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After yesterday’s Phillies-Reds game, Reds’ shortstop Orlando Cabrera really stepped in it. His comments regarding Roy Halladay’s no-no: “He and the umpire pitched a no-hitter. He gave him every pitch. Basically, we had no chance.” Such sour grapes are unbecoming even if the strikezone was wonky, but they’re especially bad when they’re demonstrably false. Click…

I could have posted hundreds of people going “Whoa . . .dude . . .” Fifty of them would have been me at around 7:30 last night. But I decided to find some more interesting reactions.

Our last division series preview is the hardest one: predicting doom for the good, righteous and honorable Atlanta Braves.

That according to Joe Frisaro of MLB.com, who says that the Feesh are in the process of shoring up their slate of contenders. Among the possibilities: Bobby Valentine, Jim Fregosi, Bo Porter, Tony Pena, Ted Simmons, Tim Wallach and, of course, current manager Edwin Rodriguez. A couple of observations: Within “a couple of weeks” is…

So I’m watching the Rangers-Rays game through, oh, the seventh inning, when the front door opens up and my kids walk in, fresh off the school bus. I don’t know if there’s anything more jacked up with energy than kids who have been yelling at each other and eating candy for the last half hour. …

Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. Those who put too much weight on it are doomed to poorly analyze a Twins-Yankees series.

Cliff Lee and the Rangers are now up 5-0 on the Rays in the sixth and the game is starting to lull me to sleep. Speaking of lulling fans to sleep, John Hickey of FanHouse reports that the Mariners would be interested in talking to the Red Sox about Daisuke Matsuzaka if they were to…

Bengie Molina hadn’t hit a home run since the middle of July, but he just went deep off David Price. That, combined with his earlier RBI single, Francoeur’s double and a Nelson Cruz moon-shot homer makes it 4-0 Rangers entering the 5th. David Price has not had many outings like this. In fact, Price has…

For those of you stuck at work, please know that Jeff Francoeur doubled in the first run of the postseason and then Bengie Molina promptly drove in Francoeur. Off David Price, one of the best pitchers in all of baseball. It’s 2-0 as we head into the bottom of the second. The lesson here: all…

“In Dusty I trust.” But that doesn’t stop me from pickin’ the Phillies anyway.

I just tuned into the Rays-Rangers game and the first thing that announcer Don Orsillo said was that the Rays have sold out Games 1 and 2 of the Division series. So, there goes a whole week’s worth of “why can’t the Rays draw” complaints.  They can draw when the games matter. In other news,…

I know there are a lot of things that go into building a manager’s reputation that none of us see: friendships, conversations on the field before games and all manner of things that go on when baseball isn’t actually being played. But I still have a hard time seeing why Juan Samuel would, as Jeff…

UPDATE:  The skepticism was warranted. Brewers GM Doug Melvin just shots down the Brenly rumor, saying “Unless somebody else has been doing the hiring process, that’s not true.” 11:30: A.M.  I slapped the “rumor” tag on the headline because if we were tallying “rumors that ended up being totally wrong” by media sector, radio guys…

What was the problem with the Mets this year?  The rotation? The pen? The injuries? Nah, according to John Harper of the Daily News it was all about character. Or the lack thereof: Let’s start with toughness, the one intangible the Mets have lacked most in recent years . . . Not that retaliating or…

My friends at The Platoon Advantage have a fun post today: counting down the 40 greatest seasons by players on terrible teams. I was somewhat shocked but quite pleased to see Lonnie Smith’s 1989 season with a putrid Braves team so high on the list. I loved that season. I loved the 1988 Braves season…

More than the folks at the Wall Street Journal think, that I can tell you.

My dad worked for the National Weather Service for nearly 40 years. This morning I asked him about the playoff weather. He said “How the hell should I know? I’m retired. You’re Mr. Internet. Why don’t YOU look it up?”

We taped this before we learned about the Great James Shield Jewish Conspiracy yesterday. But I did get to talk about Jeff Francoeur and manure, so there’s that.

There was some Twitter-glee yesterday as some New York writers were saying some variation of “the Mets started asking permission to speak to GM candidates but no one will grant them permission.” Look, I love bashing the Mets as much as anyone, but that seems kind of crazy. It had been, what, one day? And…

Liverpool FC of the English Premier League has agreed to be purchased by New England Sports Ventures, better known as the parent company of the Boston Red Sox. I’m going to refer to this as the Red Sox buying into the EPL, however, because it’s simpler and makes the story more interesting to me even…

I view the Pirates’ managerial job the same way I used to view getting hired by a criminal defendant after his trial but before his appeal:  it’s nothing that’s going to end well, but really, how bad would I have to be to truly screw this up? Enter Eric Wedge, who Jenifer Langosch reports was…