Third baseman Evan Longoria from the Tampa Bay Rays and catcher Geovanny Soto from the Chicago Cubs.

Outfielder Jacoby Ellsbury from the Boston Red Sox finished third in the American League voting.

Earlier this week our friend Dan over at Red Sox Monster told us about a lawsuit involving Bart Steele of Chelsea, MA in which he was suing Bon Jovi to the tune of $400 billion dollars for stealing his work.

The song in question is the one that TBS is overplaying titled “I Love This Town.” Steele says the song closely mirrors his 2004 song which was an ode to the Red Sox “(Man I Really) Love This Team.” Dan has the details about the songs and also has the background of it as well.

The reason I bring this up is that I was contacted earlier today by Steele himself and he wanted to convey the message that he is not actually directly suing Bon Jovi, the main defendant in the case is Turner Broadcasting Systems. Bon Jovi and the others named are merely co-defendants.

He has been speaking out about this at his blog over at Myspace.com and here is the latest blog post about what is really going on with this lawsuit after the jump.

Continue reading →

Now normally I suck at predictions but somehow I managed to get all four of my ALDS & NLDS picks correct while Steve went 2-2. Had Steve stuck with his preseason predictions he would have gone 3-1.

So without further adieu, here are our picks for the American League Championship Series and National League Championship Series, along with the MVP’s.

Ian

NLCS
Los Angeles Dodgers over Philadelphia Phillies in 6 games
MVP: Manny What’s His Name

ALCS
Boston Red Sox over Tampa Bay Rays in 6 games
MVP: Jacoby Ellsbury

Steve

NLCS
Philadelphia over Los Angeles in 6 games
MVP: Jimmy Rollins

ALCS
Boston over Tampa Bay in 6 games
MVP: Kevin Youlikis

Let us know your predictions in the comments.

With Connecticut native Brad Ausmus ending his Houston Astros playing days (he does hope to play for a west coast team next year), the Astros gave him a humorous yet appropriate sendoff as they made fun of some moments during his career as well as his love of surfing.

Major League Baseball has announced the remaining game times for the Boston Red Sox vs Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim American League Division Series. I will be including the probable pitching matchups as well.

ALDS Game 3 – 10/5 – Joe Saunders vs Josh Beckett, Fenway Park, 7:17 PM EDT

*ALDS Game 4 – 10/6 – John Lackey vs Jon Lester, Fenway Park, 8:37 PM EDT (please note that if the Rays/White Sox series is over, the game will start at 8:07 PM EDT)

*ALDS Game 5 – 10/8 – Daisuke Matsuzaka vs Ervin Santana, Angel Stadium of Anaheim, 9:37 PM EDT (please note that if the Rays/White Sox series is over, the game will start at 8:37 PM EDT)

*if necessary

While most of y’all know that I suck at making predictions, Steve’s had a pretty good year of making them especially if you look back at his 2008 MLB predictions.

So without further adieu, here are our picks for the winners of the American League Division Series and National League Division Series.

Ian:

American League –

Boston Red Sox over Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in 5 games

Tampa Bay Rays over Chicago White Sox in 5 games

National League –

Los Angeles Dodgers over Chicago Cubs in 5 games

Philadelphia Phillies over Milwaukee Brewers in 4 games

Steve:

AL

Los Angeles over Boston in 5 games

Tampa Bay over Chicago in 4 games

NL

Chicago over Los Angeles in 4 games

Philadelphia over Milwaukee in 4 games

I also had a poll up over the past three days that asked who wins the series between the Red Sox and Angels. 74% of SOX & Dawgs readers think the Red Sox will win the series. Let us know in the comments who you think will win.

[poll id=”7″ type=”result”]

Jim Thome’s solo home run in the 7th inning was all the Chicago White Sox needed as John Danks threw 8 scoreless innings to help them win 1-0 over the Minnesota Twins. The White Sox will now celebrate and then head to Tampa to take on the Rays on Thursday.

The White Sox actually staved off elimination for three straight days. They needed to win on Sunday against the Cleveland Indians to play on Monday. Yesterday, they beat the Detroit Tigers to set up today’s matchup with the Twins.

In 2007, the New York Mets choked away a 7 game lead and missed out on the playoffs on the last day of the season which brought us this:

And now we have this after the Mets blew a 3.5 game lead and are out of the playoffs on the final day of the season for the second straight year:

For me the whole entire blame should fall on the shoulders of Mets GM Omar Minaya. If he had given them a decent bullpen, they might not be in this predicament. And oh yeah, early last week, they rewarded him with a 4-year contract extension.

For the second straight season, the New York Mets have choked on the last day and failed to make the playoffs because the Milwaukee Brewers won today 3-1 over the Chicago Cubs.

If you’re just a general baseball fan or a fan of the 4 remaining teams, today is shaping up to be one of the more exciting days in recent memory. There are still 2 playoff spots open with those 4 teams remaining in contention, 1 from each league.

The New York Mets and Milwaukee Brewers are tied for the wild card in the National League. The Minnesota Twins hold a ½ game lead over the Chicago White Sox for the AL Central title.

The Los Angeles Dodgers, Chicago Cubs and Philadelphia Phillies are all in from the National League. The Tampa Bay Rays, Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim are in from the American League.

It’s pretty simple to figure out or is it. If the Mets win and the Brewers lose, the Mets are in. If the Brewers win and Mets lose, the Brewers are in. If they both win or both lose today, they will play at Shea Stadium on Monday making that the last regular season game at Shea with the winner getting the wild card. The Mets will host the Marlins while the Brewers host the Cubs.

Now here comes the interesting one. If the Twins win against the Kansas City Royals and the White Sox lose to the Cleveland Indians, the Twins are in because their lead will be 1.5 games with no chance of the White Sox making up that deficit. If the White Sox win and Twins lose, then the White Sox will host the Detroit Tigers on Monday in a makeup game. If they both win or lose today, then the White Sox will still need to play the Tigers on Monday. Basically what it boils down to is that if either team has a ½ game lead after Sunday’s games, then the White Sox and Tigers play on Monday.

So if it comes down to the White Sox and Tigers having to play on Monday then things get even more intriguing. If the Tigers were to beat the White Sox then Twins would win the AL Central if the Twins still held a ½ game lead coming into the game on Monday. If the White Sox hold the ½ game lead after play today and lost to the Tigers on Monday then the Twins and White Sox would play on Tuesday for the AL Central title.

Make sense? I’m sure you were confused reading this as I was writing it. Enjoy the games today folks and if you’re a fan of one of the teams not in the playoffs yet, best of luck.