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Clearly I am not a prognosticator. SUCK ASS. THIS BLOODY WELL SUCKED.

Nats get swept? Hey, we weren’t going anywhere anyway. RED SOX get swept?*Problematic.* I called the Detroit branch of my baseball crew, and we vented on the phone for a while. So I *feel* better. Until I look at the box scores again.

On the plus side, that little worthless schmuck Joba has a new nickname (we love you, Josh Beckett.)

Oh, and ten points to my brother for identifying the musical theatre reference. Yes, it was from Avenue Q. He wins a set of steak knives, as soon as I get some.

“Happiness at the misfortune of others? Wow, that *is* German!”

10 points to the first person to identify the title quote.

Fun times:Tigers 16, Yankees 0.

Even more fun times: Nats 3, Dodgers 2. (Knock on wood, so far so good.) His post-season chances be damned, when Nomar isn’t playing I actively root against the Dodgers. And of course they’re playing the Nats, so I’d be rooting against them anyway. It’s a relief really – it feels utterly, completely, and totally unnatural to in *any* way be cheering for Grady Little’s success.

Interesting thought: if we win tonight (and I’m by no means saying we will,) a sweep of the Blue isn’t wholly out of the question. Bergmann vs Billingsley is on Tues, and Billingsley is okay, but not wonderful. If Bergmann is on form I think we can grab that one. Wed is Penny vs Hill, and *that* is a marquee matchup. Penny is the ace of the Dodgers staff, but Hill is the ace of our staff. The Dodgers offense certainly isn’t setting the world afire, and we might be able to break through.

This isn’t at all likely, mind you. I think lack of homefield advantage would tell in this case, and Saito has been more consistent that Cordero. But it’s possible.

Edit – And we’re tied. Yeah, that didn’t last long. Come on Nats!

Edit part two – And there went the lead. Now was that nice, Jesus Colome?

Beautiful day, isn’t it?

26 starts, 26 decisions. 16-10. 4.16 ERA, ERA+ 110, 22 scoreless innings. One more win to tie his career high in wins, four more wins to hit the magic 20 wins.

Yes, it’s a great day to be a Tim Wakefield fan.

58-70

Ladies and gentlemen, your FOURTH PLACE Washington Nationals!

Take that, Florida! We’re on your tail, Atlanta!

Unsurprisingly, we’re getting some help from Wily Mo. I was very pleased with the trade; I think it’s going to help both teams. Red Sox had no place for Wily Mo – we’re not sitting Manny or Papi, and we tried WMP in that big RF. It failed. A lot. (And we have Drew, who will be better next year. I hope.) And we got some power from the Nats (via Arizona) which is what we don’t have in the Boston minors. Come to that, it’s why we traded for Wily Mo in the first place.

A note to JD Drew

Sir. Your arm is stronger than Coco Crisp’s. How do I know this? You play right field, he plays center or left field. You’re a good fielder, but he’s a better fielder on the whole. (He’s better than *everyone* this year; he deserves a gold glove which will instead go to Vernon Wells and Torii Hunter.) So yes, Coco’s better, EXCEPT FOR HIS ARM STRENGTH. (Although, this probably has to do more with the positioning of the CF and RF, but anyway.)

So when you ignore the “no doubles defense” rule, try AND FAIL to make excellent catches, and kick the ball away to Coco, allowing the runner to take second on what should’ve been a single AND THE OTHER GUY TO SCORE…

It. Fails. To. Help. Us. Win.

IDIOT.

Oh yeah, va te faire foutre, M. Gagne. (Don’t look that one up, Mom.)

Meow

From ESPN:

“A dejected Franklin, who allowed four runs and seven hits in just 1 1/3 innings in the two losses this weekend, tried to infer that the Nationals were simply lucky.

‘And again he gets a hit, so I can’t do anything about that. I can’t hang my head and say I made a mistake or anything,” Franklin said. “We’ll see how long that lasts — see how long that they keep getting broken-bat hits and ground balls in the hole. It will even out.’”

Meeeeeeow. Somebody’s a little bitter, isn’t he. On the one hand, congratulations Mr. Franklin. You’ve just encapsulated the concept of BABIP, an actual useful baseball stat. On the other hand, sore losers are so unattractive . And a gentle little hint – Ryan Zimmerman is a better hitter than you are a pitcher. If he weren’t, you’d be a starter and not a 34 year old middle reliever. He’s a 22 year old future all-star. Guess who’s gonna win that battle? Wait, we don’t have to. You’ve already given up two game changing hits to our number 11 just this past weekend. Cheers and tally-ho, Mr. Franklin.

Past the XX (and the Hammer)

I knew that A-Rod was the youngest to get to 500, but I didn’t know that it was Jimmie Foxx that he was displacing.

Wow. Mazel Tov to A-Rod. He truly is both the best shortstop and best player of his generation (being stuck at third notwithstanding.)

And Barry Bonds hits his tonight too, and ties Hank Aaron. Baseball gods have a sense of humor. Or of occasion.

In which the Boston Press indulges in the joy of snark.

The one place where the Nationals have an undeniable advantage over the Red Sox is in their media corps. Boston has some okay-to-good people – Rob Bradford of the Boston Herald, Sean McAdam of the Providence Journal, Gordon Edes and Amalie Benjamin of the Boston Globe. That said, I don’t think any of them are as good as Barry Svurgla and Tom Boswell of the Washington Post. Even the Washington Times has good baseball analysis (they can’t write much else well; it’s rather a nice surprise.)

But I’m not here to sing the praises of Barry & Boz – I’m here to giggle in a slightly shocked manner at Gordon Edes for his game recap with !Extra! snark of the Seattle game last night. Some quotes:

“You can’t blame the city, the ballpark, the novelty choo-choo, Puget Sound, Mount Rainier, Pike’s Market, the coffee, or the sushi for the way the Red Sox play here.”

“Youkilis, who also had singled, had stopped at third, a seemingly sensible course of action given that the Seattle right fielder was Jose Guillen, who only has the best arm in the American League and was roughly 200 feet from home plate when he fielded Lowell’s blooper.”

“Ramírez, who had singled to load the bases, didn’t bother to take stock of the situation as he came around second and the Sox ultimately wound up with two men on third base. That didn’t keep teammates from high-fiving Ramírez as he returned to the dugout . . . perhaps they were congratulating him for returning to the right dugout.”

Now Edes has been known to pick on Manny some, but he is a good guy. I’m just amused by the sarcasm, which he doesn’t normally throw in his articles. Edes must’ve been really pissed by last night’s game.

(Oh the game? Let’s move on, shall we? Although I’d like to win a game in Seattle sometime this year.)