Summer is gone

Well with work clogging up my time and not taking an off day in over a month, I have really been slacking on writing these blog posts. I promise I will do better.

Well in terms of the NFL, the great debacle over the past seven months has been that of deflategate: the story that wouldn't go away yet everybody wanted to see go away. Let's take a view at this. Commissioner Roger Goodell suspended Quarterback Tom Brady for supposedly instructing a member of the Patriots staff to deflate some of the balls in preparation for the AFC Championship game. As the results of the game show, the deflated balls had no impact on the outcome of the game, since all of the deflated balls were re-inflated or replaced at half time. But is Roger Goodell's disciplinary system too strict? Has the league become guilty before proving innocent? It seems like the tide has changed even so far back as the late 1990's steroid era in baseball when some players were juiced while others were not, and fans were okay with it. Now, everybody thinks the steroid users of that era are guilty even though some of them have not been proven that they have used steroids yet. Look at Barry Bonds. Sure, his body weight and physique by the end of his career was far different than that at the beginning of his career, but other than that, there is no evidence of him ever using steroids. Now we know that Alex Rodriguez used it and he has received just punishment from major league baseball. But in Brady's situation, Goodell showed that deflating of footballs is worse than domestic violence (Ray Rice only received a two-game suspension) or steroid use. Sounds fairly reasonable to me! Not!

Meanwhile, ever since the all-star break the San Diego Padres have been better, yes. But they have also flatlined in consistency. Now that I think about it, when have they ever been consistent? Sure we were 15-5 to start the year, but then things started to go downhill after a 14-1 thrashing of the Rockies back in April. I guess the only good news that we have recently is that Wil Myers will be returning to the roster soon. Brandon Morrow only made something like three or four starts before being placed on the DL due to shoulder inflammation and now Brandon Mauer is on the DL with right shoulder inflammation. There is no hope for a postseason birth anymore and the Dodgers have taken a six and a half game lead on the defending champion Giants. When it comes to the MLB, the world series champion is never really the best team, it is mainly the team with the least amount of injuries.

Well that should do it for this week. College football kicks off this week and there are a slew of games. The highlight has to be that of Wisconsin taking on Alabama tomorrow night at 8 ET on ABC. There are dozens of games on Saturday so check out espn.com for updates and scores of all your favorite teams! Have a great week!

All-star game

The first half of the season has come and gone. And boy did it fly. Obviously you could say that a surprise of the first half has been the Houston Astros. Ahead of schedule, the Astros came out of the gate quickly in the AL West, leading the division for almost the entire first half. Now only a half-game behind the Angels, they look to make a push in the second half to make the post season a year ahead of schedule. The Astros still have young, talented prospects waiting their turn for major-league ball, but who knows? Maybe they can prove themselves by the end of this year and make the postseason. One of the disappointments of the year so far has been the San Diego Padres. With a huge overhaul on players over the offseason, this year was supposed to be world series title or bust for the Pad-Squad. Nine games under .500, the second half has always proved to bring success to Padres teams of recent past. Recall back in 2009, a year after the most losses of any padres team this millennium, things were looking pretty bad but then Kyle Blanks hit his stride and Clayton Richard brought a spark to a struggling pitching staff. Last year, the worst offense in franchise history turned things around and ended the season with the best home record at Petco Park history. Then again, there have been disastrous seasons. The 2010 team had a dominating record through August but collapsed in September. So we'll just have to wait and see what happens this year. We needed this all-star break.

As for the game, Mike Trout led off with a home run and the AL went on to win in Cincinnati, 6-3. Trout won the game's MVP award for the second straight year with the most at-bats of anyone in the game at 3. Andrew McCutcheon and Brian Dozier also had homers in the game. Pete Rose made an appearance and was welcomed with some boos in his old confines. Next year is in San Diego! I plan on going. Do you?

Season half way mark

With the MLB reaching it's halfway mark through the entire season (already), there have been many surprises throughout the league. The Astros were expected to be a year away from postseason contention, instead of them leading the AL West by 5 games over the Angels. The entire AL East has been surprising with the top 4 teams separated by one game. Teams flip-flop in the standings all the time. On the other side of expectations, the padres were expected to be in contention at this point -- and maybe even a favorite to win the division -- but have definitely underperformed. The Mariners are another team that was expected to compete but they have struggled to score runs. The Marlins signed Giancarlo Stanton to a monster 10-year $300 million deal over the offseason and now the Marlins have underperformed, although they have been playing better baseball of late. With the all-star game looming ahead, I look forward to the madness of playoff baseball in the second half of the season.

The Padres.... They are an interesting topic. Injuries keep piling up (Spangenberg to the DL, Middlebrooks out day-to-day), and the team's field play hasn't exactly been outstanding. Now with the team 7 and a half back of the Dodgers in first place, it will be tough to make a run at a playoff birth, but just as James Shields said, if the Royals could make a second-half surge into the world series, the Padres are definitely poised to do the same. Sure Matt Kemp has struggled all season and Justin Upton has recently slowed in performance. Hopefully we can get some of these players off the DL in order to be the team that we intended on being prior to the season. Well, after last night's win in St. Louis (another surprise team), we are 5 games under .500 and look to finish the first half of the season with a winning road trip of 10 games against winning teams (St. Louis, Pittsburgh and Texas). This will put us in position to make the desired second-half run that we are very capable of having. I will be bold enough to say that it will happen.

In other news, the US women's national soccer team will play Japan in a rematch of the 2011 world cup final in this year's world cup final. The game is Sunday night. These women are tenacious. They have not surrendered a goal in 513 minutes during this world cup. Defense will definitely show here in this game as probably the eventual winner. In 2011, the US team was 3 minutes away from winning the title, but surrendered a goal in the final few minutes. Let's find out if this year is different, shall we? Have a great 4th everybody!