Yes, I am alive. Yes, the
* Disclaimer: This is not true. I have not actually spat on anything and I have been doing quite well at life, mainly by pretending the purple-and-black poltroons do not exist. This is called repression and is the only way I can cope. Freud was onto something after all. I had coffee, worked some more on my latest book, and bought sweet new headphones today. That was good. I am done with sophomore year on Friday and go home on Monday. This is even better. Game against the Diamondbacks? What game against the Diamondbacks? Our sixth loss in seven games against the Diamondbacks? I'm sorry, this does not compute. Try another blog.
Showing posts with label Crap. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Crap. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
An Update As Short As The Rockies Are Bad
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Update: Still Shitty
For once, my lack of blogging has nothing to do with my own questionable diligence, but rather at a failed attempt at un-hexing the deeply hexed, otherwise known as my beloved and currently very inept Colorado Rockies. They have been stop and go (mainly stop) this far, and are sitting at a not-so-pretty 5-8 mark coming out of the first few weeks of the season. (I think the Giants may have won more games than them, but I am afraid to look). Since they went on that losing streak right after I wrote the recap of their first game, I tried some preventive superstitious measures, such as not wearing Rockies gear and not writing about them, which worked in the course of a three-game sweep of the Braves in which they looked more like themselves. It failed again once they dropped 2 of 3 to the Diamondbacks (at least they didn't get swept again....?) and since they managed to stage their one win in convincing fashion at the end of the series (13-5) I had hope going into San Diego. Nope, they got two hits and got shut out by Randy Wolf while losing 6-0. Oy. Holliday did not touch the plate last night, whether disputed or otherwise, and nor did anyone else. Shit.
Clearly (hopefully) the offense won't be this bad forever, but they need some time to play every day and get into a rhythm. The bad part being, while they suck, it's pretty hard to endure this on a day-by-day basis. Not as if that has ever stopped me before, and likely won't be any detriment this time, but sheeez. Would a fast start kill you guys? Every time I think they really must have just played their worst game possible and therefore have to start their (ponderous) recovery, they outdo themselves, then I remind myself that a) it's early and we have time to come out of it, and b) we are the Rockies and failure is unfortunately a little more common than we'd like. Blah.
Fortunately, I missed the game last night, and will do so again tonight. I was off attending my first live games of the year, the deeply fascinating Mets/Nationals clash (note to self: be thankful we are not the Nationals). Odalis Perez vs. Mike Pelfrey isn't exactly the stuff of legend, but it was a lot of fun to take in my first game of the year, as I was with my wonderful friends Mary and Steve, who are really amazing people and always fun to go to a game with -- they pay for tickets, midnight diner runs afterwards, whatever, and seem to enjoy watching me have fun as much as I have fun. Something that's always struck me is how casually a game always starts, the quiet moment as the defense runs out and the pitcher throws a few warmups, and then suddenly all the pomp is over and the first guy is stepping in just like that, ready to go. It seems such a small thing. (Baseball philosophy 101. Sounds like a course I need to take. Do they have it here? Of course not). Since it was Jackie Robinson Day, they had his widow, Rachel, there to speak, which was pretty cool, and a gospel choir performed before the game began. (Although it was kind of frigid on an April night at Shea, so I spent the last half of the game bundled in an extra-large Mets jacket belonging to Steve. This does not mean I was one of them… I kept kind of silently rooting for the Mets to screw up, since it was amusing to watch the reactions. This did not happen, however).
Clearly (hopefully) the offense won't be this bad forever, but they need some time to play every day and get into a rhythm. The bad part being, while they suck, it's pretty hard to endure this on a day-by-day basis. Not as if that has ever stopped me before, and likely won't be any detriment this time, but sheeez. Would a fast start kill you guys? Every time I think they really must have just played their worst game possible and therefore have to start their (ponderous) recovery, they outdo themselves, then I remind myself that a) it's early and we have time to come out of it, and b) we are the Rockies and failure is unfortunately a little more common than we'd like. Blah.
Fortunately, I missed the game last night, and will do so again tonight. I was off attending my first live games of the year, the deeply fascinating Mets/Nationals clash (note to self: be thankful we are not the Nationals). Odalis Perez vs. Mike Pelfrey isn't exactly the stuff of legend, but it was a lot of fun to take in my first game of the year, as I was with my wonderful friends Mary and Steve, who are really amazing people and always fun to go to a game with -- they pay for tickets, midnight diner runs afterwards, whatever, and seem to enjoy watching me have fun as much as I have fun. Something that's always struck me is how casually a game always starts, the quiet moment as the defense runs out and the pitcher throws a few warmups, and then suddenly all the pomp is over and the first guy is stepping in just like that, ready to go. It seems such a small thing. (Baseball philosophy 101. Sounds like a course I need to take. Do they have it here? Of course not). Since it was Jackie Robinson Day, they had his widow, Rachel, there to speak, which was pretty cool, and a gospel choir performed before the game began. (Although it was kind of frigid on an April night at Shea, so I spent the last half of the game bundled in an extra-large Mets jacket belonging to Steve. This does not mean I was one of them… I kept kind of silently rooting for the Mets to screw up, since it was amusing to watch the reactions. This did not happen, however).
Also:
Annoying Red Sox fan: “Rockies suck! Who do they have? The Sox have Ortiz and Ramirez!”
Me: “Ortiz? He’s batting .091 this year or something. Ramirez? Sure, I’ll give you that one. But what do you mean, who do we have? Ever heard of a guy named Matt Holliday?"
Sox fan: “Holliday can’t hit.”
Me: “Are you crazy? Have you even watched a game recently? Holliday’s OBP is close to .400, his SLG was up at .600, he hit .340 last year, he’ll hit over 30 homers and drive in well north of 100, he’s got the best hitting mechanics and work ethic imaginable, and he’s even improved on his fielding. He’s amazing.”
While this sounds as if it could easily have happened, it actually didn’t. That was a dream I had last night. I fear, I fear, I fear for my subconscious.
I am going to the Mets/Nationals game again with Mary tonight (although I think Steve has work). Matt Chico vs. John Maine, and it should be fun. I will remember to bring more Rockies-themed regalia to keep me warm, since Steve won't be around to let me borrow his jacket, and in so doing, I will be spared watching my team actually play. (Odd, I know). Since it is Mark Redman, I expect I will be excused in this sentiment.
WIN SOME DAMN GAMES, ROCKIES!Sunday, April 06, 2008
A Small Request To The Colorado Rockies
Any time you're done getting swept by the Diamondbacks, hitting like crap, pitching like crap, playing like crap, looking like crap, making me feel like I've been stabbed, and otherwise generally embarrassing yourself in every facet of the game related to the playing of baseball at a (so I'm told) professional level, feel free to start your 2007 NL Champions title defense and/or the 2008 season, mkay?
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Life (School) & Life (Rockies)
Everything has gone swimmingly at the outset of the new school year, ever since my belowmentioned trip from hell. I got the classes I wanted, which are: a politics lecture (The Legitimacy of Modernity) a psychology seminar (Narrative Neuropsychology, which is so interesting that I've already read about half my course texts voluntarily) and a writing workshop. It wasn't my first choice, but it'll be interesting anyway; it focuses on the craft and art of writing as much as the actual act, and features four novels to be read and analyzed, which is just fine with me; I'm starved for new reading material (one of the reasons I tore into my psych books like a ravening wolf) and look forward to having a new professor offer perspective on my work. Classes started today, and I am as happy as the proverbial pig in slop. I got up with no complaints at 8:30 (which I generally consider too early) to trot off to my politics lecture, and really enjoyed the first day of studying. Around 4 pm, after I'd finished with both my lecture and my seminar, I found myself in the library, happily reading Hobbes' Leviathan and taking notes about it from the discussion questions. I am the very rare breed of college student who actually enjoys studying (although I suppose that's easy to say at the start of semester, and my assiduousness will probably go down as time goes on) but I am thrilled to be back in the swing of things.
Now, about my Rox.... Pretty much every day is do-or-die time for them in the stretch run, the first time September baseball has mattered since 1995 (coincidentally, their last postseason appearance). Even Todd Helton's annual milestone (in this case, his 35th double for the tenth straight season... the only player to ever do that, congratulations) was relegated to a footnote by the fact that the team is still in the chase. By beating the Padres 2 of 3, including one game in which they used a franchise-record 10 pitchers (and won 10-4) and one game in which they won at Coors with four hits or less for the first time in their history (fortunately, two of the hits were homers, one by Atkins and one by Holliday) they have positioned themselves 3 back in the Wild Card with 20 to play and open a four-game set with the Phillies tonight. The Phils are one game ahead of them, so with a series victory, the Rockies could establish themselves as a down-to-the-wire contender and seriously make the NL wild-card race a last-second affair. There is no drama in the AL, as the Yankees, Angels, and Red Sox have their spots sewn up (heeerurgh, the only AL entrant I can root for is the Indians) but the NL figures to be interesting, especially the wild wild West and the fact that we have to start worrying about giant flaming balls of fire if the Cubs get anywhere. Despite their meteoric plummet, the Brewers are still in first by the skin of their teeth, but they need to do the world a favor and save it from the destruction that would occur if the other Chicago entry became world champs.
The Mets look to have their second consecutive East crown under their belts, but nothing else is certain in the NL. Far more interesting, I like the Senior Circuit better anyway, and everything is still in flux. The Central, West, and wild card could literally be decided on the last day of the season, and I'm rooting for the NL in the postseason anyway; I'm tired of AL arrogance, stupid rules (DH) and dominance. There is no one NL likely entrant that I hate with the bloody vitriol I reserve for the Terrible Trio entering on the AL half, so I'll just have to hope that my support (yeah, like that's the deciding factor) will spur the NL on to victory.... Unless.... Oh my god, what if it's Cubs/Yanks, Cubs/Sox, or something equally awful? My head will explode. I don't mind the Mets, but living in NY, I expect I'd get tired of hearing about them. At least my friends who are Mets fans will be happy, and it would rub the Yankees' face in the fact that the city is holding a championship parade NOT FOR THEM, and it's been seven whole years since they won the Big One. (Oh, please let them never win it again. A-Rod, Giambi, Farnsworth, and Damon preening with a championship ring would make me lose my lunch).
There is one other thing which I'm noting in particular this year, and that is that the umpiring is worse than ever. Recently, the box on Gameday which denotes the strike zone has disappeared, and this has come on the heels of several players and managers airing their (warranted) frustration with the abysmal standard that the calls have dropped to. Baseball is the only major sport in which the referee is directly involved with every play, and the umps have been a constant source of antagonism this year. If one hothead player on one hard-luck team is letting out some dirty laundry, you can't take him seriously, but when a number of veteran players on contending teams are expressing their displeasure with the works (Chipper Jones being the most recent example to come to mind) it's time for MLB to take a look at the situation. I don't care about hurting umps' feelings, QuesTec has to be installed in parks to further accountability. I don't care about the baseball purists who grumble that it takes the human element out of the game to have a machine recording balls and strikes -- baseball is a game that evolves with the time and no need to keep it in the Abner Doubleday era when consistent mistakes are being made. You can bet that with some umps, it's a power thing, showing up the batter and pitcher, and authority complexes make for difficult people to deal with. I want the strike zone in the book, not that as interpreted by a forty-pounds-overweight egomaniac who can be more concerned with ensuring everyone knows he's in charge. I'm sure they do know. I'm fairly sure that the disappearance of the strike zone on Gameday came at the request of the umpires' union, because I can't think of any other reason it would, and this makes me think that they know they aren't cutting it.... it pisses me off.
Watching this Rockies/Phillies game is going to give me heart failure. All things considered, the Rockies have exactly six losses left this season if they want to win the Wild Card, and they used one of them on Saturday, spoiling a 8-inning, 2-run performance by Jeff Francis, so everything is in must-win territory now. They went up 5-2 in the top of the seventh on the back of a monstrous two-run shot by Holliday off their former problem Jose Mesa, but then their current problems Hawkins, Affeldt, and Julio combined to give up three runs on a backbreaking homer by Pat Burrell. Then, with the winning run in scoring position with two outs in the eighth, Hurdle let Omar Quintanilla, who hadn't gotten the ball out of the infield all night, hit; the result was predictable. Hurdle is pulling out the idiot stops tonight, further proving why he is unsuited to manage in big games and that the pressure of a pennant race isn't something that he can cope with, having dealt with mediocre to flat-out awful teams during his four-year tenure. This will likely be the last season that he has such a talented nucleus intact, as the Monforts' skinflintedness will mean that one of Atkins, Hawpe, or Helton will probably be moved in the offseason (with likely money on Atkins in addition to Brian Fuentes. So sad... I really like Atkins). And we get him until 2009? Joy.
More bad umpiring. 3-1 on Hawpe, two on, top of the ninth, two outs. The first call was questionable, but the second call was nowhere close; Wally Bell called the exact same pitch a ball on Utley before the Burrell home run. The count goes to 3-2 when Hawpe should have walked to load the bases, and he grounds out instead to end the inning. This umpiring is making me sick.
The slender thread of hope may be waning, but it's still there... at least my boys still are playing meaningful games in September. Go Rockies...
Now, about my Rox.... Pretty much every day is do-or-die time for them in the stretch run, the first time September baseball has mattered since 1995 (coincidentally, their last postseason appearance). Even Todd Helton's annual milestone (in this case, his 35th double for the tenth straight season... the only player to ever do that, congratulations) was relegated to a footnote by the fact that the team is still in the chase. By beating the Padres 2 of 3, including one game in which they used a franchise-record 10 pitchers (and won 10-4) and one game in which they won at Coors with four hits or less for the first time in their history (fortunately, two of the hits were homers, one by Atkins and one by Holliday) they have positioned themselves 3 back in the Wild Card with 20 to play and open a four-game set with the Phillies tonight. The Phils are one game ahead of them, so with a series victory, the Rockies could establish themselves as a down-to-the-wire contender and seriously make the NL wild-card race a last-second affair. There is no drama in the AL, as the Yankees, Angels, and Red Sox have their spots sewn up (heeerurgh, the only AL entrant I can root for is the Indians) but the NL figures to be interesting, especially the wild wild West and the fact that we have to start worrying about giant flaming balls of fire if the Cubs get anywhere. Despite their meteoric plummet, the Brewers are still in first by the skin of their teeth, but they need to do the world a favor and save it from the destruction that would occur if the other Chicago entry became world champs.
The Mets look to have their second consecutive East crown under their belts, but nothing else is certain in the NL. Far more interesting, I like the Senior Circuit better anyway, and everything is still in flux. The Central, West, and wild card could literally be decided on the last day of the season, and I'm rooting for the NL in the postseason anyway; I'm tired of AL arrogance, stupid rules (DH) and dominance. There is no one NL likely entrant that I hate with the bloody vitriol I reserve for the Terrible Trio entering on the AL half, so I'll just have to hope that my support (yeah, like that's the deciding factor) will spur the NL on to victory.... Unless.... Oh my god, what if it's Cubs/Yanks, Cubs/Sox, or something equally awful? My head will explode. I don't mind the Mets, but living in NY, I expect I'd get tired of hearing about them. At least my friends who are Mets fans will be happy, and it would rub the Yankees' face in the fact that the city is holding a championship parade NOT FOR THEM, and it's been seven whole years since they won the Big One. (Oh, please let them never win it again. A-Rod, Giambi, Farnsworth, and Damon preening with a championship ring would make me lose my lunch).
There is one other thing which I'm noting in particular this year, and that is that the umpiring is worse than ever. Recently, the box on Gameday which denotes the strike zone has disappeared, and this has come on the heels of several players and managers airing their (warranted) frustration with the abysmal standard that the calls have dropped to. Baseball is the only major sport in which the referee is directly involved with every play, and the umps have been a constant source of antagonism this year. If one hothead player on one hard-luck team is letting out some dirty laundry, you can't take him seriously, but when a number of veteran players on contending teams are expressing their displeasure with the works (Chipper Jones being the most recent example to come to mind) it's time for MLB to take a look at the situation. I don't care about hurting umps' feelings, QuesTec has to be installed in parks to further accountability. I don't care about the baseball purists who grumble that it takes the human element out of the game to have a machine recording balls and strikes -- baseball is a game that evolves with the time and no need to keep it in the Abner Doubleday era when consistent mistakes are being made. You can bet that with some umps, it's a power thing, showing up the batter and pitcher, and authority complexes make for difficult people to deal with. I want the strike zone in the book, not that as interpreted by a forty-pounds-overweight egomaniac who can be more concerned with ensuring everyone knows he's in charge. I'm sure they do know. I'm fairly sure that the disappearance of the strike zone on Gameday came at the request of the umpires' union, because I can't think of any other reason it would, and this makes me think that they know they aren't cutting it.... it pisses me off.
Watching this Rockies/Phillies game is going to give me heart failure. All things considered, the Rockies have exactly six losses left this season if they want to win the Wild Card, and they used one of them on Saturday, spoiling a 8-inning, 2-run performance by Jeff Francis, so everything is in must-win territory now. They went up 5-2 in the top of the seventh on the back of a monstrous two-run shot by Holliday off their former problem Jose Mesa, but then their current problems Hawkins, Affeldt, and Julio combined to give up three runs on a backbreaking homer by Pat Burrell. Then, with the winning run in scoring position with two outs in the eighth, Hurdle let Omar Quintanilla, who hadn't gotten the ball out of the infield all night, hit; the result was predictable. Hurdle is pulling out the idiot stops tonight, further proving why he is unsuited to manage in big games and that the pressure of a pennant race isn't something that he can cope with, having dealt with mediocre to flat-out awful teams during his four-year tenure. This will likely be the last season that he has such a talented nucleus intact, as the Monforts' skinflintedness will mean that one of Atkins, Hawpe, or Helton will probably be moved in the offseason (with likely money on Atkins in addition to Brian Fuentes. So sad... I really like Atkins). And we get him until 2009? Joy.
More bad umpiring. 3-1 on Hawpe, two on, top of the ninth, two outs. The first call was questionable, but the second call was nowhere close; Wally Bell called the exact same pitch a ball on Utley before the Burrell home run. The count goes to 3-2 when Hawpe should have walked to load the bases, and he grounds out instead to end the inning. This umpiring is making me sick.
The slender thread of hope may be waning, but it's still there... at least my boys still are playing meaningful games in September. Go Rockies...
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Travels and Travails
One of those dreaded updates in which I veer into real life.... (Well, just for reference, the Rockies won both before and after my cross-country flight from hell, which was very considerate of them. Now, about the aforementioned flight from hell and the commencement of my sophomore year...)
So basically, everything that could go wrong on my trip back to school did so. I had to leave Colorado on a 11:55 pm flight on September 2nd in order to make it back in time for registration on September 3rd. Naturally, I got to the airport with plenty of time -- 10 pm, so I had almost two hours in which to satisfy the TSA with all the necessary bag-checking/security scanning/waiting etc. Then, for some reason, they inform me that the flight is oversold and I, of all people, have to go standby. Aside from the fact that I don't have a clue where they got that, as I have had a confirmed reservation for about two months, this freaked me out since there was no way I was able to miss the flight -- I had to get a connector in Philly and head onwards for NY, and being late or re-routing was not in the program. So I, uh, implored insistently for them to make sure I got on the plane. After the ordeal of watching everyone else with confirmed seats who had not gotten stand-by (stand-byed?) get on the plane, I was allowed to board and dashed down the jetway; I got hung up at the end of the queue but ended up in a window seat anyway.
Flight out of Denver wasn't much; just long, dark, uncomfortable since as you know there is no leg room in economy class on commercial airlines. My rear end got numb, I shifted vainly to find a feasible position, and my headphones kept fritzing out and annoying the heck out of me since only one side would play. I got to Philadelphia around 5:15 am ET, wandered around a largely deserted suburban airport, killed time, ate an unremarkable sandwich, and finally boarded my connector to New York, a small (and noisy) turboprop jet, but even this was not free of drama; for some reason, my boarding pass apparently showed that I hadn't paid for the ticket (WTF?) and while desperately convincing the airport attendant that I wasn't a crook or a terrorist so she would let me stay on the plane, she took my Frontier claim checks to prove that I had had another boarding pass (and, presumably, a paid ticket). When this snafu was over, we were finally on our way to LaGuardia. The damn turboprop was so loud that I couldn't hear myself think, and the only good thing about this flight was that it was short and we were soon descending into New York. I got off the plane normally, headed for the baggage claim, and of course, my luggage had failed to make the trip with me. Seeing as it was the first time this had happened to me, combined with everything else, I was on the hairy edge of freaking out and paced back and forth by the carrousel muttering obscenities as it failed, and failed, and failed to appear.
Once I had determined that my bags had in fact pulled a vanishing act on me, I managed to control my panic and get to the baggage service office, conveniently located right alongside the carrousels for flustered travelers such as myself. One of my bags miraculously turned up in the hold area, so I just had to go through the teeth-pulling business of filing a missing-bag report minus a claim check. Fortunately, the guy at LaGuardia was really helpful and promised to get my bag delivered once it turned up. White slip in hand, I sallied forth to the bus stop, waited for a while since I'd missed the bus I was originally scheduled for, and then departed for Grand Central. At least, this was the plan, and we spent a while caught in airport deadlock before actually moving. Nothing, at least, went wrong here, and I headed into the terminal, checked the schedule like a New Yorker without needing to ask when the next train to Bronxville was, and wasted some time until it departed at 11:23 am.
When I got there, I hauled my assorted heavy bags up a hill, in the hot sunshine, to school and arrived very tired and ready to just sit down for a while. I had to go through registration, get my packets, room keys, meal plans, etc. Then, with all my stuff safely sequestered in my new room (a single, loads of character, more on that in a minute) I headed back out across campus to find my friends. I was able to fall into their arms for big hugs and bitch about my bad flight, which was very nice; I was so happy to see them. I ran to Bronxville and bought some things, spent about freaking $100, and was able to finish (mostly) unpacking, before crashing around 11 pm; I looked at the clock, thought, "Oh wow, I haven't slept in 36 hours," and fell into bed.
I was woken up around 7:30 by my cell phone ringing, missed it the first time, thought it was the room phone, and was just about to go back to bed when it rang again. I answered, very sleepily, and was informed by SLC security that I had a cab waiting. When I expressed ignorance as to why a cab would be there, he amended that it was a suitcase delivery, and I almost fainted in relief. I scuttled down the twisty spiral staircase of my new dorm in pajamas and flip-flops, waited outside for the delivery, and then hauled it back UP aforementioned twisty spiral staircase. I yanked the extra pillow out of it and went back to bed, slept for another two hours, and when my alarm went off at 9:30, I first reset it and then decided that my fabulous day of faculty interviews could hang on for a bit; I was so sleepy that I just lay in bed and dozed for a while as another beautiful day matriculated outside. Once I was done regaining my senses, I rolled out, got dressed, and headed off to get my course schedule approved and in order.
At SLC, you interview professors before signing up for their courses, so naturally I spent the last leg of my 36 hours without sleep picking out all my courses and writing down all the pertinent information. My schedule, if I get what I want, is: Narrative Neuropsychology (a fascinating-looking psych course) The Legitimacy of Modernity (a political science lecture course) and a fiction workshop, which, of course, is the reason I am at SLC in the first place. Hopefully I get them all, as students are placed into at least one of their first choices and sometimes have to settle for alternates if all the spaces in their desired classes are full. I need the lecture course for requirements, so I'll probably get it, and I asked the psychology professor to place me on the priority list, so I'm guessing I get two. Hopefully. I'm excited and look forward to resuming my studies. Yes, I am weird like that.
My new room is also excellent. Apart from being located at the top of a staircase that would do some old Victorian proud (very steep, very twisty) it has wood floors, slanted roofs, a four-paneled bay window that I can sit in, and strange angles. I have papered the walls with all my Rockies photos, pennants, tickets, and cards, and since I am the only one in the room and don't have to contend with roommates (hurrah!) I am free to go to town with my fanaticism and I did. I'll probably take pictures eventually, as I have a mother and several friends asking to see where exactly I am living for the next year. There is a large Rockies sticker and this photo on the door, and inside is equally plastered with assorted purple, black, and silver tokens of my love. What the hell. At least the boys considerately won for me yesterday, kicking Matt Cain's ass in the process (always satisfying) which I needed after the hijinks of my travel arrangements.
Now that my suitcase is home and all I need to do is trust the post office to safely convey my boxes to me (I shipped them parcel post a week ago, and weekends/Labor Day/post office transfers will take extra time, so I'm not too worried) I'm really happy to be back at SLC in all my places and spaces, with my friends and my interests, ready to get back into classwork and get a few part-time jobs to supplement my always unfortunately-dwindling income. In addition to designing posters for College Events, I'll most likely get a job at the Bronxville Starbucks (I heard that if you have experience, they hire you, and I'm already trained and whatnot). Future reaffirmed, sophomore year begun, excitement high, here we go, and return you to your regularly scheduled Rockies blogging. Thank you.
So basically, everything that could go wrong on my trip back to school did so. I had to leave Colorado on a 11:55 pm flight on September 2nd in order to make it back in time for registration on September 3rd. Naturally, I got to the airport with plenty of time -- 10 pm, so I had almost two hours in which to satisfy the TSA with all the necessary bag-checking/security scanning/waiting etc. Then, for some reason, they inform me that the flight is oversold and I, of all people, have to go standby. Aside from the fact that I don't have a clue where they got that, as I have had a confirmed reservation for about two months, this freaked me out since there was no way I was able to miss the flight -- I had to get a connector in Philly and head onwards for NY, and being late or re-routing was not in the program. So I, uh, implored insistently for them to make sure I got on the plane. After the ordeal of watching everyone else with confirmed seats who had not gotten stand-by (stand-byed?) get on the plane, I was allowed to board and dashed down the jetway; I got hung up at the end of the queue but ended up in a window seat anyway.
Flight out of Denver wasn't much; just long, dark, uncomfortable since as you know there is no leg room in economy class on commercial airlines. My rear end got numb, I shifted vainly to find a feasible position, and my headphones kept fritzing out and annoying the heck out of me since only one side would play. I got to Philadelphia around 5:15 am ET, wandered around a largely deserted suburban airport, killed time, ate an unremarkable sandwich, and finally boarded my connector to New York, a small (and noisy) turboprop jet, but even this was not free of drama; for some reason, my boarding pass apparently showed that I hadn't paid for the ticket (WTF?) and while desperately convincing the airport attendant that I wasn't a crook or a terrorist so she would let me stay on the plane, she took my Frontier claim checks to prove that I had had another boarding pass (and, presumably, a paid ticket). When this snafu was over, we were finally on our way to LaGuardia. The damn turboprop was so loud that I couldn't hear myself think, and the only good thing about this flight was that it was short and we were soon descending into New York. I got off the plane normally, headed for the baggage claim, and of course, my luggage had failed to make the trip with me. Seeing as it was the first time this had happened to me, combined with everything else, I was on the hairy edge of freaking out and paced back and forth by the carrousel muttering obscenities as it failed, and failed, and failed to appear.
Once I had determined that my bags had in fact pulled a vanishing act on me, I managed to control my panic and get to the baggage service office, conveniently located right alongside the carrousels for flustered travelers such as myself. One of my bags miraculously turned up in the hold area, so I just had to go through the teeth-pulling business of filing a missing-bag report minus a claim check. Fortunately, the guy at LaGuardia was really helpful and promised to get my bag delivered once it turned up. White slip in hand, I sallied forth to the bus stop, waited for a while since I'd missed the bus I was originally scheduled for, and then departed for Grand Central. At least, this was the plan, and we spent a while caught in airport deadlock before actually moving. Nothing, at least, went wrong here, and I headed into the terminal, checked the schedule like a New Yorker without needing to ask when the next train to Bronxville was, and wasted some time until it departed at 11:23 am.
When I got there, I hauled my assorted heavy bags up a hill, in the hot sunshine, to school and arrived very tired and ready to just sit down for a while. I had to go through registration, get my packets, room keys, meal plans, etc. Then, with all my stuff safely sequestered in my new room (a single, loads of character, more on that in a minute) I headed back out across campus to find my friends. I was able to fall into their arms for big hugs and bitch about my bad flight, which was very nice; I was so happy to see them. I ran to Bronxville and bought some things, spent about freaking $100, and was able to finish (mostly) unpacking, before crashing around 11 pm; I looked at the clock, thought, "Oh wow, I haven't slept in 36 hours," and fell into bed.
I was woken up around 7:30 by my cell phone ringing, missed it the first time, thought it was the room phone, and was just about to go back to bed when it rang again. I answered, very sleepily, and was informed by SLC security that I had a cab waiting. When I expressed ignorance as to why a cab would be there, he amended that it was a suitcase delivery, and I almost fainted in relief. I scuttled down the twisty spiral staircase of my new dorm in pajamas and flip-flops, waited outside for the delivery, and then hauled it back UP aforementioned twisty spiral staircase. I yanked the extra pillow out of it and went back to bed, slept for another two hours, and when my alarm went off at 9:30, I first reset it and then decided that my fabulous day of faculty interviews could hang on for a bit; I was so sleepy that I just lay in bed and dozed for a while as another beautiful day matriculated outside. Once I was done regaining my senses, I rolled out, got dressed, and headed off to get my course schedule approved and in order.
At SLC, you interview professors before signing up for their courses, so naturally I spent the last leg of my 36 hours without sleep picking out all my courses and writing down all the pertinent information. My schedule, if I get what I want, is: Narrative Neuropsychology (a fascinating-looking psych course) The Legitimacy of Modernity (a political science lecture course) and a fiction workshop, which, of course, is the reason I am at SLC in the first place. Hopefully I get them all, as students are placed into at least one of their first choices and sometimes have to settle for alternates if all the spaces in their desired classes are full. I need the lecture course for requirements, so I'll probably get it, and I asked the psychology professor to place me on the priority list, so I'm guessing I get two. Hopefully. I'm excited and look forward to resuming my studies. Yes, I am weird like that.
My new room is also excellent. Apart from being located at the top of a staircase that would do some old Victorian proud (very steep, very twisty) it has wood floors, slanted roofs, a four-paneled bay window that I can sit in, and strange angles. I have papered the walls with all my Rockies photos, pennants, tickets, and cards, and since I am the only one in the room and don't have to contend with roommates (hurrah!) I am free to go to town with my fanaticism and I did. I'll probably take pictures eventually, as I have a mother and several friends asking to see where exactly I am living for the next year. There is a large Rockies sticker and this photo on the door, and inside is equally plastered with assorted purple, black, and silver tokens of my love. What the hell. At least the boys considerately won for me yesterday, kicking Matt Cain's ass in the process (always satisfying) which I needed after the hijinks of my travel arrangements.
Now that my suitcase is home and all I need to do is trust the post office to safely convey my boxes to me (I shipped them parcel post a week ago, and weekends/Labor Day/post office transfers will take extra time, so I'm not too worried) I'm really happy to be back at SLC in all my places and spaces, with my friends and my interests, ready to get back into classwork and get a few part-time jobs to supplement my always unfortunately-dwindling income. In addition to designing posters for College Events, I'll most likely get a job at the Bronxville Starbucks (I heard that if you have experience, they hire you, and I'm already trained and whatnot). Future reaffirmed, sophomore year begun, excitement high, here we go, and return you to your regularly scheduled Rockies blogging. Thank you.
Sunday, August 19, 2007
In Which I Am Partly Justified
Yeah. Huh. No sense in ending the road trip with an inspiring come-from-behind win to take two of three from the Dodgers, right? A night after Jorge Julio blows it with a little non-help from the defense, giving up two runs, Hurdle puts him in in the eighth, where he blows it without any extra outs from the defense; he does get helped by Jeremy Affeldt deciding to completely suck at the worst possible time. After Affeldt gave up five runs without recording an out in San Diego, in a game that the Rockies lost 11-9, he does the same thing in Los Angeles, giving up a two-run single to RAMON MARTINEZ, who is hitting, for the record, .173/0/18. Great job, Jeremy. Great freaking job.
The Elmer Dessens experiment did not work; the Franklin Morales (!) flyer might have. The 21-year-old lefty went 5.1 innings, permitting only one run, in his MLB debut, in a game that the Rockies eventually won 7-4 in 14 innings. They lost two of three to both the Padres and Dodgers, going a heartbreaking 2-4 on their six-game crucial West swing. At least two of those losses are attributable to Affeldt becoming Affuentes at the least convenient juncture. Yeah, I know that playing on 100-loss teams in Kansas City didn't really prepare you for the heat of a pennant race, buddy. Just go away.
And now for the brief foray into real life issues: I am not okay right now, with the Rockies only comprising one of many reasons. I am trying to work through the anger and depression and get my head back on track, as I've been in a serious emotional swoon for the past few weeks and need to exorcise the blues. I'm having a pretty wild self-esteem and self-knowledge crisis, I suppose you could say, and I have difficulty letting that side of me out; so naturally it all caught up and nervous breakdowns really aren't to my taste.
Still trying to recover, today's travesty didn't help, and sometimes I feel like I am hanging on by my fingernails. I am so tired and so down and the blues are taking over me. I have no creativity and ambition. I can’t write, novels or blog or anything. I want to sleep forever and work is becoming more of a chore than ever. I want to go back to school, I’m actively looking forward to it, and at the same time I hold back and want to stay home, which is odd, because I know I love it in New York and want to go back there; maybe it’ll be good for me. It’s the end of the summer and I am mired in a serious emotional swamp. Slipping off the edge. Clawing back. Crystalline shards beneath the fingernails. Dealing with family, with self, money, ambitions, images, life. Splintered mirrors, shifting shadows. Going slightly crazy, clearly. I am too old to be this confused; I may be only 19 (well, in five days) but I am very mature for my age. I know what I want in life and I am generally content. This slide came out of nowhere and it really sucks. I keep pretending that I am fine, and that's what I say when anyone asks, but I am not. This has more to do than just baseball. Everything seems to be teetering on the brink just now. It'll get better, I hope.
I need something to hold onto. Who knows what it’ll be?
The Elmer Dessens experiment did not work; the Franklin Morales (!) flyer might have. The 21-year-old lefty went 5.1 innings, permitting only one run, in his MLB debut, in a game that the Rockies eventually won 7-4 in 14 innings. They lost two of three to both the Padres and Dodgers, going a heartbreaking 2-4 on their six-game crucial West swing. At least two of those losses are attributable to Affeldt becoming Affuentes at the least convenient juncture. Yeah, I know that playing on 100-loss teams in Kansas City didn't really prepare you for the heat of a pennant race, buddy. Just go away.
And now for the brief foray into real life issues: I am not okay right now, with the Rockies only comprising one of many reasons. I am trying to work through the anger and depression and get my head back on track, as I've been in a serious emotional swoon for the past few weeks and need to exorcise the blues. I'm having a pretty wild self-esteem and self-knowledge crisis, I suppose you could say, and I have difficulty letting that side of me out; so naturally it all caught up and nervous breakdowns really aren't to my taste.
Still trying to recover, today's travesty didn't help, and sometimes I feel like I am hanging on by my fingernails. I am so tired and so down and the blues are taking over me. I have no creativity and ambition. I can’t write, novels or blog or anything. I want to sleep forever and work is becoming more of a chore than ever. I want to go back to school, I’m actively looking forward to it, and at the same time I hold back and want to stay home, which is odd, because I know I love it in New York and want to go back there; maybe it’ll be good for me. It’s the end of the summer and I am mired in a serious emotional swamp. Slipping off the edge. Clawing back. Crystalline shards beneath the fingernails. Dealing with family, with self, money, ambitions, images, life. Splintered mirrors, shifting shadows. Going slightly crazy, clearly. I am too old to be this confused; I may be only 19 (well, in five days) but I am very mature for my age. I know what I want in life and I am generally content. This slide came out of nowhere and it really sucks. I keep pretending that I am fine, and that's what I say when anyone asks, but I am not. This has more to do than just baseball. Everything seems to be teetering on the brink just now. It'll get better, I hope.
I need something to hold onto. Who knows what it’ll be?
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
It Is With Great Regret I Announce the Demise of the '07 Rox
Yeah, I know. It sucks to have to write a sentence like that. But the truth is, the injury bug that the Rockies had been so fortutiously dodging all season has caught up with them in a major way -- Aaron Cook is now headed to the DL as per the Rocky Mountain News. This means that Cook, Hirsh, and Lopez are all unavailable, leaving an already suspect rotation in even worse shambles and causing the Rockies to look to players like Ramon Ortiz (acquired from the Twins in exchange for AAA infielder Matt Macri) and Elmer Dessens (salvaged from the D-backs scrap heap and rushed into duty) to patch a suddenly fast-sinking ship.
Add to this cornucopia of crap the fact that ace Jeff Francis was shelled for eight earned runs last night, and the Rockies were shut out by the Pads in the opener of a crucial set, and you can see why I am beginning to accept the fact that we may just be done for this season. We hung in there a hell of a lot longer than we normally do, but with three-fifths of our opening-day rotation unavailable for duty and the cracks chinked by less-than-replacement-level garbage, there is very little reason for hope in the Mile High City. Sure, they could be a sports movie, but they're not. The only way they could hope to stay out of a season-killing tailspin is by using a quick hook and relying on the suddenly good bullpen and usually-potent offense to correct the goose eggs the starter will be laying (and not in a good way). Please, O'Dowd and Co., call up Franklin Morales. Just let him have a shot -- our number-two starter is now Josh Fogg. Good god. Francis has zero margin for error now -- last night's debacle had better be the last of the season as well. I still advocate that I'd feel more comfortable with Buchholz and Morales instead of Dessens and Ortiz -- Dessens and Ortiz, for the love of Christ. The next few weeks are going to be very brutal to watch.
To add further to the misery, Ubaldo Jimenez, he of the hitting-a-wall-in-a-major way, goes tonight against Chris Young, who has a 0.73 ERA at home. Yes, 0.73 in the spacious dimensions of Petco, compared to a more-mortal 3.30 mark on the road. Besides, Jimenez has absolutely imploded in his last few starts and desperately needs to show Rockies Nation something, anything to cling onto. If we have no rotation at all, despite the presence of five breathing guys suiting up for the task, our last pipe-dreams of contention are gone. Even the vaunted offense scored precisely zero runs in said important game last night.
You shall notice that the "Axes I Grind" sidebar has been updated accordingly. Oy vey.
Add to this cornucopia of crap the fact that ace Jeff Francis was shelled for eight earned runs last night, and the Rockies were shut out by the Pads in the opener of a crucial set, and you can see why I am beginning to accept the fact that we may just be done for this season. We hung in there a hell of a lot longer than we normally do, but with three-fifths of our opening-day rotation unavailable for duty and the cracks chinked by less-than-replacement-level garbage, there is very little reason for hope in the Mile High City. Sure, they could be a sports movie, but they're not. The only way they could hope to stay out of a season-killing tailspin is by using a quick hook and relying on the suddenly good bullpen and usually-potent offense to correct the goose eggs the starter will be laying (and not in a good way). Please, O'Dowd and Co., call up Franklin Morales. Just let him have a shot -- our number-two starter is now Josh Fogg. Good god. Francis has zero margin for error now -- last night's debacle had better be the last of the season as well. I still advocate that I'd feel more comfortable with Buchholz and Morales instead of Dessens and Ortiz -- Dessens and Ortiz, for the love of Christ. The next few weeks are going to be very brutal to watch.
To add further to the misery, Ubaldo Jimenez, he of the hitting-a-wall-in-a-major way, goes tonight against Chris Young, who has a 0.73 ERA at home. Yes, 0.73 in the spacious dimensions of Petco, compared to a more-mortal 3.30 mark on the road. Besides, Jimenez has absolutely imploded in his last few starts and desperately needs to show Rockies Nation something, anything to cling onto. If we have no rotation at all, despite the presence of five breathing guys suiting up for the task, our last pipe-dreams of contention are gone. Even the vaunted offense scored precisely zero runs in said important game last night.
You shall notice that the "Axes I Grind" sidebar has been updated accordingly. Oy vey.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
You Know Who I Don't Like? The Cubs
No really, I don't. I've never seen the allure of being a Cubs fan to start with -- is it fashionable to be a loser and wear blue, sit in the stands at opposing parks, and annoy the hell out of everyone else with your completely unwarranted arrogance while cheering for your pack of toerags -- not to mention splashing beer on people, standing up and doing frat-boy fist pumps every time a spawn of your hapless brood happens to make it as far as first base? True-blue Chicagoites who have seen their team through a lifetime of misery are not included in this diatribe, but I must say, there seems to be an awful lot of Cubs fans who have never even been to the city and just decided to root for the Lil' Bears because... why, exactly? "America's Team?" Because Haley's Comet has passed the earth twice since they were hoisting a championship trophy on the North Side? Because it sounds chic to say that you're a Cubs fan, as if you really "know" baseball and truly "support" a comically inept team? Because one day you hope that your bunch of assclowns accidentally stumbles into respectability and causes the world to end? Do you want that on your consciousness? Then again, you are a Cubs fan, so you have nothing better to do. So, really, is all you can do to sit at Coors Field one seat away from me and posture and preen like you really had something to celebrate? Billy Goat. Steve Bartman. Kerry Wood. Ron Santo, Ryne Sandberg, and no championship rings. Sit down, you porky son of a bitch.
As you may be able to tell, I certainly wasn't addressing that above venting session to anybody in particular. Not at all. I didn't even slip his friend a Rockies sticker to slap onto the back of his Cubs jersey or anything insidious like that. In fact, if I happened to encounter a particulary annoying Cubs fan of any stripe, it was purely coincidence, as they were popping up like poisonous fungi all over my beloved ballpark. They certainly weren't driving me berserk with their beer-fueled bellows and their endless chants of "Let's Go Cubbies!" as if they had forgotten that their ignorant rears had been removed several hundred miles from Chicago and were now unfortunately located in Colorado instead; their stunted intellect could most likely not process this development, so they carried on turning it into Wrigley Field West anyway. The cheers whenever the Cubs happened to get as far as first were absolutely insane. If I was not smarter than your average Cubs fan, I would think that I was the one in Chicago instead.
Now, look. I'm not an entirely unreasonable person. If these people would like to purchase tickets, swell the Rockies' coffers with a hope that this money will be put to a reasonable purpose (Monforts, a Holliday contract extension, for example?) and come out to root on their team, they are perfectly welcome to do so, even if said rooting happens to drive me out of my tree with their consistent and moronic yelling. What I cannot get is why the Cubs have so many fans in the first place. However much I loathe the Yankees, I understand why people root for them; it's easy to support a winner. On the other hand, the Cubs have done nothing but lose, have done so with truly remarkable incompetence, and yet everyone seems to love them anyway. I know, I know, I'm a Rockies fan, I can't talk, but.... hey, at least the Rockies have only been bad for 14 years, with flashes of promise here and there. I also happen to be from Colorado, have been to many many games at my home ballpark, have an encyclopedic knowledge of my team, and don't go to other parks purely to annoy the opposition. The Cubs have been terrible for 99 years and counting (may the curse never end) and they specialize in promising false hope and yanking it away. Lucy and the football. Buy your kids a Bears or a Bulls hat and get done with it. The Bears made it to the Super Bowl, even if they lost to Manning and the Colts and still have Rex Grossman. The White Sox have returned to their customary climes of outrageous suckitude this year, so I guess there's just not a lot of choice if you're born in the Windy City. And let me emphasize, if you're actually from there, then go ahead and root, try not to be such douchebags in our house, and try shutting up for once in your life. If you are not, then don't even show your mug.
There is another reason I hate the Cubs at this point: They appear to either be actively trying to kill the Rockies or just have a bunch of shitty pitchers who can't keep the ball in the zone. Jeff Baker was drilled in the head on Friday night by Jason Marquis, which knocked his helmet off and left him stunned in the dirt for several minutes; he had a concussion and facial bruising and was released from the hospital today. I was at that game (the same one where I didn't meet any particularly annoying Cubs fans) and it was sick; the entire stadium gasped when he went down. He had no time to duck at all and it was as violent and scary as it gets. A few innings earlier, I'd been soundly ragging Baker for throwing an easy double-play ball into center field and wishing that Helton was back for defensive purposes; then he went down and I was just wishing he'd get up or start moving or something. Fortunately, Baker was all right, just a bit worse for wear, but the plunking didn't stop there. Rookie Ian Stewart, called up to play third while Atkins slid to first in the event of Helton not being able to go, took a pitch off the helmet, but payback was sweet when JAMEY CARROLL of all people launched a pinch-hit grand slam. Today, Holliday took a sharp low curve off the foot, and after the Cubs' intentional walk of Matsui predictably backfired when Tulo blasted a two-run double, they threw behind him. Not to mention, there have been near misses on Spilborghs, Taveras, and Helton, just for a start. There has been a lot of ducking to avoid getting drilled, and maddeningly, none of the Cubs have taken it in the ribs yet. Only one inning left. I'll bide my time.
Also, due to extenuating circumstances, the Rockies had Tim Harikkala starting today. Yes, Tim Hur-ick-uh-luh, aka Tim Hara-Kiri, who predictably failed to be good when making his second major league start ever (the last one came 11 years ago when he was with Seattle. Uh, yeah, we're low on options). Now, it's not as if Jason Hirsh (15-day DL, fractured fibula) and Rodrigo Lopez (out for the rest of the season, torn elbow tendon) are world-beaters, but at least you could count on them to go out there every fifth day and give you a decent five or six innings, sometimes even seven if you asked nicely. Now, since they're gone, the Rockies' rotation consists of Jeff Francis, Aaron Cook, Josh Fogg (somehow weaseling his way into being the third starter when calls for his departure, usually from myself, are made often) and a lot of spit, smoke, mirrors, and glue. Rookie Ubaldo Jimenez has allowed fifteen earned runs over six innings (yes, hair-raising) in his last two starts, and if he's hit a wall, we're in trouble. Taylor Buchholz pitched five one-run innings out of the bullpen during Jimenez's most recent debacle, but has looked bad as a starter since he uses only a fastball and curve with any effectiveness; his changeup is, to put it charitably, a work in progress and he doesn't seem to have a decent feel for his slider. Young lefty phenom Franklin Morales, a combined 19-5/3.24 in the minor leagues this year, may attempt to follow Jimenez up if the Rockies can't get the rotation sorted out. So, they're playing Tim Harikkala, who might as well have come from the AARP as from AAA, and who -- shockingly! -- sucked, going 3.1 IP/3 earned runs. This heralds a very worrisome return to the Denny Stark/Scott Elarton/Shawn Chacon days, which I am not happy about. Hopefully they find the right buttons to push, Jimenez re-transforms from a pumpkin into a coach, and perhaps Morales can be given his shot. Tim Harikkala. Cold shudders.
On the bright side, the Rockies did win today. In one of the more befuddling managerial moves in history, Lou Piniella intentionally walked Kaz Matsui to load the bases and face ice-in-his-veins Tulowitzki, who loves clutch situations and already had a solo homer in the game. Tulo did not disappoint, missing a grand slam by about two inches and settling for a two-run double to break a three-all tie. Matt Holliday added an RBI groundout (after they threw behind him, grr, aargh) to make the score 6-3, which ended up being the final tally. The bullpen did not allow a runner from the top of the fourth until Manny Corpas permitted a one-out walk to Jason Kendall in the top of the ninth. All in all, a good day for the Blake Street Bombers v. 2.0 as they improved to 61-56, stayed two games arrears of the Pads in the Wild Card, and now head out west to take on an absolutely crucial set of games versus San Diego and Los Angeles, which could make or break their fledgling postseason ambitions.
Go Rockies!
As you may be able to tell, I certainly wasn't addressing that above venting session to anybody in particular. Not at all. I didn't even slip his friend a Rockies sticker to slap onto the back of his Cubs jersey or anything insidious like that. In fact, if I happened to encounter a particulary annoying Cubs fan of any stripe, it was purely coincidence, as they were popping up like poisonous fungi all over my beloved ballpark. They certainly weren't driving me berserk with their beer-fueled bellows and their endless chants of "Let's Go Cubbies!" as if they had forgotten that their ignorant rears had been removed several hundred miles from Chicago and were now unfortunately located in Colorado instead; their stunted intellect could most likely not process this development, so they carried on turning it into Wrigley Field West anyway. The cheers whenever the Cubs happened to get as far as first were absolutely insane. If I was not smarter than your average Cubs fan, I would think that I was the one in Chicago instead.
Now, look. I'm not an entirely unreasonable person. If these people would like to purchase tickets, swell the Rockies' coffers with a hope that this money will be put to a reasonable purpose (Monforts, a Holliday contract extension, for example?) and come out to root on their team, they are perfectly welcome to do so, even if said rooting happens to drive me out of my tree with their consistent and moronic yelling. What I cannot get is why the Cubs have so many fans in the first place. However much I loathe the Yankees, I understand why people root for them; it's easy to support a winner. On the other hand, the Cubs have done nothing but lose, have done so with truly remarkable incompetence, and yet everyone seems to love them anyway. I know, I know, I'm a Rockies fan, I can't talk, but.... hey, at least the Rockies have only been bad for 14 years, with flashes of promise here and there. I also happen to be from Colorado, have been to many many games at my home ballpark, have an encyclopedic knowledge of my team, and don't go to other parks purely to annoy the opposition. The Cubs have been terrible for 99 years and counting (may the curse never end) and they specialize in promising false hope and yanking it away. Lucy and the football. Buy your kids a Bears or a Bulls hat and get done with it. The Bears made it to the Super Bowl, even if they lost to Manning and the Colts and still have Rex Grossman. The White Sox have returned to their customary climes of outrageous suckitude this year, so I guess there's just not a lot of choice if you're born in the Windy City. And let me emphasize, if you're actually from there, then go ahead and root, try not to be such douchebags in our house, and try shutting up for once in your life. If you are not, then don't even show your mug.
There is another reason I hate the Cubs at this point: They appear to either be actively trying to kill the Rockies or just have a bunch of shitty pitchers who can't keep the ball in the zone. Jeff Baker was drilled in the head on Friday night by Jason Marquis, which knocked his helmet off and left him stunned in the dirt for several minutes; he had a concussion and facial bruising and was released from the hospital today. I was at that game (the same one where I didn't meet any particularly annoying Cubs fans) and it was sick; the entire stadium gasped when he went down. He had no time to duck at all and it was as violent and scary as it gets. A few innings earlier, I'd been soundly ragging Baker for throwing an easy double-play ball into center field and wishing that Helton was back for defensive purposes; then he went down and I was just wishing he'd get up or start moving or something. Fortunately, Baker was all right, just a bit worse for wear, but the plunking didn't stop there. Rookie Ian Stewart, called up to play third while Atkins slid to first in the event of Helton not being able to go, took a pitch off the helmet, but payback was sweet when JAMEY CARROLL of all people launched a pinch-hit grand slam. Today, Holliday took a sharp low curve off the foot, and after the Cubs' intentional walk of Matsui predictably backfired when Tulo blasted a two-run double, they threw behind him. Not to mention, there have been near misses on Spilborghs, Taveras, and Helton, just for a start. There has been a lot of ducking to avoid getting drilled, and maddeningly, none of the Cubs have taken it in the ribs yet. Only one inning left. I'll bide my time.
Also, due to extenuating circumstances, the Rockies had Tim Harikkala starting today. Yes, Tim Hur-ick-uh-luh, aka Tim Hara-Kiri, who predictably failed to be good when making his second major league start ever (the last one came 11 years ago when he was with Seattle. Uh, yeah, we're low on options). Now, it's not as if Jason Hirsh (15-day DL, fractured fibula) and Rodrigo Lopez (out for the rest of the season, torn elbow tendon) are world-beaters, but at least you could count on them to go out there every fifth day and give you a decent five or six innings, sometimes even seven if you asked nicely. Now, since they're gone, the Rockies' rotation consists of Jeff Francis, Aaron Cook, Josh Fogg (somehow weaseling his way into being the third starter when calls for his departure, usually from myself, are made often) and a lot of spit, smoke, mirrors, and glue. Rookie Ubaldo Jimenez has allowed fifteen earned runs over six innings (yes, hair-raising) in his last two starts, and if he's hit a wall, we're in trouble. Taylor Buchholz pitched five one-run innings out of the bullpen during Jimenez's most recent debacle, but has looked bad as a starter since he uses only a fastball and curve with any effectiveness; his changeup is, to put it charitably, a work in progress and he doesn't seem to have a decent feel for his slider. Young lefty phenom Franklin Morales, a combined 19-5/3.24 in the minor leagues this year, may attempt to follow Jimenez up if the Rockies can't get the rotation sorted out. So, they're playing Tim Harikkala, who might as well have come from the AARP as from AAA, and who -- shockingly! -- sucked, going 3.1 IP/3 earned runs. This heralds a very worrisome return to the Denny Stark/Scott Elarton/Shawn Chacon days, which I am not happy about. Hopefully they find the right buttons to push, Jimenez re-transforms from a pumpkin into a coach, and perhaps Morales can be given his shot. Tim Harikkala. Cold shudders.
On the bright side, the Rockies did win today. In one of the more befuddling managerial moves in history, Lou Piniella intentionally walked Kaz Matsui to load the bases and face ice-in-his-veins Tulowitzki, who loves clutch situations and already had a solo homer in the game. Tulo did not disappoint, missing a grand slam by about two inches and settling for a two-run double to break a three-all tie. Matt Holliday added an RBI groundout (after they threw behind him, grr, aargh) to make the score 6-3, which ended up being the final tally. The bullpen did not allow a runner from the top of the fourth until Manny Corpas permitted a one-out walk to Jason Kendall in the top of the ninth. All in all, a good day for the Blake Street Bombers v. 2.0 as they improved to 61-56, stayed two games arrears of the Pads in the Wild Card, and now head out west to take on an absolutely crucial set of games versus San Diego and Los Angeles, which could make or break their fledgling postseason ambitions.
Go Rockies!
Friday, July 27, 2007
Midseason Reviews, Part I
I meant to do this at the All-Star break, but naturally, I had only one day off and that was during the Home Run Derby. I came home around 9 PM and the last thing I had energy for was writing about baseball. By this time I'd usually had quite enough of reality and all the attendant irritants that go with it. I'm so disgustingly perky at Starbucks that no one knows I am in reality a cynical introvert who lives largely in her head and is prey to a flotilla of disturbing obsessions. (Some of my friends know some of them, I refuse to divulge the rest). So I decided that writing fiction about baseball was better than writing about real baseball, as I have detailed in preceding posts. Explanations over, here are my one-paragraph summations of the 30 MLB teams' season to date, and a look at how badly I suck at predicting things. They are outlined in standings order, AL East to NL West, and will probably be split by league.
I also have three days coming up this weekend, even if the great majority of the time will be occupied with sleeping. Hey, people, I had to get up at 4:45 this morning. Don't judge. Also, I'm having a royally, royally rotten day, am consumed in bitterness and misery, and will try to tone down the venom.
AL EAST
Boston: I predicted their usual second-fiddle finish to the Yankees in a top-heavy division, but instead they're burning up the league, leading everybody at a ridiculous 61-40 clip, just edging out the Tigers for the best record in baseball and enjoying a margin that's been as wide as 14 games, even if it's been whittled to 6.5 at the moment and making the Beantown fans sweat it out again. Second Half: Although their fans have been conditioned to expect collapse, it would be fairly surprising indeed if the Sox turned into the 1978 versions of themselves and let the Yankees come all the way back... but you never know.
New York: I bowed to the mojo, even if I hate them violently, and figured they'd be setting the tone atop the East again, but they've looked extremely mortal for large portions of the season. They briefly put together a hot streak, winning 11 of 12, then came to Colorado and got swept by Todd and the Toddlers (proudest moment of my life) , skidding aimlessly into the break and looking like a done deal. Of course, then they began winning games against weak opponents and trying to find their own Bucky Dent, attempting to build on a 54-46 record and chip away at the Sox lead. Second Half: I hate the Yankees (I may have mentioned this) but I can't deny that they bear an unnerving resemblance to a cockroach or an earthworm (in more ways than one). If anybody has learned anything, it's that you can't count George Steinbrenner's Traveling All-Stars out completely.
Toronto: I thought they'd at least be competitive, and predicted that they'd make at least a few fans in New York and Boston sweat, but instead, the Blue Jays haven't done that much (not that they ever had a realistic shot of cracking the Sox/Yanks stronghold, and at least I tabbed them to end up in third, the slot they're currently inhabiting). Despite the Rocky Mountain News' readers bewilderingly naming Toronto as the majors' best team, they have a strong offense (Wells, Glaus, Thomas, and an emergent Rios? Yikes) and yet can't mount enough of a push. They currently stand at 51-50, one game clear of the break-even mark -- and ergo, not bad, not good. Second Half: Barring an intercessory act of God, there's little chance Toronto clears their accustomed spot. They should pick out curtains and a wallpaper pattern for third place.
Baltimore: Peter Angelos, recently (and deservedly) named in Jon Heyman's SI.com article as one of the worst owners in baseball, still has his talons embedded in this floundering franchise, so until then, there's not a realistic chance that somebody will perform the overhaul needed to transform the Orioles from pretender to contender. MLB K leader Erik Bedard is a pleasant surprise, establishing himself as an ace on anybody's staff, and youngster Jeremy Guthrie has also stepped it up. Sam Perlozzo, to nobody's surprise, was fired and was replaced with interim manager Davey Trembley, who has skippered the O's to nine wins in 13 games coming out of the break. Still, they're 47-53, and they have more of a chance to win the East than I do of marrying Jason Hirsh. (And don't ask me about that, I'm still upset). Second Half: Not much of interest. Have hot streaks, have cold streaks. Finish in fourth again.
Tampa Bay: Unpopular opinion time: The Devil Rays are given far, far too much credit. Everyone talks about how they're a tough young team, how Maddon will pick up Piniella's slack and lead them from doormat to sudden contender, but let's face facts: Rocco Baldelli stays healthy for five minutes at a time. James Shields has turned back into a pumpkin. Scott Kazmir and Carl Crawford can't do it alone. And as long as the Tropicana Juice Box attracts 5000 fans a night (8000 on promo days) the Devil Rays are going to continue to play exactly the way their 38-63 record suggests. Second Half: More of the same.
AL CENTRAL
Detroit: I expressed skepticism that they'd be able to follow up their Cinderella run with another successful season, but they're doing just that, ripping along at a 60-41 mark and just behind the Red Sox for the best record in baseball. They're actually better on the road than they are at home (34-20 vs. 26-21) and despite Joe Morgan's bewildering insistence that Gary "Loudmouth" Sheffield is the sole reason for their offensive prowess (Joe, A) they were a good-hitting club last year, and b) have you, uh, heard of Magglio Ordonez) their strength still lies in their pitching. Rogers went down and they didn't miss a beat, as Justin Verlander is turning in a sterling sophomore effort and already has a no-hitter to his credit. Second Half: If the Tigers can fight off the marauding Indians, they should make a return playoff visit. They'll have their work cut out for them to get back to the Fall Classic, though, let alone win it.
Cleveland: I underestimated them, figuring they'd resemble their 2006 selves more than their 2005 selves, but I was wrong yet again, and they're fighting the Tigers tooth and nail, currently only one game arrears of the Motor City Kitties and sporting a shiny 59-42 record. Cleveland is usually a solid club, and is making a very real push for the AL Central title. Detroit lost it (thanks to the Royals) in the final few days of the season last year, so nothing's impossible. Second Half: My previous pick to click in the Central, the Twins, uh... didn't live up to it, so I'll jinx the Indians by picking them. Apologies to Tribe fans.
Minnesota: The Twins made a sweep of the major awards last season -- Cy Young for Santana, AL batting title for Mauer, and MVP for Morneau (who has 28 HR this season and is trailing only Alex Rodriguez -- I think -- in the AL). So why are they so bad, or at least, not that good? (51-50 as of this writing). Answer: No one after Santana in the rotation, His Johanness looking mortal, not enough hitting, and just plain bad luck. I thought they'd be the team to beat in this division, but overestimated them while similarly undervaluing the Tigers and Indians. Second Half: Unless they can snatch out the Central title with hours on the clock like they did last year, the Twins really don't have a realistic shot at unseating the leaders.
Chicago: Man, what a meteoric plummet. I guess the White Sox realized that although they've gotten off the World Series schneid, they're still supposed to be a bad team. They've fulfilled that billing admirably, waffling along ten games under .500 and only two ahead of the Royals for possession of the cellar. The offense I talked up in the beginning of the year has taken a season-long catnap and GM Kenny Williams has gone into rumored fire sale mode with his starters, who I correctly tabbed as mediocre. (At least I got SOMETHING right). Jon Garland, Javier Vasquez, and Jose Contreras are all on the block for the right price, as Williams tries to wring a king's ransom for average-to-bad pitchers. But since the market for starters is so thin, he may be able to command a decent return anyway. The same can't be said of his team, who will tread water at best. Second Half: Nothing worthy of note. The Sox already got their highlight with Mark Buehrle's no-hitter (conversely, the only pitcher that's definitely staying after he got an extension).
Kansas City: Like anybody's surprised. 43-57 and still solidly in last in one of baseball's toughest divisions, in this case by a 16.5-game gap. Gil Meche, the much-maligned, has been all right (7-7, 3.76) and, just as I predicted, got named an All-Star. While it wasn't quite the Mark Redman silliness, it still shows that the All-Star Game is a joke.... What? The Royals? They're still not worth mentioning and are a few years at least, possibly a decade, away from contending. Plus, they're still owned by David Glass. Second Half: Does anybody still follow the Royals? Well, if they do, they are brave souls, are to be commended, and will probably be treated to more bad baseball.
AL WEST
Anaheim: I refuse to call them by their full (and ridiculous) name. And they are fulfilling my prediction that they'd take the West, except they're doing it quite a bit more handily than I thought they would. They're leading by three and a half games, but their chief challenger is not the Athletics -- it's the surprising Mariners. The Angels have a stable of prospects to shop, strong pitching, and have a few holes they need to patch, but they still have Vlad Guerrero, who one of these days will probably swing at an intentional walk pitch and hit it over the fence. Second Half: I was right, there's no unseating the Ridiculous Names atop the West, who will probably win yet another playoff berth. As long as they take out the Yankees in the first round, it's all good.
Seattle: Everyone, myself included, didn't really expect the Mariners to make a push this year -- and then they went and did it anyway, kicking into a higher gear after a typically disappointing start to the season. They currently sit at 54-45, but are currently embroiled in a bit of a skid, just breaking a five-game losing streak. Mike Hargrove's puzzling resignation as the Mariners were their hottest didn't appear to matter much at first, and interim manager John McLaren has done a fine job. The Mariners locked up franchise cornerstone Ichiro Suzuki at five years and $90 million, which I expect will be another mistake contract by the time it's run its duration -- what big-money pact isn't? -- but I guess they weren't going to let him walk. The rotation is still suspect, but it remains to be seen how long Seattle can make it work. Second Half: May make Los Angeles Angels of Huntington Beach Lakewood hot under the collar, but doubtful that they'll unseat them.
Oakland: Well, I blew it. Perhaps I have a tendency (well, yes, I do) to bias my predictions in favor of teams I like, and I guess I failed to properly take into account that Oakland has a team made of china men who fall over at the slightest breeze. Well, I did, but one has to wonder what the hell Larry Davis is doing to make the A's use the DL whenever and wherever somebody breathes too hard. That and Joe Kennedy really is as bad as his numbers suggest, Chad Gaudin is becoming human again after a Cy-like start, and Dan Haren, despite starting the All-Star Game, has scuffled in July to tarnish his previously sub-2 ERA. The A's have been forced to use so many call-ups they might as well rename themselves the Rivercats, and I think I'm officially done with Rich Harden. Makes a few starts, does brilliantly, hurts himself and disappears. The best theory now is try to keep him in bubble wrap for a couple weeks and peddle him off on a GM who still thinks he's not the next Kerry Wood/Mark Prior/Mike Hampton. Second Half: The A's entered the break in need of a patented second-half surge to get them out of the doldrums and back into contention, but it's not going to happen. They're 48-53, under .500 and pretty much done for the season, and it'll be interesting to see who stays and who goes come July 31.
Texas: If the Rangers thought that hiring fiery Ron Washington was going to help light a fire under their underachieving rears, they were mistaken. They're a sad 46-56, solidly in the cellar (although Oakland has only three games to work with) and rumors have bubbled up of Washington's hard-nose style not playing well in the clubhouse and creating a schism between manager and players. The Rangers still have no pitching (hard to believe Kevin Millwood was the AL ERA leader a few years ago) and Mark Teixeira is seemingly a lock to be traded before the deadline. On the bright side, they have C.J. Wilson. Read his blog. Second Half: Nothing really worth remarking on. C.J. may write some more and make me laugh.
Okay, that's done. Gah... that took too long, spanned the entire time it took for me to watch the Rockies lose 5-4 to the Dodgers, and didn't make me feel better about this royally rotten day. Seriously, everything that could go wrong did, and I'm hoping that tomorrow will be better. It pretty much has to be.
I'm out.
I also have three days coming up this weekend, even if the great majority of the time will be occupied with sleeping. Hey, people, I had to get up at 4:45 this morning. Don't judge. Also, I'm having a royally, royally rotten day, am consumed in bitterness and misery, and will try to tone down the venom.
AL EAST
Boston: I predicted their usual second-fiddle finish to the Yankees in a top-heavy division, but instead they're burning up the league, leading everybody at a ridiculous 61-40 clip, just edging out the Tigers for the best record in baseball and enjoying a margin that's been as wide as 14 games, even if it's been whittled to 6.5 at the moment and making the Beantown fans sweat it out again. Second Half: Although their fans have been conditioned to expect collapse, it would be fairly surprising indeed if the Sox turned into the 1978 versions of themselves and let the Yankees come all the way back... but you never know.
New York: I bowed to the mojo, even if I hate them violently, and figured they'd be setting the tone atop the East again, but they've looked extremely mortal for large portions of the season. They briefly put together a hot streak, winning 11 of 12, then came to Colorado and got swept by Todd and the Toddlers (proudest moment of my life) , skidding aimlessly into the break and looking like a done deal. Of course, then they began winning games against weak opponents and trying to find their own Bucky Dent, attempting to build on a 54-46 record and chip away at the Sox lead. Second Half: I hate the Yankees (I may have mentioned this) but I can't deny that they bear an unnerving resemblance to a cockroach or an earthworm (in more ways than one). If anybody has learned anything, it's that you can't count George Steinbrenner's Traveling All-Stars out completely.
Toronto: I thought they'd at least be competitive, and predicted that they'd make at least a few fans in New York and Boston sweat, but instead, the Blue Jays haven't done that much (not that they ever had a realistic shot of cracking the Sox/Yanks stronghold, and at least I tabbed them to end up in third, the slot they're currently inhabiting). Despite the Rocky Mountain News' readers bewilderingly naming Toronto as the majors' best team, they have a strong offense (Wells, Glaus, Thomas, and an emergent Rios? Yikes) and yet can't mount enough of a push. They currently stand at 51-50, one game clear of the break-even mark -- and ergo, not bad, not good. Second Half: Barring an intercessory act of God, there's little chance Toronto clears their accustomed spot. They should pick out curtains and a wallpaper pattern for third place.
Baltimore: Peter Angelos, recently (and deservedly) named in Jon Heyman's SI.com article as one of the worst owners in baseball, still has his talons embedded in this floundering franchise, so until then, there's not a realistic chance that somebody will perform the overhaul needed to transform the Orioles from pretender to contender. MLB K leader Erik Bedard is a pleasant surprise, establishing himself as an ace on anybody's staff, and youngster Jeremy Guthrie has also stepped it up. Sam Perlozzo, to nobody's surprise, was fired and was replaced with interim manager Davey Trembley, who has skippered the O's to nine wins in 13 games coming out of the break. Still, they're 47-53, and they have more of a chance to win the East than I do of marrying Jason Hirsh. (And don't ask me about that, I'm still upset). Second Half: Not much of interest. Have hot streaks, have cold streaks. Finish in fourth again.
Tampa Bay: Unpopular opinion time: The Devil Rays are given far, far too much credit. Everyone talks about how they're a tough young team, how Maddon will pick up Piniella's slack and lead them from doormat to sudden contender, but let's face facts: Rocco Baldelli stays healthy for five minutes at a time. James Shields has turned back into a pumpkin. Scott Kazmir and Carl Crawford can't do it alone. And as long as the Tropicana Juice Box attracts 5000 fans a night (8000 on promo days) the Devil Rays are going to continue to play exactly the way their 38-63 record suggests. Second Half: More of the same.
AL CENTRAL
Detroit: I expressed skepticism that they'd be able to follow up their Cinderella run with another successful season, but they're doing just that, ripping along at a 60-41 mark and just behind the Red Sox for the best record in baseball. They're actually better on the road than they are at home (34-20 vs. 26-21) and despite Joe Morgan's bewildering insistence that Gary "Loudmouth" Sheffield is the sole reason for their offensive prowess (Joe, A) they were a good-hitting club last year, and b) have you, uh, heard of Magglio Ordonez) their strength still lies in their pitching. Rogers went down and they didn't miss a beat, as Justin Verlander is turning in a sterling sophomore effort and already has a no-hitter to his credit. Second Half: If the Tigers can fight off the marauding Indians, they should make a return playoff visit. They'll have their work cut out for them to get back to the Fall Classic, though, let alone win it.
Cleveland: I underestimated them, figuring they'd resemble their 2006 selves more than their 2005 selves, but I was wrong yet again, and they're fighting the Tigers tooth and nail, currently only one game arrears of the Motor City Kitties and sporting a shiny 59-42 record. Cleveland is usually a solid club, and is making a very real push for the AL Central title. Detroit lost it (thanks to the Royals) in the final few days of the season last year, so nothing's impossible. Second Half: My previous pick to click in the Central, the Twins, uh... didn't live up to it, so I'll jinx the Indians by picking them. Apologies to Tribe fans.
Minnesota: The Twins made a sweep of the major awards last season -- Cy Young for Santana, AL batting title for Mauer, and MVP for Morneau (who has 28 HR this season and is trailing only Alex Rodriguez -- I think -- in the AL). So why are they so bad, or at least, not that good? (51-50 as of this writing). Answer: No one after Santana in the rotation, His Johanness looking mortal, not enough hitting, and just plain bad luck. I thought they'd be the team to beat in this division, but overestimated them while similarly undervaluing the Tigers and Indians. Second Half: Unless they can snatch out the Central title with hours on the clock like they did last year, the Twins really don't have a realistic shot at unseating the leaders.
Chicago: Man, what a meteoric plummet. I guess the White Sox realized that although they've gotten off the World Series schneid, they're still supposed to be a bad team. They've fulfilled that billing admirably, waffling along ten games under .500 and only two ahead of the Royals for possession of the cellar. The offense I talked up in the beginning of the year has taken a season-long catnap and GM Kenny Williams has gone into rumored fire sale mode with his starters, who I correctly tabbed as mediocre. (At least I got SOMETHING right). Jon Garland, Javier Vasquez, and Jose Contreras are all on the block for the right price, as Williams tries to wring a king's ransom for average-to-bad pitchers. But since the market for starters is so thin, he may be able to command a decent return anyway. The same can't be said of his team, who will tread water at best. Second Half: Nothing worthy of note. The Sox already got their highlight with Mark Buehrle's no-hitter (conversely, the only pitcher that's definitely staying after he got an extension).
Kansas City: Like anybody's surprised. 43-57 and still solidly in last in one of baseball's toughest divisions, in this case by a 16.5-game gap. Gil Meche, the much-maligned, has been all right (7-7, 3.76) and, just as I predicted, got named an All-Star. While it wasn't quite the Mark Redman silliness, it still shows that the All-Star Game is a joke.... What? The Royals? They're still not worth mentioning and are a few years at least, possibly a decade, away from contending. Plus, they're still owned by David Glass. Second Half: Does anybody still follow the Royals? Well, if they do, they are brave souls, are to be commended, and will probably be treated to more bad baseball.
AL WEST
Anaheim: I refuse to call them by their full (and ridiculous) name. And they are fulfilling my prediction that they'd take the West, except they're doing it quite a bit more handily than I thought they would. They're leading by three and a half games, but their chief challenger is not the Athletics -- it's the surprising Mariners. The Angels have a stable of prospects to shop, strong pitching, and have a few holes they need to patch, but they still have Vlad Guerrero, who one of these days will probably swing at an intentional walk pitch and hit it over the fence. Second Half: I was right, there's no unseating the Ridiculous Names atop the West, who will probably win yet another playoff berth. As long as they take out the Yankees in the first round, it's all good.
Seattle: Everyone, myself included, didn't really expect the Mariners to make a push this year -- and then they went and did it anyway, kicking into a higher gear after a typically disappointing start to the season. They currently sit at 54-45, but are currently embroiled in a bit of a skid, just breaking a five-game losing streak. Mike Hargrove's puzzling resignation as the Mariners were their hottest didn't appear to matter much at first, and interim manager John McLaren has done a fine job. The Mariners locked up franchise cornerstone Ichiro Suzuki at five years and $90 million, which I expect will be another mistake contract by the time it's run its duration -- what big-money pact isn't? -- but I guess they weren't going to let him walk. The rotation is still suspect, but it remains to be seen how long Seattle can make it work. Second Half: May make Los Angeles Angels of Huntington Beach Lakewood hot under the collar, but doubtful that they'll unseat them.
Oakland: Well, I blew it. Perhaps I have a tendency (well, yes, I do) to bias my predictions in favor of teams I like, and I guess I failed to properly take into account that Oakland has a team made of china men who fall over at the slightest breeze. Well, I did, but one has to wonder what the hell Larry Davis is doing to make the A's use the DL whenever and wherever somebody breathes too hard. That and Joe Kennedy really is as bad as his numbers suggest, Chad Gaudin is becoming human again after a Cy-like start, and Dan Haren, despite starting the All-Star Game, has scuffled in July to tarnish his previously sub-2 ERA. The A's have been forced to use so many call-ups they might as well rename themselves the Rivercats, and I think I'm officially done with Rich Harden. Makes a few starts, does brilliantly, hurts himself and disappears. The best theory now is try to keep him in bubble wrap for a couple weeks and peddle him off on a GM who still thinks he's not the next Kerry Wood/Mark Prior/Mike Hampton. Second Half: The A's entered the break in need of a patented second-half surge to get them out of the doldrums and back into contention, but it's not going to happen. They're 48-53, under .500 and pretty much done for the season, and it'll be interesting to see who stays and who goes come July 31.
Texas: If the Rangers thought that hiring fiery Ron Washington was going to help light a fire under their underachieving rears, they were mistaken. They're a sad 46-56, solidly in the cellar (although Oakland has only three games to work with) and rumors have bubbled up of Washington's hard-nose style not playing well in the clubhouse and creating a schism between manager and players. The Rangers still have no pitching (hard to believe Kevin Millwood was the AL ERA leader a few years ago) and Mark Teixeira is seemingly a lock to be traded before the deadline. On the bright side, they have C.J. Wilson. Read his blog. Second Half: Nothing really worth remarking on. C.J. may write some more and make me laugh.
Okay, that's done. Gah... that took too long, spanned the entire time it took for me to watch the Rockies lose 5-4 to the Dodgers, and didn't make me feel better about this royally rotten day. Seriously, everything that could go wrong did, and I'm hoping that tomorrow will be better. It pretty much has to be.
I'm out.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Someone Whack Brian Fuentes
I lack the energy, the desire, or the masochism to rehash the latest events in Rockie-land, so let's just put it like this: If they can sort out their elbows from asshats, they'll still be good. In the meantime, they've made me cry with rage and fury twice in the past four days, and should be 2-2 instead of 0-4, thanks to Tulo and no thanks to Brian Fuckin' Fuentes.
Isn't baseball a funny game sometimes, so funny it makes you want to cry.
If you really want to know the details of the carnage, go to the Rockies' site. No recapping for me. Still struggling futilely to get over the pain, and my sister gave me the, "I think you need something in your life aside from baseball," talk. I think she doesn't get how I feel, she thinks I'm psychotic, you know.
Now, to make myself feel better, I'm going to write on my (baseball) novel.
Ideas for Hilary's next obsession and/or life may be left in the comments.
Isn't baseball a funny game sometimes, so funny it makes you want to cry.
If you really want to know the details of the carnage, go to the Rockies' site. No recapping for me. Still struggling futilely to get over the pain, and my sister gave me the, "I think you need something in your life aside from baseball," talk. I think she doesn't get how I feel, she thinks I'm psychotic, you know.
Now, to make myself feel better, I'm going to write on my (baseball) novel.
Ideas for Hilary's next obsession and/or life may be left in the comments.
Saturday, June 02, 2007
From Luck to Suck
The Rockies are doing more and more every day to further the impression that their winning streak was nothing more than a lucky fluke, and that they really are as bad as that shitaceous 18-27 record they sported before going on their fortuitious seven-game tear. Then, they had strong starters, stellar relievers, and just the right amount of offense, without committing any egregious defensive lapses -- in other words, the way that you win ballgames. Now it's back to the offense taking nine-inning catnaps, the starting pitcher trying to do too much to compensate for the bats' doldrums and turning into the Hindenburg as a result, and the bullpen going back to their leaky selves. In other words, the Rockies lost the winning streak and then two more, getting shut down tonight by a rookie pitcher that the Reds pulled out of their ass and looking limp and uninspired in a 4-2 final. They're 2-3 on the homestand with five more games left against Central doormats Cincinnati and Houston, but it remains to be seen if they can even beat them.
Considering the momentum that they entered the Cards series with, splitting is as disappointing as if they lost three of four. I was in attendance last night to witness the 7-3 clunker, which looked moderately hopeful until Juan Encarnacion, yes Juan Encarnacion, hit a bases-clearing double in the sixth inning to give the Redbirds a lead they'd never relinquish. At least we had great seats (sixteen rows back from homeplate) and got three more autographs (Ryan Spilborghs, Jeff Baker, and Kaz Matsui) which prevented the night from being a total wash. They really needed to win today, and, well, they didn't. Bobby Livingston, who had made a grand total of one previous career start and allowed four runs in 5 1/3 innings, shut them down until the seventh, where a mishandled grounder gave them their first run, practically by accident. In other words, the Rockies are back to doing splendid flounder imitations and I'm starting to remember again why I was so frustrated about this team before a week of seeming luck took the pain away. Now it's coming back. Oy.
Jeff Francis goes tomorrow in a game which both my sisters and myself will be attending -- which means they should win, considering how well he's been pitching lately -- so if they happen to extend the losing skid to four, I'm going to be in a foul mood indeed. Then again, even Francis can't win if the offense that scored five runs in two games shows up, instead of the offense that scored 14 runs in the two games beforehand. Also, tonight's horrid lineup didn't help. Jeff Baker was inserted for Garrett Atkins, and managed to ground out with the bases loaded in the seventh to squander one of the Rockies' best scoring chances. Hurdle kept batting the hot hand, Brad Hawpe, sixth, and played Jamey Carroll as well, who's not even hitting his weight. Combine this with Yorvit Torrealba and the pitcher's spot, and you have four black holes in a nine-man lineup -- not the way you can win games. Tonight's starter, Taylor Buchholz, was victimized by a three-run fourth inning, right after he spent the bottom of the third running the bases -- so even when he did get a hit, it didn't work out.
And of course, the Rockies, not content with just losing the game, had to go and lose Matt Holliday as well. The details of what happened are pretty sketchy, but apparently he somehow hurt his head in the dugout between innings and had to leave the game with what the team is labeling a contusion. Clint Hurdle is trying to pass it off as a mishap innocently suffered since Holliday is a big guy and the dugout ceilings are low, but he only said that Holliday banged his head hard enough to warrant removal and cut off follow-up questions. Now call me a suspicious bird, but I'm a little leery that tonight, out of all nights, should be the one where Holliday develops a terminal attack of clumsiness and concusses himself on a ceiling. At least nobody else was leaving the game, so it wasn't a Carlos Zambrano/Michael Barrett-type scuffle such as took place in the Windy City today -- the batterymates got into a shoving and punching match after a tough inning and had to be dragged apart by coaches. Still, it makes me wonder if Holliday was just a little frustrated and ended up getting a flukey injury because of it. My younger sister will be very upset if he's not at Photo Day tomorrow, as she's deeply in love with him and has been waiting all season to get a picture with him, but I'll be more upset if Holliday was taking out his frustration and ended up costing himself and the team some games without his services. If it's enough to land him on the DL, then the Rockies are even more screwed than they generally are. With Atkins slumping, losing Holliday would cut out half of the core which includes Helton and Hawpe, and if they didn't really have that great shakes of an offense with them, they'll be swinging wet noodles without them.
There is nothing more aggravating than discovering that an encouraging win streak might have been smoke and mirrors, following it up with a three-game skid, and then losing your star player in a suspicious accident which might have been self-inflicted out of frustration. Why do the Rockies do this to me, and why do I love them so much?
On another note, Adam Wainwright turned in another sparkling start tonight, recording 7 IP with 1 run allowed, 4 walks, and 6 K's. True, it was against the light-hitting and light-weight Astros, who just broke a 10-game losing streak and will probably still beat the Rockies, but one has to start somewhere. And yet again, he got screwed out of the win, but at least the Cards got it -- why couldn't they wait until they got to Houston to do that? They scored seven runs in a ninth-inning uprising to flatten the Astros 8-1, but since Adam was already out, he didn't get the decision. Grr. I wish he would have pitched last night, as that would have taken a tiny bit of the sting out of watching the Rockies getting their behinds handed to them. If they can't recover and take the next two from the Reds, or at least two from the Astros, or generally play well at Coors during their long homestands, then... well, they're fucked, but we might have known that already.
Le sigh.
Considering the momentum that they entered the Cards series with, splitting is as disappointing as if they lost three of four. I was in attendance last night to witness the 7-3 clunker, which looked moderately hopeful until Juan Encarnacion, yes Juan Encarnacion, hit a bases-clearing double in the sixth inning to give the Redbirds a lead they'd never relinquish. At least we had great seats (sixteen rows back from homeplate) and got three more autographs (Ryan Spilborghs, Jeff Baker, and Kaz Matsui) which prevented the night from being a total wash. They really needed to win today, and, well, they didn't. Bobby Livingston, who had made a grand total of one previous career start and allowed four runs in 5 1/3 innings, shut them down until the seventh, where a mishandled grounder gave them their first run, practically by accident. In other words, the Rockies are back to doing splendid flounder imitations and I'm starting to remember again why I was so frustrated about this team before a week of seeming luck took the pain away. Now it's coming back. Oy.
Jeff Francis goes tomorrow in a game which both my sisters and myself will be attending -- which means they should win, considering how well he's been pitching lately -- so if they happen to extend the losing skid to four, I'm going to be in a foul mood indeed. Then again, even Francis can't win if the offense that scored five runs in two games shows up, instead of the offense that scored 14 runs in the two games beforehand. Also, tonight's horrid lineup didn't help. Jeff Baker was inserted for Garrett Atkins, and managed to ground out with the bases loaded in the seventh to squander one of the Rockies' best scoring chances. Hurdle kept batting the hot hand, Brad Hawpe, sixth, and played Jamey Carroll as well, who's not even hitting his weight. Combine this with Yorvit Torrealba and the pitcher's spot, and you have four black holes in a nine-man lineup -- not the way you can win games. Tonight's starter, Taylor Buchholz, was victimized by a three-run fourth inning, right after he spent the bottom of the third running the bases -- so even when he did get a hit, it didn't work out.
And of course, the Rockies, not content with just losing the game, had to go and lose Matt Holliday as well. The details of what happened are pretty sketchy, but apparently he somehow hurt his head in the dugout between innings and had to leave the game with what the team is labeling a contusion. Clint Hurdle is trying to pass it off as a mishap innocently suffered since Holliday is a big guy and the dugout ceilings are low, but he only said that Holliday banged his head hard enough to warrant removal and cut off follow-up questions. Now call me a suspicious bird, but I'm a little leery that tonight, out of all nights, should be the one where Holliday develops a terminal attack of clumsiness and concusses himself on a ceiling. At least nobody else was leaving the game, so it wasn't a Carlos Zambrano/Michael Barrett-type scuffle such as took place in the Windy City today -- the batterymates got into a shoving and punching match after a tough inning and had to be dragged apart by coaches. Still, it makes me wonder if Holliday was just a little frustrated and ended up getting a flukey injury because of it. My younger sister will be very upset if he's not at Photo Day tomorrow, as she's deeply in love with him and has been waiting all season to get a picture with him, but I'll be more upset if Holliday was taking out his frustration and ended up costing himself and the team some games without his services. If it's enough to land him on the DL, then the Rockies are even more screwed than they generally are. With Atkins slumping, losing Holliday would cut out half of the core which includes Helton and Hawpe, and if they didn't really have that great shakes of an offense with them, they'll be swinging wet noodles without them.
There is nothing more aggravating than discovering that an encouraging win streak might have been smoke and mirrors, following it up with a three-game skid, and then losing your star player in a suspicious accident which might have been self-inflicted out of frustration. Why do the Rockies do this to me, and why do I love them so much?
On another note, Adam Wainwright turned in another sparkling start tonight, recording 7 IP with 1 run allowed, 4 walks, and 6 K's. True, it was against the light-hitting and light-weight Astros, who just broke a 10-game losing streak and will probably still beat the Rockies, but one has to start somewhere. And yet again, he got screwed out of the win, but at least the Cards got it -- why couldn't they wait until they got to Houston to do that? They scored seven runs in a ninth-inning uprising to flatten the Astros 8-1, but since Adam was already out, he didn't get the decision. Grr. I wish he would have pitched last night, as that would have taken a tiny bit of the sting out of watching the Rockies getting their behinds handed to them. If they can't recover and take the next two from the Reds, or at least two from the Astros, or generally play well at Coors during their long homestands, then... well, they're fucked, but we might have known that already.
Le sigh.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
It Was Great.... Until Eight
As you may or may not have heard depending on your baseball proclivities, the Rockies lost their winning streak tonight after Jason Hirsh coughed up eight runs in 4.2 innings and the offense couldn't exactly stage a valiant calvalric charge against, well, Todd Wellemeyer. Eight runs instead of eight wins, bah. Hirsh was fooling exactly nobody up there, tossing lollipop hanging curves, changeups that didn't change up, and fat fastballs down the pipe, and by the time Hurdle finally gave him the hook after Gary Bennett had hit something that looked so much like a homer they'd already put it on the scoreboard, he was just throwing batting practice. (For the record, Matt Holliday made a great catch, but it didn't matter -- Hirsh couldn't even get Wellemeyer out, yielding an RBI single). It was a disheartening way to end a winning streak, especially against a mediocre pitcher. Holliday and Brad Hawpe remained en fuego, both hitting solo jacks, and in the eighth inning, Hawpe came within inches of making it an 8-7 game as he missed a three-run homer by about a foot. Tyler Johnson served up a slider to him last night that Brad hit to Boulder (actually, the second deck) and tonight he almost did the same thing, but since it wasn't the Rockies' night, the ball didn't get out and the deficit that Hirsh had already allowed proved too much to overcome. I think I'm glad that he's not facing the Cardinals again this year, as he's had substantial trouble with them. As for Hawpe, he's hitting .338 in May with seven homers in eleven games, and basically he's just a roaring beast right now. I need not say that I'm lovin' it, but I love it better when he hits them and the Rockies, you know, win.
We'll learn a lot about the Rockies by the way they approach tomorrow's game. Any team can get hot for a stretch, and they're lucky that it carried them from nine under .500 to three, but they're still not clear of the break-even mark and if they don't bounce back and play a good, strong, winning ballgame tomorrow, the winning streak is going to mean exactly zip. They have to show that their ability to piece together a successful run of games is more than just an accident, and that when they're denied, they have the desire to come back just as hard the next day and play with fire and resilience. With Aaron Cook facing Brad Thompson, the odds are in their favor, but then again, they looked to be today with converted ex-Royals reliever Wellemeyer making the start against Hirsh. If the Rockies lose tomorrow, split the series, and go into a funk afterwards, then it's safe to start labeling them flukes, but I've had a glimpse of the talent and passion that they can play with, and I'm loathe to let it go. I've had so much fun with them making me feel good, making me eager to see what happens every night, and I'm not at all ready to go back to the doldrums of losing two out of every three. The win streak was the longest since 1998, but they need to make it stick, taking this defeat and then roaring back, not allowing the Cards to follow up tonight. Fortunately for them, the Cards have shown a remarkable inability to get it going consistently, and we don't want to be the catalyst that lets them. As I have said... fond feelings for the Cards, but not in the Rox' home park. We need three of four and we need to keep winning.
Also, I happen to be attending tomorrow's game with primo free tickets (16 rows back of home plate) scored from my sister's friend's dad, who knows people who know people... etc. I want to go there and enjoy my boys giving me a win, not a crushing split, which would be a failure considering the red-hot wave of momentum the Rockies were riding into the series. I want to see a fire under some asses, and I want to come out of Coors happy. I'll be wearing my Hawpe shirt, my purple and black Rockies jersey, my Rockies necklace, and possibly my autographed cap as well. Last year I thought my heart would belong to the Cards during this series, but I think the Rockies have well and truly stolen it away. And since I had such a great time rooting for them as a winner, I'll be even more upset if I'm forced to settle for a loser again.
I also have a quasi-special-agenda for tomorrow's game. Jason Hirsh is usually out and about during warmups, and he's quite good about signing, so I'm going to see if I can talk to him. I already have his autograph and picture, so I don't need to bother him about that, but I'm going to ask him what he was doing tonight. In San Francisco he was trying to establish his fastball, but couldn't, and resorted to his curve and changeup as effective enough tools to get him through six innings and three earned runs. The results were not similarly serviceable tonight, so I am planning to ask which pitches he was using and what feel he had for them. Clearly, he wasn't fooling anyone, so I'll ask if it was just a night where he felt good in the bullpen and lost it when he came to the mound, if one specific pitch wasn't working enough to set up the others and so he had to make do with a reduced arsenal, or if he felt all right but they were pummeling him anyway. (I did notice early on that his "out pitch," which is usually his changeup, wasn't working, as guys were fouling off a lot of pitches in order to sit on something hittable). Hirsh is a very sweet and affable guy, so although tonight may not be his favorite topic in the world, he'll probably still give me a decent answer if I manage to snag him.
I have to say, the Rockies chose kind of a lousy day to break the streak, aside from squandering what looked like a pretty favorable matchup on paper. I had to attend training for my new job (Starbucks) today, and since it's done through King Soopers, there were all these required food handling videos I had to watch, and... oy. Let's just say that when your day starts off hearing about Barney Kroger's entrepreneurial exploits with sauerkraut in Cincinnati, and goes downhill from there, you're in trouble, especially when you're forced to watch endless, mind-numbing bars of text scroll onto the screen at the approximate pace of a glacier and be repeated by criminally perky virtual people. (Not to mention that you review them about five times... I feel sorry for anyone who actually needs those videos, as they clearly do not have an IQ above 80 and will never be successful in life aside from teaching connoisseur courses on how to load plastic grocery sacks. Yes, there is apparently a whole art to this. Shoot me). I went through a number of stages. I actually almost cried when I saw I had to watch yet-fricking-more videos after my noon break. I sat there in despair. I took off the headphones. Then I began scrabbling for happy thoughts, most of which involved the Rockies, the fact that I'm going to the game both tomorrow and Saturday, the fact that they were going for eight.... etc. Then I became very fascinated with the operations of the printer -- seriously, I thought it was interesting to watch the wheels and arms and paper feeds. Then I began reciting a militant litany of "fuck you"s under my breath at the idiots on the screen teaching me about correct food temperatures, and flipping them off when I was sure no one was looking. Then I noticed spelling and grammatical errors and became homicidal, and to top it off, the Rockies couldn't even win and salvage my day. How very inconsiderate of you, boys.
Side note: Why in crapping hell does Steve Finley still have a job in the majors, let alone on my favorite team, where I have to watch him spectacularly suck in all manner of key situations? Not only is he good for a pair of weak groundouts, a shallow popup, and a feeble K a game (pick and choose one as the result if he's put in as a pinch-hitter) his defense is atrociously atrophied. Today he tried to dive for a Jim Edmonds flyball that went past him completely, turned into a triple, and keyed the Cardinals' big inning; five in inning five was enough for them to thrive. Then, when Hirsh allowed a hit to the pitcher (bad), Finley bobbled the ball anyway on a routine single to center. Veteran presence is the most overrated quality in baseball and it offers absolutely nothing of value if the veteran in question is as godawful as Finley is. His start tonight was another example of Hurdle's overmanaging; he heard that Wellemeyer was vulnerable to lefties, so he stuck the matchup statistic (Finley) in there instead of the hot hand (Spilborghs), apparently missing the memo that certain pitchers' vulnerability to left-handers does not include ancient, decrepit, grizzled geezers, left-handed or otherwise. Finley can't see the Mendoza line with a telescope and he's taken up far, far too many at-bats for the big club while poor Sean Barker withers away down in AAA. (It's worth noting that Barker's "slump" has dropped him to .338 from .398. Wish I had that kind of slump on the big club). The reason Finley is kept around is precisely because he is left-handed, which is coincidentally also the reason that Tom Martin is still employed. As you can see, Hurdle loves matchups, but I for one am a believer that stronger hitters are worth more than which hand is on top of the other on the bat. Barker's right-handed, but he's hitting over .300, for Christ's sake. The promoting Spilborghs experiment worked out -- SEE! I told you. Now it's time to free Barker. The only other left-handed outfield option is Seth Smith, but he's hitting only .265 and may not be ready for the callup to the Show yet. It isn't as if we're short on outfielders, and if the Rockies need a good veteran presence, how about, uh, Todd Helton?
Hopefully, somebody will see the light and realize that Finley has no redeeming value to contribute to a big-league club and that he should be given his walking papers pronto. Even though Hirsh was throwing like a Little Leaguer tonight, Finley's defense behind him wasn't doing much to help out. Hirsh has evened out his GB/FB split a bit since last year, but he's still a flyball pitcher with almost 50% of his outs coming in the air, and although he's managed to (usually) escape with this at Coors, he's going to need outfielders there who can, you know, track down and catch the ball. Spilborghs has shown some terrific range and versatility out there, including a great catch to save Ramon Ramirez' bacon and preserve what would become game five of the winning streak in San Francisco. He also had Scott Rolen dead to rights yesterday night with a perfect throw to Torrealba as Rolen tried to score on Pujols' shallow fly, but naturally Torrealba flubbed the catch. In other words, HE'S HERE, HURDLE, NOW PLAY HIM! God. How many times do I have to yell it?
Well, that's all for tonight. Despite my trepidation about whether or not the Rockies can avoid an all-new and even more depressing tailspin, I am looking forward to going back to Coors, very much so. There is never enough time for me to be there and to be with my boys. So I'll be there to root, root, root for the purple and black and hope that there's a spark under more than one butt. Tulowitzki, I'm sure, will have it, and most likely Holliday and Hawpe as well, but three guys do not a winning game (or team) make. So, Rockies, thou have thy mandate. Thou shalt go forth and fulfill it.
We'll learn a lot about the Rockies by the way they approach tomorrow's game. Any team can get hot for a stretch, and they're lucky that it carried them from nine under .500 to three, but they're still not clear of the break-even mark and if they don't bounce back and play a good, strong, winning ballgame tomorrow, the winning streak is going to mean exactly zip. They have to show that their ability to piece together a successful run of games is more than just an accident, and that when they're denied, they have the desire to come back just as hard the next day and play with fire and resilience. With Aaron Cook facing Brad Thompson, the odds are in their favor, but then again, they looked to be today with converted ex-Royals reliever Wellemeyer making the start against Hirsh. If the Rockies lose tomorrow, split the series, and go into a funk afterwards, then it's safe to start labeling them flukes, but I've had a glimpse of the talent and passion that they can play with, and I'm loathe to let it go. I've had so much fun with them making me feel good, making me eager to see what happens every night, and I'm not at all ready to go back to the doldrums of losing two out of every three. The win streak was the longest since 1998, but they need to make it stick, taking this defeat and then roaring back, not allowing the Cards to follow up tonight. Fortunately for them, the Cards have shown a remarkable inability to get it going consistently, and we don't want to be the catalyst that lets them. As I have said... fond feelings for the Cards, but not in the Rox' home park. We need three of four and we need to keep winning.
Also, I happen to be attending tomorrow's game with primo free tickets (16 rows back of home plate) scored from my sister's friend's dad, who knows people who know people... etc. I want to go there and enjoy my boys giving me a win, not a crushing split, which would be a failure considering the red-hot wave of momentum the Rockies were riding into the series. I want to see a fire under some asses, and I want to come out of Coors happy. I'll be wearing my Hawpe shirt, my purple and black Rockies jersey, my Rockies necklace, and possibly my autographed cap as well. Last year I thought my heart would belong to the Cards during this series, but I think the Rockies have well and truly stolen it away. And since I had such a great time rooting for them as a winner, I'll be even more upset if I'm forced to settle for a loser again.
I also have a quasi-special-agenda for tomorrow's game. Jason Hirsh is usually out and about during warmups, and he's quite good about signing, so I'm going to see if I can talk to him. I already have his autograph and picture, so I don't need to bother him about that, but I'm going to ask him what he was doing tonight. In San Francisco he was trying to establish his fastball, but couldn't, and resorted to his curve and changeup as effective enough tools to get him through six innings and three earned runs. The results were not similarly serviceable tonight, so I am planning to ask which pitches he was using and what feel he had for them. Clearly, he wasn't fooling anyone, so I'll ask if it was just a night where he felt good in the bullpen and lost it when he came to the mound, if one specific pitch wasn't working enough to set up the others and so he had to make do with a reduced arsenal, or if he felt all right but they were pummeling him anyway. (I did notice early on that his "out pitch," which is usually his changeup, wasn't working, as guys were fouling off a lot of pitches in order to sit on something hittable). Hirsh is a very sweet and affable guy, so although tonight may not be his favorite topic in the world, he'll probably still give me a decent answer if I manage to snag him.
I have to say, the Rockies chose kind of a lousy day to break the streak, aside from squandering what looked like a pretty favorable matchup on paper. I had to attend training for my new job (Starbucks) today, and since it's done through King Soopers, there were all these required food handling videos I had to watch, and... oy. Let's just say that when your day starts off hearing about Barney Kroger's entrepreneurial exploits with sauerkraut in Cincinnati, and goes downhill from there, you're in trouble, especially when you're forced to watch endless, mind-numbing bars of text scroll onto the screen at the approximate pace of a glacier and be repeated by criminally perky virtual people. (Not to mention that you review them about five times... I feel sorry for anyone who actually needs those videos, as they clearly do not have an IQ above 80 and will never be successful in life aside from teaching connoisseur courses on how to load plastic grocery sacks. Yes, there is apparently a whole art to this. Shoot me). I went through a number of stages. I actually almost cried when I saw I had to watch yet-fricking-more videos after my noon break. I sat there in despair. I took off the headphones. Then I began scrabbling for happy thoughts, most of which involved the Rockies, the fact that I'm going to the game both tomorrow and Saturday, the fact that they were going for eight.... etc. Then I became very fascinated with the operations of the printer -- seriously, I thought it was interesting to watch the wheels and arms and paper feeds. Then I began reciting a militant litany of "fuck you"s under my breath at the idiots on the screen teaching me about correct food temperatures, and flipping them off when I was sure no one was looking. Then I noticed spelling and grammatical errors and became homicidal, and to top it off, the Rockies couldn't even win and salvage my day. How very inconsiderate of you, boys.
Side note: Why in crapping hell does Steve Finley still have a job in the majors, let alone on my favorite team, where I have to watch him spectacularly suck in all manner of key situations? Not only is he good for a pair of weak groundouts, a shallow popup, and a feeble K a game (pick and choose one as the result if he's put in as a pinch-hitter) his defense is atrociously atrophied. Today he tried to dive for a Jim Edmonds flyball that went past him completely, turned into a triple, and keyed the Cardinals' big inning; five in inning five was enough for them to thrive. Then, when Hirsh allowed a hit to the pitcher (bad), Finley bobbled the ball anyway on a routine single to center. Veteran presence is the most overrated quality in baseball and it offers absolutely nothing of value if the veteran in question is as godawful as Finley is. His start tonight was another example of Hurdle's overmanaging; he heard that Wellemeyer was vulnerable to lefties, so he stuck the matchup statistic (Finley) in there instead of the hot hand (Spilborghs), apparently missing the memo that certain pitchers' vulnerability to left-handers does not include ancient, decrepit, grizzled geezers, left-handed or otherwise. Finley can't see the Mendoza line with a telescope and he's taken up far, far too many at-bats for the big club while poor Sean Barker withers away down in AAA. (It's worth noting that Barker's "slump" has dropped him to .338 from .398. Wish I had that kind of slump on the big club). The reason Finley is kept around is precisely because he is left-handed, which is coincidentally also the reason that Tom Martin is still employed. As you can see, Hurdle loves matchups, but I for one am a believer that stronger hitters are worth more than which hand is on top of the other on the bat. Barker's right-handed, but he's hitting over .300, for Christ's sake. The promoting Spilborghs experiment worked out -- SEE! I told you. Now it's time to free Barker. The only other left-handed outfield option is Seth Smith, but he's hitting only .265 and may not be ready for the callup to the Show yet. It isn't as if we're short on outfielders, and if the Rockies need a good veteran presence, how about, uh, Todd Helton?
Hopefully, somebody will see the light and realize that Finley has no redeeming value to contribute to a big-league club and that he should be given his walking papers pronto. Even though Hirsh was throwing like a Little Leaguer tonight, Finley's defense behind him wasn't doing much to help out. Hirsh has evened out his GB/FB split a bit since last year, but he's still a flyball pitcher with almost 50% of his outs coming in the air, and although he's managed to (usually) escape with this at Coors, he's going to need outfielders there who can, you know, track down and catch the ball. Spilborghs has shown some terrific range and versatility out there, including a great catch to save Ramon Ramirez' bacon and preserve what would become game five of the winning streak in San Francisco. He also had Scott Rolen dead to rights yesterday night with a perfect throw to Torrealba as Rolen tried to score on Pujols' shallow fly, but naturally Torrealba flubbed the catch. In other words, HE'S HERE, HURDLE, NOW PLAY HIM! God. How many times do I have to yell it?
Well, that's all for tonight. Despite my trepidation about whether or not the Rockies can avoid an all-new and even more depressing tailspin, I am looking forward to going back to Coors, very much so. There is never enough time for me to be there and to be with my boys. So I'll be there to root, root, root for the purple and black and hope that there's a spark under more than one butt. Tulowitzki, I'm sure, will have it, and most likely Holliday and Hawpe as well, but three guys do not a winning game (or team) make. So, Rockies, thou have thy mandate. Thou shalt go forth and fulfill it.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Criminal Mismanagement
[Disclaimer: I'm not in as bad of a mood as I might otherwise be, considering that both the Cardinals and the Rockies won tonight even if the A's did not. Still, this is an issue that has been nagging at me for a while and which should be addressed. Quick kudos to Ryan Spilborghs for having a productive pinch-hitting appearance. Ryan, darling, I can tell you that Mabry never would have done that.]
The Cardinals are looking to land fairly squarely in the cellar this year barring a miraculous turnaround. There is no better time for that to happen than now, as 21 of their next 27 games are against sub-.500 clubs including the Pirates, the Nationals, the Reds, and yes, my beloved Rockies. The Brewers are starting to show their flaws -- overcompensating at both plate and mound led them to their third straight series loss. Chris Capuano is 0-2 with a 9.64 ERA in his past few starts, and the home run power provided by J.J. Hardy and Prince Fielder has temporarily vacated the building. So they are the team that's dragged through fourteen previous losing seasons, but they're still a country mile better than the Cards, who haven't shown any sort of sustained spark or resilience despite a 9-4 win tonight. It was against the Pirates, one of the teams they're supposed to beat, but even the Buccos have a better mark than the Cards and are two games closer to the break-even point. Whether it's the front office, aging players, or just evenly distributed incompetence, I'm starting to wonder a little bit about the managing going on within the organization.
Tony La Russa is one of those love-him-or-hate-him managers, obsessed with platoons, lefty-righty matchups, and trying to outmaneuver the opposition in every possible situations, and he has a distinct style that earns him both high praise and sharp criticism. His contract situation is uncertain after this year -- the club can opt to bring him back or let him move on -- and the fate of La Russa after a disappointing season has been widely questioned. He finally skippered an arguably less talented team than his monster '04/'05 squads to a World Series championship, but he (and the rest of the personnel) haven't exactly been doing the most inspiring job at following it up. To some degree, however, I get the sense that La Russa is deliberately holding the unsettled contract over the front office's head. He's been uncommunicative at times and impassive at others -- after all, he's under no obligation to return to this team if he doesn't want to, and who would blame him after the painful season that his '07 Birds are putting together? Still, the coverage of the contract situation, and La Russa's refusal to address it, can sometimes take the focus away from what's going on in the clubhouse and on the field. I get the sense that he's a little exasperated with the whole crew, and God knows I am as well, but I'm a fan and not the manager. It appears to me, with the limited and partial resources I do have, that La Russa may be losing the trust and confidence of the players as well.
Last season, his feud with Scott Rolen was widely publicized, and while both of them insisted that the bridges had been mended, it's amazing what someone will say in the rush of a championship. It's led to speculation that despite a blanket no-trade clause, Rolen will ask to get out of St. Louis before the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline. (The Dodgers have been mentioned as a possible destination, but they'd be sadly mistaken if they think he'd bring power to their lineup. Rolen is struggling to stay north of the Mendoza line and playing in the cavernous confines of Chavez Ravine wouldn't do him any favors. Still, his glovework is impeccable, and the Dodgers, who have been looking for an established cornerstone at third since losing Adrian Beltre to free agency, might take a flyer if they can convince Rolen to relocate to Southern Cal). But a less-publicized, and slightly more alarming, schism that seems to be developing concerns La Russa and Adam Wainwright.
Regular readers of this blog know that I adore Wainwright, and I'm not taking La Russa to task for doing what a manager is supposed to do in trying to get the best out of his players. I just happen to think that he's going about the situation in the wrong way. A few days ago, it came out that Wainwright has been experiencing pain in his pitching elbow all season and that's why he's putting up some highly uncharacteristic numbers (despite the win tonight and allowing 2 runs in 5.1 innings, his ERA remains an untidy 6.02). According to a team official, it was "never serious enough to consider shutting him down." Now, the Cardinals' rotation is picked to the bone and stitched painfully together with converted relievers and AAA hopefuls as it is, but what is the point of running Wainwright out there if he can't follow through correctly and is going to get shelled? (His start before this one was particularly unsightly -- 8 runs in 2.2 innings vs. the Dodgers). Especially with this somnolent offense, if a pitcher digs a hole every time he's out and has trouble working efficiently, that's not going to give the club much of a chance to win.
The reason that it came out that Wainwright was experiencing pain was because Wainwright himself told the media, not because he went on the DL or because a doctor let something spill. And at once, there came rumors of, if not a Rolen-like feud, at least a bit of coolness between Wainwright and La Russa. La Russa is a gamer, a tough guy, with an absolute drive to get to the top no matter what it takes, and that's why he's currently enjoying the position that he does. Don't get me wrong, I think his will to win is absolutely unmatched, but at the same time, I think he takes the bulldog mentality a little too far. It seemed to Cards fans that La Russa was upset with Wainwright confiding there was something wrong; he was making excuses instead of battling through it. Well, seeing as Wainwright was a prized rookie phenomenon last year who was widely expected to be very successful upon conversion to a starter, I'd expect the fans would want to hear at least some reason as to why instead of continuing to be frustrated every time he took the mound and didn't do well. You can only hear, "There's nothing wrong, it's just a lull, it'll sort itself out," so many times before you stop believing it, and again, I fail to see how going out there anyway and giving up runs that a tepid offense can't make up would help the Cards win. If La Russa wanted Wainwright to shut up and go through it, what good would that do?
Wainwright has said that the pain is correctable, but that when things aren't feeling right, he can't follow through his delivery properly. This doesn't surprise me; if you watch a pitcher throwing in slow motion, the contortions that their arm goes through will make you wince, and this is even when they're perfectly healthy. It seems as if the repeated, vehement motion required to throw a small horsehide sphere at a velocity above every highway speed limit would unstring even the most valiant tendons in short order, and all that delicate machinery, when off, is really off. Pitchers are very particular about which ways their pitches come out of their hand, and if Wainwright can't follow through or use his elbow the way he's accustomed to, it's certainly one of the reasons his curveball lacks its customary bite and break this year. His fastball is only low-nineties, so he's not going to blow guys away with the heat if his offspeed stuff isn't working. A hanging curve is just as desirable as a straight fastball for hitters, and it seems as if too many of Wainwright's curves are doing just that. Of course, it's a different mentality for a starter, with different preparation, and hitters can familiarize themselves with his stuff as the game goes on instead of being forced to acclimate quickly over the course of one inning. However, the discrepancy in his performance is too large to simply be explained away as new-starter jitters.
The most encouraging pitch Wainwright made tonight against the Pirates was to get his fellow Adam, LaRoche, chasing on a very sharp-breaking curveball to escape a jam, and he insists that he is regaining his form with the pitch. One hopes so, as otherwise, he's going to get hit hard again. He wasn't exactly effective in his start tonight, laboring through 96 pitches for 16 outs, and escaped from bases-loaded jams in three of his five innings. But at least he didn't let them score, as he's done in the past. The efficiency will have to come after he figures out how not to be shelled on a consistent basis. His next start will be very telling, and you can bet that he will make it, funky elbow or otherwise.
The Cards don't have many options as it is. Mark Mulder is out until at least the break and his ability to come back and be effective, let alone good, is under serious debate. (Side note: When I was watching the Rockies game a few days ago, somebody emailed the announcers to ask why the Cards were so bad. When the first words out of their mouth, I shit you not, were "Mark Mulder," I screamed at them for being idiots and failed to hear the rest of their reply, some nonsense about how Mulder, for the love of God, somehow precluded them from being competitive). As I've mentioned, the only way Carpenter comes back this year is if the Cards are miraculously in striking distance in the Central in late August. The Randy Keisler experiment was a disaster. Anthony Reyes isn't pitching that badly any more, but just can't win. Kip Wells is proving to be an ex-Pirate (part of the rotation worst-case scenario in my Cards projection.... YIPES, most of that is true! Dear God!) and has a 1-7 record and some bloated mid-6 ERA. Brad Thompson has already been used to make an emergency start. I can understand La Russa being reluctant to let another pitcher slip to the nefarious clutches of the disabled list, but the "pitch Mulder when he's hurt" idea last year backfired splendidly, and the Cards are going to go down the same road with Wainwright if they're not careful. I thought it was Dusty Baker who was known for blowing out pitchers' arms (Kerry Wood and Mark Prior may never throw a big-league pitch again; partly because of him, partly because they're made of Waterford crystal) but I would have thought the Cards should have learned their lesson about trying to pass off injured starters as serviceable.
Now, if Wainwright insists he's good enough to go, then I'll trust that he knows his own body well enough to make that assessment, and he'll have to face the consequences that follow, possibly including an extended trip to the DL a la Mulder. That's not La Russa's fault, but I do get the sense that the manager is losing his players, and if you thought the chemistry in a losing clubhouse wasn't that great to begin with, then this isn't going to help at all.
There are a few other things I'd like to mention. La Russa, as everyone will recall, was arrested for drunk driving during Spring Training, an incident which sprang to renewed prominence after Josh Hancock's alcohol-related fatal crash. While La Russa, a standup guy, took the blame for his bad choices at the time of his arrest, he hasn't spoken about it again even after Hancock's death. Now, I don't want the players to be joining MADD or posing with highway cleanup crews or something like that, but a word or two would be nice. Perhaps La Russa has spoken about it behind closed doors -- sadly not being a Cardinal, I have no way of knowing what goes on in the clubhouse with any certainty. La Russa, publically at least, was silent on the issue even during the first few days afterwards, and while he may have privately amended things, it has left fans wondering what message he wants to send to them. They supported him even during his own imbroglio, and an acknowledgement wouldn't go amiss.
Also, one more thing. This is utterly unproven, and probably means absolutely nothing, but tonight, with two runners on, La Russa gave Wainwright the signal to bunt. Wainwright, one of the team's best hitters period and not just for a pitcher -- he's hitting .357 and that is no accident -- pulled one bunt foul and then decided to swing away, ending up with a two-run double. There's no way to say that La Russa himself didn't call for the false bunt and then change the signs, knowing that Wainwright can swing it, and either way the outcome was favorable for the Cardinals, but it makes one wonder who chose to go that route. Again, baseless speculation, but interesting nonetheless.
Go Cardinals. Do try to win some games, but when you play the Rockies for four, let them have at least two.
The Cardinals are looking to land fairly squarely in the cellar this year barring a miraculous turnaround. There is no better time for that to happen than now, as 21 of their next 27 games are against sub-.500 clubs including the Pirates, the Nationals, the Reds, and yes, my beloved Rockies. The Brewers are starting to show their flaws -- overcompensating at both plate and mound led them to their third straight series loss. Chris Capuano is 0-2 with a 9.64 ERA in his past few starts, and the home run power provided by J.J. Hardy and Prince Fielder has temporarily vacated the building. So they are the team that's dragged through fourteen previous losing seasons, but they're still a country mile better than the Cards, who haven't shown any sort of sustained spark or resilience despite a 9-4 win tonight. It was against the Pirates, one of the teams they're supposed to beat, but even the Buccos have a better mark than the Cards and are two games closer to the break-even point. Whether it's the front office, aging players, or just evenly distributed incompetence, I'm starting to wonder a little bit about the managing going on within the organization.
Tony La Russa is one of those love-him-or-hate-him managers, obsessed with platoons, lefty-righty matchups, and trying to outmaneuver the opposition in every possible situations, and he has a distinct style that earns him both high praise and sharp criticism. His contract situation is uncertain after this year -- the club can opt to bring him back or let him move on -- and the fate of La Russa after a disappointing season has been widely questioned. He finally skippered an arguably less talented team than his monster '04/'05 squads to a World Series championship, but he (and the rest of the personnel) haven't exactly been doing the most inspiring job at following it up. To some degree, however, I get the sense that La Russa is deliberately holding the unsettled contract over the front office's head. He's been uncommunicative at times and impassive at others -- after all, he's under no obligation to return to this team if he doesn't want to, and who would blame him after the painful season that his '07 Birds are putting together? Still, the coverage of the contract situation, and La Russa's refusal to address it, can sometimes take the focus away from what's going on in the clubhouse and on the field. I get the sense that he's a little exasperated with the whole crew, and God knows I am as well, but I'm a fan and not the manager. It appears to me, with the limited and partial resources I do have, that La Russa may be losing the trust and confidence of the players as well.
Last season, his feud with Scott Rolen was widely publicized, and while both of them insisted that the bridges had been mended, it's amazing what someone will say in the rush of a championship. It's led to speculation that despite a blanket no-trade clause, Rolen will ask to get out of St. Louis before the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline. (The Dodgers have been mentioned as a possible destination, but they'd be sadly mistaken if they think he'd bring power to their lineup. Rolen is struggling to stay north of the Mendoza line and playing in the cavernous confines of Chavez Ravine wouldn't do him any favors. Still, his glovework is impeccable, and the Dodgers, who have been looking for an established cornerstone at third since losing Adrian Beltre to free agency, might take a flyer if they can convince Rolen to relocate to Southern Cal). But a less-publicized, and slightly more alarming, schism that seems to be developing concerns La Russa and Adam Wainwright.
Regular readers of this blog know that I adore Wainwright, and I'm not taking La Russa to task for doing what a manager is supposed to do in trying to get the best out of his players. I just happen to think that he's going about the situation in the wrong way. A few days ago, it came out that Wainwright has been experiencing pain in his pitching elbow all season and that's why he's putting up some highly uncharacteristic numbers (despite the win tonight and allowing 2 runs in 5.1 innings, his ERA remains an untidy 6.02). According to a team official, it was "never serious enough to consider shutting him down." Now, the Cardinals' rotation is picked to the bone and stitched painfully together with converted relievers and AAA hopefuls as it is, but what is the point of running Wainwright out there if he can't follow through correctly and is going to get shelled? (His start before this one was particularly unsightly -- 8 runs in 2.2 innings vs. the Dodgers). Especially with this somnolent offense, if a pitcher digs a hole every time he's out and has trouble working efficiently, that's not going to give the club much of a chance to win.
The reason that it came out that Wainwright was experiencing pain was because Wainwright himself told the media, not because he went on the DL or because a doctor let something spill. And at once, there came rumors of, if not a Rolen-like feud, at least a bit of coolness between Wainwright and La Russa. La Russa is a gamer, a tough guy, with an absolute drive to get to the top no matter what it takes, and that's why he's currently enjoying the position that he does. Don't get me wrong, I think his will to win is absolutely unmatched, but at the same time, I think he takes the bulldog mentality a little too far. It seemed to Cards fans that La Russa was upset with Wainwright confiding there was something wrong; he was making excuses instead of battling through it. Well, seeing as Wainwright was a prized rookie phenomenon last year who was widely expected to be very successful upon conversion to a starter, I'd expect the fans would want to hear at least some reason as to why instead of continuing to be frustrated every time he took the mound and didn't do well. You can only hear, "There's nothing wrong, it's just a lull, it'll sort itself out," so many times before you stop believing it, and again, I fail to see how going out there anyway and giving up runs that a tepid offense can't make up would help the Cards win. If La Russa wanted Wainwright to shut up and go through it, what good would that do?
Wainwright has said that the pain is correctable, but that when things aren't feeling right, he can't follow through his delivery properly. This doesn't surprise me; if you watch a pitcher throwing in slow motion, the contortions that their arm goes through will make you wince, and this is even when they're perfectly healthy. It seems as if the repeated, vehement motion required to throw a small horsehide sphere at a velocity above every highway speed limit would unstring even the most valiant tendons in short order, and all that delicate machinery, when off, is really off. Pitchers are very particular about which ways their pitches come out of their hand, and if Wainwright can't follow through or use his elbow the way he's accustomed to, it's certainly one of the reasons his curveball lacks its customary bite and break this year. His fastball is only low-nineties, so he's not going to blow guys away with the heat if his offspeed stuff isn't working. A hanging curve is just as desirable as a straight fastball for hitters, and it seems as if too many of Wainwright's curves are doing just that. Of course, it's a different mentality for a starter, with different preparation, and hitters can familiarize themselves with his stuff as the game goes on instead of being forced to acclimate quickly over the course of one inning. However, the discrepancy in his performance is too large to simply be explained away as new-starter jitters.
The most encouraging pitch Wainwright made tonight against the Pirates was to get his fellow Adam, LaRoche, chasing on a very sharp-breaking curveball to escape a jam, and he insists that he is regaining his form with the pitch. One hopes so, as otherwise, he's going to get hit hard again. He wasn't exactly effective in his start tonight, laboring through 96 pitches for 16 outs, and escaped from bases-loaded jams in three of his five innings. But at least he didn't let them score, as he's done in the past. The efficiency will have to come after he figures out how not to be shelled on a consistent basis. His next start will be very telling, and you can bet that he will make it, funky elbow or otherwise.
The Cards don't have many options as it is. Mark Mulder is out until at least the break and his ability to come back and be effective, let alone good, is under serious debate. (Side note: When I was watching the Rockies game a few days ago, somebody emailed the announcers to ask why the Cards were so bad. When the first words out of their mouth, I shit you not, were "Mark Mulder," I screamed at them for being idiots and failed to hear the rest of their reply, some nonsense about how Mulder, for the love of God, somehow precluded them from being competitive). As I've mentioned, the only way Carpenter comes back this year is if the Cards are miraculously in striking distance in the Central in late August. The Randy Keisler experiment was a disaster. Anthony Reyes isn't pitching that badly any more, but just can't win. Kip Wells is proving to be an ex-Pirate (part of the rotation worst-case scenario in my Cards projection.... YIPES, most of that is true! Dear God!) and has a 1-7 record and some bloated mid-6 ERA. Brad Thompson has already been used to make an emergency start. I can understand La Russa being reluctant to let another pitcher slip to the nefarious clutches of the disabled list, but the "pitch Mulder when he's hurt" idea last year backfired splendidly, and the Cards are going to go down the same road with Wainwright if they're not careful. I thought it was Dusty Baker who was known for blowing out pitchers' arms (Kerry Wood and Mark Prior may never throw a big-league pitch again; partly because of him, partly because they're made of Waterford crystal) but I would have thought the Cards should have learned their lesson about trying to pass off injured starters as serviceable.
Now, if Wainwright insists he's good enough to go, then I'll trust that he knows his own body well enough to make that assessment, and he'll have to face the consequences that follow, possibly including an extended trip to the DL a la Mulder. That's not La Russa's fault, but I do get the sense that the manager is losing his players, and if you thought the chemistry in a losing clubhouse wasn't that great to begin with, then this isn't going to help at all.
There are a few other things I'd like to mention. La Russa, as everyone will recall, was arrested for drunk driving during Spring Training, an incident which sprang to renewed prominence after Josh Hancock's alcohol-related fatal crash. While La Russa, a standup guy, took the blame for his bad choices at the time of his arrest, he hasn't spoken about it again even after Hancock's death. Now, I don't want the players to be joining MADD or posing with highway cleanup crews or something like that, but a word or two would be nice. Perhaps La Russa has spoken about it behind closed doors -- sadly not being a Cardinal, I have no way of knowing what goes on in the clubhouse with any certainty. La Russa, publically at least, was silent on the issue even during the first few days afterwards, and while he may have privately amended things, it has left fans wondering what message he wants to send to them. They supported him even during his own imbroglio, and an acknowledgement wouldn't go amiss.
Also, one more thing. This is utterly unproven, and probably means absolutely nothing, but tonight, with two runners on, La Russa gave Wainwright the signal to bunt. Wainwright, one of the team's best hitters period and not just for a pitcher -- he's hitting .357 and that is no accident -- pulled one bunt foul and then decided to swing away, ending up with a two-run double. There's no way to say that La Russa himself didn't call for the false bunt and then change the signs, knowing that Wainwright can swing it, and either way the outcome was favorable for the Cardinals, but it makes one wonder who chose to go that route. Again, baseless speculation, but interesting nonetheless.
Go Cardinals. Do try to win some games, but when you play the Rockies for four, let them have at least two.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Lightning, Please Strike Me
I cannot do this anymore.
Tigers sweep the Cardinals. 6-3 is your final.
A's miss the sweep of the Giants as Matt Morris throws a complete game, permitting only one run. That tally ends up as 4-1.
And then the Rockies. 4-3 Royals almost all game, but going to the bottom of the ninth, they tie it on a single from Matt Holliday. Goes to extras. Brian Fuentes gives up the go-ahead triple. Rockies tie it yet again on a single from Holliday. Next inning, Ramon Ramirez decides to end the game and gives up five. Royals win 10-5 in one of the most sheerly maddening rollercoasters of the season. The Rockies fail to score the winning run with two on and no out, as Garrett Atkins K's (following a K earlier with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth) and Brad Hawpe grounds into a double play. The bullpen was completely burned. Absolutely nobody could get the winning hit to save their lives.
I'm seriously thinking I should get a new hobby.
Current music: "Given Up," Linkin Park.
Tigers sweep the Cardinals. 6-3 is your final.
A's miss the sweep of the Giants as Matt Morris throws a complete game, permitting only one run. That tally ends up as 4-1.
And then the Rockies. 4-3 Royals almost all game, but going to the bottom of the ninth, they tie it on a single from Matt Holliday. Goes to extras. Brian Fuentes gives up the go-ahead triple. Rockies tie it yet again on a single from Holliday. Next inning, Ramon Ramirez decides to end the game and gives up five. Royals win 10-5 in one of the most sheerly maddening rollercoasters of the season. The Rockies fail to score the winning run with two on and no out, as Garrett Atkins K's (following a K earlier with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth) and Brad Hawpe grounds into a double play. The bullpen was completely burned. Absolutely nobody could get the winning hit to save their lives.
I'm seriously thinking I should get a new hobby.
Current music: "Given Up," Linkin Park.
Saturday, May 19, 2007
The Revenge of Mensa!Hurdle
The man just never seems to learn. The lesson currently at hand is: Do not pull your starter if he is cruising in the later innings with a sub-80 pitch count and working on a shutout, and install a reliever instead, no matter how much you want to see everyone get a chance to play. This isn't Little League, and last night, after a questionable May 8th decision to pull Taylor Buchholz after 6 shutout innings and 71 pitches, Clint Hurdle went and did it again. Situation: top of the eighth, 2-0 Rockies, Jeff Francis at only 74 pitches and shutting out the lowly Royals. He did permit a leadoff double, but came right back to get a four-pitch K. For some completely inexplicable reason, Hurdle decides to yank him and put in Manny Corpas, who is the Rockies' eighth-inning guy, but has looked shaky lately and seems to do worse work with runners on. Corpas ended up permitting four runs, three on Emil Brown's homer, while recording only one out, and the game went downhill fast, while Francis sat in the dugout with actual tears in his eyes and looking like he would cry if there was, you know, crying in baseball. It was his game to finish, and yet again, a bad decision by Hurdle in regards to the extremely leaky 'pen cost the Rockies a game that they looked to have very much in hand following Matt Holliday's RBI single and Jeff Baker's RBI triple. After back-to-back shaky starts, Francis has also recaptured the mound magic which led him to be christened "Jeffrey Franchise," and he had been carving through the Royals' bats all night, with a little help from a highlight-reel second-inning catch by Willy Taveras to rob John Buck of a homer.
At least Hurdle took responsibility for the bad decision, but how many more will there be?! What is up with this irrational fixation to pull a starter who's cruising in favor of a very suspect bullpen? When Francis' spot came up in the seventh with two runners in scoring position, we threatened Hurdle that he had better let Jeff hit for himself. He did, and sliced a liner into the corner that looked like a two-run single but was flagged down by Emil Brown (that pest again. Oy). So, he came out for the eighth and we had confidence that Hurdle was going to let him go. Only for two batters. We all know what happened afterwards.
To add salt to the wounds, Emil Brown took away a possible game-tying homer from Yorvit Torrealba in the bottom of the ninth. Helton flew out deeply, then Garrett Atkins got his second hit of the game (a very good thing to see) and Brad Hawpe walked. Yorvit ripped a deep drive into left field that made every Rockies' fan's heart rise -- and then Brown caught it. Pinch hitter Steve Finley (OY) replaced Jamey Carroll, and predictably as sunrise, grounded out on the second pitch to end the game.
I have yet another horse to beat regarding Finley and his symbiotic suck partner, John Mabry. I am extremely frustrated with Hurdle's completely illogical thought that bringing up Ryan Spilborghs and/or Alexis Gomez and/or Sean Barker from AAA Colorado Springs would be "counterproductive." How, exactly, would putting someone hitting .323 (Spilborghs) or .398 (Barker) in those late-inning crunch situations be worse than installing the current editions batting .118 (Mabry) or .179 (Finley)? The geezers are getting "limited opportunity" and aren't coming through. How could the kids do any worse?
So.... Hurdle, you think that Spilborghs/Barker need to stay at AAA and get "developed?" Guess what, they are developed and the big club could use them -- I happen to care more about the Rockies succeeding rather than the Sky Sox. Just try it. If the Spilly/Sean combo hits worse than the Finley/Mabry kiss of death, you'll be vindicated. Otherwise, cut the deadweights and give the young guns a chance. You'd make a great minor league manager, but this is the big leagues, buddy. Gah. Hurdle drives me absolutely insane, and I think it says something about the management and ownership that even Jim Leyland, who skippered the previously moribund Tigers to the AL flag last year, quit in disgust after a year. The talent on this team isn't the problem (well, except for the bullpen and Finley/Mabry, but a competent ownership will take steps to fix those). It's the fact that absolutely nobody in higher management seems to possess the winning instinct. The money instinct, yeah (and it's still likely they won't open up the purse strings to keep Holliday after '09, which really will break my heart). But winning instinct, no. Hurdle has never shown fire, innovation, invention, or perseverance. He's just a nice guy who wants to watch a ballgame. There's a name for those people, Clint. Season ticket holders.
As for tonight's game, I'm not that hopeful. I think I'm a bit relieved that I have a babysitting job from 6 PM to 3 AM, and will go in blissful ignorance of the game's outcome (until I get home and probably check it in the wee hours and start cursing again). Gil Meche, who has actually looked like an ace and has not permitted an earned run on the road this year, matches up against Taylor Buchholz, whose last start came in the 15-2 Sunday debacle against the Giants. Of course, there's always the chance that Buchholz could repeat his May 8th performance and this time Hurdle wouldn't pull him since that decision blew up so spectacularly in his face last night, but that would be assuming that Hurdle learns from his mistakes. Since he did the same thing with Francis that he did with Buchholz, and they had the same result, I think it's fair to question if he does. I still love the Rockies, even though they had me screaming and at the verge of tears last night and questioning why in the hell I do. Therefore, you can probably see why I think I need a break. Losing a home series to the D-backs and splitting a four-game set with the Giants was an indication that this season may be keeling past the point of return, and losing a home series to the Royals may be a fairly good indication of stick-a-fork-in-em time.
Oy.
At least Hurdle took responsibility for the bad decision, but how many more will there be?! What is up with this irrational fixation to pull a starter who's cruising in favor of a very suspect bullpen? When Francis' spot came up in the seventh with two runners in scoring position, we threatened Hurdle that he had better let Jeff hit for himself. He did, and sliced a liner into the corner that looked like a two-run single but was flagged down by Emil Brown (that pest again. Oy). So, he came out for the eighth and we had confidence that Hurdle was going to let him go. Only for two batters. We all know what happened afterwards.
To add salt to the wounds, Emil Brown took away a possible game-tying homer from Yorvit Torrealba in the bottom of the ninth. Helton flew out deeply, then Garrett Atkins got his second hit of the game (a very good thing to see) and Brad Hawpe walked. Yorvit ripped a deep drive into left field that made every Rockies' fan's heart rise -- and then Brown caught it. Pinch hitter Steve Finley (OY) replaced Jamey Carroll, and predictably as sunrise, grounded out on the second pitch to end the game.
I have yet another horse to beat regarding Finley and his symbiotic suck partner, John Mabry. I am extremely frustrated with Hurdle's completely illogical thought that bringing up Ryan Spilborghs and/or Alexis Gomez and/or Sean Barker from AAA Colorado Springs would be "counterproductive." How, exactly, would putting someone hitting .323 (Spilborghs) or .398 (Barker) in those late-inning crunch situations be worse than installing the current editions batting .118 (Mabry) or .179 (Finley)? The geezers are getting "limited opportunity" and aren't coming through. How could the kids do any worse?
So.... Hurdle, you think that Spilborghs/Barker need to stay at AAA and get "developed?" Guess what, they are developed and the big club could use them -- I happen to care more about the Rockies succeeding rather than the Sky Sox. Just try it. If the Spilly/Sean combo hits worse than the Finley/Mabry kiss of death, you'll be vindicated. Otherwise, cut the deadweights and give the young guns a chance. You'd make a great minor league manager, but this is the big leagues, buddy. Gah. Hurdle drives me absolutely insane, and I think it says something about the management and ownership that even Jim Leyland, who skippered the previously moribund Tigers to the AL flag last year, quit in disgust after a year. The talent on this team isn't the problem (well, except for the bullpen and Finley/Mabry, but a competent ownership will take steps to fix those). It's the fact that absolutely nobody in higher management seems to possess the winning instinct. The money instinct, yeah (and it's still likely they won't open up the purse strings to keep Holliday after '09, which really will break my heart). But winning instinct, no. Hurdle has never shown fire, innovation, invention, or perseverance. He's just a nice guy who wants to watch a ballgame. There's a name for those people, Clint. Season ticket holders.
As for tonight's game, I'm not that hopeful. I think I'm a bit relieved that I have a babysitting job from 6 PM to 3 AM, and will go in blissful ignorance of the game's outcome (until I get home and probably check it in the wee hours and start cursing again). Gil Meche, who has actually looked like an ace and has not permitted an earned run on the road this year, matches up against Taylor Buchholz, whose last start came in the 15-2 Sunday debacle against the Giants. Of course, there's always the chance that Buchholz could repeat his May 8th performance and this time Hurdle wouldn't pull him since that decision blew up so spectacularly in his face last night, but that would be assuming that Hurdle learns from his mistakes. Since he did the same thing with Francis that he did with Buchholz, and they had the same result, I think it's fair to question if he does. I still love the Rockies, even though they had me screaming and at the verge of tears last night and questioning why in the hell I do. Therefore, you can probably see why I think I need a break. Losing a home series to the D-backs and splitting a four-game set with the Giants was an indication that this season may be keeling past the point of return, and losing a home series to the Royals may be a fairly good indication of stick-a-fork-in-em time.
Oy.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
I Told You So
Huston Street is now on the DL. A struggling and ineffective Justin Duchscherer may follow him. Travis Buck's wrist is too sore for him to play, ditto with Milton Bradley's hamstring and Chris Snelling's knee. Street has an ulnar nerve irritation which may eventually require surgery and keep him out until the '08 break. The A's are a young team and Larry Davis cannot keep them healthy. One of these days, and I am deadly serious, they are either going to have to forfeit or call up the entire River Cats roster. Neither scenario is one I find appealing. Not to mention that tonight with Street sidelined, Alan Embree and Jay Witasick were inexplicably brought in for the ninth and managed to cough up a 4-1 lead to the Royals.
It's going to be a long season.
Adam Wainwright was shelled for 8 runs in 2.2 innings, Cardinals lose 9-7. (I told you they were gonna do that). Cardinals drop to 16-21 and end their 10-game winning streak over the Dodgers.
It's really going to be a long season.
Jason Hirsh turns in yet another strong start -- 3 runs in 8 innings -- and loses since the Colorado bats get shut out by a suddenly resurgent Randy Johnson with a little help from his friends Tony Pena and Jose Valverde. The Diamondbacks pitching staff faces exactly one batter over the minimum and Steve Finley and John Mabry, aka Out #1 and Out #2, bat back-to-back in the ninth inning. By the time Brad Hawpe is called out on a questionable "swing" (he held up) it is too late. Rockies lose and are now 16-23.
Oh boy, is this ever going to be a long season.
It's going to be a long season.
Adam Wainwright was shelled for 8 runs in 2.2 innings, Cardinals lose 9-7. (I told you they were gonna do that). Cardinals drop to 16-21 and end their 10-game winning streak over the Dodgers.
It's really going to be a long season.
Jason Hirsh turns in yet another strong start -- 3 runs in 8 innings -- and loses since the Colorado bats get shut out by a suddenly resurgent Randy Johnson with a little help from his friends Tony Pena and Jose Valverde. The Diamondbacks pitching staff faces exactly one batter over the minimum and Steve Finley and John Mabry, aka Out #1 and Out #2, bat back-to-back in the ninth inning. By the time Brad Hawpe is called out on a questionable "swing" (he held up) it is too late. Rockies lose and are now 16-23.
Oh boy, is this ever going to be a long season.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
The Hollow Men Wore Green and Gold
So I noticed that Seattle gets Felix Hernandez back today. Will the A's ever get Rich Harden back? Of course not. It's practically criminal the way Oakland mismanages its health and fitness department. Harden himself doesn't seem like a particularly bright guy, as he got his latest injury while attempting to field a comebacker barehanded -- after doing so last year and getting injured. (His impressive repertoire also includes an elbow strain incurred while turning off an alarm clock). He has an "impingement of the shoulder," which I defined earlier in regards to Carp's injury. This is not a reassuring prospect. Next thing I know Harden will be out for the year too, even though the A's starting rotation seems to be chugging along gamely without him. I'm starting to agree that if he could come back healthy for two weeks (which may or may not happen) then the A's should flip him for all the young talent Billy Beane can rape from an unsuspecting GM. (Then, of course, Harden would go somewhere where he wouldn't be under the care of the incompetent Oakland medical staff, and promptly win 20 zillion games and the Cy Young. That would be hard to swallow).
Center field has become the hole of death for the A's, as just about anyone who plays that position ends up on the DL shortly thereafter. So, although I wrote this poem a few weeks ago, it remains relevant, also making references to the A's offense, which is either sink or swim - nine runs or no runs, pretty much. Example A: Yesterday Danny Haren pitches eight shutout innings, allowing four hits and recording seven strikeouts, to lower his AL-best ERA to 1.64. He ends up getting a no-decision because the offense doesn't score until the bottom of the ninth, after normally reliable Justin Duchscherer allows two runs in the top half. 2-1 Kansas City (yes, oy) is your final, and yet again, Haren doesn't get a win. The A's offense just can't find that middle ground, and so it is harkened to here along with my frustration at the endless parade of injuries. With apologies to T.S. Eliot.
I.
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Baseball hats filled with hair.
Alas! Our torn tendons, when
We agonize together
Are painful and multitudinous
As our GM on the phones
Or glossing over broken bones
On our long DL.
Talent without form, shape without ability,
Paralyzed force, gesture without motion;
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to health’s other Kingdom
Remember us -- if at all -- not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.
II.
Injuries I dare not look up
In Davis’s trainer room
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Gazing on a broken back
There, is Crosby swinging
And players are
In Larry Davis’s clutches
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.
Let me be nearer
To the dream kingdom of wins
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Green and gold, hat, jersey
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer --
Not that final meeting
In the championship series
III.
This is the dead land
This is the AL West and
Here the pleas to Beane
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.
Is it like this
In the healthy kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with hope
Lips that promise anything
Form prayers to replacement-level success.
IV.
The hopes are not here
There are no hopes here
In this valley of mounting injuries
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost players
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this internet haven
Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
The waiver wire
Sacramento River Cats
The hope only
Of empty men.
V .
Here we go round the blame game
Blame game blame game
Here we go round the blame game
At seven o’clock Pacific time.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thou art Larry Davis
Between the promise
And the playing
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
The DL is very long
Between the strain
And the spasm
Between the pain
And the oblique
Between the injury
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
This is the way the rally ends
This is the way the rally ends
This is the way the rally ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
Center field has become the hole of death for the A's, as just about anyone who plays that position ends up on the DL shortly thereafter. So, although I wrote this poem a few weeks ago, it remains relevant, also making references to the A's offense, which is either sink or swim - nine runs or no runs, pretty much. Example A: Yesterday Danny Haren pitches eight shutout innings, allowing four hits and recording seven strikeouts, to lower his AL-best ERA to 1.64. He ends up getting a no-decision because the offense doesn't score until the bottom of the ninth, after normally reliable Justin Duchscherer allows two runs in the top half. 2-1 Kansas City (yes, oy) is your final, and yet again, Haren doesn't get a win. The A's offense just can't find that middle ground, and so it is harkened to here along with my frustration at the endless parade of injuries. With apologies to T.S. Eliot.
I.
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Baseball hats filled with hair.
Alas! Our torn tendons, when
We agonize together
Are painful and multitudinous
As our GM on the phones
Or glossing over broken bones
On our long DL.
Talent without form, shape without ability,
Paralyzed force, gesture without motion;
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to health’s other Kingdom
Remember us -- if at all -- not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.
II.
Injuries I dare not look up
In Davis’s trainer room
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Gazing on a broken back
There, is Crosby swinging
And players are
In Larry Davis’s clutches
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.
Let me be nearer
To the dream kingdom of wins
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Green and gold, hat, jersey
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer --
Not that final meeting
In the championship series
III.
This is the dead land
This is the AL West and
Here the pleas to Beane
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.
Is it like this
In the healthy kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with hope
Lips that promise anything
Form prayers to replacement-level success.
IV.
The hopes are not here
There are no hopes here
In this valley of mounting injuries
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost players
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this internet haven
Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
The waiver wire
Sacramento River Cats
The hope only
Of empty men.
V .
Here we go round the blame game
Blame game blame game
Here we go round the blame game
At seven o’clock Pacific time.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thou art Larry Davis
Between the promise
And the playing
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
The DL is very long
Between the strain
And the spasm
Between the pain
And the oblique
Between the injury
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
This is the way the rally ends
This is the way the rally ends
This is the way the rally ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
Monday, May 14, 2007
Bleeding (Cardinal) Red
Quite literally, in this case. I think it's time to admit that the Cardinals dynasty that we fans so enjoyed for the past few years has bit the dust. Yes, it's only May, but the Cards are nine games back in a division currently headed by the team with the unlikeliest best record in the NL -- those perennial powerhouse Milwaukee Brewers, clocking in at 25-12 and only one loss behind the Red Sox for the best mark in baseball. I must admit that I didn't pay much attention to all the Brewer hype this winter, since they've been a doormat for so long, but I suppose that every doormat has its day and it looks as if the Brew Crew is cashing in right now. Who's to say if it'll be extrapolated over a season, but this Central division is absolutely not winnable by the Cards with the current product they're putting on the field right now.
The players themselves know it. Reminded that the 1oo-plus win teams of the early oughts made relentlessness their trademark, center fielder Jim Edmonds answered, "This is a different team." (From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch). If you read the article, he sounds more than a little peeved with the team's lifeless play and it sounds as if the post-game press conferences are becoming a balancing act for each night's starting pitcher: he cites his own responsibility to keep the team in the game while trying to avoid pointing fingers at an offense that has scored an average of 2.4 runs since Josh Hancock's April 29 death. Clubhouse chemistry may be a myth (I personally don't think so) but this absolutely brutal onslaught to start the season can't be doing good things for the Cardinals' camaraderie, and since major league players spend more time with their teammates than with their families, this is an important factor that may eventually seep onto the field, if it hasn't already. This is a team desperately scrabbling for answers and can't find any. If a salary dump becomes necessary, Jason Isringhausen and David Eckstein will most likely be the probable candidates to be traded, as they're taking up their fair share of the team's revenue and are difficult, but not impossible, to move for the right price. (The most money is tied up in Pujols, Carpenter, Rolen, and Edmonds. The former two are franchise cornerstones and clearly aren't going anywhere, while Rolen has a full no-trade clause and come July, will have 10-5 status anyway (ten years of major league service, and the past five with the same team, give a player the right to waive any proposed trade). Edmonds signed a two-year contract extension this last offseason, and has expressed a desire to retire in St. Louis, but his skills are on a vast downturn and it's doubtful the Cardinals could get much of value for him -- maybe a few B-level prospects if Walt Jocketty can find anyone willing to take on an aging and offensively decrepit center fielder.
Isringhausen is rebounding after injury and has proved quite serviceable while regaining his closer's role, posting a sparkling 1.88 ERA, a 1-0 won/loss and 9 saves, but since the team can never hand him a lead in the ninth inning, he's only seen 14.1 innings pitched. If he continues to do well, he could bring back a nice return. He will be 35 in September and still prone to the occasional meltdown, so the Cardinals could try dangling him on the open market and see what kind of interest they could attract. Closers are always a hot commodity and hopefully Jocketty can cozen a decent payback for Izzy. He also has mentioned loving St. Louis, but the boo birds were rough on him during his injury-marred catastrophes last year and his affection may have waned a bit. Izzy is very close to his young proteges in the pen, so it's also possible that his departure may affect them, but with close to $8 million tied up in one reliever, he becomes a possible target for a midseason fire sale. Young Tyler Johnson has looked untouchable thus far, allowing only one earned run in 13 innings for a 0.69 ERA and a .152 BAA. Interestingly, he's primarily used to get lefties out, but they're hitting "higher" against him -- .160 vs. .143 for righties -- so it seems he's mastered his wicked slider, which, when it's working, is unhittable. Johnson has never closed before, but if Izzy does go, he could find himself promoted to the spot previously held by Isringhausen/Wainwright.
Eckstein is the other candidate that should go, but it remains to be seen if he will. The Cards don't have an heir apparent at the shortstop position and it's doubtful they'd pull off a splashy deal to fill the vacancy. Jocketty doesn't dish out big money until his players have proven themselves (i.e. Pujols and Carpenter) and while some Cards fans, myself definitely not included, have expressed interest in landing Alex Rodriguez to man the hole in Busch, it's not likely that that will happen. Eckstein is a fan favorite and won the World Series MVP last year for his so-called "scrappy" play, but the reason he gets so much attention is because he's short -- 5'7" and 165 lb, if by some miracle you hadn't heard. If he put up his pedestrian numbers at 6'1" and 180, you'd never hear much about him. He's a "gritty" little guy, which is why he is the subject of so many "inspiring" articles, but a .207 average, 0 HR, 4 RBI, and 11 runs scored isn't acceptable production by my yardstick and no amount of runtlike albino grit will save Eckstein if he doesn't get it going. It may seem unfair to pick and choose players when the Cardinals have almost universally succumbed to a team-wide offensive malaise, but Eckstein's hype doesn't match his contributions by a long shot and he's due to be paid $4.5 million this year for it. (His double-play partner, Adam Kennedy, hasn't been terrific either, but the Cards obviously aren't going to cut out the center of their infield, no matter how anemic they are).
Of course, the issue of finding a successor remains problematic. Brendan Ryan is batting .238 in AAA Memphis with no HR and 6 RBI, while Rico Washington has slightly better numbers at .306/4/8 but has never (to the best of my recollection) been taken out for a test drive in the Majors, so you'd have no way of judging what you'd get from him if he was given everyday playing time. Tagg Bozied was an early-season darling of Cards Nation, and he's continued to do well at Memphis, posting .298/7/30, but he fell off a cliff at the end of spring training and plays first base, not shortstop. Travis Hanson is another mentioned prospect, but he plays third -- a position the Cards have under control -- and it's a bit late to ask him to switch positions this high in the minor leagues. Besides, he's batting .197. If the Cards did trade Eckstein, they'd have to find his replacement from somewhere outside the organization, and the only shortstops that would be available wouldn't provide a significantly higher level of production.
It's also possible that they could ditch Juan Encarnacion, who sat out the first month and a half of the season with a wrist injury and hasn't exactly been an offensive sparkplug upon his return -- not that he really ever was, but the state of things in the Birdhouse are so bad that Encarnacion, yes, Encarnacion, was looked to as a savior. The consensus among fans seems to be that the organization should cut him and promote Rick Ankiel, the pitcher-turned-outfielder who's humming along at Memphis to the tune of .281/9/31. At this point, it may honestly be time to see what the replacements can do, as the major leaguers have been entirely underwhelming and it's my personal belief that loyalty to scrappy underdogs who netted them a trophy prevented the front office from seriously revamping a team that did, after all, only win 83 games last year and had three losing streaks of seven games or more. I don't expect to see Carpenter back this year -- they say three months, but why bring him back in August/September to pitch meaningless games when the team is already out of the race? Their best bet is to let him rehab in peace and bring him back in '08 when the team might have a realistic shot.
The Cards should also ship out the miscellaneous spare parts, such as So Taguchi, Aaron Miles, Preston Wilson, etc., that can't play and don't contribute, and just rebuild. Clearly, this isn't going to be a repeat year for them, so it's time to cut their losses and start grooming successors for what is (hopefully) a better season. Isn't that the endless refrain among baseball fans? "Wait for next year." In the Cardinals' case, it may be all they can do.
The players themselves know it. Reminded that the 1oo-plus win teams of the early oughts made relentlessness their trademark, center fielder Jim Edmonds answered, "This is a different team." (From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch). If you read the article, he sounds more than a little peeved with the team's lifeless play and it sounds as if the post-game press conferences are becoming a balancing act for each night's starting pitcher: he cites his own responsibility to keep the team in the game while trying to avoid pointing fingers at an offense that has scored an average of 2.4 runs since Josh Hancock's April 29 death. Clubhouse chemistry may be a myth (I personally don't think so) but this absolutely brutal onslaught to start the season can't be doing good things for the Cardinals' camaraderie, and since major league players spend more time with their teammates than with their families, this is an important factor that may eventually seep onto the field, if it hasn't already. This is a team desperately scrabbling for answers and can't find any. If a salary dump becomes necessary, Jason Isringhausen and David Eckstein will most likely be the probable candidates to be traded, as they're taking up their fair share of the team's revenue and are difficult, but not impossible, to move for the right price. (The most money is tied up in Pujols, Carpenter, Rolen, and Edmonds. The former two are franchise cornerstones and clearly aren't going anywhere, while Rolen has a full no-trade clause and come July, will have 10-5 status anyway (ten years of major league service, and the past five with the same team, give a player the right to waive any proposed trade). Edmonds signed a two-year contract extension this last offseason, and has expressed a desire to retire in St. Louis, but his skills are on a vast downturn and it's doubtful the Cardinals could get much of value for him -- maybe a few B-level prospects if Walt Jocketty can find anyone willing to take on an aging and offensively decrepit center fielder.
Isringhausen is rebounding after injury and has proved quite serviceable while regaining his closer's role, posting a sparkling 1.88 ERA, a 1-0 won/loss and 9 saves, but since the team can never hand him a lead in the ninth inning, he's only seen 14.1 innings pitched. If he continues to do well, he could bring back a nice return. He will be 35 in September and still prone to the occasional meltdown, so the Cardinals could try dangling him on the open market and see what kind of interest they could attract. Closers are always a hot commodity and hopefully Jocketty can cozen a decent payback for Izzy. He also has mentioned loving St. Louis, but the boo birds were rough on him during his injury-marred catastrophes last year and his affection may have waned a bit. Izzy is very close to his young proteges in the pen, so it's also possible that his departure may affect them, but with close to $8 million tied up in one reliever, he becomes a possible target for a midseason fire sale. Young Tyler Johnson has looked untouchable thus far, allowing only one earned run in 13 innings for a 0.69 ERA and a .152 BAA. Interestingly, he's primarily used to get lefties out, but they're hitting "higher" against him -- .160 vs. .143 for righties -- so it seems he's mastered his wicked slider, which, when it's working, is unhittable. Johnson has never closed before, but if Izzy does go, he could find himself promoted to the spot previously held by Isringhausen/Wainwright.
Eckstein is the other candidate that should go, but it remains to be seen if he will. The Cards don't have an heir apparent at the shortstop position and it's doubtful they'd pull off a splashy deal to fill the vacancy. Jocketty doesn't dish out big money until his players have proven themselves (i.e. Pujols and Carpenter) and while some Cards fans, myself definitely not included, have expressed interest in landing Alex Rodriguez to man the hole in Busch, it's not likely that that will happen. Eckstein is a fan favorite and won the World Series MVP last year for his so-called "scrappy" play, but the reason he gets so much attention is because he's short -- 5'7" and 165 lb, if by some miracle you hadn't heard. If he put up his pedestrian numbers at 6'1" and 180, you'd never hear much about him. He's a "gritty" little guy, which is why he is the subject of so many "inspiring" articles, but a .207 average, 0 HR, 4 RBI, and 11 runs scored isn't acceptable production by my yardstick and no amount of runtlike albino grit will save Eckstein if he doesn't get it going. It may seem unfair to pick and choose players when the Cardinals have almost universally succumbed to a team-wide offensive malaise, but Eckstein's hype doesn't match his contributions by a long shot and he's due to be paid $4.5 million this year for it. (His double-play partner, Adam Kennedy, hasn't been terrific either, but the Cards obviously aren't going to cut out the center of their infield, no matter how anemic they are).
Of course, the issue of finding a successor remains problematic. Brendan Ryan is batting .238 in AAA Memphis with no HR and 6 RBI, while Rico Washington has slightly better numbers at .306/4/8 but has never (to the best of my recollection) been taken out for a test drive in the Majors, so you'd have no way of judging what you'd get from him if he was given everyday playing time. Tagg Bozied was an early-season darling of Cards Nation, and he's continued to do well at Memphis, posting .298/7/30, but he fell off a cliff at the end of spring training and plays first base, not shortstop. Travis Hanson is another mentioned prospect, but he plays third -- a position the Cards have under control -- and it's a bit late to ask him to switch positions this high in the minor leagues. Besides, he's batting .197. If the Cards did trade Eckstein, they'd have to find his replacement from somewhere outside the organization, and the only shortstops that would be available wouldn't provide a significantly higher level of production.
It's also possible that they could ditch Juan Encarnacion, who sat out the first month and a half of the season with a wrist injury and hasn't exactly been an offensive sparkplug upon his return -- not that he really ever was, but the state of things in the Birdhouse are so bad that Encarnacion, yes, Encarnacion, was looked to as a savior. The consensus among fans seems to be that the organization should cut him and promote Rick Ankiel, the pitcher-turned-outfielder who's humming along at Memphis to the tune of .281/9/31. At this point, it may honestly be time to see what the replacements can do, as the major leaguers have been entirely underwhelming and it's my personal belief that loyalty to scrappy underdogs who netted them a trophy prevented the front office from seriously revamping a team that did, after all, only win 83 games last year and had three losing streaks of seven games or more. I don't expect to see Carpenter back this year -- they say three months, but why bring him back in August/September to pitch meaningless games when the team is already out of the race? Their best bet is to let him rehab in peace and bring him back in '08 when the team might have a realistic shot.
The Cards should also ship out the miscellaneous spare parts, such as So Taguchi, Aaron Miles, Preston Wilson, etc., that can't play and don't contribute, and just rebuild. Clearly, this isn't going to be a repeat year for them, so it's time to cut their losses and start grooming successors for what is (hopefully) a better season. Isn't that the endless refrain among baseball fans? "Wait for next year." In the Cardinals' case, it may be all they can do.
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