The Futility Infielder

It was a lost night of watching baseball on Tuesday. Saw the last five innings of the Yanks losing to the Milwaukee Brewers for the second straight night. Ben Sheets stymied the Yanks on two hits through seven innings, but the game remained close because Carl Pavano made only one mistake, a pitch Brewers shortstop Bill Hall hit over the wall in the second for a two-run blast.

As they did the night before, the Yanks had a shot at tying the game against closer Derek Turnbow. Jorge Posada singled with one out, then Robinson Cano doubled--Geoff Jenkins nearly making a diving catch but losing the ball upon impact with the ground--to send Posada to third. Alas, Bernie Williams grounded out, scoring a run but bringing the Yanks down to their final out. Derek Jeter, who made the final out on Monday, did so again as he meekly slapped Turnbow's first pitch right back to him. Sheesh, so much for Mr. Clutch. That's 1-7 on the road trip, their ninth loss in 10 games, and according to the Daily News, 0-22 when scoring three runs or less, and on a 0-for-25 skid with the bases loaded. Expect blood in the streets soon.

Flipped over to the Dodger game, where they were leading the Tigers 4-2 in the top of the sixth. Rookie Derek Thompson had pitched five solid innings before Scott Erickson, whose futility I pointed out yesterday, came on in relief. Pudge Rodriguez jacked Erickson's second pitch over the right-centerfield wall to trim the lead to 4-3. That's the 12th homer Erickson has allowed in 42.2 innings. Thanks, Scott. Maddeningly, Jim Tracy allowed Erickson to put runners on first and second before bringing on rookie Franquelis Osoria, fresh off the turnip truck from Las Vegas to make his major-league debut. Osoria gave up a sac bunt to Nook Logan (great name), and then a run on a groundout, thus taking Erickson's ERA to an appropriately airplane-esque 7.17.

With the score tied, Chris Spurling, a former Yankee farmhand currently sporting a sub-2.00 ERA, came on in relief for the Tigers and retired the side on six pitches, yielding three infield grounders. Weak. Duaner Sanchez came on for the Dodgers, and on his second pitch, rookie shortstop Tony Giarratano, who had come on to replace Carlos Guillen when the latter strained his hamstring, hit one out for his first major-league homer. Sanchez apparently liked the feeling so much he went 2-0 on Dmitri Young before the Meathook crushed one about 500 feet to make the score 6-4. A Rondell White double, a Pudge single, and a groundout (finally an out!) yielded another run, and then a Logan single stretched the score to 8-4. Nice relief pitching, guys. Save for a measly walk, L.A. could do nothing against a trio of hard throwing Tigers -- Kyle Farnsworth, Ugie Urbina, and Troy Percival -- and that was that. Phhhht.

Watching these desultory performances, I took some time to fire back answers to five questions 6-4-2 blogger Rob McMillan sent along regarding my two suffering teams. Since I'd written an epic Hit List over the past two days and covered both teams more extensively as well, I had plenty of answers on the tip of my tongue. You can read the exchange here.

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That epic Hit List generated this response from one of my readers:

HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO READ ALL THIS?!?! You're killing me, Smalls!

--TG in SF

TG, I'm glad you asked. I'll share with you a simple way to get through such a long article.

First hire a pair of monkeys to write abstracts of each team summary (you can buy some here, but be sure to get a receipt if you'd like to return them once you've read the article). Get a proboscis monkey for the NL, and maybe something smaller for the AL such as a white capuchin or a spider monkey (trust me, from an aesthetic standpoint, this will work). Most monkeys have an innate understanding of sabermetrics; it's almost uncanny how much more well-developed it is compared to the average beat writer.

Monkeys are overqualified when it comes to printing out their work, so pawn that task off on a chicken that can peck at the keyboard until the job is done. You may have to sprinkle a bit of corn on the keyboard, but don't worry, it will wash off.

Once the chicken has printed the abstracts as well as the original article, her work is done. So if you haven't eaten, by all means feel free to dispose of the chicken the way nature intended (there are plenty of recipes to choose from). When you're done, climb in your car and head towards the nearest interstate. If you don't have a car you can buy one here; sadly, in this case public transportation is not an option.

While driving, pick up the first hitchhiker you see; you may have to drive awhile to find one but the outskirts of town are a popular spot. When you finally get a hitchhiker, have him (or her) read you the abstracts and, if you'd like to hear more about the particular team, the full entry. Most hitchhikers can be quickly trained to do this.

Voilà! A simple way to read lengthy articles that can be applied almost universally to any piece of baseball analysis (I've not tested it on other subjects). Oh, and once you're done, be sure to feed the papers to a goat--it's important to recycle.

Note: no animals were harmed in the writing of this entry. Lunch, however, was another matter...