2010 MLB Season - Page 2

I think there's a picture in Sideways of the character as his graduation and the photo is actually of Paul and Bart.

Yeah, that blew my mind. The guy just seems to be one of those blessed creatures. Who else can start a WS game and then get a save in the next one?

I'm feeling good about the Sox chances this year. At least division-wise.

Read a book by Howard Cosell back in the day. Cosell, a huge admirer of Giamatti's, had a chapter on him, and wrote about his funeral. I remember he wrote about Bart's son, who he referred to as a budding actor with talent and dramatic training, giving one of the most moving eulogies Cosell had ever heard.

Yeah, fuck him. Sorry you had to work 30 minutes longer than you would have liked to. And by "work", I of course mean "stand around and watch a baseball game".

ETA: Ya know, one could misconstrue his comments as "If the players don't speed up the game, I'm going to." Meaning he is going to have a strike zone the size of Kentucky, thus compromising the integrity of the game.

Papelbon makes this Yankee fan smile.

While, fuck Joe West and his fat ass, Yankee games can be excruciating, especially those against the Sox and O's. But since Selig doesn't want to place hard rules down, shut up tubby.

I love me some Papelbon.

The John Sterling radio call for Granderson's HR was a complete embarassment, however.

Ah, Sterling is a joke (A joke I kind of enjoy, by the way). You either buy into him or you don't (as a non-Yankee fan, I don't know how you could stomach him). The histrionics are fine, obviously, but he pretty much sucks at calling a game. I usually leave the office right around seven, so I usually catch him doing the first 2-3 innings. He leads you to believe every ball a Yankee hits in the air is going over the wall, and then you catch a replay later on and it's caught behind second base.

I'm a Yankee fan, so I don't mind the bad puns but his Granderson call doesn't make any sense. And he needs to get his shit together because Granderson is going to hit about 35 of em this year.

I'm fortunate enough not have heard it yet...what is it?

Well, Sterling is a "master" at puns and playing on words as I'm sure you know. But his Granderson call goes something like "...oh Curtis, your so Granders..." not Grand, not Granderson, Granders. It's terrible anyway but the Granders makes no sense. And he has done it for both of his HR calls, so I don't think it is a mistake.

The Brewers locked up Yovanni Gallardo with a 5 yr, $30 million dollar deal.

GREAT signing by Milwaukee IMO. $6 mil per year for a player with Gallardo's upside is a steal.

I literally, unironically facepalmed while reading this.

Also, I wish Joe West would "threaten" to expand the strike zone into, you know, actual strike zone territory. Maybe if he stopped squeezing low strikes he would get home from his World's Greatest Fucking Job a little earlier.

I was going to finish the division by division rundown, but short form: I feel sorry for the Orioles and Blue Jays, the NL west looks very competitive, other than the Padres, and I think Philadelphia is the class of the NL with the Braves not far behind.

But, the NL Central, where I have rooting interest.

You have to not be paying attention to pick against the Cardinals. Not that they're invicincible, I don't think Carpenter and Wainwright will pitch as well, Holliday will probably play between how he did in Oakland and how he did for the Cardinals, and they strike me as a thin team. But, they have the best hitter in baseball, the two best pitchers in the division, and LaRussa knows what he's doing. They could stumble, but they are the heavy favorites.

Nearly everything went wrong for the Cubs last year and they still won 83 games. It's certainly not inconceivable that they could bounce back. That said, it's obvious the window is closing fast, as the Cubs are an old team and they're hampered by bad contracts. Even in a down market, Hendry managed to piss away money on a reliever as ordinary as Grabow. Soto has to bounce back. Lilly has to come back sooner. Soriano has to bounce back. They have to get something out of second base. It could happen, but I wouldn't bet on it. Particularly since Lou's giving me every impression of counting down the days to retirement. I expect that the Pinella/Hendry era ends in a whimper.

Are Randy Wolf and Doug Davis the answer? I expect that the Brewers pitching will be better, but the key is good health and getting something out of Bush, Parra, Suppan, and Narveson. Fielder and Braun is one of the best 1 - 2 punches in baseball, but there are some unknowns in the lineup. They're still relatively young, but their system depth at starting pitcher is thin. Could win 90. Could win 75.

The Reds are something of a trendy pick and looking over their lineup, it looks relatively solid. No real blackholes. They have some potential in the pitching staff too. I just can't get on board the idea that Dusty Baker is the guy to get the most out of a young team. Not when he can fall back on (s)crappy veterans at the first sign of struggle. And I don't buy that Dusty really knows how to run a pitching staff. It wouldn't totally surprise me to see them win 83 or 84 games, but I have a hard time picturing more than that.

What's there to say about the Astros? Their farm is bad. Their major league team has holes, despite some stars. And it's hard to see the upside. That Brandon Lyon contract is as silly as any contract signed this winter as well. They could hover around .500, but I can't see them making a run at anything more than that.

The Pirates are going to have another losing year. As long as they play their young guys and perhaps find a diamond or two in the rough that's o.k. The June draft means more to this team than another race to 70 to 75 wins.

Another day, another Cardinal whining.

LaRussa has turned this great franchise into the biggest bunch of bitches I've ever seen.

I am an admitted optimist* so I look at last year and go "hmm, Weeks hurt early on; Hardy and Hart turn into turds on two legs; WORST starting rotation in the NL....and they STILL won 80 games!" and think that with an AVERAGE rotation, Milwaukee contends for the wild card, and possibly the division, right up to the end.



* - I've had this argument with people who claim to be "realists" but in actuality they're pessimists - they expect the worst thing to happen to their team ALWAYS. I figure trudging through fandom with that viewpoint is just no fucking fun at all. Why bother?

Not trying to shill, but I have four tickets to the Cards/Reds game in St. Louis on May 2 at 1:15 I'm trying to sell. They're all-inclusive seats (free food and booze) in the Bank of America club. Interested parties PM me.

Milton Bradley doing well for Texas
He's 1 for 22(.045) with 1 HR, 2 RBI, 9K's.

So glad he's gone.

Unless you're a Yankee fan with a sense of entitlement, I think that's generally healthy. And, frankly, I think it's more healthy to look at ranges of outcomes, like the Brewers winning between 75 to 90, and understanding that a team in contention is likely to overperform their "on paper" projection as they're likely to go out and get help at the deadline.

Really, unless you're rooting for the Nats, Royals, Indians, O's, Blue Jays, Astros, Pirates, and Padres, there is reason for optimisim throughout the league for all teams.

It took me watching 3 full innings of the Yankee game to realize everyone is wearing the number 42 today. Then it freaked me out for a minute (It's really an odd sight to have sprung on you unexpectedly).

"Robinson, robinson robinson. Robinson? Robinson."

Hmm, I must be slow. Apparently many Brewer fans have decided that 9 games in it's time to panic and cry that the sky is falling.

And we have our first no-hitter of the season, and the first in Colorado Rockies history: rookie Ubaldo Jimenez shuts out the Braves.

Mets-Cards scoreless going into the 18th. That's right, 0-0 going into the 18th.

Oops, read "Rockies" as "rookie".

Just as crazy: Jeff Francoeur is 0-7 and still batting .381. Would be a crappy way for a ten game hit streak to end.

Awesome for the Amazing Ubaldo. He has become the ace us Rockies fans have been waiting for since 1993.

St Louis just tied it up at 1 in the bottom of the 19th. Thing is, I think their bench and half the fans are torn about it. Headed to the 20th...

Why the fuck would you have Ludwick try to steal 2nd with Pujols at the plate?

I think LaRussa has tourettes and is just shouting out random commands. (Send Ludwick! Double switch with Holiday!)

Nah. A no hitter never does that, though every time a young, unproven pitcher throws one, every fan of his team figures (or hopes, probably), "Hall of Fame career, here we come!". As logic dictates, that would seem to be the case - a no-hitter is such an amazing feat, that it only makes sense that to accomplish this feat you should be a legendary performer.

Without doing any research, I bet half of the no-hitters thrown over the last however-many years were thrown by pitchers that made you think, "Him?".

I'm going to be very disappointed if Jason Heyward isn't moved to the 6th or 5th spot in the lineup, preferably sometime this week. Watching Troy Glaus consistently come up short is starting to give me soul cancer.

Ubaldo's got great stuff, and could be dominant, but showed his weak spot even in the no-hitter: walks. Guy's command comes and goes. If he can ever get a handle on it, he'll be consistently great.

So, ESPN is reporting that the Cubs are moving Zambrano to the bullpen to make room for Ted Lilly.

If that's true, it would only confirm my long held belief that Lou Pinella is a fucking moron.

This Roy Halladay fella is pretty good.

Now I know how the rest of the National League felt in 93 when the Braves signed Maddux.

Brewers TWENTY to zip over the Pirates? wha.....?

Pirates are a AAA team.

I was referring to the two-time defending NL champ getting even BETTER through their pitching staff like the Braves did back in 93. Of course, Philly doesn't have anything close to Glavine, Smoltz and Avery.

They're so bad I hear they're gonna demote their #1 into the setup role.

Maybe it would have helped them swepp the Brewers like the Cubs are about to.

Look at the stats blindly
Pitcher A 3GS 2-0 .95 ERA WHIP 0.63
Pitcher B 3GS 1-0 2.35 ERA WHIP 1.08
Pitcher C 4GS 1-3 7.40 ERA WHIP 1.89
Pitcher D 3GS 0-2 2.40 ERA WHIP 1.07

Who do you sit?

Sure Zambrano(C) could turn it around and I doubt Gorzelanny(D) will keep it up but if you go by performance Zambrano deserves the bullpen.

Maybe it's a bad move or maybe it will light a fire in Zambrano. He thought he was untouchable and now he knows he has to fight to get his job back. Sends a message to the rest of the team as well.

Cubs have to pay him regardless.

That's what we Pittsburghers get when our owner doesn't care about the product he's pushing out.

Yeah, it's not as depressing when the team exists solely for the owner to claim it as a loss every year. I wish that miserable fuck would have sold the team to Lemieux. He's too busy to pioneer a new way to tap beer. That's not a joke.

I would like to thank Rubén Amaro, Jr. for trading Cliff Lee away so he could sign Ryan Howard to that ridiculous contract. Philly is going to seriously pay for the numbers they're throwing at Howard's age 34-36 seasons.

It appears Milwaukee is going to have another one of those seasons...