Week in Review - 5/30/2011

 Another excellent Memorial Day weekend, probably the best weekend of the year.  I caught the biggest crappie, biggest northern, and biggest bass out of everybody at the cabin, and while this would usually be the point where I'd brag about how awesome I am - and I am - but pretty much everybody killed it, or at least as much as we could when it wasn't too windy.  We collectively caught a ton of crappies that all ranked among the biggest we ever caught at the cabin, and in one stretch of about 45 minutes out on the boat we caught 15 northerns.  It was totally awesome.  You're so jealous.  Anyway I'm really tired so you can expect a definite half-assed effort here.


WHO WAS AWESOME

1.  Nick Blackburn.  Generally he's pretty overrated, but I get it - good lookin' guy, killer side burns, little bit of a "I don't care what anybody think about me" beard, unflappable on the mound, and just a cool, calm guy who can absolutely shut down a team once in a while, so I get it.  If you actually look at stats and whatnot, however, he's generally been pretty bad over his career, even finishing in the top 4 in hits allowed twice in his career.  I have to give it up to him, however, because he has somehow become the team's only reliable pitcher - the only one you know will keep you in the game this year. 

In his six games pitched in the month of May his worst outing would have been today - 6ip, 7 hits, 5 runs.  Using Game Score (I won't bore you but it's explained mid-page right here) that comes out as a 40.  Looking at every other Twins starter they've only equaled or beaten that score 19 times between five guys, and only 16 times prior to this weekend before the hapless Angels gave everybody a boost.  Blackie's average for the month was 59, a score only reached by a non-Blackburn twin 7 times.  All of which is a nerdy way of saying that an average Nick Blackburn outing is probably better than the best any other Twin can pitch right now, which is actually of really succinctly summing out just how crappy this season is going.

2.  Mike Miller.  This already feels like a million years ago but technically it happened last week, but did you see Miller against the Bulls in those final two games?  After playing sparingly in the first two playoff rounds and even in the first 3 games versus Chicago he suddenly burst back onto the scene and played 26 and 24 minutes in games 4 and 5, averaging 10 pts and 8 rebs in the two games and, no joke, was probably the biggest reason the Heat won game 4 and swung the series.  No kidding if you watched it he registered the majority of his stats in the fourth and absolutely was the difference in that game.   There's a decent change he'll matter again against Dallas, but let me tell you watching him in that fourth quarter was jarring and a reminder of how good he used to be.  At Florida, I mean, when he played a complete game, not the jump-shooting nancy boy he became in the NBA. 

3.  Bartolo Colon.  I will admit that I thought Colon was a big-fat tub of goo who was basically washed up and done and when the Yankees signed him I was like "good, suck it Yankees you queers!" but well fuck me I guess.  Colon shut out the A's today on just four hits while striking out six, and now has just a 3.26 ERA on the year.  And I don't care because the Yankees are still stupid and still suck and Bartolo is still fat and has a stupid name.  He's probably going to give up eleventeen runs his next time out, assuming he's not throwing at the Twins.  

4.  Carl Crawford.  Well it's about time, Mr. Crawford.  After signing that huge contract with the Red Sox he's been one of the biggest disappointments of the year and was sort of the symbol for Red Sox suckage to start the season, but he's starting to turn it around.  Well, he's had a few good games, I should say, including a 4-4 with 2 doubles and a homer on Wednesday and 4-5 with two triples the next day.  Then I went out of town and now I just looked up his next few games and they were 0-4, 0-3, and 0-4.  So who knows.  He's still just hitting .232/.267/.362 now for the year, which sounds bad but would be the fifth highest OPS on the Twins.  Wow.  Fifth highest on the worst team in the league.  I guess he's still really bad.  But at least he had a good week.  Has any twin had even a single 4-hit game this year?  Looking it up, yes.  Span had 4 hits April 13th and Cuddyer had four the day before.  So the Twins have gone nearly two months without a 4-hit game from a single player, and one the season have as many as Carl Crawford, the guy synonymous with disappointing player this year, had in one week.  This season is so much fun.

5.  Michael Morse.  I seriously have no idea who this guy is, but I do a lot of wagering on individual players and the Nationals have been a gold mine to bet against players not getting an rbi or not scoring a run in a game.  So every time I see Washington has scored a run I have to look up immediately how they scored to see if I lost a bet and need to punish myself.  So that's how I know that Morse hit a home run on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Monday and in that stretch he's knocked in 11 of his team's total 27 runs.  So I picked up in Fantasy.  Stay tuned to find out if I'm a genius, like I was with Charlie Morton.     


WHO SUCKED

1.  Derrick Rose.  No lie, it was kind of tough to watch Rose those last couple of games against Miami.  The good news is he clearly wanted the ball, was the leader, and was aggressive.  The bad news was he couldn't have scored with your mom after a glass of white zin.  He's still one of the best in the NBA and he'll be fine and all, but yuck.  More here if you need it.

2.  Kevin Durant.  Much the same as Rose, Durant certainly didn't do himself any favors in the final few games against the Mavericks.  In game 3 he was 0-8 from three, in game 4 he turned it over 9 times including a killer down the stretch where he just straight lost control of the ball, and overall he shot just 23% from three for the series.  I love the guy and he's obviously one of a handful of people you'd consider as your #1 choice if you were starting a franchise, but I almost wonder if he needs a littler more killer in his blood.  I'm interested to see if any kind of possible feud develops between him and Westbrook.  You can only have one alpha on a team, and it's obvious to everyone that Durant should be that alpha - obvious to everyone except Durant and Westbrook.  Pay attention.  You'll see.


3.  Washington Nationals.  It's hard to believe a team could be as bad as the Twins - because that's actually impossible so the joke's on you - but Washington is bad, bad, bad.  They're 1-8 in their last 9 and have given up five or more runs in six of those games while scoring three or less runs in five (we've already talked about that offense above).  That's a bad combination.  Also a bad combination?  Their rotation.  Jason Marquis and Livan Hernandez in the same rotation?  Possibly the two worst pitchers of the last five years?  Seriously that's like the pitching equivalent of a middle infield combination of Alexi Casilla and Matt Tolbert, as if anybody would be dumb enough to roll with those two. 


4.  Joakim Soria.  Did I, or did I not, tell you about this?  I did, because I'm a genius and so much smarter than you.  Soria's week - 2/3 inning, 3 runs allowed, blown save - 1 good ip in a meaningless 12-7 game -  2/3 ip, 2 runs allowed, blown save - 1 ip, 3 runs allowed, blown save.  He now has an ERA of almost 7 and is seven for twelve in save opps after having now blown 4 of his last 5.  Done.  And I told you so. 

5.  Car Racing.   I normally wouldn't bother to include car racing in the sucks column since it always sucks - I mean, come on man, it's just cars driving in a circle and whoever has the fastest car wins, you know it, I know it, and racing fans know it no matter what they try to say - but tonight was a special case.  I only know this because it was all over the radio when I was driving back from the cabin, but now we have special proof of how stupid it all is.  There were two big races this weekend, one in each league (called, I believe, NASCAR and NASCAR2), and in one some dude was winning until the very last turn on the last lap where, for some unknown reason, he drove straight in a wall despite having a big lead and ended up finishing second, and the other where some dude was winning almost until the end when he ran out of gas.  He ran out of gas.  He ran out of gas in car racing.  That would be like a baseball player going out into the field without his glove (I would guess Casilla almost does this twice a week) or a basketball player not wearing shoes.  So dumb.  But honestly if you like racing you probably don't own a computer so you can't read this and your Memorial Day BBQ likely consisted of squirrel or possum or whatever you ran over in your truck recently (you know, your truck with a door that's a different color than the rest of the truck and has a sticker of calvin pissing on a logo on the back window, along with an "Ass, Cash, or Grass bumper sticker.)  In conclusion, racing is stupid and so is your face.


Since I mentioned Memorial Day BBQ you're probably wondering what we had.  So I will tell you.  We simply had Kobe beef burgers on the grill (lightly seasoned with salt and pepper - you don't want to mess with these too much - and topped with provolone), corn on the cob (garlic and herb butter), and really excellent cauliflower gratin that Mrs. W made.  It was excellent, and I highly recommend going for the Kobe burgers once in a while.  They're about twice the price of regular burger patties and about 3 times more than lump burger you form yourself, but holy crap they were worth it.  Also, before any smartass posts a comment here, I will come clean and admit I screwed up cooking turkey burgers and brats on the grill this weekend, but in my defense I haven't cooked on a charcoal grill since we got our sweet gas one about 6 years ago.  Plus everything was fine once my dad figured out the bottom grate was closed.  So shut up.

One More Night

I have one more night out here, and I'm stuck in another crappy hotel with no car, so I might as well have a couple and see if there are any other thoughts rattling around in my empty head.

- How crappy is this hotel you ask? They don't get ESPN or ESPN2 (but they do have ESPNNews) and the only beer they have in the gift shop is 7 oz bottles for $4 a piece. If I actually had to pay for that, I'd be pissed. At least they have a bar.

- So at some point I mentioned that I heard the newest possible future Twin was Kevin Kouzmanoff of the Padres. I can't remember where I heard it and I haven't heard it anywhere since, so it's probably a bunch of poop, but I wanted to bring it up because I was less than enthusiastic about the proposition, and I wanted to say I was wrong. I would love to have Kouzmanoff aboard. Upon further review, he's actually a very solid hitter who is having his best year, OPSing .756. No great shakes there, but compared to Lamb (.545), Punto (.823 but no way that keeps up), or Buscher (.782 - ditto) he'd be a welcome addition. As Sidler pointed out, he'd be a great platoon mate for Buscher. Obviously for a platoon type guy you don't want to give up much, and the word is the Padres want an outfielder. No way they trade Gomez, Span, or Young - nor should they - but what about Cuddyer or Kubel? There's been far too much "trade Cuddyer" talk, so that should never happen, but I can see them trading Kubel. I don't want them to, if anyone I'd rather see them ship off someone like Chris Parmelee. There are a lot of young outfielders in the Twins' system, so they could afford to lose a guy like Parmelee. Plus, the Kouz hates to walk and swings at far too many pitches, so he'd fit right in.

- I forgot to mention the man Jack Cust as a three true outcomes guy last night. He's a classic.

- By the way, next week is Shark Week on Discovery, the greatest week of the year. Although I have to say it's gotten weaker and weaker. In the past, they'd just have a whole bunch of kickass shark footage and interesting stories. Now they take their "hit shows" like mythbusters and dirty jobs and fit them into shark motifs. So weak. But yet, still awesome. Like the Star Wars prequels. Yeah, you know you liked them.

- So you know how Brett Favre is just like Pete Rose? Because of the the way they were both above average players who became legends because they compiled stats over their 200 year careers? Well how about this whole "tarnished legacy" thing they have going on? Rose because of the gambling, lying and bad haircut. Favre because of the pill popping, alcoholism, infecting his wife with cancer, and now jerking around the team and fans that worshipped him like Jesus wishes he was ever worshipped. Seriously, everyone should just keep him out of the hall of fame when he finally retires in 2020. After twelve more years of playing the drama queen.

- Why is worshipped showing up with a line under in to indicate a misspelling? Isn't that word? Is there only one p in there? Like, worshiped? Hmm. Apparently so. I'm not changing it. My way looks better.

- Christ, they don't get comedy central here either. Nice city. NYC can go to hell along with Brett Favre and Kevin McHale.

- Good to see Mike Mussina still dominates the Twins. As ESPN pointed out over and over again, he's 21-6 (now 22 I think it hasn't updated yet) against them career, most wins against any team other than the Blue Jays (24-12). He actually has better ERAs against quite a few other teams (they don't do WHIP in team by team splits) but doesn't he just seem to dominate the Twins everytime? I still think he's a serious hall-of-fame candidate. He has a shot at 300 wins, which is already rare and getting rarer, but I think people forget just how good he really was in his prime. He finished in the top 6 in Cy Young voting eight times. I know I've written about this before, but it's just really impressive. I've always been a HUGE Mussina fan, and even I didn't really realize how good he was. It will be interesting to see how this all ends up.

- Just saw a movie for the Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated movie. First of all, the fact that they aren't promoting the hell out of this thing tells me it's going to be a nice little stinker. Not to mention that it looks like a trailer for a video game. But if you'll indulge my inner nerd for a minute - well, a minute more - there's a line in the trailer where someone says, "Skywalker is the only hope for the republic" or some such. Well here's the problem. This movie is supposed to take place between movie II and III (maybe I and II but that's irrelevant here) and at this point Anakin is just a padawan or at best a rookie Jedi. There's still an entire army of Jedi going. It makes no sense. No sense at all I tells ya.

- Weird things are happening in the basketball world. First, Brandon Jennings leaves to go play in Europe for a year before entering the NBA draft. Not all that weird for him, since he's apparently too dumb to get into college, but it does set a precedent that I can see money grubbing whores following in the future. Then, today Josh Childress signes with a team in Greece. And this isn't like Lew Ford signing in Japan because that's the only team that would take him. This is a contract for like 6 mil a year. And he's not the first to leave the NBA for Europe (my main man Primoz Brezec did as well as a handful of other guys) but he's the first american to do it. $6 mil is a lot of money. If Europe starts handing out big contracts to mediocre NBA players, this whole thing is going to get very weird in a hurry. It's just bizarre. Petty soon Escalade and the Professor are going to in the NBA.

- At one point today I drove through a town in NJ that had a huge sign that said "Home of Fairleigh Dickinson." Kind of a weird thing to brag about. Although it's about sixty times more prestigious than UMD, so there's that.

- X files 2: The Most Anticipated Movie of 1998!!!!!

- Wiley Wiggins is a funny name.

- So what do we think about this Francisco Liriano dust up? He's like 9-0 with 200 strikeouts and -4 walks in his last something starts, but the Twins haven't called him back up yet and his agent is throwing a fit, accusing the Twins of keeping him down for monetary reasons. (Sidebar: Two years ago Bogart made more money than Liriano). I think this is just reason #126 why agents suck. Liriano sucked when he was up earlier this year. Sucked worse than Boof Bonser. Why rush it when they are playing as well as they are? Give it time Frankie, give it time.

- I have no idea what I just stumbled into, but there is a report about the Vampire Rights Amendment, which is apparently a group of people who are trying to pass laws to help the Vamps. Wat? In case you want to take this too seriously, the show also called the VRA "one of the most polarizing political issues affecting the nation." But seriously, there are people who are serious about this. Two quotes I've heard on this show: The dude asked the girl who was getting her blood sucked by a "vampire" if she was worried about becoming one and she said, "Uh...no. You don't become a vampire by getting your blood sucked, duh (note: she really said duh). Plus, I get to be with someone who has been around for 200 years pleasing women, and that's awesome." and then they asked some rednecks what they thought of the vampires and the dude said "They are an abomination about the bible" and was seriously angry. This is, without question, the weirdest thing I've ever seen, and it was on HBO. I still don't know if it was satire or not. Either way - hilarious.

- Sarah Chalke still hot.

- Does anyone else think this whole podcast thing has ruined the Sportsguy?

- the U of Texas is retiring Kevin Durant's number. I know he had one incredible season, but he had one incredible season. I don't get why they'd retire his number. Shouldn't that be saved for players who, you know, had an impact greater than five months?

- And that will do it

Kevin Durant and Julian Wright are about to get Paid

Freshman Kevin Durant of Texas and Sophomore Julian Wright of Kansas are declaring for the NBA draft. Wright made the announcement yesterday, and Durant is expected to make the announcement at a press conference later this afternoon.

According to Texas Coach Rick Barnes, Durant hasn't told him what he plans to do, but based on the fact that Durant won every individual major award as a freshman, and is a guarenteed top 2 pick, it would only make sense that he goes pro. ESPN's Andy Katz reported that Durant plans to enter the draft, but will not withdraw from school and will finish out the spring semester.

Wright is officially in the draft, however he has not and has no plans to hire an agent at this time. This means that if he doesn't like his draft position he can withdraw from the draft by June 18 and go back to school. Currently he is projected to go ninth, and said that he expects to go from tenth to sixteenth.

I don't get why he wouldn't stay another year. He improved his numbers quite a bit from freshman to sophomore year, but they still weren't overwhelming at 12 pts and 8 rebs. He was also very inconsistent with 15 games in single-digit scoring (including the last two in the NCAA tournament) and only three games over 20 pts. In addition, the lack of a 3-pt shot (3-13 this year) from a projected wing player is a bit of a warning sign.

If Wright stayed in school one more year, developed a three point shot, more consistentcy, and showed he could produce in big games, he'd be a top three pick. But, I suppose you still make some good money getting in drafted in the teens, and you don't have to go to class anymore, so I can see the positives there.