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Ok, let's get it out of the way first, shall we? Certain things just ask to be viewed time and time again: Fawlty Towers, Tremors, Game 7 of the 2001 World Series, all could be on an infinite loop and I would be happy. Here is another one of those glorious moments - actually, the thread was ready for publication at 11am, but I just spent six hours watching this in all its petulant goodness, and giggling:
There. That was fun. However, Lilly has been a complete different animal, when facing the Diamondbacks in the regular season: his three starts since the start of 2007 have all been quality ones. He has allowed a total of six runs in 20 innings, an ERA of 2.70, with a K:BB ratio of 24:5 in that time. It looks rather more likely that the 2007 playoffs were the aberration, rather than what we should expect tonight. Fortunately, we'll be sending up Dan Haren, who has been phenomenal in his four starts to date, and should have been 4-0, if there were any justice in the world - instead, he has got fewer wins than Russ Ortiz. Yeah, my thoughts exactly; that just ain't right, and I trust the Diamondbacks will require no more motivation for tonight, than correcting that massive injustice.
Or maybe we just need to get Ted Lilly out to Scottsdale. For the SF Gate reports that the Twitter page of Giants' closer Brian Wilson indicates he wasn't exactly taking it easy the evening before he blew a three-run lead: "We have to conclude the Giants' closer was out very late Saturday night clubbing in Scottsdale. There are a couple of posts suggesting he was getting into it with what he called "overaggressive males." His last post of the night is stamped "about 22 hours ago," in other words, 1 a.m. Sunday." Nick Piecoro also notes "This isn’t even the first Diamondbacks-Giants related Twitter incident in recent weeks. Two Saturdays ago, Giants pitcher Barry Zito posted Twitter messages that he and Eric Byrnes were out late in
The Diamondbacks made another roster move today, with Bobby Korecky being sent down to Reno, to make room for veteran Tom Gordon. Nice to have another fresh arm in the bullpen, after yesterday's 12-inning marathon - though it may not have been too taxing. Qualls was the only reliever to throw more than a dozen pitches, and even he was only at 22, so just about everyone should be available if needed tonight. I might be inclined to skip Peña, who had 23 pitches Saturday and 12 yesterday, so we may see Gordon in the 8th inning tonight., if needed.
Finally, tangentially-related to baseball, a disturbing note about the current swine flu outbreak: the World Health Organization today "raised the severity of its pandemic alert level to four from three on a six-point scale. Level four means there is sustained human-to-human spread in at least one country." We've already seen soccer matches in Mexico take place in front of empty stadiums, in an effort to slow the spread of the disease. Being we are in one of the states that borders Mexico, I am beginning to wonder how far this may go, and whether we'll see the same kind of thing happening here. There: a depressing note on which to finish. I'll see you in the comments - I'll be the one wearing the face-mask and waving the Lysol about.
Lineup
- Young CF - presumably a psychological reminder of the homer above
- Ojeda SS
- Jackson 1B
- Reynolds 3B
- Byrnes LF
- Upton RF
- Roberts 2B
- Snyder C
- Haren P