No Glory Blog: Let's Go 2014 Texas Rangers!

Feeling a Bit Optimistic

Four weeks from now I'll be a married man. This cheers me and makes me optimistic to the future. It's good to see the team playing well. It's too bad the Yankees won every game for a month.

Considering they are hanging around with all those injuries and with Gonzalez and Pedroia slumping so much and Crawford and Ellsbury out. Imagine the lineup with those guys back? We're basically being carried by the second-tier guys and Papi. I like the idea of some correction to the mean leading to a great second half.

Let's do it!

Funny Guy

This commenter's post on the MLB.com recap of tonight's Sox win cracked me up. A strikingly ignorant reference in there but a funny thing to rant about:

Is there any way to purchase a tape of this game? I loved the way Bobby handled the bullpen in the 8th inning. He's up 10-2. His pitcher, who pitched just last night in a meaningful game, gives up a lead-off hit. Bobby is up like a shot! He bounds up the dugout steps and heads for the mound. He's chewing that gum non-stop and he's all business. I loved the drama. It was like looking at a great painter doing the walls of the Sistine Chapel. He calls for another pitcher - who he keeps in too long but bounces out to the mound to call in another.
Third pitcher in the inning. He gets out of the inning and it's still 10-2. What a job. This is classic stuff! I want to watch this over and over again in the winter. Bobby, you da man!

L, L, L, W, L, L, L, L, Aceves with a 1-run lead?

That's the last nine games, including tonight. I believe this streak coincides with the arrival of Diablo III at my house and the realization that I can stream the ballgame in a browser while playing Diablo III. Maybe I should stop doing that.

We're 6.5 out, 3 games below .500 now. The broadcasts remind me of the worst of the Cubs years where Harry Caray would pine when a Cub was on third, "Oh for a wild pitch right now..." That's how it feels.

At the same time, there is that sense of inevitability in every Yankee game where no matter how much they are losing, they'll just win somehow. A friend of mine was crowing on Facebook about a walk-off win against the Mets and it made me think that it's similar somehow to rooting for cancer. Yeah, it wins in the end. Congratu-freakin-lations for picking that horse.

OK. Aceves did it. Buchholz is responsible for both wins in the past 9 games. That's good news, I guess. I wish they could have a decent top of a month.

Tim McCarver

Well, things have gone better since my last post. We're now ahead of Blue Jays and only two games behind the Orioles and Rays. The Sox hit so many doubles! I can't believe they are winning with Scott Podsednik and Nick Punto in the lineup, but I'll take it. I don't want to pop that bubble.

Anyway, we're also just a half game behind the Junkees who lost a game against the Tigers last night that was the least inspiring game I've ever seen with the Yankees tying the game in the 9th on two walks, two hit batters, three stolen bases, an error, and one run and the Tigers winning in the bottom on a sac fly. Fox is apparently going to run a primetime Saturday night game once in a while. I didn't need to guess what team it would be. The blatant rooting for the Yankees by Fox is fairly well-documented, but it's just tiresome. I mean, who enjoys this?

Dare they criticize the GREAT Yankees whose 100% HALL OF FAME lineup managed to only score one run off a pitcher - Jose Valverde - who had no ability to throw a strike? After hitting two batters and walking another on four pitches, if a hitter hacked on the first chance he had, what announcer wouldn't be screaming bloody murder about that guy being inexperienced, or making a mistake, or whatever, but you could just hear silence from the FOX booth when both Curtis Granderson and Robinson Cano did exactly that. They muttered something like, "mumble mumble great hitter mumble mumble surprising." When finally someone glued Teixeira's bat to his shoulder to keep him from swinging, the Yankees got their tying run home.

Then in the bottom of the ninth, the Tigers simply got a pair of singles from the bottom of their non-star lineup. Anything in there about good hitting? Clutch hitting? No. The only praise was for "Nick," McCarver's buddy Swisher for cutting off a ball so that the Tigers didn't score from first on a single but instead had a guy on third with one out. Yeah, that was awesome, "Nick." Then, when Omir Santos, minor league baseball player, who looks like Miguel of the Bad News Bears, inside-outed a pitch to mid-deep right to win the game, McCarver petulantly muttered, obviously bitter and annoyed, "Biggest moment of his life." Which immediately made me wonder if Santos had any kids, was married, had ever saved a cat from a burning building... or just have a peek at a wikipedia entry.

On April 27, 2009, Santos hit his first career home run, a grand slam off the Florida Marlins Aníbal Sánchez. It was the first grand slam hit in Citi Field. The home run also produced his first career RBI.

On May 23, 2009, Santos hit a two-run go-ahead home run off Red Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon at Fenway Park in the ninth inning with two outs which was the difference maker in the game.

On May 29, 2009, against the Florida Marlins, he hit a game-tying home run in the fifth inning, only to hit a game-winning single in the bottom of the 11th. Soon after the game, the Mets traded their other backup catcher Ramon Castro to the Chicago White Sox for pitcher Lance Broadway, ensuring that Santos stays with the team as the backup catcher to Brian Schneider.

 Screw you, McCarver. You're the worst announcer in baseball.