Balta1701

I was amazed Beltran came out of that so well...not surprised he has something broken as well.

Lennon/McCartney were probably the best songwriters, in the sense of the whole song including the music, words, and overall song itself. If we focus on the lyrics of the song alone it's Dylan hands down.

I can imagine you feel roughly about the same way I did right after I passed my oral qualifying exams here. (I cleaned up my office for want of anything better to do) Congrats! Go have a beer. It helps.

QUOTE(SleepyWhiteSox @ Aug 12, 2005 -> 12:13 PM) I saw that but didn't bother to read where the person was from. It all makes sense now. I'm less annoyed that it's most likely a twinkie fan since they really have no business liking their rival's guys anyways. Thanx for catching that. I'm sure he's busy trying to get Bert to circle him.

QUOTE(Al Lopez's Ghost @ Aug 12, 2005 -> 10:57 AM) Couple of things. One, beating their ass four straight out of the allstar break looks pretty big right now. Two, and this is amazing to me, the Indians are 15-3 against the National League this year. In other words, they owe their contender status to the other league. They went on a 9 game winning streak through San Francisco, Arizona, and Colorado, in June - one of those months where no team in that division had a good record. Although we didn't look too good against Arizona, both teams also took 2/3 from San Diego, and both of us swept Colorado. We didn't play San Fran - we drew the Dodgers instead. The Sox were 9-3 against the NL West, the Indians were 11-1. Both of those are very good...we just had 2 embarassing games against Arizona and a blown save in San Diego. But here's the real kicker...in the "Rivalry" series, the Cubs and Sox split 6 games evenly. Cleveland got to play the Reds. They went 4-2. You pick who had the harder matchup there. I'd much rather play the Reds than

QUOTE(SnB @ Aug 12, 2005 -> 10:58 AM) the problem with shingo this year wasn't JUST that they figured him out. He couldn't get his breaking ball over the plate. Yes, but about 2 months into the season he started getting his whole package over the plate again, but people were still hitting him. That's what sealed his fate.

QUOTE(Milkman delivers @ Aug 12, 2005 -> 10:34 AM) Remember when Cleveland had that great run about a month ago where they won like 10 straight and gained about 2 games? They looked good then, too. But, they suddenly went into the crapper and fell far out again. I suspect they'll do the same here. Cleveland is just like we were last year, just like the Cubs and Yankees are this year. When their offense starts to click, they catch fire and look unbeatable. But then a couple bats quiet down, the rest of the team starts pushing to make up for them, and then they discover that they don't have the pitching to hang with people. It's a recipe for the wild card maybe if you're really good at it, but it's not going to win them 100 games. You just can't keep bats hot for that long.

QUOTE(Greg Hibbard @ Aug 12, 2005 -> 10:31 AM) Wow, I had no idea that Tampa was 15-11 since the All Star Break. Hopefully they can play like that vs. the Tribe....but they've also lost four straight... K.C. is also bad, but they're not "13 game losing streak" bad. They can still win games every now and again. The Indians have a shot at the wild card, but right now they're 11 games over .500. We're 35 games over .500. If we play .500 ball the rest of the season, they need to go 35-12 to tie us.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Aug 12, 2005 -> 10:26 AM) And he probably won't change his roster, but it is good planning to give yourself options. Plus the Sox have a history that saids they are not afraid to change their roster for the post season. Personally I could see guys like Baj, Burke, Anderson, Borchard, Munoz, and/or McCarthy getting an early call as insurance policies. I think we'll see almost all of them playing big roles in September just to get people rest since we have that luxury and since we don't want people to be hurt worse. And on Marte...his problem remains throwing strikes to left handers, in my opinion. Every pitch he throws is either too far outside or too far inside. He still has the pitches and the velocity, but his control has gone to sh*t.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Aug 12, 2005 -> 07:52 AM) There are now warnings of another attack on September 11th http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/12/national...agewanted=print I think it's fascinating that the "Warnings" are about New York, Chicago, and LA, but not about Washington D.C., and yet the defense department is planning a brilliant pro-America country music fest in Washington DC for that day.

Since you haven't yet figured this out from my previous sarcasm-laced rants about how clearly your arguments prove that all athiests and evolution believers should be skinned, I'm going to simplify down my point about which logical fallacy you're making. GUILT BY ASSOCIATION. I don't know how I can get it across better than that.

If the Eagles hold out long enough, some team would decide mid-year that they could use a new wideout when they start off on a hot streak. Look what happened with Keenan McCardell and the Bucs/Chargers last year. Brees came out of no where and became a good QB, and suddenly the chargers were a great team without great weapons at wideout. They grabbed McCardell from Tampa because of it. Someone will be a surprise team this year, and 1/3 of the way through the season they'll decide they could use another weapon. And then TO will hold out from their training camp next year. Is there any chance that someone like Atlanta or Seattle or Denver could grab him? Each of them have had some wierd wideout issues over the last few years.

QUOTE(SnB @ Aug 7, 2005 -> 07:17 PM) the big 10 needs to add another team so we can have a title game, it sucks we miss out on an exciting game like that. Yeah, because all we need is another reason to laugh when they call it the Big 10. How would they fit a #12 into their logo? #11 has worked out all right, but i mean, yeesh that's a crooked number.

Ah, the joy of being an Indiana graduate... You sit around the whole college football season saving money because you have no reason to purchase that package from DirecTV, getting more sleep on Saturday, and b****ing about Mike Davis. Thanks to Joe Tiller, IU now has by far the longest streak in the big ten of years since a Rose Bowl appearance. It's like 30 years now.

I was amazed how when they hit, it was with so much force that both of their bodies ended up turned about 90 degrees. Get well soon Cameron. Shingo could use your help.

QUOTE(knightni @ Aug 12, 2005 -> 01:10 AM) Cleveland's pretty much played Kansas City. I highly doubt that it is the thread's fault that KC loses. This is why people have been saying Cleveland has a wild card shot...so many games left against KC and Tampa.

QUOTE(fathom @ Aug 12, 2005 -> 10:08 AM) Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled with winning 2 out of 3 against the Yankees (especially considering every game could have easily, easily been won by either team in this series). A prolonged slump is basically the only way we won't make the playoffs. Sure, it would be nice if the Indians lost against this season! However, we need to start getting better offensive production, no doubt about it. Look, the fact is this team is not a .223 hitting team. It is a .260 hitting team. We're not going to light up too many teams, but we're better than we have been in August. When you hit .223 for a week and a half, you're due for a recovery. You know as well as I do that baseball works like that...your offense departs for 2 weeks at random when everyone's pressing, then suddenly you have 1 big game and you swing back the other way. We're not a great hitting team, but we're not as bad as we have been either.

QUOTE(Al Lopez's Ghost @ Aug 12, 2005 -> 08:35 AM) With Wells pitching tonight, who thinks Everett starts in left field? According to the Trib, Pods's shoulder is hurting him some after being plunked by Embree, so I wouldn't be surprised if he sat today. Probably was part of those 3 k's on Wednesday.

QUOTE(Milkman delivers @ Aug 12, 2005 -> 08:47 AM) Has Adkins even pitched since he hit one of the Blue Jays? No. He's in the ol' Shingo/Viz/Walker role right now...pitching whenever a game is a laugher. Which means, given the fact that almost every game is close...he never pitches.

According to the Trib, his shoulder's hurting him a bit after being plunked by Embree. Can't be a good thing even if we're talking about himi running.

I think you either clinch the division or get your magic number below 10 before you take your foot off the accelerator. If Dustin can pitch and he won't make himself worse by pitching, he's a great insurance policy to have when facing the Yankees and Red Sox. Remember...these are teams we may very well face in the playoffs...and if nothing else...winning series against them gets your team in their head. If we face the Yankees in round 1...what do you think will be the first thing to cross their minds right now? "Oh no, not that center fielder again". Rest Dustin in September. Maybe even starting August 26th at Seattle depending on how Cleveland does and how our magic number looks.

I think the real point here isn't that we should say everything is great after goign 2-1 on this stretch... The real point is that because we've played so far above the heads of everyone else, even if we play below .500 on this stretch, we're still probably going to end it with a magic number below 20. In other words...this stretch was a huge concern at the beginning of the year because we thought things would be close. Now, even if we do poorly, it's still not going to hurt us. If we play .500 ball the rest of the year, we end up with 98 wins, and that probably is either 1st or 2nd in the AL.

Couple notes...does anyone know if the Widge will actually want to play next year? He's probably earned the backup catcher spot if he wants it, but last year he was this close to retiring wasn't he? I see you don't have #35 included on your list. I bet if you swap Contreras for El Duque in your trade list, Texas just might bite. Although you'd be much better off if you tried to put together a package for Soriano which included a pitcher...they're going to move him for pitching in the off-season no matter what. What happens to Borchard? He's out of minor league options, so either he's traded, he's on the 25 man next year, or he's got to clear waivers (i.e. he leaves with us getting nothing). Jon Garland had sure better get a 3-4 year deal signed in the offseason. I don't want him going through arbitration.

Good luck Shingo...I'm betting that those NL hitters will have as much trouble picking up the floater as the AL ones did last year. Oh, and Shingo....just walk Jones, Pujols, and Lee.

"Could you please read this video store receipt for the court? "Um, Encino Man and Bio Dome" "And who stars in those movies?" "Um, Pauly Shore" "Pauly Shore!" (Whispers from jury...he's terrible) -Family guy.