soccer10k

And Traschel is off to a good start, I see.

So let's go over Olsen's history. He has: -been arrested for a DUI in which he resisted arrest and fled from the police who had to use a stun gun on him. -was suspended for 2 games without pay for a confrontation with Sergio Mitre. -received a black eye from Randy Messenger last year. -got into a dugout dispute with Miguel Cabrera. -got into a dugout dispute with Joe Girardi. -fined in June for making an obscene gesture in Milwaukee. Boy he sounds like a wonderful human being to be around.

1 for 16.

Come on Rammy.

Runs please.

Please can we beat this guy: http://assets.espn.go.com/photo/2007/0721/mlb_a_olsen_275.jpg

Since we're facing a lefty, why not Murton in right, Monroe in center and Jacque on the bench? Or Jones in center and Murton in right? Ugh.

You didn't start Sunday's game and the Cubs still won that one.

I wouldn't look too much into this since it's a day game after a night game.

His GRIT factor is off the charts. Probably top-10 all-time.

Today I didn't even have to use my A.K. I got to say it was a good day.

Lol what a bunch of BS. Absolute crap, plain and simple. If I made the bolded change, would it surprise anybody?

I'm not going to turn this into semantics. No other catcher in baseball is even close when it comes to giving up SB, especially Kendall's performance as a Cub. He gets run on the most often, he throws out the fewest, and it's because everyone knows he simply doesn't have the arm to do it any more. To ignore the very tangible effect that will have over Soto, who's done everything you could possibly ask out of a catcher, is insanity. Bonus fun fact: Kendall's also in the bottom 5 in passed balls. Nice laydown. That isn't "semantics", but a gross exaggeration. Good grief, did you really think I meant that every single baserunner we allow with Kendall catching gets to second? I've reiterated the point several times now. He's the worst catcher in baseball at throwing out runners, teams know this, and they are running on him more than any other catcher in baseball because of it. This leads to a lot of people getting free trips to second base. A lot more than Soto, who's shown an ability to throw more than 1 out of every 11 baserunners out, and who's also pounded the crap out of the ball for the last 6 months. It's a very easy decision on who should be catching. Nope, I didn't believe it because it wasn't true. It was a gross exaggeration and those kind of statements don't help your arguments. it just makes you seem overly emotional and less rational. The idea that me using a hyperbolic statement to help illustrate(with statistics and comparisons to other players) the nature of just how awful Kendall is at throwing out baserunners makes me look overemotional and irrational is hilarious. You're making strawman arguments and when prodded to the point you don't have an argument other than "Lou made the decision and I trust him". Simply admit you made a gross exaggeration and move on. Or don't, whatever. But stop being silly about your statement. See the bold. He already admitted that he exaggerated on every runner that reaches first gets an extra base. Good lord.

I'm surprised it took this long for somebody to make a boner joke.

I don't think I understand why he threw that many. Padres had a 7 run lead after 5 innings. Could have pulled him after 5 and about 25 or so less pitches. Such a Dusty move. Dusty would have left him in for the eighth.

Yep, it must be those young guys supposedly disrespecting the game that caused the Dodgers to lose. It couldn't be, oh I don't know, the complete black hole they have at the top of the order with Furcal (.687 OPS) and Pierre (.683 OPS). It couldn't be the fact that Nomar has 400 AB's with a .700 OPS. Nope, gotta be the disrespecting the game. Good god the Dodgers are so amazingly stupid.

Tiebreakers are head to head, but they are only used if both teams are in the playoffs anyways, e.g. in the case when one is the winner of the division, and the other is the wild card. Head-to-head is also used in determining who has the advantage in what MLB uses as a 3-team tiebreaker. Bottom line is that inclusion/exclusion to the playoffs is always determined on the field in baseball. If you finish at the top of any race with a tie, you are either in the playoffs or have a chance to get into the playoffs (through one-game playoffs and whatnot). Just as an example...if the Red Sox and Yankees tied for the AL East this year, the Yankees will win the division and the Red Sox would be the wild card because they're both in the playoffs regardless and the Yankees won the season series.

Well Len and Bob just sent me a message on AIM saying Guzman is going to have TJS.

It's true. Any team can win.. But the better teams always have a better shot going in, and I tend to think the Cubs are the best NL playoff team all around... Playoff team, yes. We match up well with just about any of the contenders, although I'd rather not go out West if I didn't have to. However, how we play in the remaining regular season games remains to be seen. I wouldn't mind playing the Padres. No Cameron and no Bradley. Chris Young has a 5.48 ERA in August and 7.00 in September and he's given up at least three earned runs in seven straight starts.

If Lou really goes and starts Kendall the rest of the way (including if the Cubs make the playoffs) somebody should take a bat and hit him over the head. Hell, if CubmanPi drinks before a potential Game 4 like he did tonight, he might be drunk enough to do it.

This is what happens when you start drinking scotch at roughly 5 p.m. Pacific Time.

With today's loss, I believe the Cubs have ensured that there is no chance they can have home-field advantage in the NLDS. With four to play they are 5 games behind the NL West leading Diamondbacks and four games behind the East leading Mets. Correct me if I'm wrong but if there is a tie for the seed in the playoffs between two division winners the tiebreaker is head-to-head and I'm pretty sure (without looking up the schedule) that the Cubs have a losing record against both the Mets and Phillies. So the best the Cubs can do there is tie with whoever wins the NL East and they would lose the tiebreaker.

It's going to be interesting in the NL West this weekend. Right now the Diamondbacks are in first with the Padres 1 game back and the Rockies 2 back. Tomorrow the Rockies are in L.A. and the Diamondbacks are in Pittsburgh. But Friday through Sunday the Rockies, who have won 10 in a row, will host the Diamondbacks while the Padres are obviously in Milwaukee for 4. Also, you have the pitching matchups. If there was a playoff on Monday involving the Padres, they could throw Peavy assuming they didn't use him on Sunday. The Diamondbacks have Webb going tomorrow and, if they were in a playoff, could go Monday on 3 days rest.

Especially when Hill could go on proper rest. If Lou wants to "set the playoff rotation," wouldn't it make sense to start Hill now and have him fresh when they started the postseason, rather than pitch him saturday? I'm guessing Lou is thinking that he doesn't want Hill to have too many days off before he starts. Even if Sunday's game matters and the Cubs have to throw Lilly, the earliest Hill would start would be Thursday for Game 2 and potentially wouldn't start until Saturday for Game 3 if Sunday's game doesn't matter. So if Hill goes tomorrow and then not until the next Saturday he would have 8 days rest where as if he goes this Saturday then he would go on normal rest if he had to pitch Thursday for Game 2 and 6 days rest if he pitched Game 3.

Cubs lose eleventy billion to 1.