The big guy above has plenty of reason to smile.
I once wondered if I’d ever live to see the Boston Red Sox win a World Series. Those questions, dreams and prayers were answered three years ago when a bunch of idiots did the improbable. (more…)
From Peter King’s Monday Morning Quarterback. (Link)
I wonder what Wayne Weaver, the Jags owner, thinks when he sees the Super Bowl champs come into town on a Monday night and the game draws 67,164, with tarped sections of seats that go unsold, and six days later Florida-Georgia draws 84,481. And I know those seats are tarped for all games, and the Jags could have sold more tickets for that game than they did, but the contrast is striking. It’s the one market in the league that takes a back seat, with an exclamation point, to the college game.
In what may become a regular feature (if work rears its ugly head it’ll probably disappear), Allenby For Heisman! hopes to take a weekly look at the University of Kentucky’s place in the world of college football.
After Kentucky’s loss to Florida, nobody is projecting the Cats for a Bowl Championship Series bowl berth. But most everyone still sees the Cats as a top-15 team who will play in a non-BCS New Year’s Day bowl. We’re guessing the win against LSU has much to do with that.
On the Heisman front, Andre’ Woodson didn’t do anything to hurt his Heisman chances. In fact, we’d be so bold to say he enhanced his chances in spite of the loss if not for the fact that Kentucky’s opponent Saturday featured a Heisman candidate of its own, Tim Tebow. Most people have Woodson pegged as a finalist, but we’d think if it comes down to he or Tebow, Tebow would have the advantage for besting Woodson head-to-head. (Plus, Tebow gets another national CBS game this weekend versus Georgia, and his Gators have the inside track to play in the Southeastern Conference championship game, which would put him the national spotlight the week before the vote.)
And with that unusually lengthy prologue out of the way, let’s get to the Update.
Dusty (Pedroia)is the Royal Rooters rally cry
Dusty is the tune they always sung
Dusty echoed April through October nights
After serenading Stahl, Dinneen and Young
Dusty is a maiden with a sparkling eye
Dusty is a maiden with a love
She doesn’t know the meaning of her sight
She’s got a comment full of love
And sometimes when the game is on the line
Dusty always carried them away
Up the road from “Third Base” to Huntington
The boys will always sing and sway
Two! Three! Four!
Dusty, “Nuf Ced” McGreevey shouted
We’re not here to mess around
Boston, you know we love you madly
Hear the crowd roar to your sound
Don’t blame us if we ever doubt you
You know we couldn’t live without you
Dusty, you are the only only only
The Rooters showed up at the grounds one day
They found their seats had all been sold
McGreevey led the charge into the park
Stormed the gates and put the game on hold
The Rooters gave the other team a dreadful fright
Boston’s tenth man could not be wrong
Up from “Third Base” to Huntington
They’d sing another victory song
Two! Three! Four!
Dusty, “Nuf Ced” McGreevey shouted
We’re not here to mess around
Boston, you know we love you madly
Hear the crowd roar to your sound
Don’t blame us if we ever doubt you
You know we couldn’t live without you
Dusty, you are the only only only
The Rooters gave the other team a dreadful fright
Boston’s tenth man could not be wrong
Up from “Third Base” to Huntington
They’d sing another victory song
Two! Three! Four!
Dusty, “Nuf Ced” McGreevey shouted
We’re not here to mess around
Boston, you know we love you madly
Hear the crowd roar to your sound
Don’t blame us if we ever doubt you
You know we couldn’t live without you
Dusty, you are the only only only
Don’t blame us if we ever doubt you
You know we couldn’t live without you
Boston, you are the only only only
Don’t blame us if we ever doubt you
You know we couldn’t live without you
Red Sox, you are the only only only …
Following Thursday’s Rutgers vs. South Florida Big East matchup, at least two national writers lamented that the Bulls were out of the national title race while one-loss teams from more established Bowl Championship Series conferences lived to fight another day.
We’ve no problem with this sentiment, generally. Perhaps it is unfair that Oklahoma, Louisiana State, and Southern California, to name a few, can still dream of a national title while the best West Virginia and South Florida can hope for is a BCS bowl berth. Perhaps it’s also unfair the Big East champion only plays seven conference games while the champions from the SEC, Big 12, ACC, and Pac 10 play nine and the Big 10 champion plays eight.
The point, of course, is the BCS isn’t fair. This is no newsflash. Each team and each conference faces unique difficulties. In such a flawed system, the only time a team can really complain about not getting a title shot is to go undefeated. We can understand Boise State’s frustrations with its glass ceiling, sympathize with our SEC brethren Auburn’s plight in 2004-5, and wonder what else that Kerry Collins-led Penn State team could have done to get a piece of the national title. But we don’t feel sorry for South Florida or West Virgina.
But ESPN’s Mark Schlabach and Sports Illustrated’s Stewart Mandel certainly do. As noted, we’ve no beef with this sentiment. But we do have a beef with inconsistency.
Schlabach writes that an upstart program in a rebuilt league won’t get the second chance an SEC member gets:
The Tigers were given the benefit of the doubt a week ago, after the country’s No. 1-ranked team lost at No. 17 Kentucky 43-37 in triple overtime. LSU fell to only No. 5 in the human polls and was fourth in the BCS standings.
Cal’s surprising defeat to Oregon State last week was the 10th time a top-10 ranked team had lost to an unranked team during this unpredictable college football season. The Bulls became the 11th such victim on Thursday night.
But South Florida will be penalized more than LSU. And more than Oklahoma, which lost at Colorado 27-24 on Sept. 29. The Sooners are back to No. 5 in the BCS standings after beating Texas and Missouri in consecutive games.
[Link]
Mandel makes similar points:
When you’re an LSU or Oklahoma, you can lose a tough conference road game, brush it off and return to the top five within a couple weeks as if it never happened. When you’re USF, and you lose a tough conference road game just four days after an already skeptical set of voters tabbed you the No. 2 team in the country almost as an obligation, you can expect the court of public opinion to be somewhat less merciful.
…
Such is the still fragile state of the rebuilt Big East. When Kentucky beats LSU, it’s written off as a near-inevitability in the rough-and-tumble SEC. When Rutgers beats USF — just a couple weeks after losing to then-undefeated Cincinnati, which itself turned around and lost to Louisville — it’s an indictment against both program and conference.
…
Those polls and computers can be awfully harsh about losses to Rutgers.
If only you’d lost instead to Kentucky.
[Link]
Leaving aside the fact LSU’s resume is more impressive than South Florida’s — wins versus then-No. 9* and current No. 11 Virginia Tech, then-No. 12 and current No. 6 South Carolina, and then-No. 9 and current No. 14 Florida with a loss at then-No. 17 and current No. 8 Kentucky versus wins at then-No. 17 and current No. 18 Auburn and then-No. 5 and current No. 9 West Virginia with a loss at unranked Rutgers (Sagarin Rating: 38) — we’d just like to see consistency.
For his part, Schlabach left the Cats for dead after their Thursday night road loss to then-No. 11 South Carolina two weeks ago. He certainly wasn’t concerned the Cats would plummet from the top ten just because they lost to a good team on the road — indeed, he suggested they deserved to by stating they weren’t ready to compete for the SEC East. And when Kentucky did just that and dropped from No. 8 to No. 17, we certainly don’t recall Mandel writing that Kentucky — a program with little noteworthy football history, kind of like South Florida — was being unfairly penalized because it lost a road game after a short week to non-traditional power South Carolina — a program whose rise over the last few seasons is not unlike that of Rutgers.
We also doubt either writer will protest when upstarts Arizona State of the Pac 10 and Kansas of the Big 12 suffer their first losses and plummet in the polls, either.
Oh well. Poor out a little liquor for the Big East’s title chances.
*For simplicity’s sake, we used Associated Press rankings here.
How sweet. I don’t expect the Red Sox to make another 2004-esque comeback, but Thursday’s performance by Beckett was vintage and gave a ray of hope. You have to expect Curt Schilling to pitch like his old self, the John Wayne character before Beckett, if only because he’s always pitched best with his team’s back against the wall. But with Daisuke Matsuzaka slated for Game 7 I don’t like the odds of winning three in a row.
Some thoughts with the Sox finally cruising for once:
Who would I rather start Game 7 (if we get that far)? Well, other than Beckett, who obviously can’t start on 2 days rest but might be available for the 6th and 7th innings when Dice-K predictably bows out after 4 2/3 innings, why not Jonathan Papelbon. Well, it might have been a more realistic pipedream had Tito Francona not used him for the 9th inning on Thursday, but who better? Sure, they might need him on Sautrday, but why not leave open the possibility by pitching anbody else with a 6-run lead on Thursday? I’d still rather see Dice-K than Tim wkefield or Jon Lester, but not by much, but I hope everybody but Schilling is available in relief beginning as early as the 4th inning.
On to Joe Torre, the poor sap. Seriously, nobody feels less sorry for the old man than Moxie, but this was as predictable as a Coco Crisp GIDP. The MFY didn’t want him back, but they do want the Joe Torre loyalists (most importantly, Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada and Alex Rodriguez) to return and needed to show the MFY skipper respect to at least have a shot at signing each.
So, they made a half-hearted offer so they could claim to those free agents that they wanted him back and tried to keep him. I’d love to call them each dumb, but even Grady Little could read between these lines. It’s going to take one of two guys. Joe Girardi, who played with Pettitte, Rivera, Posada and Derek Jeter, will be able to keep some semblence of sanity. Don Mattingly might be able to keep a couple of the guys in stable.
Any other manager and you’re going to see a major overhaul. The MFY are already in store for a transition period — Joba Chamberlain and Phil Hughes will take over for Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte — but having to replace Rivera, Clemens, Posada, A-Rod and Pettitte this year and Mussina, Giambi, Abreu and Damon in 2009 will be a major transition even if more money is freed up in that span than any other team spends.
Oh, and before I forget … Go Cats!!!
In what may become a regular feature (if work rears its ugly head it’ll probably disappear), Allenby For Heisman! hopes to take a weekly look at the University of Kentucky’s place in the world of college football.
So, we didn’t have time to put this together two weeks ago and instead threw up this half-hearted post. The football gods were not impressed, and Kentucky played its worst game of the season and lost to South Carolina.
Last week we again didn’t have time to put the Weekly Update together, so we simply posted nothing. No more mailing it in from us, then. Let’s get to it after the jump. (more…)
I usually leave the UK football posts to the diehards, but Pat Forde’s latest column on ESPN.com’s college football page got me thinking …
What college football team has had a better full season (13 games, including postseason) dating back to last season?
The Cats are 11-2 since last year’s 49-0 loss to LSU with losses against Tennessee in the 2006 regular season finale and two weeks ago against South Carolina. Only Ohio State (12-1, 7-0 in 2007), Hawaii (12-1, 7-0), LSU (12-1, 6-1) and Boise State (12-1, 5-1) have a better record over their last 13 games:
OSU 12-1 (7-0)
Hawaii 12-1 (7-0)
LSU 12-1 (6-1)
Boise St. 12-1 (5-1)
BC 11-2 (7-0)
USF 11-2 (6-0)
OU 11-2 (6-1)
Va. Tech 11-2 (6-1)
UK 11-2 (6-1)
Cincy 11-2 (6-1)
Wisconsin 11-2 (5-2)
Florida 11-2 (4-2)
BYU 11-2 (4-2)
Arizona State 10-3 (7-0)
Texas Tech10-3 (6-1)
Cal 10-3 (5-1)
USC 10-3 (5-1)
WVU 10-3 (5-1)
Auburn 10-3 (5-2)
Penn St. 10-3 (5-2)
Troy 10-3 (4-2)
Kansas 9-4 (6-0)
S. Carolina 9-4 (6-1)
UVa. 9-4 (6-1)
UGa. 9-4 (5-2)
Michigan 9-4 (5-2)
Rutgers 9-4 (4-2)
Wyoming 9-4 (4-2)
UofL 9-4 (4-3)
UK shows up ahead of super powers like USC, Michigan and Notre Dame. The Cats are also the hottest team in the Southeastern Conference over their last 13 games and tied for an 11-2 record with defending national champion Florida, who visits Commonwealth Stadium on Saturday.
The Bowl Championship Series rankings also support UK’s hot streak. Even though skeptics like ESPN’s Craig James have UK ranked as low as No. 24 in the latest Associated Press rankings. The Cats are No. 8 in the AP poll and No. 13 in the USA Today coaches’ poll but seventh in the BCS rankings:
1. Ohio State (7-0)
2. South Florida (6-0)
3. Boston College (7-0)
4. LSU (6-1)
5. Oklahoma (6-1)
6. South Carolina (6-1)
7. UK (6-1)
8. Arizona State (7-0)
9. West Virginia (5-1)
10. Oregon (5-1)
11. Virginia Tech (6-1)
12. Cal (5-1)
13. Kansas (6-0)
14. USC (5-1)
15. Florida (4-2)
16. Missouri (5-1)
17. Auburn (5-2)
18. Hawaii (7-0)
19. Virginia (6-1)
20. Georgia (5-2)
21. Tennessee (4-2)
22. Texas (5-2)
23. Cincinnati (6-1)
24. Texas Tech (6-1)
25. Michigan (5-2)
The has never been a worse match-making moment than the nibbling Daisuke Matsuzaka and the picky Brian Gorman. The pitcher makes you want to pull your hair out with his high pitch counts and refusal to pump the strike zone. It only makes matters worse when Gorman has one of the smallest strike zones of any Major League umpire.
And it makes for an impossible situation when Gorman’s strike zone is as inconsistent as Britney Spears’ panty-wearing. Pitches two inches off the plate were called balls Monday night in Game 3 of the ALCS. Pitches six inches off the plate were called strikes!?!?!?!?!
It was equally as horrid for Cleveland pitcher Jake Westbrook, but for a pitcher who is almost always wild a couple inches off the plate there was never any hope for Dice-K.
When you are compared negatively to the Zooker it is not a good sign.
From Stewart Mandel on Si.com
It would take someone who’s been around longer than me to come up with an example of a coach who, like Steve Kragthorpe, was handed the keys to what most believed a ready-made title contender only to go out and immediately crash it into the neighbor’s fence. The closest comparison I can think of is Ron Zook’s 8-5 debut season at Florida, but even that’s not necessarily apt, as the Gators still remained relatively competitive in the SEC (6-2) even if that wasn’t up to the lofty standard set by predecessor Steve Spurrier. (Link)
For months, maybe years, MFY fans will be bemoaning the plague of gigantic gnats and mammouth mosquitos that made their latest wunderkind go flat, but there are plenty of other flaws to blame.
But we’ll still revel in their misery as long as we can. Bye-bye Joe Torre. Can’t say we’ll miss ya. Bye-bye A-Rod, your latest postseason choke job guarantees your exodus to Anaheim or Chicago. Bye-bye Rocket, finally. You got what you deserved for selling your soul to the darkside.
And for Joba, we can only hope that the fleas that infested you and the trauma forever ruins your career in pinstripes. May this be your equivalent to what Albert Pujols did to Brad Lidge.
Onto the second-guessing:
1.) Joe Torre handicapped his team from the beginning by starting Chien-Ming Wang in Game 1 rather than Andy Pettitte. Sure, Wang had a better earned-run average and four more wins, but he also had the second-most run support in all of MLB and had a home-road split of 10-4 and 2.75 at home, 9-3 and 4.91 on the road. Pettitte had a better ERA on the road and a better postseason track record. Had Torre gone with Pettitte in Game 1 he wouldn’t have wasted his brilliant Game 2 performance against Fausto Carmona and the gnats, plus he would have been the pitcher on short rest in Game 4 rather than Wang, who was miserably bad in both starts.
2.) Lou Piniella shouldn’t have pulled Carlos Zambrano early in Game 1 against the Diamondbacks. The Cubs had a deeper starting pitching staff to begin with and shouldn’t have been afraid to pitch Jason Marquis in Game 4 because the D-backs were going with four starters. Ultimately, none of the pitchers other than Zambrano, especially Carlos Marmol, pitched well enough for it to make a difference.
3.) Likewise, Charlie Manuel should have stuck with his starter, Kyle Kendrick, as long as possible in Game 2 of Philadelphia’s series against Colorado. His bullpen had three semi-reliable relievers — JC Romero, Tom Gordon and Bret Myers, and all but Romero are only superb compared to their own bullpen bretheren — and couldn’t afford to go to his pen any earlier than the sixth inning. And with the NL’s top-scoring team, he should have expected more than two runs to win the game. But the Phillies had a slim chance from the start with such a poorous rotation.
4.) Can’t really find much fault in Mike Scioscia. The guy was left with a postseason team that was only a fraction of what he had to work with in the regular season — and he still worked wonders in the regular season — because of injuries. He probably should have started Kelvim Escobar in Game 1 given John Lackey’s history against Boston, but it wouldn’t have made a difference.
5.) The Indians relievers have plenty of time to recover, but Eric Wedge’s three-man bullpen will not work against Boston. The Sox lineup is too deep and gets into bullpens too soon for Rafael Perez, Rafael Betancourt and Jensen Lewis to protect the Indians from using Joe Borowski at all. Wedge overworked them against the MFY but had to.
6.) Clint Hurdle might want to start Ubaldo Jimenez in Game 2 of the NLCS. The rookie has been phenomenal and more reliebale than Josh Fogg, Franklin Morales or Taylor Buccholz.
7.) Will a team ever quit throwing the young D-backs hitters fastballs? That’s all they can hit, but they crush fastballs in obvious fastball counts. Pitch backwards to them.
8.) Schilling better start Game 2 rather than Dice-K. Matsuzaka-san looks inept and impossibly wild. Even when he gets ahead of hitters he manages to pitch himself back into hitters’ counts. Watching him nibble with a 94-mph fastball is like watching Paul Bunyan trying to cut down a tree with a butter knife. And against a patient Indians lineup it will only get him into more trouble. I want no part of watching that twice in the same series.
Revised predictions: Boston d. Cleveland, 4-2; Colorado d. Arizona, 4-1. Boston d. Colorado, 4-2.
As we forewarned, we were swamped with work this week and lacked the time or energy to put together the Kentucky Football Weekly Update. You have our appologies.
But since we’ve been posting these things the Cats have kept on winning, so we wanted to get something up before kickoff. And this is it.
Onward and upward!
Five rules to consider before making these MLB postseason predictions:
1.) Tiebreakers are for losers: The last team to win the World Series (or even advance to the final round) after being forced to play a tiebreaker game was the 1978 MFY. Surprisingly, there have only been seven tirbreakers (all since 1947 and none between 1948 and 1978). And the first two tiebreaker winners – the 1948 Indians and 1978 MFY — both won the World Series, but the Indians didn’t have to play a League Championship Series. All but the 1998 Cubs at least advanced to the LCS. (Of course, the 1980 Astros advanced to the LCS round by winning the tiebreaker.) The 1995 Mariners and 1999 Mets needed to win a division series.
So, that bodes well for the Rockies against the pitching poor Phillies, but not so much against Arizona or Chicago.
2.) The quicker the better in the division series: Only two teams in the wild card era have won the World Series in spite of going the distance in the division series. The 2000 MFY beat the Oakland A’s in five games and won their third straight World Series. The 2001 Diamondbacks went five games with the St. Louis Cardinals in the division series but ended the MFY dynasty in the World Series. And five of the past 12 World Series champs swept the first round.
3.) Pitching wins in the playoffs, but what does that necessarily mean? The teams with the best postseason pitching do win in the playoffs, but just because a pitcher excelled during the regular season doesn’t mean it will translate to the playoffs. Ditto for the opposite. Remember what happened with Jeff Suppan and Jeff Weaver last year. So, don’t bank on C.C. Sabathia and Fausto Carmona alone.
4.) Homefield advantage matters, but it doesn’t: Any team and manager would prefer to play a Game 5 or Game 7 at home, but teams with home field advantage were just 1-for-7 last postseason. Home teams were just 16-14 (32-28 combined) each of the last two postseasons.
5.) Bank on bullpens: Teams rarely get into the playoffs without an above average offense and adequate pitching, so there’s not as great a difference team to team as often emphasized. And because you need fewer starting pitchers in the postseason teams with little starting ptiching depth actually benefit and close the gap. But the postseason is where weak bullpens get exploited.
So, without further adieu, my 2007 MLB postseason predictions …
National League Division Series
Philadelphia Phillies vs. Colorado Rockies
I love the Phillies hitters, but I hate the Phillies pitchers, sans Cole Hamels. This will be the best series of the Division Series because each inning will be so unpredictable with the lack of pitchign depth and the abundance of hitting on each team. As bad as Philly’s 2-4 starters can be, I’m not as worried about them as I am their middle relief. None of their starters will go past six or seven innings, so Antonio Alfonseca is going to figure in somwhere unless CHarlie Manuel goes exclusively with J.C. Roemro, Tom Gordon and Bret Myers. I like Colorado’sbullpen much more. Prediction: Colorado wins 3-2.
Arizona Diamondbacks vs. Chicago Cubs
I’m not exaggerating when I say that the Arizona Diamondbacks are the worst team in the playoffs. They are the luckiest team to ever qualify with their 90-72 record up against a 79-83 expected win-loss record. that’s because in spite of being outscored 732-712 by their opponents, the D-backs wre 32-20 in 1-run games. Their bullpen is suspect. Their hitters are barely legal (except rightfielder Justin Upton who still isn’t old enough to drink). And beyond Brandon Webb their starting pitchers are average. So, they better bring out Bartman because the Cubs have the best pitching, hitting and bullpen in the NL postseason. The most intersting aspect of this series is most Arizona baseball fans are actually Cubs fans first and D-backs fans second thanks to the state being home to Chicago’s spring training complex. Prediction: Cubs win 3-1 (We’ll give Brandon Webb credit for one win).
NLCS
Seriously, in spite of their 85-77 record — which would rank last among the eight playoff teams and is worse than four teams who failed to make the playoffs — the Cubs are the best team in the NL. they have the best pitching depth, the best Nos. 2-4 starters and an offense that isn’t far behind Philly and Colorado. And while Arizona was lucky in relation to its ExW-L, the Cubs were unlucky. Their ExW-L was 88-74, about the same as the actual records of Philly, Colorado and Arizona. So, hold your breath Cubs fans. Prediction: Cubs win 4-2.
American League Division Series
Boston Red Sox vs. Los Angeles Angels of Southern California in Orange County’s Anaheim
At least two helpings of John Lackey. Yes sir, can we please have another? Lackey has a 1-6 record and 6.27 career ERA against the Bloody Sox. It’s even worse at Fenway Park – 1-4, 7.46 — where he’ll make the first start. Combine that with injuries to Gary Matthews Jr. and Bartolo Colon that kept both off postseason rosters and it bodes well for Boston. Prediction: Boston wins 3-1.
Cleveland Indians vs. MFY
Cue the A-Rod walk-off grand slam off Joe Borowski in April. The over/under on Borowski blowups shoudl be no less than three. It’s too late for Eric Wedge to hand closing duties over to Rafael Betancourt or Rafael Perez, but Borowski is what will keep the Indians from advancing. The Indians have the offense, the starting pitching and the middle relief to win a World Series, but their closer is the worst in the game. The MFY still have holes unless they score at least six runs per game and manager Joe Torre goes to a 3-man bullpen, but it’s enough this round. Prediction: MFY win 3-1.
ALCS
Cue the 2001 chants and the 6-year Curse of the Big Papi signs. These two teams are evenly matched in all but two aspects — the MFY have mroe offense and the Red Sox have a better bullpen — and it’s destined to go the distance if they meet. I’m banking on the Red Sox starting pitching being slightly deeper, healthier and better. (And do you really think I’d pick the MFY?) I’ve been on the record since Keith Foulke underhanded to Doug Mientkiewicz that by 2007 the Sox would have an even better team. I predicted them to win it all in February, and I’m not backing off that now. Prediction: Boston wins 4-3 on a Papi homer off Clemens.
World Series
If only this had happened in 2003: Cubs vs. Red Sox. Earth may have fallen off its axis. And if there’s a fan base that might sympathize for Cubs fans it would be Red Sox Nation. But Josh Beckett is going to foil them again, and the Bsoton bullpen and starting ptiching is too good for another curse to end. But that just sets up for an epic end to a 100-year drought for the Cubbies in 2009. Prediction: Sox win 4-1.
UK Midnight Madness tickets are selling swiftly on EBay after many fans had trouble getting their tickets on Ticketmaster.
Here is a screen cap of Ebay this morning.
For the full image click here (Link)
The Courier Journal on the Ticketmaster problems:
A glitch in Ticketmaster’s online system made ordering tickets virtually impossible for about an hour and a half this morning, said Scott Stricklin, UK’s associate athletic director for media relations.
Tickets were available in person and online beginning at 7 a.m. But the Ticketmaster problem made online tickets unavailable until about 8:30 a.m. Once tickets were available online, they were gone in about 30 minutes, Stricklin said. (Link)
