Thoughts on Friday's baseball games

I’m home for Easter, so I got to pay a lot more attention to baseball games that the Phillies weren’t playing in. MLB Extra Innings is awesome.

The first game yesterday was the Rangers visiting the Tigers, with Kris Benson getting the start for Texas. Last year the Phillies brought Anna Benson’s husband to training camp, and then gave him a minor league contract, hoping he would be able to rehabilitate himself enough to be an effective starter for them, cause Adam Eaton sucked. Judging by this game, it’s a pretty good thing that didn’t work out. Detroit put up 15 runs, eight off of Benson. I’m thinking that with Kris Benson as their third starter, behind Kevin Millwood and Vicente Padilla (all three former Phillies), the Rangers aren’t going to have the pitching to contend in a really terrible division. They’re gonna end up losing a lot of 9-8 games.

The Cubs played Milwaukee in kinda a weird game. Rich Harden pitched really well, as he pretty much always does when he’s healthy, but only went six innings, turning things over to the bullpen. The Cubs’ best reliever is without a doubt Carlos Marmol, and their closer is Kevin Gregg. This setup seemed to work pretty well for the Cubs in the seventh inning; down by one (maybe two, I don’t remember), the Brewers sent Ryan Braun to the plate with the bases loaded. Marmol was able to get him to fly out to right. But then the Brewers got a shot at Gregg in the ninth inning, down by one, and with some poor work in the outfield by Soriano they tied the game, in undoubtedly the first of many blown saves by Gregg. Milwaukee went on to win on a walkoff either infield single or fielder’s choice; runners on the corners, one out, groundball to Theriot, he goes home instead of trying to turn two, but the runner is able to slide in safely.

The Blue Jays and the Orioles both won, beating the winless Indians and the Rays, respectively, to stay in first and second in the AL East. They, uh, won’t finish the year there, but I’m at least excited to see Toronto once they get Marcum and McGowan back next year.

The Twins beat the White Sox, with Joe Crede, weirdly accompanied by Air Supply, homering against his old team. Carlos Quentin homered in the loss, and managed not to break anything. Dumbass. The Diamondbacks beat the Dodgers, which I suppose may turn out to be important in September, but I can’t really get worked up about it now. The Padres beat the Giants, but the only interesting thing about that game was incredible catch Scort Hairston made, robbing one of the Molinas of a home run. The Mariners beat the A’s, but since neither King Felix or Brandon Morrow pitched, I don’t care.

The Mets lost, which is nice, but the Marlins won, which sucks. Hanley Ramirez and Dan Uggla both launched animalistic home runs into empty seats. Seriously, Marlins fans suck. They have a really good team, and it’s really just an amazingly well run franchise, with so much young talent, and there are just entire sections completely empty. Against a division rival. In the first week of the season! I think it’s about time this Miami experiment ended and the Marlins go somewhere else. A team in Las Vegas could be pretty cool.

The Cardinals beat the Astros, presumably moving Ed Wade a step closer to unemployment. Albert Pujols did some stuff, showing how good he is at baseball. Kelly Johnson had a walk off single as the fucking Braves beat the Nats in ten, but he still has a girl’s name.

The Yankees beat the Royals, with Teixeira getting on base three out of four times, making the assholes who wrote the “Money for Nothing” headline after the first game of the season look even more like, well, assholes. I’m convinced that the New York media is actually more unlikeable than the Yankees. So when can we start to consider Alex Gordon a bust?

Finally, the Angels beat the Red Sox in one of the saddest games since 2001. Really though, watching the game you knew there was no way the Angels were going to lose. Sarge Jr. made a nice catch, and walked twice, but doesn’t have nearly as many hats as his father, so there’s still work to be done. Also, Boston’s alternate caps, the dangling socks, are retarded.

Cole will be fine; he missed spring training.