rollins
werth
utley
howard
burrell
victorino
dobbs
feliz
ruiz

think i just saw BJ upton on the field taking pictures

happy to be here!

Houshphandzadeh wrote:Swift > LaBelle?

these days, yes. certainly better than the backstreet boys. YAY READING!!

Carlton, Roberts and Bunning will throw out the first pitches for the games in Philly, though I won't be disappointed if I don't see Bunning throw one out.

JayBallz wrote:

hoya wrote:Actually, if Saturday got rained out would it move to Tuesday? Then I'd really be screwed.

Yes! They will move game 3 to Tuesday...after games 4 and 5 are played. Bright idea. :?

Obviously I meant the tickets. Besides that, you are many hours late on your joke.

ARGH! MY EYES! I LOOKED, AND MY EYES ARE BURNING!

There is Price, 23, the most electric young weapon in the postseason since Francisco Rodriguez made his debut for the Angels in 2002.

And there are the largely unknown veteran relievers whom Maddon can deploy at any time, ignoring the slavish, old-school adherence to traditional roles and the save rule.

I now think game 3 will be the most critical. The pitching matchups for games 4 and 5 favor us. If the Rays are as mediocre against LHPs as their record indicates and the offense can just do enough (or Garza's head explodes) then IMO they really do have a chance to sweep the 3 home games.

So, I was just told that the whole 9=8 thing means something like because they have 9 good players in the lineup, they'll be one of the playoff teams? I really hope there's a less retarded explanation than that.

Nope, that's pretty much the deal.

9 good players in the line up playing hard for
9 innings
= one of the 8 playoff spots.


yeah, fans really made t0shirts about that.

Queer-mos

Boy, that's dumb. You'd think at the drawing board, they'd at least tweak it to something like 9 x 9 = 1. One, you know, championship.

I mean, 8? Talk about happy to be here.

Game 3 should be interesting. Garza's performance is very erratic. He seems to have games where he absolutely dominates and games where he is terrible. BP has a stat called "FLAKE" which determines how flakey a pitcher is, in the since of how much his starts vary in quality. Number one this year was CC Sabathia, presumably coming from frequent dominating starts more so than frequent implsions. Number two-- Matt Garza.

Looking briefly through his 2006 and 2007 game logs, this seems to be a trend. He either dominates and shuts a team down with 1 run in 7 innings or implodes and gives up 5 runs in 4 innings.

Here's hoping for bad Matt Garza.

i believe the term is "space cadet"

1 wrote:i believe the term is "space cadet"

Garza sounds Hispanic

are we supposed to have seen the upper tier of rays starting pitching thus far?

because I struggle to find words to describe how underwhelmed I have been.

not to discount the accomplishment the rays' 2008 season represents, but in my judgment they've had a major case of rockies' overachiever fever working

love to see games 3, 4 & 5 effect a cure

i think the bad garza comes out. just because the phillies have been taking a lot of pitches this series. i would think garza makes a lot of mistakes since he throws so hard. phillies will capitalize.

drsmooth wrote:are we supposed to have seen the upper tier of rays starting pitching thus far?

because I struggle to find words to describe how underwhelmed I have been.

not to discount the accomplishment the rays' 2008 season represents, but in my judgment they've had a major case of rockies' overachiever fever working

love to see games 3, 4 & 5 effect a cure

Yes, and in this case, the cure is not "more cowbell" but a cure from cowbell.

Garza's splits are crazy in regards to outside stadiums vs. domes and grass vs. turf. That could explain the games he's horrible vs. great in

The Dude wrote:Garza's splits are crazy in regards to outside stadiums vs. domes and grass vs. turf. That could explain the games he's horrible vs. great in

Like most, he's less agile and effective on grass

Eskin on ESPN OTL's. Unbelievable that he is speaking for the city right now and more unbelievable that he's speaking authoritatively about the Phillies.