George Brett: Funny

Rodney's MLB Round Up: May 27 - May 30

By Rodney K:



Saturday May 30th, 2009
• Rockies fire manager after dismal start.
The Colorado Rockies fired manager Clint Hurdle on Friday night, less
than two years after reaching the World Series. Hurdle’s Rockies started the 2009 season 18-28 and are 14.5 games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers. Hurdle spent seven seasons with Colorado and went 534-625 with a .460 winning percentage. Jim Tracy will take over for Colorado the remainder of the season. Tracy has spent time with the Pirates and Dodgers, going 562-572.


Saturday May 30th, 2009
• Phillies’ Myers possible out remainder of season.
The Philadelphia Phillies right handed starting pitcher Brett Myers will
likely miss the remainder of the season. Myers has a torn labrum, and is recommended to have surgery, although no date has been set for his procedure. Myers left the game on Wednesday after allowing five runs. Myers is 4-3 on the season. The Philles replaced Myers with left handed reliever Sergio Escalona.

Friday May 29th, 2009
• Giants’ Cain wins fourth straight game.
Matt Cain won his sixth game of the 2009 season, and his fourth straight
on Friday night. Cain went 6 2/3rds, allowing just six hits, two runs, just one earned for the win. Pablo Sandoval was the hitting star against Cardinals starter Joel Pineiro driving in two runs. Cain has pitched at least six innings in all ten of his starts on the season. Brian Wilson picked up his 11th save in 14 tries for the Giants.

Thursday May 28th, 2009
• Cubs’ Zambrano ejected in Cubs win.
Carlos Zambrano lost his cool and got ejected in the bottom of the 7th after
a close play at the plate. Zambrano felt Nyjer Morgan was out at the plate after a wild pitch to Nate McLouth. Morgan was called safe and Zambrano immediately went after umpire Mark Carlson. Zambrano got in Carlson’s face, later bumping him, then throwing the ball across the field, and proceeding to bang up the teams gatorade dispenser in their dugout. The Cubs came back to win the game 5-2 over the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Wednesday May 27th, 2009
• Mets’ Livan Hernandez tosses complete game.
The New York Mets are banged up at this point in the year, so what
starting pitcher Livan Hernandez did on Wednesday meant even more. Hernandez went the entire nine innings, allowing nine hits, one run (Adam Dunn solo homerun), walked just one and struck out six. The Mets were without Carlos Beltran, Carlos Delgado, Jose Reyes, Ryan Church and Brian Schneider.

Longoria: Sexiest Swing in Baseball???

In my mission to find the sexiest swing in baseball, our first stop is with Evan Longoria. Longoria has a sweet smooth swing with a nice long finish. If it is not Top 5 it may be the best right handed swing...

Does This Look like the Face of a Kid in the Big League's That Would not Even Pay for Breakfast?

Does This Look like the Face of a Kid in the Big League's That Would not Even Pay for Breakfast?

Last winter I was in Fort Lauderdale for a little spring training excursion. While I was down for the my 4 month hiatus I met a lot of baseball people, I happened to run into Anthony Swarzak, at the time he just finished up in AA with the Twins and just missed a stint in AAA because he decided to get caught smoking marijuana pot cigarettes. So I knew the kid had potential but again never heard of him. Anyways myself, the trainer and Anthony meet at a local pancake house one morning before a workout at Gold's gym. We crushed eggs and packages and things were cool...until it came til to pay. I was going to pay for the trainer because he was working out with me for free, and I thought Anthony (A FUTURE BIG LEAGUER!!) would have maybe picked a little slack of his own, but NOOO the poor kid who worked his 2nd job bussing tables to make extra money swolled that one whole.

Anyways...the kid started against the BoSox last night, took the loss, 3 ER in 5 innings...Sox Win...what a stiff

Anyone for a Snow Cone?

Slowey Quickly Picks up 7th Win

Kevin slowey picks up his 7th win of the season as he allowed 2 earned runs through 6 innings of work in a win over the Red Sox last night. Slowey who is now (7-1) has put together a solid start to his season. He is an interesting character because I do not think he has an exceptional repituare of pitches, but he only has 5 walks on the entire season. So this tell us the man throws strikes which is good, but on the flip side Slowey's Batting Average Against is .315. To put that in perspective Francisco Liriano he is having a honrendous year at (2-6) has a Batting Average Against of .282. If your opponents are hitting over .300 against you and your record is 7-1 that means one of two things...Your extremely lucky or your team scores more runs than the other team, which seems to be the case here for Slowey. In Slowey's 7 wins the Twins have scored an average of 7 runs a game. That is a nice cushion to have in every start.

Lester Down, But not Out

After tacking on his fifth loss of the season last night, Jon Lester headed down to the clubhouse early as he could not face his team with another disappointing outing. Lester who is now 3-5 on the season with a 6.07 ERA has not the strung together the start he had hoped for. As for Red Sox Nation I think they still have the confidence in him that he is going to battle on that mound every 5th day. Lester is definitely a guy you want on your squad, he is a great clubhouse guy, extremely talented, and works his butt off every week. Under usual circumstances I am sure Lester would have stayed in the dugout with his club to support them to victory, but Lester left early, not because he didn't care about the team but because he was angry he let his team down and didn't want to show his face.
Good things happen to this kid because he always does the right thing. Coming off a season where Lester threw 210.1 innings, it probably put a good beating on his body that he had not experienced yet, it may be hard to believe but to bounce back after a long season with all the success he had last year is not walk in the park. It is hard to say that Lester will match or out due his numbers from last year, but I know one thing for sure that whenever he steps on that bump, whether he feels good or not, he will battle for himself, for the team, and for the nation.
The good news here is that so far this season Lester has thrown 59.1 innings with 62 STRIKEOUTS. Any time a pitcher has as many or more strikeouts than innings pitched that means he has control and is commanding his pitches. Lester was superb last night outside of the 5 run fifth inning. Jon will put it all together and soon see the success he deserves.

There is no "I" in Team

By Robb E:

The Los Angeles Angels placed set up man Scot Shields on the disabled list with knee tendinitis, Shields has been struggling with this condition since spring training but has insisted that he can play through the pain. Even saying this on May 23, 2009 "I'm fine -- the knee's not bothering me," after being removed from Saturday night's 5-4 loss to the Dodgers in the ninth inning because of what manager Mike Scioscia assessed as a recurrence of a tendinitis problem with the knee. Consider this fact Shields is 1-3 this year with a 6.62 ERA and has been involved in 8 blown saves, the Angels are currently 4 games behind Texas in the West. I am sure they will want those 8 blown saves back come September. The point is do you really help your team out when you try to hide an injury and play through it or should you just shut it down and get healthy.

Canseco ...

I was hesitant to even post this because I don't believe that this man even deserves his name to be brought up in any conversation but...Jose Canseco the epitome of all man kind tries to spark an MMA (Mixed Marital Arts) career. Publicity stunt or for real? Who knows, but bottom line is I don't want to waste anymore time talking about the stiff. Just fast forward to to when Yao Ming's brother (just kidding) starts throwing Bonzai blasts to his face.

Put On Your Dancing Shoes...A Good Old Fashion Dance Off

UConn vs. S. Florida