Thursday, May 6, 2010

The Ramble 5/6: Brewers-Dodgers, Tasers, Eric Byrnes and more

Well, it's been a week since I posted anything. Been a pretty busy week, just turned 27 (my body decided to give the gift of a cold for said birthday)......anyways I ain't here to talk about that....its time to talk some baseball.

-What the Brewers have done since I last posted: They lost 3 out of 4 and scored a whopping total of 2 runs in a 4 game series to a San Diego Padres team (which by the has a real chance to contend....if Blanks and/or Venable get things together and Headley continues his strong start....this should give them enough offense to make a serious playoff push)

-The first two games of the Brewers-Dodgers series have been much more encouraging. The Brewers bats came alive and dropped a couple of 11-spots on the Dodgers. (However, the Dodgers just took a 1-0 lead against the Brewers on a Walk, Steal and back-to-back Sac Flys....well at least Dave Bush still has a no-no going.

-One thing I like about the Brewers playing the Dodgers is being able to watch it on the big-screen and not having to worry about the mlb.tv feed.

-Fantasy Teams Update: Cheddarhead is in 8th place.......the Razzball team is languishing in 9th....the random CBSSports league is the only one doing well.

-For that team, i'm sitting pretty well at 3-1......despite having a 9 1/2 point lead (159.5 to 150), i'm not sure about my chances of going to 4-1 as I have 2 starts remaining and my opponent has 4 starts remaining

-For any chance to win, things pretty much have gone down as I needed them to today (Strong starts by Halladay and Cain coupled with a rough start for Kazmir).......now if Niemann follows suit and has a good start in Seattle, that should put me in a much better spot to be competitive.

-One sign of trouble for the Brewers, the pitcher for the Dodgers is John Ely who is making his second career start (for some reason the Brewers going up against someone making their first or second start always seems to be a sign of trouble.

-Now to surf around the internets to see what else is going on in the baseball world: It looks like the end is here for Eric Byrnes . Starting off the season at 3 for 38 and his last solid season occurring in 2007, this is probably the last we'll see of Byrnes on a major-league diamond. Speaking of 2007, he did happen to finish 11th in the NL MVP voting that year (despite a 103 OPS+). Looking at his B-R page its pretty obvious he's not a Hall of Famer......he does have the common link with his most similar player (Jeffrey Hammonds) of getting 3-year contracts ($30 million for Byrnes, $27 million for Hammonds) that they didn't even come close to living up to.

-It looked like the Brewers were gonna get out of the second unscathed....routine grounder turned into a Prince Fielder error....2-0 Dodgers......grrrhhhh.....on the bright side it is still early and if the Brewers bats act like they have the last couple nights....2 runs is not an insurmountable deficit......with Xavier Paul hitting a double to make it 3-0......time to get a bit worried

-Listening to the broadcast....random comment was made about Joe Ely looking like Matthew McConaughey........it don't matter what else he does in his career he will always be associated with Wooderson from Dazed and Confused to me

-Randomly stumbling around the internets and saw that ESPN writer Rob Neyer has embarked on a 30-part series where he breaks down team eras by players. In a not so shocking development, the Red Sox and Yankees are the first two teams that get covered......considering ESPN is involved in this series, it should come as no surprise that these are the teams that get covered first (wouldn't expect anything less from ESPN).

-A story that is a few days old but i'm gonna talk about it because I haven't had the time or chance to do so yet: The Taser Incident: In episode 2 of the season of Phillies fans behaving badly. So a Phillies fan runs onto the field and gets tasered and has generated controversy:

-My take: It was the right move. When you have funs doing stuff like this running onto the field, usually it's an attempt to get their 15 seconds of attention and usually aren't a physical threat. HOWEVER, you never know......if someone is nuts enough to think they can get away with running on the field....you don't know what their intent is.....you never know what their thinking is.......you never know whether its someone who wants to run circles around the outfield or if they want to cause physical damage to someone on the field.....point being on the security perspective, if you are struggling to apprehend whoever is on the field and feel the Taser is necessary go for it.......if you are the fan dumb enough to run on the field........dude your running onto the ballfield......sorta tough to feel sorry for you.

-Well that's all for now....till next time

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