Jon

It was regional last year. If your provider only has one channel, then you'll only get the regional game. It doesn't apply to providers with alternate channels unless you don't have enough alternates to get all of the games.

You're just lucky the new version lets mods edit posts without leaving the edit tag.

Awesome, Gooz. Any chance for a 4th inning of work?

I took note of these numbers last week, so I'll include them: May 1 through August 10 Team - .278/.350/.444/.794 Soriano - .329/.371/.641/1.012 Edmonds - .273/.374/.597/.971 (with the Cubs) Johnson - .302/.356/.500/.856 Ramirez - .275/.368/.473/.841 Soto - .266/.337/.451/.788 DeRosa - .269/.353/.441/.794 Lee - .269/.331/.412/.743 Theriot - .311/.388/.353/.741 Fukudome - .251/.347/.373/.720 May 1 through August 15 Team - .280/.353/.447/.800 Soriano - .319/.363/.622/.985 Edmonds - .270/.376/.600/.976 Johnson - .306/.356/.497/.853 Ramirez - .285/.377/.492/.869 Soto - .273/.347/.468/.815 DeRosa - .278/.369/.458/.827 Lee - .267/.328/.406/.734 Theriot - .317/.396/.357/.753 Fukudome - .252/.348/.369/.717 Since May 1st, it hasn't just been Lee. Before the offensive explosion of the last week, Soto had a disappointing .337 OBP. Fukudome provided no power. Heck, Ramirez was underperforming, as well. Lee's LD% and BABIP have seemingly peaked pretty recently while his GB% has bottomed, though his FB% has consistently remained too low. He was hitting far fewer groundballs and replacing those with line drives. His walk rate was up, but now it's dropping back down again. That good period didn't seem to help his overall numbers a whole lot, however. I'd give him a day of rest a little more often, but I certainly wouldn't take him out of the lineup. They need him and it's not like the Cubs are in a particularly close race for a playoff spot.

His release point is rather low again, but his velocity is better than his last two times out.

Why did Altidore only play 45?

I'm not going to watch live, so I'll post this now: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3257/2572008728_c8f349e0a6.jpg?v=0

Congrats to Matt for the 2nd place finish.

My goodness Z is hilarious.

Josh Kalk at Baseball.BornByBits.com released this new web Pitchf/x tool a week or two ago. You can sort by pitcher, batter, result, count, pitch type, and/or break. I encourage everyone to check it out. http://baseball.bornbybits.com/php/2008_tool.php

4 AM Central live on USA Network.

Here are his breakdowns in 10 game stretches since May 1: .324 .366 .459 .825 .219 .375 .250 .625 .306 .409 .444 .853 .235 .381 .412 .793 .316 .422 .474 .896 .205 .279 .308 .587 .188 .278 .250 .528 .294 .368 .500 .868 .095 .130 .143 .273 (only 6 games) He really hasn't had a stretch where he really played amazingly well. The .800 OPS stretches are nice, but I would think the Cubs expected around a .820-.850 OPS out of Kosuke when they signed him. When that is considered his "good stretches", there is a problem. I personally like to look at irregular periods based on OPS trend: 3/31-5/1 - 121 PAs - .353/.455/.500 5/2-5/26 - 93 PAs - .218/.326/.295 5/27-6/27 - 111 PAs - .315/.423/.500 6/28-7/19 - 69 PAs - .161/.235/.226 7/20-8/2 - 50 PAs - .333/.440/.548 8/3-8/10 - 27 PAs - .080/.111/.120 So I did misremember a bit. I could have sworn that there was at least one more period of sub .300 OPS in there after May 1. Like the last thread, though, it's important to point out his lack of walks in this slump and his last one. In his first big slump, he still at least walked. Now, when he doesn't hit, he does nothing but make outs. He has still been hitting well more often than he has been hitting poorly. When he hits poorly, though, he's really bad.

As I've stated before, Kosuke has gone through several ups and downs. This isn't a consistent slump. In fact, when he does slump, it has been for 1-3 weeks at a time. He has been in good streaks more often than he has been in bad, but the problem is that he doesn't have streaks where he puts up a .600 or .700 OPS. He either hits .900 or below .300. So even though his overall numbers aren't good, it's not that he doesn't have plenty of periods where he does hit very well. It's just that when he slumps, he doesn't do anything. It's rather strange.

HAHAHA. Joe Morgan had to be the one to make a correction.

They may only have 6 hits, but they've walked 13 freakin' times.

Well this sucks.

Son of a...

Damn, Jozy. That was nice. Ah, crap.

Arrrrrrgh. Could've put this one away.

Nice job, Benny. A lot of players have been misjudging headers today from what I've seen.

Jozy is bringing some great pressure. Of course, he's fresh and this crappy pitch has probably taken something extra out of everyone. I'll agree with Balboa. Adu was lucky he didn't get a red. Thankfully, the head official didn't really see what happened.

I watched the first 20 minutes before skipping all the way to the 54th minute to catch up live. Those first 20 minutes looked horrible, so I'm not sure when the match started to turn around. Even within the last 15 minutes Adu has made a handful of beautiful passes. I don't know why Rogers started over Jozy, but I'm glad the substitution was made when it was. He made a few errors and was taken out shortly after.

2-1!!

Kljestan, that was beautiful! Hopefully the Dutch don't decide to wake up now.

Carlos' velocity was a tad better today, though not where we'd like to see it. His movement was also better, but obviously not his location. No real change in his release point from last time out.