An Angels-Rockies World Series sounds nice but I think Major League Baseball would disagree.
Meet the Mets
Ken Rosenthal reports that Bobby Valentine might return to Japan to coach. The Yokohama Bay Stars are very interested.
Paulie Walnuts Lo Duca is being sued for allegedly not paying a stud fee to the owners of his horse's lover.
Matt at Metsblog notes that Cliff Floyd was released by the Padres and discusses the importance of having Floyd type "player-coaches" on the roster.
Jason at Faith and Fear would root for the Phillies if they meet the Yankees in the World Series. It's a tough call but I'd have to root Yankees. Also check out that post for the results of the FAFIF reader survey.
Metsmerized does a hatchet job on Daniel Murphy, showing us that he was the worst hitting National League 1B with 450+ plate appearances. This is the same site that trips over itself praising Jeff Francoeur, the same Francoeur who was the 2nd to worst hitting rightfielder in the NL this season (Randy Winn was worst). Seriously, look at these slash lines for Murphy and Francoeur in 2009, they are basically identical.
Murphy: .266/.313/.427
Francoeur: .280/.309/.423
Praise or bash whoever you like but at least be consistent with methods of player evaluation.
Around the NL East
The Phillies beat the Rockies last night to take a 2-1 lead in the series. Game 4 is tonight at 6:00, Cliff Lee vs. Ubaldo Jimenez.
A Purple Row writer attended the game and wrote up a nice report.
Talking Chop discusses options at 1st base next season.
Around MLB
The Yankees swept the Twins, backed by strong pitching from Andy Pettitte and clutch clutch clutch hitting from Alex Rodriguez. Nick Punto was on his way to becoming the new David Eckstein until his costly baserunning gaffe.
Tom at Bluebird Banter takes a couple Jays writers to task for writing about "The Twins Way", which is playing fundamentally sound, mistake-free baseball. I haven't seen much Twins baseball this season, but in the last week they've made some pretty boneheaded mistakes.
The Angels owned the Red Sox as Billy Wagner and Jonathan Papelbon struggled in Game 3. Thankfully we won't be subjected to any renditions of Dirty Water this year.
Memories of Kevin Malone recapped the Dodgers-Cardinals series.
DraysBay highlights a potential buy-low candidate: Astros catcher J.R. Towles.