You had a bad day....

The Braves thought they were throwing batting practice last night as the Diamondbacks beat them 11-1. The D-Backs hit 5 homers in the game. Jo-Jo Reyes gave up 7 earned runs in 5 inning to take the loss. Brian McCann had 2 hits for the Braves. Chipper Jones was 1-1 before leaving the game. He still leads the league with a .415 average. Kelly Johnson extended his hitting streak to 10 games. The two teams play at 355pm today. Jorge Campillo pitches for the Braves, while Randy Johnson will pitch for Arizona.

Ball State took a 5-3 lead into the bottom of the ninth inning but could not hold on as they were eliminated from the MAC tournament by Northern Illinois 6-5. BSU's all-time saves leader Kyle Heyne was brought on in the 8th to close the door, but an error that led to two unearned runs in the ninth sealed his fate. Zach Dygert, Kolbrin Vitek, and Matt Stokelen all had two hits. Vitek and Nate Fields homered to help the Cardinals tie a school record with 95 HR's in a season. Vitek also had 2 RBI in the game. Ball State finishes the season with a 28-25 record and no chance of making the NCAA tournament. Sometime over the next few days I will have a season wrap-up and look forward to next year's team.

Brownsburg baseball is off today and will play Avon on Monday at 11am to start sectional play.

Stayin Alive, Stayin Alive, ah, ah ah, ah, Stayin aliiiiiiiiiivvve

Atlanta beat the Mets last night to complete a four-game sweep of the hated New Yorkers. Chipper Jones had the go-ahead RBI in the seventh inning off of Johan Santana, and Kelly Johnson had three hits in the game. Tim Hudson gave up 2 earned runs in 7 innings for the win. Will Ohman pitched the final out for his first save of the season. The Braves have another big series with Arizona this weekend. It is a four game series Fri-Mon with Friday's game starting at 735p. Jo Jo Reyes will pitch for Atlanta and Doug Davis will throw for Arizona.

The Ball State Cardinals stayed alive in the MAC tournament with a 7-5 victory over Central Michigan. Kory Benbow had a home run and 3 RBI, while Zach Dygert and Matt Stokelen had 2 hits, 2 RBI, and a home run each. Kyle Heyne shutout the Chippewas over the last 3 innings for the win. The Cardinals continue tournament play at 1230p against Northern Illinois in an elimination game. If the Cards win, they will play Kent State at 730p on Friday.

Brownsburg completed its regular season with an 8-5 win over Fishers. Matt Duncan got the win on the mound, brining his record to 5-0 on the season. Tucker Barnhart hit his 11th home run of the season and the 27th of his career. BBurg finished the regular season in second place in the HCC with a 14-4 record. Their season record is 22-4. The IHSAA tournament starts on Monday when the Dogs travel to Avon for the first round of the sectional. Game time is 11am.

The NCAA softball super regionals start today. Here are my predictions in order of confidence:

#1 Florida over Cal
#3 Alabama over Missouri
#6 Arizona St over #11 Northwestern
#2 UCLA over #15 Georgia
#4 Michigan over Virginia Tech
#8 Houston over U-La-La
#5 Texas A&M over #12 Stanford
#10 Oklahoma over #7 Arizona

They are all chalky picks, with the exception of Oklahoma over Arizona, and that series is basically a toss-up anyway.

Double digits everywhere

Atlanta beat the Mets last night 11-4. Mark Teixeira (3 hits, 3 RBI), Brian McCann (3 hits, 3 runs), and Jeff Francoeur (HR, 3 hits, 4 RBI) led the slug fest. Chipper Jones was 1-2 with a home run, but left the game in the seventh inning after getting hit in the leg by a pitch. His league leading batting average is .410. Jair Jurrjens threw 7 innings and only gave up one earned run to get the win. The Braves try for the sweep Thursday night at 710pm. Tim Hudson will pitch for Atlanta, Johan Santana will pitch for New York.

Ball State had an embarrassing and disappointing day at the MAC tournament yesterday. The Cardinals were leading Northern Illinois 6-0 in the 4th inning, but got blown out the rest of the game to lose 13-7. Four BSU errors led to 5 unearned runs in the game. Wayne Bond had 2 hits and 2 RBI, Kory Benbow had 2 hits, and Matt Stokelen had 3 RBI to lead the offense. The #4 seed Ball State plays in an elimination game Thursday at 1230p against #8 seed Central Michigan.

Brownsburg beat Fishers 10-0 in five innings on senior night. Senior Mark Conover was spectacular in his farewell performance at Mary Beth Rose park. He threw a complete game no-hitter, was 2 for 2 at the plate, had a home run, 2 RBI, and 3 runs scored. Senior Curtis Drake had 2 RBI. Junior Tucker Barnhart hit his 10th home run of the season. The Bulldogs conclude the regular season Thursday night at Fishers. BBurg starts tournament play on Memorial Day against the host Avon Orioles. Game time on Monday is 11am.

It feels good, yeah, it feels good

I had some old school Tony Toni Tone in my head after the great results for my teams yesterday.

The Braves won both games of a double header against the Mets. In the first game, Tom Glavine gave up 1 run in 6 innings to beat the Mets 6-1. Mark Teixeira had 3 hits and Brian McCann hit his 8th homer and had 3 RBI. In game 2, Jorge Campillo shut out the Mets for 6 innings in his second career start to help beat New York 6-2. Campillo had 7 strikeouts on the day. Mark Kotsay hit a pinch-hit homer, his 4th HR of the season, to give the Braves some insurance runs in the 8th inning. The two teams play again today at 710p. Jair Jurrjens pitches for the Braves, while Mike Pelfrey pitches for the Mets. The Braves are in second place in the East 1.5 games behind the Marlins and 1.5 games behind the Cardinals for the wild card.

#5 seed Ball State plays #4 seed Northern Illinois in the MAC tourney today at 4pm. If the Cards can get by NIU, it looks like they may have a shot at winning the tourney and getting a spot in the NCAA tournament. The Cardinals lost both games to Northern in the regular season, but were 7-2 against the top three seeds in the MAC tourney. But they were pretty inconsistent all season as evidenced by their 2-6 record against the 4 to 8 seeds. GO CARDS!!!

Brownsburg beat Terre Haute South last night 10-2. Matt Duncan threw 4 2/3 innings for the win. Mitch Jankowski threw the remainder of the game for the save. Zach Harrison had 3 hits for the Dogs. Joel Stucker and Curtis Drake each had two hits to help the cause. Tucker Barnhart had a homer and 3 RBI. The Bulldogs play Fishers at home tonight for Senior Night. BBurg is 20-4 for the season and 12-4 in the conference.

Since it is a Wednesday after a primary, I will continue my rant on how Hillary Clinton should concede the Democratic nomination to Barack Obama. After the results of yesterday, Clinton would need to get 81% of all remaining delegates and super delegates to have more delegates than Obama at the convention. The three remaining primaries are Puerto Rico, Montana, and South Dakota. Montana and South Dakota should be solid Obama victories. Let's say he wins those states 55-45. We'll give Puerto Rico to Clinton 65-35. With those projected results, 90 percent of the uncommitted super delegates would have to give their support to Clinton for her to be in the lead going into the convention. If that happens, there will be a split within the party like we have never seen or could ever imagine. For the sake of the party and to save some face and show a little grace, I believe that Hillary should drop out as soon as possible.

40 games into the season

At the one-quarter mark of the baseball season, the Braves record stands at 22-21, 2 games behind Florida in the NL East and 3 games behind St Louis for the wild card. Chipper Jones leads the NL with a .410 batting average. Brian McCann, Yunel Escobar, and Mark Kotsay are regulars that are batting over .300. Gregor Blanco and Omar Infante are also over .300 in limited plate appearances. Tim Hudson is 3rd in the NL in wins. Jair Jurrjens has a 2.82 ERA and 44 K's in 54 IP. Now if they could play better on the road (6-16) and in close games (2-12 in one-run games) maybe they could get back to the playoffs after a two-year absence. I wouldn't mind having a closer to shut down the game either, but that should be taken care of when John Smoltz and/or Rafael Soriano gets off of the DL. It's been a little rocky to start the season, but I think it can only get better.

Ball State plays in the MAC tourney on Wednesday against Northern Illinois at 4pm. BSU lost twice to Northern Illinois a few weeks ago (4-1, 7-6). The third game of that series got rained out. According to www.mac-sports.com, all games of the baseball tourney will be streamed free on their website.

I assume that the Brownsburg/Pike baseball game was rained out last night as it was pouring rain from about 3pm to 6pm. Brownsburg will travel to Terre Haute South today for their final non-conference regular season game. Senior night is tomorrow night against Fishers.

Weekend recap

The Braves took 2 out of 3 games against Oakland this weekend. The teams split a pair of one-run games on Friday and Saturday, then the Braves won 5-2 on Sunday. The Braves have Monday off, then face the Mets for a four-game series.

The Ball State Cardinals lost 2 of 3 to Toledo. They lost 2 one-run games on Thursday and Friday, and won 11-8 on Saturday. They are 27-23 overall and 12-11 in the conference. Ball State is the #5 seed in the MAC tournament that starts on Wednesday. They play the #4 seed Northern Illinois.

Brownsburg's baseball team split two games with Zionsville over the weekend. Zionsville won Friday's game 8-4 and Brownsburg won Saturdays game 18-8. Tucker Barnhart had three home runs in Saturday's game. The Dogs are 19-4 overall and 12-4 in the HCC. They are two games behind Noblesville in the conference race with two games to go. Brownsburg plays Pike tonight, TH South on Tuesday, and conference games with Fishers on Wednesday and Thursday.

I was 12 of 16 on my NCAA softball tournament picks. In order of confidence, my top 10 were correct and I did pick the upset of Missouri coming out of #14 seed Long Beach State's bracket. I did score 115 out of 136 possible points, for a 85% score. Later on this week, I will have my predictions for the super regionals. Next week, I will have my NCAA baseball predictions.