Tulo Shirt Experiment: Day 3
Well. This has been a quick running success. Day 4 looks promising *cough* Padres *cough*.

Special Update: My Team Doesn’t Suck :D
I’m not sold on Boston. Sure, they’re beaten up the weak teams, but
they’ve struggled against winning teams lately and that’s what the
playoffs are all about. Pitching is getting weak, shaky, suspect… I’d
say they’re the dark horse now, even more so than Texas (who I think
will overtake them).–Jeff
Hello Jeff!
I have a response to this. I’m going to talk about some of your wording. Specifically these:
“Struggled against winning teams”
“Pitching is getting weak”
“Dark Horse”
From the top, here we go =)
they’ve struggled against winning teams lately and that’s what the
playoffs are all about.”
Lets take a look at August and September, shall we?
The beginning of August started with the major team slump coming off the all star break.
The first team we beat out of that slump?
Detroit Tigers
In fact… we won 3 of 4 there. That team spent a lot of time winning around that period, I would not say they were slumping. The fact that we beat them 3 straight is pretty damn good if you ask me.
In the same month we had that 14-1 win against the Yankees. Now you cannot tell me, in ANY situation that the Yankees are incapible of scoring more than one run in a game. Furthermore, you really have to SUCK that day to give up 14. You and I both know the Yankees starting rotation and pen does NOT suck that much.
Also we swept Toronto twice that month. There’s no luck there. Toronto isn’t terrible enough to lose 6 straight. Even teams like Oakland can ususally scurry up 1 or 2 in the series.
Next, series win vs Tampa in the beginning of September. PRE pena injury. Considering that we haven’t won a series at the trop since 2007, thats big. VERY big.
If you’re not sold, we have two series to prove it: Angels and Yankees.
Done deal.
Also… prove to me Texas isn’t slumping hardcore. They beat the Indians… who I consider the Pirates of the AL right now, they don’t have much of a team left.
Other than that, they beat… Baltimore and Toronto, what do you know, the teams we beat. You have to notice that clear 7-0 loss to baltimore though… I think thats far worse than losing to the White Sox.
Next they go up against a pitcher who is 0-4 with Seattle. Then against the A’s, who by the way beat them 3 straight and swept last time they played.
Weak?
I say so.
Lets start out with the NEW pen member. Billy Wagner. Take a look at his pitching lately and try and tell me he’s been terrible.
Clay Buchholz has been solid lately, he found his groove and he seems to be working much better.
Quote from MLB.com:
“Buchholz won his fourth consecutive decision last Tuesday, shutting out
the Orioles over seven innings of three-hit ball at Fenway Park.”
“The 25-year-old right-hander is 4-2 with a 3.00 ERA in seven outings since Aug. 8, posting six quality starts over that span.”
Thats right, six of seven were QS. I don’t see shakey.
Beckett is looking to bounce back. You can’t really take him as the whole team. EVEN ROY HALLADAY had a slump. It happens
Jon Lester: if you can’t tell me he is solid, who is?
Quote:
“The lefty has been utterly dominant for more than three months. In an
18-start run that began on May 31, Lester is 9-2 with a 2.25 ERA. He
has given up one earned run or less 10 times over that span. In his
last start, he became the 10th pitcher in Sox history to notch 200
strikeouts in a season. In that win over the White Sox, Lester fired
seven shutout innings, walking two and striking out eight. Lester is
21-5 lifetime at Fenway.”
I see solid as a rock, shakey does not exist.
The only real problem I see is the 4 spot. Once Wakefield is back for good I wouldn’t worry about it.
So there was once a stat calculated, essentially a combination between “Well hit average” and “chase rate”. Basically how many pitchers fool hitters into swinging at a bad pitch and inducing a weak hit or a swing and miss.
Tim Wakefield tops that stat.
Byrd looked OK but he’s really just a replacement.
The bullpen is on and off. The only person I worry for is Okijima. The rest are solid and Papelbon has gotten BETTER not worse.
So essentially.. you have the solid 2 and 3, the questionable and likely to bounce back 1, and the open 4 spot. If Beckett bounces back, which he is liable to do before October, you get a solid 1,2,3 and a sketch 4. Sounds pretty good to me. You don’t need to win 4 straight to win a series.
So Jeff..
Dark Horse?
Has Boston, post 2004, EVER been the Dark Horse?
I don’t think so buddy.
-Mike
Tulo Shirt Experiment: Day 2
Well HELLO THERE folks.


The Completely Necessary Jeter Post
OK I need to clean this post before I start


Tulo Shirt!
Boy did he recover… Unfortunately for Tampa Bay, he recovered after leaving. Good going guys.


d games.
I’m not a football guy…
I had things to do…. Don’t blame me.
I had a long weekend, so I was busy (meaning I was too lazy to post)…


Why does “YAY! Jason Giambi!” sound really wrong?
Lets get this out of the way. Like a timeout, its over faster if you just get it done now.


Zambrano struggles
I think my Tulo shirt is good luck o.o
I don’t know if you guys remember my story of that huge Sox winning streak, and how I refused to wear anything other than a Sox shirt (although I DO have 5 Sox shirts, different shirts mind you). That’d be way too hard with only one shirt for the Rox.
Anyway… lets get down to buisness
I don’t know what you thought when Papelbon came in with the bases loaded in the 8th but I wasn’t exactly relaxing. Okajima had a rare terrible inning, giving up runs and loading the bases. Papelbon had other ideas.
Papelbon comes in and gets a 1-2-3 for him. To be fair, Ellsbury made a terrific diving catch in shallow center unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Then again, its Ellsbury, why am I surprised?
9th Inning and what do you know: ANOTHER 1-2-3 FROM PAPS. I’m astounded. So
astounded I may have to wear my Papelbon jersey even though it’s like 90 degrees outside.
Guess what we can do folks? We can take the rays out of the race for good this season. Oh yeah, that’s no joke. I’m hoping for this.
If only we could take out Texas in the process.
TONIGHT…. Beckett. I hope for October Beckett, mostly because the current Beckett is not amusing me. The Current Beckett, who I shall dub FailBeckett, is seriously not helping me. He is giving me cardiac arrest during games because of his pitching, and he is killing my fantasy baseball stats. Not cool man.
So above, we see Mr. Gonzales.
Yes.
Hello there Carlos.
Are you ok?
Are you done dropping steak knives on your hand?
You are?
Ok good. Lets get back to the game.
Carlos was back in within a few innings. Two run jack. Yeah I think he’s still got it.
(He’s on my fantasy team for the final stretch, he better still have it)
Helton followed up later with his own dinger. No, not the stupid purple dinosaur mascot.
Carlos had the more impressive one. It didn’t float. It was a PURE LINE DRIVE to the upper deck in right. That’s power folks. No disputing
De La Rosa scared the hell out me for about. ONE INNING.
He gave up two runs and i proceeded to sweat profusely.
Then the inning ended and De La Rosa got slapped in the head by someone. Probably Apodaca or Tracy.
For the next 5 innings he held the Mets to ONE HIT.
Brilliant.
That’s recovery. That’s calming down. Every pitcher should be able to do that.
TONIGHT… Jiminez, the crazy power ace. Two duels with Lincecum in his last two starts, Did awesomely in both but only won one of them. He should have some fun with this Mets lineup.
ANYWAY:
In other news… I root for the Phils this week, with the exception of the one game Zito starts. I hope the Giants lose AFTER Zito exits because he’s on my fantasy roster.
Cole Hamels pitched up a storm, two hitting the giants and putting the Rockies up one game. Nice. I expect more of this brilliance until you play Colorado. Then slump, I’ll be superhappy.
Lets see some butt kicking tonight. I’ve got my TV and PC set up next to each other and you bet I’ll be watching both games at the same time.
Three hours of Anthropology today is going to make my brain explode,
-Mike
VISUAL CHANGES!
Yeah, you may have noticed some visual flair all up in my blog.
On the plus side, they are both quite awesome.
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