The Hanging Curve – Baseball Opinion Blog with MLB Analysis that won’t Bend or Break

Yesterday Alex Rodriguez did his best impression of someone who feels sorry for doing something wrong.  Manager Joe Girardi is apparently standing strong with him, although it is still unclear whether the rest of the team feels they have been given a giant enough sackful of money to maintain solidarity; the press conference was as scripted and non-confrontational as a Sesame Street episode.

Trying his best to seem truly remorseful, A-is-for-anabolic-Rod only came off as being sorry for getting caught.  The press was allowed to ask questions, but not follow up questions (to avoid navigating that tricky web of lies).  Rodriguez constantly bemoaned his youth and naïvete, and claimed some sort of ambiguous knowledge of what he was doing:  “I knew we weren’t taking Tic Tacs”.  Yet, he went further to insult those present by claiming:

I’m not sure what the benifit was…if you take this glass of water and say you’re going to be a better baseball player, if you believe it, you probably will be.  I certainly felt more energy, but it’s hard to say.

Apparently, Rodriguez didn’t know what he was doing, but he did know it was wrong, but doesn’t think it did anything.  I can only assume he is attempting to frame his actions under the time-tested legal precedent of “no harm no foul”.  Here’s a tip man:  you don’t take mild, over-the-counter medicine via intravenous injection.  If someone, even your “cousin”, offers you a needle, the contents of which are a total mystery to you beyond “not being Tic Tacs”, and you take it, you are either a complete moron and deserve the public uproar and media circus you must endure, or you knowingly cheated while already making hundreds of millions of dollars to play a game and thus lie somewhere on the spectrum between “criminal thug” and “complete douche”.

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Now that the All-Star rosters have been announced, we move our divisional roundup into the American League East, perhaps baseball’s strongest division.  I must admit, I have been terribly wrong about a few teams in this division so far.

At the top we have the Tampa Bay Rays.  Yes, by some stroke of luck, finger of God or, perhaps, upwelling of talent, the Rays are in first place on July 7th.  Many of the “Rays fans” out there probably don’t even realize that they changed their name this year.  What hasn’t changed is Tampa’s group of budding superstars.  Still possessing the same pieces they’ve always had, the Rays will perhaps become the Rockies of ‘08.  No one doubted the half power, half blazing speed of Crawford or the superstar abilities of BJ Upton, or the abilities of Scott Kazmir, or the incredible K/BB ratio (4.57 this year, 5.11 last year) of James Shields.  What has brought the Rays to first place is the rounding out of a great rotation, perhaps by players playing above their ability (Matt Garza comes to mind), the elevated play of Navarro and new contributions of Longoria, and the hole-plugging play of the Gross/Hinske two-headed monster.  Maybe this is the year for Rays, just recall how the Rockies are doing now and live it up while you can “Rays fans” everywhere.

Boston.  Ever since 2004 they’ve the unquestionable kings of baseball.  This year is no different, they have the returning power of Manny and Papi, the Greek God of Walks Euclis, the best rotation (minus Schilling) in baseball, an incredible closer, and few great young players in Pedroia and Ellsbury lighting up the scoreboards each night.  I have absolute faith that the Red Sox have the talent, depth, and “winning heritage” to take the division from the Rays and anyone else down the stretch.  That’s really all there is to it.

The Yankees sit in third place right now with a decent record, but I would be worried if I were a Yankee’s fan.  Their already shitty rotation got a lot shittier when Wang and Pavano went down to injury, but possibly a little better when Hughes went down.  The Yanks’ idea of a bandage, however, is Sydney Ponson.  Ouch.  I would also be worried about when Joba’s walk rate will catch up with him.  The rotation isn’t the only place where injuries have hit, “Godzilla” Matsui will be down for some time with knee problems, and now Damon has the bug too.  Don’t blame all their problems on injury though, Posada is not having a career year again (suprise) and Robinson Cano is showing that he can consistently decrease his production through his prime years.  Props, however, for busting his balls in the last two months to heroically bring his average out of the Mendoza cellar to a not-as-terrible .252.  Perhaps he could walk a little more than approximately once every 5000 at-bats now too.  Prediction:  Yankees miss the playoffs, finish third.

The Orioles.  My god has this been a shocker so far.  Now, I’m not really that suprised to see the Rays in first place because that team at least has TALENT.  To see the Orioles in anywhere but last place is, to me, a shocker.  Let’s put the team in perspective:  the “Ace” is Daniel Cabrera and the cleanup spot has been manned by Aubrey Huff, Kevin Millar and (breathe) Ramon Hernandez.  Jesus.  Now, the team does have Roberts, who is a pretty good all-around ball player, and Markakis, who is young and a very good hitter.  The only other team in baseball with this little actual talent is San Francisco, who actually surpasses Baltimore by a decent margin in that department.  Prediction:  O’s finish a terrible last.

That leaves us with the last place Blue Jays.  These guys have disappointed me so far:  at the beginning of the season, I was thinking they could make a run for the wild card.  Their rotation (Halladay, Burnett, McGowan, Marcum) rivals the Red Sox, and they have faced an injury to Marcum as well.  Their lineup has been less potent than I would have thought, what with Rios, Wells, Hill, Thomas (no longer), and to a lesser extent Rolen and Overbay.  I suspect this has been the main downfall for them this season; that and playing in the AL East.  Prediction:  change their name to the “Toronto Jays” in attempt to capture the magic of Tampa Bay.  Finish tied for third with Yankees.

Sidney Ponson signed for the Yanks!  Oh sweet!  Sidney “The Hulk” Ponson.

“Hopefully what happened in Texas stays in Texas,” Cashman said. “We’re short a little bit on inventory. This was an obvious move. We had Sidney here in 2006, so I have a little bit of a feel for him. I talked to him after the cleared waivers [Wednesday] morning. … Hopefully he can help us. He threw well for them.”

Oh man, I love it.  If only it had been true for Bush.

In personal news I’ve been working a new job, something requiring me to work day shift like some sort of fucking Starbucks-going yuppie.  In addition, I’ve also been forced to quit smoking due to health concerns..this has proved to be an unforgiving combination; and I’ve spent the majority of the last two weeks pissed off and nicotine free.

Something else that pisses me off?  Gardenhire gets a fine for slow play - even though the Twins have the quickest played games time of all AL teams.

Oh, and my entire fantasy team is on the disabled list.

I can hear the wheelchairs creaking in my head.

There’s no better way to build the media-fueled rivalry than a high profile murder! Pushing Zimmer over is nothing compared to running someone over with your car after a barroom fight.

Reuters reports:

Prosecutors say Hernandez was drunk when she drove her car across a dirt parking lot outside the Nashua City Hall into Matthew Beaudoin, 29, and Maria Hughes, 21, after exchanging words with them about the Yankees and Red Sox baseball teams.

The spat began at a local bar where Hernandez said she was a Yankees fan, according to witnesses quoted by the Nashua Telegraph newspaper.

It then spilled outside where a group that included Beaudoin chanted “Yankees suck!” when they saw a Yankees sticker on the rear window of Hernandez’s car, New Hampshire’s Assistant Attorney General, Susan Morrell, told Reuters in a telephone interview.

She told Nashua District Court that Hernandez drove directly at the group and did not brake, hitting Beaudoin.

Yahoo also has a video of WBZ Boston local news coverage here, where you can see pictures of this meth-addicted Yankees fan. This whole incident has really opened my eyes. I used to think all Yankees fans were rich, yuppie assholes who spent most of their day at Starbucks without a clue as to where the Bombers stood in the standings. It turns out that at least some of them are poor, uneducated assholes with violent tempers.

Truth be told, nobody would have been hurt if they had all just chilled out. They’re in Nashua, New Hampshire after all! They could have gone and visited the happiest mother fuckin’ place on Earth as far as I am concerned, FunWorld. I spent countless hours there as a child; playing classic arcade games, bowling, trying to figure out if NH tollbooth tokens could be used in substitute of FunWorld tokens (they could not)

Here: an easy visual diagram to help those parents with children stuck in the Sox-Yanks rivalry.

Be safe!

Rich Hill throws ball 4

Well my fantasy team proceeds to get worse every day. Rich Hill is taking the bus to Iowa. Great press conference where they ask Rich what he thinks about his removal from the rotation and he had no idea what they were talking about.

On the move to Iowa:

“He didn’t take it well,” Piniella said. “He understands, but he was more upset with himself than anything else. He’s a good kid, he really is. He’s been worrying a lot. He needs to relax and just go pitch. I think he’ll go down to Iowa, get a few starts and I think you’ll see him back here pitching well for us.”

Yeah Hill’s been bad from spring training. His ERA has only survived because Pinella pulls him so fast he can’t do too much damage. In the meantime Sean Gallagher/Jon Lieber will fill the rotation spot by pitching for at least 4 innings while surrendering 6 runs on 13 hits, a marked improvement from the status quo.

Yanks demote Ian Kennedy. So much for NY and their up-and-coming rookie pitchers. Only Joba is remotely the real deal. Rasner takes his place.