Winners and Losers

Rule #1 of competition: If you're gonna talk the talk, you better walk the walk (or in this case, swim the swim). The French apparently forgot about the second part. Oops. As such, Jason Lezak beat out their anchor by a mere 8-hundredths of a second (in other words, a fingertip) to capture the gold for the men's 4x100m freestyle relay. I have to admit, that was pretty epic.

(Now, if only he didn't refer to them as "the Frenchies" in the postrace interview... What a facepalm moment.)

Also, is anyone else bothered by the routine shattering of work records in the pool so far? I heard it has to do with the new suits Speedo created. But come on now--I believe the top three teams in that relay beat the previous record. So I have to ask: At what point does the equipment and technology just become too much?

I'm happy the Olympics are on because baseball has just been depressing as of late. The Twins pen continued its brilliant display of incompetence last night, blowing a 2-run lead and eventually the game against the Royals. Pitiful. And the Yankees? Ha. Ha. Ha...

I didn't see the game, but the highlights included tons of missed scoring opportunities and mental mistakes up the wazoo. This includes Andy throwing to first, hitting Sexson in the leg, and then getting called out on a balk. How do you do that? But the worst of them had me screaming at my computer scream as I kept watching it in disbelief. Marte puts two on with two out. JoeG brings in Rivera (in a tie game in the ninth...) to end the inning. Figgins swings at the first pitch and the ball dribbles between first and second. Someone please explain to me why Robinson Cano was asleep and didn't make an effort to retrieve the routine grounder until it was too late. And while you're at it, also tell me why Betemit also looked lost and ran away from the slow roller initially before realizing his blunder. Whatever the reasons, Howie Kendrick saw the opportunity and reached home to win the game on what should have been an easy out. One pitch. One hit. One mental mistake. And yet a painful loss. Wow.

I have never been one of those to hop on the "We're doomed" bandwagon, but I think it's time to purchase the ticket. It wasn't just that the Yanks got swept by the Angels, but how they did it. Two days ago was the bullpen disaster and yesterday was this inexcusable sloppy mental mistake. If those aren't signs I don't know what is. Because look at the big picture: let's assume a team will need 95 wins to clinch a postseason spot. That means they need 32 more wins across 44 games. That's a .750 winning percentage. They've played .534 ball to date and have been at .567 after the ASB; .333 if you remove their initial 8-game streak. That is awful. And it gives me little hope that they can pull it through this season.

(I DARE them to prove me wrong! Go on!)