Attack of the Colour Red
Talk amongst yerselves as the fucken Reds stick around for some more gratuitous home run action. Discuss what you want, and let's watch GameCast until we puke from the sheer disorganized mess of graphics on our computer screens. I will be listening to Santo & Hughes, baseball's equivalent of the Golden Girls, so let's hope their infinite wisdom is not sleep-inducing as it often is.
Possible topics:
- Jacque Jones out again.
- Aramis possibly sidelined with a "strained muscle in his buttocks" [cubs.com]. The jokes are obvious.
- Dempster chasing the team record of 22 consecutive saves in Cubbie blue [set by Joe "Sea Dog" Borowski in 2004]. He needs one to tie, and has thrown 26 1/3 consecutive scoreless innings.
- Zambrano's woes against the lefty. This season, RHBs are a combined .095 off El Toro, while LHBs are .429 so far this season. Ouch. Need I mention that the Reds are stacked with switch-hitters and leftys? Fuck.
- Is Michael Barrett one of the best catchers in the game? Peter Gammons sure thinks so, and Barrett's among the league leaders with 13 RBI already this season.
- Did anyone else catch some ESPN baseball discussions yesterday? The question was posed: "Is the NL Central the best division in baseball?", I guess because we have 4 teams with winning records [last I checked]. I laughed so hard that I fell off my stool and fractured my clavicle.
Today's Pitchers:
CIN - Eric "The Home Run is my Preferred Mode of Death" Milton [1-0, 2.57 ERA]
CHC - Carlos "The Fat Bull" Zambrano [0-0, 4.22 ERA]
Let's see what tidings today will bring.
posted by Jim Hendry @ 9:30 AM
7 comments
7 Comments:
Well thanks for opening up the forum James, don't mind if I do. (Boy you sure are cynical today, BTW)
Barrett is awesome. I hope this season he is having continues.
Milton does indeed love the HR as his preferred mode of demise. All-in-all he has had a pretty decent career as a starting pitcher with the exception of last year. Last year he was a mid-6 ERA pitcher, and gave up 40 HRs. However, even in the year prior, when he posted a 14-6 record, he gave up 43 homers.
He's started off this year with a solid start against the Pirates which he'll be wanting to build on today. Let's see if The Replacements can cast a blemish upon his young season.
This is Barrett's year. The big question will be if Dusty overuses him and wears him out for future years. Catching is by far the hardest job on the field.
Maybe Dusty will take a page from Casey Stengel and play Barrett in the field part of the time, like the Yankee manager did with his two all star catchers.
Yogi came into baseball as a third baseman, and Stengel used him, not only to catch the only no hitter ever pitched in World Series play, but also to play third, left and sometimes first.
Barrett entered baseball as a third or second baseman. I'm sure he could play the corner outfield positions too. That could cut down on the wear and tear while keeping his bat in the line up and his batting eye tuned up.
But Pagan looked pretty good in right field for the Cubs yesterday. The kid may turn into the surprise of the year. Be great to see him hit two or three out against the Mets when it comes time to play those guys.
Cynical??? I'll show ya cynical, ya cheeky scamp!
[Ahem]
I thought that post was positive, bordering on critical, sure, but definitely not cynical.
I remember reading about Barrett pre-season in ESPN the Rag-azine. It mentioned how this should be his "breakout" year [funny you can breakout at age 29 with 8 full years of service in the bigs] because his flyout-to-groundout ratio had ballooned in favour of the flyball. Apparently, that's a major indicator of better power and swing, and they were predicting 25-30 HRs and 80-90 RBI from him if I remember rightly [career best: 16 HR, 65 RBI in 2004].
I am unusually antsy for gametime today, and I don't know why. Must be this clavicle injury.
Jim --
I fear the only page Dusty Baker might take from Stengel is a page from a cookbook. Meatloaf, dudes?
Well... I am all for being positive, and I really hope this is Barrett's breakout year. So far, I am a believer, however, if you had asked me 17 days ago, I would have said, no no, last year was supposed to be his breakout year, that was as good as he'll get. Let's hope I was maybe just a year ahead of schedule...
Sucks for your clavicle, JT...
I'm gonna stink by this: Barrett will have a better this year than 2004 or 2005 because of NOT BATTING 8th in the lineup. It's pretty rare to have as many RBIs batting 8th as you will batting 5th.
Stink, stick, it's all the same to me.
"n" isn't even close to "c" on the keyboard...
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