Matty's Baseball Notes: Would You Like Extra Gay With That? (Of Course You Would!)

*Things are tightening up as we head out of the dog days of August and down the final stretch of September. Pretty much nothing is decided yet with one exception: The Anaheim Angels are 4,000 games** ahead of Texas in the AL West, so they've pretty much got that dog by the nards.

*MLB is looking into developing instant replay to assist umpires with making fair/foul and home run calls. Its about damn time. There is a section of people who seem to be worried that it won't be administered fairly from park to park based on TV networks, impartiality, etc. Let me ask one question: WHO CARES?!

As it stands now, umpires are routinely screwing these calls up. It has happened a lot this season, regardless of which park the game has been in. Often its not even the umps fault, as its just not possible to tell exactly where a small white ball traveling about 320 feet at 120mph is going when you are 200 feet away. Still, if the umps can guarantee they'll get it right in, oh, lets say 20% of the parks, isn't that an improvement? What are you waiting for, MLB? In the words of a true American, 'Lets do it!'

*How bad is the Rangers pitching staff? In three games against Boston they gave up 37 runs. Yes, they scored 21, but still, 37 runs? There are AAA teams that could do better than that. (And, yes, they lost all three games.)

*Good news for those of us who subscribe to MLB.tv (like yours truely): MLB is reconsidering their ridiculous blackout rules which prevent you from watching baseball. From an article on mlb.com:

As an example, none of the teams from cities within a four-hour drive of Las Vegas -- Los Angeles, Oakland, Phoenix, San Francisco and San Diego -- regularly have their games broadcast there. Yet games played by those teams are blacked out in Vegas.

Again, its about damn time.

*For the first time since the mid 1990s it looks like the NY Yankees won't be a participant in this season's playoffs (its about damn time). The Yankees currently sit third in the AL East 6.5 games behind Boston for the Wild Card and 9.5 games behind Tampa for the division lead. Of course Hank Steinbrenner couldn't keep his yap shut about this, saying,

I think it's very simple, we've been devastated by injuries. No team I've ever seen in baseball has been decimated like this. It would kill any team. Imagine the Red Sox without (Josh) Beckett and (Jon) Lester. Pitching is 70 percent of the game. Wang won 19 games two straight years. Chamberlain became the most dominating pitcher in baseball. You can't lose two guys like that.

The Red Sox lost Curt Schilling for the year in Spring Training and David Ortiz missed almost two months of the season. The Rays lost starting center fielder Carl Crawford for the year and potential Rookie of the Year Evan Longoria has a broken wrist. If Hankee thinks that injuries are the Yankees only problem then I encourage him to bring back this crew next season and see what happens.***

**May technically not be true.
***Many thanks to the Tombstone Generator for the image.