Tim McKernan posted on June 13, 2012 01:39
Timmy’s Tidbits
Boy, oh boy.
This is getting rough.
When you get 11 hits…score only once…lose an Adam Wainwright start…and Jake Peavy and his 0.97 WHIP are waiting the next night…and Jake Westbrook is starting your third game…this is getting rough.
I can’t say it’s getting dangerous, because the Cardinals reside in a division where even the Houston Astros, who are eight games under .500…are just seven games out of first.
But, from a baseball fan perspective, this is most definitely getting rough.
How can a lineup that features a 2-3-4-5-6 combination of Molina, Holliday, Beltran, Craig, and Freese have six runs in its last four games?
And, then there’s the bullpen.
I don’t see how this gets better.
Whereas the lineup---based on historical performances---should improve and get out of this slump (although, once again, they did have 11 hits), there’s no historical track record to make one feel like Marc Rzepczynski, Mitchell Boggs, Fernando Salas, or Victor Marte will get out of their slumps. None of them have a huge sample size of success at this level. They’ve all had flashes, but not the consistent success from many of the names in the lineup.
In other words, I’m not sure what the solution is with the bullpen…because there are so many holes that it’s Rams-esque.
Despite that, because of the suckitude of the National League Central, if the Cardinals can survive this time, they could most definitely hang around and be in the mix for the title…but it won’t be because they’re a typical division-winning caliber team. It’s like winning the NFC West in 2010…because someone has to.
There’s no question that the Cardinals have the highest ceiling of any team in the National League Central, but the injuries, the timely hitting, and the bullpen are pulling them down to average…exactly average…a .500 team.
The other part of this crap that will be incredibly annoying to me is hearing about the Pirates…as if they’re some success story. Yeah…they’ve won five straight series for the first time since they were last in the playoffs in 1992, but they beat the Cubs, Reds, Brewers, Reds, and Royals over those five series.
I’ll say now about them what I said about the Brewers going into the stretch run last year: they haven’t proven they can beat winning teams.
Unfortunately, neither have the Cardinals.
Mike McQueary Testifies
I’m going to sound like a textbook message board/Twitter jackoff who busts out the lonely/personal/professional anonymous online shit starter line of: “Where are all the so and so’s now?”
Example: Austin Pettis actually catches a ball, and RamTrueFan1964 posts, “Where are all the Austin Pettis haters now?”
So, with that out there, I’ll bust this: “Where are all the Mike McQueary haters now?”
My guess is some people don’t know exactly who Mike McQueary is just by name in June 2012. I’m certain that wouldn’t have been the case in November 2011.
At the time, it seemed damn near everyone had an opinion on McQueary…and Joe Paterno.
And, kind of like those who pontificated on the Pacquiao-Bradley fight---but didn’t actually watch the fight---you had many condemning McQueary even if they didn’t read the full police report.
That shit drives me up the wall.
What drives me up the wall even more is when the court of public opinion leads to a rush to judgment…but when the actual court proceedings take place---as they are this week in the Jerry Sandusky trial---few people are talking about it.
Well, McQueary testified yesterday, and you know what? While, with the benefit of hindsight, he may not have done enough---as in beating the shit out of Sandusky when he walked in on him in the shower with a young boy, he most definitely followed protocol in reporting it to the authorities. And, Joe Paterno, according to McQueary’s testimony, also followed protocol in reporting it to the authorities.
From Dan Wetzel of Yahoo! Sports:
“It turns out McQueary did more than he was credited for when the story broke last fall. At the time he was portrated as someone too timid or too unconcerned to do the right thing and properly report the crime.
Graham Spanier, Penn State's now fired president, claimed to a grand jury he wasn't given specific enough information about the incident to act. And Tim Curley, the athletic director, and Gary Schultz, the school vice president who oversaw the police department, expressed confusion over whether McQueary fully explained what he saw.
If Monday's report by NBC about the email exchange is accurate (a story Penn State has not refuted), then those are lies. McQueary was clear enough that the men took the allegation very seriously. They even conducted legal research into the potential case before concluding that they'd rather play nice with Sandusky.
Curley and Schultz already are charged with failing to report a crime and perjury. The attorney general has said Spanier could still be charged.
If those men committed crimes, then McQueary's reputation is one of the victims.
Had they lived up to their legal and moral responsibilities and pursued Sandusky based on McQueary's allegation, then he'd have been a hero, this would have ended long ago and the parade of witnesses rolling into this courthouse to tearfully describe Sandusky molesting them as 11, 12 and 13 year-olds would be shorter or non-existent.”
I wonder if McQueary will ever get his job back. Currently he’s on paid leave from the Penn State staff. I do hope---even moreso---that he gets his reputation back.
This is where the Skip Bayless-esque Prisoner of The Moment Bullshit plays a role in the ignorance of fact and greater emergence of dipshittery.
Fuck the facts. Just scream and plagiarize the thing you saw or heard being screamed on television or radio…and hope no one calls you on it.
Quick Hits
-Kevin Durant is a superstar. NBA fans already know that. If he played in 75% of the other cities in the NBA, casual fans would know that. He’s three wins away---and three more performances like last night’s 36 point clinic---from non-sports fans finding out about him.
-Remember Quin Snyder? Just three years ago, he was toiling as the head coach of the Austin Toros of the NBDL. He got a break as the head of player development for the 76ers, and then this last year, he served as an assistant for the Lakers. Well, now Quin is one of three finalists for the vacant Charlotte Bobcats’ job. He’s up against one of the great all-time coaches in Jerry Sloan and Brian Shaw, the man who thought he was going to be the heir apparent to Phil Jackson. Quin has gone from coaching in front of a few hundred people in minor league basketball to sitting down with Michael Jordan and being up for a head coaching job with finalists Jerry Sloan and Brian Shaw in three years.
-Bovada.lv sent these 2013 Stanley Cup odds over yesterday, and the Blues are near the top of the list:
Odds to win the 2013 Stanley Cup
Pittsburgh Penguins 7/1
Los Angeles Kings 11/1
St. Louis Blues 12/1
Vancouver Canucks 12/1
Chicago Blackhawks 12/1
Detroit Red Wings 12/1
New York Rangers 12/1
Philadelphia Flyers 14/1
Boston Bruins 14/1
Nashville Predators 18/1
San Jose Sharks 22/1
-And, finally, from the creep department, if you ever visit the YouTube video of a special Valentine’s Day edition of Foot Fetish Friday, you are one of 62,000 people who have viewed it. The video features Jay Randolph, Jr. (of course) working over the feet of 2011 Girl Next Door Savannah. She’s quite proud of her feet, and Jay is quite pleased. That is par for the course. It’s the comments under the video that make it wonderful. I get email notifications anytime a comment is posted under it, and last night, we had a new high:
“i was sitting in taco bell once and i saw this girl ask her boyfriend for a foot massage and he said i dont like feet i wanted to jump up and say ill do it!”
A few things:
-Is this a true story?
-I tend to say it is, because it’s so fucking random, it’s hard to believe it’s made up.
-With that said, what the fuck was going on inside of this particular Taco Bell location?
-How close was this gentleman to their table at Taco Bell?
-What would the result have been had he offered to jump in and offer a foot massage to this girl who, I think, he doesn’t know?
Well, there is the possibility it’s all made up.
After all, here’s another comment left under the video…perhaps honoring the soon-to-be-departed Non-Gay:
MMMMM why didn't the chubby camera man take his shoes off :(
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