Baseball Playoffs
 

The Yankees 8-4 rout of the Tigers is not a big surprise.

Today's big news is the A's and Zito beating the Twinkies and Santana, baseball's best pitcher. It's hard to get a lot of fastballs past Frank Thomas without him hitting it out of the park (twice). He can't hit Zito's curveball at all, which isn't an issue this year ;)

The playoffs are all about pitching and defense. That's where the A's are best. Except for Jay Payton, who muffs a lot of plays in LF. The A's pitching staff is deep right now with Loaiza, Haren, and Harden to start, and several regular-season starters on call for long relief. Minny is thin at pitching with their injuries now, and Oakland now coming back from injuries. So, beating Santana was very big.

After a bad September, the Cardinals took care of business in San Diego. They look ready for prime time again.

baseball is ghey

Agreed on the Yankees. You know their pitching isn't top notch this year but when their offense puts 8 runs on the board they aren't going to lose much.

That A's victory was fantastic from my view. Santana was lossless in his last 23 starts in the Metrodome. To go in there and take what looked like sure victory for Minnesota is a huge coup. Frank Thomas, with his two homers in that game, has finally provided what Beane was looking for with Durazo a few years back: somebody who can take the ball deep and score a few runs when facing a control pitcher like Santana. Zito picked the perfect time to pitch a great game and hold the Twins offense down. The pressure is really on Bosner now. I like Loaiza given his postseason experience but it's by no means an assured win.

St. Louis certainly has the players to win. As long as they don't underachieve like they did most of the year I think they'll make it past the Padres. Still, when a team collapses like the Cards did at the end of the year it makes you wonder.

I went to the bookies yesturday to bet on the yankees, Carpenters St.Louis and the Twins, only to find that the twins were favorite at 1,30!!!
Thats like Italy vs Egypt in soccer, and I'm like wtf?? Santana sucks, I've seen his past few starts, a totally hitable pitcher, I said why not take the 2,50.
So thanks to the A's, And 2 easy ones, I had a perfect day Yesturday.

The Mets are down to 1 pitcher=Glavine, and although I hope the Dodgers progress, I cannot bet against the Mets line-up, because I know that it has he ability to put more runs up then the Yankees.

I'm gonna take b.Bonser today, unless they friggin have it at 1,30 again,lol!
...but I doubt it..The rest goes to HOCKEY which happens to be starting TODAY!

split loyalties. Twins/Wild. Wild Home opener Thursday at 7. I'm there!

Wow. Hunter keeps Kotsay's hit in front of him and it's just 1st and 2nd with 2 outs. Not a terrible jam at all. A veteran has to take calculated risks and not just wildly gamble. Credit Kotsay for running hard out of the batters box. Even in his prime, Bonds would have been trotting to first then settle for a triple.

So, WHIP, I find it interesting that you would bet on a rookie pitcher in the playoffs. Doesn't seem like a good risk to me.

Warch, did I tell you already that my bro live in Minny? We went to the Steelers game at Vikings in Dec along with 20,000 other Steelers fans. Another trip we saw Joe Jackson over in St. Paul.

I think its weird having two different cities across the river. Cities I lived in, Portland and Pittsburgh, span rivers.

I'm not sure on Hunter. If he plays it's runners on 1st and 3rd with Bradley up. If he catches it inning over. Right then and there. I highly doubt he equated missing the catch with two runs scoring.

Now Santana sucks? Guess the A's are in good company :)

Santana's overated, always was, he's no Carpenter, he's no pedro, and of course his stuff dosen't come close to k-rod's or even in the same proximity as M.Rivera's.
The A's suck, they've sucked all year...I did make some cash off them game 1 though. But a team??? lol...someone had to be there for the Yankees to step on. Of course you have to cheer Jebediah, the Raiders can't bring you any joy.
Enjoy it while it lasts!

One questions remains in baseball, can the Dodgers surpass the Mets to face the Yankees in the World series? ..or will it be another NY-NY matchup?

EL OH EL!

Rain out = Afternoon game! Hooray!
I'm sure Fox and Espn could come up with a worse schedule for baseball but they'd have to try pretty hard. When I was a kid I remember coming home from school and watching playoff games. There is no way I'm letting my kids stay up all night watching baseball.

MLB just plain hates its fans sometimes. I paid for the radio pass to listen to games this year. Try to tune into the first playoff game and I get a page saying for only $9.99 I can listen to all the playoff games... WTF? Follow the whole season just so they can try to spread your wallet again? Stuff like that (and insane blackout rules, boneheaded scheduling, etc) is why Baseball is America's #2 sport.

Awww. Twins gone. It was fun while it lasted. Flew too close to the sun on wings of pastrami. Still, whoever...beat those Yanks!

But on to hockey: Wild beat the Avs in the home opener in OT..Todd-o White!

Looks like it not even be against the Yankees unless they get their act together.

Twins had a great run but they really had some major failures and played against a team who didn't make mistakes. Twins were really hurt by lack of depth among their starters, bullpen choking and hitters being unable to produce with men on base. Give them another year or two, they are a team going places if they avoid injury and fill a few holes.

Oakland played a good series and will benefit from the extra days of rest thanks to wrapping this up early.

If the Yankees win will they put Johnson back on the mound?

I don't know if that wasn't his last game ever. Good pitching beats good hitting so its starting to look like football season. The Yanks have to play a different brand of baseball than they played all year due to the personnel changes. On paper they look much stronger, but when a guy like Melky who performed in the clutch all year long ends up riding the bench and the other role players get almost no playing time you wonder if the team feels like a team.

Wow. Rogers was in a zone and couldn't be hit by the best lineup in baseball. I'm hoping that the A's don't have to face any more Jeter heroics.

The Unit shouldn't have gone out there for the sixth inning. Oh, yeah, the Yankees have no bullpen.

Looks like the Tigers are back on a roll.

Sorry that $200M did not pay off

http://cellar.org/2006/nelsonhaha.jpg

The Yankees aren't so much a team as a collection of great individual players. Sure it works out well for the most part but there is something lacking as you pointed to Griff.

Looks like pitching is the key this year. A's were #2 in AL pitching (behind the Twins who lost Liriano and had their bullpen choke). Have to think the A's have the edge but as I've said all along the playoffs are a crapshoot.

Ha ha ha ha ha

Jeremy Bonderman's slider was seriously nasty today. The Tigers kept running on the weak arms of the NY OFs. The Yanks are built only to hit and they didn't do that.

Looks like future Yankees southpaw Barry Zito will start for the A's Tuesday. There are not going to be a lot of runs in that series, 3 should win games.

It didn't look like luck against the Twins. As they said in the Merc today, the A's Won the War on Error. They executed well on defense. Outfielders threw guys out, infielders got to grounders, ...

The Tigers and the A's are similar, the series will go the distance.

Word is that Torre is to be fired as Yanks manager, to be replaced by Lou Pinella. Torre is arguably one of the most successful managers in baseball, but let the Yanks get knocked out in the first round of the playoffs a couple of times, and *bang!*

In KC, we lose 100 games and our manager is coming back next year.

I don't like either attitude. Torre kept all those primadonnas in line and this is the thanks he gets. :mad: At this point a hard salary cap would protect the Yanks from themselves. I like that they try to win though.

As opposed to the Pirates, who gave up trying to win. That seems like a hopeless situation.

The Twins were counting on a win from Santana and when that didn't happen the wind was out of their sails. Now suppose they did get that win. Would their bats have stayed silent? Would the bullpen have choked? It was still an uphill battle for them without Liriano and having Radke hurt but the Twins did a lot of winning during the year including against the A's. We Oakland fans had many years being in the position the Twins were in with a lot of "if only..." lamentations when the series finished.

The bar of success is so high there it wouldn't surprise me to see somebody take a fall. I'd be dissapointed if they didn't try to win but I firmly believe teams should prosper based on intelligence and athleticism and teamwork instead of how many people live in a team's market.

A's are really grasping now. Tigers have played more than good enough to win. Oakland is having a bout of their usual troubles this year: inconsitency and injury.

Why don't you just call it what it is...a terrible line-up!

No, it's great Tigers pitching, has been the best all year. And, injured A's defense. Mark Ellis makes that double play and Jimenez does not. Take SS and 2B out of any team and see what happens.

Just another lovely day in St. Louis...from MSNBC earlier this morning:

http://thebosque.us/cellar/2006thread11930.jpg

Congrats to the Cards! If there was one team from the NL I thought would win it was the Mets. Guess the crapshoot theory came to fruition once again. The Cards still get credit for not giving up and getting the job done.

The new improved Jeff Weaver is pretty good.