Let's just get it out of the way first: I hate Hideki Matsui. He plays for the hated Yankees and he has hit well against the Sox. He and that 'roid monkey Sheffield are the two hitters that I'm most afraid of in that lineup. While I don't wish people to get hurt, I can't say I'm not happy to know Matsui will be out of the Yankees' lineup for possibly the rest of this season.

With that said, I don't hate Matsui as a baseball player. (I only boo for his laundry. Captain Intangible/A-Fraud/HGHambi are another story.) I actually do respect him as he is a very disciplined hitter (although he's a mediocre outfielder), and as someone who simply "shut up and play." Yesterday after looking at the way his hurt his wrist, I have some additional new found respect for the guy.

As one can see from the picture above, he really twisted his wrist in a very very bad way. It was obvious it hurt like hell. Yet this guy, without showing a grimace on his face, got up and picked up the ball and threw it back towards the infield. When he was picking up the ball you could see the glove came off and his hand kind of hanging there as if it wasn't part of his body. That's one tough guy right there. For a lot of other players, they probably would stay down and roll on the ground in pain.

Well Mr. Matsui, I'm sorry to see that happened to you. I'm sure it hurt like crazy. If anything, I'll see you again next year when the Sox play the Yankees again…;-)

Any other miserable day for my fantasy baseball team, or rather, the pathetic management of the manager, yours truely:

Red Sox vs. Devil Rays: It was Schilling against Kazmir. Big Papi has done poorly against Kazmir, with an average below the mendoza-line and no HRs and RBIs. Carl Crawford doesn’t have much success against Schilling (a healthy one that is) either, so I decided to bench the two for today.

Guess what happened: Both Ortiz and Crawford homered. There goes 2 runs and 3 RBIs. Crawford also stole a base. How did their replacements do? Sexson and Shelton: 2 runs and 2 walks, that’s it.

Trying to act like you did something smart will only bite you in the ass at the end.

Cubs vs. Brewers: I had Carlos Zambrano going. And this is his pitching line:

IP      H     R     ER     BB     K     HR
4.0     8     7     7      5      5     1

The Brewers won 9-0. Just freakin’ pathetic. With outings like this my team will never make it out of the bottom in ERA and WHIP. After Beckett’s debacle at Cleveland, it took 3 good starts from Maddux, Haren, and Verlander to get the team’s ERA under 4.50, and Zambrano just erased all the work they had done for the past two days.

This is ridiculous. My team is crashing straight toward last place. Someone just shoot me please.

Josh Beckett – Cruised through 7 innings then got killed by two HRs, ended up with a no decision because Mike Timlin, who relieved Beckett in the 7th with 2 outs, promptly allowed a HR to Troy Glaus to tie the game. Timlin you suck!

Zack Duke – Didn’t pitch all that bad, allowed 3 runs in 6 innings. But never really had a chance because the Pirates never gave him a lead.

John Patterson – Cruised through 7 innings then allowed 2 runs in the 8th. Mike Stanton came in to relieve Patterson and promptly allowed a single to tie the game. Another no decision. Stanton you suck and Frank Robinson you’re an idiot to bring Stanton in with a 1-run lead. Can you just freakin’ bring in Chad Cordero to get 4 outs??? Thanks a lot!

On the other hand, Chris Shelton continues his crash back to earth and Richie Sexson and Pat Burrell continue their suckitude.

This is the bane of playing fantasy baseball. If your guys don’t do something for you today, they suck. If they don’t do crap for several days, they really really suck. When your pitchers got robbed you want to beat the crap out of the relievers who gave up the lead. You’ll become a rather miserable person with playing fantasy baseball. You know the players can’t hit homeruns (unless he’s Albert Pujols) or pitch shutouts everyday, yet you’d still get mad when they don’t perform. *Sigh*

This is my fantasy baseball team’s modified lineup, about 15 games into the season:

C:    Joe Mauer
1B:   David Ortiz
2B:   Felipe López
3B:   Troy Glaus
SS:   Michael Young
OF:   Adam Dunn
OF:   Carl Crawford
OF:   Pat Burrell
Util: Richie Sexson
Util: Ryan Freel
BN:   JD Drew
BN:   Chris Shelton

SP:   Carlos Zambrano
SP:   John Patterson
SP:   Josh Beckett
SP:   Danny Haren
SP:   Freddy Garcia
SP:   Zack Duke
SP:   Greg Maddux
SP:   Justin Verlander

RP:   Chad Cordero
RP:   Derrick Turnbow
RP:   Trevor Hoffman
RP:   Bobby Jenks

Who’s gone:

• Mike Piazza – What’s up with that barely-above-mendoza-line AVG? What’s up with that pathetic OBP? And you didn’t do crap at Coors Field either. Goodbye, you suck.
• Paul Byrd – Thanks for getting lit up and put my team ERA above 6.00. You suck too.
• Ervin Santana – I had to drop him to get Shelton, can’t be helped.
• Francisco Liriano – I dropped him for Joe Borowski. Then I discovered Borowski isn’t going to get many save opportunities, so I dropped him for Verlander.

After a bunch of my starting pitchers getting their asses kicked I’ve been able to drop the team ERA to a less pathetic mid 4s, thanks to a few great starts by Beckett, Maddux, Patterson, and Zambrano.

On the other hand, for the first 10-12 games or so into the season, my team’s offense was in full throttle but now it’s starting to cool down. Chris Shelton is falling back to earth, guys like Sexson, Drew, Crawford, and Mauer haven’t been doing much. I’m in a free fall in the standings and if I don’t get a few more long balls soon I’ll find myself at the basement AGAIN pretty soon. UGH!

*Sigh* Today is just a bad day for my fantasy team and it shows what a crappy starting rotation I have. I started John Patterson and Zack Duke. Patterson pitched okay but got a no decision and Duke simply got “duked.” A pitching line like 5 innings 8 hits 7 earned runs 2 walks is going to put a big dent on my team’s pitching stats, and my team’s already ranks last in WHIP. Duke you suck.

On the other hand, for whatever stupid reason I didn’t start Freddy Garcia and he actually pitched well and got the win. Even worse, I somehow put Jenks on the bench by mistake and I didn’t get the save! What the hell was I thinking??

With today’s results I think my team will probably drop to 5th or 6th place by tomorrow morning.

P.S. It was good news for *real* baseball: the Sox signed Big Papi for a contract extension that will last until 2010 with an option for 2011. They didn’t announce the actual value of the contract though. It’s nice to know Papi will be around for the next few years. I hope he’ll continue to crush the baseball until then.

Update: Actually now it says the deal is worth 52 million over 4 years with a club option for 2011.

This is what my team will look like to start the season:

C:    Joe Mauer - Keeper
1B:   David Ortiz - Keeper
2B:   Felipe López
3B:   Troy Glaus
SS:   Michael Young - Keeper
OF:   Adam Dunn
OF:   Carl Crawford - Keeper
OF:   Pat Burrell
Util: Richie Sexson
Util: Ryan Freel
BN:   JD Drew
BN:   Mike Piazza

SP:   Carlos Zambrano - Keeper
SP:   John Patterson
SP:   Josh Beckett
SP:   Danny Haren
SP:   Freddy Garcia
SP:   Zack Duke
SP:   Paul Byrd
SP:   Ervin Santana

RP:   Chad Cordero
RP:   Derrick Turnbow
RP:   Trevor Hoffman
RP:   Bobby Jenks
RP:   Francisco Liriano

Our league only has 8 teams and we get 5 keepers to carry over from last season. The biggest bats such as Manny or Bonds are keepers of other teams, so I didn’t have a lot to choose from. Overall I think I did well with my offense but my starting rotation is suspect. I spent lots of time stacking up on big sticks and closers I missed quite a few big time starters who weren’t keepers, such as Smoltz or Pedro or Harden. I’m also a little worried about my closers. Is Turnbow going to be good in his sophomore year? Bobby Jenks is even more worrisome as I just found out he won’t be closing games to begin the season because he’s been having control issues throughout this spring. I’m hoping I’ll be able to pick up a couple sleepers during the season to improve my pitching staff.

Btw, don’t ask me why I picked Francisco Liriano. That was a mistake as I don’t believe he’ll move into the starting rotation this season…

The Sox has traded Bronson Arroyo to Cincinnati Reds for Wily Mo Pena. I know the Sox is having a surplus of starting pitchers after Wells rescinded his trade request but I didn’t expect they would trade Arroyo. If one thinks about it though, Arroyo is actually a good candidate in a trade. He along with Papelbon are the odd-men out when the rotation has Schilling, Beckett, Clement, Wakefield, and Wells. Arroyo and Papelbon would be in the bullpen as the long men when the season begins, but how many long men do you need? The team probably wants to keep Papelbon in the majors instead of AAA thus Arroyo becomes expendable. His contract is also relatively cheap when compared to guys like Clement or Wells, making him more attractive to other teams. Performance wise, he significant drop in K rate last year and his inability to get lefties out probably gave the team an alarm that they decided to sell high.

The reason I didn’t expect it is Arroyo is that when he signed the 3-year contract earlier this year, it was reported that he went against his agent’s advice and took a hometown discount to stay with the Sox. Obviously he didn’t get a no-trade clause from the team, Arroyo only hoped that the team would appreciate his “goodwill” and would not take the advantage and trade him. I guess he (and I) forgets that this management never gets emotional when it comes to conducting its business.

With that said, I guess this is a good trade. While Pena does have his problems, being a strikeout machine and never walks (that’s even worse than Bellhorn), but he has a ton of power, bats right-handed, and is still only 24 years old. He can also play all 3 OF positions so that’s a plus. Whether he can handle Fenway’s RF is a big question mark. When the Reds came to Fenway last year, he looked lost playing RF. I hope it was only because he wasn’t familiar with the quirky RF at Fenway. Pena would be a good platoon mate with Nixon. And when Trot’s contract is up at the end of this season, the team can move Pena to play RF fulltime, if he can improve his plate discipline by then. As for Arroyo, it’s kind of sad to see him go, even though he did take a discount he got a 3-year contract that gives him more security than going arbitration every year. One thing I fear though, is that players probably would never give the Sox any kind of “discount” again. Since the team doesn’t really appreciate it there’s no reason for players to be nice. After all, this is a business, and nothing else.

Geeez, so it was indeed 3rd time’s the charm. The Japanese team did get the last laugh after all. Damn it, should I root for Cuba now? I don’t like them very much either because they beat my Papi and the DR team. But it would be comical if Cuba won the championship, as the US government didn’t want them to participate in the tournament. Oh what should I do?

Geez, the Japanese team needs to send Team USA a thank you note for their pathetic showing again Mexico. Team USA just lost to Mexico 2-1, and Japan advances to the semifinals because of the USA-Japan-Mexico 3-way tie and the ERA rule kicks in. Japan is going to get their 3rd chance for revenge against Korea. Let’s see if Korea can make it a hat trick. It would suck if Japan wins though, they would advance to final and kind of gets the last laugh.

Personally, I wanted the US team to win, but they are just spectacularly craptastic and didn’t get the job done. You guys suck.

I wonder how Ichiro Suzuki and Daisuke Matsuzaka are feeling right now after losing to Korea for the 2nd time in World Baseball Classic. Shortly before WBC Ichiro Suzuki said something like this:

“Not only will we win, but also we’ll make Japanese baseball fans feel that they saw a truly great game. I want to make [Korea and Taiwan] see that they will not be able to beat Japan in next 30 years.”

Later Daisuke Matsuzaka, probably the best pitcher in Japan right now, copycatted Ichiro and made similar comments about beating their opponents to a pulp. Well, if you guys want to trash talk and acting like jerks, at least make sure you can walk the walk. Otherwise you will only make yourself look like an idiot. Of course this is exactly what happened. While Japan did beat the crap out of the two Chinese teams they lost to Korea 3-2 in the first round and they vowed to get their revenge in the 2nd round. Just a while ago Korea defeated Japan again 2-1. Korea is 6-0 so far in this tournament and will advance to the semifinals. Japan is very likely done, depending on how Team USA does later today against Mexico.

I would like to know if there are Korean reporters who have the guts to ask Ichiro and Matsuzaka how they are feeling right now. They look like idiots now and they deserve what they got. I hope they would think twice before opening their big mouths again.

On the other hand, kudos to the Korean team. They are surprisingly good that not only they defeated Japan they also defeated the US and Mexican team. I wonder how they will do if they play against the Dominican Republic. (And I wouldn’t know which team to root for!)

Btw, I’m actually a fan of Ichiro. I just don’t like this kind of trash talk. Showing up your opponents like that has no place in baseball.

Update: according to this New York Times article [may require registration], the Japanese team seems to be angry that the Koreans planted the flag on the pitching mound after last night’s game. It’s as if their feelings were hurt. That’s tough, buddy. Two of your guys opened their mouths and pissed off the other team first (and provided them with bulletin board material). You lost (twice) so suck it up like a man.