fat EMO kid baseball blog

Wow, an unassisted triple play to end the game and kill their comeback against their biggest division rivals? I’m really starting to feel bad for the Mets. Well, ok, not really, but if I actually had feelings, maybe I would. What a year for them.

Still no news on Billy Wagner-to-the-Red Sox, but let’s hope the Mets do what’s right for New York and keep him.

So far my Red Sox/Yankees series prediciton is right on the mark, with the final game taking place in a few hours. I would really be (pleasantly) surprised if the Yankees were able to knock off Josh Beckett, at Fenway. CC has been good this year, but he is the kind of guy who consistently goes 8 innings with 3 runs given up. He is almost the opposite of Beckett, who could have no-hit stuff one night, and get shelled the next. With the way the Yanks sleep walked through yesterday’s game against a marginal pitcher, I’d be surprised if they won tonight, but we’ll see.

Tough news for the Reds, who are having a season not much unlike the Mets, as their ace Aaron Harang will miss the rest of the season after having an emergency appendectomy. Now I can remember being in elementary school and my friend getting his appendix out, and being back in school a few days later. Although I can see why you’d need to be at 100% health to pitch to those 6 wins and 4.21 ERA.

That’s it for now, back to watching ABSOLUTELY NOTHING on tv. When does football season start??

The Brewers landed David Weathers from the Reds. Nice trade for the Reds, unloading a 39 year old reliever for their choice of minor leaguers from Milwauke. Fully expect the Reds to make the worst choice possible. I still can’t figure out if the Brewers think they can win or not, seems like no matter what they do, they aren’t getting any better.

Finally, the huge trade we have been waiting for! Forget Roy Halladay, the Yankees have acquired 4-10 Chad Gaudin from the Padres. Well, I guess he can’t be any worse than Meat-tray, whom we will probably never hear from again.

Actually, this is a decent move for the Yankees. They only give up a PTBN, and get a 26-year old starter with 105 K’s in 105 innings, and a decent track record, most notably his 3 years in Oakland. The downside? A 26-year old who is now on his sixth big-league team means he’s doing something to piss off someone.

In other trade news, the Mets re-acquired Anderson Hernandez from the Nationals for a minor leaguer, and the Nationals acquired both Daryle Ward and Norris Hopper from the White Sox. In even more news, zzzzzzzzzzz.

A sad day all around for the Cincinnati Reds, as hall-of-fame writer Hal McCoy has announced he will retire from the Dayton Daily News, while Reds management has given Dusty Baker a vote of confidence for 2010 and beyond. I’ll let you decide which one of those is worse news for baseball.

Back now to the yankees/sox, I’ll check back in another 4-5 hours when it’s over.

Nice, short, week in Fantasy Land.  The acquisitions of Soriano and Lackey (and Aaron Cook) proved to be huge.  I am up 9-1 as I write this, thanks to Bobby Abreu’s HR in the tenth after 9 shutout innings from Lackey.  Looking forward to trying to upgrade the catcher position, and move one of my extra hitters for someone I can use more frequently. 

Random Thoughts:

• Finally get wins from Hamels and Halladay in the same week.
• I Wish I could have kept Dallas Braden, somone got a gift from me
• If Carlos Pena could hit his body weight, he’d be a very good fantasy player
• Leo Nunez looks pretty solid, he could be the Marlins closer for a while
• If Ian Stewart gets his average up to .250, I’ll write a thank you note to the Colorado coaches for letting him play enough games at 2B to be eligible.

In other news, the Yankees swept the Tigers, who have nice pitching, but little else.  I expect that whoever wins the AL Central will be making a quick exit from the playoffs.  The Yankees got great pitching all weekend, the best news being the solid start from Joba today, and more dominance from Phil Hughes, who, as long as he can throw his fastball 90% of the time, can’t be touched.  Translation:  KEEP HIM IN THE PEN. 

The best news of all was Boston losing two in a row to Toronto, letting the Yanks get to within one game of first place.  Toronto seems like they want to win enough games to make it tough to trade Halladay.  

Speaking of Halladay, I saw that Phillies scouts were at his start today against Boston, making it even more likely that the Phils are the front-runner in the trade sweepstakes right now….only 12 days til the trading deadline, it’s like counting down to Christmas.

Thoughts on last night’s game

• Rain at a Yankee game….again….
• Looks like we have to live with Texeira’s streakiness
• A-Rod is back in midseason form
• Phil Hughes is as good as anyone right now…6 K’s…and really 7 as he threw a perfect pitch to Brian Anderson that was called a ball
• You never know what to expect from Burnett
• Unless they are playing Boston or Anaheim, you really get the feeling this team can come back in any game
• Hey did anyone else notice that the Yanks actually beat a starter they had never seen before?
• The Tigers have a decent team, but this is the class of the AL Central?  There is a major gap between the AL East and the other divisions.