You see, said my mother the stat geek, players numbers fluctuate.

Chad Qualls’ and drab’s fluctuated upward.

Which is why poor ol Roger was fluckt again.

We’re talking 7 innings of 2 hit, no walk, 9 K ball. We’re talking 90 pitches, 57 strikes. We’re talking 1 Lead-Glove Lamb unearned run. We’re talking 5 of 7 1,2,3 innings.

And I wanna know why on EARTH Phil pulled Roger. Yeah, I know we had a 4 run lead. But he ought to know that the bullpen has been pitching a LOT lately and it doesn’t hurt to have a dominant starter finish up.

But I PROMISE that Chad and drab weren’t the only fluckers in this game -

Adam Everett, you know, Mr. Light Bat, was the spark plug today – went 3 fer 5 (2 doubles) with 2 RBI, a SB and a run scored (plus his usual awesome glove work.)

But there were the downward fluckers – let’s see -
1st inning – Huff, then Scott, left Lamb on first
2nd inning – Ausmus, then Clemens, left Everett on second
3rd inning – Scott, then Burke, left Biggio on third
4th inning – (Gotta talk bout this one – Everett Made Things Happen – bunt single, stole second, to third on GO, score on balk. very cool small ball!!!) No one else made anything happen.
5th inning – Huff, then Scott, left Biggio on third
6th inning – Biggio GO with bases loaded and 2 out
7th inning – Preston Wilson, “RBI man”, Ks with 2 out and men on second and third. Hats off to Brad Ausmus for the nice suicide squeeze.
8th inning – the only inning no one reached base
9th inning – with Everett the tying run on second, Munson FO to end the game. So much for “pop” in his bat…

So big time fluckters – Aubrey Huff was 0 fer 5 and left 3 on.
Chris Burke was 0 fer 3 with a walk and a HBP and left 3 on.

Lesser fluckters – Luke Scott, who left 4 on, although he did score 2 runs
Good thing we have a day off.

I seriously hope we do not trade off what hope for the future we have left for a 2 month rental. We do NOT need another 3rd baseman (Hank Blalock, who has a -RCAA) or Miguel Tejada, who says he does NOT want to leave. (And the Yankees just bought Bobby Abreu for some no-account minor leaguers – call this the Phils throwin Bobby out on his ear). All the folks in the call-in shows want us to get rid of basically every major leaguers we have except Lance, Burke, Roy, Lamb and Willy (don’t ask me why) and trade Roger and Andy to the Yankees for ???? and bring up all the AAA guys. And Hunter Pence.

OK
Here we go
Rotation:
Roy
Albers
Hirsh
Backe
Samson
(remember, we’re getting rid of Roger and Andy – not sure why, but, hey…)

Bullpen:
closer: Jailen Peguro
Nieve
Barzilla (LOOGY for Phil)
(not sure if we can keep Borkowski – lots of folks want Miller, Springer, Wheeler and Qualls gone too – but we need to keep 2 or 3 of these guys because there IS no one else in the minors)
Chris Baker
Travis Driskill – he has a 2.94 ERA with 14 saves – has ML experience and could be the set-up guy

C – Munson and JR House (he can’t catch or throw, but he sure can hit)
1B – Lamb
2B – Biggio (sorry guys, he ain’t goin nowheres)
SS – Burke
3B – ?Huff? Bruntlett?
RF – Berkman
CF – Hunter Pence
LF – Luke Scott
utility – Willy Taveras, Brooks Conrad (switch hitting IF), ?25th guy?

WOW! Now we’d REALLY go someplace with THAT team

Ken Rosenthal says the Padres want to trade Scott Linebrink (set up guy) and Geoff Blum for Mo Ensberg (I am NOT kidding.) If Purpura did that, he should be fired on the spot. Geoff Blum ain’t even Eric Bruntlett. Linebrink is nice, but he ain’t worth giving up a great hitting 3B for.
This here game really was the nail in the coffin. I wouldn’t want to give the Yeccchies or RedSux any more ammo wrapped on a silver platter like the Phils did (where’s Bowie Kuhn when you need a commissioner to stop this kind of stuff in the name of “best interest of baseball” – parity, my rear…)

I was about ready to give up on the 04 team, I admit it. But that team was a LOT bettern THIS team, and the weakness was the bullpen and no decent 4th or 5th starter.

I gave up on the 05 team too, back around June 1, but they just had 3 dominant starters, and in spite of getting shut out 20 times, managed to pull off lightning in a bottle.

But, not this year. Sometimes, you just gotta admit defeat, and do the best you can to get ready for the next year – just like we did after 2000. And trading away all our ML players, PLUS Hirsh or any other excellent young pitcher, just ain’t the way.

UPDATE – Monday 9:30 AM
Yall not gonna believe THIS one -
Purpura offered – get this
ROY OSWALT!!!!! Adam Everett and Mo Ensberg to the Orioles for Miguel Tejada
AND THEY REFUSED!!! (there’s the Richie Sexson trade all over again)

Read it for your own selves – (of course, everyone now denying everything – except for the fact that Roy WAS offered to the Orioles for Tejada)

I do NOT understand why people keep talking about “3 years of Tejada” – and “people” includes Richard Justice, who has a HOF vote as a BBWAA and should damn well know that Miguel Tejada can LEAVE AFTER THE SEASON IS OVER.

I got 3 things to say about this trade that (fortunately) failed
1 – The Orioles will never win anything as long as they have that ownership
2 – If Purpura HAD sent off our best pitcher and Ensberg AND Everett for a 2 month rental of a hitter who is a TERRIBLE fielder, he should be tarred and feathered (nice language which really mean something a LOT worse.)
3 – one of these days, I want to find out WHY this organization has been so down on Mo Ensberg since, just about forever.

FORTUNATELY, either McLane or Purpura has decided NOT to trade Roy. Gee, might could it be that you need more than ONE good pitcher (and that, friends, is Roger) on a baseball team?

Tags: Baltimore Orioles, Houston Astros, MLB

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 30th, 2006 at 9:02 pm and is filed under Astros baseball, Brad Lidge, Qualls, Roger Clemens. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.