Mood music - Pick Up The Pieces by Average White Band
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- I don't know if you caught this, but A-Rod thought his home run yesterday was a lot more important than it actually was. Facing David Aardsma in the 8th inning, A-Rod tagged a two-run shot to put the Yankees on top, but not give them a walk off victory, as A-Rod originally thought when he started his jaunt around the bases. Quoth the Silly Centaur:
I thought I hit a much bigger home run than I actually hit. I looked over at A.J. [Burnett] and [Andy] Pettitte in the dugout and they weren't moving. That's when I kinda started to figure we had one more half-inning to play. It was pretty embarrassing.
As he was DHing and not playing the field every inning, and as the home run did come off the Mariner's closer, I'm not going to give him too hard of a time. I can only imagine the "A-Rod is a jerk" repercussions if he started any premature celebration when he was still under the impression that the game had ended.
- Speaking of mega contract seekers, there is a new possible destination in the LeBron James sweepstakes, with the Oklahoma City RedHawks making an aggressive play to land LeBron. He has been offered some perks to play for the AAA affiliate of the Texas Rangers, my favorite being:
Adjusting the rules, pending league approval, so that all LBJ runs count as two and all of his homers count as three.
I don't know whether this satire feeds his King Size Ego or whether he gets ticked by the mocking, but I do appreciate the blatantly obvious marketing stunt by the RedHawks. They get a hat tip for their shamelessness.
- Rob Neyer takes a look at why King Felix is on pace for another season of 230+ innings, while fellow 24 year olds Joba Chamberlain and Phil Hughes are still toiling with innings limitations. This is really worth a read, as the Mariners really did a great job of starting early and gradually building up innings on a prized young arm.
- Peter Gammons thinks the Mariners would be smart to move Cliff Lee sooner rather than later. I would tend to agree. Every start the Cliff Lee makes for the Mariners is one less start he can make for a contender, thus decreasing his value as a rental. And every start that Cliff Lee makes could end up in an injury that ruins his value to the Mariners entirely. Don't be shocked if Lee is packaged well before the scamper leading up to the trade deadline.
- Chase Utley will undergo surgery to repair his right thumb that he injured sliding into second base. Early reports have his return at anywhere from 5-8 weeks.
-The Texas Rangers, who, don't look now, have been playing some outstanding baseball, to the tune of the 2nd best record in baseball, have just acquired Bengie Molina from the San Francisco Giants for a bucket of balls (Chris Ray and a PTBNL). The bucket of balls was unavailable for comment, but seemed excited to be thrown by Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain.