Just Perfekt

Tiger on Friday, Farewell to Manny, and a not so complicated AL West

I’m just going to go ahead and get this AL West thing out of the way.

I and a few of the people I talk to about baseball on a daily basis had really high hopes for Oakland.

They seem amazing. I mean when Andy LaRoche is suppose to be a backup and he is hitting .444 for you. You’ve got sick depth.

One of my favorite players, when he was apart of the Rockies, Brian Fuentes is the closer. There are a lot of things to like about the team, but there they are at the bottom of the division with Seattle.

Texas looks unstoppable. A +22 Run Differential and a league leading .603 Slugging Percentage. That’s dirrty with two R’s. Similar to Christina Aguilera.

I don’t really have too much faith in Seattle or LA. I’m not really ready to give up hope on Oakland either.

Speaking of giving up, Manny Ramirez retired today after 19 years in the MLB.

I hate when the ESPN personalities say things like, “He retires after 19 years of service.” Like he’s in the military or something. Like he’s forced to be there. No, Manny retired from a game, and for good reason. Manny was facing a 100 game suspension for HGH.

Standard, I know.

I was sitting at the bar last night, watching ESPN talk about this.

They were showing clips of Manny hitting home runs, flopping around on the ground like a mad man, high-fiving fans after making catches, etc…

I saw this, and I thought to myself: I love Manny. I really don’t give a shit if he did HGH. He was an entertaining character in a sport without many entertaining characters.

Anyway, he’s going to Spain now. The deuces have been thrown up.

This seems like as good of a time as any to talk about Tiger Woods.

He’s amazing! He’s the best! He’s going to win the Masters!

Well, at least we all hope so.

How nuts would that be. Seriously… Tiger wins the Masters.

My friends and I are of course doing the degenerate thing and gambling on Sunday.

We are pulling names out of a hat and if that guy wins we get the pot. If none of our guys win, then I guess it’s guy with the highest score.

We haven’t really thought any of this through, just that we totally want to do it. Like… really bad.

I am sure to get someone just barely in the top 10. I’ll of course be rooting like hell for him. Cursing at the TV when he misses putts. Saying things like, “I’d fucking make that.” It’s going to be awesome.

The Masters

The odds makers have Lefty as the favorite to win in Augusta.

Just behind him is Tiger. Which doesn’t make sense, but it does make sense.

Would anyone be surprised if Tiger won?

No, no you wouldn’t.

No matter how bad Tiger plays over the course of a few months or years, he’s still going to be the favorite or in the top 3 favorites to win every tournament.

It’s just the way it has to be. He’s too talented. We’ve seen him shoot lights out on Saturday and Sunday plenty of times.

Jason Sobel of ESPN has Paul Casey as the winner of the Masters.

Gene Wojciechowski, in a very strange column, predicts Lee Westwood to win it all.

In my Waking Up, National Championship, The Masters, and The AL East column, I picked Lefty.

Nothing has changed. In the pre-tournament interviews he sounded stoked to play.

And who can forget Phil’s 2nd shot on the 13th in 2010.

I’m so excited.

I’m predicting a Tiger vs Lefty showdown on Sunday. I think a few others will be in the hunt. Rory, Bubba, Paul, Westwood, but it’s time for the rivalry to get going again.

Let’s go fellas! Let me get one thing right this year.

Save Japan or Save the NFL?

It’s day 26 of the NFL’s Lockout.

Player - Owner trust is at an all time low.

Roger Goodell thinks testing for HGH is a must in the NFL’s next CBA.

What?

Dude, we might only have half a season. Dude, we might not have a season.

Damn, we might not have a football season.

What if at one point there is only baseball.

Oh my god. What is happening?

Screw Japan. Save Football.

Look at this face.

Ok. Kind of sad. You want to save it, but what about these faces?

What you have to remember is that the lockout doesn’t just affect the rich players or the rich owners. No, it also affects these poor young girls, whom, without a doubt, will be made into sex slaves if there is not football season.

Maybe not sex slaves, but definitely waitresses.

It’s not right!

Ask yourself, the next time you donate money to the Red Cross for the relief effort in Japan, Wouldn’t I rather just give this to a cheerleader? Well… Wouldn’t you?

Wouldn’t you?

Yep.

Skylar Diggins, Lil Wayne, Chris Brown, Butler vs UConn, and the AL Central

Skylar Diggins is really hot. Don’t believe me?

Still having trouble with the whole belief thing?

You believe me now.

The Notre Dame super-duper star crushed the hopes and dreams of the overly cocky, kind of bitchy Geno Huskies. And she did it after Lil Wayne tweeted, “Good lukk to my wife Skylar Diggins and the Fighting Irish.” To which she responded, “@LilTunechi Haha thanks Wayne! Mmmuah to my husband”

This has apparently been an ongoing affair. Even Chris Brown got into the mix with this tweet, “Skylar Diggins … She’s a cutie @skydigg4 congrats beautiful.” to which she responded, “Awww thanks for the love Chris!”

Here are some highlights from last nights UConn vs Butler game that you might not of noticed.

And here is Jim Nantz being well… Jim Nantz.

A little Butler tournament highlight video.

Matt Howard is so clutch.

Anyway, on to baseball!

AL CENTRAL - The Dullest Division in all the Land

Why does it seem like every team in this division has a gaping hole?

Chicago White Sox

This team has my favorite manager of all time. I even follow him on twitter. It’s fantastic. He even types in broken English. I love it. Carlos Quentin doing the “look how good I am at baseball” thing where he just gets big hits all day. He won AL Player of the Week hitting 6-11, three doubles, one homer, and 7 RBI. Oh, and he bats 6th. The revamped offense looks really good. They are 2nd in runs scored right now, but I expect them to be 1st in that category before season’s end. It really seems like it’s their year as far as the division is concerned.

Minnesota Twins

Mauer and Morneau are insanely good at baseball, and the Twins were 2nd in the Majors last season in On Base Percentage with .341 and 3rd in Batting Average with .273. The problem lies with their lack of pitching. Which does not look like it’s going to improve any time soon.

KC Royals

The Royals have a really bad rotation, everyone knows that. However, their bullpen is not that bad. They have one of the best relief pitchers in baseball, Joakim Soria. Can the bullpen come up big enough to make the Royals a viable team? It’s the Royals guys, of course it can’t. Even if it did, you still have to score. They can’t produce runs, though they had the 2nd best team batting average last season, they ranked just 20th in runs produced. Who does that? Oh yeah… Though they are off to a seemingly nice start, I believe the pitching rotation is still a huge hole and will catch up with them.

Detroit Tigers & Cleveland Indians

Detroit doesn’t have a great pitching which they use to be able to make up for with stellar defense, but that just hasn’t been the case as of late. They can still produce runs, but aren’t a big enough threat to matter. Cleveland signed Orlando Cabrera… and… that’s about it. What can I really say about these guys? I’m just glad to be done with this division.

AL CENTRAL WINNER: Chicago White Sox

Waking up, National Championship, The Masters, and the AL East

Oh and just incase you didn’t think I woke up every morning swaggin.

I’m a boss. The worlds best infact. My tooth brush cup holder tells me so.

Also, my tooth brush vibrates.

I don’t really know why I have my two favorite cups to consume beverages out of as my tooth brush holders, but I’m sure it has something to do with my laziness.

Today is a big day.

National Championship!

Butler vs UConn!

Woooo!

I hope it’s a good game. I’ve heard good arguments for reasons each side will win. There is the UConn is too tired argument. Big East champions haven’t had any time off in a good while. Another argument is a really simple one. It involves UConn having Kemba and Butler not having Kemba. While valid, it’s still not very convincing.

I think Butler’s defense is just tenacious, and I feel that will be the difference in the game.

The Masters starts Thursday. I kind of like Lefty to repeat. He’s playing really well lately. The win at Shell Houston and the 2nd at Farmers Insurance. That’s back to back. Pretty sick. Though, I really want to see Tiger win, but who doesn’t?

Now, on to the ultimate MLB breakdown. I talked for a few hours with my friend David Scott. He’s my go to guy for baseball, very funny, intelligent, has a lot of relevant opinions, and is a huge Yankees fan. (Don’t hold that last part against him.)

Starting with the AL East we’ll go division by division and break it down. I already wrote out every division, but I know people don’t like reading large walls of text. So, I decided to just post them each one at a time at the end of every column I write, which should be one a day for now. So, just like Bud Light, here we go.

AL EAST - The Favorites

New York Yankees

This team gets more hitting than a Trailer Park wife. Their starting pitching is ‘meh’ at best, but their defense ranked #1 last year. They have a sure handed infield and a lightning fast outfield. They might also have the best bullpen in the AL, maybe MLB. The ability to have your guy pitch 6 innings, then throw Jaba out there for the 7th, Soriano in the 8th, finally closing the show with Mariano “You Lose” Rivera in the 9th is pretty decent. Marky Mark infamous for his slow starts has already hit a homerun in each of the first three games. I think this is going to be a huge season for him. The other major factor that no one ever seems to take into account that the Yankees and Red Sox do better than anyone else is draw out pitch counts. When you’re starter is on pitch 65 or 70 at the end of the third inning, innings 4-6 all of a sudden become even more difficult to get out of. This makes up for their lack of pitching, improves their power hitting ability, and allows them to generate more runs than you can imagine in a short period of time.

Boston Red Sox

Boston is so easy to talk about, but they somehow just don’t play up to the standard we place on them. Not lately anyway. They went out and played Yankee management. Threw money at people. Got the players. They should be World Champs. They are expected to be World Champs. Their fifth pitcher (Daisuke) is at least a 3rd pitcher on almost every other team in the MLB. They don’t have a whole lot of power hitting, but they have double machines like Kevin Youkilis whose season was cut short last year, because of a thumb injury. I’m not entirely convinced, however, that Adrian Gonzalez is going to come in and have a great season. The move from the NL to the AL and vice versa, always seem to affect players in different ways. I don’t like the bullpen too much. They are just kind of sketchy.

Baltimore Orioles

The Orioles are 4-0. They are a lot better than you think they are, but they are going to be one of those teams that beats the average to bad teams, but just can’t hang with the likes of the Yankees and Red Sox. They are kind of like the New York Knicks in that way. They’ll win one against a good team every once in a while, people will talk about it, but that will be it. Also, their ace Guthrie was just hospitalized with a high fever. Reports say he will miss Wednesdays game against the Tigers, and Baltimore will most likely lose all momentum just like that.

Toronto Blue Jays & Tampa Bay Rays

They are going to have a rough go of it this year, with the division being just so good. I kind of feel bad for them having to play in the AL East.

AL EAST WINNER: New York Yankees

He’s not happy about it. It’s okay kid, you’ll still win the wild card.

Kentucky, Butler, Calipari and more.

I should be dead right now. Gun to my head I picked Kentucky vs VCU in the finals. Good job me.

That Kentucky vs Connecticut game was pretty awful. Kentucky just didn’t make shots, they stopped feeding Harrelson… It was just bad.

The city of Memphis still can’t let go of the Calipari hate. He put the Tigers on a National stage again. He made the team what it is. Without Calipari we are just another C-USA team. You hate Cal for all the right reasons, but there are so many reasons you should love him. Reasons you just ignore.

I’m proud of Butler. Mack is a big stage scorer, and Howard is always in the right place at the right time. He gives the utmost effort on every possession. Offense and defense. He’s a gamer.

I like Butler > UConn. UConn is more athletic, but so was VCU. It just doesn’t seem to matter. Butler makes up for their lack in athleticism by just being more physical than you. My hats off to the two coaches, although UConn will probably end up getting caught for cheating, they have their teams over-achieving. It’s fun to watch.

I would personally like to thank Calipari for getting Memphis ball to where it’s at. You all should too.

Strip clubs are awesome.

Don’t you guys think Joe Montana’s mustache back in the day was one of the greatest sports mustaches of all time?

I think so.