devo

I'm a little annoyed that the Braves are probably going to get Texiera, but there's no doubt that they're taking a pretty big risk in making the trade. Saltalamacchia seems to have the potential to become one of the game's best catchers, and Andrus is one of the strongest prospects in the Braves' farm system. Even if Texiera's open to the idea of signing with Atlanta, he's no doubt going to ask for the moon and the stars in return for his services. Meanwhile, the Mets apparently are close to getting Luis Castillo. I can certainly live with him and Ruben Gotay splitting time at second, and from I've heard, New York's not giving up much at all in the deal.

Kenny Lofton's been traded to the Indians. http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/wire?sectio...&id=2951535 Lofton's going to be a big improvement over Trot Nixon, which eliminates one of the two weak spots in their lineup (Josh Barfield being the other). The prospect the Rangers got in return looks to have some promise, so it's not a bad deal for Texas either.

The NL Wild Card race is going to be ridiculous this year. The fact alone that three of the West teams are probably going to be competing for it could make things really interesting.

The Giants have come back from a 4-0 deficit in the bottom of the ninth to tie the game at four against Atlanta. This after Tim Hudson went 8.2 innings and came within a strike of a complete game shut out. I do feel bad for him, but I'd feel a lot worse if it wasn't the Braves we were talking about.

John Maine just hit his first career home run and I couldn't watch it thanks to MLB's insane blackout rules. Apparently three hours away from Pittsburgh is close enough to black out Pirates games even though there are absolutely no local means for me to watch tonight's contest.

I got my first Film Crew DVD today, Hollywood After Dark. The presentation has a few issues - namely, I had to turn the volume up on my TV to the maximum to even hear it and the DVD has no scene selection. Thankfully, the content itself is hilarious. The riffing's about as good as the best stuff from the Sci-Fi era, and the only thing I really miss are the silhouettes of the theater seats and Mike and the Bots. Definitely worth the purchase, and I'll probably pre-order Killers From Space in the next couple days.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/07242007/sport..._cannizzaro.htm Ah well, bound to happen sometime. It's a shame that he kinda just faded into obscurity by not playing last year, but even with that, he's going to go down as a tremendous runningback and one of the greatest Jets ever.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/07232007/sport...n_terranova.htm Moises Alou might return to the Mets' lineup as soon as tomorrow after being out for nearly two and a half months. Which makes me curious, what's the longest time between roster appearances in a season? I guess the obvious answer would be 161 games, but I dunno.

Wrong thread.

I tried to connect to the Wii Shop Channel just now to buy Kirby's Dream Course, but I got the message "Error Code: 05130 - Unable to Connect to the Server". Nintendo's support website isn't loading properly, but I've read that this code just means that the server is too busy to handle my request. Is that the case?

Jose Valentin's going to be out 4-6 weeks. I'm not really too upset about this, since I believe a platoon of a Ruben Gotay and Damion Easley (once he comes back from bereavement) might actually be an improvement at this point.

Add me to the waiting list, please.

They're really milking Guilty Gear for all that it's worth, what with this and all of the versions of the original game. That being said, I love Strategy RPGs (I think that's what they're going for) and am anxious to see how this turns out.

Reds close the book on a sweep of the Braves in Atlanta, finally winning 5-4 today after a fifteen-inning afternoon battle. Having run out of position players, the last out of the game for Atlanta was pitcher/pinch hitter Kyle Davies striking out. The biggest story there is the Reds bullpen going seven and a third innings and only giving up two runs. They were backed up by some tremendous defense, including two game-saving plays by Brandon Phillips in extra innings.

The Jets signed former European Leaguer Juan Wong recently. There isn't anything particularly remarkable about this, I just really, really like the name Juan Wong.

To be honest, the Mets don't need a whole lot in terms of new players right now. The rotation's shaped up quite nicely, the bullpen could possibly use one more consistent arm but is otherwise fine, and the lineup simply needs its main contributors to play to their potential or just get healthy. I think the clock's finally struck midnight on Jose Valentin, so the more playing time Ruben Gotay gets in the second half, the better. Beltran's scuffling a little bit, but I think he'll eventually turn it around as, unlike 2005, he's not playing hurt (as far as I know). I've given up on Delgado performing anywhere near his norm, but at the same time, I don't think a line along the lines of .260/.330/.480 is out of the question either. Not great, but good enough. It's going to hinge a lot on when Moises Alou and Pedro Martinez come back and in what kinda shape they're in, but I'm confident that, given their current roster, the Mets will be just fine.

Never even heard of this guy until I just now looked up. Another 18-year-old-tons-of-potential kinda guy like Fernando Martinez, it seems.

The Indians are in the midst of a remarkable comeback against the White Sox. After being down 11-2, they've battled all the way back to 11-10 in the bottom of the eighth. If Chicago drops this game I think Ozzie Guillen might just off himself.

How does gore get bottom billing in that list? I'm more confused about that than anything else.

Kyle Davies just completed what will probably be the worst start of the year from a member of the Braves as he leaves the game in the top of the first down 2-0 with the bases loaded and no outs. 0 IP, 3 BB, 2 H, 2 ER.

Keith Hernandez (who broadcasts for SNY) is a pretty terrible color guy. He'll spend half the game rambling on about stuff unrelated to baseball - for example, during today's Mets game he spent nearly a full half inning fondly remembering the Addams Family and the Flintstones. He's not bad when he actually does pay attention to the game, but it doesn't appear to be his main concern most of the time. Ron Darling's a lot better.

From Baseball Tonight a few minutes ago... Panelist second from right - "You see, the thing with C.C. Sabathia is, he'll give up runs, but he'll keep his team in the game!" Steve Levy - "How does he do that at the same time?"

I'm really glad the Mets pulled out a victory tonight, not only because it would have been really annoying to see them get ten hits and only have one run to show for it but also because they would have wasted Glavine's best start of the year (8 IP, 1 R, 2 H, 5 K, 0 BB). 298. Looks like it's going to happen after all.

The Beatniks is a great episode. Usually, it takes me a little while to warm up to Joel episodes, but I really liked this one right off the bat. I didn't realize it's where they got the recurring "Shut up, Iris." line from. "No, he's not under contract to me..." "Forget the contract. What are you wearing?" "Well, his agent is right here." "Oh. What is he wearing?" -------------------------------- "Hello, you have reached a bald man. Press one to..." --------------------------------- "We can grab some loot, go down to Mexico, and be banditos!" "Yeah, then we'll ride Yoshi down to the Mushroom Kingdom..."

Actually, it's looking like Carlos Gomez is going to be out for a while, so it's more likely that Alomar will be cut when Oliver Perez comes back from the DL, which could be as soon as this Sunday. Meanwhile, Lastings Milledge just scored from first on a single + bobbled ball, making a beautiful tag-avoiding slide at home plate to do so.