Ryan-Howard

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“Baseball is BACK!”] [/caption] Games start at 1300 today, so I’m still pre-season. This is also a much shorter prediction post than years past, but that’s what you’re getting. NL Playoffs: East: Braves Central: Reds West: Giants Wild Card: Dodgers I love Philadelphia’s rotation, but their offense has too many holes. No Utley, no RF, Ibañez is not great, Howard is getting figured out and has no protection…it just leads me to the Braves because they don’t have any huge issues, but are solid. ...

It’s All-Star game time again! This year the game is being played in sunny Southern California, down in Anaheim. Thanks to the peculiarities of baseball scheduling and the east coast focus of television, the game is actually being started in daylight hours, 1700 PST. The liveblogging experience of the year is about to begin yet again! Expect updates throughout the evening and night. Time: 1944 My cable woes are keeping me from watching the MLB Network this year (I hate you Comcast!), so instead I’m watching ESPN’s coverage, which has been somewhat interrupted with news about George Steinbrenner’s death by massive heart attack. It’s an odd thing to not have him around the Yankees anymore, even if he hasn’t really running things for two or three years. Despite my dislike for the Yankees, he will be missed as a figure in baseball. ...

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“I guess it gets right to the point…”] [/caption] Despite their motto for the year, visible in the picture above, the Carp have not managed many wins this season. 7 April 2010 NPB Hiroshima Carp (1) at Yakult Swallows (7). The Carp fall to 2-8-0 in last. Go Carp! Rakuten Eagles (6) at Nippon Ham Fighters (3). The Eagles continue to hammer the Fighters. Nice work guys. 5-8-0 in 5th, two wins back from 4th. ...

It’s time for Wednesday Morning Quarterback, your weekly sports round-up. It’s that time of year again, the MLB All-Star game is upon us! Last night was the Home Run Derby and, despite being in his team’s stadium, Albert Pujols did not quite manage to make it to the third round. Instead the final competition was between Prince Fielder, of the Milwaukee Brewers, and Nelson Cruz, of the Texas Rangers. In the end, Fielder took it and even bashed in a homer over 500 feet. ...

Jayson Stark had this to say about Randy Johnson’s recent 300th win: “It’s always a good idea to shoot for a milestone against those hospitable Washington Nationals. On Sunday, they were the victim of Jamie Moyer’s 250th career win. Four days later, they were on the wrong end of Randy Johnson’s 300th. So how rare is that? Glad you asked. If we use 200 wins as the official milestone cutoff, the last team to be victimized for two milestones (200, 250 or 300) in the same season was Rob Deer’s 1990 Brewers (Nolan Ryan’s 300th, Frank Tanana’s 200th). But if we raise the cutoff to 250, the Elias Sports Bureau reports, the Nationals become the first team to do anything like this twice in one year since Pop Corkhill’s 1891 Pirates helped Old Hoss Radbourn win his 300th and John Clarkson win his 250th. Hard to believe, folks.” ...