OK, so that would have made a lousy song title. And it won't necessarily make for a hugely enjoyable season of winning baseball. But it's what we've got. And, perhaps inspired by your cry to “Stand pat!”, I found tonight that it's enough for me.
I had to inspired by something, because it sure wasn't tonight's game. What on earth was David Wright doing with that one-hopper he sorta fielded? Did he really think he'd caught the ball? Did he think the umpire had just suffered a bout of hysterical blindness? If only there'd been a dispirited runner from second chugging toward him, he could have set a record for most easy put-outs ignored. Jeepers. It's interesting how often you still see something new in a baseball game, but I'd rather not have seen that.
As for that seventh inning, well, I'm disappointed but I'm not down. Whatever Dr. Peterson did with Royce Ring, my hat's off, even if it took more than 10 minutes.* Ring made Abreu look foolish, and almost got Thome on an exquisitely nasty 3-2 pitch. (Almost — the ump made the right call.) As for Aaron Heilman, he was by turns overamped, unlucky and bad. Hey, it happens. His pitches still have zip and movement, and I'm still encouraged. Besides, I'll take Ring and Heilman and even our flyer on Danny Graves over no-future retreads like Mike DeJean any day. The kids are learning on the job — as is the still-esteemed Mr. Wright — and it's going to be rough at times, for them and for us. But I see potential. I see promise. And I'm curious — eager, even — to see how it all turns out, whether we get to the good part of the story later this year or in 2006 or whenever.
(You'll notice I'm not including Mister Koo on that list. Time to write Mister Koo out of this particular tale.)
Besides, what the hey, maybe we tired Billy Wagner out in the ninth. Right back at 'em tomorrow, bright and early. Even if it is Ishii.
* And maybe we oughta retire that joke. Watching Zambrano pitch is excruciating, like watching the family dog play in traffic, but y'know what? He's gotten pretty good at dodging cars.
I'm still trying to figure out why any team needs to use 5 pitchers in 3 innings, 5 pitchers who together magically turn 2 runs into 8. Your starter pitches 6 strong, 2-run innings and then… BOOM. Strong turns to crap. That sucked. Dudes, I know it's the Evil G-D-M-F***ing Phillies, but seriously. I take that back, actually. Upon further review, I forgive them all. The Phillies are killers.
As for David Wright's foul-up… kid, you make the play. You don't assume you got the call, especially when you know you're bluffing (come on!). You make the play and ask questions later. The ump is not as beguiled by your handsome mug and innocent, aw-shucks boyish charm as, uh, I clearly am.
Yeah, we've got issues here, that's for sure. A whole bunch of 'em.
I just wanna say that, for as long as Mr. Peterson calls Flushing his home away from home, I'm all for not retiring the 10 Minutes Joke. I implore you to think of all the unexplored possibilities!
Oh heck, that's just blog talk — ranks slightly above plans made at corporate retreats and slightly below drunk talk in terms of likelihood it'll ever really happen. Rest assured we'll never retire anything given the alternative of beating it into the ground.
In the future, according to Andy Warhol, every pitcher will be fixed in ten minutes.
Every ten minutes, a major league pitcher is fixed. Do you know where your pitching coach is?
Rick Peterson, the coach with the ten-minute head.