By Anthony
I don’t like to beat around the bush often. I find it wasteful and inefficient. I am also lazy so I find anything that is not necessary to the matter is bad because it requires unnecessary effort. Our starting pitching is pretty terrible right now. Everyone except for Felix is doing badly. And bad is a nice way to put it. This is the summer school edition because instead of grades, I will be assigning the amigos to a certain time they must spend in summer school to make up for their horrific grades this time around. Its like they got senioritis (A fully recognized disease where second-semester seniors in high school slack off heavily before they graduate to college), but it wasn’t their freshman year in college and not senior year in high school. To remedial classes!
Hector “I get confused between 0-2 and 2-0 counts” Noesi
When Patrick asked me how bad of a pitchers park Chase Field was, I had to look it up on ESPN. It didn’t stand out to me as a Coors Field (Rockies) or U.S. Cellular Field (White Sox). Man, I was wrong. Every game against the D-Backs was high scoring, which is nice, seeing as we have an anemic offense, but it was bad since we lost 2 of 3. Noesi did not do a very good job as a pitcher. He went 6 innings, gave up 5 earned (6 total), walked 2 and had 5 K’s. One of the more surprising stats was that he gave up 0 home runs. I guess that’s something positive? I don’t really know. He once again struggled in 0-2 counts. I honestly would like to see him just throw an 0-2 pitch behind the batter, just for fun. It is not like they will hit it. He threw a bunch of four seam fastballs this time, which is different than normal. He usually uses his two-seamer more. He also threw more curves than usual. His command wasn’t great, like usual. There’s not much else to say for Noesi. He got hit around, didn’t look incredible and got sent to summer school. In the words of Walter White from Breaking Bad, “Apply Your self!” Hector is in summer school for only a month, don’t worry, that’s relatively good for the other members of the rotation.
Erasmo “I am just as boring as a Ham Sandwich” Ramirez
I swear, the entire group of Amigos got together and decided the best way to make me unhappy looking at their stats. Noesi decided to suck in general and now Erasmo showed some awesome peripheral stats but the game is not decided on FIP and K/9. Stupid Bud Selig. Erasmo went 4 innings (ARRGRGGHGHGH), gave up 4 (5 earned), had 5 K’s and 1 walk. Let me tell you this, Erasmo Ramirez striking out dudes is awesome. With his quality of stuff, he should be like Blake Beavan. His career high K/9 in the minors was 7.44 when he also walked 2.76 per 9. 5 K’s in 4 innings is a K/9 of 11.25, if you don’t know that off the top of your head like me. But yeah, Erasmo was not super impressive. Gave up 2 bombs. Meh. I am losing motivation to talk about the Amigos since they were so terrible. And I haven’t even gotten to Kevin Millwood yet. AARRRRRGGGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHG!!!!! Erasmo gets a month and a half in Summer School. He needs to work on his “Don’t give up dingers essay.” I hear his thesis is really interesting.
Kevin “I regret sending in the Amigos early last time since I have to talk about you twice now” Millwood
For those of you how have their critical thinking caps on, you will notice I made up a nickname for Kevin. Its not his real nickname, sanctioned by the blog, but sometimes I go maverick. Patrick is used to it by now. This time, in what Kevin Millwood has done recently to piss off Anthony, we have giving up two hits and three RBI’s to Clayton Richard. Here is why that makes me mad. Clayton Richard is a pitcher. Clayton Richard is a pitcher for the Padres. And I HATE losing to the Padres. Not because we have some stupid rivalry with them like the MLB wishes, but because they suck more than us. So cool Kevin, you have furthered my dislike of you by letting the other teams pitcher beat you. In the game against the Giants, Millwood went 5 innings, gave up 3 earned (4 runs total), had one walk and 3 K’s. He also gave up 9 hits and did not do a good job. In his game against the hated Padres, he went 5 innings (again), gave up 5 earned (8 total), had 3 walks and 3 K’s. Also bad. Yeah, Kyle Seager had a rough day in the hot corner and Millwood probably shouldn’t have given up 8 runs. But the pitcher went 2-2 off of him. GARRRRRGHGHGHGHGH. Something to note about Millwood though, is his doesn’t give up many home runs. He has only given up 3 all year. See, I am making progress in my dislike of him. He is in summer school for 2.5 months, trying to understand how a pitcher got 3 RBI’s off of him.
The Word
Imperfect
For those of you who missed the big news, I am very sorry. I’ll do my best to make this short so the pain doesn’t get to deep. But Lucas Luetge has now given up an earned run(s) and no longer has an ERA of 0.00. Lets just remember how awesome it was to see his streak blossom like a rare orchid and show its beauty to the world. I am tearing up right now so I’ll make it quick. Lucas, you are still my favorite and have an ERA of 0.00 in my heart. (In retrospect this is really weird. Sorry for scaring any readers, I am not as obsessed with Lucas Luetge as this paragraph would make me seem. Patrick may mock me for this, I accept that punishment).
Tip of My Cap
Franklin Gutierrez and Casper Wells
Usually, this accolade only goes to one person. But these two are both doing about the same thing so I will split this award, as controversial as it may seem. I will first award Franklin because he has been more noticeable in the past 48 hours for me. He has now come back form injury and has had a chance to get settled. He was hitting .308 after a nice 4-5 performance the other day. What I like better is his slugging percentage, which is .577. Keep in mind that he has only played a few games so all those numbers will fluctuate quite a bit. But yay for Franklin. Casper is doing much of the same and has earned himself a spot in the outfield. He is hitting .296 with an OPS above .800. That is awesome, but we have Saunders, Guti and Ichiro blocking him in the outfield. If you’re like an ex-teacher of mine, Brian Elsner, you trade Ichiro. If you’re like me, you let Ichiro play until the end of the year or try and then end the relationship.
Wag of my Finger
The pitching staff except for Felix
This time through the rotation, we did terrible. I detailed the struggles of ¾ of the failures above, but now Jason Vargas gets in on the action. And wow did he suck. Vargas is probably our only attractive trade piece. And when you give up 10 runs in 4 innings and 5 home runs. That is not good. He is reverting back to his old Jekyll and Hyde self. That is not good. Jason! Patrick got your autograph on a napkin once. Just like I got a forged Dan Wilson autograph once. Shape up!
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