Fan News

The Tampa Bay Rays' catching situation was a questionable one when the season started.  Once they acquired Kelly Shoppach, fantasy owners in two-catcher formats were scurrying for any information they could get on who was going to get the bulk of the playing time.  Was it going to be Shoppach?  Was it going to be the incumbent, Dioner Navarro?

Going into Saturday night's Game Three, the Yankees had to be feeling very confident of their chances to sweep the Twins.

They were up 2-0 on the Twins and they had history on their side since Minnesota had not won a playoff game against the Yankees since 2004.

Now, that’s more like it.

This is the Rays that folks are used to seeing. They won with great pitching and timely hitting this entire season.  After failing to do that for the first two games of the playoffs, they found their formula in staving off elimination Saturday afternoon.

The Rays received a great starting pitching performance by Matt Garza, and they got the hits to tie the game late and then take the lead. Joaquin Benoit and Rafael Soriano did the rest by closing it out.

There is all this talk about Yankees skipper Joe Girardi walking away after the season and taking the job as the next Cubs manager.

But if the Bombers win a consecutive championship, they have to keep him, right?

I know that many Yankees fans have questioned Girardi's managerial skills. Heck, if you check with most fans they will point to one reason or another why they do not like their manager.

Entering the MLB postseason, analysts and other fans of the sports seemed to be skeptical of the New York Yankees chances to repeat their World Championship run from last year. Much of this skepticism centered around the lack of quality pitching following CC Sabathia in the rotation.

However, in the Yankees sweep of the Minnesota Twins Sabathia's win ended up being the weakest performance, as Andy Pettitte and Phil Hughes pulled strung together very strong performance in their respective wins.

I'm sure that there are more than a handful of Cubs fans who are under the impression that the organization will acquire a few impact players this offseason, much like the post-2006 and post-2007 offseasons. However, the fact of the matter is that the team's current 40-man roster will need to be tweaked quite a bit before any additions can be made.

To begin with, only two players on the team's final 40-man roster can leave on their own volition: Aramis Ramirez and Xavier Nady.

In 2009, Davis enjoyed a taste of the bigs with a September call up.  In 2010, Davis is getting more than a taste, as the Rays turn to their 25-year-old rookie right hander to keep their playoff hopes alive.  Davis will make his postseason debut against one of the most fearsome offenses in baseball.  Oh yeah, there's this teeny tiny bit of pressure about a must-win game if the Rays season isn't to end.

The New York Yankees are the first team to advance in the postseason this year with their 6-1 win over the Minnesota Twins, who will spend another long, cold winter trying to figure out what went wrong again.

The Yankees dominated the Twins in all aspects of the game and appear poised to retain their title as World Series Champions.

Congratulations to the New York Yankees for sweeping the Minnesota Twins and moving on to the American League Championship series.

Well at least Joe Mauer, Jim Thome, and the rest of the Minnesota Twins will be well rested. They only needed to put in 27 innings of postseason baseball.

After the Twins clinched the AL Central division title on September 21, manager Ron Gardenhire put the team on cruise control allowing his regulars to rest and get healthy.