Thursday, April 07, 2005
First Few Games
Well it always seems to happen. You turn on a game and get a sick, sick feeling in your stomach. Whether it is watching your pitcher get inexplicably RITZED or seeing your star batter come up time and again in a good hitting situation and not get the job done. Of course as the season goes on, the average will be that good players have good years and bad players have bad years but their first game of the season always seems to resonate more.
And then there are games like this. Both your brand new pitcher and best young hitter leave the game due to an injury. I will never forget showing up at a July 4 barbecue a few years ago and Carl telling me that Mark Sandman had died on stage and asked if I saw Kendall. "No, why?" I asked. Then Carl described in gruesome detail, Kendall's ankle injury with the bone sticking out and how that ruined the whole day for me. Last night I was checking box scores and read that Madritsch had left the game with an injury. Then I saw Morneau had been pulled for a pinch runner. Hmm. Reading the play-by-play I saw he had been hit by a pitch. At this point I went to the game chat on ussmariner.com and they were saying Madritsch has a torn labrum, probably because of the overuse he got from Bob Melvin at the end of last season. Then later in the chat they talked about how Morneau got hit in the head and was just lying there. So, it was an anxious night.
This morning the news is that Madritsch has a slight strain and that Morneau is ok. Of course this is coming from teams and teams always lowball their injuries. Still, it is games like these that make me feel like I'd be safer just not watching at all.
Little Ball
All Spring Training, I listened to the stupid Shite Sox announcers talk about how much offense they were going to have because of Little Ball. They managed to scratch one run across in a 1-0 victory on opening day and were shut out for 8 innings the next game until they exploded on Bob Wickman with HOME RUNS to score a bunch of runs. The extra inning Marlins-Braves game was becoming a joke with so many double-plays on botched bunts and outs on steals. Both the Mariners and Mets ran themselves out of big innings yesterday and the Mets gave themselves two self-inflicted outs on Opening Day ahead of a couple home runs. I know managers like to look busy and announcers like to laud them for it but could someone just ONCE call it as they are seeing it? It is happening right in front of them.
Little Ball...
usually comes up short.
Well it always seems to happen. You turn on a game and get a sick, sick feeling in your stomach. Whether it is watching your pitcher get inexplicably RITZED or seeing your star batter come up time and again in a good hitting situation and not get the job done. Of course as the season goes on, the average will be that good players have good years and bad players have bad years but their first game of the season always seems to resonate more.
And then there are games like this. Both your brand new pitcher and best young hitter leave the game due to an injury. I will never forget showing up at a July 4 barbecue a few years ago and Carl telling me that Mark Sandman had died on stage and asked if I saw Kendall. "No, why?" I asked. Then Carl described in gruesome detail, Kendall's ankle injury with the bone sticking out and how that ruined the whole day for me. Last night I was checking box scores and read that Madritsch had left the game with an injury. Then I saw Morneau had been pulled for a pinch runner. Hmm. Reading the play-by-play I saw he had been hit by a pitch. At this point I went to the game chat on ussmariner.com and they were saying Madritsch has a torn labrum, probably because of the overuse he got from Bob Melvin at the end of last season. Then later in the chat they talked about how Morneau got hit in the head and was just lying there. So, it was an anxious night.This morning the news is that Madritsch has a slight strain and that Morneau is ok. Of course this is coming from teams and teams always lowball their injuries. Still, it is games like these that make me feel like I'd be safer just not watching at all.
Little Ball
All Spring Training, I listened to the stupid Shite Sox announcers talk about how much offense they were going to have because of Little Ball. They managed to scratch one run across in a 1-0 victory on opening day and were shut out for 8 innings the next game until they exploded on Bob Wickman with HOME RUNS to score a bunch of runs. The extra inning Marlins-Braves game was becoming a joke with so many double-plays on botched bunts and outs on steals. Both the Mariners and Mets ran themselves out of big innings yesterday and the Mets gave themselves two self-inflicted outs on Opening Day ahead of a couple home runs. I know managers like to look busy and announcers like to laud them for it but could someone just ONCE call it as they are seeing it? It is happening right in front of them.
Little Ball...
usually comes up short.
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