Yesterday was disappointing, to say the least.
I made the first big mistake in 2019.
I had Jose Quintana and Jake Odorizzi out of the lineup at 5 p.m. I was going to play it safe.
But then, Firestine had a bad afternoon start from first-overall pick Yusei Kikuchi, and I thought, “Well, what the hell. How bad could it bed?”
The answer, REALLY BAD.
I’ll be honest, when I moved them both into the lineup around 5:30 p.m., I thought the two could take losses. I expected maybe something like 4 runs over 5 innings from each. At 5:30 p.m., I had accepted that as an outcome and was willing to absorb the losses. I was more interested in the chance for a quality start and the strikeouts.
Instead, Odorizzi gave up four earned — five total — in 0.2 innings. As he was being lifted in the first inning, I flipped over to the Cubs game where Quintana needed a double play to escape the first with just 2 runs in. I sighed and thought about how lucky I was. Perhaps he can just manage to get through the next couple innings? I thought foolishly to myself.
Nope. Quintana gave up eight earned in 3 innings.
What’s that equal? Well, that took my then-league-best 2.06 ERA and inflated it to a 3.22. That still respectable and if that holds for a season, it would be right in line with the best ERAs posted yearly.
Still, it’s hard to accept that jump because of one “Why the hell not?” mistake.
Even worse, Bryce Harper and Mike Moustakas did absolutely nothing against these pitchers. It's one thing to have the pitcher blow up; it's another to have their only success come against your hitters.
MO-CHOO-CYCLE
Oh, boy. A day after I hand-picked the worst players on Choo’s team and ignored the great ones, he makes a Choo-boo.
Jorge Polanco benched on the day he goes 5-for-5 and hits for the cycle.
It’s the second day in a row that a player has gone 5-for-5 in MLB as Nick Markakis did it Thursday night.
He, too, was benched by the Bombers.
Honestly, I was joking above, because it’s tough to blame anyone for these benches. It’s early on and we’re still trying to figure out our teams.
Who is for real?
Who is a bust?
Who can we trust daily?
These are the questions that plague us over these first couple weeks.
AL’S BEST? OR WORST?
The preseason poll had Big Ol’ Country Breakfast and Crox Sox as the two teams battling for first place in the American League in 2019.
If things don’t change drastically over the final two days of this first matchup, they’re going to be battling for last place instead.
Breakfast is staring at a 17-3-2 deficit against Lebowski heading into Saturday, while the Crox Sox are losing the World Series rematch to Cheese 14-6-2.
Anything can happen in this — I was leading 12-6 over Firestine Friday morning and now it is just 9-8 — so one day can make all the difference.
When wins are going to be at a premium this season in what is expected to be close division battles, minimizing the damage versus forging a great comeback may be the way to go for those two today and tomorrow.
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