Change I Can Believe In: Let Them Throw! *****(Oh, and also Reduce Spending on Wasteful Govt Programs, but that's for FTLOSBW Financial Blog)
I think this may be the best and biggest change that has happened in the Gardy era. I am not for killing pitchers, but Gardy's overmanaging the pitch count and matchup strategy has been as taxing on our guys arms as letting starters throw deep into the game, and letting relievers stay in when they are on.
How many leads have we blown by taking guys out of the game who are doing well and letting some douche from the pen serve up a loss? I'd rather have a hot pitcher who's been getting guys out for seven innings try to finish off an opposite hitting batter than go through four guys in the bullpen to throw five pitches each to make sure we get lefty versus lefty or preserve some percentage rule that black haired pitchers on two days rest throw best against right handed batters with jewish names. I hope to god this could be the beginning of the scaling back of his four trips to a mound in one inning routine, that has become part of the ticket price at Target Field.
As a wise man once told Jan, if what you're doing is working, think about continuing it.
I really believe this has been part of the problem for years, and is partly why they are winning now (also, the general horseshit nature of the teams over the last three weeks). But I'd like to see this play out against the East when some of our guys are actually back, before they get hurt again.
15 Comments:
I concur. Case in point was yesterday's game as Glen Perkins came into the game in the 8th with a one run lead after a rally in the bottom of the 7th only to drop the "win" for Liriano. I don't recall if Liriano was tired or whatever but watching Rick Anderson have to trot out to talk with Perkins (as Bremer and Blyleven talked about how Perkins may be still recovering from his trip to the DL)
Also, I love how Scott Baker of all people was showing some fire, I always assumed he lacked the competitive edge, who knew.
Also, how many right-handed batters are actually Jewish? Someone should keep track of that kind of stuff.
Also, that 'wise man' has lots more of those "gems" just ask him.
June 20, 2011 at 10:07 AM
Yeah, this is good sign, as I felt like Gardy always yanked guys too quickly last year. On the other hand, he always seems to leave Duensing in the game for 1 inning too long.
I will be attending the game tomorrow night at AT&T Park, so I hope the solid pitching continues. If there was ever an offense that is good for boosting a staff's confidence, it is the Giants'. I'm expecting a couple of 2-1 games out here.
MCA - we need a recap of your inaugural TF experience?
June 20, 2011 at 1:00 PM
I didn't read the article, so I don't know if it alludes to this, but let's not overstate things: Gardy is leaving in the starters when they've been pitching well lately because the bullpen sucks, not because Gardy has some new zebra stripes. I think the causal thread is running the other direction here.
Anyhoo, I tasted the Target Field platter on Friday night, and let me tell you, it was f'ing delicious. Drinks with a client at the Newsroom, a just for old time's sake stop in at Gluek's on the way to the stadium, and met my old man and my four-year-old boy at the park (as well as my mother, wife and daughter, but let's be honest, going to a ballgame with your dad and your son [his first game, too] means more, especially Father's Day weekend, so sorry, ladies).
We'd been forecast for thunderstorms all day long, but they never showed, and by first pitch it was completely clear and mid-'70's. Absolutely perfect outdoor baseball weather. Then Mauer's first plate appearance back, with a standing o and an RBI single through the left side. Cuddy doubles and Valencia just misses the facing of the upper deck in left for a 5-0 lead. Peter thought it was the coolest thing ever. I had feared a snoozefest pitchers duel, what with the Padres and Red Wings playing.
The park is phenomenal. Great sight lines, great seats, great view of downtown. I wasn't sure of what to think of the limestone and Prairie style touches when the original renderings came out, but in person I loved it. I parked literally less than 200 feet from Gate 29, and after leaving the park we were home in 19 minutes. To Medina in 19 minutes!
Right field plaza is a perfect community space. The old school Twins logo is a stroke of genius, and the kids loved it. The scoreboards are remarkable. We sat in the Legends Club, which is pretty great, although I didn't get to sample much food with the kids there and all that commotion. Couple Grain Belts and a bag of peanuts was all I really needed, though.
Oh, and walking to the bathroom with my son, and who gets off the elevator right in front of us? Tony fucking Oliva!
The memorabilia store is off the hook, too. I just wish we'd had time to shop around, but we stayed through the stretch and it was already 10 o'clock so we needed to get the little ones home.
All in all, I'd give the night an 11 out of 10.
June 20, 2011 at 5:10 PM
Btw- the dunce versus lincecum on Thursday. Exciting! I've been waiting to watch him for ages.
Throw out the record books when these longtime rivals get together. Anything can and usually does happen.
June 20, 2011 at 6:14 PM
Btw- the dunce versus lincecum on Thursday. Exciting! I've been waiting to watch him for ages.
Throw out the record books when these longtime rivals get together. Anything can and usually does happen.
June 20, 2011 at 7:23 PM
MCA sounds like a great time. I need to make it up there one of these days and check it out myself.
Kansas City Royals down, 3 more teams to go. Watch out White Sox. If they somehow dig out of the hole to China they dug themselves, it will be absolutely amazing.
Commenting on the rename Lake Calhoun campaign article, you can count me as one of the people who will always call it lake Calhoun. At DQ I still call an Artic Rush a Mister Misty. Although it changed names while the kid serving me was in diapers, they still know what I am talking about. Apparently, they are not as smart at Taco Bell because they quickly forgot that the Chili Cheese Burrito used to be called a Meximelt. That is now moot as it has gone the way of the Cheeserito and been removed from the menu altogether. The Syracuse Orange are still really the Orangemen. The Big Ten will always be the Big Ten no matter how many teams they add. Finally, the Cleveland Browns will always be the expansion Cleveland Browns to me. The line was cut, you can't pretend it did not happen. They are not the same. These guys are impostors and should have an asterisk on their helmets.
June 21, 2011 at 1:36 PM
Check that- The Chili Cheese Burrito used to be called a Chilito. Sorry for the confusion.
June 21, 2011 at 1:39 PM
I recognize that the guy in the Lake Calhoun article is a kook, and that probably 5 people (myself certainly not among them) were even aware that the Calhoun name was THAT Calhoun before now, so it's clearly a waste of energy that makes him look like a fool while he wastes everyone's time.
To play devil's advocate, however, a few ripostes to those who would mock:
- would you be keen on letting, say, a Goebbels Lake somewhere near you remain unnamed if some German immigrant had christened a body of water that way back in 1930? While not on the short list of history's greatest monsters, John C. Calhoun's not a good dude. His record sort of stands for itself. I mean, it's not like the guy's trying to change Lake Harriet's name because he got dumped by a girl named Harriet in high school.
- I assume we're at least sort of OK with not having sports teams named the Negroes and changing from American Indian-themed names if a tribe really objects, right? This is qualitatively different, to be sure, but not categorically.
- I'm extremely sympathetic to RTS's curmudgeonly insistence on calling various products, places, and teams what they were properly called in our formative years. I do exactly as he does for any number of things, like calling the Willis Tower the Sears Tower and the Colorado Avalanche the Quebec Nordiques, for instance. It annoys the shit out of people [read: Mrs. MCA]. However, we should recall one thing: we'll all be dead one day. If you change the name of Lake Calhoun to Target Lake, by 2075 not a single person alive will give two shits that it used to be something else, because for them it will always have been Target Lake.
- I almost sympathize with the selflessness of this futile gesture. This guy's in his '60's and even if he were to succeed he would never get any personal satisfaction out of this, as it wouldn't be until well after his death that contrarian jackasses like us stopped calling it Lake Calhoun. But in the end, he would have rid the world of whatever karmic injustice he feels is in place by having millions and millions of people connote positive things when they hear the name of a guy who was clearly an asshole and argued that slavery was a "positive good."
- Have you seen a picture of John Calhoun? Scary ass lookin' motherfucker, gentlemen. Do we really need a prominent lake named after a dude that looks like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:John_C_Calhoun_by_Mathew_Brady,_March_1849-crop.jpg ?
June 21, 2011 at 7:11 PM
MCA - Awesome you got to see Tony O. Did you chat him up in some espanol?
RTS - You can still order Chesserito's at El Crocho Smell. They aren't on the menu but, up here at least, they know what they are when you order. I'm on the Mr. Misty train too.
Glad to see the Lake Calhoun article is getting some legs. I personally have never thought about the name. I know that I used to go to Fulton Elementary School which was named for Robert Fulton, the steamboat guy. I think more of Calhoun as the founder of Fort Snelling guy versus the slavery guy.
Points:
1. We can't really be arguing that all things related to slavery need to be changed, right? Guess we're gonna have to cross off some names from the history books and places on things like maps. Shame too as Thomas Jefferson was a pretty swell guy.
2. Goebbles? Come on.
3. It's a matter of time before all names are changed anyway, North Dakota is no longer the Fighting Sioux. Who knows, if the right-wing gets in power they could be the North Dakota Pro-Lifers and their mascot could be a fetus wearing a hockey helment and snarling.
4. Every portrait of people from back then looks scary. People didn't smile, they lived in a time when there was a good chance if you walked around with your mouth open you'd somehow get horseshit flung into it. I bet you'd scowl a lot too.
June 22, 2011 at 9:49 AM
Not claiming equality of monstrousness with nazi leaders. Everything's on a scale, of course. I'm just saying this is closer to that end of the spectrum than some purely personal vendetta against my next-door neighbor.
I also don't quite buy the slippery slope comparison to Jefferson or anything or anyone else having anything to do with the institution of slavery. History views Calhoun as a decidedly bad guy (I think - maybe that's not the consensus). It views Jefferson as a decidedly good guy and kind of covers its eyes and mumbles when it comes to his somewhat difficult relationship with slavery. Calhoun openly advocated for the expansion of slavery westward, and distinguished himself by arguing that not only were blacks an inferior race, but that slavery was a good thing. For the slaves. Not just a regrettable economic necessity, which was about as far as most public figures would go at the time. Granted, those were positions many held, but he was the public embodiment of them and a rallying point for secessionists. It's his primary legacy, as far as I know. Jefferson's is the Declaration of Independence and starting a nation.
Does that push me, personally, to the tipping point of thinking we should rename Lake Calhoun? No. It's been 160 years; abolition won out; Fort Snelling is important locally; it's just a name; in reality, no one associates the lake with the actual Calhoun, and certainly not with slavery or pro-slavery attitudes; and the lake obviously wasn't so named to honor those things.
I'm just trying to argue that it's not totally absurd that his legacy would cross that threshold for some. The "it's just a name" argument sort of cuts both ways. You know - change happens, it's just a name, wouldn't it be nice to not have the honor of having lakes named after them going to people with highly corrosive effects on culture and history? Misplaced enthusiasm for sure. But there's a not loony mentality that would think it regrettable to the point that some action would be a good thing in this instance.
June 22, 2011 at 2:00 PM
If we do not know anything else, I think we have our finger on the pulse of the Cheesarito:
http://www.facebook.com/cheesarito
I think I saw a Scooby Doo episode where the villain was modeled after Calhoun.
June 22, 2011 at 2:58 PM
Facebook, of course. The Cheeserito can live on. I use to get pied and eat Cheeseritos at the Uptown Taco Bell, I think some on this blog may remember doing that. Thanks for the perspective there RTS.
Just a few last points from me on Calhoun then BG can make a new post giving us the San Fran take on the Twins visit.
1. "Wouldn't it be nice to not have the honor of having lakes named after them going to people with highly corrosive effects on culture and history?"
Short answer - yes.
Long answer - yes.
Community college test answer - it'd be nice to not have had lots of things happen throughout history that are ugly and disgraceful.
2. What about Calhoun keeping his name on the lake and it serving as a reminder of our nation's past? His name as a tool to teach so we don't forget? Ty Cobb – great baseball player, greater racist, we don’t erase him from the history books do we? No, when he’s mentioned people say things like “Ahhh, the ‘Georgia Peach’, arguably the best hitter ever and generally speaking a disgusting person personally who was small-minded, just a piece of shit human being-wise. Great swing, though. The Natural.”
3. We all know Goebbles was one of the masterminds of the Holocaust orchestrating the killing 6 million Jews, right? Not to mention the number of Poles, disabled, 'gypsies', homosexuals that were sent to their deaths. Not saying that Calhoun didn’t have the same hatred in his heart just not quite the blood on his hands.
June 23, 2011 at 10:21 AM
As always, Jan, thanks for the debate and good thoughts. Always fun, even when I'm sort of ghost arguing for the other side. I guess Goebbels was a poor choice of names by me. Too close to the extreme end of the evil list. I'm sure there are others in between that extreme and wherever on the line Calhoun sits that would have been better examples. Just to set the record straight again, though - I'm not equalizing the two here. Doesn't change the thrust of my point, I guess.
Funny side note - when I worked at a law firm in Minneapolis the summer after my first year in law school, there was a lawyer I did some work for named, I kid you not, Bill Hitler. It still floors me that his family didn't change its name at some point between 1942 and 1950.
Fair point on the "teachable moment" note - should have added that to my list of why I don't really think the name should be changed. Harkening back to another discussion on this little board right here, we can extrapolate that to the steroids era and asterisks on statistics and the idea of wiping out homerun totals, too.
Enjoy that game tonight, BG. I have a feeling little Timmy's going to shut us down rather completely.
June 23, 2011 at 5:51 PM
LMAO at Bill Hitler. I happen to be cold calling many people with traditional Jewish last names right now. Could you imagine "Hello this is Bill Hitler calling for Mr. Efrem Rosenstein." I can't stop chuckling at how awkward that would be. This must be like what DTK feels like on a normal basis.
June 23, 2011 at 6:22 PM
MCA - I love the debate, I also just like to say things sometimes. I appreciate your arguing any side of any topic, it's interesting in creative and is also part of your nature, ever hear of the scorpion and the frog?*
Why hasn't BG posted a photo from the game he attended?
* I know you have but I just like to reference that whenever remotely relevant as it sounds so "pseudo-something" to me
June 24, 2011 at 10:38 AM
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home