Rainy in D.C.
Three hundred wins for Randy.
Proud in Seattle.
--Grandpa D
Baseball Haiku: Dear John
Welcome, John Lackey.
Two pitches (!) then ejection.
Less than expected.
--Grandpa D Pitching Coach
Two pitches (!) then ejection.
Less than expected.
--Grandpa D Pitching Coach
Greinke for President
Six starts. 6-0 with 54Ks and only 8 walks in 45 innings, 2 earned runs, no homers and a microscopic ERA and WHIP. Wow.
--Grandpa D Media Relations
[Not bad for the 12th round, 119th pick in the WATBL draft.]
Dear Jacoby Ellsbury:
Your steal of home with the bases loaded against the Damn Yankees was one for the ages (even if your head first slide was initiated by a somewhat awkward stumble, belly-flop body bounce). You are our hero.
--Grandpa D Coaching Staff.
Video link:
http://boston.redsox.mlb.com/media/video.jsp?content_id=4316579&c_id=bos
Dear Mike Aviles,
Recent correspondence with you and your colleagues may have led you to believe that you had a two-day grace period in which to demonstrate that you should not be dropped. Management has instead opted to make an example of you, and has welcomed aboard Aaron Hill as your replacement, effective immediately. (Please see Section III, Paragraph 4(a), of your contract on Management's right to terminate you at any time.) We apologize for any confusion.
Baseball Haiku: Leading Off Week Three
Put on your game face.
(Brandi, power down his Mac.)
The Hurms are in town.
(Brandi, power down his Mac.)
The Hurms are in town.
Dear Blizzard hitters,
It is time for your two-week performance evaluation. Let us review where you stand in total accumulated statistics:
- 40 R (10th of 10)
- 10 HR (T-9th)
- 51 RBI (8th)
- 6 SB (9th)
- .220 AVG (10th)
- .670 OPS (10th)
That would be a pretty good week, actually. (If we pretend that AVG and OPS don't exist, which, please, let's just do that.) Except that it took you two. And that is why you have not yet won a single hitting category this season. Not even tied. Not even close.
That is a truly dismal performance, and you should all hang your heads in shame.
Now let us discuss each of you individually, shall we?
- Geovany Soto: I didn't really want to spend a 6th-round pick on a catcher in the first place. So far you are not making me feel any better about that.
- Prince Fielder: .175/.652? Really? Please eat a cheeseburger. Or three.
- Mike Aviles: You are two days from getting dropped.
- Chris Davis: 18 strikeouts in 39 at-bats is more than a little scary. Then you hit home runs in back-to-back days, and it looked like you were coming around, yet for some reason those home runs resulted in you sitting out the next game. Yes, the one where the Rangers scored 19 runs and Ian Kinsler had more hits than most of you had all season at that point. Please give Ron Washington my regards.
- Jose Reyes: Your numbers are satisfactory. Thank you.
- Josh Hamilton: Yours are not. You have struck out 10 times in your last 17 at-bats. Please stop swinging at the first pitch.
- Carlos Lee: You hit the team's first home run of the season (six days in!), and for that I applaud you. But .238/.697?
- Jason Bay: Your numbers are exceptional, a beacon of light in the darkness. You are hereby promoted directly from Third Outfielder to Team Captain. Your immediate duties will include locating cheeseburgers for Prince Fielder and showing Josh Hamilton how to not swing at the first pitch.
- Jay Bruce: I have fond memories of your first few weeks in the majors last year, and the consensus seemed to be that your talent would emerge this year. So far the results have more resembled the remainder of your season last year, of which I do not have such fond memories.
- Matt Wieters: You get a pass for now. But it would be nice if you actually do something when you do get the call.
Given the massive discrepancy between assembled level of talent and actual results thus far, here is what I am going to assume: You are all planning a surprise party for me! Any minute now you're all going to leap out from behind the furniture wearing funny hats and shout, "Surprise! Look, we got you some hits!" And I'll say (and I will mean every word): "Thank you, thank you so much, it's just what I wanted."
Dear MLB TV,
Is this what it feels like to win? I've never been in first place before, and since I highly doubt I'll be there again, I better give my acceptance speech now. I'd like to thank MLB TV for beginning their inaugural broadcast during my maternity leave. I'd especially like to thank Harold Reynolds and team for letting me know that the Florida Marlins had one of the best starting rotations in baseball. I'd like to thank my husband, Mr. Commish, for talking nonstop about "his guys" over the past three years so that I have learned about players I would have never known about by osmosis. I'd like to thank Noah, whose residence in my belly during last year's fantasy season caused me to barely pay attention to my team, making for a most unfortunate season, which makes this one look that much better. And I'd like to thank Alexei Ramirez, one of my very few Latin players, who admitted that he just doesn't play well in the cold, but, to his credit, is going to try to fight through it. You are a true hero. Some day soon, it will be warm. And then I fear for the production of all my American-born players. But until then (or until next week), I'm in first place!
Baseball Haiku: Historic Saturdays in Blizzards History
Prince, Jose, Jason!
The universe is at peace.
Four home runs today.
The universe is at peace.
Four home runs today.
Manager's Journal: April 11, 2009
A home run! Carlos Lee—steady, reliable Carlos—was the one who spotted it. He already had two singles on the day, and Reyes told me later that Carlos had stopped nearly in mid-stride, retrieved a pair of field binoculars, and raised them to his eyes. Reyes asked him what he was looking at. Carlos lowered the binoculars again, gritted his teeth, and muttered what Reyes said sounded like "Fastball!" Then he took off, barreling across the sun-blasted plains, gripping his bat in both hands. Reyes ran after him. He told me that it took Carlos a little while to get up to full speed, but then not even Reyes could have caught him, such was his determination.
By now the rest of us had taken notice. No one seemed to know what was happening; we all thought Carlos had finally broken, that we might have to chase him down, tie him to a board, and drag his raving bulk behind us the rest of the season. But then Jason Bay shouted, "Home run! Home run! Home run!" and he took off as well. The pitchers huddled together, confused and frightened—they thought Varitek had reappeared, that he was coming for them the way he had already come for Shields and Percival. But the hitters lost no time in following Bay's lead.
Carlos stood on top of a rising dune, bat in hand, silhouetted against the fading sun like a rotund Greek god. The home run was truly a colossal, majestic thing, and when they reached it the hitters all stood in awe before its power, marveling that such a thing really existed, that a ball could be hit so far as to actually clear the outfield wall, and find itself in whatever mythical lands of gold and garlic fries lay beyond.
That night we celebrated, dancing and feasting and toasting mighty Carlos long into the night. Aaron Harang played his lute, with Jay Bruce accompanying him on wood block and triangle. The men had been so overwhelmed with joy that they seemed to forget that they might hit too—Carlos's home run was, in fact, also the only run and RBI anyone managed to find that day, and he provided three of our five total hits. I did not mention that we were still down 7-3, with little hope holding on to even that much through Sunday night, not against the seemingly endless gauntlet of two-start pitchers still to come from our opponent. It mattered little. Today the home run was enough.
Manager's Journal: April 10, 2009
Fielder ate the map. Hamilton and Chris Davis, walking behind him, had begun taunting him with cries of "herbivore, herbivore," and finally Fielder spun around and said, "Hey, is paper a vegetable?"
"Herbivore!" shouted Davis, who had gotten carried away.
Fielder smiled grimly, pulled out the map, unfurled it into the wind, and then stuffed it in his mouth. Hamilton and Davis gaped at him. Carlos Lee saw what Fielder was doing and charged toward him, but Carlos was not drafted for speed and he was too far away to stop it. The map was gone. Under other circumstances it would have been impressive, the swiftness with which that amount of paper disappeared, something that we might all have chipped in a few stolen bases to see at a carnival sideshow. Fielder shouted at Davis to back off or he'd eat him next, because by the time Fielder was done with him he'd be a vegetable too.
I fined Fielder three RBIs even though he has only one. I told him to get the other two from Hamilton.
(Later Hamilton and Davis came to ask me whether paper was, in fact, a vegetable. It does come from trees, Hamilton pointed out, but a vegetable? That doesn't sound right. I kicked them out of the tent.)
The home run drought continues. By now I have begun to doubt whether they even exist, and are not some fairy tale told for the comfort of children who still believe that it is possible to make gains in five categories with one swing. At camp—after another punishing day in a seemingly endless series, a 3-for-25 monstrosity that left everyone dejected and drained—the hitters all stood around waving their bats in the air, trying to hit rocks off into the weeds, missing more often than not. Some were holding their bats at the wrong end, or even in the middle, but I said nothing, not wanting to embarrass them. Morale is low enough as it is. Carpenter's unexpected run at a no-hitter helped, but even as we cheered for him we all realized that it would not be enough, not nearly.
Pujols' OPS has given us a slight respite, retreating to 1.397, but coupled with the .500 batting average it still feels like the wrath of an angry and terrible God bearing down on us. Last night the men broke down and wept and told Pujols that if he would only relent, they would change their ways, they would build monuments and statues and worship at his feet and hit higher than .183. Now Jorge Posada—Jorge Posada—has added his own 1.302, and Aramis Ramirez is at 1.143, and Lance Berkman is at 1.062, and we have no map, and dear God, we are lost.
Manager's Journal: April 9, 2009
We are close to madness. Yesterday a home run—shimmering, glorious—appeared on the horizon, and the men cast aside their packs and supplies and ran toward it, whooping. When they discovered it was a mirage, dying on the warning track for an easy out, they sank into glum silence. Even Reyes, always ready to cheer the other men with a joke or a stolen base, stood to one side and kicked forlornly at the rocks.
The sun is relentless. The sand clings to everything. Our batting average and OPS are rapidly diminishing; our WHIP is too high, our strikeouts too few. Shields keeps apologizing to anyone who will listen—"Who knew Varitek could even still swing?" he says—but few will, anymore. Only K-Rod, with his two spotless saves, seems unaffected by the malaise. He and Fuentes had become fast friends, but now Fuentes is cracking like the rest and K-Rod wants nothing to do with him. "I only talk to people who have gotten at least 60 saves in a season," he says, before reminding us yet again that he's the only one. I fear the two may come to blows.
Soto's shoulder is getting worse. Milledge is getting benched. Bedard mutters continually about how it was a strike to Cuddyer, a strike, even Cuddyer said so. He has begun obsessively sharpening a bit of flint as we walk and has carved the name "Meriweather" into the blade. When we ask what it means he just glares at us and says he doesn't do interviews.
We are down 9-1. It is not close. Pujols' 1.714 OPS is like an optical illusion. Soon we may have to consider eating Prince Fielder just to survive another few days.
God help us all.
Response Haiku: Thursday, No Hope in Sight
Still not one home run
Aviles leads team OPS
Better next week, guys?
Baseball Haiku: Mariners vs Twins Tonight
Real world: go M's!
but in our FantasyLand
no-no for Slowey.
--Grandpa D
but in our FantasyLand
no-no for Slowey.
--Grandpa D
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