On A-Rod and poor decisions

The 2009 MLB playoffs have lived up to the entertainment hype so far this season. We have had close games, bad calls by umpires and Chip Carey, Ryan Franklin and Matt Holiday(who looks like Brenden Ryan's older, roided-up brother) combining to blow a game and put the Cardinals in a 0-2 hole, endless TBS promotions for the George (the Mexican Jay Leno) Lopez show, and A-Rod coming through in the clutch (Go ahead, kiss the mirror, you know want to). All of that and we haven't even been able to see the Brad Lidge circus blow a game for Philly yet. It's getting exciting.


First of all the Cardinals series, it is the perfect example of you can't base the playoff predictions off of anything that happens in the regular season. In game one, Chris Carpenter vs. Randy (dances with) Wolf. Carpenter is a Cy Young award candidate this year and Randy Wolf is a poor man's Ted Lilly. Somehow, the Dodgers jump on Carpenter and Joe Torre adopts the principle of walking Pujols under any circumstance.
In game two, the Cards have the game in hand until Holiday chest-traps a fly ball that a beer-league softball player would have easily handled (what, LaRussa didn't bring in Chris Duncan for defense), then the wheels come off for Franklin and just like that St. Louis is in a 0-2 hole. People in Chicago have compared the misfortunes of this year's Cardinal team to the 2008 Cubs. I completely disagree, the Cubs never even looked like they were gonna win a game against the Dodgers.
 The one thing that the Cardinals have going for them is that LA doesn't have a great starter to shut the door, but it is still obviously a long shot for the Cards.

The Twins-Yankees series provided the best game of the postseason last night in an 11-inning thriller that had a the Yankees winning 4-3 on a Teixeira bomb. The biggest story has been A-Rod's quest to not be the worst postseason player off all-time. Coming into the series he was 0-for his last-19 with runners in scoring position in the playoffs. This series he is 4-8 with risp, and a huge 2-run homer to tie the game in the 9th. My favorite part was the "I can't believe you actually came through" look on Jeter's face when he greeted A-Fraud in the dugout after the homer.

The Yankees benefited from a terrible foul ball call when Joe Mauer hit a fly ball down the line in the 11th that hit nearly a foot in play but was called foul. After the game the head umpire admitted that the wrong call was made and that "no one feels worse about it than he does". As a fan, the umpire admitting his mistake kind of takes the fun out of complaining and talking about how the Damn Yankees paid off the umps. Also the whole 'no one feels worse blablabla' is a bunch of crap. I am not going to feel sorry for an umpire whose only job on that night was to make a few easy calls, but blows a crucial situation when everybody else knew what the right call was.

So in conclusion, I hope that the Yankees had a lot of fun celebrating their tainted victory over a team that lucked into the playoffs, is without their All-Star first baseman, and has a payroll aprox. 150 million dollars lower. Damn Yankees.

I don't have many thoughts on the Phillies-Rockies series, other than to say that I will be watching it. The crappier the bullpens are, the more exciting the games are. And this series has two clunker bullpens. On the Phillies side you have the Brad Lidge & Co. cluster eff, where their most reliable reliever has been Scott Eyre, whom Jim Hendry gifted to them last year. The Rockies are also shaky and have Jose Contreras in their bullpen. Bringing Contreras into a game at this point would be the real-life adaptation of the Buffalo Wild Wings commercial where the manager calls up the people at B-dubs who don't want to go home so he brings in the fat pitcher to blow the lead and extend the game.