Braves v. Mets, Yankees v. Sox

Wow. Watching the new Yankee battery of Karstens and Nieves is just not doing it for me. But more on that in a few minutes.

Anyone see last night's (Friday) Braves v. Mets? I was excited about this for a long time, for many reasons. First, the fantasy implications. I've got Jose Reyes, Brian McCann, and Tim Hudson. Reyes and Hudson are, of course, on fire. They're both playing out of their skulls. So that was the second reason. The third reason was that, since TBS, ESPN, and FOX are the only channels I get that actually televise baseball, I would be able to watch this game. Now, back to my boys. Reyes is leading MLB with 4 triples, (remember when Steve Phillips predicted Reyes would hit 30 triples, and Corey Patterson would hit 40HR with 140RBI?) Reyes has 2 HR, is 9 for 11 in SB attempts, and has an OBP of .456. Yikes. And Hudson is an even better story. After he left Oakland prior to the 2005 season, he cooled down some. Especially in 2006. Which was disappointing, because he is one of my favorite guys. But this year he is insane - you just have to see the whole line for yourself. The point is, he is 3-0, with an ERA of 0.62, and 19 K's in 29 IP. And of course, he was looking even better in person last night. All his off speed stuff was working perfectly. Guy had a perfect game going for 3.2 innings, and a no hitter going till the bottom of the 5th. He left before the 9th inning, (?) with a shutout, having thrown 107 pitches. Now, I know that was only his fourth start of the season. And just like A-Rod won't hit 120 HR this season, Huddy won't finish with an ERA of 0.62. But a good start doesn't hurt, and while I'm not going to say that the old Huddy is back, I'm certainly hoping. Anyway, for the 9th inning, the Braves sent out the arsonist Rafael Soriano and his 7.36 ERA. Needless to say, he poured the gasoline, lit the match, and fanned the flames. Braves still come out ahead, 7-3.

Interesting event here. Home Plate ump Bob Davidson, (we're back to the Yankees v. Red Sox,) who I'm sure we are all familiar with, was miked for today's game. Davidson went to give this little Bostonian Child a ball, but not before making him raise his hand and take an oath to never yell at an umpire. One fan at a time, eh Bob?

Now, I've asked before, but I have yet to receive an answer. When did Mark Teixeira become so bad? He started out last season pretty crappy, but he (almost) made up for it in the 2nd half. Dude is just 27 years old. That's prime time. Finished last year with 33HR and 110 RBI, which isn't half bad. Down 10 HR, 30 RBI, and .20 Avg points from 2005, but not a terrible year. Before the All-Star Break he had just 9 HR in 353 AB. After the game, which he did not participate in, he had 24 HR in 275 AB. So far this year, he has 2 RBI and just 1 extra base hit - a double - in 16 games. Dude is batting .214... but his OBP is .343, with 10 walks. Maybe he'll step it up after the All-Star game again? Who knows... he's on my fantasy team as well, so any thoughts on this would be welcome.

Back again to the Yankee game. The FOX TV crew is promoting Ortiz's new book, written with Tony Massarotti, and they claim that the most interesting part of the book are the stats. He hit something like 58 HR in 6 years with the Twins, and was released because of his lack of power production. And then, he comes to Boston and hits 31, 41, 47, 54 HR the following years. Really? You guys think that's interesting? So do I. Just a little PS - Tony wrote another book with John Harper, called "A Tale of Two Cities - The 2004 Yankees-Red Sox Rivalry and the War for The Pennant." Excellent book, and strongly, strongly recommended. Well, after the FOX crew stopped talking about this, Ortiz went and jerked another out of the yard. This puts the Sox up 7-4.That was the last part of the game that I saw. But after looking at the box score it looks like that was pretty much the entire game. This is what I meant when I said that we'd have trouble with this rotation.

Leave your thoughts. And another thing. BHGM logged it's 50,000th hit a few days ago. That's in about 13 months. And BHGM itself turns 2 on April 28th.

Braves v. Mets Box Score (ESPN.com) - April 20th, 2007
Are John Kruk and Steve Phillips stupid? - April 10th, 2006
A Tale of Two Cities - The 2004 Yankees-Red Sox Rivalry and the War for The Pennant. (Amazon.com)