Verlander Making History, Again

Detroit Tigers star pitcher Justin Verlander is adding his name to the record books, again.  He has already thrown two career no-hitters and is the heavy favorite to win the AL Cy Young award this season for the league's best pitcher.  On Sunday he  put his name in another historical category by becoming the first pitcher in 33 years (Ron Guidry, 1978) to record 24 wins and 240 strikeouts in a season.  He is only the seventh AL pitcher since World War II to accomplish this.  The win yesterday marked his 12th straight, the first time a pitcher has done that since 2004 (Johan Santana).  His 24 total wins is also the most by a MLB pitcher since Randy Johnson won 24 in 2002.  Overall, Verlander stands at 24-5 with a 2.28 ERA with one start remaining in the regular season.  If he wins his next one, he will become baseball's most winning pitcher since 1990 (Bob Welch, 27).  There is no reason why he shouldn't walk away with this year's AL Cy Young award. 

Pirates Collapse After All-Star Break

Well that was fun wasn't it?  Your Pittsburgh Pirates were in first place not too long ago in the middle of the summer.  But if you thought they would finish the season there, you were sorely mistaken and probably mentally unstable.  But for the team to collapse like it has since that 19 inning game in Atlanta is embarassing and brings Pirate fans back down to earth.  The team has gone something to the tune of 15-40 or so after the all-star break and is in a free fall in the standings.  This is mostly due to the decline in performance by the pitching staff and the continued year long struggle of the offense to produce runs.  Maybe next year the team can build upon it's success it had this season and sustain it next year.  Hey, it's good to dream right?

NFL Should Once Again Take Over Sports World

While MLB baseball has been the talk of the sports world most of the summer, it should take a back seat to the NFL once again.  According to a USA Today article by Michael Hiestand, a regular season football game between two 1-3 teams last year (Dallas & Minnesota) nearly tripled the ratings the NLCS playoff game between the Phillies and eventual MLB champion San Francisco Giants.   This shouldn't come as a surprise as the NFL is by far the most popular sport in the US.  And nobody should expect this to change this year either, especially after that thrillng NFL opener thursday night between the defending Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers and New Orleans Saints.  Another factor that will almost certainly sink any chance the MLB had to stay even with the NFL at this point in the year is the lack of close pennant races this year.  The Yankees/Redsox battle and the race between the Texas Rangers and Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim are the closest thing to an interesting pennant race and thats a 2.5 game difference.  All the other division leading teams are at least 7.5 games ahead of the second place team.  The combination of the two (NFL being traditionaly overpowering and lack of MLB pennant races) could doom the MLB.  Ratings could fall to an all-time low this year and who knows what might happen with the current Collecctive Bargaining Agreement expiring after this season; but only time will tell.  We all know what happened with the NFL and their lockout situation, but in the meantime, the NFL appears to be ruling supreme once again.

Introduction

Hello everyone my name is Marcus Cashell and I am a Sport Management major and also a Business Administration minor.  I am from Saxonburg, Pa and Knoch High School.  I am a huge sports fan but concentrate heavily on the Pittsburgh based team obviously (Steelers, Penguins, Pirates).