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.