Monday Musings

So dumb.  I actually had a Week in Review about 90% done and all typed up.  I saved it before bed last night with the intent of finishing it off this morning, except when I went there it was gone.  Completely gone.  So I'm just going to do this thing instead where I type stuff that you end up reading for some reason.

-  Good win for the Gophers Sunday winning in Penn State.  It's not so much a great win because Penn State is any good (spoiler:  they aren't), but more because losing at PSU right after rescuing their season would be exactly the kind of thing the Gophers would do.  Also I should say that when I say the Gophers "rescued" their season after beating Indiana all I mean by that is they shifted the season from a epic flameout to what will probably end up being a disappointing season, but they still have a chance to do something at least.  So yeah, I'm not exactly throwing a party just yet but at least they managed to beat Penn State.  God I was so convinced they were going to lose.  Thank god I'm stupid.

Now the Gophers are 2-4 in Big 10 play, and at an absolute minimum they're going to need to get to 9 wins to even get within sniffing distance of an NCAA bid, especially because Virginia Tech - their one hope for a quality out of conference win - keeps sucking.  With 12 games to go that means they need to win at least seven more.  Here are the easy wins left on the schedule:  Nebraska at home.  That's it.  Everything else is going to at least be a little tough; HOME: Northwestern, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan State, Ohio State, Indiana, and Nebraska.  AWAY: Michigan State, Iowa, Nebraska, Northwestern, and Wisconsin.  Yikes.  They're gonna be favored in what, 3 games?  Maybe four?  It's long ass road to those 9 wins, and I'm not even sure 9 would get there.  Looking like another long year.  I need a vacation.

-  Elsewhere in a rare move the Twins made that I actually like they signed reliever Joel Zumaya to a one year deal for $800k (with incentives that can double that), but it's a non-guaranteed deal so if his elbow (which you may remember exploded in a game against the Twins) isn't all the way back they can just cut him easy peasy lemon squeezy.  Good deal.

He's been hurt a lot since bursting on the scene in his rookie year of 2006 - he hasn't thrown more than 39 innings in a season since then - but if he can somehow stay healthy he could end up being a real bargain.  Zumaya has always been a flamethrower (his average fastball for his career has been 98.5 mph, topping at an average of 99 his last two years and he's struck out a batter an inning for his career) and like many of that ilk he's struggled with his control.  2010, however, was different.  Although he was still throwing hard and still striking people out he also had gotten the wildness under control, slicing his walk rate basically in half and was developing into a dominant reliever pre-injury.  Big fan of the signing.

-  Sticking with baseball, why the hell would you trade a 23-year old pitcher who already has one of the best fastballs in the league and has already proven himself to be a #2 type pitcher and if he ever fully developed a second pitch he could end up a full on ace.  I know Jesus Montero is thought to be one of the best hitting prospects in baseball and he definitely hit well when he was up with the Yankees last season but it was just 69 plate appearances and how is that all the Mariners got for Michael Pineda?

If Seattle was dead set on trading Pineda and his 171 high quality innings Montero would have been a nice centerpiece to the deal, but there should have been at least a couple more prospects thrown in.  Now Seattle has a nice middle of the order future with Dustin Ackley, Montero, and Justin Smoak but they're pitching is suddenly pretty thin again behind Felix.  And the Yankee rotation just went from crazy shaky to Sabathia, Pineda, Hiroki Kuroda (who they signed like, 3 minutes after making this trade), Ivan Nova (who finished ahead of Pineda in the ROY voting last year), and their choice of Phil Hughes, Freddy Garcia, or A.J. Burnett.  You know the worst part?  And of those three pitchers the Yankees get to choose from as their #5 would be the Twins' ace.  I'm going to go lick a car battery now.

- No matter how disappointing the Gophers' hoops season might be to you at least it's not as bad as what's going on with Pitt.  The Panthers have been dominant in their own way over the last several seasons and were expecting more of the same this year, starting the year ranked #11, but things haven't exactly gone according to plan.  An 0-3 week with a 20 point home loss to Rutgers leaves Pitt in dead last in the Big East at 0-6 and currently riding a 7-game losing streak that started with a home loss to Wagner.  Wagner!  There's no doubt the Gophers' season has been a bit of a disappointment but it's nothing like what Pitt fans are going through.  This year Pitt is hands down the most disappointing team in the NCAA and it isn't remotely close.  They're just like The Phantom Menace.

- What's more sweeter than a Packer season ending early?  Nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  Suck it, Packers.