Sports Thread #1 For 9/20/10 (Final Edition): Massive Series Openers In Both Baseball East Divisions Tonight

Two weeks remain in the long winding road of ups and downs that is the Major League Baseball season, with two marquee series tonight.

Both the American and National Leagues have their East divisions come down to the wire races and featured them starting their important series tonight. After a thrilling series last week, the Rays and the Yankees will duel in the Stadium tonight, while the Braves and the Phillies battle in their final three meetings this year (unless both make the postseason) at Citizens Bank in Philly.

For the two time defending NL champs, they will send the resurgent Cole Hamels to the mound, as he oppose rookie Brandon Beachy, who replaces the injured Jair Jurrjens. You would favor the Phillies to pan their NL East lead to four games tonight in this matchup, but the Braves are coming off a confidence boost sweep over a Mets team that has packed it in for the rest of 2010.

Meanwhile, Matt Garza will look for better success against the reigning World Champions, as he will oppose rookie Ivan Nova. A victory would see the Rays take back the lead in the division. With a 4 game set, the Boston Red Sox will hope that damage is down to one of these teams in order for them to pull off an unlikely miracle run to the postseason.

Key games tonight folks, as the climax of the MLB season continues to develop.

The Rest

The helmet of Brandon Jacobs sure did a lot of traveling last night(Photo from AP's Darron Cummings)

Brandon Jacobs has gradually worn out people tolerating his petulant attitude. After bouncing around collegiately, Jacobs did a great job coming into this league as a 4th Round pick determined to play up to his 1st Round talent and be an intimidating, unique force in this league.

You certainly can't find a 6'6, 260 pound back who has at least 4.5 speed everyday now, but Jacobs has been running smaller than Darren Sproles at times the last two years. And now with him tossing his helmet into the stands, he really needs to shape up immediately.

Barcelona fans breathed a major sigh of relief with the news of Lionel Messi only being out one week after receiving that sharp challenge from Tomas Ujfalusi in the defending La Liga BBVA champions 2-1 win over Atletico Madrid yesterday.

The Carmelo Anthony sweepstakes have started, with now the Nets the favorite over the Knicks ?

What a terrific win by Novak Djokovic over Tomas Berdych to set Janko Tisparevic up to rout Radek Stepanek and have Serbia in the Davis Cup Final against France.

Photo from NBA.com