F you, Blogger

 I had a gigantic Week in Review post ready to go, and was just putting the finishing touches on the last entry (Who was Awesome - Juan Uribe) when everything got effed up.  Suddenly, nothing is here anymore, and I know this was one of my best WIR posts ever.  Maybe my best post ever.  But now it's gone.  Gone like the wind.  That should be a movie.

Seriously, almost everything is gone.  I had an entry about how Stephen Strasburg was jesus because he gives everyone around him magic powers.  It's true.  The first time he started, 12 other pitchers went at least 7 innings and gave up two runs or less (it's true) and the second time we almost had dueling no-hitters. 

But, its gone.  It's all gone..  My comparison of Nick Punto to herpes.  My discussion of Carlos Pena's home run streak and how it must suck to be a fantasy baseball player with him on your bench (hi Elk).  My praise of Delmon Young.  It's all gone.  Along with most of my breakdown of the epic suckfest that is Robert Garrigus. 

I'm just going to give you what's left.  You get an intro, and outro, and a couple of things in between. 

Thanks blogger.  You make me look like an ass.  This is probably how my dad feels.

GO:

 This conference realignment stuff is pretty fun, huh?  I don't think I've been this glued to the internet looking for constantly updated information since Spencer Tollackson and Dan Coleman put their names in for the NBA draft.

It seems a bit odd to me that Texas would choose the Pac-10 over the Big Ten if all things were equal, so I'm guessing they aren't.  I would be willing to bet that the Big Ten offered Texas equal membership, while the Pac-10 is bending over backwards to offer them extra concessions.  Whether it's a bigger share of the money or more power in voting, it would surprise me very much if we learn there's nothing like that going on.

And I really hope the Big 10 (or whatever) doesn't stop here.  I like the Nebraska addition and all, but since I'm more of a basketball guy I'm hoping they bring in some basketball talent, which is the opposite of what Nebraksa is.  That's why I'm still rooting for either Missouri or one of the good Big East teams like the Cuse or Pitt.  Of course, there probably won't be anybody added at all unless Notre Dame agrees to join up, so we're probably stuck with the Irish if we want any fun new basketball teams.  I guess for football fans though adding both Nebraska and Notre Dame is pretty awesome.  So I guess congratulations, football dorks.



WHO WAS AWESOME

1.  Francisco Liriano. I hope you were able to watch him on Friday, because that was as close to the vintage Liriano as we've seen.  Eleven strikeouts in 8 innings is obviously impressive, and his highest single game total since 2006, but even better was just how devastating and unhittable his change and especially his slider were.  Nine of his Ks were on the slider (the other two were on the change) and he made some pretty good hitters look pretty ridiculous.  Both Brian McCann are Jason Heyward are really patient hitters with a good eye for the strikezone, but he struck them both out on pitches that wouldn't have been strikes if the plate doubled in size.  Hell, one of Heyward's strikeouts came on a pitch that bounced in front of the plate.  Maybe it's a NL thing and they haven't seen his pitches before (Braves swung at 50% of his pitches out of the zone, second highest total of the year), but he was devastating.  Hopefully we see more of this, including against the AL.

2.  Carlos Pena.  What in the hell is going on with this dude? 

3.  Juan Uribe.

4.  Delmon Young.  There were people who said I should have included Young here last week, and they're right after his .  And he followed that up with another stellar week,   

5.  Stephen Strasburg


WHO SUCKED

1.  Jamie Moyer.  I hate to pick on an old man who throws a 83 mph fastball and routinely sends back soup at a deli, but anytime you give up 9 runs in one inning of work you're going to find yourself here.  Here's how his night against Boston went on Friday:  walk, fielder's choice, double, double, double, home run, strike out, single, fly out, single, double, double, double.  That is a shit load of doubles allowed.  I looked it up, and that's actually the most doubles allowed by a pitcher with 2 innings pitched or less in the game.  Yep, that Jamie Moyer is amazing.  He's 47 years old and still breaking records.  Incredible.

2.   Chad Qualls.  There is a long standing tradition of sucky closers continuing to keep their closer jobs even as they are sucking simply because they've gotten saves before.  Jose Mesa is probably the king of this, but let's not forget guys like Bobby Jenks, Joe Borowski, Todd Jones, Jason Isringhausen, Armando Benitez (towards the end), and currently Brad Lidge, David Aarsdma, and especially Chad Qualls.  Qualls closes for the D-Backs, and out of.16 save opportunities he's blown a solid 4 of them, second in the league to Trevor Hoffman (who needs to be put out to stud).

After a truly stellar outing Thursday which went single, strikeout, single, single, single, game blown he's now carrying an ERA of 7.77 and a mind-blowing WHIP of 2.09.  2.09!  That means your closer is allowing more than 2 base-runners per inning!  Since Arizona is already 12.5 games back, I guess they don't really need to do anything, but if they were planning at all on trying to trade him at the deadline good luck.  Although I suppose there's always some GM dumb enough to do it.  

3.  Robert Garrigus.  I know nobody really cares about the St. Jude Classic, but oh my goodness what an epic meltdown. 

5.  Nick Punto. 



I thought I'd end up including something on the World Cup here, but I just don't know.  I'm trying to get into it, and watched a pretty big chunk of several games (including almost the entire Ghana/Serbia game) and although it isn't as boring as I remembered I'd be hard pressed to describe it as "awesome" or "exciting."  The entire time I watched I saw just one goal and it was on a penalty kick, which is like watching a walk-off balk.  The game is dominated by an awful lot of kicking the ball around the mid-court line slowly without really pressing the action or "running."

I actually started doing a live blog of the England/USA match on Saturday.  Here it is:

12:55 - Halfback passes to the center.

12:56 - Center passes to the wing..

12:57 - Back to the center..

12:58 - Center holds it.

12:59 - Holds it.

1:00 -  Holds it.


And so on.