It's a good thing that I completely missed Game 2 of the Dodgers-Braves game Friday night -- yes, I have it on DVR, like hell I'm going to look at it -- because I may have been rendered deaf, dumb and blind if I saw all of that stupid live.
The Dodgers didn't deserve to win Game 2, although they easily could have, because of their idiocy.
There were three distinct HUH? moments of the game that I don't think I will ever be able to process:
1. Walking Reed Johnson to get to Jayson Heyward: There is nothing more I can add about this except I think Don Mattingly just kissed his new contract goodbye here. Bringing in a reliever to intentionally walk someone who is without a hit in two months to get to the most dangerous player in the lineup is staggering.
2. Dee Gordon running on the first pitch after being inserted as a pinch-runner: I don't care whether the umpire got the call right or wrong -- it was too close to make a stink -- what the hell is Gordon running on the first pitch? Gordon should have just shouted "HEY EVERYONE, I'M GOING!" Gerald Laird is not a sharp tool, but anyone could anticipate that.
3. I'll just let Steve Lyons do his thing:
If you weren't watching the game, here's the situation:
Top of the eighth. No outs. Dodgers' Mark Ellis on first after a walk. Hanley Ramirez comes up. Hits a two-run blast to get the Dodgers within one run. Dodgers don't score again as Gonzalez, Puig and Uribe are retired. Lyons spends about two hours after the game saying he was proven right because the Dodgers didn't score again. And also retweeting "they didn't play the game like you did" sycophants.
I will never be mistaken for a sabermetric, numbers guy, but I completely agree with everyone in that camp when they say, "WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA?"
I know I didn't play baseball at a professional level and that automatically voids my opinion, but calling a home run a rally killer sounds bizarre. Sadly, Lyons isn't the first baseball person to say this. Among others, George Brett, Cecil Cooper and Orel Hershiser have all mentioned home runs as rally killers.
Lyons went on to say that the preferred way to rally is keep players on base -- a double instead of a home run would have "kept the pressure on." Earl Weaver is rolling his eyes in his grave. Please tell me there's some sort of probability study on this, something to refute this "home runs kill rallies" theory.
This comment aside, Lyons has said a lot of other goofy stuff during his time as a player and as a broadcaster. I live 3,000 miles away from L.A. where he's heard over the airwaves every day, and I don't know how Dodger fans can stand it out there. I've always been embarrassed that he was broadcasting Dodger games. He's terrible. But Fox never knew how to hire baseball announcers.
On the occasion of the Dodgers making the postseason, I loaded up on as many Dodgers Twitter people as I could. It helps to have true believers around you and it helps combat the "suck it L.A." tweets from Braves fans (their words, not mine).
I don't expect to be following a lot of them after the postseason. I can only take so much "yaaaaaaaaaaaaaay Blue!" if there's nothing else. But I'm going to keep Lyons for the hijinks.
I hope Ramirez keeps hitting home runs, too, because I need the laughs. Desperately.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Night Card binder candidate: Hanley Ramirez, 2013 Topps, #487
Does it make the binder?: It's a rally killer, but it's still an awesome night card. Yes.
Comments
...and he retweeted it.
So by no means being a Dodger expert, I presumed he was on their TV crew this year.
Friday night I tuned into the radio broadcast of Game 2 and considered myself fortunate to be listening to Vin Scully again!
I like lots of the radio announcers....smooth, and better stories and commentary than the TV guys it always seems. Now that you can listen to all MLB games courtesy of the Internet, my eventual goal is to get a DVR working on just enough of a delay of the video signal to sync to the radio call streaming across the Web. First I'll have to get a TV though.