Heading into the final two months of the season, each game seems to start counting that little bit more. As per normal, the week starts off slowly for British fans hoping to catch some live baseball during the evening, but it picks up later on. As always, all times are listed in BST.
It’s a big weekend with Hall of Fame inductions, Bonds’ home run chase and the trading deadline just days away. The week leading up to it was pretty eventful as well. Continue reading
A bit of British TV news for you. Virgin Media have announced today that subscribers of the XL package will now get Setanta Sports for free. (The XL package costs £20.10 per month and includes 125+ basic channels) Unfortunately, according to the press release, this only includes Setanta Sports 1 and 2, Setanta Golf, Racing UK, Celtic TV, and Rangers TV. NASN is not part of the deal.
Setanta are heavily pushing their newly-acquired Premiership matches (understandably so), and there was some hope that the rising profile of the package would have a positive knock-on effect for NASN (and therefore bring more viewers into contact with MLB). Sadly, it looks like the opposite is going to happen, with Setanta taking the main channels and selling them in the most attractive way (although why Celtic and Rangers are part of it is beyond me) while leaving the rest behind. Still, if it means ESPN will push NASN away from Setanta and on to the same package as the ESPN Classics channel, it might work out for the best.
It seems as though after several weeks of eerie silence, the trade talk is finally starting to increase. The main name on the chopping block right now is Mark Teixeira and while teams such as the Red Sox, Dodgers, Angels, Yankees and Giants have all been linked with the Texas first baseman, the Braves appear to be in the driving seat.
All times listed in BST.
Monday – No early games. Johan Santana starts for the Twins against the Blue Jays (00.07), Aaron Harang and the Reds take on the Brewers (00.10), Roger Clemens looks for his third victory on the season against the Royals (01.10), while John Smoltz faces Matt Cain and the Giants at AT&T Park (03.15). Continue reading
European baseball fans will have “one of our own” to cheer on this evening. Rick Vanden Hurk takes the mound for the Marlins against the Reds in just under an hours time (18.05 BST). The twenty-two year old Dutch pitcher was called up from Triple A last week and had a successful start against the Cardinals. He pitched five solid innings, conceded no runs, and was credited with his third Major League win. He notched six strikeouts, four with his low-nineties fastball and two with his excellent curve which is quickly becoming his out pitch. It has even gained a nickname: the Holland Hammer!
I’m looking forward to watching the “Incredible Hurk” on MLB.TV this evening and there are several other exciting match-ups to follow as well (Shields against Pettitte, Matt Garza making a start against Joe Saunders and the Angels, Jake Peavy going for win number ten against the Phillies etc). Later on, Five will be broadcasting the Cardinals against the Braves (no biased comments from Johnny though, I’m sure!) with coverage starting from 00.40. What a great way to round off the weekend!
The Phillies set a landmark losing record, the Cards lose Carpenter, and the umpires lose their minds. All in all, it’s been a strange week.
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Teams that are playing catch-up often find themselves taking one step forward and then one step back. You pick up a win, but so do your rivals and you’ve gained no ground. Your opponents drop a game, but you fail to capitalise by doing the same.
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Just a quick post about the recent changes to the design and layout of this blog.
I always intended on putting together my own theme when I moved from the free WordPress site to this domain in April (the ability to customise the site in whatever way I wished was one of the reasons I moved). Finally, it is in place. Hopefully there won’t be any little glitches, but please let me know if so.
Now that the main design is up, I can move on to the second development stage. I’m working on several features to add to this site to compliment the bread-and-butter part of it: the frequent blog posts. Although my enthusiasm (and impatience) is tempting me to plough on with these quickly, the plan is to hold fire and spend time introducing them during those dark November/December months when the baseball withdrawal symptoms are in full swing.
I hope you like the new design. Thanks for your continued support.
I nearly choked on my Rice Krispies this morning when I logged on to MLB.com while eating my breakfast and saw the headline story: Jason Kendall’s move from the A’s to the Cubs. Admittedly, my reaction was largely due to my Oakland allegiance; this wasn’t exactly a blockbuster trade of seismic proportions. Still, it’s a trade that is indicative of a few wider trends that we will see unfolding in MLB over the next couple of weeks. Continue reading