January 16th update

Favorites tumble in NFC, coast in AFC

• The NFL playoffs always have a few twists and turns and this year has been no exception. The Two most impressive teams over the course of this season according to many were the New Orleans Saints and Green Bay Packers, led by MVP favorite Aaron Rodgers and likely runner-up Drew Brees. However both lost over the weekend as the Saints couldnt survive a crazy 4th quarter against the San Francisco 49ers and the Packers fell flat at home against Eli Manning and the New York Giants.

• The Saints fell behind 17-0 early and looked to be in trouble but quickly recovered and actually took the lead twice late in the game. However, the Saints have not been good on defense all year and could not guard TE Vernon Davis who torched them for 3 TD's including two in the fourth quarter and one with 9 seconds left in the game to provide the final margin of victory for the Nniers.

• The biggest play of the Packers-Giants game undeniably came at the end of the first half. With the Giants on the Packers 37 yard line, clinging to a 13-10 lead with just seconds remaining in the half, coach Tom Coughlin opted not to kick a Field Goal, instead throwing a Hail Mary pass which was inexplicably caught by Giants WR Hakeem "the Dream" Nicks. Green Bay never recovered and lost 37-20.

•The other two games were less surprising as the Patriots obliterated the Tim Tebow-led Broncos 45-10 with Tom Brady throwing for a playoff recorde tying 6 TD's just minutes into the second half, 3 of which went to TE Rob Gronkowski. The Baltimore Ravens won with their standard formula of defense and mistake free football, committing 0 penalties and 0 turnovers to barely edge the upstart Houston Texans 20-13. San Francisco and New England will host the Championship games next week with the winner playing in the Super Bowl on February 5th.

Yankees Make Big Moves

• Entering this offseason, the biggest question for the New York Yankees was surrounding their starting pitching. After their ace CC Sabathia, the Yankees pitching staff was a large question mark. However, in a flurry of moves within about an hour of each other on Friday night the Yankees took two big steps to shore up the rest of their staff.
• The biggest move was acquiring Seattle pitching phenom Michael Pineda. Pineda will be a top 3 starter for the Yankees (joining Sabathia and Phil Hughes) and made the All-Star team last year at the ripe old age of 22. He's still raw and has the ability to improve but he's a bright star with a lot of upside that the Yankees hope will be realized. The Yankees gave up star catching prospect Jesus Montero in this trade, showing just how high they are Pineda.

• The other move was signing former Dodgers starter Hideki Kuroda to a one year deal which will give them a quality arm in 2012 and will probably allow their two young young minor league stars (Manny Banuelos and Dellin Betances) another year to develop and be coached.
The last two spots of the rotation can be filled with a number of prospects or established veterans.

Australian Open Starts this Week

• The Australian Open, the start of the Tennis season, kicked off on Sunday in Sydney. Many of the stories of this years tournament have come off the court. Venus Williams pulled out prior to the tournament due to an autoimmune disease that has kept her out of competition since August. Additionally, interesting comments from her sister Serena made some doubt her commitment, and comments about gay marriage by Australian tennis legend Margaret Court have given the tournament yet another front page talking point.
• In the Women’s bracket, #1 seed Caroline Wozniacki should have a nice path to a championship. She may have to play Li Na (last year’s runner up) in the semifinals. The toughest bracket is the one containing Serena, world #3 Vera Zvonereva and former Grand Slam event champions Svetlana Kuznetsova and Maria Sharapova
• In the Men’s bracket, the usual suspects are around. World ranked #1 Novak Djokovic is the prohibitive favorite but he will have to face the standard bearers of the last 10 years in Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, who have been feuding recently with regard to player's rights. Incredibly, in the past 27 Men's Grand Slam events, only one (the 2009 U.S. Open won by Juan Martin Del Potro) was won by someone other than Federer, Nadal or Djokovic.

October 5th update

Wednesday Spotlight: Ryan Fitzpatrick

• Possibly the biggest breakout star of this year’s NFL season has been Ryan Fitzpatrick, the starting quarterback of the surprisingly 3-1 Buffalo Bills. The Bills surprising start (the only game they lost was on a field goal as time expired) as well as the emergence of their star quarterback caught everybody by surprise.
• Fitzpatrick, who went to college at Harvard, was drafted in the 7th (and final) round of the 2005 NFL Draft by the St Louis Rams. Prior to the draft, Fitzpatrick scored a reported 48 out of 50 on the Wonderlic test given as a test of intelligence. This is an incredibly high score (most people believe scoring in the 20s is a sign of passable NFL intelligence).
• Fitzpatrick played in only six games his first three years in the league, but his fourth year would see him emerge as a solid contributor. Now with the Cincinnati Bengals, Fitzpatrick took over when the opening day starter for the Bengals, Carson Palmer, was injured. In a mostly run-oriented offense, he threw for almost 2'000 yards and 8 TD's. To put his numbers in perspective, 6 players threw for 4'000+ yards and 3 threw for 30+ TD's so he didn't exactly set the world on fire right off the bat.
• He signed with Buffalo prior to the 2009 season as a backup but Fitzpatrick took over for half the season after starter Trent Edwards got injured. At the start of the ’10 season Edwards was again named the starter, but Fitzpatrick was able to quickly supersede him on the depth charts. This season Fitzpatrick has blossomed into a top-10 quarterback (ranked 9th in the quarterback efficiency rankings) and ranked 5th in ESPN’s new QBR ranking which takes into account the game situation.


Division round of MLB Playoffs kicking into high gear

• The Texas Rangers put an end to the miraculous season of the Tampa Bay Rays Tuesday afternoon. Fueled by 3 homeruns by 3rd baseman Adrian Beltre the Rangers defeated the Rays 4-3 in the fourth game of their best of five series. This gave the Rangers a 3-1 series victory and they will move on to the ALCS.
• In the other AL matchup, the New York Yankees staved off elimination defeating the Detroit Tigers 10-1 to tie their best of five series at 2 games a piece. Mercurial starter A.J. Burnett pitched a great game only giving up 1 run in 5 2/3 innings. The real star of the game however was former Tiger Curtis Granderson. Granderson, who was traded to the Yankees from the Tigers prior to the 2010 season, made two magnificent catches in center field and batted in two runs.
• In the National League, the Philadelphia Phillies slid past the St Louis Cardinals 3-2 to take a 2-1 series lead. The Phillies were bolstered by a 3-run home run by pinch hitter Ben Francisco in the 7th inning. Cole Hamels pitched 6 strong innings before being replaced by Francisco.
• Finally, the Arizona Diamondbacks avoided a sweep by the Milwaukee Brewers by defeating the favorites 8-1 in game 3 of their series. The Diamondbacks, on the back of two rookies, Paul Goldschmidt and Josh Collmenter defeated the Brewers. Goldschmidt hit a grand slam and Collmenter pitched 7 innings only giving up the one run.

August 26th update

Yankees Set Grand Record

• The New York Yankees set a record on Thursday night by hitting three grand slams in their victory over the Oakland Athletics.
• With the Yankees down 7-2 to the A's in the 5th inning, Robinson Cano, the Yankees second baseman, came up with the bases loaded against Athletics starting pitcher Rich Harden. He hit a ball into the right field stands to bring the Yankees to within one run, 7-6. In the 6th inning, Russell Martin, the Yankees catcher, hit his grand slam off of Athletics reliever Fautino De Los Santos to give the Yankees a 10-7 lead that would only continue to grow.
• Already up 17-8 Curtis Granderson, the Yankees center fielder and one of the breakout stars in the baseball this season, came up and hit his grand slam to put the Yankees up 21-8. Each side scored another run making the final score 22-9. As MLB nears the end of its 136th year the fact that this feat hasn’t happened yet was surprising to even those who were in the game. The 22 runs are the most the Athletics have given up since 1955.
*On a related note, Fernando Tatis of the St. Louis Cardinals hit two grand slams in one inning on April 23, 1999 but neither he nor any of his teammates hit another for the rest of the game.

Beasts of the American League Reside in the East

*Note: This is part 1 of a 6 part series that will break down the division races in each of baseball's 6 divisions over the next 2 weeks.

• Major League Baseball’s playoffs start in about a month at which point the winner of the three divisions per league and the remaining team with the best record (who gets in as a “wild card") play one another to determine who will face off in the World Series. This year’s wild card looks like it will go to whichever team does not win the second place team in the loaded AL East.
• The New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox are the cream of the AL East crop. At the time of posting, the Red Sox have a half game lead over the Yankees (half games are due to the fact that the Red Sox have played one more game to date). This lead is far from safe, and this race looks like it will come down to the end of the season as these two bitter rivals aim for a championship.
• Whichever team does not win has an 8-game lead in the wild-card race, a pretty safe margin at this point in the season.
• Both teams have benefited from an expected drop in production from the Tampa Bay Rays, who won the division in 2 of the past 3 years but due to cost-cutting reasons have fielded a less competitive team this year. As can be seen here, the Rays have a 2011 salary that is about 4 times less than the Red Sox and 5 times less than that of the Yankees.

July 6th update

Wednesday spotlight: Jeter nears Major Milestone

- Derek Jeter has had a pretty nice career. He has been part of 5 World Series championships and 12 All-Star games. He's won 5 Gold Gloves Awards (given to the best defensive player at his position) and 4 Silver Slugger Awards (given to the best offensive player at his position). He was the 1996 Rookie of the year, the 2000 World Series Most Valuable Player, and the 2009 Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year. And now the Yankee superstar is coming very close to becoming just the 28th player ever to get 3'000 hits, one of the most elite milestones for a baseball player.
- The long time shortstop already has more hits than any Yankee and is now hoping to become the first player to make it to 3,000 since Craig Biggio in June of 2007.
- Jeter, Mariano Rivera and Jorge Posada have been teammates longer than any 3 players in the history of any of the big 4 American sports (Baseball, Football, Basketball and Hockey).
- At least one of us here at Sportico hopes Jeter plays until he patrols the field in a walker, and bats with his wooden cane instead of a bat. He has had a long list of celebrity beaus (including Jessica Kelly and Mariah Carey), and has most recently been linked to actress Minka Kelly to whom he is engaged. He is also worked for years with his “Turn 2 Foundation” to help teenagers fight the influences of alcohol and drugs.


Djokovic Takes Wimbledon and World #1 Ranking

- Serbian-born Novak Djokovic bested Rafael Nadal for his third major and rose to the world number 1 ranking. This is the first time since February of 2004 somebody other than Nadal or Roger Federer has been #1 in the world.
- Djokovic is on enjoying a fantastic year having gone 48-1 this year, with his only loss being in the quarterfinal of the French Open. Djokovic also won the Australian Open, and will be the top seed going into the US Open (which starts August 29th)
- On the women's side, Petra Kvitova became the next in a long line of champions with difficult to pronounce names over the past few years, defeating Maria Sharapova in the finals. It was Kvitova’s first major and interestingly enough it was very similar to the way Sharapova won her first major. Being a tall left-hander from the Czech Republic, Kvitova has drawn many comparisons to Martina Navratilova, the greatest champion in women’s tennis history.


MLB All-Stars Announced

- On Sunday, Major League Baseball released the results of their fan-chosen All-Stars. As always there are players on the squad who experts believe should not be, and those left off the team who experts believe should be on. Unsurprisingly, 4 Yankees, and somewhat more surprisingly, 3 Milwaukee Brewers made the starting lineup for their respective leagues. *Note this is only surprising because Milwaukee is a small market and generally gets less votes, the players themselves probably deserve to start moreso than their Yankee counterparts.*
- The All-Star Game matches up the “best” players from each of the two leagues in Major League Baseball (the American League and the National League). Fans vote for the All-Star Game starters and the managers from the previous year’s world series manages his respective league’s team and gets to select the bench players.
- By rule, each team in baseball must be represented in the All-Star game by at least one player. Additionally, the league represented by the winner of the game gets home field advantage in the best of 7 World Series, a recent twist that no sport other than baseball employs.
- There's still one spot per league to be determined, as 5 players from each league will be competing for the final spot in another vote. Check it out here until Thursday at 4 pm at which point that vote will end.