The Buehrle Bile File Says, "I Wonder If Mark Did a Tarp Slide." Game 155 Recap
Sox win a rain-soaked affair: 11-7! (Only their second win in their last nine games.)
In the interest of full disclosure, let me say that I stopped watching once the rain delay started, and so I didn't see most of the comeback. In the midst of dull afternoon chores and contemplating how consistently bad Mark Buerhrle has pitched, I was actually alerted about the comeback by the unquenchable spirit that is my father. Of course he is the reason for my love of the White Sox, so I dropped the All-tempa-Cheer and immediately joined him to finish watching the oddity that is a big White Sox comeback. (No, this isn't a treatise on the bonding of men and boys over baseball; the above is incase my recap sounds uninformed.)
Quickie recap...
Bad Ozzie Move of the Game: Not STARTING Charlie Haegar in the first place.
Good Ozzie Move of the Game: Fans have called for Gload (or Mack) leading off and in LF for the better part of half a season. With eight games left in the season, Ozzie finally listens. (I guess Pods reached his incentive clause.)
Play of the Game: Paul Konerko's launch job in the eighth gave the fans a reason to stand up and cheer!
Big Ups of the Game: The 3-4-5 hitters finally put it together for game with a combined eight rbis.
And my White Sox Player of the Game is....
Charlie Haeger (1)...the knuckler was a pitcher today, not a parlor show.
Sox Record: 86-69
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The Buehrle Bile File Says...
Southpaws are always a curious bunch. Eccentric, mysterious and just plain backwards, left-handed people are said to be more creative and more artistic than the average person. Left-handed people were given a bad rap in earlier times, and there are negative connotations to the word "left" such as being called a "leftist" which originally meant to be a radical. In ancient oriental cultures almost all people were right-handed because instead of using toilet paper to wipe their asses, they used their left hands.
In baseball, however, left-handed pitchers are a luxury. Since lefty hitters are generally considered better hitters than righties, teams need to counter their dominance my using the tried-and-true method of the lefty on lefty matchup, and usually a left handed pitcher has either a nasty slider or curveball he can throw away from a lefty hitter especially if he's throwing side-arm or across his body. Just about every team employs a LOOGY (Lefty One Out GuY), and it's an embarrassment of riches to have more than one lefty in a bullpen.
Lefty starters can pitch forever; think Jamie Moyer (43 years old), Kenny Rogers (41), Randy Johnson (43), and Tom Glavine (40). It can be debated but lefty starters have had some of the more dominant careers; think Sandy Koufax and Johan Santana.
Which brings me to Mark Buehrle, the White Sox left-handed starter. All the stuff I said about lefties being eccentric, artistic, dominating just don't apply with with Mark. He's mediocre, has no slider to speak of, doesn't throw over 85 mph anymore, and can't get out of a game without giving up a first inning homerun. (Interesting stat brought up by the Fox broadcast today. Twelve of Mark's thirty-five homers given up have been jacked in the first inning. That's more than a third!)
But here's the curiosity about Mark: he's a tarp slider. A tarp slider is that rare bird who throws caution to the wind to relive his childhood slip-and-slide days at the expense of ruffling his general manager's feathers. Mark has joined that other rare bird, bullpen catcher Man Soo Lee, on many a tarp slide at the Cell giving rain-soaked fans something to cheer about. Tarp sliding is an idiotic and dangerous venture for any athlete as he can get injured or sick or maybe even -- gasp -- wet! It's also a ton of fun.
Right now, Mark Buehrle is not having a ton of fun. Were he back home hunting in the forests and fields of rural Missouri, he'd probably be downwind of an 8-point buck in a howling cross-wind while sitting on an ant hill all the while having diarrhea. If there were a fun-o-meter attached to Mark, it would register negative 435,673. I can't imagine his wife is very happy right now either. It's like the will is there, but the Viagra isn't working.
Everyone knows Kenny Williams told Mark Buehrle he could no longer be a tarp slider much to hisa dismay, and since that day, Mark has been a succubus of a pitcher. Much like the White Sox team themselves, Mark Buerhle lost the chip on his shoulder; he lost his edge. He lost that little something else that makes good better and better best.
Mark had a chacne to make all that suckiness go away today. He had a chance to silence his critics like the Biler by going out and blowing away the mediocrity that is the Seattle Mariners. Of course he failed. But then he had an even better opportunity to thumb his nose at KW and the establishment by saying fuck the world and tarp sliding again.
Some rules were made to be broken, and no level of fine should have stopped him from tarp sliding. He needs to search out his roots. He needs to get back to what makes this game fun. He needs to tarp slide again.
Shame on you, Mark, for forgetting who you are and where you come from. Now go home this off-season, buy an acre's worth of plastic and a sprinkler and work on your tarp sliding. White Sox fans deserve the best outta our players, and you were the best tarp slider ever. Stop snobbing it up like Ricky Vaughn and become the Wild Thing again. Find the California penal league, fight the power, save the whales!
Tarp slide, you lefty bastard, tarp slide!
Biler Out!
In the interest of full disclosure, let me say that I stopped watching once the rain delay started, and so I didn't see most of the comeback. In the midst of dull afternoon chores and contemplating how consistently bad Mark Buerhrle has pitched, I was actually alerted about the comeback by the unquenchable spirit that is my father. Of course he is the reason for my love of the White Sox, so I dropped the All-tempa-Cheer and immediately joined him to finish watching the oddity that is a big White Sox comeback. (No, this isn't a treatise on the bonding of men and boys over baseball; the above is incase my recap sounds uninformed.)
Quickie recap...
- Mark Buehrle still sucks. But at least he's consistent. Two first inning runs, including a homerun to Adrain Beltre were all I needed to see to know he was pitching like the good ol' bile-tastic pitcher that he is. In all he surrendered all seven runs the Mariners would score in 4.2 innings.
- An eleven run outburst by the offense was highlighted by Thome and Paulie homers, and Ryan Sweeney with a clutch two out, two rbi sigle in the eighth inning.
- Finally, relief pitching that works! Either Charlie Haeger is a magician, or the Mariners left all their bats on the Cell's rainy field only to get waterlogged. Oh, no, that's just his knuckleball. Bobby Jenks threw more hooks than a one-armed pirate at crochet convention.
- I don't know if there's a correlation here, but Ross Gload started in LF and was the lead off hitter while Juan Uribe batted second in the line-up.
- Jermaine Dye was pulled late in the game after stumbling outta the batter's box. I don't know the extent of his injury, but he doesn't have to take another swing this season as far as I'm concerned.
Bad Ozzie Move of the Game: Not STARTING Charlie Haegar in the first place.
Good Ozzie Move of the Game: Fans have called for Gload (or Mack) leading off and in LF for the better part of half a season. With eight games left in the season, Ozzie finally listens. (I guess Pods reached his incentive clause.)
Play of the Game: Paul Konerko's launch job in the eighth gave the fans a reason to stand up and cheer!
Big Ups of the Game: The 3-4-5 hitters finally put it together for game with a combined eight rbis.
And my White Sox Player of the Game is....
Charlie Haeger (1)...the knuckler was a pitcher today, not a parlor show.
Sox Record: 86-69
----------------------------------------------
The Buehrle Bile File Says...Southpaws are always a curious bunch. Eccentric, mysterious and just plain backwards, left-handed people are said to be more creative and more artistic than the average person. Left-handed people were given a bad rap in earlier times, and there are negative connotations to the word "left" such as being called a "leftist" which originally meant to be a radical. In ancient oriental cultures almost all people were right-handed because instead of using toilet paper to wipe their asses, they used their left hands.
In baseball, however, left-handed pitchers are a luxury. Since lefty hitters are generally considered better hitters than righties, teams need to counter their dominance my using the tried-and-true method of the lefty on lefty matchup, and usually a left handed pitcher has either a nasty slider or curveball he can throw away from a lefty hitter especially if he's throwing side-arm or across his body. Just about every team employs a LOOGY (Lefty One Out GuY), and it's an embarrassment of riches to have more than one lefty in a bullpen.
Lefty starters can pitch forever; think Jamie Moyer (43 years old), Kenny Rogers (41), Randy Johnson (43), and Tom Glavine (40). It can be debated but lefty starters have had some of the more dominant careers; think Sandy Koufax and Johan Santana.
Which brings me to Mark Buehrle, the White Sox left-handed starter. All the stuff I said about lefties being eccentric, artistic, dominating just don't apply with with Mark. He's mediocre, has no slider to speak of, doesn't throw over 85 mph anymore, and can't get out of a game without giving up a first inning homerun. (Interesting stat brought up by the Fox broadcast today. Twelve of Mark's thirty-five homers given up have been jacked in the first inning. That's more than a third!)
But here's the curiosity about Mark: he's a tarp slider. A tarp slider is that rare bird who throws caution to the wind to relive his childhood slip-and-slide days at the expense of ruffling his general manager's feathers. Mark has joined that other rare bird, bullpen catcher Man Soo Lee, on many a tarp slide at the Cell giving rain-soaked fans something to cheer about. Tarp sliding is an idiotic and dangerous venture for any athlete as he can get injured or sick or maybe even -- gasp -- wet! It's also a ton of fun.Right now, Mark Buehrle is not having a ton of fun. Were he back home hunting in the forests and fields of rural Missouri, he'd probably be downwind of an 8-point buck in a howling cross-wind while sitting on an ant hill all the while having diarrhea. If there were a fun-o-meter attached to Mark, it would register negative 435,673. I can't imagine his wife is very happy right now either. It's like the will is there, but the Viagra isn't working.
Everyone knows Kenny Williams told Mark Buehrle he could no longer be a tarp slider much to hisa dismay, and since that day, Mark has been a succubus of a pitcher. Much like the White Sox team themselves, Mark Buerhle lost the chip on his shoulder; he lost his edge. He lost that little something else that makes good better and better best.
Mark had a chacne to make all that suckiness go away today. He had a chance to silence his critics like the Biler by going out and blowing away the mediocrity that is the Seattle Mariners. Of course he failed. But then he had an even better opportunity to thumb his nose at KW and the establishment by saying fuck the world and tarp sliding again.
Some rules were made to be broken, and no level of fine should have stopped him from tarp sliding. He needs to search out his roots. He needs to get back to what makes this game fun. He needs to tarp slide again.
Shame on you, Mark, for forgetting who you are and where you come from. Now go home this off-season, buy an acre's worth of plastic and a sprinkler and work on your tarp sliding. White Sox fans deserve the best outta our players, and you were the best tarp slider ever. Stop snobbing it up like Ricky Vaughn and become the Wild Thing again. Find the California penal league, fight the power, save the whales!
Tarp slide, you lefty bastard, tarp slide!
Biler Out!
posted by jamesmnordbergjr at 5:50 PM
4 Comments:
The more I see (or in this case hear about) Gload, the more I feel like he's going to be starting for some other team next year, which would be a shame.
why, what did you hear?
I didn't hear anything, it's just a hunch. A team like Oakland will probably snap him up and give him some actual playing time.
Well, Gload's greatest asset is that he is a contact hitter. He doesn't strike out alot. Even if he doesn't start somewhere next year, he'll find a home a la Rob Mackowiak as the first person off the bench, but with a hefty raise in pay.
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