The Boston Red Sox and SS Marco Scutaro agreed to a two year deal this morning, making Scutaro the team’s new shortstop – a position that’s been somewhat of a hole for the club in recent years. It’s unfortunate to see one of my favorite players go to my least favorite team, but I’m happy for him to get the opportunity to be an everyday player on a contending team.
In honor of Scutaro’s deal, we’re going to revisit his greatest career moment, and probably the greatest moment I ever witnessed, in person, in my career as a professional sports fan. Back in 2006, the Oakland A’s won the American League West division title, and earned a first round matchup with the Twins. The Twins had home field advantage, and many predicted the A’s would leave Minneapolis down 0-2 in the series. Scutaro had a key RBI in each of the first two games. Game 3 was out here in Oakland. After an RBI double in the 2nd inning, Scutaro came to the plate with the bases loaded and 2 out in the bottom of the 7th. With a capacity crowd chanting his name in unison, Scutaro fell behind 1-2, and then cleared the bases with a drive down the right field line, sending the Coliseum faithful into a frenzy – and me almost over the railing down into the first deck. That hit put the game out of reach, as the A’s now had an 8-2 lead, and ultimately sealed the Division Series sweep for the A’s.
I’m still having trouble getting excited about the World Series this year. This game is intriguing to me though. I guess it took sending a former A’s player to the mound in Joe Blanton for me to get excited about it. I think Blanton will do better than people expect him to, especially since fans in Philly and New York are doubting him. He could go six and hold the Yankees to two or three. I was kind of excited to see Swisher actually do something last night, but in the midst of Halloween celebrations, there were other things that were more worthy of my attention. The old CC on short rest storyline is always over hyped. The guy has done it like fifty times already, we don’t need to keep hearing about it. I’m sure he’ll be extra fired up after losing the first one to Lee. One thing I’ll never understand about A-Rod is how all of New York forgives him when he gets one hit. If we start hearing the Mr. October bs again, I might have to boycott the rest of the series. Hasn’t he been sucking just as bad as Ryan Howard this whole series? Hopefully Blanton’s tendency to give up the long ball doesn’t include him serving one up to A-Rod… Jayson Werth has been hands down the scariest hitter on either team. I hope Philly can pull out a win, but they might have to wait another night like when they have Lee on the mound. I’m hoping for a slugfest tonight, which would improve Philly’s winning odds. Hopefully they can get to CC early or else they probably won’t get to him at all.
On the National League side, the other Southern California team will resume play in Philadelphia, where the Phillies hold a 2-1 lead after last night’s blowout. While tonight’s game isn’t quite as urgent as for their SoCal counterparts, to go down 3-1 would be a huge hole to have to dig out of. If there was ever a game the Dodgers should be able to take, it would be Game 4 against the capable but unsure Joe Blanton. Blanton is usually solid, but we all know he’s prone to give up the longball. Look for the Dodgers to even the series behind some long bombs from Manny and company.
2009 schedule was released, no one would’ve been surprised to look at this game and guess that it would be a 5-0 team versus a 2-2 team. The thing is, most would’ve expected the Chargers to be undefeated and leading the division. Instead, while they’ve been underachieving, the Broncos have excelled to a 5-0 start, the first time they’ve done so since the 1998 season, where they rattled off 13 straight wins to start the year en route to a Super Bowl victory. Tonight will be a battle of quarterbacks, as the overrated Philip Rivers has just 9 more passing yards than Kyle Orton, whom you wouldn’t necessarily say was underrated, but he’s better than the blind quadrapalegic the Chicago media made him out to be. It’s hard to say how he’ll fare tonight in a hostile environment under the bright lights of MNF, but one thing is for certain. Tonight is the night we’ll find out if the Broncos are for real, and we’ll also see if the Chargers run under it’s current nucleus has run its course.
The MLB Divisional Series was kicked off today, and the most exciting game TBS has covered so far was the last game of the regular season. Not to say if your a Philly (won 5-1) or Yankee (won 7-2) fan it wasn’t a good day, but it just wasn’t all that exciting for the rest of us. The Dodgers game is the only one that’s been interesting so far. The Dodgers are currently up 3-2 going into the bottom of the 5th and are surprisingly ripping Carpenter. So this game could be promising! Watching the playoffs and the amazing last game of the regular season it has made me realize I just don’t enjoy any announcer combos baseball has to offer. Maybe they’re dumbing it down too much for the people who don’t know what’s going on, but I rarely hear anything remotely insightful. Maybe they use the sideline reporters too much, I think Craig Sager always scares me a little the first time I see him everynight. He gives me that hide your kids because I don’t know about this guy vibe, but at least we don’t have to hear them more than five or six times a game. One thing I’m a HUGE fan of TBS for having, is the pitch-by-pitch K zone up they throw in the corner for every batter. It almost makes up for the weak announcing crews that are scared to make anyone sound like a bad person. I’d love to hear them call guys out, and stop playing the soft story line. We need some more Charles Barkley’s on the air!
Fantasy sports are always frustrating. A win feels mildly satisfying, but a loss can make you hate everything about the sport or want to quit fantasy sports altogether. I’ll be honest, many of my man crushes come from players I’ve had on my fantasy teams, and pure hatred for a player has also come from fantasy short comings. With the fantasy baseball championship round upon us, I find myself in the finals in one league and a battle for 5th place in my other league. I figured this would be as good a time as any to run through the fantasy MVP’s, and steals of the draft for the season. I’ll only focus on the league that I’m in the Championship for, which also happens to be the league that I’m in with the blog mates. Here was our 
They are all ranked in the top twenty for the season, and undoubtedly helped my team get to the Championship round. Mauer should win the MVP award this season, but due to lame eastcoast media Jeter might skip away with the award much like Pedroia did.
Pitching and Steal of the draft: This year was always changing, but Felix Hernandez and Chris Carpenter were no doubt my horses. Chris Carpenter was the biggest steal I got on draft day as I picked him in the 19th round, and he ended up being the sixth ranked pitcher in Y! games. He is also looksing like a lock for his 2nd Cy young award this season posting 16 wins and a 2.34 ERA.
He’s ranked #7 overall, as he’s amassed 25 HR and 34 Steals. He’s also on pace to eclipse 100 runs and 100 RBI as well. Nevermind the fact that he was a steal in the 3rd round (28th overall), Matt Kemp is a definite fantasy franchise player.
Bust of the Draft: David Wright – Hard to call a guy who’s ranked #52 a bust, but when you chose him 4th overall, and you really wanted to take Braun, who ended up the 6th best fantasy player this year, it stings a little. Actually a lot, seeing as how I don’t even want to keep the guy as one of my three keepers. His average and stolen base totals were nice, but I was really expecting more than 10 HR and 60 RBI from my first round pick. Could’ve been worse…. I could’ve had Jose Reyes or Grady Sizemore.
Co-MVP’s: Chase Utley & Ryan Howard – I remember logging on to our baseball draft at the start of the year and being sick that I was drafting at 11. Typically sitting at the backend of a draft can pay off and has its distinct advantages, however I typically want to avoid this draft spot in baseball for a variety of reasons. That despair quickly turned into optimism when big slugging Howard and his fabulous Philly counterpart Utley fell to 11 and 15 respectively. Any big baseball fan will be well aware of there numbers so I skip them, however offensively I have ridden them to a fantasy final for a 2nd time, and feel extremely good riding them the last two weeks for the title itself.
Steal of the Draft: Andre Either – At the time I thought little of this pick in the 11th round, I knew the upside was there along several different categories but didn’t think much more about it. 31 home runs and 101 RBI’s later he easily goes down as my steal of the draft. By the way are you picking up on the trend here? My fantasy team this year was sporting some real power this year!! The real question I have now with Either is what’s his possible peak? Do I keep him next year over Jason Bay? Alas, a different topic for another day. 
Bust of the draft: Francisco Liriano – I’ll admit I was blinded by his pre-Tommy John career and thus most likely reached drafting him in the 5th round of the draft. Granted there isn’t a way to have forecasted such a terrible year, but I most likely should have looked else where drafting my first pitcher. In hind sight Adam Wainwright was the clear choice I dropped the ball on. As the baseball season winds down, Liriano can boast a brief stint in AAA, a demotion to the bullpen, and an ERA of 5.71 in only 119 innings. The word “bust” can’t describe my draft pick any better, and maybe it’s to understated, perhaps “Nuclear Implosion” is a bit better?
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cali4dre
chappy81
dyslecix
mceezy
Doin Work 