Depressing As Hell

Losing to Troy Glaus' second home run of the night was annoying enough, but I really hated giving up the game-tying jack to Chris Duncan. Damn, that sucked. A fella struggling to bat .250 and slugging a Jeter-esque .360 or so, not to mention a lefty who usually can't do a damn thing against anyone else of his type. Career line of .196/.256/.348 against southpaws, if that helps clarify things a bit.

Naturally, what does he do against the first pitch he sees from Feliciano? Crush my beating heart, that's what. Cruel world.

But this post isn't about Shelley Duncan's brother. It's also not about the long-awaited smoking gun for Roger Clemens' steroids guilt, coming soon to a courtroom near you. It's also not about, unfortunately, the New Material Girl or his ol' American Woman, if you catch my drift, and I think you do.

(No, seriously, what do you think A-Rod and Madonna talk about? Music? "Oh, I loved you that one time you sang American Pie even though everyone else hated it!" "Um, great." How much they each earn? How much they both hate Toronto? Kaballah? I seriously have no idea.)

(But I have even less of a notion what C-Rod and Lenny Kravitz are talking about during these alleged assignations of theirs. The mind reels. Even the creepy 1010 WINS on-scene guy camped outside the Rodriguezes' Park Avenue apartment this morning at 5 a.m. seemed a little flustered. What could it possibly be? "You looked great that one time in Sports Illustrated. Me and all my skeevy rock friends all totally jerked off to it." "Um, great." My guess is there's very little chit-chat during these meetings, and a whole lot of revenge fucking. On all sides. It's the only eventuality that makes sense.)

As I said, though, this post isn't about that. It's also not about the Sawx-Yanks series this weekend being totally upstaged by the Sawx-Rays midweek tiff. Seriously. Because who cares about a freakish series that the traditional losers swept with panache, which led off SportsCenter and pushed Tampa to the best record in the bigs with more than a game to spare. The Trop is selling out, the young hoodlums in Rays green are buying in, and the universe is set to implode.

In the face of such strangeness, who the hell can get excited about a Justin Masterson-Mike Mussina matchup besides Mr. and Mrs. Masterson? I want to see some Carlos Pena and Edwin Jackson action!

(Another potential problem for the Sawk and Yanks: Tampa's best player might be starting to play like it. Carl Crawford started off 2008 in a horrible slump, but came back to finally start pegging the ball in June, slugging .456 after consecutive disastrous months. That may not sound like much, and his season line still isn't up to snuff for a guy with his track record, but if his BABIP reverts from this year's .303 to his career average of .331, the Rays are going to get another welcome boost.)

This post, however, isn't about the magical Rays, nor is it about the surprising White Sox or the slumping D-Backs or the stunning Cubs or the surprisingly resilient Fish or the annoying-as-shit Phillies. It ain't about the hideous Mariners or the scumbag Braves.

Nor is it about the Boy Wonder's latest escapade. You probably heard about this -- Hank the Tank thinks the Yankees' offense isn't hitting enough, and wanted the world to know. As if a bunch of his best players hadn't spent a bunch of time on the DL, not to mention his $21 million star shortstop hitting like a AAA lifer. The guy can't catch a break when it comes to catching a clue.

(Admittedly, the Yanks aren't hitting quite as well as they have in recent years, as Melky and Cano have been complete sinkholes and the injuries have taken care of the rest, but the team has hardly fallen into Detroit-like disrepair and/or despair. My favorite part of this new Steinbrenner outburst, easily, has to be what he blames for the lack of offensive prowess:

“Maybe a little less outside distractions, and a little more concentrating, and they’ll start hitting better. I thought they would go on a consistent tear, and it hasn’t happened yet.”

Distractions, like, oh, I don't know ... the owner's son mouthing off in the press every time the team has a lousy series? Prompting anew fresh scrutiny and a round of quote-seeking from the media? I think I would find that pretty proper distracting, if my BP sessions kept being interrupted by the pimply-faced kid from Newsday who won't leave unless I give an apologetic excuse for our performance. But that's just me. I played soccer.)

But anyways, this post isn't about that, just like it's not about anything going on in the Olympic qualifiers. Not about the disturbing Dara Torres making the swim team again at age 41, or about the gymnasts or the divers or the fleet-footed Homosexual who set a wind-aided mark in the Fastest Man in the World competition.

(Miss this one? You've got to check it out. All I'm saying is that if you're getting your daily information from OneNewsNow.com, you may not be getting the full story. Think about it. Also, the Beijing Games start in just over a month. On August 8, 2008 at 8:08 p.m. And eight seconds. The Chinese are freaky, man.)

Indeed, this post isn't about any of that. Because the Mets ... well ... um ....

So, Luis Castillo's on the 15-day DL, eh? I mean, who saw that coming? Wow. Isn't that great? It's probably one of them cascade injuries, too, and 'cascade' is a pretty vivid term, right?

(The Mets are not fun right now. They're not in the same zip code as fun. Ugh.)