A Fat Man's Baseball Ramblings

Welcome to the Fat Man’s Daily Baseball Ramblings

Background:  I am 33 year old fat man from the Midwest who is currently off sick from work with a broke foot.  I am a fantasy baseball junkie with little else to do all day but watch the Extra Innings package on DirecTV and opine on all of the madness I see.  The following is simply a collection of those thoughts compiled daily, some in greater detail than others.

Wednesday April 14th

ANA v NYY - Heard an interesting anecdote during the first few innings of this game.  Michael K reminded  Al Leiter that today is the 21st anniversary of Dallas Green forcing him to throw 162 pitches over a complete game (the Yankees would trade him 11 days later).  Leiter didn’t sound like he would be celebrating with cake and punch later.  I can’t imagine that.  Normally, I‘m not a subscriber to the hard and fast pitch count theory, but 130+ is a bit much, especially for a very young arm.  The result of throwing  that many pitches on a cold, rainy April night was Leiter being limited to 9 starts over the next four years.  Understandably, he was still bitter about it, stating that he felt it was abusive.  To this day, he hasn’t spoken to Green.  It’s stories like these that fuel my love of the Extra Innings package and XM radio’s MLB Network.  That and the Jack in the Box commercials we don’t get east of the Mississippi.

MIL v CHC - For the first 4.2 innings, Randy Wells looked like the second coming of Greg Maddox (before starting to run out of gas in the fifth).  That seems to be more of a trend than an anomaly early in his career. He is the lone bright spot on the worst team in all of sports with a payroll exceeding $150 million.

- Soriano found a new way to make an error on a groundball that had stopped rolling.  This came after Rickie Weeks had a great AB, working the count full from 1-2 before lining a shot into the left field corner for a double.  Soriano’s gaffe allowed him to take third while driving in 2 runs.

- It was good to see Soto yackety-yak one out on to Waveland today.  I was beginning to think that the loss of those 40 pounds had ended his days as a HR threat. - Caridad goes on to the DL for a strained arm?  More like neck.

- Soriano’s second error was almost too much to watch.  Had he continued to hustle, he could have caught the ball in the air.  Had he decided to play the carrom he could have stopped extra bases.  By doing neither he looked bot lazy and clueless.  That said, I felt sorry for the guy as the crowd erupted when they realized Colvin was coming in for him during the double switch.  Things are going to end badly here.  It wasn’t too long ago that Alfonso was seen as a malcontent.  How will the mix of his horrible play in the field, poor plate performance, and jeering fans affect him? 

- Three left handers on the bench as Fukudome does the Brewers up.  This is a trend.  I saw the exact same thing happen in the Orioles game last night.  Trembley rode his young horse (Matusz) into the eighth.  Even though he had never last longer than 6, the O’s had no one up in the pen.  This leads to Brian facing two more batters than he should have.  Enter the lefty Jim Johnson.  Johnson comes in with bases loaded to face the left handed hitting Zobrist, whom he successfully retires for the second out.  This means that the score is 3-1, Orioles, with 2 outs in the top of the 8th with RH Evan Longoria coming to the plate.  It’s a no-brainer to bring in the right handed arm (I can’t recall who it was) you had warming up with Johnson.  You need one out to get to the ninth, turning it over to your closer..  Instead, Johnson was given the nod to stay in the game.  Jim would not record another out.  This makes absolutely no sense on any level.  If that particular arm was a bad match-up for Longoria, then he shouldn’t have been the one that got the call to warm-up with no other RH coming up.  He had his whole bullpen at his disposal and only needed one out.

TEX v CLE - I appreciated the managing by Ron Washington tonight.  He received an outstanding performance from Colby Lewis through 5.1, but wasn’t slow on the hook.  Obviously you are hoping for more from your starter, but at least Ron wasn’t so reluctant with the hook to squander the near quality start that he was given.  It was the right call, as the Rangers come out on top 6-2 and Colby got a well deserved win.

AZ v LA - Does anyone, anywhere have a bullpen?  This is not a payroll issue.  It’s a serious baseball issue.  More on this later.