STEELERS SUCK

Being a Patriots fan hasn't been too fun the last month. Losing to the Colts, an embarrassment on Monday Night Football, choking to the Dolphins, then 4 out of 53 players show up late because of weather. But for a bit of fun Schadenfruede, just revel in the struggles of the Steelers, once thought to be contenders with the Patriots for the trivial and meaningless title "Team of the Decade."

The Steelers lost to the Browns last night. They lost to the Raiders last Sunday.

The Browns managed 84 passing yards against Pittsburgh in their 13-6 win. The teams combined for 471 yards of total offense. Brady Quinn had a QB Rating of 48.1, and still won the game. He was 6 for 19, for 90 yards. Cleveland got 171 yards on the ground.

I'll be fair, the Steelers have been hit hard with injuries this year. Troy "Lead With the Head" Polumalu is out. Asking the Steelers to win without him is like asking Carmen Electra to have a show-biz career without her tits.



But it's still fun to watch the Super Bowl Champions struggle against teams like the Browns.

CELTICS WITHSTAND WIZARDS FOR THE WIN

The C's let a 14 point half-time lead slip away from them and nearly lost a win against a mediocre Washington side. That being said, the Celtics never trailed in this 104-102 victory. And honestly, I'm glad they needed to struggle to win this one. They're so much more talented than most of the teams they play, and they often cruise to 15+ point victories. You don't learn much about a team's character in games like that.

With 2:23 left in the 4th, this game was tied 94-94. From that point on, Rondo made big shots, the C's made most of their free throws, and Washington couldn't score enough to make it a game.

This was a good hard win, and the 9th in a row for the Celtics.



Celtics @ Bulls Saturday night.

Source:
ESPN

Photo Credit:
AP Photo

BRUINS RAKE THE LEAFS

Remember that hubris I alluded to a few days ago? That overconfidence the Bruins sometimes get when they get a 3 goal lead, or they sweep the Canadiens? We saw a bit of that last night. The good news is, they woke up just before it was too late to wake up.

How valuable has Mark Recchi been to this team since coming here from the Lightning? In 48 games wearing Black & Gold, he's scored 17 goals. Not bad for a guy who we all thought would only contribute experience to the Bruins' playoff equation.

It looks like Rask is the #1 goalie for right now. Thomas wasn't awful in that 7-2 loss in Montreal, but some injury problems and perhaps a bit of stress from performing perfectly with nothing but losses to show for it; seem to have caught up with him. Plus, Rask is the hot hand. His GAA in 12 games is 1.98, and his SV% is .931. You don't pull a goalie when they're performing like he is.

And don't worry about Thomas, either. This isn't the first time he's been pushed aside, although this is still temporary. And Thomas won the Vezina last year after only appearing in 54 games.

The Bruins have won 7 of 9, so I get to include a pic of Jeri Ryan, a.k.a. Seven of Nine on Star Trek: Voyager.



Bruins @ Islanders Saturday night.

Source:
ESPN

Photo Credit:
AP Photo

ONLY ONE LOWELL LEFT IN MASSACHUSETTS

The Red Sox traded Mike Lowell to the Texas Rangers for minor league catcher Max Ramirez. The Sox will also send about $9 million of the $12M Lowell is due to be paid.

Who is Max Ramirez? In 76 Pacific Coast League (AAA) games last year, he hit .234 and 5 homeruns. He has a chance to be the AAA PawSox catcher. Emphasis on the word "chance." He is a throw-in. The Rangers are basically taking $3 million off the Red Sox' balance sheets.



This deal only makes sense if the Red Sox acquire a corner infielder. Saving $3 million in exchange for replacing Lowell with Varitek (the domino line would go Youkilis replacing Lowell at 3rd, then V-Mart replacing Youk at 1st, then Varitek replacing V-Mart at catcher), is simply a bad idea.

The trade needs approval from multiple people. Because of the money involved, The Commisioner needs to approve it. The Rangers are also giving the oft-injured Lowell a physical.

Adrian Beltre is the popular rumor to replace Lowell, and Jesus Christ I hope that remains nothing more than a rumor. Beltre hit .265 last year with a pitiful .304 OBP. He belted a whopping 8 homeruns in 111 games. No thank you.



Miguel Cabrera is another rumored deal, and I think the most likely at this point.

Still, it's strange to make a deal that depends on a POSSIBLE future deal in order to make it work.

Sources:
MLB
Baseball Cube
Baseball-Reference.com

JEREMY LIN IS A BADASS

Harvard beat BC in basketball for the second straight year. And this time there was no readily available "hangover" excuse for the Eagles. How did Harvard beat BC? Three words: Jeremy fucking Lin. Last year at BC he had 27 points and 8 assists. This year he had 25 points, but the senior point guard from Palo Alto ran the offense that put 74 points on BC.

He's not going to the NBA, but if you love token college basketball players, you've got to check out Jeremy Lin. He dropped 30 on UConn (in Storrs) on Sunday in a game Harvard just barely lost 79-73.

TOUGH HOCKEY PLAYER

Brendan Witt of the New York Islanders played last night in Philadelphia after being hit by an SUV in the morning.

Story:

"The truck [a GMC Yukon] was making an illegal left turn and Witt jumped and slid across the hood before hitting the pavement. Witt brushed himself off and reassured the crowd who'd begun to gather around him by whipping out his credentials: "I've got to go play some hockey. I'm a hockey player. I'm OK. No big deal." After almost being scratched for tonight's game against the Flyers, Witt did end up making it to Starbucks and grabbing a latte."

Witt played 17 minutes in the Islanders' 6-2 loss that night. He had 2 blocked shots, and 2 penalty minutes. The GMC Yukon is listed as day-to-day.

ELITE EIGHT

The Celtics pushed their win-streak to 8 last night with a 98-89 victory over the Bucks. Four C's had double figures, with KG leading the way with 25. Pierce and Perkins each had 15, Sheed and Ray Ray each added 13, and Rondo had 11 points to go along with his 13 assists.

Winning games against Milwaukee isn't too exciting, but it's necessary. You absolutely have to win these games against these teams, especially at home. But after the game, Doc Rivers did address the Celtics' relatively poor rebounding prowess:

"We can get away with winning now, but we're not going to win in the long run if we don't start rebounding."

Celtics at the 7-12 Wizards Thursday night.

Source:
ESPN

Photo Credit:
AP Photo

SOX SIGN ATCHISON, YANKEES ABOUT TO SIGN GRANDERSON

The Red Sox off-season, thus far, has been nothing short of uninspiring. Dull, even. The blatantly planted story about the Red Sox' "full-court press" for Roy Halladay was nothing more than a tease, something to satisfy Sox fans' voracious new appetite for big acquisitions.

The Red Sox made a minor addition yesterday, signing journeyman reliever Scott Atchison. He's 33 years old, a righty, and pitched last year for the Hanshin Tigers of Japan's Central League.

He's spent a limited portion of his 10 year professional career in the Majors. Only 53 MLB appearances to be exact, spread out between the Mariners and Giants in '04, '05, and '07. Don't expect much from him.

Meanwhile, the Yankees seem to be on the verge of signing Curtis Granderson. Granderson hit 30 HRs last year, albeit with a .249 average. I don't think he's that great, and wouldn't want him on the Sox, but my point is that while the Red Sox bolster AAA Pawtucket's bullpen depth, the Yankees are actually doing something.



How cheap the Red Sox are being with Jason Bay is inexcusable. Then again, they painted themselves into this financial corner these past few years. We shouldn't give them a free pass for the freedom with which they've spent recently.

$47.8 million of the $122 million the Sox spent last year went to JD Drew, David Ortiz, Mike Lowell, and Daisuke Matsuzaka. That's 39% of a very large payroll, assigned to a DL addict, a PED addict, an aging corner infielder, and a guy who can't pitch past the 5th inning.

I remember the '07 World Series parade, and how we all chanted "Re-Sign Lowell!" We were just as dumb and sentimental as the Sox front office was. And now all of us are paying the price for paying these guys.



I don't mind losing a bidding war to New York. Or at least I don't criticize the Red Sox for not having as much money as the Yankees. But I do mind self-elimination from even trying to win a bidding war, because JD Drew and Daisuke Matsuzaka have $22.3M coming to them.

I sincerely doubt the Sox will do much this off-season. They'll do something, similar to the Scutaro signing, then hype it a la Dan Duquette when he signed Jose Offerman. But the real big winter for the Sox will be the 2010-2011 off-season, when money will be freed up, and the free agent crop will be much healthier (ahem! get Mauer, move Youk to 3B, V-Mart to 1st, ahem!).

Sources:
Boston Globe
WEEI
The Baseball Cube
ESPN