Big Series at Fenway

It looks as if both the Yankees and Red Sox will make the postseason, the next three games will go a long way towards determining seeding in baseballs second season.   As it stands right now Boston has a 1.5 (one in the loss column) game lead on the Yankees for the division.  The Yankees are 2-10 against the Red Sox so far this season, if they had a better record against them they'ed be leading the division.  If the Yankees don't win at least 2 out 3 against the Red Sox up in Fenway they can say see ya to the division.  The Yanks better win tonight to get of to a good start behind their ace C.C Sabathia against John Lackey, tomorrow its Phil Hughes against Josh Beckett, and on Thursday is the loose cannon A.J Burnett Vs. Jon Lester.  If the Yankees don't win this series their three game set in the Bronx at the end of September may not mean much as far as the division is concerned. The have a slightly harder schedule the rest of the way because they still have a west coast trip coming up while the Red Sox play division games on the east coast.            

Yankee Pitching

Nobody should be defending A.J Burnett anymore.  Last night was just the latest in a string of terrible losses for A.J.  You can argue mental versus physical all you want, he gets in trouble and then gets afraid so he starts nibbling and gets into more trouble that he can't get out of.  A.J is now 9-11 with a 5.31 ERA and should be on the out side looking in to the Yankee rotation.  Non-roster invites freddy Garcia and Bartolo Colon have been better than the one time 18 game winner A.J Burnett.  Right now with all the postponements and having to play doubleheaders, the schedule didecates the need for six staters, but when the first opportunity comes to change the rotation A.J Burnett should be the first one gone.          

Terrelle Pryor

Ohio State, and the NCAA opened an investigation into how certain players on the team sold memorabilia and it was concluded that Ohio State played ineligible players in the Sugar Bowl.  The NCAA wanted the Sugar Bowl to get money, so they decided to suspend those players later.  The investigition at Ohio State got worse and Terrelle Pryor decided to leave school.   Terrelle Pryor is going to be in the NFL supplemental draft on monday.  Some team will pick up Terrelle and see if they can mold him into an NFL quarterback.  Whether or not Terrelle can play quarterback in the NFL is an issue we'll debate later.  When Mr. Pryor is drafted by a team on monday, he will not be able to play right away.  Since the NCAA suspended Pryor for five games and he never served it, the NFL feels it has to enforce that penalty in the pros even though it was handed out in college.  Let the NCAA worry about the NCAA and the NFL worry about the NFL, the NFL shouldn't worry about what their players did in college.  Lots of Colleges have had scandals Miami (FL), USC, Alabama, is the NFL going to suspend every player who went to one of those schools, if they are going to do this its potentially something that can't not be done.          

Islanders

Earlier this week voters in Nassau county, Long island voted against a proposal to overhaul the current Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, home of the NY Islanders since 1972.  Voters in Nassau who already pay some of the higher taxes in the country, voted against the general obligation bonds which would have raised taxed about 4 percent.  Although the people in the county would have to pay a little more, saying yes to this measure would have meant added revenue and an arena that would host not just hockey but concerts and the circus as well.  The vote did not pass and afterwards Mr. Wang (who owns the Islanders) was very disappointed but said the team would honor it's lease on the building which is up in 2015.  When the teams lease is up, the team could be forced to move although Mr. Wang desperately wants to keep the team on Long Island.          

DJ2K a month later

A month ago today, Derek Jeter of the New York Yankees achieved one of the biggest hitting achievements for a major leaguer.  3000 was the number and Jeter became only the second player to achieve that milestone on a home run, and the first Yankee.  This is a significant number in any MLB career and it shows that Derek has come a long way from that baby faced kid who won Rookie of the Year in 1996.  Now that Jeter is the first Yankee with 3000 hits and the 28 overall, we all wait to see how many hits he'll have at the end of his career.    

Post trade deadline (MLB)

We're now a little over 48 hours past the non-waver trade deadline in baseball, and some things have changed.  In the NL west its San Francisco and Arizona, the Giants added Carlos Beltran at the deadline with will add enough offense to their young pitching in order for the San Francisco Giants to win that division.  Arizona will battle it out with Atalanta to see who wins the wild-card.  Philadelphia who already has dominant pitching, added a few role players and will win the east.   Milwaukee and St. Louis, the Cardinals got some nice players getting ss Rafael Furcal, and pitchers Edwin Jackson, Marc Rzepcynsky, Octavio Dotel, will have a great race to decide who wins the central and with the Cardinals moves they may come out on top.  However these NL races turn out I would expect to see Philadelphia and San Francisco in the National League Championship.
In the AL its fun Texas, got the relief pitching they needed, is most likely going to win the west.  One of the  the best races should be the AL Central between Detroit and Cleveland, both of with addressed some needs (pitching)(Cleveland took a chance on Ubaldo Jimenez) at the deadline.  in the east it will be the Yankees and the Red Sox, the Yankees didn't make any moves but their pitching has come together (wrote about that earlier) and the Red Sox have lost some pitching, they got Eric Bedard but he doesn't scare me and I don't think scares anyone, I think that being said New York will win that division in another close race.  iI will be probably five teams for three spots in the post-season, Red Sox/Yankees, (one wins division, one wins the wild-card) Tigers/Indians, Angels.
Once the playoffs start I don't expect a pretty young Indian team to hang on.  If the Red Sox pitching doesn't come together they won't go far.  Texas has the pitching to hang on, I just don't know if they'll be able to harness it.  I'll expect to see New York and either Texas or Boston in the American League Championship.  In all of these races it's pitching thats going to propel teams to wins, pitching wins championships.