Friday, April 06, 2007

Rays tie Yankees in NL East race

It's not quite fair that I'm writing about baseball again after completely ignoring the Tampa Bay Lightning, especially since the Lightning are making a nice push for the Southern Division crown, nipping at the heels of the Atlanta Thrashers.

Unfortunately, I fear the Lightning aren't going far in the playoffs. Holmquist and Denis just haven't played well enough to produce high playoff expectations. I don't count the Lightning out, since a goaltender can hit a hot streak, but playoff wins usually go to teams with good goaltending.

It helps even things out that I'm leading off with hockey in a baseball post, I hope.

I can't stand the Yankees!
Just to get that out of the way.

The Rays beat the Yankees amid snow flurries in New York. The Rays' pitching was shaky, but New York's pitching wasn't much better plus the Bronx Bombers made oodles of mistakes in the field, including a couple of pitches that got away toward the backstop, allowing TB runners to score runs.
Nearly every loss by the Yankees is satisfying, and it's that much better when the loss comes to the hometown team, which isn't very good.

I don't want to knock the Rays too much, though. The pitching almost certainly isn't good enough as it stands to support a .500 season, but the team around the mound is pretty decent.
Elijah Dukes and Delmon Young might be head cases, but they sure are talented athletes. Dukes scorched a flat liner tonight that probably didn't get 25 feet over the field of play at its apex before leaving the park for a home run. It may have been lower than that. It was one of the flattest homers I've ever seen.
Go Rays. Boo Yankees.

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