Sunday, July 23, 2006

Didn't See That One Coming

What to say? Seattle came in hitting like their body parts were falling off during swings, and turned it right around, finishing with a .340 BA and a stunning .424 OBP as a team over the course of the series. The Sox for their part hit .245, although they got on base per usual at .367. Seattle outslugged us .471 to .424. Essentially, looking at those numbers your first thought has to be "well, that explains how we dropped 2 of 3".

The thing is, if you left Friday afternoon at 5pm to fly around the world and came back to find out the Sox dropped two of three, your first thought would probably be "Snyder and the rookie dropped the ball". But of course, nothing could be further from the truth, unless you said "Tito would never prefer Gabe Kapler's bat to Wily Mo's". .

Both Snyder and Gabbard held up well, making the Mariners look like, well, the Mariners - a mediocre offensive team that can be controlled. Certainly, they did not dominate but they gave the team a chance to win, which the relief corps did not. So as not to harp on anyone in particular, since noone performed well in both games, I'll just point out that the collective ERA of the Sox relievers was 7.44 for the series, and then I'll comment that that blows dog. I would rather see Kyle Snyder on the mound every five days until the day they bury my pasty, bloated, seaweed-wrapped ass (I'm just guessing on that last part) than see Julian Tavarez take the mound ever again. I think I've actually said this before, and while sober.

The good part about tonight's game was that they kept fighting. Sort of like Randall "Tex" Cobb did against Larry Holmes. Okay, that metaphor has no real basis but Tex was in Raising Arizona, and I love that movie, and that is the real silver lining today.

It's hard to pinpoint where today's fiasco derailed. Obviously, in the final analysis, you hate to say things like "well, we got beat by Adrian Beltre, Eduardo Perez and Richie Sexson, what're you gonna do?" To me, Adrian Beltre's cartoonish inside-the-parker was just an unnecessary, insulting chapter in a game that disappointed me so many times I actually turned it off to go pull carpet staples from my recently unearthed hardwood floor. That's right; I turned to manual labor instead.

Tomorrow night I won't have that option as I'll be at the Oakland Coliseum watching the team live and wondering between innings how the hell any stadium could suck so badly. I hope I only have to wonder that about the stadium. Looking at the bright side, there's this: A's fans never go to games, and so there are always more rabid Sox fans there acting like monkeys and generally making a drunken nuisance of themselves. I enjoy this, and I think the team does too. Last year Mike Timlin orchestrated the removal of some poor drunken A's fan, an act performed while Timlin simply stood with his arms crossed on the dugout roof taunting the poor hick mercilessly. It was a work of art, and was extremely well received by Sox Nation west-coast.

Oh, yeah, that...

In AA ball today the Portland Sea Dogs were no-hit. Pitcher Miguel Pinango took a perfect game into the 9th when an error ruined it for him. Miguel is not the second coming of Nolan Ryan, so the Sea Dogs are probably not feeling real good about this (like they would if it were Nolan v.2). Still, as DLowe proved, some nights guys put it all together.

My point here is that as tough as the Sox loss was tonight, there were worse outings. It's not much, I know.

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