brettac1

I think it's quite early for them to think about looking for a closer. Those guys will be fine.

I guess I don't consider a 2 run deficit in the 6th inning to be a long relief situation. They have a seven man bullpen that had everyone available today.

I don't hold Gamel on a pedestal. They were behind in the game and Gamel is the better hitter. Not to mention, it will almost certainly cue the conversation about how confident he is in Gamel.

I hadn't been angered by RR this season until he decided to double switch Gamel out today.

I think he could hit around .260 this year. He generally hits the ball with authority, though he hacks quite a bit. As far as his defense goes, I haven't seen him have enough chances to form any opinion on him. To me, Crisp wasn't a good enough CF to not let Cespedes play there if that was what he wanted in order to sign with the A's. And Crisp has a total rag arm. Atrocious.

As someone who watches the A's as much as I can, I am really excited to watch him play every day. He's very raw but he definitely looks like he has major league ability at this point. At least there will probably be one bright spot to watch at the O.co this season.

He just hit a monster, and I mean MONSTER, bomb to straight away CF. It's incredibly difficult to hit the ball out at night at the O.co and he hit it all the way up by the suites in CF. Look for it on the highlight shows.

That's too bad.

It will be interesting to see if the ball actually ends up flying better when the roof is closed.

Getting no-hit in game one of the new park would have been hilarious.

I was happy to see Brock. He should be a welcome addition for the next year, especially if he works 4-5 PPV's and the occasional Raw (but not wrestling for free). He's the biggest draw in PPV nowadays, though I don't think there will be near the crossover of MMA fans buying WWE shows as there was the other way around. The potential with him is interesting. Maybe they build to he and Taker next year, or will it be Rock? It would be an interesting move to put the belt on Lesnar and have that be Rock's opponent next year. Since Laurinitis said that Punk has to worry about a "natural disaster", I would think that means he and Lesnar will work together in time (or I was reading too much into it, but I don't think that was coincidence). Brock could win and drop the belt to Rock at Mania on his way out. Then have Rock vacate the title and hold a tournament. Those are almost always a good way to establish new guys.

About 15.5 MB download and 3.25 MB upload, according to speedtest.net. Yes, same package. It's all one price and the Roku is one of the devices that you can use the MLB.TV package with. I plan to use it on my laptop, my Roku, and my Android with the At Bat '12 app. I live about three hours away, but I also have FSN, so I'm not buying it for the Brewers. I like to watch the rest of the league, mainly the A's and Rays.

99.99% of the time it's 100% about the money.

They had Moxley/Ambrose win a dark match last night over Big Zeke, so that would probably be a good indicator he's coming up soon.

There aren't that many parts of the show I find all that enjoyable since I started watching it again. It's probably time I just quit watching it altogether, or at least WWE. On a given Impact, I probably find as much stuff that I like as I do on Raw, and they have guys that I really love watching like Aries. The Ring of Honor show is probably my favorite one nowadays, especially because they have nice clean and crisp booking with Cornette there. At the same time, I watch Raw because I want to like it, and because there are a lot of guys that I think have a lot of potential if given the chance. I don't think anyone here who advocates younger guys getting pushed thinks any of them is going to be Austin or Rock. The business is extremely cold right now, so that won't happen with anyone - Rock himself has proven that (ratings last night were lower than the Raw after the Rumble, even). Austin probably would draw, but he's a far, far bigger star than Rock ever was. You can still be great and not draw - look at all the people who think Shawn Michaels was the greatest ever. He couldn't draw a lick. Jericho sucked whenever put in any position to try to draw, as well. The current crop of young guys at least have to be given a chance to fail. What does WWE have to lose with business how it is now? They have all of these younger guys down in FCW that people rave about (Moxley will be on the main roster very soon by the looks of it), but they'll probably just come up to the main roster and be considered too small and never get the ball. All that being said, I won't complain about Brock coming back, since he's going to wrestle more than once by the looks of it, even if he'll only be there for a year. I'm not going to just shut up and enjoy whatever they put on, though. I like to over-analyze it, like how people over-analyze any other TV show. That stuff is where the fun is in the WWE show. It's not like it's in the wrestling.

Just a bump to say that I bought MLB.TV for my Roku and am currently watching the White Sox and Astros in crystal clear HD. Looks great.

As far as the YES chants, I don't think they're necessarily good, unless Bryan is in the ring. It means the fans don't care about what's actually happening on the show and they want to be the show themselves. I think that hurts the show. It's self-indulgent.

Real time thoughts on Raw after being so "electrified" by Mania that I decided to DVR it and watch old CM Punk stuff from ROH instead of watch the show live... - So it's a triple threat US Title match? Or a handicap match? Are they finally seperating Ziggler from Swaggs? - If you blow up two minutes into a match, you don't "still got it". - HE ALREADY CUT THIS PROMO ONCE. - Rock's new job: Help Cena. The whole build to Mania did nothing, apparently, to get people back on Cena's side. Granted, it is Miami. - I really hate chants. Seriously? "JHC" gets chanted? - This feels loooooong. Is it like 15 minutes already? And none of it has been noteworthy to this point. - Ah, so the belt is going back on Cena. GREAT. - If he does become champion, people should shut up about TNA being the place where old guys get the strap. - So, "once in a lifetime", huh? I hate the WWE sometimes. - If they split these two, I would be all for a Ziggler babyface run, I think. A Jericho feud to put him over going out the door, perhaps. - Ziggler/Bryan would be fantastic, as well. Ziggler/Cody. Ziggler/anyone because he is the best worker in the company. - Oh, Brodus has a shirt. - Why can't Swagger learn to bump like that so Ziggler doesn't look like the jobber? - Did they plant the seeds for a face turn/split there, or not? Seemed pointless. - Tensai, baby! - I thought that was the Shockmaster helmet at first. - There are totally going to be "Albert" chants, right? - Remember when Alex Riley sort of got a push? I barely do, but I think it happened. - Hakushi was awesome back in the day. Face tats are great. - The fans should learn from Zack Ryder's situation that if you chant for a guy Vince doesn't want you to, that guy is getting buried. Save Daniel Bryan! - Von Erich claw FTW? - The empty arena promo was so lame - and so wrong. If a match is really great, I don't even remember first place sometimes - just that it was great. - I don't care that much if you have the champion wrestle on TV, but if it's going to be a title match, can you at least make it the main event? - That being said, I am all about Mark Henry. - If Cole just dropped the heel gimmick one week with no explanation, that would be great. - Henry shouting at his opponent = gold. - "I OWN YOU, BOY!" - I am marking out for him yelling at Punk. As much as I love high workrate, I have a soft spot for a well-done monster gimmick. - Is this crowd at an ROH show or a WWE show? - Good TV match at the point of the commercial break. - This is one of the best matches I have ever seen Henry in. Punk's doing a great job with him. - The most annoying thing about Cole is when he calls everything "vintage (insert wrestler here)". - I, for one, hope this becomes a feud. - Is Lesnar a "natural disaster"? F-5, amirite? - It wasn't a classic match at Mania. It was like three stars. - I was really hoping this was over and Jericho would just leave again. The match wasn't that good, and especially because of the "how's your father" garbage. - This is all Botchamania stuff. The bottle broke in Jericho's hand, after he slipped and fell before. Hilarious. This feud in a nutshell: botched. - No one cares about Sheamus. He's just lame. - Sweet. Ricardo. - And Vince says "You want Daniel Bryan? Tune into Superstars on WWE.com!" - Josh Mathews has awful hair. - I hate white boots. - I'm just guessing, but I bet there was hardly ANY chatter on "WWE Social" wondering what Cena would say. - Big Show looks hungover. - Cody Rhodes: The New Dolph Ziggler. - Great. Poor Zack is going to trend. - Eve is doing pretty great lately, though. It's great that she has some personality to her character now. - I'm Miz-erable. - Ryder's sneer means he's serious now, bro? - Cena walking means the same, right? - As much as he gets booed, there are still lots and lots of those new shirts in the crowd. That's why he'll never turn heel. - Cena going even further babyface almost heels him, though. It's kind of funny. - If he was turning heel, there would be no better way to do it than curbstomp The Rock after a handshake and show of respect in his hometown. - Please be a heel, Brock. - I would say that settles that. Excellent. - That pretty much made up for a weak show.

Yeah all you need to do is play fantasy baseball to find out how quick the talent pool runs dry at 1B.

I should also add that I wouldn't be surprised at all if they did a million plus buys for Mania, but there are still 11 other months in the year that they run a PPV in and those are where they are in trouble.

I would wait to see what the buyrate is. It doesn't matter how many countries they broadcast to. They release an international buyrate - and those have sucked, too. They lost millions of dollars in Q4 of 2011 - and those were legit numbers. Buyrates are down roughly 10% for every show - and those include international buys. Apparently people in other countries realize that they suck, too. Also, they cook the numbers when they release attendance figures, etc. Look no further than the 93,000 number for Mania III, which is like 15 K+ high. They always claim to have the attendance record of every building they play. Plus, what was the average ticket price for Mania? I'd assume very high, and that they set the live gate record every Wrestlemania lately, aside from when they play the Garden.

I was surprised by the finish, but I don't know if I understand the point. If they are doing a series and were going to give Rock a win, it would have made more sense to do it at a show with fewer eyeballs on it, IMO. Now you have a guy who wrestles once a year win over your top star at the biggest show of the year instead.

It seemed about the same to me, I guess. I didn't love it. Some cool parts and some slow parts, as expected.

Way too much Michaels in this match for my tastes.

Well, it's not like Vince cares about wrestling or anything crazy like that.