Liveblog!
10:04 -- The Mets are 10-12 against the NL West this year, just so you know. These games are important.
10:06 -- Boomer goes for the Pads, throws two nice curveballs to Jose, who's hitting .350 as a righty.
10:08 -- And it's ol' Blastings hitting in the No. 2 slot, a lovely little twist by Willie. A discussion of what will become of Milledge when Moises Alou return ensues. Ron suggests Blastings will slot in as a fourth outfielder, but only until Endy comes back. Here's an idea ... how about he stays in the starting lineup, and the non-gentile who hasn't hit worth a damn since April hits the bench?
10:13 -- Gary on Boomer ... "He's been a rebel his entire life." Whatever. As far as I'm concerned, once you willingly conform to George Steinbrenner's dress code, your rebel cred is shot. See: Giambi, Jason.
10:18 -- Jorge Sosa quickly retires both Giles brothers as Gary informs us that the Padres are hitting .232 as a team at home. In other words, they collectively hit like Shawn Green.
10:21 -- This is as good a time as any to note that ESPN's Rick Sutcliffe was on fire during the Cubs-Giants tiff earlier in the evening. San Fran blew another game, giving up two runs in the bottom of the eighth to lose 3-2. Both runs coming via a two-out rally started by a broken-bat Ryan Theriot infield single, a little dinker just past the pitcher that Ray Durham gloved over the bag but didn't have a play on. Which was all very well and good, except that Sutcliffe reacted as if he had seen the Virgin Mary in the bat shards.
Quoting (imagine the spittle flying) ... "That is the type of player who helps you win championships. Doing whatever it takes to win. That's what David Eckstein would have done there. That's what Craig Counsell would have done. Given the big boys a chance to win it for you. Breaks his bat, and has the speed to beat it out."
Given that Durham didn't even attempt a throw, it's not clear what Theriot, apparently the Hustleniks' new paragon of virtue, had to beat, but never mind that. After the win was sealed, Sutcliffe followed up with an all-time doozy, picking up the Lou Piniella-stroking baton from where the loathsome Dave O'Brien had recently put it down. Piniella had called for a timely pitchout in the seventh to keep the Giants from extending their lead, and the ESPN crew might as well have dropped to its collective knees for the rest of the night.
But comes then Sutcliffe, following a solid 3-2 win to put the Cubs at 48-43, with this -- "They're the exact same team they were last year, but they've got that passion."
I mean, just think about that. The "exact same team?" On this planet, the NL's Chicago team spent $300 million on new contracts during the offseason, signing a number of high-profile free agents and rejiggering their lineup completely. They dumped a bunch of pitchers, and added a whole mess of new starters. They called up prospects like Rich Hill and Felix Pie. These were the types of things you might have heard about if you were paid to cover baseball for a living.
10:35 -- Former Cub Michael Barrett knocks home a pair to give the Pads a 2-0 lead and probably should have challenged Blastings' arm after Boomer slices a two-out single into left. Sosa's slider looks flat.
10:41 -- Boomer strikes out Green, of course, but gives up an avoidable double to Sosa and gets beaten to the bag by Jose on an infield dribbler. Ron and Gary call him a fat-ass in so many words.
10:56 -- SNY's Kevin Burkhardt gives us the scoop on the statue of Tony Gwynn that will be going up soon outside Petco Park. No word on whether or not the statue has been engineered to gain 15 pounds a year and manage the San Diego State baseball team into the ground. No, I kid, I kid. I love the guy, if not as much as my future roommate Blond Matt, who's from San Francisco yet absolutely adores Gwynn.
11:00 -- Sosa walks the shorter Giles, gives up a single to Gonzalez and is pretty clearly still not right in the legs. He isn't helped by Blastings, who fails to run around a lazy flyball to left and allows both runners to move up. Alomar will give him a deserved talking-to after the inning.
11:01 -- Good to see you still can't make out Mike Cameron's features from the main camera. Sosa strikes him out, escapes the frame with no damage.
11:14 -- LoDuca singles home Wright, as the Mets use three straight singles to get on the board at 2-1. Boomer looks worried. Up steps Green. Gary informs us that the Golden Jew is a career .393 hitter at Petco.
11:15 -- Double-play ball to Greene with an E, inning over. Sigh.
11:27 -- Sosa, after a 1-2-3 inning, draws a one-out walk off Wells before Jose singles up the middle. But Beltran moves to 6 for his last 48 with an inning-ending groundout, and the Mets strand two more.
11:44 -- Then, in the top of the sixth, Wright gets on with a miscommunication bloop and is promptly picked off. Dang. Incidentally, I may have to go to bed soon.
11:56 -- Sosa mows down the side again. And that's going to do it for Cheddar Ben for now ... will check in with an update in the morning. ...
7:11 A.M. EST -- It was a good time to go to bed. At least both the Phils and Braves lost. Mets now 10-13 against the West.
posted by Cheddar Ben at 10:30 PM
3 Comments:
hahahahaha bit off a little more than you could chew with that liveblog, eh? you know baseball games last 9 innings, right? were they forecasting rain? just ran out of gas? did they have you on a pitch count? are you 8 years old?
sorry, im just busting balls. but i can't wait for the next "all yankee fans are frontrunning bandwagoning phonies that don't watch the games" entry...
Do we think that Yankee fans don't actually watch the games? I don't know that I've written anything like that. Lord knows they have no understanding of what they're watching, but that's not the same thing.
And yeah, fella, some of us citizens other than 8-year-olds go to sleep around midnight. People with jobs, for example. (Note: For the record, I am not one of those people.)
ok nephew, i was just playin anyway.
sorry for misrepresenting your generalizations, though. you'll have to excuse me, as im still working out the difference between dan haren and rich harden. oh well, at least i know of tony larussa and mike scoscia. i must say, your boy's "I can't even think of a manager other than cox who has been with his team for that entire period" has to be my favorite y2k line of all time. a true classic, in any context.
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