Memo to Walt Jocketty

Re: The rumored interest in David Wells

Remember the last fat guy with alcohol problems and anger issues you signed? That didn’t work out too well.

A plea to all Deadspin readers

Please, please, PLEASE! I implore you all to vote for Super Trampoline Basketball’s induction into the Deadspin Hall of Fame.

If you missed it the first time, here’s the setup: Kids+trampoline+basketball=the greatest and best thing ever.

Just visit the site, play the video and vote. If you don’t find 12-year-olds bellowing in pain funny, then vote no. But if you aren’t a total dork, then vote yes. Super Trampoline Basketball needs 75 percent “yes” to gain induction.

If you don’t vote, then you hate freedom.

Winds of change?

Back in May, I wrote about how, after a four-game losing streak, playing the Marlins was the baseball equivalent to Zoloft:

Give me that Z, O-L-O-F-T
No longer pissed, you don’t bother me
I’m making it through, I’m giving my all
When base are loaded, I’m whacking the ball

– “Zoloft,” by Ween

Back then, the Marlins were 8-21, seemingly fulfilling everyone’s prediction that they would be terrible, given the high number of rookies that manager Joe Girardi was starting.

(If that were Tony la Russa’s team, he’d be in the corner of his office, curled up in the fetal position. But I digress.)

Since then, however, the Marlins have scratched and clawed their way to a 64-66 record and are threatening to make the National League wild-card race.

In fact, after beating the Brewers on Monday, the Marlins have rattled off eight straight wins on the strength of their fancy young pitching staff.

Josh Johnson, all of 22 years old, leads the majors with a 2.87 ERA. Fellow rookies Scott Olsen and Ricky Nolasco each have 11 wins, which makes the Marlins the first team since the 1952 Brooklyn Dodgers to sport three rookies who have at least 10 wins. Other rookie hurlers who have made positive contributions include recent call-up Anibal Sanchez, Renyel Pinto and Taylor Tankersley.

On the other side of the ball, the Marlins have had surprisingly consistent efforts from Hanley Ramirez, Dan Uggla and Josh Willingham. And Jeremy Hermida remains a droolworthy youngster, despite injuries and a slow start.

And you can’t talk about the Marlins without mentioning their cagey “veterans,” Dontrelle Willis and Miguel Cabrera, who is making the run for the MVP award a five-man race.

But Tropical Storm Ernesto isn’t the only storm that’s threatening South Florida, as whispers of friction between Girardi and Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria are increasingly growing louder.

Back on Aug. 6, the Marlins were playing the Dodgers, and Loria, in his usual seat next to the dugout, took exception to umpire Larry Vanover’s strike zone and began shouting at Vanover from his seat.

Girardi then apparently asked Loria to knock it off, which led to an “exchange” in the dugout. That exchange was resumed after the game, after which preparations were made for a news conference, allegedly at which Girardi’s firing would be announced.

The news conference never happened, though, and both Girardi and Loria’s peeps were tight-lipped about the confrontation and the aborted news conference, and Girardi still is the manager.

But as recently as Sunday, Loria refused to indicate whether he still supported Girardi, who has two years left on his contract:

”I’m not going to talk about that because it falls under the category of next season. We don’t talk about next year until this year is over.”

At least, for Girardi’s sake, Loria hasn’t given him the dreaded “vote of confidence.” That is worse than the kiss of death.

Loria is not held in high regard by some folks. He apparently took a lot of Expos’ property, scouting reports in particular, after he sold the team to MLB and took control of the Marlins. He also was sued under federal racketeering laws when it was alleged that, after buying the Expos, he purposely undermined its operations in order to move the team.

So it seems that the Marlins, with their current hot streak, are playing well in spite of their owner’s worst intentions. The Cardinals also are playing well, imbued with a renewed sense of hope.

This should be a fun series.

Anatomy of a dinger

The Cardinals blogosphere certainly is atwitter about our man Sno Cones’ recent walk-off heroics.

But Gary Bennett’s grand slam didn’t happen in a vacuum. He had mad help from his teammates as well as his opponents Sunday. Check it:

Albert Pujols led off the ninth with a single. When imposing his will to win, he needn’t be directly involved to make an impact. I think all of us knew he was going to steal, and off he was against Bob Howry (although it looked as if his first couple steps were in mud).

Scott Rolen then bounced one up the middle. Ronny Cedeno fielded it just to the left of second base. Could he have stepped on second to get the gaffle-minded Pujols? Maybe, but he didn’t. Cubs mistake No. 1.

Juan Encarnacion then grounded to third. Aramis Ramirez scooped it up and seemed to freeze for a split-second before he threw to first. That hesitation allowed a hustling Instant Breakfast to beat the throw. Cubs mistake No. 2. And Pujols advanced to third after seeing no one covering the bag. Cubs mistake No. 3.

Ronnie Belliard, the Gangsta of Glove, finessed a walk to load the bases.

Aaron Miles then tapped a grounder to third. Ramirez forced Pujols at home, but Miles, because he’s Aaron Miles, was digging the whole way and beat Michael “Back Alley” Barrett’s throw.

Finally, Bennett unloaded on Cubs mistake No. 4:

(thanks to VEB commenter Hardcore Legend for the screen capture)

Holy Merciful Christ

Gary Bennett.

Walk-off grand slam.

That is all.

(graphic courtesy Bellyscratcher) 

Bonnie Bernstein enjoys the rap music

I missed most of Sunday’s tilt on ESPN, but I did watch enough to catch this little tidbit.

In the top of the seventh, Juan Pierre led off a single. Johnny Miller then sent the mic to sideline reporter (in baseball, would that be “foul line reporter”?) Bonnie Bernstein, who noted that Jay-Z is somewhat of a fan of Pierre. Who knew, right?

Well, Bon-Bon said that Hova marveled at the way Pierre ran the bases for the Marlins during the 2003 World Series against the Yankees.

Jay enjoyed it so much that he gave a shout-out (as the kids say) to Pierre in “Deja Vu,” his recent joint with Beyonce. Bernstein then quoted the opening couplet verbatim:

“I used to run base like Juan Pierre
Now I run bass, hi-hat and the snare”

I’m pretty sure that when he says “run base,” he’s not talking about baseball.

Cold snap in Devilsville

Gary Bennett.

Who knew?

For the past week or so, Big Noise from Waukegan has been absolutely dominating his playing time. And today, that dominance continued with another three-hit game. He also accounted for both runs, hitting his third homer in his past five games (and of the season) and driving in the winning run with a well-struck gapper in the bottom of the ninth.

About a week ago, Viva El Birdos commenter allenbrent made the following remark:

Bennett got a hit.  They are now officially serving snow cones in hell.

Bennett also homered in that Aug. 18 tilt against the Cubs, which we won 11-3. That prompted allenbrent and other commenters to run with that remark. Bennett’s incredible hot streak has unofficially reinforced “Sno Cone” as Gary Bennett’s nickname. I like it.

Mad props to you, Sno Cone. You deserve it.

A show of hands

Who among the brilliant readers of this Web log actually had hope that Mark Mulder wouldn’t piss Wednesday’s start down his leg?

*crickets chirp … a coyote howls in the distance*

Hmmm… just as I suspected. For the record, Mulder’s first start since his shoulder woes was as such:

3+ innings, 9 runs, 9 hits, 4 walks, 1 K

That’s actually worse than what I was expecting. The $1.98 question is: On whom do we pin blame? Do we blame Mulder for sucking, or do we blame his coaches for tossing him out there, knowing he was going to get more lit up than Haley Joel Osment?

Personally, I choose the latter (the coaches, not the kid who got busted for a DUI and weed). It was obvious to anyone who could see a TV that Mulder is broken. At work last night, I walked to the back of my office, where the game was on, and I saw it was 4-0 with one out in the first inning. “(Expletive)ing Mulder,” I said.

His mechanics are completely trashed. The first pitch I saw was to Lastings Milledge in the first inning, and he has an awful hitch in his delivery. As his body comes forward, his arm stops for a split-second before he finishes the pitch. At least he looked angry as he was getting smacked around like he stole something.

If a schmendrick like me can notice a hitch in Mulder’s mechanics, it’s just blatant mismanagement on the part of Waltony LaDuncan to give him a start. It’s as if they just threw their hands in the air (obviously like they just don’t care) and conceded this series.

But there is hope on the horizon. Jason Marquis (a native of Shaolin) takes the bump tonight in Queens. What? He stinks, too?

Crap.

Thanks a lot, jerkface

I was all set to write about what an important win this was.

I was all set to write about Ronnie Belliard’s play on a Jose Reyes grounder with one out in the sixth, how it saved a run and how had it gotten through there’d be a whole new ballgame.

I was all set to write about how, while Chris Duncan won’t make anyone forget Willie Mays in the outfield, he’s busting his butt to make plays, using his less-than-graceful dive in the first off a Reyes gapper as proof.

I was all set to write about how Braden Looper ignored the mad boos floated in his direction to get two huge outs in the eighth.

Best laid plans and all that.

Way to waste a Braskyesque effort from Albert Pujols and yeoman’s work from Duncan and Aaron Miles.

Jerkface.

I come here not to bury Tony La Russa…

… but to try to understand just what on Earth he was thinking pinch-hitting for Chris Duncan in the ninth inning Saturday.

On the game threads at Viva El Birdos, this event alone was blamed for the Cardinals’ loss. Many posters there left bitter comments about the move. Things got so bad there that LBoros himself had to tell people to “chill the hell out.” On his vacation, no less.

Anyway, the move. The setup involves Aaron Miles walking to load the bases with one out. Duncan is up next, so Dusty Baker calls for the lefty Will Ohman. TLR then counters Dusty’s move by calling back Duncan and sending Juan Encarnacion to the plate.

My first reaction was one of incredulity, as Duncan has been obliterating the ball for the past couple of weeks. Why not eschew the lefty-lefty thing and just “ride the hot hand”? Well, first let’s look at Dunc’s and Enc’s splits vs. lefties:

Duncan: .222/.243/.417 in 36 at-bats
Enc’ion: .313/.336/.507 in 144 at-bats; .271/.323/.424 lifetime

There’s an obvious discrepancy there. Next, let’s look at the situation, bases loaded:

Duncan: .111/.111/.111 in 9 at-bats
Enc’ion: .300/.273/.400 in 10 at-bats

Both have had so few at-bats with the sacks drunk this season as to make the distinction virtually meaningless. But look at Enc’s same splits lifetime: .343/.373/.529 in 102 at-bats. Now we’re getting somewhere.

We all know that TLR is a slave to that little card in his back pocket, and that card told him that Encarnacion is Juan tough Dominican when the bases are loaded. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out. As my friend David Lowery once said:

We zig and zag between good and bad
Stumble and fall on right and wrong
‘Cause the tumblin’ dice and the luck of the draw just leads us on

With the benefit of hindsight, one could argue that TLR made the right move based on the cold, hard logic. But with the way that Duncan has been hitting, it seems that telling logic to go scratch might have been the better move.

What are you gonna do? Let’s get ‘em Sunday, boys.

(For more second-guessing-of-TLR fun, see the Rev. Redbird and VEB commenter sjoshi.)