StatGuy

Andy Pettitte rejoined the Yanks staff on Mother's day after 2 years away and pitched as expected - let's see the next few.

Orioles continue to surprise everyone. especially skeptics of their starters.  Stood up against Texas.

Jays hang around;  Rays and Sox rebound but 4-6 over last 10.

Beckett stumbles after the golf stint, fans booing.  Missed start, prefering to play 18 as rehab.  Really?

The season is one quarter along later this week - Will the AL East eat each other's young?



AL East:        Era Starter-Pen,  OPS     GB
Baltimore   (22-13)  3.98 - 2.13,  758
Tampa Bay  (21-14)  3.55 - 4.33,  747    - 1.0
NY Yankees (19-15)  4.78 - 2.70,  808    - 2.5
Toronto         (19-16)  3.40 - 4.45,  713    - 3.0
Boston         (15-19)  5.80 - 3.92,  795    - 6.5

17th inning, pens are out of gas.  Odds on one of your best hitters?

Adrian Gonzalez struck out against Orioles DH Chris Davis on three pitches. That's almost impossible to fathom, isn't it?

AL East:      Era Starter-Pen,  OPS

Baltimore    (19-9)   3.56 - 1.41,  759
Tampa Bay  (19-10)  3.51 - 4.45,  758

Toronto        (16-13)  3.55 - 4.25,  710
NY Yankees (15-13)  5.54 - 2.31,  806

Boston         (11-16)  5.88 - 4.53,  769


--

O's are hanging in.  Rays and Jays, too.  They have starters.

Mo Rivera will be back.  On one leg, if need be.

April 30th

End of April, and the O's and Jay's aren't fading.  The O's are living on starters and a pen (and Buck Showalter), but need some hitting.  The Jay's look weaker all around.

The 3 initial favorites struggle in different ways:  the Rays have won 7 of 8 on their starters - no pen - and hitting 31 points lower with runners in scoring position than overall BA. Once this improves, watch out.

The Yanks have the pen, but must keep slugging to try and outrun no starters. The Red Sox starters are better but suspect along with a pen out of ink, so slugging away has saved them for now.  Dice-K is due back... is that a good thing?  If the O's and Jay's hang in, a tough division limits any one of these five teams total wins.

AL East:      Era Starter-Pen,  OPS

Baltimore  (14-8)  3.71 - 1.88,  742
Tampa Bay  (14-8)  3.44 - 6.17,  775
NY Yankees (12-9)  6.37 - 2.06,  833
Toronto        (12-10)  3.51 - 4.52,  718
Boston         (10-11)  5.19 - 6.34,  797

Its two weeks or so into the 2012 baseball season.  By the end of the weekend we'll be 10% along the way to playoffs.  Here's how things stand:

The O's and J's insist they'll compete in the toughest division in the majors and they are, so far.  Both riding ok starters, so-so hitting but good on base averages.  Can they hang come August?

The Sox and Rays are struggling as their slugging can't overcome weak bullpens.  Sox starters have yet to gel and the hangover from the end of last year looks to be still hurting the chemistry.  Dusty tells Bobby V that's not the way we do things around here... airing barbs with the media.  Bobby V knows no other way or he's looking to rally teamates around Youk.  Not working so far.

The Yanks starters have been shakey - CC still rounding into form and Kuroda looking great one start, corroding in another.  Nova shines, Hughes can't challenge hitters inside.  Garcia?  bet the over.

But it's the bullpen that shines, giving the Yanks confidence that as long as they slug they can overcome those early runs by sloppy starters.

The little lyric bandbox that is Fenway turned 100 - Fans cheered a tipsy Kevin Millar and the 212 Sox players, but the 25 Yankees in old style uniforms put 5 solo homers into the seats and held the Red Sox to 2 runs to cool an otherwise sunny party.  Sox fans are hoping the pen improves after sending Melancon down to Pawtuket but it's the starters 2 through 5 that may be a bigger worry.

Spring is here, let's play two.   


AL East:     Era Starter-Pen,   OPS

NY Yankees (8-6)  5.40 - 1.71,  835
Baltimore     (8-6)  4.30 - 2.44,  760
Toronto         (7-6)  3.92 - 4.57,  701
Tampa Bay   (7-7)  4.02 - 8.49,  762
Boston         (4-9)  6.09 - 6.13,  762

The Top Ten Advantages of Bobby Valentine being the new Red Sox manager:

Bobby V...

• Is well rested    (He hasn't coached in a few years)
• Is conversant in archane languages like Bahsdinese   (from his time in Japan, Queens... and Texas)
• Has experience with futility     (coached the Mets)
• Understands practical disinfection methods    (Director of Public Safety & Health for the city of Stamford, Connecticut)
• Is familiar with unlucky breaks     (suffered a multiple compound leg fracture)
• Knows 1st hand about knuckleheads    (fired by George W. Bush)
• Won't need to wear a bag over his head   (Was ejected for arguing a call and returned to the dugout an inning later in a disguise - a fake moustache. Unamused, MLB fined Valentine $5,000 and suspended him for three games.)
• His karma can run over Josh Beckett's dogma    (was the subject of the ESPN Films documentary "The Zen of Bobby V.")
• Will deep six the buckett of cluck   (He claims to have invented the Wrap sandwich)

But most fitting and importantly, he loves epic season ending collapses - and now they're in his genes:   (Valentine is married to the daughter of former Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Ralph Branca)

Good times.

The judge who set Jerry Sandusky return home without paying any bail and without an ankle monitor after being arrested on 40 counts of child sexual assault charges was a volunteer at Sandusky's charity, The Second Mile.

Christopher Mallios, an attorney with AEquitas, part of the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape, said that having unsecured bail is extremely unusual for a defendent charged with a high number of serious crimes.

"The fact that it's unsecured at all, we are dealing with pretty serious crimes. If the allegations were just involving one victim, it would be unusual for a defendant to get unsecured bail. But with multiple possible victims and ongoing investigations and out of state investigations, I'm shocked," Mallios said.

One would think that his safety, if nothing else, would be a bail issue.

====

"Paterno has retained the services of J. Sedgwick Sollers, a high-powered criminal defense attorney from Washington D.C.  Sollers, NBC News notes, represented former president George H.W. Bush in the Iran-Contra affair back in the eighties."

Now lawyering up, Joe Pa isn't likely to answer any of the many troubling questions everyone is asking - even when some news might clear up the confusion.  I bet there won't be any credible witnesses available to put the scandal in any better context, if that's possible.

Notice that no one at Penn State in the past 9+ years has asked about that 10 year old boy or tried to locate him before the DA last week asked him to come forward.

Also:

• Sandusky was recruiting high schoolers as recently as this year and last year.  So much for "retired".
• Rumors suggest the sharing of kids with rich donors.  Can it get worse?

------

Oh.   And Herman Cain says look at the many women he *didn't* harass.  There's an argument worthy of posters here.  I heard Italy is looking to replace it's resigned president - someone who dresses and speaks well and can carry on the long precident of womanizing.  Herman Cain is ready!   And..... he knows something about pizza.

Rick Perry can't recall the name of the government department he wants to abolish.  The one that controls nuclear weapons.

Crux of this all?    2 words; Lost Perspective.  Penn State did, Pigskin over people.  Congress has, get elected over getting things done.  The Banks have, Politics has, TV has, CBS has, ......    but the usual posters on this board will find it.  Stay tuned.

Yanks lose game 5;  Season over;  ARod chokes, Tex , others.

Not with a bang, but with a whimper.

Arod, Swisher.  Others, too.  Lots of chances, zero clutch hits.  Heartless.  Team looked dull.  No fire, no drive, no wanting it.

e.g.:  up 3 balls no strikes, watch 2 cookies mid plate at the belt, K - null and void.


Time to find some hungry players.

Doesn't Benoit look like the Egyptian overseer who whipped slaves to build the pyramids?  Boil and all.
Ugliest goatee award.

Call Amman-Ra.

Burn the tannus leaves, it's officially a football season, and a boring ALCS.

Wk 26:  Down to the last strike... season ending.  Heartbreak only remains.

The incredibly improbable?  or the cruelest version of an old script?   Cursed fate rules.

New York Yankees  (96-61) --> (97-65)   wk 1-4
Tampa Bay Rays     (87-71) --> (91-71)   wk 4-0   6
Boston Red Sox       (88-69) --> (90-72)   wk 2-3   7
Toronto Blue Jays     (80-78) --> (81-81)   wk 1-3   16
Baltimore Orioles       (67-91) --> (69-93)   wk 2-2   28

2 outs, 2 strikes...  bottom of the 9th.  We've all played that in our backyards as kids.  The thrill of victory? ..or the agony of defeat.  Walk off win or slump off defeat.  

Wednesday night, it didn't just happen beyond all likelihood, it happened twice.  Rays down 7-0 in the 8th, a 9th inning HR to tie, an extra inning walk off winner.  The Red Sox up 3-2,   best closer on the mound, 2 strikes, 2 outs, ...then bang: 2 runs, game over, season over.

How improbable?

On Sept. 3rd, odds of Red Sox reaching the playoffs?  99.6 %
Odds of Red Sox winning Wed. in the 9th?  >>> 95.3 %
Odds of the Rays coming back from 7-0 in the 8th?  .3 % (99.7 against, 300 to 1)
Odds of a ninth inning hit by the Rays Johnson, 2 outs, 2 strikes?  BA was .108, 1 hit in 45 ABs with 2 strikes, a 2% chance)
Odds of a rain delay in Boston, allowing the Sox to watch the Rays unlikely comeback?  long and spooky.

Overall probability of all these things happening that night together?  One chance in 278 million.

Like flipping a coin and having it land edge on standing up.  Twilight zone odds.

But that doesn't add in the old destiny - the heartbreak that Boston knows all too well.  If the gods wrote the script, it would be as cruel as possible, as last minute as the 9th on the last day, as story book as 2 strikes, and as ironic as the last hope of a one game playoff saved is dashed 3 minutes later when the Rays pull off an impossible comeback.

Babe, Bucky, Buckner, Boone, Baltimore.