Let's go Cards!!

The Ball State football team travels to Akron for it's first road game of the year. Game time is 100p. BSU is a 7 point favorite. Go Cards!!!

The Braves game was rained out last night, as were 5 other games in the majors. The Mets and Braves will play a double-header starting at 355p. Game one will be on FOX and will have Mike Hampton pitching for the Braves and Johan Santana pitching for the Mets. Game two will have Jo Jo Reyes throwing for the Braves and Jonathon Niese tossing for the Mets.

Playing better to end the year

The Braves used a 5-run sixth inning to beat the Rockies last night 8-4. Jair Jurrjens got his team-leading 13th win by pitching 6 innings, giving up 4 runs and striking out 10 Rockies hitters. Jorge Julio, Julian Tavarez, and Mike Gonzalez all pitched one shutout inning each. Yunel Escobar was 3-for-3 with 3 RBI, extending his hitting streak to 10 games. He is batting .410 during the streak. Gregor Blanco was 2-for-4 with 2 RBI. Chipper Jones was 1-for-4 and is batting .362 for the season. He and Albert Pujols are neck-and-neck for the batting title. Jeff Francouer left 8 men on base on Thursday as he is still struggling at the plate. The player of the week for the Braves has to be Kelly Johnson. Johnson extended his hitting streak to 10 games last night. He is batting .463 during the streak.

Bullpen blows it, then gets the win

The Braves beat the Rockies last night 9-5. James Parr had his second straight 6-inning scoreless start, giving him 12 scoreless innings to start his career. However, the bullpen gave up 4 runs in the 7th to allow Colorado to tie the game. Overworked Blaine Boyer gave up 3 runs in the 7th without getting a batter out. Jeff Bennett was credited with a blown save, but since the Braves scored 5 runs in the bottom of the 7th, he also gets the win. Chipper Jones and Brian McCann each had 3 hits to lead the offense. Jones also scored 3 runs. Josh Anderson and Kelly Johnson each had 2 RBI.

A Strange Game

The Braves beat the Rockies 5-4 in 10 innings last night. The winning run was scored on a walk-off balk by Colorado pitcher Taylor Buchholz bringing Kelly Johnson home to score. Jorge Campillo started for the Braves and gave up 3 runs in 6-1/3 innings. The bullpen only gave up 1 run the rest of the game. However, that one run was given up by Mike Gonzalez and it caused him to blow his first save in three years. On offense, five different players had 2 hits and Casey Kotchman had 2 RBI, even though he left 8 guys on base. Chipper Jones was 2 for 4 to bring his average to .359, two points behind league leader Albert Pujols. Game two of the series is tonight at 710p. James Parr tries to continue his brilliant debut season for the big club while veteran Livan Hernandez will pitch for the Rockies. Hernandez is 3-15 lifetime against the Braves.

Let's have a good end to the season

The Braves were off yesterday. They host the Rockies tonight at 710p. Jorge Campillo will pitch for the Braves and Aaron Cook will pitch for Colorado. Campillo is 7-7 this season and Cook is 16-9. On a good note, Martin Prado led baseball in batting average for the month of August (.432). It going to be tough to have a good end to the season. After the series with Colorado, the Braves play two series each with the division leaders Mets and Phillies, then finish with a series against Houston. The best we can hope for is to ruin the chances of one of those teams while Atlanta tries to see what their own young players can do.

The Ball State football team travels to Akron this Saturday for a 1pm kickoff. They are currently 7 point favorites. I can't remember the last time that the Cardinals were favored by a touchdown on the road.....

The Redskins host New Orleans on Sunday. The Skins are currently a one-point favorite. If the Washington offense can't get on track, this could be a long season.

The horrible, horrible bullpen

The Braves played another extra inning game yesterday, and had the same result, as they lost to the Nationals 7-4 in 14 innings. Jo Jo Reyes pitched 6 strong innings and only gave up 1 run. Of course, the bullpen could not hold the lead. Julian Tavarez gave up a run, Blaine Boyer gave up 2 runs, then Jeff Bennett gave up three runs in the 14th inning. Boyer has been terrible lately, giving up 10 earned runs in his last 8 1/3 innings (10.80 ERA). This is probably due to over work as he has pitched in 74 games this year. Most of the bullpen is running into this same issue. It all stems from the starting pitching and it's inability to get through 6 innings per start. Anyways, the offense scored 4 runs, which should win most ball games. Chipper Jones and Yunel Escobar each had three hits. Jones had 3 RBI. The Braves are off today and host Colorado on Tuesday.

NFC East Cheerleaders

What is football without cheerleaders? Over the next few weeks, I'll be going through the divisions and showing the links to the cheerleader pages, as well as a few photos for you enjoyment. First up, the NFC East which only has three teams with a cheerleader squad because the Giants do not have one. This division may have the best overall cheerleaders. The Redskins squad is hot, the Eagles have their lingerie calendar and the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders are the most iconic of all. Here we go...

The Washington Redskins




The Philadelphia Eagles




The Dallas Cowboys

A game of inches

The Braves lost to the Nationals last night, 8-5 in 10 innings. The Braves were down 5-3 in the bottom of the ninth with the bases loaded when Kelly Johnson hit a shot to the gap that looked like it would win the game. However, the ball bounced over the fence for a ground-rule double and only two runs would score instead of the three that were on base to win the ballgame. The bullpen could not hold the game as Mike Gonzalez gave up 3 runs in 1/3 of an inning to take the loss. Johnson, Casey Kotchman, and Jeff Francoeur each had 2 hits. Johnson had 2 RBI and is blistering hot in his last 5 games. In that span, he is 13-22 (.591) with 10 RBI. The final game of the series is today at 135p. Jo Jo Reyes pitches for the Braves and Collin Balester will pitch for Washington.

Today is also the start of the NFL season for most teams. I'll have a post on that later.