{"id":130,"date":"2007-06-04T10:01:08","date_gmt":"2007-06-04T15:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/velcroblog.com\/?p=130"},"modified":"2007-06-04T10:45:48","modified_gmt":"2007-06-04T15:45:48","slug":"not-smoltzian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/velcroblog.com\/?p=130","title":{"rendered":"“Not Smoltzian”"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have to admit, though I like some of the players on the Cubs a lot, I was kind of excited yesterday, just to see how much worse it could get. I guess the baseball gods owed them a blowout win after their suffering on Friday and Saturday, but it made me realize that I always thought<\/i> I liked the Cubs, but I actually like them for the same reason you like being around a friend whose life is consistently a wreck: they make me feel better about my team. They certainly accomplished that this weekend, despite our Sunday loss and my concerns about Cormier and our fifth starter slot.<\/p>\n

O’Brien called<\/a> Cormier’s effort “not Smoltzian,” referring to the fact that Smoltz had originally planned on starting yesterday. That’s an understatement. I didn’t have very high hopes for Cormier after his injury, but I didn’t have doubts of the “grand slam in the first inning” variety, either. I’m not sure what to think now, but if Jorge Sosa can win four games for the Mets, I suppose anything is possible?<\/p>\n

I love when the AP photos capture the mood of the game and the players perfectly, and this one definitely did:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Cormier: (terrified), (thinking about running away)
\nHeap: (sad), (blaming himself for everything)
\nMcDowell: (. . . sneezing?) (. . . sleepwalking?) (. . . scratching his butt?)<\/p>\n

Okay, so maybe McDowell’s expression isn’t quite clear, but it still perfectly embodies his apparent reaction to everything: vague indifference. Maybe he’s actually experiencing great anxiety with every pitch, but he’s not exactly an emotive guy.<\/p>\n

I’m going to the game today, and I’m pretty excited about our seats, good ones that I got for my birthday. We’re all moved in to our new place (our temporary place — you’ll hear the “we’re moving” excuse from me again in October), so I’ll be updating more regularly now. Sorry for the hiatus!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have to admit, though I like some of the players on the Cubs a lot, I was kind of excited yesterday, just to see how much worse it could get. I guess the baseball gods owed them a blowout win after their suffering on Friday and Saturday, but it made me realize that I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[42],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/velcroblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/velcroblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/velcroblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/velcroblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/velcroblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/velcroblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/velcroblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/velcroblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/velcroblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}