Vottomatic Edition

With apologies to Roy Hobbs, there are only three players I would pay my own money to go watch play baseball. Josh Hamilton, Matt Kemp and Joey Votto are the list and it's a country mile to the next player. Luckily for Hamilton and Kemp, there are other professional hitters on their teams so they get pitches to hit in each at-bat. Votto sees hittable pitches at the same rate of solar eclipses because the other Reds' swingers (Get your mind out the gutter!!! If you swing and miss, you are a swinger. To be a hitter you have to make contact with the ball occasionally ... okay that didn't sound right either.) hit as often as my lottery numbers. Votto has 31 walks in 33 games after leading the league in walks last season with 110. I'm not sure why the Nationals chose to pitch to Votto yesterday because he was about ten feet from a five HR game (the 3 he hit, plus a rope off the RF wall and a fly-out mid-warning track). If I was managing against the Reds, Votto would have four walks a night. Yesterday he tied the Nationals by himself, 6-6. The Reds are going to continue to have difficulty scoring runs as long as Dat Dude hits fourth ... no offense BP but watching you try to yank every pitch you see is nails-on-the-chalkboard annoying already. As long as Dusty Custer refuses to hit Jay Bruce behind Votto because they are both lefties (I detailed the L/R splits for both players here .. Dusty please look!!!), Votto will have the most intentional unintentional walks in Major League history (all of Barry Bonds records are denoted by a syringe in my record book and considered unofficial). I also refuse to drink the "it's early" or "they're going to heat up" Kool-Aid. The Reds are what they are ... a .500 team with an All-World 1B, a Gold Glove 2B, a roller-coaster RF and some wooden baton twirlers. There is no help in Louisville ... I mean we just called up George eerrrr Mike Costanza. Cosmo Kramer can't be far behind!!

All of which leads to ......

Scott Rolen was placed on the 15 DL yesterday with shoulder soreness. Captain Smith hasn't ordered the lifeboats down yet, but he also hit an iceberg. Rolen being out for an extended (or permanent) time period will be the Reds' Titanic moment. Walt and Dusty banked on Rolen playing 100 or more games this season, hitting .275 with 25 HRs and 85 RBIs. He would protect Votto in the lineup, be the inspirational/gritty leader and play his usual Gold Glove 3B. Sounded unsinkable on paper, but 37 year old's recovering from surgery don't often experience smooth sailing. Smokin' Todd Frazier will get the opportunity, Miggy Cairo will see some actions and when Costanzo comes out from under his desk he may even get some burn at the hot corner. None of them resemble Scott Rolen. Tough to see the Reds scoring many runs if they can't get Scott Rolen numbers at 3B. Failure to plan is planning to fail ... and in this instance it looks like the failure of Walt to have a Plan B is threatening to sink the season early.


Across the pond in jolly old England there is a huge party wrapping up in Manchester. Manchester City and Manchester United were tied atop the table, so one side of the city would be celebrating regardless.  Man City won the title in the most improbable of ways, scoring twice in injury time to defeat Queens Park Rangers 3-2 and clinch their first Premier League title in 44 years. For those of you not familiar with English soccer, on the last day of the season every game starts at the same time to discourage teams from throwing games to damage a rivals league standing. However the advent of instantaneous communication has nullified the mystery of results in other cities. With QPR holding a 2-1 advantage over Man City in the 91st minute, word reached the bench of Bolton's loss insuring QPR would avoid relegation. The QPR bench was jubilant .. where's the champagne??? But there were still four minutes of injury time to be played against Man City!!!! QPR's players folded like a cheap suit (Where did that cliche come from BTW?? Answer and win fabulous prizes!) with the guarantee of top flight football insured, and Man City took advantage of the suddenly lethargic QPR defense to score twice in three minutes and win the Premier League. The biggest losers were not QPR - Djibril Cisse (a QPR player) was running around congratulating the City players!!!!! Manchester United thought they had the won the title after their victory at Sunderland and were celebrating with their fans only to be ushered off the field faster than Kanye West at the Grammy's when news of City's victory was relayed to the crowd. Great ending to a great season, if only Arsenal ...


Wait .. Arsenal!!! Arsenal beat West Brom 3-2 courtesy of the Baggies flopping keeper Martin Fulop from Hungary. He gifted Arsenal two goals, and should have stopped the third. But then again Hungarians haven't really be known for their accomplishments since Attila so the result should be no surprise. The victory puts Arsenal into the Champions League for the 17th consecutive season and makes the result of next Saturday's Champions League final between Chelsea and Bayern Munich irrelevant to the Gunners. The offseason should be interesting because Arsenal has some definite holes which prevent them from challenging for titles. The club doesn't have $1.5 billion to spend buying mercenaries prima donnas nut jobs players like Man City. So it will be up to Arsene Wenger to identify two or three key acquisitions while playing Weight Watchers with the fat on the roster. Almunia, Mannone, Squillaci, Arshavin, Vela, Denilson and Bendtner should all be trimmed to create some spending cash for AW. Keeping RVP will be priority #1, but strengthening the defense and midfield are #1A and #1B.

Times up ... I've enjoyed it.  See you tomorrow!!!!