Ultimately, no matter how you slice it the Rockies' season is another disappointment. It's got to make you at least a little happy to watch Jeff Francis, Aaron Cook, and Jason Jennings pitch. The Rockies' front three has been reliable all season and they'll all be back next year. It's been pointed out to me many times before that having good pitching and no hitting is no better than having good hitting and no pitching, but I don't care. I just like pitching. A close loss in a low-scoring game is more elegant than a win in a goofy 19-15 Coorsathon. This is just the way I feel. I realize it's irrational. If you don't like it, you can get your own damn weblog.

So while we were all taking some time off from baseball to let our bitterness and disappointment rage, the Padres came back to take the NL West lead away from Los Angeles. I have maintained that the Dodgers were the division favorite all year long, and I guess I still feel that way, but it is time to admit I was at least a little wrong about San Diego. It seemed to me as if they had done nothing to get better after defaulting to a division title last season. Well, they are almost certainly going to win more than 82 games this year. The odds are quite good that the much-maligned NL West will take the wild card, too, if either Los Angeles or San Diego can outlast the Phillies. It's hard to be much excited about our division vindicating itself, however. Let's face it: the NL West didn't get that much better. The rest of the National League sank to our level.

All year I have been appealing to the baseball gods to smite the Tigers down with their mighty wrath. I famously wrote a preseason breakdown predicting another decade of seventy-win-ish futility for Detroit, and then they took off like the '01 Mariners. It's not enough for me for Detroit to simply back into the playoffs and make a quiet first-round exit. I want them to collapse abjectly. With the Rockies' year over, this is the major thing holding my interest in what's left of the regular season. Minnesota has been unbelievably helpful towards this end despite facing much adversity, but the White Sox inconveniently are not cooperating. Chicago's last chance starts tonight, as they begin a three-game series against Detroit at home. Let us all now engage in the mystical sweep dance.

I'm no football writer, but it "bears" saying: Bear down, Chicago Bears.

Whatever the odds are on whomever emerges with the National League pennant getting swept in the World Series, take that bet. Pedro Martinez is not healthy for the Mets. Jason Isringhausen is out, period, for St. Louis. San Diego, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia are as wishy-washy as they come. On the other hand, as it looks at this minute with Francisco Liriano being a question mark and the Tigers just sucking, wouldn't an A's-Yankees ALCS be a hell of a series? Of course in addition to going out of my way to harsh Detroit's gig this spring I also predicted Oakland and New York in the World Series. I love seeing good baseball, but you know what I love even more than that? Being right. Go, you A's. Go, you Mets.

And you Bears. How many weeks until we see a "Super Bowl Shuffle" remake with Kanye West and Lupe Fiasco? How dope would that be?

Now live: westernhomes.toaster.tv, a spinoff site with some of my thoughts about TV and video games. If you like TV and video games, maybe you will want to read it.