There’s only one…

Well, my heart is a little heavy after the Royals’ season ended in a loss to Cleveland, so I’d like to lighten the mood with a joke:
The New York Mets walk into a bar. They are free to go out and do as they please now, because they are not in the post season.
Ba-zing!
But seriously folks. The Mets concluded their late-season chokeshow with a big, big loss to Florida. Two and a half weeks ago, New York held a commanding lead in the NL East, and now they’re heading home for the winter before October even starts. I would feel a little bit bad for them, except that they are one of my least favorite teams.
Meanwhile, in the still-undecided NL Wild Card race, Milwaukee is helping make my dreams come true, as they beat the barely-1st-place Padres 11-6. Colorado just hung on to beat Arizona 4-3, forcing a tie-breaking game with the Padres tomorrow. If they win that, I will look like a genius.
But if I look like a genius, I will be a very sad genius. Not sad that the Rockies are in the postseason, but sad because it will be 6 months before I get to see my Royals again (except for those in winter ball, plus spring training, and fan/player events). I still haven’t heard exactly what Alex Gordon’s injury was, but I hope the bouncing ball that hit his face stayed away from his eye and eye socket. I don’t know a whole lot about Cleveland’s Josh Barfield, but after Ryan and Denny reported that Barfield was the first to come to Gordon’s aid after he was hit, I think I’m a fan.
Before today’s game, I had a lot of wishes. Obviously I wanted a KC win. I hoped that Mike Sweeney would have a good day, and that if Mark “RS” Teahen got any at-bats, he’d do something splashy and memorable so that we (and he) could forget about some of the less attractive numbers he had at the plate this year: He struck out 127 times, and grounded into a team-high 23 double plays. His average was down about 5 points from last year. However, Teahen did a lot of good in his first season as an outfielder, and I hope fans can remember that when looking back on this season. In his 137 games this year, Teahen made only 6 errors, which really isn’t bad for a guy playing an entirely new position. He had 17 outfield assists, which was 2nd only to Michael Cuddyer in the AL (he had 19).
Sweeney, regrettably, was 0-3 today. But the ovations he received from the crowd were really touching, and very loud — I could hear them very well over the radio. I really wish I had gone through with potential plans to attend that game; how I would love to have been a part of the standing ovations that accompanied Sweeney’s first AB and his curtain call after being replaced in the 7th. How adorable it must have been to see Sweeney running the bases with his two kids after the game!
I guess Sweeney’s potential departure has distracted me from the fact that today was Buddy Bell‘s last game as the Royals manager. I’m completely OK with that. My negative feelings about his managerial skills aside, I do wish him the best. I hoped we could pull out one more win for Buddy, who managed the team through a lot of tumult in the front office and on the field.
I’d like to thank you all for your readership this season, and I hope you don’t forget me over the offseason! I’ll be complaining about trades again this year, and hopefully this winter’s crop of acquisitions make me eat my words exactly the way Gil Meche did.
Off to do homework!

Labels: baseball, fun stats, Royals

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