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 [1]. 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.