I’m insanely busy this week. Went to the game Sunday (sat with Philip Michaels), but didn’t have time to write anything about it. So while I have a few minutes, here’s a few notes from recent days:
-
Doesn’t it always seem that when a team is coming out of a hitting slump, that first they can’t hit at all; then they can hit, but not in the clutch; and then finally the clutch hits finally start falling in.
In April, the A’s weren’t hitting at all. This weekend, it seemed like the A’s were starting to hit better, but they couldn’t get the key hits. Tons of men left on base.
Last night, a few extra key hits, and all was well.
-
Most of the guys who were slumping are starting to swing the bats a lot better. I like now what I’m seeing from Mark Ellis, Jay Payton, Dan Johnson, and Bobby Crosby.
- On the other hand, Frank Thomas. He just looks all messed up. He doesn’t know whether to take or swing. Yeah, he’s big and powerful, but Thomas’ best asset has always been his eyes. If his eyes aren’t working, all you have is Rob Deer.
So it’s a catch-22. Thomas needs more ABs to get his eye back, but those ABs are hurting the A’s. It’s time to stop putting him in the middle of the order. Bat him at the bottom of the order until he proves he can do it again.
- And then there’s Jason Kendall. Mike’s rant about him hits the nail on the head. Kendall can’t hit, and he’s a raving lunatic. If you say something he doesn’t like, he thinks it’s perfectly OK to go beat somebody up for it.
Adam Melhuse is the interim starting catcher, and it seems like he’s already provided more value in his one start than Kendall has in his entire Oakland career. When’s the last time Kendall had five total bases in a game?
Melhuse deserves to be the starting catcher, even when Kendall gets back. Make Kendall get one start every five days, and see if he can earn his job, instead of intimidating everyone around him into giving it to him with his temper.
- Which brings me to this: my On Notice and Dead To Me lists. Bob did one, so I thought I’d do my own. Here goes:
On Notice
- Jason Kendall
- The guy who keeps putting Frank Thomas in the middle of the lineup, and keeps putting Jason Kendall in the lineup at all
- Ants
- Poems that are really just a more famous poem with a few words changed here and there
- Vinegar
- The idiots and morons who confuse Sweden with Switzerland
- People who use the words “idiot” and “moron” without a second thought
- Raccoons
Dead To Me
- Spammers
- Trolls
- People who complain I’m not doing enough about spammers and trolls
- A.J. Pierzynski
- Possums
- Victorian novels
- Movies based on Victorian novels
- Onions
1. What about people who confuse Austria with Australia?
2. Yeah, them too.
3. I'll admit I split bananas,
Take Easter eggs and make them dye.
But I never harmed an onion
So why should they make me cry?
Once I saw a salad dressing.
My face got radish, my oh my.
But I never harmed an onion
So why should they make me cry?
Potatoes I've mashed, and berries I've crushed,
I've made an artichoke, and that's not all.
I've also whipped cream, and beaten an egg.
Yes, I've even made a melon ball.
Of all the things above, I'm guilty.
If punished I would know just why.
But I never harmed an onion
So why should they make me cry?
Oh why should they make me cry?
4. If you knew the evil things that onions do to me, Rowlf, you'd cry, too.
5. What about people who India with Indiana, Indiana with Illinois, and the Cubs with the Dodgers?
6. I've never actually heard anybody do any of those three things, so I wouldn't put them on my list.
I have heard the Swedzerland and Austrialia one, though, many times, and it ain't a good thing.
7. Ken, it was a Simpsons reference.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiss_Kiss%2C_Bang_Bangalore#Quotes
8. Ah. I must have missed that episode. The trouble with Simpsons references is that there are too many Simpsons references to keep track of.
9. Vinegar is good for cleaning burnt pots. Perhaps you can embrace vinegar as a solvent.
10. 9. There are solvents that smell better than vinegar that I will embrace long before I ever embrace vinegar.
11. Sometimes, in coversations, I will say "Baltics" when I mean "Balkans" and vice versa. I know the difference -- I am a college-educated adult -- and yet I do it anyway.
So I'm dead to myself, really.
12. Sometimes I mix the words up in "conversations," too, as opposed to more obscure coversations.
I didn't say I was educated at a good college.
13. Onions? Onions?? Are you some kind of moron (or idiot)?
You seem to have a real animus towards parts of the animal kingdom. What did possums and raccoons ever do to you? Surely raccoons don't raid garbages and cat food bowls in Alameda, do they? (I won't ask about ants, which, like Jason Kendall, have gotten on my bad side despite their admirable tenacity).
And vinegar is fine stuff. You need the sour with the sweet.
In short, I just can't respect an imbecile (you forgot that one) who doesn't dislike the same things I dislike. Except for Jason Kendall, of course. But everybody doesn't like Jason Kendall, except for morons.
14. 13 Onions should probably have been on my "Death to me" list instead of my "Dead to me" list. I lack whatever enzyme it is you need to digest the stuff. To me, onions are essentially poison.
Possums play dead. They also die for real. They die in the crawl space under your house. Where you have to go crawl on your hands and knees and pull out the corpse, while being not entirely sure if the dang thing is really dead or just playing dead. Me hates possums.
Raccoons are just bigger, nastier versions of possums with a selfish attitude of entitlement. They think everything belongs to them, including the garbages and cat food bowls in Alameda. They'll walk up to your screen door and look at you like, why the heck aren't you opening the door to my house? Get lost, raccoons.