UMFan83

How do we own the tiebreaker? Isn't the first tiebreaker H2H record? If so, the Stars are 3-1 against us this year. Or is the first tiebreaker number of wins? If so, the Hawks are 4 wins up with 5 to play, so while we haven't locked it up, its all but locked up.

YESSSS Viktor Stalberg sneaks one by for the game winner. 2 critical points. It wasn't pretty but I'll take it!

In case he reads this, CT means kick ass on the field, not in your dugout.

Onto a shootout for a critical point. Wish it didnt come to the crapshoot but hopefully lady luck looks our way. We had some fantastic chances in the OT period. I thought the game was over a couple of times. PS I'm really happy to see Sammy Paulssen has finally recovered from his concussion

I was gonna say its impressive Rose was 6-8 at halftime with 19 points. Now 6-12 with 19 points through 3

OK I'll take the point considering how badly we were outplayed at one point. We played much better in the 3rd period.

Phew, Bickell gets one back....a huuuge goal. Just get this into OT tied so we can guarantee ourselves a point.

Plenty of tickets available for this one. I am really interested to see just how many people will be there. I just pulled up 10 tickets in section 27 for the game. I'd imagine there are plenty of sections like that.

And the Hawks are now 6 minutes from getting 0 points in a game we really needed 2 from. What a [expletive] choke

6 powerplays for the blue jackets. They finally took advantage and it's tied. This is pathetic. Hawks have absolutely dominated by Columbus since the 2-0 lead. Poor performance for such a critical game. Being outshot 26-17. Probably lucky it's tied. Oh another PP for the Jackets. That's 7 and it's only middle of 2nd period.

Dammit I thought we were going to get an easy win when I saw the Hawks up 2-0 with 10 minutes gone in the game....2 minutes later its 2-1 and the BJ are on the power play

Not when they are 11 singles. Or did I miss an extra base hit? Huh? You can easily win a game with 11 singles and XBH. I'm guessing if you average 11 singles a game with no extra base hits, you will lose many more games than you win. But who is talking about such a ridiculous scenario? lol aren't you?

The good news is that after this game Sorianos contract is officially more than halfway completed.

Yeah I wouldn't advocate leaving any pitcher in or 113 pitches on opening day much less one that was clearly laboring for 2 innings in a row. That was Dusty Baker dumb.

Yea... would be nice if we could have like a sunny 70 degree day on opening day for once... We certainly didn't have one of those last year. OH WAIT What's a "last year?" I'm trying to remember anything about last year. I remember Castro, Colving hitting some homeruns and that's about all he did and I remember Heyward hitting a home run off us opening day. That's about all I got. Same here. I honestly don't remember anything about last year. I completely shut out the Cubs from May on. I have no idea why, because I watched them in 2000, 2002, 2006 when they sucked..every game. Last year I just didn't care at all. About the only vivid memory I have of last year was Castro hitting a HR in his first AB in Cincinnati. It feels like I went into a coma at that moment and woke up yesterday as far as baseball is concerned.

I am one of these odd people. Derranged is more like it. What next, Cubs and Red Wings fans?

The players have cars shipped to AZ then back to CHI? Why wouldn't they just rent cars for ST or have the organization set up a deal with a local car dealership to get loaner cars for a month or so. Seems like quite a waste of money doing what they do. Anyways, what kind of car does Marshall have? Not sure...his car was still being unloaded from the truck when I walked by. I am such a loser, I made eye contact with Marshall and then immediately looked the other way and then spent the next 10 minutes thinking about all the cool things I could have casually said in that situation.

It's not that he thinks Rose is terrible at defense, he just thinks Thibodeau should get all of the credit for any defensive improvement, and Rose should get none. That's a little absurd. Problem is, there isn't a really good way to determine how effective a player is defensively. Going by straight defensive rating, Boozer is in the top 10 (along with the rest of the team, practically). Going merely by the difference in team defensive rating when a player is on the floor vs. without, Rose is the worst defender in the NBA, and Howard is in the bottom 10. No, the problem is that the award is subjective and this dude took a stand a long time ago and now has to search out ways to make it seem right. That compounded with the fact he is the inventor of a decidedly flawed statistic that shows Derrick in a negative light give him little choice but to make his stand. The problem is also that we Derrick Rose fans are super, giddily annoying and when someone presents opinions that are anything but completely positive, they get a lot of attention from us in the form of page views and more generated discussion. Seriously, we Rose fans are almost intolerable in our devotion and even though he deserves the positive attention, from a rhetorical perspective, we cause a lot of people to form adversarial opinions based mostly on how over the top we are. Completely agree. I read that Daily Dime Live chats on ESPN.com and almost every day, there is a long Derrick Rose discussion, and half of it is people ripping on the bloggers for "dissing" Rose. Love me some Rose, but I can understand the backlash.

I walked by Wrigley to grab my tickets for tomorrow at Will Call and they were unloading all the players cars, shipped from Arizona. I saw Sean Marshall waiting for his car to get unloaded. Cool story right?

The Reds won by a run. Looks like Dusty is justified in playing from 1 run down 3 in the first inning. Keep it coming Dusty!

What are your Pirate expectations this year?

Wait what? When did Barney become our starting 2B? Having a non-prospect with little upside start on Opening Day is something a team like the Pirates is forced to do, not the Cubs.

Jimm-....Raul Ib...does Bobby Abreu still play for them?

Mine is just a gut feeling based on the injuries and the age of their offensive regulars. 32,31,32,32,35,38,23. Those are the ages of their expected offensive regulars (once Utley and Brown come back). While most of them are still young enough to mostly be in their prime, they are still at the age where decline and injuries are not that uncommon. We'll see. It's mostly a gut prediction based on how everyone loves the phillies this year despite a shaky offense.

It's not baseless, and I don't irrationally hate Soriano. I just don't think he's going to be very good this year, based on a number of factors. I readily admit I could be wrong. I really hope he does great though, even if it means I have to see him do that John Cena thing 40 times this year.