To Err Is Human, To E6 Is FanFreakinTastic

What a freakin' miserable day for a miserable freakin' ball game. It was cold, windy, constantly rainy. I think I now have pneumonia, or some sort of ailment. And it was all for naught.

I really don't know who to make the Lame Duck. It's really a tossup in my mind, so I'll throw it out to the crowd, even though I suspect I know where you'll go! (Just leave your choice in the comments)

To me, the choice is like a bizarro 1985 MVP race. That year, Rickey Henderson got on-base like some sort of omnipotent being. And Don Mattingly knocked him around like he was Wil Cordero's wife. Who gets the award? The man who does the setting-up or the man who does the delivering?

1985 Don Mattingly: Cristian Guzman

Pros
-- A soul-crushing, hands-on-your-head, gutteral-NOOOO-inducing throw.
-- A miserable craptacular offensive performance with another pointless sacrifice.

Cons
-- The field was as sloppy as I've ever seen it. You could literally see the lights reflecting in the puddles on the infield.
-- It was a bad throw, but Nick Johnson probably could have done a little more to knock it down, or come off the bag sooner. Ron Darling said that the mud was caked on the ball when he threw it, which would be a big factor.
-- I was at the game, and I thought that Vidro gave up on the play -- that he didn't make an A+ effort to get to second for the game-ending forceout to give Guzman an out. Watching the replay, I'm not sure if that was the case.


1985 Rickey Henderson: Chad Cordero

Pros
-- After trying to give up the game last night, he did his damnedest to do it this afternoon.
-- Walked the freakin' go-ahead run!
-- Allowed hits to the first and third batters on 0-2 pitches. 0 and freakin' 2! And neither hit was a blooper. The second hit was so hard, in fact, that Chipper didn't even think about scoring on it.
-- Is it really fair to give an arsonist credit for fighting a fire?

Cons
-- Sloppy balls in his hands.
-- If Guzman makes the play, he survives.


As the obnoxious TV personality says, "What Say You?"



WTF Frank Senior Moment
Frank Batting Guzman second no longer qualifies under this category. It's just accepted, much as gravity is.

4th inning nil-nil. Brad Wilkerson leads off with a double and Guzman bunts him to second. I turn to my friend and start whining.

I know I have some bunt fetishists amongst my readers, so let's walk through it. We're going to make some assumptions that we can hopefully all agree on.

1. Guzman hits mostly groundballs.
2. A ground ball hit to the right side would move Wilkerson to third.
3. When he bats left-handed, as he did against the right-handed Smoltz, he's more likely to hit a ball to the right side.
4. There's a chance that a ball hit to the right side could produce an error or go through the infield for a hit.

Given that, why have him bunt? He's probably going to slap it to the infielder anyway, and the net result would be the same.

If they had let him swing away Wilkerson might move to third, or if the Gods are in a particularly zany mood, might even come around to score on a grounder to the outfield.

Even worse, the bunt contributed nothing. The run scored, but it would have regardless of the bunt. Jose Vidro scorched a grounder to Marcus Giles, which held Brad. And Jose Guillen's base hit, would've scored Wilkerson from second anyway.

The bunt contributed zippo to the inning, other than an easier-than-usual Guzman out.



Other Nats Crap

--They've made some improvements to the game-watching experience. The music is much quieter. They now display the game performances of batters on the video screen. Pitch speed is now displayed on the god-awful K-Kounter. And the centerfield ribbon boards each display a different league's out of town scores, instead of mirroring each other. Well done!

--John Patterson looked solid. He had 5 Ks, but none after the third inning, relying on a bunch of groundouts. He seemed really uncomfortable with the footing on the mound, but he survived.

--Hector Carrasco looked solid in his season debut. (His first game since 2003) I was surprised that Frank threw him right out in the fire, but he definitely earned a second look at filling the job that Antonio Osuna was signed for.

--Bobby Cox made a double switch to bring in Andruw "Gold Club" Jones and Danny Olb ('Cause there's no K, Vidro excepted) in the place of Ryan Langerhans (who really needs some more As in his name to be authentic). Jones made a terrific sliding catch off a Carlos Baerga liner. Langerhans isn't bad, but I'm not sure if he would've had that one. If that drops, we've got the tying run on first, or maybe second. It didn't. And we didn't.

--Blogger is a tool of satan. And it's post-eating ways must be destroyed. This is about the third time I had to write this. Thankfully, I had some of it saved!