Hello, and welcome to Tuesday. Did you have an enjoyable Labor Day weekend? I hope you were able to keep cool. It’s been very hot here (by our standards) this past week. But nobody wants to hear some yahoo in San Diego complain about the weather, right? Let’s get to the games:
American League

Blue Jays at Red Sox, 4:05 p.m. PT — Blue and red, birds and items of clothing, two really good pitchers. This game has it all. Roy Halladay’s been kicking butt for several years now, ever since he reinvented himself in 2001, but what’s gotten into Josh Beckett? …read more

Somehow I got out of the habit of doing these. With the pennant races heating up, I reckon it’s time to bust out the previews again:
American League

Mariners at Orioles, 4:05 p.m. PT — How are the Mariners doing it? Ichiro Suzuki, Adrian Beltre, and Jose Guillen all are having decent (not great) seasons on offense. The starting pitching has been okay. The relief pitching has been pretty darned good. They score about as many runs as they give up, and yet, they’re a game out of the AL wild card. Felix Hernandez starts tonight, which is always a good reason …read more

Center fielder Ichiro Suzuki has signed a 5-year, $90 million contract extension that will keep him in Seattle through 2012. I expected him to get somewhere in the $18-20 million per year range on the open market, for 5 or 6 years, so this seems pretty reasonable to me.
Ichiro often draws comparisons to Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn, and although Gwynn was a much more productive player throughout his career, there is one area in which both players are very similar. Both are severely overrated by a certain contingent of the fan base, and severely underrated by another. This is …read more

Our good friends at Gaslamp Ball pointed to this USA Today article on Ichiro Suzuki. Seattle’s star outfielder isn’t just a hit machine, he’s a quote machine. Some of my favorites from the article:
Once I turn 40, I can become a pitcher. I’m kind of serious about it. But I’ll have to learn to throw a knuckleball. Right now, I could be a ‘normal’ pitcher.
I think he probably can become a pitcher at age 40. The only thing he’s lacking is confidence, but maybe that will come with the knuckleball.
I feel the way I did when I was 20. I …read more

I’ve finished up my second fantasy draft of the spring (my first is here). This is a 12-team AL-only Scoresheet league (we can protect up to two players that cross over to the NL) . I lost track of how many rounds we were drafting and shorted myself a bit in the pitching department. I’ll be able to address that in the supplemental drafts, though. This should get me through the first few weeks of the season:

SP: John Lackey, Ana; Jon Garland, ChA; Josh Beckett, Bos; C.C. Sabathia, Cle; Scott Kazmir, TB; Glen Perkins, Min; Thomas Diamond, Tex; Bartolo Colon, …read more