7/27 - 7/29
Infielder
Dave Berg of
Toronto and Roseville, CA is just another ballplayer in this universe. There are so many others sort of like him that you'd be excused if you lost track, even if the guy is hitting a career high .292 at a spritely young age. But while
Berg is as unremarkable as his below-average .317 on-base percentage, crazy Canadian management has thrust him into a remarkable circumstance. A more enterprising sort could make a sitcom out of it, complete with stereotypical sitcom neighbor who would scream out at inappropriate moments how much
Berg really
SUCKS at everything from laying down the sacrifice to simply breathing air like the rest of us ("Suck it in, *******, come on now! Now breathe OUT!").
But maybe this wonderful OOTP game is screaming that in its own way, because the thirty-six year old will be stuck in fourth-place Canadian purgatory for at least the remainder of the season, since the powers above him have decided against a trade to the FIRST-PLACE
Pale Hose for young outfielder Clinton King (.320, 13 HR in 165 AAA AB, .235/.279/.348 in 115 in MLB). Coming
thisclose to playing on a contender yet seeing it go awry might be punishment enough, but the real kick in the pants is that
Berg lost his starting shortstop's spot two weeks ago when
Toronto received 22 year old former All-Star BJ Upton as their end of a three-way deal.
So he's resigned to sitting the bench for the majority of his club's three-game set with (hey!) the
Pale Hose, and if
Berg has become a masochist and is actively rooting against his own ballclub, it ends up well for all involved.
The game on Thursday 7/27 goes into the books as a 4-3 victory for the good guys on the home team. Unfortunately
Jon Garland's seven-inning, two run effort isn't enough to get him credit for the W; a solo home run to right field by pinch-hitter
Russ Adams with one out in the ninth sullies what would have been a three-to-two ballgame. Hypothetical scapegoat
Joe Roa (5-4) ends up with a win on the ledger and in the sappiest of scenarios. 39 year old
Frank Thomas, batting .163/.218/.287 and one-for-22 this month, singles over a drawn-in infield with none out in the bottom of the ninth to bring home
Jack Wilson and give occasional closer
Geoff Geary the black mark on his record (though mop-up man
Kip Wells, who started the inning, gets the loss).
The next day, the
B.J.'s get a laugh when our moundsman
Esteban Loaiza drops his season record to 10-5 with a kind demonstration of his keen poise of "The Art of Suck." It is vintage
Esteban, the
Loaiza of a year and 300,000 posts ago - 4.2 IP, 8 H, 4 R, 6 BB, 6 K, 107 pitches. To get the W, all opposing right-hander
Brad Penny (7-6, 3.96) really has to do is stay on the mound; he goes one step further by poking one-base hits in the second, fourth, and fifth innings to provide himself with more than enough cushion so that the three runs he allows are no big deal. The final score is only five to three, Canadians, but the opposing side's parade of batters (42) and stolen bases (4) more properly reflect their dominance, or more accurately
Esteban's predisposition to **** the bed once in a while.
But the rubber match is the
Pale Hose coup de grace, for the twelfth time out of nineteen this season. The 34 year old twice-repaired
Ryan Franklib defies the odds and the dinky opposing singles for seven innings, though as
Jason Davis (6-9, 4.02) goes above & beyond
Franklin's performance, it looks as though the enhanced Arkansasian would come up on the short end for the fifth time this year. But
Frank Catalanotto's two-run round-tripper with two out in the eighth swings the pendulum back in our favor...yet only temporarily, as again a pinch-hitter is
Joe Roa's undoing. This time it is 25 year old
Scott Thorman, "Delgado's Legs" if such a moniker would ever spread. (As
Carlos has only missed three games this season and is fourth in the AL in home runs at age 35, I doubt it)
Thorman may not have a nickname, but we feel
Thor(man)'s wrath when his two-out single to right ties up another low-scorer, three-three.
But once again,
Scylla and Charybdis get dually decapitated in the ninth.
Aqui Lopez starts the inning by plunking pinch-hitter
Wil Cordero, bringing on semi-proven closer
Geoff Geary. Scintillating slash hitters
Vazquez and
Podsednik make quick outs, but bopping outfielders
Ordonez and
Wells don't, and their consecutive singles plate pinch-runner
Miguel Olivo and send the home crowd bounding ward happily.