Welcome to the Dog Days of the baseball season, friends. It's hot, your favorite team has fallen far off the pace for a post-season birth, and they recently got dumptrucked by a team that sold off its most precious assets immediately before the series.
Still: it's baseball. And bad baseball is better than no baseball, and much, much better than talk about BreFarrr and his Li'l Brett.
And, most importantly for our purposes: @notkenmacha is back, and (much like his real life counterpart) crankier than ever!
But first: it's Managerometer time.
If you've missed @notkenmacha as much as I have, come -- jump with me, and welcome him back.
This Week in Rule 6.02(b): As you might know, I'm an attorney in my Other Life. Thus, I was tickled when Ken Macha responded to a question about Carlos Gomez taking a fastball off the noggin with this epically terse response:Asked Ken Macha whether he thought the Gomez beaning was suspicious. He said to look up Rule 6.02(b). I admit, I don't really get it.
We later learned that Macha really meant to cite Rule 8.02(d), but that the numbers and letters apparently got jumbled in his head. I don't care, for two reasons:
(1) Attorneys try to pull sh!t like this all the time, especially in front of juries: "Judge, I have to object, under Rule 403 and the Blowfart decision." We have no idea what we're talking about. We're just hoping to impress (and hopefully distract) the jurors. I feel like I've gained a kindred spirit in (Wrong) Rule Citin' Ken.
(2) I want Macha to rattle off numbers when he's asked questions for the rest of the year.
"How's Edmonds doing, skip?"
".375."
"What made you decide to pull Chris Narveson at that particular point in the game?"
"6.92 mean anything to you?"
"How impressed have you been with the way Gallardo has returned from his injury?"
"Got 99 problems, but Yo ain't one."
This Week in Menace to Society: I don't have another place to put this, and I don't think it warrants its own FanPost, especially since I know KL isn't huge on picking on our local reporters, as it's largely "fish in a barrel" territory. Still, I need filler, so: here goes.
Anthony Witrado is a menace. Anthony Witrado must be stopped.
Following Monday night's demolition of the hapless Baby Bears, Tony continued to co-conduct the "Part of the Problem This Year is the Inconsistent Offense" train:
The Brewers have scored 25.5% of their runs (506) this season in those nine double-digit outputs, which account for 129 runs.
The Brewers have also been shut out 10 times, an absolutely ridiculous number for a team with as much firepower as they have.
An "absolutely ridiculous number," you say?
Hmm.
The NL Central-leading Cincinnati Reds have been shut out twelve (12) times this season. And, while we're on the subject: the Reds have scored in double digits in eleven games, and those games account for 24.8% of their total offense.
The second-place St. Louis Cardinals have been shut out ten (10) times this season. And, while we're on the subject: the Redbirds have scored 9+ runs in twelve games, and those games account for 24.5% of their total offense.
The second-place (NL East) Philadelphia Phillies -- with all that firepower -- have been shut out eight (8) times this season. And, while we're on the subject: the Phils have scored in double digits in twelve games, and those games account for 26.6% of their total offense.
The Los Angeles Dodgers have been shut out eleven (11) times this season. And, while we're on the subject: the Dodgers have scored in double digits in eight games, and those games account for 19.7% of their total offense.
The point*: nearly every offense -- especially in the National League -- has fits and starts. Sometimes the offense runs really, really hot, and sometimes it runs really, really cold. In the Brewers case, the offense -- which, by the by, is tied for second in the NL in team wOBA -- has very little, if anything, to do with the fact that the team is nine games under .500.
* This, of course, is in addition to the obvious point: numbers without context don't have a lot of meaning.
This Week in @notkenmacha: With our waterways safe from Asian Carp and our Nation's supply of peanut brittle restored to 1930s levels, our man @notkenmacha returns triumphant ... just in time to get himself run from yesterday's game against the Cubs. What gives, I asked our (fake) manager:
Hello Ruby:
I am sorry I haven't been available to help you out the last couple of weeks, but I have been quite busy these last few days managing some baseball team. I usually don't pay much attention to what is going on in baseball until September, but this year I decided to get more involved a little bit earlier.
You seem to have noticed I got ejected from the game last night. Every Hall of Fame manager gets ejected at some point in his career -- it was only a matter of time before my number was up.
Alfonso Soriano was the latest in a long line of plunkings I have ordered. Soriano should feel honored to have made my long list of plunkage. I am sad to report though that this year has been a down year for plunking, I have ordered the plunking of no less than 100 batters this year, the problem is that most the pitchers I have can't hit the broad side of Fatty Arbuckle's ass, and the other one is Manny Parra.
One of the first batters I ordered to be plunked was Fidel Castro back in 1951, when I was managing in the Cuban Summer League. Castro was a decent pitcher, but I thought he was pitching way too leftist for my likings, consequently he got plunked. Over the years I would try to plunk Castro many more times, but he is a slippery sonuvabitch.
In 1962, Nikita Khrushchev got a high-hard one in his ribs, for interrupting the telecast of the '62 World Series, with his silly missiles. I also plunked Elton John for the song "Nikita," which is about some Russian love-interest of his, yet Nikita is a man's name. Later that year Florence Henderson would get the high hard one as well.
In 1975 I plunked Jimmy Hoffa -- I am not a big fans of unions.
Let it be known, that Ken Macha is not a sexist -- in the mid-40's I ordered the plunking of Eva Braun, as she poured a glass of white wine spritzer on my head in a Perkins in Europe.
I believe that I am the only man alive to have plunked all of the Beatles. I plunked Paul McCartney for creating Wings. I plunked Ringo Starr for his variety TV show with Cher. I plunked Peter Cetera for ruining the group Chicago, and I plunked Rod Stewart for his irrational hair-styles.
I plunked Bruce Jenner for becoming a lesbian. I plunked Beach Boy Mike Love, because his daughter Courtney puked in my salsbury steak dinner at Perkins. I plunked Shelly Long for leaving her job at the bar Cheers, I plunked the guy who made new Coke in the 80s. I plunked Woody Allen, because I don't get his movies. I plunked Doug Henning, because I am afraid of magical hippies. I plunked J.R. Ewing, and it wasn't in a dream. I plunked Mr. Hooper because I could never remember his name. I plunked Mr. McFeeley, because I did not find his delivery service entirely speedy. I plunked Bea Arthur because she beat me in a 10 round bare-knuckle match at the Polo Grounds. I plunked Bill Cosby, because the only white guys in his Fat Albert cartoon were police officers. I plunked Mushmouth because he sported an extension cord for a belt. I plunked the Oakland Raiders for leaving Oakland, and then I plunked them again when they returned. I plunked Andre the Giant for losing to Hulk Hogan, and the Iron Sheik for not breaking his back and making him humble. I plunked Bobby Fischer, when he refused to play a game of Uno with me in an Icelandic airport. I plunked KISS for the song "Beth", and then I plunked Queen Elizabeth, in the off-chance that the song was an ode to Her Majesty from Peter Criss. I plunked Shaft because I am the sex machine to all the chicks, and am far more complicated; later that day, I plunked complication as well. I plunked Phil Collins right in the Su-su-sudio. I plunk unicorns every chance I get. I plunked the cat in the cradle, and Ricky Schroeder from Silver Spoons, MVP Vida Blue, and the Dark Side of the Moon.
I hope that helps you out Rosie. Watch your back, ask not for who the ball plunks, for it plunks for thee.
Baseballingly Yours,
Kenneth
P.S. Tony Curtis Sucks.