TruffleShuffle

starlin's ops is 1.038 by the way, and his BA is up to .436. he's awesome.

it was on the 5th pitch of the AB, a 2-2 count. mesa managed to get a leadoff triple and two singles in that inning and not score - the batter after castro singled to left but somehow castro got thrown out at home on that play, then one out later vitters hit a ground ball single (on the first pitch) and the guy who singled after castro was thrown out at home. it's possible that he's the best shortstop in the organization right now, so now that's not ridiculous. although the cubs already do have an "established" ss and i suspect he'll be playing that position for all of 2010 in a cub uniform.

ohio state's kicker is out for the year (possibly could be back for bowl game) with a torn mcl. that could be a big deal for their next two games.

starlin says "shove your secondary skills up your a**" and hits a home run in the 4th inning.

I really don't know what else you could ask for from a 19 year old SS. well identifying his lack of patience/power is fine, but it really is nitpicking. how many 19 year old middle infielders from latin america show good power and patience? he's shown a good glove in the AFL and leads the league in batting average as the second-youngest player in the league. that's fine.

fatal staples center collapse brings merciful early end to clippers game

in the end, Wisniewski sits 2 for a much cleaner hit than Richards'- you had your cynical scenarios reversed right except richards' arm was in against his body and the hit was made with the shoulder, whereas wisniewski put his arm out and did the contact with his forearm and elbow, so it wasn't much cleaner at all.

the yankees are going to be the reason that we get a rule for how many meetings at the mound there can be between a pitcher and catcher.

frickin howard. damon had to get by him to get to 1B; there's no reason to turn around and run back to 1B with your back to hinske.

starting burnett tonight was a huge mistake. wouldn't you rather sort of concede tonight's game by going gaudin against the other team's ace, then come back with a rested burnett against pedro at home in game six? now you've got a tired 37 year old facing pedro in game six, which i could easily see the phillies winning.

holy cross is up to #14 in the fcs rankings... we'd be top 10 if we hadn't lost to friggin brown. i guess there's still a chance that we'd get a home game for the first round of the fcs playoffs if we win out.

welcome to pitchers at the end of a long season on three days' rest. c.c. was only okay last night (10 baserunners in 6.2 innings, fortunate that the home run was hit with the bases empty and a handful of sharply-hit ground balls right at infielders) and burnett is struggling tonight. after this you would have a pitcher in his late 30s with 225 innings this year, working on three days rest, and then c.c. pitching on three days rest for the second time in the series. the phillies are in bad shape but with the way that girardi has played the pitching in this series, they have at least some hope.

we've slaughtered our last two opponents 6-1 and 6-2, which is cool. still, all the news is not good as simon gagne has suffered his annual long-term injury and is out 6 to 8 weeks, and danny briere and ryan parent have started to have some groin problems. we have good depth at forward (james van riemsdyk is looking like the real deal) but if we have to play syvret and tollefson for most of the season, we're not going to have any shot at winning the division.

today: castro, dh line drive single to lf on first pitch; stole 2b as part of a double steal ground out to 3b on 2-0 pitch ground ball single to lf on 1-1 pitch; caught stealing strike out looking on 2-2 pitch vitters, 3b ground out to 2b on first pitch fly out to shallow lf on 0-1 pitch line drive triple to cf on 3-2 pitch fly out to cf on 2-2 pitch gaub pitched a perfect inning. apparently michael brenly came in as a defensive sub in the 9th inning; i didn't even know he was participating in this league.

fail really, what are the rules supposed to be? you can't hit someone unless they see you coming? at some point there has to be a burden on the offensive player to keep his head up as he enters the offensive zone.

northwestern @ iowa -17.5 wake @ georgia tech -14.5 duke @ unc -7.5 vandy @ florida -32.5 lsu @ bama -9 kansas -2.5 @ kansas st oklahoma -6 @ nebraska ohio st @ penn st -3.5 oregon st @ cal -6 washington @ ucla -4.5 oregon -5 @ stanford florida st @ clemson -8.5 houston -2.5 @ tulsa usc -11.5 @ arizona st purdue @ michigan -3.5

In all seriousness, Blanton didn't do TOO bad as people feared he would. The Phils offense left 7 men on base, especially the one where they pulled a Cub-like in the 5th inning with runners on 2nd and 1st with no outs. no he pitched fine, and the yankees were really lucky to score their second two runs off him. there was a walk (his fault), a perfectly-placed bouncer up the middle, a perfectly-placed ground ball through the left side, and a perfectly-placed bloop single to right.

[expletive]. three complete garbage hits for the yankees in the 5th inning.

that's because the other six undefeated teams haven't played 9 games yet.

This. I could not be less interested in baseball right now. Same here, especially between these two teams. It's going to be a long wait before next week. so you're not watching atlanta-new orleans tomorrow night?

lol @ mike everitt on that play at the plate.

i would still like to know why howard is batting cleanup and werth #5 against a lefty starter.

yup. if you want to see unexploitable, look at steroid-era bonds or ted williams. williams hit like .350 with good power and walked three times more often than he K'ed; his career high in K's was 51 in 150 games. mcgwire was a hitter you could get out with good pitches, but he wouldn't chase bad pitches unless he was behind in the count, and if you made a mistake he'd destroy it. mcgwire wasn't this force that drew tons of walks and was feared by every pitcher in the league until he was basically a steroid-inflated cartoon character that hit home runs at a rate never seen before.

he threw 120 pitches 4 days ago; that decision was pretty much made when they let him go deep into the ballgame. this has to be one of the fatter pitching matchups in recent memory. It was stupid on Wednesday when they let him go out there for the ninth inning up 6-1 and throw an extra 18 pitches. They probably could have taken him out after the seventh up 4-0 and saved an extra 12 pitches also, but sending him out for the ninth was completely unnecessary. And Sabathia threw 113 pitches that same game - only nine fewer than Lee did - but he's coming back for tonight's game. If they were up 2-1, then I could understand it. But if you lose this one, you're nearly done, especially since you'd have to go to New York and win twice, if you could beat Burnett in Game 5. yeah i understand your point, but lee has never pitched on three days rest and would have to do it twice; at least one of those times would be coming off a 120-pitch inning. lee has thrown 265 innings this year and isn't built like sabathia. there's also this: "postseason starters are 20-34 with a 4.65 ERA when working on 3 days' rest or fewer"... i look at it this way, blanton is rested and ready to go, sabathia has a lot of miles on that arm this year, and if the phillies can take this one then they're going to be favored to win tomorrow night and go to new york only needing one win, and they'll be facing a shaky andy pettitte and c.c. pitching for the second time in the series on three days rest. the way i look at it, the phillies need to win the next two nights, not just tonight, and the best chance to win both is to have a rested lee and blanton rather than short-rest lee and either short-rest pedro or blanton.

in his best year he struck out 155 times. because everyone knows striking out automatically means you're a bad hitter, right? seriously, how many hitters do we have to see that strike out a ton yet still absolutely rake before we stop viewing striking out a lot as such a terrible thing?