Let Us Not Speak Of a Sweep
There would certainly be something magical about the Orioles picking up the sweep on the back of an unproven and untested Dennis S’Forty. But the truth is that we should prepare for this one to get ugly, and we should be ecstatic that the O’s managed to do what they did in the Bronx.
We should also prepare for the possibility that Joba Chamberlain gets his chump on and plunks, say, Aubrey Huff. That’s the Janqui Way, after all. It wouldn’t be a series in the Bronx without a little petulant behavior.
The tears of the world are a constant quantity. For each one who begins to weep somewhere else another stops. The same is true of the laugh. Let us not then speak ill of our generation, it is not any unhappier than its predecessors. Let us not speak well of it either. Let us not speak of it at all. — from Waiting for Godot
A couple ‘O notes…
Peter Schmuck — subject of this week’s poll (please vote if you haven’t yet) — has his own blog at the Sun now, presumably in reaction to Roch’s departure. Seems strange for a man who has routinely criticized blogs over the years but, hey, it’s good to see he’s catching up.
Andy MacPhail is tamping down expectations for the trade deadline. I have a hunch — nothing more — that some minor deal gets done anyway.
Hayden Penn or Brad Bergesen?
I won’t be around for this one unfortunately…I’ll check in here tonight for the best recap in town (our comments section).
I don’t see them tinkering with Bergesens Baysox record, nor do I see them depriving him of making the playoff with that team. It would have to be Penn.
I agree that it’s going to be Penn. Now or never for the kid. Hopefully Sarfate does reasonably well because I’d like to see Penn pitch out of the ‘pen (hey-o) for a little while.
Also, I will always remember the day when the glory that is cOlt 45 appeared on the front page of the Loss Column. yesss
Sweet icon, Neal.
Damn Wikipedia and all its tangential searches…
From A History of Malt Liquor
In 1963 at National Brewing in Baltimore, Maryland, a man named Dawson Farber was leading the marketing effort. He was very concerned about the growing competition from other “national” breweries — Anheuser-Busch and Joseph Schlitz — who were moving into his city with large budgets for promotion and advertising. Farber anticipated that his National Bohemian lager was not going to fare well against bullies like Budweiser and Schlitz. He had to find a niche where the brewery could compete.
At the time, the only malt liquor with anything close to a national presence was Country Club. Farber had a different vision, one that focused less on upper middle class aspirations and more on the reality of more kick in the can. He came up with the name Colt 45 and told a designer he wanted a label emblazoned with a kicking horse and a horseshoe. Farber was not going to hide the potent brew’s extra bang.
Yet another proud Bawlmer innovation.
Oh my God, Baltimore invented Colt 45.
*BOMBSHELL*
Hey, at least for the time being, Schmuck answers more questions than Roch:
“Peter – any truth to the rumor that a “rift” exists between DT and MASN or DT and MacPhail?
dan the man
———
Dan, I haven’t heard that, but I do know that the old school baseball people can get frustrated with all the bells and whistles that come with wall-to-wall television coverage. If somebody had tried to put a headset on Gene Mauch in the fifth inning, somebody would have been wearing his rear end for a hat.”
Well that does make more sense considering its logo’s likeness to the Baltimore Colts.
That entire article on the history of malt liquor is still fun to read, especially if you pretend Bill Curtis or Kent Wallace from Frontline are narrating it.
Por examplé…
O’Shea Jackson, rapping as Ice Cube, urged his listeners to, “Get your girl in the mood quicker, get your jimmy thicker, with St. Ides malt liquor.”
Lost in the hue and cry was the fact that Ice Cube’s lyric was clearly a lettered homage to poet Ogden Nash, the 20th century American master of light verse, whose poem “Reflections on Ice-Breaking” reads in its entirety:
Candy
Is dandy
But liquor
Is quicker.
For bringing a 1940’s New Yorker magazine feel to the malt liquor milieu, we bid hail to thee, Ice Cube.)
“The Schmuck Stops Here.”
your kidding me…right?
Roch has officially moved his blog to MASNsports.com. Hard to complain with that, and it looks like he’ll be doing select post and pre game stuff. Pretty much what we all thought.
Question is: was it a dick move on Trembley’s part to blow Roch’s cover that he would be going to MASN? I tend to think it’s kind of funny, but not exactly the polite thing to do.
I was impressed that the 07 Birds split 9 out of 18 from the Yankees.
7 out of 11 from the Yanks already this year. Hot damn. Yankee killing. Love it.
***
I’m glad Flatbrim has *virtually* pitched himself out of a trade. Just waiting for the minutes to pass so I can begin the officially anticipating, lusting & fantasizing over the 09 bullpen.
***
When DT walked into the post-game conference smoking a cigar after the sunday curse was broken I knew this man was a true American hero.
I can hear us, in two hours, collectively pondering “What in God’s name were they thinking putting Sarfate in there to start?”.
So, let’s not get too invested in this one, methinks.
Nice comeback inning there from him, though. It’s a shame he has to pitch against a buzzsaw like Joba.
Althought you KNEW Fahey would get a hit on him. Hell yeah.
love gamecast @ work
got my fake excel spreadsheet up just in case bossman walks by
couple first inning walks are totally lame but most of the runs came across via errors (NM and Quiroz)
Fahey and BRob on base to start the 3rd, no outs
Nick! Three singles off Joba, 3-2
At least we’re making him throw pitches. He’s at 50 pitches in the top of the 3rd.
yankees have 3 runs off 1 hit
WTF
top of the order due up too. kinda scary.
If Sarfate goes 5 innings without completely blowing up, I’ll consider this a sweep even if we lose.
Jeter only has 6 home runs? Damn..
walks ‘ll kill ya’ is a time honored baseball mantra. . .hopefully Sarfate can throw strikes and stay out of the big inning.
our bats will get to Chamberlain. . .
jeter abreau damon have all walked then scored
damn…
Rick: Don’t you mean “time honored baseball manfra”?
Dan: Jeter is starting to show some age this year, and he was never a big home run guy anyhow.
Joe: I’m right there with you, gamecasting with some fake spreadsheets. It’s wonderful.
If they bring in burres to relieve sarfate….why didn’t they just start burres?
I’d give Sarfate a crack at Cano, Nady & Melky and have Burres ready for the top of the order
to answer your question – because Burres didn’t finish six innings in 8 of his last 11 starts
See?
That was painless.
Give him Molina and the quick hook at the first sign of trouble (aka a situation he realistically can’t pitch his way out of)
I love how Melky and Cano suck.
buckle up ’cause Burres in there has the makings of ugly. . .knowing full well that “hope is not a method,” I nonetheless hope Burres can pull out a decent outing. . .
baseball manfra. . .gotta love that.
I guess they didn’t want to push Sarfate to far with the pitch count. Otherwise, I would have let him keep going, he was only around 60 pitches or so.
4IP – 2H – 5R (3 earned) – 3BB – 5K
any thoughts?
fist pump and quasi-sexual “UH” sound
Honestly, I was impressed. He coughed up some runs and walks, but managed to keep his pitch count relatively low. He could have gone 7 innings at that pace.
fist pump & sound effects for jeter’s K – not for sarfate’s outing
Sarfate: grade C; nerves, too many walks and an E + a gopher ball equal less than expected.
Burres: 1-2-3. . who’d a thunk it?
2 hits is pretty sweet.
Any thoughts on Sarfate’s Suicide Mission?
was that his first career start?
@ yankee stadium, on the verge of a sweep when they are going to be extra pissed?
(not to mention his next start lines up @ Los Angeles against Saunders)
leadoff single
The Stick is friggin’ sticking today and I love it.
even his ground out in the first advanced the runner
mancrush
Joe the Guy: this was Sarfate’s first major league start; he was primarily a starter in the minors.
maybe Burres can flourish as a middle reliever. . .
It isn’t like Sarfate even went 5. I’m just saying, it seems like Burres could’ve gone 4 and given up 5 just as easily as Sarfate. Nobody here seems to think/hope that Sarfate stays in the rotation for even one more go-round. I certainly don’t think he’s got much of a future as a starter. I hope we never go through this forfeit situation again.
have to disagree with Andrew re: Sarfate. He’s got excellent stuff, e.g., superior fastball, good slider, and a decent change-up. His big issue is control, but I think that’s because he tried to be too perfect.
He’s got all the physical tools to be an effective starter; like many other young pitchers, he must develop the confidence, the almost arrogance necessary to succeed at this level.
His success or failure as a starter will be a function of his mental toughness.
It’s 6-2
yet we still have more hits
two of sarfate’s runs weren’t earned
but Mora-Scott-Millar-Quiroz are 0-10 thus far
I don’t know what to think anymore.
Fun while it lasted.
oops. . .the Burres walls come tumblin’ down. . .geez, surprise, surprise. . .how far is Norfolk???
mayday mayday bail out bail out
According to ESPN the Yankees have just traded The Dugout’s Pr0fess0r Farnsworth to the Tigers for Pudge Rodriguez.
By taking Pudge off the list of available catchers the Yankees have inched Ramon’s value to the Marlins.
Please pray to St. Jude that the Marlins are stupid enough to take the reigning champion of the All-State Insurance Throwing the Ball Into the Outfield Derby.
This trade is blowing my mind. Can Pudge Rodriguez really be worth nothing more than Kyle Farnsworth? A future Hall of Famer for an above-average reliever?
I guess I don’t know enough to understand the “why,” but I do understand this: the Janquis just got better.
“He’s got all the physical tools to be an effective starter; like many other young pitchers, he must develop the confidence, the almost arrogance necessary to succeed at this level.”
Sarfate used to be a starter but has failed at every level to harness that power due to his control– one of the reasons that he was 1) traded to baltimore 2) and without options. The Astros basically gave up on him and threw him in as a discount. Probably at the urging of Flanagan, who likes shiny things and 97MPH fastballs.
Sarfate is Daniel Cabrera 2.0– I wouldn’t catch myself falling into that trap again. If this team is ever a playoff contender, I can guarantee you that Dennis won’t be on it.
Someone has to replace Liz, and I figure that will be Penn. After that I’m much more comfortable with either Hernandez or Bergesen than I am with S’Forty. He looks to me like a textbook mid-late reliever, and while he’s got the arm to start I see nothing in his track record to suggest that he’d have sustained success there. Today went pretty much exactly as we all thought it would, no? If there’s ever a time to give a AA kid a chance, now is it.
If it’s Bergesen and he struggles, bring up Hernandez. If it’s Hernandez and he struggles, bring up Bergesen. It’s not “rushing,” it’s simply doing what has to be done. Given that there are two guys who have earned a shot we could conceivably ride out the season between them and rethink things come October.
Lost Season and all…
Lost Season. Time for Penn. It makes sense. No sense in rushing – and it would definitely be rushing – Bergensen and Hernandez and letting them know they are an awfully long way away yet. We did the exact same thing to Hayden Penn, and he’s taken years to recover. So, it’s rushing in the sense that at the start of the year, you say to yourself “I don’t want these guys to see Baltimore”, and if they do, then you’re rushing them up for whatever reason. You can call it “necessary” or “doing what needs to be done”, but you’re still bring up young arms before you intended to, to help a situation that is, by definition LOST. It’s the same reason Wieters isn’t up here yesterday. What do we gain, really, and is that worth the high risk associated therein? I don’t think so.
Hayden Penn, one-time savior of Baltimore, needs to be the next guy. He’s on a roll, finally pitching to his potential in Norfolk, he’s been to the show already, and we need to know (in my humble opinion) if he’s part of The Plan before the end of this year. He could be very valuable, either as a trade chip, a bullpen ace (ala Jimmy the Boat), or a fifth starter or better (uh, well, you never know).
One thing is for sure, and I’ll debate it since there’s little else to talk about today: Sarfate isn’t a starter. It was silly to put him in there against the Yankees of all teams, and the results weren’t surprising. The guy has good stuff, and it isn’t just that he misses his spots, it’s that he’s horribly wild and can’t control his stuff.
Griffey to Chisox pending his approval.
@ Andrew: fair enough, but what about the fact that we still need one more starter after Penn comes up? It’s either find someone for the job or stick with Sarfate. Or go back to Burres. Or go to, I don’t know, Cormier?
Dipping down into AA may not be the ideal situation but it’s not exactly crazy. It’s easy enough, if whoever comes up is just way overmatched, to say “Thanks, kid, we appreciate it. You need to work on X/Y/Z — head back down to Bowie and we’ll see you in spring training.”