Completely Random Wednesday Thoughts

- Francisco Liriano sucks. I can't recall watching a pitcher so terrified to throw the ball over the plate.

- Is it just me, or does Justin Morneau swing at every single breaking pitch from a lefty? He's not nearly as bad as Cuddyer, because with Morneau most of them are at least near the plate and he can foul it off if he has two strikes, but still. I swear he swings at every slider. Of course, as I type this he takes a fastball right down the middle for a called third strike with two on and nobody out.

- I am going to be playing in a college basketball fantasy league this year. The rules aren't set yet, like I don't know which stats we are using and I don't know what kind of restrictions on conferences, if any, will be in play, but it sounds awesome and it also sounds terrifying. It also doesn't help that I can't find any websites with any kind of lists that help. So far I think my list goes
1. Luke Harangody, even though I hate him
2. Cole Aldrich
3. Craig Brackins
4. Sherron Collins
5. Kalin Lucas
6. Evan Turner
7. Devan Downey
8. Greg Monroe
9. Kyle Singler
10. Manny Harris

That's about as far as I can get. When do I take Ralph Sampson do you think? Round 2? Round 3?

- Does anybody else just turn the game off when R.A. Dickey makes an appearance?

- Who's more disappointing than Grady Sizemore (on my fantasy team) this year? Not counting guys who have been injured almost the entire season like Jose Reyes (on my fantasy team). Career lows this season in average, on-base pct, and slugging, including a huge drop in doubles and home runs.

Check this. Career: .281/.372/.496, OPS+ of 126 (equivalent to Justin Morneau in his career)
This year: .227/.326/.433, OPS+ of 96 (equal to Nick Punto last year)

I might be crazy here, but I'm going to go ahead and toss out the steroids card.

- Correct me if I'm wrong, but last year didn't Gardy throw a fit about how you couldn't blame Guerrier for melting down at the end of the season because he was overworked? And, once again this season, there is essentially nobody who is good in the bullpen, to the pathetic point that Guerrier is actually important again. So, tell me why, oh why oh why you put Guerrier in when you are down 8-1 in the 8th inning?

- I know I've bashed Shark Week on here more than once or twice, and yes, once again this year it is pretty week, filled with 90% shark attack reenactments which are a complete waste of time, but I did find a big ole gem. The show is called Deadly Waters, and it's exactly what Shark Week used to be; cool new footage with some science mixed in. It's beautiful. It's everything I want out of my shark week. It's straight up awesome. They are replaying it on Discovery at 5pm on Saturday. Do yourself a favor and check it out.

- Direct quote from Dusty's Facebook page, "Toughen up??? I was born tough!"

Oopsies

Looks like that Johan deal keeps getting worse and worse for the Twins and moving-up-the-worst-GMs-list-with-a-bullet Bill Smith after Kevin Mulvey got rocked by the retarded at hitting A's in his first real outing (a one-batter one-out appearance on Monday doesn't count, mostly because I didn't see it.)

Yep, this afternoon against a team that ranks third from the bottom of the AL in runs and last in batting average, slugging percentage, and OPS raked Mulvey in his only inning of work for six hits and four runs before being promptly sent back to AAA in an exchange for The Necklace. To be fair, the A's have a pretty intimidating lineup. I mean, with names like Scott Hairston, Landon Powell, and Rajai Davis, giving up six hits should probably be considered a success.

This makes the second of the three pitchers acquired in the Santana deal to hit the bigs and flame out. Philly Humber was up to start the season, but after putting up a 12.46 ERA in four unimpressive games, he was placed on waivers. Luckily for the Twins, he was so crappy that nobody wanted him, so back to AAA it was.

At least Mulvey still has a shot to develop into a serviceable major leaguer, with an ERA under four in seventeen triple A starts this season and a respectable 2-1 K/BB ratio. Humber, on the other hand, may be a lost cause, as his unclaimed waiver trip suggests. An ERA over six in sixteen starts with a WHIP over 1.6 suggests his new upside might be a middle reliever.

The third pitcher, Deolis Guerra, continues to get less and less impressive despite a recent promotion to double A. After a promising 2006 in A ball, where he put up an ERA of 2.20 and a 1.17 WHIP, he's failed to put up anything resembling a comparable season, with an ERA of almost five in about three seasons at high-A, and is up over five in his three appearances at AA.

Of course, Guerra is just 20 years old, very young for double A, and has still been very impressive at times, but the reviews sound less and less awesome as times goes on.

Gomez at least seems to be improving, albeit quite slowly, but when all is said and done he might end up being the only major league player in the deal. Hopefully I'm wrong, and hopefully this is the second coming of the haul the Indians got when they traded Bartolo Colon to the Expos (Cliff Lee, Grady Sizemore, Brandon Phillips, and Lee Stevens), but don't count on it.

At least Halladay is on the market. Maybe we can get him for Mulvey, Humber, Guerra, and Gomez.

- I'll also mention here because when the hell else am I going to bother with it that Ricky Rubio has decided he is leaving his current team whether he can reach an agreement with the Wolves or not. I'm not exactly sure what this all means, but I almost made it through that entire article and I think it means if the Wolves can't work something out with him he could jump to another team and creating a whole new headache world of problems. I'm starting to think this Rubio kid is Samantha Ronson, and the Wolves are Lindsay Lohan, chasing and chasing and chasing and ending up getting locked out of the house without a bra.

- Speaking of bras, we are watching some show now that has Susan Ward in it and she looks like a mom now. I prefer to think of her like this:
Good god. Actually, just go ahead and google image her. There's not a single picture on that first page that isn't a 10.

- FYI, Dusty Rychart is officially a facebook friend of DWG. Rickert has yet to respond.

- Just in case you weren't ready to kill yourself yet over the Twins, Jason Bartlett is hitting .346/.394/.526 with 18 doubles, 8 homers, and 20 steals.

For perspective, that's a better average than Albert Pujols, a better OBP than your boyfriend Derek Jeter, a better slugging pct. than Jason Bay, more doubles than Carl Crawford, more homers than Magglio Ordonez, and more steals than Willy Taveras. Kill me.

[EDIT: I'm going to add the video of Lebron getting dunked on here, just because I don't want to start another post for something that is so stupid. This is the dumbest thing ever. If he/Nike/Zeus/Jesus/Buddha whoever never grabs the tape in the first place, this is a non-story. Hell, this is still a non-story. It's like that time I told everyone I know that I humped Estella Warren, but I really just got some elbow-boob. [EDIT within an EDIT: I can't figure out how to embed this. Just click this link, jackass]]

Still Going

Dammit that sucked, but I still have a bunch of beer, and thanks to my sports package I can still watch UCLA/Oregon State and St. Mary's/San Francisco, the last two chances I have to try to salvage an absolutely horrible gambling day. I'll keep drinking and posting and try to not kill myself.

- I guess it's a testament to how far the program has come, in that I care so much and actually believe in this team. It was clearly a huge mistake. They play tough defense, and they hustle on both ends, but they just don't have the players (thanks Monson). Even Nolen and Hoffbauer looked like freshman tonight. Give a lot of credit to Ohio State's defense, they basically stifled the Gophers the whole way.

- I always considered Jamar Butler a shooting guard, and even though he went off tonight for 27 points and 9 assists, he also turned it over five times. I maintain he's still a shooting guard forced to play point, Gopher shredding aside.

- Looks like Tubby has given up on Shamala and Payton, and I think that's the right call. I think Shamala can contribute against certain teams where his lack of athleticism isn't a liability, but I'm not sure where you can play Payton. At first, I was thinking that some of the combinations Tubby had out there tonight were horrible coaching decisions, but after thinking about, there aren't that many good players on this team at all, so you're going to end up with bad combinations no matter what. However, I still think having Nolen and Hoffbauer in the backcourt together against a defense like Ohio State's for ten minutes is a mistake.

- UCLA/Oregon State isn't on yet because Oregon and USC are in overtime. I'm guessing this is much more better. Except it wasn't because USC blew them out in overtime and won by 9.

- In case you're wondering about that YMCA league that Dusty Rychart is playing in in Australia, here are the other people who play in that league who are interesting: Derrick Alston (also known as "The guy from Duquesne on NBA Live 95"), Larry Abney (Fresno St), Mike Chappell (Michigan St), Ebi Ere (Oklahoma), Orien Greene (Flordia/UL-Laff), Rod Grizzard (Oklahoma), Shane Heal (giggle), Julius Hodge (NC State - and he got shot), Nick Horvath (Duke), Alex Loughton (ODU), Kirk Penney (Wisconsin), Rick Rickert (Rickert and Rychart reunited), Joe Shipp (Cal), Wayne Turner (Kentucky).

- Ebi Ere and Kirk Penney are the top scorers in the league (Rickert = 16th), Rickert is also second in rebounding, while Rychart is ninth in rebounding and first in offensive boards. Told you in was a YMCA league. Also, Orien Greene leads in turnovers and is second in fouls. He should probably be an accountant or something.

- San Fran is down 25 and Oregon State is hanging with UCLA. It seriously looks like I'm about to go 2-8-1 tonight. Not good times.

- Ferris Bueller's Day off was a great movie. I wonder how many poor kids got named Ferris after that.

- It seems the name Ferris has never ranked in the top 1000 boys names, ever. So I guess not that many. Rico was 664th most popular in the 80s before dropping out of the top 1000. I expect that number to rise soon.

- You know what puts a whole weird spin on Ferris Bueller's Day Off? The fact that the principle takes off his whole day to try to track him down, including breaking in to his home, and then that actor turned out to be a chomo. Weird.

- Back to basketball. These are the people who play in France with Mike Bauer: Chevy Troutman (Pitt), Alan Wiggins (San Fran), Justin Doellman (Xavier), Tony Skinn (GMU), LaVell Blanchard (Michigan), Terrell Everett (Oklahoma), Vince Grier (I didn't know he landed in France), Marcus Slaughter (SDSU), Marcus Sommerville (Bradley), Sam Clancy (USC), Zabian Dowdell (VA Tech), Brandon Heath (SDSU), Theron Smith (Ball State - was going to be an NBA star until hurting his knee two straight years), Taj Gray (Okla), Je'Kel Foster (Ohio St), Terence Dials (Ohio St), Antonio Graves (Pitt).

- And the French league is broken up into three divisions, and Bauer starts for a team in the upper division, so he's doing fairly well. I'd also like to let you know that the team he plays for is called Nancy. Insert your own joke here.

- I'd love to tell you how Grier is doing, but again, it's a pay site and I'm not paying just to get his stats. I can tell you he's starting for an "A" League team.

- Oh, that picture up there is some cheerleader at a Russian basketball game. I searched for "European Basketball Cheerleader" and she came up.

- I still think it's weird that Lorenzo Mata changed his last name to Mata-Real. I wonder if his mom just bitched at him constantly or something to add it.

- 29 points with 14 minutes left for Darren Collison on only 10 shot attempts. That ain't bad.

- I think Darren Collison might actually be Earl Watson, come back for four more years. Seriously.

- Oh, I forgot to mention that Mike Chappell holds the all-time record for points in a game in Dusty (and Rick's) Australian league with 44.

- He Got Game was a pretty damn good movie.

- Have a shot at 3-7 rather than 2-8. That would be good. Don't F me UCLA.

- Sweet, UCLA covered to put me at 3-7. What a horrid streak. I'm going to watch Varstiy Blues and pass out.

- I just want to add, I love everything about this movie except the ending. PUKE n RALLY!

This one's for you Al

Your boy, Dusty, scored 14 in the opening game of something that is the National Basketball League for the Brisbane Bullets (I think it's an australian league).

The website doesn't actually have updated rosters, but some other stars in the league on opening night include Ebi Ere (Oklahoma I think)and Rod Grizzard (Alabama). And a shitload of guys I've never heard of. I'm pretty sure this is basically a league at the local YMCA, but it's in Australia, mate.

The best part of their website is where they compare some dude named Rashad Phillips to Allen Iverson. Yeah, ok.

That guy graduated from U of Detroit-Mercy. And sure, he averaged 22.5 points his senior year, so he's a decent player. But he's the Allen Iverson of some Australian league. Good for you. Dusty Rychart can score in your league. Just stop.

And if you're curious, Michael Bauer plays in France, and hasn't cut his hair yet. But I bet those commies love it.

Also, hotels that let you get beer at all hours of the night need to be shut down.