Good thing I started Jeff Suppan tonight

It's a good thing I started Jeff Suppan in my fantasy pay league tonight. Suppan managed to earn negative points for me. Rarely do you see this happen. Maybe four or five times a year. Most of the time, some nut will go out and blow a save by giving up a 2-run bomb, and you'll get a -2.50 or something. Well, Suppan went ahead and clobbered all those guys. Dude posted a -8.50. To put this in perspective, a perfect game with 8 K's is worth 41 points. Suppan gave up 8 runs, 8 hits, and 3 walks, while striking out 1 guy in 2 innings. Dude threw 49 pitches. All this against the Pirates. Are you kidding me?

What's going on with Barry Bonds lately? I hear he can't hit and he's going to retire, but I honestly don't know because I haven't been following it. Well, someone posted a little article in that same fantasy league tonight.

Randy is one upset dude. He is also in 8th place in a 10-team league. Of course, the "League News" coming out of this league is kind of ridiculous.

And so the world continues to turn.

"Pitching has kept Rangers in the Mix." Is this a joke? Mix for what? Are the Mariners and Rangers competing for a separate playoff spot than the rest of the league? Since the beginning of the season, when their pitching - rotation and otherwise - was a 12-car pileup, the Rangers have made the following additions: Rick Bauer was added to the rotation. R.A. Dickey was sent down to AAA for more work. It wasn't too long ago that I was ragging on the Rangers for their pitching. Find it here, but here's the recap: 4/5 of your rotation would be hard pressed for a starting spot on most of the other teams in MLB. The Padilla Flotilla will have his good outings every once in a while, but for the most part that ship is constantly taking on water. The aforementioned article even starts out with:

The Rangers were three pitches away from taking a four-game winning streak into their day off on Monday in Seattle. Unfortunately, there are no "mulligans" in baseball. Vicente Padilla did give up three home runs in three pitches on Saturday afternoon...

Exactly. The Flotilla was looking good until he ran aground, like he always will. Do I want the Rangers to do well? Sure. I like the Rangers, and I want to see them succeed. But they're just like a 14-year-old kid - you've got to let them make their own mistakes, otherwise they'll never learn. So I'm not gonna sit here and try to lecture Jon Daniels on how to run a baseball team. But for the seventh time, I'm gonna ask why the Alfonso Soriano deal went down. It benefited nobody. I don't want to talk about it, but I'll just say again - if you need pitching, you trade for pitching. Not struggling outfielders.

One more quick note: last year, everyone was talking about the decrease in run production. This year, no one's saying a word, but I thought the bats were going crazy so far this year and that pitching is failing everywhere. So, I took a closer look and, in fact, it isn't my imagination. On April 17, 2005, the run total in MLB was 1653, or 55.1 runs per team. As of April 17th, 2006 - and excluding the rest of the tonight's games - the run total was at 1960, or 65.33 runs per team. That's a full 10 runs per team, which ends up being a little less than one run per game for each team, which adds up to a little less than two extra runs per game. Why? Who knows. Probably doesn't mean a thing, but it's pretty interesting huh? Especially since everyone was telling me that runs had decreased last year because of steroid testing, a theory I never subscribed to. I don't think that we can blame the Rangers and Jeff Suppan for this entire increase, either.

Craziest thing ever? I love alpacas. The commercial is about fourteen times worse. We've got a couple standing there, telling us about how much they love Alpacas, how much fun it is, and how much better Alpacas are than cattle or horses. First, know this - Alpacas are some of the ugliest animals in the world. They're a dead-ringer for the Llama, which is the most hideous organism on the planet. You can see two Llamas on your left, but you'll need to click on the picture if you really want to do it justice. In fact, the I Love Alpacas commercial just got added to the short list of best commercials of all time:

1. The push lawn mower that can cut down a forest of Redwoods. You have to see this commercial to believe it. According to the ad, this thing can cut down anything. They show this mower cutting down a giant forest of small trees. With a push lawn mower, not a ride-on. And, you get a free 90-day trial before you have to buy it, and you can return it for free, no matter what the reason. Say you clear your whole backyard, but there's just one 30ft tree that's too stubborn for the Tree Mower. Return it, no cost.
2. The Motorized awning that will protect you from any weather, regardless of how severe.
   "Son, we're eating outside tonight."
   "But Dad, there's a Hurricane out there!"
   "I don't care, we've got a motorized awning, turn it on!"
   We've invented invincible, motorized roofs. Now we can all have our very own Minute Maid Park in our backyards.
3. Any commercial that has guys getting knocked over or clothes lined. Terry Tate, office linebacker. The FSN Northwest Mariners commercial, where guys imitate running into Kenjo Johjima and flipping over.

That's about all for tonight. Sorry I couldn't talk about some of the baseball games - it just wasn't that kind of night. In other words, the Yankees lost to the Jays and the Tigers are losing to the A's. I'll be back tomorrow night.