I wonder what those dudes locked in the MLB FanCave did on Thursday?
After having watched 2,429 regular season ballgames...do you think they just sat, with the televisions off, and got shitfaced?
Game 1 tonight: Tigers vs Yankees at 8:37 PM.
Justin Verlander and CC Sabathia. That's a bad-ass matchup! But, there are several in this series. How about the closers - Jose Valverde, who led the majors with 49 saves, against Mariano Rivera - the greatest closer of all time? How about Curtis Granderson trying to eliminate his former teammates?
I'm looking for Cabrera, Martinez, Peralta and Avila to out-slug Granderson, Cano, Jeter and Martin.
Both teams have gimpy 3rd base issues. Wilson Betemit is operating on a sore knee. A-Rod has a tender knee and a bad thumb.
Both bullpens are pretty evenly matched.
Even though the Tigers are on a roll - they went 20-6 in September and won the AL Central by 15 games over the Tribe - most of the experts are picking the Yankees in 4 games.
I know I'm biased, but I'm taking the Tigers in 5.
My picks for ALDS series heroes: Doug Fister, Victor Martinez & Delmon Young.
Go Tigers...
The Detroit Tigers defeated the Cleveland Indians 5-4.
The Tigers will play the New York Yankees in the 1st round of the playoffs.
Miguel Cabrera went 2-for-4 and captured the American League batting title, finishing with a .344 batting average - 6 points ahead of Michael Young of Texas and Adrian Gonzalez of Boston...
The Oakland A's ended their season on a positive note by shutting-out the Seattle Mariners 2-0.
Gio Gonzalez pitched 8 innings, allowed 2 hits, 3 walks and fired 11 Ks.
Gonzalez prays to the imaginary 'baseball gods'...
Some people will blame last night's epic collapse on the 'baseball gods.'
Sorry, there's only one GOD and I'm pretty sure he's a baseball fan, but I highly doubt that he favours one team over another.
No, this epic collapse was more the result of a 'Perfect Storm' of events.
If you're a Red Sox fan the definition fits perfectly...Perfect Storm: a critical or disastrous situation created by a powerful concurrence of factors.
I was watching both the Red Sox-Orioles and Yankees-Rays games.
In order for both games to end around the same time something drastic had to occur.
The Yankees were crushing the Rays 7-0 going into the 8th inning. The game ended-up lasting 12 innings!
The Red Sox had a 3-2 lead over the Orioles going into the 7th inning when it began to rain. The result was a rain delay of 1 hour, 26 minutes.
When the rain came, Tampa Bay trailed 7-0. By the time play resumed, the Rays and Yankees were tied 7-7 heading into the 10th inning.
Here's how this cataclysmic turn of events ended: Jonathan Papelbon is on the mound with a 3-2 lead. He strikes out the first two Orioles' batters. Papelbon gives-up a double to Chris Davis. Kyle Hudson comes in to pinch-run for Davis. Nolan Reimold hits another double to score Hudson. The score is now tied 3-3. Papelbon has 2 out and 2 strikes on Robert Andino and Andino hits a single that Carl Crawford can't glove - Baltimore beats Boston 4-3.
Now we head on over to Tampa Bay where it's the bottom of the 12th inning, the Yankees and Rays are tied 7-7. The Red Sox have already lost
4-3 and are eliminated from the playoffs should Tampa Bay somehow win. For some unknown reason, the updated score has NOT been posted on the out-of-town scoreboard at Tropicana Field. Evan Longoria is at the plate. The scoreboard, finally, lights-up with the 4-3 Orioles-Red Sox final score. The crowd is whipped into a frenzy. Longoria cranks a liner that lands barely over the wall, inside the left-field foul pole for an 8-7 win and the American League Wildcard!
The 'Perfect Storm' concurrence of factors combined so that Longoria went yard 4 MINUTES after the Red Sox blew their 9th-inning lead!!!
But, after all is said and done - did the Boston Red Sox, after their pathetic play during the month of September, deserve to make the playoffs? The answer is a resounding NO...
The HBWHOF can't get enough of these British Babes.
This week's RACK-OFF! features some RACKAGE from across the pond.
The Only Way is Essex reality TV star, Billie Faiers...
...VS The Sun Page Three Girl, Rhian Sugden...
You know the drill. Place your votes in the box in the upper, right-hand corner...
Christina Hendricks received 65% of the votes to defeat Sophie Turner in last week's RACK-OFF!
Josh Willingham and Scott Sizemore each had a homer and 3 RBIs to help the Oakland A's defeat the Seattle Mariners 7-0.
The Tampa Bay Rays beat the New York Yankees 5-3.
The Boston Red Sox beat the Baltimore Orioles 8-7.
The Rays and Red Sox are tied for the wildcard with one game remaining.
If they're still tied tomorrow morning, Tampa Bay will host a one-game playoff Thursday.
A rookie helped Boston remain in the race. Ryan Lavarnway, a Yale philosophy major, was put into the lineup because of injuries to catchers Jarrod Saltalamacchia (sore collarbone) and Jason Varitek (knee). He belted his first two major league homers - a 3-run dinger in the 4th inning and a solo shot in the 8th!
The Tigers beat the Tribe 9-6.
Wilson Betemit, Delmon Young and Miguel Cabrera hit home runs.
Delmon Young and Magglio Ordonez each had 3 RBIs.
The Big Potato got his 48th save in 48 opportunities.
Wow! The Lions were losing 20-0 at halftime.
Matthew Stafford hit Calvin Johnson for 2 TDs and Jason Hanson booted 4 field goals to beat the Minnesota Vikings 26-23 in OT!!!
The Oakland A's defeated the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim of Orange County of California of the Pacific Rim 6-5.
The big Yankees-Red Sox doubleheader was played on Sunday.
The Yankees won the first game 6-2, cutting Boston's wildcard lead to 1/2 game over Tampa Bay.
The second game lasted 5 hours and 11 minutes and ended with a 2-out, 3-run homer in the 14th inning by Jacoby Ellsbury.
The Red Sox beat the Yankees 7-4.
Boston enters their final 3 games against the Orioles with a 1 game lead over Tampa Bay.
On the same day that the Lions pulled-off a huge comeback win, the Tigers beat the Orioles with Brad Penny on the mound!
Detroit defeated Baltimore 10-6. The Orioles starting pitcher, Brian Matusz, threw 5 innings, allowed 7 hits, 6 runs and finished with a season ERA of 10.69.
Don Kelly, Jhonny Peralta, Miguel Cabrera and Victor Martinez all hit homers.
V-Mart had 3 RBIs, giving him a 101 RBIs for the season. He joins Cabrera at the century-mark. The Baby-Faced Assassin had 2 RBIs to give him 103.
The HBWHOF took-in the miraculous Penny win. I had a few of these puppies...
Saw this in the bar. My sentiments exactly...
I had a very nice day...
Motown sports are lookin' pretty damn sweet...
That was an all-around suckin' Saturday!
The Angels beat the A's 4-2.
The Orioles beat the Tigers 6-5, ending Verlander's winning streak at 12 straight.
The Yankees CRUSHED the Red Sox 9-1...and the Rays beat the Blue Jays 6-2 - moving Tampa Bay within 1 1/2 games of Boston.
New York clinched homefield advantage throughout the AL playoffs after Detroit lost to Baltimore.
On Saturday the Yankees celebrated the 50th anniversary of Roger Maris' 61 home runs in 1961.
Derek Jeter presents Roger Maris' bat to his sons (from left, Roger Jr., Kevin, Randy and Richard)...
The HBWHOF is heading over to The Copa, today, to witness a pitching duel for the ages: Detroit's Brad Penny (10-11 with a 5.31 ERA) vs Baltimore's Brian Matusz (1-8 with an ERA of 10.68) That sweet 10.68 ERA is THE WORST IN HISTORY BY ANY STARTER WITH 10 OR MORE STARTS!
The major league record is currently held by Edgar González, who went 0-9 with a 9.32 ERA with the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2004. González, now, pitches for the Colorado Rockies.
I went to see MONEYBALL last night. Great movie.
The storyline stayed pretty true to the book. Brad Pitt did a great job portraying Oakland A's GM Billy Beane. I really enjoyed it.
On the drive home, my wife made the astute observation that "Brad Pitt is the Paul Newman of our generation."
The playoff picture is getting a little clearer.
The final 3 division titles were wrapped-up on Friday. The Milwaukee Brewers claimed the NL Central. The Arizona Diamondbacks won the NL West. The Texas Rangers captured the AL West.
Right now, it seems, the best way for the Red Sox to advance is NOT to play.
The Boston-New York game was rained out on Friday, but the Red Sox gained 1/2 game because both the Rays and Angels lost.
The Oakland Athletics made things a little more desperate for the Angels by handing them a 3-1 loss.
A's hurler Gio Gonzalez outdueled Angels' knob Jered 'Weasel' Weaver.
Gonzalez pitched 7 1/3 innings, allowed 3 hits, 1 run, 2 walks and added 5 Ks.
Jemile Weeks and David DeJesus homered for the Athletics.
V-Mart delivered again!
Victor Martinez hit an RBI double in the 11th inning to help the Tigers beat the Orioles 4-3.
Rick Porcello pitched 7 innings, allowed 9 hits, 3 runs, 1 walk and 4 Ks.
Reliever Ryan Perry, who is battling for a roster spot in October, got the win after pitching a scoreless 11th.
Miguel Cabrera cranked a 2-run 'tater in the 1st inning for his 100th RBI.
The hit made Cabrera the first Tiger with 100 walks, 100 runs and 100 RBIs in a season since 'Stormin' Norman Cash and Rocky Colavito back in 1961.
The Baby-Faced Assassin hits his 2-run jack...
V-Mart gets a cream pie for his heroics...
Since the Red Sox - Yankees game was rained out on Friday, they'll play two on Sunday.
Today: Jon Lester vs Freddy Garcia at 4:10 PM
Sunday: Tim Wakefield vs A.J. Burnett at 1:05 PM.
John Lackey vs Ivan Nova at 6:30 PM.
The Orioles beat the Tigers 6-5.
Tigers' skipper Jim Leyland is experimenting with the rotation in order to enter the playoffs with fresh arms.
On Thursday night, the experiment didn't yield the desired results.
Leyland started top prospect Jacob Turner. Turner pitched 3 innings and allowed 7 hits and 5 runs(4 earned) - 2 of which were home runs.
The Tigers' manager continued the experiment in order to shore-up his bullpen for the post-season. Leyland used Al Alburquerque, David Pauley, Ryan Perry, Phil Coke and, finally, closed-it-out with Joaquin Benoit. Only Pauley allowed a run. He took the loss.
Leyland confirmed before the game that Justin Verlander , Doug Fister and Max Scherzer would start the first three games of the postseason, and that Verlander would not pitch on short rest in a fourth game, even if Detroit were facing elimination.
Leyland and Verlander get the ship ready for a wild ride...
The Oakland A's won their final home game of the season.
The A's beat the Texas Rangers 4-3.
Oakland ends their season on the road with 3 games against the Angels and 3 against the Mariners.
The Rays smoked the Yankees 15-8 to pull within 2 games of the Red Sox in the AL wildcard race.
...And how about this newsflash:
On Thursday, former Detroit Tigers pitcher Denny McLain was arrested at the border, between Port Huron and Sarnia, on a fugitive fraud warrant.
McLain became disoriented by construction in the area and asked officers if he could turn around before entering Canada. During the subsequent inspection by U.S. officials, they learned he had an outstanding warrant issued Aug. 26 by sheriff's officials in St. Charles Parish, La.
He is being held in the St. Clair County Jail pending extradition to Louisiana.
From the cover of TIME...
...to constantly doing time...
Christina Hendricks on her way to the Emmy's...
vs Sophie Turner out shopping...
You know the drill. Place your votes in the box in the upper, right-hand corner...
The winner of last week's RACK-OFF! is Katy Perry ELMO.
Katy Perry ELMO received 82% of the votes to defeat Katie Perry SMURFETTE!
Since I've been obsessed with all things MONEYBALL this week, I'd like to share with you a section of the book that deals with ex-Tigers' pitcher Jeremy Bonderman.
One of the premises of Michael Lewis' book, MONEYBALL, is Billy Beane's disgust with baseball's old school scouting methods. A young ballplayer had to LOOK the part in order to get drafted! The ugly, fat, gimpy need not apply...no matter how successful they performed on the diamond.
Billy Beane decided it was time to get rid of the old school scouts and start utilizing statistics and sabermetrics to judge and, subsequently, draft young baseball prospects.
Back in 2001, Grady Fuson - at that time the head of scouting for the Oakland A's, used the A's 1st pick in the draft to select Jeremy Bonderman - a pitcher who also happened to be a HIGH SCHOOL JUNIOR!
Here's an excerpt from MONEYBALL:
The scouts adored high school players, and they especially adored high school pitchers. High school pitchers were so far away from being who they would be when they grew up that you could imagine them becoming almost anything. High school pitchers also had brand-new arms, and brand-new arms were able to generate the one asset scouts could measure: a fastball's velocity. The most important quality in a pitcher was not his brute strength but his ability to deceive, and deception took many forms.
In any case, you had only to study the history of the draft to see that high school pitchers were twice less likely than college pitchers, and four times less likely than college position players, to make it to the big leagues. Taking a high school pitcher in the first round - and spending 1.2 million bucks to sign him - was exactly the sort of thing that happened when you let scouts have their way. It defied the odds; it defied reason. Reason, even science was what Billy Beane was intent on bringing to baseball.
The book goes on to describe how, after A's scout Grady Fuson chose Bonderman, Billy Beane grabbed a chair and threw it through a wall!!!
The tale of Jeremy Bonderman, the wunderkind high school draft pick, only gets better.
Billy Beane unloaded Bonderman as soon as possible! In July 2002, Bonderman was involved in a three team deal. The Athletics sent Carlos Peña, a player to be named later (Bonderman), and Franklyn Germán to the Detroit Tigers. The New York Yankees sent Ted Lilly, John-Ford Griffin, and Jason Arnold to the Athletics. The Tigers sent Jeff Weaver to the Yankees and cash to the Athletics.
There were 5 pitchers involved in that deal:
The Yankees gave-up Jason Arnold - who never pitched higher than the minor leagues - and Ted Lily who is currently signed to a 3-year, $33 million, contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Lily has a 123-110 record and 4.19 ERA over 13 major league seasons.
The Tigers paid cash to the Athletics and sent Jeff Weaver to the Yankees. Jeff Weaver is currently a free agent and not pitching in the majors. Weaver has a 104-119 record and a 4.71 ERA over 11 seasons.
The A's gave-up Franklyn Germán who no longer pitches in the bigs. Germán has a 9-7 record and a 4.25 ERA over 6 seasons as a reliever.
The A's also unloaded Bonderman. Jeremy Bonderman is retired, though not officially. He has a 67-77 record and a 4.89 ERA over 8 seasons - all with the Detroit Tigers.
I observed Jeremy Bonderman's career up-close-and-personal over his 8 seasons with the Tigers. It seemed like everytime I went to Comerica Park to see a Bonderman start - he fell behind early and didn't settle down until the 5th inning!
Of the 8 seasons Bonderman pitched for Detroit, in only 3 of them did he have more wins than losses.
Towards the end of his career I had grown accustomed to accepting a Bonderman start as a Tigers' loss.
The 2008 and 2009 seasons were mostly a write-off because of a blood clot in his pitching arm and pain in his pitching shoulder.
This is a guy that had a freakin' 94-mph heater as a junior in high school!
By drafting him at the tender age of 17...and putting him on a major league mound at 20...the powers-that-be in major league baseball pretty-much destroyed Bonderman's arm.
WTF? Even the jet-flyin',limousine-ridin', kiss-stealin' and wheelin'-and-dealin' NATURE BOY RIC FLAIR couldn't help the Red Sox last night...this is getting out-of-control...
