And That Happened

Twins 20, White Sox 1: Query: did Peavy reject the trade before, during, or after this massacre? Probably doesn’t matter. Joe Mauer hits a grand slam, two doubles and drives in six, but I think the most amazing thing about this game is that despite all of the runs and baserunners, it was done in less than three hours. Why can’t Boston and New York finish a 5-3 game in that time?

Yankees 7, Orioles 4: For two extraordinary weeks in May, the New York Yankees, for whatever perverse reason, began playing baseball with joy and verve and poetry. They took two out of three from Toronto, four straight from Minnesota, and kicked the holy sh*t out of Baltimore in a three game series. They were in demand all over town–and Yankee Stadium, which kept giving up dingers, was approaching the major league record . . . though I told nobody.

Red Sox 5, Blue Jays 1: So we’re going back to the Red Sox-Yankees again this year, huh? Oh well, at least Tampa Bay and Toronto served as nice diversions for a year or so. Game story: “Jason Bay set a Red Sox record with his 11th straight homer with runners on base.” So we’re really going to play up records that are based on factors that are utterly out of the record holder’s control like whether someone got on base in front of him? You know, just because it can be determined that person X did thing Y more times than anyone else doesn’t mean we are required to make a big deal out of it. I’ve been watching baseball for 30 years and I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone identify such a thing as an accomplishment, let alone refer to someone holding a record for it.

Rockies 9, Braves 0: Jeff Francoeur was 2-for-3 but the rest of the Braves were 2-for-28. When, oh when, will Francoeur get some help?! He’s but one man, people, and he can’t be expected to be the only one to show up day-in-day-out. Gosh! In other news, I should have predicted that Aaron Cook would pitch a shutout this week, because I deactivated him on my Scoresheet team in order to make room for John Lackey. In other other news, I’m probably not playing any kind of fantasy or sim baseball ever again after this season because it’s making me care about crap I never really cared about before and, truth be told, never needed to care about. Like how Aaron Cook does on any given night.

Rays 6, Athletics 5: The game was delayed for 20 minutes in the first inning due to a power outage caused by a nearby lightning strike. Dallas Braden was on the mound. He wasn’t happy: “I was bitter to quite bitter about it. There’s not much you can really do when the lights go out. Played catch, tried not to get struck by lightning or whatever was going on out there. Nice state, Florida.” I’m not a big fan of Florida myself, but Braden plays for a team who had a World Series disrupted by a freakin’ earthquake once, so maybe he shouldn’t go yelling at Mother Nature like that.

Diamondbacks 4, Marlins 3: The second game of Wednesday’s doubleheader ended at 2AM yesterday morning. I wonder if any of the Dbacks just stayed at the ballpark. Either way, given the marathon the day before, this was likely to be a game that came down to who had more cannon fodder in the bullpen, and the answer was Arizona.

Nationals 5, Pirates 4: It’s not like the Nats were going to lose forever. In other news, remember when everyone declared Andy LaRoche dead last month? Well, he’s 10 for his last 22 with nine RBI and is sporting a .302/.389/.444 line for May.

Indians 8, Royals 3: Game story “Greinke handed a 3-2 lead to Horacio Ramirez starting the seventh and the left-hander immediately got in trouble.” There’s no part of that sentence — Greinke having a lead, Ramirez immediately getting into trouble upon entering the game — that wasn’t 100% predictable when we all woke up yesterday morning. I’d have been less surprised if Ramirez had been magically transformed into a right-hander before the game than I would have been if he had come in and actually held the lead.

Phillies 12, Reds 5: Chase Utley (3-4, 2B, HR, 4 RBI) led the charge, but the whole top of the Phillies’ lineup did damage, with Rollins, Utley and Ibanez going a combined 9-15 with 8 RBI.

Tigers 4, Rangers 3: Texas was riding high coming into this series and then just ran into a buzzsaw. And Edwin Jackson out-mans Nolan Ryan’s guys by throwing 132 pitches in eight innings to Kevin Millwood’s 121.

Cardinals 3, Cubs 1: Chicago manages two measly runs in the course of dropping three games to the Cardinals. And they get to face Jake Peavy tomorrow night. If he shuts the Cubbies down too, White Sox fans watching from home may be a little more sympathetic to the guy.

Padres 3, Giants 2: Tim Lincecum (7 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 10K) gets the Johan Santana treatment as his teammates do nothing to help him be more awesomer. And for the life of me I can’t decide what the Padres picking up Tony Gwynn was all about besides pleasing his old man and placating the dumbest part of the fan base, but he did draw a walk and scored the winning run in his first game in San Diego.

Angels 3, Mariners 0: The M’s offense is truly offensive.

Brewers 4, Astros 3: Cecil Cooper and Fat Elvis were ejected after arguing a close call at the plate in the fifth. Afterwords, Cooper had this to say “Tonight, overall, we got shafted by some poor umpiring. It was a bad job of umpiring.” I think it’s one thing to say that it was bad umpiring, but using the term “shafted” is probably going to get him a fine, I’d suspect. It implies intent or malice, doesn’t it?


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Joseph P.
14 years ago

“New York Yankees, for whatever perverse reason, began playing baseball with joy and verve and poetry.”

And pies.

Kelly
14 years ago

I enjoyed to quite enjoyed this ATH and the poetry of Dallas Braden.

Larry Love
14 years ago

So, wait- let me get this straight. Jason Bay hitting his 11th straight homer with men on base is completely out of his control, but Jacoby Ellsbury’s record of having the ball hit to him 12 times is “way cooler”. Sure Craig…whatever….

MooseinOhio
14 years ago

I guess the flip side of the statistics coin is that odd records like Jason Bay can be, and are, talking points.  I agree that it really doesn’t mean much but maybe Guinness will develop a baseball records book that will include interesting but basically meaningless records such as: player who can hold the most baseball in the hand (Bench I believe); largest wad of tobacco wrapped in bubble gum (???); longest OCD-based batting rountine (Garciaparra?); dirtiest batting helmet (Manny or Vlad Guerrero); most foul balls hit in one at bat (guessing Gwynn); most homeruns hit when the team is either leading or losing by more than 8 runs (could be A-rod though he has been clutch of late); most pitching changes in a game/season to get the ‘best’ matchup (LaRussa).

Craig Calcaterra
14 years ago

Cool != “in his control.”  Both accomplishments are mostly out of the players’ control.  And the coolness of Ellsbury’s thing was compared to Ortiz hitting a home run.  If it makes you feel better, I think Bay’s homers are far cooler than Ortiz’s too.

Adam
14 years ago

NY vs. Boston: 0-5
NY vs. Everyone else: 24-12

Tor vs. Boston/NY: 1-5
Tor vs. Everyone Else: 26-12

Boston vs NY/Tor: 8-0
Boston vs. Everyone Else: 17-16

Theories?  I got nothing.  Apart from maybe the fact that the Red Sox are better than the other two.  But I don’t like that one, so I’m looking for something else.

Chipmaker
14 years ago

Do you look up the movie quotes before you modify them for ATH, or do you just wing it?

Craig Calcaterra
14 years ago

Shorter ones—and Godfather ones—I do from memory.  Most of the longer ones I have to look up first to get the wording just right.  I watched Bull Durham a couple of weeks ago and knew instantly that I wanted to use Sarandon’s voice over from the winning streak montage for the Yankees’ thing.  But I couldn’t hope to have gotten it right from memory, so I just Googled it.

Brian
14 years ago

Just watched Bull Durham earlier this week…first time this year.  The big question is…who on the Yankees is wearing the garters?  Joba?  The rose goes in the front, big guy!

Ron
14 years ago

Moose, you forgot biggest bubble blown.

Kurt Bevacqua, 1974.

I have the card.

I’m never selling it or giving it to anyone.

I’ll be buried with.

Events like that only come once in a lifetime.

Pete Toms
14 years ago

Rios shoulda caught Bay’s HR.

APBA Guy
14 years ago

Also utterly predictable:

Brian Wilson blowing the game in the 9th against one of the weakest offenses in baseball in the best pitcher’s park in baseball. He throws 98, but Nuke Laloosh had more control.

Kelly F.
14 years ago

That Jason Bay statistic and ones like it are the result of ESPN’s Sportscenter’s “Did You Know?” That was a nice little segment to end the show, but they went with it too long and necessarily had to come up with more obscure and meaningless “statistics.” Not having watched that show for longer than the next commercial break in the last 8 or so years, I think they just pepper those things throughout the broadcast now.

So sad, in my opinion. ESPN was such a great idea. A channel with ONLY sports. I’m glad it succeeded, but it’s sad to see the inevitable decline of a business that only concerns itself with making money and no regard to the quality of the product itself. It’s a common occurance, to be sure, and I don’t blame here. I’m just lamenting that not all things can maintain a certain level of “purity.”

I got all sentimental. Sorry.