MySports Today

Gotta love NCAA tourney action – especially in the early rounds on Thursday and Friday.  Pitt almost made history – fending off East Tennessee State 72-62 late to avoid becoming the 1st #1 seed to ever lose to a #16 seed.  There were other exciting games this morning/afternoon:

Oklahoma State (8) knocked off Tennessee (9) 77-75.

11 seed Dayton pulled of a flying shocker with a 68-60 upset of 6 seed West Virginia.

Arizona State avoided the 6-11 upset by pulling away late to hold off Temple 66-57.

And in the best game of the early sessions, 6 seed Marquette topped 11 seed Utah State 58-57.  Marquette was up big early and then trailed late in the 2nd half before pulling off the dramatic win.

Gotta love these first 2 rounds of tourney action.

The US lost to Venezuela 10-6 on Wednesday, but does any US baseball fans care? I know that I have yet to watch a game this year and with the NCAA tournament starting today will anyone else? What is the MLB thinking keeping these games going, teams are not going to risk their players getting hurt before the season starts. Today we hear the Kevin Youkilis is out and will not return due to a hurt ankle. It seems like each year more and more pro players are finding a way to get out of these games and because of this less people in the states care about this Classic. It took the NFL a long time to look at the pro bowl and realize that something needs to be done, I hope this doesn’t turn into the pro bowl of baseball. For anyone that cares I put a link to scores below.

Wednesday scores

Team USA staged a dramatic comeback in the bottom of the 9th inning in an elimination game against Puerto Rico on Tuesday night.  Trailing 5-3 heading into the last frame, Team USA had 6 of 7 batters reach base against J.C. Romero and Fernando Cabrera in the 9th inning.  Shane Victorino and Brian Roberts singled, and Victorino advanced to 3rd base on a flyout by Derek Jeter.  Brian Roberts stole 2nd base and Jimmy Rollins walked to load the bases for Kevin Youkilis.  Cabrera relieved Romero at this point and promptly walked in a run to cut the lead to 1.  David Wright then struck the walk-off 2-run single to right field that scored Roberts and Rollins to keep Team USA’s hopes alive.

The real celebration occurred after the game as Team USA celebrated with disabled army vet – Sgt. Felix Perez – who had served our country in Afghanistan and Iraq.   Check out this great story from Jeff Passan about the Perez-Team USA post-game celebration.

Next up for Team USA is another elimination game against Venezuela tonight.

Woo hoo!!!!!

Despite giving up 2 runs on 6 hits against minor league players, Johan Santana emerged from his 56-pitch effort “pleased” with the results.  Santana had this to say:  “Game situations.  You want as many different game situations as possible to be ready.  You want to face all kinds of hitters in all kinds of situations.  I did that today.  It’s good when you have baserunners.”

Really?  What are we talking about here?  Santana is glad that he allowed 6 minor league players to reach base in 4 innings of work so that he could pitch from the stretch more often?  This is unbelievable.

Now I know that he threw 40 of 56 pitches for strikes; and I know that he had 5 strikeouts.  But at this stage of the spring, I want to read about Santana retiring 14 of 15 minor league batters faced in a 5 inning effort.  This leaves a lot to be desired for me and let’s hope the Mets get their act together before the season starts.  The best thing that they have going for them is that Cole Hamels could miss some regular season action because of left elbow issues.  Hip Hip Hooray…

We spend most of our days looking at many different web sites for pro sports teams. The one thing I have noticed over the last few months is just how sad the Chicago Cubs web site is. The news or breaking news they post is just pathetic, with things like “Bradley out with flu; Miles nears return” and “Piniella knows there’s work to be done”. After seeing months of this I just have to say, what the hell? I guess this could be a preview of what is to come this season. A team that has been swept the last 2 years in the post season and has not been in a World Series in over 100 years, has nothing to talk about? I guess this also could be because they did nothing in the office season, expect for getting Milton Bradley that is.  This is a team that has record breaking ticket sales each and every year and what have they done. I guess there is only one person you can blame for this, the fans. Hey Cubs fans stop spending money and making the team rich and they will get you a winning team. I’m sure I will have a lot of Cubs fans upset for this, but what else is new they are always pissed about something. If you are looking for a funny read check out the Cubs home page.

The New York Mets defeated the Florida Marlins 10-5 in Jupiter, Florida on Sunday.  After a rough start, John Maine (4 runs, 3 hits and 1 HBP) went 4 full innings and only allowed 2 hits in the final 3 innings pitched.  Maine has not looked all that great this spring, but let’s hope the final 3 scoreless innings are a sign of good things to come for the Mets hurler.

For the Marlins, 22-year old starter Chris Volstad was spectacular.  Volstad threw needed only 54 pitches (34 strikes) 5 scoreless innings en route to another solid outing.  He gave up 3 hits, while striking out 3 and walking no one.

The Mets are now 7-8-1 during spring training.  Next up is a St. Patrick’s Day afternoon game against the Atlanta Braves.

Former professional WWE wrestler Andrew “Test” Martin was found dead inside his Tampa appartment Friday night, he was turning 34 in a few days. A neighbor called police after seeing Martin through an apartment window and hadn’t moved in several hours. Foul play is not suspected, an autopsy will be performed to determine death.

Martin who started with WWE in 1998 retried last December but was working in Japan and just got back from there before he was found dead.

Mariano Rivera is back and ready to pitch in his 1st Grapefruit League action this spring.  As of now, it looks like that 1st appearance will come this Tuesday.  We’ll keep you posted how Rivera is feeling after his 40-pitch batting practice session this morning.  Assuming Rivera is pain-free, he will suit up for live action on Tuesday.

In batting practice, Rivera was crisp and found the strike zone often.  Rivera knows he has a lot of work to do in order to refine the delivery and get ready for stressful game situations, but everything seems to be on track for making a full recovery for the 2009 MLB season.  “Everything just needs time.  The cutter is good, but you have to be better.  That will come with time – just pitching.  But everything feels great.”

Rivera is coming off of off-season surgery to repair his right shoulder.  We’ll keep you posted with any further updates to the Mariano Rivera spring pitching schedule.

New York Yankees starting pitching has been off as of late.  On Friday night against the Boston Red Sox, Chien-Ming Wang lasted only 1 2/3 innings in the Yankees 8-4 loss.  Wang started the game by retiring the first 3 Red Sox hitters on groundouts.  After that, everything went wrong for Wang as his pitches went flat and the Red Sox teed off after an error by 1st baseman Juan Miranda kept the inning alive on a double play that never happened.  The Red Sox ended up scoring 7 runs in the inning – 3 on home runs by Mike Lowell and David Ortiz.

Wang has never fared well in Spring Training and he doesn’t seem too concerned this season either:  “I think I still need to work in the bullpen now.  This is Spring Training.  I’m not really worried about it.”  In the 2008 spring, Wang was tattooed for 10 runs in 10+ innings of work, yet started the MLB regular season with an 8-2 record before a foot injury ended his season early.  Wang hopes for similar results again during the 2009 MLB season.

Johan Santana made his spring debut on Thursday against the Florida Marlins.  Santana is glad that it is finally over with.  Santana last 2 2/3 innings, giving up 3 runs and 4 hits in the 16-8 loss.  He struck out 2 Marlins batters and hit a batter.  He did have a perfect 1st inning – throwing only 10 pitches.

Santana had this to say about the outing:  “It’s just I had a little setback.  I worked out and did all the treatment I was supposed to do and got back on track.  I knew all along I was fine.  It was just a matter of time, getting the game situations and facing hitters, and tonight was the time.  The first time being in a real game situation, I felt pretty good.  I was able to get everything going right away and throw all my pitches.  It was a good sign.”

Good news Mets fans.  Although the outing wasn’t Santana-like, it was good to see Santana back on the mound throwing all of his pitches.  Hopefully the minor setback is a thing of the past and won’t turn into a nagging issue throughout the 2009 MLB season.  The lead pitching role falls squarely on Santana’s shoulders – if he doesn’t perform at least as well as he did in 2008, the Mets will not win the NL East.  So far so good – Santana is pain-free following the start and is still on track to be the Mets opening day starter against the Cincinnati Reds on April 6th.