Yet Another OOTP6 Dynasty, Year 2: One Flew Over the Pale Hose

[cknox0723]

"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." Short of facing John Halama two days in a row, the best we can do to live up to that old saying is get shut down by his 26 year old, slightly harder-throwing right-handed teammate, Clint Nageotte. And sure enough, give him your tired, your weak, your downtrodden, your Pale Hose, and watch a guy who entered the season with exactly one career victory spin a near-complete game shutout for his seventh W of 2007. In recording 26 outs, the Brooklyn (Ohio) native faced just a handful over the minimum, handing out three free passes and allowing but one runner past first base. That'll happen when Yorvit Torrealba strokes more hits (3) than the other 8 guys in the lineup (2).

I suppose it didn't much matter, what with Jorge DePaula on the mound. He gave one of his better efforts of the year, allowing 3 runs, 2 earned in 5 innings, throwing (wait for it) 102 pitches. That should give you a good indication that "Schizo Jorge" has been more down than up this season, and that's why he'll be the odd man out when Ryan Franklin comes off the DL again in a few days, even ahead of middling rookie southpaw Fabio Castro.

But something about the hopelessness of it all is getting to me, and it about bubbled over after this recent loss. I look at the major league club, and right fielder Magglio Ordonez is hitting .240 against right-handed pitching and giving us the same production that rookie Brian Anderson is, all in all -- for only $9 MILLION clams more. We've got retreads and journeymen and castoffs starting at almost every position, with the only hope resting on a pitching staff full of injury risks and guys with less control than a backseat driver in a NASCAR race and...blecccch. Down in the minors, we've got nuttin', really. A top-notch pitching prospect a year removed from the first round who's already in AAA...and getting hit hard. An outfielder taken #8 overall two years ago who's scuffling in AA at the age of 25.

Even the guys drafted less than a week ago have clouds hanging over them. #6 pick Billy Rogers has walked four times in his first twelve plate appearances...and made 7 outs. Second rounder Danny Pastor, a southpaw swingman, logged a win in his first professional appearance and then recorded a two-out save in his second -- only to get crushed in his third, surrendering a couple of runs without getting an out. What are we doing here?

Then something wholly unremarkable happens. Ace Mark Buehrle takes the ball for our final match with Seattle -- and gives up a first inning run, spurred on by a leadoff single off Ichiro!'s bat, a steal of second and then a whole bunch of walks. The train's rolling downhill, the conductor's taking a nap and there's a bend in the tracks coming up, right?

Nah. Brian Anderson walks to start off the bottom of the second. Two batters later, center fielder Raul Gonzalez singles over second, and Yorvit Torrealba thumps a line drive into center to tie the game. A failed squeeze bunt ends our run scoring there, but Buehrle pitches in and out of trouble in the third and then the fourth, and we pick it back up in the bottom half of that inning. Again it's started by a Brian Anderson walk, and just as in the second, "The Element" that really keys it on is a one-out Raul Gonzalez bingo, this time a booming double into the right field corner. Catcher Yorvit! brings home the go-ahead run with a fly ball out to left-center...

And there it is, that's the game. "The Buehrle One" isn't perfect the rest of the way, but he allows nary a hit after the sixth, escaping a big jam in that inning by inducing Ichiro! to harmlessly bounce out to second with two outs, stranding two men in scoring position. At that point, it's not even much of a threat anyway, because the score's 6-1 in our favor after a four-run fifth inning that chased the opposing starter out of the game for good.

That starter is ace Tomo Ohka, 16-6 with a 2.54 ERA in his first year in Seattle last season, and 4-1 entering this game. But after a flurry of walks and hits, he's gone after just four & two-thirds innings and at the end of the day, on the hook for his second loss thanks to some little old team from Chicago.

Funny how it works. Just one game, just one win. But it's the kind of game we would have lost last year, the kind of game that would push us into a seven-game spiral. Instead, we're back at .500, still hanging in the thick of the division race...and maybe, just maybe, there's hope for this ragtag lot after all.

Cleveland's waiting for us, looking up at us in the standings. The defending World Champs actually lost 10 of the 19 games they played against us last season. One game ago, I would've said, "That don't matter one bit, we're falling apart here, top to bottom." One win later, I'm actually feeling...confident?

Don't start thinking crazy stuff, though, this is still the Pale Hose, after all.

[zukes]

The Hose will win the series against Cleveland next, that is my prediction on a sunny Friday afternoon, with beer waiting to be drank.

Oh and grilled cheese with ketchup rules!!! I thought that was how everybody ate them. They are also good dipped in Mayo, but then you can feel your arteries hardening.

Keep the spirits up, Craig. I see big things happening this year, you may even need to make a deadline move to improve your chances!!!

[DAL 9000]

Originally Posted by cknox0723

hey, thanks for all the replies, peeps! they're the only way to tell that i'm not in a bubble anymore.

though i have got to tell y'all, grilled cheese dipped in ketchup replies can go in the toilet from now on (that is disgusting, you must not have any tastebuds DAL)

You actually tried it?! Hahahahahahahaha!

Don't take that the wrong way, Craig. I'm laughing with you, not at... actually, no, I take that back. I'm laughing at you.

EDIT: Wait, either zukes is in on the joke /or/ he's just furnished disturbing proof that if Person A-- say, David-- mentions the most vile and disgusting way to eat a grilled cheese sammich he can think of, then person B-- say, zukes-- has not only /eaten/ it that way, but /liked/ it. Yikes.

[cknox0723]

Originally Posted by DAL 9000

You actually tried it?! Hahahahahahahaha!

Don't take that the wrong way, Craig. I'm laughing with you, not at... actually, no, I take that back. I'm laughing at you.

EDIT: Wait, either zukes is in on the joke /or/ he's just furnished disturbing proof that if Person A-- say, David-- mentions the most vile and disgusting way to eat a grilled cheese sammich he can think of, then person B-- say, zukes-- has not only /eaten/ it that way, but /liked/ it. Yikes.

heathen!

yeah, there was some cheese in the refrigerator and some bread lying around, i had the munchies and didn't feel like turkey. so i thought, "well, my friends on the OOTP forums say this is a fine treat, and ketchup is the frank catalanotto of condiments, so why not?"

grrrrrrr! so much for following everyone else off the cliff.

but it was still better than new jersey's pride & joy (no, not the turnpike), this slop. my sister, who lives in california at the moment, misses the foodstuff known as taylor ham (or pork roll) dearly. i think my life would be better off without it entirely, but hell, i'm sure the southern u.s. said that about the north once upon a time. and imagine where the gulf coast would be had that gone down.

so maybe pork roll -- and by extension, grilled cheese w/ ketchup -- will save my life one day, too.

[cknox0723]

It's a Wednesday in the game, but it may as well be a lonely Friday night, 'cause that's how we're left feeling after this one. A matchup of Esteban Loaiza and Cleveland's southpaw ace Clifford Bartosh would have only been described as ugly based on last year's stats (8-16, 5.32 ERA for Esteban; 20 wins and a mark just over two runs per nine frames for "Big Red Clifford"), but this year they're much more even, in that Esteban doesn't suck quite as much. And what is, all in all, a pretty good pitching matchup turns out to be exactly that.

Problem is, we're on the short end once someone finally gets on the board. Joe Crede (remember him?) leads off the fifth by blasting a fat slider into the cheap seats in left putting the first tally of the game on the board in Cleveland's column. Center fielder Corey Patterson goes yard two batters later to make it 2-0, Bad Guys. That's all the give Esteban's got, but we never muster anything against Bartosh, who about drives this puppy all the way home. After twenty-six outs, three hits, and a lone walk are on the board for our side, Bartosh gets a pat on the butt (not that there's anything wrong with that) and a jump start on a hot shower, and Raffy Betancourt comes out of the 'pen to tackle Eric Munson pinch-hitting, our last hope. His first pitch flies past Victor Martinez back to the screen, but the next pitch is so straight and true, it's as if that first inappropriate offering never happened. Munson doesn't swing at that second pitch and first strike, presumably because he didn't expect Betancourt to hit the strike zone after such a poor first pitch. He should have. Quickly forced into a two-strike hole simply by the intertwining laws of physics and probability, "The Munson Burner" is forced to swing at something much less than a hitter's pitch, a 2-2 slider on the outside half. He's not aiming to put that sort of pitch in play, just keep the A.B. alive, but the sphere caroms off his hunk of wood and flies harmlessly in the air out to center field, where Corey Patterson bags it like the speediest of cashiers (ha! oxymoron alert!) with a gallon of milk. Back to the home clubhouse we trudge, still waiting for that hit and that rally that just never came. See, now there's the problem with waiting for late comebacks.

[DAL 9000]

Do we need to start calling hospitals to see if they have any patients by Craig's name, at all?

[Astros33Resurrected]

no pale hose make astros33 sad

[cknox0723]

Originally Posted by DAL 9000

Do we need to start calling hospitals to see if they have any patients by Craig's name, at all?

You very nearly may have had to. Burned my hands yesterday when I decided to, uh, play with corrosive materials. Take it from me, kids, acids are not a toy!!!

OK, OK, that story's not entirely true. I am not sitting here in bandages or anything. But I did lose a little skin off the hands and, besides, it makes for a good story. Certainly better than just saying that I have been busy or whatever, which would not be untrue.

Updating this thread is second on the to-do list this morning, so if there's nothing in here by 12 EST, call County General, OK?

[zukes]

12:32 EST send out an APB

[Astros33Resurrected]

come on craig, i wanted to read some pale hose before my last class.

[cknox0723]

que pasa, amigos?

[cknox0723]

Thurs. 6/8: @ CLE

Want to know why Mr. spuds loves Yorvit Torrealba so much? His first A.B. in this one, Yorvit lines a ball into center field for a one out hit, eventually coming around to score on a Magglio Ordonez single up the middle. The next half-inning, Yorvit! cuts down Angel Berroa trying to swipe second, a bit of a baserunner manslaughter that leaves Mark Bellhorn and the Tribe with nothing to show from a first and third, one out threat.

Yorvit! comes through again just a half-inning later, coming to the plate with a pair of men on and bringing one of 'em home with another base hit to center field. Two innings later, he plates Raul Gonzalez again with his third hit, again a stinger out into center field.

It makes you wonder what the hell I was thinking starting Miguel Olivo in this one. Miggy went oh-for-three against southpaw Cliff Lee, and so despite Yorvit's Herculean efforts from innings 8 through 12, we come up short. It ain't 'cause of the lack of production from our first catcher; no, blame the bullpen, which blew another nice start from Jon Garland, and maybe give some credit to Cleveland moundsman Lee, who fanned ten and allowed just three hits and two runs in seven-plus.

But blame me more than anyone, not just for not starting Yorvit!, but for getting ejected arguing a double play in the tenth, because that leads to faulty bullpen management, and rookie Fabio Castro and a tired Aki Otsuka ain't the guys you want out there in a neck-and-neck game. Sure enough, they give up a few too many runs in extra time, and we fall 6-5 in 12 innings.

Fri 6/9: @ CLE

With Ryan Franklin coming off the disabled list to make his first start in three weeks, the cards are probably stacked against our club stopping a skid where we've lost four out of five. Maybe moreso since left-hander C.C. Sabathia and his 2.20 ERA are on the bump for the other side.

This one just goes to show that thinking like that is too simplistic. Franklin rolls through the first two innings and by the time he has his inevitable fits and starts and control problems, we're already up 2-0 on a Magglio Ordonez quadrangle. Jody "Odysseus" Gerut flies out to leave the bags full in the bottom of the third, saving us from certain doom. Frank Thomas doubles home the unnaturally suave Raul Gonzalez with two out in the top of the sixth to kick our lead up to three-nil, especially helpful since Cleveland plates a couple in the next half-frame against the slightly rusty Franklin. But Mike Gallo keeps the lead in our pocket by coming on to retire the opposing moundsman Sabathia, and we bust the game wide open in the seventh when the portly left-hander inexplicably loses his control. Armando Benitez comes out of the 'pen with two out and two men on, but he serves up a hearty meatball to Brian Anderson, who clobbers the ball and any chance at a sweep far, far out of Cleveland. We leave Ohio with an 8-2 victory and head back home for three with the Halos.

Sat 6/10: OFF DAY

In one of those hyper-organized moods, we take an early flight back to the Second City, grab a Fresca and chill. Well, the ballclub does; I spend the day at the Cell, enjoying the pithiness of a management-organized contest. "Throw Oranges at Jorge DePaula's Bare Ass!" said the advertisements. Sadly, only Fred Talbot shows up.

Sun 6/11: vs. ANA

A Mark Buehrle-John Lackey duel is everything the small-ball aesthete could have hoped, with across-the-board zeroes through 8 sullied only by a Yorvit Torrealba run-scoring single in the fourth and a solo tater off the bat of Jack Cust to lead off the top of the seventh. Aside: Christ, is Yorvit allergic to outs or something? But I make the heinous decision to pull Buehrle after eight innings and 108 pitches, and Aki Otsuka lays a terrible egg in the ninth. Sadly, it's not of the ganderic (?) persuasion. He puts a couple men on and gets chased when third sacker Justin Leone thumps a double to left, and Mike Gallo only makes a bigger mess, allowing journeyman 26 year old Dallas McPherson to stroke a two-out single to center and give his club a 4-1 advantage. Brian Schneider, who donned the official All-Star tools of ignorance last year, continues a frustrating season of regression by flying out to end the frame, but the damage is irrevocably done.

And is it ever. Singles by rookie outfielder Clint King and Yorvit "Hives" Torrealba give me the faintest of hope in the bottom of the ninth, particularly when an error by center fielder Tike Redman on the latter hit puts both men in scoring position with no one out. But Enrique Wilson and Ramon Vazquez both ground to second, plating the runs one by one but also eating away our two most precious commodities at this point in time. An Adam Kennedy line drive single into right-center chases Proven Closer (TM) Percival and sets up a battle of JCP & L and GE, Frankie Rodriguez and Maggs Ordonez, power and power.

Of course Ordonez eliminates all suspense by bouncing the first pitch right over to first base. Darin Erstad, the most grating of folks, ain't there to gobble it up; General Jack Cust is -- but Erstad, the Rally Monkey in human form, may as well be flipping me the bird as I simmer over a 4-3 loss.

Mon 6/12: vs. ANA

After surrendering two runs in six innings in his first start in a month or so, southpaw Glendon Rusch's ERA is a symmetrical 6.66. That's as good an explanation for our 3-2 win in this one as anything else. Esteban "The Art of Suck" Loaiza is the hero after tossing seven innings of two-run ball and stroking a two-run second inning double to boot, but it's rookie Clint King who tallies one in the 'GWRBI' column. He brings home Frank "Tabby" Catalanotto with a two-out single to left after the latter stepped out of the dugout, into the box, and cracked a ground rule double into the right field seats. Mike Gallo's the winner for the second time this season, and Aki Otsuka records an out and, with it, his second save.

Tues 6/13: vs. ANA

The highest of many highs in this 2007 comes in the bottom of the fourth inning of this ballgame. Trailing 1-0 after Jack Cust greeted Jon Garland and the fourth inning with a long ball, Magglio Ordonez starts the inning off with a simple single to left off of southpaw Jarrod Washburn. The next two batters, Russ Branyan and Brian Anderson, both walk, and left fielder Clint King follows with a bloop over short. Ordonez scores easily to tie the game, Branyan runs through a stop sign at third -- but Reggie Willits' throw home is late, and we have a two-run edge and men at 2nd and 3rd with no one out.

Nice position to be in, sure, but the bottom of the order's coming in. I didn't expect much from 87 year old Frank Thomas, rotting woodsman Enrique Wilson, or the pitcher Garland.

Certainly not this.

"Two balls, one strike to Thomas. Second and third, no one out here in the 4th, two-one Chicago. Washburn from the stretch. Schneider setting up towards the inside half. The pitch to the Big Hurt -- fastball, swung on and elevated, deep left field! Down the line, Anderson giving chase, at the track, at the wall, is it fair?"

Yes. Yes, it is. Thomas has struggled to crack even the Mendoza line in this, his swan song, but have his few hits ever been timely. His 513th career home run put this one out of reach and brought us back to .500 in one fell swoop, and...what else is there to say? One of those nifty little baseball moments.

Wed 6/14: vs. OAK

Oakland is coming to town, and since this is a club that we swept out of California in a four-game set in May, I feel like a kid at Christmas. Never mind the fact that went from May 18th to June 2nd (15 games) without winning a single game. That is, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, just gravy.

But Santa Claus is dead, Ryan Franklin is but a mere punching bag, and Joe Blanton's gone from the valley to the mountaintop. A year after going 4-18 with a 7.76 ERA (no, really), he's tossed six strong innings against a fearsome team from Chicago (ferocious!) in a gruesome 7-2 loss. (Pitiful!)

Attitude, though. Attitude. A year like that, I would have gone Larry Bowa-apesh*t after such a thrashing. This time around, I'm content at the solid work of hangers-on Rick Ankiel (4 IP, 1 R) and Fabio Castro (2 scoreless frames) in mop-up duty.

Thurs 6/15: vs. OAK

The banananananana is most certainly dancing. Fifth starter Mike Nannini had been lost in the shuffle after three half-decent starts since being acquired from Montreal back in mid-May, but his first outing in 11 days is brilliant beyond his wildest dreams. Despite falling behind nearly every hitter, Nannini is a cool customer, getting some help from Maggs Ordonez in right field to prevent a first-inning fiasco and just rolling on from there. It's 4-0 Good Guys in the sixth when Nannini's spot comes up in the order, and I tell the 27 year old to hit the showers -- but not before a bunch of hooligans in black & white shirts stand up and cheer a lot, as if that will somehow make the guy's day. Aside: I'm sure it would have; I'm not that heartless. Eric Munson takes a ride on the home run train in the seventh, blasting his ninth jack of the year off Chad Durbin, and even this crew can't blow a 6-0 lead in two innings. Not against last-place Oakland, at least.

Fri 6/16: vs. OAK

(555) 555-5555

I wonder why it's fives that are used in fake telephone numbers.

Maybe Brian Anderson is, too.

Chicago (A)	AB	R	H	RBI
SS/3B Vazquez	5	1	2	0
2B Kennedy	4	0	1	1
RF Ordonez	5	1	0	1
3B Munson	4	3	2	0
 P Otsuka	0	0	0	0
CF Anderson	5	2	5	3
LF King		5	0	1	0
1B Catalanotto	3	1	1	1
C Torrealba	5	0	3	2
P Buehrle	3	0	1	1
 SS J. Wilson	1	1	1	0
TOTALS		40	9	17	9

Yeah, I know it was most of the offense that was in sync here, and not just Anderson, but five hits in five A.B.'s is more than just pretty good. Aside: But who wouldn't be in sync against Brett Tomko???

And with Mark Buehrle on the mound, you know nine runs is good to go. 11 K's and just short of 11K worth of pitches from The Buehrle One in seven, and we've got ourselves a nice 9-2 victory to take two out of three.

And here we are:

Minnesota.........35-32 (.522), -- GB
Chicago (A).......34-33 (.507), 1 GB
Cleveland.........34-33 (.507), 1 GB
Kansas City.......34-33 (.507), 1 GB
Detroit...........33-33 (.500), 1.5 GB

Sure, we could be in last tomorrow, but do you know when we recorded our thiry-fourth win last season? It was against Oakland, coincidence of all coincidences, and Mark Buehrle was the victor...

...on July 14, 2006. The day after the All-Star break.

So, anyway, how was your week?

[DAL 9000]

Eric Munson "takes a ride on the home run train?"

You will never have a job as a SportsCenter anchor, Craig. And that's a good thing for both you and everyone.

("Excuse me, aren't I /included/ in the set of 'everyone?'" "Be silent, tiny Pale Hose freak." "... yessir.")

[The Funk]

Personally I remain remarkably blasé about the whole affair.

[cknox0723]

a belated happy Thanksgiving to all. how sad it is to see this thread on page two.

Originally Posted by DAL 9000

Eric Munson "takes a ride on the home run train?"

You will never have a job as a SportsCenter anchor, Craig. And that's a good thing for both you and everyone.

hey, at least I didn't go with my original idea, which was to string together random Spanish words into some unsightly phrase. Si, yo soy muerto pelota el bano muy caliente tortilla!

Originally Posted by DAL 9000

("Excuse me, aren't I /included/ in the set of 'everyone?'" "Be silent, tiny Pale Hose freak." "... yessir.")

my mercy, what a pleasure it would be to be a professor, grading one of your papers, considering how easily your intellect and wit shines through on an internet baseball text sim forum. but maybe that's partially the cause of it, too. nothing makes for a good joke like a bunch of binary bits strung together to form a non-existent Julio Lugo.

speaking of, the question should not have been, "Craig, what the eff does 'takes a ride on the home run train' even mean?" but rather, "Craig, who the fook is SS J. Wilson? Enrique, 'The Relief Ace', I know and love, but who's that guy J. Wilson?"

And the answer is Jack Wilson, the erstwhile Pirate. Avast ye, mateys. Atlanta told him to walk the plank when I offered them outfielder chin-feng chen, and it's a rare swap of spare parts that could really help out two clubs unexpectedly at the top of the standings. An injury to #6 hitter JD Drew (now, there's a surprise. NOT!) and poor planning at the beginning of the season dulled the Arrowheads' outfield depth significantly, to the point that minor league veteran Steve Smitherman, the ugliest man alive, would have been in a significant role until about the All-Star Break. Well, him or 24 year old Matt Esquivel, a decent enough prospect with a pretty swing who has precisely 0 at-bats above double-A.

So chen is now Chen, and he'll get some service time and some A.B.'s against southpaws, and Wilson will do the same, no longer blocked by Raffy Furcal. Now, they probably won't be good at-bats, considering his career line of .240/.280/.320, but no matter. He's got a good track record against southpaws, making him the perfect platoon partner for Ramon Vazquez, or in other words everything Aneudi Cuevas never was. Speaking of him, he's back in Tampa's minor league system, having been made completely irrelevant by Wilson's arrival.

i will also add here, simply because i can, that beating Anaheim in that last series was quite nice after losing 6 of 9 to them last year. we did win our final 2006 pregunta against them, taking 2 out of 3 at home, but lost the third game of that set by the embarassing score of 15 to 5. less than a year later, they're the ones under .500, having seen their pitching staff disintegrate before their eyes. the defection of Kelvim Escobar to the Empire hurt the staff, since he is an effective moundsman when healthy, but that was not the case in sunny Cali last year. the greater problem has been southpaw Jarrod Washburn slipping badly from an 18-win season (he's currently 5-8 with an ERA of 5.34 and a run average of nearly 6.00 per 9 frames) and a nasty injury to 28 year old righty Ben Howard which has led to ace John Lackey being surrounded by an assortment of inexperienced youngsters. 37 year old closer Troy Percival showing his age (4.78 ERA) hasn't helped, either. You'd think the assortment of power arms filling out the bullpen, of course led by "K-Rod", would pick up the slack, but it hasn't been so. The club's third in the league in run scoring, retained much more of their pitching staff than rival Seattle, and yet they're once again looking up at them in the standings. Oh well. **** 'em.

anyhow, the Pale Hose have something to be thankful for -- a 4-game set in sunny Tampa. OK, it's a dome, but I'm feeling the Jersey freeze right now. These ain't your big brother's Evil Fishies, though -- at 29-37 despite a woeful offense, our opponents are showing some of the same HEARRRRRT that led the Pale Hose all the way to 69 wins last year. And who the hell are we?

The Pale Hose, that's who.

PS - Good bump, el hombre del Funk! Hopefully it will be less than four days before your next one.

[ifspuds]

Just wanted to add a belated YORVIT! and a Happy Thanksgiving to the Pale Hose and their chronicler.

[The Funk]

Originally Posted by cknox0723

PS - Good bump, el hombre del Funk! Hopefully it will be less than four days before your next one.

You saved yourself a real tongue-lashing for ignoring me then. Good save. And that ugliest man in the world thing is a bit harsh. If he happens to read this thread that's not gonna make him feel particularly good about himself. After-all, more professional ballplayers than you might think frequent these boards, believe me, I know whereof I speak! (I don't really).

GO HOSE!

[DAL 9000]

Ahem.

A haiku.

The turtle creeps up
To her eggs, claws rasping on
The sand. POST MORE, CRAIG.

[cknox0723]

hey, big ups to all of you gentlemen for all the nice replies, even if one of you could be tony suck, for all I know. So don't be offended when I say that 'Suck' is an even worse surname for a Chicago native than, um, Ruffcorn. Or DePaula.

Anyway, on the list of "Ways to start a trip to Tampa", watching Ramon Vazquez wallop skinny righty Josh Towers' fat first pitch ranks right up there with a Shiatsu massage or continental breakfast with oatmeal, and when the ball flies over the right part of some fence they set up in the outfield, I think that moves it ahead of the massage. Not the oatmeal, though. I do love me a hot bowl of oatmeal.

But would it dampen your enthusiasm, your excitement, if I told you that Towers allows just one more hit? Would that be like pissing in your oatmeal, assuming that you do in fact love the mealy goodness? I mean, only one more hit...that means a whole lot of bagels, since a control artist like Towers ain't going to give us a bunch of runs through walks. Insert inappropriate joke about bagels here. And one run sure won't be enough for Esteban Loaiza, "The Art of Suck", now will it?

Well, no, not unless it's that game in mid-April where Caligula or whoever ran the Empire. But forget that, ignore all this babble that I'm spewing on you, and realize that Josh Towers allowed us just two hits because his outing lasted but a single frame, thanks to a cranky right shoulder that can't get any sleep due to the wailing sirens and drunken undergraduates (TM ifspuds 6/10/2005). You'd think "cranky right shoulder" is actually a euphemism for Mount Piniella's unhappiness with a messy first inning that included a couple more baserunners (though no more runs) after the Vazquez tater, but Towers ends up on the 15-day DL after the ballgame, so I guess his injury was not quite a Tower of Babble. Unlike these last two paragraphs.

Regardless of my tendency to go off on random tangents and unhealthy fixation on breakfast besides (though it is the most important meal of the day!)...see, there's another of those tangents...it's nigh impossible to win a game when you need the 'pen to pitch eight of the nine frames, unless you've got Ernie Shore, which the Crab Cakes don't. That failing, they'll need Esteban to channel his inner suck...but not today, not against the anemic Tampa offense. After a perfect bottom of the first, Esteban avoids a sticky second inning situation by keeping the syrup off his damned pancakes...sorry, couldn't help myself, I am most definitely anti-tree sap laced with sugar. In any case, center fielder Jason Pridie's pretty swing adds up to an easy out in the seventh hole, and catcher Mike Barrett is in Tampa at this point in time for a good reason. Both make easy outs, squandering two perfectly good baserunners that starving children in Somalia could have eaten!!! Clean your plates, kids, lest you end up like Mike Barrett!

Leading off the next half-frame, Magglio "Buddha" Ordonez blasts a titanic shot to left field off of some poor piece of burnt toast named Jason Ryan, a long ball that ends up in some distant universe, and a two-run cushion is about all Esteban could ever need against an offense that'll get themselves out half the time. The dishwasher of baseball, that's the Devil Ray offense for ya. Their half of the scoreboard ends up completely unblemished from the unsightly stain of runs (imagine, the horror!)...until the eighth inning, when onetime Tiger Deivi Cruz pops off a pinch-hit four-bagger to lead off the inning. How exactly that may have happened, I have no idea, but by then the score was 4-0 and the only cares in my world were whether Esteban would go the distance and figuring our just what was in my oatmeal this morning. If for some reason you may care about the answers to those long-pondered queries, PJ Bevis brought his cheddar to the ninth inning spread to earn an America's Choice brand save. As for my oatmeal...chocolate chips, fo' real.

That ain't good for the old estomaco, let me tell you.



CHW 4 TB 1

WP: E. Loaiza (6-4) - 8 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 2 BB, 5 K, 104 pitches
LP: J. Towers (3-5)

Poached Egg Award Goes To... Jorge DePaula, who is down in triple-A. Hey, if you had a 7.XX ERA, I'd want to poach you and serve you on toast, too.

Pythags: With this win, we flew past the 290 radar for our season total in runs scored, all the way up to 293, while our runs allowed number ticked up to just 291. And for the first time since the Pale Hose became yet another OOTP6 dynasty, we have scored more runs than our opponents on the season. That old Greek guy would have estimated our record to be 58-104 based on our runs scored and allowed last season. We ain't going to exceed that mark by 11 games again, but at the rate we're going, we don't need to.

[Jestor]

Goooo Pale Hose!

My eyes are burnt from playing Quidditch World Cup, but I just kicked France's ass with Team USA 1430-30 and it could have been even worse, but I was getting bored with spanking some French booty, so I said **** it and didn't do the Special Team Move that would have had me over 1500 points by the time the Snitch chase kicked in.