Nighttime roundup

Big Ten Bloggers

Starting soon, the Big Ten Bloggers will be trading writers with other sites. The host site will allow a writer from another Big ten site to post (but the host picks the question). The trade-offs will always coincide with that weekend’s game. For example – this week, Northwestern blog Lake The Posts would swap writers with a Buckeye site, Penn State would trade with a Michigan site, etc.

Next week, I’ll be inviting one of our Minnesota bloggers to post here. But I’d like some ideas…what question should I pose to them (be nice, now)?

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Tomorrow, I’m posting my answers to the Big Ten Blogger Roundtable questions of the week. Here’s the questions;

1. Time to break out the crystal ball. I want to know what happens at the END of the season. Give me your offensive and defensive Players of the Year in the Big Ten along with Coach of the Year and why.

2. With the upsets, close games, and head scratchers so far, every game we thought was going to be important has changed. Michigan State is 3-0, for Pete’s sake, and they look good doing it. Pick the three games on the Big Ten Schedule that will determine the Big Ten Champion. Bonus Points for not picking three games on your own schedule.

3. How many games, this season, have you been to? How many games have you tailgated at? If you have tailgated, name your beverage of choice. If you answered no to the previous questions, hang your head in shame, or at least give a good story about watching the game in enemy territory and giving the bouncer the finger when he asked you to quiet down.

4. As the Big Ten Season kicks off, the Conference is in somewhat of a difficult position nationally. Needing some momentum after a horrid BCS performance, the Conference needed some momentum early in the season. It hasn’t gotten it. The first three weeks have been abysmal. Is this just a down year for the Big Ten, is there a change Nationally that the Big Ten just hasn’t picked up on, is there some truth to the “Big Ten Style of Play” that everyone harps on, or has college football simply caught up? What so you think and why? I may be beating a dead horse, but no one looks good this year and I’m at a loss as to why.

I’m still thinking about my answers.

Cleveland Indians

Another outstanding pitching performance and more clutch hitting today, as CC Sabathia got his 18th win of the year, 4-2 over Detroit. With that win, we sweep the Tigers and all but clinch the AL Central. A 12-6 record over Detroit for the year was the key to this division. Beating up on the defending American League Champions was fun, too.

The Indians have 10 games left, and they only need to win three to make the playoffs. But there’s something bigger at stake now.

The Indians have the best record in baseball, after the Red Sox continued their collapse. They got swept tonight in Toronto, and their record fell to 90-63, one-half game behind the Tribe. Actually, Boston has the third-best record, because L.A. is tied with Cleveland at 90-62.

Leading the division by 7.5 with 10 games to go usually means resting the starters a bit. Not now. We need to get that #1 seed, so we can pick the playoff schedule. With that honor comes the ability to schedule the series to allow us a 4-man rotation and still give all our starting pitchers ample time to rest their arms. Tremendous responsibility…plus, having home field advantage throughout the playoffs and World Series is no small bonus.

Thursday is a day off. Oakland is in town Friday for a 3-game set.

Freakin Sweet stat of the day – The Indians are 25-8 since August 15th. A .756 win percentage when it counts the most? Freakin’ sweet!