Brad Zellar Saturday afternoon I was approached outside my house by a down-on-his-luck character who told me he was trying to buy a used car over on Pillsbury Avenue and had found himself fifty bucks short. He’d taken the bus from St. Paul to look at this car, he explained. He’d just gotten a job in Maplewood … Read more
I’m suddenly all in favor of giving Johan Santana all the extra time he needs between starts. Do you ever just pause for a moment and, out of sheer gratitude that this guy is pitching for the Minnesota Twins, show your teeth to whatever sort of god you might (or might not) believe in? You … Read more
Sure, a pat on the back to Carlos Silva. That was a decent outing all around, particularly given the conditions (even though I’d think such conditions could possibly be beneficial to a sinkerball pitcher like Silva, presuming that Silva still is a sinkerball pitcher). It would have been nice if he could have been a … Read more
You gotta be kidding me? They postponed the game in Chicago because the forecast was for “cold and blustery” weather? They made this decision in the late morning or early afternoon? I just checked three different reports and not one of them said anything about rain. Come on. It’s April. It’s the freaking Windy City. … Read more
God almighty, did you see poor J.D. Durbin’s pitching line for the Diamondbacks last night? It was mind boggling: two-thirds of an inning pitched, seven hits, seven earned runs, and a walk (2007 ERA: 94.50). This wasn’t a mop-up performance, by the way; Arizona brought Durbin into the game in the eighth, trailing 4-2. It’s … Read more
The giving of thanks: lip service is easy, but really feeling it, truly giving it away, expressing it from your heart, that’s more difficult. Where do you even start? Any fool with a roof over his head, a car to drive, a job that pays the bills, food in his cupboard and refrigerator, a sense … Read more
Ugly game for Baltimore: six walks, eleven hits, three errors (should have been four); a horrendous start for Jared Wright, and an even more horrendous start for the Orioles, who started a season 0-3 for the first time since 1995. This team looked bad enough in this series to challenge the 1988 O’s, who lost … Read more
I’m using some new-fangled technology to write this swill live from the Dome. I’m pretending to be a real writer, in other words. Some sort of big white creature –it appeared to be a dog, with a Target logo on its chest– threw out the first pitch. I guess I wasn’t aware that Target had … Read more
This just seems so wrong on so many different levels. I mean, seriously, what the hell?
Well, other than a nine-pitch first inning Johan’s performance wasn’t exactly pretty, but it was more or less in keeping with the way he usually starts the season. Kind of a strange pitch selection in the early innings –Santana just kept pounding away with the fastball, and didn’t go to the change-up until the Orioles … Read more