A Winning Streak Halted

Brian Roberts and the O’s were successful in the club’s first game at Wrigley Tuesday night.

 

Riding a 14 game home winning streak, the Chicago Cubs fell short to the first-time visitors from Baltimore Tuesday night, 7-5. After the 6th inning, it looked as if the Cubs were done for the night. But after a towering home run by the player I still feel weird rooting for, Jim Edmonds, the game got a bit more interesting. Add Aramis Ramirez’s RBI single and it’s a 2 run game. Then, with the bases loaded in the 9th, both Ronny Cedeno and Kosuke Fukudome strike out, and Sweet Lou pinch hits for Patterson with…Henry Blanco?? Who was just toyed with by Sherrill and the ballgame is over. The worst part of it was that Brian Roberts, who everyone thought would be heading to the Northside sometime this season, went 3-5 with an RBI in the win. His thoughts after the game:

“I thought I was going to be a Cub in December,” Roberts said before the game. “I didn’t know what was going to happen. … Once the season started you just kinda go out and play your spot and the rest will take care of itself. I really haven’t thought about in a long time.”

Man, I wish the Cubs front office could have found a way to make that deal go through. Roberts would have been a huge boost right now for the Cubs. With Soriano injured, Roberts could lead off and Kosuke could be in a position to drive in some runs. I really like Theriot in the 8-hole, and even though Patterson is playing more LF, the position could be played most of the time by DeRosa. You have Patterson and Ronny Cedeno on the bench, as well as Mike Fontenot and Daryle Ward. This is a huge hypothetical, because you never know who would have been dealt in the Roberts deal. However, Buster Olney reported much earlier in the year that Sean Gallagher and/or Sean Marshall were the “centerpieces of the deal”. For now, I’m just dreaming about a Cubs utopia in which the club has a definite lead-off hitter. And Sammy Sosa never corked his bat. And Corey Patterson actually turned out to be the real deal. And Alex Gonzalez never bobbled that double-play ball in the Bartman game. The possibilities are endless.

Suntrust Indy Challenge: Who will win? Who will surprise?

                       Helio, Wheldon and Dixon have all won at Richmond before. The rest of the field will most likely chase those three this weekend.

 

The Suntrust Indy Challenge at Richmond is sure to offer lots of exciting and close racing to its fans. RIR is the shortest track that the IndyCar Series will run at this season (3/4 mi.) and also a very demanding one. Three former winners are in the field, those three being Indy 500 champ Scott Dixon (won @ RIR in 2003), Dan Wheldon (2004) and Helio Castroneves (2005). I firmly believe that all three of these guys are going to be in the front at the end this year, but the question is what order will they be in?

Here’s a statistic that should be noted: The past two races at RIR have been won by Indy 500 winners (Hornish in 06 and Franchitti in 07). I usually don’t really care about stats like this, because both of those drivers dominated the series in that year, anyways. However, another stat that I paid attention to earlier this year, the fact that Indy 500 winners have finished 2nd at the Milwaukee Mile for the past few years now, came true again this year with the Kiwi. And considering that this stat also would involve Dixon, I’m going to make the BOLD prediction that he wins his 4th race of the season at RIR. However, Helio will have the fastest car and lead the most laps. His car has been solid as of late, but at Iowa the result doesn’t show that. He was quick all day, but a tire went down and Viso make contact with Helio’s tire late, forcing him to pit. He won’t change his winless streak this weekend, unfortunately. Wheldon finishes third; Hunter-Reay finishes fourth…he impressed me with his run @ Iowa last weekend and he will build on that; Vitor Meira catches some breaks for once and finishes fifth.

Who will surprise?

Besides Hunter-Reay, who I think shouldn’t even be mentioned as a dark horse because his car is great and he is as talented as they come, my eye is on A.J. Foyt IV aka Quattro to see if he can run another solid race on a short track. His fifth place finish at Iowa was surprising to say the least, but I think he has a good chance to run in the top 10 again this weekend. With some confidence on short tracks, Quattro could be a factor. Look for Hideki Mutoh to have a strong car again this weekend as well. He finished second to Wheldon at Iowa and is on a roll..that’s not really a surprise, but more of a “who to watch for” kinda thing.

Indycar: DP and Other Topics

Ed Carpenter sees no difference between these two cars.

“I just started working with my car, working towards the front but Danica was doing her normal supreme block job. She is the new Scott Sharp of the series as far as I am concerned. That is two races in a row.”

This was said after Sunday’s Indy Corn 250 at Iowa Speedway, which was won by Dan Wheldon. Eddy had a rough day, finishing 23rd after hitting the wall on lap 38. At first glance, it just seems that Carpenter had a crappy day and he wanted someone to yell at for a few short moments. However, Scott Dixon, who ended up fourth at Iowa, said similar things, calling her a “menace”. Has DP really become the Scott Sharp of the series? I think emotions were running a little too high that day and the comments should be taken with a grain of salt. However, I’ll be the first to say that DP is grossly underachieving this year and in years past. Apparently many drivers were complaining about other drivers blocking (i.e. Marco w/ Dixon) and it just seemed like it was hard to find a good line in traffic. Drivers are still learning Iowa, too. After two years, only a minority of the drivers (DP included) have raced in both races, so it will take a few years to really get a fluent feel of the track.

Also, an extremely classy move for TCGR to give all of their winnings to the flood victims in Iowa. Two class acts in Wheldon and Dixon.

Also, I am looking forward to the Suntrust Indy Challenge this Saturday. It is a 3/4 mi. track that brings a lot of close exciting racing to the table. My pick will come later.

 

 

Something I’ve Never Seen Before

As I looked through some videos on ESPN.com this morning, I came across one that interested me very much. I saw from the headline that Hernandez hit a grand slam in yesterday’s win vs. the Mets in interleague play. Which Hernandez, you say? King Felix. FELIX HERNANDEZ???! Like, the guy who gets 10 at bats a year? Yes, and off of who else, but Cy Young winner Johan Santana!!! Amazing stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d08gfZpnDA4

 What amazed me even more was seeing Mets fans comment about how the Mariner win was a fluke. I read one comment that said that Seattle wouldn’t have won if it weren’t for Hernandez’s grand slam. Now, I’m not a math major, but I’m pretty sure that 5-4 is 1, and all of us could deduct that the 2 runs the Mets put up would trump the 1 that Seattle put up sans Felix’s blast. But how can you make a comment like that??? Let’s say Felix didn’t hit a GS. You never know what could have happened in the rest of the game offensively for Seattle! The grand slam happened in the 2nd inning, too. Having that sort of cushion the whole entire game gives a team a different mindset at the plate. Mets fans, I know you’re having a tough year so far, but so is Seattle. They need wins in a bad way, and it’s not their fault that David Wright bobbled the Willie Bloomquist grounder that would have ended the inning. The Mariners took advantage of a favorable situation, which is what ballclubs are supposed to do. A “W” is a “W”, which is one phrase the worst team in the league, the aforementioned Mariners, would love to keep saying. Unfortunately, Felix got injured in the fifth and didn’t go the distance to get the win. Hats off to you, King Felix, for quieting the Shea crowd all by yourself last night.

My First Post

Hi Everyone,

This is my first of hopefully many posts on my blog site, Balls and Tires. I love racing and I love baseball…therefore I love summer as well! As an Indy native, I have grown up to love racing. My favorite sport, however, has to be baseball. Hopefully this site can give me every opportunity to rant and rave about both of my favorite things.