O’s-Sox Open Thread (Get There Early)
So tonight’s the night.
No question about it, this time. Somebody will be designated the 50 millionth fan, and will be afforded all of the associated glory. And prizes. Mmmmm…prizes. For those of you who are going, I’ll be forever in your debt if you make that fan aware of the site.
On the field, we’ve got the DC Cab rolling against Daisuke Matsuzaka. Who, unbeknownst to me until now, has been absolutely terrifying this year.
For those who aren’t going to the game: I’ll be in studio for my regular Tuesday spot with the Fighting Ungers from 6-8 on WNST — tune to 1570 AM or click “listen live” at the website.
I’ll also be starting my Examiner.com articles at some point this week. I’ve got the first one all sketched out and close to ready. Should be an interesting experience.
I don’t like this movie.
Roch sez that Kam Mickolio is the guy to replace Sherrill. Makes some sense as far as I can see, although I think you could make a case for Jim Miller. He came over in the Rodrigo Lopez trade (I think I mentioned him before), and he’s 3-4 with a 3.38 ERA. He’s got 71 K to 22 BB in 61.1 IP. Not bad at all. Considering that Mickolio only arrived at
FrederickNorfolk recently, I wouldn’t mind seeing Miller get a shot. Looks like that won’t happen, but he’s clearly a guy to keep an eye on as a potential bullpen option.On a totally separate note, Scott Moore is striking out nearly one out of every four at-bats down there. His average is just .247, his obp just .321. He has 287 at-bats. Make of this what you will.
BUCK FOSTON!!!
I think the attempt at .500 this year is just about flatlined.
I look at this squad, and there are 2 guys I know are part of the solution at pitching: Jeremy Guthrie and Jimmy Johnson. There are a couple of guys who I think might be a part of the next Oriole contender (Olson, Sherrill) but mostly we are screwed with the pitching, especially the all important rotation. We’ve got one guy who has any quantum of talent going once every 5 days, and the other 4 days we’re blowing out the bullpen because the starter stinks and only goes 4 innings.
The DC Cab has shown that he shouldn’t be around when his contract ends. He’s the Kyle Boller of the Orioles (and that’s perhaps a perfect analogy).
DC looked real bad from the bits of the game that I caught. No command.
Speaking of no command – the 100M Import. DiceK. No command either.
Yet he has Six wins this season when walking Five or more. Also, opponents are 0-14 with the bases loaded against him in 08.
DC does not have that kind of whatever it is.
Testicular Fortitude. or Focus. or Discipline. it might just be Run Support.
I’m not sure what exactly it is, but his record is 30-14 since Coming To America.
***
As for The Fight For Five Hundred:
-there are 11 series left, only 4 of which are on the road (31-26 at home)
-Seven series are against AL East opponents, whom we’ve struggled against so far this year (19-30)
Put them together and what have you got? I don’t know…but it’s going to be fun.
5 games back with 37 to play
It really is amazing how Dice K will just walk dudes and then strike out everyone else. One reason D-Cab can’t do that is because he has two pitches: fastball and fastball. You swing at the ones that aren’t flying out of the zone and you’re going to have success. With Dice K, he’s throwing you fastballs, change ups, curveballs, sliders, gyroballs, Japanballs, everything. He’s pitches out of the strike zone effectively.
USA Baseball kinda stinks, huh? If the Olympics didn’t happen during the season, we’d be killing everybody.
I like tonight’s matchup of Waters and Regressed Buccholz. Let’s get Montanez back in there to see if he can do anything.
JtG you win on Sherrill. Damnit.
wins = not how we evaluate pitchers in the year 2008. I am not impressed with Dice-K at all. There’s just no way a guy can have continued success when he’s got 2 on or 3 on in every inning he pitches. He was lucky last night – that and Melvin Mora’s approach with runners on made me soil myself repeatedly, and I still didn’t stink as bad as he did. Seriously, the most impressive thing I saw Matt Wieters do was work the count and take a walk when he understood that getting on base was far more productive than swinging wildly for the fences.
Here’s something really, really interesting. The Detroit Tigers Thoughts blog has reverse-engineered the Elias Free Agent Ranking (Type A or B, doncha know)…we will almost certainly get something back for Ramon Hernandez in the 2010 draft. Presently he is the worst Type A catcher, so we’ll probably end up with a sandwich pick unless he goes on a tear next year.
Interesting stuff. And it makes for something pretty exciting, all told. Varitek is struggling to maintain Type A status (something the Red Sox would probably love, although they’ll probably resign an All Star, won’t they? snicker) as the season comes to an end.