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"Orcs" with apologies to Mojo. But this one will stick. The Orcs thing, that is.
Robinson Cano, by stark contrast, is quite elf-like. So if he can take out half-a-dozen or so on his own, maybe the humans have a shot.
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Chris Young
"Can pitch for me any time," sez Dr. Grumpy.
"Pitches with auTHORity!," sez Bill Krueger.
"Working the top of the strike zone is an art form," sed Blowers during the telecast.
"I'll take him nine miles before Joe Saunders," groused Dr. Detecto upon Young's arrival. Okay, what he actually quoth was, "One of the kewlest placeholders we could have found," in the Of Chris Young and Barbie Dolls article.
...........
For those who are not quite as much the hardcore fans, and who like occasional Slopballers for Dummies blog entries, we'll offer a little primer here:
2) Krueger meant that not only is Young decisive, but that he "enforces" baseball code during the game. Crowd the plate and he'll buzz you. He is going to pitch ahead in the count, and he's not asking your permission. Foul off 12 pitches and you might, conceivably, work a walk but you are not going to get a cheap pitch. Capiche?
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3) Blowers meant that ... er, actually said that ... if you go too far above the strike zone, it's a wasted pitch, no chance for a swing. And if you barely miss below the letters, it's a 3-run jack.
Krueger gave a little more intel: "He's got a real knack for taking guys up the ladder with him." Contemplate Krueger's observation and it will bear rich rewards in terms of your appreciation of the Chris Young Game.
Ron Luciano once said about Catfish Hunter, "He'd start the game with a fastball one inch outside. If you called that a strike, he'd go one more half inch outside. If you called that a strike, he'd keep going until the ump was leaning into the dugout and calling strikes."
Conduct a little thought experiment, visualize yourself slowly through 7 pitches, and see if you coulda laid off this pitch that Eric Sogard popped up:
And we'd just like to add, meekly DOES CHRIS YOUNG EVER CENTER A PITCH?
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1) What Dr. Grumpy means, we have no idea. That's kind of tough to grok. But we suspect that many, many, many of us agree with him.
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4) Relative to Joe Saunders, yes. Relative to the M's best 5 or 6 starters, no. Let's not get carried away by a mini-series of good starts.
Any chance we can get Young and/or Maurer into a long relief/swing man role once the "A Team" is rolling? No offense intended, Chris, but however well you throw an 83 fastball, at SSI we prefer 103 fastballs. Some of these kids are frightening.
Chris Young is one of the most likeable Mariners I've seen in 35 years, by the way. Oh, how Dr. D hopes that a yearlong spot can be found on the bullpen bench for Young's ample keister.
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Joe Beimel
"I don't care what Dr. D says; he's cool!" said somebody cool.
Um, no.
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Bullpen Generally
Quite surprising how little it's cost us, with Wilhelmsen (wild) and Furbush (disjointed, and coughing up a .370 AVG or so) and Yoervis Medina (crazily overrated) being the go-to guys.
Just f'r instance, Furbush got out of it on Monday because Callaspo hit a screaming meemie into a double play grounder, and that was Furbush's only batter of the game!, and Furbush is the only lefty they got, and Lloyd loves lefties, and ...
Anyway. We've scored 126 runs and allowed 126, so the .500 record is fine. Seems to me we coulda blown a lot more leads than we actually have, so, good deal.
But as the summer goes on, the 'pen (not just the rotation) should get better. If not luckier.
Easy win on Tuesday right?,
Dr D
...when we pulled Leone (after his walk) so Beimel could pitch to Reddick and then Cespedes came up. I thought we were looking at a 3-run jack, at that point. Good for Beimel (my goodness I hate his tattoos), but I have far greater trust in Leone.
After watching Young stump some very good Rockies hitters through the years, I was glad to see the M's give him a chance, especially after the way Beimel's twin, Wolf, felt slighted that he would be expected to perform. Young comes in and said he loved baseball and wanted to play. He continues to be a class act.
This guy had a similar but different reaction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDkKAjyJz8s
In view of the record, and other obvious signs, a pronouncement of the season is necessary.
Here’s the form. Choose only one box then sign.
Its:
□ Dead.
□ Mostly dead.
□ Almost dead.
□ Not dead.
□ ALLLLIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!!!!!!!
__________________________________________
Dr. Detecto
While I think I am like a lot of fans that feel this season is just giving me a real uneasy feeling... I do not know how you can not vote for ALLLLIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!!!!!!
I mean we have survived an 8 game losing streak (although I do believe another one is coming), numerous pitcher injuries that went right at the core of all hope by getting the Cyberus, multiple players unable to hit their own weight where again the players most affected were aimed at our core guys for the future, questionable tactics of motivation by the manager at best / playing favorites against certain players who many of us feel deserved more credibility to start, and a monumental travel schedule with minimal days off.... and yet with all that... we are at .500
We have survived!!! and there are many lights at the end of the tunnel quickly approaching. There should be HOPE.
So again I vote that this season is alive!!!
PS - I still do have a feeling that something else is going to go wrong... but that must be the OLD Mariner fan in me.
I think Lloyd had the Hippy Hippy Shakes too DaddyO :- )
Why let me plagiarize your artwork?!
The Oakland Coliseum is a place so disgusting and disreputable, it is similar to the sort of unsanitary hole in the ground that your average orc calls home. When you talk about the Coliseum, you are talking about routine floods of sewage, groundscrews who forget to put tarps down, no bullpen (the relievers just warm up in foul territory), and a group of fans who make the bleacher creatures look like a church qoir.
(They generally wear green for A's games).
Like orcs, the A's seem to spawn like mushrooms out of the ground. They appear out of nowhere, with no obvious beginning or ancestry. Case in point: Jesse Chavez. Who is he, and where did he come from? Why is he good? The correct answer is that Billy Beane grew him in a dungeon somewhere, just like all the other orcs.
(Is this Jesse Chavez?)
Like orcs, the A's are green.
(Eric Sogard without his glasses)
Like orcs, the A's answer to a dark wizard. Not showing the least amount of intelligence themselves, they at least know someone who is.
(The Green Wizard)
Like orcs, the A's are fungible like bales of hay. One orc is about as good as the next, and the turnover for the horde usually means that the same creatures are not there from year to year, yet they maintain a uniformity of identity.
(Don't try to differentiate them. You'll only confuse yourself)
There is a longstanding law somewhere that says only doctors can say whether or not a person has died. Or at least that's what I saw on TV. The nurse nudges the doctor, hangs her head, and says "Are you going to call it?" To which the doctor does one more stethoscope, throws something, and says "I'm calling it. The time of death is . . . . ."
Of course, SSI rocking the Frankenstein shtick, the situation is reversed., and it is the duty of the doctor to pronounce life instead of death. With Dr. Detecto having dutifully performed post mortems on the Mariners for the last five years, far be it from me to make a pronoucement when I see the creature twitch on the slab while Doc has his back turned and is messing with some beakers.
Remember how Sauron needed to blanket the land in darkness so that his Orc hordes could advance on Minas Tirith? Note how the As never win anything when it gets to the post-season...and note how many As players go elsewhere and promptly disappear into obscurity again.
nm
Rolling on the floor Matt. Its so true.
I finally typed "orc" in to google to figure out what in the world you're all talking about :)
A's as Orcs is brilliant. Fits so well. Kudos, Mojician. You definitely nailed the A's culture.
Cuddly little creatures living in a green obscure land, never meaning to cause anyone trouble in our little family friendly ballpark that flows with food and ale.
But full of surprises.
1.2 billion people saw The Lord of the Rings in Theaters....where were you? :)
Nothing like showing up at your own blog and being shown up by the peanut gallery, ey, Doc? :D
Teasing of course - you started this little romp. :)
Because the alternative explanation for the Mariners would be that they're from Far Kahn or were Hiragen from the South...far away, no one expects them to show up in the important battles - no one thinks about them at all...they're irrelevant. That is until they actually do show up...and then they get clobbered by a dead army.
That they aren't the center of the story and will never partake in any meaningful Ring-Lore.
It calls to us.
Deleted
They:
1. Always seem to have the Ring even if they don't look very tough;
2. Are unquestionably good guys from a quiet corner of the world;
3. Have lots of beer.
Hey Doc! My comments on Young were in response to his effusive praise/crediting Zunino after one of his starts. He really went out of his way to highlight Zunino's contribution to the effort. My point was that he's basically the anti-Washburn. Gets the job (BOR starter) done, and is by all accounts a good guy/reliable org soldier. Hence, he can play for my team anytime! Of course, it could get crowed when everyone gets back from the DL.
And you mean "the anti-Saunders," no?
;- ) Ya, I was kinda following on your comment with the swing man/long reliever shtick. If they can keep Chris Young around, hey, if ever there were a guy who deserved a Yoo-Hoo shower he's the one. If they've got a step stool, naturally. Or Aaron Harang could pop in to hang upside down from the ceiling and do the honors.
:daps:
Anti-Saunders, yes. But also anti-Washburn, who threw Kenji under the bus on occasion.
... and I'll leave it at "yep" so as to avoid misunderstanding you three times in a row. Hope I don't misunderstand you so grievously on everything ;- )
In the northern western part of the important areas of Middle Earth there is a place called Rohan. The King of Rohan, Theoden, is enchanted into stupefaction by a bad advisor named Wormtongue and sits idly by while his kingdom is ravaged by Orcs and various other subhumans from the South. In the Middle of the tale, Theoden wakes from his stupor and declares war on all of his enemies, but his inaction has taken a terrible toll on his citizenry and it is unclear until the end whether his call to arms is too little too late. The crown prince of Rohan is the nephew of Theoden, Theodred, who fights all the important battles, and is the people's champion, but is run somewhat ragged and is not supported by upper management.
So, We have the Mariners more or less described to a tee up to the point of The Two Towers, Book 3, Chapters 5-6. Theoden is Mariners' upper management, the ravaged citizenry is us fans, and Theodred the crown prince is King Felix. But in Middle Earth parlance, this far you can go, but no further. The rest of the Mariner tale needfully veers far off LOTR script.
Here goes: Theoden awakes from his stupor and sets about reinforcing his bedraggled Rohirrim (what he calls his army) for battle. His advisers tell him to enlist the aid of elvish archers (FA pitching) as well as some dwarfs and the other characters that make up your average Middle Earth army of good guys. Theoden ignores them all and gets on his palantir (a crystal ball) for something completely outrageous.
The most evil kingdom in Middle Earth is Mordor, run by Sauron, a relentless disembodied wizard who wants his ring back. His best fighters are nine ringwraiths, led by the chief ringwraith, the Witch-King of Agmar. This is pretty much the story of the Yankees.
In a remarkable coup detat, Theoden allies himself with the Witch-King of Agmar, promising him a quarter of the gold in his kingdom. Agmar defects. Mordor is devastated by the loss. Sauron retaliates by sending out emissaries taunting Agmar and questioning his work ethic.
The ring has been taken by force from the hobbits of the shire (Cardinals from pastoral Missouri), to Gondor, a port city run by men (Boston). Mordor and Gondor prepare for an epic battle for the ring, but Mordor is proving to be weakened by the loss of Agmar. Sauron corrupts Faramir, Gondor's greatest warrior, and turns him into the new captain of the Ringwraiths. Gondor scoffs, and notes that Faramir is great in battle, but he spends large amounts of each tale injured. (Faramir is Jacoby Ellsbury).
With Agmar and Theodred in the fold, Theoden declares war on everyone in his own quest for the ring. Agmar recommends that Theoden hire more mercenaries if he wants to compete for control of Middle Earth. Theoden ignores him. Agmar then takes matters into his own hands, and turns some of the more promising Rohirrim warriors into wraiths by piercing them with a morgul blade (Cano teaching youngsters the screen drill). As the young Rohirrim transform into wraiths, it is unclear whether their transformation is actually an improvement.
Agmar and Theodred win a decisive battle against Saruman in the South. Saruman is the ruler of Orthanc and is a most evil wizard masquerading as a good guy (This is the Angels). but Agmar and Theodred can't seem to rid the borders of Rohan of orcs. The Rohan braintrust then hatch a daring plan to invade the orc den and gain control of Western Middle Earth.
Agmar and the Rohirrim overcome the stench of the orc den, and win initial hard fought victories. Then Theodred, who is something of an orc specialist, prepares his sword, the orcencleave, for an epic onslaught the likes of which will be told in the tongues of men and elves for generations to come. (Today's battle when Felix strikes out 22 orcs with his changeup).