Some Days, You Hate Your Team Not Just Because They Lose to the Pirates, but for the Stupid Shit They Say Afterwards

I made the mistake of reading up on last night's Reds-Pirates game on mlb.com. Almost always a mistake; the quality of writing over there is abysmal. Here's what some guy named Mark Sheldon reports about last night's 4-3 Pirates win:

Through three starts, Arroyo is 0-1 with a 5.14 ERA. He has yet to pitch more than 5 2/3 innings.

"I wasn't particularly happy. It's pretty average," Arroyo said of his season thus far. "Nothing is clicking yet. You feel like you're running uphill a bit. I'm happy I kept us in the game, pretty much. I kept us close all three times, even though I don't feel like I've had the greatest stuff."

No, it's not average. Your WHIP is over 1.5 and your ERA+ is a miserable 81. You are throwing near 100 pitches in the first five innings of your starts.

Arroyo was finished after he threw 102 pitches. High pitch counts have been a running theme so far, but the right-hander wasn't worried.

"Sometimes, when you're facing the same guys year in and year out, they tend to start swinging at your stuff early, knowing you're going to be around the plate," Arroyo said. "I don't want to fall victim to guys by me throwing too many strikes. I tried to pull things out of the zone early in the game and get them off some pitches, which gets the pitch count up sometimes."

Is this a new philosophy of pitching? Don't throw too many strikes because you're facing the same guys year in and year out?

I think that's been the key to Greg Maddux's success. Since he's faced the same guys year in and year out for two decades in the NL, they know he's going to be around the plate. He must be avoiding strikes. No, actually, he's gone six and seven innings in his two starts and thrown fewer pitches in both outings.

Or maybe he just changes speeds. Bronson is probably too busy styling his hair or playing his guitar to figure that out.

I think it's safe to say that Bronson's revolutionary "Don't Throw Strikes" theory isn't going to have a profound effect on the game.

In the seventh, the Reds loaded the bases with three one-out singles and did not score. For the third time in two nights, normally clutch hitter Edwin Encarnacion made the third out with the bases loaded.

He did hit a game-ending home run after failing to get a bunt down.That was one at-bat. Considering the entirety of his career, none of his "clutch stats" show that he is at all more likely to get a hit when his team needs it.

"It seems like the hit keeps eluding us and they keep getting it," Baker said. "That's the name of the game. He who gets the most two-out hits usually wins."

I'm glad you are managing, Dusty. Why don't you spend less time spouting useless crap like this and more time yelling at your #2 starter, who has apparently decided that his best pitching approach is to avoid throwing strikes?

Ugh. It could be a long season.

Color Commentators Operate Blogs

I suppose that I should start off by introducing myself. My name is Jarrett, and I now blog here. I'm not quite as angry as I should be to blog here, and I certainly don't care for grammar's "rules". What I do care about is hockey. Now that I've stopped everybody from reading any more, I urge the "hockey is on Versus, therefore I shouldn't care about it" crowd to wait a couple days for everybody else here to post. You'll get your kicks then. Foreplay aside, I'm here to make you read, and read you shall.

Daryl "Razor" Reaugh is the color commentator for the Dallas Stars. A former goalie in the hockey equivalent of AA baseball, he must really know his hockey. But put a computer in front of him, and this happens.

According to The Hockey News and their league sources, NHL players will be traveling more and resting less starting next season when the league does away with the unbalanced schedule and opens the regular season one week later.

Multiple high-level sources have confirmed to THN.com that the NHL will push back its starting date next season by one week, to either Oct. 9 or Oct. 10.

Sources have also indicated that the league will kick off in Europe next year with two games in Prague between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Ottawa Senators (It had previously been reported that the Penguins and Tampa Bay Lightning would play those games).

Because the whole "regular season in Europe" thing worked out so well this year. The only thing the league is doing is stealing games away from season ticket holders for the Penguins who fill the ancient igloo in Pittsburgh... but that's not why I'm targeting his comments.

This season, not including the two games played in England between the Los Angeles Kings and Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, started Oct. 3.

In order to accommodate the change, the league will further compress the schedule early in the season rather than have the season run one week longer.

My take?

Here's why I'm writing.

Schedule Change: Great news. If you have a league of 30, have all 30 play each other. (Isn't that the point of a league?)

I have to say that I agree with every part of this. The NHL really screwed up having teams play so much in their own division and not having the new line of NHL superstars playing against every team. This Saturday will be Alexander Ovechkin's first trip to St. Louis, and I'm excited.

Delayed Start: The delayed start is a step in the right direction but one week isn't enough. The NHL should seriously think about starting no earlier than Oct 15th, and preferably not until November 1st. (Let the NFL get into the ho hum middle of their schedule, same with college ball, and avoid clashes with MLB playoffs)

No. Not at all. No. Yesterday was October 15th. What a day it would have been to start the hockey season, because it wouldn't clash with baseball's playoffs at all. The NHL starts at the right time as it is. A little more than 2/3 of baseball's fans have been eliminated from their favorite team playing in the postseason. With only 16 games in their season, I would hardly call any part of it "ho hum," but that early it's hard to tell if a team is good or not, I suppose. Or go with Razor and start your season in the middle of the LCS. I don't care about any of the teams playing, but I still watch because the games can be exciting. Some nights, you are rewarded with a call that still has 30 people talking and other nights you stay up for three hours to see the Indians humiliate the Red Sox. Leave the start of the season alone.

Condensed Schedule: Call a dumbulance!

Take THAT, NHL! What a moronic move! So dumb, in fact, that a specific vehicle dispatched by 911 should be called to your schedule gurus!

The NHL doesn't need to gift their coaches a reason to play even more conservatively.

Gift suggestions: A large book of quotations that a color commentator could look at so he can turn a phrase correctly. "gift their coaches"? Let's see how he stumbles to the finish line.

I've always maintained that in order to maximize intensity two things should change; Teams should never have more game days than off days during any given week of the regular season. And, the season should be trimmed from 82 games down to 72.

A Jay Mariotti flip-flop special! You want every team to play every team, and rest in between, but you want to trim the schedule down for less games? HINT! The names of the conferences - - Eastern and Western - - denote the teams might be on the opposite side of the continent as the others! How about you change the game while you're at it? Add 3 more players per team to the ice, an extra puck, but to make sure they don't get tired, have the periods trimmed from 20 minutes to 2.