text:
Sierra Leone has 2nd Ebola case despite declaring epidemic over
Published Thursday, January 21, 2016 5:49AM EST Last Updated Thursday, January 21, 2016 1:26PM EST
People pass a banner reading 'STOP EBOLA' forming part of Sierra Leone's Ebola free campaign in the city of Freetown, Sierra Leone, Friday, Jan. 15, 2016. (AP Photo/Aurelie Marrier d'Unienville)
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone -- A second case of Ebola emerged in Sierra Leone after health officials thought the epidemic was over, with a close relative of the first victim testing positive for the virus that has killed more than 11,000 people, authorities said Thursday.
About 150 of the first victim's contacts have been under monitoring, and the new patient had been in quarantine.
Health Ministry spokesman Sidi Yaya Tunis said the new patient was one of the people who prepared the initial victim's body for burial. The 22-year-old died in mid-January, and relatives were allowed to hold a traditional funeral as authorities at the time did not suspect she had died from Ebola.
Ebola is spread through direct contact with the bodily fluids of victims, and corpses are especially contagious. Traditional funerals in the region where mourners touch the body were a major source of virus transmission during the epidemic in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.
The new cases in Sierra Leone have marked a major setback for the region, as virus transmission had previously appeared to have stopped. Even in announcing the apparent end of the outbreak, though, World Health Organization officials had warned that additional "flare-ups" of new cases were still possible.
However, Sierra Leone's new cases are particularly worrying to experts because no one identified the first victim as an Ebola patient, and burial precautions were not taken to prevent further infections. There also had not been any known cases in Sierra Leone for two months, and it is still not known exactly how the 22-year-old contracted the virus.


text:
Seems like every year the week before opening day I get inundated with dozens of guys who have waited until the very last minute to get a scope mounted or a rifle sighted in. I call these guys last minute Barneys.
As I sat in my office yesterday my phone rang and on the other end was Barney. You see he had purchased a new rifle about 4 months ago but just had not had time to get it sighted in and asked if I could hook him up. Even though I had several irons already in the fire I agreed because a simple sight in job wouldn't take but about an hour and I could squeeze that in.
Well old Barney showed up with a Lee Enfield in .303 British and a cigar box with mounts and cartridges mixed in it. Two and a half hours later I had pieced together enough parts to begin mounting a scope. The scope now that was a thing of beauty. Big white letters with the words K-Mart were right there for the world to see. This wonder of the arms world was a complete package deal bought for the unbelievable low price of $75.00 at a garage sale. At this point I knew I needed to walk away but Barney was bending my ear about how this was his year to get that buck he had missed for the past 3 seasons because he only had a shotgun etc. so I took pity and continued to work. At this point I didn't know if I should break out the MIG welder or a book of spells and a wizard hat because that's what it was going to take to resurrect this once venerable firearm.
Three hours in and I finally have a scope and a solid mount squared and level. Ready to sight in. I took Barney and his rifle to my range behind my house where I proceeded to attempt to match up the best of his random ammo so I could sight it in. The first shot jarred the glass right out of the front of the scope. At this point I am just wanting the nightmare to end. I full well expected Bill Murray with the theme from Groundhog Day playing behind him to walk up. I told Barney he needed a new scope to which he replied he couldn't afford one which really concerned me about my fee for my work but I dug through my pile of junk scopes and came up with an old 4x Tasco. After I got in tightened down in the mounts it only took me a few minutes to get her zeroed in about as well as it could ever be.
I handed the rifle off to Barney and told him it would be $100. Which in my book wasn't bad for 4 hours of work and a scope as well as sighting it in. Barney took 6 months to pay the 100 bucks but he paid it. Every year I have no less than a dozen Barneys who show up with busted, broke, unshootable guns a week or less before opening day and they all need them ASAP and ready to hunt. God love'em cause I guess I wouldn't have it any other way…

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Strong Starts Don't Mean That Much
Last Friday, I focused my weekly ESPN Insider column (which can also be read here on the site if you are a FanGraphs Plus subscriber) on the predictive power of a team getting off to a strong start in April. We know that at the individual level one month doesn't mean much, but I wondered whether a dominating start to the season for an entire team might be more predictive of future success.
To do this, we looked at every team since 1974 that won at least 70 percent of their games in April (minimum 15 games), which gave us a sample of 45 teams. We then looked at how these teams performed from May through September to find out how predictive a strong team start actually was. I was pretty surprised at just how little it actually mattered.
To summarize the results, the 45 teams combined for a .743 winning percentage in April but just a .549 winning percentage from May through September. The correlation between April record and May-September record was just .24, and the r squared was just .06, meaning that you could only explain six percent of these team's record in the final five months by their records in April.
We even broke these 45 teams into quartiles based on ratio of runs scored to runs allowed to see if a pythag method would have done any better, but the correlation was an even weaker .19. In fact, the 12 teams with the worst run differential among the .700+ April clubs performed nearly as well over the remainder of the season as the 11 teams with the best run differential. Even teams that started the year winning games by mauling their opponents regressed heavily over the rest of the season, and knowing a team's run differential didn't help identify which teams would sustain more of their strong start than others.
That doesn't mean April performance is worthless, of course. The fact that these teams won 54 percent of their May-September games shows that the sample was primarily made up of playoff contenders, so we shouldn't pretend that a strong start to the season is meaningless. As a quick-and-dirty estimate of necessary regression, last week Tom Tango suggested adding 35 wins and 35 losses to a team's record on any given day.
To test his method against the results of these early season barnstormers, we can add 1,575 wins and 1,575 losses to the April total for these 45 teams, which would bring the total number of adjusted wins and losses to 2,340-1,839, which works out to a .560 winning percentage. That's just slightly higher than the .549 mark actually posted by these 45 teams over the rest of their season, so Tom's shortcut seems to work pretty well on this sample of strong starting teams.
Applying that 35-35 regression to the Rangers and Dodgers, who both currently stand at 16-6 to begin the year, would leave you with an expected future winning percentage of .554. This method suggests that we haven't actually learned all that much about the Rangers, as we were already pretty sure that they were good at baseball. Their first month confirms our preseason expectations, but shouldn't change it all that much.
For the Dodgers, it's tempting to say that perhaps they entered the year a tad bit underrated. Rather than regressing to the mean, Matt Kemp has doubled down on his terrific 2011 season, and quality performances from Andre Ethier and their collection of high walk/low power role players (A.J. Ellis, Mark Ellis, and Jerry Hairston have all been particularly good) have pushed the Dodgers out to an early lead in the NL West. Kemp can't keep this up all year, and the Dodgers pitchers are due for some significant BABIP regression, but the Dodgers may be a little better than they were given credit for.
We should be careful not to overreact to the results of April performances, but also understand that they do carry some meaning, especially when viewed in the right context. A great first month to the season is mostly useful for putting wins in the bank that count in the final standings, but April performance can also help us understand a small part of a team's expected future performance. April performance isn't gospel, nor is it worthless. It's data, and properly regressed, it can have some predictive value.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.


text:
You're writing that great American novel. You've read tons of "how to write" books, studied your high school English books to the last dangling participle, and now you're ready to start pecking away at the keyboard.
There are a few basic principles of writing good fiction to keep your reader engaged that must be remembered or your book will go flying out your reader's window. Worse yet, while it's being reviewed at the publishing company, the editor will send your manuscript back so fast, you're characters' heads will be spinning.
So, if you want to turn off your reader, or your editor, here's what you do:
1. Start your book by waxing eloquent. Describe beautiful settings, introduce action, and throw in a few pages of dialogue of minor characters. But don't introduce your main protagonist until page 10.
2. Write 20 pages of backstory with vivid descriptions and details of your protagonist's past life. Tell every nitty, gritty little detail about him that doesn't mean beans to the main story line.
3. Have your plot direction a mystery. "What the heck is going on here?" will run through your reader's mind every time he turns the page and starts a new chapter.
4. Develop a main protagonist that is offensive and says really outrageous or stupid things that aren't justified. For example, women readers are very sensitive to male attitudes toward them. (The author's attitudes will come shining through in the protagonist's actions and words.)
5. If you're writing Christian fiction, preach it, brother! Fill your pages with scripture verses. Have your protagonist a "holier than thou" saint who does no wrong and walks the straight and narrow. No reader in his right mind would want to embrace a character who is so heavenly minded, he's no earthly good.
So, if you've decided you don't want to ever be published, that's what you do. Master these five steps, and you'll definitely turn off any reader who's brave enough to attempt to tackle your "eloquence."
Marsha Hubler
(Website) www.marshahubler.com
(Blog) www.marshahubler.wordpress.com
Best-selling Author of the Keystone Stables books


text:
"The positive thinker sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible." – Author Unknown On a normal day, ther...
On a normal day, there are many ups and downs we each have to go through. Some we have no choice but to go through, while others we can avoid. But all in all, none of these downs should affect your core inner happiness and positive attitude.
Yes, we each, at our core, are happy and positive people. That's our true nature. Not the frantic, stressed out person we become after a hard days work…that's not our core self, that's external pressures taking its toll on our being.
There are ways to make everyday positive and happy regardless of any ups and downs we may face. Ups and down can't be avoided, but what you can avoid is the negative effect they have on your being.
Here are 4 ways to be positive and happy everyday no matter what the situation:
Carry a positive Trigger- OK, we all tend to freak out the second something is not going according to plan, or according to the way we expect it to work out. Its in these situation specifically that you need a kind of trigger to push your mind back to the positive track. Whether you're at home, work or the supermarket a positive trigger can be a picture, a quote, a key chain, or even a text on your phone. Anything that can be carried with you at all times and has the ability to make you think positive happy thoughts. Just flip out this positive trigger when you are down and get right back on the positive track.
Smile Consciously- There are days, when I carry that plastic smile around. I might meet people, smile and greet them cordially on those days, but haven't really done it happily. Every morning when I awake, I make myself a promise, to smile like I mean it. Believe me just one smile coming from the heart can not only make your whole being happy, but also spread the happiness to all those who you encounter. Making this a practice everyday, very simply adds to your core happiness quotient.
Feel Deeper- I had a sheltered childhood when I was growing up. Never knew what poverty or being less privileged meant. But I still remember my Dad bringing me National Geographic magazines and BBC documentaries to read and watch(there was no cable when I was growing up), so that I could know what was going on around the world. I have cried buckets watching them and then when I moved back to India and saw those conditions with my own two eyes, I really felt this need to DO more. I believe that till you can FEEL their pain, you know you are on the positive track. You are a good person. When you stop feeling, it means there is some part of your heart that's not alive. Feeling another's pain and trying to DO something about it brings about an immense sense of happiness and satisfaction within. Try it. Just Be there and lend your loving hand to someone everyday…..feel deeper to be happier.
Read Wisdom- There are a few books I have on my night stand and few on my work desk, which are full of inspirational words and prayers. When I am having a particularly difficult day, I just pick up any one book and read a paragraph. Instantly I'm back into thinking and feeling happy and positive. My friends Evita and Tess have these little cards full of inspirational quotes on their desks, fridges and walls to get them thinking happy positive thoughts. When you have inspiration around you, its hard not to get right back on the happy positive wagon.


text:
Goal: 4
Run: 5.09
Time: 0:51:37 | 10:08
New sneakers. Awesome run. This should have foreshadowed shin splints.
Fastest speed for that distance yet.
Went super low (37) while running errands which delayed run, overcorrected and went up to 400. To prevent skipping run (and try out new sneakers!) I did 7 units. I had just under a serving of oatbran with peanut butter before heading out.
Ended the run at 118.


text:
Robyn Anderson-Morshead is an imaginative painter, and sculptor who is driven by an incredible passion for expressing RAW ENERGY and LIFE FORCE in her art.
Robyn is accomplished in using traditional methods as well as modern techniques and often combines methods as well as inventing new uses for materials. Her paintings often include sculptural elements and she is always finding new ways to use everyday objects in her art to create interest and excitement.
Robyn is adept at creating art works for doctors offices, hospitals and homes and readily communicates the vision of her clientele.
Her art has a healing quality and is intended to uplift the energy in the space and all who enter it.
Robyn specializes in:


text:
– All three major indexes hit record levels in early trading on Tuesday as healthcare stocks rose on robust earnings and investors remained upbeat about a cut in corporate taxes.
Shares of Valeant Pharma surged 14.2 percent after the company's profit beat Wall Street estimates due to strength in its eye-care Bausch + Lomb business.
Mylan rose 2 percent, a day after the drugmaker raised its full-year forecast.
Negotiations on President Donald Trump's tax bill have begun after House Republicans last week unveiled a first draft that proposed a range of cuts aimed at helping businesses, including slashing the corporate rate to 20 percent from 35 percent.
With more than 400 of S&P 500 companies having reported, earnings for the third quarter are expected to have climbed 8 percent, compared with expectations of a 5.9 percent rise at the start of October, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
The S&P has risen about 15 percent in 2017 on the back on strong earnings, an improving economy and Trump's promise to cut taxes.
"While the market remains in place for further gains, the unwinding of the earnings season is likely to slow the pace of gains as the battle of tax reform lurks in the background," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at First Standard Financial.
At 9:39 a.m. ET (1339 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 33.59 points, or 0.14 percent, at 23,582.01, the S&P 500 was up 3.99 points, or 0.15 percent, at 2,595.12.
The Nasdaq Composite was up 2.59 points, or 0.04 percent, at 6,789.02.
Eight of the 11 major S&P sectors were higher, with the health index's 0.34 percent rise leading the advancers.
Investors are also awaiting a speech from outgoing Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen and Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Randal Quarles.
Yellen will give acceptance remarks at a presentation of the Paul H. Douglas Award for Ethics in Government in Washington at 2:30 p.m. ET.
Her speech will come less than a week after President Donald Trump chose Fed governor Jerome Powell to replace Yellen at the end of her term in 2018.
Shares of Priceline Group were down 9.1 percent after the online travel services company gave a softer-than-expected guidance for the fourth quarter.
Weight Watchers jumped 11.3 percent after the weight management company raised its profit forecast.
Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE by 1,313 to 1,206. On the Nasdaq, 1,267 issues fell and 1,087 advanced.
Reporting by Tanya Agrawal; Editing by Arun Koyyur


text:
Archive for 'Match Reports'
Can you hear Jarnail Singh?
No, but I could hear his bloody whistle, as usual. More of that later though. It was the first cold Saturday of the season, and not really a good day to head off to the Essex flatlands.Full Story
Sliding on Elton's Bog
Stood on a Box reports from Watford as Rovers crash out of the Carling Cup.Full Story
Smurfs and tangomen end the Season in Style
It was all sunshine and relaxation in the Birkbeck's back garden, as a few more than five thousand gathered for an end-of-season friendly that didn't mean much to either side. The Gasheads were, as usual, there in numbers but also in particularly fine voice. The away stand is an old-fashioned one with pillars and a […]Full Story
Fulham 2 Gas 2
7000 Gasheads take over at Craven Cottage. Fulhams home support was outnumbered by the travelling Gas in todays FA Cup match. The first time this has ever happened to a Premiership team. Outnumbered, outsung and nearly beaten on the pitch too.Full Story
Rovers 1 Luton 1
The weather was mild, and so was the pre-match mood at the Mem. With only the modest charms of Luton Town to drag everyone out of their homes, the crowd trickled in slowly, hauling in full bellies that seemed to lack hunger for a result.Full Story
Barnet 1 – Bristol Rovers 1
Stood On A Box reports from that there London.Full Story
Gay lions, shrews, spastic horses and overall cause for optimism
Given that we have turned more corners than a bus driver in LegoLand, I'll stop short again of suggesting that a decent performance against a Shrewsbury side full of confidence, whos line-up appears to be a whos-who of League Two subs benches represents some sort of mid-table Rubicon crossing.Full Story
Ifs, Ands, Pots, Pans, Gas and Hatters
Given that we have had more false dawns than a Vicar of Dibley lookalike convention, I'll stop short of suggesting that this could be a turning point in our season.Full Story
Abject Rovers humiliated by Wycombe
How bad was it? Well let???s just say as bad as any performance under Atkins, Graydon, Thompson or Francis. Yes, that bad. Let me tell you more.Full Story
Walking out of the Mem. tonight I lost count of how many people said 'What a game'….Full Story


text:
Tagged: Scott Feldman
Beltran's Sac Fly Ends Duel With Astros In Ninth
When two of the top three home run hitting teams in baseball meet at Yankee Stadium with its inviting short right-field porch it only stands to reason that the game will be . . . a pitchers' duel!
Both the Yankees and Astros went against type but it was the Yankees who managed to win the game on Monday with a bases-loaded sacrifice fly in the bottom of the ninth.
Carlos Beltran scored Brett Gardner with the only run of the game with no outs in the ninth as New York edged Houston to reclaim a share of first place in the American League East in front of a paid crowd of 37,125 in the Bronx, NY.
Yankees right-hander Nathan Eovaldi and Astros right-hander Scott Feldman matched each other pitch for pitch for eight innings until Astros manager A.J. Hinch elected to use left-hander and former New York Mets headcase Oliver Perez to pitch the ninth.
Gardner was able to work a leadoff walk and, after Perez uncorked a wild pitch to allow Gardner to reach second, the Astros decided to walk Alex Rodriguez intentionally so Perez could face left-handed hitting Brian McCann.
But Perez ended up also walking McCann to load the bases and Hinch called upon right-hander Chad Qualls to pitch to the switch-hitting Beltran.
Beltran jumped on the first pitch and he lofted the ball into deep center-field to score Gardner easily with the game-winning run.
Left-hander Andrew Miller (2-2) struck out two batters in a scoreless ninth inning to earn the victory in relief. Perez (2-2) was saddled with the loss.
Eovaldi, who entered the game undefeated in his past 11 starts and winner of eight straight decisions, held the Astros to just four hits and three walks and he struck seven in eight innings.
He also managed to kept the Astros 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position. He was at his best in the seventh inning after Carlos Correa singled to open the frame and Colby Rasmus drew a walk.
Carlos Gomez laid down a sacrifice bunt to advance both runners but Eovaldi got out of the jam on a fielder's choice off the bat off Evan Gattis that retired Rasmus roaming too far off second and Luis Valbuena flied out to center.
Feldman, 32, held the Yankees to six hits and he struck out six without issuing a walk in eight innings.
The Yankees had an excellent opportunity to score in the second when Didi Gregorius and Stephen Drew opened the inning with singles. But Feldman retired Drew on a fielder's choice off the bat of Jacoby Ellsbury, Gardner struck out swinging and Rodriguez flied out.
The Yankees also had a chance to score with McCann on third and Beltran on first with no outs in the seventh. However, Greg Bird struck out swinging and Chase Headley hit a fly ball to medium center and Gomez was able to throw out the slow-footed McCann at home plate on a three-hop heave for an inning-ending double play.
With the victory the Yankees improved their season record to 69-55 and they jumped into a tie with the Toronto Blue Jays for the top spot in the division. The first-place Astros dropped to 69-57.
- Eovaldi has come a long way in his development as a starter this season. In his past 12 starts, he is 8-0 with a 2.93 ERA. He used his slider to compliment his 100-mile-per-hour fastball, splitter and curveball to keep the Astros guessing all night. The Yankees very quietly are developing a strong, young rotation in 26-year-old Masahiro Tanaka, 26-year-old Michael Pineda (who will be activated form the disabled list on Wednesday), 25-year-old Eovaldi, 27-year-old Ivan Nova and 21-year-old Luis Severino.
- McCann was 3-for-3 with a walk in the game and he is now 5-for-11 (.455) with his new forward-leaning stance. In addition, McCann also managed to throw out pinch-runner Jake Marisnick attempting to steal on a strike out of Valbuena in the ninth inning. McCann has now caught 22 of 55 base-runners stealing this season, which puts him at a career-best 40 percent. McCann credits bullpen coach Gary Tuck. "We work every single day on it," McCann told reporters. "I've gotten better as the season's gone on. It's good to put the ball on the bag there."
- Beltran's night began with him striking out looking in the second and bouncing into a double play in the fourth. But he singled to advance McCann to third before McCann was thrown out to end the seventh. But his at-bat in the ninth was classic Beltran. Though Qualls is noted as a ground-ball pitcher, he was able to get under his first offering and hit it deep enough to get Gardner home with the winning run.
- Rodriguez was placed back into the lineup after two days off but he ended up 0-for-3 with a walk. He struck out in the sixth on a pitch that was about two feet outside and it nearly hit the dirt. Since Aug. 7, Rodriguez is 7-for-57 (.123) with two homers and six RBIs. That has dropped his season average from .281 to .259. As long as he slumps he is killing the Yankees offense.
- Gardner and Ellsbury combined to go 0-for-7 with two strikeouts. If you add Rodriguez batting third they were a combined 0-for-10, which makes you wonder how Perez was able to walk Gardner and Rodriguez to begin the inning. The Yankees need their top three hitters to HIT! If they don't, the team loses to last-place teams like the Cleveland Indians and surrenders first place in the A.L. East. It's that simple.
The Yankees will not say it but I will: CC Sabathia has thrown his last pitch of the 2015 season and his career in real jeopardy. Sabathia, 35, was placed on the 15-day disabled list on Monday with inflammation in his right knee. Sabathia left Sunday's game against the Indians with two out in the third inning due to pain in the knee, which was drained twice this season and received a cortisone shot last week. After making only eight starts last season, Sabathia underwent debridement surgery on the knee and was told that he would have to follow strict procedures to limit recurring pain. Sabathia, who is 4-9 with a 5.27 ERA in 24 starts this season, will see a specialist on Tuesday. But Yankees manager Joe Girardi told reporters, "Is it possible that he doesn't pitch the rest of the year? It's a possibility." To replace Sabathia on the roster the Yankees announced that left-hander Chris Capuano had elected free agency and then signed a new Major-League contract with the team of the rest of the season. . . . Mark Teixeira, who has been nursing a deep bone bruise on his right leg, said on Tuesday that he was available to pinch-hit in Monday's game. He was not used and Teixeira has now missed the team's past six games with the injury. Girardi told reporters that he is hopeful Teixeira will be able to start Tuesday's game.
The Yankees will continue their three-game home series with the Astros on Tuesday.
Nova (5-5, 3.72 ERA) will pitch for the Yankees. Nova is coming off a loss against the Indians on Thursday in which he was tagged for three runs on six hits and two walks while he struck four in five innings.
The Astros will start left-hander Dallas Keuchel (14-6, 2.37 ERA). Keuchel did not get a decision while giving up two runs on seven hits and one walk with five strikeouts in seven innings against the Tampa Bay Rays on Wednesday.
Game-time will be 7:05 p.m. EDT and the game will be broadcast nationally by the MLB Network and locally by the YES Network.
Eovaldi, Headley Help Yankees Blank Astros
KISSIMMEE – Chase Headley pounded out three hits, including his third home run of the spring, and drove in three runs to support Nathan's Eovaldi's strong 4 2/3 innings of shutout baseball as New York blanked Houston on Sunday at Osceola County Stadium.
Headley got the Yankees' offense started against right-hander Scott Feldman (0-2) with a two-out solo home run in the third inning that hit the top of the right-field field wall and bounced over. He later broke the game wide open in the sixth with a two-out, bases-loaded single off right-hander James Hoyt that drove in two runs to cap a four-run rally and extend the Yankees' lead to 7-0.
Meanwhile, newly acquired right-hander Nathan Eovaldi (1-1) continued a string of impressive appearances this spring by shutting down the Astros on just three hits. He did not walk a batter and he fanned five.
For the Yankees it was their second consecutive road shutout of the spring. On Friday, the Yankees defeated the Philadelphia Phillies 10-0 in a game called in the sixth inning due to rain.
With the victory the Yankees improved their Grapefruit League record to 15-12.
The Yankees have historically leaned towards trading away young pitchers and acquiring veteran pitchers on the north side of 30.
There are many examples of young pitchers the Yankees traded before they became stars like Jose Rijo, Doug Drabek, Ted Lilly and Ian Kennedy. Just this winter the Yankees traded David Phelps and Shane Greene. It is just something for which Yankee fans have grown accustomed.
The script got flipped, however, when veteran infielder Martin Prado and Phelps were packaged to the Miami Marlins in a trade for first baseman and outfielder Garrett Jones, Eovaldi, a 25-year-old right-hander, and a promising 22-year-old right-hander Domingo German.
Basketball coaches always say that you can't teach size and baseball managers say accordingly that you can't teach a pitcher velocity. Eovaldi has a gifted right arm that possesses outstanding velocity. His fastball can reach as high as 98 miles per hour.
In fact, FanGraphs.com ranked Eovaldi's fastball as the fourth highest in velocity last season among major-league pitchers. The oddity was Eovaldi led all National League pitchers in hits allowed (223) and he only managed 142 strikeouts in 199 2/3 innings.
His 6-14 record and 4.37 ERA also would have you scratching your head after you saw that sizzling heater of his.
So Yankees pitching coach Larry Rothschild did some tinkering with Eovaldi's fastball and his secondary pitches this spring to bring his hits allowed down and raise his strikeout totals. In short, they want him to take the next step in being a dominant pitcher.
After Sunday's sterling effort, it appears that Eovaldi – with Rothschild's help – is doing just that. In Eovaldi's four spring appearances (three starts) he is 1-1 with a team-best 0.66 ERA. He has yielded just one run on 10 hits with no walks and 14 strikeouts in 13 2/3 innings.
If you add a potentially dominant Eovaldi to 26-year-old right-hander Masahiro Tanaka and 26-year-old right-hander Michael Pineda then you might have an excellent trio of young starters to build a team around.
But don't just take my word on Eovaldi. You can hear it from a fellow graduate of his from Alvin High School in Alvin, TX, who was watching Eovaldi on Sunday in his role as an executive advisor to the Astros – some guy named Nolan Ryan.
"I haven't watched him in person, only on television, but I've followed him ever since he's been in high school," Ryan told reporters. "I really think that the better part of his career is still ahead of him."
The Yankees might just have something special in this young Eovaldi. And the best part is he is not 34 years old and past his prime.
- I really ripped this team for how bad they looked on Saturday at George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, FL, against the Baltimore Orioles in a 10-2 loss. But they bounced back nicely on Sunday and scored seven runs and collected 11 hits and drew seven walks. But he oddity this spring is that the Yankees are 8-5-1 and have outscored their opponents 77-44 on the road while they are 7-7 and have been outscored 64-46 at home. This may be because the young players have been doing most of the hitting this spring and they are playing more on the road.
- In addition to Headley's three hits, the Yankees got another stellar effort at the plate from Rob Refsnyder. The 24-year-old second baseman was 2-for-3 with two doubles and two runs scored and an RBI. Refsnyder is now 12-for-35 (.343) with five doubles, one home run and five RBIs. He is ticketed for Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and he does need to get better in the field, but this young player has all the makings of a great hitter.
- Esmil Rogers, 29, may have blown his opportunity to be the team's No. 5 starter this spring. But he still has some value in the bullpen. Rogers looked sharp in retiring all five batters he faced and he fanned two of them.
I will not nitpick this one. If you toss shutout ball and score seven runs there is not much there to fix.
Alex Rodriguez made his major-league debut as a first baseman on Sunday and handled three chances flawlessly in his three innings of work. Manager Joe Girardi envisions Rodriguez as potential fill-in at first base behind starter Mark Teixeira and Jones. "Catching the ball, I'm not worried about that. I'd think he'd be pretty good around the bag, even scooping, because you get a lot of those hot shots at third base," Girardi told reporters. . . . Teixeira suffered a right knee contusion on Sunday playing in a minor-league game at the Yankees' complex in Tampa. Teixeira left the game immediately and was limping afterward. But he told reporters that he was "fine." . . . Shortstop Didi Gregorius received treatment and said there was improvement in his strained left wrist that he sustained in Saturday's game against the Orioles. Gregorius said he is sure he will be ready to play on Opening Day. . . . The Yankees released right-hander Scott Baker but they hope to re-sign him to a new minor-league contract. Baker, 33, originally was signed to a deal that would have forced the Yankees to pay him a retention bonus. The Yankees would like Baker to sign a minor-league deal without the bonus. That is the same basis they re-signed right-hander Jared Burton on Sunday. Burton, 33, had been released three days ago. He only pitched in four games this spring because he suffered a strained lat. In addition to the Burton signing, the Yankees also optioned right-hander Bryan Mitchell to Scranton and sent right-hander Kyle Davies to minor-league camp. The team also optioned outfielder Ramon Flores to Triple-A and re-assigned catchers Francisco Arcia and Kyle Higashioka, infielders Cole Figueroa and Jonathan Galvez, outfielder Slade Heathcott, left-hander Jacob Lindgren and right-hander Nick Rumbelow to minor-league camp.
The Yankees will take the day off on Monday before resuming their final week of spring training games on Tuesday at CenturyLink Sports Complex in Fort Myers, FL, as the Yankees play the Minnesota Twins.
Tanaka will make what will be his final spring appearance before he opens the season on April 6 at Yankee Stadium against the Toronto Blue Jays. Tanaka is 1-1 with a 1.74 ERA in his three spring starts.
The Twins will counter with left-hander Tommy Milone, who is 0-1 with a 4.50 ERA in four starts.
Game-time will be 1:05 p.m. EDT and the game will be broadcast by the MLB Network.
Orioles Stick A Fork In Baker To Skewer Yankees
Alejandro De Aza hit a three-run home run to cap a five-run second inning off Scott Baker and Baltimore cruised to victory over New York on Saturday at George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, FL.
Meanwhile, right-hander Orioles starter Tyler Wilson (1-0), making his first start of the spring, held the Yankees to a single hit over four scoreless innings to get credit for the victory.
Baker (0-1), who was starting in place of CC Sabathia so the Orioles could not get an early look at him, yielded five runs on five hits and no walks and struck out three in two innings.
The Yankees' lone runs came on solo home runs from Stephen Drew in the fifth inning and Alex Rodriguez in the seventh, his third homer of the spring.
With the loss the Yankees are 14-12 in Grapefruit League play.
Nothing. The Yankees managed just three hits all day and the pitching was pretty atrocious. After watching this one I almost expected they would post a message on the scoreboard saying "No actual Yankees were harmed during this massacre."
- When the Yankees made the switch of starters from Sabathia to Baker, I was pleased because Sabathia has been getting hit pretty hard. Baker, on the other hand, had been very sharp in his previous two outings. But Baker had no command and it looked as if the O's were taking batting practice off him. This outing pretty much takes Baker out of any consideration for a spot on the roster and it could jeopardize his chances of even pitching for the Yankees at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.
- It is fairly obvious that Dellin Betances is not the Dellin Betances we remember from 2014. The Orioles nicked him for a run on one hit and one walk in his one inning of work. He has been unable to deliver a 1-2-3 inning this spring and his ERA has now ballooned to 7.11. It is not time to panic yet but if it continues the Yankees are in big trouble at the end of their bullpen.
- Brett Gardner, Chase Headley, Mark Teixeira and Chris Young combined to go 0-for-12 in the game and they were a major reason why the Yankees looked as if they were sleepwalking through this game. Lack of offense has been a big issue all spring and it does not seem to be getting any better.
If the game itself was not bad news enough, the Yankees might have lost starting shortstop Didi Gregorious for some time after he sprained his left wrist in the second inning. Gregorius, 25, injured himself diving unsuccessfully for a ball off the bat of Everth Cabrera. He stayed in the game but was replaced by Nick Noonan in the fifth inning after Gregorius told manager Joe Girardi that he felt pain in the wrist on a check swings. X-rays were negative and he will get the next three days off . . . . Though Baker had a bad day, Sabathia was not spared either. The 34-year-old left-hander was shelled for four runs on five hits including a pair of home runs in a 69-pitch outing against minor leaguers on Saturday at the team's complex in Tampa. . . . Rob Refsnyder and Luis Severino were honored on Saturday as the winners of the 2014 Kevin Lawn Award and the team's Player of the Year and Pitcher of the Year, respectively. Refsnyder, 24, split last season between Double-A Trenton and Triple-A Scranton and batted .318 with 14 homers and 63 RBIs. Severino, 21, was a combined 6-5 with a 2.46 ERA in 24 starts at Class-A Charleston, Class-Tampa and Trenton. Severino led all Yankees minor-league pitchers with 127 strikeouts and was selected to participate in the SiriusXM All-Star Futures Game.
The Yankees will travel to Osceola County Stadium in Kissimmee, FL, on Sunday to play the Houston Astros.
Right-hander Nathan Eovaldi will make his third start and his fourth appearance of the spring. Eovaldi, 25, is 0-1 with a 1.00 ERA.
The Astros will counter with veteran right-hander Scott Feldman, who is 0-1 with 10.13 ERA in three starts this spring. With that 10.13 ERA, Feldman must be looking forward to facing the Yankees because they might make him look like Felix Hernandez.
Game-time will be 1:05 p.m. EDT and the game will be broadcast on MLB Radio via KBME in Houston.
Astros Flip Script To Take Opener Over Yankees
CC Sabathia continued his fine work from spring training with six strong innings and Derek Jeter and Mark Teixeira led a newly retooled Yankee offense as the New York downed Houston in their season opener at Minute Maid Park in Houston.
Somehow the Astros did not get the memo on how Opening Day was supposed to go.
The Astros scored six runs in the first two innings off CC Sabathia, including home runs by Jesus Guzman and L.J. Hoes, as Houston rolled to an Opening Day victory over New York on Tuesday in front of a paid crowd of 42,117 at Minute Maid Park.
Sabathia (0-1) was tagged for four runs in the first and two more in the second before he settled in and pitched four scoreless innings to save the bullpen. Meanwhile, Astros starter Scott Feldman (1-0) held the Yankees in check by using a series of slow-pitch softball speed pitches.
Feldman held the powerful Yankee lineup to no runs on two hits and two walks in 6 2/3 innings. The 31-year-old right-hander entered the contest with a career record of 51-56 with a 4.59.
The Yankees did not get their first hit off Feldman until Carlos Beltran slapped a one-out single to left in the fourth inning. Mark Teixeira looped a one-out single to right in the seventh for the team's only other hit off Feldman.
The Astros did not waste any time against Sabathia when Dexter Fowler led off the first with a double to deep center. He moved to third on a flyout and scored on an RBI single by Jose Altuve. After a stolen base and a wild pitch advanced him to third, Altuve scored when Teixeira's throw to home on a grounder off the bat of Jason Castro was thrown wide past McCann.
Guzman lined the first offering from Sabathia deep into the left-field bleachers to make the score 4-0. Guzman entered the game with only 23 career homers over the past 2 1/2 seasons.
Hoes opened the second inning with a solo blast of his own. Hoes entered the contest with only one previous major-league homer in 49 games.
The Astros capped the scoring in the second when Fowler laced another double with one out. Altuve later added a two-out single to score Fowler.
The Yankees had two chances to score against Feldman. In the fourth, Beltran singled with one out and Teixeira drew a two-out walk. However, Alfonso Soriano struck out to end the threat.
In the seventh, Teixeira's one-out single was followed by a pair of two-out walks to Brett Gardner and Brian Roberts to load the bases.
Astros manager Bo Porter replaced Feldman with left-hander Kevin Chapman and he induced Kelly Johnson into a force out to leave the bases loaded.
The Yankees did finally break through in the eighth inning when Chapman opened the frame by walking Jacoby Ellsbury. Jeter then greeted right-hander Chad Qualls with a single to right.
Beltran advanced Ellsbury and Jeter with a groundout and Brian McCann and Teixeira followed with RBI singles.
However, Qualls ended the rally by getting Soriano to hit into an inning-ending double play.
- Two big concerns the Yankees had opening the season was how Jeter and Teixeira would fare after both players, who missed most of the 2013 season with injuries, struggled to hit this spring. But Jeter was 1-for-3 with a walk and a run scored and Teixeira was 2-for-3 with a walk and an RBI.
- Give both McCann and Teixeira a lot of credit for the their RBI singles. Both decided to hit to the opposite field with shifts on against them and a ground-ball pitcher on the mound in Qualls. If you try to pull outside pitches you end up grounding into the shift. Both recognized that and hit to the opposite field.
- Both Dellin Betances and Vidal Nuno pitched an inning of relief and both were impressive. Betances struck out two in a perfect inning in the seventh and Nuno struck out the side in the eighth. The Yankees are hoping that Betances, 26, and Nuno, 26, will contribute a lot to a completely retooled bullpen that is missing closer Mariano Rivera.
- The reality is that Sabathia was NOT defeated by his reduced velocity. Sabathia was beaten because he missed location with his pitches. When he was up in the strike zone he got hammered. When he got the ball down he was successful in the final four innings. Sabathia was making his sixth consecutive Opening Day start for the Yankees and the 11th of his career. He is the team's ace out of courtesy and you can actually make a case that he is the weakest of the Yankees five starters. Once Yankees fans accept that fact they may just be able to accept Sabathia for what he is at age 33.
- Soriano can be a maddening player. When he is red hot you can't get him out. When he is cold he can kill your offense. He killed the offense pretty well on Tuesday by going 0-for-4 with two strikeouts and a inning-ending double play. Soriano stranded a team-high five runners. Ouch!
- Though the Yankees were charged with one error they actually were extremely sloppy in the field in this game. McCann overthrew third base trying to nab Altuve. Teixeira's throw home to get Altuve was to the first-base side of home plate and skipped past McCann. They just did not look sharp in the field with the exception of some fine plays at third by Johnson.
Before the game the Yankees purchased the contract of infielder Yangervis Solarte from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and designated infielder Eduardo Nunez for assignment. The team will have 10 days to trade, release or outright Nunez to the minor leagues. Nunez, 26, was once viewed as the heir apparent to Jeter at shortstop but he was outplayed this spring by Solarte, 26, and Dean Anna, 27. . . . The Yankees Opening Day lineup had only one holdover from Opening Day in 2013 and that was Gardner. Last season, both Jeter and Teixeira were on the disabled list and 2013 starters Ichiro Suzuki and Francisco Cervelli were on the bench on Tuesday. The 2013 lineup also included Vernon Wells, Kevin Youkilis, Ben Francisco, Jayson Nix and Nunez. . . . The Astros plan to honor Jeter with a special ceremony on Wednesday with former teammates Andy Pettitte and Roger Clemens on hand. Jeter announced just before spring training began that this will be his final season.
The Yankees will have to recover from their loss as they play the second game of a three-game seres with the Astros.
Right-hander Hiroki Kuroda (11-13, 3.31 ERA in 2013) will make his first start of the season. He was 1-0 with a 4.76 ERA this spring.
He will opposed by right-hander Jarred Cosart, who was 1-1 with a 1.95 ERA in 10 starts last season. He was 2-1 with a 4.50 ERA this spring.
Game-time will be 8:10 p.m. EDT and the game will be broadcast by the YES Network.
Jeter's Farewell Game Washed Out By Downpour
TAMPA – What was to be the final spring training appearance as a player at George M. Steinbrenner Field for Derek Jeter was washed away on Saturday by deluge of heavy rain that forced the game to be canceled.
A foreboding forecast that included an 80 percent chance of rain with thunderstorms likely and a tornado watch put into effect until 5 p.m. EDT pretty much doomed the game before it even had a chance to begin.
Right-hander Ivan Nova was scheduled to pitch against Marlins right-hander Tom Koehler. Both pitchers warmed up as the grounds crew removed the tarp. Later, the starting position players from both teams began to warm up.
However, both teams agreed to cancel the game, which ended spring training for them.
The only bit of good news as the Yankees were able to show a special video tribute to Jeter and call him out to present him with the key to the City of Tampa before the game. He was surrounded by participants of his charitable Turn Two organization. He received a standing ovation from those who braved the inclement conditions.
The Yankees ended their Grapefruit League schedule with a 17-12-2 record.
The shockwaves reverberated around the ballpark on Saturday when the Yankees announced that infielder Yangervis Solarte was selected for the final roster spot and Edurado Nunez was optioned to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. On the surface, it was not really a surprise. Solarte, 26, came out of nowhere as a free-agent signee out the Texas Rangers' organization invited to spring training. The 26-year-old switch-hitter batted .429 with two homers and nine RBIs in 24 games. Nunez, also 26, hit .265 with a homer and four RBIs in 19 games. Manager Joe Girardi said he looks at infielder Dean Anna as the primary backup to Jeter at shortstop, though he also can play second and third. Solarte, on the other hand, is being looked at as the primary backup at second and third, although shortstop has been his best position. Nunez left the clubhouse without comment. . . . Right-hander Masohiro Tanaka was selected on Saturday as the recipient of the James P. Dawson Award as the team's outstanding rookie of the spring. Tanaka, 25, was 2-0 with a 2.14 ERA and struck out 26 batters in 21 innings. Tanaka will make his major-league debut on April 4 in Toronto against the Blue Jays. . . . Girardi said the lineup he was going to play against the Marlins on Saturday would be the lineup with which he will begin the season. It had Jacoby Ellsbury hitting leadoff with Jeter, Carlos Beltran, Brian McCann, Mark Teixeira, Alfonso Soriano, Brett Gardner, Kelly Johnson and Brian Roberts to follow. Girardi is electing to use Gardner in the seventh spot instead of ninth as was originally thought.
The Yankees will begin the 2014 season on Tuesday in Houston as part of a three-game series at Minute Maid Park.
Left-hander CC Sabathia (3-1, 1.29 ERA) will make his sixth consecutive Opening Day start for the Yankees and his 10th straight overall.
He will be opposed by former Texas Rangers and Baltimore Orioles right-hander Scott Feldman (0-2, 5.40 ERA).
Game-time will be 7:10 p.m. EDT and the game will be broadcast nationally by the MLB Network and locally by the YES Network.
Nova Tosses Goose Eggs As Yankees Down Birds
When Ivan Nova took the mound on Saturday he carried the weight of a pennant race, a proud franchise and a paid Yankee Stadium crowd of 42,836 on his broad shoulders. After watching him pitch, though, it appeared as if he was toying with the Baltimore Orioles as he calmly and cooly retired them one after another.
The 26-year-old Dominican right-hander surrendered only three hits and a walk while he fanned five en route to a complete-game shutout over Baltimore to allow the Yankees to claim third place in the American League East standings.
Nova (8-4) threw only 104 pitches in recording his first major-league shutout over an Oriole team that did more flailing at Nova's sharp curveball than a dodo bird pointlessly trying to take flight.
Nova received all the support he really required in the bottom of the first inning when Brett Gardner led off with a sharply stroked double down the right-field line off Orioles right-hander Scott Feldman (11-10). One out later, Robinson Cano laced a double of his own off the right-field wall to score Gardner.
The game remained 1-0 until Feldman left the game after seven innings, giving up just the one run on six hits and a walk with five strikeouts.
Left-hander Troy Patton opened the eighth by throwing a 2-1 slider that Cano drove over the auxiliary scoreboard in right and about 12 rows back for his 25th home run of the season, giving the Yankees a 2-0 lead.
Nova only gave up a bloop single off the bat of Matt Wieters with no outs in the second inning, a ground-ball single to left by Manny Machado with two out in the sixth and an infield single off Nova's glove by Nate McLouth to leadoff the ninth.
Nova opened the second by hitting Adam Jones on a 1-0 pitch and Wieters followed with his single. But Nova escaped the jam by retiring Nick Markakis on a double-play grounder and J.J. Hardy flew out with Jones on third to retire the side.
Nova also hit Chris Davis with a errant curve with one out in the fifth. But Nova retired Jones and Wieters to end that inning.
Nova also walked Hardy to lead off the eighth but he then induced Wilson Betemit to hit into a double play and ended the inning by cutting down Brian Roberts on a come-backer to the mound.
After McLouth's single in the ninth, Nova got Machado on a routine fly to left, survived a scare when Davis flew out to the warning track in right and ended the game by getting Jones on a line drive to short.
Since returning to the rotation as full-time starter on July 5 – ironically with a complete-game 3-2 victory at Yankee Stadium over the Orioles – Nova is 5-2 with a 2.09 ERA in his 10 starts during that span.
The Yankees not only have won this crucial three-game weekend series with the Orioles. They now are 72-63 and are a half-game ahead of the Orioles in third place in the division. The Orioles fell to 71-63. In addition, the Cleveland Indians lost 10-5 to the Detroit Tigers, which allowed the Yankees to move ahead of the Indians in third place in the wild-card standings, four games away from a playoff spot.
- With CC Sabathia, Hiroki Kuroda and Phil Hughes struggling of late, Nova came through with one his best starts in of his career. Nova threw no more than 16 pitches in any inning and retired the Orioles in six frames on 12 pitches or less. Nova also allowed the vaunted Yankee bullpen to get a well-deserved day off. After falling off measurably last season and spending most of the first half of this season on the disabled list, Nova is becoming the pitcher the Yankees thought he was when he was 16-4 with a 3.70 ERA in his rookie season in 2010.
- Cano was pretty much the team's offense again on Saturday. He was 2-for-4 with a double, a home run, a run scored and two RBIs. Cano finished August by batting a sizzling .370 with four home runs and 19 RBIs. He has raised his season average to .309 and he leads the Yankees in home runs (25) and RBIs (89).
- Gardner reached base in three of his four plate appearances and ended up 2-for-3 with a single, a double and a run scored. Gardner's double in the first inning gave him 133 hits for the season, which is a career high. Gardner had 132 hits in both 2010 and 2011. Gardner struggled in August, hitting just .238 with a home run and nine RBIs.
There is nothing negative to this effort. Nova was sensational from his first pitch to his last, Cano provided the team just enough offense and the defense helped Nova mow down the Orioles like tall blades of grass. This was a very important victory for the Yankees. But they can't rest on their laurels. They have to keep winning.
Third baseman Alex Rodriguez had to be scratched late from the starting lineup due to weakness associated from flu-like symptoms. Mark Reynolds was moved from first base to third base to replace Rodriguez and Lyle Overbay was inserted into the lineup to play first. Overbay, who entered the game hitless in his past 16 at-bats, was 2-for-3 with a pair of singles in the game. Manager Joe Girardi said he is hopeful that Rodriguez will be able to play on Sunday. . . . Since Aug. 16 the Yankees can boast of having the best bullpen in the major leagues. In that span, the bullpen has an ERA of 1.05 with a 3-0 record and five saves. . . . The Yankees are undecided about what players and how many players they will add when the rosters expand on Sunday. The only obvious choice will be the recall of rookie right-hander Preston Claiborne to bolster the bullpen.
The Yankees can collect a sweep of the Orioles on Sunday and put some distance between them in the division.
Left-hander Andy Pettitte (10-9, 4.05 ERA) will get the start for the Yankees. Pettitte, 41, has won his past three starts and he is coming off the seven scoreless innings he threw against the Toronto Blue Jays on Tuesday. In the past 10 seasons, Pettitte is 16-5 with a 3.05 ERA against the Orioles.
The Orioles will counter with left-hander Wei-Yin Chen (7-7, 3.76 ERA). Chen was shelled for eight runs in 3 2/3 innings against the Boston Red Sox on Tuesday in what Chen said was the worst start of his career. Chen is 1-3 with a 5.10 ERA lifetime against the Yankees.
Game-time will be 1:05 p.m. EDT and the game will be telecast nationally by TBS and locally by the YES Network.
Five-Run Fifth Draws Yankees Closer To Orioles
With time running out in their chase for a playoff spot, the Yankees were hoping on Friday that struggling left-hander CC Sabathia could find some of his old magic to hold down the Orioles. But, instead, their rejuvenated offense came through with a five-run fifth inning to win the first game of a very important weekend series.
Ichiro Suzuki cranked a two-run homer and Robinson Cano added a key two-run single in the fifth as New York overcame a 4-2 deficit to defeat Baltimore and climb within a half-game of third place in the division standings in front of paid crowd of 45,159 at Yankee Stadium.
Sabathia (12-11) actually began the game pitching a perfect 3 1/3 innings before giving up a double to Manny Machado. Two batters later, Chris Davis blooped a single to center to score Machado with the game's first run.
However, the Yankees reclaimed the lead in the bottom of the fourth when Cano drew a two-out walk from right-hander Miguel Gonzalez (8-7) and Alfonso Soriano swatted his 29th home run of the season and 12th since he was acquired by the Yankees on July 26.
The Orioles then answered with three runs off Sabathia on a two-run home run by Danny Valencia and two-out RBI single by Machado.
The Yankees took the lead for good, however, in the fifth when Curtis Granderson led off with a double and Mark Reynolds slapped an RBI double of the wall in left-center. Suzuki then cranked a two-run homer to right, his eighth of the season, that gave the Yankees a 5-4 lead.
Austin Romine doubled and Brett Gardner advanced him to third on a single to left. Derek Jeter then drew a walk that loaded the bases with no outs and ended Gonzalez's evening.
Cano then greeted left-hander T.J. McFarland with a two-run single to right to put the Yankees up 7-4. The Yankees entered the evening 22-1 this season in games in which they have scored at least seven runs.
Gonzalez, who started the game with a career record of 2-1 with a 2.48 ERA in six starts against the Yankees, gave up seven runs on six hits and three walks in four-plus innings.
After Adam Jones led off the sixth with a double and Nick Markakis delivered a two-out RBI single, manager Joe Girardi elected to pull Sabathia from the game early.
Despite getting credit for the victory, Sabathia yielded five runs on seven hits and one walk while he fanned four in 5 2/3 innings.
The Yankees added an insurance run in the seventh off McFarland on a two-out RBI single by Alex Rodriguez that scored Cano.
The Yankees' bullpen of Shawn Kelley, Boone Logan, David Robertson and Mariano Rivera shut out the O's over the final 3 1/3 innings on two hits and a walk while they struck out one to preserve the victory for the Yankees.
Rivera pitched a perfect ninth to earn his 39th save in 44 chances this season.
The Yankees now are 71-63 on the season and they are eight games behind the first-place Boston Red Sox in fourth place in the American League East. However, they are only a half-game behind the Orioles, who are now 71-62. They are tied with the Cleveland Indians in the wild-card standings, 4 1/2 games behind the Tampa Bay Rays.
- It was unclear if Cano would be able to start because of a bruised left hand he sustained when he was hit with a pitch on Tuesday night by J.A. Happ of the Toronto Blue Jays. But Cano started and was 2-for-3 with a pair of singles, a walk, two runs scored and two RBIs. Cano still leads the Yankees in batting (.307), home runs (24) and RBIs (87).
- Since July 26, Soriano and American League MVP candidate Miguel Cabrera of the Tigers lead the major leagues with 12 home runs apiece. Davis of the Orioles, who leads the majors with 47, is third with 10. Soriano is hitting .270 with 12 homers and 35 RBIs in 32 games with the Yankees.
- Of the Yankees' 13 hits, Reynolds contributed three of them, including a pair of doubles. Reynolds worked with batting coach Kevin Long to eliminate a left toe tap in order to shorten his swing and Reynolds has responded by going 7-for-12 (.583) with a homer and three RBIs in his past three starts.
- It is becoming quite clear that Sabathia is a liability as a starter this season. His season ERA now stands at 4.91, which would be the highest ERA he has recorded in a season since he was 17-5 with a 4.39 ERA in his rookie season with the Indians in 2001. The Yankees have no choice but to pitch him but they can't expect much when he does.
- Base-running mistakes cost the Yankees some additional runs in this game. Reynolds was thrown out at third base by Jones from center-field on a single by Suzuki with one out in the sixth. With Soriano on third and Rodriguez on second with two out in the seventh, Granderson bunted a ball along the third-base line. Soriano froze at third, realized Rodriguez was advancing to third and he ended up being tagged out easily by catcher Taylor Teagarden. Reynolds also was thrown out at home by shortstop J.J. Hardy on a high-hopper off the bat of Romine in the eighth.
Though Cano returned to the lineup, infielder Eduardo Nunez missed a second straight game with a sore right knee. But Nunez insisted he was available to play if needed. Nunez twisted his knee in Tuesday's game against the Blue Jays. . . . Reynolds started at first base despite the fact the right-handed Gonzalez was pitching because he been hotter at the plate than lefty-swinging Lyle Overbay. Since being signed off waivers from the Indians, Reynolds is batting .316 with two home runs and seven RBIs in 12 games with the Yankees. . . . The Yankees elected on Friday to move right-hander Phil Hughes' next start back to Monday against the Chicago White Sox and named Andy Pettitte to start the series finale against the Orioles on Sunday. Hughes has not won a game since July 2 and he has lost 11 of his past 13 decisions.
The Yankees will have a chance to move ahead of the Orioles into third place in the division with a victory on Saturday.
Right-hander Ivan Nova (7-4, 3.14 ERA) will start for the Yankees. Nova walked six batters (one intentional) but still was able to hold the Rays to two runs on six hits in 6 2/3 innings in a no-decision on Sunday. He is 4-2 with a 4.95 ERA in his career against the O's.
The Orioles will counter with right-hander Scott Feldman (4-3, 4.56 ERA). Feldman gave up one run on three hits and four walks in five innings in a victory over the Oakland Athletics last Saturday. He is 3-3 with a 4.78 ERA lifetime against the Yankees.
Game-time will be 1:05 p.m. EDT and the game will be telecast nationally by the MLB Network and locally by the YES Network.


text:
Amaranthe Begin Recording 'New Album' Next Month
Ladies in metal is on the best things to ever happen to music. Angela Gassow (Arch Enemy), Maria Brink (In This Moment), you name them. Metal Ladies is the definition of AWESOME! Check this out, there is this band that is not that well known (in America at least), but you should know of them, and that is Amaranthe! Guess what? They have a new album in the works.
Hailing from the land of Sweden, these dudes and lady will enter the studio to begin working on a new album slated to be released sometime early 2013.
Guitarist Olaf Morck has this to say: "So it is finally revelation time! In between our constant and never-ending touring, we have tirelessly been working on our next album, which is really starting to come together. We have lived and breathed the same 12 songs from the first album every day for a year now, and to introduce a number of completely fresh tracks will really lift Amaranthe to the next level! The theme and atmosphere of the album is futuristic and ultra modern, something underlined by the first teaser poster. The music itself will be instantly recognizable as Amaranthe, but there is definitely a new and unique twist to the songs."
So that is some pretty sweet news man! If you have not checked out Amaranthe, well you really freakin' should! This band is huge across the sea's selling thousands of albums, but here in a America, we have to dig a little bit in the 'metal underground' to unearth this fine group.
Check out the video below...this is band I think anyone can really like, metal head or not.


text:
Got these in the mail from winning a contest from Horror Novel Reviews:
Lots of books
Type: Posts; User: RJK1981
Got these in the mail from winning a contest from Horror Novel Reviews:
Lots of books
Got these from Half Price Books since I had a coupon
Wow, haven't updated in a while due to getting hurt and unable to really use the computer!
Here are my newest books. Got the Gaiman book for Christmas from my parents :D:1645116452
I don't know how often he checks in here, so I'd suggest sending him a friendly e-mail (Which I'm sure you've done) and/or contacting him on Facebook.
Other than books I have a large collection of DVDs, Blu-rays, CDs, as well as quite a few shot glasses. One of these days I might actually get some pictures taken of my shot glasses, some of which I...
Well I am definitely not canceling my order of the trilogy. I wouldn't be surprised if someone got tired of waiting and canceled their order though
I'd have gotten this set, but I haven't even finished his collection from what was included in Maelstrom Set 2, lol!
I am interested in the other 2 books though
Great looking book! Definitely out of my price range though. Doubt I'd get it anyway since I am bad about reading collections like that. Trying to work on that, but not having much luck, lol....
Yeah. that is definitely more reasonable. A little more than I paid, but that's not surprising. Lowest price I have seen in a while, though I don't typically see it since I have a copy
?? It was already on there, unless you added earlier and only now mentioned it now.
Checked my book list and I added it to my to-read list on Sept. 24
I'm actually going to pass on it this year as I will likely never read the collection of his since I am bad about that kinda thing and don't have a lot of money now. Going to finish off Ronald...
Thought that was a bit too much, didn't know for sure though since I haven't looked in a long time. Good luck to the seller, I suppose, lol.
Good luck finding a decently priced copy! Did a quick search on eBay and only found one copy at $300, which seems a little high to me. I paid $150 for my copy, which came with a signed trade copy as...
Here is my most recent. Just a regular 1st/1st trade that I kinda forgot I preordered on Amazon, but still, lol. Plan to start it in Dec. or Jan. depending how other reads go.
Ronald included the audio book with Twelve Gauge. Haven't seen a cassette tape in a while, lol. Don't have a cassette player, but wouldn't open it if I did most likely, lol, will just add it to...
Here are what came in the mail today!
Got deliveries today, which I wasn't quite expecting. I was expecting my latest win from eBay, but I also got a delivery from Ronald Kelly and my latest win from LibraryThing. First off though, I...
Wow. Nice looking, but definitely not worth the price to me!
Well good luck to all participating this year! And if you don't reach 50,000 words, at least you tried and have more words than otherwise would have!
Hear is another snippet from what I wrote...
Purchased the signed limited of Clegg's Naomi, just have to wait for it to arrive!
Haven't had any issues with my CD slipcases either. Some leave a little more room, but never had to dig for the books
Decided to post snippets each day I write on Facebook as I go, which will hopefully help encourage me to write more. I'll post some here, too (though I don't know about every day, lol). I like this...
You could always be a rebel and do it with the novella and then just writing other things, as well! Hell, you could even use everything you post on forums to help pad the numbers, lol.
Thanks, very happy with this oversized book! Will have to try and read it soon.
So who's doing NaNo this year? I am rewriting the story I did last year since most of what I wrote ended up being garbage, lol. Would do something else, but really like the idea of this story, so I...


text:
Check Out The Muslim Books In CBC's 2016 Human Library on February 27thWritten by Muslim Link
CBC in partnership with the Ottawa Public Library (OPL) are once again hosting the Human Library on Saturday, February 27th. The Human Library provides unique opportunities for people curious about a particular life experience to have a chat with a human "book". Several Ottawa Muslims will be on loan this year as "books" at libraries across the city.
The concept for a Human Library began in 2000, in Copenhagen, Denmark, by a Danish grassroots youth organization who wanted to address violence and prejudice in their community.
According to its website, "Visitors to a Human Library are given the opportunity to speak informally with "people on loan"; this latter group being extremely varied in age, sex and cultural background. The Human Library enables groups to break stereotypes by challenging the most common prejudices in a positive and humorous manner. It is a concrete, easily transferable and affordable way of promoting tolerance and understanding. It is a "keep it simple", "no-nonsense" contribution to social cohesion in multicultural societies." Human Libraries now take place around the world.
Several Muslims will be participating in this year's Human Library. Mahwash Fatima, an entrepreneur who wears niqab and who has spoken and written about her experience wearing niqab will be participating as the book "Muslim Woman" and Imam Sikander Hashmi will be participating as the book "Imam".
But Muslims are also participating as books on a diveristy of other topics that are not related to their Muslim identity. Hiba Yusuf will be participating as the book "Organ Transplant Recipient", Ayan Yusuf will be participating as the book "Living with Schizophrenia & Depression", and Muslim Link's Editor in Chief Chelby Daigle will be participating as the book "Daughter of a Deportee".
To learn more about this year's Human Library and to discover more books you may wish to take out and where to find them visit: Ottawa Human Library 2016
To learn more about the Human Library Organization visit their website.
This article was produced exclusively for Muslim Link and should not be copied without prior permission from the site. For permission, please write to firstname.lastname@example.com.


text:
Preston Sprinkle
with Andrew Rillera
First let me say I did a rough drift, as I always do with all my reviews. I reread my draft and then went back to Preston's book and there were two parts that I felt lead to reread first–
This one that caught my eye was: (1 Pet. 2:21-23 NLT) I took it from my Bible which says it a little different then what Preston wrote (P. 146) mine says: To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his steps. He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth. When they hurled their insults at him he did not retaliate, when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.
In my first review I had put down won't Jesus fight in the second coming? Well my question was answered for some reason it didn't sink in when I first read it so I went back this is some of what I found–
I am glad because I had to redo my rough draft because God lead me to reread The Wrath of the LAMB, A BOOK DIPPED IN BLOOD.
It's about the scriptures of Revelation (which I plan to get my Bible and rereading) it is clear to me I have missed a lot in those scriptures. Preston says Jesus will win not by blood shed of the enemy but because of the cross the blood that is on his white robe is Jesus own blood. The chapter is long and gives a different out look on Revelations. I feel you should read and see how you feel about what Preston see's it or how you may see Revelations yourself, maybe this is where a good Pastor comes in handy and see his thought on it.
I know I am reading Revelation again and getting with my Pastor and get his insight on this.
All in All this is a good book if nothing else to make you stop and think long and hard and get that Bible out and see what God leads your heart to feel. After all God wrote the book he knows better then anyone what he means, we only read it and try to figure out what he means so we need God to truly talk to our hearts.
Maybe he did talk to Preston's heart, that I don't know.
There's a lot in this book that I feel really is good. I may not agree with all of it but again maybe later on I will see where I was wrong and Preston is right if that is the case then I shorted him a star but until I do I gave him the 4 star sorry. Buy it and see what your thoughts are, maybe you will see his side better then I did. To satisify myself, I am rereading the book, maybe I need to meditate more on it.
4 Star
I received this wonderful book free from David C Cook for an honest review. I was not obligated to write a positive review just an honest one. The opinions I have expressed are my own and no one else's.


text:
Ride with Royalrider and Get the chance to Win an iphone X.
This offer starts from 17th of November (conditions apply)
Use the 100% free ride promotion code for your first ride on first week
Use the 50%free ride promotion code for the second ride on second week
Ride with us without any promotion code on third week
All the rides must be a minimum of $20 with and/or without promotion
Lost at a new city and not knowing the location? Need to go home late night after a party?
Our 24*7 transportation services are ready to take you to your destination. We ensure hassle free journey from the beginning to end. We always ensure ultra-fast and reliable services since we value your time. Keep faith on us and we will help you reach out on time. You can always communicate with the driver chosen by you regarding the location updates. So, what are you waiting for? Open your app and update your location and simply search. One of our members will pick you soon!
Be a part of our team and enjoy our excellent services on road!Get it on:
We will keep you safe
We are responsible to keep you safe in the journey all the way. Our team of registered drivers are strictly verified users and you can put on your trust upon us. Contact details & rating for each driver is provided to ensure credibility before you choose them.
We use secure transactions
We charge the most reasonable fare for the service offered. You don't have to worry on the payment you need to make while using our services. Our auto payment system enables you to make trouble-free transactions and allows you to enjoy the journey completely.
We love to hear from you
Feel free to share your feedbacks and you can rate the driver according to the service offered. We love to hear back from you so that we could offer the best. If any inconvenience or discomfort caused during the journey, you can always report & we will get back to you.


text:
Event Caddy
Golf Tournament Management Software designed to save time and increase revenue for tournaments of any size. Easily accept credit cards, build a website, market your event and more! Let us show you how we can help improve your solf fundraising event. Online Player Registration, Event Management & More! Event Caddy is the perfect tool for charitable events, corporate tournaments, golf course internal events and more! We've built over 50 great features that will save you time and money! Within an hour you'll be up and running with Event Caddy! Here are some of the great features: Online Player Registration (payment by Credit Card or Cash) Create your own Tournament Website Instantly create all the required reports such as Bag Drop Schedule your event Manage your sponsors Add other organizers to your account to share information Manage your budget and get accurate financials and over 40 other features! (more here)
Additional Information
Contact Name Bryan Gooderham, Managing Director - firstname.lastname@example.com
127B Broadway Avenuye
Orangeville, ON Canada


text:
Sue Reeve
Relational longings are observed even in little girls. Several years ago, while spring house cleaning her 9-year-old's bedroom, my daughter, Angie, found a poem Mackenzie had written. I must confess. I'm an adoring Grandma who realizes she has trouble being objective about her grandkids. Putting my lack of objectivity aside, though, I believe Kenzie's springtime thought, expressed with lovely, childlike simplicity, illustrates well a divinely-implanted longing for the joy produced by an authentic, enduring and loving relationship.
Blossoms are rising to life.
Someday a man will give them to his wife,
And she will yell,
"I love you, my dear,"
(But, only for him to hear.)
Then they will be together
Year after year
With smiles so big that
They spread ear to ear.
Our second granddaughter, Mackenzie. I'm sure someday
a great guy will be giving her springtime blossoms!
My first recollection of thinking about a grown-up relationship was as a little girl playing house with my younger sister. In our make-believe world, dolls were our children, and we took turns playing the roles of mama and daddy.
My younger sister, Karol, and I. We always received a new doll at Christmas.
When a little older, I recall prancing around, singing "I Enjoy Being a Girl," a hit tune from Rogers and Hammerstein's Flower Drum Song. I belted out lyrics that described swooning when a fellow sent me flowers; drooling over lacey dresses and talking for hours and hours on the phone with a thick layer of cream lathered on my face. The song, of course, ended with residing happily ever after in the home of a brave he-man.
Then, there was the longing for Divine relationship—one that began early in my life. Over-shadowing every one of my childhood fantasies was the certainty that Jesus loved me. I sang about it in Sunday school. I heard about it in Bible stories told in children's church. The strong Christian faith of my mother reinforced a belief I've sometimes doubted but never dismissed.
When I developed into a teenager with a budding woman's body and maturing—albeit, yet immature—Christian faith, my perception of womanhood expanded. Mysterious spiritual voices, domestic ideals and catchy show tunes all blended. I concluded that someday, above all else, I wanted to be loved by a man who was not only nice, brave and romantic, but also, most definitely, Christian. My fertile, always imaginative brain convinced me we would have cute babies and live in an attractive, orderly house while I worked at a rewarding career.
One summer while attending a church youth camp, a pretty young pastor's wife who had dark curly hair and was wearing a flowered dress, spoke to the group of teenage girls. I listened intently as she declared, "Girls, I guarantee you that if you do this and don't do that, God will bless you with a wonderful Christian husband and marriage." Since that was what I wanted more than anything else, I committed to doing this and not doing that.
Eventually, I fell in love with a nice Christian boy. We talked on the telephone for hours. Occasionally, he sent me flowers, and at the age of 20, I walked down a church aisle in a dress adorned with lace. (There's more to this story that will follow in next week's blog…)
I appreciate the idealistic dreams of youth that reflect relational longing, and I like listening to young women's dreams of romance, love and marriage.
On one of my trips to California, I enjoyed lunch with my oldest granddaughter, who was a college freshman at the time. I asked Sydney if she felt most girls her age long to have a lifelong love and marriage. Her immediate answer was, "Definitely, Granny."
While munching sandwiches at the trendy little restaurant in Windsor's town square, my granddaughter recounted a love story her professor told in a psychology human sexuality course about an interview he'd conducted with a couple who'd been married 80 years! Sydney and I contrasted that type of enduring relationship with the television celebrity whose multi-million-dollar wedding ended in divorce after only ten weeks. My granddaughter admitted she liked watching the beautiful young starlet on TV, but what she wanted more than anything, Sydney said, was a marriage that endured—even as long as 80 years.
Our firstborn granddaughter, Sydney. My prayer for my precious grandchildren
is that each will one day enjoy love that endures for a lifetime.
I'm convinced the desire for deep, lasting relationship is planted by God, who is the author of perfect relationship. Other voices, however, such as those of a chaotic culture, unhealthy families, erroneous faith, and even our own idealistic imaginations often create relational dissonance.
While my Pollyanna nature enjoys focusing on the positive, next week, we'll delve into the topic of relational darkness and dissonance. Meanwhile,
Listening on Your Journey:
• Permit your mind to travel back to childhood days. What events molded your perceptions regarding relationship?
• In what ways did those perceptions impact your grown-up relationships?


text:
Hinder – All American Nightmare [Deluxe Edition] (2010, Universal Republic Records)
1. "2 Sides of Me" … 3:24
2. "All American Nightmare" … 3:17
3. "What Ya Gonna Do" … 4:07
4. "Hey Ho" … 3:34
5. "The Life" … 3:37
6. "Waking Up the Devil" … 4:12
7. "Red Tail Lights" … 3:48
8. "Strip Tease" … 3:29
9. "Everybody's Wrong" … 3:41
10. "Put That Record On" … 3:38
11. "Good Life" … 3:35
12. "Bad Mutha Fucka" … 3:34
13. "Put That Record On" (demo version) … 3:43
14. "What Ya Gonna Do" (demo version) … 4:14
Austin Winkler – Lead Vocals
Joe "Blower" Garvey – Guitar, Backing Vocals
Mark King – Guitar, Piano, Backing Vocals
Mike Rodden – Bass, Backing Vocals
Cody Hanson – Drums
Producer: Kevin Churko, Cody Nason, Marshal Dutton
I became a big fan of Hinder with their last release Take It to the Limit. It was one of the best surprises of the year for me and was a good mix of post-grunge hard rock and '80s hair metal from a band that had previously only been a boring post-grunge group. With All American Nightmare, the band continues with much of the same blended styles of Take It to the Limit while throwing in a bit of Southern rock influence as well that sometimes reminds of Shinedown or later Saliva. Apparently, the band had even more free rein for this record than they did for the last and that is where the Southern rock vibe comes in.
I think from top to bottom this album is even better than Take It to the Limit. That album was still trying to figure out it's place between '80s rock and '00s rock but this album is much more sure of itself giving the obligatory "modern" "Waking Up the Devil" (maybe Hinder at their heaviest), "What Ya Gonna Do", "The Life" and "Red Tail Lights", "Everybody's Wrong" (the last four are all ballads and have single potential for modern radio), while "Striptease" sounds like a modern Crue song and "All American Nightmare" and "Put That Record On" (an ode to classic rock!) have a classic rock and southern influence. They even take the time to take a few jabs at all the worthless female pop stars with "Striptease" and knock hip-hop with "Hey Ho".
If there's one problem I have it's the lyrics. I love that the guys are throwing back to the broads 'n' booze lyrics of the '80s but I find the constant references to getting high and smoking weed to be annoying. It seems like just about every song has to make some type of mention of it and they've been going on about it for three albums now.
I don't listen to radio but I know "All American Nightmare" was the lead single. I don't know how much play it has gotten but unfortunately it does not look like this album will match the success of Take It to the Limit's gold status as this album debuted at #37 on Billboard with first-week sales of 35,000. Hopefully another single to set the album on fire. It's just a shame that when any band tries to incorporate more melody, classic rock styles and sing-along choruses they get shunned by fans and labels alike. I can't believe nu-metal garbage like Disturbed is still selling 10 years later and is really bigger than ever. Are people really still that angry? Is it the SAME people from 10 years ago?
I bought the deluxe edition for a few extra bucks just because I'm such a big fan of these guys now. Tracks 11-14 and a mini foldout poster with the band on one side and All American Nightmare cover model Jesse Lee Denning on the other side. The demo tracks are basically throwaways but I like "Bad Mutha Fucka", it's a jokey, fun and loose kind of song. I gotta hand it to these Hinder boys — they really know how to put together artwork for the album! There's no naked chicks this time but Jesse is incredibly hot. It's not always easy for a girl to have so many tattoos and make it seem sexy but Jesse has no problem doing it!
Really enjoying this album, loving it the more I listen to it and I'm glad Hinder came around to playing REAL rock 'n' roll! As far as I'm concerned Hinder has joined Buckcherry and Avenged Sevenfold as one of the best modern rock/metal acts today.
Highlights: "2 Sides of Me", "All American Nightmare", "Hey Ho", "Waking up the Devil", "Strip Tease", "Put That Record On"


text:
Icon Sub-Sets 13 comments
What can be necessary is deleting the relevant cache file(s) (I'm not sure which it was, but most likely the plasma-svgelements-* one) in the ~/.kde/cache-*/ folder. - Feb 19 2012
I may end up uploading a tar.bz2 (which in this case is just minimally larger because most of the contents are already compressed svgz files) if xz is making such trouble. - Nov 13 2010
It's the latest GNU/Linux compression format, based on the LZMA algorithm. If your distribution is current enough to offer you KDE/Plasma 4.5 or if you built it yourself, I'm sure getting xz shouldn't be a problem, either. :-) - Nov 13 2010
Konqueror 110 comments
If you theme your Plasma to look more like regular Oxygen-themed apps and to honor system colors, the monochrome icons must stick out like a sore thumb!
@Kame2: I see you have partially done system tray icons (a variation on the monochrome theme) which aren't used yet. Would you be interested in using these instead? They're under the same license as the Oxygen icon theme itself (LGPLv3+). - Nov 13 2010
Utilities 10 comments
Huh? How are we to do this? We can't use RPM scriptlets as this has to run per user. And we don't start Nepomuk, your upstream autostart .desktop file does.
Why can't this code be added to the Nepomuk Server so it automatically does this on startup? - Feb 03 2010
Amarok 2.x Scripts 138 comments
You can get Qt 4.6 Beta for Rawhide (what will be Fedora 12 soon) in the kde-redhat unstable repository. Please get it from there and test your script with it ASAP. Qt 4.6 will not show up in Rawhide until after Fedora 12 is released, which will be in 3 more weeks (and at that point you'll probably not want to run Rawhide as it'll be a big mess). - Oct 25 2009
Plasma Themes 20 comments
first of all, thanks for this theme. Finally a Plasma theme which fits in pretty well with my Bluecurve/Quarticurve-themed desktop (rectangles with square corners instead of that rounded stuff, honors the system colors).
I found 2 issues with your theme though:
1. A cosmetic issue: the systray rectangle is not high enough, the systray icons overflow on the bottom by something like 3 pixels. Making the panel higher did not fix it, so it looks like an issue with the theme.
2. A pretty serious one: the shutdown dialog does not display. Your shutdown dialog theme appears to be faulty somehow. I noticed there's no object named "background" in your SVG, this may be the issue. - Mar 24 2009
I read it exactly and it doesn't work.
> J=`basename $I`
> if ! echo $BLACKLIST | grep $J ; then
This picks the basename of the folder or file, then checks if it's contained in the blacklist. As it searches for the basename in the blacklist and not for the blacklist entry in the basename, it will not find entries where the blacklist entry is not the exact basename (or the basename is a substring of the blacklist entry, which is the wrong way round, e.g. blacklisting xxxamarokxxx will "work" to blacklist Amarok). Searching for foobar in "bla foo baz" will fail.
> Because the settings are incompatible with kget4.
But does it actually break anything? If so, KGet should be fixed. If not, the settings do no bad there, it's OK for you to blacklist them, but it's not an argument against the Fedora setup.
> I want it to be included in kde4.2 by default
And that will be too late because people will already have migrated to KDE 4 by then, and at that point your tool can only break things.
A migration script like that is the wrong solution (it could have worked if it had been ready in time for 4.0, but not now). kconf_update is the way to handle the migration. You can count on me and other Fedora maintainers strongly opposing the inclusion of this tool into KDE, and Debian and Kubuntu will probably join us, as Debian never used .kde4 (just like us) and AFAIK Kubuntu is dropping it in Intrepid.
If applications choke on old settings, they need to be fixed, or get a kconf_update script written, not rely on being blacklisted by a migration tool which can only work as intended on some distributions and which has to be run manually.
Likewise, if kconf_update badly migrates KDE 3 kdesktop and kicker settings, then the script should be fixed, or disabled if it can't be fixed, it makes no sense to hack around it by not copying the files. All the kconf_update scripts were written for a reason, if you remove (avoid copying) files to avoid getting them processed by kconf_update, you're going against the intentions of whoever wrote that script (a developer aiming at a migration as seamless as possible).
> I'm trying to do something useful for people.
But your instructions telling people to use it on Fedora where it is not needed in the first place, by creating the problem (a separate .kde4) just so it can be solved, are not useful nor helpful.
> why exactly are you flaming my project ?
I'm not flaming your project, I'm only saying that 1. it is useless for Fedora and 2. a separate .kde4 is a bad idea and your project can only solve part of the problems it causes. And I don't disagree that it can be useful for distributions which unwisely chose to use a separate .kde4. - Aug 23 2008
* amarok: Fedora 9 still ships Amarok 1.4. If the Amarok 1.4 settings break current Amarok 2.0 prereleases, then that's a bug in Amarok, which will hopefully be fixed in Amarok 2.0 final. I know the Amarok team is interested in fixing migration issues, they're also working on a collection database migration script. And if no better solution can be found, it's easy to provide a kconf_update script which removes all the offending settings.
* mailody: Fedora never shipped any version of Mailody, so migration issues are not our problem there. (Once the KDE 4 version will get packaged, it will be a new package.) Just as for Amarok, KDE 4 Mailody is still in alpha, and if the settings from the KDE 3 version break the KDE 4 version, that has to be fixed either in Mailody or with a kconf_update script.
* kdev: That blacklist entry doesn't work at all as there's no kdevrc or /usr/share/apps/kdev. If you're trying to blacklist kdevelop settings: KDevelop 4 is far from ready, Fedora 9 still ships KDevelop 3 and Fedora 10 will likely too. It's the same as with Amarok: the migration issues will hopefully be fixed in time for the release. And in the meantime you should fix your blacklist so it actually blacklists all kdev*.
* kdesktop, kicker, ktaskbar: Those settings are completely ignored by KDE 4 anyway.
* kget: Why did you blacklist that one?
Also keep in mind that settings are only a problem if they actually break something. If they're ignored, then of course it makes sense for you to blacklist them because copying them is useless, but no special action is needed for us in Fedora, as the settings don't do any harm if they are ignored.
In short: except possibly for KGet (which you added to the blacklist in 0.0.3, in fact, it's the only addition which might make any sense at all), you're only possibly working around bugs in 3 individual applications, all of them alpha versions, and none of which affects Fedora 9. If any such issue actually affects Fedora in the future, we will provide kconf_update scripts to fix it. But we expect these issues to be fixed where they should be fixed: upstream.
As for KGet, can you please explain what the issue which prompted you to add it to the blacklist is? Is it really caused by old configuration? KGet in KDE 4.0 is broken even with a fresh .kde directory, upgrading to 4.1 fixes it (see http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=161760). So someone might be mistaking a plain application bug for a configuration issue. But if there really is a configuration issue, then there too kconf_update is the proper solution. - Aug 16 2008
QtCurve 34 comments
http://websvn.kde.org/branches/KDE/4.1/kdeartwork/styles/phase/phasestyle.cpp?r1=784282&r2=808184 - Jul 24 2008
That's this line:
QStyleOption const*, QWidget const*) const (phasestyle.cpp:2387)
And this code:
case PM_TitleBarHeight:
return qMax(option->fontMetrics.lineSpacing(), 20);
To the author: You have to check if fontMetrics is not NULL. The documentation for pixelMetric explicitly says "Note that the option may be zero even for PixelMetrics that can make use of it." - Jul 24 2008
Moreover, the RAR decompression code has licensing issues, so people will not be able to decompress the RAR archives you're creating with truly Free Software. Creating content in proprietary formats is bad. - Oct 16 2007
Application Styles 10 comments
* For KDE 4 apps:
Best enjoyed with the following palette settings in $KDE4HOME/share/config/kdeglobals
(where $KDE4HOME defaults to ~/.kde4 in the RPMs by Rex Dieter and me at kde-redhat unstable):
contrast=1 - Jul 04 2007