Casey Fossum, the starter for Boston, is getting rocked, five runs in one inning. I really like him, though, and think he has a bright future. He's young, left-handed, throws reasonably hard, and the Red Sox don't seem to be willing to trade him for anything. I actually just picked him up for my fantasy team the other day, looking for strikeouts and assuming the Red Sox will give him run support for wins. I'm no idiot, though, I didn't start him today against the Yankees.
The thing about baseball that I've noticed, is that if the game gets off to a fast start for scoring, it usually doesn't end up a blow out. For whatever reason, whether the opposing pitcher just relaxes too much, it seems like both teams end up scoring a ton. That's why I don't think this game is a forgone conclusion, because both teams can put up a helluva lot of runs.
That's not to say this game won't be a bit painful to watch, because it could easily take four hours, but there seems to be some evening out. I touched on this in the introductory entry, but just barely. That's a greatness of baseball; until your team gets 27 outs, the game isn't over. Casey Fossum might get rocked in the first inning, but he'll probably clamp down for the rest of his start, and David Wells will probably get a little over-confident and before you know it, it'll be 5-4.
I'm sure most of you have seen Bull Durham, and Costner says, "Stop trying to strike everybody out, that's fascist, let's get some ground balls, those are more democratic." Embarrassingly, that took me a bit to figure out, but I think I cracked the case. Ground balls always give the offense a chance. That's baseball, though, both sides have to get their chance.
As far as the evening out I mentioned, Fossum had a 1-2-3 second inning, and the Red Sox put up a run, even after a bad call that Nomar got tagged. By the fifth inning the game will be close to tied.
One guy who has been getting a lot of hype lately, in fantasy circles, is Matthew LeCroy. If you aren't familiar with him, he's a first base/DH/catcher type, who can really swing the bat. With all of the depth that the Twins have, though, he isn't going to get probably 400 at-bats. A lot of writers seem to have taken to him, though, so a lot of guys have been picking him up for their teams. The league sucker from my league added him and now has three catchers. Guiche. Yeah, for some people he's an upgrade, but taking the advice universally is pretty dumb.
Well, I'm going to go watch the rest of the game. Even though no one is reading this, I feel compelled to apologize first. I know it isn't good, and I'm still working to figure out what exactly I'm trying to communicate, if anything. I don't know if it's going to work.
Posted by Simon at May 19, 2003 04:58 PM