Super Tuesday

A lot of stuff from the weekend to get to. As you can tell, weekend's are my busiest time, so blog updates may not be regular on weekends. With that said, Buster Olney takes Tuesday's off on his ESPN Blog, so let's get to some links!

We will start in Boston, where Manny Ramirez came to the rescue again in the 9th inning after a lackluster start by Jon Lester. Every start Lester makes reminds me of milk. It has an expiration date, in Lester's case the 5th inning. Sometimes it goes bad early, sometimes it goes a little past, but most of the time the expiration date is right on.

Curt Schilling doctor has been on the radio saying that Schilling is angry with the Red Sox and he wants to pitch for the Yankees next year. Schilling laughed off this talk on the radio this morning, but the one thing here is, would the

On the other side of the field, the Indians had flashbacks to last October, when they had the Sox on the ropes and let them off the hook. Joe Borowski is done. Let's just put this in print. Finished. His velocity topped out at 82-83 last night, and if you don't have good off-speed stuff, which Borowski doesn't, he is going to get killed. I don't understand why the Rafael brothers (Betancourt and Perez) weren't given a shot at closing in the spring.

In Yankee-land, Alex Rodriguez, Robby Cano, and the Yankee bats awoke with 8 runs against the Rays, and because of a bullpen meltdown they needed every run. Watched a lot of this game, Ian Kennedy looked great and should have gotten the win. I hope Phil Hughes took something away from this game, and the lesson should be "trust your stuff, trust your defense, and throw strikes!" John Flaherty made a great point of that during the broadcast, and he is dead on. Jon Lester could benefit from that lesson as well.

In Texas the Angels and Ervin Santana beat the hapless Rangers, and Francisco Rodriguez got a save in his return to action, albeit with a little help from Chone Figgins.

Zack Greinke and the Kansas City Royals continue to kick ass and take names, the latest victim being the Mariners last night. The Royals 1-2-3 punch at the beginning of their rotation (Gil Meche, Brian Bannister, and Zack Grienke) are as good as anyone else's in the league right now. Trey Hillman is already the front runner for manager of the year.

The Oakland A's rebuilding plans are going well, as they have won 8 out of 10 games.

Takashi Saito blew a save last night at Chavez Ravine, and blew it big time. This wasted a rare productive night from Andruw Jones and added a little more pressure on Joe Torre, as the Dodgers are currently floundering in the West. Good things the NBA Playoffs start soon and the Dodgers will be on the back burner.

Randy Johnson had a typical return to action last night, struggling with his control through 5 innings, but not allowing any earned runs, but the Giants got to the bullpen and won. I think he will be fine, but it's going to be tough to get 16 wins with a bullpen like that. Arizona has bullpen issues, no doubt about it. If you allow any runs to the Giants, you have issues, but I digress.

In the NBA Isiah's final home game as Knicks Head Coach was last night, and they lost to a Celtics second squad. It's good that this era is coming to a close, and Scott Layden should be the happiest of all, because Thomas actually makes Layden look like a competent GM by comparison.

The Golden State Warriors are not going to make the playoffs with 48 wins, and Baron Davis sat for the entire second half due to a coaches decision. I have no idea what Don Nelson was thinking here, but the Warriors were down at the half and came back to take the lead in the 4th before running out of gas. I wonder if this is the end of the Baron Davis era in Golden St, as he is a free agent at the end of the season, as is Montae Ellis. Who gets the max contract, the young up and comer or the older injury prone veteran? Going to be a crazy off season by the Bay for Chris Mullin.

In contrast the Atlanta Hawks clinched the sacrificial Celtics lamb, err, the 8th spot in the East last night with 37 wins. I would post a link, but does anyone really care about the Atlanta Hawks?

11 days until the NFL Draft, do you know what you're team is doing? If you do let me know, because no one seems to have a clue about this.

Oh and Carmelo Anthony continues to make good decisions on and off the court. If you are keeping score at home he now has the no snitching video, the bitch slap in MSG, and yesterday's early morning driving course under his belt.

One more interesting tidbit (I would normally talk about the NHL Playoffs but no Islanders=No Interest on my end), the former owner of the Seattle SuperSonics, Howard Schultz, is now, at the 11th hour, suing Clay Bennett to get his team back and keep the Sonics in Seattle. David Stern stands behind Bennett, as they are Best Friends Forever, but if this thing continues to get uglier, how much longer will Stern be able to hang on to the commissioner job in the public opinion? This latest drama puts Stern in the same boat as Bud Selig and Gary Bettman in my boat,,,,