We witnessed Series of the Damned in Washington, Series of the Dead against the White Sox, and I guess this series with the Cubs will be called Series of the Freaks.
The game started off as a nine-act comedy with home plate umpire Bob Davidson playing the leading role. It had been almost a year to the day Davidson had called balls and strikes at Wrigley and I’m guessing he remembered a boring game since he walked off the field with a 1.00 umpire ERA. Monday he left sporting a 9.00 uERA having tossed one Cubs pitcher in Ted Lilly and took the wrath of the Cubs dugout for almost 5 innings.
What’s ironic about Davidson playing the leading role is that he’s well known as a pitcher’s umpire (5th lowest uERA last 2 years at 3.66) but perhaps he was on a mission? Or two? Or three? Or Four? You know, you have to keep those young whipper-snappers in line, especially the managers.
It’s no wonder the poor guy didn’t have his mind on the zone.
So anyway, inning-after-inning we watched balls pitched down the heart of the plate leave the yard or fly into the gaps, batters walking like they were 65 years old and at the mall looking for some exercise, or players making funny faces in the batter’s box or on the mound.
And it’s no wonder Lou Piniella ran out a “B” lineup.. he knew what was coming, especially after Bradley blasted the credibility of the umpires association in an article at ESPN the day of the game. Throw in a hot tempered Ryan Dempster who couldn’t get a strike called below the belt and, well, the Cubs took themselves out of the game early on. But they kept trying to come back.. until four guys from our pen, including Tom Gorzelanny (ughh, longmanrole), dosed their fire leaving them nothing to do but run their mouth at the leading man.
And did they ever.
The comedy turned into a tragedy in the 9th when Capps was hit on the throwing elbow on a crushed line drive by Soto. He was moving his fingers fine on the video I saw so let’s hope he’s ok. After he exited, it became a comedy again as Sean Burnett, the kid with the sideways hat and goofy looks, got his first major league save. Well, he almost lost it because he had two on and a foul off Miles bat almost went yard for a walk-off but, thankfully it pulled foul.
And how about Freddy Sanchez? He went 6-6 (10 total bases – wow) no thanks to Davidson requiring pitches to be thrown in a 6″ x 6″ square for a strike. I bet you or I could have got a hit in that game too. But alas, it was a great night for Sanchez – he even made a few nice defensive plays and stole a base to boot.
Yep, I said freak show and I meant it. If you have an extra dollar to spend, go buy the game at MLB.com because it will go down in history as one of the more comical games we’ve ever played.. anything that could happen on a diamond happened last night.
Maholm? Yeah, he started and had a 34 pitch first inning (ouch). He couldn’t find the zone any better than Dempster could but his problem was more he wasn’t anywhere near the plate. His 88-90 mph fastballs were consistently up in the zone (maybe I should say over the head of everyone?) and his slider was biting so much it must have broke five feet.. he simply couldn’t control it. Sure, he was overthrowing most of the night, perhaps frustrated withboth Jaramillo (he’s quickly getting on my ‘he’s a horrible receiver’ list) and Davidson’s acting.
Gorzelanny picked up the win but if you weren’t watching the game you might have missed what seemed to be a pissed off Joe Kerrigan when Gorzy walked his second batter who ledoff the 7th. Russell shot out and sent Gorzy to the showers and Meek came on and immediately walked Soto in spite of it all. Hilarious. But after seeing Kerrigan fuming in the dugout when Gorzy walked Johnson, I’d almost bet if Capps isn’t going to miss any time Gorzy might be on his way back to 3A. Something about those two guys just doesn’t seem to jive.
It was a nice win – the guys looked like they were having fun for the first time in quite awhile. But I’m still concerned we’re getting a little too serious about a run for .500 and it could backfire down the road.
Part II of the Freak Show is Monday Night as Snell takes the hill. This should be a gas, if it doesn’t rain.
Related posts:
