The ACC Has TWO Teams In BCS Bowls?

Please explain this to me, because I'm at a loss to understand how this makes any kind of logical sense within its presumed context:

Team A: Ranked 5th prior to its conference championship game, gets shellacked by 28 to a team ranked 20th, all while playing in a very mediocre conference.

Team B: Ranked 13th prior to its conference championship game, loses a squeaker by 3 to a team ranked 15th, all while playing in a better conference.

Game 3 Live Blog

So I've decided to do this again, except for a sport not quite as fast-paced as football - yep, I'm live-blogging Game 3 of the World Series. Enjoy.

World Series Preview

So it's all come down to this. For all the talk during the offseason, preseason and regular season about the Phillies and Red Sox, we're left with the Rangers and the Cardinals playing each other for the World Championship. Whoever wins, we're likely going to see quite a bit of offense in this series. Outside of C.J. Wilson and my boy Chris Carpenter, neither team has a shutdown pitcher - though both have solid staffs, and Tony La Russa has looked like a genius managing his bullpen. That said, here's my preview/prediction:

My Theory Was Right! Or At Least Not Wrong!

Incredibly, after overcoming not only my February tweet that they would be missing the playoffs because of Adam Wainwright's Tommy John surgery, not only being out 10 1/2 games at the end of August, but also me picking against them in BOTH the NLDS and NLCS, the St. Louis Cardinals are going to the World Series. And in a surprise to no one, least of all myself, my theory again held in Game 6, which the Cards won 12-6 - although, in the interest of full disclosure, I once again blew the pick (Brew Crew in 7). Sunday night's stats are below.

STL: 9-24 (.375), 7 runs, 8 RBIs (plus 1 that Yadier Molina brought around on a fielder's choice error)
MIL: 7-26 (.269), 6 runs, 5 RBIs

5-5

Another day, another instance of my NLCS theory not being proven wrong. The Cardinals won Game 5, 7-1, and here are the rest-of-lineup stats:

STL: 5-22 (.227), 6 runs, 2 RBIs (Jaime Garcia also brought in 2 on a 2-out error by Jerry Hairston Jr.)
MIL: 8-25 (.320), 1 run, 1 RBI

So again, it's something of a wash - while the rest of the Brewers hit better, they had nowhere near the run production of the rest of the Cardinals. And again, I can at least say that my theory hasn't been proven wrong.

The Eags are on a bye this week. Maybe that will give Gene some time to think - and then promptly realize he has to fire Spaz.

And The Streak Goes On

Nothing much tonight, just your daily "Sean's NLCS Theory" update. As I'm writing this, the Cardinals are up 5-1 in the 7th inning of Game 5. As a recap, the Brewers won Game 4, 4-2. The stats:

MIL - 7-28 (.250), 3 runs, 3 RBIs
STL - 4-28, (.143), 1 run, 1 RBI

Needless to say, through 4 games, my theory's looking pretty good.

But Sean, Isn't Your Theory Obvious?

Thinking about things while Nelson Cruz renders my ALCS MVP prediction utterly moot, and the Tigers fight for their season...

For the 3rd game in a row, my NLCS theory has been *tentatively* proven correct. In the Cardinals' 4-3 Game 3 victory, these were the lineup stats minus Murderers' Row and the 1-2 Punch, respectively.

STL: 7-22 (.318), 2 runs, 2 RBIs (although Yadier Molina technically drove in a run on a double play)
MIL: 5-24 (.208), 3 runs, 3 RBIs

So actually, maybe it's better to say that in this case - because it was more or less even, with a better average and more hits for the Cards, but more production from the Brew Crew - my theory continues to not be proven wrong.

A Rant About Pop Music (and my NLCS theory still holds)

Monday night, the Cardinals throttled the Brewers 12-3. Okay, so Albert Pujols had a historic night (4-5, HR, 3 doubles, 5 RBIs, 3 runs), but my theory still held. Here are the stats from the rest of the lineups:

STL: 11-31 (.355), 7 runs, 5 RBIs
MIL: 4-27 (.148), 1 run, 2 RBIs

Not much help for Messrs. Braun and Fielder there. Granted, El Hombre beat the entire team by himself, but - my theory is still credible through 2.

Also, the NBA is not so much shooting itself in the foot as blowing its entire foot off, Tim Tebow is not going to pan out if he keeps completing only 40% of his passes, and I thought Al Davis was older than 82.

But those things aren't what this post is about. No, this post is about pop music and Jack Sparrow.

I Can Predict the Future

Admittedly, it's a small sample size - but what did I say yesterday? That the NLCS was going to be decided based on which team's lineup hit better beyond its superstars (STL's Murderers' Row of Pujols/Berkman/Holliday; MIL's 1-2 Punch of Braun/Fielder). Well, Milwaukee won Game 1 yesterday, 9-6...and the numbers don't lie.

*Rest of Cardinals' Lineup: 4-23 (.174), 5 runs, 3 RBIs
Rest of Brewers' Lineup: 8-27 (.296), 6 runs, 3 RBIs

*Granted, the Cardinals have one less batter with which to match up against the Brewers here. But it's the principle of the thing.
 
So yeah. At least in Game 1, my theory was given some weight. I'll keep tracking this, because A) I want to be proven right, and B) I'm now curious to find out if I in fact was right.

NLCS Preview

I'll just get right to it then, seeing as the game starts in 40 minutes (from the time I'm writing this sentence).

2.5 Outta 4 Ain't Bad

Well, I nailed the ALDS predictions exactly. Can't say the same about the NLDS. Correctly picked the Brewers to win, but the Dbacks took them one game further than I thought they would. And I was all kinds of wrong about the Phillies-Cardinals. But happily so - I like the Phillies, but I like the Cardinals too and was happy to see the underdog win. Bud Selig and his cronies must be simultaneously ecstatic and scared out of their minds. For as much as the final 4 teams prove all his arguments about parity...there are no East Coast teams left. The likely favorite to come out of the NL plays in the MLB's smallest market. The TV ratings from here on out, no matter the World Series matchup, might well reach historically bad levels. So as great as these matchups are in terms of competitive balance, they couldn't have turned out much worse from a business standpoint. Selig should at least be happy, however, that the Rangers managed to take care of the Rays - the Rays may be on the East Coast, but their own fans *generally* don't care about them.

Interesting note - the 4 teams left were the 4 middle playoff teams in terms of payroll. As a result, the average payroll of the remaining teams has dropped to $97.2 - which would have put them at 13th this year if they were a real team ($6 million behind the mediocre Dodgers and $5 million ahead of the Rangers). Just a nifty tidbit.

They Think WHO Should Manage The Red Sox?

In the wake of Tito's being let go by the Sox today, ESPNBoston ran a piece listing off some of the possible candidates for the newly-vacant manager position. The biggest names thrown out by Joe McDonald & Gordon Edes were Joe Torre, Tony La Russa and Bobby Valentine. This was (and as of 2 minutes ago, still is) the graphic that ran with the article on the front page:

I see Torre. I see La Russa. But I don't see Valentine. And I could not, for the life of me, figure out for the longest time who the guy in the middle was despite knowing his face very well - except that it wasn't Bobby Valentine, or for that matter, anybody else listed in the article. 5 minutes ago, I realized who that is - and now I wonder why ESPNBoston is apparently trying to indicate that Bobby Cox is a possible candidate to be the new manager of the Red Sox.

That's going to be embarrassing for someone when they catch whoever screwed up.

About Last Night...

Robert Bleeping Andino.

No, actually I'm not going to talk about last night. It's still too raw. I'll leave it to these guys - Joe Posnanski, Tom Verducci, and Jon Paul Morosi - who put it in much better terms than I ever could. Scroll down far enough on Mr. Posnanski's, and you'll notice a familiar name among the comments.

What I'm really going to do is do a quick rundown of the first round of the playoffs. You may remember that last year, I attempted to show why baseball didn't need a salary cap - using the payrolls of the playoff teams as my examples. That was so much fun that, before I offer up a quickie preview/prediction of each divisional series, I'm going to do it again.

The Next Level of Live Blogging

Devoted readers of this blog may remember my last attempt at a live blog - Election Night, 2008. It was a rousing success at keeping track of what went on that night, and it still serves as a reminder of all the historic events that unfolded. Unfortunately, it also serves as a reminder of two things - 1) all the inanities served up as analysis by the news networks, and 2) the fact that it wasn't actually a live blog. It was more of a running diary that I published after the fact.

Back Again

Yes, that's right. I'm back - again. And this time I mean business. Why, you ask?* Why, Sean, are you back - you're at grad school. Doesn't that take up most of your time?

*All three of you that will likely read this. Just go with it, for now. I like pretending that more than myself and maybe a random Google bot read this every now and then. Give it time.

You'd be correct, I am at grad school. It does take up most of my time. As I've proven over the years, I am not the greatest at keeping this blog updated even when I do have free time. However, there's a game-changing difference this time around - another blog.

So I Got a Job...

It would figure, wouldn't it? Right after I wrote that last blog post, I managed to get a summer job at a wild birds store - thus once again thwarting my efforts to write more consistently on here. Among my responsibilities at work has been writing things like this, this and this - admittedly not the most exciting thing in the world for someone who wants to go into sports journalism, but at the end of the day, there are 3 things I remind myself of:

1) It's 3 minutes away.

2) The people are really nice.

3) It pays.

Those make it all worth it. Plus, if nothing else, I've learned that I can still write reasonably well about things that I don't know much about. Just think of how well I'll be able to write about sports now, knowing that I've aced the test of writing about bird feeders. Anyway, I'm finishing up there next week, and then it's off to Phoenix and ASU for grad school on the 14th. Little daunting, but I'm up for a challenge. In the meantime...hopefully I'll be able to write more frequently on here? Sweeping promises and big plans haven't really worked out before, so I'll just cross my fingers this time and hope for more time and ideas.

So...

School's out (I graduated! Magna cum laude!), it's summer, I temporarily don't have a job - and thus, I have no excuse for not posting things on here. Expect greatness. Haha.