What a Saturday in Sports: Tigers-White Sox, Yankees-Red Sox, Bruins-Canadiens

What a day Saturday in sports!

All of it carried on the tube in the Pacific Northwest.

A near no-hitter, Red Sox-Yankees, and Bruins-Canadiens.

No Blue Jays on TV, however, as CBC was carrying the NHL playoffs, and the Toronto-Texas contest was a night game. So, we missed out on seeing Roy Halladay throw his gem.

But, the triple-header started on SportsNet with the Chicago White Sox-Detroit Tigers contest, and I'm starting to see why Jim Leyland's team owns baseball's worst record.

After being humiliated on Sunday Night Baseball last week, the Tigers were at it once again on Saturday. The Tigers are expected to score runs this year--a lot of runs, in fact--but again failed on this day.

It all started in the first inning when Gary Sheffield came up with a runner on third and one out. But the veteran DH couldn't get the job done, hitting an easy grounder to third base, which turned into a fielder's choice with the runner thrown out at the plate. Sheffield would finish 0-for-3, and is hitting .167 so far this season. But hey, it's still early.

The game continued with White Sox starter Gavin Floyd making the Tigers look like a Triple-A club, or was it the Detroit batters making the pitcher look like Cy Young?

Gavin Floyd? The same pitcher who had a lifetime 6.24 ERA going in, the same one whose ERAs in the last three seasons were, from 2005 to 2007: 10.04, 7.29, and 5.27?

At least you could say Floyd's been improving, with his ERA getting lower and lower each season.

The second frame featured a very quick 1-2-3 inning, including Jacque Jones' easy tapper back to the mound. Yawn.

The Tigers not only did not score any runs, they couldn't even get a hit until the eighth inning. But even the normally clutch Ivan Rodriguez couldn't come through for Detroit this time, hitting into a double play with the score still 1-0 Chicago.

Must have been deflating for Detroit starter Justin Verlander--who himself had a no-no last season. Verlander and reliever Francis Beltran brought a six-pack of runs to the mound in the bottom of the same inning, turning the contest into a rout.

Tigers fans can only console themselves by saying "it's still early." We'll see. At least your Red Wings and Pistons are doing pretty well right now.

The Red Sox-Yankees game dragged on forever, thanks in part to a TWO-HOUR rain delay in the eighth inning.

By then, the Red Sox were already up 4-3 on the strength of Manny Ramirez's homer and 3 RBI effort. Ramirez not only opened the scoring for the Red Sox with a solo blast off Mike Mussina, but also delivered with the Red Sox down 2-1 in the sixth.

Ramirez's two-out, two-run double gave Boston the lead for good, just when it looked like the Yankees were going to win again at Fenway following Chien-Ming Wang's two-hitter the previous night.

After the two-plus-hour delay, Boston closer Jonathan Papelbon came back to finish off the game. And with two outs, the Red Sox leading by a run, and Robinson Cano--who had an RBI double earlier in the game--the Yankees' last hope. Incredibly, at 5:56 p.m. Pacific, the game was signed off abrutly, so that FOX could go to racing.

WTF? Boston-New York, one-run game, ninth inning, two outs, and FOX switched to racing?

I mean, I was staring at the clock. 5:56. Why couldn't they at least wait until the top of the hour to do the switch-a-roo?

Yes, the racing announcer stated that the conclusion of the baseball game would be seen on FX, but hello, I don't get that damned station on my cable package.

What if the Yankees rallied with, say, a seven-run ninth inning (a feat they pulled off on June 19, 2000 at the same ballpark, when they scored a total of 16 runs in the final two frames)? Hard to imagine that even in this day and age, we still see a repeat of the "Heidi" controversy when a Jets-Raiders game was abandoned. I mean, it happened with the NHL when NBC didn't carry the overtime period of a Buffalo-Ottawa game because of horse racing. But baseball on FOX?

And if I were a betting man, I would have gone out on a limb and predicted that the Habs-Bruins game would go to overtime, despite the fact that Montreal had gone 8-0-0 in the season series.

That's because Boston-Montreal has gone to an extra period historically in Game Twos: 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, and 2004.

And it was no different in 2008--though it required a miraculous two-goal comeback by the Bruins in the third period, sending the contest to OT.

The Bruins, predictably, lost, and are now down two games to none.

Back in 2004, it was rookie Andrew Raycroft who led the higher-seeded (and heavily favored) Bruins to a three-goal win in Game One, followed by an OT triumph in Game Two, but the Canadiens rebounded from the 0-2 start and went on to win the series in seven.

This year, it's rookie Carey Price leading the No. 1 seeded Habs to a three-goal (Game One) followed by an extra-period victory (Saturday night) giving Montreal a 2-0 series lead.

That useless stat could give B's fans some hope that Boston could still come back.

I just don't see it happening though.

Well, as if that tripe-header wasn't enough, the Dallas-Anaheim game is the 7:00 p.m. (Pacific) game. The Stars, who had already won Game One 4-zip, are leading again 2-0 early in the second period in Game Two.

But what a long and interesting day in sports indeed.