Game #160

If you were like me you were starting to wear out the "previous" button on your remote last night between the Rays/Yankees game and the Orioles/Red Sox.

They says defense wins championships when they talk about basketball and football. At least the coaches do. But for the most part, even the coaches aren't convinced of that in baseball. But Joe Maddon isn't most coaches.

The defense-to-win correlation is grossly underrated in MLB. Pitching is another and the Red Sox and Yankees undervalue both. In the games I watched last night the two plays that stick out in my mind were both defensive hinges to their respective games. Desmond Jennings made an awesome catch on a Jeter would-be gapper. On the other channel the game changed on a two-out Jacoby drop at the fence that allowed three runs to score on the inside-the-park homerun.

Forget about pitching and defense. This year's Sox team just wants to outscore you. Digest this stat - in the month of September the Red Sox are 2-19 when they don't score at least 12 runs (they have scored 12 runs four times this month and won all four). Lets hope the O's give themselves a good chance tonight by holding Boston under 12. On second thought, who cares what Boston does? All we have to do now is win.

#yep

There have been a few sports-related tweets recently that I wanted to pass on. Some are witty, some are sarcastic, most are concisely accurate of my opinion as well. I think I'll just keep this as a running post and add to it.

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Jimmer Fredette: "Practice today with the byu guys to get them ready to go overseas. #greecetrip"

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Did you see the Pirates lose to the Braves in 19 innings on this blown call a week or two ago?

In response, @nvasconcelos threw this tweet out there: "I'm just glad the human element of umpiring is preserved. That's the important thing."

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Another good one by Dale Murphy recently: "So great to see the #redsox on #espn again...I think it's been atleast...what? One day since they were on last?"

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I almost did a post about Tiger and Steve but I'm fasting from Tiger for a while so I'll just retweet this little gem from @GenoEspn: "Tiger/Stevie catfight was a sight to behold. Now it's time for everyone to move on--out of respect for Ad Scott." Ain't it the truth.