Week in Review - 6/25/2012

So in Back to the Future, right, Marty goes back in time and effs everything up by pushing his future dad out of the way of that car and then his mom falls for him instead and puts Marty's actual existence in jeopardy to the point where he starts to fade out of existence before his future parents finally kiss, right?  But if he fades out of existence, then he can't go back in time and screw everything up between his parents, so then he'd exist again, right?

Wait.  Actually they clear all this up in #2.  And pretty much make it clear at the end of #1.  I really shouldn't have written that paragraph up there with 20 minutes left in the movie.  Which, yes, I've seen many times but not in several years.  This intro here is really starting to ramble.  I'm going to stop talking now.  This is me not talking.


WHO WAS AWESOME

1.  Francisco Liriano.  I can't remember the last time I wrote anything good about this guy and who knows when this opportunity will occur again so with apologies to Josh Willingham's clutchitude I'm giving Frankie the Twins' reserved spot this week.  After another good start against Pittsburgh, Liriano's numbers in his last five starts are looking downright respectable - 30ips, 16 hits, 9 runs, 12 walks, 35 Ks, .155 OAVG, .497 OPS, 2.67 ERA.  He's basically been completely different than he was his first first pass through the rotation to start the season where his ERA was near 10 in his six first starts with an OPS over 1.000.  He's throwing more strikes and thus cutting back on the free passes, and his K-rate is actually up as well.  Which is the real, Liriano?  The walk machine who gets knocked around the yard like he's Jason Marquis, or the one who suddenly looks like a capable #3 or #4 starter?  Honestly I don't have a clue, so hopefully they trade him right quick and let somebody else figure it out.  As the honorable barrister Vincent Gambino (aka Jerry Callow) once said, "I'm finished with this guy."

2.  Lebron James.  Others have said it better and I'm sure others have said it worse (although that seems slightly less likely) but holy crap did this guy figure all this shit out.  His numbers were ridiculous (29 pts/10 rebs/7 assists/2 steals for the finals and similar for the overall playoffs, but they don't tell the whole story because he just completely owned that court.  Every time he posted on the wing or block the Thunder could either double, in which case he made the right pass 90% of the time leading to easy Miami baskets, or leave somebody to try to play him one-on-one which led to a Lebron score pretty much every time.  He can control the game posting up the way Barkley did with regularity, but with Magic Johnson's ability to see where the defense is going before they go there and make the perfect pass and (early) Jordan's ability to score by driving if he gets 1-on-1 coverage.  It's just sick, and I fear his stats next year - he may legitimately threaten to average a triple double.  If you're a Lebron hater (and I think somehow I lost my Lebron hate after realizing he's really just a dumb kid who didn't know what he wanted and then seeing him grow up in these playoffs) you better pray to baby santa jesus that he doesn't develop a jump shot.  It would be like watching a real life NBA Jam guy out on the court.   You wouldn't even have to put in the "big head" code because of that giant 'Bron melon. 

3.  Mario Chalmers.  You could put Mike Miller or Shane Battier here as well because all three of those dorks had either a tremendous series or several huge moments/games, but I'm picking Chalmers to single out because he's young while Battier is like a wrinkly-headed Methusaleh and Miller might legitimately retire because of his severe back issues, and also of course because the A-hole Wolves traded Chalmers on draft day when their point guards were Sebastian Telfair and Kevin Ollie (note:  I'm not making this up, those were their PGs that year unless you want to count Randy Foye).Anyway, if you go game-by-game in the Finals you see Game 2:  Battier with 17, Game 4: Chalmers with 25, and Game 5: Miller with 23 - there was always someone stepping up for the Heat.  While this series was billed as Big 3 vs. Big 3 and Lebron will get most of the credit for the win (and deservedly so) it shouldn't be ignored that while the Thunder became the Big 2 (more on this later) the Heat because the Big 4 each night, albeit with a different 4th piece.  Chalmers and Miller hit some big shots which shouldn't be a surprise based on their college resumes, while Battier hitting big shots was a pretty big shock since Duke is a bunch of choking a-holes.

4.  Chris Sale.   I completely loved this dude the last two years as a reliever, and pretty much figured with his stuff (double-figures in K/9 both the last two years) he was setting himself up as Chicago's future save-getting-saver guy.  But, smartly, the White Sox realized he was too good to only use like, 3 innings a week and half of those with a 3-run lead and nobody on base, so they decided to turn him into a starter.  Would it work?  Of course, because Sale is practically unhittable and he's been that most of this year.  After nearly throwing a no-hitter against Milwaukee, Sale now leads the AL in ERA at 2.24 and second in WHIP at 0.96 (behind only teammate Jake Peavy).  He has 89 Ks in 88 innings against just 23 walks and 62 hits, leading to a .193 opponent's batting average, which is third in the league.  In short, this dude is wicked good.  Which is the kind of thing you can get when you spend a high draft pick on a polished college pitcher.  Seriously, Kevin Gausman is going to come back to haunt the Twins.  Bank on it.

5.  Toronto Blue Jays.  Not so much the results because they were only 3-3 (although I guess on the road against Milwaukee and Miami that isn't too terrible), but because of their power numbers, the likes of which we haven't seen in Minnesota since I was still playing softball.  This past week four dudes in MLB hit four homers - three of them were Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion, and Colby Ramsus (those are all Blue Jays, dumbass).  Brett Lawrie hit two as well, to make 14 homers for the week.  I'm willing to bet the Twins haven't hit 14 home runs in a week since back in 1930.  Pairing that offense with a young pitching staff to build upon including Brandon Morrow, Kyle Drabek, Ricky Romero, Drew Hutchison, and Deck McGuire and the Blue Jays are set up for a long run of success.  Is what I would be saying if the Jays weren't in the AL East, but they are so they're pretty much effed.


WHO SUCKED

1.  Twins.   I know a 3-3 week with two wins over the Reds for this team is like, the best week in history but honestly this might be one of the worst teams, especially offensively, in the history of the history of the world.  Fourteen total runs in those six games, which including facing studs like Kevin Correia and Homer Bailey.  Twelfth in the AL in runs.  Thirteenth in homers.  The overall average is decent (8th), but there's zero power behind it (13th in ISO - power discarding average) and is boosted by the 7th highest BABIP despite one of the five worst line drive rates in the league.  Awful.  And throw in the pitching woes and it's hard not to believe this is the worst team in the league.  Worst ERA in the league.  Worst opponent batting average in the league.  Fewest quality starts in the league.  Fewest strikeouts in the league.  The only team whose pitching can compete with the Twins in terms of shittiness is the Rockies, and they play in a launching pad so they at least have an excuse.  And the real killer is there is nothing on the horizon to make you at least hope for the future.  So I quit.

2.  Kendrick Perkins.  Now, it's probably a little mean to pick on Perkins because his one real skill is defending big centers and the Heat didn't have a big center who they played at all (Joel Anthony and Ronny Turiaf combined for 5 minutes total in all five games), but man was he exposed out there. Bosh just completely owned him in every game and I'm pretty sure I saw Udonis Haslem school him at least once.  You don't really expect to get any offense out of him, but outside of a 12 & 10 game in Game 3 he averaged just over 5 boards and about 3.5 points per game, well under his season averages.  Basically he was completely useless, but I actually enjoyed watching someone get torched so easily so it was kind of fun at times.  Probably not if you were a Thunder fan or anything, but I bet it was a god damned riot if you live in Seattle.

3.  James Harden.  Remember how the big thing everyone talked about with the Thunder a couple of weeks ago was how they'd have to make a decision on keeping either Harden or Serge Ibaka?  Unfortunately the best thing you could say about Ibaka in the Finals was that at least he didn't play as badly as Harden, and boy was he awful. He was actually good in Games 2 and 5 and the Thunder won Game 1, but he was so terrible in Games 3 and 4 - pretty monstrously important games in a best of 7 series, that you can make a pretty convincing argument that he's the biggest reason the Thunder lost.  Beardy Bearderson was 4-20 from the floor in those games, including 1-9 from three, and lost his confidence to such an extent that he actually started passing up open shots, which probably hurt the Thunder more than the misses did.  Not saying the Thunder could have beaten the Heat even if Harden played well, but they sure as hell weren't going to beat them without him.  I mean, would Three's Company have been as funny and sexy without Janet?  Actually I'm pretty sure yes.

4.  Tim Lincecum.  His final line on his latest start actually ended up ok, 6 innings - 3hits -3runs - 4walks-8 Ks - but the way it started was as ugly as his season has been.  Against a really, really crappy A's offense he allowed single-single-single-walk-groundout-walk and suddenly Oakland had put up 3 runs.  Then he struck out the next three batters and allowed only two base runners the rest of the game.  Some might this is a good sign that the old Lincecum might be back, but he's done this before (8 inning 3-hitter against San Diego and a couple other good outings), but all it's really resulted in is an ERA north of six and a WHIP more than 25% higher than his career number.  I mean, he's lasted less than six innings nine times already this year compared to just six times all of last season.  His walks and home runs are way up, he's allowing way to many line drives and no longer inducing easy pop-ups, and his fastball is down over 2mph to last year - and that last one is really the killer.  A lot of things can be ascribed to luck, and Wiley Wiggins here has had some bad luck this year, but when you drop down to a Blackburn-esque fastball when you're a strikeout pitcher?  Yikestown.

5. Adam Dunn.  Well if you were looking for last year's version of Adam Dunn I think we found him this week, because his extremely stellar season took a short detour off the rails (although not before he covered his season prop of OVER 20.5 HRs - holla).  This week Dunn came up to the plate 27 times.  He walked 5, and struck out 13.  Of the nine times he actually put the ball in play he hit two singles.  All of which adds up to a .095 average (and slugging).  Granted, when you have a dude like Adam Dunn you're going to get weeks like this and have to hope you get enough of those 4 home run weeks to balance it all out, but it's still worth pointing out a shitty week like this, and it's kind of jarring when you see a dude who struck out 13 times last week.  Also I just saw that Michael Cuddyer was 2-25 and I'd love to make fun of him a little bit but now it's too late cuz I wrote all this crap.  And you just read it.  Ha ha I win.



Pretty excited Juwan Howard has a ring, you guys.  I mean he was my fourth favorite Fab Five guy and all (1. Jalen, 2. King, 3. Webber, 4. Juwan, 5. Jackson, 6. Rob Pelinka), but I was/am such a huge fan it's nice to see one of them get a ring, especially since he was such a key cog in that machine.  And as we know, Juwan always wins:

In your face kid from Modern Family

Also seriously how freaking sweet is this thing:

There are, literally, hundreds of college basketball starting lineups I want.  If they exist.

Wednesday Wonderings

Finally managed a little time to get some thoughts down on paper or whatever you want to call it cybernerd, so I better get to typing before it's too late.  Sorry for the lack of posts lately, but work has really been kicking the ever-loving shit out of me the last two weeks.  Hopefully things will calm down after this weekend

-  The biggest news is that Trevor Mbakwe is officially back.



Obviously this is huge as he was the team's best player a year ago before going down to injury, and with Sampson (thankfully) gone he gives the team another inside presence besides Elliott Elliason and takes a lot of pressure off of Mo Walker's return (what's up with him anyway?).  Hopefully Mbakwe (and Walker) will be back at full strength for the season, which gives the team three capable big men along with Rodney Williams who can clearly play the four when need be.  Rodney is also the biggest driver of how far this team can go.  Mbakwe's return will push him back out to the perimeter for stretches, and with him thriving this year more in the post than on the wing how what will that do to his development?

If Williams can develop a reliable jumper (how many years have we been saying this) and keeps the confidence he gained this season in going to the rim this team can be a monster.  I feel confident in saying Andre Hollins is a rising star, and him, Mbakwe, and the good Williams give this team three legitimate threats to dominate a game at any one time, whether for stretches or in total.  Add in the late season improvement of Elliason, Austin Hollins, and Joe Coleman and the Gophers should by all rights be a top 4 Big 10 team with Indiana, Ohio State, and Michigan.  Even without Mbakwe back they could have reached those heights with continued improvement, so expectations are high this year.

Of course, there's also the possibility that Williams still can't shoot and falls back into his old disappearing routine when Mbakwe is on the post.  I'd like to think any player capable of putting together the stretch of games Rodney did to finish out the year is incapable of completely regressing back to a full year ago's form, but I'm certainly not going to completely rule it out.  I have to say, without exaggeration, this looks to me like it could be the best Gopher team we've seen since Clem was framed and railroaded out of town.  I'm very interested to see how they break my heart into a million pieces this year.

-  Looking like Morneau is back, eh?  This Twins team keeps showing me just enough to keep me interested, which I guess I can't complain about since last year I was checked out by like June.  And yeah, maybe it's sad that locking up a guaranteed split is enough to get us all tingly in our nether parts and yeah, Matt Capps continues to be the worst pitcher in history (but at least he mixed in a couple non-fastballs this time), and yeah, there's no way this team can win without some kind of major shocker or something coming from the starting pitching, but you know what, I'm entertained so far.  No, I still can't tell you anything about the bullpen guys beyond Capps and Duensing, but I do at least know now that they have some guy named Burton, and that's a victory for the good guys.

-  If you've been reading this blog too long and have been keeping track of all the times I've been right (which shouldn't be too hard) you may remember this piece I posted on Zack Greinke back in May of 2010.  Greinke was coming off his historically awesome 2009 year and had gotten off to a slow start and, thanks to digging into some advanced metrics it was clear to me he wasn't the same pitcher and I traded him immediately in our fantasy league, which turned out to be the right move because he was basically a slightly above average pitcher in 2010.  Since I'm a genius, I will briefly look at Tim Lincecum since he's sucked this year and figure out if this is real or a mirage (I promise I'll be brief, this is a random thoughts post after all, not a Tim Lincecum post)

Red flag #1 is he stopped throwing his slider, I assume for arm health reasons but I tried to look it up and after 1 link that didn't say anything meaningful I was bored.  It's not always bad to give up a pitch if it's not working, but that slider was Timmy's second best pitch behind his change-up last year (although to be fair it's been mediocre through his career).  This can be fixed simply by throwing the slider again (he threw it 15% of the time last season), which I read he was going to start doing again.

Red flag #2 is an alarming drop in fastball velocity, from 92.3mph to 90.3mph.  This has resulted in fewer missed bats, particularly in the strike zone (batters make contact 93% of the time on balls in the zone this year compared to 84% last year).  This is resulting in a lot of line drives (29% compared to 19% in his career) and a greater number of fly balls going out of the park (17% of flyballs have been HRs this year compared to 8% in his career).

Unlike Greinke, however, I think Lincecum will be just fine.  Despite the above he's actually increased his strikeout rate while decreasing his walk rate, always a positive move for a pitcher.  He's also suffering from line drive rates and HR/flyball rates that would be historically bad, along with a BABIP of over .400 which would be the highest ever and is unsustainable.  Basically, unlike Greinke who had just faded a bit, you either believe Lincecum will right the ship and be just fine or you believe he's fallen off a cliff and is done.  I believe the former, and actually I think I'm going to go try to trade for him right now, brb.

-  Here are my thoughts on the NHL playoffs so far:

-  I find it interesting that although I like cheeseburgers, I find the very thought of cheeseburger pizza disgusting, while at the same time I love tacos and absolutely adore taco pizza.  Man I'm whacky. 

-  Finally, happy birthday to Wonderbaby^TM, four years old today and an awesome kid who loves gymnastics, baseball, The Legend of Zelda, and a whole bunch of girlie crap.  Hard to believe that when I started this blog I didn't even have a kid yet.  Wow, I've been doing this for a long time.  You'd think I would have gotten better at it at some point.

Week in Review - 4/16/2011

Feels like I haven't done one of these in a while, but in honor of baseball really getting going I figure I probably should.  But since I also didn't get started on this until 8pm on Sunday night, let's cut the chit-chat and just get down to business.  This isn't some romantic vacation on an island in some kind of awesome sweetwith rose petals and a jacuzzi with Luther Van Dross playing in the background, sweetheart.  

WHO WAS AWESOME

1.  Josh Willingham.  There are actually more positive Twins' things I could report on that I would have expected given that the team is 2-7 right now, but the #1 is clearly Willingham (let's not call him Willie, ok, it's super more annoying than any of the other -y nicknames) smacking the ball all over everywhere.  He leads the AL in home runs with four and has a hit in every single game this year and he's not getting lucky either - he's crushing the ball.  He leads the AL in OBP, slugging, and OPS.  It's at the point now where he hasn't hit a homer in the last three games and I'm wondering what's wrong.  With his bat humming, Denard Span with three multi-hit games already, and Liam Hendriks looking surprisingly feisty there are some decent signs of life here.  None of it will matter if Mauer and Morneau don't start hitting, the bullpen continues to refuse to get anybody out, and the starting pitching is mostly awful, but I'm looking for anything to latch on to here.  Plus, as a point in his favor, Mrs. W has quite the raging lady boner for Mr. Willingham, so that's a point in his favor.

2.  Matt Kemp.  So much for all that "slumping the year after a contract year" nonsense.  He had a career year last year, batting .324 and coming one home run shy of notching a 40-40 year and then signed a nice fat 8-year deal that is suddenly looking like it might be a bargain for LA.  Kemp currently leads the majors in batting average (.487), OBP (.523), slugging (1.023), OPS (1.548), home runs (6), RBI (16), runs (13), and hits (19).  He has one fewer home run than Justin Morneau has hits, with Mauer having just two more.  I don't know if he's back with Aaliyah or not back with Aaliyah or dating Bobby Brown or whatever, but it's doesn't really matter - I think Matt Kemp is officially the best player in baseball, other than Clete Thomas of course.

3.  Barry Zito.  What' more unexpected than Zito's complete game shutout in his first start this year?  How about him following that up with another quality start and now sits with a 1.13 ERA and a 0.69 WHIP.  The change?  He's abandoned his 84mph fastball, throwing only about a third of the time compared to over 50% most of his career, and starting throwing a slider with regularity.  Because he still has an 84mph fastball I doubt he can keep this up, particularly once players figure out that slider, but a starting rotation of Lincecum-Cain (1-hitter this week)-Bumgarner-Vogelsong-Zito would damn hard to touch.  If, you know, Lincecum didn't completely suck now - more on that later.


4. UCLA Bruins.  So I guess all the "UCLA won't be able to recruit anymore after that story on Howland/Reeves Nelson" is just so much bullshit, because they certainly didn't have any trouble this signing period.  The Bruins grabbed Shabazz Muhammad, the #1 recruit in the country according to Rivals and #2 according to ESPN, who now joins Kyle Anderson (#3/#5) and Jordan Adams (#62/#41) in giving UCLA ESPN's #3 class in the country, which would be #2 if Nerlens Noel had picked anywhere other than Kentucky.  Even more interesting, big man Tony Parker (#27/#26) is still out there and won't make his decision known until Friday, but it's thought to be down to UCLA (Tony's choice) or Georgia (Mom's choice) with Duke, Ohio State, and Kansas still officially in the mix.  If Parker picks UCLA the Bruins likely become the #1 class in the country and vault back into a national power.  So nice try Reeves, but you can't bring down a juggernaut.  Unless you're in a snow speeder and you use your tow cable, but even then you probably lose your co-pilot.  Poor Dak.  My favorite part of the story though is that Muhammad's sister, Asia, is a pro on the women's tennis tour.  She's ranked #386 on the tour with career earnings of $80k, yet she has a shoe deal with Adidas.  Adidas, who sponsors UCLA hoops.  Funny world, eh?

5.  Chip Armelin.  He wasn't awesome nor did he suck this week, but I need a spot to write about him so I'm sticking him here, seeing as how he's transferring and everything.  I've always liked Chip and thought his instant offense off the bench was important, as well as the fact that out of everybody on the team he seemed to be the only one who had confidence in his own offensive game and was willing to look for his own shot (although Coleman and Dre Hollins got there in the end).  In a normal offseason I would be really bummed about losing him, but if the choice is Armelin or Mbakwe you go Mbakwe every single time.  The reality was with Mbakwe back and Rodney not doing anything stupid you had a scholarship problem and somebody was going to have to leave.  There were 3 choices who wouldn't majorly kill the team - Armelin, Ahanmisi, and Ingram.  Because Ingram was going to be a senior and it's likely not many D-I schools would take Ahanmisi (or Ingram for that matter) I had always anticipated Armelin would be gone, and it sucks but was inevitable.  I wish him nothing but luck, and I fully expect him to end up averaging 15+ per game for somebody.  Seems like in these cases the player always ends up back in his home state and there's no shortage of schools in Louisiana.  So whoever - La Tech, Tulane, or even somewhere else like Texas or Arkansas or somewhere in that vicinity (my prediction) they're getting a good one.  I'll definitely miss that crazy ass lefty jumper no matter how much or little space he had to get it off, and there was nobody who was less shy about taking a heat check.  Godspeed, Chipper.  Godspeed.


WHO SUCKED

1.  Matt Capps.  Thanks to Snacks for point this out to me, but when Cappsy tried like to hell to blow that save on Thursday against the Angels (you know, when the Angels went single-single-single to start the inning but came up one inning short) do you realize out of 23 pitches he threw 21 of them were fastballs?  And, as we know, this isn't Jonathan Papelbon or Aroldis Chapman throwing smoke, it's Matt effing Capps and his 92 mph noodle-arm heater.  He's always been over-reliant on that mediocre fastball, but most years he's thrown it around 75% of the time and this year he's at 83%, which isn't good considering he's about 2mph slower than he was in his "glory" days with the Pirates.  The best part?  As his fastball has gotten slower his change-up has gotten faster and there is now just a 5mph gap between the two (where it should be about 10).  The worst part?  I can't think of a single reliever on the Twins' roster I'd trust more than Capps, because for all p=Twins, trust=null.  Ha ha, nerd talk.

2.  Yeonis Cespedes.  If you pay too much attention to stuff like this, you remember people talking about the A's could/should start Cespedes in the minors because the level of competition in his Cuban league was more like double A here and also because Oakland sucks and weren't going to be competing for anything except next year's number 1 pick.  Well the A's said fuck that noise and threw him into the starting lineup where he started out with a bang, hitting 3 homers in his first four games.  Since then he's gone 3-20 and struck out eight times (and has now struck out in every game but one with 6 multi-K games).  Now, he can still crush (of his seven hits, five of them are for extra-bases) and he has a good eye for the zone (4 walks this year - not great but not bad) so he'll probably end up being a solid player, and that's all I can say because I haven't even come close to watching Oakland this year, except for when I almost got up for those games in Japan but then didn't.

3.  Tim Lincecum.  I think it's like super possible Wiley Wiggins (aka Mitch Kramer) finally did the thing where he kills the real Tim Lincecum and then takes over his body and his life and bangs his wife and spends his money and smokes his dope and all, and I say that because maybe the most unhittable pitcher in baseball over the last several seasons has now gotten lit up by Arizona and Colorado and now has the highest ERA in the majors (12.91) and a sky high WHIP (2.22), which sounds more Wiley Wiggins-y than Lincecum-y.  Plus I also say that because if I was Wiley Wiggins that's exactly what I would do.

4. Charlotte Bobcats.  I have no idea how I didn't know this already, but Charlotte is like, historically bad.  They have seven wins this year.  Seven!  And they won their first game of the year, so they've won six since December.  They're currently in the midst of a 16-game losing streak, and it's not even their first 16-game losing streak this year.  Their most recent loss came on Sunday, 94-82 to the Celtics in a game where Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, and Kevin Garnett all sat out, leaving both Brandon Bass and Avery Bradley to score 22 points.  They haven't scored 100 or more in a non-OT game since March 17th, allowing their opponents to reach 100+ twelve times.  D.J. White starts for them.  Byron Mullens gets serious run.  This could pretty much go on forever.  They're like, the Minnesota Twins of the NBA.

5.  Justin Smoak.  Sigh.  Come on dude, you're killing me.  I've always had a crush on Smoak, as evidenced by the six entries (now 7) on this blog that have his name as a label despite him having a pretty non-descript career thus far and not being a Twin nor being in their division, but seriously dude WTF?  He's awful.  He's just awful.  In four partial seasons he's never hit better than .239, and yes batting average isn't the end-all-be-all but he's also never OBP'd better than .323 or slugged better than .407, so he can't hit for power or average and doesn't walk - basically the opposite of his minor league career.  This year might be the worst, as so far he's hitting at Puntonian levels with an average under .200, an OBP under .250, and a slugging percentage under .300 - for reals.  Ouch.  He's still young and he might end up ok, but at this point I dropped in our fantasy league for Daniel Murphy.  Daniel effing Murphy.  Or maybe David.  The one who plays for the Mets.  Gross.


One other thing is that the wife and I rewatched Malibu Shark Attack this weekend and it reminded me how much fun it is/was to watch crappy shark movies and blog about them, and I haven't done that in forever.  So I'm going to try to do it soon.  Stay tuned.

Week in Review - 6/13/2011

Guess who had Ruler on Ice to win the Belmont at 42-1?   Yep.  I know my only published pick (via Twitter) was Master of Hounds so you'll just have to take my word for it.  That means I've nailed the winner in the last two triple crown races and my two picks finished 2nd and 3rd in the Kentucky (and I picked the winner of the derby last year).  I think it's safe to say I'm awesome at handicapping horses.  So I celebrated by cooking up some steaks, and I want to share the method here with you - the Alton Brown method.  Simply salt and pepper your steak, then turn a burner on the stove up to high and preheat your oven at 500 degrees.  Once everything is heated up, toss some olive oil in a cast iron pan and throw the steaks in there on the burner.  2-minutes each side to get a nice sear.  Then throw them in the oven and go two minutes per side again (may have to adjust up or down for desired doneness).  And that's it.  Super simple and completely delicious, maybe even superior to using the grill.  Give it a shot.

Now on to the boring part.

WHO WAS AWESOME

1.  Francisco Liriano.  He ended up losing the no-hitter and the shutout, but Franky's outing on Sunday against Texas was far, far more impressive than the actual no-hitter he threw earlier this year.  He was actually hitting his spots (first time ever?), his fastball had some major tail action on it, his slider was basically unhittable, and he was even using his change-up effectively.  He was perfect through six and didn't allow a hit until the 8th, which was almost inevitable after the Twins kept him on the bench for nearly a half-hour by battering a couple Texas pitchers for five runs in the bottom of the seventh in that rare occasion when you actually want your team to hurry up and get out.  You could tell his rhythm was broken after that (that's on him, of course, you need to be able to adjust to that) but altogether his performance was nothing short of dominant.  This version of Liriano is an ace, a game-changer, a slump stopper, and a potential playoff killer.  It's just too bad we only see this version once a month or so. 

2.  Ben Revere.  Snacks already claimed him as his new favorite player so I won't step on any toes, but man I really like Revere right now.  He's not perfect or anything - he doesn't walk enough to be an elite leadoff guy, he has no power at all, and his arm would be better suited to playing second base - but what he does have is energy, speed, great center field instincts, and he's giving the team what they need - a jolt of energy.  Infield hits, bunt hits, reaching base on a wild pitch after striking out, stealing bases, he's just really fun to watch.  Now, I know this schtick will get old unless he learns to walk, learns to have a little power, or can hit .330, but for now you can put me in the "big fan" camp, and I think he has far more potential than Gomez.  I don't know that he'll ever develop much power, but his plate discipline says he should learn to walk and he did hit over .300 at every minor league level, so I'm encouraged.  Side note - I was going to sponsor his baseball-reference.com page, but some jackhole beat me to it. 

3.  Dallas Mavericks.  It's tempting to give most of the credit for the big finals win to Dirk, but really there are a bunch of guys who carried this team at times.  Terry had a monster game in the clinched and was their whole offense in the first half, Kidd was hitting his shots and running the offense as only an old man can, and Tyson Chandler had the kind of finals that makes guys millions, if only he was a free agent.  Hell, even Deshawn Stevenson made a difference, both with his defense on baby soft Lebron and his 3 big 3-pointers in the first half tonight.  I hate manufactured crap like "this is what happens when a real 'team' takes on 'superstars"", but for this series at least it was the truth.  Miami had no answer for the fluid way Dallas played together and thank god.  On a happiness scale I'm not sure if I'm happier that Dirk won or Lebron lost, but they both rank way up there.

4.  Mike Leake.  Welcome back, Mr. hippie surfer shoplifter, welcome back indeed.  He had an insane rookie year that saw him skip the minor leagues entirely and get off to an absolutely blistering start (5-0, 2.22 ERA through early June), but since then things have been very rocky.  He ended up burning out last year and was shut down in late August after he put up an ERA of almost six and a half in his next 10 starts and a disastrous move to the bullpen.  This year has been rough as well with an injury, the whole shoplifting thing, his first ever minor league action, and a move to the bullpen, but things might be coming around now.  Back-to-back 8 inning efforts with just two total runs allowed and and 11-to-2 strikeout to walk ratio this week.  Love this guy, love everything about him, and very glad to see him back to makin' hitters look like fools, as well as seeing him back on our fantasy team.

5.  Mike Moustakas.  Yet another one of Kansas City's stud prospect, third baseman Mike Moustakas made his debut this past week and .  Eric Hosmer looks like the real deal and Alcides Escobar is their SS of the future who is valuable even if his hitting doesn't come around, so they've got 3/4 of the infield covered.  Now, Moustakas and Hosmer were generally ranked #1 and #2 in their system, so not everyone else has their pedigree, but it's notable that they have catcher covered (Wil Myers, #8 prospect in all of baseball by Keith Law) so if they can just find a few competent outfielders (I think Jarrod Dyson has a future similar to Escobar, but in CF) their future lineup should be pretty well set.  The biggest question will be enough pitching will develop to make them competitive, but the minors are pretty heavily laden with big-time pitching prospects (including Danny Duffy, Jeremy Jeffress, Aaron Crow, and Tim Collins who are already up).  Things better come together, because I have a $100 bet with Snacks that the Royals will win the AL Central before 2015, and god knows I can't afford to lose that kind of money.  I would hate to have to choose between booze and feeding my kids.  I think we all know which way that one is going to go.


WHO SUCKED

1.  Colby Lewis.  You remember good ole Colby, the dude who the Twins chased on Saturday after just more than an inning?  You might remember him as the guy who gave up two hits each to Alexi Casilla and Delmon Young despite pitching just one and third innings.  Not to mention giving up a sick number of hits/runs in between and getting run early with a final line of 1.1ip/7h/6er.  Ouch.  But what you might not know is that he also pitched against the Tigers earlier this week and might actually have pitched worse.  Line:  3.1 ip/10 hits/9er/4 hr.  Yes, that's nine earned runs and 4 homers allowed - two of which were to that piece of crap Brennan Boesch.  So, in case your math skills are bad or you are a girl, that's 15 earned runs allowed in one week and that includes a game against the Twins triple A lineup.  In all seriousness I really hope Mr. Lewis has been saving most of his money, because that paycheck might be drying up pretty quick here.  Actually what do I care?  Guy sucks.  Get a real job, hippie!

2.  Tim Lincecum.  Since he's in the NL you probably have no idea he's been brutal. In fact, even if you're paying attention he doesn't look that bad - 3.41 ERA and 1.19 WHIP - but this week he's been completely brutal.  He had two starts this week and in the longer outing he lasted five innings, and that was against the epically shitty Nationals.  The Reds are at least good, but when you're Lincecum you just don't give up 7 hits and 7 runs in 4 innings to anybody - and he only struck out one guy.  Very bad if you're a big fan of diminutive whirling dervish floppy haired pot-smoking hippy pitchers - or Wiley Wiggins.  The good news is nerd stats (I'll spare you) don't point to anything that's significantly different that normal so this is more likely a blip on the radar rather than indicative of a Soria-style breakdown or anything, but god, getting ripped by the Nats is just freaking embarrassing.  It'd be like getting busted by O'Bannion. 

3.  Oakland Athletics.  Wow are these guys god damn awful.  Look at that lineup and count the actual major league hitters.  I see David DeJesus and Josh Willingham, both who would be good fourth outfielders for a team, and Coco Crisp who is a quality leadoff hitter.  That's it.  Their infield has to be the worst collection in the league - other contenders like Seattle and San Diego at least have one quality bat (Justin Smoak and Chase Headley), but Oakland has nothing.  Throw in the injuries to starters Dallas Braden, Brett Anderson, Tyson Ross, and Brandon McCarthy and you can see why they've won just one of their last 14.   Of note:  they still have a better record than the Twins.  FML.

4.  Ryan Howard.  No, not the mid-level executive from a mid-tier paper company in Pennsylvania who was addicted to cocaine and then committed fraud, I'm talking about the fat first baseman for the Phillies.  You know, the guy who was inexplicably given a 5-year $125 million contract THAT DOESN'T EVEN START UNTIL NEXT SEASON despite the fact that his body type (fat to mostly fat) and playing style (high strikeout power hitter) mean that, at best, he's going to be a blacker Matt Stairs by the end of that contract.  And this week was a preview, because he had three hits all week (not counting today where he had three hits and three rbi which kind of negates this point but I already typed all those words before I looked it up and saw he had a good day today).  Any way the point is that Ryan Howard is fat and that was a stupid contract.  Like, Mauer-stupid.

5.  Lebron James.  I almost feel like you could just call out the entire Heat team as sucking, but the difference is that there were games where Bosh played amazingly well (including tonight), Wade pretty much carried the team the entire series, and Lebron was straight up invisible way too often so you have to pick him as the goat.  Not only did he handpick this team to win championships, but he hand picked this fucking team to win the championship.  This shit was orchestrated with one goal in mind and they failed.  And they didn't fail because of Wade (no surprise, the guy was nails in the playoffs and finals) and they didn't fail because of Bosh (surprisingly good this entire finals), they failed because Lebron was unable to carry the team for even small stretches and was about as valuable as that fat kid in Teen Wolf in the fourth quarter.  God there is just an amazing psychology paper waiting to be written on Lebron.  If I wasn't so dumb I would totally write it.  That's not true.  I'm too lazy.  I just want to go fishing.  


Lastly, just to brighten your week, here are Wonderbaby^TM's mad baseball skills on full display:

Weekend Review - 8/16/2010

Seriously folks, if the crowd can walk in it, it's not a bunker.  

WHO WAS AWESOME

1.  Brian Duensing.  I don't think anyone is exactly shocked or anything since Duensing has looked like a very good pitcher since he was called up last year, but it was awfully nice to see him put up a 3-hit shutout so soon after joining the rotation.  I wouldn't expect this out of him regularly (his BABIP and strand rate are pretty much unsustainable), but he's shown himself to be a good middle-of-the-rotation type who throws strikes and induced groundballs - so he's your typical Twins pitcher.  He'll get knocked around some, and he doesn't miss a ton of bats, but he's much better than Nick Blackburn, even if that isn't really saying much.  So now they can just cut Blackie - except, of course, for the $13 million they owe him over the next three years.  Awesome contract.


2.  Kevin Slowey.  I suppose if I'm going to highlight Duensing here I should throw some props at Slowey as well since he just went out and threw 7 innings of no-hit ball on Sunday.  I guess I'm just much more impressed with Duensing's outing because we've seen this brilliance from Slowey before, and he can't ever sustain it - maybe Duensing can.  And I'm fine with Slowey getting pulled after 7 innings even though he had a no-hitter going.  It was a 1-0 game, and at this point in the pennant race winning the game is more important than getting Slowey some personal glory.  Additionally, he was over 100 pitches already and they just had to skip a start of his due to a sore elbow, no sense in risking re-injury.  I disagree with just about every game decision Gardy makes, but I'm with him on this one.

3.  The PGA Championship.  Now that was one fantastic tournament.  Sure, there were parts that sucked pretty bad:  Nick Watney's collapse (more on this later), Dustin Johnson's ridiculous penalty that knocked him out of the playoff, Bubba Watson's dumb decision that lost him in the playoff, and the fact that Martin Kaymer won despite a bogey on the last hole.  Overall though, this was great.  There were 10-20 different golfers that could have ended up winning on Sunday with just a couple of different shots so there was drama all the way to the end, and any tournament that ends up with a playoff is a good one.  Perhaps the best was the way the course played (outside of sand traps that aren't sand traps, right Dustin?).  There were opportunities to make shots and grab birdies, but there were also plenty of ways you could screw yourself with a poor shot or poor decision.  Unlike some of the other majors that are set up where par is a major achievement, this course was set up with the perfect combination of risk/reward.  Just a fantastic tournament and a great, great venue.  Hard to believe it was in that shithole of a state, Wisconsin.

4.  R.A. Dickey.  You ready for this one?  R.A. Dickey threw a 1-hit shutout on Friday.  Yes, R.A. Dickey.  And not against some crap team, but against the Phillies.  You want to know why he's good all of a sudden?  He's basically given up on everything else and is only throwing knuckleballs.  He used to throw the knuckler about 2/3rds of the time, but this year he's thrown it 83.7%.  He's also given up on throwing a curve, slider, or change, because his fastball makes up the 16.3% of his pitches.  The results of this change have been an increase in ground balls and fewer of the fly balls going over the fence, mainly due to getting batters to chase more pitches out of the zone.  So, yeah.  That'll do it.

5.  Cole Aldrich.  My sources tell me that Cole was in town this weekend.  My same sources also tell me he's a pretty nice guy.

         


WHO SUCKED


1.  This Justin Morneau situation.  I won't even say Justin Morneau sucks any more, just that this whole situation sucks.  Supposedly he's getting better, but still can't make it through an entire day without showing symptoms, and as such was unable to travel with the team to Chicago because apparently airplane travel makes people who have had recent concussion's heads explode like that dude in scanners.  Instead, he stayed home and didn't get better, and is still unable to play.  In fact, he's unable to play so hard that there is officially no longer a time table for his return, which is causing all kinds of speculation that he won't be back this year.  Which would suck pretty bad.  This team might win the division without him, but they aren't going any farther.  So if he can make it through the day I say the get him in the lineup.  If he's walking around at home after the game and keeps bumping into things because he's all dizzy, well, I'm sure he can afford to replace whatever knick-knacks and porcelain dolls he breaks.  The team needs his bat, because he's not a pitch man.

2.  Nick Watney.  As I mentioned above, Nick Watney had a pretty epic collapse on Sunday.  After shooting the first three rounds all in the 60s, and being the only player to do so, Watney went into the final round with a 3 shot lead, only to double bogey the first hole to cough that up, tripled seven, followed that up with back to back bogeys, and then after a par tossed up another double, this time on a par 5.  Suffice it to say, it wasn't a good round.  That sucks too, because Watney has been one of my favorites and the reason is he seems to always be cool, always keep it together no matter what, so I was more that a bit surprised he went off the deep end here and ended up shooting an 81 to end up in 18th place.  I guess he's like every other golfer (other than Tiger and Louis Oosthuizen) and can't handle the pressure of being the leader after 54 holes.  Sucks, man.

3.  Memphis basketball.  Do you guys remember a few weeks ago when I talked about how Will Barton, Memphis's #1 recruit for this year and #11 on the Rivals150, wasn't going to be playing this year due to academic issues?  Well it seems that isn't the only issue the Tigers are going to have to deal with this year.  It also turns out that neither Chris Crawford (#72 Rivals) nor fellow freshman Hippolyte Tsafack have been cleared by the NCAA to play yet.  Finally, it turns out Jelan Kendrick (#15) didn't travel with the team on their Bahamas trip this weekend, dealing with "personal issues" and their are now rumors that he might not rejoin the team.  So Memphis had one of the best recruiting classes this year, but nobody can play.  I guess Pastner didn't learn enough tricks from Coach Cal.  Of course, they still have Joe Jackson (#18) and Tarik Black (#54), so I think they'll be just fine.  Unfortunately.


4.  Tim Lincecum.  It's not like he's been awful this whole season, and his numbers are ok overall (2nd in strike outs, 3.62 ERA) but after dominating to start the year he is fading and fading hard, and was knocked out in the fourth inning Sunday against the Padres.  And this follows up his last start when he didn't make it out of the fifth.  I'm not exactly sure what's going on, but this Giant team is winning with their pitching, and even though Matt Cain, Jonathan Sanchez, and Madison Bumgarner are all very good, Lincecum is obviously the most important member of that staff, and they aren't going anywhere if he doesn't get it together.  This could just be a blip, but he's lost a full MPH off his fastball from last year and is 3 off from 2 years ago, and his curveball seems to have lost some of its effectiveness.  Stay tuned.  Or don't, it's just the stupid NL after all.

5.  J.J. Putz.  When your closer is Bobby Jenks you're pretty much screwed.  And since Jenks has been little more than a fat batting-practice pitcher they turned to J.J. Putz.  Putz had been lights out as a set-up guy all year, and was a dynamite closer a few years ago when he was with Seattle.  Seems like it would make sense that he'd be pretty good closer for the Sox, right?  Wrong.  First on Saturday night he came into the game against Detroit in the top of the ninth with the Sox up 2-1, gave up a 2-run homer to Alex Avila, and walked away with the loss.  Then, Sunday afternoon, he came into the game in the top of the 8th, the Sox leading 7-6.  A single, triple, and error by Andruw Jones later and the Sox were down 9-7 and on their way to their sixth lost in their last 8 games.  Awesome.    


Also Happy Birthday to The Bear.  Way to be born, douchebag!

Week in Review - 7/19/2010

It is truly amazing how truly, frighteningly awful my golf picks for the majors have been so far this year. First, I was absolutely convinced Jim Furyk was going to win The Masters. He shot 80 on Day 1 and missed the cut. Then I made Hunter Mahan my pick for the U.S. Open. He shot 80 on Day 1 and missed the cut. For the British Open, I couldn't decide between Ernie Els and Justin Rose. They both missed the cut. And, I went on and on about how awesome the British Open is, and then we end up with the boringest major in a hundred years. Seriously, congratulations to Oosterhuizen and everything, but he got lucky twice with weather to get a big lead then coasted to the win and nobody ever bothered to challenge him. Impressive win to be sure, but boring as all hell.


In conclusion, I suck.



WHO WAS AWESOME


1.  Carl Pavano.  Honestly, what more can be said about Pavano at this point?  Who would think he'd be putting up a career year at this point?  His 3.48 ERA would be his third best ever, second best if you make more than 100 innings a requirement.  His 1.03 WHIP would be the best of his career.  His four complete games (3 out of his last six games) are already double his career best, and his 1 shutout ties his season best.  A 34-year old soft-tossing nancy is suddenly one of the best pitchers in the league and capable of carrying a staff - like he did with his complete game on Saturday, just when the Twins needed it most.  And he may be getting a little lucky BABIP and strand rate-wise, but really not much.  This is a legit career year.  So let's not waste it, kids.

2.  Francisco Liriano.  Might as well include him here, too, since he came up with a pretty big outing on Friday right when they needed him too.  Similar ERA to Pavano, but they've arrived there in different ways.  Liriano has allowed more baserunners, has struck out a lot more guys,and where Pavano has been been a bit lucky Liriano has been a bit unlucky, but either way it's clear these two are going to have to carry this team.  Not saying they're Drysdale/Koufax or anything, but it certainly seems like we have ourselves a bit of a "Liriano and Pavano and pray for a tornado" kind of situation.  It works better if you pronounce tornado with a bit of a schwa sound.  Or like you imagine a British guy would say it.

3.   Tim Lincecum.  It's sort of boring to write about Wiley Wiggins here seeing as how he's won the last two NL Cy Young awards and just kind of keeps chugging along.  He picked up win #10 for the year on Thursday, just cruising against the Mets with a six-hit shut-out.  He is once again leading the league in strikeouts and is top 10 in ERA, and although he probably won't win a third straight, he can take solace in the fact that if you put his name into google when it does that thing where it adds words onto your search, "Tim Lincecum Weed" is the first entry.  Also I know I'm not exactly the first person to make the Tim Lincecum/Mitch Kramer comparison, but come on, it's uncanny.  Creepy, even.  And don't forget, Mitch Kramer was a pitcher.  Do you think they're the same person?  Cuz it'd be a lot cooler if you did.

4.  Demarcus Cousins.  He tailed off a bit towards the last couple of games of Summer League, finishing 1-12 and 3-15 from the floor in the final two games, but Cousins looks like he is everything he was advertised to be, and maybe even more.  What I saw with my own eyes was a guy who showed a more complete offensive game than he ever did at Kentucky.  I think in college he didn't have to show an impressive offensive game because he could just overpower everyone, but in Summer League he really showed that he can score in a lot of ways.  Nice.  But what I read about, was how he complained about every call, got in running verbal battles with every opponent, and basically acted completely uncoachable.  Kind of like he was in college, but worse.  Much worse.  One thing is for certain - this is going to be an interesting ride.        

5.  Gordon Beckham.  Funny Beckham story.  He's struggled all year, and was hitting just .216 going into Thursday's first post All-Star Break game agains the Twins - a game Snacks and I attended.  As Beckham gets up for his first at-bat, Snacks turns to me to say, "What happened to this guy?  I thought there was going to be a new guy to hate in the division for years, instead he looks like he's going to get sent down" and before he can even get to "guy", Beckham hammers the ball over the fence on his way to 2-3 night.  He then went 2-3 and 1-3 before finishing the series by going 4-4 against the Twins.  So to recap, he sucks.  Snacks questions his ability.  He responds by going 9-13.  So Snacks single-handedly saved Gordon Beckham's career.  Thanks a lot, A-hole!


WHO SUCKED

1.  Dan Gladden.  I've ripped Gladden here before, both for using the nickname "Dazzle Man" as well as for being a complete dickmitten when it comes to talking about baseball, but he hit a new low on Thursday, low enough that a low-level meaningless third-rate blogger thinks he deserves his own section in WHO SUCKED.  Anyway, to refresh your memory, the Twins lost to the Sawx thanks to Kevin Slowey and Alex Burnett sucking, plus little baby boy Morneau's headache kept him out of the lineup.  It was the first game after the All-Star Break, and thanks to Kate J. I attended.  On the way home, the Dazzle Man's reason for the loss, "You know, after three days off it's tough to get back into the rhythm of playing again."  Now is probably where I should go into some kind of tirade, but this one is just so over the top I'm just going to stop talking and let it sink in.  I'm not talking now.  Be the ball, Danny.


2. Al-Farouq Aminu.  Remember how last week I was talking about the Clippers sucked and were making bad offs-eason decisions including their drafting of Aminu and then there was that one guy who left a comment and said I was stupid?  Well who's laughing now?  Aminu has been B-R-U-T-A-L in Summer League.  He's shot 29% in the five games, with games where he shot 4-13, 3-12, and 3-15.  Even in his best shooting game where he went 4-9 he turned it over 4 times and committed 8 fouls (they allow 10 for some reason).  And for a 6-9 athletic player five rebounds per game in Summer League isn't very good.  Basically he's shown one skill and that's getting fouled and making free throws.  Valuable to be sure, but it wouldn't kill him to hit a shot once in a while. 

3.  Justin Morneau.  Seriously?  SERIOUSLY!!!???!?!?

4.  Bobby Jenks.  It's always nice to know that you're never quite out of the game when you still get to hit against Bobby Jenks aka "Stupid Fat Idiot" as he's known around my house.  One of the announcers kept harping about how Jenksy was 20-21 in save opportunities for the year and had saved 15 in a row, and I kept thinking that's awfully hard to believe.  Then you look at his stats and see he has an ERA of 4.76 and a WHIP of 1.56, and things are even more confusing.  Basically he's somehow doing an ok job, but when he flames out he flames out spectacularly, as we all know.  In the ten games this year where he's allowed at least one run in half of them he allowed at least two and three times he's allowed three.  So basically when he comes in the game he either shuts you right down or you're going to light him up like he was Nick Blackburn. 

5.  Scott Baker/Kevin Slowey/Nick Blackburn.  Good god take your pick, because these guys all suck and they're killing the team's season.  If they don't get it figured out, and it's seeming more and more like they won't, it won't matter how much of a career season Pavano and/or Delmon Young have - they won't win a division this way.  Seriously, at this point they might as well replace these three clowns with Jeff Manship, Anthony Swarzak, and Glen Perkins.  They couldn't possibly be worse.  I read they're finally at least moving Duensing into the rotation, but I have a feeling it might be both too little, and too late. 


Finally, and this could probably deserve all five spots on the Awesome list by itself, but here is Miguel Angel Jimenez's shot on 17 on Saturday.  Sadly, it still ended up as a double-bogey, but it's still pretty sweet and the kind of thing you'd be more likely to see in a game of Golden Tee.  Check it:

MLB Preview - National League

I'm trying not to think about how we're about to lose Tubby Smith, so instead I'll turn my attention elsewhere so I don't break down and cry.  With just five days until opening day and the first day of being sick and tired of the Yankees/Sox media barrage it's time to roll out the baseball predictions.  I'm breaking this into National League and American League posts, one today and one tomorrow, because I'm way too lazy to it all at once.  I'm also starting with the National League - just to piss you off.

NL EAST

1.  PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES.  Take the same team that won the Series in 2008 and finished runner-up in 2009 and add the best (possibly second best) pitcher in baseball.  Yeah, I think they're going to be pretty good.  Look for Hamels to regain his 2008 form and J.A. Happ to get even better in his second year and they're likely going to be the team with the most wins in baseball.  I'm fully expecting Halladay to win 25 games.

2.  ATLANTA BRAVES.  They're getting a lot of preseason heat as a possible sleeper team, and it's not all that far-fetched.  Tommy Hansen is a stud, and there's good pitching behind him in the rotation, especially if Tim Hudson is back to top-of-his-game form like all the preseason crap is saying.  And this Jason Heyward hype has officially surpassed Wieters-levels.  If he isn't built like Deebo while hitting like Roy Hobbs and running like Willie Mays Hayes I'm going to be disappointed.

3.  FLORIDA MARLINS.  Outisde of pimp-daddy Hanley and alleged NL Rookie-of-the-Year Chris Coghlan there are plenty of questions about the lineup, but that rotation should be pretty rock solid.  At the very least Josh Johnson and Ricky Nolasco are going to form a very nice 1-2 punch at the top.  I'm very interested in seeing what Cameron Maybin can do with a full season of at-bats as well.

4.  NEW YORK METS.   I know you're thinking it's crazy to have the Mets in fourth, but go ahead and check out their team for a minute and then tell me they're good.  Wright has regressed, Reyes has some mystery ailment, their right-fielder was basically cut by Atlanta, and I've never even heard of their projected starting catcher.  Perhaps most damning of all, however, is that they STILL start Luis Castillo and bat him second.  Oof.  And that rotation is a nightmare behind Johan.  Oh, by the way, Johan.  How many postseason games have you played in since you forced the Twins to trade you? 

5.   WASHINGTON NATIONALS.  At least they have Strasburg so there's a reason to watch beyond watching Adam Dunn put everything he's got into every swing.  What's that?  They're starting him in the minors despite some truly sick Spring stats?  I hope it's worth the minimal savings you'll get by keeping his clock from running right away.  Seriously, who runs this team, Brad Childress?


NL CENTRAL

1.   ST LOUIS CARDINALS.  Although the Phillies should win more games, the Cards will probably win their division by the widest margin because after them this whole division should be thrown in a garbage dumpster.  It's basically Pujols and friends going up against five teams of Cleveland Indians.  I suppose I should predict something for this team, so I predict that Brad Penny will have one of his best ever years.  I also predict Ryan Franklin loses his closer job to Jason Motte.

2.  MILWAUKEE BREWERS.  All because Carlos Gomez came aboard?  Maybe.  We still have to see if he's continued to learn plate patience (you might not have noticed, but he was better last year).  The Brewers have the best lineup of the rest of the central teams and will be getting Rickie Weeks back.  There's a lot to like about the lineup here, and Gallardo gets any help behind him they could be in line for a Wild Card spot.  Ugliest part?  They still start Jeff Suppan, and LaTroy Hawkins is their top set-up guy.  Ouch.

3.  CINCINNATI REDS.  I'm giving a lot of credit to some young guys here, but I'm a big believer in most of these guys.  Injuries have derailed Homer Bailey before, but he finally hit his stride late last season and him and Cueto join veterans Aaron Harang and Bronson Arroyo to give Cincy's rotation a nice mix of young and old.  The lineup will need guys like Jay Bruce and Chris Dickerson to live up to their potential, but I say they do and make the Reds a dangerous team.

4.  CHICAGO CUBS.  Aramis is a walking injury, Soriano looks like he's basically done, their big free-agent signing was Marlon freaking Byrd, and their middle infield consists of that wiener Ryan Theriot and a cast-off from the Rockies.  Yuck.  The rotation is mostly brutal as well, and you can go ahead and pencil in Carlos Marmol for a complete meltdown as a closer right about mid-June.  Yeah, I'm not a big fan of the Cubbies this year.

5.  HOUSTON ASTROS.  This is the most boringest team in all of baseball.  Their big free-agent splash was signing Brandon Lyon.  Yawn.  Also, nice shitty signing, that guy sucks.  They should have two mid-teen game winners in Oswalt and Wandy Rodriguez, assuming Lyon doesn't blow every game.

6.  PITTSBURGH PIRATES.  I really didn't want to pick Pittsburgh to finish last because I'm starting to really like what their front office is doing (it's a new front office the last year or two), but I just can't quite yet.  They're moving in the right direction.  If Lastings Milledge has finally figured it out he and Andrew McCutchen make up a nice start to the outfield, and when Jose Tabata finally gets up that's going to be a very fast outfield.


NL WEST

1.  COLORADO ROCKIES.  If Chris Iannetta and Ian Stewart can raise their averages even a little this going to be a dangerous team because the lineup is loaded, and even if they don't they are still solid players because they walk a lot.  A good but not great rotation should be enough to win the West, assuming Franklin Morales doesn't blow it while he fills in for Huston Street.  Troy Tulowitzki is a complete and total stud, and if Albert Pujols didn't exist he'd have a shot at an MVP.

2.  LOS ANGELES DODGERS.  James Loney is kind of a lame-o and Blake DeWitt hasn't worked out, but the Dodgers hit home runs with Andre Ethier and Matt Kemp, who are a hell of a 1-2 punch.  Kemp looks like a good bet to go 30-30 and Ethier has the look of a career professional hitter.  The rotation is pretty thin, but Clay Kershaw at the front is a sure-fire Cy Young candidate, and will probably be for years to come.

3.  ARIZONA DIAMONDBACKS.  They'd be a bit easier to place if I knkew what was going on with Brandon Webb, but in reality they probably couldn't be better than the teams above them and definitely couldn't be worse than the team's below them.  Like Kemp, Justin Upton has a shot at 30-30 this year, and is just an incredible hitter for his age - kind of like what everybody wanted Delmon Young to be just shoot me right in the face.

4.  SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS.  They get to finish fourth based solely on their pitching staff, because Lincecum and Cain are studs, Baumgartner and Jonathan Sanchez are potential studs, and everybody in the lineup sucks other than Pablo Sandoval (aka the black Billy Butler) and possibly Nate Schierholtz.  They also have Buster Posey, who has a super sweet name is is supposed to be a pretty big stud with the stick.  He better be, because their isn't much of a lineup here and there isn't much coming soon. 

 5.  SAN DIEGO PADRES.  Holy god this lineup is depressing.  How depressing?  Kevin Kouzmanoff hits clean-up, David Eckstein hits in the upper half, and I haven't come even close to hearing of their 7th or 8th batter.  The rotation isn't that much better, but at least there's some hope with guys like Clayton Richard, Mat Latos, and star of "The Last Best League" Tim Stauffer.  The bullpen is decent, but they'd really be better served trading Heath Bell for prospects (as well as Adrian Gonzalez) because they aren't going anywhere as currently constructed.   


NL Wild Card - L.A. Dodgers
NL Pennant - Philadelphia Phillies
MVP - Albert Pujols (runner up = Kemp)
CY YOUNG - Roy Halladay (runner up = Lincecum)
ROOKIE OF THE YEAR - Jesus Heyward (runner up = Posey)


AL preview should be coming tomorrow, assuming Tubby doesn't leave.  I mean by tomorrow, because I know he's leaving I just don't know when.

Suck.

Week In Review - 11/23/09

If you've been watching basketball on ESPN this week, you would have noticed them pimping the hell out of their NCAA Basketball Encyclopedia, and probably become a bit annoyed by it.  I got annoyed by it, but I have to tell you that I have this book and it is totally awesome.  There is more information in there than any person could possibly need, and I mean that in a good way.  Like, did you know Delino DeShields was a top basketball prospect coming out of high school?  It's full of all that kind of stuff and more.  It's not like a baseball encyclopedia, like where you could say "I wonder what Kenny Lofton's stats were when he played for Arizona" and then look him up, but it's got tons of other info.  It lists every D-I team, their best players, best teams, best coaches, some cool little fun facts and other information, as well as their record every single year and their leading scorer, rebounder, and assister for each season.  Plus a bunch more cool stuff.  I highly, highly recommend it. 

WHO WAS AWESOME

1.  Zack Greinke.  This was refreshing.  The BBWAA actually didn't screw this up and voted Greinke the American League Cy Young award, which is at it should have been.  In case you forgot, Greinke went 16-8 with a 2.16 ERA and a 1.07 WHIP this year, leading the league in both of those last two metrics, and if you watched him at all he seemed even better than that.  I figured the voters would screw this one up, since they love giving awards to players on good teams (The royals were awful), they love evaluating players based on wins (six pitchers had more wins than Greinke), and they love Yankees (Sabathia looked like a perfect candidate for the idiot voters).  But, for once, they made the right call.  Also a congrats to Tim Lincecum for winning the NL award for the second year in a row.  Who would have known Mitch Kramer would have grown up to be such a success.  

2.  Syracuse.  It seems my prediction of "Syracuse will suck this year" might be way, way off, while the cretins who vote in the polls and had them 24th were closer to the truth (also still underrating them).  After the two gimme wins last week, they headed to Madison Square Garden for the final four of the Coaches vs. Cancer classic, and walked out with the title.  They did it in impressive fashion, as well, beating #12 Cal in the semis 95-73 and #4 North Carolina 87-71 in the championship.  Their defense is still top notch, Scoop Jardine and Brandon Triche have filled in for Jonny Flynn nicely, Andy Rautins is actually making shots, Wes Johnson is as good as advertised, and Arinze Onuaku has stepped his game up.  Very nice week for the Orange.  I still kind of think this might be a house of cards a bit, and also that Cal and UNC were majorly overrated, but Syracuse has already proved me wrong, and it wouldn't shock if they continue to do so.

3.  John Wall.  Well, I think we can go ahead and say "believe the hype."  Wall was the top recruit this season, was picked by someone I read as the National Player of the Year, and so far neither of those seem too ridiculous.  In his three games this year, Wall has averaged 20.3 points, 4.0 rebounds, 7.3 assists, 2.7 steals, and 1.0 blocks per game, all while shooting 56% from the floor.  His turnovers are about the only thing remotely concerning (averaging four per game), but he only had two in Saturday's win (to 11 assists) and for a freshman this early in the season it's not a surprise they are a little high.  Kentucky still hasn't really played anybody, and won't until December, but for now Wall looks very good, and Calipari is certainly squeezing as much out of him as he can in what his likely his only college season - he's played 38, 37, and 35 minutes in the three games.   

4.  Minnesota Vikings.  Are you like me and life as a Minnesota fan, and specifically a Viking fan, has conditioned you to expect the worst at all times?  I mean the Vikes are absolutely rolling, now at 9-1 and just destroying teams, such as the poor, hapless Seahawks who they rolled to such a degree that T-Jax actually played almost an entire half.  Everything is perfect.  Brett Favre has played nearly flawlessly this season.  Adrian Peterson has gone from "possibly the best back in football" to "the best back in football."  Percy Harvin is heading towards a possible rookie-of-the-year award.  Sidney Rice has realized his untapped potential and vaulted into maybe a top 10 receiver in the NFL (Don't believe me?  He's 17th in catches and 3rd in receiving yards in the NFL).  And the defense, although showing a few weaknesses at times, is still an elite unit with a front four that is basically destroying everybody - And all this without Antoine Winfield.  And yet, instead of relaxing, I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop and someting to go horribly, horribly wrong.  Will it be a Favre injury?  An injury to some one else?  Or will it be smooth sailing until an epic choke job in the playoffs?  I don't know, but you know damn well it's going to be something. 

5.  Rodney Williams.  I think it's finally time to recognize that this kid might not just beat beating up on poor teams, he might legitimately be a Big Ten Freshman of the Year candidate.  It seemed the consensus on the Gopher freshmen coming into the season was Royce = FOY candidate, Cobbs = immediate backup, might steal the starting spot, and Rodney = project, possible redshirt.  Well, after putting up games of 14, 14, and 17 points, all on better than 58% shooting, and adding an average of three boards and two steals per, he's suddenly looking far beyond a redshirt.  Besides his stellar defense and insane athleticism, which were given, he's answered questions about his offense by showing a nice outside touch (3-8 from three) and a good offensive IQ.  I'm starting to wish I took him in my fantasy college hoops league.  Although I did get Damian Johnson, who is just ridiculous in every way.

To give you some example, in the scoring system our league uses (pts, rebs = +1, asts = +2, stl, blks = +3, TO = -2), he has put up 46, 40, and 42 points.  Last year's returning leader was Luke Harangody (also on my team), and he averaged 42 per game.  I realize DJ probably won't be able to continue to put up those kind of numbers, especially the blocks and steals, once competition improves, but in any case, he is just so, so valuable, and I'm talking real life - not fantasy.  I don't care who ends up leading the Gophers in which statistical categories, Johnson is hands down this team's MVP.  Except maybe Ralph. 


WHO SUCKED

1.  Penn State.  Ouch.  It looks like Iowa and Indiana won't be battling for 11th place by themselves, the post-Geary Claxton era is looking ugly.  The Nittany Lions were basically Talor Battle and that's it, and needed somebody to step up and help out this year.  That hasn't happened, and Penn State basically embarrassed themselves at the Charleston Classic this weekend, finishing in 7th place (out of 8).  It was a pretty low-level tournament, and was set up for a South Carolina/Miami final, with Penn State and South Florida as potential sleepers and then four cupcakey-type teams.  Well, the final happened, but Penn State never got their sleeper campaign going, dropping their opener to UNC-Wilmington.  Ok, fine.  At least they should be able to rip through the consolation bracket and salvage some pride, right?  Wrong again.  They lost their first consolation game to Tulane, setting up an epic seventh place game against Davidson, which they mercifully won.  Gopher fans have been there - remember the Old Spice Classic? - so we feel your pain, Penn State.


2.  Pac 10 Hoops.  The Pac was already said to be down this year, but things might be worse than originally thought, especially after watching one of their two "top flight" teams get swept by Ohio State and Syracuse in the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic, and do so without much of a fight (although to be completely fair, the Bears were missing a couple of players).  There are a ton of other black marks as well; Arizona State needed a miracle finish to beat a terrible TCU team, Stanford lost to Oral Roberts, UCLA lost to Bryce Webster and CS - Fullerton, USC was knocked off by a god awful Loyola Marymount team, Oregon lost to Portland, and Oregon State (the conference's big sleeper) lost to Texas Tech to drop to 1-2 and then lost on Saturday to Sacramento State - one of the worst teams in the country - and that all happened just this week.  I honestly can't remember ever seeing a major conference struggle this mightily this early.  At least the Washington schools are still undefeated, although neither has really played anyone yet.  The real winner in this is Arizona, who was heading for a down year and whose 24 straight years with an NCAA Tournament bid record was in jeopardy.  With a decent team, in what suddenly looks like a super weak conference, we could be looking at 25.

3.  Pittsburgh Steelers.  Funny thing about the NFL this year, there are a handful of teams that are so gad awful they never win and never even threaten to win:  Oakland, St. Louis, Detroit, Cleveland, and Kansas City.  Except - whoops - Kansas City beat the Steelers on Sunday, 27-24 in overtime - and did so without Dwayne Bowe, who is suspending for cheating.  I have no idea how it happened.  Roethlisberger threw for 398 yards, but threw two picks and the Steelers turned the ball over three times, and then allowed Matt Cassell to have a nearly perfect second half and overtime, leading to four scoring drives including the game-winning field goal.  I don't even know what else to say.  This is like when Forrest Gump won the Oscar over Pulp Fiction.  Oakland also beat Cincinnati, and in even more embarrassing fashion, but I still feel like the Pitt loss was more stunning even though the Bengals have a better record than the Steelers.  I guess I've learned that you can never trust the Bengals completely.  Kind of like a wife or girlfriend.  Or any female, really. 

4.  Gopher football.  Did you ever think you'd pine for the days of Glen Mason?  I certainly didn't, and yet, that's what I found myself thinking on Sunday watching Maroney run for the Patriots.  I found myself harkening back to the days of Barbaroney (and G-Russ) and thinking, at least when Mason was here the Gophers had some talented players.  At least they were exciting and fun to watch.  And then I stopped myself, and realized what I was saying.  I wish Glen Mason was still here.  I WISH.  GLEN MASON.  WAS STILL HERE.  And I have a feeling if you're reading this and haven't thought that, you're thinking it right now.  Isn't that the most damning evidence that the Brewster era has been a failure? 

5.  NCAA Fascists.  FREE RENARDO SIDNEY!!  FREE RENARDO SIDNEY!!!  FREE RENARDO SIDNEY!!  Who's with me?  FREE RENARDO SIDNEY!!  FREE RENARDO SIDNEY!! FREE RENARDO SIDNEY!!  FREE RENARDO... (also now featured on the front page of the espn college basketball section).


I am crazy fired up for college basketball this year, and this is one of the best times of the season with all the holiday tournaments going on.  We already had the Coaches vs. Classic and Puerto Rico Tip-Off winners, but there's plenty more going on, and I'm most interested in the Maui Classic (other than the 76 Classic, of course).  I've been pimping Cincinnati as a final four sleeper this year, and this will be their first chance to show if I'm at least near the right track or not.  They start off with a good Vanderbilt team today on ESPN2 at 4:30 - check them out.

One other quick note from the weekend - the Gophers opponent in the Big10/ACC Challenge, Miami, won the Charleston Classic this weekend by beating Tulane, UNC-Wilmington, and South Carolina.  That's not really all that impressive, since the first two are weak teams (although Wilmington beat Penn State) and South Carolina's second best player went down with a knee injury seven minutes into the game and never returned, but still, it boosts Miami's profile and therefore the Gophers' if they manage a win on the 2nd - which I certainly think they can.

Weekend Review

So who else is going to miss Travis Busch? Remember that one time when he fell on the floor? Or that other time when he ended up on the ground? Or the way he always fell down at every opportunity? Man, what a bummer. That Travis Busch, he do be hustlin.

WHO WAS AWESOME

1. Evan Longoria. The 2008 rookie of the year hasn't exactly slowed down, leading the majors after the first week of play with five home runs after hitting twenty-seven last year. He is also second with 10 rbi, and has blistered the ball at a .481/.481/1.185 clip - yes that slugging percentage is accurate and is also tops in the majors. In an era where it seems like more prospects flame out than produce (I'm looking your way Delmon), it's rare to see a kid like this shoot to the top of the league's best. When the Rays signed him to a lucrative five year deal when he was still in the minors it raised some eyebrows, but now it looks genius since they are only going to have to pay him $17 million over the next seven freaking years (assuming they don't re-work the deal). Seriously, he's only making $550,000 this year for that kind of production. Nice.

2. Roy Halladay. The first pitcher to get to two wins this year, Halladay shut down the Indians on Saturday, giving up just one run and five hits while striking out seven or seven innings. He was hurt by the long ball in his first start, giving up a couple of solo shots to the Tigers, which is why he has a less than impressive 3.86 ERA right now, but his 1.00 WHIP, .212 OBA, and 3-to-1 K/BB ratio says he is still a top pitcher again this year. And why not? The guy has been lights out every year he’s been healthy, finishing in the top five in the Cy Young voting the past three years and winning it in 2003 – and he had nine complete games last year, just to prove he’s a man’s man – all while playing for the crappy Blue Jays. I’m a big Halladay fan. It sickens me that he’s going to make $14 million this year and A.J. Burnett is going to make $16.5. So wrong.

3. Emilio Bonifacio & Josh Johnson. It’s ok if you haven’t heard of either of these guys, but they are pretty much the biggest two reasons the Marlins are currently 5-1 and sitting on top of the NL East. Bonifacio, who came over in a weird ass trade that the Nationals made for Josh Willingham, who is now their fourth outfielder, has absolutely been on fire and has really been a catalyst for the team. He's second in the NL in average, batting .500, and leads the league in steals with four already. He's also shown a bit of pop, with a double, triple, and inside-the-park home run mixed in there. He obviously can't keep up this pace, but if he can manage a three hundred average that trade is going to look worse than it already does.

As good as Bonifacio has been, Johnson has been even better on the hill for the Marlins. He's 2-0, and has posted an ERA of 0.57 (leading all two start pitchers) and a WHIP of 0.83. His last time out he out-dueled Johan Santana, pitching a complete game against the Mets, striking out seven while giving up just five hits and one run. Johnson returned in the middle of last season from Tommy John surgery and pitched well, coming into this season as kind of a sleeper in fantasy circles. I don't think anybody expected him to look this dominating though. With these two joining the group Florida put together, the Marlins are suddenly a threat to win the division.

4. Nick Swisher. Good with the A's, horrible with the Sox, and now suddenly Swisher looks reborn in pinstripes. He started the season as a backup for the Yanks, but after getting a start in the third game and killing the ball, he's started every game since and looks like an all-star, hitting .471/.550/1.118 with two home runs and 9 rbi. One of Swisher's best skills has always been his ability to work a count and take a walk (he's had more than 80 walks the past three years) and to hit for power, but he's never hit for a particularly high average - especially last year when he struggled to get over .200, finishing at .219 and leading the Sox to trade him. If he can add a high average to the power and the walks, look out.

5. Adam Lind. I’ve been pimping Travis Snider, who has been good at .286/.286/.643, but the real story for the Jays offense has been Lind, who is off to tremendous start in his third major league season. He leads the league in RBI with 12, and has crushed opponents' pitching to the tune of .400/.419/.767 with 3 home runs. If you hadn't heard of him that's ok, I had barely heard of. He was considered an elite prospect at one time, but failed to live up to that promise his first two years, failing to break a .760 OPS in either season. Is he now living up to the hype, or is this nothing more than a hot start that we can expect to fade? I don't know, but now he gets to come to the cozy Metrodome and face home run giving up machines Slowey, Perkins, and Baker and hit balls over the baggy, so his hot start will probably continue for at least another week.


WHO SUCKED

1. Minnesota Twins Offense. Uh oh, folks. You can’t explain all the team’s offensive troubles away by saying Mauer is missing, and it’s been ugly. Span has been awesome as a leadoff hitter (.419 OBP with 5 walks) and Nick Punto has been good (.353 BA with a .476 OBP), but that's pretty much it other than a couple of nice Morneau home runs. Delmon is hitting .133, Gomez is at .136, and Crede is at .160 as the team has more regulars hitting under .200 than over .300. Also I'm not sure if you are aware of this, but getting shut out twice in your first six games is not good. Once again, it doesn't seem to matter who is on the mound, good young pitchers (Felix Hernandez), old washed up pitchers (Bartolo Colon), injured pitchers (Erik Bedard), mediocre pitchers (Jarrod Washburn), or long-time nemesises (Mark Buehrle) they are getting shut down far too often already. Currently ranking in the bottom five in the league in average, OBP, and slugging, they will get a boost when (if?) Mauer returns, but some of these other guys need to turn it around in a hurry.

Lastly, if you saw Delmon's homerun yesterday it was a thing of beauty and a little preview into what he could become with a little more patience. He took two close pitches that were off the plate to get to a 2-0 count, and then hit the next meaty fastball over the middle out of the yard. If he can do that more often, maybe he can live up to his alleged tremendous potential.

2. Cliff Lee. Well it’s official, Cliff Lee sucks and I’m a moron – or even more of a moron than usual, I guess I should say. Lee lost again to drop to 0-2, and lost again in blowout fashion against Toronto on Saturday. Last year’s fluke pitched just five innings, giving up 7 hits and 4 walks on the way to giving up 4 earned runs. This now leaves Lee at 0-2, with a WHIP of 2.20 and an ERA of 9.90. I still don’t get it. How can a pitcher completely dominate for a full year, like Cliffy last season, and suddenly complete lose it just one year later? There’s nothing that says Lee should suck now, both his BABIP and LOB % last year weren’t fluky, completely weird numbers that deflated his ERA, but watching him pitch this year all of a sudden who the hell knows what’s going on. Glad I have him on two fantasy teams (actually, on one team my three top starters are Lee, Liriano, and Roy Oswalt – all 0-2 after this weekend). This also keeps the Indians in a bad way, sitting at 0-5 to start the year (they did win on Sunday to get to 1-5).

3. Tim Lincecum. The other Cy Young award winner from last season hasn’t had much success either. Unlike Lee, there weren't many questions about Lincecum. The only real issue was how many wins he would be able to pick up, considering the Giants are awful, but that his other stats should still be pretty good. Not the case thus far. The little guy lasted just three innings (a career low) in his opening day start against Milwaukee, giving up 3 runs, 4 hits, and 3 walks before getting pulled and looking generally unimpressive, and then followed that up on Saturday by giving up a career high 10 hits to go with three walks and four runs in just 5 and 1/3. Something is very much off right now, as he is fifth in the league with 14 hits allowed in just 8.1 innings, and has walked to many guys resulting in a 2.40 WHIP, the second worst number in the league amongst pitchers with two starts. I would expect him to rebound more than I would Lee, but neither have looked anywhere near their 2008 form thus far.

4. Cole Hamels. He’s still my boyfriend and all, but he certainly didn’t impress me in his first start since winning the World Series MVP, getting lit up by the Rockies to the tune of 11 hits and 7 earned runs allowed in just 3 and 2/3 innings pitched. He had a bit of an injury scare in Spring Training with a sore elbow, but it was supposed to be nothing more than elbow inflammation. Does this mean he’s hurt more than we think? It could be, especially since his fastball averaged just 87 mph in that game compared to his career average of 90. It’s something to keep an eye on, especially with Hamels poor history with injuries. If he’s hurt I might have to kill myself. Or just find a new obsession. Halladay looking pretty good these days.

5. Everyone in contention at the Masters. I could I suppose put Angel Cabrera in the awesome column for winning, but it really didn’t feel like anybody won the tournament as much as everybody lost it and Cabrera won by everyone else screwing up worse. The top two, Cabrera and Perry, both played half-assed throughout the tournament until Perry birdied 15 and hit an incredible tee shot at 16 to birdie again and get to -14 and a two stroke lead. He then proceeded to pull an Albany and shat all down his leg, bogeying the final two holes to drop into a three-way tie with Cabrera and Chad Campbell (who actually played at -3 on the day and based on his four days in Augusta probably should have ended up winning).

The playoff was even more of a choke-fest, with Cabrera in the woods, Campbell in the sand, and Perry chunking his approach shot. Perry and Cabrera saved par, but Campbell missed a short par putt to eliminate himself. On the final hole, Cabrera played well and Perry doinked his approach way off to the left of the green, giving Cabrera an easy win. It was pretty lame. Like watching Greg Norman and Steve Stricker battle down the stretch.

The most exciting part of the final round was watching Mickelson and Woods, who were grouped together, make a run up the leaderboard to get back into contention. Mickelson tied a Masters record with a 30 on the front side to get to -10 and just two shots back, but lost his mojo with a double bogey after hitting into the water at twelve, and ended up at +1 on the back to finish three shots back in fifth. Woods started more slowly, but turned it on after the turn, going three under on holes 13-16, also getting to -10. He then bogeyed the final two holes, however, to finish in a tie for sixth with John Merrick and Steve Flesch, and Steve Stricker.

So yeah, congrats Angel Cabrera on your second major win. It wasn’t the most impressive, but winning a war of attrition is still winning.


And that'll do it. Starting tomorrow, I'm going to attempt to do Daily Updates rather than weekly. Don't worry your pretty little head, they'll still be additional posts sprinkled throughout the week, hopefully with a little bit of Sidler Nerd Baseball talk, Dawger movie reviews and Gopher updates, and Snake hockey bits.