A third of Boston’s opening day roster is currently on the DL, plus another half dozen injuries to minor leaguers on the 40-man that would normally have been brought up to fill some of those spots. Our bullpen has one and a half reliable pitchers, and they’re being run completely into the ground: Lackey went 7 the other day, left the game up 7 runs, and not only did Bard and Papelbon still have to pitch, but no one was remotely surprised.
It’s hard to complain too much when you still have one of the best records in the majors. And honestly, it sort of makes it a bit more fun to see how long they can keep it up with everything that’s hitting them.
I’ve been saying all year the Blue Jays cannot possibly keep scoring runs without getting more guys on base, and now they’re proving me right. Which doesn’t make me happy, but at least I know I wasn’t nuts when I was saying all winter that it’s wasn’t Roy Halladay the team was going to miss, it was baserunners. The Jays have lots of young pitching, what they do not have is hitting. (Halladay is just 9-7 with the Phillies thanks to a lack of support, so he must feel right at home in Philadelphia.)
What’s so damned frustrating is that the only two guys they had last year who were worth a damn, Adam Lind and Aaron Hill, have turned into bums. Lind is arguably the worst regular player in the major leagues, and Hill isn’t far behind.
Damn inability to access the boards for 38 hours (despite being able to access everything else on the Internet) making me very late in LMAO about Cliff Lee and Felix Hernandez pitching back-to-back CGs and the Mariners beating the Yankees in Yankee Stadium by a combined score of 14-4 in those two games.
Seriously, posting that would have been much more satisfying if I could have done it Wednesday night.
Not sure if it is just the Blue Jays or the return of the Yankees pitching coach Dave Eiland after missing the month of June, but AJ Burnett is pitching the best he has pitched since May.
5 scoreless in the books so far with a 76 pitch count.
Ellsbury LF
Pedroia 2B
Lowell 3B
Martinez 1B
Drew RF
Varitek C
Hermida LF
Lowrie SS
Beckett P
No, not tonight’s starting lineup. That’s the disabled list (plus Drew and his “stiff neck” )
Not only are both MLB catchers on the DL now, so are both AAA catchers.
Martinez and Beltre are FA’s after the season and should be worth some prospects in return at the trading deadline, at least. Papelbon can be had, too.
Damn, Ryan Dempster and Shlitting combined for 6 walks in the 7th inning between the Reds and Cubs, which was a 1-0 Reds lead…and turned into a NINE run inning!
Reds are now up 12-0.
I can’t recall seeing that many walks in an inning before. The record is 8.
I put the Mets/Nationals game on TV to listen to while I did some work on the house. Goddamn FOX seems to have found a worse announcing team than the one with Joe Morgan. I think these gasbags talked about 2/3 of the actual plate appearances and have spent the rest of the time discussing numerous issues related to the long career of Steven Strassberg (who was outpitched by an aging knuckleballer and has a stupid beard), the past career of one of the announcers (Kevin Millar, maybe?), and everything else on earth except the fucking game. I turned off the TV and am listening to the fuzzy AM broadcast on a portable radio with a bent antenna.
And then the Reds walk 9 batters in this 3rd game of the series, and lose 3-1. Shit. Only one game up on the Cards now. We need to beat Chicago tomorrow and then take care of the Mets!
July 3 was a good day. The Padres beat the Astros (in a game we attended, and ate/drank ourselves silly at) and the Dodgers routed the D-backs 14-1. A glorious weekend so far!
TBS kept showing the All Star lineups during their selection show. I guess they haven’t gotten the news that Vlad Guerrero now plays for the Texas Rangers. Every single one of their crawls showed LAA for his team.
How in the fuck does Joey Votto not make the allstar team? I read somewhere that someone like him that’s in the top 5 of all hitting categories hasn’t been left out of the allstar team since 1952. That’s crazy.
Meanwhile, the Reds offense just exploded in the 7th inning against the Cubbies. They hit four homers in that inning, had 13 batters come up and scored 8 runs. Its still in the seventh, with the Reds pitching right now. Its like a 45 minute inning, Reds up 13-3.
Obviously, he was never going to be selected before Albert Pujols. Their numbers this year are basically identical:
Votto: .313/.414/.574 with 19HR and 46BB
Pujols: .306/.415/.571 with 20HR and 56BB
but Pujols is incredibly popular, and has basically been the best player in baseball since he entered the Majors. Votto still has a chance to get in on the last ballot, and i just went and gave him a few votes.
I’m also pretty amazed that Yadier Molina is the NL starter. I reckon the Cardinals must have the same sort of balloting power in the NL as the Yankees do in the AL, because, of the NL catchers with more than 180 plate appearances this year, Molina is about 14th in terms of performance.
I know Miguel Olivo plays at Coors field, but he’s on fire with the bat, OPSing almost 300 points better than Molina. He’s also the only regular starting catcher who has thrown out more than 50 percent of base stealers this year.
Well…yeah. I hate that archaic rule. They need some other system whereby managers of the team can’t pick “their guys”. Its bullshit.
Although one could state the argument that it doesn’t really matter, because the All Star game doesn’t really matter. The only thing about the whole damn spectacle that was even any fun anymore was the homerun derby, and even that has been castrated by players dropping out due to fear of injury or somehow being “worn out” by swinging the bat so much that their subsequent play suffers.
Why don’t they just shorten the damn thing? The homerun derby, that is.
The check-in from a Mets fan: only 2 games out and Beltran is returning soon, plus one can hope that Jason Bay will eventually show the power stroke he had for the past 5+ years that he was acquired for… The worries are that the surprising starts for Dickey and Takahashi will come back to earth. A trade for one top pitcher (like Cliff Lee) that puts Takahashi back in the bullpen would be huge.
As for Atlanta’s lead (and impressive run after a terrible start to the season), I hold on to this thought from a Mets message board: One thing to remember: the Braves have played all but three of their twenty-three games against the Pirates, Astros, and Diamondbacks [3 of the worst teams in baseball]. The Mets have played zero of their twenty.
As for the Phillies, they’re getting hit with some of the injury curses that plagued the Mets last year. Not quite as severely (Utley and Rollins have not and are not out for the season) but enough to maybe keep them at arm’s length for this season at least…
As for games I’m going to: tomorrow’s game against the Reds (with Fireworks), Saturday’s against the Braves and then the All-Star Break. Later in July, one against the Cards and all three against the D-Backs. (I am a season ticket holder going to 30 games total this year, at least one game per home series except one.)
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