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Troy Tulowitzki isn’t one for (a) modern hairstyles; or (b) cliches about how the team tied its hardest but just fell short. He’s quite out front, in fact, in saying that he’s not happy with some of his teammates: “There are definitely some guys in this room that are at points in their career where…

Adam Wainwright was on ESPN Radio in St. Louis yesterday, and he went off on Jack Clark for saying that the Cardinals were quitters: Those were stupid comments. Hopefully he knows that anyways. You got a guy who likes to hear himself talk, that’s all it is. You notice in every big situation, whether it’s…

Jon Heyman is reporting that Mets manager Jerry Manuel and general manager Omar Minaya “will not return in their current roles next season.” I guess this means that this is official and that they’ve been told and stuff, but it’s not clear from Heyman’s tweet (which I couldn’t read in the first place, because he…

Tiffany and I talk about just how badly the Padres are screwed right now.

I’m not sure if this reader is right about me being wrong, but it sounds good enough to post. Maybe some of you can parse this better than me.

Cliff Lee won’t be pitching on short rest this postseason. He also, if regular season form holds up, won’t be issuing many walks. From the Elias Stats bureau, via Buster Olney, is this fairly astounding factoid: Lee walked only 18 batters in 212 innings this year. That translates to a walk rate of 0.76 per…

My biggest objection to a challenge system has long been based on the fact that that’s what the NFL uses in its repay system, and the NFL is wrong about everything, so there.  But there are baseball arguments against it as well, as reader Shimoda pointed out this morning: The first time LaRussa or some…

Rays manager Joe Maddon said there’s a chance David Price will start Saturday against the Royals. I would presume that such a start would be more akin to a regular between-starts throwing session for Price, what with him almost certainly being the Game 1 starter in the ALDS on Wednesday.  Give him, what, 45-50 pitches? …

To follow up on yesterday’s video from the Tribe game, here’s video of a guy grabbing a foul ball while holding a baby at yesterday’s Snakes-Giants game. He really ought to have his child taken away from him, though. Not because of the danger posed while going after a baseball near the rail of a…

Here’s FOX’s Ken Rosenthal, getting it absolutely right on replay: Baseball, due to its refusal to expand instant replay, is headed for more controversy this postseason. And the sport’s powers-that-be, led by commissioner Bud Selig, have no one but themselves to blame. This is the 21st century. The technology is available to correct calls, and…

I’m normally against innovations from the land of football infecting the wonderfulness that is baseball, but this could be kind of neat.

Short version: for the Padres, it will take something just short of a miracle to make the playoffs.

Ted Berg is a friend of HardballTalk. He reads it and links it from time to time over at his Mets (and other New York sports)-focused blog, Tedquarters. He is a witty chap on Twitter, and really, if you can make me laugh on Twitter a couple of times a day you’re going to be…

I have the Giants-Dbacks game on and, just a minute ago, Buster Posey hit a two-run homer to extend the Giants’ lead to 4-1 in the bottom of the sixth. A Giants victory today will force the Padres to sweep them this weekend if they want to win the west. In San Francisco. Seems like…

Jon Fay of the Cincinnati Enquirer reports that Jim Edmonds is “hopeful” that he’ll be able to play in the playoffs. This seems like a big stretch to me.  While what was thought to have been a torn Achilles tendon turned out to not be all that bad, Edmonds is clearly limited and clearly gimpy.…

Mat Latos’ comments yesterday about how awful and unfair it was that the Giants go out and acquire players in the middle of the season didn’t go over very well around these parts.  They also didn’t go over very well with his own teammates, it seems. Dan Hayes, who covers the Padres for the North…

I love America and everything, and free speech is a fabulous concept, but the problem with it is that, because of its pesky guarantees, the police can’t come and drag people who write stuff like this into a dank cell and let them spend their final years someplace where they can’t bother anyone: In their…

Mark Buehrle told Mark Gonzalez of the Chicago Tribune that he could retire after the 2011 season: “As I sit here now, I’d love to just go home and be with the family and kids and go from there. But when next year gets here, at this time, it could be a tough decision, knowing…

Marc Topkin of the St. Petersburg Times reports that Rafael Soriano has hired Scott Boras as his agent. It was probably a forgone conclusion that Soriano was going to leave via free agency anyway, but this likely seals it, seeing as though guys don’t usually hire Boras to negotiate their creative, incentive-laden, keep-me-with-my-current-team deals. The…

Tiffany and I talk about Brooks Conrad, the NL Cy Young and the AL Rookie of the Year.

Hal McCoy of the Dayton Daily News is reporting that the Reds and Dusty Baker are really close to signing a three-year extension to keep Baker on as manager. All that’s left, McCoy says, is” dotting I’s and crossing T’s.”  Jeez, I know the Reds do things on a budget, but you’d think they’d at…