Vlad Guerrero, who by the way is the best bad-ball hitter ever, and Casey Kotchman helped the California Angels…sorry…just how I roll…sweep the Red Sox out of town. Sox got great pitching from Tim Wakefield again, but as usual, the bullpen gave the game away.
The Yanks continue their resurgence, beating Oakland 2 – 1 in the Bronx yesterday. Andy Pettitte pitched 8 strong innings, out-dueling Justin Duchscherer, to shut down the A’s. A sac fly by A-Rod and a HR by The Stache…aka Jason Giambi scored all the runs the Yankees needed.
The Toronto Blue Jays avoided a sweep at the hands of the Tampa Rays yesterday 9-4. Marco Scutaro and Alex Rios drove the offense as 7 Blue Jays pitchers shut down the Rays. The Rays are still 1 1/2 games up on the Red Sox in the AL East.
The Brewers continued their surge back to contention in the NL Central race, beating the Giants 7 – 4. Ryan Braun’s 5 RBIs (a 2 run double and a 3 run HR) allowed the Brewers to bury the Giants. Right after the game, the Brewers bolstered their league worst batting average for 2nd Baseman (.222) by acquiring Ray Durham from the other locker room.
Oh those former Red Sox untouchables. Brandon Lyon blew a save for the ages, allowing the Los Angeles Dodgers to score 5 runs in the top of the 9th to come all the way back and steal a win in Arizona, 6 -5. Matt Kemp doubled home the tying run and Andre Ethier tripled home the go ahead run. The win ties the Dodgers with the DBacks for the NL West lead. I’ll keep reminding people, the Dpdgers were my sleeper pick for the World Series.
Cleveland knocked off the hapless Mariners 6-2.
Florida beat Philly in 11, 3 – 2.
The Mets beat Cincy 7 – 5 in 10. and The Nationals finish off a sweep of the Braves 15 – 6.
Other News
Greg Norman chokes again allowing Padraig Harrington to defend his Open title and win the 137th British Open.
Jason Taylor finally gets a new home. With Washington Redskin DE Phillip Daniels going down to season ending knee surgery, the Dolphins had what another team needed, a monster at DE. Washington traded a 2nd round draft pick in 2009 and a 6th round pick in 2010 for the perennial All-Pro end. This should end the biggest issue hanging over the Dolphins heads prior to the opening of training camp.
According to Marc Spears, the Celtics have reached agreement with Eddie House and Tony Allen to return to the world champs. Interesting tidbits here are that the Celtics did not have to use any of their mid-level exception to re-sign Tony Allen, and managed to snag Eddie House for a little over 2 mill, leaving about 3.5 million left over for the MLE in case someone else decides to hop on boar for another ring.
Finally…..
The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the FCC “acted arbitrarily and capriciously” in fining CBS for the “Incident” during the Super Bowl 38 (Won by the Patriots, by the way) Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction incident. The court ruled that the FCC wavered from previous application of standards by not holding the incident up to “pervasive as to amount to ‘shock treatment’ for the audience” levels. The court overturned the half million dollar fine levied against CBS and its affiliates. Peter Griffin had this to say when reached for comment.
The Maine Sports Blog 