The Futility Infielder

For the second weekend in a row, I'm on the road, this time up in Northampton attending my good friend (and frequent FI foil) Nick's wedding to his lovely bride Atoussa. As such, I didn't even get to stick around to see this week's Hit List go up.

The Red Sox remain #1 on the list, with the Mets second and the Padres, who swept the Dodgers in three straight this week, running third. I couldn't get Thursday night's San Diego-LA game on Extra Innings for some reason, and pulled away from the computer and the in-progress Hit List with the Dodgers carrying a 5-1 lead into the bottom of the eighth. When I checked back in just before bed and saw that five-spot staining the bottom of the ninth, I was not a happy camper; the absence of hamstring-addled Takashi Saito appears to have caught closer-in-waiting Jonathan Broxton at a bad time (11 earned runs in his last 5.1 innings), though given that the inning began with an infield single and an error on Nomar Garciaparra, it's not like he acted alone.

Perhaps it was all karmic payback for my vociferously summoning enough anti no-hit mojo to prevent Curt Schilling from finishing his job against the A's earlier that day; I was texting, emailing and IMing my friends, who loathe the Big Schill every bit as much as I do, in order to prevent the deal from going down. To quote a Deadspin commenter, "If Schilling gets a no-hitter, it will give new meaning to the word 'insufferable.'"

I wasn't alone in trying to do so; oddly enough it was a Sox fan who first invoked the Chatter curse by emailing Baseball Prospectus' internal list to alert us to the no-hitter in progress; when I counted last fall on the occasion of Anibal Sanchez's no-no, no fewer than 15 potential no-hitters had been jinxed during my time in BP. Like just about everyone else, I was resigned to the no-hitter's inevitability by the time it reached the ninth, so it was more than a pleasant surprise that Shannon Stewart lined a two-out single into rightfield to end Schilling's bid. To my wife's horror, she had barely walked in the door to find me jumping up and down like a rabid monkey, shouting "Take that, Fatty!" A Great Moment in Schadenfreude History somewhat spoiled by being made aware of my childish behavior. Oh well.

In any event, the Yankees rode their 6-2 run back into the Hit List top ten at #9, one spot below the Dodgers. Special guest stars include the late James Brown, C. Montgomery Burns, Ghostbusters, Win Remerswaal, and Bob Barker. Not pictured: Roger Clemens' fatigued groin, about which enough has already been said, at least until the aftermath of this afternoon's game. Check it.

Labels: Dodgers, Hit List, Red Sox, Schadenfreude, Yankees