jimmy no nose

That's my biggest issue as it's a problem I've been having on different message boards all night. Not that there's any reason for me to use it, but I'm a fan of the "incognito" mode so you can look at porn without your wife/kids knowing or your wife/kids can look at porn without you knowing. That feature is just for porn, right?

If the catcher's blocking the plate and you're on the way home already what's the option that isn't running into the catcher?

Stephen Drew hit for the cycle in the D-Backs game today. That's twice that a player has hit for the cycle in less than a week. For some strange reason even though hitting for the cycle is pretty rare and most often months will go by without one it's actually not that strange for one to be followed up by another in fairly short order. Kind of a strange phenomenon. EDIT--And an hour and a half later Adrian Beltre also completes a cycle. This is much more rare. I believe it's only the second time with the other coming in 1920.

I haven't been around much today, did I miss any other surprise cuts? Ones I've seen that leaped out are Chad Jackson from the Patriots, Orien Harris from New Orleans, and John Lynch. Anyone else interesting or noteworthy?

I have one of those $10 knockout league going where you can only pick a team once throughout the year and this week is rough for that. Blowing the New England pick week 1 seems like the safest bet, then Philadelphia, Dallas, and Indy. There are so many question marks with most of the other teams I would think have easier games this week that there just isn't a lesser team I feel comfortable using here.

Yes. The official scorer can change his ruling within 24 hours of the game. The Brewers can also request an appeal of a scorer's ruling within 24 hours to the league office. From the ESPN game account, it appears the Brewers will do that. There is no set time for the league office to hand down a ruling. Rule 10.01 (a) Does anyone think the ruling will actually be reversed? I'd say that probably gets ruled a hit about 99% of the time since scorers generally never expect pitchers to make anything resembling a difficult play. The scorer gave a decent explanation of, "The way the ball came off the bat, it was spinning, and it went to the left of the mound with a left-handed pitcher going to get it. It's a difficult play. The definition requires that standard effort is required, and that would have taken more than an ordinary effort. The runner was well down the line." I think if it happens a little later in the game there's a chance it gets ruled error, but early in the 5th he probably didn't even think twice about it.

It's still early, but the Rocco Baldelli comeback seems to be going about as well as it possibly could. I really thought before after that press conference at the beginning of the season that he may never make it back. I know the Rays declined his contract option earlier this year, so if they don't work something out with him before then he could end up being a really good free agency pickup for some team.

I could be wrong on this, but doesn't service time in September not count? You know what... I have no idea. I just assumed that it did. You have to be on the 40-man to be eligible for a September call-up. Any idea why it wouldn't count? The service time counts, but it's calculated daily, so just being up for September isn't a huge deal. I believe it also uses up an option though, which is the bigger issue. The Blue Jays probably don't anticipate bouncing him up and down from the majors once he makes it up for real.

AL MVP voting this year is going to be all over the place. Even moreso than usual. I think Quentin and Youklis end up 1 and 2 in some order, but first and second place votes are going to be spread all over the place. Hamilton, Rodriguez, Bradley, Mauer, Sizemore, Pedroia, Sizemore, Cliff Lee, and probably someone from the Angels (although I can't think of who it would be; K-Rod?) will probably get consideration in those spots from different voters.

No way Sizemore wins the MVP. If you're on a team that's not in playoff contention your numbers have to stand out well above the candidates from other teams and his don't. In fact they're not quite as good in most categories. Sizemore .269/.382/.525(.907 OPS) 31 HR 83 RBI Quentin .292/.389/.582(.979 OPS) 36 HR 100 RBI Hamilton .298/.362/.538(.900 OPS) 29 HR 116 RBI Rodriguez .307/.395/.581(.976 OPS) 28 HR 79 RBI Youklis .316/.386/.563(.950 OPS) 24 HR 91 RBI Aside from the batting average Sizemore's numbers certainly fall in line with the rest of the group, but he doesn't stand out about them in any category which would be necessary for him to have a legit shot. In the 6 categories I used to compare out of the 5 guys he ranks 5th in average, 3rd in OBP, 5th in slugging, 4th in OPS, 2nd in HR, and 4th in RBI. And this is ignoring Milton Bradley who's managed to lead the league in batting average, slugging percentage, on base percentage, and of course OPS.

Scott Boras developed an awesome new strategy to extend the draft signing deadline. Apparently now he agrees to deals then has players refuse to sign them until they're renegotiated for more money. At least that's what he's trying to do with Pedro Alvarez and the Pirates. Apparently Boras was looking for 8 figures and the Pirates just stood still at $6 million the entire time. Boras waited until the last minute to start communicating with the team like he always does and they eventually agreed to the $6 million deal. Alvarez hasn't signed the contract yet 16 days after the deadline and Boras is filing a grievance with the union saying the deal wasn't agreed to until after midnight, thus making it invalid. Of course Major League Baseball pointed out to him that the Eric Hosmer-Kansas City deal was submitted after the Alvarez deal, so if they rule the Alvarez deal was done too late it throws out his Hosmer deal as well. Eventually the teams are going to have enough.

I don't follow the Cubs too closely, but after today's game I'm wondering; does Zambrano always face extremely lefty-heavy lineups? I noticed that the Pirates adjusted their starting lineup to have the top 6 spots be left handed hitters and managed to rough him up a bit, with 6 ER in 4.1 innings. I checked out his splits (he conveniently faced the same number of plate appearances from both sides) and it seems that there's little difference in hitting numbers (lefties actually slug a little lower), but he walks lefties a ton more. He also doesn't get nearly the number of strikeouts. The Mets may match up well against him in potential playoff games since they can legitimately field a team with 7 left handed hitters without sacrificing much of anything offensively.

I think a lot of kids can hit the 45 batting cages at that age as well, but the big issue you ignore there is mound distance. In some 8-9-10 leagues the mound is ridiculously close based on the idea that the average pitcher will be throwing something like 20. Depending on what the league's standard distance is I could see it being nearly unhittable for most kids, but if it's a reasonable distance I don't see why he doesn't get knocked around now and then. A 9 year old throwing 40 is probably fast enough to be the fastest pitcher in most leagues. The most "elite" pitchers at that age may hit 50, but most will struggle to even break 30.

I can't believe that was Team Spain without Calderón, their starting point guard. I don't know much about how he's done with the team or in the Olympics as I haven't watched any of their games, but he was coming off a real good NBA season. They looked great even without him. I know Fernandez is a Blazer and Marc Gasol was part of the trade package that landed Pau, but is anyone else going to the NBA?

The game is underway and Pavano is still listed as the Yankees starter. Since they're the road team he has yet to take the mound, so anything can still happen.

What a week for Jose Bautista. He went from starter to "super sub" to benched to Triple A then got traded to Toronto where he'll most likely be getting a good number of starts again.

The chorus on that latest track is pretty great. I kind of like the industrial feel to it, but although I've always liked Buckethead some of the shred stuff in there seems kind of pointless. It seems even a bit more just show-offy than his usual stuff and doesn't really help the song all that much.

If the Blue Jays can beat the Yankees again tomorrow they will be tied at 3rd in the division and the wild card race. I hadn't even noticed that the Rays right now are tied for the best record in all of baseball.

Remember last week when Marvin Lewis said Chris Henry would not be welcome back? I guess his mind changed pretty quickly. At least this year his season opening suspension is only 4 games instead of 8.

I can't believe Maddon didn't bench him again. He tried to explain after the game that it wasn't that Upton wasn't trying, he just made a mental mistake, but I'm pretty sure that if a guy gets benched multiple times for not hustling then makes that play he's not getting the message. He might be the fastest guy on the team and he got ran down by Mark Texeira.

CC went for the complete game despite allowing 13 batters to reach base. Maybe they just wanted to keep his bat in the lineup.

So John Maine threw 5 shoutout innings, but in a shocking turn of events the Mets bullpen allowed 5 runs in 3 innings to lose the game.

Matt Garza's 2 hit shutout of the Rangers today was one of the more impressive pitching performances of the year. Going against the league's top offense I don't think there were more than 5 fly balls against him the whole game.

40 minutes to go and none of the Scott Boras top picks have signed...shocking...

Cody Ransom is 32 and has yet to even approach 100 major league at bats in a season. I guess there was no one else to take a shot on, it's probably not worth it to throw Juan Miranda into the majors at this point.