Jesus H. Christ, why can’t they have some non-idiots hosting Baseball Tonight on ESPN?
Chris Berman’s a big fat pain in the ass with his “Back, back, back, back” call for home runs, and his ridiculous puns on player names. John Kruk is full of nothing but boring anecdotes about his playing days. Bobby Valentine churns out stupid homespun wisdom. And Nomar Garciaparra is a grinning douchebag who takes himself way too seriously.
Get Buster Olney and Tim Kurkjian in there more often, and beg Peter Gammons to come back, because the guys you’ve got are fucking woeful.
Seriously, in what universe is it a good idea to walk the guy in front of A-Rod to load the bases? Particularly when that guy (Teixeiria) is not going so well.
I just watched the end of the Rockies-Giants game. Having been at the only game Ubaldo Jimenez lost (against the Dodgers, who were very, very lucky to get the one run off of him they did that day), I’m about ready to hand this guy the Cy Young right now.
He’s now 10-1. He started the day with an ERA of 0.88 (I don’t know what it is now after he’s finished a 129-pitch complete-game shutout).
I’m not much of a baseball historian. What other pitchers have had a start like this?
Another complete game shutout by Ubaldo Jimenez, this one over Tim Lincecum. 4 hits, 9 K’s. He is now 10-1, 0.78 ERA. He was throwing 97 MPH in the ninth inning.
This is one of the all-time seasons he is putting together.
Ron Guidry, 1978. His ERA was almost double that of Jimenez, but he won 13 games before losing. Yes, his ERA was 1.57 after 10 wins, and Jimenez’s is half of that. Crazy season he is having.
MLB Network just said Jimenez is the 3rd pitcher in MLB history with 10 wins and an ERA under 1.00 through the end of May. It didn’t mention who the other two were.
Regarding Jiminez’s start; how quickly people forget-
Zack Greinke through 75 innings last year had an ERA of 0.84, and had carded more K’s (81-73) and CG’s (5-2) but fewer BB’s (12-26) and HR (0-1) than Ubaldo over a similar time frame. Of course Greinke went totally off the rails the rest of the way, posting a 2.80 ERA over his last 23 starts to finish at 2.16.
That was about as badly missed a call at first as I have ever seen, and he does it then? :mad: I sure as hell would have gotten my George Brett moment in if that was me, They would be dragging me away still.
I sort of disagree. I don’t know if there was a memo passed around the Umpire union or something, but it seems that this year the umps have made a point of inserting themselves into the game in a way I haven’t seen before.
I can understand such a bad call being made in the 7th or even 8th inning; that can almost be forgiven. But to do it on the final out of a potential perfect game suggests that this was not just a bad call, but almost a purposeful show of authority.
That was a dismal way for the perfecto to be lost. The Umps are still on a terrible streak. I’m glad MLB is at least cracking down a little, but this was just a crappy call and nothing that requires league action. Now the moment of the crap call will leave this as very memorable.
I still think Joe West needs to canned and soon. The guy is the definition of what we don’t want in Umps. Umps need to be largely invisible.