Pitching? Not So Much

The bats woke up yesterday. I was watching the Rockies-Phillies game yesterday with the Phillies up 3-2 and the bases loaded in the top of the 4th. The TBS announcer (now this is a TBS announcer, not some bonefide ESPN analyst) says that Kaz Matsui's wheelhouse is low and in and that Kyle Lohse (former Twin, he was worthless) probably shouldn't pitch it there. Now if the TBS announcer knows this, I'm guessing the entire stadium knows this as well. Needless to say, the next pitch was low and in and Matsui took it deep and out for a grand slam. That single pitch was the difference in this game. Matt Holliday and Troy Tulowitzki went back to back in the first, before Jimmy Rollins lead off the bottom of the first with a dinger and had a two run triple in the bottom of the 2nd to get that 3-2 lead, but it was not enough. Ryan Howard also hit a meaningless homer later in the game. The Rockies went on to win 10-5 and take a 2-0 series lead. The next blowout was the Indians-Yankees game. Johnny Damon lead off the game with a HR and CC Sabathia walked two batters before pitching out of his jam in the first. The Indians stormed back after Chien-Ming Wang hit a batter and walked two of his own. The difference in this game was with two outs, bases loaded, Kenny Loften hit a two run single to go up 3-1. CC really settled down after the first, but Wang never really looked comfortable and was chased out in the fifth. The Indians coasted to a 12-3 Game 1 win. In the late game, Ted Lilly looked awful. I really thought he would be the difference in this series and the Diamonbacks got 4 runs in the bottom of the 2nd to go up 4-2 and it only got worse for the Cubs there. The Diamonbacks ended up winning 8-4. I was disappointed in last night's press conference in that Lou Pinella did not blow up. He blew up in June and the team totally turned it around, but last night he totally lack energy and confidence, not sending a good message to his team going home down 2-0.
For today, its all AL:

Yanks @ Indians (Pettitte-Carmona) 5
Angels @ Red Sox (Escobar-Matsuzaka) 8:30

I'll be watching the Yankees tie up their series and the Red Sox to take a 2-0 lead. Also last night, the Wild won 1-0 over Chicago behind Niklas Backstrom's 27 save shutout. The defense looked good again (1st in the league last year) but the goal scorers will have to pick it up to compete this year. If you watched the Kentucky-South Carolina game, you wasted your time. Kentucky looked like the unranked team that it should be and Andre Woodson showed that all his stats were against easy opponents. (their big win was over #9 Louisville who is now unranked after losing to winless Syracuse as well) On the other hand, South Carolina looks like a strong contender in the SEC. Kentucky now has LSU and Florida at home in back to back weeks. Have fun with that Wildcats and kiss your ranking goodbye.