The Red Sox play Seattle in their 7th game of the season and their first home game, and Dice-K could be the starting pitcher for that game. Since Ichiro leads off for Seattle then Matsuzaka’s first batter he will face in Fenway Park could be Ichiro. So this video is a great preview for the match-up.
If you follow the Red Sox then you know that they have done a lot to improve this season, adding some great starting pitchers and filling some gaps in the lineup. They have even improved the bullpen. However there is one area that has been a question mark, and that is our closer. We brought in several guys and the word has been that its up to them to earn the role in spring training. One of the guys they brought in was Joel Pineiro, and a lot of people have been scratching their head about him, because on paper he seems to be a pretty lousy pitcher. However this article suggests that he is much better then last years numbers suggest. After reading the article I am excited that he could be great as our closer. We’ll see how things pan out.
Looking forward to seeing the Red Sox in their first spring training game this evening against Minnesota. Go Sox!
Wolfpack won again today over Gardner web 8-0 to improve to 4-0 and I went out to see the game even though it was freezing out. Once again our pitching was lights out. I got to see Andrew Brackman pitch for the first time, and he was very impressive with 8 Ks in 5 shutout innings. Gillheeney and and Brown then came in and closed out the game with 4 more shutout innings.
Offensively we looked good too. For power we had two doubles and a homer and we played some small ball, with a stolen base and two sac flies. The guys were looking confident and patient. That is one thing that has really impressed me, is how patient they are. In four games the guys have 30 walks and the team OBP is 462. If they can keep that up then they will have a great offensive season.
Two things this weekend. First of all it seems that things have come together for snowboarding on Monday. We’re planning on going up to snowshoe, and i am really excited about that. Of all the places in the southeast it is the biggest, with 57 trails. It is very spread out so that none of the lifts should get too crowded, and it has been snowing all week and is supposed to snow all weekend, with Monday being sunny. Looks to be some great snowboarding.
The other thing I am excited about is fantasy baseball. With the season just around the corner I am full steam ahead studying for the draft. Last night I did a mock draft that was helpful because it lets you get an idea for where people are being drafted. I thought I did pretty well in the mock draft, and looking forward to the real thing. There are so many great players that emerged last year, it will be very interesting to see how things play out.
Well at the end of last year everyone from the fantasy baseball league I ran was excited about doing it again, only this year we are doing a three year keeper league. Basically at the end of this year every team will be able to keep six players each from their current roster. Then next year and the year after the last place finisher will get the first pick in the draft. The coolest thing about this is that if you are nearing the end of the year and you aren’t going to make the playoffs then you still have a reason to stick with your team and makes trades to improve it. Towards the end of the year half of the teams will be jockeying for the playoffs and the other half will be jockeying for young players with potential to keep for the next couple years.
This is the first time we are doing a keeper league, so we are keeping things pretty simple. However some ideas have come up for future leagues down the road. One is that rather then keeping your top six players and everyone getting the same draft picks the next year, you basically trade draft picks for their corresponding player on your team, based on the players ranking. So if I want to keep my top five players, and then a sleeper that is ranked pretty low but I think will be good, then I lose my top 5 picks in the draft, but instead of losing the 6th pick in the draft for that sixth person i want to hold on to, I lose my tenth pick, since he is ranked tenth best player on my team.
So anyway, the fantasy season is getting ready to kick off, and I am beginning to take a look at the players and find some fantasy baseball blogs that will keep me informed. If anyone knows of any good ones let me know.
NC State’s baseball season opened this afternoon with a 9-4 victory over William and Mary. Defensively it was a little bit sloppy with the pack committing 3 errors. However Andrew Brackman was rock solid starting, with 5 IP and 1 ER, our two RP closed out with 2 innings a piece and 1 ER between them. I was very impressed with the team offensively. They had 2 HRs by two of the new guys, LF Jeremy Synan and SS Tommy Foschi. The rest of the team also had two doubles and a triple, so it looks like we may have some good hitting this year. Here is an article that overviews this years team.
UPDATE: I went to the game today (Saturday) and it was a blowout. 12-0 after the first inning and we finished with a shutout 23-0. Despite how one sided it was, it was a lot of fun to watch. We had three triples (should have been four), five doubles, three home runs including one grand slam, and the guys were patient at the plate, walking nine times. I was impressed that they did not rely on their incredible offensive effort to win, but also played great defense (no errors, and Tommy Foshi at SS was a lot of fun to watch) and incredible pitching by the starter, Surkamp, and Gillheeny, who came in for Surkamp in the 6th and finished out the game with four one hit innings. As usual the crowd was great, with heckling that at one point had me crying I was laughing so hard. We’re two and oh baby!
NC State baseball is right around the corner with 10 days to go before our opening game on February 9th. Pre-season rankings have us at 28th, which is a good place to be. On the map, but with plenty of room to move up. We only have three starters in the field left from last years team so the real question mark is how good will we be offensively and defensively. We are set to have great pitching, led off by Andrew Brackman who has been ranked as a pre-season 1st team all American. Since great pitching makes for a good team, it should be a fun season for baseball this year.
For football word is just in that we have a commit from Germany for defense, and from the article it seems he will be pretty exciting to watch. Here is another article concerning football commitments for NC State, UNC, and Duke. NC States schedule has been set and I am really looking forward to seeing how next season will play out. Two out of conference games that should be good, Louisville in Raleigh, and ECU at ECU. If we are doing well, a win over a highly ranked Louisville on a Thursday night on ESPN could get some attention, and a win over ECU at ECU will be very satisfying after getting clobbered by them this year. Should be an exciting season.
After reaching an initial agreement with JD Drew for 5 years $70 million, the Red Sox did a physical on Drew and that has held up negotiations for 7 weeks now. The good news is that finally the deal is done and everything is agreed to. The big change that came about by the delay is that if Drew has problems with his shoulder in the next three years then the Red Sox can opt out of the last two years of his contract, making the contract only three years $42 million.
My biggest fear with Drew was that he would be hurt a lot and signing a five year contract with someone like that is risky. However Drew now has a great reason to not miss games and if he does then the Red Sox haven’t lost so much.
I think that he will do well in Boston because he is hitting behind Manny and Ortiz and he doesn’t need to replace either of them. As long as Drew is healthy I think he will do a fine job replacing Nixon in right field and Varitek in the fifth spot in the rotation. If he gets hurt we have a good fourth outfielder in Willy Mo. Win win.
Dennis Miller on WMDs and Osama Bin Laden
Also Tim Kurkjian on Fenway Park
Hiking, as defined by Demetri Martin and noted by Cutter, is “walking where it’s okay to pee.”
Also from The Piton: what ever happened to that guy from Blues Clues? Here is his webpage. Pretty sweet!