What's up, nerds? I've been in Denver this past week to visit Snacks, Mrs. Snacks, and new Baby Snacks and as such kept getting too drunk to post at night. But now I'm back. First, a few things about Denver:
1. We went to a Rockies' game at Coors Field and I was impressed. Very nice stadium, especially considering how old it is (relatively). It reminded me quite a bit of the newer stadiums I've been too, including Target Field, but considering the Rockies' came into existence in 1993 and it went up a few years later, I was impressed. Even more impressive was the security. We had two tickets in their club level and two normal poor people tickets, so the plan was for me and the Mrs. to go into the club, then I'd go out with both tickets and get Snacks, then Mrs. W would go out and get Mrs. Snacks and everybody wins except for the Rockies. The same scam Dawger used to get us into the Legends' Club at Target Field that worked flawlessly. One problem - at Coors they're on the lookout for it.
When you go into the Club area they stamp the back of your ticket, and when you leave they stamp your hand. Then when you try to get back in you can either show your stamp or you need an unstamped ticket. If you have a stamped ticket but no stamp on your hand they won't let you back in. Actually, Snacks managed to sweet talk his way in, but Mrs. Snacks was unable too. So we all just went and sat somewhere else because nobody was there anyway because the Rockies totally blow. Also Cuddyer didn't play that night which sucked because I wanted to be able to say I've booed him at two different parks for two different teams. Ah well.
The other problem with Coors, besides the fun-hating, is that if you want to get a Rockies' shirt with one of their guy's names on the back you have almost zero options. The only guys they had were Carlos Gonzalez, Tulowitzki, the manager, the mascot, or Giambi who I'm not even sure is on the team anymore. I realize they're pretty faceless as a team and all, but when you can get an Alexei Casilla shirt at Target Field you'd think the Rocks would be a little more generous with the choices.
2. Denver is right up there with Portland when it comes to homeless people, to the point where we could play the classic game, "Hippie or homeless" that we invented last time we were in Portland. I'd give Denver the edge with the homeless dudes, but Portland wins for most hippies. In both cities they're littered around the place to the point where you have to be careful you don't trip over anybody who is either passed our or sleeping on the ground. Common denominators? Horrid college basketball programs and a massive love of weed. Drugs ruin lives, kids. You'll either end up drunk under a bridge with a sign begging for money and claiming you're a veteran of some war or sleeping on the sidewalk with those weird holes in your ears wearing a knitted poncho and carrying around a skateboard. Choose wisely.
3. Denver was seemingly constructed by someone playing Sim City, and not just anyone but a child with severe ADD. You can drive down a street and have some really nice bars next to some scary bars where you'd get murdered if you looked at them for too long. Pretty much the same thing with houses - mansions next to houses that might actually currently be on fire. Nothing makes sense. A "long-term stay" business hotel a block from a Walgreen's in a neighborhood so bad the hotel clerk tells you "I wouldn't walk there." A knock-off of Grand Avenue, but without any bars. It was just weird and never made sense. The only area I saw that made sense was the "Bail Bonds District", which was an intersection with seven different bail bonds places (no joke, seven.) Normally you might feel a bit uneasy in that kind of neighborhood, but never fear because less than a block down was a restaurant that served things like duck liver mousse and escargot. Bizarre. Decent town, I had a lot of fun, but really kind of just ok.
And that's that. Now for a couple real quick sports things because man am I tired:
1. I kind of understand why the Nationals are planning on shutting Strasburg down when he hits 180 innings. I completely disagree with it, however. You're taking a positive (having Strasburg all year and for the playoffs) and eliminating it based on the fear of a negative (future arm issues for Strasburg). I'm not 100% sure but I'm fairly certain there is no correlation between Tommy John surgery and future injuries, and Strasburg's surgery was basically two full years ago at this point, and it's generally said it takes 1 year to get back to normal. His velocity is pretty close to what it was pre-surgery (pre = 97.3, current = 95.8) and although he's throwing his curve less it's been more effective - so yes, he's pretty much the same pitcher. Smarter people and better writers than me (which is pretty much everybody) have tackled this already so I won't dwell on it, but it seems to me he's just as likely to get injured in his first Spring Training start next year, a random start in Mid-July next season, or at some point this year. This is the opposite of taking a gamble - it's playing it safe to the extreme. It's like having a 3-to-1 chip lead in a poker tournament and offering a 50/50 chop. It's like getting 11 against a 6 in blackjack and not doubling down. Horrid.
And if you're dead set on limiting him to 180 innings, why not skip a start earlier in the season here and there? If you'd skipped a random start here or there vs. the Padres or Rockies or other shitty team he might still have 60-70 innings left instead of 40. Or use him out of the bullpen. Or do something. By any metric you look at he and Gio Gonzalez have been the two most valuable players for the Nats this year, and Gio's probably been a little bit lucky while Stras is Stras. I just don't get it. How many shots do you really get at the playoffs? Even if the future looks bright there's a billion things that could go wrong and this could be Washington's one and only shot. And they're going to go into it without their best weapon. Sad. I almost hope Strasburg gets hurt early next year, but then I wouldn't get to watch him so I really don't. Just almost.
- I don't really want to talk Twins, so I won't much, but even if the lineup looks pretty much set already for next year (barring a trade of Morneau or Span) I'm very curious to see how the rotation turns out. I mean, from 2-9 you have Mauer, Morneau, Carroll, Plouffe, Dozier, Willingham, Span, and Revere with Doumit your likely DH (along with M&M). For better of for worse, that's probably what we're seeing next season. They may sign a cheap free agent to help the middle infield like Jeff Keppinger (I would approve of this) or Maicer Izturis (I would not) or maybe some hitting type depth like Ty Wigginton (pass) or Ryan Spilborghs (omg gross) but basically that's your lineup. The pitching though?
Lots of candidates. Scott Baker will get a hell of a lot less interest as a free agent than he would have if he had, you know, pitched this year. I can't see the Twins picking up his option at $9 million, but I can see them trying to resign him on the cheap so he could be back. Pavano will hopefully not be around unless they can get him for super cheap, which again, may be possible since he's been injured nearly all year. Nick Blackburn sucks donkey balls, but seeing as the Twins' are on the hook for $5.5m next year he's going to get every opportunity to be in the rotation. Then you've got the young guys: Scott Diamond (best pitcher on the team this and should be in the rotation next year for sure), Sam Deduno (his numbers mask how shitty he's actually been, but there is some potential here), P.J. Walters (remember when he had those couple good starts?), Cole DeVries (perfectly fits the teams no-walks no-Ks mandate), and Liam Hendriks (please god no). Not to mention guys who have mainly been in the bullpen with starting experience in their past (Swarzak, Manship, Waldrop) and hopeful prospects (Gibson), guys picked up in trades (Pedro Hernandez), retreads (Luke French who the Twins apparently have), and guys I've never heard of (everyone at New Britain right now).
Let's be clear - it's a platter full of crap no doubt, but other than Scott Diamond nobody is guaranteed to be in the rotation next year. You have four other spots and 13 possibilities (Baker, Pavano, Blackburn, Deduno, Walters, DeVries, Hendriks, Swarzak, Manship, Waldrop, Gibson, Hernandez, and French) not to mention a bunch of question marks at AA and the possibility the Twins sign a shitty free agent as per usual (Derek Lowe? Joe Saunders? - both fit their shitty philosophy perfectly). Free Agent wise your best (realistic) scenario is they find a way to sign Brandon McCarthy to a team friendly contract. Worst case they sign one of the above dudes. Actually worst case is they sign Dice-K, but I can't imagine even this team is that misguided. It's a mess, but at least it's an interesting mess. Or that's what I'm telling myself. You have to be able to get a couple good pitchers out of 13 candidates, right? Please?
- Lastly, can somebody help me out with the Luck vs. Robert Griffin III debate? Luck started for three very productive years setting the single season and all-time records in the Pac-10 for completion percentage winning a dickload of awards (including two Hesiman runner-ups) and basically setting every Stanford record ever for a QB. He also did it while running a pro-style offense under the tutelage of a former NFL QB, already known as a cerebral player, who then came in and made Alex Smith suddenly understand how to be an NFL QB, and did it while (in his senior season at least) basically calling all his own plays at the line like a second Peyton Manning.
Griffin won Big 12 freshman of the year in 2008 before missing 2009 with an injury, then had two awesome years culminating in a Heisman winning season in 2011 running the same offense under the same coach NFL superstars Case Keenum and Kevin Kolb ran in putting up insane numbers in college. I get why Griffin is so tempting, particularly after Cam Newton's early season success, but if Newton doesn't get out to that hot start is Griffin even considered a rival to Luck at #1? Everyone seems to point to his athleticism and runnability as to why he's so fascinating as a franchise player and granted his 4.41 forty-yard dash is a record for QBs and the 39 inch vertical is impressive, but he's not that far ahead of Luck, who ran a 4.67, had a 36 inch vertical, and actually beat RG3 in the broadjump at 10-4 vs. 10-0. Actually Luck's measurables were very similar to Newtons (4.67 vs. 4.59, 36 inch vert vs. 35, and 10-4 vs. 10-6) and Luck's said to be a far better passer and the kind of guy who already understands the game at a veteran type level.
I'm not saying Griffin will be a bust, I'm just saying anyone comparing him to Luck is delusional at best. And no I'm not just saying this as a fantasy smokescreen. I'm taking Luck, assuming he's there for me.
Showing posts with label Nick Blackburn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nick Blackburn. Show all posts
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
It's Going to be a Long Summer
There's a reason, outside of my debilitating illness, why I haven't been posting as much this baseball season as usual and it's pretty simple - this pitching staff sucks to the point where, even if the offense has a monster game, they still have a pretty damn good shot of losing. It's gotten to the point where when Liam Hendriks didn't allow a run in the first inning tonight it actually sparked a conversation between me and Luxembourg (Luxembourg is my imaginary pet goat who wears a top hat and monocle and is quite fond of British slang." I was all like, "whoa, I can't believe the Twins got out of the first without giving up a run" and Lux was all like, "Well old bean, I'm pretty sure this tosser is a bit of a dab hand at knobbin up the easy-peasy, so I wouldn't exactly be gobsmacked when he cocks up this one." and I was like, "damn straight, goat."
Anyway, my imaginary limey goat is not really the point, the point is how freaking bad this team's pitching staff is. I mean you got a bunch of soft-tossing noodle-arms and and the one guy who can actually bring the good stuff is more terrified of throwing the ball over the plate than that one guy from Teen Wolf who pees himself when he dad wolf gets up in his face. I mean seriously, look at these average fastball speeds: Blackburn - 90.3mph, Marquis - 88.7mph, Hendriks - 90.1mph, Pavano - 86.3mph. What. The. Frunk? Doesn't it almost have to be intentional to assemble this murderer's row of girly throwers?
And no, you don't necessarily have to throw hard to have success and I get that, Jered Weaver and Dan Haren don't throw hard but are a couple of the best in the league, and teams like the Giants and D-Backs have success despite not having many burners on staff, but you still have to people to throw your fastball effectively. According to fangraphs the Twins' fastballs collectively had been 18 runs worse than average this year - second worst in the majors behind Kansas City. And they also rank in the bottom half of the league in every other pitch, including change-up which I thought was like the one thing they were supposed to be able to do. I'm going to go ahead and say that's not good.
And even when the starting pitcher manages not to stick his own dick up his ass there's always the bullpen to put the ball on the Tee. The team has all of three quality starts so far - one by Hendriks and two by Pavano. In those three, the Twins lost after Glen Perkins got more hammered than your mom at a frat party, they lost because they couldn't hit (at all) against Shields, and they actually beat the Yankees. Ok that was less dramatic than I thought but the bullpen still really sucks.
What's really sweet is Fangraphs gives every player a value in WAR (which stands for Wins above Replacement which means how many wins a player is worth over a random AAA player) and if you were to look at the Twins bullpen right now, Brian Duensing and Alex Burnett are the only two who have been better than a AAA dude this year, and we know Burnett sucks in real life and there's zero chance that stays accurate. In fact, on the entire team it's just those two and Pavano and Blackburn who rank above 0 and all four of them just barely make the cut. Honestly what this all means is is you could give me a list of all AAA pitchers in the majors with the best prospects crossed off, and I could spread it out on the floor and let Luxembourg just start pooping, and take the first 12 names he pooped on and make them my pitching staff and they'd probably end up just as good, if not a little better, than the Twins collection of ball hurlers.
Read that shit again. A random collection of AAA pitchers, picked out by Mrs. WWWWWW picking out names that sound hot, are probably as good or better than the Twins' pitching staff. There are positives I'd love to dwell on - Mauer, Morneau, and Span look like they're back, Willingham has been unstoppable, and that's the whole list but it's something, but I can't get passed this pitching staff. Do you realize I just wrote like four paragraphs on how bad their pitching is without doing anything other than barely mentioning Liriano, who is the poster boy for sucktastic disappointmentitude? Seriously this entire stupid season is stupid and I hope there's a strike or something or at least an earthquake.
Anyway, my imaginary limey goat is not really the point, the point is how freaking bad this team's pitching staff is. I mean you got a bunch of soft-tossing noodle-arms and and the one guy who can actually bring the good stuff is more terrified of throwing the ball over the plate than that one guy from Teen Wolf who pees himself when he dad wolf gets up in his face. I mean seriously, look at these average fastball speeds: Blackburn - 90.3mph, Marquis - 88.7mph, Hendriks - 90.1mph, Pavano - 86.3mph. What. The. Frunk? Doesn't it almost have to be intentional to assemble this murderer's row of girly throwers?
And no, you don't necessarily have to throw hard to have success and I get that, Jered Weaver and Dan Haren don't throw hard but are a couple of the best in the league, and teams like the Giants and D-Backs have success despite not having many burners on staff, but you still have to people to throw your fastball effectively. According to fangraphs the Twins' fastballs collectively had been 18 runs worse than average this year - second worst in the majors behind Kansas City. And they also rank in the bottom half of the league in every other pitch, including change-up which I thought was like the one thing they were supposed to be able to do. I'm going to go ahead and say that's not good.
And even when the starting pitcher manages not to stick his own dick up his ass there's always the bullpen to put the ball on the Tee. The team has all of three quality starts so far - one by Hendriks and two by Pavano. In those three, the Twins lost after Glen Perkins got more hammered than your mom at a frat party, they lost because they couldn't hit (at all) against Shields, and they actually beat the Yankees. Ok that was less dramatic than I thought but the bullpen still really sucks.
What's really sweet is Fangraphs gives every player a value in WAR (which stands for Wins above Replacement which means how many wins a player is worth over a random AAA player) and if you were to look at the Twins bullpen right now, Brian Duensing and Alex Burnett are the only two who have been better than a AAA dude this year, and we know Burnett sucks in real life and there's zero chance that stays accurate. In fact, on the entire team it's just those two and Pavano and Blackburn who rank above 0 and all four of them just barely make the cut. Honestly what this all means is is you could give me a list of all AAA pitchers in the majors with the best prospects crossed off, and I could spread it out on the floor and let Luxembourg just start pooping, and take the first 12 names he pooped on and make them my pitching staff and they'd probably end up just as good, if not a little better, than the Twins collection of ball hurlers.
Read that shit again. A random collection of AAA pitchers, picked out by Mrs. WWWWWW picking out names that sound hot, are probably as good or better than the Twins' pitching staff. There are positives I'd love to dwell on - Mauer, Morneau, and Span look like they're back, Willingham has been unstoppable, and that's the whole list but it's something, but I can't get passed this pitching staff. Do you realize I just wrote like four paragraphs on how bad their pitching is without doing anything other than barely mentioning Liriano, who is the poster boy for sucktastic disappointmentitude? Seriously this entire stupid season is stupid and I hope there's a strike or something or at least an earthquake.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Week in Review - 7-4-2011
Happy fourth of July everyone. And that will be the entirety of my introduction.
WHO WAS AWESOME
1. Mike Cuddyer. It pains me to praise Cuddy. There's so much to hate: inability to understand what a "strike zone" is, inability to realize that he's getting that down and away in the dirt slider every time he has 2 strikes, and constant media whoring to name a few, but sometimes you gotta give credit where it's due: Congrats on making your first all-star time, Cuddy Bear. There's something to be said for a guy who can and will play LF, RF, 2b, 3b, 1b, and SS, especially on a team with a bunch of prima donnas who "don't like to DH" or "refuse to play anywhere except catcher." More importantly though is he almost seems to have a knack for picking up his hitting when the team needs him most. First, back in 2009 when he basically carried the offense on his back after Morneau went down and then currently with all the injuries with him being on fire since May. He's not really an all-star, but they do have to pick one person from every team (Ron Coomer made it once for christ's sake) and I gotta say - guy deserves it. Mainly because Kubel got hurt, but it still counts. So congrats Cuddy. I hope they trade you.
2. Vance Worley. As you've probably heard, the Philadelphia Phillies have quite the pitching rotation - Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels, and Roy Oswalt each would be the ace of nearly every other team in the league. So the last thing they need (from an opponent point of view) is a good fifth starter, which means everyone should be looking around a little nervously after Worley's outing against the Red Sox on Wednesday. He threw 7 innings of 5 hit, 1 run ball against the red-hot Sox, which now brings his ERA down to 2.57 on the year. He's still more of a reliever being stretched into a starter, but with Oswalt on the shelf now they'll need him in the rotation full-time. I was going to write something else but honestly does anybody give a crap about this guy right now? Let's just wait for the playoffs and then we'll talk about him if we need to.
3. Nick Watney. He won the AT&T National by 2 shots after going bogey-free over the last 27 holes, shot a 62 on Friday to break the course record at Aronimink, and is on my fantasy team. The perfect trifecta that every golfer shoots for.
4. Aramis Ramirez. I don't know if any single hitter is hotter than Ramirez right now. He homered 4 times this week including a couple ninth-inning jobbers, one of which was off of Giants' closer Brian Wilson to tie the game - the first homer allowed by Wilson all year. He also pinch hit and knocked in the winning run in the bottom of the ninth in a different game against the Giants and has hit .400 with 7 homers in his last 11 games. To be completely honest there's little that bores me as much as the Cubs and the worldwide obsession with them, but sometimes someone just keeps hitting home runs and game winning hits off of people who don't generally give up those kinds of things and then sometimes I take notice. This is one of those times.
5. Bryce Harper. Yes, Brian Harper's kid is proving himself to be a bit of a douche by doing things like blowing kisses to opposing pitchers after he goes yard, but he is also hitting the ever-loving shit out of the ball. After demolishing the pitching in single-A this year to the tune of .318/.423/.554 with 14 homers, 17 doubles, and 15 steals, he just got promoted to double A ball. At the age of 18. He's killed the ball at every stop so far (Instructional League, Arizona Fall League, and now single-A) and there really isn't any reason why he shouldn't continue to do so. So basically a total asshat is going to fly through the minors without any issues and arrive in the big leagues with zero humbless and 100% asshattery. This is going to be spectacular.
WHO SUCKED
1. Matt Capps. I am so sick of Matt Capps and his stupid fat face and his stupid fake Jesse Crain necklace. It was a stupid trade when they made it, especially when you consider how the team's starting catcher is more brittle than the 6-month old skeleton of that dead hooker I have in my closet, and it's an even more stupid trade now that Cappsy completely refuses to get anybody out. Not that it should surprise anyone since the only really remarkable thing about his pitching is his consistent opportunities to get saves for shitty teams. His career ERA, career WHIP, and career mediocre stuff basically scream middle reliever/low-end setup guy, but in 2007 the Pirates didn't have anyone in the bullpen and, after trying Salomon Torres with little success, made Capps their closer and he saved 18 games in mediocre fashion and has been tabbed a closer ever since, which is how we ended up here, with no back-up catcher and a shitty bullpen. Huzzah!
2. Nick Blackburn. Speaking of mediocre as shit pitchers who get far too much credit, welcome back to reality Nick Blackburn. A soft-tossing nancy can actually have a long and lucrative career as long as he's left-handed, but seeing as Blackburn throws correctly he will instead continue to flounder about as a 5th starter, maybe 4th, and although he'll have very good stretches at times (like earlier this year) he'll also always fall back into line as a 4th or 5th starter, tops. Regression to the mean is a very real thing, and also a cruel mistress. And not the good kind. You know what I'm talking about.
3. Joe Mauer. I know what you're thinking - "Dude, the Twins aren't playing all that badly right now, why so many Twins call-outs?" And it's because these three guys have been just brutally bad. I won't get into Mauer's deal too much here because I plan on writing an entire post about it later this week, but let me give you a little spoiler: he sucks.
4. MLB All-Star choices. Way to go morons. And I'm not even talking about your average mouth-breather who shows up to games and votes for Derek Jeter and every other Yankee. I think we've washed our hands of them, yes? Then it's up to the managers to get everything else right. Well not really. Enter poor Andrew McCutchen. Maybe the best hitting/fielding combo outfielder in the NL, but doesn't make it. Why? Because they took Pirate "closer" Joel Hanrahan instead because he has a bunch of saves and is actually having a really good year now that I look it up and he's a totally worthy all-star so I'm kind of losing some wind here. But McCutchen is really awesome and deserves it. Actually the fact that he doesn't make it and Cuddy does should really be enough reason to overhaul the whole thing, but I just got my new KC Royals hat in the mail so what do I care?
5. Kenny Britt. This guy is taking the art of "talented headcase" to a whole new level. Whereas your classic headcases like Randy Moss and Terrell Owens generally don't harm anyone other than themselves (and possibly their teammates), Britt seems to be heading more down the Lawrence Phillips path. Britt surrendered himself to police this weekend because of two warrants for giving false information on a drivers license application, which sounds pretty lame but then you combine that with his three arrests for resisting arrest, including one that ended up in a police chase, and he's going to end up doing something really, really stupid one of these days soon. If you have him in a keeper league I'd unload immediately. Call me.
Lastly, I'm sure you all want to know what was on the menu for 4th of July dinner. Credit goes to Mrs. W on this one - she made a cucumber dill dip (awesome), blue cheese meatballs for the grill (super awesome), and corn on the cob. The first two were just tremendous, and then corn on the cob is always good but kind of boring. Anybody know a good way to fancy it up a bit?
WHO WAS AWESOME
1. Mike Cuddyer. It pains me to praise Cuddy. There's so much to hate: inability to understand what a "strike zone" is, inability to realize that he's getting that down and away in the dirt slider every time he has 2 strikes, and constant media whoring to name a few, but sometimes you gotta give credit where it's due: Congrats on making your first all-star time, Cuddy Bear. There's something to be said for a guy who can and will play LF, RF, 2b, 3b, 1b, and SS, especially on a team with a bunch of prima donnas who "don't like to DH" or "refuse to play anywhere except catcher." More importantly though is he almost seems to have a knack for picking up his hitting when the team needs him most. First, back in 2009 when he basically carried the offense on his back after Morneau went down and then currently with all the injuries with him being on fire since May. He's not really an all-star, but they do have to pick one person from every team (Ron Coomer made it once for christ's sake) and I gotta say - guy deserves it. Mainly because Kubel got hurt, but it still counts. So congrats Cuddy. I hope they trade you.
2. Vance Worley. As you've probably heard, the Philadelphia Phillies have quite the pitching rotation - Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels, and Roy Oswalt each would be the ace of nearly every other team in the league. So the last thing they need (from an opponent point of view) is a good fifth starter, which means everyone should be looking around a little nervously after Worley's outing against the Red Sox on Wednesday. He threw 7 innings of 5 hit, 1 run ball against the red-hot Sox, which now brings his ERA down to 2.57 on the year. He's still more of a reliever being stretched into a starter, but with Oswalt on the shelf now they'll need him in the rotation full-time. I was going to write something else but honestly does anybody give a crap about this guy right now? Let's just wait for the playoffs and then we'll talk about him if we need to.
3. Nick Watney. He won the AT&T National by 2 shots after going bogey-free over the last 27 holes, shot a 62 on Friday to break the course record at Aronimink, and is on my fantasy team. The perfect trifecta that every golfer shoots for.
4. Aramis Ramirez. I don't know if any single hitter is hotter than Ramirez right now. He homered 4 times this week including a couple ninth-inning jobbers, one of which was off of Giants' closer Brian Wilson to tie the game - the first homer allowed by Wilson all year. He also pinch hit and knocked in the winning run in the bottom of the ninth in a different game against the Giants and has hit .400 with 7 homers in his last 11 games. To be completely honest there's little that bores me as much as the Cubs and the worldwide obsession with them, but sometimes someone just keeps hitting home runs and game winning hits off of people who don't generally give up those kinds of things and then sometimes I take notice. This is one of those times.
5. Bryce Harper. Yes, Brian Harper's kid is proving himself to be a bit of a douche by doing things like blowing kisses to opposing pitchers after he goes yard, but he is also hitting the ever-loving shit out of the ball. After demolishing the pitching in single-A this year to the tune of .318/.423/.554 with 14 homers, 17 doubles, and 15 steals, he just got promoted to double A ball. At the age of 18. He's killed the ball at every stop so far (Instructional League, Arizona Fall League, and now single-A) and there really isn't any reason why he shouldn't continue to do so. So basically a total asshat is going to fly through the minors without any issues and arrive in the big leagues with zero humbless and 100% asshattery. This is going to be spectacular.
WHO SUCKED
1. Matt Capps. I am so sick of Matt Capps and his stupid fat face and his stupid fake Jesse Crain necklace. It was a stupid trade when they made it, especially when you consider how the team's starting catcher is more brittle than the 6-month old skeleton of that dead hooker I have in my closet, and it's an even more stupid trade now that Cappsy completely refuses to get anybody out. Not that it should surprise anyone since the only really remarkable thing about his pitching is his consistent opportunities to get saves for shitty teams. His career ERA, career WHIP, and career mediocre stuff basically scream middle reliever/low-end setup guy, but in 2007 the Pirates didn't have anyone in the bullpen and, after trying Salomon Torres with little success, made Capps their closer and he saved 18 games in mediocre fashion and has been tabbed a closer ever since, which is how we ended up here, with no back-up catcher and a shitty bullpen. Huzzah!
2. Nick Blackburn. Speaking of mediocre as shit pitchers who get far too much credit, welcome back to reality Nick Blackburn. A soft-tossing nancy can actually have a long and lucrative career as long as he's left-handed, but seeing as Blackburn throws correctly he will instead continue to flounder about as a 5th starter, maybe 4th, and although he'll have very good stretches at times (like earlier this year) he'll also always fall back into line as a 4th or 5th starter, tops. Regression to the mean is a very real thing, and also a cruel mistress. And not the good kind. You know what I'm talking about.
3. Joe Mauer. I know what you're thinking - "Dude, the Twins aren't playing all that badly right now, why so many Twins call-outs?" And it's because these three guys have been just brutally bad. I won't get into Mauer's deal too much here because I plan on writing an entire post about it later this week, but let me give you a little spoiler: he sucks.
4. MLB All-Star choices. Way to go morons. And I'm not even talking about your average mouth-breather who shows up to games and votes for Derek Jeter and every other Yankee. I think we've washed our hands of them, yes? Then it's up to the managers to get everything else right. Well not really. Enter poor Andrew McCutchen. Maybe the best hitting/fielding combo outfielder in the NL, but doesn't make it. Why? Because they took Pirate "closer" Joel Hanrahan instead because he has a bunch of saves and is actually having a really good year now that I look it up and he's a totally worthy all-star so I'm kind of losing some wind here. But McCutchen is really awesome and deserves it. Actually the fact that he doesn't make it and Cuddy does should really be enough reason to overhaul the whole thing, but I just got my new KC Royals hat in the mail so what do I care?
5. Kenny Britt. This guy is taking the art of "talented headcase" to a whole new level. Whereas your classic headcases like Randy Moss and Terrell Owens generally don't harm anyone other than themselves (and possibly their teammates), Britt seems to be heading more down the Lawrence Phillips path. Britt surrendered himself to police this weekend because of two warrants for giving false information on a drivers license application, which sounds pretty lame but then you combine that with his three arrests for resisting arrest, including one that ended up in a police chase, and he's going to end up doing something really, really stupid one of these days soon. If you have him in a keeper league I'd unload immediately. Call me.
Lastly, I'm sure you all want to know what was on the menu for 4th of July dinner. Credit goes to Mrs. W on this one - she made a cucumber dill dip (awesome), blue cheese meatballs for the grill (super awesome), and corn on the cob. The first two were just tremendous, and then corn on the cob is always good but kind of boring. Anybody know a good way to fancy it up a bit?
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
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.
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.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Random Thoughts on a Tuesday Night
It's some random thoughts on a Tuesday night, much like the title told you. What the title didn't tell you, however, and what you know that people who just read the title and clicked close don't, is that I'm sucking back some sweet, sweet alcohol while I type this, in the form of vodka & iced tea. Is that weird? I feel like that might be weird, but it's good. So suck it.
- I read something today where a writer asked if Dayton was the next Butler, college hoopswise. I wish I could find the damn article, but nevertheless it sent me into a rage, as you'd guess, because I hate Dayton worse than I hate you. If you recall, or if you're new, you might remember that the Bar I frequent when I go to Chicago for the NCAA Tournament with Snacks, Snake, and Dawger when we visit Bogart and his giant TV is also a Dayton bar, and one year we were there Dayton was actually playing and their fans were some of the biggest idiot poser fancy boys I had ever seen.
So, last year when I was previewing the Atlantic 10 I referred to Dayton fans as hipster doofuses and predicted they'd miss the NCAA Tournament. Dayton fans found the blog and did not much appreciate my comments. Several emails of an unsavory nature were exchanged, there was mention of my living in a trailer (note: not true), and let's just say it wasn't pretty. Also, I fucking hate Dayton. Thus, said article which I can not find pretty much prompted this entire post.
And it deserves to be written about, because Dayton is about as far from Butler as Nick Blackburn is from a competent pitcher. First, Dayton's conference is light years beyond Butler's. The Horizon is a perennial one-bid conference, whereas the A-10 almost always sends between two and four teams; might as well ask if Xavier is the next North Carolina. Secondly, what exactly are we basing this dynastic prediction on, four straight years of underachievement topped off by an NIT Championship? One NCAA berth in the last six years? Really, an NIT Championship doesn't mean anything - really, despite what they want you to think nobody uses it as a springboard to success, ever - and even if it did, Dayton is losing seven players and 3 starters so who cares? This whole dynasty is based around an overrated PF (Chris Wright) who can't ever stay healthy, and now they need a freshman and a transfer from fucking Drake to be their ballhandlers.
Dayton is a dynasty the same way Two and a Half Men is a good show - it's not true and you'd have to be a god damned moron to think so. The Flyers and their fans can all bite me.
- Jennifer Love Hewitt is going to be guesting on Law & Order: SVU? Man, how far has she fallen? If you have a chance and haven't, go rent Heartbreakers and prepare for boner city. No kidding, probably the hottest chick in a movie ever not counting Mila Kunis in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Audrina in Sorority Row, and Tiffani Thiessen in anything ever. You forget, but Jennifer Love Hewitt used to be at the absolute top of the hot chick pyramid. Now she's doing Lifetime movies and guest spots. She's now the Dayton of hot chicks. Sad.
- I'm all for relaxing, but anybody else think the Twins might want to continue playing this season instead of just packing it in until the playoffs start? I'm not entirely sure of the rules here, but I think if they don't start winning games Bud Selig might step in and renounce them from the playoffs. And who the hell is going to be the fourth starter now? Slowey threw batting practice yesterday, and tonight Blackburn is getting lit up by Mike Aviles and Kila Ka'aihue for christ's sake. Everything is set up for Baker, and he's probably the best choice anyway because he's the least likely to give up 6 runs in 3 innings. Not that he's necessarily not likely, just slightly less likely than the velocity haters he's in competition with.
Seriously, close your eyes. Now take off your pants. Now imagine it's game four of the ALDS, we're at Yankee stadium, and the Twins are down 2 games to 1, but all games have been closely played. They need someone to shut down the Yankees on the road. Who is the last pitcher you'd want out there? Correct, it's Nick Blackburn. I would have also accepted Kevin Slowey, Anthony Swarzak, or Jeff Manship. Scott Baker ranks slightly ahead of them because he's more likely to be absolutely lights out, no matter who he's facing. Of course, we could also see the longest home run in the history of Yankee baseball (and Mantle allegedly hit a 600 footer). Yes, longer than Mantles. Imagine a 3-0 count on A-Rod. Now take off your pants again. Now imagine the bases are loaded and the winning run is on third, so Baker has to throw a strike. How far could A-Rod hit that ball? 700 ft? 800?
- Anybody else watching The Event? I don't think it's terrible just yet, but I do think it's trying awfully hard to be both Lost and 24, even though I never ever watched 24 because it takes more than gun fights and explosions to entertain me. Anyway, it seems ok and any time D.B. Sweeney is involved you know I'm a fan, but this show could take a wrong turn in an awful hurry. I mean, this "plot" is like tightrope thin. Kind of like how the Dark Tower series by Stephen King could be brilliant on TV in the right hands, but would be a laughable train wreck if handled incorrectly. Or like the Game of Thrones series coming up on HBO. Real delicate stuff here. Actually, I'm not really sure why I made that comparison, except that those are two of my favorite book series and one is coming to TV and the other might be soon. Really, so far The Event is weird and doesn't make much sense and I only watched about half of episode two, but it's got this chick in a bikini so I'll keep watching:
- Speaking of Episode 2, Mrs. W bought WonderbabyTM a Star Wars coloring book today, which she loved, and she likes to watch me play Lego Star Wars, so we watched a half hour of Episode I today (went with that one because it's most kid friendly) and she thought it rocked and didn't want to turn it off. I'm looking to have her fully nerdifyed by age 4.
- So who's excited for the Ryder Cup? I am. I think the Euro team is far better than the Americans, but we have a few units down on the USA just because, like Billy Mitchell, I'm proud to represent my country, even when I'm not really representing anything and really am more just betting on people who are representing my country. Like Lex Luger. Anyway, Sergio sucking too bad all year to not make the team is a huge break for the Americanos, because that dude is a machine at this stuff (career 14-3-3 record). Nobody on the American team is a good Ryder Cup player, and Mickelson and Furyk are two of the worst, and unfortunately Jeff Overton made the team and then Rickie Fowler got picked for some reason, so really there is no reason to be on the USA except blind faith in good ole apple pie and blue jeans. And a good underdog payout.
- The Rockies are losing again tonight, and most people don't really care, but we have the Rockies at OVER 85.5 wins for the year, and currently they are at 83-73 which means they need to go 3-3 to win the bet, which is starting to look less and less likely due to this incredible un-Rocky-like skid they are in which, if they lose again tonight, will have them at 1-8 in their last 9 games. Which means that nine games ago they were 82-65 and needed to go just 4-11 to win it for us. Thanks assholes. I blame Helton.
- Also the Mets just need to lose two more games. Pray for us.
- I'm sure there's more, but the baby is waking up and by the time I get done feeding and taking care of him, whatever mojo is driving this post will be long gone. So I'll just leave you with this: Dez Bryant is going to destroy the NFL, Randy Moss style. If not this year, then next.
Make your time.
- I read something today where a writer asked if Dayton was the next Butler, college hoopswise. I wish I could find the damn article, but nevertheless it sent me into a rage, as you'd guess, because I hate Dayton worse than I hate you. If you recall, or if you're new, you might remember that the Bar I frequent when I go to Chicago for the NCAA Tournament with Snacks, Snake, and Dawger when we visit Bogart and his giant TV is also a Dayton bar, and one year we were there Dayton was actually playing and their fans were some of the biggest idiot poser fancy boys I had ever seen.
So, last year when I was previewing the Atlantic 10 I referred to Dayton fans as hipster doofuses and predicted they'd miss the NCAA Tournament. Dayton fans found the blog and did not much appreciate my comments. Several emails of an unsavory nature were exchanged, there was mention of my living in a trailer (note: not true), and let's just say it wasn't pretty. Also, I fucking hate Dayton. Thus, said article which I can not find pretty much prompted this entire post.
And it deserves to be written about, because Dayton is about as far from Butler as Nick Blackburn is from a competent pitcher. First, Dayton's conference is light years beyond Butler's. The Horizon is a perennial one-bid conference, whereas the A-10 almost always sends between two and four teams; might as well ask if Xavier is the next North Carolina. Secondly, what exactly are we basing this dynastic prediction on, four straight years of underachievement topped off by an NIT Championship? One NCAA berth in the last six years? Really, an NIT Championship doesn't mean anything - really, despite what they want you to think nobody uses it as a springboard to success, ever - and even if it did, Dayton is losing seven players and 3 starters so who cares? This whole dynasty is based around an overrated PF (Chris Wright) who can't ever stay healthy, and now they need a freshman and a transfer from fucking Drake to be their ballhandlers.
Dayton is a dynasty the same way Two and a Half Men is a good show - it's not true and you'd have to be a god damned moron to think so. The Flyers and their fans can all bite me.
- Jennifer Love Hewitt is going to be guesting on Law & Order: SVU? Man, how far has she fallen? If you have a chance and haven't, go rent Heartbreakers and prepare for boner city. No kidding, probably the hottest chick in a movie ever not counting Mila Kunis in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Audrina in Sorority Row, and Tiffani Thiessen in anything ever. You forget, but Jennifer Love Hewitt used to be at the absolute top of the hot chick pyramid. Now she's doing Lifetime movies and guest spots. She's now the Dayton of hot chicks. Sad.
- I'm all for relaxing, but anybody else think the Twins might want to continue playing this season instead of just packing it in until the playoffs start? I'm not entirely sure of the rules here, but I think if they don't start winning games Bud Selig might step in and renounce them from the playoffs. And who the hell is going to be the fourth starter now? Slowey threw batting practice yesterday, and tonight Blackburn is getting lit up by Mike Aviles and Kila Ka'aihue for christ's sake. Everything is set up for Baker, and he's probably the best choice anyway because he's the least likely to give up 6 runs in 3 innings. Not that he's necessarily not likely, just slightly less likely than the velocity haters he's in competition with.
Seriously, close your eyes. Now take off your pants. Now imagine it's game four of the ALDS, we're at Yankee stadium, and the Twins are down 2 games to 1, but all games have been closely played. They need someone to shut down the Yankees on the road. Who is the last pitcher you'd want out there? Correct, it's Nick Blackburn. I would have also accepted Kevin Slowey, Anthony Swarzak, or Jeff Manship. Scott Baker ranks slightly ahead of them because he's more likely to be absolutely lights out, no matter who he's facing. Of course, we could also see the longest home run in the history of Yankee baseball (and Mantle allegedly hit a 600 footer). Yes, longer than Mantles. Imagine a 3-0 count on A-Rod. Now take off your pants again. Now imagine the bases are loaded and the winning run is on third, so Baker has to throw a strike. How far could A-Rod hit that ball? 700 ft? 800?
- Anybody else watching The Event? I don't think it's terrible just yet, but I do think it's trying awfully hard to be both Lost and 24, even though I never ever watched 24 because it takes more than gun fights and explosions to entertain me. Anyway, it seems ok and any time D.B. Sweeney is involved you know I'm a fan, but this show could take a wrong turn in an awful hurry. I mean, this "plot" is like tightrope thin. Kind of like how the Dark Tower series by Stephen King could be brilliant on TV in the right hands, but would be a laughable train wreck if handled incorrectly. Or like the Game of Thrones series coming up on HBO. Real delicate stuff here. Actually, I'm not really sure why I made that comparison, except that those are two of my favorite book series and one is coming to TV and the other might be soon. Really, so far The Event is weird and doesn't make much sense and I only watched about half of episode two, but it's got this chick in a bikini so I'll keep watching:
- Speaking of Episode 2, Mrs. W bought WonderbabyTM a Star Wars coloring book today, which she loved, and she likes to watch me play Lego Star Wars, so we watched a half hour of Episode I today (went with that one because it's most kid friendly) and she thought it rocked and didn't want to turn it off. I'm looking to have her fully nerdifyed by age 4.
- So who's excited for the Ryder Cup? I am. I think the Euro team is far better than the Americans, but we have a few units down on the USA just because, like Billy Mitchell, I'm proud to represent my country, even when I'm not really representing anything and really am more just betting on people who are representing my country. Like Lex Luger. Anyway, Sergio sucking too bad all year to not make the team is a huge break for the Americanos, because that dude is a machine at this stuff (career 14-3-3 record). Nobody on the American team is a good Ryder Cup player, and Mickelson and Furyk are two of the worst, and unfortunately Jeff Overton made the team and then Rickie Fowler got picked for some reason, so really there is no reason to be on the USA except blind faith in good ole apple pie and blue jeans. And a good underdog payout.
- The Rockies are losing again tonight, and most people don't really care, but we have the Rockies at OVER 85.5 wins for the year, and currently they are at 83-73 which means they need to go 3-3 to win the bet, which is starting to look less and less likely due to this incredible un-Rocky-like skid they are in which, if they lose again tonight, will have them at 1-8 in their last 9 games. Which means that nine games ago they were 82-65 and needed to go just 4-11 to win it for us. Thanks assholes. I blame Helton.
- Also the Mets just need to lose two more games. Pray for us.
- I'm sure there's more, but the baby is waking up and by the time I get done feeding and taking care of him, whatever mojo is driving this post will be long gone. So I'll just leave you with this: Dez Bryant is going to destroy the NFL, Randy Moss style. If not this year, then next.
Make your time.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Weekend Review
Better late than never, as Dawger wasn't fortunate enough to get to say to Siouper Sioux Fan.
WHO WAS AWESOME
1. Bill Smith. Getting Fuentes isn't exactly like stealing away a top of the line reliever, but it does help shore up the bullpen, particularly from the left side because the pick up of Randy Flores was basically worthless. Fuenes's numbers this year are good, but not great (3.55 ERA and 1.20 WHIP) and are buoyed by a low .250 BABIP, but he's extremely tough on lefties both this year (.132 average against) and in his career (.213). In fact, lefties this year are hitting .132/.209/.158 against him his season, an OPS+ of 10 which is unheard of and means LH batters are 90% worse against him than he league average. He's given up just five hits against lefties this year (in 38 at-bats), only one for extra bases, and has 15 strikeouts against 3 walks. As a left-handed set-up guy who cost you just a player to be named later, which usually means someone below a non-prospect, this is a steal. Bill Smith might not be a wizard at the deadline, but he's proven himself to be awfully good after the waiver deadline.
2. Nick Blackburn. I guess we'll stick with the Twins theme, because you saw that gem coming? The statistically worst starting pitcher in the entire major leagues this year comes back from AAA in just his second start and throws a near shutout that probably would have been a shut out if his crappy offense had managed to scrap together more than one run? Inconceivable. He threw strikes (66 of 98 pitches) and actually struck guys out (6 Ks - most in a game since May '09), and shut the Mariners down despite not getting a huge amount of groundballs (50/50 split). In other words, this is almost certainly a huge fluke thanks to Seattle being a terrible offensive team. But hey, we might as well enjoy it, even if the text I got from Dawger "Blacky is back with avengance (sic)!" isn't exactly true. Or maybe it is completely true, just means something different than what he thinks.
3. Daniel Hudson. I know Edwin Jackson has been pretty lights out for the Sox, but Hudson has been pretty lights out since they shipped him to Arizona as well, and he's also four years younger and makes 4% per year of what Jackson does, plus he's under team control for quite a while. He had another brilliant outing over the weekend, going 7 innings and allowing just four hits and 2 runs on his way to a win over the Giants. Since coming to the NL, he's pitched in six games posting an aggregate 1.65 ERA, 0.88 WHIP, and a 42-8 strikeout-to-walk ratio. Wow. I know it's the NL and all, but that's just outstanding. I don't care what Edwin Jackson does the rest of the way, giving up Hudson for him (as well as another good prospect, an18-year old pitcher doing well in rookie ball) is straight up getting fleeced. Now if the Dodgers can tease another good prospect out of them for Manny, the Sox will have completely tanked their future for a second place division finish. And that, my friends, is simply awesome. [UPDATE: Well the Dodgers gave up Manny for nothing. Way to puss out, pussies. This is why nobody likes the West Coast.]
4. Matt Kuchar. Kuchar outlasted everybody else at the Barclays to pick up what is kind of his first PGA Tour win. He technically has two others, but one came in a Fall Series event and the other came way back in 2002. And frankly he deserved way more than Martin Laird, who choked it away and then lost to Kuchar in the playoff. Laird was in trouble the entire final round (on his way to an even par day while Kuchar shot -5) and only kept himself in it due to a very hot putter that had him saving par from 10 feet or so multiple times on the day. Plus, Laird sucks, while Kuchar has dominated this year without winning, notching nine top 10s this year and missing just two cuts all year. He deserved it, and I'm glad he won. Plus Laird is a commie.
5. Tim Tebow. Haters better back up, because it looks like NFL rookie-of-the-year is going to be a two man race between Friar Tuck and Dez Bryant. Tebow should be starting over Orton by week four after the show he put on, and it's sad that some of you people doubted him just because of his relationship with his personal lord and savior Jesus, who loves him so that he takes a rooting interest in Tebow's football games. Jealous much, hater? He can still pass (like in college), he can still run (like in college), although he's now picked up a new skill - throwing the ball to Eric Decker. Sorry haters, looks like Jesus is going to be adding a NFL ROY trophy to his trophy room soon, and probably a Lombardi Trophy right after that. Tebow has a message for the NFL: "The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through
the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike
down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you!"
WHO SUCKED
1. Phil Mickelson. Ok, so maybe it's nit-picking to find fault with the #2 ranked golfer in the world who has won 46 pro tournaments and 4 majors, but is there anybody on tour who disappoints as often as he does? He's had chance after chance lately to supplant Tiger at the top of the rankings, but hasn't been able to come through, finishing outside the top 45 at the Bridgestone and the British. He did bounce back to finish 12th at the PGA, although he was never really in contention, and then missed the cut this weekend at the Barclays. Seriously, take his inability to take that #1 ranking, couple it with all the meltdowns at the U.S. Open (he has 5 second-place finishes), and his poor Ryder Cup showings (he's second in US history with 14 losses and a 10-14-6 career mark), and the second best golfer of his generation might also be the most disappointing.
2. Stephen Strasburg. The game of baseball may never be the same. Of course I'm mostly kidding (Wieters is still in the league, after all) but with Strasburg heading for Tommy John surgery we may be looking at the ultimate what-if. I know we are watching a success story as Twins fans in Francisco Liriano right now, but that doesn't mean everybody can bounce back that well. For a guy like Strasburg, the rare talent who was hyped to an unrealistic level and then met that level anyway, well this just sucks. I'm bummed out as a baseball fan, I can't imagine what a Nationals fan must be feeling like right now. Good thing there aren't any.
3. Matt Leinart. I'm starting to wonder if he's ever going to get it. Nobody has been given more opportunities to become a star than Leinart, with talent around him that should help the process (great receivers, good line, good defense), and nobody has dropped the ball more often. He was supposed to be the starter last year, but a poor preseason and lackluster work ethic pushed him behind Kurt Warner again. Now this year, although his stats look fine in the preseason thus far, he's been demoted behind Derek Anderson. Derek freaking Anderson. This guy must have some kind of terrible attitude behind the scenes, and although that will get broads in the hot tub and make Snake fall in love with you, it seems NFL coaches don't necessarily love that. He's like the anti-Tebow.
4. John Danks. I love this. A few weeks ago when Danks shut down the Twins in a big game I happened to be watching the Sox feed at one point and Hawk and whoever the other guy are were tossing around phrases like "Bulldog", "Ace", "Big game pitcher", and "my first choice to pitch for me in a life or death situation." Awesome, because with the Twins continuing to win the Sox need to keep pace and they were going up against Sabathia and the Yanks with Danksy on the hill - a big game if I've ever seen one. Well the "bulldog" got bulldogged by the A-Rodless Yankees, giving up 8 runs in four innings, giving up 3 dongs and walking four. Nice clutch outing. I haven't seen an "ace" implode like that since John Tudor.
5. NCAA Fascists. FREE OTO OSENIEKS! FREE OTO OSENIEKS! FREE OTO OSENIEKS! FREE OTO OSENIEKS! FREE OTO O.........
WHO WAS AWESOME
1. Bill Smith. Getting Fuentes isn't exactly like stealing away a top of the line reliever, but it does help shore up the bullpen, particularly from the left side because the pick up of Randy Flores was basically worthless. Fuenes's numbers this year are good, but not great (3.55 ERA and 1.20 WHIP) and are buoyed by a low .250 BABIP, but he's extremely tough on lefties both this year (.132 average against) and in his career (.213). In fact, lefties this year are hitting .132/.209/.158 against him his season, an OPS+ of 10 which is unheard of and means LH batters are 90% worse against him than he league average. He's given up just five hits against lefties this year (in 38 at-bats), only one for extra bases, and has 15 strikeouts against 3 walks. As a left-handed set-up guy who cost you just a player to be named later, which usually means someone below a non-prospect, this is a steal. Bill Smith might not be a wizard at the deadline, but he's proven himself to be awfully good after the waiver deadline.
2. Nick Blackburn. I guess we'll stick with the Twins theme, because you saw that gem coming? The statistically worst starting pitcher in the entire major leagues this year comes back from AAA in just his second start and throws a near shutout that probably would have been a shut out if his crappy offense had managed to scrap together more than one run? Inconceivable. He threw strikes (66 of 98 pitches) and actually struck guys out (6 Ks - most in a game since May '09), and shut the Mariners down despite not getting a huge amount of groundballs (50/50 split). In other words, this is almost certainly a huge fluke thanks to Seattle being a terrible offensive team. But hey, we might as well enjoy it, even if the text I got from Dawger "Blacky is back with avengance (sic)!" isn't exactly true. Or maybe it is completely true, just means something different than what he thinks.
3. Daniel Hudson. I know Edwin Jackson has been pretty lights out for the Sox, but Hudson has been pretty lights out since they shipped him to Arizona as well, and he's also four years younger and makes 4% per year of what Jackson does, plus he's under team control for quite a while. He had another brilliant outing over the weekend, going 7 innings and allowing just four hits and 2 runs on his way to a win over the Giants. Since coming to the NL, he's pitched in six games posting an aggregate 1.65 ERA, 0.88 WHIP, and a 42-8 strikeout-to-walk ratio. Wow. I know it's the NL and all, but that's just outstanding. I don't care what Edwin Jackson does the rest of the way, giving up Hudson for him (as well as another good prospect, an18-year old pitcher doing well in rookie ball) is straight up getting fleeced. Now if the Dodgers can tease another good prospect out of them for Manny, the Sox will have completely tanked their future for a second place division finish. And that, my friends, is simply awesome. [UPDATE: Well the Dodgers gave up Manny for nothing. Way to puss out, pussies. This is why nobody likes the West Coast.]
4. Matt Kuchar. Kuchar outlasted everybody else at the Barclays to pick up what is kind of his first PGA Tour win. He technically has two others, but one came in a Fall Series event and the other came way back in 2002. And frankly he deserved way more than Martin Laird, who choked it away and then lost to Kuchar in the playoff. Laird was in trouble the entire final round (on his way to an even par day while Kuchar shot -5) and only kept himself in it due to a very hot putter that had him saving par from 10 feet or so multiple times on the day. Plus, Laird sucks, while Kuchar has dominated this year without winning, notching nine top 10s this year and missing just two cuts all year. He deserved it, and I'm glad he won. Plus Laird is a commie.
5. Tim Tebow. Haters better back up, because it looks like NFL rookie-of-the-year is going to be a two man race between Friar Tuck and Dez Bryant. Tebow should be starting over Orton by week four after the show he put on, and it's sad that some of you people doubted him just because of his relationship with his personal lord and savior Jesus, who loves him so that he takes a rooting interest in Tebow's football games. Jealous much, hater? He can still pass (like in college), he can still run (like in college), although he's now picked up a new skill - throwing the ball to Eric Decker. Sorry haters, looks like Jesus is going to be adding a NFL ROY trophy to his trophy room soon, and probably a Lombardi Trophy right after that. Tebow has a message for the NFL: "The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through
the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike
down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you!"
WHO SUCKED
1. Phil Mickelson. Ok, so maybe it's nit-picking to find fault with the #2 ranked golfer in the world who has won 46 pro tournaments and 4 majors, but is there anybody on tour who disappoints as often as he does? He's had chance after chance lately to supplant Tiger at the top of the rankings, but hasn't been able to come through, finishing outside the top 45 at the Bridgestone and the British. He did bounce back to finish 12th at the PGA, although he was never really in contention, and then missed the cut this weekend at the Barclays. Seriously, take his inability to take that #1 ranking, couple it with all the meltdowns at the U.S. Open (he has 5 second-place finishes), and his poor Ryder Cup showings (he's second in US history with 14 losses and a 10-14-6 career mark), and the second best golfer of his generation might also be the most disappointing.
2. Stephen Strasburg. The game of baseball may never be the same. Of course I'm mostly kidding (Wieters is still in the league, after all) but with Strasburg heading for Tommy John surgery we may be looking at the ultimate what-if. I know we are watching a success story as Twins fans in Francisco Liriano right now, but that doesn't mean everybody can bounce back that well. For a guy like Strasburg, the rare talent who was hyped to an unrealistic level and then met that level anyway, well this just sucks. I'm bummed out as a baseball fan, I can't imagine what a Nationals fan must be feeling like right now. Good thing there aren't any.
3. Matt Leinart. I'm starting to wonder if he's ever going to get it. Nobody has been given more opportunities to become a star than Leinart, with talent around him that should help the process (great receivers, good line, good defense), and nobody has dropped the ball more often. He was supposed to be the starter last year, but a poor preseason and lackluster work ethic pushed him behind Kurt Warner again. Now this year, although his stats look fine in the preseason thus far, he's been demoted behind Derek Anderson. Derek freaking Anderson. This guy must have some kind of terrible attitude behind the scenes, and although that will get broads in the hot tub and make Snake fall in love with you, it seems NFL coaches don't necessarily love that. He's like the anti-Tebow.
4. John Danks. I love this. A few weeks ago when Danks shut down the Twins in a big game I happened to be watching the Sox feed at one point and Hawk and whoever the other guy are were tossing around phrases like "Bulldog", "Ace", "Big game pitcher", and "my first choice to pitch for me in a life or death situation." Awesome, because with the Twins continuing to win the Sox need to keep pace and they were going up against Sabathia and the Yanks with Danksy on the hill - a big game if I've ever seen one. Well the "bulldog" got bulldogged by the A-Rodless Yankees, giving up 8 runs in four innings, giving up 3 dongs and walking four. Nice clutch outing. I haven't seen an "ace" implode like that since John Tudor.
5. NCAA Fascists. FREE OTO OSENIEKS! FREE OTO OSENIEKS! FREE OTO OSENIEKS! FREE OTO OSENIEKS! FREE OTO O.........
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Week in Review - 6/21/2010
Man, I am full. Full, full, full. I just finished up the most awesome steak ever. I actually cooked it on the grill, and I can generally cook a steak well but I've never quite nailed one the way I just did. Toss in my newly discovered steak rub - which makes Paul Prudhomme look like an amateur - and that was just the perfect way to wrap up a father's day that included a viewing of Toy Story 3, which was pretty good. You're the best ever, WonderbabyTM.
And thanks for everything, dad.
WHO WAS AWESOME
1. Scott Baker. This guy is maddening, isn't he? He always looks incredibly stressed on the mound and looks like he's going to cry if he gives up a run, and at times is wound up so tight he can't put the ball anywhere near where he wants to and gets destroyed and is extremely proficient in allowing home runs. Then, just when you think he's no better than an end of the rotation type, he busts off a game like Wednesday against Colorado when he allowed just 2 hits and struck out 12 over 7 innings, and was basically unhittably brilliant. He does this just enough to tease. A 3-hitter in 8 against Baltimore earlier this year. The two near no-hitters. Multiple games with more strikeouts than innings or 7 ips or better and 3 or less hits. When he's good, he's very good. Unfortunately he's about as consistent as Ron Artest's jumper.
2. Ron Artest. Speaking of Ron-Ron, you got to hand it to the guy, he got his title and game up huge in the biggest game of his career. He scored 20 (against a season average of 11), pulled down 5 boards, and grabbed 5 steals all while playing excellent defense on Paul Pierce who was just 5-15 in Game 7 and shot just 38% for the finals in Staples. Artest also hit the biggest shot of the game, and thus the series, with his 3-pointer with just a minute left in the game. Celtics were down by three, and with the shot clock winding down he let go with a heave despite being fairly well covered. It was the exact shot the Celtics would have wanted to see the Lakers take in that situation, it just happened to go in and now Artest is a hero. He's clearly insane, although I blame Stephen Jackson more for that brawl than Artest, but is there anything more entertaining than an insane person who is also deliriously happy? I think his post-game interview answered that question.
3. Wimpy, limp-wristed, slap-hitting Twins. Specifically, Matt Tolbert, Nick Punto, and Drew Butera. All three of those little wiener kids hit a home run this week. And Tolbert also kicked in two doubles and a triple this week. Punto overall hit .450 this week and had four multi-hit games. And even Butera hit .667 and is now the proud owner of a 2-game hitting streak. Those five total bases he had this week? Just one shy of his season total previously. I suppose getting production from anywhere is a good thing, even if it means Gardy is going to feel validated going with these clowns as often as he does, and assuring that we are going to be in for a lifetime supply of Matt Tolbert and Matt Tolbert clones as long as Billy Smith and Gardenhire are in charge. Oh joy.
4. Josh Johnson. You know, in all the Ubaldo hoo-ha, we seem to be missing out on the fact that Mr. Johnson is having a pretty damn good season for the Marlins. This week he pitched twice, going 7 innings on Tuesday, allowing just four hits and one run and striking out seven, and then following that up on Sunday by going 8 innings, allowing six hits and again one run and striking out nine. Those two starts drop his ERA to 1.80 with a WHIP of just 0.98. In exactly 100 innings he's struck out 98 while giving away just 26 walks and allowing only 72 hits. In short, he's having an insane, incredible, out of this world season. So try to remember that as Ubaldo marches toward 30 victories with an ERA under 1.00.
5. Chicago White Sox. I still hate them, and always will, but it's time to recognize that the Sox are playing pretty good ball. Yeah, I know their six game winning streak has come against the Pirates and the Nationals so it's not like they're playing world beaters, but the week prior including winning 2 of 3 against the Tigers, and they've cut the Twins lead over them to 5.5 games and are within four of the Tigers - close enough that it's maybe time to take notice. Their hitting is still pretty poor, but the pitching is starting to come around, with Danks and Peavy each pitching a gem and Gavin Floyd tossing two, and Freddy Garcia and Buehrle having a couple of nice outings as well. I'm not worried, because any team with Bobby Jenks as a closer isn't scary, but we might need to start paying some attention here.
WHO SUCKED
1. Nick Blackburn. Yuck. One and 2/3rds innings and 8 runs allowed? I praised Baker earlier for hitting one of the good squares on the wheel of random, and it seems Blackie hit the big double-zero. And that's why I really hope they trade for Cliff Lee, even if it includes trading Wilson Ramos. Baker, Blackburn, Pavano, and Slowey are all way too random and way too inconsistent. All of those guys have games where they get destroyed too often. Liriano is the only Twins pitcher who when he takes the mound you know you have a chance to win every time. Those other guys have too many games where they get destroyed early and the game is basically over. Blackburn just gave up 8 earned runs. Cliff Lee (since becoming good in 2008) has never allowed 8 earned runs in a game. He also pitched less than 4 innings in a game just three times in three years. Blackburn has done in it three of his last four games. Lee also has failed to pitch at least seven innings just once this year.
The current four are fine and they'll win some games and probably get you to the playoffs, but if the Twins want to make any kind of a run they need another top-shelf arm. Go get Cliff Lee, Mr. Smith. Just do it.
[UPDATE: Funny story. I wrote the above on Saturday morning. Not more like five hours later, Kevin Slowey helps hammer my point home by not getting out of the second inning, going just one and 2/3rds innings and giving up 7 runs. Which is less than Blackburn, so I guess that's an improvement. Please Billy. Go get Cliffy.]
2. Europe. A lot of people think Europe is full of smelly, non-showering drunks with bad teeth, but that's not what I'm referring to here. I actually enjoyed the hell out of Europe the one time we visited, so I have nothing but love for those weirdos. But I have to admit that they suck at soccer. And I'm talking about all of Europe, I'm talking about the big boys who were supposed to be title contenders and are now going to have to struggle to make it out of group play; specifically Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and England.
England tied with both the U.S. and Algeria. France tied Uruguay and got rolled by Mexico 2-0 and is almost certainly out of the playoffs or whatever they call the tournament part. Germany destroyed Australia 4-0 in their opener and was looking like a possible juggernaut, but then got beat by Serbia, and Spain, who was maybe the strongest European team, lost their opener to a bunch of mincing nancies from Switzerland. Italy might have had the biggest mismatch of the pool round, going against a pretty crappy New Zealand squad, but even they couldn't pick up a win, playing the Kiwis to a draw at 1-1. Even though the continent has some nice surprise teams like the Netherlands and Slovenia, it is an ugly, ugly Cup so far for the Euros. Probably a good time to invade. Pay attention Obama.
3. Manny Corpas. Corpas, the Rockies' current closer, had himself a pretty awesome weekend. He had been pretty solid, saving nine of his last ten opportunities, and not being over remotely shaky in those chances, giving up no runs and more than one hit just once. The this weekend happened. First, on Saturday, he came in to save a game against the Brewers only two give up two singles and then a game-tying home run to the suddenly superstar Corey Hart. Then, on Sunday, he had a chance to redeem himself, coming in again in the ninth, this time in a 1-1 tie against the Brew Crew. Just to mix it up a bit, he didn't even bother getting an out, giving up three doubles (amongst other things) on his way to allowing five runs and turning a tie game into a 6-1 loss. For christ's sake, Trevor Hoffman got people out in that game. Trevor. Hoffman.
4. Baltimore Orioles. God they're just so bad. They're now 19-50 (19-50!!!!!), and there aren't really any signs of getting better. Their two young pitchers of the future, Chris Tillman and Jake Arrieta went with their Blackburn/Slowey impersonation this weekend against the offensive juggernaut that is the Padres, with neither of them getting to the fourth, and Tillman's ERA is now over 8 and he's been shuttled off to the bullpen - a great, great way to help build the confidence of one your building blocks. And speaking of building blocks, two of the supposed biggest - Matt Wieters and Adam Jones - have been absolutely terrible this year. I don't know if it's still true, but I read somewhere earlier in the week that there are three teams in the NL whose pitchers have a collective slugging percentage greater than the Orioles' first basemen. Yuck. No matter what they try to do, it seems they'll never turn this thing around and get better. The curse of Jeffrey Maier lives on.
5. Dustin Johnson. It's not often you see someone totally dominate and then completely and completely fall apart all in one weekend. He raced out at Pebble, shooting 71-70 in the first two rounds, and then had a monster 66 on Saturday to set himself up with a three shot lead over Graeme McDowell and a five shot lead over Tiger, who was alone in third place. Since he had won the previous two tournaments held at Pebble Beach, it was looking like a possible runaway situation. He then came out on Sunday and threw up all over the place He triple-bogeyed the second, double-bogeyed the third, and bogeyed the fourth. He ended up with five more bogeys on the day (and zero birdies) to finish up with a +11 round of 82. Nightmare. The fall from the first three rounds to the final round would be just like the Ohio State football program turning into the Gophers. Yeah, it was seriously that bad.
And I want to give a special shout-out to Hunter Mahan. Thanks for making me look like an ass, jerkface. That's two majors this year, two guys I was absolutely convinced were going to win, and two guys who missed the cut, and not only missed it, but were basically already so far out of it after one day that they would have had to pull out a miraculous second round just to stay alive for the weekend. Obviously, neither of them did. You can now consider Mahan on my list along with Furyk. Betrayers! The both of them! J'Accuse!
And thanks for everything, dad.
WHO WAS AWESOME
1. Scott Baker. This guy is maddening, isn't he? He always looks incredibly stressed on the mound and looks like he's going to cry if he gives up a run, and at times is wound up so tight he can't put the ball anywhere near where he wants to and gets destroyed and is extremely proficient in allowing home runs. Then, just when you think he's no better than an end of the rotation type, he busts off a game like Wednesday against Colorado when he allowed just 2 hits and struck out 12 over 7 innings, and was basically unhittably brilliant. He does this just enough to tease. A 3-hitter in 8 against Baltimore earlier this year. The two near no-hitters. Multiple games with more strikeouts than innings or 7 ips or better and 3 or less hits. When he's good, he's very good. Unfortunately he's about as consistent as Ron Artest's jumper.
2. Ron Artest. Speaking of Ron-Ron, you got to hand it to the guy, he got his title and game up huge in the biggest game of his career. He scored 20 (against a season average of 11), pulled down 5 boards, and grabbed 5 steals all while playing excellent defense on Paul Pierce who was just 5-15 in Game 7 and shot just 38% for the finals in Staples. Artest also hit the biggest shot of the game, and thus the series, with his 3-pointer with just a minute left in the game. Celtics were down by three, and with the shot clock winding down he let go with a heave despite being fairly well covered. It was the exact shot the Celtics would have wanted to see the Lakers take in that situation, it just happened to go in and now Artest is a hero. He's clearly insane, although I blame Stephen Jackson more for that brawl than Artest, but is there anything more entertaining than an insane person who is also deliriously happy? I think his post-game interview answered that question.
3. Wimpy, limp-wristed, slap-hitting Twins. Specifically, Matt Tolbert, Nick Punto, and Drew Butera. All three of those little wiener kids hit a home run this week. And Tolbert also kicked in two doubles and a triple this week. Punto overall hit .450 this week and had four multi-hit games. And even Butera hit .667 and is now the proud owner of a 2-game hitting streak. Those five total bases he had this week? Just one shy of his season total previously. I suppose getting production from anywhere is a good thing, even if it means Gardy is going to feel validated going with these clowns as often as he does, and assuring that we are going to be in for a lifetime supply of Matt Tolbert and Matt Tolbert clones as long as Billy Smith and Gardenhire are in charge. Oh joy.
4. Josh Johnson. You know, in all the Ubaldo hoo-ha, we seem to be missing out on the fact that Mr. Johnson is having a pretty damn good season for the Marlins. This week he pitched twice, going 7 innings on Tuesday, allowing just four hits and one run and striking out seven, and then following that up on Sunday by going 8 innings, allowing six hits and again one run and striking out nine. Those two starts drop his ERA to 1.80 with a WHIP of just 0.98. In exactly 100 innings he's struck out 98 while giving away just 26 walks and allowing only 72 hits. In short, he's having an insane, incredible, out of this world season. So try to remember that as Ubaldo marches toward 30 victories with an ERA under 1.00.
5. Chicago White Sox. I still hate them, and always will, but it's time to recognize that the Sox are playing pretty good ball. Yeah, I know their six game winning streak has come against the Pirates and the Nationals so it's not like they're playing world beaters, but the week prior including winning 2 of 3 against the Tigers, and they've cut the Twins lead over them to 5.5 games and are within four of the Tigers - close enough that it's maybe time to take notice. Their hitting is still pretty poor, but the pitching is starting to come around, with Danks and Peavy each pitching a gem and Gavin Floyd tossing two, and Freddy Garcia and Buehrle having a couple of nice outings as well. I'm not worried, because any team with Bobby Jenks as a closer isn't scary, but we might need to start paying some attention here.
WHO SUCKED
1. Nick Blackburn. Yuck. One and 2/3rds innings and 8 runs allowed? I praised Baker earlier for hitting one of the good squares on the wheel of random, and it seems Blackie hit the big double-zero. And that's why I really hope they trade for Cliff Lee, even if it includes trading Wilson Ramos. Baker, Blackburn, Pavano, and Slowey are all way too random and way too inconsistent. All of those guys have games where they get destroyed too often. Liriano is the only Twins pitcher who when he takes the mound you know you have a chance to win every time. Those other guys have too many games where they get destroyed early and the game is basically over. Blackburn just gave up 8 earned runs. Cliff Lee (since becoming good in 2008) has never allowed 8 earned runs in a game. He also pitched less than 4 innings in a game just three times in three years. Blackburn has done in it three of his last four games. Lee also has failed to pitch at least seven innings just once this year.
The current four are fine and they'll win some games and probably get you to the playoffs, but if the Twins want to make any kind of a run they need another top-shelf arm. Go get Cliff Lee, Mr. Smith. Just do it.
[UPDATE: Funny story. I wrote the above on Saturday morning. Not more like five hours later, Kevin Slowey helps hammer my point home by not getting out of the second inning, going just one and 2/3rds innings and giving up 7 runs. Which is less than Blackburn, so I guess that's an improvement. Please Billy. Go get Cliffy.]
2. Europe. A lot of people think Europe is full of smelly, non-showering drunks with bad teeth, but that's not what I'm referring to here. I actually enjoyed the hell out of Europe the one time we visited, so I have nothing but love for those weirdos. But I have to admit that they suck at soccer. And I'm talking about all of Europe, I'm talking about the big boys who were supposed to be title contenders and are now going to have to struggle to make it out of group play; specifically Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and England.
England tied with both the U.S. and Algeria. France tied Uruguay and got rolled by Mexico 2-0 and is almost certainly out of the playoffs or whatever they call the tournament part. Germany destroyed Australia 4-0 in their opener and was looking like a possible juggernaut, but then got beat by Serbia, and Spain, who was maybe the strongest European team, lost their opener to a bunch of mincing nancies from Switzerland. Italy might have had the biggest mismatch of the pool round, going against a pretty crappy New Zealand squad, but even they couldn't pick up a win, playing the Kiwis to a draw at 1-1. Even though the continent has some nice surprise teams like the Netherlands and Slovenia, it is an ugly, ugly Cup so far for the Euros. Probably a good time to invade. Pay attention Obama.
3. Manny Corpas. Corpas, the Rockies' current closer, had himself a pretty awesome weekend. He had been pretty solid, saving nine of his last ten opportunities, and not being over remotely shaky in those chances, giving up no runs and more than one hit just once. The this weekend happened. First, on Saturday, he came in to save a game against the Brewers only two give up two singles and then a game-tying home run to the suddenly superstar Corey Hart. Then, on Sunday, he had a chance to redeem himself, coming in again in the ninth, this time in a 1-1 tie against the Brew Crew. Just to mix it up a bit, he didn't even bother getting an out, giving up three doubles (amongst other things) on his way to allowing five runs and turning a tie game into a 6-1 loss. For christ's sake, Trevor Hoffman got people out in that game. Trevor. Hoffman.
4. Baltimore Orioles. God they're just so bad. They're now 19-50 (19-50!!!!!), and there aren't really any signs of getting better. Their two young pitchers of the future, Chris Tillman and Jake Arrieta went with their Blackburn/Slowey impersonation this weekend against the offensive juggernaut that is the Padres, with neither of them getting to the fourth, and Tillman's ERA is now over 8 and he's been shuttled off to the bullpen - a great, great way to help build the confidence of one your building blocks. And speaking of building blocks, two of the supposed biggest - Matt Wieters and Adam Jones - have been absolutely terrible this year. I don't know if it's still true, but I read somewhere earlier in the week that there are three teams in the NL whose pitchers have a collective slugging percentage greater than the Orioles' first basemen. Yuck. No matter what they try to do, it seems they'll never turn this thing around and get better. The curse of Jeffrey Maier lives on.
5. Dustin Johnson. It's not often you see someone totally dominate and then completely and completely fall apart all in one weekend. He raced out at Pebble, shooting 71-70 in the first two rounds, and then had a monster 66 on Saturday to set himself up with a three shot lead over Graeme McDowell and a five shot lead over Tiger, who was alone in third place. Since he had won the previous two tournaments held at Pebble Beach, it was looking like a possible runaway situation. He then came out on Sunday and threw up all over the place He triple-bogeyed the second, double-bogeyed the third, and bogeyed the fourth. He ended up with five more bogeys on the day (and zero birdies) to finish up with a +11 round of 82. Nightmare. The fall from the first three rounds to the final round would be just like the Ohio State football program turning into the Gophers. Yeah, it was seriously that bad.
And I want to give a special shout-out to Hunter Mahan. Thanks for making me look like an ass, jerkface. That's two majors this year, two guys I was absolutely convinced were going to win, and two guys who missed the cut, and not only missed it, but were basically already so far out of it after one day that they would have had to pull out a miraculous second round just to stay alive for the weekend. Obviously, neither of them did. You can now consider Mahan on my list along with Furyk. Betrayers! The both of them! J'Accuse!
Monday, June 7, 2010
Week in Review - 6/7/2010
Obviously the biggest news of the week was the non-perfect game thrown by Andres Galarraga's son. Since you probably haven't heard enough about that whole situation, allow me to weigh in.
Just kidding. Yes, it was a big deal and even the kind of thing we discussed around the office the day after, but I think it's probably time to just let it go. And let me tell you a secret. Galarraga is going to get killed his next time out. Just shelled. Trust me on this one.
Oh, and I suppose Wooden passing is a pretty big deal, too. RIP. Fifth best Wizard ever behind Merlin, Gandalf, Raistlin, and that kid from that Nintendo movie.
WHO WAS AWESOME
1. Justin Smoak. Smoak is rising (sorry, had to be done). Uber-prospect and secret crush of mine Justin Smoak got the call up early this year after Chris Davis crashed and burned (and whiffed) for the second year in a row, and didn't exactly get off to a great start. All through April and May he never got his batting average over .200. There were good signs, however, such as a good OBP (around .310), a good BB/K ratio (nearly 1:1), and good power when he did make contact. One of these days, things were going to click. And it looks like they have. He went 8-18 this week, including a 3-3 with a HR game against the Rays, and has now raised his average to .212, which may not sound like much, but it's a huge improvement. Oh yeah, he also walked five times. Seriously, man, this kid can hit, and he's going to be a player for a long, long, time. Get on board.
2. Tommy Hunter. As long as I'm talking about how the Rangers' are stacking with youngster types, we might as well throw a little bit of praise Hunter's way after he tossed a complete game five-hitter on Saturday in his first start of the year. And it's not like he threw it against a crappy hitting team like the Mariners or Twins, he threw it against the Rays. Hunter, a top pitching prospect type, made his debut in 2008 and got destroyed in his three starts, but then came up again mid-year last season and ended up putting up respectable numbers with a 9-6 record, 4.10 ERA, and 1.30 WHIP in 19 starts. For some reason that I don't know, he started the season in the minors, but was recalled this weekend in time to completely shut down Tampa. Because the Rangers don't have enough blue-chippers (Smoak, Andrus, Feliz, Borbon, Max Ramirez, and the list seriously goes on and on and on.) I don't really believe in Hunter, however, because there's no such thing as a good fat pitcher. 6-3, 280 lbs.? Oof.
3. Ray Allen. Game 1: 27 minutes, 0 three-pointers, 12 points, Celtics loss. Game 2: 44 minutes, 8 three-pointers, 32 points, Celtics win. Watching that game 2 tonight, Allen is clearly a major, major key for the Celtics if they're going to win. In game 1 he was limited by a bunch of terrible foul calls against him, but tonight he was able to get free and he lit up the Lakers for 7 threes in the first-half, which tied a finals record for a full game. Pierce is being limited pretty well by Artest and Garnett has shown that he's aged ten years in the last two real years, so it's basically up to Allen and Rondo, and they came through (Rondo had a triple double) to pull it out. They needed this one, and Allen was the biggest reason they got it. Plus that jumper is just so beautiful. What's prettier than a Ray Allen jumper. Nothing, that's what. And if you disagree you're a stupid liar.
4. Ubaldo Jimenez. I know I already wrote about Ubaldo early last week in his very own spotlight post, but I have to point him out once again because he won once again. My favorite part is that he pitched seven innings and gave up two runs, and it raised his ERA by 19%. He's now 11-1, with an ERA under one, and by all accounts is completely unhittable. Nobody can hit his fastball, and nobody can hit his changeup. And both his curve and his slider are above average. His BABIP and runner strand rate are outside of the normal range, so he should come back to earth, but watching him pitch I'm not sure. He seriously looks ridiculous out there. I feel like I'm watching Bob Gibson or the bizarro Brad Radke. He probably has around 22 starts or so remaining, so 30 wins is basically out of the question, but I can see him getting to 25-27, which would be the most since Bob Welch's 27 twenty years. Yes, he's that good. At least so far.
5. Troy Glaus. I seriously thought Glaus was retired, but it turns out he's playing 3B for the Braves, which is where I thought Chipper Jones played. Clearly I don't know what's going on. Especially because Glaus homered four times last week. That gives him 11 this year. That's as many as A-Rod, Joe Mauer, Ian Kinsler, and Nick Punto have combined. And Troy Glaus is like, 45. He should be playing softball with Matt Stairs and Matthew LeCroy, but instead he's killing NL pitching. Makes no sense. Although I'd take him on the Twins. I tire of slap-hitting corner infielders easily, no matter the amount of bare-handed pick-ups they make.
WHO SUCKED
1. Zack Greinke. Did I, or did I not tell you about Zack Greinke? Now, after a 6 inning, 10 hit, 4 run outing, even the too great to be put into actual words Joe Posnanski agrees. Check out his full blog post here, but it highlights the same drop in velocity I brought up, and mentions how his slider isn't breaking like it used to - big keys in him missing bats, the #1 change from last season. Posnanski believes that it isn't Greinke's physical tools that are hurting him this year, but his confidence. Check out these quotes: "The last month I haven't really been myself, I guess. Everything looks tougher, like the hitters look better and the strike zone looks smaller. It just seems tougher out there at the moment." and about his slider, "I was probably striking out like six guys a game last year on a slider, and now I probably do one or two a game. I still throw it, but I don't know why it's not working. But obviously, something's wrong with it. I don't know." Now it's not like his numbers are Kevin Mulvey-esque or anything and he's still one of the best pitchers in baseball, but it sounds like his head is all out of whack. And for a guy like Greinke who has had some mental problems before, that is a huge red flag. I hope he can get his head right and not go into a shame spiral, because when he's dominant he's about as fun to watch pitch as there is.
2. Ricky Rubio. It seems Mr. Rubio has no interest in coming to the NBA until after next season, and is only interested in becoming a Timberwolf if things "get better" and "gel." Well excuse me, your majesty. Did they not scout the arrogance on this kid? I'm starting to hope he never ends up a Wolf. Hopefully they can just go ahead and trade his rights. Maybe they can include him in a sign and trade with the Heat and get Dwyane Wade. I'm just sayin' that Al Jefferson, Corey Brewer, and the rights to Rubio would work under the salary cap rules to get Wade. And, if they do that trade, that still leaves them enough to sign Bosh. So Bosh, Love, Wade, Flynn, and Evan Turner after he slips to #4. Sounds about right.
3. Matt Wieters. Good god this is some kind of world-record slump. But do you remember when Jesus was in that slump and ended up getting crucified for it? And then three days later he smashed through that rock and flew up to heaven? Expect Wieters to be rebirthed in three days. Wednesday versus C.C. Sabathia. Make your time.
4. Denard Span. Since we are talking world record slumps, how can I leave out Spansy? He tripled on Sunday, which was his first hit in June, and his 1-5 on the day was a huge improvement over the 1-20 he had put up so far in the week. Span's average has now dipped down to .266, but because he has such a good command of the strike zone and such good plate patience, even when he's slumping with the bat he's still valuable because he gets on base due to walks. Of course, with the injuries piling up to the point where Matt Tolbert and Brendan Harris are now considered regualrs, Span's bat is sorely needed. Also, why did Brendan Harris play first base with Morneau out? Are we serious here that Jim Thome is really too old and too slow that he can't fill in in an emergency? With nearly ever big bat out of the lineup for various reasons it would have been a pretty good idea to get Thome in there. Either he's become completely immobile or Gardy is an idiot. I know which way I'm leaning.
5. Nick Blackburn. Staying with your precious Twinkies, Blackburn really stayed hot, didn't he? After a May in which he posted a 2.65 ERA and looked like he could be half as good as Dawger thinks he is, he came crashing back hard this week, going 0-2 and lasting a total of just six and a third innings, givng up 20 hits (yes, 20) and 10 runs while striking out zero. Yes, zero. See, here's the problem with Blackburn - if he's not hitting his exact spots, he gets destroyed because he doesn't have good stuff. He has good control and good sinker which can be a great weapon when he can keep it down and move it in and out, but if he's not he can't get away with just throwing. When opponents swing at his pitches they swing and miss only 5.6% of the time - lowest in the majors - so he needs the ground balls. Obviously, this week he couldn't hit the corners and didn't keep the ball down, and he got knocked all over the yard. This is exhibit A through exhibit Z of while he'll never be a top-line pitcher, and will always be mid to end of the rotation type. I still like him and all, but there are going to be plenty more games like this in his future. Zero margin for error.
Just kidding. Yes, it was a big deal and even the kind of thing we discussed around the office the day after, but I think it's probably time to just let it go. And let me tell you a secret. Galarraga is going to get killed his next time out. Just shelled. Trust me on this one.
Oh, and I suppose Wooden passing is a pretty big deal, too. RIP. Fifth best Wizard ever behind Merlin, Gandalf, Raistlin, and that kid from that Nintendo movie.
WHO WAS AWESOME
1. Justin Smoak. Smoak is rising (sorry, had to be done). Uber-prospect and secret crush of mine Justin Smoak got the call up early this year after Chris Davis crashed and burned (and whiffed) for the second year in a row, and didn't exactly get off to a great start. All through April and May he never got his batting average over .200. There were good signs, however, such as a good OBP (around .310), a good BB/K ratio (nearly 1:1), and good power when he did make contact. One of these days, things were going to click. And it looks like they have. He went 8-18 this week, including a 3-3 with a HR game against the Rays, and has now raised his average to .212, which may not sound like much, but it's a huge improvement. Oh yeah, he also walked five times. Seriously, man, this kid can hit, and he's going to be a player for a long, long, time. Get on board.
2. Tommy Hunter. As long as I'm talking about how the Rangers' are stacking with youngster types, we might as well throw a little bit of praise Hunter's way after he tossed a complete game five-hitter on Saturday in his first start of the year. And it's not like he threw it against a crappy hitting team like the Mariners or Twins, he threw it against the Rays. Hunter, a top pitching prospect type, made his debut in 2008 and got destroyed in his three starts, but then came up again mid-year last season and ended up putting up respectable numbers with a 9-6 record, 4.10 ERA, and 1.30 WHIP in 19 starts. For some reason that I don't know, he started the season in the minors, but was recalled this weekend in time to completely shut down Tampa. Because the Rangers don't have enough blue-chippers (Smoak, Andrus, Feliz, Borbon, Max Ramirez, and the list seriously goes on and on and on.) I don't really believe in Hunter, however, because there's no such thing as a good fat pitcher. 6-3, 280 lbs.? Oof.
3. Ray Allen. Game 1: 27 minutes, 0 three-pointers, 12 points, Celtics loss. Game 2: 44 minutes, 8 three-pointers, 32 points, Celtics win. Watching that game 2 tonight, Allen is clearly a major, major key for the Celtics if they're going to win. In game 1 he was limited by a bunch of terrible foul calls against him, but tonight he was able to get free and he lit up the Lakers for 7 threes in the first-half, which tied a finals record for a full game. Pierce is being limited pretty well by Artest and Garnett has shown that he's aged ten years in the last two real years, so it's basically up to Allen and Rondo, and they came through (Rondo had a triple double) to pull it out. They needed this one, and Allen was the biggest reason they got it. Plus that jumper is just so beautiful. What's prettier than a Ray Allen jumper. Nothing, that's what. And if you disagree you're a stupid liar.
4. Ubaldo Jimenez. I know I already wrote about Ubaldo early last week in his very own spotlight post, but I have to point him out once again because he won once again. My favorite part is that he pitched seven innings and gave up two runs, and it raised his ERA by 19%. He's now 11-1, with an ERA under one, and by all accounts is completely unhittable. Nobody can hit his fastball, and nobody can hit his changeup. And both his curve and his slider are above average. His BABIP and runner strand rate are outside of the normal range, so he should come back to earth, but watching him pitch I'm not sure. He seriously looks ridiculous out there. I feel like I'm watching Bob Gibson or the bizarro Brad Radke. He probably has around 22 starts or so remaining, so 30 wins is basically out of the question, but I can see him getting to 25-27, which would be the most since Bob Welch's 27 twenty years. Yes, he's that good. At least so far.
5. Troy Glaus. I seriously thought Glaus was retired, but it turns out he's playing 3B for the Braves, which is where I thought Chipper Jones played. Clearly I don't know what's going on. Especially because Glaus homered four times last week. That gives him 11 this year. That's as many as A-Rod, Joe Mauer, Ian Kinsler, and Nick Punto have combined. And Troy Glaus is like, 45. He should be playing softball with Matt Stairs and Matthew LeCroy, but instead he's killing NL pitching. Makes no sense. Although I'd take him on the Twins. I tire of slap-hitting corner infielders easily, no matter the amount of bare-handed pick-ups they make.
WHO SUCKED
1. Zack Greinke. Did I, or did I not tell you about Zack Greinke? Now, after a 6 inning, 10 hit, 4 run outing, even the too great to be put into actual words Joe Posnanski agrees. Check out his full blog post here, but it highlights the same drop in velocity I brought up, and mentions how his slider isn't breaking like it used to - big keys in him missing bats, the #1 change from last season. Posnanski believes that it isn't Greinke's physical tools that are hurting him this year, but his confidence. Check out these quotes: "The last month I haven't really been myself, I guess. Everything looks tougher, like the hitters look better and the strike zone looks smaller. It just seems tougher out there at the moment." and about his slider, "I was probably striking out like six guys a game last year on a slider, and now I probably do one or two a game. I still throw it, but I don't know why it's not working. But obviously, something's wrong with it. I don't know." Now it's not like his numbers are Kevin Mulvey-esque or anything and he's still one of the best pitchers in baseball, but it sounds like his head is all out of whack. And for a guy like Greinke who has had some mental problems before, that is a huge red flag. I hope he can get his head right and not go into a shame spiral, because when he's dominant he's about as fun to watch pitch as there is.
2. Ricky Rubio. It seems Mr. Rubio has no interest in coming to the NBA until after next season, and is only interested in becoming a Timberwolf if things "get better" and "gel." Well excuse me, your majesty. Did they not scout the arrogance on this kid? I'm starting to hope he never ends up a Wolf. Hopefully they can just go ahead and trade his rights. Maybe they can include him in a sign and trade with the Heat and get Dwyane Wade. I'm just sayin' that Al Jefferson, Corey Brewer, and the rights to Rubio would work under the salary cap rules to get Wade. And, if they do that trade, that still leaves them enough to sign Bosh. So Bosh, Love, Wade, Flynn, and Evan Turner after he slips to #4. Sounds about right.
3. Matt Wieters. Good god this is some kind of world-record slump. But do you remember when Jesus was in that slump and ended up getting crucified for it? And then three days later he smashed through that rock and flew up to heaven? Expect Wieters to be rebirthed in three days. Wednesday versus C.C. Sabathia. Make your time.
4. Denard Span. Since we are talking world record slumps, how can I leave out Spansy? He tripled on Sunday, which was his first hit in June, and his 1-5 on the day was a huge improvement over the 1-20 he had put up so far in the week. Span's average has now dipped down to .266, but because he has such a good command of the strike zone and such good plate patience, even when he's slumping with the bat he's still valuable because he gets on base due to walks. Of course, with the injuries piling up to the point where Matt Tolbert and Brendan Harris are now considered regualrs, Span's bat is sorely needed. Also, why did Brendan Harris play first base with Morneau out? Are we serious here that Jim Thome is really too old and too slow that he can't fill in in an emergency? With nearly ever big bat out of the lineup for various reasons it would have been a pretty good idea to get Thome in there. Either he's become completely immobile or Gardy is an idiot. I know which way I'm leaning.
5. Nick Blackburn. Staying with your precious Twinkies, Blackburn really stayed hot, didn't he? After a May in which he posted a 2.65 ERA and looked like he could be half as good as Dawger thinks he is, he came crashing back hard this week, going 0-2 and lasting a total of just six and a third innings, givng up 20 hits (yes, 20) and 10 runs while striking out zero. Yes, zero. See, here's the problem with Blackburn - if he's not hitting his exact spots, he gets destroyed because he doesn't have good stuff. He has good control and good sinker which can be a great weapon when he can keep it down and move it in and out, but if he's not he can't get away with just throwing. When opponents swing at his pitches they swing and miss only 5.6% of the time - lowest in the majors - so he needs the ground balls. Obviously, this week he couldn't hit the corners and didn't keep the ball down, and he got knocked all over the yard. This is exhibit A through exhibit Z of while he'll never be a top-line pitcher, and will always be mid to end of the rotation type. I still like him and all, but there are going to be plenty more games like this in his future. Zero margin for error.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Week in Review - 5/10/2010
Well the Players Championship was pretty lame. Nobody within sniffing distance of the lead played well on Sunday with the exception of Tim Clark, letting that weird little midget and his gay-ass long putter to end up taking the win. I refuse to acknowledge he is awesome despite the fact that I was planning on bestowing that status on whoever won at Sawgrass, because I refuse to compliment anyone who uses a long putter - and little people creep me out. Also amongst the things done by creepy little people that I won't be acknowledging is Dallas Braden's perfect game against the Rays on Sunday. To throw a perfecto against that lineup would normally be amazing, but every since his little 12-year-old-boy-like outburst against A-Rod for "stepping on my mount" I can't stand the little guy. Plus his name is Dallas.
Actually, I suppose I could just put an entry for "Dwarves" in the Who Was Awesome section and talk about these two, but I don't really want to get into it because I have a couple of small friends and I'm not sure what side of the normal/freaky line they fall on. So let's just ignore these oompa loompas this week and move on. Agreed? Agreed.
WHO WAS AWESOME
1. Nick Blackburn. Pretty tough to ignore the week Blacky pulled out, going 2-0 with a complete game against Detroit earlier this week and then following it up with seven shutout innings on Sunday against Baltimore. I really don't know what to make of him. He doesn't strike anyone out (just 9 this year in 40 innings), but he doesn't walk anybody (11) either, and when he keeps the ball down and gets batters to keep it on the ground he can be very effective, like in that CG against Detroit where he got 22 ground balls to just 11 fly balls. Of course, when he's bad and batters are hitting the ball in the air, he generally gets shelled. All said, he's a good middle of the rotation starter, just like every other Twins' pitcher not named Liriano. In other words, he's good enough to win more than he loses, and with this team's offense should have a solid year.
2. LeBron James. Wow, talk about making a statement. After the Celtics stole game 2 in Cleveland to even the series at 1-1 there was a lot of chatter about how the Celtics were going to win, and the Cavs choked and were likely to choke the series away and blah blah blah. I'm guessing LeBron heard that, because he absolutely took the Celtics behind the woodshed on Friday and showed them his dark secret. He scored 21 points in the first quarter on something like 9-11 shooting, grabbed every rebound, and assisted on several other Cav baskets in route to a huge 1st quarter lead that ended up in becoming a huge blowout win. I've really never seen anything like it. Against a very good defensive team, James could literally do anything he wanted. I don't watch a ton of NBA, but now I know what all those NBA dorks are talking about with the "greatest ever" talk. Just wow. Of course.....
3. Rajon Rondo. Thanks to Rondo, you can't count the Celtics out just yet, because just as when LeBron is on nobody on the Celtics can stop him, the Cavs don't have anyone on their roster who can stop Rondo when he gets it going either. Paul Pierce absolutely sucked on Sunday, but it didn't matter since Rondo basically became LeBron (who, by the way, gets every single call to the point of embarrassment), putting up 29 points, grabbing 18 rebounds, and dishing 13 assists. Like James in the previous game, Rondo could do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. And as impressive as LeBron was, there's still a sense that he could do it whenever he wanted and sometimes coasts on his jumper. With Rondo it was more impressive, because you really got that "raising his game" vibe. Very fun to watch.
4. Purdue. With JaJuan Johnson and E'Twaun Moore having put themselves in the NBA draft but not hiring an agent, there was a pretty clear best and worst case scenario here. If Johnson and Moore stayed in the draft, the Boilers would become Robbie Hummel plus talented question-marks and would likely be a fringe NCAA type team with a Sweet 16 upside and an NIT downside. If those two pulled out of the draft, the become a national title contender where a Sweet 16 elimination would be a failure. Since I'm putting this team in the Awesome category, you can probably guess that Moore and Johnson have decided to return. Actually, with Talor Battle, Mike Davis, and Demetri McCamey all doing the right thing and coming back to school, the Big Ten is only losing Evan Turner and that dumbass Manny Harris to early entry. Great. I love it when the conference gets stronger.
5. Vladimir Guerrero. Monster week for Vlad. It seemed like every time I was watching Sportscenter they were showing a Vlad home run this week. And he certainly was ripping the ball, hitting .360 and slugging .840 this week with 4 home runs and 13 ribbies in the 7 games, probably because he's feeling threatened by the awesomeness that is Justin Smoak. Whether it's Smoak-related, the change of scenery to Tejas, or health related, it's working. After a disastrous 2009 where he hit just .295 and OPSed .794 with 15 home runs (all career worsts) , his stats this year are at a much more robust .348 average with an OPS of .941, numbers much more suited to his prime years. Ponce de Leon was wrong. The Fountain of Youth isn't in Florida. It's in Texas. At the Alamo. In the Basement.
WHO SUCKED
1. Clayton Kershaw. Kershaw, a big-time SP propect for the Dodgers, had a very, very nice season last year - his second in the bigs. He was just 8-8, which doesn't really matter, and in 171 innings pitched he allowed just 119 hits while striking out 185. Those are pretty incredible numbers, which makes his struggles this year even more confusing. Going into Sunday he was sporting a 4.99 ERA this year (it was 2.79 last season) and a WHIP of 1.70 (it was 1.23 last year), and he hit his nadir (at least thus far) in a disaster of an outing last week against Milwaukee, where he lasted just 1 and 1/3 innings, giving up five hits and seven runs before getting yanked. I've watched Kershaw pitch a couple of times, and the kid has electric stuff. I'm not sure what the issue is, but I'm sure he'll get it figured out and start making morons look like fools at the plate again soon. Or he's in a death spiral and will be out of the league in two years. Since he actually bounced back with a really nice outing on Sunday and out-dueled Ubaldo, I'm betting against the death spiral thing.
2. Atlanta.. Starting with the Hawks, who are now down 0-3 to the Magic, and haven't even been close in a game yet, losing by 43, 14, and 30, and I literally watched three Hawks watch a missed Orlando three pointer bounce right back to the shooter, then continue watching as he waltzed in for an uncontested dunk. They can't shoot either, with their best shooting performance in the three games has been just 40%, and "star" Joe Johnson has practically torn-up the max contract someone was going to give him this offseason by chucking it up some stinkers: 10 pts (4-11 shooting) and 5 TOs in game 1, 5-16 shooting and just 2 rebounds in game 2, and just 8 points on 3-15 shooting in game 3. He's helped to guarantee that this is the most boringest series of the most boringest NBA playoffs ever. Seriously, three of the four series suck. At least Phoenix/LA and Cleveland/Orlando should make for a pretty good Final Four - as long as LA doesn't win again. And although the Braves haven't been terrible, they did toss out a couple of clunkers this week. First, they almost get perfected by Scott Olsen on Tuesday, and then on Friday night they let old man Moyer toss a complete game two-hitter against them, just his second shutout in the last seven years. And don't forget, this is the team that was no-hit by Ubaldo earlier this season as well. The Braves might not be a horrible team overall, but at their worst, they hit like a collection of nine Puntos. Or Kubels, at this point, jesus.
3. Tiger Woods. Well he made the cut at the Players, which is good, but had to withdraw in the middle of the fourth round due to a neck injury, which is bad. And his swing right now is all kinds of F'd up. Not only can he not hit a fairway to save his life (he only 6 last week at Quail Hollow), but he can't hit for distance either - he was dead last in driving distance this week at just 258 yards. Seriously, Brad Faxon thinks Tiger hits the ball like a girl. Clearly, he rushed himself back a bit early, and if he's smart he'll shut it down for a bit and maybe target the PGA Championship for his return. Of course, he won't be able to stay away from the rest of the majors, at a minimum, but I really think he needs to take a lot of time, and get himself back into the same shape he was before his wife lost her mind. He's at a very interesting crossroads, that's for sure. Can't wait to see how this goes down.
4. San Antonio Spurs. Speaking of boring series, I knew the Spurs window was closing, but I wasn't expecting it be slammed shut on their fingers with a 4-0 sweep by the Suns. I guess when, except for a couple of guys, every contributor on the team is either old or white Father Time can catch up pretty quickly. You might be tempted to chalk it up to the fact that they were playing the Suns and their unusual-ish style, but the Spurs have basically owned the Spurs over the years. Getting swept by the Sun in round 2 is probably more damaging and soul-baring than getting swept in the first round by the Mavs would have been. Realistically, they can hold on and be a non-threatening playoff team for a couple of years, but if they're smart it's time to start trying to get all the value they can out of whichever pieces they can move, otherwise they'll be looking at a long fall down the line.
5. Jason Kubel. As you probably know, I am Kubel's biggest fan. However, he is starting to lose even me, going just 3-15 this week and is still hitting just .209 this year and is still sitting on two home runs - the same amount as Orlando Hudson. He's still walking, which shows he hasn't completely lost it, and he isn't striking out significantly more often, but he just isn't hitting. I haven't seen a lot of hard hit balls right at people or miraculous plays to rob hits, it's more a bunch of super weak tappers at infielders and infield pop ups (he's doubled his IF popup % from last year) and he's now losing at-bats to Thome. I know one of these days he'll be back, and when he does he's going to be white hot, you can count on it. I just don't know when. So I'm going to try to jump start his season for him - we'll be benching him in fantasy this week. That practically guarantees he's going to break out. Or at least he better. I don't want to have to burn my Kubel shirt. It cost me like fifteen bucks.
Finally I'd like to add a couple more people that are awesome in honor of Mother's Day: Mama W and Grandma W. You both rock, and have been a huge influence on the person I have become.
Shame on you.
Actually, I suppose I could just put an entry for "Dwarves" in the Who Was Awesome section and talk about these two, but I don't really want to get into it because I have a couple of small friends and I'm not sure what side of the normal/freaky line they fall on. So let's just ignore these oompa loompas this week and move on. Agreed? Agreed.
WHO WAS AWESOME
1. Nick Blackburn. Pretty tough to ignore the week Blacky pulled out, going 2-0 with a complete game against Detroit earlier this week and then following it up with seven shutout innings on Sunday against Baltimore. I really don't know what to make of him. He doesn't strike anyone out (just 9 this year in 40 innings), but he doesn't walk anybody (11) either, and when he keeps the ball down and gets batters to keep it on the ground he can be very effective, like in that CG against Detroit where he got 22 ground balls to just 11 fly balls. Of course, when he's bad and batters are hitting the ball in the air, he generally gets shelled. All said, he's a good middle of the rotation starter, just like every other Twins' pitcher not named Liriano. In other words, he's good enough to win more than he loses, and with this team's offense should have a solid year.
2. LeBron James. Wow, talk about making a statement. After the Celtics stole game 2 in Cleveland to even the series at 1-1 there was a lot of chatter about how the Celtics were going to win, and the Cavs choked and were likely to choke the series away and blah blah blah. I'm guessing LeBron heard that, because he absolutely took the Celtics behind the woodshed on Friday and showed them his dark secret. He scored 21 points in the first quarter on something like 9-11 shooting, grabbed every rebound, and assisted on several other Cav baskets in route to a huge 1st quarter lead that ended up in becoming a huge blowout win. I've really never seen anything like it. Against a very good defensive team, James could literally do anything he wanted. I don't watch a ton of NBA, but now I know what all those NBA dorks are talking about with the "greatest ever" talk. Just wow. Of course.....
3. Rajon Rondo. Thanks to Rondo, you can't count the Celtics out just yet, because just as when LeBron is on nobody on the Celtics can stop him, the Cavs don't have anyone on their roster who can stop Rondo when he gets it going either. Paul Pierce absolutely sucked on Sunday, but it didn't matter since Rondo basically became LeBron (who, by the way, gets every single call to the point of embarrassment), putting up 29 points, grabbing 18 rebounds, and dishing 13 assists. Like James in the previous game, Rondo could do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. And as impressive as LeBron was, there's still a sense that he could do it whenever he wanted and sometimes coasts on his jumper. With Rondo it was more impressive, because you really got that "raising his game" vibe. Very fun to watch.
4. Purdue. With JaJuan Johnson and E'Twaun Moore having put themselves in the NBA draft but not hiring an agent, there was a pretty clear best and worst case scenario here. If Johnson and Moore stayed in the draft, the Boilers would become Robbie Hummel plus talented question-marks and would likely be a fringe NCAA type team with a Sweet 16 upside and an NIT downside. If those two pulled out of the draft, the become a national title contender where a Sweet 16 elimination would be a failure. Since I'm putting this team in the Awesome category, you can probably guess that Moore and Johnson have decided to return. Actually, with Talor Battle, Mike Davis, and Demetri McCamey all doing the right thing and coming back to school, the Big Ten is only losing Evan Turner and that dumbass Manny Harris to early entry. Great. I love it when the conference gets stronger.
5. Vladimir Guerrero. Monster week for Vlad. It seemed like every time I was watching Sportscenter they were showing a Vlad home run this week. And he certainly was ripping the ball, hitting .360 and slugging .840 this week with 4 home runs and 13 ribbies in the 7 games, probably because he's feeling threatened by the awesomeness that is Justin Smoak. Whether it's Smoak-related, the change of scenery to Tejas, or health related, it's working. After a disastrous 2009 where he hit just .295 and OPSed .794 with 15 home runs (all career worsts) , his stats this year are at a much more robust .348 average with an OPS of .941, numbers much more suited to his prime years. Ponce de Leon was wrong. The Fountain of Youth isn't in Florida. It's in Texas. At the Alamo. In the Basement.
WHO SUCKED
1. Clayton Kershaw. Kershaw, a big-time SP propect for the Dodgers, had a very, very nice season last year - his second in the bigs. He was just 8-8, which doesn't really matter, and in 171 innings pitched he allowed just 119 hits while striking out 185. Those are pretty incredible numbers, which makes his struggles this year even more confusing. Going into Sunday he was sporting a 4.99 ERA this year (it was 2.79 last season) and a WHIP of 1.70 (it was 1.23 last year), and he hit his nadir (at least thus far) in a disaster of an outing last week against Milwaukee, where he lasted just 1 and 1/3 innings, giving up five hits and seven runs before getting yanked. I've watched Kershaw pitch a couple of times, and the kid has electric stuff. I'm not sure what the issue is, but I'm sure he'll get it figured out and start making morons look like fools at the plate again soon. Or he's in a death spiral and will be out of the league in two years. Since he actually bounced back with a really nice outing on Sunday and out-dueled Ubaldo, I'm betting against the death spiral thing.
2. Atlanta.. Starting with the Hawks, who are now down 0-3 to the Magic, and haven't even been close in a game yet, losing by 43, 14, and 30, and I literally watched three Hawks watch a missed Orlando three pointer bounce right back to the shooter, then continue watching as he waltzed in for an uncontested dunk. They can't shoot either, with their best shooting performance in the three games has been just 40%, and "star" Joe Johnson has practically torn-up the max contract someone was going to give him this offseason by chucking it up some stinkers: 10 pts (4-11 shooting) and 5 TOs in game 1, 5-16 shooting and just 2 rebounds in game 2, and just 8 points on 3-15 shooting in game 3. He's helped to guarantee that this is the most boringest series of the most boringest NBA playoffs ever. Seriously, three of the four series suck. At least Phoenix/LA and Cleveland/Orlando should make for a pretty good Final Four - as long as LA doesn't win again. And although the Braves haven't been terrible, they did toss out a couple of clunkers this week. First, they almost get perfected by Scott Olsen on Tuesday, and then on Friday night they let old man Moyer toss a complete game two-hitter against them, just his second shutout in the last seven years. And don't forget, this is the team that was no-hit by Ubaldo earlier this season as well. The Braves might not be a horrible team overall, but at their worst, they hit like a collection of nine Puntos. Or Kubels, at this point, jesus.
3. Tiger Woods. Well he made the cut at the Players, which is good, but had to withdraw in the middle of the fourth round due to a neck injury, which is bad. And his swing right now is all kinds of F'd up. Not only can he not hit a fairway to save his life (he only 6 last week at Quail Hollow), but he can't hit for distance either - he was dead last in driving distance this week at just 258 yards. Seriously, Brad Faxon thinks Tiger hits the ball like a girl. Clearly, he rushed himself back a bit early, and if he's smart he'll shut it down for a bit and maybe target the PGA Championship for his return. Of course, he won't be able to stay away from the rest of the majors, at a minimum, but I really think he needs to take a lot of time, and get himself back into the same shape he was before his wife lost her mind. He's at a very interesting crossroads, that's for sure. Can't wait to see how this goes down.
4. San Antonio Spurs. Speaking of boring series, I knew the Spurs window was closing, but I wasn't expecting it be slammed shut on their fingers with a 4-0 sweep by the Suns. I guess when, except for a couple of guys, every contributor on the team is either old or white Father Time can catch up pretty quickly. You might be tempted to chalk it up to the fact that they were playing the Suns and their unusual-ish style, but the Spurs have basically owned the Spurs over the years. Getting swept by the Sun in round 2 is probably more damaging and soul-baring than getting swept in the first round by the Mavs would have been. Realistically, they can hold on and be a non-threatening playoff team for a couple of years, but if they're smart it's time to start trying to get all the value they can out of whichever pieces they can move, otherwise they'll be looking at a long fall down the line.
5. Jason Kubel. As you probably know, I am Kubel's biggest fan. However, he is starting to lose even me, going just 3-15 this week and is still hitting just .209 this year and is still sitting on two home runs - the same amount as Orlando Hudson. He's still walking, which shows he hasn't completely lost it, and he isn't striking out significantly more often, but he just isn't hitting. I haven't seen a lot of hard hit balls right at people or miraculous plays to rob hits, it's more a bunch of super weak tappers at infielders and infield pop ups (he's doubled his IF popup % from last year) and he's now losing at-bats to Thome. I know one of these days he'll be back, and when he does he's going to be white hot, you can count on it. I just don't know when. So I'm going to try to jump start his season for him - we'll be benching him in fantasy this week. That practically guarantees he's going to break out. Or at least he better. I don't want to have to burn my Kubel shirt. It cost me like fifteen bucks.
Finally I'd like to add a couple more people that are awesome in honor of Mother's Day: Mama W and Grandma W. You both rock, and have been a huge influence on the person I have become.
Shame on you.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Welcome to Minnesota, Pete Rose! (and then Twins)
7:00 - Well he's here, the Pete Rose of football. I'm glad he's here because I think he gives the Vikes the best chance to do more than limp to an NFC Central title and a first round bounce, but I still hate him. In any case he's here, and like all the rest of you ass clowns, I can't help it but I need to get a look at this. So why not blog it? Also, Mrs. W is super annoyed right now. She doesn't like football, hates Favre, and especially hates the preseason because there shouldn't be football in August. Plus, I never watch the preseason, ever, so this is extra irritating right now. I might have to watch something like Mona Lisa Smile to get back in her good graces after this. I hope you're freaking happy.
7:03 - The superlatives are flying.
7:04 - This commercial with Paul Allen "announcing the couple" bringing their couch inside their house, and then they pull the sheet off and it's a Vikings couch? It needs to go. It's embarrassing. And does anybody else thing PA is just a little too into his job. Jesus, dude, relax. He's going to have a heart attack within three years. I won't miss him.
7:06 - Percy Harvin and Favre shake hands, right as the camera is zoomed in on them. Yeah, that's not contrived.
7:07 - Sideline chick (note: not hot) has her microphone not work when they go to her for a story that was presumably about Favre and Booty, since they showed their pictures. Nice job ABC. This is why you lost your NFL contract. Well, actually it was because of money, but still.
7:09 - Vikes start on D, and force major pressure on Cassel two of the three downs and stuff old ass Larry Johnson on second down. Of course, Cassel still manages to find the world' s fattest, slowest, whitest tight end for 12 yards and a first down.
7:11 - Chiefs fumble, Vikes recover. Good defense. Of course, when KC refuses to throw the ball to one of the best receivers in football (Dwayne "the Show" Bowe) that'll happen. By the way, if you don't think Bowe is having a huge year, you really need to axe somebody.
7:14 - Favre's first pass attempt as a Vike: attempted two yard dump to some dumbass fullback - two feet in front of him, incomplete. Freakin' Tavaris could have done that. My football wang remains flaccid.
7:15 - Third and eight. Favre completes to Harvin (Favrin?) but shy of the first down by a half yard. That looks really familiar. They go for it on foruth down and AP gets stuffed. Chefs ball. I don't know, I would have put in Chester Taylor right there. Or ran a half back pass.
7:19 - In all seriousness though, do you realize that with Brett Favre at QB Thomas Jones led the AFC in rushing last season. Thomas Jones. T-Jones. Yes, that one. I'm serious. I'm not making this up. No, I will not shut up. Yeah, I'd put the over/under for AP yards this season at about 2,800.
7:21 - Catch Dwayne Bowe! Thirteen yards and another KC Chief.....FIRST DOWN!!!!
7:24 - Challenged by the Vikes, overturned. What do you think the combined IQ of the coaches of the Twins and Vikings is? Dawger + Super Sioux Fan level?
7:25 - The Twins are already down 1-0. Of course they are.
7:27 - Field goal, and it's 3-0 Chiefs. The Royals are about one hit away from having that same lead on your precious Twins and Nick Blackburn. Wow. Twins/Royals. Vikings/Chiefs. What a night to be alive.
7:30 - After a fake reverse kick return by Percy (which I admit got me kind of excited) we see Favre running back out for another series. Announcer guy definitely has a boner. I remain unmoved.
7:31 - I hate to divulge secrets when I know many of my fantasy golf leaguemates read this blog, but I have to just tell you that I know who is going to win the Fed Ex Cup: Padraig Harrington. Book it.
7:32 - If the Twins get beat by Luke Hochevar I quit. He doesn't even bend his hat brim. And he's white. Christ.
7:33 - Favre throws one about five thousand miles an hour, but misses the receiver by approx. 100 feet. Announcer guy wants us to know, "I'm ok with that. That should be a completion once the QB and receiver get to know each other." I can't wait until they're still saying that in week 9.
7:34 - Big time blitz not picked up. Instead of eating the ball, Favre tosses it up randomly like you would do in Madden when you're facing Engage 8 (unless you're the Colts). Luckily it just harmlessly hits the ground. These two series were super unfulfilling. I have to watch Mona Lisa Smile for this?
7:35 - Oh god the chin strap thing! Maybe nothing has annoyed me more over the years than Favre's constant need to unhook his chin strap the second the play is over - every. single. time. And now I have to root for that guy. I didn't realize how hard this would be.
7:39 - Bad thing number two, as I once again listen to the announcer say things like, "Man, Favre is down there talking football with Berrian, I want to be down there" - the constant, constant, constant, overstated praise of Favre, not matter what the situation actually is. I don't know that I can handle this. Also the defense seems to be sacking Cassel a lot, which I think is good.
7:42 - T-Jax in. At least he can't be worse than Favre.
7:44 - Ok, he was worse. He just scrambled, ran five yards passed the line of scrimmage, and then threw a pass. Oh, sure, the receiver was open. That'll happen when you run where the linebackers used to be before you toss the ball. My god. It's time to cut bait.
7:48 - Another Royal ding-dong. Blackburn sucks and so do the Twins. I can't do this anymore.
8:40 - I'm back. Did you miss me? BB Gun decided to start throwing BBs, and somehow the Twins scratched out three runs against this year's Pedro Martinez, and we're all tied at 3-3 heading to the 7th.
8:41 - Cuddyer whiffs on three pitches, the last being a slider so far outside and so far in the dirt that a retarded monkey with a hairlip wouldn't have gone after it. That dude is driving me crazy.
8:44 - According to Coomer the ball Crede just hit, "Would have been out of here if he hadn't hit it in August." What. The. Eff.
8:47 - They're forcing Ragarm McTiredarm out there for the bottom of the seventh because everybody in the bullpen (save Nathan) is currently icing their arms thanks to this starting rotation. I'm expecting bad things.
8:56 - T-Jax is 9-11 for 117 yards and a touch? I almost wish I had kept watching.
Almost.
8:59 - Well I was wrong. Still tied, top o' eight on it's way.
9:04 - Casilla bunts Gomez over to second after Gomez got on first somehow. I'm not sure, I wasn't paying attention. In any case, here is a spot I actually agree with a sac bunt. I generally agree with a sac bunt most times when it's used properly. When Gardy has Cabrera sac bunt in the first, however, is where we have problems.
9:10 - Twins take the lead on a Span single and the worst throw I've ever seen from the KC center fielder. Also the remote control is missing.
9:12 - Tavaris is now 12-15 for 202 yards and 2 touchdowns. I almost wish I had been watching to see how this was possible.
9:16 - Yeah, you go ahead and walk Mauer to face Kubel. Let's see how that works.
9:18 - Dammit.
9:21 - I FOUND THE REMOTE!!!!!
9:25 - Dwayne Bowe had a TD today. Expect to hear that about 16 times this season.
9:29 - The Guerrier/Mijares combo works how it was supposed to all year (including a pick offed runner at first), and we head to the ninth with the Twinks still up a point.
9:30 - Did Strasburg end up signing with the Nationals? Jesus I don't even know. Hold on.
9:31 - Yep, four years, 15.1 million. Everything I've heard says he could pitch now. I'm assuming the Nats will at least hold off until next season, but I'm looking forward to seeing this kid. Hopefully he doesn't follow in Mark Prior's foot steps.
9:34 - It's bizarre to me that Cuddyer just struck out. I mean, this is equivalent to striking out Joe Sewell.
9:35 - Crede flies out to center. I'm guessing if it wasn't August that ball is gone.
9:36 - Del-Money hits like he usually does, and we go bottom (like your mom). Nathan on. I'm struggling to stay interested.
9:42 - Nathan struggling to handle Teahen of all people. This doesn't bode well. I'm predicting extra innings.
9:43 - Teahen grounds out. This whole thing with Calipari is kind of garbage, to be honest. Suddenly Memphis is not only vacating it's most succesful season ever, but is also on probation for the next there years (I haven't seen what this entails).
Say what you want about Calipari's culpability (I've heard excuses that neither Memphis or Cal knew Rose cheated on the SAT), but this is the second time he's taken a team to the final four only to have that appearance stricken from the record books due to cheating - and yet once again he has escaped scott free.
Let's be honest here, the guy is dirty as all hell, he's just been pretty good about staying ahead of the law. Kentucky is the perfect place for him. Those rednecks will do everything they can to cover for him. Marriage made in heaven.
Oh yeah. Rose took his fraudulent SAT test in Detroit. He's from Chicago. A lot easier to have someone take a test for you in a state you aren't from. I have a very hard time believing Calipari didn't know this.
9:47 - Someone named Brian Pena (related to Tony? I don't know) just tied the game. Told you Nathan didn't have it. I suppose when your team gets you a save chance once every month you probably get a bit rusty.
9:50 - Coomer (is this even Coomer? I'm just guessing. Where's Bert? What's happening?) goes with the "the ball doesn't carry in August" angle again as some guy I've never heard of almost wins the game with a ball that only goes off the wall. You know, that might possibly even be a true thing, but when I hear some jackass just popping off on a broadcast, I need a little more than anecdotal evidence. And now we head to extras. Brian Pena is a dickweed.
9:56 - Oh good, Soria is in. The new Mariano Rivera. Assuming he goes two innings, no chance the Twins could possibly win this until the tenth. And they just showed Jesse Crain warming in the Twins' pen. This couldn't be more over.
9:59 - Casilla bloop, Cabrera bloop misplayed by Willy freaking Bloomquist and the Twins go back on top. Horseshoe up ass kind of stuff going on here.
10:00 - Another intential walk of Mauer. Don't let me down Kubes.
10:06 - Oh, I forgot to mention that he let me down. Nathan still pitching. One out, one on.
10:14 - Two runners on with nobody out, and Alberto Callaspo has fouled off about six straight two strike pitches. There's no way he should still be in there. Nathan doesn't have it tonight, and we saw he didn't have it last inning. I know what you're thinking, "Who else could they put in?" and I have no idea, but it's clear Nathan is not on his game tonight. And Callaspo fouled off two more pitches while I was typing that. This is ridiculous.
10:18 - Joe Nathan has thrown 48 pitches. Joe Nathan has thrown 48 pitches. JOE NATHAN HAS THROWN 48 PITCHES. Ok, 49 now. Great job Gardy.
10:20 - Fifty.
10:21 - I can't find a website where I can get pitch counts by game, but I'm willing to wager my house that this is the most pitches Nathan has ever thrown in a game as a Twin, and I would almost bet it's the most a closer has thrown since the early 80s, or at least towards the top of that list.
10:22 - 52
10:23 - Line out. Twins win. Nathan's arm probably shot. Not that it matters. This season is a dick.
7:03 - The superlatives are flying.
7:04 - This commercial with Paul Allen "announcing the couple" bringing their couch inside their house, and then they pull the sheet off and it's a Vikings couch? It needs to go. It's embarrassing. And does anybody else thing PA is just a little too into his job. Jesus, dude, relax. He's going to have a heart attack within three years. I won't miss him.
7:06 - Percy Harvin and Favre shake hands, right as the camera is zoomed in on them. Yeah, that's not contrived.
7:07 - Sideline chick (note: not hot) has her microphone not work when they go to her for a story that was presumably about Favre and Booty, since they showed their pictures. Nice job ABC. This is why you lost your NFL contract. Well, actually it was because of money, but still.
7:09 - Vikes start on D, and force major pressure on Cassel two of the three downs and stuff old ass Larry Johnson on second down. Of course, Cassel still manages to find the world' s fattest, slowest, whitest tight end for 12 yards and a first down.
7:11 - Chiefs fumble, Vikes recover. Good defense. Of course, when KC refuses to throw the ball to one of the best receivers in football (Dwayne "the Show" Bowe) that'll happen. By the way, if you don't think Bowe is having a huge year, you really need to axe somebody.
7:14 - Favre's first pass attempt as a Vike: attempted two yard dump to some dumbass fullback - two feet in front of him, incomplete. Freakin' Tavaris could have done that. My football wang remains flaccid.
7:15 - Third and eight. Favre completes to Harvin (Favrin?) but shy of the first down by a half yard. That looks really familiar. They go for it on foruth down and AP gets stuffed. Chefs ball. I don't know, I would have put in Chester Taylor right there. Or ran a half back pass.
7:19 - In all seriousness though, do you realize that with Brett Favre at QB Thomas Jones led the AFC in rushing last season. Thomas Jones. T-Jones. Yes, that one. I'm serious. I'm not making this up. No, I will not shut up. Yeah, I'd put the over/under for AP yards this season at about 2,800.
7:21 - Catch Dwayne Bowe! Thirteen yards and another KC Chief.....FIRST DOWN!!!!
7:24 - Challenged by the Vikes, overturned. What do you think the combined IQ of the coaches of the Twins and Vikings is? Dawger + Super Sioux Fan level?
7:25 - The Twins are already down 1-0. Of course they are.
7:27 - Field goal, and it's 3-0 Chiefs. The Royals are about one hit away from having that same lead on your precious Twins and Nick Blackburn. Wow. Twins/Royals. Vikings/Chiefs. What a night to be alive.
7:30 - After a fake reverse kick return by Percy (which I admit got me kind of excited) we see Favre running back out for another series. Announcer guy definitely has a boner. I remain unmoved.
7:31 - I hate to divulge secrets when I know many of my fantasy golf leaguemates read this blog, but I have to just tell you that I know who is going to win the Fed Ex Cup: Padraig Harrington. Book it.
7:32 - If the Twins get beat by Luke Hochevar I quit. He doesn't even bend his hat brim. And he's white. Christ.
7:33 - Favre throws one about five thousand miles an hour, but misses the receiver by approx. 100 feet. Announcer guy wants us to know, "I'm ok with that. That should be a completion once the QB and receiver get to know each other." I can't wait until they're still saying that in week 9.
7:34 - Big time blitz not picked up. Instead of eating the ball, Favre tosses it up randomly like you would do in Madden when you're facing Engage 8 (unless you're the Colts). Luckily it just harmlessly hits the ground. These two series were super unfulfilling. I have to watch Mona Lisa Smile for this?
7:35 - Oh god the chin strap thing! Maybe nothing has annoyed me more over the years than Favre's constant need to unhook his chin strap the second the play is over - every. single. time. And now I have to root for that guy. I didn't realize how hard this would be.
7:39 - Bad thing number two, as I once again listen to the announcer say things like, "Man, Favre is down there talking football with Berrian, I want to be down there" - the constant, constant, constant, overstated praise of Favre, not matter what the situation actually is. I don't know that I can handle this. Also the defense seems to be sacking Cassel a lot, which I think is good.
7:42 - T-Jax in. At least he can't be worse than Favre.
7:44 - Ok, he was worse. He just scrambled, ran five yards passed the line of scrimmage, and then threw a pass. Oh, sure, the receiver was open. That'll happen when you run where the linebackers used to be before you toss the ball. My god. It's time to cut bait.
7:48 - Another Royal ding-dong. Blackburn sucks and so do the Twins. I can't do this anymore.
8:40 - I'm back. Did you miss me? BB Gun decided to start throwing BBs, and somehow the Twins scratched out three runs against this year's Pedro Martinez, and we're all tied at 3-3 heading to the 7th.
8:41 - Cuddyer whiffs on three pitches, the last being a slider so far outside and so far in the dirt that a retarded monkey with a hairlip wouldn't have gone after it. That dude is driving me crazy.
8:44 - According to Coomer the ball Crede just hit, "Would have been out of here if he hadn't hit it in August." What. The. Eff.
8:47 - They're forcing Ragarm McTiredarm out there for the bottom of the seventh because everybody in the bullpen (save Nathan) is currently icing their arms thanks to this starting rotation. I'm expecting bad things.
8:56 - T-Jax is 9-11 for 117 yards and a touch? I almost wish I had kept watching.
Almost.
8:59 - Well I was wrong. Still tied, top o' eight on it's way.
9:04 - Casilla bunts Gomez over to second after Gomez got on first somehow. I'm not sure, I wasn't paying attention. In any case, here is a spot I actually agree with a sac bunt. I generally agree with a sac bunt most times when it's used properly. When Gardy has Cabrera sac bunt in the first, however, is where we have problems.
9:10 - Twins take the lead on a Span single and the worst throw I've ever seen from the KC center fielder. Also the remote control is missing.
9:12 - Tavaris is now 12-15 for 202 yards and 2 touchdowns. I almost wish I had been watching to see how this was possible.
9:16 - Yeah, you go ahead and walk Mauer to face Kubel. Let's see how that works.
9:18 - Dammit.
9:21 - I FOUND THE REMOTE!!!!!
9:25 - Dwayne Bowe had a TD today. Expect to hear that about 16 times this season.
9:29 - The Guerrier/Mijares combo works how it was supposed to all year (including a pick offed runner at first), and we head to the ninth with the Twinks still up a point.
9:30 - Did Strasburg end up signing with the Nationals? Jesus I don't even know. Hold on.
9:31 - Yep, four years, 15.1 million. Everything I've heard says he could pitch now. I'm assuming the Nats will at least hold off until next season, but I'm looking forward to seeing this kid. Hopefully he doesn't follow in Mark Prior's foot steps.
9:34 - It's bizarre to me that Cuddyer just struck out. I mean, this is equivalent to striking out Joe Sewell.
9:35 - Crede flies out to center. I'm guessing if it wasn't August that ball is gone.
9:36 - Del-Money hits like he usually does, and we go bottom (like your mom). Nathan on. I'm struggling to stay interested.
9:42 - Nathan struggling to handle Teahen of all people. This doesn't bode well. I'm predicting extra innings.
9:43 - Teahen grounds out. This whole thing with Calipari is kind of garbage, to be honest. Suddenly Memphis is not only vacating it's most succesful season ever, but is also on probation for the next there years (I haven't seen what this entails).
Say what you want about Calipari's culpability (I've heard excuses that neither Memphis or Cal knew Rose cheated on the SAT), but this is the second time he's taken a team to the final four only to have that appearance stricken from the record books due to cheating - and yet once again he has escaped scott free.
Let's be honest here, the guy is dirty as all hell, he's just been pretty good about staying ahead of the law. Kentucky is the perfect place for him. Those rednecks will do everything they can to cover for him. Marriage made in heaven.
Oh yeah. Rose took his fraudulent SAT test in Detroit. He's from Chicago. A lot easier to have someone take a test for you in a state you aren't from. I have a very hard time believing Calipari didn't know this.
9:47 - Someone named Brian Pena (related to Tony? I don't know) just tied the game. Told you Nathan didn't have it. I suppose when your team gets you a save chance once every month you probably get a bit rusty.
9:50 - Coomer (is this even Coomer? I'm just guessing. Where's Bert? What's happening?) goes with the "the ball doesn't carry in August" angle again as some guy I've never heard of almost wins the game with a ball that only goes off the wall. You know, that might possibly even be a true thing, but when I hear some jackass just popping off on a broadcast, I need a little more than anecdotal evidence. And now we head to extras. Brian Pena is a dickweed.
9:56 - Oh good, Soria is in. The new Mariano Rivera. Assuming he goes two innings, no chance the Twins could possibly win this until the tenth. And they just showed Jesse Crain warming in the Twins' pen. This couldn't be more over.
9:59 - Casilla bloop, Cabrera bloop misplayed by Willy freaking Bloomquist and the Twins go back on top. Horseshoe up ass kind of stuff going on here.
10:00 - Another intential walk of Mauer. Don't let me down Kubes.
10:06 - Oh, I forgot to mention that he let me down. Nathan still pitching. One out, one on.
10:14 - Two runners on with nobody out, and Alberto Callaspo has fouled off about six straight two strike pitches. There's no way he should still be in there. Nathan doesn't have it tonight, and we saw he didn't have it last inning. I know what you're thinking, "Who else could they put in?" and I have no idea, but it's clear Nathan is not on his game tonight. And Callaspo fouled off two more pitches while I was typing that. This is ridiculous.
10:18 - Joe Nathan has thrown 48 pitches. Joe Nathan has thrown 48 pitches. JOE NATHAN HAS THROWN 48 PITCHES. Ok, 49 now. Great job Gardy.
10:20 - Fifty.
10:21 - I can't find a website where I can get pitch counts by game, but I'm willing to wager my house that this is the most pitches Nathan has ever thrown in a game as a Twin, and I would almost bet it's the most a closer has thrown since the early 80s, or at least towards the top of that list.
10:22 - 52
10:23 - Line out. Twins win. Nathan's arm probably shot. Not that it matters. This season is a dick.
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