Jehrico

My sports season rolls 24/7. I'm disappointed when the Bulls, Bears, or Cubs are eliminated, but then I hop right onto the next team. Same with Illini Basketball and football. Out of those 5, one of them is always mid-season.

I'd like to hug the guy who invented the mute button.

Hey, at least he throws strikes which get hit hard. And dont forget he always keeps his cool as he watches the ball sail over his head onto waveland, and remains calm and collected as he serves up the next meatball. That was my ray of hope yesterday, Howry got pissed off and yelled after giving up the HR. Maybe that will convince Lou. Oh no he's not calm anymore, time to go with Gooz! I'm hoping Lou will be more conservative with Howry in the playoffs than he was in the regular season when each individual game wasn't as important as they are in the playoffs.

http://www.sportsline.com/columns/story/10999646 The opening paragraph says it all: He finally wrote something worth the time it took to read it. =D>

lone ranger.

As much as I'm down on Wuertz right now, I'd take him over Howry 7 days a week, twice on Sundays.

You don't really think one of those guys should be on the roster instead of Marshall based on just tonight, do you? Marshall should be in before all of those guys. And Wuertz wasn't lights out. He walked Craig freaking Council with the bases loaded to put them ahead. Oddly enough, I'd rather have had Howry pitch to Counsell and Wuertz pitch to Braun. As stats go on the year, Wuertz has been the Cubs fourth best reliever this year by ERA+. Much of that is due to before he was wrongly sent down. His control has been howry-ty since he came back up on 1 Sep. Howry is the only other guy I'd rather not see then Wuertz in the playoffs if there are already any guys on base.

You don't really think one of those guys should be on the roster instead of Marshall based on just tonight, do you? Marshall should be in before all of those guys. And Wuertz wasn't lights out. He walked Craig freaking Council with the bases loaded to put them ahead.

I really wanted to see the Mets and Brewers play a one game playoff, as well as Minny and the WSox. Has there ever been two different playoff spots that came down to an extra one-game playoff in the same year?

To the Brewers fans of the board...can you say "Thank You Bob Howry?" If any of you guys get to go see the NLDS in person, I expect you all to be wearing I Love Howry shirts.

Wuertz showing why he doesn't deserve to be on the postseason roster. Walking Craig freaking Council with the bases loaded? Inexcusable. I'm glad they're leaving him off, I've seen him enough for the year.

Guz is looking good early, 4 Ks in the first two innings. Hopefully Howry sucks enormously in the NLDS, but doesn't cost us the series, and Guz, Gaudin, or Wuertz gets the spot instead.

Bull Howry.

It doesn't affect me, but how does this whole scenario affect fanasty owners? That's got to be a headache. Do scores and possibly head to head results from back in April get changed?

I never really thought of Z as pretty quick on his feet.

Not to beat a horse that has been dead quite some time, but why the hell did they choose to DFA Eyre instead of Howry? Eyre is only sporting a 221 ERA+ since his arrival in Philly. I swear to God, if Eyre ends up screwing us sometime this playoffs... It was very clear from Lou's quotes throughout the season that he respected Howry's work ethic and attitude and did not feel the same way about Eyre. If you remember, one of the reason Eyre came here was that Dusty was the manager and I think he said something along the lines of liking Dusty because he didn't make him run during spring training. If Lou doesn't like a guy, history shows that he will get his way and that guy will be out the door sooner or later. I think it wound up being later since Eyre was so effective the second half of '07 into the start of '08 when he came back from the DL. Once he started pitching like Howry (word editor), starting with the Crawford grand slam in TB, Lou wasted no time in showing him the exit. It is, in other words, a detailed example of why major league managers are really bad at their jobs compared to people in other 7 figure a year positions. I think that's a rather myopic point of view. He encourages people to work hard to be their best, and he rewards guys who do. Dusty never did that, and it shows itself in two different ways. Guys who are physically fit don't get injured as much, and we haven't had near the injuries under Lou that we had under Dusty. Also, we've gotten production from several players that exceeded expectations. I can't recall other than a couple of isolated cases where someone really notably exceeded expectations under Dusty. That attitude has lead to one discernable case where a guy is going to be on the roster that shouldn't be. Howry's role isn't that important, I don't mind one or two spots on the 25 man going to those guys who bust their butts and deserve it based on those roles. It sets a good standard for the other better players to maintain. Lou certainly deserves criticism for his use of Howry, but I don't mind one spot on the 25 man going to someone who really works hard and deserves it, as it has a positive carry over affect to both the other guys on the roster, as well as kids who want to earn a spot on the roster next year, as they see that hard work gets rewarded. Baseball is one of those funny sports where you don't have to look to far to find someone who excels despite not working very hard (i.e. fat elvis), and the younger kids can pick up on bad examples easily (like we saw with Dusty).

Blanco deserves an A as well, possibly an A+. I don't know how anyone who followed the team give him a B-. He easily put up the best all-around performance of all back-up catchers in the league. He's good with a pitching staff, hit decently both as an occasional starter or off of the bench (he out-OPSd Pudge this year), spent alot of time mentoring Geo, and threw out over 45% of would-be base stealers. He's done anything and everything anyone could reasonably ask out of a backup catcher. Fontenot - Similar comments as Blanco. The guy is slugging 100 points higher than the league average while hitting over .300 and putting up an OBP near .400 with adequate defense. The guy deserves an A, and that's before considering the G word. Fukudome - The only reason he doesn't get an F is his defense. The only reason he has one acceptable offensive stat (OBP over .350) is because it took the league almost three months to figure him out. His OPS is .622 since the AS break. The only other nice thing I can say about him offensively is he's not 2nd in the NL in GIDP.

It's looking possible that the ChiSox may force their make up game, which would have to be the 29th. I don't recall who it's against though. If they win that, then they will force a playoff with Minny, I'm guessing that can't be any earlier than the 30th. Would that push the start of the ALDS back? If so, would it impact the timeline for the NLDS as well?

There's no reason ANYBODY should be striking out 200 times per year, high OBP or not. your baseball knowledge is definitely in the bottom 10 percent of this board And you're a borderline troll who should have been banned long ago. And, seeing as you're a genius, would you care to explain to me why it's a good thing that they're striking out 200 times per year? Care to tell me why with runners on the corners and one out, it's ok that he strikes out, instead of putting the ball in play and perhaps getting the runner home? Yes, when you strike out you avoid the double play. But that is worst-case scenario. If there's not a runner on 1st, a strikeout isn't any better than a ground out or a fly ball. At least with a fly ball or grounder, you can possibly advance the runners. With a strikeout, barring a dropped 3rd strike, they don't. It's simple, really. So, care to tell me why it's desirable for a high OBP guy to strike out at disgusting levels? Seeing as that's the position you're taking by rebuking my argument. I'd be quite happy to hear it. Not a single person has said it's desirable or even a good thing. It's just that it's a hell of a lot easier to look past the strikeout totals when a guy is putting up a .900 OPS. Cutting back on their strikeouts is not necessarily going to make most of these guys more productive hitters. For many, it could make them worse. In Reynolds case, it wouldn't make him any worse, that's for sure...

I'd like to see him get one inning in on either Saturday or Sunday to keep sharp, and that's about it for the remainder of the regular season.

So long as Houston doesn't win out, otherwise it gets messy for us as well. If Houston loses one of their next three, then I'm all over both losing out.

I'm not a Marquis fan, but I don't think there's any denying he's contributed enough in the second half to merit a spot on the roster. Howry's inclusion on the roster while inevitable is still confounds me as it is nothing short of inexcusable.

Hell, at this point, I'll be happy if any of them pan out.

Now that AZ is formally eliminated from postseason consideration, which team will finish their choke job next?

Could they end up being the worst 100-win team in MLB history? I think you could make a strong case for it. Hi, we'd like to disagree with you. That Mariners team may not have been 116 win, record-tying good, but they were considerably better than this Angels team.