Six Very Important Things this Morning 8.12.2010

1.  Reverse the curse?  I'm not surprised the Twins lost there, because Perkins vs. Danks is clearly tilted in the White Sox favor, but I'm really unsettled by how they lost.  Getting thrown out at third trying to stretch a double into a triple?  Failing to turn an easy double play?  Making multiple errors?  Picking a runner off of first but being unable to get the actual out because of a poor throw by the first baseman?  Having a pitcher failing to cover first on a grounder to the first baseman?  Not being able to get a big hit?  These are all the same things we've watched the Sox do against the Twins, and are the reason the Sox, Guillen, and their fans felt cursed against the Twins.

I don't want to take anything from Danksy, because he was brilliant tonight and kept the Twins off balance all game, but the Twins made damn sure they had no chance to win tonight.  Perkins didn't pitch well by any means, but he wasn't completely awful and he gave the team a solid chance to win.  Except that they played like morons.  Or, more accurately, the played like the White Sox, while the Sox played like the Twins.  If tonight was a sign of the roles flipping and we have to expect that kind of shit for the next 7 years or whatever you can count me out.  I'm going to track down the Zoltar Machine at Sea Point Park and get that crazy gypsy to fix this shit right quick.

2.  Break up the O's?  Don't look now, but suddenly the Orioles are white hot.  After beating the Indians tonight Baltimore has suddenly won four games in a row, which might not seem like a huge deal but you have to realize that is 10% of their victories on the season.  Even more shocking, the won thanks to a Brad Bergesen 2-hit shutout.  Let that one sink in for a moment.  Brad Bergeson with the 5.84 ERA.  Brad Bergesen with the 1.53 WHIP.  Brad Bergesen who hasn't won a game in his last 13 starts.  Brad Bergesen with the unbent bill of his cap.  Brad Bergesen who once got hurt shooting a commercial.  Apparently anything Buck Showalter touches turns instantly to gold.  Word is Joel Maturi has inquired to see if he has any interest in Gopher football.

3.  There was a fun trade in the NBA.  This isn't exactly going to shake the NBA landscape, but any time you get a four-team, five-player trade it's worth noting because hey, that's fun.  Houston traded Trevor Ariza to the Hornets, who traded Darren Collison and James Posey to the Pacers, who traded Troy Murphy to the Nets, who traded Courtney Lee to the Rockets.  So the Hornets get a good player to show Chris Paul they are serious about winning (although Ariza, really?), the Pacers get a steal in getting a potential top line PG for a slow white dork, while the Nets can use that same slow white guy to eat up minutes so they don't have to force Derrick Favors to play too much too quickly.  And the Rockets shed some salary, which they needed to after signing a bunch of large contracts this offseason, but get back a good quality, young rotation player at the same time.  The elusive win-win-win-win trade.  Meanwhile the Timberwolves traded a player they just signed last year for 4 years and $16 million dollars for two players who they immediately cut, assuming Telfair has been cut by now.  So I guess it's win-win-win-win-win.  Go team.    

4.  It's wide open.  The season's fourth and final major, the PGA Championship, starts today, and it's an absolutely wide open field.  The usual favorite is a complete mess, the #2 guy just completely melted down last Sunday, can't take advantage of his opportunities to become the world #1 and sucks at links style golf (which this course is), and the #3 isn't entered due to injury.  Beyond that there about 30 different guys who have a legit chance to win this and you could make a solid argument for.  I won't do that, but I will give you my top 6 and a sleeper:

1.  Rory McIlroy

2.  Steve Stricker

3.  Jeff Overton

4.  Retief Goosen

5.  Nick Watney

6.  Graeme McDowell

SLEEPER:  Ross Fisher

This, of course, means that Hunter Mahan is going to win.

5.  The most dangerous player in the Big Ten may have found a new home.  Chris Allen, the most dangerous player in the Big Ten and if you disagree I will fight you, recently visited our good friend Freddy Hoiberg at Iowa State and it sounds like he might be leaning towards joining the Cyclones.  This would help Hoiberg with his apparent need to collect players of questionable moral character - which of course is genius for him.  The Clones have been a nightmare since Jake Sullivan left, and no offense to Ames (which is currently underwater) but I've visited there and I don't exactly see a lot that would be a draw for a big-time recruit.  As such, collecting talented players whose background's scare other team's off is a calculated, and I think smart, risk that could bring this team back to prominence.  Or they crash and burn and suck and nobody notices the difference.

6.  Finally, the Great Villain triumphs.  If you've read this post of mine or have heard me talk about it since or have pretty much ever been to my house, you'll seen the greatest movie ever, "The King of Kong" by now.  I'm not going to break it all the way down for you here, but seriously if you haven't seen it you have to go find it on Netflix or Blockbuster or Vudu or CinemaNow or whatever - go watch it.  It is the most fascinating look at the people who make up the world of championship gaming (retro games only, of course) centering around a battle for the world record of Donkey Kong between Steve Wiebe (clearly painted as the hero) and Billy Mitchell (clearly painted as the villain).  Of course, it wasn't too difficult to make him look bad, since his combination of smugness and douchery has only been seen before in a villain in an 80s movie (Karate Kid, Back to School, and Teen Wolf immediately come to mind), but douche though he may be, he once again has set the World Record in Donkey Kong (and Donkey Kong Jr. to boot).

Seriously, find a way to watch this and watch it.  I'm not being sarcastic or ironic or anything like that.  It is epically awesome to watch.  Check this:


Please, I beg you, watch this movie.

Weekend Review

WHO WAS AWESOME

1. Ty Lawson. I could just put the whole UNC team here after an incredible run through the NCAA tournament where they were never really challenged, but I want to recognize Lawson because I've dogged him pretty good in the past. He's really made a huge leap in his point guard play from last year. He's still not the best shooter, although he's getting better (shot 50% from three in the tournament) but he's figured out how to completely take over a game from the point position without having to score, and he did it again last night, culminating in the Final Four MVP award (I assume, I didn't look it up). Lawson really elevated his game in the tournament, outdoing his season averages in scoring, rebounding, stealing, and assisting while turning it over less. I don't usually change my mind about a player - ever - but this is a rare exception. Congrats to the Heels, and thank god we don't have watch/hear about Hansbrough anymore.

2. Derek Lowe. I think I described Lowe signing with the Braves using words like retread and patchwork, and might even have thrown a washed up in there, I don’t remember for sure. In any case, Lowe proved me wrong in the Braves’ 4-1 opening day win over the defending champion Phillies (who trotted out Greg Myers instead of Cole Hamels for some reason that I don’t want to look up). Lowe was masterful, going 8 innings and only allowing 2 hits, naturally walking nobody and striking out four. When Lowe is on, he does exactly what he did on Sunday night – doesn’t strike out many, but walks zero and gets a lot of ground balls (the Phillies hit 13 ground balls compared to 7 in the air). I’m not quite ready to start believing in Atlanta, because I still think Javier Vazquez sucks, but it looks like Lowe might have at least one quality season left in him.

3. NY Mets Bullpen. The biggest reason for the Met collapses the past two years have een their shitty bullpen, culminating last year in the most blown leads in the entire major leagues. Instead of standing pat and signing some journeyman and pretending like it’s going to help (cough, cough) they went out and did something about it. They signed single-season save record holder Francisco Rodriguez away from the Angels to close, and then helped their middle relief by making a trade for Seattle closer J.J. Putz, also getting set up man Sean Green in the deal. On Monday, that paid off, as the three new acquisitions combined to toss 3 and 1/3 innings of scoreless ball, giving up just one baserunner and striking out two, giving Johan Santana the win. It is probably pretty awesome to have a GM who actually will do something.

4. Travis Snider. As bad as my call on Cliff Lee looks right now (more on that later), my call on Snider as AL ROY looks just as brilliant. Snider was one of the top prospects in baseball for the last couple of years, and looked the part when he was called up by Toronto at the end of last season, hitting .301/.338/.466 with 2 homers in 79 at bats. Yesterday, he started his ROY campaign with a bang, going 2-4 with a solo homerun off Tiger ace Justin Verlander. Keep an eye on this kid.

5. Felix Hernandez. I could just have easily put the Twins' offense in the who sucked column instead, and specifically Mike Cuddyer who struck out three times against Hernandez and pretty much looked overmatched (yes he had a hit and an rbi, but it was not pretty and leaving three guys on base negates that). Instead, I'll let the optimism flow for a bit longer, and credit The King with an excellent outing. He's been a bit of an enigma in his short career, bursting on the scene as a rookie in 2005 and looking awesome, then regressing a bit the last three years, being a good pitcher, but not living up to the promise he showed that first half season. That being said, he's as talented as anybody throwing the ball, and maybe this is the start of the year he puts it all together. Or maybe the Twins' offense is as bad without Mauer as I feared. If they can't get anything going against Bedard tonight, it's time to worry.


WHO SUCKED

1. A.J. Price. Before the MSU/UCONN game tipped off, Bogart, Snake, and myself were at the Dayton bar and were discussing who would be on our all-tournament team so far. I picked A.J. Price as one of my guards, which I suppose doomed him to his horrid performance against the Spartans. Price’s numbers were bad enough, 5-20 shooting, 2 turnovers and just one assist, but watching him play was even worse. Adrien and Thabeet were really able to dominate the Spartan big guys inside, but Price continually decided not to get them the ball, and instead insisted on trying to bull his way into the lane and kept forcing up some brutally bad shots. I think he was just trying to draw fouls and get to the line, but the refs were calling the game Big Ten style and he just looked like a fool. When he wasn’t busy looking like an idiot, he was lazily walking around the three point line – I seriously watching him an entire UCONN possession where he never even moved as fast as a jog. Just a really horrible game and effort from a guy who was having a good tournament that cost his team the game – yes, I am blaming the UCONN loss entirely on Price.

2. Cliff Lee. A lot of people looked at Cliff Lee’s incredible numbers last year and decided he had to have been a fluke. A lot of people figured a mediocre pitcher couldn’t suddenly make the leap Lee made to win the AL Cy Young award last year and then keep it up, and he’d come crashing back to earth. They saw his 1.10 WHIP (vs career of 1.31) and 2.54 ERA (career = 4.1) and his 5.0 K/BB ratio (career = 2.5) and figured it was an aberration. Not me. I was convinced his pin point control and cerebral approach was more Greg Maddux-like, and he’d sustain this success. Once again, I’m an idiot. Lee got completely rocked by Texas yesterday, barely getting himself out of the fifth and finishing with a line of 5ip, 10 hits, 1 walk, and 7 earned runs given up, including a three-run homer by Hank Blalock. I drafted him in two fantasy leagues where people were avoiding taking him, assuming he would suck this year. Looks like they were right and now I’m screwed.

3. C.C. Sabathia. The Yankees' big, fat, offseason pickup, Sabathia got rocked yesterday by the lowly Orioles to the tune of 4 and 1/3 innings, 8 hits, and 6 earned runs. It wasn't so much those numbers that are scary, although they are, but even worse, Sabathia walked 5 and struck out nobody. Not a single one. For a pretty good strikeout pitcher throughout his career, that's warning sign number 1. Warning sign number 2 was the way the game unfolded, if you watched. The problem was that he couldn't get his fastball by anybody. The batters he faced were always able to at least foul it off, and once they realized they didn't need to be scared of the heater, they were able to lay off his slop slider he usually uses to get batters to chase, leading to the five walks. It's early, obviously, but after one game this is a bad sign for the Yanks.

4. Jason Motte. If you play fantasy baseball, you know that one of the toughest categories to figure out is saves. Not only are you never really sure when to draft the closers, but only a handful of teams have a real, established guy who you know will be in the role all year, so you're always looking for someone you can draft late. When Motte dominated his way through spring training and was anointed the Cardinals closer, it was a boon to those who pay attention to these kind of things. Most people don't know who he is, so he was available pretty late and it sounded like not only was he basically given the closer role for the year, but that he would dominate. Oops. Motte came into yesterday's game against the Pirates looking to shut the door with a 4-2 lead. By the time he finally got out of the top of the ninth, the Pirates led 6-4, and Motte had given up four hits and four earned runs to earn the loss and blown save. Perhaps he wasn't as huge a late steal as I (and many others) anticipated. Sorry Bogart.

5. Chris Allen. I can't bring myself to put the Spartans here as a whole, since they beat two #1 seeds just to get to this position, even though they turned it over 21 times and generally gave themselves no chance to win last night, but I can single out one player who had an awful final four, and that's the most dangerous player in the Big Ten, Chris Allen. Allen, who can usually score ten points in about 30 seconds if you aren't paying attention, couldn't hit anything in the final two games, going a combined 1-14 from the floor in the two games, including 0-9 from three, wrapping up a tournament where he shot just over 25% from the field. Of course, this will probably just make him angrier and he will end up being the runner-up for Big Ten Player of the Year next season (JaJuan Johnson has that one in the bag).


Finally, in case you missed it, I'll leave you with One Shining Moment from last night. Yes, it's already on line.



God I love that.