Lakers Basketball Rules

Since yesterday's post all of the Southern California major league baseball teams have been on a losing streak. The Angels lost to KC as Jerrod Weaver had an unimpressive performance. The Padres lost both last night & today to the Braves.

All the Padre buzz is about the impending release of Jim Edmonds, a 5 time All Star and recent expensive acquisition. The Braves broadcasters were thrilled with today's win as it was their 1st 1-run win of the season. I am glad that the Padres were able to accommodate the home team. Clutch hitting by the Braves and a bull pen collapse by the Padres will be the main story.

On a better note the Lakers won game 2 last night and are now up 2-0 on the Utah Jazz. Kobe played like an MVP and the Lakers seemed to win in a breeze. Soon we will be inundated with Laker flags flying from every car in Southern California. The bandwagon is rolling into town and the locals are anxious to jump on board.

The Dodgers entertain Houston on the week end and strangely I feel that this may be an important early season series. Loaiza is on the DL, Kuo looked great against the Mets and there is talk of bringing up Kershaw. This spot in the rotation is being skipped in this series and it will be interesting to see who eventually gets the call. Derek Lowe goes Friday after a rough outing last time out, Craig Billingsley Saturday after a pretty good outing although his strike outs were down, and Kuroda Sunday after his shortest outing of the year. This is followed by Brad Penny Monday in Milwaukee after a disastrous performance yesterday. The starting rotation will be under the microscope over these 4 days and by & large needs to rebound from their recent less than stellar efforts.

Going into tonight's game against the Washington Nationals the Astros have won 5 in a row and 6 of 7. Lance Bergman has been "en fuego" but at least we avoid Roy Oswalt. I kind of have a soft spot for the Nats (formerly the Les Expos de Montreal). They were Canada's 1st major league baseball team and I happened to be in Washington DC their opening week end as they christened their new stadium. The community appears to be quite supportive of them despite their struggles.