Category Archives: baseball

This Weekend in College Football: Week 9

Before we get into the FOOTBAW, a little baseball aside.

So to watch Braves games I bought a subscription to mlb.tv, baseball’s online service for out-of-market regional games. (This is where I give a hearty “f-you” to TBS for ending national Braves broadcasts; though I understand why it sucks that it happened when I moved to the west coast.) Though you can’t get live video of post-season broadcasts (a hearty “f-you” to Fox, just on general principle because I don’t like Fox – thanks for forcing a damn three day layoff between the end of the LCS and the World Series that may push the series into November) you can still get the live radio feeds. So I popped open the stream of the Red Sox home broadcasters about 10 minutes after game time to hear something to the effect of: “Beckett strikes out the side, we go to the bottom of the first.”

“Oh snap,” I thought, “if he’s on tonight the Rockies are pretty much screwed.” And he was on, but they didn’t lose then and there.

Bottom of the first, the Sox’s young leadoff hitter takes the 2nd pitch to straight-away center for a home run. Fenway erupts.

That’s the precise moment at which the Rockies lost.

The Sox scored a few more runs. I turned it off around the 3rd inning because I had to go home, but the outcome of the game wasn’t in doubt in my mind. So I wasn’t surprised to find later that the final was 13-1.

The Rockies pretty much need to win tomorrow. The problem for them is, they probably won’t and will head back to Denver down 2-0. I would be surprised if the series made it back to Boston at that point.

Anyway, now that I have a new idea for a post (how networks effect scheduling of games, or more accurately how they ruin them), let’s go onto football.

As usual, all times Eastern and all predictions wrong. As a free bonus, we’re throwing Thursday’s and Friday’s tilts as well.

Thursday
7:30: Boston College @ Virginia Tech (ESPN): This is one of the two big reasons to bother to watch football at all this weekend, other than that you should be watching it anyway. This the first of many of BC’s potential stumbling block away games, one of two of the conference’s toughest places to play. (They also make a visit to Clemson.) The big question is at quarterback. On the VPI side, the question is “Who will be the starter?” as their mobile freshman guy hurt his ankle last week versus Duke.
On the BC side, the question is “How will Matt Ryan fare against the VPI defense?” If their previous game against a “Tech” was any indication, he should do fairly well. The Hokies are actually ranked lower (40th, compared to 33rd) than the Jackets. Matt Ryan is definite NFL caliber QB who is not fazed by blitzing and can make pinpoint accurate throws into tight coverage. (His line: 17 TD, 6 INT, 63.2%.) The Hokies have the 17th ranked rushing defense, but it doesn’t really matter because BC will pass first (the Eagles pass on 56% of their plays).
Meanwhile, the Hokies will desperately try to retool their offense with Glennon back at the helm. Glennon was benched for a reason: against ECU he led the offense to 17 points, and only 7 in the debacle at LSU. He did play well last week, but that was against Duke. Boston College boasts a pretty stout defense, including the best rushing defense in the country, allowing a downright meager 46.53 yards per game. Their pass defense isn’t bad, either.
So, I guess in conclusion, I think the Hokies are going to have some real problems. If this game weren’t in Blacksburg, it might not even be close, but I’m going to call for BC to remain undefeated in a tight game.

9:00: Air Force @ New Mexico (Versus): This is a sort of cool down game, sort like how you’re supposed to “cool down” when you’re done exercising. This is actually a pretty big tilt in the MWC – though BYU is stomping everyone in the conference, neither of these teams are bad and it could have an impact on their bowl situations (though I have Air Force not going to San Diego to avoid a rematch with Navy). The Air Force should win, though.

Friday
9:00: Boise State @ Fresno State (ESPN): Don’t look, but the boys of The Valley (as opposed to those other valleys in California) are relevant in the WAC again after really brining the suck last year. 4-0 vs. Boise’s 3-0, but I think what most people care about is that one of them beats Hawaii. I’ll give Fresno the home edge.

Saturday
Noon:

  • West Virginia @ Rutgers (ABC/Gameplan): I don’t know why ABC is having these noon-eastern broadcasts this week, but whatever. At any rate, it’s safe to say that this game is far more important for West Virginia than it is for Rutgers. WVU needs to have only 1-loss to stay relevant nationally (and more importantly, preserve my prediction that they go to the Rose Bowl). And I think they will – I think Rutgers is a good football team, but WVU is better.
  • Colorado @ Texas Tech (Gameplan/ABC): See, I liked a few years ago when Colorado was terrible and bribing their recruits with strippers. Made it easy to “man, they are going to lose.” And they did. And by all rights, they should. But Texas Tech is coming off a huge let down against Missouri, who blew out the Raiders 41-10. Yes, that’s right, Texas Tech only scored 10 points. Neither of these schools is exactly on an uptick right now. I’m going to go ahead and pick TTU anyway, but be wary of an upset here.
  • Michigan State @ Iowa (ESPN2): Big Ten yawnfest of the day. Michigan State wins; let’s move on.
  • North Carolina @ Wake Forest (Raycom/Gameplan): Okay, this isn’t really much more exciting, but at least I nominally care about it. UNC will probably lose, though, adding yet another game to their series of close losses.

12:30: Mississippi State @ Kentucky (LF/Gameplan): Kentucky is coming off their loss to UF, but should find relief in the comfort of the arms of Mississippi State. Or I should say, that Miss. State will desperately be trying to get Andre Woodson and his receivers in their arms, because the whole tackling thing is essential in this sport. I guess what I’m trying to convey here is that it’s rather unlikely they’ll be able to do so and will lose pretty badly.

3:00: Southern California @ Oregon (FSN): I’m not entirely sure how this game escaped ABC’s clutches (the scheduling for this weekend is wacky) but at any rate this is probably for the Pac-10 title and a Rose Bowl berth, or in Oregon’s case a chance to sneak their way back into the title game picture. (Provided neither team loses again, they could both make a BCS bowl, especially Oregon.) Anyway, I think Oregon is darn good football team, and more notably they did what they were supposed to do with Stanford (whipping them 55-31). This game is, to me, definitely in favor of the Ducks, but could be close.

3:30:

  • Georgia vs. Florida (CBS): The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party kicks off once again in Jacksonville. I like to think of it as more as Georgia’s yearly whipping at the hands of the Gators. As you probably know, UF has won all but two contests since 1990, and I don’t see any reason why this season won’t be different.
  • Nebraska @ Texas (ABC/Gameplan): If sports message boards and more nerdy message boards intersected, they’d spawn memes like “lolnebraska” instead of “lolsony”. Nebraska has lost three straight and all but fired their head coach. The word “quit” has been used a lot in conjunction with the word “team.” In other words, Texas by at least 2 touchdowns. Unfortunately, it looks like most of the country is going to be subjected to this crap and it won’t even be in HD. Either of the other two ABC contests will probably be more palatable.
  • Clemson @ Maryland (Gameplan/ABC): So let’s start with the ACC game. Clemson broke their two game losing streak to the ACC’s Techs with a drubbing of Central Michigan. Maryland, meanwhile, was on the wrong side of Virginia’s incredible lucky streak last weekend. That said, this matchup is important in the ACC’s other division (my name for the division GT isn’t in because I can never remember the stupid names) and for the ACC bowl pecking order. Clemson still has a lot of weapons, but they seem to forget what they are – in their loss to Virginia Tech, they got down 17-0 early and Cullen Harper threw 66 passes. Davis and Spiller had a combined 12 yards rushing, and whenever stuff like that occurs it’s usually bad, bad news for the Tigers (same thing happened to a lesser degree against Tech). Provided Clemson avoids an early let down and runs the damn ball, I think they win.
  • South Florida @ Connecticut (Gameplan/ABC): Since USF’s soft, vulnerable underbelly has been exposed. And that vulnerable spot is the blitz, as Groethe apparently had “no hot reads” against Rutgers’s rush. Meanwhile, UConn finds itself ranked and playing the most important game in its short football history. The still haven’t beat anyone, though, and I doubt they will here.
  • Minnesota @ Michigan (ESPN Classic): Michigan, by 3 touchdowns.

6:30: California-Los Angeles @ Washington State (FSN): UCLA can’t decide if it sucks or not, and I don’t think anyone would be surprised if they celebrated their victory over Cal by losing in Pullman. I mean, heck, the Cougars have more wins than Notre Dame does. That said, I’m taking UCLA here.

7:00: Kansas @ Texas Agricultural & Mechanical (ESPN2): I hate to say this, but I think KU is actually kind of legit. Look for them to prevail in College Station.

7:45: South Carolina @ Tennessee (ESPN): Whoops. So, uh, yeah. Vandy. And Alabama. Both these teams suffered terrible, terrible losses last week. While losing to Vandy is bad in and of itself for most SEC teams, getting basically blown out by one of your chief rivals (where does ‘Bama rank on the Tennessee rivalry scale, anyway?) is probably worse. The calls for the head of Fulmer reach high. Whil they be able to recover? It helps them that South Carolina has pretty much no offense, but Tennessee has no defense. I expect the Gamecocks to recover and prevail.

8:00: Ohio State @ Pennsylvania State (ABC): This is probably Ohio State’s chance to lose before playing Michigan, and I’m sure the biggest Penn State fans this weekend may actually be in Pasadena. Penn State is a decent team, but Ohio State is good. This year, the Buckeyes haven’t allowed more than 17 points on defense. This would mean more if they could beat a decent team, though. I think they will, for my previously stated reason that they need to be undefeated heading into the Michigan game for maximum season-ending chaos potential.

10:00: California @ Arizona State (FSN): And our last game of the day, Cal’s last gasp of relevancy following their terrible loss to UCLA. That said, the Sun Devils face their first true test and I honestly thing the run ends here or next week at Oregon. I’ll go ahead and take the Bears.

I had something to say here, but this post took forever, so I’m going to bed. Enjoy the weekend!

Exponentiation!

Will: you should totally round up a group of 25000 braves fans out there at work and road trip to any games we play out there, so you can make up for the opposite happening in atlanta
me: lol
me: I’ve met 1 other braves fan
me: I’ve met 2 people who actually care about baseball
Will: well, does he know 24,998 others?
me: well, maybe
Will: okay, well say he knows ten fans
Will: and each of those ten guys knows ten guys
Will: and each of those hundred guys knows ten guys
Will: and each of those ten thousand guys knows ten guys
Will: you’ve got 100,000 people
Will: piece of cake
Will: and say each of those 100,000 guys know 10 guys, and each of those million guys know 10 guys, and each of those ten million guys know 10 guys, and each of those hundred million guys know 10 guys, and now you’ve converted the entirety of earth’s population plus about four billion people that don’t exist into braves fans
Will: which means we might be able to get more than 30,000 of them to go to turner field during the playoffs

Braves at the Break

Figure I’d drop in a quick baseball post. The Braves are off again today and will resume action Friday night against the seafaring marauders of Pittsburgh.

  • Los Bravos are currently 2 back of the Metropolitans (something about writing at 1:16 AM makes one not want to use actual names, I guess). As a fun exercise I decided to see how far back they were at this point in every season after the strike. The results, frankly, aren’t terribly interesting. From 1995 through 2000, not only were they in first at the All-Star Break, in many cases they were already running away with the division. In 1998, they were 12.5 up at the break an the lead never went below 11 games. They steamrolled through the Cubs in the NLDS only to run into the Kevin Brown, Ken Caminiti, Jim “F@#%^&@#%@#” Leyritz and the rest of the Padres in the NLCS.
    Back to my original point, outside of this year the Braves have found themselves out of first 4 times since 1994: 2001 (1 back), 2004 (1 back), 2005 (2.5 back), and 2006 (13(!) back). So there’s not really a lot to go on there.
  • Unsurprisingly, Chipper Jones has been having the best year at the plate for the Braves when he’s in. He’s sport a healthy 1.011 OPS and .329 batting averages. Among year-to-date qualifiers, this puts him at 4th best in baseball:
    Top 10 Hitters by OPS
    1. Barry Bonds (1.101, SF)
    2. Alex Rodriguez (1.078, NYY)
    3. Magglio Ordonez (1.050, DET)
    4. Chipper Jones (1.011, ATL)
    5. Carols Pena (1.004, TAM)
    6. Prince Fielder (.996, MIL)
    7. David Ortiz (.990, BOS)
    8. Chase Utley (.972, PHI)
    9. Gary Sheffield (.970, DET)
    10. Miguel Cabrera (.969, FLA)
  • As most of you know, Andruw Jones is not having a good year in any sense of the word. At the break, he’s hitting .211 with a .720 OPS, and that’s with the help of a good 3-3 game against San Diego Sunday night. That said, since June 26 he’s hit 4 homers and gone 14-48 at the plate (.292 average) with a .968 OPS. Hopefully this is a good sign he’ll get out of his funk and not a temporary burst of confidence. True to his style, he’s appeared in every game this year and I would guess the 4 days off will help him rest up.
  • Speaking of things that needed 4 days of rest, let’s talk about the bullpen. 6 relievers already have more than 30 appearances, with Tyler Yates leading the pack at 42, including 5 straight games before taking the day off Sunday. In terms of effectives, Peter Moylan probably leads the pack with Rafeal Soriano close behind. (Mike Gonzalez was having a great year before he got hurt, though.)
    However, Bob Wickman scares me. I read an article at the beginning of the year calling him one of the most overrated closers in baseball. Now I’m starting to believe it. Submitted for your approval, here’s some stats from this year and last:
    With Cleveland: 15 saves, 28 IP, 13 ER, 17 K, 11 BB (1.54 K/BB, 1.429 WHIP)
    With Atlanta: 18 saves, 26 IP, 7 ER, 25 K, 2 BB (12.5 K/BB, 1 WHIP)
    2007: 16 saves, 30 IP, 16 ER, 25 K, 13 BB (1.92 K/BB, 1.633 WHIP)
    So in these 3 half seasons, his walk totals are particularly alarming for someone who should not be allowing a lot of baserunners. A low WHIP ((walks+hits)/innings pitched) is also really important for a closer, and 1.633 is not low. His strikeout totals are also alarmingly low for a closer. In fact, of the the Braves relievers with 30 or more appearances, only Chad Paronto has less strikeouts. All this only appears good in relation to our situation before we traded for Wickman last year.
    All in all, if he stops allowing baserunners and gets back to the form he had in the second half last year we should be fine. Otherwise, count me on the Rafael Soriano bandwagon.
  • So far, in 2 innings pitched, Joey Divine has allowed exactly zero grand slams! Let’s hope he keeps it up.
  • Hudson and Smoltz have pitched pretty well this year. Smoltz’s shoulder, therefore, is a huge cause for concern. If he has to sit a month to heal the damn thing that’s fine by me. We’ll need it more in August and September. We desperately need a 3rd/4th reliable starter, but the market for them is bone dry.
  • We seem to have solved our productivity issues at first base and left field. Willie Harris leads the team in on-base percentage (.419) and Saltalamacchia is light years ahead of Scott Thorman. Salty’s still learning the ropes defensively (2 errors in 10 games) but he’s just so much better offensively that I don’t really care.
  • Someday, I might understand why Chris Woodward has a job. Maybe.

Anyway, I’m tired. As for my overall thoughts, I rate our chances as decent. I think a good goal is to be within 2 games come August 7, when we go to New York for a 3-game series with the Mets, one of 3 remaining series with them for the rest of the year.

College football note: The excellent Sunday Morning Quarterback has an well-reasoned preview of Georgia Tech. You really should check it out – I’m a GT fan and I doubt I could write that in-depth of a preview on Tech.

“Sports That Could Possibly be Abbreviated ‘Bball’ for $500, Alex.”

Immediately after getting home from work, some friends and I took in the 2007 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship Game.

It wasn’t exactly a clinic. Ohio State looked lost most of the night and had trouble getting any sort of outside game that was desperately needed against Florida’s zone defense. Unlike the game in January, the favorites came out on top this time around.

After the end of the night (and hence the lateness of these posts), I poetically segued from the end of one season to the beginning of another. I recorded the Braves’ opener (10:00 am PDT) to view tonight and kept myself willful ignorant of the results.

What a thrill to be back into baseball. I never got into the groove last season – I left for Europe when the season was still young and came back to a team that was realistically out of the playoff hunt. I watched the remaining games, but without my usual zeal. As I watched yesterday’s game, I found my baseball senses were still in great shape – twitching as though I were behind the plate calling the balls and strikes, cringing at the bad swings at fastballs best described as “on the same plane as the batter’s eyeballs”.

Some of the Braves looked a lot more ready for opening day than others. Particular examples that stand out are Edgar Renteria, Chipper Jones, and of course, Brian McCann. Chipper got on base 3 times, McCann was completely himself (i.e., the best young catcher in the National League), and Edgar hit the tying and go ahead home runs. Andruw looked like he was trying to hit the ball to Pittsburgh most of the time, and the bottom of the order after McCann looked completely out of sorts. (I still prefer Chipper batting 4th and Andruw batting 3rd, honestly.)

John Smoltz pitched well, but he was on the hook for the loss after the 6th. Getting him off the hook was Edgar, who took an 0-2 fastball from Brett Myers in the 8th and just belted out beyond the center field fence to tie the game.

The so-called “Big Three” relievers had an interesting debut today. Mike Gonzalez came on in the 7th and proceeded to watch Brett Myers on four straight and give up a double. He then found the strike zone again and struck out the next two Phillies (including Ryan Howard) and retired the side.

Wickman pitched the tied ninth and got two quick out before allowing a double. They opted to walk Howard this time (one of the cases where I agree with that call) and got Utley to hit pop-up into foul territory that was corralled by Chipper.

Kelly Johnson coaxed a lead-off walk in the 10th, and after failing to get a bunt down, Edgar decided to take the next pitch into the right-center field bleachers. A perfect bottom of the inning by Chad Paronto later and the Braves secured the 1-0 start to the season.

It was weird watching this – they showed occasional highlights from last season. Normally, I’d remember these, but it was a reminder this year that even though I tried to keep up online I really had no idea what was going on. What I knew even before I left, though, was how terrible the bullpen was. If this website existed back then it would probably have several posts dedicated to the so-called “reliever” by the name of Chris Reitsma, one of the few people I’ve ever truly hated. (He was that bad.) Needless to say, had he been pitching today, the Braves probably would’ve lost 7-2.

The funniest part was listening to the announcers skip around the topic, saying everything they could about the bullpen last year without out-and-out saying, “Boy, those guys really sucked.” Here was the most damning factoid they presented: John Smoltz had a damn fine year last year at 16-9. He had 10 no-decisions, 6 of which were caused by blown saves, a stat the Braves led the league in last year. Yes, that’s right, with competent relief, he could’ve easily had 19 or 20 wins. Considering neither Cy Young award winner last year had 20 wins, that’s saying something. (Though perhaps it says more about the over-importance on a team-based stat for a pitcher’s performance, but that’s a post for another day.)

Anyway, it’s April, so like the fans of every baseball team, I’m feeling optimistic about this season. Well, except for fans of the Nationals. They don’t have much to look forward to.