Sports on TV this weekend

Add that image to the list of reasons I didn’t go to USC. Stay classy, Trojans. Way to defend an alleged murderer and thief. (Hat-tip to Bruins Nation via The Wizard of Odds).

As usual, all times Pacific, and I include only sports I care about, which this weekend, includes only baseball, college football and the NFL. There’s no Sunday night baseball game listed for ESPN, but I wonder if they’ll show any games that are relevant. That would be very cool.

FRIDAY:

5 p.m., San Diego Padres at Milwaukee Brewers (ESPN)

5 p.m., #5 West Virginia at #18 South Florida (ESPN2)

SATURDAY:

9 a.m., Notre Dame at Purdue (ESPN)
9 a.m., #2 LSU at Tulane (ESPN2)
9 a.m., #21 Penn State at Illinois (BTN)
9 a.m., Michigan at Northwestern (BTN)
9 a.m., Indiana at Iowa (BTN)
9 a.m., Temple at Army (ESPNU)

Clusterf@#k to the NL playoffs — an update

The much talked about potential 5-way tie in the NL West, East and the wild card can’t happen anymore. It’s not because the teams moved farther apart from each other — of the 5 involved, only the Mets lost on Thursday.

But because Arizona is still two games ahead of Colorado, and those two teams play each other in a three-game series to end the season, there’s no way those two teams can finish tied with each other.

* Two teams can potentially clinch a playoff spot today. What needs to happen:

The Chicago Cubs clinch the NL Central with a win AND a Milwaukee Brewers loss.

The Arizona Diamondbacks clinch a playoff spot with a win AND a loss by the New York Mets OR the Philadelphia Phillies.

* I’m starting to feel sorry for the Mets. They have lost four games in a row to fall into a tie with the Phillies for first place in the NL East. This would be a collapse of epic proportions if the don’t make the playoffs.

* It would be really fun to see a tiebreaker of any kind this year. Not just because tiebreakers are exciting, but because there is an extra off day this year between the last day of the season and the start of the playoffs. Without a tiebreaker, that break is going to seem like a long time.

I did it before it was cool

I’d like to point out that I jumped on the Rockies’ bandwagon before Deadspin did.

With Deadspin adopting the Rockies too, other blogs will probably join them, as they should. The Rockies are a real underdog story and made up of players few people have heard of. They’ve been under everyone’s radar the whole season, and are finishing the season the right way, as they’ve won 10 in a row.

Just remember, I became a bandwagoner before Deadspin and everyone else did. My previous posts where I jumped on the Rockies bandwagon are here, here, here, here and here. Of course, I am no real Rockies fan, just a temporary bandwagoner — the real fans can be found at Purple Row.

To be clear, I’m not knocking Deadspin — I absolutely love that blog, and spend way too much time reading it. It just feels weird to be ahead of the blogging community about something.

Great news and bad news

Editor’s note: This post mostly applies to those who live in the Los Angeles area. For the rest of you, feel free to skip to my next post.

The great news: It was announced this morning that Dan Patrick’s new radio show will be heard on KLAC, AM 570 in Los Angeles starting Monday (Oct. 1) from 6-9 a.m. (No link is available yet, so you’ll have to trust me — I heard it on the radio this morning).

Dan Patrick’s old radio show on ESPN Radio was easily the best sports radio show in the country and I’m thrilled that not only is he returning to the airwaves, but that I will be able to listen to it. For more info on all things Dan Patrick, check out Palaver, the best Dan Patrick fan blog on the Internets.

The sad news: The return of the Dan Patrick Show comes at the expense of my 2nd favorite sports radio show and the only other one I listened to consistently.

Today was the last day of the Roggin and Simers Squared show, a show by local TV sports anchor Fred Roggin, L.A. Times columnist T.J. Simers and his daughter, Tracy Simers.

Has an entire league ever been this close?

The National League has tightened up to a ridiculous level with only four days to go in the regular season.

Every single playoff spot is still up for grabs, and no one can clinch until Friday at the earliest (in comparison, all four playoff spots in the American League have already been decided).

Let’s look at each race individually:

NL EAST:

NY Mets … 87-71 (1 vs StL, 3 vs Fla)
Phillies … 86-72 (1 vs Atl, 3 vs Wsh)

Wednesday, the Mets lost 9-6 to Washington while the Phillies beat Atlanta 5-2 to gain ground on the Mets.

What the hell has gotten into the Mets? They just got swept by Washington and have gone 4-9 in the last two weeks. The best Mets’ blog I’ve seen, Faith and Fear in Flushing, tries to explain it:

And really, honestly, how can you care about this pathetic baseball team? Horrifying mental mistakes, stupefyingly dumb tantrums at umpires, ludicrous mismanagement of the bullpen and roster, listless play and innings and innings and innings of bad baseball — which part of this rancid stew makes you want to remember your boyhood heroes, or daydream about green fields and summer nights?

Not exactly a ringing endorsement. And what’s stranger is that the Mets could still realistically finish with the best record in the NL — or miss the playoffs completely by Sunday. What a league.

The Phillies are also one game behind San Diego for the wild card (more on that later).

NL CENTRAL:

Chi Cubs … 83-75 (1 @ Fla, 3 @ Cin)
Milwaukee … 81-77 (4 vs SD)

The Cubs lost 7-4 on Wednesday, but the Brewers couldn’t take advantage of it, losing 7-3 to St. Louis.

The Cardinals, rivals of the Cubs, came threw for them by beating the Brewers. How weird is it that the Cardinals could help the Cubs make the playoffs? The Cubs play the easier opponents this week, but the Brewers get to be at home.

NL WEST:

Arizona … 88-70 (1 @ Pit, 3 @ Col)
*San Diego … 87-71 (4 @ Mil)
Colorado … 86-72 (1 @ LA, 3 vs Ari)

* also the Wild Card leader

Arizona has lost three in a row, losing yet another great chance to solidify their lead when they lost to Pittsburgh 5-1 on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the Padres destroyed the hapless Giants 11-3. Colorado is the hottest of all, as their 2-0 win over the Dodgers gave the Rockies won their 10th win in a row. Some guy named Franklin Morales is getting the start today in their biggest game of the year. I don’t know who he is, which is part of the reason I’ve temporarily adopted the Rockies as my NL team — root for the unkowns.

Hell, Colorado could sneak in and take the division if they sweep Arizona in Denver — and since they’ve won 10 in a row, it’s certainly doable.

NL WILD CARD:

San Diego … 87-71
Philly … 86-72
Colorado … 86-72

Yeah, the wild card truly is wild. The Phillies have the easiest schedule to finish the year, but do get John Smoltz today, which is never easy.

What a fun league to follow. It may be inferior in quality to the American League, but the National League is extremely compelling.

The mascot saves the day

Loyal readers of Obscure Sports Quarterly know that I have an unhealthy fascination with mascots. Well, you’ve probably seen this already, but I have to put it here.

KC Wolf, the Kansas City Chiefs’ mascot, helped take down a fan running onto the field.

Hooray for mascots!

Hat-tip to Larry Brown Sports.

Blame management, not the vets or the kids

The Dodgers have been extremely interesting to watch for all the wrong reasons.

Here is a big-market team with a huge payroll, yet their fans seem content with a youth movement.

With a growing payroll, most of a roster back from last year’s playoff team, and a theoretically great farm system, how are the Dodgers in fourth place? And how are their fans not up in arms about this? The Dodgers have to be the biggest disappointment in baseball this year.

Last week, Jeff Kent spoke up against the organization for entering a youth movement, and since, there has been reaction against the veterans and against the youth movement. But I haven’t seen many fingers pointed at management by prominent media members or bloggers, with the exception of T.J. Simers, who as much as I love his work, few seem to ever listen to what he says.

The real issue is not whether the veterans or the kids are the better players for the Dodgers right now, it’s why the Dodgers had to go to a youth movement in the first place. If they spent their money wisely, and hadn’t signed Juan Pierre to that monster contract, hadn’t signed Nomar Garciaparra to a multi-year deal, hadn’t given Jason Schmidt a multi-year deal, hadn’t trusted Randy Wolf to be healthy this season and hadn’t given Rafael Furcal that huge contract, not playing the young guys wouldn’t even be an issue.

Links of the Day: In case you forgot, Steve Phillips is an idiot

Ever wonder how accurate all those people who made baseball predictions back in April did? Well, Vegas Watch did their homework and found out. Anyone who watches ESPN can guess who had the worst predictions. (Vegas Watch)

A blogger who was actually in the Angels’ clubhouse during their AL West-winning celebration. That must have been very cool. (Have Adrenaline — Will Travel)

Jose Offerman has to know that there’s pictures of him swinging a bat at a pitcher all over the place. So how is he pleading not guilty? (Hugging Harold Reynolds)

Which NFL division sucks the most? (Signal to Noise)

Cubs fans are being forced to root for the Cardinals this week (they play the Brewers). They’re not exactly enjoying it. Baseball is great. (A League of Her Own)

Maybe the San Diego Chargers should be yearning for the days of Marty Schottenheimer. Or you could just check out the video of Dr. Rivera from The Simpsons. (We Suck at Sports)

The Angels win the West!

They had such a big lead that I knew this day would come eventually. But it sure is sweet to have the Angels finally clinch the division title.

With their fourth playoff appearance in six seasons, I’ve seen the Angels celebrate many times recently. But it never gets old. Ever. Following the team during the horrible 90s has made me appreciate what getting to the postseason means — it’s not something to be taken for granted. So many teams in baseball have gone many years without a single postseason berth.

The Angels have had their injury problems, and aren’t a perfect team. They have their problems that need to be addressed. But I’ll worry about that later. For now, I’ll be happy about the effort the entire team made, with so many players contributing. The Angels’ likely starting nine in the playoffs all have an OPS+ of over 100. They have two great starting pitchers to use (Escobar, Lackey), one above-average as their #3 (Weaver) and plenty of usable options to use as the 4th starter if they need one.

It’s great that they have a week where they can rest the players who need it — manager Mike Scioscia said in the postgame celebration that some of his players are “on fumes”. They can also line up their postseason rotation and not worry about leaving a player in too long in a close game, and take every precaution necessary.

As a fan, the only weird thing will be the huge time off between meaningful games — the Angels won’t have their first playoff game until either Wednesday, Oct. 3 or Thursday, Oct. 4. But that’s a good problem to have to worry about as a fan — I’ll take it any year.

Bring on the Yankees or the Red Sox.

Breaking down the NL wild card

In a wild weekend of baseball, the New York Mets swept Florida, the Chicago Cubs swept Pittsburgh and Arizona won 2 of 3 from the Dodgers, so all three division leaders extended their lead, meaning the best race remaining in baseball looks like it’s the NL wild card race.

Of course, if the Mets, Cubs or D’backs decide to choke over the next few days, this could change. But that’s the beauty of baseball — playoff races change everyday.

Your current NL wild card standings:

San Diego 85-70
Philadelphia 85-71
Colorado 84-72

So how did this race get so close all of a sudden? The Rockies swept the Padres over the weekend, putting them back in the race. The Rockies winning the wild card would be the most unexpected outcome out of all the races, as they’ve been under the radar the whole year.

A look at the contenders remaining schedules:

WEST (SD leads wild card)

ARIZONA (88-68): at Pittsburgh 3 games, at Colorado 3 games

SAN DIEGO (85-72): at San Francisco 3 games, at Milwaukee 4 games

COLORADO (84-70): at LA Dodgers 3 games, vs. Arizona 3 games

CENTRAL

CHICAGO CUBS (83-73): at Florida 3 games, at Cincinnati 3 games

MILWAUKEE (79-76): vs. St. Louis 3 games, vs. San Diego 4 games

EAST

NEW YORK METS (87-68): vs. Washington 3 games, vs. St. Louis 1 game, vs. Florida 3 games

PHILADELPHIA (85-71): vs. Atlanta 3 games, vs. Washington 3 games