As I write this, there is one gone in the bottom of the ninth and the Mets are in the process of making a pitching change. Will this be the second straight day the Crew win it in their last at-bat? That is a question that is yet to be revealed. With Braun and McGehee the next two batters up, the Brewers have a shot.
Braun eeks out an infield hit after Reyes makes a diving stop...good for the momentum but there's still work to do. McGehee jumped the gun and hit a harmless pop-up. Tonight in particular it seems like the Crew hitters have an all or nothing approach (i.e. everyone seems to be swinging for the fences).
And just like that IT WORKED. Corey Hart took one DEEP!!!!!!!!!. Had to chill for a few moments and let the walk-off homer sink in. Even though the Brewers still have work to do standings wise (20-28)....it has been nice to get out of the abyss of a 9-game losing and to start winning some games in the 9th inning instead of losing them.
As epic and awesome as tonight's game was, there is still more baseball to get into. We might be getting towards the late games but these games do have heavy fantasy implications for myself. As I write this, my team is trailing by 4 points for the week (191.5-187.5) and two of my starting pitchers are pitching right now (Cain and Richard) and the team i'm up against has Edwin Jackson and Scott Kazmir getting starts currently.
In other words, lots of hectic split-screen back and forth engagement between split-screens on the mlb.tv and the Angels game on Fox Sports West.
Right now, my main focus is on the Padres-Zombie Expos game as Clayton Richard has put up 3 2/3 scoreless right now. If Clayton Richard keeps this up, i'll have to ask myself why it took me so long for me to replace John Lackey with Clayton Richard.
I'd definitely have to say that I find the Padres to be one of the more interesting teams in baseball this year. Pretty much everyone (myself included) thought the Padres had little or zero chance to contend this year. But the way that team is pitching, this is a definitely a team that is not going away anytime soon (even though Willingham just hit a 3-run shot off of Richard).
The Zombie Expos on the other hand seem to be playing the hang around .500 until they can call up Strasburg without accruing arbitration time in 2010 (this rule manipulation is up there amongst things that are wrong with pro baseball). While this team is not going to be as bad as they have been the last few years (100-plus losses)......I definitely wouldn't give the Zombie Expos a higher than 20% percent chance to stick around (tougher division, less overall talent, no way that Livian Hernandez keeps that era low, etc.).
Either way, if I end up winning this league Strasburg will be indirectly involved to some extent (no he's not on my team). To back track, third base had been a black hole for my in the first month of the season as I decided to pick Brandon Wood's upside over Casey McGehee (big mistake). I had stuck with Wood (not good) gave Casey Blake a chance to start (didn't work out) but at this moment, a third basemen fell out of the sky the same way a spinal surgeon fell out of the sky for Benjamin Linus when Oceanic 815 crashed on to the island. I look one day and Casey McGehee was on the waiver wire. I picked him up and out of curiosity looked to see who the NL Leader In RBI was replaced with (none other than Steven Strasburg).
Bounced to the D-Backs-Giants game to see if the Giants can put up some runs on Edwin Jackson. The Giants broadcast team just put up a pop-up of highest slugging average since 2009. Not suprisingly, Kung Fu Panda took the 1-spot. The #2 spot, Andres Torres.
While it may be a small sample size (305 At-Bats) and he didn't exactly set the world on fire prior to coming to The City, it does seem odd that it took Torres a year to get regular playing time considering how much this team has struggled to score runs in recent memory. Playing for the Giants (and thus half his games at Pac-Bell and he's put up a nice 126 OPS+, his profile may be low but that's actually fairly impressive. (Giants went up 2-0 BTW).
Back to the Padres-Zombies game which has the Zombie Expos up 3-1 (my team is up by .5 pts currently).........it looks like lots of leads changes and ties for my fantasy team tonight. Since Richard wasn't back on the mound yet, back to the Giants game and Matt Cain cruising along into the 4th inning.
Cain gets through another scoreless half-inning, my lead jumps to 4 points (helped along by Scott Kazmir giving up 4 runs). Off to the top of the 5th inning, a shot of the San Diego skyline and Richard racking up his second K. Richard shows a nice bounce-back from giving up the homer as he goes through a very quick 1-2-3 5th inning.
Back to the Giants-D-Backs game. I show up just in time to see Bengie Molina strike out. With mega-prospect call-up season right around the corner, Molina may not have many more chances to look clueless at the plate. Molina's (probable) replacement Buster Posey could be coming over from Fresno any day.
While this article indicates that Posey could be brought in to play 1st instead of going behind the plate, it is inevitable that Posey will take his reigns as Giants catcher of the future at some point. With the Giants still having hope for contending (only 3 1/2 out) and their offense struggling as always, there just seems to be more-upside to upgrading (i.e. starting Posey) at Catcher than at First.
Aubrey Huff has had a reasonable bounce-back season so far and it being questionable that Bengie Molina is an asset offensively (yes he can be counted on to hit .270-.290 with 15-20 homers but the last time he even had a 100 OPS+ was in 2006 with the Blue Jays). Point being, the numbers show that Molina is a slightly below league average hitter, he's 35 this year (his hitting is bound to regress at some point) and I think Posey is one of those prospects who steps in and gives his team a boost (probably should have broken camp with the Giants but hey, he "needed" those two months to develop his game.
Well I finished that rant in time to see Cain put up scoreless inning number 5 (as my team has pushed the lead up to 10). Kung Fu Panda misses an opp to blow the game open as he strikes out with the bases are loaded. The Giants are still in good shape though (up 3-0) and my team's lead has expanded to 16 1/2 points.
Well, that's whats going on right now....been a pretty good night.....till next time
If a perfect game is thrown, but a baseball blog doesn't comment, does it still make history?
ReplyDeleteHey.....all I gotta do is wait a week for the next perfect game
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