Thursday, April 9, 2015

Baseball's Back

With a lot of free time on my hands I have decided to make my glorious return to the blog since my abrupt end during the fantasy football playoffs last December. For my first post of the baseball season I want to point out some things I've noticed from the first two days of the season. So without further ado baseball is back, and so am I…

Only the Marlins!
So, someone forgot to close the $100 million retractable roof on opening day. You would think that people in Miami would realize that it rains every day in Florida from March till June, yet somehow the guy(s) responsible for closing the roof were caught off guard by the rain storm. This has got to be one of the hardest things in the world to screw up. Just think about it, all the maintenance crew had to do was look at a radar screen and say “hey guys looks like it’s going to rain (obviously). We should probably close the roof… you know because we can’t play baseball in the pouring rain.” Instead, they decided it would be a good idea to test the weather and see if it will miss the stadium. Stupidity level = 100. (This happened to the Brewers at Miller Park a few years ago as well…not surprising)

Also from Miami, how bad was Mat Latos the other night!? He allowed 7 runs in just 2/3 of an inning to a Braves lineup that features the likes of Christian Christina Betancourt, Kelly Johnson, and Jace Peterson. You would've had a better chance convincing me those three were on the t.v. show Real Housewives of Atlanta rather than in the Braves lineup. Latos now has a solid 94.50 ERA heading into his next start in case you were wondering.

Most ridiculous performance from Opening Day:
Kyle Fucking Kendrick. I thought the Brewers would actually win their opening day game because they were facing this joke. I was wrong. Kendrick went 7 innings giving up no runs and embarrassing Brewers players, staff, fans, or anyone remotely associated with the team. The fact that Kendrick was an opening day starter was laughable and the fact that the Brewers struggled so bad against him is a terrible realization that the Brewers may be headed for a long and difficult season. Kendrick put so much fear into Ryan Braun that he left the game after only two at bats with “a rib issue” and has yet to return in fear that Kyle the Great will destroy him. I’m imagining Braun sitting in the corner of the clubhouse with tears in his eyes and curled up in a ball, rocking back in forth repeating the words, “I’m an MVP. I’m an MVP”

Favorite teams of the Tot Heads:
This will be really simple. The Brewers can’t score and they can’t get stop the Rockies offense, which lead to them being swept. The Twins can’t even score a run, which is kind of important in baseball. In fact, the Twins have a combined 9 hits in the first two games of the season, while their opponent (who happens to be the Tigers) have scored 15 runs. To make matters even worse for you Twins fans, Ervin Santana gets to stay home for half the year because of his illegal substance suspension. I’m thinking that maybe he realized this team was going to be terrible and decided “Hell I don’t want to be here. Oh I know! I’ll get suspended so I don’t have to play for half the year.” He then ran up and down the streets of Florida at the end of spring training trying to find anybody who can test him for steroids till he finally found someone willing to do it. I would like to think the first test came back negative and he demanded they retake the test as many times as needed in order to get a positive test.

The other team that is a Tot Head favorite is the Cubs. Where do I begin on this one? The cubs looked awful on Sunday night between not scoring, Lester not being able to hold runners to a decent lead, and fans not being able to go to the bathroom. Now they did get a good outing from Jake Arrieta yesterday in a 2-0 win. However, it’s pretty easy to see that until Bryant and Baez come up to help Rizzo, this team is going to be the same ole Cubs. Just to go back to the Lester not throwing over scenario, I don’t understand how a star pitcher can have such a disregard for attempting pick-offs or even keeping the runners close. By the way the broadcasters made it sound, Lester is so bad at it and afraid to do it that he would rather just let every runner get a gargantuan lead and practically walk to the next base rather than throw over. He better fix that real soon or David Ross may end up setting the record for worst caught stealing percentage in a single season in MLB history.

Seattle is my new Colorado:
For the second year I have had the privilege of watching some MLB Extra Innings package baseball with The Commish. If you recall, last year this produced everything that is great about the Colorado Rockies home broadcasts, which included the inspiration of “We Get Tacos” and the Mike Shaw's Subaru Super Slow-Mo Replay. This year my favorite team on Extra Innings is the Seattle Mariners. For starter’s they are somehow sponsored by the state of Alaska (or at least that’s what every replay tells me when the graphic just says sponsored by Alaska). How do you get a random state to sponsor your professional sports team? I’m hoping next year I will find out that the Oakland A’s are sponsored by the state of Wyoming.

The other great thing I noticed about the Mariners’ broadcast was the great promo commercials, especially the one I have posted a link to below. Being able to see the local commercials and team promos is one of the most enjoyable things about Extra Innings and this one takes the cake.