BASEBALL DIARY:
Twins 2, Tigers 0: a lot was made of Detroit's shoddy defense last night; a couple of errors led to Minnesota's two runs. But the key last night was Twins pitcher Francisco Liriano, who pitched a masterpiece and shut the Tigers down. The good news for the Tigers: Justin Verlander pitched well. Right now the Twins look unbeatable in the Central division.
Rangers 4, White Sox 2: the big story here is Ranger starter C.J. Wilson. A reliever the last several years, last year the set-up man for closer Frankie Francisco, Wilson is now a starter, pitched well last night, and has a 1.75 ERA so far this year. The Rangers need all the starters they can get...
NBA DIARY:
Dallas 103, San Antonio 81: the key stat for the game was this--Caron Butler had 35 points. Dirk Nowitzki had just 15, but that's OK; the Mavs can't rely on only one player. If Butler and others are scoring, then the Spurs' relentless double-teaming of Dirk won't be effective. The Mavs need to come with the same drive and energy tomorrow night in San Antonio that they displayed last night...
POLITICS UPDATE DEPT:
Hmmm...so ABC News/Washington Post comes out today with a poll that, on the generic congressional ballot question, would seem to present some bad news for Republicans, showing the Democrats with a 5 point, 48-43 lead there.
That's strange, and very incconsistent with the findings of other recent generic ballot polls. What gives? Ah, but I think Jim Geraghty over at NRO has it figured out:
"The poll’s partisan split comes out 34 percent Democrat, 23 percent Republican, 38 percent independent. The CNN exit poll on Election Day 2008 put the split at 39 percent Democrat, 32 percent Republican, 29 percent independent. Is the partisan split on Election Day 2010 really going to be more favorable to the Democrats than 2008 was?"
Answer: no. In other words, Republicans are very under-represented in this poll, hence its skewed results. But we'll keep watching the polling on this question and see if anything backs up the Post/ABC findings...
Meanwhile, in the Arizona governor's race, there's no sign the new immigration law there is unpopular; incumbent Governor Jan Brewer, who just signed the bill and was shown trailing in the polls before that, has now, according to Rasmussen, shot out to an 8 point lead in the race.
