Tuesday, June 24, 2008

And That Happened

If elected, I promise to pass legislation mandating a full slate of 15 games each and every weeknight between April and October. If that creates a hardship, we will re-institute the WPA, focusing on the development of innings-eating pitchers. The business of this country is baseball, and I promise that once I'm in charge, there will be no slow, sad, pathetic nights in which only a third of the teams play.

Brewers 4, Braves 1: Ben Sheets (CG, 4 H, 1 ER, 7K, 0 BB) put the Braves down quickly, quietly, and humanely. They didn't suffer. We'll tell the kids that they went to go live on a farm upstate. They'll be happier there, we'll tell them. Really, it was for the best.

Mariners 5, Mets 2: King Felix hits a grand slam off of Johan Santana. It was the first salami by an AL pitcher since before I was born, and it wouldn't have happened if David Wright hadn't made an error with two out in the second. Hernandez later had to leave the game with a sprained ankle suffered while covering home. The lesson here: sometimes it really is better to half-ass your job.

Diamondbacks 2, Red Sox 1: Danny Haren (7 IP, 2 H, 0 ER, ugly neckbeard) outpaces Josh Beckett (8 IP, 5 H, 2 ER, ugly necklace). Overheard during broadcast: Steve Phillips, describing baseball's state of parity by explaining that there are two or three really good teams but the rest aren't very good at all. That, actually, would be the opposite of parity.

Angels 3, Nationals 2: Sure, the save is a somewhat overrated and often misinterpreted statistic, but K-Rod does have 31 of them through 77 games, and that's unprecedented. He plays by the same rules as every other closer, so no matter what you think of the save, you gotta give the fellow a hand.

Royals 8, Rockies 4: Brian Bannister started. He threw 113 pitches, but only 66 of them were strikes and he walked six guys. In other words, it was very un-Bannylike. The immediate implication: probably about 46 Posterisks in today's Banny Log as Joe P. vamps, trying desperately to figure out how to get out of writing 17 or 18 more of them this year.

15 comments:

Mark Runsvold said...

I don't think I can emphasize enough how much I think Steve Phillips should be the next Ms GM.

tHeMARksMiTh said...

Ha ha. Steve Phillips is a moron. He always talks about what he would do to rebuild this or that, but if he actually could, someone would have hired him by now.

Anonymous said...

No mention of Youk catching the ball with his face?

Unknown said...

You have my vote, Shyster. Finally, someone I can truly believe in.

dubbschism said...

LAAAAAAA: 11th in AL in runs + 6th in AL in ERA = lots of save opportunities.

Jason @ IIATMS said...

Dan Haren is closing in on looking like the wanna-be Shoe Bomber. Of course, he's on my fantasy team so I don't care what he looks like.

Dre said...

There's a new ace in the desert.

Anonymous said...

K-Rod isn't getting a lot of the relatively peaceful 3-run saves either. The Angels seem incapable of winning by more than 2 runs.

They are however, capable of losing by 8 or more runs.

When/if the Angels make the playoffs, I'm making t-shirts that say: "Suck it, Pythagoras."

Dre said...

@ Daniel

Just recycle shirts from the 2007 DBacks... just write Angels over it

Jason @ IIATMS said...

/FTW ... Pythagoras

tHeMARksMiTh said...

I'm just curious ... what does "removed by the author mean"? Craig or the guy who wrote the response.

Craig Calcaterra said...

The person who wrote it. Usually because they double posted or made a bad typo or something. I try to go back and delete the "removed by the author" posts (I can do that), but sometimes I'm late. By the time you read this, though, it will be gone.

tadthebad said...

Not so, Shyster! I, too, can see the offensive symbol.

Craig Calcaterra said...

Refresh and look again.

tHeMARksMiTh said...

Thank you good sir. I have always been curious about that.