed that they would already be complete, with only one losing team managing to muster a win and none of them going 5 games. Most people's favorite to win the NL - the Cardinals - were swept away by a familiar face in the form of Joe Torre. I don't think too many people are surprised by the Angels beating the Red Sox, but a sweep is quite surprising. And that is the series I want to focus on:

I guess I should first mention it will be Yanks/Angels and Phils/Dodgers...I believe it doesn't start until Friday or Saturday, either way expect a big preview for each.

Back to the Sox/Angels series...

Back to last Thursday...Lackey/Lester at LAA. Torii Hunter homers and as I already mentioned, in a terribly umped game that certainly made the score worse than it should have been, Angels win and probably would have anyway...I mentioned how bad the umpiring was and it really has continued to be miserable throughout the playoffs. My thoughts coming out of this game: if it's Lester/Lackey again I will be betting a lot on the Sox. Angels 1-0.

Game 2: This is the game I believed the series would come down to. If the Angels win, they ensure a worst-case-scenerio of game 5 at home, with a chance to win the series in Boston if they could take just one game. Weaver-Beckett certainly made this a good pitching matchup, but one that you would have to give the edge to Boston in. It is my contention that Terry Francona absolutely lost the Red Sox this game and in turn the series here...

First of all, we must say that the umps again missed a number of easy calls on the bases, again the Sox came out on the short side of the stick. That however, is not why they lost this game. A bit of decent managing probably would have resulted in a 1-1 extra inning game that could have gone either way.

It all began in the 4th inning as Beckett gave up a run but still looked strong. In the 5th he had a 1-2-3 inning against the 7-8-9 hitters, he was about to face the order the 3rd time through. Then he came out with a Beckett-esque 6th inning going 1-2-3 against Figgins (k), Abreu (ground out) and Hunter (fly out). The problem was that the balls the Angels were putting in play were hit squarely and even Figgins I believe smashed a line drive or two foul before striking out. We then enter the 7th inning and Beckett issues a 4-pitch walk to Vlad to lead off the inning. His pitches varied from 6 inches outside the zone to a foot-plus. Something didn't look right. Kendrick comes in to run for Vlad and Beckett quickly falls behind Kendry Morales with a couple more pitches that aren't even close to the zone. He battles and eventually gets Morales to fly out to deep left-center. Crafty and gutsy. Kendrick then steals second on a very poor Beckett-Martinez combo in terms of holding runners. As Beckett again falls quickly behind Juan Rivera Billy Wagner is now up, throwing and completely warm in the bullpen. Rivera absolutely clocks a Beckett fastball left right over the heart of the plate and the Red Sox are fortunate as it is right at third baseman Mike Lowell who makes the play. 2 outs, good baserunner on second and switch-hitting Macier Izturis stepping to the plate. To be fair, Izturis has been better hitting from the right side this year, but on his career he is actually a better left-handed hitter. He came into the game 3-3 with a double off Beckett on the season. In fact, he has hit Beckett well his entire career. Meanwhile, Beckett has lost command of the strike zone and his fastball has tallied off to low 90's..but he hadn't yet hit 100 pitches and I think that is what Francona hung his hat on. So instead of turning Izturis around and bringing in the left-handed Wagner to all but ensure getting out of the inning 1-1 (and with plenty of power arms available to get through the next few innings) Francona turned the Sox biggest strength (bullpen) into an unused commodity and Izturis singled in the winning run on a fat hanging curveball from Beckett.

I promise that this is not complete Monday Morning Quarterbacking on my part. Sure I didn't know all of those stats, but Francona certainly did. And I was sitting there urging for Francona to bring in Wagner (I had bet the Sox and also figure the Yanks would benefit from these two teams playing a tight series)...yet he didn't.

Perhaps worst of all instead of Francona then going out and making sure his team was just a run down, he left Beckett in to face Mike Napoli. Izturis took second base and then Beckett plunked Napoli. Then, he finally took him out, right? Oh no, he left him in to face Ayber who tripled in two more runs. Finally, Francona went to Wagner and with the Sox now down 4-1 headed to the 8th inning, Wagner averted further damage throwing 98 MPH fastballs and struck out Chone Figgins on 3 or 4 pitches.

Perhaps best of all (since I already used worst of all) is the fact that Wagner gives off a leadoff single the next inning and then Francona goes to Papelbon! So, he's willing to use his power arms to keep them in a 4-1 game with just 3 outs for his own team left, but not in a 1-1 (or even 2-1) game with 6 outs remaining for his hitters? What kind of sense does this make? He was willing to use Papelbon for two innings if necessary yet waited all that time to bring in Wagner?

I discussed the decision with a Pewch reader and respected Red Sox fan who didn't seem to agree with me. He thought it was debatable at best. Personally, I thought it was every bit as bad as Grady Little leaving Pedro out there....sure it won't be as scrutinized or met with the legendary blunder that Little's move was, but it may have cost the Sox the series...too often managers only look at the pitch-count and don't best utilize their pitchers...in the regular season, ok, but this is the playoffs, you have to do whatever it takes to win every game.

Game 3 is history itself as Papelbon and the bullpen blew a late lead..so maybe Francona just knew his pen wasn't as good as advertised all along? More likely, a lot of the wind was already out of the Red Sox sails at this point.

Weekend Roundup

The baseball playoffs are on the horizon and almost everything is lined up. Thanks to an epic choke-job by the Detroit Tigers, we will now have to wait until the Tuesday tie-breaker with the Twins to see who has the right to get knocked out of the ALDS by the Yanks. Interestingly, the Tigers went from a basic lock, to now pretty big dogs to get in. Your pitching matchup will be a pretty good one with Tigers 20-year old phenom Rick Porcello and Twins young veteran Scott Baker. Twins opened -160, so we know where Vegas is siding. btw...the Metrodome is going to be WILD.

In college football Oklahoma was taken out by Miami. LSU made a statement (I guess?) against Georgia. And pretty much everyone else held serve in a number of boring matchups. Finally this weekend should be a little better based solely on the one matchup I am aware of - Florida and LSU.

As for the NFL:

Who would have guessed that the two teams who played in what we all thought was an atrocious game between Cincy and Denver in Week 1 would be a combined 7-1 after four weeks, with the only loss being Cincy's misfortune in that very game. Don't be too misled...I don't think either team is very good..but impressive start for both teams nonetheless.

The NFL, much like college football was littered with boring games. The Giants-Chiefs game near put me to sleep. Tennessee fell to 0-4. Mark Sanchez got welcomed back to Earth. The Bills looked like the worst team not in St. Louis in the NFL. New England and Baltimore was even boring despite being a close game between two good teams.

Then Pitt blew out San Diego last night...err..kind of. San Diego made an exciting late push (as usual) but ultimately Pitt held on to avoid 1-3.

That is why I strongly believe that Minnesota/Green Bay is going to be exciting besides all of the over-done Favre talk that we will be forced to listen to. This weekend gave us no life whatsoever. Boring, boring, boring. All week I have thought the under 45 was a good bet tonight, but that would be too much boring in one week. Bret Favre and Aaron Rodgers going to give us an old-fashioned shoot-out? Or maybe it will be an exciting, low scoring battle? Either way, please Minnesota/Green Bay, give us something worth watching.

Weekend Roundup

Couldn't post earlier as I went to work WWE...got to build the ring and I must say it is not as soft as I thought.
Also, outside the Times Union Center was a movie set...supposedly the set of a Will Ferrell movie...probably the most overrated comedian of all-time (and I'm not counting guys like Dane Cook who no one with half of a half of a half of a brain doesn't find funny).

Is there a more boring NFL venue than Tampa Bay? Watching the Giants pound them 24-0 actually made me wish I didn't get the game. I ended up watching as much of the Jets vs Titans since the atmosphere was so much better. Speaking of which, how about those 3-0 Jets?

The Bills are still terrible.

Overall a fairly boring week in the NFL. There was the Minnesota come-from-behind victory. Cincy taking out the Steelers, as Pittsburgh blew a late lead (rare). The Lions finally won a game. Jacksonville got some life. Philly, even against a terrible KC team, put the league on alert, they may be the best team in the NFL.

College Football was predictably quite boring. Overrated Penn St fell to Iowa, fairly predictably. It's funny all the talk about Iowa running the table and being a top-5 team in the nation. Too funny. The team is terrible...how does everyone not realize that Ohio St was, is and for the next couple of years will be the class of the Big Ten? We found out Ole Miss was overrated (OK, another thing we all knew). Alabama is officially looking like the 2nd best team in the country. And it turns out Jacory Harris isn't accurate (who would have thought?).

Baseball playoffs are just around the corner. The Braves have made a serious run at the NL Wild Card, winning six straight and have a favorable remaining schedule than the Rockies. Still going to be hard to pick up two games, but at least there is a little drama in the pre-playoff MLB season.

Weekend Roundup

-Not a whole lot of surprises in the NFL. Mark Sanchez and the Jets looked sharp. As did the Giants. Maybe now everyone will stop acting as if Aaron Rodgers is the second coming of Peyton Manning? Nice quarterback? Yes. NFL MVP this season? Very unlikely.

-Was that Jay Cutler or Rex Grossman running the show in Chicago last night? The Bears offense looked like a total disaster. Jay Cutler may have broke that one guy's record for most consecutive times hitting an opposing defensive back in the hands. The guy really doesn't value the football. To be fair, the Chicago wideouts are the worst in the league. Additionally, they are not yet on the same page as Cutler. Green Bay should have won that game by a lot more, but I still think if Urlacher can play and be effective that the Bears will end up the better team. The Pack defense got pressure by sending tons of blitzers, singling up on the Chicago wideouts and taking advantage of a confused offense. Chicago's D was able to get pressure using their 4 down lineman.

-The Bungles did it again. One of the most inconceivable losses I can remember. Can you imagine being a Bengals fan? You go to the game and sit through what I imagine was a disgustingly poor 1st half where no one can score. It's 6-0 late in the game against the lowly Broncos and you finally punch it in for the win. Finally, it was worth sitting through the disaster and then that happens. Have to imagine half the people in attendance will never go back.

-Dallas offense looked much sharper without TO. Can't wait to see the Buffalo offense look less sharp with him! Go Western New York!

-Can you draw it up any better than McNabb getting hurt week one? Now Philly is forced to go to Kevin Kolb (who my buddy in Philly said looked terrible yesterday) for a week. Then they have to hope and pray that McNabb will be ready to go otherwise they have to then make another QB switch to Michael Vick (something tells me they'll platoon Kolb and Vick if Kolb is even halfway dreadful this week, just a guess). Obviously they go back to McNabb whenever he gets back, but this situation could get sticky, Philly looks like the best candidate to be the contending team running a complete circus act this season (thanks to Buffalo being complete garbage and irrelevant).

-Adrian Peterson is Purple Jesus and Purple Jesus is Christ.

-In college football, there were a couple of great games in Michigan-Notre Dame and USC-Ohio St. They didn't disappoint though arguably the two teams that deserved to win, lost. I thought Ohio St completely outplayed USC, but Pete Carroll coached an excellent game and of course USC got it done. Incredibly disappointing to my prediction of Ohio St winning the Nat'l Championship.

-Roger Federer is ridiculous.


-In a continued effort to be the blogosphere's leading home for foot fault enthusiasts, I'd like to say that Serena Williams really took the whole thing to a new level. I would post the video, but I'm sure everyone has seen her threatening the poor line judge that she was going to shove the tennis ball down her bleeping throat. The match ended as the cry-baby was about to lose to an old mother (KIm Clijsters) anyway. Has this ever happened before? Someone is penalized a point for making a threat and it turns out to decide the match? At least Serena offered an unapologetic apology. The real question is, who would you rather have threatening you after calling them for a foot fault, Serena Williams or Andy Roddick? I think Roddick is the clear choice.