Baseball

The Boston Red Sox were plagued with injuries throughout the 2010 season.

Beckett, Pedroia, Youkilis, Martinez, Varitek, and the list goes on and on.  But one factor that remained constant throughout this season was closer Jonathan Papelbon.

For somebody who claimed they had never trained harder in their life after last season's postseason ninth-inning blow-up, I don't believe it for a second.

Via the New York Daily News:

2010 season has represented unfamiliar territory for Yankee fans. For the first time in his distinguished 16-year career, Derek Jeter has struggled mightily with the bat for significant portions of the season. Generally regarded as one of the top offensive shortstops baseball has ever seen, the Yankee captain has thus far been a shadow of his former self at the plate.

Last night, after I put my son to bed I sat down on my couch with a beer and my dog and began watching The Tenth Inning, the sequel to Ken Burns's Baseball.

A quick review is that the documentary is fantastic, and if you haven't seen it yet, find out what channel you're local PBS is on and check it out.

After clinching a playoff berth on Tuesday, Yankees' manager Joe Girardi did a little rearranging in his pitching rotation. The Yankees pushed scheduled starter Andy Pettitte back until Friday, likely lining him up better for the postseason.

The San Francisco Giants are moving up Tim Lincecum's next start to tonight while pushing Madison Bumgarner to tomorrow's series finale against the Arizona Diamondbacks.

With Monday's day off, Lincecum is pitching on his "normal" rest, and there should be no sign of fatigue with the change in the two-time Cy Young award winner.

National pundits are piling on the Tampa Bay Rays after two of its star players, Evan Longoria and David Price, expressed displeasure at the team attracting only 12,446 fans to their Monday night game against the Baltimore Orioles, a possible playoff-clincher.

That's pretty much the typical Baltimore Orioles game on a school-year Monday night at home. If the Rays were still a bad team, they'd be lucky to draw 9,000 on that day against that team.

With the regular season about to end, playoff spots are getting filled by eight of the 30 MLB teams who compete each season.

For players on the Yankees and Phillies, October is a familiar time of year but for many it will remain a mystery.

The final chapter hasn't been written on the 2010 baseball season, but as a relatively young Reds fan who doesn't have strong memories of the last successful teams, it has already been a banner year.

For years, baseball was always about watching people on other teams perform in the big moment.

Other fanbases collected treasured memories, whereas we just got the occasional June walkoff home run, and Wily Tavares.

While the Texas Rangers celebrated with beer and champagne showers after clinching the American League West Saturday night, they did so without left fielder Josh Hamilton. Although Hamilton, who has been out of action since September 4th with two fractured ribs, was in the stadium and in uniform during the Rangers clincher over the Oakland Athletics, he quickly disappeared to the training room to change after joining in the onfield celebration with his teammates.