“A Little Time of Sulking”

I guess we shouldn’t exactly start panicking at the news of Hampton’s injury, but I don’t think it would be rash to feel significantly disheartened. I mean, shit, you guys. Now we don’t just get stuck with Davies or Cormier, whoever sucks less out of spring training, we get to enjoy both of them on a weekly basis. And if we can’t rely on starting pitching, our bullpen is just going to get overused and tired like they did last season, even if they are more talented at the outset than the guys we started off with last year.

Here’s what Kerry Wood II had to say for himself:

“I guess I can officially say sand has been kicked in my face,” said Hampton, who met with reporters with an ace bandage around his midriff. “I was pretty upset about it yesterday and just then I went through a little time of sulking. There’s nothing you can do about it now except try to get it healed up and get it better.

Go ahead and spend a lot of time sulking, Hampton, I think it would make us all feel better while we sit around wishing we could have a refund. I do feel bad for him, but what pitcher is swinging that hard in freaking batting practice, anyway? He’s such a problem child, I’m sick of it.

In other news, we lost to the Yankees today, but it was a good game, close all the way through. I got to watch some of it on MLB.tv. They were running the Yankees’ YES network’s broadcast, so it was interesting to hear the game analyzed by the enemies. The announcers were surprisingly dull and complimentary of the Braves, but maybe they just didn’t have their more colorful regular season guys in there yet. They mispronounced Diaz’s name, which is understandable, but they also called Heap “McCain” in the first inning, and acted like they were certain that Prado would get the starting job at second, for some reason; maybe they just glanced at his spring training batting average.

Huddy looked pretty good, but he’s still nitpicking a little bit, throwing a lot of pitches. He gave up a home run to Giambi, but I don’t consider anything that idiot does legitimate. Frenchy hit a homer off of Mussina, and Tony Pena Jr. showed off for his dad, the first base coach for the Yankees, by turning some really good plays and nearly hitting a home run himself, tying the game in the bottom of the ninth to bring us our third extra inning game of the spring.

So we have another set of three related incidents to consider . . . what do three extra inning preseason games mean? I’m trying to work out a prophecy for this season, and I had a dream last night that may or may not prove helpful:

Okay, in the dream, I turn on the TV and Heap and Frenchy are on The Price is Right, and they’re competing against each other in the Showcase Showdown. They’re both really excited about winning dinette sets and such, even though they’re rich. Then suddenly it’s revealed that this Price is Right taping is all an elaborate setup, and someone is trying assassinate them. But they’re like, crime fighters or something, so they’re totally expecting this and they kick some ass. Then the show turns into a cartoon about Heap and Frenchy as rogue warriors who are also baseball players, and they’re on the way to the ballpark when they have to stop to rescue this woman from a villain who has kidnapped her in a hot air balloon. They kind of grin at each other and shrug, like, “Ain’t that the way it goes!” then the show ends.

So, what does that mean for our season? I hope these dreams come in threes, too, because I was really amused by that one and wouldn’t mind two more.