Derwood

ESPN would poop their pants in excitement if he went to the Vikings (re: MNF Week 1 - Vikings @ Packers)

douchebags mostly

Wuertz is also terrible

Hart's defensive woes have overshadowed his suckiness at the plate I've never seen a series where one OF takes such terrible routes to balls. He turned so many singles into doubles/triples this series

I think Eyre has Lupus

so close, derrek, so close

it really is amazing that the two guys we were all bitching about all winter (Demp, Theriot) have been so good for us this yera

let's go, 5 RBI night for The Riot

too bad we don't have brian roberts leading off

Soriano sure has been a terrible leadoff hitter this series

Gaudin is filthy

relax guys, he's not pitching Sweet, 3 wins against the pirates this weekend

He won't be here next year so that's not an issue. you're so sure that Hendry won't be duped into a 4 year deal based on this season? i'd rather make a run at one of the brewers' aces. We're talking Hendry here though, he likes to reward players when they don't deserve it (Neifi, Blanco), imagine what he'll offer to someone who is actually good Seems kind of silly to be comparing what Demp has done to anything Blanco and Neifi have done. I'm not comparing them. My point was that Hendry gave multi-year extensions to guys who sucked, so what is he going to offer to someone who actually had a good year

He won't be here next year so that's not an issue. you're so sure that Hendry won't be duped into a 4 year deal based on this season? i'd rather make a run at one of the brewers' aces. We're talking Hendry here though, he likes to reward players when they don't deserve it (Neifi, Blanco), imagine what he'll offer to someone who is actually good

i'm loving that the "Kendal is great at throwing guys out" trend has completely reversed this series

He won't be here next year so that's not an issue. you're so sure that Hendry won't be duped into a 4 year deal based on this season?

Dempster has somehow put 4 months of "lightning in a bottle" together. I love it, but fully expect it to not happen next year

They play better at home than they do on the road. and yet here we are, on the verge of winning our 3rd straight on the road. That's why I'm asking. How do we blow goats on the road against Houston and Arizona, then also at home against florida, but then come in and crush the Brewers on the road

The only negative to me right now is the fact that the Cubs looked so awful for the 10 games before this. How does it magically turn on in one series?

Look guys, winning on the road can be fun

Andy, you only rank 3rd

FTH am I doing watching this on ESPN for. I'm dumb

Who did you used to be? yanr

Fastballs are (obviously) the hardest, straightest pitch, and any movement tends to be "tailing", meaning a right-handed pitcher's FB will tend to break slightly to the right at the end of the trajectory. A cutter is a pitch that is designed to counteract this tail. If a right-handed pitcher throws a fastball to a left-handed hitter, the tailing action could leave the ball over the plate. A cutter is thrown so the ball continues to ride in towards an opposite-handed hitter. Mariano Rivera probably has the best cutter in baseball right now. A change up is designed to use the same arm motion/speed as a fastball, but be slower, thus fooling the hitter into swinging early. The ball is either palmed or somehow "choked" in the hand to slow the motion. Changeups have a natural downward break due to the slower speed. The Curve is a slow pitch (usually in the 65-75 mph range) that breaks straight down, or "11 to 5" in clock terms. A Slider is thrown harder than a Curve (usually in the 75-89 mph range) that has more of a "10 to 4" break to it. It's designed to look like a fastball out of the hand but breaks out of the zone Sinkers/Forkballs/Splitters are grip variations on the same pitch, which is thrown hard like a fastball, but has late downward break to it. Unlike the slow curveball, the sinker is generally thrown in the mid to high 80's. As for "backdoor" pitches, these are references to how the pitch breaks compared to which side of the plate the hitter is on. For example, a backdoor slider is when a right-handed pitcher throws a slider to a left-handed pitcher and the pitch breaks from outside the zone over the plate. Technically, you can throw a "front door" slider, where a right handed pitcher throws to a right-handed batter and the pitch breaks from inside the plate back over the zone.

Why Big 10 people hate ND fans! For the Big East, that hate would only help us and has. That's because ND doesn't play any Big East teams (in football), so their "we're better than everyone and don't need you" attitude doesn't rub you the wrong way. The Big 10 has had a fairly symbiotic relationship with ND (Michigan, Purdue and Michigan St. mostly, with PSU having some history), yet fans like Andy constantly say "whatever, we don't even want to play you", etc.