Cole Hamels is Okay!

Because the Yankees are enjoying a temporary reprieve from facing the Phillies in the World Series (Yanks beat Phils in 5 games, World Series 2010, I'm calling it now), I'm allowing myself to be slightly more objective about the Phillies lineup. While I will probably always hate Jayson Werth for the emotional turmoil he put me through last Fantasy season, I can now admit that Chutley is charming (even with the hair gel) and that Jimmy Rollins's shoe commercials are funny-ish.


Of course, I've loved/feared Roy Halladay since the beginning of my baseball fandom, when he still played for the Toronto Blue Jays. I love that he almost never smiles and, sadistically, I kind of love the way he so calmly and efficiently eliminates Yankee hitters. That said, I love him even more now that he plays in the NL East. Did you see what he did to the Nationals? DO YOU KNOW WHAT HE'LL DO TO THE METS? He's a supernatural force like Death. Loving him just makes sense.

For less explicable reasons, I'm also really high on Cole Hamels this year. In fact, I went out of my way to draft him in both of my Fantasy leagues. He looks vaguely like a CK One model and is married to a former cast member of Survivor. I hope that my faith in him is founded on more than just those two things. But who knows!

Anyway, it was with mild anxiety that I watched Cole Hamels start his first game tonight. I didn't think he'd be awful, but I wasn't sure he'd be great. And in fact, he wasn't. He was, you know, fine. Better than adequate. Supremely okay. I made up a song about him in the shower after the game:

You didn't do great,
But you did o-kay!
Cole Hamels,
Thanks for being okay!

Hahahahaha. I sang it five or six times with different verses. Hey Cole Hamels, tonight you were OKAY! Pitch six innings next time and I may upgrade you to PRETTY GOOD. I think you can do it!

Ichiro o(^-^)m(-^ )e(^ )d( )e( ^)t( ^-)o(^-^)~♪

Ichiro hasn't been getting enough love on this blog. Last night, he hit TWO home runs to defeat the heavily favored Red Sox 5-4.

Here's the recap from ESPN.com:

"Who knows? It kind of proves that in the universe, mysterious things happen," he said through an interpreter.

Suzuki, an incomparable leadoff hitter and owner of the modern major-league record with eight consecutive 200-hit seasons, had a two-homer game while Ortiz, a five-time All-Star, hasn't hit even one homer in 158 plate appearances all season.

"It shows that, really, two mysterious things happened in the universe today," Suzuki said, looking up with a wry grin while fanning himself at his locker.

He is so COSMIC and MYSTICAL. Congratulations, Ichiro! I love it. What I don't love is Papi slumping so badly. The photos documenting his persistent un-homerunness just get sadder and sadder.

Anyway, in other news, here is what I wish were a photo of showboat B.J. Upton's head exploding after hitting a walk-off homer in last night's game against the Indians. Instead, it's merely a photo of him getting a plate full of shaving cream to the face (kudos to Kei for clueing me into this event, as well as Yahoo! MLB photos, in general).

It really looks like his face is melting! The following photo contains a different distortion of the truth...Obama is NOT a Phillies fan. Sam, back me up on this one.


Is Jimmy Rollins really that much shorter than our Commander-in-Chief? Who knew.