Baseball

Phils look real if the pitching holds up, much like the Cubs. At this point, the NL west need not apply. Cubs and Phils don't meet til the end of August. By then the pretenders will be falling away (Cards, Marlins). Dodgers are better than their record and should be at or near first by then. Still have a ways to go if they hope to defeat the NL East/Central offensive onslaughts. Pittsburgh is also better than their record and should overtake the Brewers and possibly the Cardinals. Rumor mill has Junior going to Chicago.

Good series...Cubs/Braves at Wrigley Tues-Thurs.

moderan wrote: Dodgers are better than their record and should be at or near first by then

I really like the Dodgers this year.  One of the few teams that plays ball the old fashioned way, with good pitching, solid fielding, and a knack for getting on base, rather than waiting for the longball (Jeff Kent leads the team in homers with 8 ).  They've got a hell of a pitching staff, though they had a few slow starts: Lowe got off to a really bad start (sinkerball pitchers tend to be quite subject to luck anyways), 23-year old Chad Billingsley came out of nowhere after a weak April (check out his latest 7 starts, he's been freaking unbelievable), and we all know that Brad Penny is significantly better than he's pitched this year.  Arizona is basically LA's only competition in the NL West, and they've really slowed down after a powerful start.  With a few pitchers returning to form and monster shortstop Rafael Furcal returning from the DL within about a week, I can only see good things in the Dodgers' future. 

Chase Utley is f**king incredible.  He's the first second baseman to be the first in the majors to 20 HR's since ROGERS HORNSBY.  You know you're doing things well when the only good comparison is to Rogers Hornsby.

He's only the first to 20 because A-Rod has spent half the season hurt, though.  He's hit a homer just about every day since he came back from the DL. 

FINALLY.  I was getting sick of the hype around it.  Every time he came to the plate, it would flash at the bottom of the screen "Ken Griffey Jr. is at the plate!" and then thirty seconds later "Griffey struck out looking" or whatever. 

600 is just an arbitrary number anyways.  601 is more impressive than 600, and 602 more impressive than 601, but nobody cares about the ones that aren't round numbers. 


Edited by rileydog22 - June 09 2008 at 21:21

moderan wrote: Agreed about the Dodgers...they're real young and sorta green, but Torre is one of the good choices to lead/tutor a team like that. Kent isn't a clubhouse leader or anything like that, keeps to himself mostly and so does Nomar, so the on-field leadership has to come from the coaching/managing staff until a position player develops that kind of persona. Billingsley looks very good. Penny is the key to a possible division title for them. If he pitches reasonably well, or close to his historical form, they have a real chance to do good things in that division. D-backs look to be playing desperate already and that isn't good a third of the way into the season. Utley is ridiculous and doesn't seem to be playing over his head. His bat speed through the strike zone is as good as anyone's and he has good judgement of the strike zone and seems to have a grasp of what pitchers are trying to do to him. He'll struggle a little against pitchers with good control who are able to execute the old Atlanta gameplan (outside, a little more outside, further outside) and get the calls, but if they make a mistake in location he'll gladly whack the ball to the off-field. Philly could probably play small-ball with their personnel, but they don't have to and have showed little inclination to do so. I still see the National League as a two-horse race between the Phils and Cubs...the junior circuit has a couple more entries but things look like Boston again unless someone on a hot streak at years' end can knock them off in the short series. Can't entirely discount the Cards because LaRussa will do everything he can to manage them into the playoffs but I don't think they have the horses to make it. Florida or Pittsburgh could conceivably win the wild-card, or Dodgers/Arizona, whichever doesn't win the division. Whatever happens, terrific season so far, plenty of surprises. My lady was kind enough to buy the MLB satellite package for me as a Father's Day present, so I'll look forward to being a captive audiene as I sit here in my office and do the stuff I do.

That's definitely the one thing they're really missing right now.  My impression of Jeff Kent is that he's more of a detriment in the clubhouse than simply a non-factor (remember Kent in San Fran?), and even if Nomar had the leadership skills he isn't with the team often enough to help.

They've gotten lucky so far at 3B, I think.  They should have planned that team assuming that Nomar wasn't going to play most of the season, because the fact is that he cannot be counted on to play many games.  They've gotten lucky as hell with Blake DeWitt, who is currently outplaying his talent; you don't raise your slugging percentage by 100 points when you take the leap from AAA to the majors unless you're getting seriously lucky. 

Me and my friends were betting before the season started how late into April Nomar would last before he got hurt.  The answer: he hit the DL on March 31. 

Furcal is now thought to be on the DL until about 3 weeks from now, rather than 1.  As a result, the Dodgers have stated that they're gonna put Nomar back at short when he returns from the DL.  I have a feeling that that's not gonna end well 

Ugggh, yeah, I saw that item on Sportscenter. Hopefully Furcal can return before Nomar goes on back on the DL.

The Tigers just completed a 3-game sweep of the first place Chicago Pale Hose with a Miguel Cabrera walk-off home run in the bottom of the 9th inning to win 2 to 1.  I was at last night's game and Justin Verlander definitely pitched his best game of the year with a 4 hitter and the Tigers winning 5 to 1.  FYI, today is the 1 year anniversary of Verlander's no-hitter against the Milwaukee Brewers.

I was at the game on Monday too.  Dontrelle was absolutely atrocious.  He threw 60+ pitches in 1 1/3 innings and only 20+ of them were strikes, and it wasn't because the umpire was squeezing him.  He pitched like the left-handed version of Ricky Vaughn (the movie Major League reference).  Brandon Inge, the catcher, did his best John Travolta Saturday Night Fever imitation trying to catch most of his pitches.  (the dance where he points high in the air.  Most of the pitches were high and outside). 

Unfortunately, the papers here are comparing Dontrelle to Rick Ankiel.  A young pitcher with a ton of potential who developed a mental block when it came to throwing strikes.  A lot of it does have to do with mechanics, and as Dontrelle said, finding that rhythm but I suspect that that mental block is there too, and that might be just as difficult to overcome.