Ankiel slays Giants

For openers today, in honour of what should be the official start of the NHL season - it being Saturday after all - we've got The Sports Pickle's Official 2010/11 NHL pickup lines.  By the way, nice tramp stamp, Ovechkin.

The Cincinnati Reds went "slo-pitch squad" in the 7th inning last night, with mistakes you have to see to believe. That, as part of four errors and three hit batsmen by the Reds, helped the Phillies rally to a 7-4 win to take a 2-0 lead in the series.

Sometimes redemption takes a long time to come around, but after one-time pitcher Rick Ankiel, who famously couldn't find the plate in a playoff game a decade ago and switched to outfield permanently, brought the Atlanta Braves back to even footing with a dramatic 11th inning homer yesterday to give the Bravos a 5-4 win in San Francisco.  Both NL game three's go tomorrow.

A pair of MLB playoff games today, American League only after last night's all-NL schedule. In two games, the Tampa Bay Rays have eight hits and one run.  Makes their freaking out over a checked swing not called a strike three in game two ring pretty hollow, even if it led to a run.  They've got Matt Garza on the hill today facing Colby Lewis, 5:07pm first pitch.  The Rangers, of course, are up 2-0.  The New York Yankees go home to try to close out the Minnesota Twins, with Phil Hughes and Brian Duensing the starters.  I'm thinking the Rays win one with a strong Garza outing, and the Yanks close out Minny.

The Brett Favre news went to the mainstream media yesterday, and Deadspin sums up the coverage here.  Jason Whitlock says that "Roger Goodell needs to resolve this prickly dilemna" and that this makes the Jets/Ines Sainz issue earlier in the year seem like a "bunch of third graders playing spin the bottle."  Whitlock also says that if the media had a field day on Tiger Woods once they got his voicemails, they should be doing same with Favre.  Love Whitlock.  The NFL now admits it is looking into the allegations, and there is even more stories coming out about Favre's act in NYC.

It is a dark weekend for soccer leagues around the Europe with another bout of  Euro 2012 qualifying slated for yesterday and today.  Only two games today with France hosting Romania and Israel hosting Croatia.  Yesterday, Italy were held to a shocking draw at Northern Ireland, who aren't exactly powerhouses.  Portugal got off the schneid with a 3-1 win over Denmark, and the shocker of the day saw Serbia lose - at home - to Estonia.  Rest of the games wrapped up here.  All the games and scores here.

The good news for Manchester United: they had a record operating profit last year of £100.8.   The bad news: they still lost £83.64 million.  With the Boston Red Sox set to own Man U's rival Liverpool, am hoping that the New York Yankees get in and save Man U from this mess.

Alex Rodriguez his last 19 playoff games: batting .368 with five doubles, 7HR, 20 RBI and 18 runs.

Have a great Saturday, back with more tomorrow.