Weekend College Round Up

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Tough weekend for top teams as #1 Syracuse was handed their first loss by unranked Notre Dame.  This loss means that only #10 Murray State is undefeated in the top 25.  #3 Baylor was handed their second loss in as many games in a one point battle against #5 Missouri (their other loss was last Monday against #7 Kansas), so chances are they will still be top ten or at the very least top thirteen. 

Florida State is quickly becoming my favorite team with victories over my two least favorite teams (Buzzer beater 3 pointer over #4 Duke this weekend, and over #3 North Carolina last weekend)

#7 Kansas barely snuck by unranked texas with a 3 point win over the Long Horns.  Unfortunately for any Husky fans (like myself) #11 UConn was handed their fifth loss by a sub-par and sub-.500 Tennessee team

Getting a little off topic, I hope everyone enjoyed their break and is ready to see Boston Sports Blog do big things and I hope you all keep up with us, as we will try to bring you the best of the sports world every day.

Limp Wrist: Crawford gets Surgery

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Yesterday, Ben Cherington announced that Carl Crawford had surgery on his injured left wrist. This comes as a huge blow to the Red Sox. All hopes were that Crawford would turn around his horrible performance last year and come into this year as a new man. Clearly not the case, and he is most likely not going to be ready at the start of the season. The Sox need to address the issue in outfield immediately. Luckily, they were able to avoid arbitration with Jacoby and sign him to a one year contract, which was a step in the right direction. Not much else to say about Crawford though, besides the fact he has been a total dissapointment since his signing, lets hope he doesn’t turn out to be J.D. Drew in disguise during these next six years we have with him.

“Carl! So nice to see you!”- Wish i could say the same Billy, I really do.

 

Man Vs. Boy: Sox Counter Yankees Monster Moves by signing Padilla

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Last Friday, the New York Yankees awoke from their slumber during this offseason and had a MONSTER day. Not only did the Yankees sign Hiroki Kuroda, one of the most coveted free agent pitchers this year, they completed a huge trade by dealing their top prospect Jesus Montero for pitching phenom Michael Pineda. The Yankees completely turned around the horrible situation they had in their starting rotation with these two moves.

The Kuroda signing is big for a couple of reasons. Kuroda was heavily pursued by the Sox and he would have solidified their rotation, but the Yankees were able to complete a deal with him first. Also, Kuroda was as consistent as you could get as a starting pitcher in the last few years. Although his record didn’t reflect his good pitching due to shit run support, he had 3.45 ERA the past four years, including a career best 3.07 ERA last year.

The big move was for Pineda. Pineda is one of the best young pitchers in the MLB. He is a 22 year old, 6′ 7″ giant who just throws straight fire. He had the fourth highest average MPH on his fastball in the entire league AT AGE 22. His fastball combinded with his filthy slider led to a 9.1 K/9.

As for the Red Sox, they are at it again. They fired me up even more than Aaron Cook, by signing perhaps the ugliest pitcher in the MLB. Although they signed another crap pitcher, in Vincente Padilla, he could very well end up as another innings eater either out of the pen or occasionally in the rotation. My problem with Padilla is that the guy is known to be a virus in all clubhouses and no teammates ever end up liking him. The last thing that the fragile Red Sox clubhouse needs is another guy with shit attitude.

It’s not exactly time for the Sox to give up on the season though, as Kuroda and Pineda haven’t proved anything in Yankee Stadium yet. Kuroda is 36 years old and has pitched on crappy teams, so his ERA could potentially balloon when the pressures on in New York. Although Pineda has displayed brilliance, there are questions to his consistency (he was 8-6 with 3.03 ERA in 1st half of 2011, 1-4 with 5.12 ERA in 2nd half). Also, he has an “inverted W” pitching style, (similar style to Adam Wainwright, Mark Prior, Kerry Wood, Stephen Strasburg, Joba the Hut), which puts an unhealthy amount of stress on your elbow. Basically, what that means is that he’s eventually going to need Tommy John Surgery. Also, it helps that they had to give up their top prospect catcher Jesus Montero (compared to Miguel Cabrera and Manny Ramirez offensively, but unproven defensively).

College Recap

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For those of you too focused on the NFL playoffs this weekend, you missed a pretty good weekend in college basketball.  #5 Ohio State defeated #8 Indiana in a battle of the Big Ten powerhouses.  #6 Duke came back against unranked Clemson to upset them late in the second half.  More importantly, #3 UNC got smoked by 33 points against unranked Florida State (FSU). I only put that because we all know what FSU stands for and thats exactly what they did.  #16 UConn handed Notre Dame their first home loss in 29 games, and #1 Syracuse and #2 Kentucky both held on to keep their top rankings in tact.

#1 Syracuse looks to stay perfect against unranked Pittsburgh tonight in a battle of the Big East.  Another good game to watch for those of you who don’t wanna watch the Bruins win and the Celtics lose, is #4 Baylor vs. #10 Kansas, where Baylor looks to stay undefeated in a conference battle.

Weekend Recap

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With the Pat’s bringing an abrupt end to Tebowmania, it’s hard to say we had a tough weekend in Boston sports, despite watching the Celts and Bruins fall to their respective opponents. Nobody’s worrying about the Bruins. They’ve established their dominance and continue to hold sole possession of first place in the Northeast Division, one point ahead of a red hot Ottawa team. The Celtics, on the other hand, are a bit more concerning. It’s hard to watch, because at times they show signs of brilliance. It’s there, somewhere, but not nearly as much as it needs to be. Many say that’s the aging factor coming through. Regardless, their defense hasn’t even been that bad. There’s just no way a team can win games in the NBA when you’re averaging under 90 points a game. On the bright side, the final stop on the road to the Super Bowl will go through Foxboro this Sunday as the Pats are set to face the Baltimore Ravens. The Pats will roll into Sunday’s game with plenty of momentum from this weekend’s victory against the Broncos. It’s been better but then again it’s also been worse for us in Boston. Hard to complain when your football team continues to build onto its second decade of dominance.

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Raiders Fire Hue Jackson After Just One Season

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With new management coming in, the Raiders have decided to part ways with Head Coach Hue Jackson after just one season.

To me this makes absolutely zero sense. Jackson had looked to have the franchise headed in the right direction until a couple of key injuries really hurt their playoff chances. After showing he was one of the top running backs in the NFL through the first half of the season Darren McFadden went down with an injury that plagued him for the remainder of the season, as well as starting quarterback Jason Campbell going down with a broken collarbone. Jackson was forced to take what he was given.

How many first round busts can a team draft before they realize it isn’t the coaches’ fault? For a team that seems to always pick in the top 10 they don’t exactly have the best recent draft history. Since 2005 here are their top draft picks in order: Fabian Washington (2005) Michael Huff (2006) Jamarcus Russell (2007) Darren McFadden (2008) Darrius Heyward-Bey (2009) Rolando McClain (2010). So throughout their past six draft picks they end up with one franchise player, a few average players, the biggest bust in NFL history (Russell) and a guy that believes its okay to run others over with his cars (McClain).

To add to their terrible draft picks, they seem to always make absolutely terrible trades. Randy Moss for a 4th rounds picks? Giving a team two first round picks for a 32-year-old Carson Palmer? I guess the only defense they have for making the Palmer trade could be… Well we don’t really draft that great anyways right?

Every time the Raiders make a coaching change, (which I swear happens like every year or so) I think to myself; how can they not see that the coach isn’t the issue? The real issue is the front office and their absolutely unintelligent moves. Hopefully for the sake of those insane Raiders fans new management will also mean new results.

 

Sox sign Cook, Larkin Gets Hall Pass

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Late last night, the Red Sox inked a minor league deal with Aaron Cook. Most readers are probably saying, “Who the F**k?”, which I can definately understand. Aaron Cook has been a member of the Colorado Rockies rotation for the last 9 years. Yeah, Cook played pretty solid in 2008 (3.98 ERA, 16-9 record), but the guy has battled injuries ever since and it seems as if his time is up.

Signings like this are what gets me most mad about the Red Sox. It seems every year we decide to buy 3 to 4 shit-bum, washed up pitchers to minor league deals and hope that one will pan out and help the major league roster (Rich Hill, Erik Bedard, Kevin Millwood, Boof Bonser, etc.). I don’t understand why we can’t just commit to our farm system with the end of the rotation pitchers, instead of signing these has-been veterans as a temporary fix.

In other MLB news, 1995 NL MVP Barry Larkin was elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame today. First off, I’d like to state that Barry Larkin was a clear cut choice for every one of my Backyard Baseball 2001 squads. Guy could play second, shortstop, or third in the game and was fast, a good fielder, and was a solid batter. Even though Derek Jeter might have been a better choice, I could never bring myself to putting him on my virtual squad back in the day. The only other thing worth talking about in regards to the Hall election is that it again looks like the voters are very against the steroids era. Larkin was the only one elected and Mark McGwire and former  Viagra spokesman Rafael

Palmerio each received less than 20% of the vote (you need 75% in order to be elected). Should be very interesting to see how the voters treat Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds next year in their first year of eligibility for the Hall of Fame.

 

Canucks are a JOKE

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I know the Canucks won, but honestly, you have to feel bad for them. Vancouver is just so pathetic. Looking back to last year, I don’t think there was one team in the NHL that wanted the Canucks to win the Stanley Cup. The only city that did, Vancouver, showed how well they could hold it together after losing as they tore their own city to shreds.

You would think after that the team would want to show they’ve grown as they come back into Boston to face the team that stole the Cup from them, but nope. First, Luongo “handed over” the game to Schneider for sentimental reasons. Yeah right, because when it comes to intense and bitter rivalries, hockey players are always sentimental. I’m calling the bluff, along with everyone else. Robby was scared and wimped out of playing in Boston. Moving along to the game, how did the fact that Thornton got jumped by six Canucks not get discussed more? Granted he egged one of them on, all six proceeded to clobber him. Then after jumping to his defense, we end up on the bad end of a 5 on 3 power play. Ridiculous, but expected out of a team like Vancouver. Then to top it off, Thornton called out Weise after the two exchanged words in the box, and Weise completely backed down like a coward, without hesitation. Speaking to a Canadian reporter he stated, “But at the end of the day, that’s not really the type of guy I want to fight.” That’s the only thing I’ll give Weise credit for, knowing Thornton would have pounded his face in, deservingly so. But to sum it all up, the Canucks just proved how much of a joke they are and how clearly the better, more deserving team won the game that mattered in June, not in January.

Weekend Recap

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Not the kind of weekend we’d hope for in Boston, but exciting nonetheless. And by exciting, I mean just the Bruins. Let’s just say the Celtics game was slightly less than exhilarating Friday night. It’s kind of hard to win when you only score 25 points in the first half. You just can’t put up those kinds of numbers expect to win, even when it’s the Pacers, regardless of their decent start to the season. This time we can’t even put the blame on the defense. The Pacers put up 87 points and still managed to win by 15 points. Pretty pathetic on the Celts part. Hopefully they can get back on their feet against a struggling Dallas team before they head into a pretty tough run to close out January. As far as the Bruins are concerned, what a game. I mean if you’re looking for intensity, Saturday’s Stanly Cup rematch against the Canucks was just about as intense as it gets. It felt like playoff hockey came 5 months early. Again, I’m not concerned about the loss at all. It sucks we couldn’t beat them, but in the end the game was not all that important in the long run. We’re the ones with the Cup. Not to mention we played pretty much the whole game without Lucic and ended up losing Marchand down the stretch, both to game misconducts. What concerns me is the pending suspensions both, especially Marchand, may be facing. I have a feeling Lucic’s won’t be terrible, if anything, but Marchand’s may be a while. Canuck’s head coach Alain Vigneault said, “Marchand — this is just my feeling on this — some day he’s going to get it.” At the time it turned the garden electric, but looking back it was a foolish move and arguably cost the B’s the game. The Canucks scored twice in the 5 minute major that followed Marchand’s hit. Either way, what do you guys think? With the intensity of the game was the hit just or did Marchand let emotions get the best of him?