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Originally Posted by cknox0723
But this is not that same lousy ballclub, either, so it would be one hell of a miserable fiasco if the threads unraveled down the stretch.
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7/24/07:
KC 13, @CHW 3
Kansas City right fielder Greg Norton's two-run single with two outs in the top of the first inning put the Pale Hose in a quick deficit, but that would pale in comparison to what was to come. Right-hander Ryan Franklin (5-4) was able to man the batallions and fight the good fight for a few frames, but Kansas City hit the royal flush with an eight-run fourth that included three home runs. Left fielder Abraham Nunez followed up Irving Falu's leadoff walk with a big fly to right that just kept carrying, his eighth round-tripper of the season, and a free pass to opposing moundsman Rodrigo Lopez (2-3) was the straw that would break Franklin's back a second time. Speedsters Henry Mateo and Rich Thompson dinked and dunked their way on with one-base hits that loaded up the bases, and then the incomparable Mike Sweeney unloaded them by dinking one off of the left field foul pole. Right fielder Norton followed with another four-bagger, bringing on left-hander Fabio Castro from the Chicago bullpen. He'd stop the home run onslaught, but not the run-scoring, and the three lonely tallies by the home side were as satisfying as asparagus salad to a vampire.
Wade Miller made his debut for our ballclub, retired the first six he faced without any trouble (save a few line drives right back at him), and then got chased in his third inning of work when four consecutive batters reached, the fourth being the flipping pitcher
Lopez on a fecking walk.
Apparently, as a starter, he makes a hell of a reliever.
PJ Bevis, who throws hard stuff from the side, relieved and pitched a scoreless inning, but I guess his 10 ball to 8 strike ratio demonstrates why BadluckinOOTP posited that we need a reliever. Perhaps he is forgetting All-Star reliever (TM)
Kiko Calero; he tossed the last two frames of a ten-run loss because he is an All-Star, and it would've been embarassing to lose by twenty runs like we did that one time last year.
Also, there was really no one else to pitch.
I guess the point has been made, maybe we do need a reliever, but Jeff Nelson is retired in this universe and Mike Stanton is pitching in
Saint Louis and very poorly, at that. Even worse is that I think we have run out of guys to trade.
But how big an impact will a reliever have over two months, anyway? Suppose the twenty-five or thirty innings they pitch are all in very important games, and this hypothetical pitcher is some grand success, giving up maybe a half of an earned run or a fully earned walk or trot. That's fantastic and maybe that will give us the division title, but surely the guy he replaces will have been a grand success at least a few of those times, and
Roa,
Otsuka et al. really ain't
that bad - they would probably succeed more than just "a few" times. And that could well be enough for the division anyway.
I won't look into
Wagner, who has 77 saves and a 3.48 career ERA at age 25, but also walks about six per nine innings like
Ankiel. And I
know I should have thought about signing
Seattle's brilliant relief ace
Dotel two years ago when the opportunity was there, but enough already!
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Originally Posted by cknox0723 on 10/2/2004
Tavy Dotel is more fun to say than Octavio, so I'll do that when talking about his 0.93 ERA and 18 saves [at the 2006 All-Star Break]. Remind me why I didn't sign him for $3 million pennies a year, by the way? Oh...bone chips. Forgot. Yeah, that's definitely affected him this year. Definitely.
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The 33 year old southpaw
Ray King would be an ideal fit, as he totes a long line of earned run averages around three, a fastball that registers at 95 on the gun, and a birthplace from a little town in Illinois. Unfortunately the
Evil Fishies won't give the Chicago native up, but that is just as well. If I traded any more prospects, our minor league clubs wouldn't be able to field a team.
But we're five games up in the division, peeps, with 63 to play.
