Monday's six-pack
-- Eldrick Woods finished +18 this weekend, 30 shots behind winner, at a tournament he's won seven times. 30 shots behind the winner!!!!!
-- Not the best of weeks for Torii Hunter, either; lost his CF job, then flipped out at an umpire and got suspended for four games.
-- Trevor Cahill is now 12-4, 2.56, one of the best pitchers in the AL.
-- Orioles are 5-1 under Buck Showalter, an excellent start.
-- Phillies are 18-11 in one-run games, Mets are 14-22. In their other games, Phillies are 44-38, Metropolitans are 41-34.
-- I don't think any owner in any sport should be a Hall of Famer, and that goes double if the owner in question is a convicted felon.
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Monday's List of 13: Wrapping up a sports weekend........
13) Tampa Bay Rays swing at 72 of Brandon Morrow's pitches Sunday: they fouled off 41 of them, missed 20 of them and got one lone hit on the 11 pitches they put in play-- an infield hit. Quite a performance.
12) Morrow is now 3-0, 1.71 in his last three starts; this is same guy that walked six of 14 Boston batters he faced in a dismal May 10 start, and gave up 15 runs in 16 IP in three starts from June 29-July 10.. With some guys, it just takes some time for the light bulb to go on over their head.
11) Now was it wise for Cito Gaston to leave him in to throw a ball 137 times? Edwin Jackson threw 149 pitches in his no-hitter, but within one month, the manager had been fired and Jackson traded to the White Sox. Morrow threw 69 innings LY, has 127 this year; he's obviously a talent, maybe in the Blue Jays' long term interest, leaving him in wasn't wise, as he's already shouldered a much bigger load than he's used to this summer.
10) Mets lost two of three to a Philly team with Howard-Utley-Victorino on the DL; I'd be curious to know salaries of Met GM Minaya and Phils' GM Amaro, because one does his job a hell of a lot better than the other.
9) Football is an emotional, often vicious game played by powerful men who crash into each other at high rates of speed; they risk their long-term health on every play, and thats no exaggeration. All of which makes the speeches at the Pro Football Hall of Fame superior entertainment, since this enshrinement is the pinnacle of a great career. They get emotional as they stand at the podium to accept the game's greatest honor. Its cool.
8) Emmitt Smith was gracious in thanking a ton of people at his speech in Canton Saturday night, a much better speaker than he showed during his horrendous stint as an ESPN analyst. Good for him; too bad nobody told Michael Jordan before his speech at the Basketball Hall of Fame that this is the way a enshrinee is supposed to act. The contrast was striking.
7) 15 of last 18 US Presidents played golf, with average handicap of 22.
6) Orioles did cool thing this weekend, having the White Sox broadcaster Steve Stone throw out the first ball Saturday; Stone was 25-7 for the '80 Orioles, 82-86 the other ten years of his career. In fact Stone's career was over after the '81 season, at age 33. Anyway, it was a nice gesture.
5) New Mexico State's turnover ratios the last five years:
-23.......-10.........-15..........-6.........-10.........
If they could just even out the turnover ratio, they could add 3-4 wins to their record. Easier said than done, but its a window for improvement.
4) If I'm a baseball contender looking for a bat off the bench, I'm looking at the Mets' Jesus Feliciano, who hit .292 in 65 AB for the Mets this year, his first in the big leagues. These are Feliciano's minor league averages the last four seasons, all in AAA........
-- 2007: .315......2008: .308........2009: .311.........2010: .346.
3) Josh Beckett against Bronx this year: 19.1 IP, 24 runs allowed.
2) I guess its amusing that major league managers need a bench coach who does the adminstrative things managers used to do, like mark subs on the lineup card. What else does a manager have to do during the game? Bench coaches started out as managers' drinking buddies; now its a real job.
1) Tough TV night Sunday; Bengals-Dallas on NBC, with Terrell Owens, Chad Johnson dominating airwaves, with decent amount of Brett Favre talk thrown in.......on ESPN, the insufferable Bronx-Boston rivalry which ESPN seems to think counts extra in the standings. At least its fun to look forward to the inevitable implosion of the Bengals.