They shouldn’t be this bad, but they have been that bad.
Sorry, limited viewing.
So the Dodgers, for the second time in four games, scored 11 runs last night. Even friggen Esteban Loiaza looked good, for Pete’s sake! Granted, it was against the Pirates, but still! Russell Martin hit last night. Andruw Jones hit last night. Old Man Kent hit last night. And the kids are on some kind of hot streak (James Loney has hit safely in all 14 games so far this year, Matt Kemp is on a six-game streak, and Ethier knocked home a couple of runs again).
On top of that, I’m hearing that Jason Schmidt ::makes sign of the cross:: had a very positive bullpen session yesterday. A healthy pitching staff combined with some actual offense would make for a very, very dangerous Dodger club. We’re averaging about 4.5 runs per game right now, and that could make us tough to beat if we can keep that up.
Now if we can just figure out how to win more than two games in a row…
The Texas Rangers are in Toronto tonight, fresh off a 5-game losing streak.
This roadtrip will see the Blue Jays, Red Sox, and Tigers.
I just… I just don’t have words.
And it’s a different kind of suck from last year. Our starting pitching is actually decent. It’s everybody else that’s falling apart. Augh!
I love the Ankiel story. Who’d have thunk? Can someone name a more unexpected sports turnaround, which includes a complete change of job description like this?
Now, if Colby Rasmus can be the second coming of Curt Flood like the hype machines say (No. 4 impact rookie-to-be in Sports Illustrated, http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/jon_heyman/04/04/heyman.cueto/index.html), this scrappy bunch might make a real run again.
Pujols needs to not rupture his elbow ligament, and maybe this cart can make it to the finish line. He’s back to his usual monster stats again this year, saying he’s not in pain like last year, when he “only” hit .327 with 99 RBI. Whew!
Impressive performance today by Brandon Webb. Webb and Dan Haren are a great 1-2 combination. Micah Owings also had a good day yesterday.
Still not sold on Randy Johnson yet. We’ll see what the next start brings.
His average is a mere .378 today. His OBP is .517. .517!
As for Ankiel, only time will tell if he’s really this good, or if there’s something that the pitchers figure out about him. Remember the end of McGwire’s career, when apparently there was a league memo about his being a sucker for a slider off the plate?
Pujols is two years from being one of my “drop dead Hall of Famers”. If he can be like this through 09, that will be ten years of domination: the pure stats, the MVP, the 6 years of being in the top 4 in MVP voting (so far). If he drops dead at the end of 09 (assuming the current levels of performance, historically), he will make the HOF anyway, doing nothing more.
Who are the active DDHOFers?
Jeter
Martinez
Rodriguez, A.
Rodriquez, I.
Johnson
Maddux
Griffey
Schilling
Thomas
Clemens (if he can be considered active)
Piazza (if he can be considered active)
Without going through every team web site, that’s what I can think of right now. Are there others?
That is a good list, I can add three quickly.
Mariano Rivera (of course)
Tom Glavine has pegged 300 wins and a great post season record. I think he counts.
Manny Ramirez has put up incredible offensive numbers, better than Thomas IMHO.
I am not sure of Schilling as a first ballot, his years of dominance/stats might not be enough. However he is so well known that he might.
I wonder if Clemens might have a hard time with what happened this past off season.
Schilling is still right on the bubble for me, even though he’s a hero in Boston. One more good post-season and there should be no doubt.
Fun fact: Tom Glavine and I share the same home-town. There was a sports nut in my school who would wander the high school library checking all the tags on the library books to see if he could find one signed out by good ol’ Tommy.
Nah. Schilling is in. Clemens SHOULD be in (then again, so should Pete Rose).
The Blue Jays are REALLY trying to let Texas win this game. 1 for 14 so far with RISP.
Why?
He is 216-146 with a career 3.46 ERA and 3116 K’s.
In his favor is the 3000+ K’s and that he is nearly 1 better than league ERA.
However, he really has not been a truly top tier ace over most of his career.
If you buy into the 1st round vs. later round HoF’er criteria, Schilling does not strike me as 1st ballot.
I think he will get in as the strikeouts and postseason dramatics will help greatly. He is also extremely well known and a good interview. I recognize being liked by the press helped get many borderline players in like Kirby Puckett.
Yanks just won an interesting one over Boston. Terrible pitching by almost everyone. Wang looked bad and Buchholz looked worse and Timlin beat them both out for goat of the game. So the final was 15-9.
Can my Reds play you more often, please? We need to play good teams to be good, as we apparently cannot hit a baseball against crappy teams like the Pirates.
Well goddamn, who needs Soriano anyway? The Cubbies put a shellacking on the Reds again last night, those first four innings were like watching a video game. Ok, so DeRosa isn’t much of an outfielder, we already knew that, but once again it was a hitfest at Wrigley last night and how about that Ryan Theriot? He’s like frickin Spiderman out there at short. I can’t remember the last time I saw that many doubles in such a short time span and Fogg is no slouch of a pitchter either.
I’m just loving this right now.
The projected stats on Zambrano are nuts. I know there’s no real justification for those numbers in the long run, but they must sure be nice to drool at.
It would be bittersweet to meet you in the last game in the post season,
beebs
Ahem. Isringhausen made it a nail-biter, but a W is a W in the Cards’ column. And how about Wainwright looking like an ace out there? He keeps that up, and Carpenter returns to form a little after the All-Star break, the Cards will have some serious pitching.
The Cubs are paying a visit to Busch the first weekend in May. I wonder if I can get home for that. Those should be some exciting games!
That’s going to be some *awesome * baseball right there. I’m not going to be home I think I’m in Wisconsin the first weekend in May (it’s when fishing season opens in Wisconsin) but I’ll be able to get WGN on the radio up there so I’ll be listening to the whole thing.
Oh and Beebs? Zambrano’s only going to hit those numbers if he can pull his head out of his ass when things aren’t going his way. He was getting really frustrated again last night and ended up not being able to find a strike for two batters in a row, and then almost broke a bat over his knee again when he struck out batting. Even at that he still hit himself in the head with the bat handle while headed back to the dugout. If he can focus that anger into performance then it’s possible, but when he goes loose cannon on us forget about it.
One day, I will get a baseball TV package. Then I can actually watch the NL games which I actually enjoy more than AL games (exception of course being my own team). Until then, all I get are the numbers.
Hrmm, as much as I like Timlin and what he’s done for the Red Sox in the past few years, I’m beginning to think he’s done.