Mik

D-Train gets a 3 hit shutout of the Phils to salvage a split.

I'm having a hard time seeing how steroids would make THAT much of a difference in a sport that embraces dexterity, flexibility, and pure ability/talent. Sure, Bonnar might have had a little more pop in his punches, but he's not getting the real major benefit of roids...which would be minimum recovery time possible. It's not like he had another fight in rapid succession. Any experts want to fill me in on what I'm missing here?

I really don't see how Ryan Howard isn't the NL MVP this year. He single-handedly beat the Marlins tonight. Olsen shut the rest of the Phillies down.

He's a beast, that's for sure. The whole talk of him being the home run king if he hits 62 drives me absolutely ballistic, though.

I actually never said that. Someone (not sure if it was your or not) with no reading comprehension skills misconstrued me saying that would be in the thick of things as soon as 2008 to mean WS and then that same person ran with it.

I'm gonna catch heat for this, no doubt, but I'd be willing to bet they make the WS before 2011.

Most people knew the Marlins did pretty decent in that trade. Anibal was highly touted and of course they got the immortal Hanley Ramirez. Not to mention two great flamethrowers that are currently in AA. With that said... I've never been routing for a KC Royals hit more in my entire life.

Al Leiter was the 1st.

Yay. Fire up the national media train again.

Anibal to the 9th now.

Hell yeah. It's awesome. They were down 5-0 and put up a 6 spot today w/ 2 outs. They are a success no matter what happens the rest of the year, but the playoffs...or being in contention in the last week would be outstanding.

Don't forget the candidate that Baseball Prospectus is pushing for MVP: Miguel Cabrera.

Hopefully not tonight. I would love the Marlins to be two games out. That would be just about as close as their "star studded team" got last year.

Marlins completed a 4 game sweep of the Brewers to move within two games of .500. Josh Johnson is now 12-6 with a major league low 2.87 ERA. I'm guessing he'll get a few 2nd and 3rd place Cy Young votes... maybe better if no clear candidate emerges.

Yesterday Loria was asked about Girardi and Loria refused to endorse him or mention him by name and the Palm Beach Post had an article this morning that all but guaranteed that he won't be back next season. The Post could be wrong, but they made it sound like a 100% certainty.

It really pains me that the walking pile of crap that is Jeff Loria is going to fire the man who should realistically be the NL manager of the year after the season. The Marlins have a $15M payroll and are 3 games out of the wild card in the last week of August! But Jeff got told to shut up by Joe Girardi (which he rightfully deserved) so now he's probably gonna fire him after the season. Terrible.

Yeah... Snakes already hit it's budget or very close. It will make a killing on DVD. The studio is probably thrilled.

You're 100% correct. I'm not so sure you can say the same at this time next year and definitely not in 2 years. But they shouldn't. They have the worst fan base in all of baseball.

Miguel Cabrera is better than Delgado and Howard definitely, and Beltran and Utley maybe.

As crazy as this sounds... after the spanking the Marlins are putting on the Brewers tonight... they will be only 4 games under .500 and will have 62 wins for the season at 62-66. The under/over for their total was 65 at the start of the year. If only I had the money to have placed a very large bet on the over at the beginning of the season... if only.

I'm pretty sure I've encountered Johnson on FullTilt Poker. There is a player named Mike Johnson with some numbers after it and he was all over Jeff Madsen's nuts at a tournament last week asking him if he was a Lakers fan... I'm not sure if that's him or if I'm just a really sad person for making that connection.

Two questions: How much is the PPV? and two... is this one worth it? I've never ordered a UFC PPV before, but for some reason I don't really like Lidell and the special Spike TV had last night made me want to cheer for Babalu, but how are you experts expecting the undercard fights to be? If this is only like $35... I might end up ordering it.

Hard to believe that it's almost exactly 24 hours away from the Season Premiere of 24. It seems like it was just yesterday that the show ended in May and we ALL were bitching about how far away January is. On top of that, the story left off in a great place and it's going to be interesting to see where things go with Jack and the Chinese government. I am making the bold prediction right here as the first post in this thread that this will be the season where Jack eats the bullet, for real. WHO DO YOU WORK FOR???

Discuss what will undoubtably be the funniest movie of the summer here in this thread. Going to see this tonight - can't wait.