Tagged: Zack Greinke
This Year In Baseball’s Oddity Award
As this blog is called the odd blog, it is only fitting that I should break down TYIB’s Oddity Award. But first a little order of business:
Zack Greinke wins Cy Young Award!
What did I tell you? My lobbying for him waaay back in April must have some effect, because he won in a landslide. (http://theoddblog.mlblogs.com/archives/2009/04/vote.html – the hyperlink thing is busted) All those Yankee fans who bet me that CC would blow Greinke out of the water, I accept cash, checks, and all major credit cards. (That would be… zero people)
But seriously, I can’t think of anyone more deserving of this award than Greinke. You’ve all heard that social anxiety spiel, and it’s really a great story. But I just love the way this guy talks. He’s all business in the interview I saw. It’s November, four days before he gets married (congratulations to Greinke in more ways than one) and over a month since the season ended and all he’s focused on is baseball, how he won the award, and what he can do to duplicate the feat- or improve on it. That’s what I picked up off of the interview. He also allegedly (I can say anything as long as it says allegedly before it) likes World of Warcraft, though that comes from a ninth grade English teacher- not exactly a credible source. Moving on…
This Year in Baseball’s Oddity Award
I’m here to break down who you should vote for:
Nominee 1: The bees in San Diego. I believe I have covered this, and it is certainly very odd. Enough to make it this year’s winner? I don’t know. My oddness ranking: 8/10.
Nominee 2: Milton Bradley loses count: Chicago Cubs right fielder loses count of the number of outs in the inning and throws the ball in the stands. If I were the fan that caught that, I would burn it in representation of that long World Series drought. This isn’t odd however; it’s just stupid. My oddness ranking: 3/10
Nominee 3: Luis Castillo botches pop-up: This isn’t odd at all! He just lost the pop-up. I did it all the time in my little league games! Plus, the Yankees won as a result. This looks like a load of East-Coast bias right here. My oddness ranking: 1/10
Nominee 4: Won for the birds: Yeah, I’ve broken it down right here on the Odd Blog. Ball hits bird, ball and bird go in opposite directions, and neither lands in Coco Crisp’s glove. Argh! This makes me so mad. The birdman gets 5/10 for spite.
Nominee 5: Dad bare-hands foul: Not fowl, foul- I’m still seething from that last nominee- however, this one is awesome. A one-handed, bare-handed catch. Not something you see everyday. I’ll give this one 8/10 as well.
Nominee 6: Stuck in jersey: They always put one of these up every year. It’s not that odd, last year there were even two of them. 4/10 for overuse.
Nominee 7: Girl rejects foul ball: This one has been all over. Somebody catches a foul ball, gives it to his daughter, who throws it back onto the field. 2/10 for being used way too much this year.
Nominee 8: Teddy gets run over: Teddy didn’t get run over, he got body-checked! I suspect a little fowl foul play in this must-see video. Must see- if you like watch former presidents run a very slow race. 7/10
Nominee 9: Lucky boy snags two fouls: This boy was definitely lucky; he caught two foul balls, both while they were still in the air. Amazing! But since I don’t have this kind of luck, I’m giving him a 6/10
Nominee 10: Mr. T sings it loud: I didn’t even watch the video, it didn’t seem all that odd to me. 0/10
Well, there you have it. I’m voting for either the bees or the bare-handed foul ball. It’s up to you which one you decide, but hopefully this has made it easier. Coming up next post, I rant about parity. It’s a must-read (read?) event.
While I Was Away…
It’s been awhile, but I have an excuse: I’ve been in school with lots (or some) homework. Joining six clubs doesn’t help. But anyway, with the Royals in fourth place, we now have something to talk about!
Royals in fourth place
At the point of my previous point, I had no hope that the Royals would ever climb out of the hole they made for themselves in July and August, but they have proved that they are capable of winning games, even if it is in… September. If they Royals could just have won a few more games in the summer, we could be going for a playoff spot. (a few… think 18). However, we have been mathematically eliminated. That doesn’t mean I’m not going to watch the rest of the season. Royals play a four-game set vs. the Red Sox, one of the (ahem) better teams in the league, but if we can take two from them, we may not be as bad as we thought! (Tonight’s pitching matchup: Wakefield vs. DiNardo. Which one have you heard of?) Red Sox fans can finally get a look at our new stadium- had enough of the eighth wonder of the world up there in NY yet?
New eighth wonder of the world is…
The Cowboys’ stadium. Hello. You know how I feel about sports stadiums being a “wonder of the world” (I have no problem with the Roman Coliseum) and this is no exception. Does it even have a name yet? Either way, NBC included it in a wonder of the world montage to begin the Sunday Night game yesterday. And I am tired of typing “wonder of the world.”
Zack Greinke for… MVP?
YES! Think of the name: Most Valuable Player. Who has been more valuable to his team this season? A-Roid? No, he was suspended for a while. Same with Banny Ramirez. Greinke has been the most valuable player to the Royals. Without him, we may have already lost 100 games this season. Unfortunately, Greinke will likely not even win the Cy Young based on wins. The Royals have not given him too much any run support, and coupled with his league-leading 2.14 ERA, he should be a lock for the Cy Young. Not only that, but he is only 21 K’s away from the Royals’ record and still has a few starts to go. Zack Greinke should not only be AL Cy Young, he should be AL MVP as well.
That’s all I’ve got for today. Expect another long stretch before I post again. Now, I’ve got to go watch that Royals/Red Sox game.
Upon Further Review, The Eighth Wonder Of The World Is…
Still not Yankee Stadium. At this point I’d normally go on to say that it’s the Royals’ stadium, but today I’m really feeling that the first ballpark that should be added to the list should be Wrigley or Fenway, somewhere in the 2000s range. But why am I bringing this up now? Because I finally, FINALLY got to go see the Royals’ new and improved stadium this weekend! And from what I’ve seen, it’s better than Yankee Stadium. Let’s compare:
Cheaper Tickets: Royals. Come on. I searched one ticket site for this. The cheapest Royals ticket was $7 (you can get them for $2.50 at a local grocery store). The Yankees… didn’t have any listed. I’m assuming they were trying to cover up the $300 tickets for the upper deck or something like that.
Better Team: Yankees. Another gimme. This could be the reason they charge too much… but probably not.
Stadium Name: Royals. Kauffman Stadium beats out Yankee Stadium any day. We know it’s the Yankees! Tell us something we don’t know.
Stadium Features: Royals. The Yankees do have a nice park, but 1) It’s a launch pad for home runs, while Kauffman is giving up less this year, and B) I don’t see a giant video screen in center field anything like ours. Some people may argue that having more home runs is better for the park, but I like seeing the game based on speed and daring, not on who can swing the bat the best. If I had my way, I’d bring back the dead-ball era.
Well, from what I see here it looks like the Royals have a much better stadium than the Yankees. Sorry New Yorkers, but the facts speak for themselves.
While I was at the game, (sitting in row FF in the nosebleed section- hey, our tickets aren’t too cheap!) I watched the Royals bullpen implode yet again. 8 runs in the seventh off of… Kyle Farnsworth! Hey, that’s a name I haven’t heard in a while. Apparently injury rehab didn’t help him, because he’s still doing terrible.
Zack Greinke set our team’s K record at… the K! Go figure. 15 strikeouts and we have ourselves a winner! Is the team finally giving him support? No, it’s just that it’s pretty hard to lose if you throw 15 strikeouts.
ABC is airing a new show called Shaq vs.. I’m sure you’ve all heard of it. Apparently he’s 0-for-2. Not so cocky now, is he? The real show’s coming up this week- Albert Pujols. Let’s all watch him get creamed again. (He also has to take on Michael Phelps- that’ll be even worse).
And the world’s greatest flip-flopper has flip-flopped once again. Yes, Brett Favre is back everybody. Let’s hope he retires by the third week of the season to play- and I here I quote the future “less rough football with those guys from Wrangler.”…well, maybe, maybe not.
I haven’t been posting as often since school has started, and it’ll drop off even more at a proportional rate to the Royals’ playoff chances. Saturday, my normal post day, is my birthday, so next Saturday I should be back up, hopefully. That’s all I have for now.
The Odd Blog First Half In Review
Well, it’s been an exciting first half, hasn’t it? There’s been many surprises, some of them good, some of them bad, and… some of them weren’t really surprises at all, though I don’t know what I mean by that. I just needed something to fill up that empty space there.
First off, the news! The season started with the startling news that A-Rod used steroids, prompting many people to rename him A-Roid. A few months later, Manny Ramirez was discovered to have used a PED, prompting me to rename him Banny Ramirez. Ramirez just passed Mickey Mantle on the all time home run list, and I think that’s a shame, because as far as I know, Mickey Mantle never used a banned substance.
On a lighter note, there have been quite a few players who are doing good things this season, and hopefully without PEDs. Roy Halladay, Zack Greinke, and Dan Haren are all doing great this season, and there are a lot of other pitchers also doing OK who I will chose not to name for no specific reason. Raul Ibanez finally broke out this year with the Phillies… and then there’s that guy in St. Louis… what’s his name… um, Albert Pujols! If you don’t know what he’s doing, you need to go to MLB.com or the Cardinals website and look it up! He’s having a career year without using a banned substance! See, A-Roid, Banny? It can be done!
At the beginning of the year, I made my picks for each division. Let’s see how they’re playing out now:
AL NL
I hope you can read that. If not, it’s time to get your eyes checked.
Well, this means that I am one of the world’s foremost authorities on the AL East, and I know nothing about the division I’m supposed to know about.
Now back to present day baseball. The Royals are playing a doubleheader today! I love it! It gives us a better chance to win at least one game in a day! Of course, playing the Angels, it’ll probably 12-2, 10-3 or something like that- in LA’s favor.
I went to a Northern League baseball game Sunday; they’re in independent league in which the Kansas City team is actually good! (What a shock!) It was a great 10-inning game, complete with suicide squeeze play in the bottom of the ninth. The players hit a lot of baseballs out of the stadium, so it’s pretty easy to find one if you know where to look. I’m 2-for-2 this year!
And finally, Tom Watson, (a native Kansas Citian I might add) did an amazing job at
the British Open, taking second. I would say congratulations, but the
odds of him reading this blog are very slim.
I’m Seeing Stars
All-stars, that is. It was a great game last night with Zack Greinke getting the job done in the fourth, even though he should have started in my opinion. Either way, I’m happy because the AL won. My dad is an NL backer, mostly because of the DH rule, but they haven’t won for 13 years now, so maybe he’ll change his mind in ten or twenty years.
There was another event that took place before the all-star game, and a lot of people were very disappointed with it. The home run derby has apparently lost some of its flair in the last few years. So you’re probably not surprised that I have a few suggestions on how to make it better.
The NHL has an all-star skills challenge before the all star game every year, so why can’t the MLB have something like that? There could be a best wind-up or batting stance competition just like there’s a most creative shootout attempt in the NHL. Hockey has a target test, so why can’t baseball have one? The pitchers could try to hit four targets set up on the corners of the plate, or the batters could try to hit targets set up around the field. Instead of a home run derby, try to see who can hit the ball the farthest. Bonus points for landing it in a stadium’s special feature, like the fountains at the K. What about a competition where everybody gets one strike to put the ball in play, and if they don’t they get eliminated? Or we could see whose got the best arm by having players try to throw the ball from right field to home to try get a runner going from third. There is a multitude of possibilities.
Finally, the NHL has announced (in their worst-kept secret, according to the commish) that Fenway will host the Winter Classic. While it won’t match the one in Buffalo (who plays the only other game that day), we can still hope for a blizzard with wind gusts of over 70 mph!
You Too Can Vote 25 Times For The Royals!
I did my duty this morning, voting 25 times for the Royals. I don’t think it helped, as there are probably no Royals in the top…. anything in their respective positions. So now you can feel secure in knowing your favorite players are doing o.k. in the polls, and the Royals need your help! So vote the 24 times you have left for the Royals, because I’ve done my part.
Now to baseball that counts, because home-field advantage in the World Series doesn’t really matter to a fourth place team.
The Royals play the White Sox this weekend, a four game series. You all know that I hate four game series, but I won’t be doing too much about it because I’ve got company coming tomorrow (thanks to all of you- one of you- that gave me advice). After that, I get to go to a family reunion which will have even more under-10 year olds. But it will be lots of fun, even though I’ll be away from the blog for about a week.
After that detour, I will now review the last few Royals games:
In our last outing, pitching was great, but… everything else was a vacuum, if you know what I mean. Thus, we lost. Again. We’ve been doing a lot of that lately, but being a Royals fan, you get used to it. *sigh.* The lone bright spots this past week has been Billy Butler, who is doing great at the plate (4-for-4 yesterday in the losing effort) and Zack Greinke, who is… back to normal. Of course, on this team, “normal” is “excellent.” Butler and Greinke are the full, five course Thanksgiving dinner, and the rest of the Royals are the lime jello salad. Not that there’s anything wrong with jello salad, but I’m hungry right now, so I decided to slip that analogy in there.
I sense a dinner bell coming up, so that’s all for now. More to come next week!
The Odd Blog Week In Review (Week ?)
I don’t know what week it is. It’s summer, why should I be keeping track of dates? There is one date that I’m counting to, next Friday my second cousins visit, with five kids aged 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9. Suggestions, please!?
Now to baseball, where the Royals are playing the Pirates, and I am ashamed to say that we have a worse record than Pittsburgh. Yipe! That means, with respect to the Pirates, that the Royals are worse than I thought they were. Let’s see how we do in this series.
There is one Royal who is doing good as of recently, and that’s Luke Hochevar. According to MLB.com’s player search, there are four of him (seriously, try it!) and as long as the one that has shown up in the last few starts keeps the other three away, I’m fine with that. Imagine all four showing up to start a game or something. That would be odd. Anyway… he’s had some great starts recently, pitching an 80 pitch complete game against the Reds last week and getting a pretty good start in this week against Houston, despite having a no-decision thanks to our imploding bullpen. So, the start in the series finale against Pittsburgh, assuming I have the schedule right, is the one where he can either prove himself ready for the majors and possibly be a Zack Greinke in the future, or falls down like he did early in the season and have to be sent to the minors… again.
Next, (M/B)anny Ramirez. What was he doing playing minor-league ball? You would think that they wouldn’t allow to play any baseball, but apparently there’s a loophole or something. So I’m offering (of course) my take on what the rules should be:
“When a player is suspended for any amount of time by the league, that player will not be allowed to play baseball with the MLB or any of its affiliates, but should be allowed to participate in practices with the team, so long as he is not in the dugout, clubhouse etc. during a game. They will not be allowed on road trips, unless they are suspended for more than 15 games and will be reinstated during a said road trip, etc. etc. etc.”
I had more, but I have a feeling that was getting a little boring.
Finally, a topic that, as a Buffalo Sabres fan, I unfortunately know way too much about. Injuries! Coco Crisp is gone for the season after getting shoulder surgery, and that is a big blow to our chances. Coupled with other injuries that have plagued our team, including those to Alex Gordon at the beginning of the season and Kyle Farnsworth now, that’s not good. AND… breaking news from three hours ago (that’s what they call late-breaking) Sidney Ponson tests positive!?! Yipe! But what for? Read the article, but apparently it’s for a banned stimulant. He’s banned from international play for two years, but of course the WBC and the Olympics (which no longer have baseball) aren’t for three years. Nice going, IBAF.
Deja Vu, Part 2!
The title even rhymes! Happy Father’s Day, first of all, to any fathers reading this.
You all know (or may not know) that my last post covered the fact that we lost 12-5 twice in a row. That hurts. Well, it happened again. We lost today by a score of, yes, 12-5. There were no errors; that was a bit of a shock, but I still feel like punching my computer. Even more annoying is that our number one pitcher, not Zack Greinke, but Gil Meche, lasted 3 and 1/3 innings and gave up 9 runs on 9 hits (remember, no errors, and he only gave up two walks). Even more frustrating is the fact that Albert Pujols knocked in half of the Cardinals’ runs. Yes, I know he’s arguably the best player in the game, I still hate it when somebody knocks in 6 runs and gets his team their second grand slam of the series. When will it end? The lone light at the end of the tunnel is that we aren’t the Washington Nationals, who just recently won their 20th game. We’re only 8 1/2 back! We aren’t 16 games back like the Nats! Oh, wait, what’s that? The Diamondbacks are 16 back, too? That’s irritating because they managed to knock in 24 runs to our ten in their last two games of the series.
The loss today brings our run total in the last five games to:
Them: 53
Us: 21
Now, scoring 21 runs isn’t bad, but giving up 53 is. Our average runs per game is 4.2, which is very respectable. Our average runs given up per game is… let’s just say much less respectable (10.6).
I’m too aggravated to go on, let me just say congratulations to Tony La Russa for his 2500th win, even if it did come against… *cough* the Royals.
Re-turning The Corner (This Time, Backwards!)
Well, so much for turning the corner. We did terrible last night against the D-Backs, even with Greinke on the mound. Right now, I’m just really annoyed. I thought we were going to do so much better after getting out of this slump. It’s like Indian Summer, that warm spell after the first frost of the year, I think. Having a dad (Happy Father’s Day) who’s a meteorologist, he could probably explain it better. I just forgot why this even connects to baseball. Moving on…
Sammy Sosa using PEDs? Why didn’t they tell us this earlier? I’ve said this before, and I’ll probably say this again: Why now? He tested positive in 2003. They should probably tell us in 2003, then. I don’t think it took six years to get the results. It seems that someone high up in the majors wants to keep baseball in the news or something. Did they not realize that the only sports going on right now are baseball, the college world series, and soccer. The CWS is going to be over soon, and soccer isn’t exactly America’s pastime, though I enjoy a match now and then. I’m just getting really annoyed with all of these record holders testing positive for banned substances. Should we automatically suspect that somebody who breaks a record in this league used steroids? Let’s say Zack Greinke broke that scoreless inning record earlier this season. “Oh, wait, he probably used steroids!” (But more accurately, “Oh, wait, how can somebody on the Royals break a record without cheating?). If I hear any more of this, I’m going to crawl under a rock and not come out until October, unless the Royals start doing better.
Finally, last Saturday while I was Chocolatetown on vacation (Hershey) I walked by Hersheypark, the theme park there. What song was playing? Yes, Saturday In The Park by Chicago. Coincidence?
Turning The Corner
I never got that phrase. What corner? Who’s to say it doesn’t lead to even worse circumstances? But I’m still going to use it. The Royals are 6-3 in the last 9 games after going 5-20 in the last 25, so it seems that they are turning a corner and headed in the right direction. However, the Royals have been a bit streaky, so if we start to lose games, we’ll probably head back down to the basement.
One thing that hasn’t been bad this year is the triples. When you think of teams that can hit a lot of triples, the Royals probably don’t come to mind, considering that they don’t really hit at all. But the Royals are on top of the league right now in triples, with 23, 7 more than the Houston Astros. This is equal to the amount of triples hit by the Dodgers and Tigers combined, two teams which are both in first place. It is also equal to the combined number of home runs hit so far this season by David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez, Alex Rodriguez, and Bobby Abreu, but I doubt that that arguement will fool anyone. Coco Crisp and David DeJesus lead the league in triples, with 5 each. The Oakland A’s have hit 5 as a team. And then there’s this game where John Buck, our catcher, legged out two triples against the then-first place Toronto Blue Jays. He has three on the year. So we’re really good at hitting triples, just not at bringing them in. I’m not even going to tell you where the Royals are in RBIs.
Finally, Zack Greinke is pitching tonight. He’s done terrible by his standards his last few outings, but he still leads the league in ERA with a .172, is fourth in strikeouts, and with a win will get up to second in wins. He’s still good enough to strike fear into the hearts of opposing hitters. Or at least get them out.
The Odd Blog 