Six Very Important Things from Last Night - 05/26/2011

What's that?  A post in the patented "6 Things" format?  Righteous!  Well aren't you lucky.  And go:

1.  The Twins still suck.  This time it was Erik Bedard who shut them down, causing Gardenhire to say retarded Gardenhire things like "filthy", "great stuff", and "guys were swinging and missing by a foot."  Now that last one might be true, but I'd say it had more to do with the Twins being terrible, terrible, terrible at hitting than anything to do with Erik Bedard.  The same Bedard who hasn't been filthy - or pitched in the majors - since 2009 and was lit up by both the Indians and Royals earlier this year.  I will admit he's been pretty solid lately, but I refuse to give him any credit or any pitcher who shuts down the Twins any credit because these guys are god damn terrible.  They have two guys hitting above .270, only 5 guys with an OBP over .300, and 3 guys slugging over .400 and two of those are part-timers (Plouffe, Thome).  To be completely honest with you, I'm pretty sure Ila Borders could start and would allow less than 3 runs to these cream puffs.

2.  Zack Attack is back, Jack.  In news that feels AL Central related but isn't, Zack Greinke finally put together a vintage Zack Greinke performance yesterday afternoon going seven strong innings, striking out 10 and allowing just a 3-run homer to Mike Morse (note:  who? his name may not actually be Mike.  I didn't look it up.) to wreck a very nice day.  And, just to add on to his re-breakout performance, he also hit a ding dong which gave the Brewers a 4-3 lead.  It was Greinke's first time throwing 100 pitches since returning from injury, and he looked damn good.  This now gives the Brewers a very good rotation on paper:  Greinke, Marcum, Narveson, Wolf, and Gallardo, except not on paper Marcum is the only one whose been worth a damn.  Luckily their offense has been good enough to keep them just 2.5 games out of first.  If Greinke has it together it's going to be huge for them.  Of course, as soon as the Milwaukee media starts asking tough questions he'll probably crumple into fetal position and cry to his mom.

3.  The future may be bleak.  ESPN came out with their first set of team recruiting rankings for 2012 and of the top 10 (that's all they rank) you'll find four Big Ten teams.   Indiana is #1 (fo real) with four ESPN top 100 guys already signed, highlighted by big time PG Kevin Farrell and some weirdo with the first name Hanner.  Michigan State is ranked #3 with some highly rated white dudes, Purdue is #8 with a handful of really good back court players, and Michigan ranks tenth with Glenn Robinson's kid and the second coming of Jon Deibler.  The Gophers' list of 2012 commits?  Zero.  Joy.


4.  This happened Tuesday night, but what happened to Derrick Rose?  I know he's basically the reason the Bulls have gotten as far as they have, but whoa how bad did he choke in that game?  He couldn't hit anything most of the game, but saved his most special screw-ups for crunch time - a great trait in your crunch time player.  First he made only one of two free throws with just over a minute left and the Bulls down by one.  Then, he missed a mid-range jumper that would have given the Bulls the lead with 28 seconds left, and followed that up by by air-balling the potential game winner at the end of regulation by forcing a fade away weird forced thing.  Then, in overtime, he failed to score a single point (and only managed one shot) and committed a crucial turnover with just over a minute left and the Bulls down 4.  There's no doubt he's one of the five best young players in the NBA, but watching that game was like watching Chris Webber call that timeout again, but stretched out for an entire half + overtime.


5.  Speaking of the NBA, Kobe must want full control of the Lakers.  I can't think of any other reason the team would hire Mike freaking Brown, who is most famous for failing to get the most out of Lebron James and helping hasten his departure out of town, helping to turn Cleveland into even more of a wasteland than it already was, but without their one shining hope - like what would happen to Fargo if some intrepid young soul was to burn NDSU to the ground.  Basically his entire idea of coaching offense is to give the ball to his star and just let him and wait a minute I totally get it.  Kobe would have definitely had a large hand in deciding who was going to be the next Laker coach, and a coach with no clue on how to run a coherent offense who is almost totally dependent on his star player to create points is perfect for a selfish son of a bitch like Bryant.  Everybody knows there are two things Kobe loves:  being completely in charge of the basketball, and naive 17-year old hotel managers.

6.  Finally, late tonight the old man Mavericks knocked off the Thunder to advance to the NBA finals.  For the second straight game the Thunder seemed in control of the game, but once again Dallas came back in the end to get the win, this time thanks to not one but two open three-point looks for Dirk Nowitzki with the Mavs trailing in the final couple of minutes.  Dirk hit the second one to give Dallas the lead and they never looked back.  I hope to god they can beat the Heat in the finals, because make no mistake this is probably the worst version of this Heat team we're going to get.  They're still in some ways learning to play together and I'm pretty sure they'll figure out a way to upgrade their supported cast in the coming seasons.  Do you really want a Heat dynasty?  Better than a Laker one, at least, but Dirk deserves a ring.  I'm 100% Maverick fan now.


Also the Phillies/Reds played 19 innings last night, with the Phillies finally pulling it out on a sac fly by Raul Ibanez.  It seems like the kind of thing that I could fit into my six relevant things or whatever, but it's the national league so let's be honest nobody gives a crap.  The two teams combined to use 16 pitchers, all of whom are better than anybody the Twins have on their roster.