Wednesday 7/13/22
I have far more important things to get up on here, which are in various stages of development, but I don't want to leave these pages blank for too many days. Lighter fare now: sports.
I missed a pretty exciting Red Sox game Saturday night because I was asleep. Sounded like the best game of the year so far. Fell asleep last night when they were trailing, but thought they had a decent chance to come back. That ESPN crew makes you want to switch the channel. Important to have taken the last two games and split that Yankees series. Sox were starting to fall, stopped it, and are now falling again. The rookie who has pitched twice over the last week? Yeah--he sucks. Or he's a lot further away than they've billed him as being.
I watched a decent chunk of the Red Sox game last night against the Rays. No Red Sox player has annoyed me more in my viewing life than Chris Sale. As I've said for years, he's a total fake, and people are now starting to realize what I've maintained all along. Still, he was pretty good last night, though I would say that the umpires helped him out. The Rays batters have this irritating habit of dropping their bats and starting to head to first base on what they think is ball four, before the umpire make the call. Pretty clear last night that the home plate umpire got sick of this and started calling borderline--or not so borderline--pitches strikes, to Sale's benefit.
The Red Sox are a stupid baseball team. The same as last year. They are sloppy, just like last year. The game was lost when chubby-faced Alex Verdugo was picked off at third with nobody out. Besides being a dumbass on the field, this guy is out of shape. Look at that face. Looks like the face of a man who drinks a lot of beer, having once had such a face myself. The first base situation is laughable. How do you not have a real MLB first baseman in a market like Boston? Brian Dalbec is not a Major League player. Neither is Franchy Cordero. The Red Sox somehow have three starters with an OBP lower than .300. Do you know how hard that is to do? I can't stand Trevor Story. He's one of the three. Everything I don't like about the modern hitter. Hits .220, every now and then hits a home run.
Jackie Bradley, Jr., who is somehow your regular right fielder, is conceivably the worst offensive player in the history of baseball going by last year and this year. He'll fall below .200 soon. And as a regular, at a corner outfield position, he's on pace for less than 2 home runs. You like that? For the season. I'm on pace for zero. He's only going to beat me by two. This guy was never this amazing defensive player either. One Gold Glove? So, what, everyone got in wrong year in, year out? He can't play centerfield anymore. What's that tell you? See how quiet they were about that? Why do you think he's in right? Here's how it works: centerfielders lose it, they go to right field. Right fielders lose it, they go to left field. Left fielders lose it, they go to first base. First basemen lose it, they become a DH.
J.D. Martinez was named to the All-Star Game. This is a joke. He's on pace for like 17 home runs and less than 80 RBI. That sucks for a guy like this. And Bogaerts? He's become the shortstop version of Marty Barrett. He's on pace for 13 home runs and 68 RBI. At least Martinez hits doubles. Bogaerts is now a singles hitter and below-average defensive shortstop.
You know why baseball is so bad though? Sure, the way it is played. But look at the stats. No one has cool stats. There are no cool offensive stats that make you go wow, and no pitchers are having awesome years either. Well, Verlander. But even the stars suck. You look at their numbers and they suck. They're boring. How is no one any good? Everyone has the same stats. That's weird. It's one big bag of blah.
I was thinking about if you had season tickets. Or myself. Let's say I'm where I want to be, have everything I want, the life I want, and I have the season tickets. Would you even go? Would you go more than ten times in a season? Imagine going eighty-one times? For these four hour games? You'd have to forsake so much else in your life. Ten games would be more than enough. Or a handful of games in the regular season and all of the playoff games.
I saw that Andrew Benintendi was near the top of the AL in batting average. Was he a steroid guy? Used to be able to hit 20 home runs. He's on pace for 5 and like 25 doubles. So he's now a punchless singles hitter. Why do you have zero power now? It's his age 27 season.
Ernie Banks turned up in a story I wrote today.