We got a series on our hands now

The World Series is getting interesting now. The Rangers went back home and won game 3. So far, the great pitching of the Giants has looked like it's too much for the Rangers to handle. It's not just their starting pitching, but the Giants bullpen aint bad either. Ironically, their famous and amusingly interesting closer, Brian Wilson, might be the weakest link of that bullpen. The Rangers on the other hand have a rather shaky bullpen and they seemed too dependent on Cliff Lee when the series started. The Giants got Lee out of game 1 pretty early and rather easily. Of course Lincecum was not great either, but the Giants didn't care since they won. Cain was spectacular in game 2 as he shut fools down. The game was close until the texas bullpen started spraying the ball all over the place. Walk after walk meant a hit here or there was going to score 2 or 3 runs and thats exactly what happened. But now, if they win tomorrow, this series becomes fascinatingly close. Tommy Hunter versus Bumgarner should be interesting to watch.

In football, Auburn survived the curse of the first seed as they went on the road and beat Ole Miss to stay at the top. Oregon crushed USC to stay undefeated. Two more undefeated teams lost today - Missouri and Michigan State. Both got embarrassed and thats good news for one loss teams like Alabama. BCS is a mess now and will be a different mess by the time it's all said and done. I guess thats what we like about College football - at least thats what we are told. ASU won 42-0 against Washington. Thats neither here nor there. A dominant scoreboard from a team that has looked anything but lately. To be fair to the Devils, they did play Oregon pretty close early in the season, may be before Oregon fond itself. Lets see if Oregon can punch this one in and take it all the way home for Pac-10.

In the NFL, it's all about Brett Favre. Dude is definitely hurt and probably should sit down, but won't because of his streak. Childress and Favre are talking like they both are in different planets. I have a feeling this is going to end real bad in all fronts. I think Favre starts tomorrow, loses, probably gets hurt more and loses his continuous streak next week. Chilly threw Favre under the bus last week after Favre repeatedly threw the ball into the chest of Packer defenders. Since then they have been going back and forth and this is going to get a lot worse before Chilly gets fired and Favre retires end if the year. NBA is on and apparently the Heat games are getting amazing ratings. The Suns are 1-2, but have looked good so far. The schedule is brutal, but I am surprised how fluid they look.

NBA, MLB, NFL and NCAA

What a time of the year this is. College Saturday, NFL Sunday (and Monday), World Series and the NBA season is kicking off tomorrow. The Suns play tomorrow along with the Heat and the Fakers. I am really not as excited as usual for this season because of 2 reasons. I decided I don't like the Heat and this season is going to be all about the Heat. I don't think they are going to win 72+ games nor the championship, but they are going to be VERY good and thats going to be very irritating the way ESPN has been covering this team so far. Of course the other reason is that the Suns are without Amare and probably are not going far. I am not a pre-season dork, but they have a horrible 2-6 record. They have some talent, but no size. What's new? So a lot will depend on chemistry and Nash. You look at the Suns and you are certain that their defense can never get worse, but they always seem to make that happen. With Hedo and the advancing age of Nash and Hill, their defense will be even worse this year. But overall I will reserve judgement on the team until December. I am hoping they are good, but I am afraid they'll be mediocre. As for the others, I have been a Laker hater all my life, but am suddenly finding myself hoping they beat the Heat in the Finals. Thats how much I don't like LeBron in a Heat uniform.

The World Series nobody wanted or expected is here - Giants versus the Rangers. I am very curious to see the TV ratings on this. Both SF and Dallas are decent sized television markets, but the rest of the country don't follow these teams and the East Coast will be basically checked out of this series. Plus, even locally, the Rangers are not that big a franchise though I am sure the local area is very excited about them now that they are in the World Series. But as a team that has never won a playoff series from a predominantly football region, the Rangers are not one of those big-ticket franchises. The Giants are at least decent locally. Of course one of the most amazing things in sports is how with every advancing round in the playoffs, the hype and the fan-base of the team grows exponentially. I don't want to call these people band wagoners, but they are something. They are not your serious sports fan for sure and they come out of the woodwork in droves as the team advances each round. The SF Bay Area is currently firmly in the grip of World Series hype. Neither team was picked by anybody to even make the playoffs, but they are now in the World Series. This series will feature some tremendous pitching match-ups much like the previous rounds of the playoffs. The series should kick-off with a Lee-Lincecum match-up. Should be fun. I don't know who I like in this series. I don't care who wins, I will be watching

NFL doesn't stop for the World Series and they don't have to given that the horrible, regular season Tennessee-Jacksonville game last Monday crushed the Yankees ALCS game on TV ratings. So the national sport continues after all the brouhaha all last week about hits and helmet to helmet collisions. Too many concussions and too much noise later by the defensive players on how the league is over-reacting. May be they are, but I like the basic idea that the player need to be tacked, not necessarily hit. Oftentimes, the defender hits the offensive player because he can, not because he need to. The way I see it is, the league is legislating against unnecessary hits. Those have always been part of football, but I don't mind taking them away. Doesn't really change the game for me that much. I don't watch it to see the "jacked up" highlight hits. I don't mind protecting the players better given that the athletes are constantly getting bigger, stronger and faster in these days of advanced health sciences and medical advancements. The game is constantly becoming safer and thats good. Injuries are part of the game, but it's sad to see guys get injured. For instance, today, Romo got hurt and is out. I don't want anybody to get injured, but I especially get frustrated when bad teams that I don't like suffer injuries. Suddenly the bad team gets a convenient excuse for their incompetence. The Cowboys are exactly in that situation - an incompetent team that is 1-5 with an injured QB now.

The NFL results this week were all over the place - like the Raiders and DMF crushing the Broncos 59-14. You really have to parse through the standings to figure out which team is doing what. It's about time we throw the pre-season rankings out. Speaking of rankings, in college, once again a number 1 seed lost and now, BCS says it's Auburn's turn to lose. They have them at one after they beat LSU. Not sure why the BCS hates Oregon and Boise State, not to mention TCU, Michigan State or TCU - the other undefeated teams. But they don't think Oregon is number 1 even after they pummeled UCLA 60-13. And this is the UCLA team that crushed Texas 34-12. Oregon is ranked number 1 in the coaches and other polls, but not in BCS. Of course some of these undefeated teams, may be even Oregon will lose and we will be watching these ranking go upside down a couple more time before all is said and done.

Torture

The San Francisco giants games are affectionately called "torture" by their fans. This is because they have been in a high-pressure, playoff push since early Sept and in actual playoffs this month and they always play agonizingly close games. They have great pitching and questionable hitting. This means they play a lot of close, low-scoring games that end up torturing their fans until the last pitch. I can't remember too many giants games that were blowouts one way or the other. Brian Wilson joked today "I got anxiety. I got a mini-ulcer developing". Now, they are really torturing the Philies who are trailing the series 3-1. Roy Halladay is pitching tomorrow, but then again, so is Timmy Lincecum. The giants pitching is good enough to neutralize the Phillies pitching and this dude Cody Ross has looked like Babe Ruth so far. Hitting was supposed to be Phillies strength, but so far this entire playoffs has been about pitching. Oswalt volunteered to pitch the ninth inning today and lost the game. The whiz-kid Buster Posey had 4 hits including a key one in the 9-Th against Oswalt. Posey is clearly the Giant's MVP this season. What a talent he is!

The giants are playing very well right now and the chemistry is building and the experience of growing. I can easily see Lincecum slamming the door on the Phillies tomorrow. The Giants are the under-dogs and there still seems to a lot of fans nationally who are just assuming the Phillies will win 3 in a row and take the series. Thats easier said than done. H2O with Halladay, Hamels and Oswalt is pretty formidable, but Sanchez, Cain and Lincecum are no slouches either except in the nick-name department. Closing out this series is gonna be difficult for the Giants like Texas learnt today, but the Giants will have their horse on the mound tomorrow. All stars are aligned for the giants. Texas, on the other hand, is now going back home leading 3-2 and they got 2 games to close the Yankees out. Hope they don't slack off in game 6 hoping Cliff Lee will take care of things in game 7. I can't believe the SF giants or the Texas rangers could be World Series bound, but it could happen. A Giants-Rangers World Series might be the league and the television channel's worst nightmare. In any case, the giants fans don't care. They are just ready for another torture tomorrow.

Parity on display

Among all the things that makes football the top sport in the country, parity is one of the major attractions. NFL has been all about parity the last few years, may be for a decade or so. There are several stats to prove this point like how most Super Bowl losers, and sometime even champions don't even make it to the playoffs the next year, let alone repeat as champions. The 2010 Saints seem to be very much on track to do their bit to fortify that stat. This year has been especially messy and confusing. There are no dominant teams, no clear-cut favorite and most pre-season favorites, especially in the NFC are barely 500. As a matter of fact, I think the entire NFC might be 500 or below soon :-J This week had it's share of head scratching results as always. San Diego lost to Saint Louis and Seattle beat Chicago - a bad team with a decent record. As I am typing, Colts are trying hard to give the game away to the Redskins - they have fumbled away the ball the last 3 possessions. Steelers, Ravens and the Jets look to be the best and most consistent teams so far. The Colts, Saints, Eagles and the Falcons look decent, but not great. Giants and the Vikings seem to be coming back. Packers seem to be going down. Dallas, San Diego and San Francisco look horrible - to various degrees of course. Thats the story of the season in a nutshell.

The parity bug has also spread to college football over the last few years. It used to be that we always heard of the Texas and the Ohio States and the USC and Floridas of the world all the time in college. But then came Boise State and TCU and these days, "mid-majors" like those have become a regular fixture in the top 10. The number one seed has now lost 2 weeks in a row. Alabama lost last week at South Carolina and Ohio State lost at Wisconsin this weekend. Both good results from my perspective. Undefeated Nebraska lost to Texas after Texas lost badly the last 2 weeks to UCLA and Oklahoma. South Carolina turned around and lost on the road to Kentucky this weekend. That falls on the ole' ball coach as Spurrier went for the touchdown rather than go for the tying field goal at the end of the game. QB Stephen Garcia ended up throwing an interception instead - ballgame Kentucky. All these results add up to a dizzying landscape in the college ranks this year. Boise State was rumored to be number one or two in the BCS standings. But then the actual BCS ranking did come out and Boise was at 3 behind Oklahoma and Oregon. That sucks because I would have loved nothing more than a Boise State - Oregon championship game. That would have been the worst nightmare come true for the old time purists from the East coast. Now, it's going to be an uphill climb for Boise State because the computers are going to continue to penalize them for an easy schedule that will get only easier over the next few weeks. Of course, do we really believe Oregon or Oklahoma will stay undefeated through the rest of the season? It's especially hard to do for Oregon in the Pac-10. But we shall see. Boise State itself might have a tough game on hand against Nevada later in the weekend.

In MLB, probably a bad example of parity, the Yankees are as usual doing their thing in the playoffs. You can kill even the roaches, but beating the Yankees is so hard. As a fan of a team, you are never comfortable with leads. You are always afraid that the other team is going to come back and catchup with you - fan paranoia. But you have to multiply this fear 10 times over if you are playing the Yankees. I really doubt how many Ranger fans were really comfortable when they were up 5-1 in game 1. Sure enough, Yankees come back and win it 6-5 late in the game. Talking heads on TV will call it the Yankees mystique and aura. I call it a 200 million dollar payroll and a bad financial system in the MLB. I hate to quote Curt Schilling, but he nailed it during the World Series when he was playing for the DBacks when he said mystique and aura are nothing but names of strippers. Whatever it is, the Rangers suffered a horrible loss in game 1 and full credit to them for coming back and winning game 2. I still have to believe they lost the series in game 1. In the NL, Halladay and Lincecum went head-to-head in one of the most anticipated pitching contests. We got a good game, but neither looked that great. There were 3 homers in the game, but the Giants got the W at the end of the "torture". This dude Cody Ross has hit 4 home runs in 3 playoff games - 2 against Halladay. Thanks to Oswalt, Philly evened the series today. This series might go 7, but the Phillies might have the edge.

Tex in the mix

The Texas Rangers have never won a playoff series. They did it this year in style. After winning 2 games on the road, they lost 2 at home and clinched game 5 on the road. Basically the home team never won a game in this series. Thats weird! The Rangers better thank Cliff Lee for this. He won 2 games on the road and totally justified the trade for him. He went complete game in game 5 and shut the Rays down. The only down-side of a 5 game series is that he can't pitch game 1 tomorrow against Derek Cheater and the Yankees. Yes, I just wanted to use "Derek Cheater" for the first time in the blog. The best contribution of this MLB season might have been that nickname. Just for the record, I was not that offended by whatever he did to earn that nickname, but I am going to use it anyways. So C.J.Wilson will pitch game 1 for the Rangers against C.C and Wilson is no dummy either. He did what he had to do in game 2 against the Rays and while the Yankees lineup is significantly different, this should still be a well-pitched game. I like Wilson. Something tells me the Rangers take this series against all odds. May be it's just wishful thinking, but I say Rangers in 7.

The fun series to me is the other one between the hated Giants and the Phillies. The pitching matchups in the series are just insane. I don't think I have seen this good a starting pitching match-up ever. Typically, pitching is always the story this deep in the playoffs. But Halladay, Oswalt and Hamels on one-side is a special threesome. You add Lincenum, Sanchez, Cain to this mix, it's just spectacular. Thats not even counting the new phenom Madison Bumgarner for the Giants, who seems every bit as effective as the other 3 fools. If these pitchers stay true to form, this series may just not see more than 20 runs total! The Phillies do have better hitting and I expect them to take this series in 6 or 7. They have similar pitching, but the Phillies have Ryan Howard, Chase Utley and Jayson Werth in the middle with Jimmy Rollins and Shane Victorino setting the table for them. The Giants may find the going tough in this series. But then again, Giants somehow seem to find a way to win. Lets hope that trend comes to an end in this series. Just last Sunday, the Eagles beat the Niners in the NFL contest between these 2 cities and now the action shifts to baseball. Cant wait for Saturday to watch Halladay-V-Lincecum- this year's Cy Young versus the last 2 years'. Bring it on!

Pitching rules

Two days into the MLB playoffs, we have seen some great pitching already. The pitching statistics this season has been way better thanks to the fact that a lot of the league is now de-juiced. And proportionally the playoffs seems to be featuring even better pitching since this time of the year is always about pitching. Yesterday, Roy Halladay pitched a no-hitter for Philly. He is already the front-runner for the NL Cy Young and then he goes out and pitches a no-hitter in his first game ever in the playoffs. I have always loved this guy as a pitcher since his days in Toronto. Of course, I wanted him to do well back then considering he was beating the Yankees and the RedSox all the time. Now he is in Philly - a team I don't particularly love (or hate). But he has always been a great pitcher and is now getting the right level of recognition after being slightly under-rated in Toronto for all those years. This is just the second no-hitter in the history of the playoffs and I am glad a true ace like him got it done.

Today, Tim Lincecum did what we all knew he was going to do for the Giants. The Gigantes won 1-0 behind a 2-hit, complete game shutout by Timmy. I am never a hater or a sadist, but I am one when it comes to the Giants. As an Arizona Diamondbacks fan and a Oakland A's fan, I have both a divisional jealousy and a geographical rivalry working against the Giants. But even I started pulling for this kid in the late innings because he was just filthy! He had 14 strikeouts and most of them were a swing and a miss. The Braves hitters are probably still swinging and flailing away in their dreams. It's amazing how many times they swung at stuff not even close to the strike zone and how over-matched they looked in the process. Thats just domination. Derek Lowe is definitely overrated, but he was good today. Unfortunately he has nothing to show for it. Lincecum on the other hand put the "touch" in untouchable. If he does this every start, the Giants may be a scary team this off-season.

In the AL, Andy Pettitte added to his post-season resume today by pitching another gem. Both the road teams are now leading the AL series 2-0. Thats surprising, especially in the Texas-Tamapa Bay series. Cliff Lee and this kid C.J. Wilson bottled up the Rays by holding them to 1 run over 2 games. I guess I was wrong about Texas. The series is not over, but both the Yankees and the Rangers should wrap it up at home either in 3 or may be 4 games. They better wrap up the ALDS before Sunday when both NY and Dallas have NFL games to follow. Speaking of the NFL, Randy Moss has been traded away from the Patriots to the Vikings. The Vikes are going all in and I am not sure what comes out of this except coach chilly losing his job at the end of the season. What's the value of Moss when Favre retires? I am sure this is a very uncomfortable question for the Vikes, but I do like this trade for this year. A motivated Moss is still a game-breaker and it should be fun to see these guys play. As for the Patriots, a legendary coach like Bill Belichick with 3 super bowl rings can do a trade like this. He has enough goodwill in the bank to gamble on this season and think really long-term. More power to the hoody!

I was watching the sportscenter and I might have seen the most stupid back-to-back questions in television history. Merril Hoge for some reason was sent to interview Ben Roethlisberger. First, he asks him "what's the difference between Big Ben and Ben?". I am sitting there thinking what kind of stupid question is that? Roethlisberger goes on and blabbers something about how Ben is that little kid from Ohio and is back now and Big Ben was the result of all the hype blah blah blah. Then Hoge in all seriousness asks Roethlisberger, "that incident in Georgia, was it Ben or Big Ben". Come on, give me a break and grow some balls! If you can't ask legitimate questions to Roethlisberger, who needs all the help from the media as he is trying to rehab his tattered image, who the hell are you going to ask the tough questions to? I always liked Hoge as a football expert in the NFL edge show, but he should really stick to his day job. A 'seal here and a seal there" is a lot better than "Ben or Big Ben".

Yankees, Rays, Giants and Phillies should advance

The MLB playoffs start tomorrow. The yearly Yankees-Twins playoffs series is on at prime-time again. It seems like the AL playoffs always features either the Twins losing to the Yankees or the Yankees losing to the Angels. This year, the Angels are out and the Twins will probably lose to the Yankees. I am glad to see Francisco Liriano back and doing well and winning the comeback player of the year award. He starts game 1 against C.C.Sabathia. He may win, but it may not matter anyways. Pettitte and Hughes go in game 2 and 3 and unfortunately for the Twins, the Yankees offense will be playing all the games all the time! Yanks in 4 as always I guess. It would be funny if Carl Pavano beats Pettitte after all the time he spent, rather wasted in NY. That may be the most intriguing story-line of this series for me.

In Philadelphia, Roy Halladay starts his first ever playoff game. He should win another Cy Young this year with his 21-10 record and 2.44 ERA, but I am sure he is not sleeping today because of the playoff excitement and anxiety. He is going against Edinson Vólquez and the Reds who have not been to the playoffs forever. It will be good to see Dusty Baker back in the big dance. But I don't think Dusty will be happy to see Halladay, Oswalt and Hamels on back-to-back-to-back games, Thats as tough a pitching matchup as we will see in these playoffs. Plus the Phillies have the hitting to back that pitching up. Ryan Howard had an "off year" with just 31 homers and 108 RBIs, but that should be enough to set this pitching up for success. Phillies in 4.

The Texas Rangers have never won a playoffs series ever. I find that stat hard to believe. But the Rangers may not be able to change that this season either. It's great that they made the playoffs, but I pick the Rays primarily because of the level of competition the Rays endured on their way to these playoffs. The Rays have a much better record than the Rangers despite playing in a much tougher division and going down the wire to win that division. The Rangers on the other hand, won the division where the Oakland A's were the second best team at 81-81. The A's organization don't even want to win these days. Winning creates stars and that costs money. The A's just want to be in a perpetual rebuilding mode. These 2 divisions are so different it's almost like one is in the big league and the other is in the minor leagues. With all that said, Josh Hamilton, Cliff Lee and bad Vlad will make this challenging for the Rays. But Rays should take it in 5.

All 4 playoff games feature a Cy Young winner in game 1 - Lee, Halladay, CC and Lincecum - another proof that pitching is the key ingredient to success in baseball. That brings me to the Giants. I was hoping against hope that they would miss the playoffs, but they made it despite some spirited showing by the Padres in that season-ending series. The Giants finally won on the last day of the regular season after losing the previous 2 games to the Padres. They play the Braves in the NLDS and they should win it behind that filthy pitching - Lincecum, Cain and Sanchez with Bumgarner waiting in the wings. The Giants are probably going to leave their 120 million dollar man Zito off the playoff roster. That tells you all you need to know about Zito and about how loaded the Giants pitching is. Atlanta will hang in there behind Tim Hudson who is back strong after 2 injury plagued seasons and they would love to win one for their retiring manager Bobby Cox, but the Gigantes should take it in 5. I don't trust the Atlanta pitching outside of Hudson. I have always thought Derek Lowe is overrated and he will show us why again on Thursday.

In the NFL, Moss is going to Minnesota in a trade. A hired gun who is going to be a pain starting next season. But lets see if Favre clicks with him this season.