Bruce Bochy, Burnett, and Games

April 24, 2006

Bruce Bochy – Word Inventor

The more I learn about Chris Young’s ‘injury,’ the scarier it gets. When I first heard about it, I was led to believe that he merely had some pain in his thumb that had been bothering him. Next, I thought there might be some structural damage done, because I heard he was gonna get an MRI today. But now I’m scared. Padres Manager Bruce Bochy said,

I’ve never seen anything quite like this. It is hard to figure out what is going on. It has us buffaloed.

Buffaloed? What does that mean? Stumped? Are you left guessing as to the nature of the injury? According to urbandictionary.com, ‘Buffaloed’ means "to have your spirit broken." Does that mean your chances of finishing on top of the worst division in the history of sports have decreased from 0 to 0, and now you’re depressed? Now, it’s possible that I’m the one under the rock here. Maybe people walk around saying buffaloed to each other all day, and it’s a regular in the American lexicon. Maybe. Why do I bring it up? Because it will probably end up being the most exciting thing that happens to San Diego all season, as they continue to duke it out in their mile-long park and crappy division.

A.J. Burnett and the Info Mask
According to "noted orthopedic surgeon" (Medical Note: these guys tend to be real jerks,) Dr. James Andrews, A.J. Burnett has no structural damage in his arm. Instead, he’s suffered a ‘reoccurrence’ of his Spring Training injury – the whole scar tissue thing, the one that, with some rest, would be good for another two years or so. Interesting. You see, there’s nothing wrong with him. It’s normal to make just two short starts between DL stints. Is this the same Dr. James Andrews that works for Cubs Pitching and Co.? I can understand Roy Halladay being "fine" but still missing two of three scheduled starts, but I don’t understand Burnett having "no structural damage" yet not being able to pitch. Of course, that’s not as bad as Prior having "no elbow injury" but being unable to throw a baseball. Or Kerry Wood being "right on track" but with no timetable for a return. This is why the Cubs will always be my favorite team to take shots at – they make it so easy. In case you haven’t been paying attention, I’ve probably beat up Larry Rothschild and Dusty Baker in each of my last 20 posts.

Bank of America Presents the National League Player of the Week Brandon Phillips
That’s commercial he11 right there. But it gets better. The last sentence of this ‘article,’ or advertisement, was so crowded I had to re-read twice to understand it. And even then, I knew something was wrong, so I read it a couple more times and then finally deciphered it. Here, it’s your turn, codebreaker:

In recognition of this honor, Tourneau, the world’s largest watch
store, is proud to award the Bank of America Presents the National
League Player of the Week Brandon Phillips with a Tourneau luxury Swiss
timepiece.

Ok? Is Brandon Phillips a dude or a corporation? And did you know that Bank of America – one of the largest banks in the world – started out as an immigrants "Bank of Italy," and took off after the Great San Francisco Earthquake, somewhere around 1911?

Boring…
When I got back from a long, hard day playing Butcher and dissecting little pigs, I decided to flip to The MLB.TV and see what was on. Turns out, jokes’ on me! No games on. I mean, unless you count Cincinnati v. Washington, Colorado v. Philadelphia, and Florida v. Chicago. If you watched or went to any of those games, you’re a real fan. Not to take another shot at Bobby’s Fish, but especially the Florida v. Chicago game. Is there a worse matchup then the undisputed worst team in the league (Florida,) minus their DL-riding "Rookie of the Year" v. the Prior-Wood-Miller-Lee-less Chicago Cubs? Probably not. The only exciting thing about this is Carlos "I’m about to lose control" Zambrano. Despite the fact that he managed to give up 3 runs to the Marlins in 7 innings, he has 12 K’s. This is not as cool as it seems, as one half (yes, .5, or 1/2) of the Marlins 8 starters in the lineup are hitting below the Mendoza line. For those of you unfamiliar with the Mendoza line, it’s .200.

It’s generally accepted that if you hit below the Mendoza Line, you shouldn’t be in the Major Leagues. Then again, that’s irrelevant as the Marlins don’t really seem to be in the Major Leagues anyway. Oh well. And Zambrano has only thrown 116 pitches through those 7 innings. At this rate, he’ll still have enough bullets left at the end of the game to pitch two innings tomorrow. At least, that’s what Dusty tells me. Meanwhile, Marlins starter Jason Vargas held the Cubbies to just one hit, walking four in 6.1IP.

Justin; I don’t really think the Tigers will put it all together this year. They need at least one winning season before they make it to the Big Time. But, if by ‘put it together’ you mean, ‘get above .500,’ then yes, I do believe this is their year. I think their offense is a lot more set than the pitching, however. We could use one more #3-caliber starter, but I’m not gonna push it. One more thing for all you commenters out there – leave your website address at the end of your posts. I want to be able to check out your sites as well, (I really do mean this.)

If I see any games tonight I might be back. But it’s gonna be a busy next two weeks, culminating in a Calculus and Biology final on May 10th. Post May 10th, I’m headed back home. A couple weeks after that, I’ll hope to have to podcast up and running on http://www.baseballradioshow.com. Until then, check out Mike’s Tiger’s Podcast at http://dailyfungo.mlblogs.com.

 

Written by mlblogsreid Posted in Dailies Tagged with Ballgames, Coaching, Florida Marlins, Players, San Diego Padres, Stats, Toronto Blue Jays