Golfgate

Oh my. Tom Hamilton loves to talk about ballplayers who are great guys. He also loves to talk about how incompetent umpires are. The final of his top three things to harp on is baseball players who do dumb things. Tonight topic of Hammy's ranting was Boston pitcher Josh Beckett who apparently is being raked over the coals in the overly-dramatic Boston sports press for golfing the day after he missed a start. Golfgate! Adding to the fun of that tidbit was a revelation last October that Beckett and other Red Sox pitchers were eating fried chicken and drinking beer on the bullpen bench. Hamilton was beside himself - it was almost as good as Milton Bradley doing something stupid!

Anyway, Josh Beckett was supposed to be proving himself tonight but - nope. He proved that the Indians could hit him all over the park. I had told my friend who was attending the game that I'd listen for him yelling "CHOOOO!!" in the crowd but I couldn't hear a thing over all of the "Boooo!!" for Beckett.

Derek Lowe - ex-Red Sox - didn't seem to get noticed by the rabid fans. Neither did Damon. Lowe gave up 9 hits but only 2 runs. His WHIP is not low that's for sure but he's tied for the league lead in wins! There's definitely something to an old pitcher that knows how to get himself out of shit.

Man, poor Tony Sipp. Gave up another run today, a homer, in just 2/3 innings of work. I was pondering Kevin Slowey coming up to take his shot but 1) He's a righty to Sipp's lefty and 2) He's pitching just under 6 ERA. Yeep.

But that's all right. We've got Joe Smith, VinnieP52 and the soon-to-be-famous Nick Hagadone. My brother says he's not on anyone's team in his fantasy league. I am going to make a suggestion that maybe you should pick him up. His ERA is .87, guys, over 10 innings. And he's pitching more often. Get him while he's not!

Johnny Damon is killing me, y'all. Just killing me. I keep trying to give him chances but we did NOT hire him to hit .171 for us. He's been in the AL for like a million years. He's got a no-pressure position in the field. He should be able to hit the ball. He's not. Well tonight he did yay, 1 for 5.

Kipnis, after having a great last-couple-weeks has cooled off a bit. But he was doin' his thing tonight! He went 2 for 5 with a single and a solo homer. He leads the team in homers! A measly 6 homers but still, he's tops. Let's hope the guys we're paying to hit homers get the message that if the JK Kid can do it, indeed they can too.

Asdrubal is still on a tear, going 2 for 4 tonight with a double, single and hit-by-pitch. His average is .343 now with 16 hits in his last 10 games. I think he might be 7th in the AL right now. He stole a base tonight and it was only his second of the year - once again, I thought he had more. I guess I am just giving him credit for EVERYTHING!

Travis Hafner and Carlos Santana were shut down today. Well Hafner with a walk and Santana with a nice sac fly. But there were a lot of hits today and none of them came from guys #4 and #5!

Choo, on the other hand, was dialed in. He went 1 for 3 with a double, 2 walks and scoring 2 runs. That's 8 hits in the last 8 games if you're counting. And right now for Choo, a walk's as good as a hit. Especially if he's going to be on base for...

Michael Brantley! Dude went 4 for 5 today with TWO doubles! I think that's his best game since...well let's see, the last time he got 4 hits in a game was July 8, 2011 but even then he had SIX at-bats and no doubles. He's still streaky right now - this was his first hit in 3 games - but he's hitting way better than uh that other guy who's often leadoff. So we know what Brantley can do, and we know he can still do it - let's hope he keeps DOING IT!

Kotchman didn't get a hit today (awww) but he did go 0-2, with getting hit by a pitch and a RBI sac fly. We had 2 sac flies tonight which seems like a rarity this year. If guys can start figuring THAT out, it'd be a nice balance between 2-out hits and leaving the bases loaded with 1 out.

Supermanahan! He went deep tonight, which is not what we usually see (his 3rd). And you KNOW he did it with guys on base. He ended up going 2 for 4 with 2 RBI. Guess what? His average is back up to .300! He also was involved in 8 outs. At one point, it was 6 in a row. Hit it to Jack! Hit it to Jack!

So here's a weird and random thing for today. Someone on the message board I frequent was asking for help identifying furniture from a photo in an online article. I found the original article online - an interview with German director Jan Schmidt-Garre accompanied by photos from his sleekly-decorated home in Berlin. I'm scrolling through the photos and I see these:

FvF Productions

FvF Productions

What? Look closer - that "painting" is real, folks. Dude is either a baseball fan, a CLEVELAND baseball fan, or a fan of ironic American iconography. Fucking rad, tho.

I was so blown away, I tweeted it. Retweet me!

So nice to smash the BoSox. Especially that dupe Beckett. Tomorrow is the newly-outstanding Jiminez against Clay Buchholz who has a 9.09 ERA. Ha ha! It'll be so fun if we can get another 8 or more tomorrow.

See you then!!

Radio Chatter:
"Boston, Massachusetts, home of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck and the movie Good Will Hunting. In recognition of that, Rosie, our engineer Mike and I are going to Hahvad to beat up some smaht guys."
- Tom Hamilton

"Beckett is struggling, and the natives are getting restless."
- Tom Hamilton with regards to Golfgate

"All Josh Beckett needs to do to finish this off is order some fried chicken and beer!"
- Tom Hamilton after Beckett is taken out, with regards to...Chicken Gate?

"Hannahan's like a hockey goalie."
- Jim Rosenhaus

"What if Paul Revere would have switched allegances from Boston and gone to the Yankees like Johnny Damon?"
- Tom Hamilton

"You know what? Dave always had a good time with Herb and I. Don't be afraid to look in the mirror."
- Tom Hamilton to Jim Rosenhaus regarding Dave, the crabby engineer

"Had they not had the replay you would have told everyone how you caught it."
- Tom Hamilton on Jim Rosenhaus shown ducking a foul ball on a replay