Where Dreams go to Die
The past few days of baseball have been eerie. Two come from behind victories, when the odds seemed stacked against the Jays, and coming in the place where, in previous seasons, dreams go to die. A scary bad performance from Buehrle (well, really just the third inning. He and the bullpen held it down after that until offense rode in to save the day.) And a scary, scary J.A. Happ incident that led to praying on the field.
Line drives to the head illustrate perfectly just how sneakily dangerous this game can be. Hard objects are flying around at 90-100 plus mph and the players stand so close to the trajectories, leaving little reaction time. And this is a sport considered by some to be sedate or even boring, when it actually requires players to ignore instincts about personal safety and protection. I would imagine that if one actually started to consider what was actually happening, one would be too freaked out to hang in there.
I was also reminded of this:
Well, there goes your social life.
Happ luckily escaped with just a cut behind his ear that required stitches and a sore knee from when he dropped down post-hit.
NESN posted the Happ story on Facebook, and Red Sox fans were offering best wishes Happ. Which was great, until they started congratulating themselves for being such good people and "better than Jays fans". I thought they were referring to the Buccholz stuff as in "Jays fans hating on our successful pitcher" but Tweeps pointed out they were likely referring to Toronto fans booing John Farrell when he came out to get an injured John Lackey. The booing was tacky and lame (seriously, stop doing that), but Lackey re-aggravated an arm injury. And wasn't bleeding or knocked to the ground. He didn't leave on a stretcher. You'd be pretty much sub-human to not wish someone well in this situation. To paraphrase Chris Rock, stop looking for credit for things you are supposed to do. What do you want, a cookie?
I thought they were bad, but then I read Yankee fan reactions on Twitter who called this karma for the spring game where Happ unintentionally broke Curtis Granderson's forearm with a pitch. Curtis Granderson, one of the classiest dudes in pro-sports, would be horrified.
Ricky Romero lasted one third of an inning in the third game. And it was weird. I don't like that they brought him up so quickly, after one outing in Dunedin. It wasn't that Romero was bad- I mean, he wasn't good- but he got kinda squeezed and gave up a bunch of singles that found holes. It was tentative all around- he was tentative and the coaching staff was tentative. And now he's been optioned to AAA Buffalo. My favourite part of the start was the turbo power talk Brett Lawrie seemed to give Romero after he loaded the bases.
Last year there was a contest to win a workout session with Brett Lawrie and I remember thinking "Pray for that person."
The Romero situation disturbs me because I'm rather fond of the guy and I don't like to see the talented not performing. It's a developing situation and I'm hoping for the best.
I have nowhere else to put this- Melky Cabrera is hitting like a damn machine right now. And making this face.
Which is the same face I made when Jon Morosi tweeted me. Twice.