Sunday Bird Droppings

IN THE PLAYOFFS

Twinvincible: Yanks sweep Minnesota again | MLB.com: News
"Phil Hughes pitched seven scoreless innings of four-hit ball as the Yankees defeated the Twins, 6-1, in Game 3 on Saturday at Yankee Stadium, popping the corks as they advanced past the first round for the second successive season."

Rays reign, don't go away, rally late at Texas | MLB.com: News
"Hits don't come much bigger than John Jaso's RBI single in the eighth inning early Saturday night. The catcher's hit give the Rays their first lead in three games of the American League Division Series, and they never relinquished it in a 6-3 win over the Rangers in Game 3, keeping Tampa Bay's postseason hopes alive and forcing a Game 4 on Sunday in Arlington." But, but, but, that's TWO game sin a row! They can't be expected to play again in 24 hours, can they? It's inhuman!

IN ORIOLES' NEWS

Steve Melewski: The O's need to keep Izzy at short
"Despite the obvious offensive shortcomings, I think the O's should resign Cesar Izturis at short for two more years." Um, no Steve. Just, no.

School of Roch: Talking free agents and spring training
Buck Showalter on Spring Training: "We'll do something and I'll say, 'Turn the clock off. That ain't good enough.' Forget how long we're supposed to be at this station. That's just raising the bar. It ain't good enough to just say, 'OK, we've done that. Now let's move on to the next drill.' Bull. All this stuff where they blow the horn and the 15-minute period is over? Forget that. We've got nowhere to go."

Orioles Insider: Orioles' news and notes
Mark Hendrickson will be bought out of his last year, Adam Jones probably was benched for not running out the double play against Detroit (Jeff Z doesn't buy "just a day off" for the next-to-last game of the year), and look for shakeups in the minor league system's coaches as well as the big club next week.

AROUND THE LEAGUE

Hall of Fame outfielder Tony Gwynn says he has cancer in a salivary gland - baltimoresun.com
"The doctors have told me they feel they caught the cancer early and there was not much of it there," he said in a story published Saturday. "