jacksonianmarch

YES did a nice job with the pregame for once. Goosebumps. This is amazing.

skip it.

Yankee stadium looks beautiful. Man, I love baseball.

Donnelly is not a guy you can look at as a cog in a bullpen. He is a very nice piece to have, but lean on him and he will break. Remember, he is 36 now and his stuff is obviously starting to decline (look at the slide in numbers). I think Donnelly is kind of a guy like Vizcaino. If we give him a good amount of innings and dont lean on him too much, he will be fine. If you put the entire pressure of the middle relief on his shoulders, you likely wont get a good result. As I said when you got him, I liked the Donnelly acquisition. Just not if he is being considered a big piece of your pen.

Wang threw a 40 pitch pen on flat ground and reported no probs today. Still on schedule for the last week of april.

DRays Active pitchers 22 Shawn Camp R/R 6-1 200 11/18/75 15 Casey Fossum L/L 6-1 160 01/06/78 47 Gary Glover R/R 6-5 220 12/03/76 36 Edwin Jackson R/R 6-3 190 09/09/83 19 Scott Kazmir L/L 6-0 190 01/24/84 45 Ruddy Lugo R/R 6-0 190 05/22/80 28 Al Reyes R/R 6-1 210 04/10/70 11 Jae Kuk Ryu R/R 6-3 220 05/30/83 53 Juan Salas R/R 6-2 210 11/07/78 40 Jae Seo R/R 6-0 230 05/24/77 33 James Shields R/R 6-4 215 12/20/81 41 Brian Stokes R/R 6-1 205 09/07/79 their best pen guy is Reyes and he is 37 coming off TJ.

their bullpen is in sorry shape. Did I really read that some guy named Camp was their closer? WTF?

it is the way Thad Motta runs his offense. The guards run the show. If I was coaching, I'd make Oden the centerpiece of that offense. Too many times they take wild shots without feeding the big fella when they know that 60% of the time they give it to him, he will either get fouled or put it in the hoop. Then again, I know next to nothing about basketball and Motta got em to the finals, so off the soapbox I go.

Mike Lowell will drive in the first runs of the game with a second inning homer.

He says "now" that he overused him. What happens in August when the sox are tied with the yankees and the yankees are going on their typical late season roll. If the sox dont make the playoffs this yr, tito is the scapegoat, bank on it. And I think Tito will value his job a bit more than Paps arm. When the rubber hits the road, Paps will get overworked unless someone steps up in that pen to lessen the burden.

sox always start out hot. They shoot the sherbet in april and may and leave nothing for august when the yankees get hot. Sox win today, and I dont think it will be close.

it will be welcoming, but if he gets shelled, expect boos to rain down. I have the yankees working Kazmir into the ground and feasting on the devil rays s***** MR. Who the f*** is closing in TB these days anyway? Seth McClung? I'll take the yankees in a late inning comeback.

Rician, thank you for your honesty. I try to be as objective as one can be, but honestly, we are all terribly biased. But when it comes to looking at the teams, the yankees have a decided edge in all but the rotation. Lineup- Has a lineup that will eat more pitches ever been assembled? Johnny Damon had an off yr last yr at .359OBP. But we all know how gritty he is in terms of his ABs and if his history tells us anything, that OBP will rise and the HRs will likely fall. But look at this lineup. 1. Damon 2. Jeter 3. Abreu 4. ARod 5. Giambi 6. Matsui 7. Posada 8. Cano 9. Mientkiewicz/Phelps The 8 hitter was top 3 in the BA race with a BA of over .340 and he is only 23. Abreu, Giambi, ARod, Jeter, and Matsui all had OBP's over .390 last yr. Cano came in at .365, Posada at .374 and Damon at .359. Hell, Mientkiewicz was at .359 last yr in a half season in Royal blue. This lineup wil absolutely grind pitching. And one thing that people seem to forget, is the top 4 in our lineup will all likely have over 20 steals too. Our lineup will see a record number of pitches and may top 1,000 runs. This lineup, barring any sort of setbacks, will be up there with the best lineups of the last 20 yrs. the sox lineup looks solid too, but the back end of the lineup looks pretty poor and Lugo at the top is an enigma. Drew is an injury waiting to happen as well (dont forget he failed the physical). The sox lineup will be top 5, maybe even number 2, but it wont be near the run scoring machine the yankees lineup will be. The other area the yankees will dominate is the bullpen. Mariano is a better closer than Papelbon, but in 2007 they are going to be rather similar IMO. But the rest of the pen is completely different. Aside from Myers, every guy in that pen can throw over 95mph. Proctor led the AL in innings from relief last yr and finished the yr strong. Farns can be absolutely dominant at times as well but has his moments where he is awful. But the real excitement comes from the 3rd and 4th right handed MR options in Bruney and Vizcaino. Burney was sitting at 96-98 last yr and was untouchable. One thing he was able to show in ST was a return to command, but we'll see if it holds up. Then again, Bruney had a sub 1 ERA last yr in 20+ appearances in pinstripes. Vizcaino is another Proctor type. He is good to eat innings out of the pen and he will likely be fighting with Bruney to get non-setup innings. For the sox, Timlin fell off something horrible last yr and is starting the yr on the DL. Never good. Donnelly is a Vizcaino type IMO who has started the age slide. If he is used in the 50-60IP range, he should be fine. But if he lands the setup role and throws 70-80IP he will break down. The rest are total question marks. Okajima threw well in ST for the most part. I like his stuff, but I a not sure he is anything other than a lefty matchup guy as he relies on that big loopy curve. Lopez is garbage. Romero is garbage. Pineiro looked alright this yr, but the velocity still isnt back and who knows how he will do. The potential is there, but I dont see how the bridge to paps is anything but shaky at this juncture. The only area where the sox have an advantage right now is in the rotaiton, and that is with Wang out. When Wang is in there, it is pretty close to equal depending on what Igawa can give. If Igawa matches Wake, then I'll take our top 3 over a full season vs yours for this yr. If Igawa cannot match Wake, then you guys will have an inning eating 1-4 that will beat ours. I thought a lot of your advantage in this category left with Paps. But that is why they play the games, right. If everything breaks right for the yankees, they win upper 90s, maybe crack triple digits. If everything breaks right for the sox, I see mid 90s. And pitting the teams together is not how I come to that conclusion. The yankees and sox play 19 games each against he DRays and Orioles. They play a ton of teams that are shitbums for the most part. And the yankees lineup will churn through their pitching better than the sox will and the yankees relief will hold the leads the offense provides better than the sox's will. But if both teams makes the playoffs, the head to heads will be fascinating and all bets will be off.

Crunch, you know that Carl Pavano starting on opening day is more about one injury than the entire state of our staff. It isnt like he is now our ace as we have been decimated by injury. Our ace will miss 3 weeks. Our 2, 3, and 4 would have had to miss a ST start or work on short rest and Joe didnt want to do that. Pavano's turn came up on opening day and by doing this, he misses the red sox, a team that would crush his pussy ass back to his florida days. And to be honest with you, Pavano is a guy who if he stayed in for a full season, could probably eat innings and stay barely under a 5ERA. I'd take it. Our lineup is going to be the strength. 3ER in 6IP will get someone a win most of the time with our lineup.

Tommy Herr, wow, that brings me back to my childhood. Herr was quite possibly the worst 3 hitter of all time on that 87 Cards team. That team hit what, 70HR total? Yet stole hundreds of bases.

Oden needs to have a big game today. Honestly, the last freshman tandem like this to be leaned upon so heavily in a championship run was what? Melo and GMac in the Cuse?

well, I like him for good average, but what most people dont know about him is his power and SBs. I think this kid will be a 25/25 off the bat and that is nice from 3b.

Riverside makes the game threads so nice, I know I fall short, but whatever. http://newyork.yankees.mlb.com/images/gameday/mugshots/mlb/431148.jpg VS http://newyork.yankees.mlb.com/images/gameday/mugshots/mlb/134321.jpg Scott Kazmir vs Carla Pavano (10-8 3.24ERA in '06) (0-0 0.00ERA in '06) For the Rays For the Yankees Lets get it on.

Alex Gordon is my 3b on every fantasy team. I think this kid is gonna be a monster.

I told my wife that no kid of mine will ever see a day of school on opening day.

Rolen is on my cash fantasy league. A granny here would be NICEEEE!!