Hair Pulling, Knife Throwing, and Murder?

So I’m just going to do some random riffs on tonight’s 4-2 win in Cincinnati:

Daniel Murphy: Would it be blasphemy to say that this guy is Gregg Jefferies without the open letter to the fans? On a simple level, no it wouldn’t in the sense that there’s really no position for this guy. But even Jefferies had a higher baseball IQ than Murphy. Hell, there’s a waterbug climbing up my wall right now that with the proper training might make better baseball decisions than Murphy. Monday night he tried to take third base on a chopper to the pitcher, and then cut off a ball that had a real shot to be an out at home plate for the third out in the inning in the seventh. He had reasoning, but there had been plenty of times where Murphy should have been cutting off the ball in the infield but he’s harder to find than Waldo. Christ, Murphy can make you pull out your hair sometimes.

But he can hit. He’s a craftsman with the wood in his hands. His double in the seventh inning was a big reason they won Monday. He either has to find some aptitude at some position, or the National League has to adopt the DH. If there’s any discussion about that, I know who will be the first guy at Bud Selig’s door. Either that or he’ll be traded to the Royals for Bret Saberhagen.

Jason Isringhausen: I knew it was too easy for him. And it wasn’t easy on Monday, mainly because David Wright made an error which made Izzy’s night unnecessarily “Frankie-like”. It’s almost as if Wright purposely threw knives at Isringhausen for him to juggle because he wanted to see if Izzy could juggle like Frankie could.

You know why I would almost believe that scenario, because it was a fielding error. Wright almost never makes pure fielding errors. Throwing errors? All the time. A fielding error? He was making sure Izzy was awake.

But seriously, Isringhausen threw a pitch to Brandon Phillips in the last at-bat, I think it was strike two, that looked that that floater pitch at the end of “Rookie of the Year”. It was one of those looping curveballs that Phillips waited on and took a softball hack at with the bases loaded, and thankfully missed. It’s like Izzy looked at his glove and saw his mom’s name … or “B.Pulsipher”. Either one. In any event, I’m not sure my heart can take any more “Frankie Finishes.” (Alcoa can wait.)

R.A. Dickey: He said that he had a great knuckleball, but was bummed that he threw too many fastballs (and gave up three doubles on fastballs.) Well, one of those great knuckleballs that he threw struck a batter out but he reached first because Josh Thole couldn’t catch it. So R.A. can’t win sometimes. But sometimes, he’s f***ing brilliant and he does win, like Monday’s game.

Bobby Parnell: Here’s why I love Bobby Ojeda on the post game: he basically went on after Parnell blew Sunday’s eighth inning lead against the Marlins … and not because he blew the game but because he talked in the locker room about taking it hard … and practically called Parnell a sensitive man of the new millennium. Bobby O is probably the last link to old school thinking on this planet and that should be cherished.

The problem is that if Parnell had gone in the locker room and said that it was no big deal and that he had already forgotten about it like Bobby O would have preferred, how much would Parnell have been roasted in the press, on Twitter, what have you? “Oh, Parnell doesn’t care, I want my ballplayers to care” or, “man if I was his teammate I’d be all over him”, or even “I wanna see Bobby Parnell’s long form birth certificate because he’s clearly not American.” It’s just like Dickey going on FOX talking about his mountain climbing after the season and Bobby O killing him for that. If Dickey doesn’t do it, you know that gets out in the press (probably because Rupert Murdoch hacks his phone) and Dickey looks like a stooge. There’s no winning when it comes to crap like that, especially with the sharks here in New York. Again, I cherish Bobby O and his old school thinking. Unfortunately in this era, there’s consequences.

Thankfully Parnell bounced back and forgot about Sunday pretty nicely, I’d say.

Jason Bay: His first double in two months plus came in that four run seventh inning. Gary Cohen had said earlier in the game that he “would kill” for a double. (I’m just glad he didn’t say that Jason would “literally” kill for a double.) Thankfully, it didn’t come to that as Jason’s double in the seventh caused no casualties (though I didn’t notice D.J. Carrasco in the bullpen or on the bench for the last few innings. Somebody should follow up on that for D.J.’s own safety.)