Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged

Let’s face it, I have no idea what I’m doing with the pitching side of this game, how are you supposed to get a handle on it when the likes of big, fat Sir Sidney Ponson pitches 6 shutout innings and combines with three relievers, the likes of Farnsworth and Igawa for crying out loud, to blank the Mets after getting stuffed earlier in the day? Equally big and fat Bartolo Colon has value yet Clayton Kershaw and Homer Bailey do not, going a combined 0-6 or so since they came up from the minors, and in Bailey’s case, going back down again. I have picked up a few spot start wins from Seth McClung, Scott Baker, Manny Parra, came up empty with Justin Masterson and Darrell Rasner but even the wins didn’t help much with WHIP and ERA and the losses certainly didn’t, picked up a couple of saves but overall the relievers, once again, instead of supporting WHIP and ERA, trashed it. These two categories are now just about set in stone and it looks like I have to try to chase wins, saves(difficult) and Ks. Harang sucked again, I can’t believe that the 411 and Fantasy Focus guys are still saying hold on to this guy, more than that they say they would spend a No.1 waiver claim on him if he hit the wire?!? I can’t see me hanging onto him for longer than two more crappy starts, he’s showing no sign of turning it around and neither are the Reds. Joba Chamberlain is starting to deliver on the hype, the pitch count is gone and he’s going to deep enough to deliver wins and not just Ks.
Changed things up a little on the hitting side, mostly in response to a down week last week, when Griffey was cold and Utley was stone, stone cold but they weren’t on their own. Jettisoned Ludwick as his streak seems to have come to an unceremonious end, picked up and dropped Eric Chavez and Bobby Crosby for Mondays and Thursdays, back with Peralta at SS and picked up Scott Rolen at 3rd, as cover for Glaus, but at the moment he is first in the firing line if a better bet hits the wire at any position, also grabbed Jose Guillen for the outfield but he’s about 5th or 6th on the depth chart as just about everyone has warmed up and Granderson is incandescent batting over .500 for the past week.

Having lamented the imminent demise of ‘Starstuff’ in my astronomy blog it now seems that ‘The Melrose Line’ will have disappeared from podland with Barry Melrose going to the Tampa Bay Lightning as coach. I don’t doubt that this is a good move for Melrose as there is a reasonable level of talent there to work with, Lecavalier, St Louis, Boyle, Prospal et al and he must have felt something of an irrelevance at ESPN given their level of coverage of the NHL. However from a personal point of view there are vanishingly few quality podcasts available on ice hockey and the loss of even one is a great disappointment. At least the watchability of post-game interviews should increase significantly with Melrose’s return to the coaching ranks.

I suppose it was a case of there never being good news without accompanying bad news; the good news being that it was a race all the way to the end with the two lead cars, from different manufacturers, finishing on the same lap, a long overdue win for McNish and, according to the Eurosport commentators, a number of manufacturers not directly represented sniffing around and offering the propect of future involvement. The bad news being the discrepancy between diesel and petrol power in LMP1, leaving the likes of Courage, Pescarolo, Creation and Dome well adrift of the combined 6 oil burners from Audi and Peugeot and in a number of cases behind the LMP2 Porsche RS Spyders. I didn’t gather that there was likely to be a diesel offering from engine manufacturers such as AER, Judd or Zytek so it looks like it will be down to the ACO to tinker with the regulations, something to which they are not averse, to tighten up the competition in LMP1. If the ACO gets it right and other manufacturers come to the party then next years race could be even better.

It’s been a strange couple of weeks, I’m still in 12th place and 10+ points ahead of 13th, I think the team in 14th has mailed it in for the season, but now only a point back of 11th and within 5 points of 7th. That’s not the good news that it sounds like as I have maxed out the available points for HR & RBI as I am leading the league in these categories?! This was not what I expected when I drafted my team, I expected to be up there, particularly in RBI, but Utley is having a career year, after dropping him I’ve picked up a streaking Giambi again and I got Ryan Ludwick as he started to go insane with the long ball. The trouble at the moment is the pitching, still, and that I have 7 players to fill the 8 position spots who are absolutely raking, SS is still a concern, but the bench players are stone cold so I have no one to trade at the moment. I’ve dropped Betancourt for Crosby at SS but it’s debateable if that’s a significant move. If the guys that are doing the biz for HR & RBI continue to hit at the rate they are going, regardless of their production in these categories, then AVG should move up from the 5 of an available 14 points and this looks like the only short term move I’m likely to make in the standings. There is still nothing available on the waiver wire by way of speed or saves, I’m clutching at straws with Brandon Morrow for a few saves as he may get the gig if J. J. Putz goes down with a reported elbow problem, dropped Rafael Soriano, who didn’t pitch last week with his continued elbow problem, to make room. Gagne still on the DL and not a single save from Broxton, Chris Perez or Edwar Ramirez. Starting pitching continues to suck, started three pitchers last Sunday, Harang, (who’s now 2-9 for the season), Doug Davis and Joba Chamberlain for a combined 13.1 innings, 10 Ks, ERA over 9, WHIP over 2 and zero wins. Harang and Chamberlain are both gong again tonight along with Galarraga of the Tigers as a spot starter. Not holding my breath for anything positive.

Once upon a time there was a big fat ogre called Rupe who, after gorging himself again, felt in need of a bowel movement. ‘Kel’ he announced to his irritating little blowhard of a pixie, ‘I need to visit the dunny’, a puzzled Kel made a few mumbling sounds. ‘Kel, it means you’re going to have to take your tongue out of my arse for a while. I’m going to be away for some little while so why don’t you piss off and annoy the inhabitants of Toytown for a while? Plop!! ‘Er, OK boss’. ‘Oh, and whilst your away get some more plastic surgery done so people can better see the impression of my arse in that pudgy little face of yours’.

?Er, what?? Just how is this character justifying his actions to himself right now? Is he telling himself that this was all that a man of high principle could do? And therefore the other 305 who voted against the 42 day detention bill are just not as principled as him? Or are we to expect a rash of by-elections? Frankly I don’t want to be smacked about the face by Davis’ principles whilst paying for the cost of organising the by-election. So he doesn’t like the bill or the tactics used to ensure it’s passage? Pleeeease! Get over it and get over yourself. Here’s the news, it’s a parliamentary democracy, it’s flawed, it’s flawed now and it was flawed before he stood as an MP, it will be flawed after he’s gone but I don’t want self aggrandising, posturing, puffed up twats thinking that they can make demands on the public purse every time the breaks don’t go their way, that’s life on the opposition benches; get used to it or resign and get back to the real world where you can stroke your principles out of the public eye.
Or perhaps he’s just gone completely Tonto?

As a Red Wings fan I’m very happy with the result but can’t help feeling a little disappointed with the spectacle of the six games. The Pens were all but a no-show for the first two games and didn’t dominate for longer than a period for the remaining four; so what’s not to like as a Wings fan? I still feel that this could have been such a boon for the NHL as a whole, if you’d offered this match-up to Bettman at the beginning of the season he would have bitten your hand off up to the shoulder; the best team in hockey, an original six team, President’s Cup winners, a team that’s going to roll four lines just about all the time, a team with very good secondary scoring potential behind a potent top line against a team with two of the best young talents in the game, along with a good supporting cast, a team with some fairly recent history of success and has come through some tough and uncertain times in the past few years to win the East. But the gloss was knocked off the series somewhat by one man, Mike Babcock, he clearly indicated to Zetterberg and Datsyuk that they were to concentrate on their defensive duties and wanted no part of an out and out offensive uprising. This is not meant as a criticism, the result justified the means, he could have been out of a job had he turned his offensive players loose and things had not turned out as they did. Clearly Babcock’s responsibility is to the success of the Red Wings and not the NHL as a whole. Maybe I was expecting too much, maybe the casual fan has been beguiled by the series, one game went to OT, a last minute goal, some physical play and, despite what might be inferred from everything above, some good skill play but a small window may have closed, the Pens roster could look quite different next year and the odds on a rematch don’t look too promising to me. Zetterberg was the deserving winner of the Conn Smythe but when it doesn’t go the winning goalie and the actual recipient is a forward who hasn’t piled up a shed load of goals in the finals then you have to conclude the offensive side of the game hasn’t been all it could have been.