Written by Steve Buffum

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Well, at least we didn't have to watch all nine innings of this one last night. Thank you Mother Nature. Cliff Lee got shelled ... and the Tribe was pounded, 11-4, losing their 12th game in their last 14 tries. Not a pretty picture in the wigwam right now, and in today's B-List, Buff soothes the masochists and tells us how Cliff Lee was platypus-like, why Matt Herges should never pitch again, and ... why he never wants to see Matt Herges pitch again.  

FINAL	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	R	H	E
White Sox (39-38)	4	0	2	1	2	2	0	X	X	11	17	0
Indians (31-48)	0	1	0	0	3	0	X	X	X	4	4	0

W: Richard (3-1)                        L: C. Lee (4-7)

Hard to argue that Lee was the tough-luck loser here.

1) The Essential Fallibility of Everything

The platypus is an absurd animal.

This is a mammal which lays eggs, then feeds the hatchlings milk from mammary glands with no actual nipple.  The milk doesn't flow from a single location, it more oozes or sweats out, which works out okay for the platypus, because it doesn't actually have any lips.  The platypus hunts with its eyes closed underwater and might as well be functionally blind, instead using a very odd method of reading electric field fluctuations underwater that hasn't fully been explained by biologists.  The body has been put together from the leftovers in the biological cut-out bin, elements slapped into place with haphazard regard: a bill, a flat tail, poisonous claws, and a body that reminds one of a swimming kiwi, which is a pretty strange-looking animal in the first place.

There is a scene from the movie "Dear God" with George Burns and John Denver (two icons of the Seventies!  Remind me why we're nostalgic for the Seventies again?) in which God (played by Burns) admits that he's made some mistakes.  "The avocado, for example," he says.  "Made the pit too big."  This is all pretty tongue-in-cheek, and the movie's message is sufficiently saccharine, but the point is, if you want to argue for a Supreme Being creating all life on Earth, you have to wonder whether He invented psilocybin mushrooms first, and then, after testing them, decided to work on the platypus.

There are a number of things like this.  Plasmodium, the parasite that causes malaria, lives inside mammalian red blood cells, perhaps the least-nourishing place on Earth, except Detroit.  Why don't you eat sugars like everyone else, you freak?  Kudzu is not a plant I would have considered inventing.  Parasitic wasps actually horrified Charles Darwin to such a degree that he questioned his own faith.  Donald Trump and Jessica Simpson have each had television shows.

The point is, even the best, most talented artists (considering the Life Stylings of Yahweh/Allah/God/Etc. to be an art form) have some works that lead you to question not just their talent and ability, but even the underlying thought process.  And so, like the platypus, we must consider this start from Cliff Lee to simply be an aberration and move on with our collective lives.

Also, Lee pitched like a platypus.

2) Speaking of Mike Gosling

Well, no.  No one has ever spoken of Mike Gosling.  Why would they?  What would be the point?

3) Speaking of Matt Herges

Perhaps I was unclear before.  When I wrote last week:

Look, we got some mileage out of Matt Herges.  Bully for us, and bully for him.  It's good to see a 39-year-old guy come back and have some success, kind of a feel-good After School Special kind of thing.  But his run is done, his goose is cooked, and where you point to small samples, I point to his 39-year-oldness and his mediocrity-bordering-on-badness since 2004 and consider his 2007 a career gork and Matt Herges is Just Some Guy.

 

Anyway, that's enough of that.

 

...

 

So ... here's my proposal.  I do not want One More Inning pitched by a relief pitcher who is over 30 years old (except Raffy Betancourt and Kerry Wood) ... No Matt Herges.

I can understand where this could be misconstrued as "hedging my bet" or "not being fully committed" or "mumbling in Esperanto," but listen: I'm being really, really serious here.  I want you to take me seriously.  Because I am being serious.

Never.

Use.

Matt.

Herges.

Again.

Please.

4) Exceptions to this rule

(this space intentionally left blank)

5) Pronk smash!

Travis Hafner now has 8 home runs this season, proving ... nothing whatsoever.

But he did hit a home run.

6) Power from the leadoff slot

Normally, everyone gripped about how Grady Sizemore was badly miscast as a leadoff hitter when, with his power, he would be better-suited to hitting more in the middle of the lineup (third has been suggested).  Of course, his performance to date has been more-suited to the twelfth slot in the lineup, or in Cleveland's hitting order, sixth.

But this time it was Asdrubal Cabrera providing the big extra-base hit, a bases-clearing double with two outs that represented 75% of the Cleveland offensive output on the night.

I would rather have Cabrera's brand of "power" in the 1 slot than Sizemore's, especially if Sizemore is going to attempt another stolen base this season, something I highly un-recommend.  (I also don't really believe in it.)

7) Department of Not Surprise

Kelly Shoppach: two plate appearances.

Kelly Shoppach: two strikeouts.

Pip pip!  Cheerio!

8) No, really

I'm deadly serious.  No more Matt Herges.  Don't make me break out the False Statements.

9) The heart of the order

Two through five hitters (Sizemore, Martinez, Choo, Peralta): 0-for-12, 4 K (1 by each).

This is the heart?

10) If you can't say something nice

Write the B-List.