Posts Tagged ‘paul byrd’
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When Olympic Spirit Meets The Major LeaguesAugust 28th, 2008
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Like most Americans, I watched in sheer amazement as Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou and tens of thousands of his fellow countrymen and women transformed the Bird’s Nest into the world’s most colossal IMAX Theater, where Cirque du Soleil met the millennial history of China … well, Tibet and Tiananmen Square excluded.
Anyway, politics aside, the opening ceremony of the 29th Olympiad was truly something to behold. And like any good lead, the presentation just grabbed me hook, line, and sinker. I mean, a giant, LED scroll-thingy? It really doesn’t get any better than that.
Sure, I could nit-pick over post-production cartoon fireworks or a computer generated Chinese girl lip-synching “Ode to the Motherland” (or something like that). But let’s face it, this opening ceremony was pretty akin to baseball over the past 20 years: artificially enhanced.
Hell, even the weather was unnaturally altered. A few hours prior to the opening ceremony, the Chinese fired over one thousand rain dispersal rockets into the ominous sky in order to fend off some pesky rain clouds.
Speaking of which, can you imagine Bud Selig launching an air strike against a threatening stack of nimbus clouds hovering about Fenway Park minutes before the first pitch? All I know is that the result probably would end in a tie.
But I’m way off course, here. The point is, you—the 2008 Summer Olympics—wowed me, and I was your humble, mindless viewing servant until August 24. Read more
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I Blame: Everyone.May 2nd, 2008
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Well, almost everyone.
It’s not often I’ll talk this much about a single game, but last night’s Indians 3-2 win against the Mariners in 11 innings had me pretty riled up. It was a classic game of who-wanted-it-less, where everyone tried their hardest to give the game away.
First, there was the listless Mariners offense against Paul Byrd. I know he’s pitching well of late, but: he’s Paul Byrd. The guy is almost as old as his fastball’s mph reading. He has so little stuff, he resorts to a double-windup to help throw guys off. He’s like a starting pitcher version of Joe Borowski. I mean, Wedge trusts Paul Byrd about as much as the public trusts Roger Clemens. Case in point: yesterday marked the second time Wedge pulled Byrd out of the game so far this year, while Byrd was throwing a shutout. You might say, what was his pitch count? I say: it was 78 pitches the first time, in an outing against the Red Sox on April 15th, and 92 pitches, which so far is his season high, last night against the Mariners. Byrd doesn’t have any injury concerns, the Tribe isn’t worried about fatigue, and Wedge isn’t worried about slowly building his arm strength up. Last year, in his first six starts, Byrd averaged 93 pitches per outing. This year, in his first six starts, he’s averaging 76 per outing. When a manager doesn’t believe in his pitcher even if he’s throwing well, that’s a bad sign; when an offense can’t produce against said pitcher, that’s even worse.
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Upon further review…April 29th, 2008
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It’s been a week since I’ve posted, and for good reason: sometimes it’s easy to get too caught up in the early ups and downs of a season, and you (or I) can tend to lose perspective. Once in a while, it should be okay to take a step back and reserve judgement until further games are played. I took a week off, and our baseball data has increased 25 percent; funny how that works. Anyway, let’s examine how the landscape for the Cleveland Indians has changed:
CC is back. Whew. That’s all I can really say about the big guy. Well, I could add that after 14 k’s and 14 walks in his first four starts, Sabathia is back on track with 19 k’s and 3 walks over his last two starts. Gee, you think control and command were the problems here? It’s no wonder he only gave up eight hits during that span (four of which were weak bloop hits). The bottom line: CC is focused, confident, and remembering that strikeouts work a lot better than walks. I expect him to continue like this for the rest of the year.