A Small Ray Of Sunshine Amid The Rain From The Natural Disasters

• Mets 7-Cubs 6:

Just another ho-hum night in the lives of the New York Mets; trying desperately to screw

up their entire season with another late September swoon; getting stunning contributions from such ne'er-do-wells (or rare-do-wells) like Ramon Martinez and Robinson Cancel; having Daniel Murphy miss a sign, bunt with two strikes and strike out (which emitted a rare show of emotion from stoic manager Jerry Manuel); Ryan Church's bizarre, unintentional end-around slide that looked like the dance

John Belushi was doing at the end of Animal House; and coming back from a 6-3 eighth inning deficit to win on a Carlos Beltran single in the bottom of the ninth.
The Mets are playing with fire just about every night now; usually it's with the bullpen, but now it's become clear that Pedro Martinez is no longer able to provide anything more than six innings and (if they're lucky) four runs. It's like throwing darts at a dartboard to see which reliever to use and Manuel guessed right tonight with Joe Smith (who's usually reliable anyway). As for the appearance of the 35-year-old Ramon Martinez in the starting lineup----why not? He couldn't be any worse than Luis Castillo's been over the last month and the bloom is off the rose from the "find" made by the Mets stat-guys in Argenis Reyes. (There are generally reasons why players are relegated to the minor leagues for the majority of their careers.) There's no point in quibbling with anything as long as they win. Whatever works is going to be seen as the correct move and with the way the team is patched together with pitchers 3-14 on the staff, a win is a win is a win.

• Brewers 5-Pirates 1:

The game just ended about a minute-and-a-half ago and the Pirates are rotten. Just plain awful. The Brewers relievers did an above-and-beyond the call of duty job by keeping the game

close (admittedly against a Pirates lineup that would never be confused with the 1927 Yankees; or the 1627 Yankees----and I know they didn't exist then, that's the joke), but like the Mets, a win is a win is a win.
The problem the Brewers now have is that they have no choice but to pitch Jeff Suppan tomorrow night against the Cubs and play while the Mets are likely to get rained out. The Cubs, while resting their regulars periodically in the Mets series, didn't use Carlos Marmol last night or tonight and will undoubtedly be looking to get him some work in the Brewers series; they'll also want to make sure to play the games to win just as they did against the Mets. After the way this last month has gone, I'm not even going to speculate on what might happen this weekend with either the Brewers, Mets or Phillies. Anything can happen and I wouldn't be surprised to see a playoff game on Monday or even playoff games on Monday and Tuesday if all three end up tied----a realistic possibility.

• The incoherent Sarah Palin:

I generally don't indulge in capricious ridicule, but I'm trying to figure out what the John McCain campaign is trying to pull with Gov. Sarah Palin. They've kept her in a cocoon for a

month now, only letting her do select interviews with select reporters; keeping her under tight constraints and hoping to use her attractiveness and extreme right wing views as a shield for the fact that she's not only unqualified to be vice president, but she's incoherent, ludicrous and offensive to those that are able to look past their own agendas to accept what is best for the country.
For those that are still defending her after the video of her in church with a pastor whose sermons are far more frightening than anything Sen. Barack Obama's former pastor ever said, how is it possible to watch the two interviews that played today and still entertain the notion that she would be able to handle potentially being president of the United States in January? The brief time she spent at the podium following her tour of the World Trade Center site this afternoon showed her sticking to the basic, non-specific

talking points of "taking the fight to the terrorists over there" rather than risking another attack. That was bad enough, but the interview with Katie Couric in which Gov. Palin sounded like a twelve-year-old taking an oral exam and trying to say a whole load of nonsensical stuff in the desperate attempt to hit on a couple of the answers to the questions and score some points was inexplicable. Palin was quite literally making no sense whatsoever in her ramble about how Alaska is close to both Russia and Canada and how Russia utilizes Alaskan airspace, etc. And Katie Couric ain't exactly Mike Wallace when it comes to interviewing. At best Palin sounded incoherent and unprepared; at worst she sounded imbecilic.
Normally, this wouldn't be such a problem, but the circumstances surrounding this election make the Palin choice so dangerous that there's no way to know whether or not her blatant stupidity is going to result in a win for Obama. For all the polls that show Obama to be leading, there is always that possibility that people are saying one thing with the intention of doing another when they enter the voting booth. It may be because they're embarrassed, don't want to be seen as racist or whatever. Obama is so new, so different that it's hard to believe the polls wholeheartedly. Add in that Sen. John McCain is 72-years-old; not in the greatest of health and is evidently so desperate to get elected that he'll do and say anything to achieve that end, and this is a recipe for a dangerous disaster.
It takes a lot to frighten me, but the very idea of Sarah Palin as the president of the United

States is terrifying. She's not just inexperienced anymore; every time she opens her mouth, she's proving herself to be woefully unprepared and bottom-line uninformed and unintelligent. The incoherence of her answers in every interview she does would normally disqualify her and by proxy, the man who picked her as his running mate. I have to believe that enough secular republicans are going to look at the situation and realize that the risk is too great and vote for Obama with an eye on 2012, but that's not necessarily what's going to happen. I've made it clear that I'm not a supporter of McCain (I liked him in 2000 and this isn't the same guy), but I could live with him as president if he'd picked Mitt Romney or someone who would be a competent president. That is not the case with Sarah Palin and I can only hope that people watch the interview and put personal beliefs aside and send her back to Alaska because she's completely inept and a true danger to us all.

It's Official---The Mets Are Unwatchable

• Mets 9-Nationals 7:

When Vinny Testaverde was playing in the NFL, his father was unable to watch the games

because he had a bad heart and got excited to the point that it was jeopardizing his health; I'm beginning to think that the Mets are going to be a proximate cause for some emergency room visits during the final week and a half of regular season play...*

*Did you know that former Van Halen frontman and failed radio talk show host David Lee Roth is an emergency medical technician? Can you imagine needing EMT assistance and seeing him standing over you?

This game was exhausting to watch and the players looked more relieved than happy that they managed to win a game over a team that's coming close to 100 losses. David Wright is a great player, but he sometimes gets into these gamelong funks in which he looks like he needs the jaws of life to extract his head from his posterior. In the top of the ninth inning, with runners at first and third and one out, he swung at a ball that was around neck high to strike out. Given that the score was 9-5 and the bullpen is in such disarray, wouldn't it have behooved Wright to choke up on the bat and try to smack the ball the other way for one at bat? I understand that's not the general job description for a number three hitter

and no one's asking him to move his hands up Jack Perconte-style six inches above the handle, but there's a time to try and whack one out of the park and there's a time to just make contact. Then he goes out on the field and, clearly thinking about and beating himself up over his failure at the plate the previous half inning, threw a ball in la-de-da fashion to first base on Lastings Milledge's routine grounder and gave the Nationals an opening that could very well have cost the Mets the game. Then there's Aaron Heilman...
It's at the point where manager Jerry Manuel can't put Heilman into any game unless the lead is eight runs or greater. This is not the time to be concerned about anyone's feelings and with the way he's performed in the bullpen over the past two seasons, the Mets are going to have to make a decision on whether to trade him or move him into the starting rotation; as for right now, he can only be used in an emergency or a major blowout. Al Reyes has been with the Mets for two weeks and hasn't gotten into a game; while I

understand that Heilman is above him on the totem pole, last night was a perfect game to put Reyes in and see what he's got. The same thing with Robert Parnell. I'll be stunned to see Heilman in another important game for the rest of the season.
This was an escape more than a win and the Mets are going to need Johan Santana to keep his pitch count low and go very deep into the game tonight not just to rest the bullpen, but because the majority of the bullpen's confidence is so shot that they can't be trusted to even hold the most comfortable of leads. They're facing a pitcher for the Nats in Tim Redding, whom they've had trouble with; but with Jose Reyes playing like he'd had a couple of Red Bulls and Carlos Delgado and Carlos Beltran hitting, the Mets are going to have to score early and often even with Santana pitching because they can't take any chances. (Incidentally, Delgado consciously altered his swing to try to drive an insurance run in the third inning, something Wright should take to heart.)

• Detroit 17-Texas 4:

Despite the unprecedented occurrences of two safeties to account for Texas's four points, Detroit executive Matt Millen celebrated the victory by saying, "See? Executiving isn't all that hard." Following the game, he was rewarded with a thirty-year contract extension.

• Brewers 6-Cubs 2:

Ben Sheets is a great talent, but what's his problem? In a game that the Brewers absolutely, positively had to win; with all the turmoil going on around the team after the managerial change amid a collapse; and with C.C. Sabathia having lost the night before, Sheets pulls himself out of the game after two innings with "forearm tightness"? He leaves a game that could possibly break the Brewers season if they lost it and lets their shaky bullpen bear the brunt of that pressure?
I'm not questioning someone else's injuries; nor am I saying that Sheets is imagining these maladies, but what must his teammates think of him after he pulls something like this only two weeks after yanking himself from a game against the Mets after five dominant innings in a game the Brewers eventually lost and served to start the current tailspin? What do the players

around the rest of the majors think when they watch SportsCenter or read the game recaps and see that Sheets pulled himself out of another game? It's going to be interesting to see who ponies up the cash to sign Sheets long-term after the season because with antics like this, he's a major risk to be the next Carl Pavano or Erik Bedard.
With all of this baggage, a team considering Sheets might be better off going after someone like Bronson Arroyo, who doesn't have half of Sheets's talent, but goes out there and pitches no matter what without complaint; teammates appreciate and respect that far more than they admire unused talent. If Sheets is begging out of games now as free agency is weeks away, what's going to

happen when he has an $80-120 million guaranteed contract to fall back on? Then how many injuries are going to crop up that are going to limit his innings and give him the excuse to pull himself from games? I said a couple of weeks ago that I'd risk signing Sheets with the idea that he'd find his groove and stay healthy with a different organization, but after this September display, I can't in good conscience recommend that any team risk such a huge amount of money on such a soft pitcher.

• Is this the time to be blogging?

I'm trying to imagine what none other than George Steinbrenner would be doing if one of his top baseball "experts" were sitting around blogging about his team as they're marching inexorably towards 100 losses, but then George would've fired the entire staff months ago. I

know what I would tell our old friend, Padres executive Paul DePodesta, regarding his blog, and it'd go something like this: "You have a choice, you can either work here in the baseball department trying to fix this mess you helped create, or you can sit around and write a blog; if you wanna work here, then work here and take that laptop and fling it out the window. Otherwise, beat it. Let me know by the morning what you wanna do."

• Sean Hannity's interview with Governor Sarah Palin:

I only saw bits and pieces of it, but from what I did see, Hannity looked as if he were seconds away from yanking Sarah's shoes off and giving her a foot massage.

By Monday, Both The Mets And Phillies May Be Heading For The Playoffs

• Phillies 6-Brewers 3:

The one game the Brewers had to win was last night's; everything else for the rest of this

series was built on that. They had Ben Sheets going; they were facing a gutty, smart, but hittable pitcher in Jamie Moyer; and the Phillies were desperate and reeling knowing that they'd just lost two straight games to the Marlins and were in danger of falling five games behind the Mets in the loss column, which, last year aside, would have likely sealed their fate. Now it's official, the Brewers are in the midst of an implosion and they're going to miss the playoffs.
Despite the obvious flaws of the Phillies, they never quit. As was proven last year, they're going to fight until every last ounce of blood and sweat is left on the field; is the same true with a Brewers team that is taking on the same tight, petrified countenance of their manager, Ned Yost? After last night's favorable pitching matchup, the rest of the weekend is probably going to have at least two games in which the scores resemble something that would be analyzed on ESPN College GameDay instead of Baseball Tonight; and with the way the Brewers bullpen has detonated so many games, they're going to be in big trouble if it's close going past the seventh inning.
If Sheets wasn't able to hold down the Phillies lineup, what chance do the likes of Manny

Parra, Dave Bush and Jeff Suppan have in Citizens Bank Park? The Phillies pitching isn't all that much better, but with Cole Hamels going tonight, they have the advantage; and Joe Blanton and Kyle Kendrick aren't going to just give in to the Brewers bashers; plus this is a case where Phillies manager Charlie Manuel's quick hook and overuse of his bullpen will be an advantage because the Brewers won't be able to win a battle of the bullpens.
The Mets have a Braves team that doesn't have the manpower or wherewithal to be able to win more than one game this weekend; if both the Mets and Phillies take care of business, both are going to be ahead of the Brewers and both are going to be in great position to make the playoffs.
And what of the Brewers? They're going to have some tough questions to answer after the deadline deal for C.C. Sabathia; after they were rolling along and looking not only like a team that was going to make the playoffs, but a team that was primed to do serious damage in the

playoffs. I don't know any team that would want to have to deal with the prospect of Sabathia and Sheets in a short series as both are looking to pad their resumes to make even more money in free agency this winter. At this rate, with the Phillies and Astros right behind them and closing fast, they need their back of the rotation pitchers and powerful lineup to step up and carry them home; considering the way they're playing, it doesn't look like it's going to happen and this is to the advantage of both the Mets and Phillies, for whom the road to the playoffs may not have anything to do with one another after all.

• I got the skillz to pay the billz and Canada's Most Wanted:

I suppose I'll take it as a compliment that so many Blue Jays fans who've gotten all riled

up over my cold-blooded and accurate assessment of their team of the past and future think I'm an embittered Yankee fan. If anything's an indicator of my writing skills and an ability to stay neutral, it's that. To adjust a quote Larry David from Curb Your Enthusiasm (before it got really annoying), "I do hate myself, but it has nothing to do with being Jewish!"; I'm embittered, but it has nothing to do with being a Yankee fan; in fact, I'm a Mets fan, for which I think I have an ingrained right to be embittered. Good thing I didn't say anything about the Maple Leafs. (Be on the lookout for the man on the right, he's extremely dangerous and devastatingly good looking.)

• Governor Sarah Palin's interview with Charles Gibson:

The interview hasn't played yet, but the main points are already out in the media. The objective truth about the interview and Gov. Palin herself is that the country is running the risk

of electing as the Vice President for a 72-year-old man what amounts to a pretty version of George W. Bush from the year 2000. Charming, likable and ingratiating herself to the religious right with conservative values, references to God and vague populist talking points, Gov. Palin stays on message to a remarkable degree while clearly knowing very little in depth of what she's talking about.
Those main points----war with Russia is an option to protect Georgia; she was quoting Abraham Lincoln during that speech in her church about God and the Iraq war; she hadn't the faintest idea what the "Bush Doctrine" is and what it entails----are frightening to those that are in stunned disbelief of the idea that she's capable of taking over as the President of the United States on a moment's notice.
Does she really believe that a war with Russia, which was avoided during all those years of the Cold War, is an option while this country's military is trapped in the Middle East? Is she suggesting military action to protect a small republic that is, in truth, of little import to the United States? Does John McCain believe that?
Is she expecting the public to think that she was studying the speeches of Abraham Lincoln to find quotes when referencing God as she discussed the Iraq war?
The sheer look of panic as her brain was searching for a way to stickhandle (let's use a hockey term for the hockey mom) her way around the question without having a viable answer or even a passing knowledge of what the "Bush Doctrine" is was frightening and painful to watch.
The slogan for the McCain/Palin ticket is "Country First". Is it in the country's interest to put a 72-year-old man into the oval office with another version of George Bush as his VP? As

Barack Obama says, it's enough. Enough with the bullet points; enough with the populist speeches designed to attract the masses; enough with someone who doesn't know what they're doing and tries to pass off being able to "see Russia" from the Alaskan soil as foreign policy experience. And for those that are ready to say that she has as much experience as Obama, she doesn't. Obama has been running for president for almost two years now and, with all due respect, I find it very difficult to believe that Gov. Palin is as smart and skilled as Obama. There's a very real possibility that she'll have to step in and be president very quickly and that is something that cannot be risked.
I'm very concerned that the Obama campaign is not hitting back as hard as they should against the republican campaign strategy for fear of being labeled as "sexist". If anything should awaken the voting public of the danger of having someone with no experience whatsoever as a possible commander-in-chief, it should be the anniversary of September 11th.
Amid all the remembrances should be the scene of President Bush, sitting in that school classroom for seven long minutes after being informed of the attacks and not having the faintest idea of what to do. As much as it's been spun with varying stories of the president not

wanting to alarm the children; of deliberating what to do next; of whatever reason they give for his lack of action and look on his face of sheer confusion and panic, does this country want to run the risk of putting another person of flimsy qualifications and questionable knowledge in that position? This has to be pointed out for what it is and the democrats have to take a page from the book of the republicans and point out these hard facts that the interview Gov. Palin hammered home.
The same mistake that the Gore campaign made against Bush cannot be made again. All along, I think the Gore people looked at then-Gov. Bush and thought that the public can't be taken in by this; they can't think that the Bush name recognition, support of the republican base and his likability will mask his complete

inadequacy and unpreparedness for the job. They were outhustled; they underestimated the message of Bush as it was presented in simple and easy to understand well-articulated bullet points that were designed to attract swing voters who were sick of the Clintons. They shook their heads, shrugged their shoulders and thought, "no one's gonna buy this crap", and they lost. The Obama campaign is still in a great position, but they can't repeat the mistakes of the past by being gentlemanly, because if Hillary Clinton were on the ticket, the republicans sure wouldn't.

The Greatness Of Ben Sheets/The Risk Of Ben Sheets

• Mets 4-Brewers 2; why Ben Sheets is baseball's biggest free agent prize/risk:

The biggest risk this off-season won't be made by whichever team signs the likes of C.C.

Sabathia or the likely free agent A.J. Burnett; the biggest risk/reward will be made by the team that signs Ben Sheets of the Brewers. Yesterday's game was a microcosm of Sheets's career as he was unhittable for five innings against the Mets, using his Greg Maddux-level control along with a mid-90s fastball and a wicked curve to make the Mets look like they were an inning away from waving their hands at the field, shaking their heads, putting their bats away and going back to the hotel. Then after the fifth inning, Sheets was removed for a pinch-hitter because of tightness in his groin, the latest in a long line of injuries to just about every single part of his body going back the entire length of his career. The Mets eventually capitalized on the Brewers bullpen weakness to win the game.
Teams that are in the market for a starting pitcher after this season and have the money to pay for a pitcher of Sheets's caliber are going to have to think long and hard about whether or not to take the risk of $100+ million on a pitcher who has that ability but medical history. It's a positive that Sheets has made 27 starts this season after making a maximum of 24 in the past three years, but that can be accounted for by his impending free agency and a desire to prove that he's durable enough to make such a massive investment.
Are the Yankees going to be willing to roll the dice on another high-end talent just as they're getting out from under Carl Pavano's contract? Are the Mets going to want another $100 million pitcher in their rotation? There's been talk of Roy Oswalt openly recruiting Sheets to come to the Astros; and there are always the Angels, Red Sox and Dodgers who have the money to spend. The teams to watch are the ones who lose out on Sabathia because it would drastically increase Sheets's paycheck if a team is desperate to add starting pitching and Sheets is the only big name left on the market.
The biggest problem with Sheets is that he's got that incredible potential and is only thirty-years old, so if he goes to that new team and suddenly finds some durability, he could be a perennial Cy Young Award contender, but again it goes back to the historical problems with his entire musculature. The reason he's so tough to hit is that he has that great control

with all of his pitches; the hitters have to start hacking at the first thing upon which they think they have a chance of making solid contact, but it's still a pitcher's pitch; then they're going to keep Sheets's pitch count down because they can't take pitches because he's not going to walk anyone. When he was removed from yesterday's game, he'd only thrown 54 pitches in five innings, so he was going to go at least until the eighth inning and would likely have pitched a complete game (that's if the Mets didn't just go back to the hotel). Someone's going to write Sheets a big check after this season, then they're going to hold their breath to see if they're going to get a Cy Young contender or a guy that's going to spend a chunk of that multi-year deal on the disabled list.

• Yankees 13-Tigers 9:

The Yankees problems this year in a nutshell: they scored thirteen runs yesterday and were about one or two Tigers hits from having to use Mariano Rivera to close the game.

• John McCain's VP pick goes from bad to worse:

Since John McCain referenced Gov. Sarah Palin's experience as a member of the Alaska

PTA as a reason for her being qualified to be vice president, it made me think that my mother is also qualified to be vice president. In fact, she was president of the PTA, which, common sense dictates would mean executive experience. It's somewhat frightening that Gov. Palin is running a state whose population is roughly one-quarter the size of Brooklyn and was picked to be the running mate of a man who's 72-years-old and is looking increasingly detached by the day. Just looking at the way the job of the presidency aged both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush should give people pause from taking the gamble of voting for McCain, but his VP pick should make it out of the question. The argument being proffered that people "don't vote for vice presidents" makes sense if the president isn't someone who's at an age where he could, let's be blunt, get sick or drop dead at any moment. This is not a normal year in presidential elections. Even with all of that, the new revelations are adding to the confounding nature of the pick.
Gov. Palin was chosen to placate the evangelical base of the Republican party, but what does it say about her qualifications as a "family values" candidate as she has a 17-year-old

daughter who got pregnant outside of marriage? I'm not going to comment on the personal life Gov. Palin and her family, but the fact that they made it a point to cover her daughter with a blanket holding her baby sister to keep the pregnancy a secret makes me wonder what they were thinking about. It was like they were going day-by-day with the pick and would worry about what happened when the story leaked (it got out three days later) and try to spin their way out of it.
The reactions of the conservative commentators were laughable. Imagine if it were one of Barack Obama's daughters who got pregnant; what would have been said in public (condescending and insulting) and in private (overtly racist) about him and his family? Just as much of the conservatives were trying to find ways to tout Gov. Palin's qualifications while backtracking or twisting their comments on Sen. Obama's lack of experience, they're hit with this scandal. The Christian right would have had a field day if it were a candidate that wasn't someone who they deemed appropriate and she's still the choice of a man who's 72-years-old.
The selection of Sarah Palin appeared to have been done without much thought and based

on little more than a "gut feeling" on the part of Sen. McCain, which should add more questions about his judgment than to his reputation as a maverick who does things his own way. The obvious and smart pick for McCain was Mitt Romney despite any personal enmity between the two (even though those feelings seem to have cooled). Romney, despite his flip-flopping on issues is: the Republican former governor of a large, liberal state; has experience and grand success in business; and has run an almost impossible entity in the Olympic Games. Despite the contentious campaign, Romney is clearly a decent man who would be able to handle taking over as president if necessary. This isn't to imply that there's anything wrong with Sarah Palin or her family because her daughter made a mistake, but how was this not seen to be a problem when she was selected specifically because of her family values and beliefs?
The hypocrisy of the right wingers is absurd because the same people who would be lambasting Sen. Obama were he in the same position; and wanted Bill Clinton thrown out of office and into jail for perjury are defending the subterfuge of the blanket at the introductory press conference and are saying that it's a "private family matter; they were also the ones who said that Scooter Libby shouldn't have gotten any jail time for committing what was the same crime as Clinton was accused of committing. They leave out that it's a bit different to out an undercover CIA operative based on political motives and a guy lying about a sexual liaison; that it's a bit different when the conservative governor of a very small state is having the problems that a churchgoing, religious family is designed to avoid.
I'm no leftist loon either; I've voted for republicans and democrats. In fact, I was decidedly not a part of the 70% of New York State residents who voted for Gov. Eliot Spitzer; I couldn't

tell you the name of the republican candidate, nor do I know anything about his platform or beliefs and I knew he was going to lose. Technically, I voted for the candidate, but in reality I was voting against Spitzer because I thought there was something creepy and disingenuous about him; and personally I don't care if he goes to hookers, but it's the smug sanctimoniousness and creepiness that I can't abide. After the Black Sox scandal of his own making, it turns out my instincts about him were right and I believe that they're right about this republican ticket. Vote for it at your and the United States' own peril.

Yankees In A Catch-42

• Yankees 2-Blue Jays 1:

Imagine you're Joe Girardi and as you sit in the dugout trying to nursemaid your set-up

men Jose Veras and Edwar Ramirez through the eighth inning of a game you must win, you look up at the scoreboard and see that both the Red Sox and Rays are blowing out their respective opponents. Not only that, but the Red Sox happen to be beating up on one of the teams directly in front of the Yankees, the White Sox. With a chance to gain a game on one of the teams you're going to have to pass to get into playoff position and the two direct competitors in your own division winning easily, what do you do?
What do you do as you watch Jose Veras put Carl Pavano's second straight gutty performance (with stuff that could only be classified as mediocre) in jeopardy after Pavano outdueled a pitcher who's on his way to possiby winning 20 games in A.J. Burnett? What do you do, after Veras gives up a hit and a walk and you bring in Ramirez who records an out via strikeout and Joe Inglett, a left-handed contact hitter having a solid year is coming to the plate with one out and the game in the balance?
It's simple you think, I have the greatest closer in baseball history in the bullpen warming up and ready; but bear in mind that the greatest closer in baseball history is going to be 39-years-old later this year; that he's accustomed to only pitching one inning to get his saves; that most of the times he's recorded saves of more than a single inning have been in do-or-die situations; that he's pitched more than one inning six times since August 12th; that he recorded four outs to save another imperative game against the Red Sox just 30 hours before; what do you do?
You think it's an easy decision? Knowing you have to win every game you can? That if you have a 2-1 advantage, you can't simply let Rivera's workload dictate a game's result if losing that game will put you seven games behind the Red Sox and eleven and a half behind the Rays? Do you

even have a choice? Girardi did the right thing in bringing Rivera in and there may be eighth inning help on the way from Joba Chamberlain, but there are going to be other situations like this over the final month because the Yankees cannot afford to lose games like this in which they're in a position to win. If it was a blowout one way or the other, it's a convenient way to give Rivera the days off he needs, but the situation is such that Girardi had no options and he had to put Rivera in for another eighth inning save. It's going to be this way for the final month of the season and even if the Yankees somehow pull off a miracle and make the playoffs, the question is going to have to be asked, is Rivera going to have anything left to give in October?

• Mets 5-Marlins 4:
  

Kevin Gregg is not a very reliable closer and I could almost hear the Phillies cussing and throwing things in Chicago as Carlos Beltran's two-out grand slam sailed into the right field bleachers of Dolphin Stadium.

• Cubs 3-Phillies 2:

Yesterday was my first look at Jeff Samardzija and combining him and his fastball (upwards of 95 mph), with Carlos Marmol (a funky motion and another power fastball) and Kerry Wood will give the Cubs a 2008 version of manager Lou Piniella's famed Nasty Boys from the 1990 Reds; the games are going to be over after the sixth inning, sort of like little league.

• Republican Vice Presidential nominee...Sarah Palin?

This might have been an inspired choice for John McCain if he were ten to fifteen years younger, but in an attempt to appease the religious right/zealot/lunatic fringe of the republican party who cannot stand him, he picked a young woman with almost no experience whatsoever other than a year and

a half as the governor of the almost forgotten state of Alaska. Do McCain and his advisers really believe that Sarah Palin is going to attract the disgruntled voters of Hillary Clinton? Does he think that they're going to look past her stance on abortion (against it in all cases); guns (enthusiastic member of the NRA); and beliefs (she wants to have creationism taught in schools) and vote for a 72-year-old man whose health isn't all that great and whose mental acuity deserts him from time-to-time and run the very real risk that she's going to have to step in and be the president of the United States? Think about it.
If McCain were 62 instead of 72, then appeasing the radical right wing of the party was a good idea; but the Hillary voters who have a problem with Barack Obama are either going to look at their choices and stay home, or shut their eyes when they walk into the booth and vote for Obama; a minuscule number of women are going to vote based on gender. This was a big mistake and a complete turnaround from McCain's image as a maverick because it wasn't

done because he wanted to do it, it was done for political expediency.
I believe deeply that the republicans are throwing McCain to the wolves knowing that they're almost assuredly going to lose in November and are looking toward 2012 when they'll be able to run the likes of Mitt Romney or some other more palatable candidate to the radical base and centrists that they need to win. They were hoping to stay close and maybe capitalize on Obama's newness (in every aspect of his story) and just as they threw Bob Dole in to run against Bill Clinton hoping that the Clinton baggage would allow Dole to win, they're hoping that McCain can somehow pull out a squeaker; this pick makes it clearer than ever that they're desperate to the point of throwing in everything but the kitchen sink and it's not going to work; in fact, it makes things worse.