MixBlog 10-27-11

I need to put some content up here so the twelve or so of you who are actually reading this stuff (as compared to all the hits I get from people doing Google searches for pictures of shirtless guys*) continue to stop by, so here are some little observations...

Baseball: Right now I'm watching Game 6 of the World Series. It's kind of bizarre. It's 4-4 in the 6th as I write this and both the Texas Rangers and St. Louis Cardinals seem to be trying to give the game away with various displays of ineptitude. If they're this mistake-prone in Game 6, what happens if the Cards tie the series and they have to play the dreaded all-or-nothing Game 7? Update: 7-4 Texas in the 7th. Will this game end before I finish this post?

Hockey: Speaking of mistake-prone, I had the Flyers game on earlier. They were playing the Atlanta Thrashers Winnipeg Jets 2.0, who came into the game with a 2-5-1 record, at the Whatever-The-Bank's-Called-This-Week Center. Last night the Flyers lost at Montreal by a 5-1 score. The Canadiens were 1-5-2 before beating the Flyers and hadn't won a home game. So you had to figure the Flyers would be kind of desperate to put together a solid effort.

They fell behind 5-1 in the second period. I tweeted about it at the time and used these hashtags: #karma #apologizesimmonds (referring to this). After the teams traded goals, the Flyers then scored two more in the second and three in the first three minutes of the third period to take a 7-6 lead. I was worried that my tweet was serving as a reverse jinx.

2011 World Series

It's the St. Louis Cardinals and the Texas Rangers this year.

Bleh. I don't want either team to win (although I suppose, if you held a gun to my head, I'd say I hate St. Louis and their phony fans and their slimy manager who supports the Tea Party nuts more than the team once co-owned by George W. Bush). I don't plan to watch very intently. It might be on in the background while I'm online or something but that's it. But since I've been making predictions for the playoffs, I guess I have to do it for this series as well, so...Rangers in 5.

Wake me up when pitchers and catchers report to Clearwater.

Sigh

WTF?

I can't bring myself to say more yet. I just want to throw up...

2011 Division Series Predictions

You can be pretty sure of one of my picks for the MLB playoffs' first round...or can you? Could I actually pick against the Phillies? Stay tuned.

First, I tweeted the AL picks earlier since I knew I wouldn't get around to this post before the games were played. Just a little elaboration, though:

AMERICAN LEAGUE

NY Yankees vs. Detroit Tigers: My thought was that the Yankees' CC Sabathia and the Tigers' Justin Verlander would cancel each other out, and that of the remaining pitching, the Tigers had the edge. So my pick was Tigers in 5. Tonight, though, Game 1 was suspended in the second inning due to rain, and will resume tomorrow. That takes both Game 1 starters, Sabathia and Verlander, out of the picture. With Game 2 now on Sunday and no off day, it appears Verlander will now pitch on Monday in Game 3, which means he couldn't start a possible Game 5. Sabathia, on the other hand, may start Game 2 and be available for a possible Game 5. This series has now taken a turn. I'm sticking with my pick, though.

Texas Rangers vs. Tampa Bay Rays: After the incredible events of Wednesday night put the Rays into the playoffs, I get the feeling they're going to ride the wave. Despite not having home-field advantage, my pick was Rays in 5. And so far, so good: Tampa Bay blasted Texas 9-0 in Game 1. Last year these teams met in the ALDS with the Rays having the extra home game, but the road team won all five games in the series as Texas went on to win the AL title. I'd be surprised if that happened again.

Phillies: So Much For Those "Previews"

At the end of June the Phillies and Boston Red Sox played a three-game series at Citizens Bank Park. The media, fans, etc. hyped it as a "World Series preview."

The Phils took two of three. The Red Sox aren't in the playoffs after their mighty September collapse, capped off by last night's stunning 9th-inning loss at Baltimore combined with the Tampa Bay Rays' rally from a 7-0 deficit to beat the Yankees in extra innings.

At the end of July, and again in early August, the Phils and San Francisco Giants got together for the first time since last year's NL Championship Series. The matchup was hyped, again, as a "preview" of a possible playoff rematch.

The Phils took 4 of 7, including 3 of 4 out west. The Giants faded badly and finished eight games out of first place. They aren't in the playoffs.

At the beginning of September the Phils welcomed the Atlanta Braves to town

Dumb In Dallas

I'm not quite sure which comment (stereotype?) applies more, "men are stupid" or "Dallas sucks." (Okay, "Dallas sucks" is not a stereotype, at least when it comes to the Cowboys.) A blogger for a weekly paper called the Dallas Observer took Texas Rangers pitcher Colby Lewis to task for leaving the team to be with his wife, who gave birth to the couple's second child. Lewis missed a start. The Observer writer, Richie Whitt, wrote:

Don’t have kids of my own but I raised a step-son for eight years. I know all about sacrifice and love and how great children are.

But a pitcher missing one of maybe 30 starts? And it’s all kosher because of Major League Baseball’s new paternity leave rule?

Follow me this way to some confusion.

Imagine if Jason Witten missed a game to attend the birth of a child. It’s just, I dunno, weird. Wrong even.

The blog Hay Ladies! did an excellent job in responding to Whitt's ridiculous commentary. There's only one thing I feel the need to add: many, many baseball players have missed games when their wives had a baby. It's been going on for a long time, especially since a flight can get a player home in hours. It's not like the old days when teams traveled by train. The only new angle to this particular story is that Major League Baseball now has a paternity leave rule that allows teams to add a player to the roster for a 24-72 hour period. The Rangers wanted an extra pitcher, so they used the rule to call up an pitcher from the minors. Lewis became the first player to be placed on the new paternity leave list. (There's been a bereavement list for a few years now, for serious illnesses or deaths of immediate family members.)

This shouldn't have been a big deal. Actually, it isn't a big deal, except to this Dallas neanderthal and those who "think" like him.

Hat tip to one of my Twitter followers, @jboschan, who posted the link to the Hay Ladies! blog.

Some More Random Musings

Random funny picture.

A few randomly random items to hold you over while I gear up to write about those three movies I saw recently. Starting with some sports stuff...

• The World Series is over. Praise Jebus. So much for my prediction of Texas winning. The San Francisco Giants won in five games, in one of the least exciting Series I can remember. It got off to a decent start in Game 1 -- the Rangers scored single runs in the first two innings, and the Giants tied it with two in the third -- but after that it was virtually all Giants. They routed the Rangers in the first two games. The series shifted to Texas and the Rangers managed their only win, but the Giants then took the final two games. Except for that first game, there were no lead changes in the entire series. Once a team scored, they were ahead the rest of the way. The only interesting thing about tonight's game is that it was scoreless until the 7th. But at least George W. Bush's team lost.
• The Eagles had the week off. Just as well since the NFL is just bizarre. From week to week, you can't say for sure who's going to win a game, and the off-field stuff is mind-boggling. Just today, adding to the continuing Brett Favre drama in Minnesota is the Randy Moss drama -- the Vikings announced they would release Moss less than a month after giving up a 3rd-round draft pick to get him from New England, to the apparent consternation of the team's owner, who wanted Moss back.
  
  And remember all the drama over Donovan McNabb's being traded by the Eagles to Washington? Well, on Sunday, near the end of the game he was benched in favor of Rex Grossman with the Redskins trailing Detroit by 6. Rex freakin' Grossman! After the game Washington coach Mike Shanahan said that he benched McNabb because he felt Grossman was more comfortable running the two-minute offense. Today he said it was because...well, here's the quote: "The cardiovascular endurance that it takes to run a two-minute, going all the way down with no timeouts, calling plays, it's just not easy." So McNabb has gone from being a hero, the guy who would lead the Redskins back to glory, to a guy whose coach thinks he's not smart enough and/or out of shape! Wow.

My 2010 World Series Thoughts

Okay, so I didn't think either team would get to this point. That doesn't mean anything except that postseason experience isn't always so important. That won't come into play here, because the Texas Rangers have never been to the World Series and the San Francisco Giants haven't been here since 2002, almost a lifetime ago in baseball years. If my guess is true I won't be too happy because while they're the Texas Rangers, it's basically a Dallas team, and we all know Dallas sucks. Plus, the Rangers are the team that used to be owned by George W. Bush, and who wants him to celebrate anything? Unfortunately, Texas will win. Unlike the Phillies, the Rangers have hit well all year and continued to do so in the playoffs. The Giants can't match the Rangers' hitting prowess, and while they have a strong pitching staff, they don't have Cliff Lee. Rangers in 5.

Phillies, Yankees Still Alive

The hopes of those people who wanted to see a rematch of the 2009 World Series (not to mention my predictions for the League Championship Series) took a pair of deep hits this week, but both the Phillies and Yankees are still alive. I'll deal with the Phillies in a moment.

I didn't really expect, after their hideous collapse late in Game 1, blowing a 5-0 lead after 6 and losing 6-5, that the Texas Rangers would bounce back so well. They scored early in Game 2, rolling to a 7-2 win. Then the series shifted to Yankee Stadium, and the Rangers took Games 3 (8-0) and 4 (10-3), with Cliff Lee again displaying his mastery of the Yankee hitters in Game 3. The Yankees rebounded in Game 5 with a 7-2 win despite the Rangers picking up 13 hits -- 11 off CC Sabathia in 6 innings. What disturbed me was a quote I read in today's paper, from Rangers manager Ron Washington after Game 4: "We are not thinking about how we are going to close anyone out. If it happens, it happens. And if it don't, it doesn't happen."

That just sounds a little too casual for my tastes. The experience of the Yankees over the years means that they weren't just going to roll over and die. If you have a team like that down, you have to keep them down. Sure enough, now the series goes back to Texas. The advantage the Rangers have, on paper, is that even if they lose Game 6, they'll have Yankee-killer and postseason stud Lee pitching Game 7. Then again, too often in sports such advantages aren't worth

2010 League Championship Series Picks

Since it's about a half-hour until the first pitch of the American League Championship Series, I figured I shouldn't wait any longer to go on record with my predictions. In the first round I had Giants in 4 (perfect), Phillies in 4 (they won in 3), Yankees in 5 (they also won in 3) and Rays in 4 (womp womp).

Texas Rangers vs. New York Yankees: The Rangers won the first two in Tampa, then lost two at home, then went back to Tampa and won. This means a couple of things: they aren't entirely fazed by playoff pressure, but they're also not quite up to the task here, as much as I'd like them to be. Losing those games at home meant Cliff Lee had to start Game 5 against the Rays, meaning he can't pitch until Game 3 in this series and can only start twice against the Yankees. I really want to be wrong here, but...Yankees in 6.


Philadelphia Phillies vs. San Francisco Giants: Will the much-hyped Roy Halladay-Tim Lincecum matchup in Game 1 live up to its billing? Speaking of which, some stat nut decided that Lincecum's complete-game shutout against Atlanta was a better performance than Halladay's no-hitter against the Reds based on some idiotic numerical crap. These Moneyball freaks just live to ruin everything. I think "The Simpsons" summed it up best in Sunday's "MoneyBART" episode, in which Lisa took over as Bart's Little League coach and then had to learn the game. (I thought it was one of their better episodes in recent years, actually.) She came upon Springfield's sabermetricians (at Moe's), and leader of the stat nuts Bill James has a cameo -- he's shown on an online video in which he says, "I made baseball as much fun as doing your taxes!" Truer words were never spoken, Bill, even if you think you were making fun of yourself. But I digress. Both teams have strong pitching, so it'll come down to which offense can generate enough production on a given night, making it probably a tough series. But the Phils' offense has more potential to explode, and if they do, it'll end more quickly. Phillies in 6.

A Few Non-Phillies Baseball Thoughts

While we wait to see if Roy II (Oswalt) can live up to the performance of Roy I (Halladay) in Game 2 of the NL Division Series tomorrow, here are some comments on some of the other series...

Both Tampa Bay and Minnesota are on the brink of elimination already, both losing twice at home to fall behind 2-0 in the best-of-five series. And today, both teams' managers were ejected under similar circumstances.

At Tampa Bay, the Texas Rangers' Michael Young tried to check his swing on a 2-2 pitch in the 5th inning. The umpires ruled he did. On the next pitch he hit a 3-run homer to give the Rangers a 5-0 lead. Rays manager Joe Maddon (who was just shown in a vitamin commercial saying it's important he keep his focus, or something) went out to talk to his pitcher, yelled at the first-base ump who made the checked-swing ruling, and was thrown out of the game.

At Minnesota, Twins pitcher Carl Pavano thought he had the Yankees' Lance Berkman struck out looking in the 7th, but the pitch was called a ball, and Berkman then doubled in the go-ahead run. Twins manager Ron Gardenhire came out to talk to Pavano, and stayed until the home plate umpire came out to break up the gathering at the mound, and Gardenhire then said something that led to his ejection.

Just a strange coincidence, but both the Rays and Twins are struggling and the loss of composure needs to be solved if either team wants to make a miraculous comeback and prevent a Yankees-Rangers AL championship series.

2010 Division Series Predictions

I figured I'd better document these before tomorrow, when the baseball playoffs begin.


American League

Texas vs. Tampa Bay: Texas has Cliff Lee now but Tampa has playoff experience from 2008 and had a much tougher road to get into the postseason than did the Rangers. Rays in 4.

NY Yankees vs. Minnesota: Boy, would I love love love to see the Twins finally break through and beat the Yankees. Unfortunately, Yankees in 5.

National League

Atlanta vs. San Francisco: Braves staggered in September. Giants not only caught up to San Diego but held off Colorado as well. Low-scoring series. Giants in 4.

And, as always, saving the best for last...

Cincinnati vs. Philadelphia: The Reds are the Phillies...of 2007: an upstart division winner that goes out in the first round. The Phillies are the Reds...of 1976, the Big Red Machine that easily pushed aside another upstart division winner, the Phils. Phillies in 4.