The final day of Pac-10 play

Today’s the last day of the Pac-10 regular season and I’m going to outline the possible scenarios on where every team is seeded in the Pac-10 Tournament which starts on Wednesday. First, today’s schedule:

Stanford at USC, 11 a.m. (CBS)
Cal at UCLA, 12:30 p.m. (ABC)
Arizona State at Oregon State, 2:30 p.m.
Washington at Washington State, 4:30 p.m.
Arizona at Oregon, 7:30 p.m. (FSN)

And your standings going into the final day:

15-2 UCLA
13-4 Stanford
10-7 Washington State
10-7 USC
8-9 Arizona State
8-9 Arizona
8-9 Oregon
7-10 Washington
6-11 Cal
0-17 Oregon State

Here’s how they’ll finish:

#1 seed — UCLA has already clinched the conference title and the #1 seed.

#2 seed — Stanford has already clinched the #2 seed

#3 seed — If Washington State wins OR USC loses, Washington State gets the #3 seed. If neither happens, USC gets the #3 seed.

#4 seed — Either USC or Washington State (whichever one doesn’t get the #3 seed).

Seeds #5-8 are interesting. Here’s the possibilities based on what happens in the three relevant games:

ASU, WSU, ORE win — ASU #5 seed, ORE #6, UA #7, UW #8
ASU, WSU, UA win — ASU #5 seed, UA #6, ORE #7, UW #8
ASU, UW, ORE win — ASU #5 seed, ORE #6, UW #7, UA #8
ASU, UW, UA win — ASU #5 seed, UA #6, UW #7, ORE #8
OSU, UW, ORE win — ORE #5 seed, ASU #6, UW #7, UA #8
OSU, WSU, ORE win — ORE #5 seed, ASU #6, UA #7, UW #8
OSU, WSU, UA win — UA #5 seed, ASU #6, ORE #7, UW #8
OSU, UW, UA win — UA #5 seed, UW #6, ASU #7, ORE #8

So to go by team, Arizona State can’t do any worse than 7th (they’re 5th if they win), Arizona and Oregon can finish anywhere from 5th to 8th, and Washington can finish anywhere from 6th to 8th (they’re 8th if they lose).

#9 seed — Cal will be the #9 seed. Washington has the tiebreaker over them after winning both games vs. Cal in the season.

#10 seed — Oregon State’s had the bottom seed in the Pac-10 locked up for a while now. Today’s their last chance to win a game and avoid going 0-18 in the Pac-10, something that’s never been done before in conference history.

Today should be fun with some very good games, and the Pac-10 Tournament should be very exciting.

23 days ’til Opening Day: Derek Lowe

There are 23 days left until that best day of the year, MLB’s Opening Day.

23 is the number Derek Lowe wears. Lowe has had a very good career, winning a World Series in Boston and putting up several good seasons. He’s in that rare club of having both a 20-win season and a 40-save season.

But what I really want to point out is reason #5,278 why the number of wins a pitcher has is overrated. Last season, Lowe went 12-14, a losing record. His ERA was 3.88, significantly lower than the league average (4.57). So because the Dodgers didn’t score much for him, the casual fan might think Lowe had an off year, even though he was really good. This actually happened to him in 2005 as well, when he had an ERA of 3.61 and a record of 12-15. You’ve gotta love the Dodger organization’s commitment to winning.