"That's really all that I have left to dream about and hope about."

I was away and busy, so no baseball. A few quick thoughts:

That was a completely waste of a genius Doc effort.

Fuck the homeplate ump. Yes, Garza pitched really well, but it's easy when pitches on the outside of both sides of the plate are called strikes.

Scott Rolen is hurt, which is why his play has kind of blown. See, puckheads? This is why these guys shouldn't "man up and play hurt." Cause it doesn't work.

Let's just re-up AJ already. I mean, come on. Why go after another free agent who isn't as good? To paraphrase DJF, he's a douche, but he's our douche.

And can we get Manny already? He's a flake, he's weird but he's one of the sickest right handed hitters in the history of the game. Hits a shit load at the Rog Mahal. And it'll give me someone to make fun of if AJ leaves.

I feel strangely ok for staying quiet before the trade deadline.

Oh, I've been wondering where Gregg Zaun has been. Well, here he is! Yeah...Cito isn't much of a fan.

And JP's in fine asshole form here "Part of making a trade is someone has to want you. Right now, there's no one that has expressed an interest in him. That's where we're at."

Translated, it goes like this "Bitch, I took you on when no one wanted your ass cause you were drunk and now you think you can go to the press and bitch about something. Talk to Cito. Motherfucker"

Aw Geez

Just when I was about to anoint Scott Rolen and his gap hit that scored two runs as the Messiah of Offense, David Eckstein couldn't seem handle a very routine DP that little Scottie Downs induced (Eck's second E of the game). Scottie continued to wonder, "WTF just happened?" while he gave up a whole bunch of other runs to the Royals. And I began to call for the Messiah of Defense, J effin' Mac. And when I say call, I mean wail and chant his name.


JMac would have totally made that play, and if he hadn't, we all know he would have opened his stomach and spilled his guts as sacrifice for failure to execute his mission, bringing shame to his legion. And we all would have felt better, because that's some urgency that Halladay was talking about. Entrails on second base are totally urgent.


AJ, as if it somehow matters, had his curve working and was kind of awesome. He did balk twice, once for sure and the other, maybe. But neither amounted to anything, and it's not like he balked in a run. Rod Barajas made a very nice pick off, fake out of Tony Pena's kid on third. AJ applauding him was amusing.


Uncle Fletch, with his catcher knowledge, was also amusing. His comment about pitch selection discussions with a pitcher, in which Fletch says, " How about something off speed, or this or that?" and the pitcher says, "How 'bout you go back behind the dish, give me a target and I hump a fastball down the pipe?" made me wish I had the mound miked. As were his comments about AJ's pitch selections, along the lines of "Oh God, not that pitch". And Fletch's comments about AJ's 118 pitch through 5 outing versus Detroit as being "just not efficient enough" were also gold. Uncle Fletch is the polar opposite of Rance.

Second verse, same as the first

Oh, Jeebus.

For the 2nd time in three games, one of the starters (this time Doc) took a gutsy 4-1 lead into the 9th only to have a normally stellar bullpen pitcher (this time Casey Janssen) throw it all back and then some. Actually, Doc helped throw it all back when he couldn't get a third out after a bullshit "trapping" call against Reed Johnson was erased by a crazy-awesome J-Mac (who today is a richer man) and A-Dog double-play.

Casey, who along with the umps, was getting the kind of sarcastic comments from my father that used to get him tossed from games when he was pitching coach for my brother's team, nibbled. You can't set guys like Sheff up if you don't go after him and make him feel the need to swing. And then Magglio stepped up and the big orange cat crushed the bird.

Roy was completely fired up all night, complete with motivational f-bombs and seething rage. If he turned green rather than that lovely shade of smoked salmon pink, he'd be the Incredible Hulk.

F the Devil Rays

Fuck 'em.

Dustin "Peaches" McGowan pitched beautifully Friday night and the Jays won it. Unfortunately, that's all they would get in the win department this weekend. AJ Burnett renewed the feelings of baseball love I felt towards him earlier in the year by taking a 7 strike-out, 4-1 lead to the 9th, only to have Acorn hand all of it back and then some. The shots of AJ looking like he was getting kneed in the privates on the bench right before BJ Upton hit the walkoff were a nice touch, Sportsnet. And then Jesse Litsch, in his hometown, lost 3-2. No idea what happened, it wasn't on tv. But I'm just going to go right ahead and blame it on the offense. And what the heck, I'll blame Gibby, too. And to follow a recent trend in the Jaystown blogosphere, I'm going blame Richard Griffin. Cause he's a Dick, in more ways than one.

As for the Troy fiasco, I don't know what to think. But that media scrum when he nearly cried while saying "no comment" and taking big sighs was painful. Blech.