By JOHN P. WISEOne Great Season
+ Remember a few years ago, when Francisco Liriano was getting all kinds of hype as the Twins' future ace? He hasn't delivered on those expectations, but it was nice to see him finish off baseball's first no-hitter of the season Tuesday night. It wasn't the shiniest of gems; Liriano walked six White Sox and only struck out two, and threw 123 pitches. Some even felt he might have been pitching to keep his spot in Minnesota's rotation. He came into last night's game at 1-4 with an ERA above 9. I'm not saying he's finally righted his ship and should now get Hall of Fame consideration, but hopefully this steers him in a better direction.
+ There are some teams that accidentally find themselves ahead 2-0 in a best-of-seven series, and then there are teams that deserve to be up 2-0. The Miami Heat are in that second category. As much as I hate to admit it, LeBron & Co. don't just look capable of finishing off those tired Celtics, but they look like they're ready to sweep. Surely that won't happen, as Boston's got some savvy old dogs who will want to protect that home turf the next two games. But they'll need to bring a Game 7 mentality every time out the rest of this series and play some desperate basketball if they want to have a chance to win it.
+ And a note to the NBA: Instead of tabulating votes, then sitting on the results for a little while, just make the freaking postseason honors announcements already. The winners for MVP, Coach of the Year and Rookie of the Year all have been reported citing "sources" at least a day or two before the league made the official announcements.
+ How exactly is Tampa Bay up 3-0 on Washington?
+ The Indians won in their final at-bat again Tuesday. Trailing 1-0 through six innnings, Cleveland got a run in the seventh and then three more in the ninth inning to claim a 4-1 win at Oakland. The Indians are the first team in baseball to win 20 games, and against only eight losses, the Tribe has the best record in the sport. The Royals are 4.5 games back and Detroit, at 13-17, is eight games behind Cleveland in the upside-down AL Central Division. And their run differential of +50 is absurd. The Indians could very well stay atop the division throughout the month of May. Their 26 games left this month are against teams with a combined record of 129-137.