jimmy no nose

My preseason prediction of a mediocre Pitt team once again grabbing the BCS Bowl game out of the conference and getting slaughtered is looking pretty good right now.

I only saw it once and didn't catch a replay, but it definitely looked like Jason Bay had a shot at Torii Hunter's RBI single that broke the tie there. I guess he was trying to make sure the ball didn't get past him, but I thought he definitely could've kept running and gotten closer to the ball to make a play. It wasn't particularly hard hit so it wasn't going to take off and turn into extra bases.

Oops. Was looking for the AL topic here.

As a Steeler fan I kind of am. It's cool when you get the Prime Time games now and then, but on the East Coast you kind of expect to get most of your games Sunday at 1:00 and you can work around that time. This year the Steelers have 3 Sunday 1:00 games with the chance that one of them could be flexed at the end of the year.

The Steelers officially have no running game for the time being. Injury report coming out of week 4: RG Kendall Simmons out for season RB Willie Parker out week 5 RB Rashard Mendenhall out for season RB Carey Davis out week 5 That leaves Mewelde Moore and....Mewelde Moore. Anyone have Shaun Alexander's phone number?

What a great start for Freddy Garcia. First 2 batters 10 pitches no swings, 2 strikes.

Lost due to it being a completely meaningless game was our first case of instant replay weirdness last night. Bengie Molina hit one off the wall in San Francisco that was ruled a single. They went to video review and during the time in between they decided to pull Molina for a pinch runner. Since Molina was removed from the game pinch runner Emanuel Burriss had to run from first to home and Molina was out of the game. Molina got the homer and both RBIs, but didn't get credit for the run scored. I guess nobody thought that situation through. http://mlb.mlb.com/media/video.jsp?mid=200809273558279

I had heard that labels were hoping Best Buy could score a major exclusive since they've lost out on all the others ones to come along and they feared they may back out in future bidding wars. I guess they got their wish.

Assuming they don't get eliminated today the Mets plan to start Oliver Perez on 3 days rest. What in his history has made them believe that would be a good idea?

I didn't even realize Frank and Dee were missing. That second episode was one of the best they've done so far. It was one of the rare opportunities for extended one-on-one interactions between only Charlie and Dennis which tend to be among the best moments on the show.

He's in position where they could easily pull him before he reaches the point where he would be passed. I think he could actually give up as many as 5 runs without even getting an out and still win the ERA title in the AL. There's a bit more realistic shot he could fall behind Santana for the MLB lead, but even that wouldn't be considered likely.

How do you think the Mets reacted when they saw the lineup the Pirates decided to field tonight? The Brewers have tried their hardest to blow their chances at the Wild Card, but the Pirates have refused to allow it today fielding a lineup with 5-8 hitters batting .228, .167, .212, and .160. They will also send out Zach Duke (who, by the way, may have the best name in the league) who is battling to keep his ERA under 5 for the year.

Sports Illustrated is doing a Top World Series Moments poll. The 8 options they have are: 1977 Game 6 Reggie Jackson 3 HR 1956 Game 5 Don Larsen Perfect Game 2003 Game 6 Josh Beckett complete game shutout 1991 Game 7 Jack Morris 10 inning shutout 1993 Game 6 Joe Carter walk-off homer to end the series 1988 Game 1 Kirk Gibson pinch-hit homer 1991 Game 6 Kirby Puckett walk-off homer 1975 Game 6 Carlton Fisk 12th inning walk-off homer All great moments obviously, but how do you leave out Bill Mazeroski hitting a walk-off homer in game 7 in 1960? It's one of two homers that ended a World Series and the only one to come in a Game 7. It had to be one of the biggest upsets in World Series history and came from a career .260 hitter who only hit more than 15 homers twice in his career.

He doesn't even try to make sense, he just says things. He's the same guy that said pitchers shouldn't hit in the National League because that comes from a rule that's 100 years old. I was going to explain how it's a stupid argument to make because different divisions play against such different schedules, then I realized that even teams within a division have a ton of variety in scheduling because of the unbalanced schedule and the 6 team NL Central and 4 team AL West.

I just saw on NFL Network that things have gotten so desperate in St. Louis that they've decided their only hope to salvage the season is to turn to Trent Green at QB. Great job spending $65 million dollars on Marc Bulger.

Mike Tomlin's press conference has things looking up for the Ravens this week. The Steelers will be playing without DE Brett Keisel and NT Casey Hampton on the d-line. On offense they will be playing without Willie Parker which means Rashard Mendenhall will get his first start after barely playing the first 3 weeks. Mewelde Moore will also be in the mix there. He didn't say much about Roethlisberger, but I guess he's supposed to play.

I'm not sure how much coverage it got nationally, but in one of the stranger stories of the last few months the Pirates and Pedro Alvarez agreed to a new deal today where he'll get a major league contract and a $6.35 million signing bonus. Not sure what this does to the whole MLB vs. the Players Association hearing about extending the draft deadline following Alvarez and Boras refusing to sign the deal they say was reached after midnight.

Steelers-Eagles was almost painful to watch. Some of the worst offensive line play I've ever seen from the Steelers and the Eagles weren't much better. Just quarterbacks getting crushed all day long. The game got me thinking though once again about how the NFL replay system needs to be modified in several ways. The play this time actually ended up being the correct call, but for the completely incorrect reason. Roethlisberger was about to get sacked in the endzone but threw the ball up, had it tipped and it lands right in front of him. The play is ruled a safety because of intentional grounding. It turns out Roethlisberger's knee touched the ground anyway, but Ben was clearly outside the pocket, had a receiver at the 2 yard line and the only reason the ball didn't make it there is because it was knocked down by a defender. Had his knee not touched down, and the ruling on the field was that it didn't, there's no way to correct the call after the officials make it.

If I didn't know any better I'd say it almost looked like Miami had a legitimate offense there for a minute. They went straight down the field 76 yards on New England's defense.

What happened to LeSean McCoy? His freshman year was great and he ran all over WVU in the game that knocked them out of the national championship game. A lot of people had him as the sort of outside looking in Heisman candidate this season. He has yet to really do anything this year aside from catch a 30 yard pass while I was typing.

I just saw this story. The report said that DJ AM was taken to a hospital by helicopter while Travis was taken by ambulance. I guess at least that's kind of a promising sign for him. Things still sound terrible though.

It looks like Arizona will finally gain a game on the Dodgers tonight as they lead late against San Francisco and the LA got beat up in Pittsburgh. Assuming an Arizona win it will be a 3 game lead for LA. Arizona play 1 more with San Francisco, 6 with Colorado, and 4 with St. Louis. The Dodgers walk right in though since they have 1 in Pittsburgh, 6 with the Giants, and 3 with the Padres.

The episode titles all have so much potential. If even half of them are as good as I'm expecting this will be a great season. I just wish they'd do a preseason episode like the did with the Mac Serial Killer one last year.

The Vikings have decided that the answer to their early season struggles lies within the arm of a Mr. Gus Frerotte. That should be...interesting.

Nothing that I can see. His career OBP in the minors was only .329. He never walks and doesn't hit for a good enough average to make up for it. You can definitely count on Castillo to pick up a few BBs since he actually has pretty decent plate discipline and hit for a better average, although he's having a bit of an off year in 08. I think Reyes got off to a semi-hot start average-wise in the majors and everyone decided he should be the every day starter and ignored everything else.