Rice Lost Again

6-5 to LSU. Boo!

I guess now I'll just have to root for . . . nobody. Who cares, anyway? It's just college baseball.

One More Chance

Rice lost yesterday (17-5 to Fresno -- yikes!), so they have one more chance in the losers' bracket, against LSU tomorrow.

C'mon, Rice! Go Owls!

The Rest of the Field

For your reference, the teams in the College World Series are:

Stanford vs. Florida State (Saturday)
Georgia vs. Miami (Saturday)

Fresno vs. Rice (Sunday)
Louisiana State vs. North Carolina (Sunday)

North Carolina came in second the past two years, losing both times to Oregon State.

Rice had better beat Fresno. We don't want to take any chances of Fresno State playing Florida State in the final. That would be too confusing:

Rice Baseball Doing It Again!

The Rice University baseball team is in the College World Series! Again! For the third year in a row! For the fifth time in seven years! For the seventh time in twelve years! Maybe they'll win it again like in 2003!

Their first game is Sunday!

Go Rice!

Beat dem Bulldogs!

Boo, Bulldogs!

Off by One

Do you remember, a month ago, when I predicted the World Series? Red Sox over Rockies in 5, I said. Well, I got the two league champions right, but the Sox won in four.

Pretty good pick for someone who only marginally followed baseball this year, huh?

Red Sox over the Rockies in 5

The baseball playoff lineup didn't turn out quite like I predicted, thanks to a couple teams' late-season runs.

The Phillies won 4 of their last 5 while the Mets lost 6 of their last 7. How was I supposed to predict that? So now the Phillies are in, and the team to beat, right?

Nah.

That would be the Rockies. They won 14 of their last 15 to take the Wild Card spot from the Padres, who lost their last 3 games.

So the Rockies will beat the Phillies, then the Cubs, and then lose to the Red Sox.

And that's that. You can start paying attention again in April.

MLB Postseason Decided

I know there's still one week left in Major League Baseball regular season play, but it's all wrapped up now. Thanks to my ever-decreasing scale of can't-catch-'em-anymore, the postseason lineup has been decided. The last to fall off the list were the Brewers, losing too much ground to the Cubs over the weekend.

The division winners are:

AL East: Red Sox
AL Central: Indians
AL West: Angels
AL wild card: Yankees

NL East: Mets
NL Central: Cubs
NL West: Diamondbacks
NL wild card: Padres

The Phillies, however, are only a half-game behind the Padres for the wild card slot. They fell behind too far last week, so I cut them.

The Yankees are only 1.5 games behind the Red Sox, even though they fell far behind a month ago.

The Rockies are on an eight-game winning streak to get to 1.5 games behind the Padres. I crossed them off two weeks ago.

If any of these trailing teams manage to catch and take over the leading teams, then they surely are the teams to watch in the postseason. They're obviously playing well right now, to have regained some distance.

Time will tell.

M's September Slump

I go away for the weekend and look how far the Mariners have fallen. Five games back of the Yankees for the Wild Card. The M's always seem to slump at the end of the season. Even in 2001, when they won a record 116 games, they were only 50/50 in September. It must be something to do with the length of plane flights. They have a lot further to travel than the other teams. Maybe we need to get a Honolulu team to join the league.

Well, in summary: that's it. I'm writing them off. Better luck next year.

Damn Yankees.

AL good, NL bad

In case you didn't know, the Seattle Mariners currently hold the Wild Card slot for the AL postseason. They're only a half game ahead of the Yankees, though, and 3.5 games ahead of the Tigers. The Red Sox, Indians, and Angels all hold their respective division leads, but the Mariners, Yankees, and Tigers are all close. The Twins have an outside chance of taking the Central, since they're only six games back. None of the other seven AL teams have any shot for the postseason, if you ask me.

In the NL, the Mets, Cubs, and Diamondbacks hold the division leads, with the Padres holding the Wild Card slot. The Phillies, Braves, Dodgers, Rockies, Brewers, and Cardinals are all within six games of the Padres. Of those, the Dodgers and Rockies are the only teams out of the running for their own divisions. The other six NL teams aren't worth mentioning.

In summary, seven out of the fourteen AL teams still have hopes, while ten out of the sixteen NL teams still have hopes. Why does the NL always seem to be mushier like this than the AL?

I like to divide MLB teams into "good," "average," and "bad" groupings based on winning percentage, with dividing lines of .450 and .550. The NL's only two good teams are the Mets and the Diamondbacks. They have five unmentionable bad teams. The AL's good teams are the Red Sox, Angels, Mariners, Yankees, and Indians. The AL only has four bad teams.

So the NL is -3 on average, while the AL is +1 on average. What's wrong with the NL this year?

Rice lost.

Boo!

Rice Advances Again!

Yesterday's news, I know, but I was too busy having a Fathers Day dinner with my family to check the scores online. Well, actually, my father heard the news on the radio, so I guess we just had it on the wrong station on the drive to Red Robin. . .

The Owls beat North Carolina 14 to 4. Ha!

Tomorrow, UNC will play Louisville for the chance to play Rice again on Wednesday. Rice gets to rest till then. Since the Owls already beat the Cardinals and the Tar Heels, we can hope that they'll be able to do it again, either way.

Go Owls!!

... Over in the west bracket, Arizona State and Oregon State advanced, beating Cal State Fullerton and Cal Irvine. That bracket is a day behind in the schedule, so those teams are playing today. Go Beavers!

Rice Wins!

It's only the first round, I know, but yay!

They were down 10-4 in the fifth against Louisville, but a six-run eighth put them way over the top, 15-10, final score. Singles and doubles and errors and the flood doesn't stop, mwa ha ha!

Next opponent: North Carolina on Sunday.

Go Rice!

On Friday, the Rice University baseball team will play their first game of the 2007 College World Series. Their opponent is upstart Louisville, who likely wouldn't be in the tournament if they had stayed in the C-USA and had to play Rice during the regular season.

And so, without further ado:

baseball

Rice lost. Twice in a row to Oregon State. So now it's OSU vs UNC in the championship game, best 2 out of 3.

Go Beavers!!

...

In other news, Ukraine clinched its advancement this morning with a win over Tunisia. The only group left is a tossup between Switzerland, Korea, and France. Only two will advance. If you win, you're in. If you tie, things get complicated.

my teams

At the risk of boring Alyssa to tears...

The US soccer team lost to Ghana, so the Americans are out of the World Cup. Ghana advances, though -- the first non-Europe/Latin-American team to do so. Australia and Korea both have good chances to advance, also, but they're not in yet.

That would mean three of the original twelve non-Europe/Latin-American teams advanced to the second round, and thirteen of the original twenty Europe/Latin-American teams. 25% to 65%. Hmmm... Where do you think the good teams are?

Over in Omaha yesterday, Rice lost to Oregon State. They play again tonight to decide who gets to face North Carolina in the championship. GO OWLS!!!

Baseball

Rice won!

It was a close one, 3-2 over Miami. Tomorrow, Miami has to play Oregon State in the losers bracket. A few days ago, the Hurricanes beat the Beavers 11-1, so I don't doubt there's a good chance Rice will see Miami again very soon.

Ah, the joys of double-elimination tournaments.

College World Series

Rice University is in the College World Series, which begins this weekend. They won the tournament a few years ago. That was Rice's only national chamionship in any sport.

This year, they're ranked #1 in the country, but seeded #2 in the tournmant. How does that work?

And if you go the CWS website's schedule, they already show Rice in the loser's bracket, even though no games have been played! What's up with that??

UPDATE: Okay, now they're off the loser's bracket. Thankfully.

I notice that most of the eight schools in the tournament are from the Southeast: Georgia, Georgia Tech, Clemson, North Carolina, Miami. Doesn't the rest of the country know how to play baseball? No schools from the Northeast or Midwest. Just Rice, Cal State Fullerton, and Oregon State from the West. And I'm sure a lot of you would place Rice in the Southeast category. . .

RF?

If Tomorrow is the pitcher, Today is the catcher, Who's on first, What's on second, I Don't Know's on third, I Don't Give A Darn is the shortstop, Why is the leftfielder, and Because is the centerfielder, then the name of the rightfielder is . . . ?

M's win!

The Mariners are 2-1 for the season. Yay! Either they're actually a good team this year or the Angels . . . aren't.

Here's the famous dancing grounds crew:


This photo was taken with a Nikon, naturally.

It was an afternoon game, so I have to work a few long days to make up for it. But it was definitely worth it. (-: And the Mediterranean Gyro place on First near Pioneer Square is quite good, or maybe it was the company. Hmmm. . . what did I have for dinner one year ago today?

Baseball

I haven't been following baseball for the past few weeks, for reasons I'm sure you all might know. I just took a look at the standings. The M's are in last place, of course. But the Royals are really in last place. They're ten games back after only nineteen games. That's just sad.