Link Tank

Yes, the Mariners lost 9-2 last night, with Pineiro pitching 5.1 innings... in relief. Felix started the game, but got banged up pretty good by the Yankees. I see no real reason for me to write a recap of the game when Jeff Sullivan already wrote a perfect one, complete with theories on using 5 infielders with extreme groundball pitchers.

On the other hand, the Kansas City Royals managed to get 10 runs in the first inning yesterday and STILL lose the game 15-13 in extra innings to Cleveland. And this is either the worst or best picture ever of Shin-soo Choo. I can't decide.

USSM links several articles about everyone's favorite outback outfielder Chris Snelling: Seattle Times, The News Tribune, and mlb.com.

It's the time of the year for Tangotiger's Fan Scouting Report, which y'all should take a second and fill out. The results are always pretty interesting to see.

As a precursor to me posting the All-Cute team for this year, I feel like I should link to an article about Moneybutt, which is one of the more bizarre but typical facets of Athletics Nation which makes it so unique. AN and Bat-Girl have the biggest female readership of any of the baseblogs I've seen, so there must be something to this butt-rating phenomenon. Another great recent AN post was this one -- I must say, the "legal binding document" aspect of that one is pretty funny.

If you don't read Zack Hample's blog -- and you really should, because it's definitely one of the more unique and amusing ones out there -- well, after 2900ish baseballs, Zack finally caught a famous one last week, Barry Bonds's 724th home run.

There's an awesome article on the Phillies' site full of funny little nuggets about the team, such as things like bullpen catcher Mick Billmeyer nicknaming Rowand and Utley to Bam Bam and Skeletor, and Cole Hamels having the locker next to Jamie Moyer and ribbing him about his age, and Michael Bourn's adventures in getting called up to the majors for approximately 5 minutes last week, and more "Just how old IS Jamie Moyer?" comparisons.

If you don't already read The Dugout, then you probably missed their great tribute to Snakes on a Plane, which is simply glorious, and I can't say more for fear of ruining the punchline. Of course, today's SimYankee strip is also pretty funny if you were actually around in the late 80's when the original SimCity came out, though I think there's an obvious Hideki Matsui joke in there that should have been made.

As mentioned on Japan Baseball Daily, there's a high school all-star team being assembled from the Koshien star players that will play against an American high school all-star team. The roster's available here in Japanese, and the two names Gary couldn't read are Masahiro Inui from Toyodai Himeji and Yodai Enoshita from Kagoshima Kogyo. (Corrections to other names are infielder Ryuya Nakazawa from Komadai, Ryo Hayashizaki from Himeji, and Yuu Funabashi from Waseda. Yes, I'm annoying (and emailing him).)

Supposedly, the Central and Pacific Leagues actually agreed on playoff schedules and interleague reductions, though it remains to be seen if they'll actually be approved. I still don't get how they'll split 24 games among 6 teams unless they play an uneven schedule or do 2-2 matches home/away.

I usually delete the mailings I get from Amazon, but today they actually told me to buy Ogasawara's book, which was cool, since they didn't even have it on their site the day it came out. It even got a good review from a Chunichi fan, so there!

In completely non-baseball news, now that they're testing for steroids all over the galaxy, Pluto is apparently no longer a planet. It doesn't fit the requirement of being "a celestial body that is in orbit around the sun, has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a nearly round shape, and has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit," and has been effectively optioned to the minor leagues. Maybe Sidney Ponson can become the ninth planet instead.

I think that's it for now, but I may add to this during the day.