Rob's been dominating the MLC space of late, and this cameo won't offset that, but let this be a mini-trailer for the feature presentation. Misery Loves Company has always been an April-October production. Though other blogs carry on throughout the off-season, we still fend off the pressure to resemble the 24/7/365 sports news media monster, full of sound and fury with the fabled significance.
We'd rather go ice fishin' in the winter and keep just enough of a hot stove lit to keep us warm. We'd rather engage in other pastimes beyond baseball. Hell, we'd rather work on other related and unrelated projects and steer you there. But come April Fool's Day, we'll be here waiting for you with plenty of prose -- equal parts pithy and pissy, to be sure.
Until then, we'll just be getting settled in here. In case you missed our comments on the subject, we've agreed on the terms of the 2007 Case Bet with the usual accusations and regret:
Rob predicts the Red Sox will win 97 games
Whitney predicts the Mets will win 95 games
Boston Red Sox -2
And let there be 24 malted beverages of choice delivered from the loser to the winner. Game on.
In actual Met news, Duaner Sanchez's comeback trail now resembles the Ho Chi Minh Trail, minus the fun stuff. It's about now that we among the Township start to peer at that roster cautiously, helplessly hoping that the bullpen holds fast. It's only March, and there's a tiny bit of tension that wasn't there in February, but it's a far cry from the muscle-tightening that will take place if the Metmen stumble out of the gate.
There's every chance that the 7-8-9 frames could feature Schoeneweis, Heilman, and Wagner; "The Fourth Reich" seems to be a nickname in very poor taste, but strap on the lederhosen when these guys get the ball, because once they start serving up their Bavarian cream, it could get interesting. (You'll note that I avoided any references to a certain infamous Deutsche zeppelin and homonymous usages of the word "worst." I'm just not in mid-season form yet.)
Every analysis of every team at this point in the calendar must contain a few question marks. Some are larger than others. After the performance of the '06 Mets, the ifs aren't quite as fearsome, but they're still there. It's odd how comfortably calm Rob and I both are, just eager to get this thing rolling.
Three and a half days until the New York Mets re-enter my life like a space capsule returning to earth. Expect a lot of sudden heat, some dead air, a big splash, and a lot of cheering. There's always a chance of tragedy, but we've got a lot of good people working on ways to minimize the chance of that happening. All right, folks . . . it's go time.
homonynmous - such a good album.
ReplyDeleteinteresting to note that vegas posts the sox' over/under at 91.5 and the mets' at 89.5 - still the same -2 spread, but a lot less optimistic than the mlc team. feh, since when does vegas know anything about oddsmaking.
oh. right.
Those O/Us are high indeed. They might be decent predictions, but there's not much chance of going over those #s.
ReplyDeleteI'll take the Mets -6.5 in the division with a final prediction of a 9 game spread over Philly.
That really sucks about Duaner. He's got a ton of talent and should be the post-Wagner closer. Hopefully he'll make a full recovery. In the meantime, it's a blow because the pen is going to need to be strong with some question marks on in the rotation.
Today's Richmond Times-Dispatch predicted that the Phillies would win the NL East, with the Braves notching the wild card and the Mets having too many question marks in the rotation.
ReplyDeleteThen I checked the AL East -- they have the Yankees finishing 3rd. Alrighty. I felt a lot better after seeing that, and remembering the blatant anti-NY bias of the Richmond Times-Disgrace.
Oh, and for what it's worth, they predicted that the Red Sox would beat L.A. to win the World Series this year.
It's so nice to have baseball back...
ReplyDeleteI still can't believe the Mets lost that game after Endy's catch.
ReplyDeletelet it go, jerry. let it go.
ReplyDelete2006:new york mets::2003:boston red sox