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Monday, June 22, 2009

Brief Thoughts About Baseball (6/15/2009 - 6/21/2009)

1. Here's a heads up play.

2. Not that people really want to hear about my fantasy team, but it was a light Monday as far as games go, so I only had one batter going and so did my opponent. I was excited when my player did this for the first time in his career. But then his player did this...and then this. I wasn't so excited anymore. But I ended the week well so I really can't complain...much.

3. Since we're in the middle of interleague play, I suppose I should make my opinion known. The NL's no DH policy is vastly superior to the AL. The Designated Hitter has never made much sense to me. The NL feels more pure.

4. Blackburn got a complete game for the Twins on Thursday. That's the first complete game for the Twins since 07/28/2008.

5. Kerry Wood came back to play against his former team, the Chicago Cubs. He apparently is still fond of them because he gave them a couple of gifts.

6. So Saturday night's Twins game started off with the opposing pitcher, Brian Moeller, taking the mound. Moeller then bent down and inscribed "FM" into the mound. The announcers commented that he does that in honor of his father Frank Moeller, who died before he could watch his son pitch in the major league. Then, on the second pitch, this happened. Good for the Twins (if ultimately meaningless), but still I had slightly mixed feelings. I just needed a few more buffer pitches.

7. I'm probably alone on this one, but I've always been for standardizing the dimensions of baseball fields. I know it's sacrilege and that it will never happen, but when this hit ends the game...something doesn't feel right. (And the fact that MLB referred to it as a "wallop" is just plain embarrassing.)

8. Thursday's Yankees game was the first game in the new Yankee stadium not to have a home run hit by either team. So the record of most consecutive games with a home run hit to start a new stadium ends at 35. And what juggernaut of a team had the pitching chops to shut out the vaunted Yankees offense on that day? Why, the mighty Natinals, of course.

9. I know Gardenhire has been wanting to rest Morneau more this year and I know Morneau has been in a minor slump lately. But with Denard Span out of the lineup, should they also be taking Morneau out? Especially after Kubel is taken out of the game for an illness?

10. Speaking of the Twins, they usually use interleague play to get on a hot streak. Not this year.. On their latest 6 game interleague homestand they went only 3 and 3, losing a series to the Astros. The White Sox, on the other hand, are doing extremely well. Not a good sign for the Twins.

3 comments:

  1. baroness van bitzenhoferJune 23, 2009 at 6:38 AM

    9. I think I heard that Morneau was feeling sore or something like that. Not that he shouldn't have been expected to nut up and take one for the team, but there was an actual excuse for him not playing.

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  2. 1. Awesome.

    2. That's the beauty of fantasy baseball: there's always something to complain about.

    3. Agreed, 100%.

    5. Walk off walks are just embarrassing for all involved, even the winning team, a little bit, but especially for the pitcher. Wouldn't you, as a pitcher, rather lose that game throwing a strike that put the ball in play, thereby at least making the batter work a little bit for the win, instead of just walking in the winning run?

    7. Nah, you're not alone. I don't know that I am as passionate about it as you are, but I agree that field dimensions SHOULD be standardized, and I wouldn't really care if the league did so and tweaked/overhauled the stadiums to make it so. You're right, it'll never happen, but if it did, I wouldn't feel outraged that the game had been destroyed or anything like that.

    Also, in MLB's defense, they probably just referred to that hit as a "wallop" so they could get the alliteration with "walk-off", since they apparently couldn't work a pun into the headline.

    8. First of all, that record is insane. It's the middle of June and they finally went a game without a homer at Yankee Stadium? Yeesh. Secondly, heh. The Yankees lost a series to the Natinals. That makes me chuckle.

    10. It sure seems like the .500 mark has some kind of extreme gravitational pull of which the Twins simply can't break free. Not good.

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  3. Baroness,
    I heard about the "general soreness" too and I'm not buying it. I feel like the Twins were just making up and excuse to either rest him or bench him for slumping.

    Teebore,
    Wood's pitch was a wild pitch, not a walk. And it happened on a 1-1 count, so it's not too agregious to try and get the batter to chase one outside the strike zone.
    And as far as the Twins hovering around .500 constantly, that just seems to prove to me that they are what I thought they were...average.

    ReplyDelete

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