What irritates me in current sports talk is the new way to express the plural of the baseball stat RBI. Over decades of common usage the abbreviation RBI (runs batted in) has become a noun itself. The sentence “Derek Jeter has 114 RBIs†is thus acceptable. But now extra intelligent sports news readers show their superior knowledge by saying “Derek Jeter has 114 RBIâ€. It doesn’t sound right.
"give us a chance to win" = "I'm a wussy pitcher who doesn't even think about a complete game and wanting to WIN the game, I just want to throw my 100 pitches and get into the 7th."