Misery Loves Company: Two Guys Watch Baseball

Picking Up Where We Left Off

Hey, big round of applause and thanks to Lee Mazzilli and his band of dipshits for heading to New York and summarily crapping themselves thrice against the Yankees. That makes 6 straight losses for the O's against New York, most of the roll-over-and-beg-for-mercy variety. I could probably go back and find last season's comments about the Twins and cut/paste them in this space to save myself the effort of describing my antipathy towards Baltimore.

Baltimore. Even the name is stupid. Let's break it down, Night Shift-style:

Bal is almost ball, but missing an "L", which is certainly not something the O's can say after this week. They're also not missing a left-handed reliever, which may explain why Mazzilli chose to let consecutive southpaws face 4 Yankee right-handed bats with the game on the line in the bottom of the 7th yesterday. Predictable result: 3 Yankee runs, including the game-winner.

Tim, is short for Timmeh, the handicapped kid from South Park, who would be a better option out of the O's pen than Mike DeJean.

Finally, Ore can be smelted, and the O's performance against the Yankees smelled. But oddly - and irritatingly - not their performance versus the Red Sox. Neat.

So, Baltimore, a bunch of smelly, retarded losers. Please direct your hate mail to MLC Whitney, c/o Misery Loves Company Inc., Shea Stadium, Flushing, NY, USA.

As for the Sox, we've entered the first real wall-punching, cat-kicking phase of the season for me. Three straight losses, combined with the Yankees' dismissal of the aforementioned O's, leave the Sox 2 1/2 games out of first place and reeling just a little bit. I won't mention the bizarre scheduling that had the Sox flying from Boston to Anaheim for a two-game set (well, hell, looks like I just did. I'll be damned.) before heading to Kansas City.

I will mention in more detail my concerns about the pitching staff. The Sox have allowed 67 runs in their last 8 games, and only Schilling has pitched moderately well as a starter in that span. Pedro is struggling to overcome one of the worst haircuts in modern fashion (picture late-80s A.C. Green combined with Eriq Lasalle in 'Coming to America' topped off with a dollop of Carrot Top, only less attractive), in addition to the least effective stuff he's ever displayed. 11 hits in 5 innings against Cali helped bring his ERA to a pedestrian 4.40. And Petey ain't pedestrian.

More to the point, if Petey is now pedestrian, the Sox' white-bright chances of making a serious post-season run just got dimmed to smoker-teeth yellow. Especially if fellow free agent-to-be Derek Lowe can't find his blankie and get back to getting outs. If I'm Theo Epstein, I'm pulling my hair out over Pedro's long-term prognosis, because a misjudgement either puts the Sox on the wrong end of a 4-year, $60 million contract, or lets this generation's best starting pitcher walk for a song with a burr in his saddle (recall that the last burr-assed Sox superstar pitcher won three Cy Youngs after leaving Boston). Better him than me to make that decision.