Month: May 2012

Pirates and Fantasy Allergies

– Max Scherzer struck out 15 Pirates on Sunday afternoon in 7 innings. Over the course of the three game Detroit-Pittsburgh series, including Verlander’s near no-hitter on Friday, the Pirates struck out 41 times. That’s 41 Ks out of 81 outs…over 50%. Avast ye them Pirates blow….yarrrrrrrrrgh.

DIATRIBE OF THE WEEK

This is not really a diatribe, this is more of an apology. Entering the 2010 season, Lance Berkman was a hero in Houston and a paragon of consistency. In the nine previous seasons, Big Puma had never had a season where he played less than 132 games, hit less than 24 homers or had an OPS less than 896. I had never owned Berkman in a fantasy league though at any time during this stretch, but finally got my chance when I drafted him in 2010. He tanked hard and posted simply horrendous numbers (122 games/14 HRs/781 OPS) in a season that saw him get unceremoniously dumped by Houston. Of course, once off my roster, he bounced back to his normal terrific numbers in 2011. And you can guess the rest of the story. Despite my suspicion that Berkman may have a severe allergy to my team, I drafted him again in 2012, only to see him play five games, tweak his calf, miss four games, return and play one and a half games then fully pull his calf, miss 21 games, then play five more games before apparently tearing his ACL while RECEIVING a routine catch at first base. Now his season is most likely done and his career may be in jeopardy as well. That is some bad juju. So I’m sorry Lance. I should have known better. I do hope you have a full recovery. And I promise, I will never draft you ever again.

List of players with severe allergies to my fantasy team: Lance Berkman, Travis Hafner, Vlad Guerrero, Bobby Higginson, Kevin Youkilis.

Yes, I recognize that I list Youkilis with a severe allergy and that I still own him on my team. In fact, I have exclusively owned him in my league since August 2, 2010, the day I traded for him and he broke his thumb on his first at-bat after activation. And I am now in the stage where I am owning him out of spite. It is strange that I somehow feel apologetic towards Berkman and yet so apoplectic at Youkilis, but that’s the way it is. Youk will get over his allergies…or he will die from them.

Inge-sane!…but not an All-Star

Over his last six games, Brandong Inge unbelievably has four separate 4-RBI games, including two grand slams. This has sparked something in the Bay Area called “Ingesanity”. All this for a guy still hitting .188 on the season. One of the radio hosts I was listening to this morning labeled Inge the single most important player on the A’s roster and was actually half-serious. Oakland A’s fans make me sad. (In 2009, Inge posted a .186 average in the second half with a .541 OPS, 19 walks and 85 strikeouts. That is the same season that he was “selected” to the All-Star team, becoming the worst position player All-Star in the history of the sport (other than players selected to satisfy the one player from each team rule), and the same season that he became the first person in history to post an 0 for 4 with 3 strikeouts during the Home Run Derby.)