Kelvim Escobar, RHP (5-8, 3.54)

Miguel Batista, RHP (6-5, 5.02)

D'you think Melvin could maybe do us all a favour, and get himself ejected, this time, in the first inning? Perhaps Jay Bell would be less prone to boneheaded decisions like we saw from BoMel last night, which basically cost us the game. When we've lost seventeen out of nineteen games, the last thing we need is the manager playing for the opposition. [I'm still awaiting the Fangraph for that one, but imagine that when Vargas went up to bat in the sixth, we had a 90%+ chance of victory. Where did that go?]

Today doesn't exactly look promising, with Batista having been horrible over his last three starts, posting this line:
Batista: 15.1 IP, 29 H, 8 BB, 7 K, 16 ER
Yep, almost two hits an inning, plus the walks. No wonder he's lost all three, and his ERA is north of five. Not that Escobar has been doing any better in the W column, being 0-6 over his last seven outings. However, only once in that time (and twice this season) has he allowed more than three earned runs. His defense has let him down, with more than half his runs given up this month being unearned.

After last night's game, I'm afraid I'm basically spent, as far as enthusiasm for today goes. We seem capable of pulling out a loss, regardless of the circumstances - a sad reversal of earlier in the year, when we mounted some stirring comebacks. Now, it appears that no lead is too large to be squandered, given the right mix of managerial incompetence and bullpen ineptness. Thus, part of me wonders if I should even bother watching this. However, I'm a fan, and this is what we do... So see you in the comments, save a 40-minute "driving to work" chunk.