What do I think of his performance? The bleeper hit six bleeping home runs in six games off our pitching ... the bleeping Hall of Fame wanted his bleeping batting gloves after game three, that's what I think of his performance ... I know, I gave you an answer but it wasn't a good answer because I'm mad. How can you ask a question like that? What do I think of Nelson Cruz's performance ... bleep! Bleep bleep bleepity-bleep!
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Actually, they should consider themselves lucky to get as far as they did, with a lineup populated by guys named What, and I Don't Know, and I Don't Give A Darn -- him, a shortstop playing out of position. Mix and match at four positions all season. Revolving doors at second, third, and the outfield corners. Justin Verlander bought them one more day by going eight in game five to save the burned-out bullpen, but everyone in the second floor baseball bunker including Maggie's three nephews knew they were headed back to Arlington for a good, old-fashioned whipping.
Home-field might have saved them. The assortment of marginal players they already put on the field made every small advantage seem enormous. Austin Strikeout then went 11 for 25 striking out in the leadoff spot, and rest of them forgot what baseball bats were for until it was too late. Open at home, and JV and Fister, and Benoit and Valverde, may have carried them to at least a game seven. They finished one game short of a tie for the league's second-best record and a home opener. Which loss was it, then, that had them start the ALCS in Texas? The one, late in September when, knowing what was at stake, Skipper Leyland started rookie Jacob Turner? (Predictably, he was knocked out early.) Any one of a succession of stumble-bumble losses in April, when they went 12 and 16? Some winnable game in mid-July, clanged and dropped and strikeouted away?
We will never know. Aaaah, the bittersweet mysteries that are so much a part of our national pastime --
Shut up, Ken Burns. Get out of my blog.. And take Roger Kahn with you.
In the bunker, on this day after the Tigers season ended, there are a bunch of sore losers.
The cheerleaders, in print and on the air, all summer sold us this patched-together team as the one that was at last ready for the big October dance. We knew better. But we believed them.
The baseball season is mercifully over.Who in August would have dreamed that we would be eager to get the Tigers out of the way so we could give the Lions (5-0 starting play today) our full attention?
Maggie and I are going to show the world we share the Tigers' loss by watching football, all day. We will make pizza for the kids, eat what they don't finish, drink adult beverages, and send the little monsters outside to play when their short attention spans get the better of them. And this final sentence will represent the last time any of us thinks about baseball. At least until tomorrow morning.
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