Too tired, stressed, and distracted for a real post, but here’s some serious fluff for my peeps (without bullet points!).

Evidently, Miggy Tejada is sooooo good, he can call his shot.  If you’ve ever seen one of the worst sports movies of all time, William Bendix’s betrayal (sic) of Babe Ruth in “The Babe Ruth Story,” you’ll know that the Babe did the same exact thing.  Cept, according to biographer Marshall Smelser, Ruth, ummmm, didn’t.  I mean, really, no player does that.  Maybe Miggy knew that Carlos Villanueva was going to be serving up gopher balls all night long (10,000 lake oysters?).  Who knows, but it took a lot of guts, to be sure.

Still, little Joey almost DIED when “Coop” Cooper choked.  Don’t we learn anything in this topsy-turvy world, dude?

Oh yeah, it’s like this.

I am a weepy, sentimental bastard this days, but Eight Belles was put down at the Churchill Downs after an amazing run.  I used to spend some time around horses, and I still get to say “Hi” every once in a while, but these injuries always make me sad in a non-obsessive-about-Barbaro kind of way.  Horses really do have unique personalities that you do get to know and love.  But, it does make me wonder what we would’ve done with Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio if they were horses.  Makes you think, doesn’t it?

Finally, congrats to “ship in every port” Roger Clemens.  I’m sure that, considering you have shown yourself to be such an honorable man, there’s NOBODY who’ll every believe you were shootin’ roids.  Nobody.  Nope.  Never.

With today’s win, the Stros are 5-8. Wandy thinks he’s Sandy Koufax, which is all good, but there’s still something wrong with Roy. So, after a little hiatus from the blog, here’s this week’s edition of Rights and Wrongs.

Rights: Offense:

Lance: Oh yeah, no first half power slump for the man this year. And, just to prove he doesn’t have old player’s skills, he has 3 SBs, as well.

Tejada: Who knew? Except for everybody but me. I am still extremely skeptical of his ability to produce, but he’s making me look like a total dumbass…which is fine.

JR Towles: He could be here under the premise of “Not Brad Assmass” alone, but he hit his 3rd bomb of the season today and drew his 6th walk. The average may suck, but that doesn’t really matter when you are hitting for power and drawing walks.

Carlos Lee: Three bombs to start the year. Yummy.

Pitching:

Wandy: Wow. I kinda called this one, based on his K-rate spike last year, but he has been outstanding this year. In addition, he’s going deeper into games. He’s had some helpful matchups, but this start has the smell of legitimacy.

Wrongs: Offense:

Hunter Pence: Nuf ced.

Michael Bourn: OK, my bad: I jinxed him. After seeing some considerable improvement in his offensive game, he had a crappy week. Frankly, I think I know part of the problem: he’s the most dead-red hitter I’ve seen since Vinny Castilla. If it ain’t a fastball, he can’t touch it. The 2 XBH in 42 ABs doesn’t give me warm fuzzies, either.

“Proven Hitters” Loretta, Wiggington, and Erstad: Loretta was once a good hitter, but he’s pretty much done. Erstad and Wiggington never were good hitters, and they are getting too many ABs.

Pitching:

Backe: What? How can I say that a guy with a 2.25 ERA is a Wrong? For the simple fact that his PeripheralERA is a lot closer to 6.00 than 2.25.

Chacon: More BB than K. I know it’s only two starts, but there’s no reason to expect that ratio to change.

Roy: Wow. 30 HA in 16 IP. 5 HR. After getting ripped by the Marlins (the MF MARLINS!!!) on Friday, it’s officially time to panic.

Summary: You may think I’m seeing the 5-8 record half empty, and you’re right. Here’s what I see (all stats through Saturday).

Our offense is 3rd to last in AVG, 2nd to last in OBP, and 11th in SLG. In other words, we really are a slow-pitch softball team with a bunch of guys too fat to run all the way to first in a sprint (like me!).

As for pitching, we’ve given up the most hits, we’re second to last in WHIP, and we are in the lower half in ERA. What that says to me is that we still have a considerable way to go to catch up with our WHIP, which means we look worse in runs given up. AND, considering the relation between hits and defense, we really may not improve in this area.

I guess I’m kinda hard-wired to not be overly optimistic. I tend to look at things from an objective viewpoint. And, right now, I see a pretty shitty team, and I see no reason to think that extending our 5-8 start to a 100-loss season is unreasonable.

Ok, a legendary terrible pitcher.  We’re only one game in and I’m already grumbling about the Cards.  As if having our four-run opening inning washed away on Monday wasn’t bad enough, I tune back in for Opening Day: Part Deux last night to see Houston native Kip “7-17″ Wells come back to town to shut down our bats, Troy Glaus and his iron glove remind us he ain’t no Scotty Rolen in the field (seriously, I hated Rolen, but Pretty Boy Troy BETTER hit 30HR or he gets anthrax in the mail), Ryan Franklin make me to continue to wonder if ‘07 was a fluke, and one of our “key” lefties in the bullpen walk in the winning run for Colorado (making your boy Taylor Buchholz the winner).  The middle of the line-up goes 1-11.  Fucking outstanding.  I guess the only silver lining to the re-start of the season is that Kyle Lohse continued to build on his two terrifc Spring Training starts–I’m desperately hoping the guy can win 12-14 games and keep that ERA down in the low 4s.  Oh, and we’re still 1/2 game up on your beloved Astros, who seem to have left their bats at Osceola County Stadium.