Baseball Toaster was unplugged on February 4, 2009.
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4) arguing for the sake of arguing
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So, just when you forget that Wilson Alvarez is made of origami - lots of origami - Ken Gurnick passes along the reminder. The valuable swingman has tendinitis:
Alvarez last pitched in an intrasquad game Friday, but did not register much above the mid-80s on the radar gun with his fastball. He tossed 88 pitches and allowed five runs in 3 2/3 innings with four walks.
Alvarez has only one big league game appearance of two hitless innings and a three-inning "B" game appearance, having been slowed by the flu.
He was considered a candidate to start the second game of the season if Odalis Perez hasn't built up enough pitch count, but the latest setback makes Alvarez questionable even to be the fifth starter after Scott Erickson.
Gurnick notes that Norihiro Nakamura is probably headed for the minors at season's open so that the Dodgers can start with 12 pitchers. Any Alvarez misanthrophy really opens the rubber door.*
In (9): Derek Lowe, Jeff Weaver, Odalis Perez, Scott Erickson, Eric Gagne, Yhency Brazoban, Giovanni Carrara, Duaner Sanchez, Elmer Dessens
Questionable (1): Wilson Alvarez
Candidates (7, for 2 or 3 spots): Buddy Carlyle (the Dodger Thoughts pick to click), Mike Venafro, Kelly Wunsch, Frank Brooks (seems like he's losing in the popular vote), Edwin Jackson, Ryan Rupe (did I mention he was this year's Tanyon Sturtze?), D.J. Houlton (Rule 5 helps his cause)
Disabled (2): Brad Penny (and Darren Dreifort, of course)
"Venafro has an escape clause in his contract that allows him to be a free agent if the club attempts to assign him to the minor leagues after Friday," Gurnick noted. "That might give him an edge over Wunsch, who has an escape clause in his contract if he's not in the Major Leagues by June 15, as does Rupe. Carlyle said he has a July 1 escape."
Still, it's not as if the minor leagues are going to be Siberia for Dodger pitchers. They should think twice about rushing to leave. For the most part, we might as well just call it an 18-man staff.
*Wouldn't it be cool if the pitchng rubber was really a trap door and relievers entered the game by rising up through the mound?
Blast you, Jon, that's reminded me of some image (a cartoon, maybe?) that had pitchers doing just that. It'll bother me the rest of the night.
I think it would be even cooler if there was a trap door right below Frank & Jamie's box seats, that when opened, would send them into a wormhole back to Boston at the speed of light.
But that would be wishful thinking! :)
dj
"The pitching mound, packed clay on a steel plate, weighs 18,000 pounds, and officials nixed their original idea of having it lifted by a crane into a trailer before soccer games because the enormous equipment could damage the field. So a team of engineers, architects, electricians and even NASA scientists created the hydraulic lift. It will be operated from a box in the third base dugout -- a box that will be locked during games, lest an opposing team's manager gets a crazy idea while a Nationals pitcher is at work."
Re: spot starting - Earlier in the spring I heard Duaner Sanchez was going to get a look as a possible starter. Does anyone know how that experiment fared?
It just kills me that I can't listen to the spring games on the radio!
I'm amazed Charley Finley never tried this.
Yes. Even cooler would be how the failed pitchers would exit the game through the trap door.
Wouldn't it be cool if, when any player was called out on strikes, a giant fork impaled him and flung him back in the dug-out?
It would also be somewhat cool if, when Gagne came in to shut the game down, the sky went black and trumpeters were slowly elevated from behind the right and left field pavillion sections. Instead of throwing baseballs he threw spears. Instead of the opposition using bats, bats used the opposition to make contact with the 98MPH spears.
I need to start my own sport.
There's an argument for (oxymoron ahead) a cheap laptop.
It's not exactly cutting edge technology.
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