Memorial Day Fun, Turn Back the Clock on Colon and a Missed Call Costs Twins

Memorial Day is always a good day in sports. Annually the collegiate lacrosse championship is held on the holiday and this year it saw Virginia win a gritty game over Maryland 9-7 behind Colin Briggs’ career-high 5 goals one game after being suspended for team violations. Briggs said that he didn’t even know if he would play in the title game but got the nod and contributed in a huge way to give the Cavaliers its 4^th national title under current coach Dom Starsia.

Plenty of baseball went on yesterday as well with a full slate of games and a handful of day games as well. The Arizona Diamondbacks whipped the Florida Marlins 15-4 behind 5 home runs and 19 hits. Justin Upton went 5 for 5 with 3 runs and 3 RBIs including a home run himself to lead the D-Backs to their 7^th straight victory. Bartolo Colon turned back the clock and dominated the Oakland A’s as the Yankees won 5-0 behind the complete game 4 hitter that Colon masterfully weaved. Elsewhere the Los Angeles Angels came back from a 6-1 deficit and scored 5 runs in the 8^th and 9^th including 3 off closer Joakim Soria. The blown save was the fifth of the season for Soria and the Royals announced after the game that Aaron Crow would take over the role for the time being. Another offensive outburst was in Tampa Bay where the Texas Rangers racked up 20 hits to beat the Rays 11-5. Mike Napoli lead the way going 3 for 6 swatting 2 home runs driving in 5 runs. The Chicago White Sox snapped a 3 game losing streak and snapped Jon Lester’s 7 game winning streak. The White Sox exploded for 4 runs in the 6^th winning 7-3 while giving Jake Peavy plenty of run support for his 2^nd victory of the season.

My girlfriend told me last night that I must discuss the Miami Heat-Dallas Mavericks series before Game 1 that starts at 9pm tonight on ABC. The Heat boast the newest and possibly most powerful  “Big 3” in LeBron James, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh while the Mavericks send a veteran squad with Dirk Nowitzki, Jason Kidd, Jason Terry, Shawn Marion and Peja Stojakovic to Miami. The match-up is a rematch of the 2006 finals in which the Heat won in 6 games giving Dwayne Wade his first ring and Shaquille O’Neal his 4^th. This time around it is a different story as Dirk has a better cast around him and no Superman to worry about in the paint. Kidd is an upgrade over Devin Harris and Chandler is a huge upgrade over Erick Dampier and DeSagana Diop at center. Miami has added a top 3 player in LeBron and a highly regarded power forward in Bosh but the supporting cast is limited with Udonis Haslem finally feeling healthy, Mike Miller and a defensive minded Joel Anthony as it’s only real weapons. This could be a very entertaining match-up as Haslem gave Dirk all sorts of fits last time they met in the Finals but Dirk is definitely a different player this time around and Haslem is not completely healthy but certainly better off than he was 2 weeks ago after missing most of the season. My prediction for the series is Dallas in 6 and for tonight the Mavericks come out firing defeating the Heat 101-94 behind 38 from Dirk Nowitzki.

Last Night’s Biggest Winner was New York Yankees starting pitcher Bartolo Colon. Colon who was a wildcard coming into the season after not pitching at all last year and being 38 years old has been unbelievable this season. Yesterday Colon threw a complete game shutout (9 innings) giving up 4 hits while walking none and striking out 6 in the 5-0 victory over the Oakland Athletics.

Last Night’s Biggest Loser was Umpire Crew Chief Gary Darling after making a controversial call in the Minnesota Twins-Detroit Tigers game. Alex Avila’s doubled bounced off a wall in left field and hopped into the stands, off of a fan and back into play. Now this would normally be ruled a ground-rule double but in this case the umpires conferred and decided that it was fan interference and allowed the runner from first to score when on a ground rule double Peralta would have been put back to third base and the game would still have been tied 5-5 in the bottom of the 8^th. The next batter struck out and Jose Valverde closed out the top of the 9^th to give the Tigers a controversial win.