Artificial Conscience

So this Doc Halladay fellow, turns out he may be overrated a tad. I mean, he gave up more runs to the Mets than Vance Worley did. How can he be any good?

Oh okay, the 18 straight strikes to start the game … and y’know, those Hall of Fame credentials.  I gotcha now.

There was a moment in the first inningwhere David Wright looked at the umpire while smiling as if to say “dude, how am I supposed to hit this m***ther f***er?  You grab a f***ing bat and try it.”  Then I remember that Wright would never talk fresh to an umpire.  What a nice man.

The sadness of it is that this wasn’t a typical 10-0 loss to Doc, Jon Niese battled him as hard as he could, even almost every step of the way that Niese took.  But here’s the difference between solid pitcher and future Hall of Famer: Halladay gave up 7 hits to Niese’s 6, and walked one to Niese’s two.  But Doc got eight more men out than Niese, and only threw nine more pitches than Niese did.  Nine more pitches, eight more outs.  107 pitches, 80 strikes. The guy is a freaking surgeon.  (Hence, I guess, the nickname “Doc”.)  He was so good that FOX didn’t get to the Phillies defensive alignment until the third inning.  Now I don’t know how much of that is Halladay’s efficient work and how much of that was because … well, FOX, but damn.

There was a hero in all this: My DVR, which mercifully only saved the first 45 minutes of FOX’s broadcast for some reason.  You know how they say that these television recorders have become more interactive and intuitive?  Well the gremlin in my box decided that I really don’t need to see more of two and a half innings of Doc Halladay against the Mets.  Some DVR’s have artificial intelligence, mine is the only cable box in the world that has an artificial conscience.

Sunday brings another chance to show the baseball consuming world how a mediocre lineup becomes meek as they’ll face Cliff Lee on national television.  Hopefully, the gremlin in my cable box will sneak out in the middle of the night and put an axe through the screen.  Time Warner Cable … saving Mets fans from themselves.