Magpie, 4:05 PM yesterday: "It's Bad Mojo to mock the Devil Rays just when the Jays are about to play a three game set with them. That sort of talk always comes back and bites you in the ass."
Myself, 6:45 PM yesterday: "...join in on the Nomo-bashing, or let the Jays do it for you."
Nomo, last night: Two runs over seven innings.
Okay. I get it.
Rather than talk about last night's game result or outcome or anything related to the final score, which caused me much pain, I will instead direct my venom towards these four people:
Dewon Brazelton (and the Devil Rays' front office)
Okay, Mike D covered this in his always-excellent Advance Scout, but come on...Dewy bails out on the team for two weeks. He doesn't report to Durham, as he is required to do. Then he treads around in the Restricted List Zone for two weeks, until he finally calls up the GM and tells him he's ready to go to Triple-A.
Now, he's back up with the team? I nearly fell off my chair when I saw his name on the screen. If I was the GM, I wouldn't want this guy back on my team. If I was playing defense, I wouldn't want to try hard when this guy was on the mound, after his vanishing act. Surely, there's someone in Durham who could have come up instead of Brazelton. If there are extenuating circumstances, then I retract some of this, but looking at a basic level, it makes no sense.
C.B. Bucknor
Wow, some bad calls. That was a strike. So was that pitch. And that one. Bucknor was acting like an idiot all night, from this Game Reporter's position. When John Gibbons came out to argue the horrible, horrible calls, Bucknor was overly animated and clearly trying to show up the manager, I thought. Then, Aaron Hill tried to call time out, and Bucknor didn't give it to him. Finally, there was a pathetic attempt to make up for the bad calls by calling a Hideo Nomo inside strike to a LH hitter a ball.
Maybe I'm making too much over this, but man...it really pissed me off how this umpire handled himself. Not that getting tossed out of a game is a good thing for Gibby -- Ernie Whitt should have sent Gregg Zaun and not Reed Johnson up to pinch hit for Ken Huckaby and I think Gibbons would not have made that mistake. (Zaun wasn't hurt, or Huckaby would have hit for himself. If Zaun was aching, replacing your only other catcher without wanting to bring in the other one means you are playing to lose. Gibbons would not do that, evidenced by his pinch-hitting choices in one game that left the team without a credible shortstop for the bottom of the ninth which never came. Even if we allow Whitt the benefit of the doubt and assume Menechino was ready to squat behind the plate...Gabe Gross should have pinch-hit instead of Reed Johnson. There was no good reason to bring Johnson in there. But I digress.)
Tom Candiotti
He is quickly becoming my least favourite analyst. That is all.
Eric Hinske
I gotta say, I liked Hinske. He legged out a triple on my birthday in 2002. He had a nice rookie year, and I gave him a pass in 2003. Last year, I remained optimistic that he would at least put up better numbers. However, he's not going to do that anytime soon. I feel stupid and foolish for believing he improved things at the beginning of the year. I was sucked in by The Dude's New Batting Stance (no offense, NFH) and ignored past history and the 2005 sample size.
At this point, I honestly don't care if the Jays get anything back for him. He's hitting worse than Scott Hatteberg, Phil Nevin, Kevin Millar and Darin Erstad this year. As well as every other first baseman in the American League and National League. This was also true last year.
When Corey Koskie returns, he and Aaron Hill must share third base and DH duties. Hillenbrand gets the bulk of time at first. If one of them is injured, call up Kevin Barker or John-Ford Griffin or John Hattig to play first or move Koskie over the diamond and use them as a DH. I don't care that Hinske was the 2002 Rookie of the Year anymore, I really don't. It's not just the offense, but we're talking about first base here. Everyone but me can play first base.
And the slamming the bat down after every at bat is getting tiresome. People who want Vernon Wells to be more emotional, this is what you get.
And now, in an effort to make this train wreck of a Game Report more light-hearted, I'll highlight the good parts of yesterday's awful, awful game:
Alex Rios had a nice night, showing some opposite-field power (which he needs) which would have been a double had Gomes not been in perfect position. Another single is always good. Rios also must have heard me saying he was a casual player, as he almost pulled a Larry Walker and nailed Toby Hall at first base, missing by a step. I haven't seen a 9-2 putout since Orlando Merced, of all people, did it in 1997. (Oh great, now I've got 1997 memories. Ed Sprague, Carlos Garcia, Benito Santiago, Alex Gonzalez, Otis Nixon, Jacob Brumfield, Robert "Not As Good As John Olerud" Person...) Also, Rios obviously knew which pitches to hit. In his AB in the fourth, he swung at all three fastballs (the only pitch Nomo could throw for strikes at the time) and laid off the three non-fastballs.
Frank Catalanotto always seemed to make contact on the ball when fellow LH hitters Hinske and Russ Adams missed Nomo's split-finger. Cat fouled off a few here and there and made solid contact where you wouldn't expect him to, based on the other results in the game.
Give Pistol Pete Walker credit: I thought he was done after five. He got through six, didn't pitch well enough to win, but it's not his fault that the Blue Jays couldn't get more than two off Hideo Nomo. He didn't strike out anyone, which I can't stand, but this is the positive section, so I'll refrain from commenting further.
Time for the final part of this Game Report, and I'll open this up to the Bauxites. The contest is...a top ten list. I was going to think of a category that would mock the Devil Rays, but that's not a good idea, is it, Mags?
So the topic is open-ended. It must be about something in the baseball world today, it cannot mock the Devil Rays or the next opponent, Boston, (lest we witness a smackdown by Cla Meredith) and it must be appropriate, smart and funny. The winner gets a prize of my choosing, subject to poll approval.
There are some clever readers out there; we all saw the headline contest entries. Now get started!
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20050627215706612