Saturday Morning Quick-Hits Part 2

American League

Mike Lowell’s outburst in the 9th inning summed up the Red Sox night. Dan Shaughnessy wants Manny Ramirez to be shown out the door after he pulled himself out of the lineup right before last night’s game.

The Blue Jays stabbed the Mariners in the heart in extras last night while wearing their throwbacks.

Seattle keeps finding new ways to lose. Just a sad season in the Emerald City.

Jermaine Dye’s 2 run blast propelled he Chi Sox to a much needed win. The Chi Sox are still in first place in the Central.

Todd Jones took the blame for last night’s loss, as he should. The Tigers are now 6 and half games back of the first place White Sox.

Minnesota lost, the game and Carlos Gomez. I can’t for the life of me figure out why he is in still in the rotation and Francisco Liriano is still in AAA. Stop being cheap and give your team a chance, the Twins are still only 3 and half games back of Chicago.

The Angels hung on in Baltimore. Francisco Rodriguez is one step closer to removing Bobby Thigpen from the record books.

The Rangers unloaded on the A’s, and moved into second place in the AL West. Kevin Millwood is headed to the DL, again.

National League

The Mets win again, and extended their lead to 2 games, thanks to Mike Pelfrey and Carlos Delgado. There is word in this notebook that Pedro will be back soon, that the Mets thought they had a chance at Xavier Nady, and that Angel Pagan is going to have season ending surgery.

The Phillies stink out loud. Watched this game, and Chase Utley was getting booed, although he had no comments for Phils fans like he did New Yorkers at the Home Run Derby. Charlie Manuel held a closed door meeting before last night’s game, to unhappy results.

The Marlins knocked off the Cubs thanks to Jeremy Hermida. Former Red Sox prospect Anibal Sanchez is scheduled to return.

The Brewers are human after all, after falling the Astros last night. The Brewers are still in trade rumors, but Doug Melvin likes his team as they are now. Apparently he is unconcerned about his bullpen.

The Cubs promoted Brady Quinn’s favorite Notre Dame target.

The Cardinals couldn’t overcome the Mets. Ryan Franklin has stumbled since taking over for Jason Isringhausen. Chris Carpenter is on a rehab stint.

The Pirates said goodbye to Damaso Marte and Xavier Nady during the game yesterday. The Bucs proceeded to lose to the Padres.

Dan Haren got plenty of offense last night against the hapless Giants. The win got them back to .500 for the season, and keeps them a game ahead of LA in first.

The Dodgers got another strong performance from Chad Billingsley and offense from Nomar Garciaparra to knock off the Nats. Juan Pierre returned from the DL and started last night.

The Rockies won again, thanks to Aaron Cook. Don’t be surprised if the Rockies make no deadline moves and hold onto Fuentes and Holliday.

NFL

Albert Haynesworth signed a one year deal with the Titans. Check out the incentives he has to make to keep the Titans from franchising him again next year.

Lamont Jordan is looking for work.

NBA

Sasha Vujacic re-signs with the Lakers. Ray Allen and the makers of brown suede headbands rejoice.

Former Celtic Ryan Gomes is back in Minnesota.

Delonte West and his tattoos may be headed east, like, Russia-east…

NHL

Former Lightning coach John Tortorella will interview for the vacant Islanders job on Sunday. He should be great with the New York media.

Eastern League

The Sea Dogs got back on the winning track last night, beating Trenton 2-1. Trenton’s starting pitcher, Phil Coke, was removed after the first when he was traded to Pittsburgh.

AHL

Kevin Dineen may still be the head coach for the Portland Pirates next year. Great move by the Sabres organization if this comes true.

Saturday Morning Links Part 1

The Dodgers tied the D’Backs for first place last night in 11 innings. Watched the end of this game and let me just say this now, Jonathan Broxton is going to be one of the filthiest closers ever.

The Angels outslugged the Red Sox, although John Lackey didn’t look particularly tremedous against his nemesis Manny Ramirez (in spite of his milestone performance). I know everyone likes to jump on the Angels bandwagon and say that “They never get any respect” or “East-Cost bias”, and that may be true to an extent, but their record against Boston the last few years is awful. If they can’t get the Red Sox monkey off their back (no pun intended), they will not go back to the World Series.

The Florida Marlins are Jamie Moyer’s, ummm, well we have sponsors now, so let me just say, whipping boy. Also there is word from Brett Myers that he is ready to return. I assume if he isn’t then the Phils will just say “boom, outta here!”

Tampa Bay finally snapped a losing streak . Kudos to the caller on the PM Jab yesterday who said “good pitching doesn’t slump for long”. Indeed.

The Mets saw their 10 game losing streak come to an end thanks to Bronson Arroyo. The Phils snuck back into first thanks to this Mets loss. John Maine is struggling. Thanks to Joe Namath for the correct pronunciation on that.

Richie Sexson drove in a run in his first at-bat for the Yankees, and Mike Mussina got his 12th win of the season.

The Cubs lost in Houston on Hunter Pence’s walk-off double. Ted Lilly’s performance was wasted, and Kosuke Fukudome did not resemble an All-Star. Also there is word that the leading candidate to buy the Cubs is a good friend of Bud Selig.

CC Sabathia was dominant again, and the Brewers look like geniuses right now. Sabathia also got it done with the bat again last night.

Speaking of Milwaukee, Gilbert Arenas takes a shot at the land of cheese and beer in his latest blog entry saying “No one wants to live in Milwaukee”. Ouch.

Ronny Turiaf is officially a Golden St Warrior.

Kevin Love is averaging a little over 20 points a game for the T’Wolves summer league team, coached by Jerry Sichting who is an FOTV (Friend Of the Vortex). We will try and have him on again after the summer league is over.

The Islanders schedule has been released, but we still don’t know who is going to coach them.

That is all for now, there will be a special edition of “The Vortex” this afternoon as Jon Shields from Bleeding Blue and Teal will be on with us to talk Mariners (the Red Sox play Seattle starting on Monday). The interview will be posted about a half an hour after it’s done, and hopefully it will be in pure MP3 format for you.

Islanders Need a New Head Coach

Ted Nolan, who struggled to get back to the NHL as a head coach after a hellish debacle in Buffalo, was fired from his job as head coach of the Islanders today due to “differing philosophies” with GM Garth Snow. This is not the first time Nolan has clashed with an NHL front office, as former Sabres GM John Muckler could attest. Nolan had one year left on his contract, and Snow and Nolan had a prickly relationship dating back to last off-season. Snow felt the team was underachieving, while Nolan was not a big fan of Snow’s personnel moves, apparently. I wonder if former Pirates coach Kevin Dineen could be a fit as the new head coach on the island?

Here is hoping Snow doesn’t go the way of coaching retreads and finds some new blood for the Islanders.