Yanks sweep Sox

Thanks to some damn good pitching for Chien-Ming Wang, the Yankees brought out the brooms and swept the Red Sox to gutter outside the House That Ruth Built. In the process of winning his 16th game of the year, Wang carried a no-hit bid into the seventh inning when Mike Lowell finally hit a single to right.

Joba Chamberlain and Edwar Ramirez finished the game off for the Bronx Bombers, but not without controversy. Big Joba was tossed in the ninth inning after throwing two consecutive fastballs over Kevin Youkilis' head.

Red Sox manager Terry Francona also had a spat with the umps yesterday and a silly incident during Wednesday's game. Francona was tossed from yesterday's contest after arguing a call that Youkilis had gone outside the base-path to avoid a tag at third base. Hey, it happens, but the incident from the previous night was a bit more unique. It turns out the MLB "style police" had their eyes on Francona in the dug out and actually asked him to come out and prove he was, in fact, wearing his jersey underneath his pul-over jacket. Of all the ridiculous things I've heard argued at baseball games, that has to be one of the most outlandish.

So, it turned out to be one of those classic August series that look like they'll turn the fortunes of both the Red Sox and Yankees. Whether that will happen and the Yanks will catch the BoSox remains to be seen, but it's actually starting to look feasible.

The Yi Era begins

Yesterday the Milwaukee Bucks were finally able to get their 2007 draft pick to sign on the dotted line. Yi Jianlian, the Bucks ill-advised first round pick, has finally agreed to suit up for the team that he had previous said he didn't want to play for. It made absolutely no sense that the Bucks would draft Yi after his proclamation and also the many statements made by the Chinese government regarding a possible hold out from their NBA prospect.

The Bucks took a huge risk taking Yi, after only being able to scout him based on his play against inferior competition in chinese leagues as well as home made video of the 6'11" power forward posting up on a chair during practice.

There's an odd sense that this isn't going to pan out perfectly for the Bucks, but at least they can say they're boasting a uniquely foreign front court with Yi and Australia's Andrew Bogut; a player who also happened to be a high draft pick with surrounded by tons of questions about how well he'll play in the bigs. Should be interesting to see how this develops.

Races galore!

An interesting stretch of games started yesterday in Major League Baseball with five division leaders facing off against their respective number twos.

In the Bronx, the Yankees trumped the Red Sox 5-3 with a solid performance from Andy Pettitte. Also, have you seen this Joba Chamberlain kid pitch for the Yanks? This guy is going to be something special. If I was part of the Red Sox Nation, I'd be scared that this kid could turn out to be better than Papelbon. Man-Ram also left the game in the seventh due to muscle spasms in his lower back, but after he had already hit a solo shot in the first. The Yanks are now 7 games back in the East.

In the NL East, the national league New Yorkers just couldn't hold down the Phillies. Ryan Howard's 10th inning two-run walk off shot sealed the deal as the Phils closed the Mets lead to four games. The Mets had been cruising, up 2-0 until the eighth when the Phillies tied the game and eventually pushed the game into extra frames.

At Wrigley, the Cubs came back from a three-run deficit to beat the Brewers 5-3. The recently horrid Brewers suffered their 11th loss in 14 games and extended their streak to five in a row down the gutter. Also, while they'll be getting their ace Ben Sheets back soon, Alfonso Soriano just made his come back from the DL for the Cubbies. The Brew Crew are now 2 1/2 back in the NL Central and have also fallen behind the simple awful looking Cardinals in their race. Seriously, this has to be the worst race since the Padres made the playoffs with a record a few games over .500 a few years back. Should the Cards defy all probabilty and win again this year, would they not be the worst repeat champions ever?

As for the Mariners vs. The Angels of Anaheim and the Diamondbacks-Padres match ups, well west coast baseball somewhat interferes with my Madden playing time. More on them later...

MLB Notebook 8/28

With the wild card races really starting to heat and developments cropping up every day it seems, I would be remisce to not mention a few every once in a while.

Chase Utley’s back and with a bang. The Phillies second baseman that had been sidelined with a broken hand for over a month now, made his return last night; he did it in style as well. Utley had three hits, one being a home run, to lead Philly over the Mets in an intense NL East showdown. The Phils are going to need Utley up to top speed if they really want to catch the Mets (six games behind) and the Padres (three games behind in the wild card).

While the NL wild card race may have more contenders involved together, the AL race has a few teams tightly packed together, sardine-style some might say. But last night the Yankees didn’t really play up to their full potential, getting pounded 16-0 by the Tigers. Mike Mussina got rocked, giving up six runs in three innings or less for the third start in a row. Some are starting to question if the Moose should lose his spot in New York’s rotation and while there are two schools of thought here, I’d have to agree that he has to straighten out a bit before his next start. If one of your key pitchers is misfiring in the middle of a key point in the season, it can really hurt a team more than usual. At least the Mariners lost in Anaheim, keeping the dificiet at two games.

In non-wild card news, the Houston Astros went on a binge and cleaned house. Manager Phil Garner and some of his staff have been let go by the organization who have really gone downhill since losing the 2005 World Series to the White Sox (who have also landed in a severe rut. Coincidence?). The 58-73 may only be nine games out of the NL Central race, but with a roster that has the talent of theirs, that mark could very well be flipped. It also goes to show how weak the NL Central is when a team is 15 games below 500 and is still only nine games out. Put it this way, if the Astros were competing against the AL East leading Red Sox, they would be 23 games behind and Garner would’ve been canned about a month earlier.

And in “This is going to make my job a lot harder” news: The MLB have given notice to umps to try as hard as possible to get games in instead of calling them because of silly things like rain. This could mean a lot more late night romps like the Yankees-Tigers game last week that ended at nearly 3:30 a.m. because of a four-plus hour rain delay before the opening pitch. While rain outs can put a damper on playoff races, seriously, who wants to stay up to watch a game that late? It’s utterly ridiculous.

A new Dream Team?

Team U.S. is starting to really look like their counterparts of old. This year’s incarnation featuring a starting five of Lebron, Kobe, ‘Melo, Kidd and Dwight Howard have looked simply unstoppable. Thorugh the first round of the tournament, they’ve utterly destroyed their competition. Yesterday, they wrapped up the opening round with another blow out win, this time against their second-place group-mate Brazil. Granted, their competition in this tournament isn’t exactly top judging from the entries put forth by the likes of the Virgin Islands, Venezuela and a Canadian team that is being forced to play without three of their best players. To give you an idea of how bad Canada’s prospects are, one of those three “top players” I just mentioned is the coach’s son, Andy Rautins.

While, without a doubt it seems, the U.S. will advance to the Olympics next year in Beijing, the might want to start working out against some better teams before getting their hopes too high up.