Don't Forget About Jayson Werth. I Never Will.

Jayson Werth is still out there, skulking around the outfield, making $18 million dollars a year and giving pre-humans their due representation in the Major Leagues.  There were a lot of photos of him in today's Yahoo! Sports MLB Photo Gallery, so I thought I'd share my three favorites with you.  I like these photos because each one of them teaches you something about Jayson Werth.

1. He's started using Chase Utley's hair gel.

2. He can roll his eyeballs all the way back into his head.

3. His arms aren't like other people's arms.

Maybe he's not pre-human. Maybe he's UNDEAD.  

Two Bad Things Happened

Somehow, C.C. Sabathia and Cole Hamels managed to have their worst starts of the season at the same time. I was listening to one on the radio and watching the other on MLB.tv. I'm trying to have a nice, positive attitude about this, since it doesn't help anyone for me to get angry and/or depressed. Positivity-ly, let's also not dwell on what's happening to my Fantasy teams or the fact that I've irresponsibly decided to eat a box of candy right after brushing my teeth. Sometimes, bad things happen and you just have to wait for them to stop happening.

C.C. Sabathia gave up five solo home runs for the first time in his career-- to my least favorite team in baseball. This was a bad thing.

Meanwhile, Cole Hamels had to deal with this:

And this:

He struck Jayson Werth out with the bases loaded. That was a good thing.

But his velocity was down and he kept missing the strike zone. Those are bad things. After the game, he said he was dealing with a "dead arm phase." Cole, I think it's actually called "Mercury Retrograde," because I've got it too and it's not going away until September. If the Red Sox look like they're going to sweep the playoffs by then, I guess we can chalk it up to cosmic insanity.

Look Now, Look Again

Here are some things I noticed while scrolling through the Yahoo! Sports MLB Photo Gallery:

Successfully pitching his first complete game of the season did not change Roy Halladay's perpetually dour expression. The above photo made me think of this, for some reason:


It's Saint Sebastian! The patron saint of "soldiers, plagues, arrows, athletes/athletics/sports." I googled "patron saint of baseball" and this is what happened:

Thanks dude. Since we're on the subject of religion:

...
...
...

I love thinking about what the Connecticut basketball player to A-Rod's right is texting in this photo. Doesn't A-Rod look like he's made out of plastic?


And finally, I swear that Derek Jeter is wearing bigger pants than normal:

See?

I did a few image searches for "Derek Jeter big pants" and "Derek Jeter tight pants" and "Is Derek Jeter wearing bigger pants than usual?" Which lead to this:

The internet...who knows why anything is the way it is. More Derek Jeter pants updates to follow.

Opening Day 2011

The forecast promises snow and freezing rain tomorrow, but the long, dark season of "I-guess-I'll-get-interested-in-football-but-I-still-don't-like-basketball" is finally over. I've been watching baseball on my computer, on my phone and on a muted television at the Greenpoint YMCA for nine hours and counting, now. Here are my favorite photos of things I may have seen at one point during the day:

TIGERS v. YANKEES

AMERICA: giant flag, fireworks, Statue of Liberty, advertisements,
Yankees, baseball, hot dogs (probably somewhere).

Curtis Granderson's diving catch. Later, he hit a home run.

Welcome to New York, Miggy.

Mark Teixeira hit a 3-run home run. Derek Jeter said "Congratulations!"

BRAVES v. NATIONALS

AMERICA: shooting columns of fire into the air,
men charging through clouds of smoke

Bahhhh. You again.

BREWERS v. REDS

Prince Fielder with beard and earflaps.

PADRES v. CARDINALS

I have this guy Chase Headley on my Fantasy team. Here he
is scoring a run. What does his face look like?

ANGELS v. ROYALS

Bobby Abreu chewing gum.

GIANTS v. DODGERS

I typically cheer for the Dodgers, but with Joe Torre gone, Casey Blake injured, Andre Ethier wearing a ponytail and MLB.tv not allowing me to listen to the Vin Scully audio over the ESPN video feed, I wasn't sure how I'd feel during the game. The ESPN announcers sucked. I mean, you can't just say that Pablo Sandoval lost 40 lbs. on the "chicken salad diet" and not describe what was in the chicken salad. I don't know what he was eating before, but mainlining mayonnaise doesn't sound like the fastest route to good health.

The California Baseball Giants

But he looks a lot thinner here.

Matt Kemp had a good night. I forget how attractive he is and then
see him and think he should be a movie star.

Anyway, despite the aforementioned factors, I really enjoyed this game. You'd have to have a heart made out of wormy garbage to not feel closer to the Giants after their World Series victory last year. I hope Buster Posey becomes a baseball megastar and that Panda enjoys continued success with that chicken salad. Do you put apples in it? Golden raisins?

THE YANKEES WON!
THE DODGERS WON!
ROY HALLADAY IS PITCHING TOMORROW.
I LOVE BASEBALL!!!!!

We're All Probably Moving in a Direction, Somewhere, Somehow

I read on Twitter that Grady Sizemore is running again:

As someone who also suffered a knee injury and who starts "running again" once every few weeks after intermittent binges on internet television and fried Chinese food, I can't say that I'm so impressed that Mr. Pro Athlete / Former #1 Fantasy Baseball Draft Pick is running again. But since I haven't completely forgotten my early infatuation with Grady, here's a picture of him running away from a cone.

RUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cleveland.com suggests that Grady may even be running the bases soon. "He's probably moving in that direction," said manager Manny Acta. Grady Sizemore is probably moving in the direction of running the bases. That's a lot of potential motion for one sentence. Should I draft him again this year? So far, my strategy has consisted of drawing angry X's through Jayson Werth's name and nervously wondering if I'd spend all $260 of my budget on Derek Jeter.

Loser.

Of course I would. The way I see it, $260 in imaginary money is a small price to pay for my future career as Derek Jeter's art advisor/Yankees radio co-host.

Happy weekend everyone! If the weather improves and you start running again, make sure to tweet it!

January Update

Tonight, while reading my second anxiety-inducing Jonathan Franzen novel of 2011, I started thinking about how much happier I would be staring at the Yahoo! Fantasy Baseball Stat Tracker while simultaneously monitoring the slightly delayed live game feed of the night's most interesting pitching match up and listening to the Yankees game on the radio. Even though these two bad things happened in the off-season...

...and this happened again...


...and this will probably happen soon enough...

...I still can't wait for baseball to begin! On a happy note, this happened, too...

...which means that I will see ugly, old Jayson Werth about 95% less next year than last year. Have fun in loserville, loser.

Goodbye Yankees, Goodbye Phillies

Goodbye teams I know and sometimes love, hello teams I didn't watch once this year.

That said, Texas and San Fransisco are both interesting clubs and the Red State-Blue State culture clash could produce some excitingly strange moments in the stands. So, other than the fact that my team lost and I'm bummed about it and nothing matters the way it would have, I'm stoked for the World Series to begin...next Wednesday. That's a long time to wait for baseball.

This looks dangerous.

Of course, considering that the Rangers have waited something like 40 years to make it past the first round of the playoffs, it doesn't seem that long. Ron Washington is going to be chewing his gum faster than anyone ever thought possible.

This game sucked. We don't have to talk about it.

Top: A-Rod's walk of shame
Bottom: Good for you, Vladdy!

I thought for sure that the Phillies would make it to Game 7, especially after taking an early lead against crazy Jonathan Sanchez. An unexpectedly rude Chutley almost started a brawl in the third inning. You should watch the video here, because it's funny. If you don't want to do that, you can at least look at this photo that someone official tweeted during the game (commentary and penguin are my additions).


Yeah, that's right. Cole Hamels strolled up to a benches-clearing confrontation with his hands in his pockets. Jayson Werth, however, was right in the thick of the action. He was always sort of a grubby looking cave dweller, but now he looks like he's from another dimension-- like he's forgotten how to use human language. I think I saw him silently communicating with his bat in the on-deck circle tonight. He hasn't opened his mouth wide enough to form words in months. He's reading your mind right now, while you look at his photo. He knows everything you know, and he doesn't like any of it.

Top: ... ... ... ... ... ... !!! ...
Middle: What's with the scoreboard? Does Ryan Howard have duck lips?
Bottom: Chutley wondering what went wrong

Here's another Twitpic, this time of the Giants drinking Bud Light in their locker room. Do you think the Phillies refused to supply them with champagne or do the Giants just genuinely prefer tall boys on momentous occasions?

Congratulations to Cody Ross and Josh Hamilton for being their Championship Series' MVPs. Congratulations to Aubrey Huff for being the only player on either of my Fantasy Teams to make it to the World Series. Congratulations Rangers fans (whoever you are) and Giants fans (I know some, actually). Thank you, Derek Jeter, and see you in Florida. The nice thing about being a Yankee fan is that there is always, always, always, inevitably always next year.

Championship Series: Pushed to the Limit

I've completely lost track of the number of nights I've spent at home, surrounded by Yankee Snoopy dolls, watching an illegal European feed of Championship Series games on ESPN America. I did know, however, that this afternoon's game was do-or-die for the powerless Yankees who were down 3-1 to the non-stop Rangers and that the ungroomed Phillies were poised to fall into that same elimination hole against the ungroomed Giants.

After suffering through two nights of bad Yankee losses, I wasn't sure what to expect this afternoon as C.C. Sabathia faced C.J. Wilson for the second time. Did the Yankees even want to win? Who would replace Mark Teixeira? Would A-Rod get murdered?

ALCS Game 5: Yankees 7, Rangers 2

Rangers lead series 3-2
W: Sabathia (1-0), L: Wilson (0-1)
HR: TEX Treanor (1),
NYY Cano (4)!, Swisher (1), Granderson (1)

Top top: The Conan blimp and the Big C
Top bottom: Grumpy Old Jorge v. Adult Baby Kinsler
Bottom top: Mariano Rivera
Bottom bottom: Subdued Victory Parade

Robbie Cano has finally become the handsome young batting champ we always knew he could be. He credits Derek Jeter and leaving New Jersey. I'm glad that the Yankees won this game because otherwise it would've been a long postseason of watching teams I don't really care about trying to win something that my team got last year. If all else fails, it's exactly this kind of disinterested entitlement that will carry the Yankees all the way back in this series. Dis-gusting. Go Yankees!

NLCS Game 4: Giants 6, Phillies 5

Giants lead series 3-1
W: Wilson (1-0), L: Oswalt (1-1)

Despite all of the interesting things that kept happening in this game, I fell asleep halfway through and woke up to find Roy Oswalt on the mound in the 9th inning of a tied game. WTF. Didn't he just pitch Game 2?

He lost tonight's game after bouncing two balls off of Juan Uribe, which the home plate umpire ignored. Then Uribe hit the pop fly that scored the winning run. PAYBACK. The Phillies, like the Yankees, are now one game away from elimination. If Roy Halladay weren't on this team, I wouldn't care at all. As it is, he'll attempt to save their season tomorrow night against the strikeout Boy-King Tim Lincecum and I hope he goes California-blackout-style lights out. YOU CAN DO IT, DOC!

Top: Ugh Jayson Werth
Middle: Andres Torres caught stealing
Bottom: Ruiz takes out Buster Posey...
or rather, Buster Posey tags out Ruiz

I am happy to report that Big Fat Giant Panda Pablo Sandoval hit a panda-sized 2-run double tonight. Woolsey claims via Facebook that he is "slimmer in real life." Please. Even if this is true, that's like saying that the moon is smaller than you thought it would be. It's still the moon and Pablo Sandoval is fat. These things I declare eternal truths.

Is it just me or does Juan Uribe look like the slim panda of Woolsey's imagination? Also, why do all of the San Fransisco pitchers have intense black beards?

Just kidding, we know the answer to that last question.

Phillies Game 5 will be tomorrow on FOX, if you still get that channel.
Yankees Game 6 will be Friday night on TBS, which nobody gets. Honestly. Television needs to figure some shit out because this is Important.