The Return of the Fox Follies

I watch as little baseball on Fox as possible. Listening to Joe Buck slip ever deeper into his mind-numbing monotone as Tim McCarver’s brainless banalities suck the life from everything within a fifty-foot radius like some black hole for lucid comment is too painful. They’ve become so bad I sometimes wonder if MLB keeps the Fox contract just to drive people to the MLB.tv and Extra Innings packages, where you can watch just about any game you want.

Last night’s All-Star game was my first tentative step in Fox’s den of baseball iniquity, and the Mid-Summer Classic found them in mid-season form. I came late, not settling into the Official Recliner of The Home Office until the top of the fourth inning, as Boston’s Adrian Gonzalez stepped in to hit. Buck droned on about how the left-handed Gonzalez shortens his stroke with two strikes and hits the ball to left. In the next breath he commented about how Gonzalez, a career .290 hitter, is hitting over .330 this year, and how it showed how much easier it was to hit with the protection of the Boston lineup around him.

Baseball analysts have studied the concept of one hitter protecting another for years. To my knowledge they have found no evidence it’s true. What Buck left out of his expert commentary was the fact that Gonzalez has moved from the worst hitter’s park in baseball (Petco Field in San Diego) into one of the best (Fenway), and that Fenway’s unique configuration makes him virtually impossible to pitch to, given the close left field wall and Gonzalez’s already described penchant for hitting the ball to left field.

That might have been enough to get me to turn off a regular season game, or at least to mute the sound on a World Series game. Given the constant line-up changes in the All-Star Game, I took my chances and left it on last night, in the masochistic hope that McCarver, the Einstein of Inanity, would say something that met his usual standard of insipidness. The Memphis Moron did not disappoint.

After a passed ball by Baltimore catcher Matt Weiters, McCarver, a former catcher himself (clearly from the days before catchers wore helmets behind the plate) excused Weiters with this: “You have to remember, catchers are more used to hitting pitchers than catching them.”

I think I know what he meant, but that’s not real close to what he said. Maybe it bothers me more than it should because I’m still in shock over the worst in-game interview in history, between Mark Grace and Justin Timberlake. (Decorum and my blood pressure prohibit exploring that topic in more detail.)

At least I won’t have to watch a Fox game until well into the playoffs. It’s a sad day for a man who grew up listening to the likes of Bob Prince and Jack Buck when Chip Caray and Joe Simpson are the announcers of choice. To paraphrase the late, great, Lewis Grizzard, Skip Caray is dead, and I don’t feel so good, either.

Beat ‘em, Bucs.

Game Five

Game Five wasn’t much apart from watching the Phillies blow AJ Burnett out by the third inning and their sphincter-tightening efforts to blow the game. (Is it just me, or does Burnett always look like he’s about to either cry, or try to rip your head off?)

Now the real fun starts: second-guessing the managers. Girardi has taken advantage of the leisurely pace of postseason scheduling to ride three starters, mainly because he only has three starters he trusts. That’s fine for the first two rounds, as Fox’s added days off make keeping pitchers busy harder than keeping them fresh. The Series still uses the traditional format, which means bringing Sabathia back on three days’ rest means Burnett and Pettitte have to do it, too, or Chad Gaudin need to start Game Five. This minimizes the effectiveness of working Sabathia three times, since the pitcher who loses a start isn’t Gaudin, it’s Pettitte. Not much of a gain for such risk.

So everyone gets three days rest. Maybe it affected Burnett; maybe not. What’s quantifiable is that he got lit up, and now it’s up to Pettitte to close it out or let the Series got o Game Seven. Pettitte actually prefers five days rest instead of the usual four, and wasn’t sharp his last time out, though he still got the win. Bringing him back on three is a definite gamble. Yankees fans have the comfort of Sabathia pitching in Game Seven, but take a look at the record. They’re 1-1 in his two starts so far, and he’s 0-1. He’s pitched well (3.29 ERA, 1.24 WHIP, 12-6 strikeouts to walks), but it’s not like Girardi will be sending Sandy Koufax or Bob Gibson to the mound to validate his strategy.

At least Girardi knows he’s made a decision and can put things in his best pitcher’s hands. It will be Cole Hamels’s turn to pitch for Game Seven, and he’s been, to put it politely, terrible. Yakked up a lead so quick in Game Three Penn and Teller couldn’t have got the bullpen involved in time. Then he was quoted after the game as saying he can’t wait for this season to be over. Maybe he’s just frustrated and it slipped out wrong. It can’t make Charlie Manuel too secure to know his potential season-saving pitcher isn’t sure he wants to be there. At least he has an option: J.A. Happ was probably Philadelphia’s best pitcher down the stretch, apart from Lee. Problem is, with the spread out schedule, Happ hasn’t started in a month,

I told the beloved Spousal Equivalent I’d officially declare a man crush on Chase Utley if he hit another home run about five minutes before he hit another home run. I just hope he washes his hands after he touches his hair if we’re going to shake, or I’ll spill more beer than I drink from the glasses slipping out of my hands.

Joe Buck needs his depth perception checked. He repeatedly announces pop-ups on balls that are caught near the warning track. It’s like he’s channeling Harry Caray.

A-Rod Watch – two for four, three RBI. His Series average is up to .222. Fair’s fair, and he was on his game last night.

Game Five Tim McCarver Moment – It’s harder to get three strikes than it is to get two.

Game Five Tim McCarver Moment (Honorable Mention) – “In case you’re wondering why he’s pinch hitting Posada in the fifth inning, it’s so he can get an extra at bat out of him, as opposed to waiting for the seventh or eighth.” You might want to mention that Molina only played because he’s Burnett’s pet catcher, and is a defensive specialist. The Yanks were down 6-1; they needed lumber.

Game One

Comments on World Series Game One:

Cliff Lee and Chase Utley are now the Official Favorite Players of The Home Office, at least until after tonight’s game.

It’s nice to see some things never change. The sun rises in the east, water runs downhill, and Alex Rodriguez chokes like Jenna Jameson with tonsillitis when the games get big enough. (Three strikeouts and a weak ground ball to third.)

The Phillies won the game in the first inning, even though they didn’t score, by making C.C. Sabathia throw over 20 pitches. No way he’d get a complete game, and the Yankees bullpen is as reliable as Colin Powell speaking to the United Nations.

When will people figure out Yankees’ GM Brian Cashman is the most overrated person in sports? Ten years of unlimited budgets and he’s never put together a bullpen to support Mariano Rivera, who he inherited. How many key players have the Yankees drafted since Cashman took over? Cano. (Maybe.) Phil Hughes? Sucks. Joba the Hutt? Sucks. Don’t talk about Teixiera or Sabathia or Burnett (who can suck mightily on occasion) or any of the other free agents he signed. It doesn’t take the second coming of Branch Rickey to know Tex was the best player available last winter and Sabathia was the best pitcher. Baseball gets a salary cap and Cashman’s Yankees are the Washington Nationals North.

Joe Girardi has even less confidence in his bullpen than Charlie Manuel has in his. Girardi went through five pitchers to get six outs in the eighth and ninth innings, trying to match up on every batter. Wait till he gets to Philadelphia, where they play real baseball, and he has to worry about the pitcher batting.

Play of the Game – Jimmy Rollins catching Robinson Cano’s pop-up right at ground level after almost letting it drop. Base runner Hideki Matsui didn’t know whether to have sushi or wind his watch while Rollins and Ryan Howard combined to get a double play out of five possible outs. (The five? 1. Rollins caught the ball in the fly to get Cano. Even if he hadn’t caught the ball, he stepped on second to force Matsui (2) then threw to first in time to get Cano (3). Throwing to first doubled off Matsui (4), since Rollins did catch the ball; Howard tagged Matsui while off the base, which counts whether Rollins catches the ball or not.) It still took the umpires five minutes to figure out how they did it and get the call right.

The Game One Tim McCarver Moment—His certainty, expressed before every batter in the ninth inning, that Lee was coming out of the game. Lee hadn’t lost an inch off his fastball, threw 122 easy pitches total, as the Yankees never put two men on base in an inning until they were down 6-0 in the ninth and Rollins made an error. “He’ll pitch to Damon, but not Teixiera.” “He’s pitching to Teixiera because he’s struck him out twice, but he won’t pitch to Rodriguez.” He finally shut up when even he realized he could no more grasp this game than an African swallow can grasp a bowling ball.

Game One Tim McCarver Moment, Joe Buck Division—When describing Chase Utley’s night, Buck noted Utley was the first left-handed batter to hit two home runs off a left-handed pitcher in a World Series game since Babe Ruth in 1928. Joe then added, “Of course, Ruth did it for the Yankees, and Utley for the Phillies.” Thanks for providing that deep insight, Joe.