Since this is the most inconsistent and uninteresting baseball season since probably 2000, but first let’s just forget that the White Sox have to be the worst team in the majors right now (they started four minor leaguers and featured a bunch of pitchers who sucked yesterday) – it really hasn’t been that interesting of a season. The first three months almost played out exactly as they were suppose too. Sure the Yankees struggled a bit but they aren’t that good anyway, the White Sox were worse than anyone thought, and Seattle surprised us all. But other than that April, May, June, and even July were eerily blah. Then August hits and baseball goes nuts were every race becomes insane and suddenly the Tigers stink and the Diamondbacks are in first place. Now it’s September and the only interesting race is, ummm, none of them. The NL Central is like watching two kids eat too much at a ball game and then seeing who can throw up the most on the car ride home. Not enjoyable.
The AL East, Central, and West races are all over. The NL East race was interesting for about three days but then the Phillies did what the Phillies do… make things just interesting enough only to let us all down. Seriously, is there an analogy or metaphor that can be made about the Phillies over the last five to six years? Are they like that girl who is cute but only wears a one piece? Nah… are they like that guy who gets drunk only once in a blue moon, is a great time, but never drinks? Seriously, help me. I’ve got nothing.
That leaves us with the NL West race, which, let’s face it, is so bizarre that it doesn’t even make sense. To anyone. Can someone, anyone, stathead, Rob Neyer, Tuesday Morning Blowhard, the Neo-Cons, Obama, scouts, anyone, tell me how the hell the Diamondbacks are 18 games over .500 with a negative 30 run differential? Search these Internets… all you’ll get is people going, ‘well, umm, they win?’ No one can explain this. Scouts will tell you that they’re not that talented. They are an average pitching team and bellow average hitting team… I mean it’s just totally weird. Statheads have just said ‘fuck it’ since there is nothing in the world of statistics that can possibly explain their success.
Meanwhile, the Yankees decided to go something like 40-19 since the All-Star Break and basically put themselves in the playoffs. The Onion summed that one up perfectly. The good news is that we call all bet against them when they play the Angels in the ALDS and make lots of money. Thanks to the Tigers for sucking it big time and leaving us with the Yankees. As I said back in July, the Yankees had to play .700 baseball and have the Tigers or Indians do in the toilet. Cue Yankee fucking luck, miracle, whatever it is they have that is so friggin’ annoying.
I guess there is hope, the Yankees have been playing out of their mind for two months ago… that leads to VFLOAB’s Grady Sizemore Theory:
Baseball teams playing out of their mind will only play out of their mind for two months, after which, they will revert to the mean and struggle to play about .500 baseball.
Don’t believe me? Think back to 2005. The White Sox played out of their minds to start the year. Then after the All-Star Break they played about .500 baseball. Beginning in late July the Indians started to play well, and then in September, they won something like 19 out of 20 games at one point. The Sox, who had a 15 game lead at one point, were only up 2 or 3 games going into the last week of the year. Then Grady Sizemore lost a ball in the sun in KC and the Indians lost something like five of their last six – failed to catch the White Sox and blowing the Wild Card in the process.
This year… well first we had the Red Sox playing out of their minds. Then in the middle of the year we had the Cubs. And now? The Yankees. If we were talking about any other team in the majors, I’d say don’t be shocked if they get cold in the next week or so and choke away the Wild Card. But they’re the Yankees. That’s not going to happen. But we can hope.
(NOTE: We are rooting for the Yankees to catch the Red Sox for comedic purposes).
And yes, I realize that the 2006 Tigers disproved the Grady Sizermore Theory in that they played out of their mind for four months. But remember, even they blew the division in the end.
This was originally going to be about the NFL, but since we’re at 800 words, we’ll hit up the NFL later.
PEACE OUT
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