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The Philadelphia Phillies are one game from winning their first World Series Championship since 1980. They’ve dispatched the Tampa Bay Rays in impressive fashion three of four games so far and they could end the series tonight with Cole Hamels is on the hill.
While the team on the field has been impressive and powerful the fans in the stands have again earned notoriety for their anti-social behavior, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Todd Zolecki.
Rays manager Joe Maddon during his press conference before game four talked of how he exchanged some banter with a fan drinking Coors Light, indicating that any decent Philadelphian should be drinking Schmidt or Rolling Rock.
But he then pleaded with the fans to lay off of his granddaughter. Apparently some of the drunken idiots had been pelting her with mustard packets. I don’t know how old she is or where she is sitting, but come on – at the end of the day it’s still just a baseball game.
What possible reason could there be to throw stuff at kids? Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, Shane Victorino and the aforementioned Hamels are among the best in the game at their positions. They’re fun to watch and they’re close to bringing the city a championship the fans can celebrate.
Too bad a few yahoos apparently are trying to overshadow the experience.
What a difference a year makes.
The New York Yankees plan to keep Joba Chamberlain in the starting rotation, will consider bringing back Andy Pettitte and Mike Mussina and would like to sign more than one of the top free agent pitchers available this offseason, according to a story published in SportsIllustrated.com.
With their strategy of building from within and keeping homegrown prospects failing miserably this season, the Yankees will again open up the purse strings to pursue, among others, CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Derek Lowe, and possibly Ben Sheets, along with first baseman Mark Teixeira and potentially Manny Ramirez as free agents, Jon Heyman’s story indicates.
The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and Chicago Cubs won 197 games between them during the regular season leading many pundits nationwide to predict these teams would matchup in the World Series.
But in baseball only the unpredictable is predictable. Heading into the eighth inning Sunday night the Angels were tied 4-4 with Boston in their effort to avoid being swept out of the playoffs. A win would allow them to avoid the fate that once again befell the Cubs, who were taken out in three straight by the Los Angeles Dodgers.
The Cubs have now gone 100 years without a World Series championship. At this point the Angels don’t look like that good a bet either.
The Chicago White Sox 1-0 win over Minnesota finalized the matchups for round one of the Major League playoffs. Three of those series will kick off today.
In the early game the Philadelphia Phillies send Cole Hamels to the mound to face the Milwaukee Brewers – who haven’t been to the playoffs since 1982 – and Yovani Gallardo, who has pitched in just one game since tearing up his knee on the first day of May.
In the later games, the Boston Red Sox will play the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and the Chicago Cubs will host the Los Angeles Dodgers. The White Sox will head to Tampa tomorrow.
With Philadelphia clinching the NL East, six of the eight Major League Baseball playoff spots are filled. The final two spots will be determined by which two of four teams – one in each league – chokes less on the season’s final day.
The Chicago White Sox are this year’s version of the 2007 New York Mets, though the team from Queens is on a quest to blow a playoff spot in dramatic fashion for the second year in a row.
The Minnesota Twins and Milwaukee Brewers are the other teams in contention for chokers of the year.
The White Sox head into what should be the season’s final day on a five game losing streak, three of which were suffered at the hands of their division rival Twins. The Sox really would have needed just one win in the last five to lock up the Central – as the Twins have followed up their White Sox sweep with two clunkers against Kansas City.
Cliff Lee, who last year went 5-8 with a 6.29 ERA, shut out the Chicago White Sox Monday to become the first 20 game winner in the Major Leagues this year and the first in Cleveland since Gaylord Perry won 21 games in 1974.
While the Indians have had a modstly terrible season, playing themselves out of the race early on, Lee has continued pounding away, reaching 20 wins in just 27 starts.
He even beat Brandon Webb from Arizona to 20 wins. Webb has been stuck at 19 for two starts now ever since BrushBackPitch.com annointed him the Cy Young Award winner last week. It was his ninth straight win.
Major League Baseball announced Tuesday that it will start using limited instant replay on Thursday, when the Minnesota Twins open a series with the Oakland A’s–thus further solidifying football as America’s Pasttime, despite potential labor struggles in the NFL.
Instant replay will be used for the remainder of the year to decide fair or foul on home runs, in or out on home runs, and fan interference. Which is great, because umpires certainly have proven adept at screwing those calls up in recent years.
My biggest problem with the implementation process is when it’s occuring–randomly in the middle of the season? Meaning some teams will have more games with instant replay than others?
I’m guessing in the long run, it’s probably going to be a wash–but at the same time, if a team misses post season by a single game, and between them and the team they missed out to 2 games were decided by overturned close calls in an extra game or two of instant replay–aren’t they going to be a little upset?
Then again, what do you expect from a league that has home field advantage determined by an exhibition game mid-season?
When Brandon Webb hits the hill tonight for Arizona he’ll be shooting for 20 wins. I’d normally ignore a story like this but I didn’t realize that if he gets the “W” tonight he’ll be the first National League pitcher to reach that mark since Chris Carpenter, Roy Oswalt and Dontrelle Willis did so in 2005.
Yes, that’s right – the NL hasn’t had a 20 game winner in three seasons.
What’s even more amazing to me is that after tonight’s game the Diamondbacks will have 30 games left – so he should get six more starts.
Arizona and Webb will face a sad San Diego team that will send Chad Reineke to the mound. Webb has been rock solid this season against the Padres, going 2-0 and allowing only a single unearned run this year. But he’s only 6-7 against San Diego in his career.
With apologies to San Francisco’s Tim Lincecum, who has had a fantastic season, and CC Sabathia, who has been incredible since moving to Milwaukee, Webb has all but sewn up the Cy Young Award. He does face a couple hurdles tonight. He was hit in the ribs by a Kevin Kouzmanoff line drive in his last start. And before I realized what his situation was, I put a small wager on Arizona to win the game at CentSports.com, the site my brother keeps pimping at sister site, Zoneblitz.com. My betting on you is usually the kiss of death.
Nonetheless, I wish Webb luck. I knew he was having a great season but I didn’t realize just how good it was. It’d be neat to see a pitcher, in this day and age of six inning starts, approach 24 or 25 wins for once. Webb apparently has a bit of throwback to him.
Vin Scully sits in the Los Angeles Dodgers broadcast booth by himself performing both play-by-play and color, sometimes talking too much for some people’s taste, but always painting a wonderful picture of the ballgame.
In doing so during one recent game he noted seemingly innocuously that Jeff Kent’s batting average had increased 20 points in 10 games since Manny Ramirez arrived to provide him with some protection in the lineup.
In doing so, Scully apparently offended the douchbag of a second baseman, who told T.J. Simers of the Los Angeles Times “Manny was only hitting .300 in Boston with 20 home runs. And he’s doing way better than that here — so I’m helping Manny.”
It’s a shame at times when a one-time superstar hangs on too long instead of going out at the top of his game.
Tom Glavine hasn’t had a great season this year, but he might not get the chance to be one of the guys that sticks around too long. He left his start Thursday against the Chicago Cubs in the fourth inning after his elbow began to stiffen. He was diagnosed with a torn flexor tendon and was placed on the disabled list.
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