1-4

During the first five games of the season, the Angels have scored 16 runs. Take away their only win, and they've managed just 10 runs in 4 games.

During that same stretch, they've allowed 35 runs. Yes, 35. 20 of those runs came in two games, each 10-run affairs, against two mediocre offenses in Minnesota and Oakland.

They have one sacrifice fly. They have five errors. They have one stolen base and have attempted to steal a base only twice.

What the hell team am I watching? The Pirates? The Orioles?

Advice to some Angels:

• Wood: Stop trying so hard to hit the ball and hit the ball. You're guessing. Stop guessing. Stop deciding to swing at the first pitch, not swing at the second, and swing at the third. I know what you're doing, and it's stupid.
• Abreu: Stop striking out. Start walking. You've done it your whole career, figure it out. You'd have an improved OBP this season if you never bothered to swing the bat at all.
• Scioscia: If Mathis plays another damn game while Napoli sits on the bench, I'm going to put you on a diet.
  

Gutless

When you can't beat a team that's 16.5 games behind you despite having a 7 run lead in the fifth inning, you don't deserve to earn a major league paycheck, much less make the playoffs.

When you're a team's "ace," and you give up 6 runs in 5 innings, you don't deserve the title of "ace." And you certainly don't deserve your upcoming free agency paycheck. Lackey, I've got some news for you: You haven't won shit since your rookie season. That was 7 years ago, buddy.

When you can't figure out that your #3/4 batter is in the death throes of his career, and keep batting him at 3 or 4 despite a complete lack of production over an entire season, you don't deserve to be a major league manager. Suicide squeeze a run out of that, Scioscia.

This team has no heart. No balls. No cojones. There is no chance that the Angels compete in the AL West after this season. And now, it's looking like there's no chance they get out of the first round. Again. And that's assuming they make the playoffs at all...despite a magic number of 4, it looks like it's going to come down to the Rangers losing 4 games rather than the Angels winning another game this season.

I'm done making excuses for this team. If they want my respect, they can earn it by giving a shit.

The week long wait for the NHL and college hockey seems an eternity.

You've gotta be joking

Angels 3, Oakland 4

Mike Scioscia does this thing where he arbitrarily decides to throw away games. He does it 4-5 games every season, and although it's hard for a manager to really be responsible for a team's performance, it becomes clear in some games that the manager and team have mailed it in. From now on, look for the maileditin tag when games like this occur.

Now, as a general rule, if an offense doesn't score 5 runs, it's to blame for a loss. But tonight, frankly, Mike Scioscia was an idiot. Just a complete idiot. Let me rehash the disastrous 7th and 8th innings:

Jose Arredondo comes in to pitch for Too Many Pitches Weaver in the seventh. Having pitched yesterday, I thought this was a little weird. And it is. He threw 2 innings yesterday, 34 total pitches, only 18 strikes. Of course, he comes in today to face the order starting with Mark Ellis. He gives up a hit. Then comes Barton, a lefty. He walks him. Then, Chad Cliff Pennington, a switch hitter who hits righties at a .313 clip and lefties at a miserable .148. One. Forty. Eight. Pennginton gets a hit. Then Arredondo throws a wild pitch during Adam Kennedy's at bat to let in a run. Oh yeah, Kennedy's a lefty.

Like, are you serious? Does this team even know what scouting reports are? Arredondo was the wrong choice. Oliver was better. They both pitched yesterday. If you really don't want to throw Oliver out there, then at least try for Bulger. His BAA is .212 for lefties. Bulger unavailable? How aobut Matt Palmer? His platoon splits are pretty crappy, but he also didn't throw two innings yesterday. Who the hell is making these bullpen decisions? Mike Scioscia or Joe Torre?

It took me a grand total of 13 seconds to find this information. 13 seconds of Baseball Reference and Yahoo! Sports MLB is all it would've taken to prevent a loss tonight.

It's particularly aggravating when I get to go to 2 games a season and both of them get completely mailed in. My last game in Anaheim, Reggie Effing Willits started in right field. Mathis was the catcher. Gary Matthews Effing Junior was in left.

The Angels can't afford to keep throwing away games to bad teams. The Rangers are four games back, courtesy of an Angels team incapable of beating the only threat to their division title. They play the Rangers for a four game series to close out the season.

Wake the fuck up, Mike.


Miscellany:

• If people cared half as much about the country as they do about the flag, maybe they'd realize that defending the right of citizens to do whatever they want with a flag is more important than the flag itself. Everyone points to the flag being a symbol of America's freedom, yet fails to see the obvious hypocrisy with claiming it's wrong to express discontent with the flag through various destructive actions like flag burning. Which, by the way, isn't even what happened here. Ladies and gentlemen, your United States of America.
• This is insane. Jerry Jones built a screen that's clearly too low (by at least 15 feet) and the NFL goes "um, it's okay, you can just fix it next year." If I were the punter for the opposing team, I would punt the ball into that damn screen as many times as possible, taking re-dos until the game lasts 10 hours. The way the NFL treats the complete fuckup that is the Dallas Cowboys makes me retch. Not only that, what engineer signed off on this? It's not like the thing is interfering with only the highest punts. Backup punters are hitting it easily 10-15 feet before the peak of their kicks. Jones claims that this is less likely in a game situation because of "directional punting." I've got some news for you, Jerry, and it's called physics. Any punter kicking from the hash marks is going to hit the apex of their punt half way to the destination in both axes. In other words, it doesn't matter where they're kicking the ball...it's going to travel under that scoreboard every time.
• The fires around LA are pretty cool at night...you can see the flames ring around the mountain.
  

How to build a fantasy team around a rookie first baseman...

or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Kendry.

Fantasy baseball is one of those things that's hard to half-ass if you consider yourself a student of the game. Despite the sheer lunacy of the concept, it's entertaining to have an interest in more than just divisional games with playoff implications. Suddenly, all those Albert Pujols highlights become more fascinating than annoying, and watching Baltimore get crushed is still enjoyable when Adam Jones goes 3-4 with a homer, a double, and two stolen bases.

Things like that.

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that I took a flyer on Kendry Morales on my first fantasy team and all he's done is put up near-Teixeira numbers. Oddly enough, Kendry's defense has been a +2.4 this season while Tex has been stumbling at a -.9. I always though Teixeira was a great fielder, but looking at his numbers, he's had two good seasons ('04 and '08) and a couple medicore to poor seasons ('05-'07). Interesting. If I recall correctly, he played a few games at third for the Rangers, so I'm sure his numbers took a hit over there.

Kendry managed a 5-5 night with 2 homers and a pair of doubles, accruing 6 RBI and 13 total bases. Not too shabby, particularly as this is his first full season as an everyday first baseman. The fact that he still gets platooned with Robb Quinlan is evidence as good as any other that managers really don't understand baseball. It's a shame too, because he set the Angel record for homers by a first basemen with 29, breaking Chili Davis' longstanding mark, and would probably have 31 or 32 with the playing time he deserves.

The Angels have needed a 30HR first baseman for longer than I can remember, and here he is.

As far as the rest of last night's game, Trevor Bell was unfairly saddled with 5 ER. He induced an easy double play ball to Erick Aybar with one out and the bases loaded in the second, but Aybar managed to olé! the ball into left field. Get in front of it. Regardless, a 1-0 lead turned into a 5-1 deficit and Bell was sent into the starry blue yonder, or Salt Lake City, whichever is closer.

But as the error giveth, the error taketh away, and the Angels took advantage of 2 errors in the seventh to take a 9-6 lead. And a good thing, too, because losing to Oakland should really not be within the realm of possibilities for this team.

They play again tonight at 6:05, and I'll be in attendance.

Also, welcome to Anaheim, Scott.

This Slurpee Sucks

Seriously. I bought it like 10 minutes ago and it's already doing that thing where it ices up and then won't make it up the straw. At least it's watermelon and not some crap like blueberry or cherry.

Angels

The Angels have had a strange week. Their series with New York was predictable, but only with regards to the record with which they left. I expected them to go 2-2, and they indeed went 1-2 with rain postponing my guessed second win. What was weird was that they a.) won Matt Palmer's start against CC Sabathia, and b.) managed to lose a game they should've won by blowing a 5-run lead with 6 outs to go.

The bullpen is clearly still an issue, but I think it's steadily improving as Arredondo, Shields, and Fuentes all relearn how to pitch. The biggest issue, in my mind, has been bullpen management, but a solid Arredondo-Shields-Fuentes back end helps reduce the number of games Scioscia can manage to screw up by putting in relievers like Rafael Rodriguez and Jason Bulger.

By the way, Matt Palmer has an obscene amount of movement, at least from my observation. Since Kalk's Pitchf/x tool doesn't include Palmer at the moment, I really can't provide a better analysis other than "everything he throws starts here and ends somewhere way different." His fastball reminds me of Scot Shields' two-seamer, in that it's pretty clear he doesn't know where it's going because it tails and drops so much. A neat guy to watch, although someone who's been in the minors until his age 30 season is probably not going to continue winning pitching duels with Sabathia.

I caught the last few innings of the Angels/Oakland game last night, and was overall pretty impressed with Joe Saunders and Jose Arredondo. Jose struck out all four batters he faced before giving way to Fuentes, who earned the three-run save without allowing a baserunner. Division wins are very important, and I'll feel more confident about this team if they can play .500 ball against the other divisions and .600 ball within the West, which isn't an unreasonable proposition.

Lakers 92, Houston 100

Nobody expected a 4-game sweep, but watching this team last night was aggravating. When the Lakers refuse to try and score easy points, they end up taking three pointers the second they encounter adversity. So they did. And they shot 2-18 from beyond the arc. Whoops.

Lamar Odom missed 5 of his 6 free throws. Kobe missed 2 of his 5. Add up those points and the game might've been 100-99. Free throws are easy, and they matter. The fact that Ray Allen is like the only NBA player who can consistently shoot over 95% on free throws should be embarrassing to the other players, but I guess Odom is too cool to use the glass.

I'm still not particularly worried about this series. I don't think Pau Gasol is going to go 6-14 from the field again, and I don't think Fisher and Ariza are likely to go 0-4 on three pointers again. This was a game the Rockets had to win if they had any chance of winning this series, and they did. But nothing leads me to believe we'll be seeing Yao Ming knock down deep jumpshots like he did last night.

Also, free Jordan Farmar. Fisher can't defend me, much less Aaron Brooks. Farmar, at least, hit a three and harassed Brooks.

Miscellaneous

Find the headline below which is an embarrassment to Yahoo Sports and the sports world in general:


Next week's headlines:

• CC Sabathia pitches 8 strong, A-Rod doesn't eat sunflower seeds in dugout
• Housing crisis continues, A-Rod doesn't wear tux to wedding
  
• Yankees beat Baltimore, A-Rod sneeze startles Teixeira
• A-Rod goes 4-4, doesn't have swine flu

What a joke.

What the hell, Mike?

Okay, so this has been a weird game. The Angels committed two errors in one inning and really screwed up a winnable game. The note below was written after Tex hit a 2-run homer to put them in the lead with 3 outs to go, before Gary Matthews Terrible made an error, the first of two in the inning to lose the game. DFA, DFA...
_________________________
The below was written before Mark Teixiera's heroics. It still applies, but jeez, give the man his money NOW Arte.
_________________________
Don't say you care about home field advantage when you have a lineup that includes Kendry Morales (.250), Robb Quinlan (.262), Gary Matthews Jr. (.235), Jeff Mathis (.193 for a former everyday player!), Sean Rodriguez (.191), and Reggie Willits (.180). Don't say you're not coasting towards the playoffs. Don't say you know home-field matters and that your number one goal is to win games, and that you're not looking more than one game ahead and you actually care about winning in the fucking posteseason with a lineup like that.

Because you're lying. And it's obvious. Vlad, Torii, Rivera and Figgins do not all need to rest on the same day. This is why we have the designated hitter.

2008 is going to look an awful lot like 2007 when it's all said and done, except the Angels will be walking out of a dome and not out of Fenway.

The A's are a horrendous baseball team. They can't hit anything. Ever. They walk about a hundred times a game and will score either 1 or 0 runs in a game. The Angels have scored one run in 18 innings against them. All they needed tonight was 2 and they couldn't do it. Why? Because they were fielding a lineup of Bees in a game which is not, despite what Scioscia thinks, meaningless in any way, shape, or form.

Wake the fuck up, Angels, because I'm getting tired of watching the best team in baseball lose, year after year.

On a more basic note, let me say this: I'm an idiot fan sometimes too. Sometimes I ignore statistics, call home runs "dingers," and generally act like someone who's seen about 4 baseball games in his life. That part of me gets killed by games like this. Watching my manager essentially throw away a game because "it doesn't matter" is contrary to everything in sports. It's unacceptable and physically pains me to watch. This team means a lot to me, and to see them reciprocate my love by throwing out 6 players out of 9 who wouldn't be playing for any team in the majors right now is disheartening and irritating. Just stop it.

Also, look. It's easier to win games than it is to get people healthy. Home field advantage is guaranteed to the team that wins the most games. Resting a player for the whole season doesn't guarantee he'll be healthy for the playoffs. Can we, for once, take the guaranteed route?

Reggie!

Angels 4, A's 3

Sometimes the "aggressive baserunning" mantra which the Angels instill in their players at every level of the organization is maddening. So many times, I've watched ill-advised hit and runs turn into strike 'em out-throw 'em out double plays, watched Vlad get thrown out easily at third trying to stretch a double, watched Figgins head home on the ridiculous contact play and get caught in a rundown with less than 2 out.

Sometimes there are days like today.

First, the pitching. Justin Dichscherer is an above average reliever who's having an insane amount of luck this year in the starting rotation. Dustin Moseley, starting today in place of now-father Joe Saunders (congrats, Joe!), is a AAAA pitcher who leans more towards the minors than the majors. My comment after the Angels were easily dispatched in the first:

"A 10 pitch inning. Shocking."

My comment after Moseley gave up two runs in the bottom of the first of what was sure to be a slaughter:

"Losing by two in the first inning with Moseley pitching? Shocking."

Then, Dustin turned around and shocked everyone by retiring 14 of the next 15 batters. Meanwhile, the Angel lineup was formidable as always, scraping out a single run on a Kendrick groundout in the fourth. Scioscia inexplicably pulled Moseley with one out in the sixth and brought in Darren Oliver to face lefty Jack Cust. Memo to Mike: Oliver is not a LOOGY. His BAA is 200 points lower vs. righties than lefties. Stop bringing him in to face lefties. Cust, predictably, knocked a homer deep to center for a 3-1 A's lead.

Casey Kotchman, who earlier in the HH game thread I had remarked upon as being "bad lately," crushed a Duchscherer pitch to right to bring the score to 3-2 with 2 outs in the eighth. After a GA single, Bob Geren brought in Brad Ziegler to pitch to Vlad. 1 pitch, 1 strike, 1 out, and the Angels looked done.

Then Huston Street entered in the top of the ninth. He gave up a crappy infield single to Torii Hunter and a full count single to center from the prodigious Juan Rivera, with Torii reaching third on the play. Street then proceeded to get owned by the brilliance of Mike Scioscia.

Sosh replaced Juan with Reggie Willits at first. Howie Kendrick hit a sac fly to even the score at 3-3, but Reggie had to stay put at first. In extremely NL-esque style, Budde bunted Willits over to second for the second out of the inning. This is where it gets weird. Erick Aybar bounces a groundball off the plate towards short. Meanwhile, Reggie breaks for third. It's a close play at first, but Erick is safe and Reggie is...rounding third and heading for home?! A's first baseman Daric Barton, not known for his fantastic defense, double clutches the throw home, giving Reggie enough time to slide in safely as the ball rolls away from A's catcher Kurt Suzuki. The Angels take a 4-3 lead.

...what?!

Anyways, bottom of the ninth, K-Rod's up to his usual shenanigans, loading the bases with 1 out before striking out two batters to earn his 38th (!) save and get the Angels their 57th win before the break, a franchise record and a winning percentage that puts them atop MLB.

As far as the aggressive baserunning leading to the win, I think a number of factors came into play:

1. Scioscia pinch runs Reggie for Rivera.
2. Scioscia has Ryan Budde sac bunt with 1 out to advance Reggie to second.
3. Erick Aybar is fast enough to beat the throw for an infield single.
4. Reggie/Dino Ebel decide to test Barton.
5. Kurt Suzuki is looking down the line instead of at first base where the ball is in Barton's hands.
6. Barton double clutches because Suzuki isn't paying attention.
7. Reggie is fast enough to go second--> home on an infield single.

Just bravo, Mike. That was the coolest way to get a game winning RBI I've ever seen. The other players were also clearly thrilled, coming out of the dugout to greet Willits as he walked from home plate.


Tennis

Amanda, unfortunately, lost 6-2, 6-0 in the Mecco Cup finals today. That said, she lost to an extremely good player and gave an excellent speech, so I'm certainly not going to complain. Thanks to the NCAA, which clearly doesn't actually give a shit about student athletes, she doesn't get to keep her prize money, but her expenses do get paid off. Memo to the USTA: She deserves to get into the US Open.

She's yet to face her most formidable opponents.

Pink Hats

Wanna feel better about yourself? This guy, and the pink hatter, and the tool sitting next to her, are losing to the Tampa Bay Rays. Granted, the Rays have lost 6 straight, but they'll figure it out soon enough.

Angels 4, A's 1

Ervin Santana. 7 innings. 10 strikeouts. No runs. Just 5 hits and 2 walks. Dominance.

This was a good rebound from his last start, which was terrible, and the one before, also bad. Dana Eveland was, as expected, underwhelming, giving up 2 runs, 5 hits, and 5 walks to a notoriously free-swinging Angels offense. That offense was driven with RBI's from Vlad, Juan Rivera, and Howie Kendrick, with another run scoring on a first-inning wild pitch. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Dana Eveland and "league average" are four words that belong together.

Gary Matthews Jr. was in the lineup to make a statement, and proudly proclaimed "I suck!" by going 0-4 with a pair of strikeouts and 3 LOB. The other overpaid Angels center fielder went 1-4 with a walk, but he really needs a game or two off. Good thing the All Star break is one game away.

I still say the Angels win the World Series if they sign Barry Bonds. Just do it.


Miscellaenous

• Amanda plays 27 year old Venezuelan Milagros Sequera tomorrow for the Mecco Cup. She's been ranked as high as 29, but currently sits at 159.
• Billy Beane is an idiot. Look, I know hes made some incredible personnel acquisitions, but I don't see how anyone can consider the Harden rade a good deal for the A's. Harden started for the Cubs today and pitched 5.1 shutout innings with 10 strikeouts. The Cubs would piss away a seven run lead but eventually win in the 11th.
• The Lakers need to sign Ronny Turiaf, who just recieved an offer sheet from Golden State, just so we can listen to his cheereading on those "Wired" segments.
  

Gamma H

Somewhere between studying for a Tuesday Fluid Mechanics test and a Monday Marketing "test," there's some interesting things going on in the sporting world.

Tennis

Amanda, still good at tennis. She won her match today 6-4, 6-3, so she advances to the finals of the Mecco Cup in Allentown "Funland," PA, tomorrow at 11:00. The local rag, the Morning Call, has some pretty humorous coverage of yesterday's match vs. Brenda Schultz-McCarthy. Schultz-McCarthy was, at one point, the #9 ranked female singles player in the world, and currently holds the women's world record for fastest serve at 130 mph. She's 37, but that serve is still there, so bravo, Amanda.

Today, she defeated Lauren Albanese, generally described as a "young 'un." I'll let you know who she plays tomorrow once I find out.


Angels/A's Belated Series Preview

Probably should have written this before the series actually, you know, started, but it is what it is. The A's just traded away a dominant Rich Harden and, for some reason, a worthwhile Chad Gaudin to the Cubs for a couple no-name prospects. One of those no-name prospects, Sean Gallagher, mowed through the Angels last night in a 9-2 A's win. The key to beating the Angels is using pitchers who aren't good, but rather haven't ever pitched before. I've grown weary of this.

Tonight, Ervin Santana and Dana Eveland face off. Santana's had a couple rough starts, but he's like 8-1 with some sort of ridiculous ERA vs. the A's in his career. Eveland, on the other hand, isn't actually as good as he's been pitching. He's a league average pitcher. Just wait. Enjoy the regression to the mean at 10:05 EST tonight.

The last game before the All Star break comes on Sunday with Hokie Joe Saunders and Justin "medicore relief pitcher turned ace" Duchscherer. And yes, I spelled his name correctly without looking it up. Joe had a good game, but not good enough to get the W, last time out with his first career complete game. "Duke," as Oakland fans call him, has an artificially low BABIP of .227, particularly when his K/9 is a pedestrian 5.8. He, too, is due for some regression, but probably not in this start.

The A's will probably take two of three and keep the series interesting until their young pitchers break down in August.

Game, Set, Match

Angels 5, Oakland 3

I saw this one from the fifth onward. Ervin Santana was, as usual, nasty. Honestly, this kid's going to be a #1 starter sooner than later, and if John Lackey weren't so ridiculously good, you could argue that he already is. He fanned 7 in 7 innings, keeping the Angels staff K/9 at a respectable level.

Scot "Only One T" Shields got two quick outs before surrendering a solo homer to Mark "Might as well be a lawn gnome" Ellis, but somehow, the Angels scored three in the bottom of the frame to get the game to Frankie, who struck out Daric Barton on three absolutely filthy changeups to get the first out of his 33rd save.

Memo to Garret Anderson: You might be old, but every time you turn on an Embree fastball, we all remember how awesome you used to be. Keep this up and we might just back into the World Series.

Memo to Mike Scioscia: Batting Kotchman in the 2 spot was brilliant (and long overdue). Although he really belongs at 3, his leadoff ground-rule double in the 8th was the start of the rally that led to the unlikely Angels win. Casey is a spectacular player, and considering his family ties to the organization, is going to be worth some serious money in contract negotiations. Pay the kid.

Memo to Bob Geren: Look, I know I shouldn't be giving you advice, but everyone at AN knows it, everyone on the Angels know it, and I know it too - Alan Embree is not a legitimate MLB player anymore.


Tennis

I'm completely and utterly biased here, but watching Amanda play in the USTA 50k Pro Circuit Torunament in Dorchester has been a lot more entertaining than you'd expect. She played with a junior player in doubles in a match I got to watch today, and aside from the nonsense lightning warnings, it was a ridiculously dramatic match. She and her partner managed to overcome a 4-0 game deficit in the second set to force a 10 point tiebreaker (I love tiebreakers, by the way. They're pure tennis.), which they eventually won 14-12.

I'd say it was inspiring, but my own complete lack of ability in anything resembling a sport just depresses me. With the possible exception of goalkeeping in broomball. Either way, I've been playing lots of tennis lately.

Donaghy Lives

Here's a couple game recaps for you to enjoy. Later on I'll be complaining about how MLB.tv is just another way for Selig to extract money from your pockets without putting a better product on the field.

Angels 3, Athletics 7 (12 innings)

An interesting pitcher's duel between Santana and Harden, with both starters racking up 9 strikeouts. Harden would start the game with a 9 pitch, 3 strikeout performance in the first, a surprisingly rare occurrence, less surprising when you look at the Angels lineup as of late. Santana had a slight edge, giving up 2 ER in 6.1 innings, with Harden allowing 3 ER in 6 for a quality start. Two of those runs came on a surprising two run shot from Vlad, although he proceeded to finish 1-5 on the day. I refuse to believe this season-long slump is merely aging...his LD% shows that his BABIP is a little unlucky/low, and I remain convinced he's hiding an injury.

Darren Oliver proceeded to give up the tying run while retiring only one batter in the seventh before giving way to Shields, who pitched 1.1 scoreless innings. Surprisingly, Justin Speier pitched three scoreless innings and may be looking to reclaim his late inning relief role. If Jose Arredondo weren't pitching so well, I'd expect to see Speier more often, but bullpen logjams are always a good thing.

Then, of course, came the 12th, after seemingly endless missed opportunities for the Halos on the offensive end. Chris Bootcheck, whose Baseball Reference page I sponsor, rewarded my $20 investment with an inning in which he allowed three hits and a walk, with the last of those hits being a walk off grand slam to Mark Ellis, yet another player on the A's who I barely consider to be major league caliber. Whatever. A 5-1 road trip and the best record in the AL are nothing to complain about, even if you won't see any coverage on ESPN.


Lakers 102, Celtics 108

Earlier this season, Northeastern played Maryland in College Park, losing 74-72 in overtime after Baptiste Bataille accidentally made a free throw he was trying to miss. The game came on the heels of a close loss at Illinois and just before the first win of the season against Boston University.

The most notable thing about the NU/MD game was the free throw disparity. The Terps took 46 free throw attempts, including 20 in the first half, while the Huskies took just 13 attempts total, 2 in the first half. There is no way that a properly officiated game has a free throw disparity that large, and while NU coach Coen is too much of a class act to admit it, the Huskies played well enough to win that game with mediocre, even bad, officiating. But the refs were bad enough to steal the game.

Fast forward to last night. 38-10. 38 free throws for the Celtics, 10 for the Lakers. It's hard to overcome that kind of "quality" refereeing, but the Lakers refused to quit, cutting 22 points of a 24 point lead in the last eight minutes before finally succumbing to youth when Sasha managed to miss a wide open Kobe as the last couple seconds drained away. Tim Donaghy was not, in fact, calling this game, but he might've been. Phil Jackson, always good for a hilarious post-game, had this much to say:

"I've never seen a game like that in all these years I've coached the Finals. Unbelievable."

With that said, a 2-0 series hole is a pain in the ass to climb out of. While only a couple teams have swept the 3 game set in the current 2-3-2 Finals format, few teams are as good as the Lakers, who emerged from a brutal Western Conference while the Celtics were struggling with the Atlanta Hawks. The Lakers are a team built to win for the next five years, and any success they're having now is basically a bonus. But Boston has had more than its fair share of championships in the last ten years, and it's time for it to end.


Game Preview: Tampa Bay @ Los Angeles, 10:05 EST

The Rays have quickly become everyone's favorite AL East team, with the Red Sox/Yankees "rivalry" basically expired. It doesn't hurt that they have Northeastern alum Carlos Pena playing first, although he's been out for some time with a broken finger, so he'll miss this series with the Halos.

The Rays managed to sweep the Angels earlier this season, and in fact are the only team that has a winning record vs. LA of A. Tonight's starters are Hokie Joe Saunders, the current AL wins leader, and Edwin Jackson, a former Dodger farmhand who was sent away to be useful with another franchise. That seems to be a hallmark of the Dodger organization.

Expect, as usual, a solid start from Saunders, although he's clearly overachieving right now, I don't foresee a serious decline until after the all-star break. The Angels haven't seen Jackson this year, missing him in the first series at Tampa Bay, but he's got something like a 6.00 ERA against the Halos, so I feel pretty confident about this game.

Return to Blogging and Various Sports Miscellany

It's been a while since I've tried blogging on a regular basis. Generally, I get lazy about it and then slowly lose interest, eventually giving up altogether. Either way, I'm back to write about sports, although you'll likely see a fair deal of complaining about Northeastern and/or work, as time permits.

Regardless, here's a couple recaps from a few games from Thursday the fifth.

Boston Red Sox 7, Tampa Bay Rays 1

My roommate was kind enough to offer me the second ticket in a pair he won at work. Our seats were probably the best I've had at Fenway outside the Baseball Beanpot, as we were sitting in the infield grandstand just underneath the Northeastern sign on the third base line.

James Shields had a pretty poor first inning, hitting Pedroia and giving up a double to JD Drew before Ramirez knocked one well over the Monster. He eventually got out of the inning, but the game was starting to look a lot less like the pitching duel I had been expecting.

Of course, the previous evening, the game got a little chippy when Crisp took out Iwamura while trying to steal second base. Apparently Shields remembered and proceeded to drill Crisp in the thigh as he was leading off the bottom of the second. Crisp took about three steps towards first and then charged the mound. The ensuing brawl, complete with streams of relievers coming in from the bullpens, took about 10 minutes before the umps got complete control, at which point they spent another 20 minutes figuring out who to toss. Crisp and Shields were thrown out pretty quickly, but it took the umpires a while to also toss Gomes, the only Rays player who would end up with an RBI that evening.

As fate would have it, Ellsbury, after moving to center to replace Crisp, managed to injure himself on a nice diving catch. He took a backasswards route to the ball and ended up diving and rolling over his wrist, forcing him to leave and Drew to move to center. I don't think I've seen Drew in center since his days in LA, but he didn't get a whole lot hit his way the rest of the game.

After the fight, the game got pretty boring, with the occasional "Beat LA!" chant rising from the outfield grandstands. I left the game in the middle of the eighth to go watch the Finals, but Timlin and Aardsma pitched the last 2.2 innings without event.



I'm usually okay with outbursts of physicality during any sporting event, but the bench-clearing "brawl" is the stupidest event in baseball. First off, it ruins the strike zone (which, I might add, is crappy enough without any help) for the rest of the game, as the umpires tend to move the zone more outside to keep things from escalating further. Moreover, an interesting Shields/Lester matchup turned into Lester vs. Rays Long Relief, also known as "boring." My biggest issue, though, is that these players make too much money to screw around like this. They're walking around on millions of dollars, some of which I supply through my ticket and merchandise purchases, and if I have to miss seeing Vlad because some idiot charges the mound, I'm going to be incredibly pissed.

It's also worth it to note that baseball players are embarrassingly bad fighters. If you want fights, watch hockey.


Boston Celtics 98, Los Angeles Lakers 88

No recap from me, but I will say this much: Anyone expecting Kobe to shoot 9 for 26 again is an idiot and has probably never actually watched basketball. The entire fourth quarter, it seemed like every shot from the Lakers rattled out. If the Celtics are banking on their defense to keep Kobe shooting 34%, then they're in bigger trouble than they can handle.

Expect Odom and Gasol to wake up, as well.

Paul Pierce's "injury" and subsequent return were the smartest thing the Celtics have done this postseason. Unfortunately, that only works once. The 2-3-2 setup for the Finals is a huge advantage for the Lakers who, still, have not lost at home in the playoffs. I'm gonna say the Lakers take the game on Sunday and sweep in LA, just in time for me to get back and head to the parade.


Game Preview: Angels at Athletics, 10:05 EST

The A's are a better team than expected, which is basically the same thing everyone says about them every year. I'm not convinced that Beane is the genius that Oakland fans claim him to be, but he's clearly a step above your average GM.

Tonight is a nice Lackey vs. Blanton matchup. Blanton's not very good, but neither is the Angels offense, so the game will probably rest on how well Lackey pitches. If he keeps pitching like he has been, I'm not worried. Expect to see Vlad back in the lineup.