Good things last night from both Homer Bailey and Jay Bruce.
"These are guys who are former No.1 draft picks, you draft them to build around them," Dusty Baker said. "Joey (Votto) continues to perform well and Brandon (Phillips) and Scott Rolen, he just loves to play. You've got a lot of guys out there that are still playing."
Bailey's curveball was sick yesterday. That's the pitch we heard so much about when he was coming up and it just hadn't really worked against big league hitters. If you look at the graphs on his pitch FX, his speeds were up and down, using that big curve as his offspeed pitch and placing his fastball. And that wasn't the Pirates he was facing, for the record.
Sure, during this eight-game stretch (5-1, 1.89) he's faced the Pirates there times, but he's also faced the Cardinals, Dodgers, Rockies and Marlins.
The thing about both player is it looks like they're making adjustments and learning from failure. Neither one of these players have ever failed until they got to the big leagues -- and baseball is a game of failure. Everyone wants both to be superstars right now, to be Zack Greinke and Albert Pujols right now. They aren't, but it's silly to give up hope on either.
* The Redleg Nation podcast talks to Joe Posnanski about his book The Machine. (And yeah, we're working on a cnati podcast).
* Red Reporter says better defense has helped Bronson Arroyo -- could this be a trend for the entire team?
* I love little things like this, but former big league catcher Brent Mayne writes about bats here. He says the bigger the star, the better the wood. It's funny, I've heard some players say Ken Griffey Jr.'s son Trey gets better wood for his bats than they did. Mayne includes a link to an article about the guy who makes Ichiro's bats -- he also made Pete Rose's bats.
* Japan's LeBron James is going to choose between his home country and MLB.
* A good, sad read about Sal Fasano, who tried to make the majors this year for the health insurance for his son.
* NPR has a story on baseball teams looking closer at nutrition. I know the Reds hired Michele Macedonio, who works with the Bengals and also wrote The Athlete's Guide to Making Weight
* Derek Anderson will start for the Browns on Sunday. Anyone else see this as a huge trap game? I know they're bad, but still...
* Chad Ochocinco tweeted yesterday that he'll be wearing pink gloves and shoes this month to celebrate breast cancer awareness.
* Geoff Hobson follows some Bengals on their day off, and it's a pretty damn cool event from Chinedum Ndukwe. If you have a certain image of football players in your head, Ndukwe shatters them all.
* Pike for Heisman. And the t-shirts. Go to DonkeyTs.com to get 'em. And an even cooler note on the t-shirts, the fine folks at DonkeyTs.com are donating $3 from the sale of each shirt to the "adopted teammate" of the UC football team. Really, great job by DonkeyTs, who are in no way affiliated to UC, except they are big fans.
* Here's the online version of the UC article in Sports Illustrated.
This was the paragraph I thought was most interesting:
"Yes, Cincinnati--a program whose stadium is a crumbling concrete bandbox with no luxury boxes and a capacity of barely 35,000, a program whose pinnacle before its Orange Bowl appearance last January was winning the Missouri Valley Conference title in 1964, a program that hasn't produced a first-round NFL draft pick in 38 years--is the beast of the Big East and perhaps the best team in the state of Ohio. (That includes you, Buckeyes.)"
* The Big East is officially adding the Yankee Bowl to its lineup for the 2010 season. It'll go to the No. 4 Big East finisher. It replaces the International Bowl and substitutes a Big 12 team for a MAC team. I step-up for the Big East, even though I had a great time in Toronto for the International Bowl a couple of years ago.
* Mike Leach has banned his players from using Twitter.
* Yeah, this is about Georgia, my alma mater, but I think it's more about a larger point, BCS scheduling. I think UGA is doing it right -- their schedule in the future will include two non-conference BCS teams, a I-AA team (yeah, I know they're not called that anymore, but does anyone know which is FCS and QVC or whatever they call them now) and a lower I-A team. If you're in one of the big conferences (not the Big East, because they need more out-of-conference games because they have fewer conference games). Honestly, it sounds about right to me. You've got to have some cupcakes, but also some good teams from out of conference. I like that one is an in-state rival from another BCS confernece (for Georgia it's Georgia Tech and South Carolina it's Clemson). I think Ohio State should try this.
What do you think is the ideal set-up for a BCS team?
* Bruce Springsteen will play entire albums in order at some shows in New Jersey. This seems like the new thing to do -- the Pixies are doing a Doolittle tour, which I think would be awesome.
* R.E.M. minus Michael Stipe played in Athens the other night. I saw the same lineup several years ago at a fundrasier (I think it was the 2002 local elections), but the coolest part was I was standing five feet from Stipe who was in the crowd, dancing and singing along. It was pretty damn cool, I must say. (And for you Buckeye fans, they do 'Hang on Sloopy')
"These are guys who are former No.1 draft picks, you draft them to build around them," Dusty Baker said. "Joey (Votto) continues to perform well and Brandon (Phillips) and Scott Rolen, he just loves to play. You've got a lot of guys out there that are still playing."
Bailey's curveball was sick yesterday. That's the pitch we heard so much about when he was coming up and it just hadn't really worked against big league hitters. If you look at the graphs on his pitch FX, his speeds were up and down, using that big curve as his offspeed pitch and placing his fastball. And that wasn't the Pirates he was facing, for the record.
Sure, during this eight-game stretch (5-1, 1.89) he's faced the Pirates there times, but he's also faced the Cardinals, Dodgers, Rockies and Marlins.
The thing about both player is it looks like they're making adjustments and learning from failure. Neither one of these players have ever failed until they got to the big leagues -- and baseball is a game of failure. Everyone wants both to be superstars right now, to be Zack Greinke and Albert Pujols right now. They aren't, but it's silly to give up hope on either.
* The Redleg Nation podcast talks to Joe Posnanski about his book The Machine. (And yeah, we're working on a cnati podcast).
* Red Reporter says better defense has helped Bronson Arroyo -- could this be a trend for the entire team?
* I love little things like this, but former big league catcher Brent Mayne writes about bats here. He says the bigger the star, the better the wood. It's funny, I've heard some players say Ken Griffey Jr.'s son Trey gets better wood for his bats than they did. Mayne includes a link to an article about the guy who makes Ichiro's bats -- he also made Pete Rose's bats.
* Japan's LeBron James is going to choose between his home country and MLB.
* A good, sad read about Sal Fasano, who tried to make the majors this year for the health insurance for his son.
* NPR has a story on baseball teams looking closer at nutrition. I know the Reds hired Michele Macedonio, who works with the Bengals and also wrote The Athlete's Guide to Making Weight
* Derek Anderson will start for the Browns on Sunday. Anyone else see this as a huge trap game? I know they're bad, but still...
* Chad Ochocinco tweeted yesterday that he'll be wearing pink gloves and shoes this month to celebrate breast cancer awareness.
* Geoff Hobson follows some Bengals on their day off, and it's a pretty damn cool event from Chinedum Ndukwe. If you have a certain image of football players in your head, Ndukwe shatters them all.
* Pike for Heisman. And the t-shirts. Go to DonkeyTs.com to get 'em. And an even cooler note on the t-shirts, the fine folks at DonkeyTs.com are donating $3 from the sale of each shirt to the "adopted teammate" of the UC football team. Really, great job by DonkeyTs, who are in no way affiliated to UC, except they are big fans.
* Here's the online version of the UC article in Sports Illustrated.
This was the paragraph I thought was most interesting:
"Yes, Cincinnati--a program whose stadium is a crumbling concrete bandbox with no luxury boxes and a capacity of barely 35,000, a program whose pinnacle before its Orange Bowl appearance last January was winning the Missouri Valley Conference title in 1964, a program that hasn't produced a first-round NFL draft pick in 38 years--is the beast of the Big East and perhaps the best team in the state of Ohio. (That includes you, Buckeyes.)"
* The Big East is officially adding the Yankee Bowl to its lineup for the 2010 season. It'll go to the No. 4 Big East finisher. It replaces the International Bowl and substitutes a Big 12 team for a MAC team. I step-up for the Big East, even though I had a great time in Toronto for the International Bowl a couple of years ago.
* Mike Leach has banned his players from using Twitter.
* Yeah, this is about Georgia, my alma mater, but I think it's more about a larger point, BCS scheduling. I think UGA is doing it right -- their schedule in the future will include two non-conference BCS teams, a I-AA team (yeah, I know they're not called that anymore, but does anyone know which is FCS and QVC or whatever they call them now) and a lower I-A team. If you're in one of the big conferences (not the Big East, because they need more out-of-conference games because they have fewer conference games). Honestly, it sounds about right to me. You've got to have some cupcakes, but also some good teams from out of conference. I like that one is an in-state rival from another BCS confernece (for Georgia it's Georgia Tech and South Carolina it's Clemson). I think Ohio State should try this.
What do you think is the ideal set-up for a BCS team?
* Bruce Springsteen will play entire albums in order at some shows in New Jersey. This seems like the new thing to do -- the Pixies are doing a Doolittle tour, which I think would be awesome.
* R.E.M. minus Michael Stipe played in Athens the other night. I saw the same lineup several years ago at a fundrasier (I think it was the 2002 local elections), but the coolest part was I was standing five feet from Stipe who was in the crowd, dancing and singing along. It was pretty damn cool, I must say. (And for you Buckeye fans, they do 'Hang on Sloopy')
I have Springsteen tix to the night he's doing Born in the USA. Great for the casual fan, but damn it, I really wanted Born to Run or Darkness on the Edge of Town. Ah well, it's a pretty short album... plenty of time for old-school long and rambling rockers before and after.
I agree with you that Georgia has started scheduling correctly. I feel like Ohio State has too though. I mean this is their 4th year going out of conference playing another monster program and in the coming years they have Miami, Cal, and Oklahoma. I would love to see them play UC every year, and before Tressel, OSU never played in state schools. Now before last year, UC, Miami of Ohio, Toledo, Bowling Green, there really wasn't a whole lot of difference in quality. I would love to see them play every year though. I don't know if they both have open dates on their schedules for the next 5 or 6 years though.
The paragraph from the SI article was very interesting, I think perhaps it points out the scariest thing to UC though. If they don't get their facilities up to date, they'll never keep Brian Kelly. I know they are working on getting the funds now, but if Notre Dame or another large program come calling, I'm not sure he can turn them down.
As to if anyone else is concerned about Cleveland.....the answer is an emphatic yes. The Bengals have a troubled history of loosing games they should win. I'm just glad its Anderson for at least the 1st series, I have been having nightmares about Brett Ratliff behind center.
I'll second what btalbert25 said that OSU is going to play Miami, Cal, Oklahoma, VT & Tennesse over the next 10 years. So its not like they are scheduling Alcorn State each year.
As for playing UC, Ohio State played them 4 times from 1999 to 2006. The average score was 30-13. So don't say they're avoiding UC. They just haven't played them since UC actually had a good team. As a Buckeye fan, I would love to see them play UC again soon.
Re: OSU schedule. This year's non-conference schedule is Navy (with a bowl game streak, competitive in ACC?), USC, Toledo, New Mexico State. Not a 1-AA in the bunch. Only one it's ever scheduled, I think, is Youngstown State and that can be justified as Tressel's former home.
UC nearly pulled off the upset at paul brown stadium during the buckeyes championship run.
im not particularly religious, but that team had some sort of divine intervention. every week they pulled the game out of their ass. by the end of the year, i knew they were going to pull a buster douglas, and at the end of the game, i knew the flag was going to be thrown. there is no other explanation
and yes, cleveland is a trap game... denver was supposedly inept coming into week one... oh how short the memory of most sports journalists (excluding c trent of course, thanks for pointing it out)
UC nearly pulled off the upset at paul brown stadium during the buckeyes championship run.
im not particularly religious, but that team had some sort of divine intervention. every week they pulled the game out of their ass. by the end of the year, i knew they were going to pull a buster douglas, and at the end of the game, i knew the flag was going to be thrown. there is no other explanation
and yes, cleveland is a trap game... denver was supposedly inept coming into week one... oh how short the memory of most sports journalists (excluding c trent of course, thanks for pointing it out)
i'm still trying to figure out where i criticized ohio state?
i'd like to see them play the other bcs school in state, but that's not a criticism that they don't. uc hasn't been a bcs member long enough to be on the schedule when it was made there.
I never took it as a criticism of their schedule, I see your point was just that it'd be nice to see them play UC every year. My point was that I think Ohio State has full schedule for about 4 or 5 years in advance. But I certainly would love to see an instate rivalry, year to year matchup.