We’re now in the phase of the MLB season where the leagues glacially roll out their post-season awards; and we were moderately tickled to see Kansas City Royals ace and object of female WL readers’ affection Zack Greinke scoop up the AL Cy Young Award after one of the best seasons in baseball history. Greinke finished the season with 229-1/3 innings pitched, a 2.12 ERA and a pant-droppingly low 1.07 WHIP.
Greinke’s struggles with anxiety disorder are a part of his life and cost him most of two big-league seasons. But his poised brilliance on the mound conceals a young man who still isn’t terribly comfortable with all the recognition his talent has brought him. “He didn’t even answer the Cy Young call because he did not recognize the number on his cell phone,” the Kansas City Star’s Joe Posnanski writes. –The Daily Fix [Wall Street Journal]
Of course the nerds are rejoicing, as they feared that Greinke would lose the award to one of the six players that finished the season with more wins. They pointed to a stat called Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP), but really that sounds like a bunch of hogwash. Why use a bunch of statistics for such a thing when there are plenty of unbiased sportswriters at your disposal? Those guys are really knowledgeable and certainly would weigh each player’s performance equally. Especially when Greinke goes to play for the Yankees in 2011.
I gotta be honest, I haven’t been impressed with these auto-tune videos that seem to be coming out every week now. Oh, it’s a news clip made to sound like a bad Britney Spears song! Whatever, dude. I know you guys like them, and I’ll keep posting them for that reason, but this George Brett vid rises above the pack. But talking about soiling yourself in Vegas usually does. A little less defecation, a little more action, please. Thanks, Uff. via.
Zack Greinke, AKA The Only Reason To Give The Kansas City Royals Time Of Day, went eight innings in his latest start last night, which is like “balls and a half deep” by today’s standards. Most guys go five innings and they start looking into the dugout like some 9-year-old that got lost in a mall. Anyway, Greinke also struck out 15 batters as the Royals stopped a 5-game losing streak, 6-2.
“My plan was to get ahead with pitches, and once you get ahead, to finish it,” Greinke said.[...]
“I knew I had a bunch [of strikeouts] after two or three, but that happens a lot and I slow up big time, but I didn’t really think much of it until the fifth inning when there was 10, I think.”
Greinke’s ERA now sits at 2.43, best in the AL and third-best in the bigs behind Chris Carpenter and Matt Cain.
Elsewhere in baseball…The Rockies had another walkoff hit last night; this time it was the unflappable Troy Tulowitzki who singled in the bottom of the 10th to get past the Dodgers, 5-4. They Rockies are now only 2 games behind in the NL West to LA, whose lead in that division was allegedly insurmountable…The Over prevailed yet again for the Nationals; they scored six runs in the fifth of their tilt with the Cubs at Wrigley. Most of those runs were on Carlos Zambrano, who gave up eight runs but then got one back with a solo homer in the third. Washington prevailed, 15-6. Oh, and the Red Sox won, but screw them.
Here’s your baseball post for June: The Indians had the first walkoff seagull-poaching of 2009 after…if I can read the card here…Shin-Soo Choo hit a line drive in short center that bounced off a bird and eventually drove in the winning run. Cleveland tagged Kansas City Royals ace Zack Greinke (OMG! ZACK GREINKE!) for three earned runs, two of which were given up after Greinke left the game. His ERA has swelled to a portly 1.72 on the year, with grotesquely obese WHIP of 0.99. Disgusting.
It’s too bad that this post isn’t about Zach Greinke, he of the phenomenally awesome 0.60 ERA 0.83 WHIP, because he deserves some attention. No, this is about another happening in Kauffman Stadium, the home of the Greinke’s Kansas City Royals: a fight between parents that started when someone stepped in front of another couple trying to photograph her kid. From KMBC via Sports Rubbish:
Witnesses said the foursome began shouting and cursing at each other and then began exchanging blows. One woman was knocked to the ground, where the other woman began kicking her, according to the police report.
“We peek around the corner expecting to see kids fighting, but it’s four adults right on the playground,” said Laura Phipps, who witnessed the fight.
It gets better.
“It was beyond a brawl. It started out as four people, and then as kids were getting toppled, those parents came in, the women were fighting,” Phipps said. “The saddest scene was a girl wrapped around mom’s waist and saying, ‘Please don’t,’ and she’s throwing punches.”
Kids say the most pacifist things sometimes. It’s because their shoulders aren’t developed enough for genuine punching power. Anyway, two people were cited and taken into custody. Up for debate was the response time for security to reach the playground once the fracas started–a witness said it took 10 minutes. Better question: instead of putting a children’s park inside of a baseball stadium, why not just take your kid to…an actual park?
Royals legend and Hall of Famer George Brett wants you to know about that time he shat himself in the lobby of the Bellagio. This is not hyperbole: this is the greatest thing any baseball player living or dead has ever said. You just don’t hear Derek Jeter talking about liquid shit running down his leg in a public place.
And for the record, “When was the last time you shit your pants?” is the new “You ever seen a grown man naked?”
[Deadspin]
