Cerano, of course, couldn't hit a curve ball.
Watching Wily Mo, I wonder how many times Varitek has called KFC this year. Top him off with sub-par
fielding and you can hear other GMs snickering behind Theo's back at how badly
he got taken in that Arroyo trade.
And then there's the proud owner
of what is now known in Boston
as, "That Contract." Of course, you already know I'm talking about the $70
million in shenanigans that the Sox doled out for the oft-injured,
perennially-underperforming, clubhouse-malcontent J.D. Drew. That deal was
almost as messed up as Drew's name: it's actually David Jonathan Drew, which
makes his initials backwards. Why do you sign a guy who can't even get his own
name right?
What I find particularly
hilarious about this contract is that every single Sox fan knew
signing this guy was a bad idea. I mean, it's laughingly entertaining. In fact,
if you're reading this on the T, take an informal poll of everyone sitting near
you--I'm sure they'll all say they knew. And yet, Theo--whose ego is clearly
larger than any of us ever suspected--signed the guy anyway.
(Ok, the Sox are still in first
place by seven games as I write this, which is why I stopped short of calling Eppy an idiot. But if shopping for Jermaine
Dye at the deadline--just like they shopped Coco
a couple years ago--isn't an admission that Drew was a mistake, I don't know
what is.)
And then there's "that middle
reliever" on the Yankees. Now, I'm no sabermatrician,
but I'm pretty sure a middle reliever who has appeared in 47 games and only has
four--seriously, four--one-two-three innings might be a problem. Let me
repeat that: he's pitched in 47 games and only retired the first three batters
he faced FOUR TIMES. If you didn't know he was a pitcher and you looked at his stats,
you'd think you were seeing baseball's first .400 hitter
in 50 years.
And yet, until the emergence of
Luis Vizcaino, Joe Torre kept trotting him out there as the Yankees' 8th
inning guy, which pretty much sums up:
1.) The state
of the Yankees bullpen
2.) Joe Torre's ability to manage relievers
That Middle Reliever is so bad
(how bad is he?) that when he comes into the game, the pitching mound fakes an
injury. (da-dum-cha!) I bet something
inside of Ron Guidry dies every time this guy throws a pitch.
Exhibit A: Roger Clemens gives up
eight runs in the second--notice how I overlook that performance to place blame
on That Middle Reliever--only to have the Yankees get back all eight in the
bottom half of the inning to tie the game, a feat so amazing it had never
been accomplished before. The Yankees bleed a few more runs later in the game,
to trail 11 to 9. With two innings to play, that's easy striking distance for a
team of the Yankees' caliber. But no! Torre forgot to take his medication that
day, so he brings in That Middle Reliever for the 8th. That M.R. is
greeted by boos from the Bronx crowd, and
reacts by promptly giving up back-to-back home runs to Konerko
and Dye, putting the game officially out of reach.
(Notice I also call him "Middle
Reliever" because he thinks himself a closer. I figure that's the best insult I
can deliver.)
You know things have reached an
unforgivable level when a team's own broadcast booth goes beyond their original
soft criticism of "throwing hard isn't good enough" and progresses into,
"something needs to be done with this guy." That's the broadcaster equivalent
of swearing.
I'm not sure a middle reliever
has ever killed a team's playoff chances the way That M.R. is trying to do. To
add insult to injury, he's also a clubhouse cancer: he called out Roger Clemens
when the Rocket signed on. Makes sense--I mean, clearly Farnsworth has earned
the right to question the guy who is arguably the best pitcher of all time.
(Again, I'm completely ignoring that the best pitcher of all dime dropped an
8-spot pile of dung on the field against one of the worst teams in baseball.
Just totally putting that aside.)
If anyone wants to know why I'm
in favor of replacing Joe Torre--at the end of the year--it's this quote from
Joe, dated August 3:
"I still believe Farnsworth is
going to be a contributor for us."
Speechless. Dumbfounded. Aghast. I could come up with more synonyms to describe how I
feel about that quote, but I threw my thesaurus behind the TV last time That
M.R. pitched. I didn't get the memo that said Torre was now employed by the Red
Sox, but that can only be who he meant by "us."
And that's the problem with
baseball teams: while chemistry is a myth, you still have to have nine guys on
the field that can get the job done. When you have gaping holes like Farnsworth
and Wily Mo,
your team suffers--and so do you. You're still going to watch because you have
to, and you're going to try to talk yourself into the guy each time he comes up
in a big spot.
As you subconsciously move any
objects that can be thrown in anger out of your immediate vicinity, you start
the psychological game in your head: you hope just this once that he
gets it done. You tell yourself this is going to be the place where he
turns the corner; where we finally see what the front office saw in him when
they gave him that ludicrous deal.
But it doesn't happen. He blows
the lead or strikes out with the bases loaded. All can you can do is hang your head, and ask yourself one question:
"What were they thinking?"
And no one ever has a good answer
for that one.
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