Baseball

It was a rain shortened week for the Boston Red Sox who will make up Friday's rainout Sunday afternoon for a day/night doubleheader against the visiting Tampa Bay Rays.

Jorge Cantu, Cody Ross, and Gaby Sanchez propelled the Florida Marlins back into the playoff race last night in a big way, launching doubles and homers into the field and stands of Land Shark Stadium in front of an announced crowd of 38,000 who had withstood a two-and-a-half hour rain delay at the start of the game.

Today is Nelson Cruz‘s 37th birthday.  I’m not talking about the slugging outfielder for the Texas Rangers, rather I’m writing about the former Tigers pitcher.

The Lowell Spinners' 2009 season, and their quest for a New-York Penn League Championship, ended Saturday night in Staten Island, NY, as the Yankees used a five-run second inning to coast to a 5-1 victory, winning the rubber game of a three-game playoff series and sending the Spinners home for the offseason.

The loss ended a record-setting season for Lowell, the Class A affiliate of the Boston Red Sox.  The team won the most games in the franchise's 14-year history and several players broke individual franchise records in the process. 

With this season finally drawing to a close, I have spent most of the past six to eight weeks listening to Mets fans and those who cover the Mets in the media trash over and over and over again the Mets first baseman, Daniel Murphy.

To me it's just unbelievable what extremes these fans take when it comes to blame and evaluation of a players year.

Yorvit Torrealba did his best to be the hero for the second night in a row, but the Colorado Rockies ended up losing in the 10th inning on a bases-loaded walk to Padres pinch-hitter Nick Hundley.

I'm not unrealistic. I'm not delusional. I know the Cubs aren't going to win anything, other than (if they're lucky) some 15 more meaningless regular-season games, this year.

But I have decided to keep hoping against hope anyway.

The Chicago Cubs will look to salvage a series win Sunday, after missing an opportunity to go up two games to none on division foes the Cincinnati Reds on Saturday at Wrigley Field.

Chicago fell behind 5-0 early, but stormed back to tie the game in the bottom of the seventh inning before closer Carlos Marmol gave up a two-run double to the Reds' Drew Sutton in the top of the ninth. It was the Cubs' first loss in their last five games, and dropped them to 41-28 on the season at home.

For years, the pitching staff of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim was an embarrassment of riches.

The starting rotation and bullpen rosters over the last decade have read more like the baseball equivalent of a Forbes Fortune 500 list, with names like Bartolo Colon, Francisco Rodriguez, and a healthy Kelvim Escobar throwing hostile takeovers from the mound each night.

That was then.