Archive for September, 2009

If you like Sanchez, you’ll love this,

Wow, there were some crappy early games. Thankfully there were a few sideshows and massive failures to keep things interesting. Oh, and this Favre fellow.

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I want to see how this will effect the rest of the season!

Take a look at a clip of Sanchez at his best:

Backyard Baseball 2005 - Pablo Sanchez Theme

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The Giants moved from New York to San Francisco 51 years ago, in 1958. Since then, the Cubs have played them in San Francisco in a four-game series 23 times.

The number of times a Cubs team has swept a Giants team on the road in those 23 tries is zero. So the 2009 Cubs has a chance to do something that’s never been done before by a Cubs team — sweep the Giants in a four-game set in San Francisco. The Cubs did sweep the Giants in a four-game series at Wrigley Field in 1963. The final game of that series, on June 6, was memorable. Reliever Lindy McDaniel came into a tie game in the 10th inning with the bases loaded. He picked Willie Mays off second base, struck out Ed Bailey, then hit a walkoff homer leading off the bottom of the 10th. That is the only time the Cubs have swept the Giants at all in a four-game series since they moved West in 1958.

There was an article the other day by Paul Sullivan speculating on whether the Giants would trade Aaron Rowand for Milton Bradley. Thought you would like to see a couple of FanShots from McCovey Chronicles with some thoughts from Giants fans on whether they’d do it or not. And, you can cross the Royals off the list of teams that might want Bradley, with pretty strong language quoted by Bob Dutton of the Kansas City Star:

Royals officials dismiss — in strong terms — reports of possible interest in acquiring outfielder Milton Bradley from the Cubs. “Idiots” was one of the nicer comments directed at those offering such speculation.

Site note: tonight is Yom Kippur, so today’s game recap will be delayed until tomorrow morning.

Today’s Starting Pitchers

Randy Wells Cubs vs. Matt Cain Giants 11-9 W-L 13-7 3.00 ERA 2.99 93 SO 158 43 BB 70 14 HR 22 vs. Hou – vs. Cubs

Matt Cain last faced the Cubs on July 11, 2008 at Wrigley Field. He and Jason Marquis both threw seven shutout innings that day, but the Cubs won 3-1 when Aramis Ramirez hit a three-run homer off reliever Tyler Walker. In fact, Cain didn’t give up a run to the 2008 NL scoring leaders in two starts last year. This year, Cain has overall good numbers, but has lost his last three starts, in which he has a 9.42 ERA. Derrek Lee, who we hope will be back in the lineup today, is 4-for-15 with a double and HR off Cain and Aramis Ramirez is 3-for-10.

Randy Wells talked Lou into giving him two more starts, so he’ll go today and then Saturday at home vs. the Diamondbacks. Randy’s walk rate is up a bit this month (10 in 26.1 innings) but he has still posted a 2.73 ERA in five starts. He has never faced the Giants and the only player on their team who he has faced — Freddy Sanchez in his Pirates days — is now out for the season.

Today’s game will have good announcers again (Len & Bob) on WGN and also on CSN Bay Area (Mike Krukow and Duane Kuiper). For other games today see the MLB.com Mediacenter.

MLB.com Gameday

Baseball-reference.com game preview

SB Nation game preview

Please visit our SB Nation Giants site McCovey Chronicles.

Overflow comment threads will post today at 4:15 and 5:15 pm CDT.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

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I have always been a fan of Sanchez, but I have to say, seeing news like this gives me mixed feelings.This will be shocking news for Sanchez fans, but some of you who will say that you saw it coming. I’m pretty surprised though. Sanchez is spectacular, I really hope this doesn’t affect the season.

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Look who is making news - SANCHEZ! The Poise Is Back In Town Media Meltdowns. In the interest of saving time, we have a summary -

Another week, another victory for Mark Sanchez, another opportunity for New York Times Jets writer Greg Bishop to limn the quarterback’s lukewarm heroics with his favorite word. You know the one.

In today’s paper, Bishop, whom we’ve met before, writes of the Jets:

The two constants have been the poise of their rookie quarterback and the defense.

To which we can now add a third: a beat writer who doesn’t seem to have access to a thesaurus. Bishop’s stories have accounted for six “poise”s since Aug. 6.

Sept. 25: “… Sanchez’s poise, pocket presence and decision-making” (this appeared online under the headline, “Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez has already shown the poise of a more experienced player”)

Sept. 15: “… the poise exhibited by Sanchez …”

Sept. 13: “… displayed poise rarely seen from rookie quarterbacks …”

Aug. 6, quoting coach Rex Ryan: ” … wanted to see poise …”

This has now officially gotten out of hand. Sanchez had a nice broken-play touchdown run yesterday and a largely unremarkable day throwing the ball. The English language fairly bulges with hollow compliments for a performance like that. Sanchez was self-possessed. He was serene. Assured. Phlegmatic. He played with confidence and aplomb and equanimity. Any of those, and a thousand more, would serviceably evoke the notion of a quarterback who looks like a quarterback and doesn’t constantly throw the ball to the other team’s safety, which is all “poise” really means in this context anyway. Deadlines are a bitch, and all writers have their crutches, but for a reporter at our country’s paper of record to turn time and again to the same lame cliché shows a distinct lack of — oh, what’s the word? — sangfroid.

Photo via GQ

It’s Sloppy, but Jets Are 3-0, and That’s No Mistake New York Times

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How do you think this news about SANCHEZ will affect the team this season?

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Check out who is in this news again: Wilson! This time, Requiem For A Season: Cubs Lose Road Finale 5-1 To Giants. In the interest of saving time,

Throughout this September, with the Cubs desperately clinging to hope of a postseason berth with a 16-9 start to the month, I kept thinking “stranger things have happened”. From time to time, as you know, I’d cite various other late-season pennant collapses or pushes, such as the 1964 Phillies or 2007 Rockies, as examples of why the Cubs could come back.

Now, though, if the Cubs were to somehow pull off a miracle finish, you’d have to say “stranger things have NOT happened”. With four teams ahead of them and an elimination number of one, the race is, for all intents and purposes, over.

It would, however, be fun if somehow the five teams wound up in what Baseball Musings’ David Pinto calls a “massive tie”. Today Pinto posts the way in which four teams could wind up tied for the NL Wild Card. That’d be fun to watch if only to see how Bud Selig would have to sputter his way through the method of breaking the tie. Right now the team with the best chance of pulling a “miracle” finish is the Braves, who on September 6 were seven games off the wild-card pace and who have now won six in a row and closed to within 2.5 games of the lead.

Yesterday, the Cubs missed their chance to have their first-ever four-game sweep of the Giants in San Francisco, losing to the Giants 5-1. Randy Wells didn’t pitch too badly, but he kept getting nibbled at; he allowed eight singles and two RBI doubles to a backup catcher (Eli Whiteside) who was hitting .197 at the start of the game. How many times have we heard that story this year? Give some credit to the Giants’ Matt Cain, who is one of the better pitchers in the league and who tied the Cubs in knots, throwing eight shutout innings before the Cubs got a consolation run off the Giants’ bullpen. The Cubs did get enough men on base in the ninth to force Bruce Bochy to call on his closer, Brian Wilson, to finish it off.

So the Cubs will come home for a season-ending seven-game homestand against two bad teams, the Pirates and Diamondbacks, with a chance to at least end the season strong. Some will say that if the Cubs win all seven (for example) and finish the year with 88 wins, that it would “fool” management into thinking there aren’t any problems. I disagree. Management clearly knows what they did wrong this year — the sending-home of Milton Bradley is evidence of that — and though this isn’t an excuse, injuries, particularly to Aramis Ramirez and Alfonso Soriano, held this year’s team back from winning more games.

The first win will give the Cubs three consecutive winning seasons for the first time since 1970-71-72. The 82nd win will also make Lou Piniella the first Cubs manager to have winning seasons in his first three years since Charlie Grimm in 1933-34-35. That’s a worthy goal. And any baseball player with professional pride should want to win every time he goes on the field.

I was trying to think of comparisons in Cubs history to the disappointment we have felt over the 2009 Cubs, and “disappointment” is the right word. This wasn’t a bad Cubs team, just one that wasn’t quite good enough. That would make a comparison to 2004 inapt, because the 2004 Cubs were tremendously talented. Their late-season collapse wasn’t in any way comparable to 2009 — the 2004 team had the wild card in its grasp and blew it.

It’s not comparable to 2001, because that was a team of overachievers that probably had no business being in contention that long. That team wound up with 88 wins; the current bunch would have to sweep the homestand to do that — not an impossible task given the opposition. (We also wouldn’t want the 2010 Cubs to do what the 2002 Cubs did — lose 95 games.)

It’s also not comparable to the 1977-78-79 teams, Cubs clubs that either were in first place or nearby for a couple of months each, because this team had far more talent than any of those.

No, I think the best comp to the 2009 Cubs would be the 1970 edition. Similarly to 2009, the 1970 Cubs had to play after a season filled with wonders, only to have the previous year’s team collapse — 2008 in the playoffs, 1969 in September. And like this year’s team, after 1969 the Cubs made one significant change: they sent Oscar Gamble and Dick Selma to the Phillies for a washed-up Johnny Callison. Not only was Callison not nearly the player he had been three or four years before, but Gamble eventually became a productive player elsewhere. This forced the 1970 Cubs to play nonentities like Cleo James, Joe Pepitone, Jimmie Hall, a 33-year-old Jim Hickman, and even (for one game) Glenn Beckert in center field, much as the 2009 Cubs have mixed and matched at various positions. The 1970 Cubs got off to a hot start, racing out to a five-game lead by mid-June, and then lost 12 in a row. They never recovered — just as the eight-game losing streak this year put the Cubs in a spot from which they just barely got back into first place in late July before having an awful August.

But also like this year’s team, the 1970 Cubs had one brief “maybe” moment in September. On September 13 at Wrigley Field, the Cubs were down to their last out trailing 2-1, when Matty Alou of the Pirates dropped a routine fly ball. Given new life, the Cubs followed with three straight hits, winning the game 3-2 and moving them to within one game of first place with 17 games left. Unfortunately, the Cubs went 8-9 in those 17 games and finished five games out of first place, the closest they would come to first place in the 1967-73 era of contention.

Enough of the history lesson. Let’s hope the Cubs play some fun and winning baseball in the next week, because we will all miss baseball while it is away for the winter.

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How do you think this news about Wilson will affect the rest of the team this season?

Take a peek at a vid of Wilson:

Wilson Baseball A2000 ASO leather

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Look who is in this news, young! This time, The Learning Curve: Diminishing Skills The Learning Curve. In the interest of saving time -

This segment is called “The Learning Curve” where you, young blog proprietor, will get a link to your new site on Deadspin. Any and all questions you may have about being a successful blogger will (hopefully) be answered.

Not by me, though. Consider this a “Dear Abby” for blog publishers and, you, proud, angry, often cruel commentariat should provide your helpful tips on success.

Now, thick skin is a requirement for every blogger. But do try to be helpful as well.

Don’t just torture all these people and trounce on their dreams in the comments - email them your tips, your real suggestions, your advice, etc. Touch lives and all that.

Today: Diminishing Skills, a blogspot production with an editor who lacks confidence (even though he has a pretty bad-ass first name) and is slowly losing hope unless you fine people can convince him otherwise.

My name is Canaan and I’ve been writing a blog called Diminishing Skills on-and-off (until recently, mostly off) since 2006. After moving to a town in the middle of nowhere, I’ve been updating it more regularly, and I was hoping that I could get some advice from your esteemed commenters on how to drive up readership (currently, I think I’m the only person who’s ever laid eyes on 90 percent of the blog’s content). The big thing I’m looking to get out of this is some feedback on whether putting as much time as I do into writing Diminishing Skills is actually worth it, since the few people who actually have seen the blog don’t ever let me know what they thought about it. Beyond the writing, the layout is a Blogger template, so any tips on how to make it a bit more personal and flashy would be greatly appreciated. Look forward to hearing both the good and the bad (mostly the bad; I regret not having a blog name that could be twisted into meaning two hobos’ cocks, but I’m sure someone will think of something). Thanks!

Offer your personalized flashy tips for Canaan.

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This might be shocking news for young fans, but there are those of you who will say that you saw it coming. I’m pretty surprised though. young is great, I hope this doesn’t affect the rest of the team.

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Nobody’s better than young nowadays,

First-year New Mexico coach Mike Locksley learned at the knee of famous intensity-pisser Ron Zook, and it seems he learned well. Locksley now stands accused of punching his wide receivers coach in the face.

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What do you think?

Here’s a clip of young trying his best work:

Developing Speed for Baseball

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For all you fans out there, here’s some news about sanchez,

A headline, in our newspaper of record: “Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez has already shown the poise of a more experienced player.” And the story refers to Sanchez’s “poise, pocket presence and decision making.” That’s two more for our collection. NYT

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Post your replies!

Take a peek at a vid of sanchez:

Duaner Sanchez Tribute

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My vote for MVP this year goes to young:

This segment is called “The Learning Curve” where you, young blog proprietor, will get a link to your new site on Deadspin. Any and all questions you may have about being a successful blogger will (hopefully) be answered.

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What do you think?

Here’s a vid of young:

New Lil Wayne ft Mack Maine - Baseball Sex 2009 Young Money Album

Find great seating options, and great prices on baseball tickets - at TicketsNow! Going to a game shouldn’t cost you hundreds of dollars, so shop and buy from fans and compare hundreds of different tickets, all guaranteed to be authentic and in your hands before the opening pitch.

Look who is making news, young! This time, The Learning Curve: These Idiots The Learning Curve. , we have a summary,

This segment is called “The Learning Curve” where you, young blog proprietor, will get a link to your new site on Deadspin. Any and all questions you may have about being a successful blogger will (hopefully) be answered.

Not by me, though. Consider this a “Dear Abby” for blog publishers and, you, proud, angry, often cruel commentariat should provide your helpful tips on success.

Now, thick skin is a requirement for every blogger. But do try to be helpful as well.

Don’t just torture all these people and trounce on their dreams in the comments - email them your tips, your real suggestions, your advice, etc. Touch lives and all that.

Today: Style Points You know, the blog pulled together by a bunch of dick joke-happy commenters trying waaaay too hard to be the new KSK. Oh and it’s not Stiles Points. Don’t confuse the two. That’s just blasphemy. The recently ninja’d Shakey’s email is sic’d below.

Ohayou gozaimasu Daulerio san,

The other blogs you’ve featured on the Learning Curve have been pretty good,
but Style Points is the greatest of all time!
All time!

For those that don’t know, I created Stye Points a couple months ago by
putting an ad in the casual encounters section of craigslist. My post got
responses from these creepers: Business Socks, ClitonPortisHead,
Saberhagendaaz and Chuck Knoblockhead. Now, I know what you’re thinking: Did
he say ClitonPortisHead? What in the wallaby is CPH doing with those
shortstacks? The answer involves a mail order bride, 6 sage scented candles,
2 Costco bottles of Eucerin, Chuck Knoblockhead’s Koi pond and bucket of
cannibal crawfish.

Onward.

You’ve probably heard about our successful fake twitter accounts:
Real_Ron_Artest, Fake_Ron_Artest and/or BirdmanAnderson. Now that fake
twitter accounts get shut down faster than Socks at gay chicken ranch, we’re
up a river without enough twitter to get us home. Figuratively speaking. I
think. Our daily hits have plateaued and Saberhagendaaz just railed our last
2 pills of blogger Viagra. I hosted a pow wow in Business Socks’
indoor tepee over the weekend and we decided the Learning Curve would be the
perfect way to engorge our traffic Santonio Holmes style.

What could the commenters possibly say that isnt’ already tattooed on
Real_Ron_Artest’s ass?

Go ahead. Help these fake Twittering motherfuckers.

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How do you think this news about young will affect the team this season?

Searching for autographed baseball memorabilia? There is only one place you can go to ensure that the signatures are real - IronClad Athetics. These guys have lots of selection, and reasonable prices, plus they have an Iron Clad Signature Authenticity guarantee, ensuring that every signature is 100% real, no imitations and no forgeries. Get great autographed baseball memorabilia now.

Check out who is making news again, veal! This time, Cowboys Repent For “Party Pass” Hell Nfl. For you convenience, we have a summary -