What a rush!!!!

For the first time in 19 years, the Detroit Tigers have clinched a playoff spot by beating the Kansas City Royals on Sunday, 11-4, capping a ten-game stretch where the Tigers have turned back into the Tigers, going 7-3 in that stretch. The Tigers scored 9 runs in the 2nd inning, one day after scoring 10 runs in the first inning against the Royals, and from that point on, there was never any doubt about the result. PLAYOFFS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Tigers have 6 games to go, and are trying to hold onto their central division lead, with Minnesota still just 1 game back in the standing. The Tigers also have vaulted back into the best record in baseball, tied with the Yankees at 94-62. So 6 games until the post-season, which will be the best thing ever!!

In other news over the past week, The Michigan Wolverines took care of the Wisconsin Badgers on Saturday, 27-13. Mario Manningham continues his dominance, catching another pair of touchdowns, and the Wolverine defense held the Badgers to just 12 yards rushing, to continue their defensive dominance. The next game on the 'Wolverine revenge tour' is to Minnesota, which will be the 3rd team in a row that beat Michigan last year. And here's hoping for the 3rd straight turn of fortune for this year's Wolverines.

Arsenal have won 4 consecutive games now, beating Sheffield United in the league, 3-0, and taking care of FC Porto in the Champions' League, 2-0. Thierry Henry had a goal in each contest, heading in a cross from Emmanual Eboue in both instances (a rarity for Henry to use his head - Literally). In the Saturday matinee against Sheffield United, Arsenal got an own goal from Jagielka, and William Gallas opened up his account for the Arsenal, scoring a beautifully setup goal, with the help of Thierry Henry and Cesc Fabregas. Aleksandr Hleb scored the second against FC Porto, again on an assist from Thierry Henry. It looks like the Arsenal have finally settled into their new stadium, and their rise to the top of the Premiership table is sure to follow.

And finally the Lions...I wish there was something that could be said to the Fords to help try and turn this team around, but I don't know what it would be. The Lions dropped their third of the season, losing to Green Bay at home, 31-24. The offense looked the best I've seen it, as QB John Kitna threw for over 300 yards, but the defense looked atrocious. Hopefully this can be remedied by the end of the season, but it's starting to look like the Lions should start planning for their draft - again - before we close the books on September. One day, we'll win....one day...

Till we meet again...

1-Nil to the ARSENAL!!!!!!!

And suddenly, 1st place doesn't seem quite as far away...

In dramatic fashion, Arsenal get their 1st victory of the season, a 1-Nil victory over Manchester United. Emmanual Adebayor (L) scored in the 86th minute, and GK Jens Lehmann made a spectacular save just minutes later to deny Manchester United F Ole Gunner Solskjaer, to secure all 3 points for the visitors. Arsenal, playing without their first choice strike partnership of Thierry Henry and Robin Van Persie, controlled most of the game. The attacking midfield of Cesc Fabregas, Tomas Rosicky, Aleksander Hleb, and Freddie Ljungberg made this possible, as they were running at the United back four all day. Adebayor, acting as the lone striker, also worried the defense, and was unlucky not to open the scoring earlier than he did. But the result is what was important, and with our next 4 games agains Sheffield United, Watford, Charlton Athletic, and Reading (all winnable games), the climb to the top of the table isn't as steep as it was 24 hrs ago.

However, my bid for 'best weekend ever' fell short of the mark, as both the Lions and Tigers lost today.

The Lions got killed 34-7 against Chicago, and they actually killed themselves in the first quarter, as 11 penalties and 2 turnovers will do against a very good defensive team. We did manage to find the endzone, however, but consolation scores are not good enough. After playing so well last weekend, and were unlucky to lose, we took multiple steps backwards this week. All correctable, and the offense showed marked improvement, but not good enough. Here's hoping that next week vs Green Bay, we show the league (and our own fans) a better performance.

The Tigers ended up on the losing end of their finale today, losing in 10 innings to Baltimore, 12-8. Detroit had to fight back twice to tie the score, but each time, it was Baltimore who would grab the lead back. Which leads to a big series for the Tigers, against the White Sox, with Minnesota once again 1 game back in the central.

So close to the playoffs, yet so far away...

Irish Cream-ed

The University of Michigan football team took care of business today in a resounding way, beating Notre Dame 47-21 in South Bend, Indiana. U-M QB Chad Henne threw 3 touchdown passes, all of them to Sophmore WR Mario Manningham, and the defense chipped in with 5 turnovers (2 directly resulted in touchdowns). Notre Dame was held to just 4 yards rushing, and their star QB Brady Quinn turned the ball over 4 times by himself (3 int's, 1 fumble). U-M RB Mike Hart rushed for 124 yards, and U-M moves to 12-1 when Hart passes the century mark. This victory was exactly what the doctor ordered for the Wolverines, who had not won a road opener since 1999.

Speaking of what the doctor ordered, A Rx of Baltimore Orioles is exactly what the Detroit Tigers needed to find their hitting, and get a winning streak started. Last night, the Tigers poured in the runs, beating Baltimore 17-2. Detroit scored 8 runs in one inning (which equaled the total amount of runs from the last 4 games combined, and the 17 runs is 6 games of work in total). We continued our good luck today, beating the O's 2-0, with Nate Robertson finally picking up just enough offense to get him a win. The series finally is tomorrow afternoon (sadly), but our magic number has been reduced to 13 with the win, meaning a combination of 13 wins/2nd place team losses (most likely the Twins, who won today and stay 2 games back of us) will see us as division champs, and into the (insert p-word here).

So the weekend is off to a good start, but the Lions play the Bears at Chicago tomorrow, and Arsenal is at Old Trafford to take on Manchester United, so hopefully 3 more wins tomorrow (with the Tigers completing the sweep of the Orioles) will make this weekend Faaaaaaaantastic.

But we'll have to wait 'til tomorrow for the exciting conclusion of 'Best Weekend Ever (!)(?)'...

The week in review

Well, since I've been lazy, and haven't posted in a while, I have plenty to catch up on, so here we go...

U-M improved their record to 2-0 with a convincing win over Central Michigan, 41-17. We didn't show any improvements through the air (although we caught the ball better), but we continued our ground dominance. I would like to believe (looking at the world through my maize n' blue sunglasses) that we were not showing Notre Dame (our next opponent) anything, but I guess time will tell on that one. Our defense looked outstanding again, and I think that this Saturday's matchup will be a good one. Hopefully, we'll come out on top, but it will be close.

The Lions took to the field for their season opener on Sunday, and lost a close one, 9-6, to the defending NFC champion Seattle Seahawks. Our defense looked pretty good, but our offense was out of sync for most of the afternoon. I think that there is real potential there, but it may take a few games to realize it. One thing I do know, however, is that we must run the ball better if we want to see any improvement from the 5-11 team of last year.

Arsenal drew at home against Middlesborough, 1-1, and although it's very frustrating to have 2 points from 9, it is good to know that we dominated this game from start to finish, and just lacked the quality on the final ball, that would've seen us secure all 3 points. James Morrison opened the scoring when William Gallas/Johan Djourou failed to keep tabs on the midfielder's run on the give and go, and a reply from the spot by Thierry Henry saved the day. Although we should've found a winner, since 'Boro were down to 10 men for the last 1/2 hour.

Midweek produced a better result, as we opened up the Champions League group stages with a 2-1 win over 10-man Hamburg SV. Van Persie won a controversial penalty in the 10th minute, which saw Hamburg's starting keeper sent off, and Gilberto converted the proceding penalty, to give the Gunners the early lead. New summer signee Tomas Rosicky added a 2nd with a wonderful strike from 30 yards out early in the 2nd half (see goal here), to insure full points would be awarded to the visitors. Sonogo grabbed a consolation goal for Hamburg in stoppage time, but the Gunners are top of Group G, as CSKA Moscow and FC Porto drew 0-0 from the other tie in the group. If Arsenal can beat Porto at home in a fortnight, they will almost certainly advance to the knockout round.

And last but not least, my Tigers....*sigh* if we could only hit the ball, we would be in much better shape. Unfortunately, we have been hitting like crap, and our 3-7 record over the past 10 games, and our horrible August/September record (right about the time that Polanco went down with an injury) will attest to that. The good thing is that we still have a 1 1/2 game lead in the Central division, and 3 games over the White Sox in 3rd place. 16 games to go. I think we'll make it, but we may be crawling across that finish line. Oh well *we're all behind our baseball team...*

To be the best, you must beat the weak

Ahh, back to the weak part of the AL schedule...

The Tigers took game one of their series against Seattle, 6-2, and continued their trend of beating the teams that they should beat. So far this year, Detroit is 11-1 against Kansas City, 5-1 against Seattle, and 5-3 against Tampa Bay, the 3 last place teams in their respective divisions. The teams that we should be beating are the teams we are beating, which is a different trend from seasons past (in fact, we were the teams that other teams should be beating).

This doesn't change the fact, however, that we lost the last two games against the Angels, both of which we probably should've won. But as long as we win 10 of the next 24 games, I believe we will keep our AL best lead, and I know that we will make the playoffs. And that includes 6 more games against KC and 2 against Seattle.

In other sporting news, the US mens basketball team won the Bronze metal during the World Basketball Championships, losing to Greece in the semi-final(a team that has no NBA'ers), but beating Argentina in the consolation game. This result does not come as a surprise to me, as the World game is different than the NBA game (mainly, they actually call traveling during the worlds *gasp*). However, I think having a pool of players go through training camp, and trying to keep the same core group of people for the WBC's/Olympics is a step in the right direction, and may allow us to stay competitive as the rest of the world gets better in the sport.

Finally, I would just like to say R.I.P., Steve Irwin. The 'Crocodile Hunter' has been bested by a sting ray while filming a documentary off the coast of Australia (and I figured it would've been a crocodile that would take him out). It's weird knowing that one of the funniest (and smartest) animal trainer/enthusiast has passed away. Best wishes to the Irwin family.

That's it! Enjoy...

Not 'Vandy'lized

Well, the University of Michigan's football team kicked off it's 2006/07 football season in solid fashion, with a 27-7 win over the Commodores of Vanderbilt. Michael Hart went over the century mark in rushing yards, and our defense was outstanding from about the middle of the 2nd quarter on. We did not take any shots downfield, however, and let Vandy hang around for longer than I would've liked. But, we got the 'W', are defense looked fast and mean, and our secondary didn't resemble swiss cheese. So bring on CMU next week, where I hope we show improvement from today's game.