Give me my money back

Give me my money back

Give me my money back

You bitch

And don’t forget my black t-shirt.

God, there’s nothing better than finally being loose of a bad relationship.  All the bullshit, the harangues, the late nights that go nowhere, the guilt and the uncertainty all fade away in an instant.  The catharsis is beautiful.  And so, in that light, fuck off, Cardinals.  See you never.

Fuck the Best Fans in Baseball.  Fuck the idea that you got some special baseball knowledge infusion from sucking on Tony LaRussa’s wrinkled Genius.

Fuck Busch Stadium and Neu Busch.  Budweiser is as American as falafel now.

Fuck Missour-ee and Missour-uh.

Fuck the fans who show up to Minute Maid and out-cheer the locals.  At least we don’t have to worry about Mariners fans doing that.

Fuck powder blue uniforms.

I can’t think of a single reason to miss the Cardinals or their fans.  I can’t think of a single reason to stop hating them, too.  Well, maybe I will miss them.  It’s still just like a breakup; you miss the bullshit, too.  You sugar coat the bad memories and start to talk yourself into calling them up for a night of strong drinks and weak resolve.

Don’t be strangers, Cards.  Be the evil that lurks.  Be the team we want to see crushed when we make it back to the Series.  Be the one we walk past with our new girlfriend, and give you that nod that says, “Yeah, I’m hitting THIS now.”

And Co-ard fans:  please don’t pick the Astros as “your AL team”.  We already hate you enough as it is.

Probable Pitchers

Monday

Bold prediction: Abad fucks up.

Tuesday, September 26^th

7:05 CT, MMPUS

Jaime Garcia (5-7, 4.25) v. Lucas Harrell (10-10, 3.89)

I swear this is the first time that I’ve done a preview this season that our starter’s statline looks better than theirs.  Holy crap.  Garcia gets smacked around by Altuve, Wallace, Downs and Maxwell, all of whom are hitting .400 or better against him.  What he deserves for being a Card.

Harrell’s been a delight to watch this year.  As much fun as it is to watch a flamethrower, and as frustrating as it is to watch a nibbler (coughHappcough), watching a pitcher PITCH is a joy.  Molina hits .500, and Freese has a homer.  The team as a whole is .313 against him.

Wednesday, September 27^th

7:05 CT, MMPUS

Chris Carpenter (0-0, 3.60) v. Bud Norris (5-13, 5.05)

Carpenter languished on my Fantasy bench most of this season until I finally dropped him.  I think I dropped him for the emotional satisfaction as much as anything.  Gawd, did that feel good.  None of the current kiddos have any extra base hits on him, and bat a paltry .114 total.  Altuve has three singles in six at bats, though.

Bud would probably like to forget this season, but for better or worse, I think he’s found his nadir.  It may not necessarily be all uphill from here, but at least we know the bottom.  Allen Craig (which sounds like a brand of recliner) has two dingers against him, but the Co-Ards hit .251 total against him.

Injuries

Astros

Abad – fresh off the press!  Right oblique strain.  Pain in everyone’s ass.

Altuve – day to day with groin tightness.  Sounds like 7^th grade.

Dominguez – stomach virus.  Being around InBev products makes me puke too.

Escalona – died on the way back to his planet.

Marwin – Ankle sprain.  Trying to find the motherfucker who gave him the extra “v”.

Gonzalez – hammy strain.  Mmmm.  Delicious ham.

J.D. – “bone in hand”.  Which is worth two in bush.

Bud – blisters.  Gotta moisturize, son.

Schreefer – left shoulder.  BONG JOKE.

Weiland – shoulder herpes.

Co-Ards

Twinkie – out after knee surgery.

Freese – Sprained right ankle.  Ankles bend.  His hat brim apparently doesn’t.

Furcal – Grade 2 sprain of UCL.  So his UCL sprain has mastered adding, subtracting, and “Jingle Bells, Batman Smells.”

McClellan – Out for season.  I’d want to leave St. Louis permanently, too.

Westbrook – Is 900 years old.

Prrrromotions!

Tuesday – Shout At A Card Fan’s Kids Until They Cry Into Their Sundae Helmet Day!

Wednesday – J.R. Richard bobblehead night, plus a team poster.  The poster has so many cross-outs and exes, it looks like a serial killer’s hit list.

Speaking of exes, part of the reason this is late is that I took a new job on Friday, and working through the bullshit to actually exit my current one has consumed almost every waking moment since.   And boy, will I be glad to be done with this bitch.  She’s taken my joy and my money and my gat-damn lunch breaks, and now I’m getting a five minute commute and a 35% raise.  Suck it, baby: this is my new girlfriend.

Go Astros.  Fuck the Cardinals.  Forever.

Talk about it in the Game Zone!

As we take our final lap around the National League, it’s natural and particularly cathartic in the midst of this shit show of a season to unload the decades of hate that we’ve accrued for the teams of the Senior Circuit.  Which brings us to San Francisco.  The only problem is, I don’t hate them that much.  And the reason why is tied to two of their most hate-able players.

My mom’s folks lived in Starkville, Mississippi for most of my growing up years.  Originally from East Texas, they’d fled Lufkin (where my mom and dad met) for the Mississippi hill country when my grandfather’s debts accumulated to the point that skipping town seemed like the advisable course of action.  That’s kinda how he rolled.

Once in the college town of Starkville, he started selling logging equipment, driving out into the piney woods that were very much like the ones they’d left behind in Lufkin in order to shoot the shit with loggers, and sell them their next hauler or splitter.  On our trips there, I relished the opportunity to ride with him on work calls to see these huge machines.  As a little kid who aspired to do nothing more than drive a bulldozer for a living, this was something like heaven.

My parents had shielded me from the less than honorable reasons for why my grandparents lived in Starkville, but eventually the truth will come out.  My freshman year of college, the scenario repeated itself: bad debt had added up in Starkville.  The Cadillac that they couldn’t afford, the growing medical bills for his emphysema, the in-home health care nurse who they loved to her face and called her that despicable word when she wasn’t, it all cost money that he didn’t have, and wasn’t making by working as a janitor at the agricultural extension office, the one out in the cotton fields with all the boll weevil posters on the walls.

They’d announced that they were moving back to Texas, and my folks should come and get them.  This coincided with the weekend that I was to move to College Station to start school.  So I moved in a week earlier than expected, no huge inconvenience for me, while my dad drove the Uhaul across I-20 to their new home in Plano.  My mom still hates that she didn’t get more of a college send-off goodbye with me.  I don’t know why she’d complain: she was crying before they got to Navasota anyway.

The debt may have been dodged, but the emphysema came with them back to Texas, and my grandfather died within a year.  But not before he reminded me of his loyalties: in January of 2000, in the middle of a freak snowstorm, Mississippi State defeated A&M at the Independence Bowl, in overtime.  The final whistle blew, and not thirty seconds later, my phone rang.

“How bout dem Boodawgs?”

Ever since they’d been in Mississippi, MSU had kinda been my second college team.  I followed their basketball team to its unlikely Final Four berth, and heard the stories of their great 80’s baseball teams.  Those teams were mythical in my eyes: Raffy Palmiero (pre-enhancing drugs), Bobby Thigpen (the most under-rated closer of the 90’s) and of course, Will Clark.

Asshole.

Clark was (and by all accounts, continues to be) a huge asshole.  He always beat up on the Astros, including his famous first-MLB-AB homer off Lynn Nolan.  But when you grow up watching games in the Astrodome, anyone who could hit homers was appealing, and a player from my grandparents’ town was even better.  I didn’t know that he was chippy, or a sort of proto-Kent, or any of the things that I know now.  He might have worn black and orange then, but he’d worn maroon and white before and that was good enough for me.

When my grandfather died, a lot of the truths that had been covered up came out.  The prescription drug abuse, the emotional abuse, the debts that had to be settled, the vicious racism.  Having already drunk deeply of the Aggie kool-aid, the disillusion that comes with having the veil of childhood yanked aside provided the final separation of my emotional ties to Mississippi State as well.

Having cast off that which hinders, I can now begin to embrace my hate of the Golden Gate bastards. But one more villain remains.

Probable Pitchers

Tuesday, August 28^th

7:05 CT, MMPUS

Matt Cain v. Bud Norris

Cain’s had a great season, and naturally his most memorable outing came against a stronger version of this lineup.  Naturally, expectations for tonight are not especially high. Parades is 2 for 3 against him, so hopefully the law of averages remains in the rookie’s favor.

Bud’s had a rough year. (Haven’t we all?) I’d love nothing more than to hear next March that he’s in the best shape of his life and hungry to put 2012 behind him.  Not to impugn his effort, but something definitely needs adjusting in his game.  Buster Posey has his number, to the tune of .750/.750/1.550.  Yikes.

Wednesday, August 29^th

7:05 CT, MMPUS

Barry Zito v. Dallas Keuchel

Zito always gets a bad rap because of his terrible contract, but it’s not like he’s a terrible pitcher.  He’s very much a serviceable 2-3 starter on an okay team, and a great back-end starter on a better team.  Snyder and Altuve both hit him reasonably well.  Everyone else, not so much.

Keuchel, well, what can you say about Kuechel that hasn’t already been said about Hawkeye in The Avengers: wouldn’t be part of a better team, and certainly doesn’t bring a lot to the table besides moving the plot along.  He’s never faced the Giants.

Thursday, August 30^th

7:05 CT, MMPUS

Ryan Vogelsong v. Jordan Lyles

Vogelsong looks like the sort of schmuck that Walter White would blow up on Breaking Bad.  Hell, Jesse could probably outsmart him.  Bougusevic is 0-fer against him, and only Altuve and Snyder have any hits in a short history.

Lyles is still showing flashes of potential, and lots of perseverance in this shitty year.  Hopefully, he hangs around long enough to enjoy some real run support on a regular basis.  He’s never faced the Jints.

Injuries

Astros

Lowrie needs your support

Escalona: Maybe sitting out this whole season was actually a stroke of genius.

Cordero: Sprained toe, stepping in the shit he’s been throwing.

Lowrie: He’s got a case of TBD.

Maxwell: Bruised finger, day-to-day

Norris: Foot contusion.  Slipped in Cordero’s shit.

Shreefer: Sore shoulder.  Strained it hitchhiking out of town.

Weiland: As a closet corpophiliac, Cordero’s shit was too hard to resist.  Shoulder infection followed. RETCON!

Giants

Justin Christian: 15-day DL, blasphemy.  You think you could have the initials J.C., call yourself Christian, and not get smited a little?  Think again.

Aubrey Huff: right knee strain.  Completed baseball activities August 23^rd.  So now that he’s done coloring, he can use the grown-up scissors.

Shane Loux – Neck strain.  15-day DL.

Brad Penny – Brad Penny on the DL?  Get the fuck outta here.

Freddy Sanchez – out for season with back surgery.

Eric Surkamp – out for season because they finally realized he’s 12 years old.

Brian Wilson – Baseball Dane Cook, everybody!  Tommy John surgery.

Prrrromotions!

Tuesday – Double Play Tuesdays.  Featuring more guaranteed double plays than any other team in the majors!

Wednesday – Price Matters.  No shit.

Thursday – Guy’s Night Out!  Stage an intervention for a buddy! Bemoan the fact that instead of cheerleaders like the Rockets and Texans, we have an anthropomorphic rabbit employed to drive freight across this great land.

My favorite Astros-Giants memory came in 2006.  Barry Bonds came to town in pursuit of Babe Ruth’s 714 home runs, and Russ Springer wasn’t having any of it.  Like the iPhone, edible underwear and Korean bbq tacos, it’s a wonder no one else thought of it before: plunk the son of a bitch.  So Russ did.  And Russ got ejected.  But for one night, the record stood because one forgettable middle reliever wasn’t going to be the guy whose name went in the record books for giving up that dinger.  He became the guy whose second Google auto-complete record is “Russ Springer Barry Bonds”.

What to Watch For:

–          The arrival of Parades

–          Lyles’ quest for consecutive wins

–          Just one week, please lord, just one week without being the lowlight on Sportscenter

Talk about it in the GameZone!

I get an alert on my phone whenever the final score of every Astros game is posted.  Since it comes from the ESPN app, I get this cheery fucking SportsCenter sound when the alert arrives.  That “dadadun-dadadun”  has become the bane of my existence this year.  Every time it goes off, I know I’ve got a one in four chance of seeing a winning score.  It’s like Chris Berman is personally punching me in the nuts every time I hear that sound.

Plenty of ink has already been spilled bemoaning the awfulness of this particular Astros team, and I can’t say much more here that hasn’t already been said better (or more profanely) elsewhere.   So what I’ll add is that it has actually been refreshing to truly and completely stop caring about wins.  And not in that “hey, they’re just out there to have fun” way.  More like a “I can’t even bear to watch this time implode in real time, but I’m glad that baseball is still being played in Houston” way.  For half of each month this summer, if the fancy strikes me, I can walk up to any of the ticket windows on Texas Ave. and get good seats, plop my skinny jeaned-ass down in a comfy seat with a St. Arnolds, and watch some fucking terrible baseball.  And there ain’t nothing wrong with that.

Little resets like this allow us to see what it is we like about baseball in the first place.  Unfortunately, I like good defense, base running and wily pitching.  Shit, what else is on?

Probable Pitchers

Friday, August 3^rd

6:35 CT, Turner Classic Movies Field

Armando Galarraga (0-0, 3.60) v. Tim Hudson (10-4, 3.68)

Galarraga goes for his first decision since joining the major league team.  If this rotation were a shady used car dealer’s inventory, Galarraga would be the C4 Corvette: good at one time, but woefully overmatched compared to the current competition.  Due to his AL servicetime, only two Braves have ever faced him.

Hudson, who I can only assume has a deleted scene in the Moneyball DVD where he shows everyone why Art Howe wasn’t an asshole, and how building a winning team is easy when your pitching is unbelievably good an young, is having another solid season in his mid-late career revival in Atlanta. Only Ben Fransisco and Chris Snyder have more than a couple AB’s against him, and Fransisco is 4-for-6 in their matchups.

Saturday, August 4^th

6:10 CT, truTV (formerly Court TV) Field

Lucas Harrell (8-7, 4.03) v. Paul Maholm (9-6, 3.74)

The erstwhile ace of the staff is one game over .500 and flirting with a 4 ERA like it’s junior prom.  Yah-fucking-hoo.  The good news is that the Braves have a collective .000 batting average against him.  The bad news is that’s over 3 at-bats.

Maholm came over in a trade from the FTC’s this week, and is making his first start for the Braves.  That’s like dropping your girlfriend with herpes and getting one with 20,000 redneck children whose names all rhyme with “aden”.  Snyder hits him well, as does Downs.  Collectively, the team is .205 against him, which sounds about right.

Sunday, August 5^th

12:35 CT,  TNT We Know Drama Field

Bud Norris (5-8, 5.02) v. Kris Medlen (2-1, 2.43)

The 2013 closer has had a rough year, and facing the Bravos is probably not the best antidote.  Several players (Uggla, Heyward, McCann, Janish) are all batting better than .500 against him.   Ugh.

Don’t let the low ERA fool you about Medlen; he’s a converted reliever.  Oh who am I kidding: pitchers put on a Braves uni and it automatically drops their ERA by a full point, gives their breaking balls more bite, and increases their capability to bitch about even the most generous strike zones.  Pearce, Downs, Martinez and Schafer all hit him well.

Injuries

Astros

Castro: Right knee effusion.  I had one of these at Uchi last week.  A bit gamey.

Escalona: Still the season, so he’s still out for it.

Lowrie: Might be back this month.

Weiland: Didn’t know you could get the clap in your shoulder, didja?

Fanbase: Moved from day-to-day to extended DL.

Braves

Brandon Beachy: TJ surgery.  Out for season.

Matt Diaz: Right thumb injury.  Well, if you wouldn’t put it up Larry’s butt, that wouldn’t happen, would it?

Robert Fish: tendinitis.  15-Day.

Tommy Hanson: lower back strain.

Jair Jurrjens: Excess J’s.

Peter Moylan: Out indefinitely, like Gore Vidal.

Andrelton Simmons: fractured pinky. Undying sympathy of the entire duguout.  Sure.

Jack Wilson: dislocated pinky.  EVERYONE PROTECT YOUR FUCKING PINKIES OUT THERE!

Prrrrrromotions!

Friday:

Friday Night Fireworks.  How original.

STAR WARS NIGHT!  The Astros will be playing the part of the Bothans and the little kid Jedis.

Saturday:

Big Night Out: Celebrity chefs! Suites!  Oooh!

Fan of 1,000 Chops “Chop Off”: unfortunately, Chop Off doesn’t mean what you think it means.

Sunday:

Kids Run the Bases.  Only if we get some hits off Medlen.

What to watch for:

Your fingers covering your eyes.

Talk about it in the Game Zone!

My turn to do a preview already?  Against the Marlins?  Again?  And it’s at home?  No stadium jokes?  Fuck.  Well, here goes:  The Florida Marlins of Miami employ both Ozzie Guillen and Carlos Zambrano, and said employer is represented by the shittiest owner in MLB, including Drayton and Kim Jong Steinbrenn-Un.  Everything else I know about Miami involves slow cooked pork and Elmore Leonard novels.

I have to check the calendar every year to see if the Marlins are good; odd year = good, even year = bad.  Fortunately, that puts us in a bad year, so hopefully we can beat up on these suntanned fuckers but good.

Probable Pitchers

Monday, May 7th

7:05 CT, MMPUS

Carlos Zambrano (0-2 HAHAHAHAHAHAHA, 2.53) v. Wandy Rodriguez (3-2, 1.64)

The Fat Fucking Fucker hasn’t won yet this year, though he’s pitched pretty well.  Still, fuck him with a hurricane.  Among current Astros, El Caballo has five homers and a 1.122 OPS against him; collectively, the team hits .306 against Z.  Let’s leave him fucking winless.

Wandy’s done okay, I guess.  /looks around for BBG’s.  Hanley Ramirez hits Wandy well, to the tune of 1.087 OPS and some dingers.  Logan Morrison’s adamantium skeleton hits him well too.  Zambrano himself has 6 K’s against Wandy, so none of that hero bullshit tonight.

Tuesday, May 8th

7:05 CT, MMPUS

Anibal Sanchez (2-0, 2.43) v. Aneury Rodriguez (0-0, 0.00)

Annabelle is a secretly great pitcher.  If there were Marlins fans, I’d feel sorry for them that he gets overlooked at a national level, but they don’t exist so whatever.  Among the starters, Big Johnson and J.D. Martinez hit him best, but overall it’s bubkis.  The Astros have never homered off Sanchez.

Aneury gets the call for the spot start in Weiland’s spot, which is mystifying since he’s arguably the fourth best starter at OKC.  I’d assume that there’s some service time reason.  Consider the 0.00 ERA a formality.  That said, none of the current Marlins have gotten a hit off of him. Small sample size (5 AB) will do that.

Wednesday, May 9th

7:05 CT, MMPUS

Josh Johnson (0-3, 6.61) v. Lucas Harrel (2-2, 4.76)

The Marlins’ erstwhile ace has had a rough go of it in 2012.  He’s still got good stuff, though.  Against current Astros, only Carlos has had any AB’s against him, going .500 with a homer.  Everyone else gets to see him all brand new and shiny.

Harrell’s getting it done so far, albiet messily.  So long as he can get deep into the game, that’s good enough. Several Marlins have hit him well in a small sample size, but only Giancarlo Stanton has an extra base hit (a double) off him.

Injuries

(FOR YOUR FANTASY TEAM!)

Astros:

Sergio Escalona: Tommy Juan surgery

Kyle Weiland: elbow infection.  That’s a weird whorehouse he went to.

Rhiner Cruz: rehabbing a sore ankle.

Fishies:

Jose Ceda: Also Tommy Juan.

Prrromotions!

Monday: Pink Pashmina Scarf.  I’m vacillating between something self-deprecating about my fashion sense (I’d wear it!) and my sheer horror at the thought that this made it all the way through the marketing department without someone once saying, “why the fuck are we giving away old lady shawls at a baseball game?”  Choose whichever suits you.

Tuesday: Double Play Tuesdays.  Which I assume means that Jason Castro bats third.

Wednesday: Price Matters Days, presented by HEB.  No shit, HEB.

What to Watch For

Big Z getting taken to the woodshed.

Aneury’s Excellent ERA Adventure

Mr. The Altuve, Sir.  Have you given him your All-Star vote? Why the hell not?

Talk about it in the Game Zone!