May 29th, 2009 Picks

1-0-0 today and so after breaking the '5' barrier I'll try and take 2 a day to get to 9 again. Then third tries the charm to get that 10 game streak. *crosses fingers*

Baltimore 5 - 1 Detroit

Baltimore's David Hernandez had a decent start to his Major league career giving up only 1 earned run. He had some issues with walking batters, but was able to get out of most jams. Armando Galrraga appeared solid, pitching through 7 innings while giving up a total of two earned runs. Both teams had to work to get on base but it was in the 8^th inning that Luke Scott hit his second home run of the game, a 3 run shot off of Perry, to more or less cinch the victory for Baltimore. Sherrill came on in the 9^th and retired 1-2-3 to end the game. And so on to the picks.

1) Steve Stricker vs. Stewart Cink – Cink cards a lower front 9 score
2) Carla Suarez-Navarro vs. Victoria Azarenka – Azarenka
3) Brian Gay vs. Vijay Singh - Gay cards a lower second round score
4) Los Angeles Dodgers @ Chicago Cubs – Los Angeles
5) Clermont Foot @ Vannes OC – Vannes OC win
6) Detroit Tigers @ Baltimore Orioles – Detroit
7) Boston Red Sox @ Toronto Blue Jays – Toronto
8) Ron Hornaday Jr. vs. Kyle Busch – Busch has a better finishing position
9) Washington vs. Arizona State - Washington
10) Los Angeles Lakers @ Denver Nuggets – Denver
11) Michigan vs. Florida - 8 runs or more
12) San Diego Padres @ Colorado Rockies – Colorado
13) St. Louis Cardinals @ San Francisco Giants – San Francisco

Analysis
1) Steve Stricker has been having a terrific year, with 5 top 10 finishes, including a 2^nd place finish at the Northern Trust Open in February and a 3^rd place finish at the Bob Hope Classic, netting him nearly $2 million from 11 events.

Stricker reacts in frustration after missing a putt at Colonial while Cink celebrates. Will this scene be repeated?

Stewart Cink cannot boast the same kind of success. Aside from a 3^rd place finish at the World Golf Championship Accenture Match Play event he has finished no higher than 24^th and has missed the cut three times. His reward for these efforts has been a `paltry' $860,000. Cink has also underperformed at the Colonial, carding a 71 in the first round, especially compared to Stricker who is co-leader with a 7-under par 63.

Since 2004 Cink has more experience on the course, with 17 rounds played and Stricker with 11 rounds. Both players have a median front 9 score of -1 and each have carded only two front 9 scores over par. Cink's best front 9 was a -5 in the first round in 2006 while Stricker carded his best round yesterday, a -4 thanks in large part to his long range putting. Cink's worst score is +1, in 2004 and 2005, while Stricker carded his worst score of +2 in the second round of 2008. I wouldn't be surprised to see Stricker fall away from the leader position in this round, but he's been so much better than Cink all year I can't honestly recommend picking against him here. I do think Cink will have a better front 9 score with more experience on his side, but it's a long shot. Previews of the holes can be found here. The par 4 hole number 5 proved to be the most difficult of the day with less than half the field reaching the green in regulation. It could be a make or break hole for these two today.

<<--~~==¦Follow their round on ShotTracker¦==~~-->>

A view of the green on hole #3, protected by bunkers.

2) 19 year old Victoria Azarenka is looking to continue her solid play this year, which has seen win her first premier tournament (over an injured Serena Williams) and climb to #9 in the Women's World Rankings. She has already achieved the pinnacle of success in mixed doubles play, winning the 2007 U.S. Open mixed doubles title and the same in the 2008 French Open.

Azarenka plays with a knee brace in the second round while Navarro calmly defeats her opponent to advance.

Her opponent in the third round is Carla Suarez Navarro who has gone through to the finals in one event this year, at Marbella, but has generally been exited through the second or first rounds. She lost to Azarenka earlier this year in straight sets, their only previous encounter.

Last year Azarenka made it through to the fourth round before losing to fourth seeded Svetlana Kuznetsova.

Victoria Azarenka looks to match her progress in last years French Open with a third round victory.

Navarro did one better, defeating the 26^th seeded Flavia Pennetta in the fourth round only to be defeated herself by third seeded Jelena Janković in the quarterfinals. Azarenka is large favorite to win the match today (-200 or so to +130 for Navarro) and given her play this year I can see why. With her knee injury, however, she may not be as strong as she would be otherwise and a retirement looms as a larger and larger possibility the further she goes into the tournament. You can track the progress of the match with the widget up top or click here to see live scores from the Roland Garros site directly.

3) So far this year Brian Gay has three top 10 finishes, including a Tour victory at Harbour Town in April where he set the 72-hole Tour record at -20 and the Verizon Heritage margin of victory record at 10 strokes.

Vijay took a lot of flak in 2002 for saying the PGA Tour was designated for men to play, and make money, on.

He also has two other top 10 finishes on the Tour this year, earning him nearly $1.7 million from 13 events. Vijay Singh has had his difficulties as he missed three weeks on the tour near the end of January recovering from arthroscopic knee surgery and has been taking things easy as he recovers. He's missed the cut 4 out of 10 events since the surgery but appeared to be back on track with a 9^th place finish at TPC Sawgrass three weeks ago. His 63 7-under par in the first round at the Colonial certainly seems to back up that assumption.

Singh himself credits part of that success to playing alongside Kenny Perry, saying: "I know the golf course, and Kenny was making a lot of shots as well, and we played off each other...." It's a good sign for Singh considering he hasn't played this event since the Annika Sorenstam incident. Singh levied harsh criticism at the tour and the sponsors for entering her into the Bank One Colonial (as it was known back then) saying that it took valuable spots away from men for whom the Tour was set up for. He's back and it appears the public has more or less forgiven him.

To the contrary, Brian Gay has been a regular at this event, playing every year from 2004 to present. In that time he has played 19 rounds, carding scores of 69 or better in 10 of them. He tied his best score, a 5-under 65, last year in the second round. His 10^th place finish in 2008 was his best ever at Colonial. I fully expect both players to card low scores, below 68 at least, with the greens remaining soft after the rains a few days ago. With Singh having already carded his best score of the tournament in all likelihood and Gay yet to card his I have to favor Brian Gay in this matchup.

Preview the back nine.

<<--~~==¦Follow their round on ShotTracker¦==~~-->>

4) The Los Angeles Dodgers struggled away from Dodger Stadium with Manny Ramirez in the lineup. Nearly 50 games into the season they have managed to find a way to win away without him. Los Angeles will go for their fifth straight win away from home after sweeping the Rockies in Colorado and taking the first game of the series at Wrigley Field. L.A. has been hitting the ball well in their past three games with a .305 batting average but only a .362 slugging average.

Can Billingsley and the Dodgers pull off another heart stopping victory at Wrigley Field?

Fortunately, they've managed to bunch together the multitude of hits leading to 17 runs scored in three wins. It's the Dodgers' pitching and fielding which has allowed them to win on the road, however, limiting their opponents to 8 runs in those three games. They'll need both strong pitching and strong batting in order to keep up with Chicago's hot bats

The Cubs had been slumping heavily, losing 8 in a row before picking up two wins against the Pirates. Including the loss to the Dodgers the Cubs are batting .330 with a .523 slugging average in their last three games. It was Randy Wolf's and Troncoso's pitching which limited the Cubs to one run in the last game and without it the Dodgers would surely have lost.

The Dodgers have placed Ohman on the disabled list leaving their bullpen 'short' with 7 men, but Broxton, Belisario, and Wade should all be available to pitch with Chad Billingsley hoped to go deep into the game. Billingsley has been superb for the Dodgers this year, posting a 6-2 record to go along with his 2.82 ERA and 1.19 WHIP. He will be facing off against Chris Lilly today, who has been decent to say the least, with a 3.77 ERA and a stellar 1.10 WHIP. Lilly's ground ball to fly ball ratio is about half of Billingsley's so it's no surprise he's given up 10 home runs this season compared to Billingsley's 1, but it is surprising he's done so well keeping men off base. Credit the Cubs' fielding and Lilly's ability to throw strikes and avoid walking batters. With the Dodgers having not hit a single home run in their past three games they will be looking to take advantage of the long hits Lilly is prone to give up.

Both Billingsley and Lilly struggled a bitBillingsley - 6IP, 9H, 4ER, 6K, 1BB

Lilly - 6.1IP, 8H, 5ER, 4K, 2BB in their last starts, giving up 4 or 5 earned runs over 6 innings off of 8 or 9 hits. I think both pitchers will pitch near shut outs today and it will come down to the bullpens over a 1 or 2 innings, and clutch batting in the final inning. It should be close, but I think the Dodgers will have the lead going into the ninth, possibly from a home run earlier in the game, and will be able to hold on with Broxton pitching.

10)	Keys for Denver: Stop whining about calls, take high percentage shots, and get big games from J.R. Smith and Chris Andersen.

It's Game 6 of the Western Conference Finals and the Denver Nuggets face elimination for the first time this postseason. After the teams split Games 3 and 4 by getting away from the 'last-one-to-score-wins' motif of the series with Denver winning by 19 at home and the Lakers taking one at the Staples Center by 9. Bloggers for each team give their opinionsPickaxe N' Roll (DEN)

Lakers Nation (LAL) give their previews of the game with each side identifying attacking the basket and taking smart shots as keyes to the game.

From ``Lakers Nation'': The Lakers will have to control the tempo, the glass, get back in transition, and stop the dribble penetration as well as rotate out to three point shooters. The Lakers will need to slow Carmelo Anthony, Chauncey Billups & Nene. Limit the impact of the explosive yet volatile J.R. Smith.

``Pickaxe N' Roll'' identifies 7 keys to the game, the most important of which being the rebounding battle. Looking at the box scores from Games 3 and 4 the offensive rebounding stats jump out. In their 19 point victory the Nuggets had a 20-9 edge on the offensive glass, but only a 14-10 edge in their Game 5 loss. Clearly, the Nuggets either need to start making the smarter shots or completely dominate the offensive boards to pick up a win in this game. Finally, Magic Johnson and Brent Barry chime in with their reasons for why this series will go to a Game 7. Essentially, home court advantage will enable Denver to make the plays they need to make to win.

13) The St. Louis Cardinals hope they can somehow find a way to rediscover their slumping offense which has scored a meager 3.6 runs per game in their last three games. They've also batted only .222 with a .414 slugging average in this games. Yet, despite their lack of offense the Cardinals are riding a two game winning streak as they visit AT&T Park to take on Matt Cain and the San Francisco Giants.

San Francisco will depend on Matt Cain to make Ankiel and Ludwick's return to the order a quiet one.

A big part of that success has been the performance of their pitching staff, limiting Milwaukee to one and two runs in the victories. St. Louis will start Joel Piniero tonight who is coming off a 3-2 loss to the Royals. Piniero has walked 7 batters in 61¹/₃ innings pitched this season and has a remarkably low K/9 of 3.1, meaning nearly all of his outs are from balls in play.

The Cardinals will thus welcome Ricky Ankiel and Ryan Ludwick back into the lineup tonight with open arms and a sigh of relief. It may not be coincidence the Cardinals' slump in May has come at the same time these two have been out of the lineup. Aside from providing much needed strength at the plate the two are skilled fielders, something Piniero's success depends on. San Francisco already has one of the lowest rated offnses in the league and will have their work cut out for them tonight.

Matt Cain will certainly aid San Francisco in keeping up with the Cardinals. Cain has a 2.40 ERA and 1.32 WHIP this season and is coming off a very nice start in Seattle where he gave up only 1 earned run from 10 hits. He also had 7 strikeouts without walking a batter. I would not bet on Cain limiting the Cardinals to one run if he gives up 10 hits tonight with St. Louis averaging nearly a double with every hit in their last three games. Cain has a 9.58 ERA in two career appearances against St. Louis so I expect he will be sorely tested.

Overall, I think Ludwick and Ankiel will make their presence felt most in the out field, limiting the Giants' hits. San Francisco is batting .327 in their last three games, all wins, so I expect their batting numbers to go down. Still, I think Cain is the better overall pitcher and with a bit of luck the Giants will be able to find the gaps in the outfield enabling them to still get their share of hits. As long as Cain does not have a disastrous outing I think the Giants should win this game, but the Cardinals will have a chance at every point in the game.

May 28th, 2009 Picks

Nice, 2-0-0 again today, although I have to apologize for coming out with such shitty blog picks… honestly I haven’t looked into them much at all the past few days as I’ve been learning web development (javascript/XML/AJAX/CSS/etc.) I swear I'll break .500 today.

Detroit 8 - 3 Kansas City

Detroit was solid today against Davies. They fell behind in the 1^st but took the lead back, and for good, in the 2nd. The game broke open for Detroit in the 5^th and 6^th innings. Polanco knocked in 2 more in the 5^th with his first home run of the season and 2 more runs scored with 2 outs in the 6^th.

Jered Weaver - 103 pitches; Angels 3 - 1 White Sox

Jered Weaver had one inning retired with 7 pitches and others with over 15. The Angels left him in for the 8^th inning with a 3-1 lead and he used 9 pitches to retire three, ending up at 103 total. The Angels won the game 3-1. It was the first run Weaver had given up to the White Sox in 23 innings. So on to the picks.

1) Rory Sabbatini vs. Mike Weir – Sabbatini cards a lower front 9 score
2) Sidharth Chand vs. Kavya Shivashankar – Shivashankar finishes better
3) Andy Roddick vs. Ivo Minar – 39 games or more
4) Tampa Bay Rays @ Cleveland Indians – Cleveland
5) Washington vs. Georgia – Washington
6) Boston Red Sox @ Minnesota Twins – Minnesota
7) Geoff Ogilvie vs. J.B. Holmes – Ogilvie cards a lower first round score
8) Missouri vs. Arizona State – Arizona State
9) Alabama vs. Michigan – Alabama
10) Detroit @ Baltimore – Baltimore
11) Scripps Nat’l Spelling Bee – No. of Letters in Final Word: 9 or less vs. 10 or more – 9 or less
12) Los Angeles Dodgers @ Chicago Cubs – Los Angeles
13) D. Howard and R. Lewis pts. vs. L. James pts. – Howard and Lewis pts.
14) Arizona vs. Florida – 4 runs or fewer
15) Atlanta Braves @ Arizona Diamondbacks – Arizona
16) Chicago Fire @ Chivas USA – Chicago win or draw

Analysis

Rory Sabbatini won the Colonial in 2007 and was 7-under par on the front 9 in four rounds.

1) Rory Sabbatini has had a good year on the Tour thus far with four top 10 finishes 19 weeks in. Mike Weir has also done alright for himself, becoming a millionaire for the year with 2 top 10 finishes. Sabbatini, a Forth Worth resident, has historically performed better on his home town course with a median front 9 score of -1 since 2004 while Mike Weir has a median front 9 score of even par. Sabbatini has carded front 9 scores under par in 11 of 18(61%) rounds played in that time. Mike Weir has carded the same in 6 of 14(43%) rounds. Sabbatini also won this event in 2007 though he failed to make the cut last year. Weir's top finish was 8^th place in 2000 with his second best finish being 15^th last year.

The course has been altered some from last year and Sabbatini discusses how those changes will affect play. "Under the conditions we’ll play it, I think it’s going to play about four shots harder," said Sabbatini. Four shots harder? "No. Four shots per round, I wouldn’t be surprised to see it play that much tougher." Rain soaked the grounds on Tuesday so there is a question of if the course will be hard and dry in time for the first round, which would increase it's difficulty. Previews of the holes can be found here.

<<--~~==¦Follow their round on ShotTracker¦==~~-->>

2) It's the semi-finals of the 2009 Scripps National Spelling Bee and as per their agreement ESPN will be televising this event. This will be 12 year old Kavya Shivashankar's fourth straight appearance in the competition, finishing 10^th or better the three years previous. At 13 years old Sidharth Chand is making his second appearance after debuting last year with a runner up finish.

Sidharth Chand stays cool under pressure.

At 11 years old Kavya Shivashankar misses a word in the finals last year and let's her emotions show.

Unsurprisingly there are sportsbooks setting odds on this event. BetUS.com is one such site giving odds for everything from who will last longer, to the length of the winning word, even whether a child will vomit during the competition. For what it's worth BetUS has Shivashankar with better odds to go further in the Bee and I'll go with her experience on this one.

3)

Andy Roddick is 3-0 against Ivo Minar in his career, winning once in 2007 and twice in 2008. He's won in straight sets one time, at the ATP Masters last year, with Minar taking a set in each of the other two matches. In their matches the loser of the set has won an average of 4.6 games, with the past 4 sets they've played going to tie break each time. The French Open is a Major on the ATP Tour so it will be a best 3 out of 5 match with the winner of the match taking 18 to 21 games. In order for 39 games to be played each player must win at least 18 games, at which point 38 games will have been played (with 2 tie breaks) with the eventual winner needing at least 1 more game to take victory. You can check out the scores with the SlamTracker widget up top and to the right, or in a new tab by clicking here.

6) The Minnesota Twins will be counting on Anthony Swarzak to help them take 3 of 4 in their series with Boston today. Swarzak had been tearing up the minors with AAA Rochester so he was on the short list of players to be called up when Glen Perkins went on the disabled list with irritated nerves in his elbow.

How many innings will Swarzak extend his scoreless streak?

His first career start in the Majors was a 7 inning shutout of the Milwaukee Brewers. The Brewers are a good offensive team and it won't get any easier facing the Red Sox who, despite scoring only 10 runs in their last three games, are batting .284 with a .394 slugging average. Swarzak will also have to contend with Jason Varitek who will be returning to the lineup today. Minnesota will be hoping their own bats will play a factor in this game with Delmar Young breaking his hitless streak yesterday and Denard Span returning to the lineup.

Boston will be starting Josh Beckett who has had three straight quality starts after struggling for a couple of weeks. Swarzak's 7 shutout innings look mundane compared to Beckett's last outing, where he limited the New York Mets to 0 runs from 5 hits. Over their careers the Twins' batting order has 66 at bats against Beckett and have recorded a .333 batting average along with a .636 slugging average. If they can duplicate those numbers against Beckett tonight the Twins will win easily.

Overall, I think Ellsbury, Varitek, and the rest of the Boston all-stars will make life a little difficult for Swarzak and his streak of shutout innings will come to a close. It will be up to the Twins' offense to keep themselves in the game. I think Beckett and Swarzak will each pitch well and the game should be close and low scoring. Joe Nathan has converted 12 of 12 save opportunities against Boston in his career and I think he'll get a chance to do so again today.

7) Geoff Ogilvy is the odds on favorite to win the Colonial this year while J.B. Holmes is considered someone who will make an appearance on the leaderboard. Holmes has only played in this event once before, in 2007, and he missed the cut with rounds of 72 and 69. Ogilvy has played in this round five times from 2001 through 2008 and has never missed the cut, with a low round of 66 and a high round of 75 both carded in 2001. Last year he carded rounds of 72, 70, 67, and 70.

<<--~~==¦Follow their round on ShotTracker¦==~~-->>

10) AL East cellar dwellers Baltimore look to extend their season long winning streak to 4 games today against the AL Central leading Detroit Tigers. Both teams are riding hot streaks offensively with Detroit scoring 7.3 runs per game and Baltimore scoring 7.6 in their last three games. Both teams are batting over .300 in those games but Baltimore is batting harder, with a .575 slugging average compared to .455 for the Tigers. That makes for a very interesting ball game.

The Orioles will be grinning at the plate if Armando Galarraga continues to struggle with his command.

Armando Galarraga, who has recorded a 5.74 ERA and 1.55 WHIP through 9 starts this season, will be starting for the Tigers. Galarraga has been working in between starts to fix his mechanics which have been inconsistent of late. His last five startsDET 3 - 4 COL (L)
DET 11 - 7 (W)
DET 2 - 6 MIN (L)
DET 0 - 6 CWS (L)
DET 5 - 6 CLE (L) have seen him give up 25 earned runs in 22²/₃ innings.

Facing off against Galarraga will be another young prospect for the Orioles, David Hernandez. On Hernandez potentially starting Orioles manager Dave Trembley said, "Yeah, the guy who struck out 14 the other night, ... He's starting tomorrow." Indeed, Hernandez recorded 14 strikeouts and zero walks in his last outing with the Norfolk Tide on the 22^nd. Obviously that was AAA baseball and this is the Majors, but honestly AAA is full of major league players who are missing one or two elements from their game to make the team.

I think Hernandez, like Berken the other day, will prove to be the real McCoy and will put the brakes on Detroit's hot hitting. Galarraga is due to have a good start but I think he's just as likely to continue to struggle until he's placed on the disabled list. He really is a 4.50 ERA pitcher in the majors based on his DICE (defense independent component ERA) from last season so even if he does settle down I think the Orioles will score a few runs off of him. Neither bullpen is that great, with Detroit's being slightly better in terms of strikeouts, home runs, and earned run average, so unless one team has a 4 or 5 run lead going into the 8^th it should be anyones game. I give the Orioles the advantage to be the team with that kind of lead.

11) Estimates on the number of words in the English language depend on what is included as a word. For example, to 'run' is a verb, but is a 'run' scored another word? Do run, runs, running, ran all count as separate words? Then there is debate over what constitute an English word. Slate.com has a nice article on this and report that unabridged dictionaries carry between 300,000 to 600,000 words. As for how many contain 10 letters or more the same issues arise, but estimates put the limit at around 60,000 or 10% of all words. The Scripps Spelling Bee website contains a list of winning words from 1925 to 2008. In those 83 years 34 winning words had a length of at least 10 letters, or 41% of the time. It has been three years since such a word decided the contest, but from 2001 to 2005 the winning word was over 10 letters long each year. I favor 9 letters or fewer as there are more words to choose from and plenty of tricky ones.

13) The Orlando Magic visit Quicken Loans Arena to take on the Cleveland Cavaliers, up 3-1 and on the verge of the NBA Finals. They have looked very nice in the first five games, with their only loss being on that LeBron James three pointer with one second remaining⁺⁺. Much has been made of LeBron James' scoring in the three losses, averaging a monster 44 and some fraction points per game while the Cavaliers keep losing.

LeBron passes, Mo scores, and Z, West, Andy and Co. are smiling.

I think the focus for Cleveland, however, isn't how they're going to score points, but how they are going to keep Orlando from scoring theirs. The Magic provide any opponent with a headache on the defensive end, with Dwight Howard dominant in the paint, and a front court that boasts two 6'10" players, Turkoglu and Lewis, who can score from three point range and take it to the rim. Add on to that a crafty Rafer Alston, and two young undervalued guards in Courtney Lee and Mickael Pietrus and the Magic force any opponent to pick their poison. Mike Brown should be smart enough to recognize he won't be able to stop the Magic, as a team, from scoring if he focuses on stopping a specific player. He will need to work on a team defensive concept that has players helping one another out on double teams and moving to set positions before the offensive player does.

Unfortunately for Cleveland, I don't think they have the personnel to implement that kind of a plan. With the three point shooting coming from nearly every position the Magic force a team to stretch their defense which creates passing lanes, and creases to get to the basket for high percentage shots. It would take some sheer speed and quickness to get back and forth between defenders, and the Cavaliers just don't have that. No team does. The Magic will probably go with the defense that's helped them to win three games already and focus on LeBron James, but not too much. That is, they'll double team him, deny him the ball, and front him, but not every possession, not if it means leaving other players wide open. There's a nice preview of the game on Third Quarter Collapse, an Orlando Magic blog. They see the home court helping the Cavaliers' role players to, well, play a bigger role. If that happens LeBron will probably end up with around 30 points, while Howard and Lewis should eclipse 40. Of course, Orlando might have their 'bad game' of the series and score only 80, but I hope not.

⁺⁺As an aside here's a priceless reaction to LeBron's miracle three from a local Cleveland news team while they're on the air.

16)	Chicago has yet to meet defeat on the road.

Here's a preview of the match from ESPN. Essentially, both teams are at full strength with Chicago boasting the top most goals scored on the road in the league and Chivas USA the fewest goals allowed. At home Chivas USA is 5-1-0 (W-D-L) while Chicago are 3-3-0 on the road. Based on goals scored and allowed I would give Chivas USA about a 41% chance of winning the match outright, meaning Chicago winning or drawing comes in at 59%. With neither team recording a loss through six matches home/away I would consider a draw as a very likely possibility.

May 27th, 2009 Picks

Finally got off that badwagon [sic] with a 2-0-0 day.

S. Williams def. K. Zakopalova 6-3 6-7⁷ 6-4

Klara Zakopalova took Serena Williams to three sets losing in 29 games, but she was incredibly close to losing in 18. Serena won the first set 6-3 and found herself up 5-3 in the second set when Zakopalova won three straight points to go up 40-love. Serena came roaring back to deuce and they battled over that game point for a long while. Ace, deuce, ace, deuce, and so on. Eventually Zakopalova won three straight points to take the game, and eventually the set 7(7)-6. Serena took the third set, though to send herself to the second round of the Roland Garros.

Pittsburgh 4 - 1 Carolina (Pittsburgh wins series 4-0)

They did it. The Pittsburgh Penguins swept the Hurricanes with a 4-1 win on the road. Gotta say the Penguins are going to be dangerous in the Stanley Cup. Assuming Detroit advances we'll be in for a true clash of the titans. And so on to the picks.

1) Nadia Petrova vs. Maria Sharapova – Petrova
2) Rafael Nadal vs. Teimuraz Gabashvili – 26 games or more
3) St. Louis Cardinals @ Milwaukee Brewers – Milwaukee
4) Detroit Tigers @ Kansas City Royals – Detroit
5) Manchester United vs. Barçelona – Manchester United
6) Los Angeles Dodgers @ Colorado Rockies – Los Angeles
7) Seattle Mariners @ Oakland Athletics – Oakland
8) Houston Astros @ Cincinnati Reds – Cincinnati
9) Chicago Blackhawks @ Detroit Red Wings – 6 goals or more
10) New York Yankees @ Texas Rangers – Texas
11) Boston Red Sox @ Minnesota Twins – Minnesota
12) Denver Nuggets @ Los Angeles Lakers – Kenyon Martin FG made
13) Jered Weaver’s Pitch Count: 99 or fewer vs. 100 or more – 100 or more
14) Atlanta Braves @ San Francisco Giants – Atlanta

1) You can check out each players' stats, results from this year and their head-to-head results at SonyEricssonWTAtour.com. There's also a nice interview with Sharapova where she admits she played poorly in the first round before turning things around. Their match will be played on the Suzanne Langlen court. I can only favor Petrova as she is currently the #11 ranked woman in the world, while Sharapova has dropped all the way below #100.

4) The Kansas City Royals hope they can avoid starting another losing streak when the Detroit Tigers finish up their three game series at Kauffman Stadium today. The Roayls were once division leaders, but have since dropped 13 of their last 18 and are now sitting at .500 (23-23), 3 games behind Detroit.

Ricky Porcello has been on fire, giving up 3 earned runs over his last 4 starts.

The Tigers will be starting 20 year old rookie Rick Porcello who, after tearing through the minors with AAA Lakeland, is having a terrific start to his Major league career. Porcello is coming off a 6 inning 6 hit against the Rockies in which he gave up only 1 run. That's just the latest in a run of solid play by Porcello, a run in which he has pitched 24 inninings over 4 games giving up just 3 earned runs.

He'll be facing a Kansas City team that has been batting .240 and slugging just .350 in their last three games. Royals' manager Trey Hillman is betting on the rough stretch coming to an end naturally, saying: "It's been a tough two-week stretch. Every team goes through two or three a season. But I'm hopeful we can pull out of this one, and then the next one that we go through can kind of apply what we learned through this one." Ideally it is just a rough patch and not an indication that their early season success was a extraordinary run of good play. Kansas City will need their offense behind starting pitcher Kyle Davies who was shellshocked in his last start against Detroit, lasting 5¹/₃ innings while giving up 7 earned runs from 8 hits.

I don't expect that to repeat itself again today, but the Tigers have punished Davies in the past and so Kansas City will need to provide at least 3 runs of support for him. The big question mark is whether Porcello can keep up his all-star pitching at such a young age. Detroit's bullpen isn't the greatest (4.63 ERA, 1.43 WHIP) and they have been winning games by taking large leads or having their pitchers go deep into the game. If Porcello can go 6 or 7 quality innings the Tigers should take the game, but if he gets touched up it could be very close and Kansas City would have a slight advantage in that situation. Overall I think both pitchers will give up some runs with the Tigers finding some power in their bats that's been lacking lately. That extra power hitting will provide extra runs and should be enough for Detroit to take a lead into the 7^th which the bullpen can hold on to.

5)

Manchester United could become the first ever repeat Champions League winners.

This is easily the biggest European football match of the year with most of the world looking to see who will be crowned champions of Champions. As such there are an abundance of great previews Goal.com London Telegraph Setanta Sports BBC Sports to ponder in making a selection today. Listen to Wayne Rooney express his belief that the Red Devils can

Don't be fooled by Barçelona's injuries. Pique and Puyol are tough and they will still be one of the strongest sides in the world.

win with defense and counter attacks. Barçelona will be dealing with the suspensions of Dani Alves and Rafael Marquez in the backfield, but I think they will still be a strong side. If Manchester United can apply the pressure Chelsea did on the Catalans, however, I think the strength of players like Ronaldo and Rooney will allow them to score.

10) Derek Holland will make his second start of the season, and probably his last for a long while.

Texas can only hope to take 2 out of 3 after the Yankees spanked them 11-1 on Monday.

With Vicente Padilla returning from injury, and likely to join the bullpen for today's game, Holland will have one last shot to make sure he's the first choice to fill in for any further blows to the rotation this season.

The Yankees will be making sure that does not happen. In their last 3 games the Yankees are batting an incredible .366, though their long hits have been curiously lacking. They're slugging .496 in those games which is terrific, but considering the sheer number of hits they are getting and that they've played their last three games in well-known hitters' parks their hitting has been dominated by singles. Though they are unlikely to match those batting numbers they should still see 3 or 4 runs posted on Holland.

A.J. Burnett, on the other hand, has a rock solid position in the Yankees' starting rotation, even after being knocked around a bit in his last four startsNYY 3 - 7 PHI (L)

NYY 3 - 2 MIN(W)

NYY 1 - 5 TOR(L)

NYY 3 - 4 TB(L). Burnett has not been credited with a win in 7 straight outings, a series of games in which the Yankees have gone 3-4 as a team. I think the Yankees will find Holland as talented as most pitchers they have faced this season and unless Burnett can shake out of his slump their bullpen will be working to keep a deficit from growing. It will be tough for their batters to make up ground as well because while the Rangers' bullpen is not stellar they do have a terrific closer in Francisco and Padilla's addition, should he play, will strengthen it further.

13)	Jared Weaver is very economical with his pitch count at 14.8 per inning this season.

Jared Weaver will face off against the Chicago White Sox today, a team against whom he has had great success. In two games last season he pitched for 15 scoreless innings, giving up only 4 hits total. He also threw over 100 pitches in both games. This season Weaver is averaging exactly 100 pitches and 6²/₃ innings over 9 starts and has thrown over 100 in 5 of those starts. Of his 30 starts last season he threw 100 pitches or more 17 times while averaging nearly 102 pitches and 6 innings per start. He is on a 100 pitch count and it's been enforced strictly this season, with Weaver exiting the game after 7 innings and just under 100 pitches 3 times. He averages a very economical 14.8 pitches per inning pitched, which would be 103 or 104 pitches in a 7 inning start. I think Weaver will reach 7 innings in this game, so it will be a matter of if he throws 100 pitches to get there. Unless he's under 85 or 90 pitches after 7 innings it's likely he will be relieved. If he has a bad game and is dominated by the White Sox he is likely to be pulled early, but he will be given a chance to settle down before then. Chicago has been hitting well in their series against the Angels so I like their chances to make hits and force Weaver to see extra batters and hit foul balls forcing him to throw extra pitches.

May 26th, 2009 Picks

Ouch, 0-2-0 today, meaning I picked none of my 7 winners and 2 of my 4 losers. Wandy Rodriguez and Ervin Santana were awful in their starts.

Cincinnati 8 - 5 Houston

Wandy got bailed out by his fielders, as he improved his ERA for the season despite giving up 10 hits and something like 5 or 6 runs. An error was assigned after the fact to the first hit, so Taveras reached first by error. His run is unearned, and because the fielder’s choice that scored him would have just put runners on 1^st and 2^nd with Taveras being out, then the foul out on the next at bat would have ended the inning so all the subsequent RBI singles given up by Wandy were also unearned.

Chicago White Sox 17 - 4 Los Angeles Angels

Santana started out much the same way, only difference was all 7 of his runs were earned, and with three outs to his credit he had a 63.00 ERA for the game. Ouch. The White Sox had one of their massive hitting nights and scored 17 runs. Kind of a crazy day in baseball with the Rays giving up a 10 run lead, so on to the picks.

1) Serena Williams vs. Klara Zakopalova – 19 games or more are played
2) Fabrice Santoro vs. Christophe Rochus – Rochus
3) BK Häcken @ Djurgårdens IF – BK Häcken win or draw
4) Tampa Bay Rays @ Cleveland Indians – Cleveland
5) Toronto Blue Jays @ Baltimore Orioles – Toronto
6) Houston Astros @ Cincinnati Reds – Houston
7) Pittsburgh Penguins @ Carolina Hurricanes – Pittsburgh
8) New York Yankees @ Texas Rangers – Texas
9) St. Louis Cardinals @ Milwaukee Brewers – Milwaukee
10) Cleveland Cavaliers @ Orlando Magic – Cleveland
11) Atlanta Braves @ San Francisco Giants - Lincecum records 8 strikeouts or fewer

Analysis
1) For those who never watched the opening rounds of Wimbledon on USA as a child tennis matches are made up of sets and games. Each set is won by being the first to 6 games, and winning at least 2 games more than the opponent. If each player wins 6 games there is a tie-break played where the first to reach 6 points and at least by 2 points wins the tie-break. So the minimum number of games in a set is 6 and the maximum number is 13. The match between Williams and Zakopalova is best 2 out of 3, so the minimum number of games a player must win, barring one player retiring (forfeiting) or being disqualified, is 12 and the maximum number is 39 games. For 19 or more games to be played both players must win 7 games, and that's all. I like those odds. You can check out the head-to-head history between these two players here. I noticed that both times these two have played on clay courts they played 19 or more games with Zakopalova winning the match earlier this year. You can follow the match live as well.

3)	Djurgården seek to gain 4 points on GAIS to avoid relegation to the Superettan.

BK Häcken have been tearing through the Swedish Cup so far.

BK Häcken visit Stockholms Olympiastadion to take on Djurgården coming off of a brilliant 3-0 home defeat of Helsingborg. It was difficult to get any injury news for Djurgården but here is a match report from their recent loss away at Trelleborg which lists their starting line up. There was no news of injury in the report so that may be the lineup they use for today's match. Unfortunately, the BK Häcken site has limited English translation. Here is an injury report for BKH, and essentially their only major concern is that Josef Karlsson will miss the match. The other players mentioned have returned to training and will be fit, or have not started for the team so far this season. One concern for BK Häcken is the appointment of Daniel Stålhammar as head official. Stålhammar led the crew overseeing their 0-3 loss away at GAIS earlier in the season and the fans are none too happy over the perceived advantage he gave their opponents. He also overruled his assistants on an offisdes call in a match BK Häcken played against AIK. I think Djurgården will be fighting hard to find some measure of success but BK Häcken will prove to be too tough for a team who has scored 5 goals in 10 matches, with the match ending in a draw.

5) The Toronto Blue Jays are on a monumental streak. Of weakness. In their past three games they are batting a barely respectable .255 and slugging just .294, or just 1.15 total bases per hit. To put that in perspective that comes out to one extra base hit every 8 hits.

Do the Blue Jays even have a shot of ending their home run drought against Berken?

They have also reached an unenviable mark of going 53 innings without a home run, a span of 6 games which has seen them on the losing end every time. The management appear to be just hoping for a big hit to get things back on track rather than focusing on specific elements of power hitting like mechanics and rotation; and why should they, considering they were one of the leaders in the Majors until this drought. They will be hoping they don't greet newcomer Jason Berken with flowers and champagne. Berken is one of the Orioles' most promising prospects and his move up to replace Adam Eaton was probably one to be made in the near future even without Eaton's being placed on the disabled list. Through 33¹/₃ innings in the minors this season Berken has recorded a 2.16 ERA and 1.05 WHIP while giving up only 2 home runs.

Toronto will counter with the return of Ricky Romero who had a 1.71 ERA and 1.10 WHIP in three major league starts before injuring himself, including a 7 inning, 4 hit gem against Oakland on April 19^th. He's certainly struggled a bit in his two rehab starts, giving up 10 earned runs in 9 innings with Dunedin (A adv.) and Las Vegas (AAA). Still, he's healthy now and it's not uncommon to see even the best pitchers struggle right out of the gate, or coming back from injury.

Overall I would say there are a couple of important factors pointing towards Baltimore winning this game: a pitcher who is playing much better more recently, and better offensive numbers for the past week. Based on each pitchers' numbers from last season, however, I would say Berken would be due to have a poor start even in the minors, and facing a Toronto team that is far overdue to start hitting again I would give the advantage to Toronto. Also, the Blue Jays' bullpen have recorded a lower ERA and WHIP and give up far fewer home runs than the Orioles'. I think each pitcher will struggle a bit tonight and those bullpens will be the deciding factor.

Tim Lincecum's season stats, and some graphs on Atlanta's performance against starting pitchers this year.

11) One thing to notice immediately from the graphs is that Tim Lincecum averages over 7 strikeouts per game while the Braves have yet to strike out more than 7 times against any starting pitcher they've faced in 44 games, including Johan Santana. The top graph shows how much greater or lower than average a pitcher's K/7 was against the Braves in that particular game. K/7 is exactly like K/9, strikeouts per 9 innings pitched, but for 7 innings. One can see they sometimes allow a pitcher to go far above their average while others can't seem to strikeout a Brave for the life of them. Last season Lincecum pitched against Atlanta twice and had 10 strikeouts and 8 strikeouts, so he definitely can reach 9 against them. He's the Freak of Nature after all. Lincecum's K/7 is 9.3, so if he can be economical with his pitches I like his chances, but in the end I have to go with the Braves who have yet to be struck out even 8 times this season.