Tuesday, May 27, 2008

And That Happened

I'm back from West Virginia. It was a nice trip. With no Internet to occupy my time I found myself doing strange things like reading books and getting a good night's sleep and stuff. Unsettling.

Baseball consumption, obviously, was at a minimum. I only watched one game -- Sunday night's White Sox-Angles tilt -- and relied on the Beckley Register-Herald for supplemental coverage. On Sunday morning, for example, after flipping past no less than three columns dedicated to hunting, I was able to find last Wednesday's late box scores. I love Beckley, but how I came out of that town with my baseball fandom intact is a mystery to me.

Brewers 5, Nationals 2: I know this is Saturday's box score, but I feel I have a greater connection to this game because the Register-Herald had a full-page story on Brewers' starter Seth McClung that day. Why? Because about nine years ago McClung graduated from a high school about 60 miles away from Beckley, and that's the sort of attenuated fame that passes for news back where I'm from. On the Beckley fame scale, it pretty much goes (1) Morgan Spurlock; (2) Chris Sarandon; (3) that astronaut who flew the Challenger on its last successful mission; and then a bunch of guys like McClung.

Marlins 7, Mets 3: The dreaded vote of confidence accompanies the latest in a string of crappy Mike Pelfrey outings and here the Mets sit 6.5 games out, having lost seven of their last ten. I tend to over think this kind of stuff, but let me throw this out there: the meeting yesterday was to provide the appearance of "getting past" Willie's stupid racial comments, and rather than provide him with any real security or confidence, the real result of the meeting is to hasten his departure by allowing the team to cite terrible performance and terrible performance alone as the reason for the axing.

Orioles 6, Yankees 1: Forget the eighth, who's gonna pitch the seventh?

Blue Jays 7, Royals 2: Eight straight losses, and in those losses the Royals have scored 16 runs. Eight of which came in a single game.

Rays 7, Rangers 3: Scott Kazmir is a fair pitcher (7 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 10K, 0 BB). The Rays have the best record in baseball, by the way.

Phillies 20, Rockies 5: You know, giving up 20 runs is pretty humiliating, but I'm not sure it's any more humiliating than having Jamie Moyer ring you up seven times.

Cubs 3, Dodgers 1: Ryan Dempster has been pretty fantastic since being turned back into a starter. Kind of makes you wonder why more teams don't try to turn relievers into starters more often.

Braves 7, Diamondbacks 3: Atlanta finishes their 11-game homestand 8-3. Overall, they're 22-7 at home, and 6-16 on the road. They've got a series at Milwaukee and another at Cincinnati before coming home to face the Marlins and Phillies. If they're going to make a run at the fish and separate from Philly, now's the time to show they can do it, entering those series even or ahead, not limping their way through the next couple only to even up against division foes.

White Sox 6, Indians 3: I watched about six innings of this one and, man, I can't recall seeing a lineup for a would-be contender look this bad in a long time.

Angels 1, Tigers 0: The Angels were beat in a walkoff blast on Sunday night, so they turn around and do the same on Monday. Well, a bases-loaded walk isn't exactly a "blast," but you get the idea. It's always something with the Tigers. One day they can't get anyone out, the next day they are shutout on five hits over 12 innings.

Red Sox 5, Mariners 3: Remember last fall when Dave Cameron over at U.S.S. Mariner called Bartolo Colon the "Hidden Gem of Free Agent Pitchers?" Like a lot of other things, he may have been right about that too. I'd say it's a 100% probability that people in the Red Sox front office read U.S.S. Mariner, and I'm guessing Cameron knows that. You have to figure, then, that given Colon's performance last night came against Seattle (7 IP, 5 H, 1 ER), Cameron was watching the game with mixed feelings, wondering if he gave anyone any ideas.

11 comments:

Ron Rollins said...

I was sitting at a pub on Saturday evening, and there were only 4 people in it. So they turned on a baseball game for me. Royals v Blue Jays.

I appreciated the thought, but then I had to sit there and watch it. And explain my Royals suck so much.

Oh, the irony of it all.

Eric Toms said...

Uh, wasn't the Jays v Royals on Saturday played in the afternoon?

Craig Calcaterra said...

Pete -- Ron's in the U.K., so it was night for him.

tHeMARksMiTh said...

I'm surprised people in the U.K. watch baseball.

Levi Stahl said...

Monday afternoon when I got on my bicycle to head to Wrigley Field, the strong headwind I encountered--which would be blowing out at Wrigley--made me actually stop and stand astraddle my bike in the street for a minute while considering whether to go back inside and quickly bench Dempster on my fantasy team.

Fortunately for my team, I decided that was just too silly to bother with.

Anonymous said...

Craig, which contending lineup were you referring to? Indians or White Sox? At this point you have to include the White Sox as potential contenders with their starting pitching. But their lineup is just as bad or worse. When AJ Pierzynski is 2nd in OPS, you've got problems.

Anonymous said...

APBA Guy-

I think you are exactly right on the Randolph/Mets meeting. Even Randolph acknowledged he had no clear mandate to finish the season. A few more weeks of losing, especially losing accompanied by uninspired play and mental errors, will do it for Willie in New York.

Craig Calcaterra said...

Good point Brian, though I was thinking of Cleveland. They're both pretty terrible, but I guess I'd expect more from Cleveland. There really isn't anyone in that lineup who was expected to contribute that isn't killing them at the moment.

tHeMARksMiTh said...

Why should we expect the Mets to come out and tell him to finish the season? If he goes out and finishes the next 100 games at 40-60, then should he come back? Should they not fire him? I don't think he should be fired yet, but if the Mets come out and say that he'll finish the season, then when they fire him, they'll look like liars and take a publicity hit. They're just being careful. If they didn't fire him yesterday, then they won't fire him in a month unless they really are losing. Then they'll have their excuse.

Eric Toms said...

Ron, I was out of line there, sorry.

Ron Rollins said...

Pete,

No problem. I wasn't thinking in context. Craig knows I'm in the UK, but I wasn't thinking about other people not being aware of it.

I'll have to pay more attention next time.

Or are you apologizing for your Jays sweeping my Royals? Not that it was hard for them.