Yardwork: Mr. Wonderful, Jonathan Papelbon
Baseball May 11th. 2009, 12:15pm
Red Sox 4, Rays 3: Jonathan Papelbon allowed a walk and a single to open the ninth, putting runners at first and third, but then proceeded to throw gas right by Carlos Pena, B.J. Upton (who sucks) and Carl Crawford. The win gave Boston their first series victory of the season over the Rays (Tampa took the first two sets). Big Papi remains homerless with a humorous batting average of .224.
Mets 8, Pirates 4: The Mets have ripped off seven straight and quite suddenly everything is perfect in Queens, even the town bully digs them. Beltrán had 2 RBI as he continues to rake while the rest of big bats seem to be coming to life, except of course when Santana pitches.
Mariners 5, Twins 3: Twins reliever José Mijares served up a two-run shot to Ken Griffey, kickstarting a four-run eighth and spoiling a great start by Nick Blackburn, who had gone seven scoreless innings. The heartless Griffey had this to say of his home run: “It’s a cheap way of me not buying my mom a gift.€
Cardinals 8, Reds 7: Pujols, Bruce, Votto, Micah Owings and Jerry Hairston Jr. all homered. Cincinnati’s Adam Rosales also homered and impressively rounded the bases in roughly seven seconds. The Cards overcame Ryan Franklin blowing a two-run lead in the ninth (see Hairston & Owings), to win it in the 10th on a Colby Rasmus RBI double.
Giants 7, Dodgers 5: The Dodgers have lost three of four without Manny, but put this one on fellow druggie Guillermo Mota, who gave up six hits and three runs in the 12th and 13th innings.
Rangers 7, White Sox 1: In his last two starts Vicente Padilla has thrown a total of 15 innings and given up just one run. Even more impressive, the nutjob has thrown zero punches. Healthy Hank Blalock hit two homers.
And here’s Aubrey Huff’s home run celebration yesterday where he mocked Joba’s fist pump (no embed code), both when he rounded first and after crossing home plate. Would actually love to see players doing this regularly to Joba, Joel Zumaya, Papelbon and renowned mound karate champ, K-Rod.
In closing, one of the greatest mascot headbutts of all time:
17 Responses to “Yardwork: Mr. Wonderful, Jonathan Papelbon”
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May 11th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
Papelbon was throwing gas but about 50% of those fastballs were high and out of the zone. Pena, Upton and Crawford foolishly swung at like all of them. Upton also doesn’t suck – he was the Red Sox killer last postseason and just off to a slow start.
Saw something today that MLB is looking into Jenks throwing behind Kinsler. Apparently, the rotund closer with the piss-yellow goatee did it on purpose. So say his postgame quotes.
May 11th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Extremely slow start. He has 3 RBIs.
May 11th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
This is going to be quite a fun post to revisit every once in a while throughout the season.
/no offense, Duffy
May 11th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Hernia – you’re right. I just don’t think he “sucks.”
May 11th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
Go Tribe! Worst record in baseball!
May 11th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
He doesn’t, I’ve just been complaining about him a lot because he’s on my fantasy team.
May 11th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
Nice fucking shirt Papelbum
Pat Burrell sucks
May 11th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
No love for the Stros? We swept the Padres and Roy actually got some run support en route to his first win of the season.
Yes I know that it’s the Padres, but a sweep is still a sweep.
May 11th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
Here’s my Astros love, my favorite part of the video is that Carl Crawford is featured in it.
May 11th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Joba is a stud!
/except in the 1st.
May 11th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
@TSH, thanks for twisting the knife a bit. Care to also point out that we traded away Kenny Lofton, Curt Schilling, Johan Santana….
May 11th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
lot of stats out there show Papelbon is starting to lose his stuff since he’s not hitting the zone as much and hitters aren’t swinging and missing as much.
still a good closer, can’t help but wonder if this is why the Sox refuse to give him a long term contract.
May 11th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Papelbon has basically been a one-pitch pitcher this season. I haven’t seen him throw a convincing splitter. He can’t control his fastball.
His fastball still has a lot of movement, so players are having trouble hitting it. But, they know it’s coming so they can put a bat on it. That’s why his contact rate has gone way up.
As far as the long-term contract thing. They invest in the draft and will pay top dollar for talent. They are reasonably confident they can bring up a kid every 4-5 years with a big arm. It doesn’t seem prudent to invest heavily and long-term in a closer.
May 11th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
O/T
as many shots at ESPN are taken, you have to give them credit for these OTL pieces. Really well done story on Chauncey Billups…
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=090511/billups
May 11th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
+7, for Chauncey’s new number in Denver. That’s a hell of an article.
May 11th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
has ortiz even hit one homer since they started drug testing???
May 11th, 2009 at 4:22 pm
Tigers > Indians
Verlander > Lee
Granderson > Sizemore