Wednesday, April 19, 2006
You're gonna have to click that photo to get the large version to really see it, but suffice it to say that this is pretty much exactly what I imagine goes on in the Red Sox bullpen on a daily basis now.
OK, maybe without the cliff, but other than that.
Sigh. Another day when both the Red Sox and the Tigers played, and the only baseball I was actually able to watch was the Cubs game. I am getting right sick of this, Detroit, d'you hear me? Right sick of it.
The Cubs/Dodgers game was pretty good though. Bill Mueller walked in every single at-bat he had, Todd Walker went 0-for-4 with 2 strikeouts, and we had several shots of Nomar leaning on the dugout rail and yawning during the game, all of which filled me with a deep sense of joy and nostalgia.
DLowe had one of his more or less good games. And actually I always like watching Carlos Zambrano pitch, because there's always a good chance that he's going to freak the hell out while on the mound and, I don't know, smear his face with infield dirt and charge into the opposing dugout and stuff JD Drew into a Gatorade cooler or something. He just gives that general impression, you know, that at any given time he's only about 5 seconds away from tearing someone's trachea out, possibly his own.
Oh, and Jeff Kent was alive, back in the lineup after getting beaned in the head during the Giants series (while Barry Bond giggled hysterically, no doubt, wishing he had finished choking him properly when he had a chance). Am I the only Red Sox fan watching these games? Probably. It's not like I have any other baseball to watch BECAUSE THE TIGERS DON'T BELIEVE IN TELEVISING GAMES.
By the by, if you can't get enough of Jim Leyland's FREAKOUT!!111!1, you should probably go check out my RotT post about it.
My goodness, and how could I nearly forget to mention that, right at this very moment, Jason Varitek is suffering stoically through a sore ass. Despite all the hilarity, and all the jokes along the lines of "in Boston we care more about the ass of our starting catcher than we do about local news" or "the ass IS the news" or "his ass is hurt? impossible, nothing can hurt the mighty ass of Jason Varitek", I'm a wee bit concerned. I mean, he's a catcher, he's usin' that thing, and he's on the wrong side of 30 for a backstop. So, I'm sure he'll be able to play through it, but I'm getting that twinge of concern.
And I know that none of you care, but if you'll recall correctly you'll remember that a couple of my favorite nonSox/Tigers players are Pirates. There's Zach Duke, there's John Grabow, and there's Jody Gerut (there also used to be Tike Redman, but he's a Tiger now, joyfully). Usually everyone knows what's going on with Zach Duke, and Grabow and Gerut don't make the news that often, but there's been an awful lot of chatter about Jody Gerut these days, almost all of it wholly bizarre.
Here's the deal. Gerut's been missing time with a bum knee, and he had surgery on it in '04, and it flamed up again at the end of '05. He did OK this spring, and then got sent to AAA... he usually plays right or left field, and the Pirates aren't putting anyone over Jason Bay in left, and I suppose they felt pretty solid with Jeromy Burnitz The No Longer Cub in right. Got it?
Gerut apparently told the team, when they said he'd be going to AAA, that his knee was in a right state and he was probably going to need more surgery on it. This caused the Pirates to go "ummm hell no", because according to the labor agreement, you can't be sent to the minors if you're injured. Which makes sense, otherwise players would always be trying to play through horrible injuries and would be injuring themselves further in an effort to stay in the majors.
The Pirates say that Gerut is more or less fine, and that his knee "tested out strong" according to their medical experts. Gerut went to some outside doctors who said he's got patellar tendinitis and he's opting for surgery.
So the Pirates slapped Gerut on the restricted list, meaning he wouldn't get paid and they wouldn't cover any costs of his surgery, or travel to and from it, or whatever.
So Gerut, through the Players Association, filed a grievance against the Pirates.
DRAMA!!11!
I know none of you care. I know that. But I've been relishing the madness of it all, and I've been paying attention since I like Jody Gerut, and now you all know as well even if you don't want to.Labels: baseball, Cubs, Dodgers, Jody Gerut, MLB
2:52 AM
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