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I wouldn't say that quite yet-Guzman had good stuff, and his defense did make it worse for him overall, although he was still very hittable. I think Miller has the lead at this point though, and Guzman has some ground to make up if he wants to take the job.

Wait a minute-if McBride got fouled on a 3 point shot, then how did he shoot the first 2 and then Meachem get to shoot the last one? Did Weber pull a fast one on the officials, or was there something that I missed?

I don't think Guzman established himself as the clear favorite with this outing-but neither do I think is he out of the race yet. Here are the side by side stats of their last start (just for curiosity's sake-it's hard to know for sure whose outing was better when we saw one of the starts and didn't get to see the other one, as we know defense contributed to at least one or two runs of Guzman but we don't know for sure if that was the case for Miller or not): Miller: 4.0 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 5 K, 1 HR allowed Guzman: 3.2 IP, 7 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 1 BB, 0 K, 1 HBP, 0 HR allowed

That's going to be a tough performance to judge. Stuff wise, Guzman looked great. I thought that his stuff looked good a few times last year though when he was getting drilled. The defense could have not let runners move up a couple of times, or could possibly have not allowed a hit or two to go through-but there were a lot of solid hits, and one or two solid outs also (the play Lee made in the 1st for example). I'd say it was about on the same level of Miller's last performance-maybe a little worse, but it's hard to tell for sure without knowing what Miller's stuff was like last time.

At least 1 of the runs was his fault-he gave up 3 straight singles-1 run would at least have scored even if there hadn't been 2 misplays allowing runners to move up.

I don't know what you expected but that is about as bad a line as it gets. Maybe he expected him to be more like these NL East players who got at least 100 AB's: Pete Orr-.253/.277/.344 Todd Pratt-.207/.272/.341 Alfredo Amezaga-.260/.332/.332 Matt Treanor-.229/.328/.318 Reggie Abercrombie-.212/.271/.333 Lastings Milledge-.241/.310/.380 Chris Woodward-.211/.289/.311 Kazuo Matsui-.200/.235/.269 Sal Fasano-.243/.284/.386 Abraham Nunez-.211/.303/.277 Jose Guillen-.216/.276/.398 Robert Fick-.266/.324/.344 Marlon Byrd-.223/.317/.350 Damian Jackson-.198/.295/.371 Royce Clayton-.269/.315/.348 Brian Schneider-.256/.320/.329 Bernie Castro-.227/.286/.291 Remember when everyone on this board, myself included, wanted the Cubs to go after Kaz for our long-term solution at SS. Don't we all look foolish now. Not pursuing Kaz may be the best decision Hendry ever made. To be fair, when I posted those numbers, I was looking at the different team statistics-so Matsui's numbers there are only his time with the Mets. He was very, very good after going to the Rockies last year-so good in fact that it even raised his overall OPS between the two clubs to 679 :D

yeouch the scary thing is-there were 6 position players with more than 100 plate appearances who were actually worse than that, including a player who managed a 389 OPS.

That's a game I'm going to be watching very closely-I think there's a small but reasonable shot at an upset there.

I don't know about that-UNLV-GT looks like it could be close in the second half-UNLV is only up by 5.

I thought they wanted it to be every 4 years in the future, but would push the next one up to the third year (2009) to keep it from butting up against the World Cup of Futbol and Olympic years. 2013, 2017, 2021. It seems you are right-I thought they had originally said 2 (and I can't find anything from when they originally announced it as far as future schedule) but they definitely by the time the first tournament happened had decided on 200 9 and then every 4 years after that.

I think the original schedule was for it to be every 2 years, but they probably have at least pushed this one back a year to consider fully how the first one went and how to make it better.

I definitely think the fact that there were only 2 close games in the last minute out of 16 really hurt the day yesterday. Looking back on the first round last year: You had 8 seed GW beating 9 seed UNC-Wilmington by 3 12 seed Texas A&M upset Syracuse 14 seed Northwestern State beating 3 seed Iowa by 1 10 seed NC State beating 7 seed California 8 seed Kentucky beating 9 seed UAB in a close game by 5 11 seed George Mason beating 6 seed Michigan State 3 seed UNC only beating 14 seed Murray State by 4 2 seed Tennessee needing a last second shot to beat 15 seed Winthrop by 2 12 seed Montana beating 5 seed Nevada 4 seed BC beating 13 seed Pacific in double OT 11 seed Wisconsin-Milwaukee beating 6 seed Oklahoma 7 seed Georgetown beating 10 seed Northern Iowa in a close game by 5 9 seed Bucknell beating 8 seed Arkansas by 4 13 seed Bradley beating 4 seed Kansas 6 seed Indiana needing a 3 pointer with less than 10 seconds to play to beat 11 seed SDSU 3 seed Gonzaga beating 14 seed Xavier by only 4 10 seed Alabama beating 7 seed Marquette So last year in the first round-8 double digit seeds advanced. Also, several top ranked teams received scares, with a 15, two 14s, a 13, an 11 , and a 10 almost advancing. Also, 3 of the 4 8/9 games were quality games. So far this year you have one double digit seed advancing, and 1 good 8/9 game. So today would have to be upsets galore to even get close to last year.

I don't know what you expected but that is about as bad a line as it gets. Maybe he expected him to be more like these NL East players who got at least 100 AB's: Pete Orr-.253/.277/.344 Todd Pratt-.207/.272/.341 Alfredo Amezaga-.260/.332/.332 Matt Treanor-.229/.328/.318 Reggie Abercrombie-.212/.271/.333 Lastings Milledge-.241/.310/.380 Chris Woodward-.211/.289/.311 Kazuo Matsui-.200/.235/.269 Sal Fasano-.243/.284/.386 Abraham Nunez-.211/.303/.277 Jose Guillen-.216/.276/.398 Robert Fick-.266/.324/.344 Marlon Byrd-.223/.317/.350 Damian Jackson-.198/.295/.371 Royce Clayton-.269/.315/.348 Brian Schneider-.256/.320/.329 Bernie Castro-.227/.286/.291 When your 25th man who just made the team because of a hot ST beats the line of 17 position players in one division with similar at-bats, that's probably a little above expectations. Also, it is not nearly the worst line someone can get-there are at least several on there that are much worse, and if the other 5 divisions were looked at I'd bet there were at least 30-40 more around the majors. Now, that doesn't mean Pagan is good-the mere fact that he exceeded expecations with his .700 is enough to make him easily expendable. He wasn't a unique bench player with his line though-just about every major league bench has a couple of players that are around or below that line. Yea, he's the skinnest fat person weighing over 600 pounds. He stinks, his line stinks and there's no getting around it. And to say he wasn't as bad as expected is to say that nothing was expected of him. I'm just saying that when you're saying that it's just as bad of a line as it gets you are implying that he was one of the worst players in the league, when in actuality for a bench player he was probably close to the median. Now you could say that most bench players stink, and I would agree with you-that's why they are bench players. Pagan was not a bad bench option though last year.

Exactly-it's not like the Cubs aren't likely to release him in about 14 days anyway.

I don't know what you expected but that is about as bad a line as it gets. Maybe he expected him to be more like these NL East players who got at least 100 AB's: Pete Orr-.253/.277/.344 Todd Pratt-.207/.272/.341 Alfredo Amezaga-.260/.332/.332 Matt Treanor-.229/.328/.318 Reggie Abercrombie-.212/.271/.333 Lastings Milledge-.241/.310/.380 Chris Woodward-.211/.289/.311 Kazuo Matsui-.200/.235/.269 Sal Fasano-.243/.284/.386 Abraham Nunez-.211/.303/.277 Jose Guillen-.216/.276/.398 Robert Fick-.266/.324/.344 Marlon Byrd-.223/.317/.350 Damian Jackson-.198/.295/.371 Royce Clayton-.269/.315/.348 Brian Schneider-.256/.320/.329 Bernie Castro-.227/.286/.291 When your 25th man who just made the team because of a hot ST beats the line of 17 position players in one division with similar at-bats, that's probably a little above expectations. Also, it is not nearly the worst line someone can get-there are at least several on there that are much worse, and if the other 5 divisions were looked at I'd bet there were at least 30-40 more around the majors. Now, that doesn't mean Pagan is good-the mere fact that he exceeded expecations with his .700 is enough to make him easily expendable. He wasn't a unique bench player with his line though-just about every major league bench has a couple of players that are around or below that line.

Who would be the last middle infielder then? It certainly sounds like the Cubs are looking for a young middle infielder just as much or more than a veteran.

This is a fascinating article about how a group of officials from the NCAA monitors certain aspects of the tournament: http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070316/SPORTS/703160429/1004/SPORTS Here are a few snippets I found interesting: Talking about the same thing: And one more:

Kids these days. Everything too early. My senior prom was the 3rd week of May and, I might add, coincided with the 2005 Cubs-Sox series at Wrigley. Needless to say I had my radio with me that weekend... What? Sammy? Oh, right. I hope that he plays beyond 2007 and is able to get one more at-bat at Wrigley, just so he knows that not every fan wearing blue was ready to run him out of town. Either way, though, here's to a big 2007 for Sammy. First, :D at the bolded part. Second, if Roast's school is consistent with schools a little farther south in the same state (and his prom is) then his school probably finishes their school year around the end of the third or 4th week of May, which is why they cannot possibly have prom then. On topic, I don't want to see Sammy come back to Wrigley as a player. I'm not sure of the reaction he'd get. I'd rather wait a couple years and have him come back with some sort of retirement ceremony where I'm much more sure he'll get a positive reaction. The worst thing would be to see him come back as a player and get booed by any significant section of the crowd-that's just not a situation that I would want to risk.

Good win for IU-but the next game will be a lot harder.

They just switched me back to the NC game because Carolina's lead has been cut from 27 to 5 now. They were up 39-12, and now as I'm writing this it's 48-42 after a UNC free throw.

The difference between the current IU group and the good IU team of the middle of the year is Lance Stemler. He is usually a good 3 point shooter-the last 2 months, he hasn't been able to hit anything-even wide open. I mean, he's awful right now. That means that if either Stemler or Mike White is in the game right now, IU is playing 4 on 5 on offense.

LOL-and me-I'm not sure why I believed, but I did-it's looking like I really messed up that little section of the bracket unless Wright State can come back.

Good half by the Hoosiers. Also, a nice job by Wright State to at least make it competitive again so far against Pittsburgh-Pittsburgh was up 13-0 at one point, and it certainly was possible that Wright State could not get back within 10 again. Even if they get blown out later, that's still a good effort to get back in the game after that awful start.

Yeah, they do-they lead the Big 10 in both 3's attempted and 3 point percentage. Their offense consists of either DJ White on a post up or 3 pointers by everybody else-they really don't have anybody who can drive it on a regular basis. Of course, 14 3 pointers this early is high-but they are hitting them, and that will cause them to keep firing.

If it's the guy that it probably is, no-he has been suspended until at least next season.