And That Happened

Braves 4, Giants 2: “Ladies and gentlemen: the part of Tim Lincecum will be performed tonight by Jair Jurrjens.” (7.2 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 9K).

A’s 16, Twins 1: The A’s scored so much so early that starter Trevor Cahill had to run down to the bullpen to warm up again while his teammates were up to bat. Or maybe the fact that they were actually scoring like this just blew his effing mind and he needed some alone time to get it together. This is like a fortnight’s worth of offense for this team. Yeah, forsooth I said fortnight.

Nationals 3, Mets 1: Bad: the Mets losing two of three to the Nats. Worse: rumor has it that, after the game, V.P. of player development Tony Bernazard drove a Cadillac into the hotel swimming pool, blew up a toilet with cherry bombs, and challenged the security staff to an “I quit” match, Tully Blanchard vs. Magnum T.A.-style. Bernazard is expected to be fired later this week, and replaced by either former Small Faces drummer Kenney Jones or by Lex Luger.

Dodgers 6, Reds 2: Pinch hit grand slam for Manny in the sixth to break a 2-2 tie! Wow! Oh, wait, I forgot: We’re not supposed to be enjoying this. Bad Manny. Bad, bad, bad. You have ruined baseball.

Yankees 6, Orioles 4: The Bombers are rolling. If you don’t believe it, just read the game stories which talk about how they’ve won six in a row, 16 of their last 19, 19 of their last 26, LVII of their last XCIV, etc. I’m sure there are other ways that could be expressed, but I don’t know how to do exponents and quadratic equations and all of that stuff.

Blue Jays 10, Indians 6: I’m glad I didn’t stick with that “Major League”-quote-until-a-three-game-winning-streak gag from a few weeks ago, because I’d be out of material and moving on to the Tony Danza version of “Angels in the Outfield” by now. And man, between the Indians putridity and the sense of foreboding surrounding the Jays at the deadline, this series is more depressing than watching “Requiem for a Dream” while listening to a Morrissey box set.

Rangers 3, Red Sox 1: Don’t worry, Red Sox Nation. Chris Duncan will be there in time for Friday’s game against the Orioles and make all the hurtin’ go away. And how is it that Buchholz was so dominating in Pawtucket but can’t avoid throwing 90 pitches in four innings in the bigs? Do they just offer up at any weak, nibbling crap down in the International League, or is he pitching scared?

Astros 4, Cardinals 3: If Chris Carpenter thinks he was betrayed by his bullpen, just wait until he has Julio Lugo playing behind him in five days.

Mariners 2, Tigers 1: Felix Hernandez bottles up the Tigers (7 IP, 6 H, 1 ER, 8K) and Russell Branyan hits a two-run homer in the eighth to take a close one. Also, as my CTB homey Matt Casey noted yesterday, David Aardsma is pretty Aawesome. On the year he has converted 23 of 25 saves, has an ERA of 1.79 and has struck out 55 in 45.1 IP.

Rockies 4, Diamondbacks 3: From the “fast facts” section of ESPN’s version of the game story: “Todd Helton’s 11th homer of the season and 500th double of his career carried the Rockies. Helton joined Stan Musial, Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth and Ted Williams as the only players with 500 doubles, 320 homers and a .325 batting average since 1900.” Talk about trying to make a good player seem better than he is via selective endpoints. I haven’t seen that much gerrymandering since Patrick Henry and the Anti-Federalists drew the boundaries of Virginia’s 5th Congressional district in such a way as to keep James Madison out of the House of Representatives in 1788!

White Sox 4, Rays 3: Chad Bradford had a line that you don’t see every day: 0 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 0K, 0 pitches. Unfortunately it was because he hurt himself after he was announced but before he completed throwing his warm-up pitches. An Alexi Ramirez triple followed by a Jermaine Dye RBI single in the seventh was the difference maker for the Sox.

Marlins 5, Padres 0: I think they scheduled this one as a matinee simply so I wouldn’t mail in the recap as I so often do with the late games. Probably should have kept it a night game, San Diego, because now that I have more time and alertness to comment on this tilt, I can truly focus on just how wretched a club you have become. Three hits. All singles. Ten strikeouts. Barf. Yet they were still in the game until the late innings. At least until the bullpen coughed up three more runs. Man, if only they had a moderately effective reliever to help out. Oops. Well, trades mean tradeoffs, right? Oops, the guy they got for Meredith didn’t even play. The Padres are 12-33 since the first of June, which is the worst in baseball. I repeat: for nearly half of the season, the Padres have been worse than the Nats and the Royals.

Cubs 10, Phillies 6: The Phillies Phinally lose. “Zambrano pitched well. He had good stuff,” Piniella said after the game. OK, Lou, whatever you say (6.2 IP, 10 H, 5 R, 3 BB). I guess if you win you had “good stuff” by definition?

Pirates 8, Brewers 7: Who the hell is Adam LaRoche? Garrett Jones: 3-4, HR; Andy LaRoche: 1-3, 2B, RBI. The fans are happy. His brother kept it together. They’ll all soldier on somehow.

Angels 9, Royals 6: Do you get full credit for a big rally when it comes against the Royals? I mean, first you have to fall behind this pathetic team, and that’s kind of embarrassing, and knocking around this bullpen to erase the deficit is easier than knocking around any other bullpen. I guess what I’m saying is that we need some kind of handicapping system here.

A Hardball Times Update
Goodbye for now.

16 Comments
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Kevin
14 years ago

Great note on Bernazard.

I remember him when he played for the Tigers but he was just a small speck on the radar. A little “mild-mannered” guy.

Who knew?

Eric J
14 years ago

Not only is the gerrymandering on Helton’s numbers ridiculous, but part of it isn’t even necessary.  Nobody came within 150 home runs of 320 before 1900.

Jim
14 years ago

See, the problem with the Bernazard joke is that, despite the misbehavior, Keith Moon was actually really good.

Bob Timmermann
14 years ago

But James Madison was elected to the 5th District seat from Virginia in the House of Representatives in 1789. Madison wanted to be in the Senate, however. He lost out to James Monroe.

We now resume regular programming.

Craig Calcaterra
14 years ago

I get the comments automatically emailed to me, though it doesn’t say in the email who made them.  When I saw that last one a second ago I immediately said to myself “that’s gotta be Timmermann.”

I can get away with that crap on the NBC blog. No one ever checks. Much tougher crowd over here.

Bob Timmermann
14 years ago

On the other hand, I don’t know who Tully Blanchard is. I remain, as always, no fun.

Mike Eller
14 years ago

If you wanted to keep quoting movies till the Indians won three straight games, you’d have to start quoting “Little Big League” and “Major League 2.”

I’d like to add I heard there was a squashed rumor of Buckholz to the Indians for Martinez. The thought of having two good pitchers perplexed me too much so I spent the entire night thinking about what that would be like.

ChrisKoz
14 years ago

To be fair to Zambrano, he was pretty good through 6. He loaded them in the 7th and Sean Marshall, who’s been awesome all year, allowed the two run double.

I mean, lots of guys run out of the gas. I think this is a case of a guy being slightly better than the line indicates.

Jason B
14 years ago

Tully Blanchard?  That takes me back.  Tully and Arn were quite the duo, back in the day.

I love the career curve that a lot of these guys tend to follow – start wrestling at the Civic Center in front of 175 people in folding chairs…hit the big time, put in multiple appearances at Starrcade or WrestleMania…then finish out your career, wrestling down at the Civic Center in front of 175 people in folding chairs.

They’re showing old AWA wrestling on ESPN Classic at night.  It’s amazing how non-athletic some of these guys look.  Greg “the Hammer” Valentine? Adrian Adonis? They may have been powerful, and perhaps even kinda graceful for big men.  But they are also just plain ol’ obese.

Travis M. Nelson
14 years ago

Nobody seems to be noticing because the Yankees keep winning, but Girardi continues to keep Hughes under wraps except for an inning at a time, when he should be using him for longer and longer outings so he can become the 5th starter.  I mean, c’mon, Sergio Mitre?  Really?

Last night, despite having thrown only 16 pitches and having a 4-run lead going into the 9th, Girardi took Hughes out and brought in Bruney, who promptly made things interesting by giving up two solo homers. Girardi had to bring in Mo for the last out, when he could have just led Phil finish the game. 

Free Phil Hughes!

http://www.boyofsummer.net/2009/07/free-phil-huhges.html

Daniel
14 years ago

Last night was the first night I ever felt bad that the Angels won a game.  I literally wanted to cry for the Royals fans watching that 8th inning. 

They kept putting up shots of Trey Hillman in the dugout during the bullpen implosion and it was like watching someone sitting at the bedside of a terminal patient.  They hate what’s happening, they would do anything they could to stop it, but they just don’t know how.  So they cry a bit, they futilely move pillows around and try to make things more comfortable, but in the end, they know they’re powerless to halt the inevitable.

I wish I was exaggerating.  It was excruciating to behold.

Daniel
14 years ago

As a follow-up, the REALLY excruciating thing is that Hillman was not powerless to stop it.  He should have put Soria in the minute Morales hit that double.  Everybody knew he wasn’t going to, but it was so painfully obvious that’s what he should have done. 

The Royals need to put Moore and Hillman on the first flight to Alaska and have them scouting the Alaskan baseball leagues for the rest of their careers.  That might be the only way they can stop them from doing more damage to the franchise.

Nate
14 years ago

I think once Bruney finds a way out of Girardi’s doghouse Hughes might get stretched out a bit more. With Wang out though, they haven’t had as much of a need for a long man.

APBA Guy
14 years ago

That must have been the 1998 Yankees reunited via the Wayback Machine and placed in 2009 A’s uniforms yesterday. That’s the only logical explanation.

The A’s had 18 hits, or 3 games worth in A’s speak, and the requisite 9:1 ratio of hits to extra base hits.

That was very gracious of Minnesota to do their imitation of the A’s pitching staff, but entirely unnecessary. Billy will still be trading away the veterans for whom there is a market.

But for now, we’re better than the Royals and Indians. Is that consolation?

Hollywood Joe
14 years ago

great video of the Manny Slam

http://tinyurl.com/ryn3no

SFW – but will give you chills

Ron
14 years ago

DAniel,

I think you described it better than anyone else ever has. I watched the game last night, and you just knew it was going to happen and nothing could stop it.

It was sad. Really, really sad.