Colby Rasmus hits, Adam Wainwright pitches, Ryan Franklin rises in my estimation

And from watching him play here in Springfield, he has his days where he looks lost at the plate. I have wondered the same thing about him feeling pain/insecurity. He sure has done well, since the “Drama”. And he has to feel more like he belongs. Time will tell if that is a difference maker for him. Can you imagine the season he could have if “belonging” has a positive impact.

since the day of the trade request “story”.

Because it really wasn’t so much a story as a slow news day and someone poking a beehive with a nest.

A good Colby certainly makes our lineup a little more scary. Hopefully this offseason we can find two guys to stick at the top of the lineup that can get on base.

which was the crux of his angst all along.

Win, win, win.

1. Ackerman1120 Mo: “With all of the managerial openings, there’s probably going to be a run on top guys. We certainly don’t want to be left at the altar.” 8 minutes ago via web
2. Ackerman1120 Once they get a decision from La Russa, they’ll move to other topics. (I think La Russa will be back.) 6 minutes ago via web

silly mo. you know that’s just going to cost you money.

It’s almost as good as being at the game. :)
Brendan sounds like he’s a handful and that can be positive and negative. Like all super-energetic people you have to enjoy the good and smile at the bad. He’s so good he’s worth it. As you say the “bad” for Brendan can be endearing.

I don’t know what makes Skip sexy but you are right, he is.

also, do you mean that colby literally takes small steps, or that he takes very few steps?

there’s a link to pics of it.

how do you barely miss someone on your back with a roundhouse?

I’m not sure the “legal implications” article is very accurate. I could look into it a bit more, but I’m pretty certain that in-game fights, and injuries that occur from them, have been handled by at least one court. Rudy Tomjanovich almost getting killed by Kermit Washington is a more analgous situation to this, and I thought there was a civil case (not entirely sure).

And I second Y2S, both Scotty and Carp have said that there was no foul-intentions to Scotty’s actions. Why does that keep coming up?

so if LaRue wanted to sue he could make a case. Whether he would win or not is debatable. I almost wish he would do it.

Such a claim has essentially 3 requirements:

1) Contact between the tortfeasor (here Cueto) and the injured (LaRue).
2) Such contact is intentional. Intent in this contact isn’t necessarily that he meant to hit the person, but rather that he intentionally took the action. That Cueto intended to kick is enough; that he intended to specifically kick LaRue isn’t required.
3) That such contact was harmful or offensive to the recipient. Concussion, retirement, I think we’ve got that angle covered.

So, Cueto intentionally kicked and in so doing came into contact with LaRue and injured him. This gives rise to a claim of battery. This isn’t to say LaRue would necessarily win, as there are several defenses that might concievably apply and therefore defeat the claim of battery. A good attorney – even a mediocre attorney – could probably argue the defenses of consent (LaRue consented to the kick by engaging in the brawl – seems unlikely to win), self defense (Cueto was a’scaird and was tryin’ to protect himself) and defense of others (Cueto needed to kick LaRue out of baseball to protect a teammate that LaRue was threatening). I’m not saying any of these would necessarily, absolutely, unquestionably win – I haven’t looked at the video recently – but a decent attorney could certainly cloud the issue enough that it’s not an open-and-shut case.

I dunno, Avila (and other similar cases) basically stand for the proposition that you assume all risks within the scope of risk inherent to the game. So getting hit in the head by a baseball, even if it is thrown at you purposely, can not give rise to a claim of, say, battery: Brush-backs are a part of the game, so by participating in the game you assume the risk you’ll get hit by one. To switch the focus to Cueto/Larue: Is getting in a brawl an inherent risk of the game? Sure. Is getting hurt in a brawl an inherent risk of the game? Definitely. But is getting repeatedly kicked in the head by someone wearing metal cleats a risk of the game? I dunno. It could be so unforeseeable to a player as an inherent risk of participating in the game that it really couldn’t jusitifiably fall under the assumption of the risk doctrine. Not that there’s any common law to support this, but to me it seems like the fairest treatment of the case would involve some kind of weird assumption of the risk/comparative negligence hybrid that probably doesn’t even exist (as the suit would probably be for assault and battery, but comparative negligence is a doctrine peculiar to negligence actions). Thus, Larue assumed maybe 50% of the risk that he would be injured, but because of the unforeseeable and egregious way it occurred, Cueto would still be liable for 50%. Figure out the damages, then cut them in alf and award it to Larue. Then call it a day. Oh, and also give Cueto the death penalty, just because.
/wall of text

Oh well, I guess I should appreciate it while I still can.

meaningless game now

FIRE TLR! FREE COLBY! KELLY JOHNSON FOR SECOND BASE!

Better?

so ignorant

No Hadley on the post-game show.

Is it safe to conclude that Hadley knows very little about baseball?

He seems to have moved on. More handegg talk.

Straussicorn mentiones LaRue deciding not to pursue legal action on Bernie’s show!

Their out-of-character willingness to cut loose the older players and call the kids up is worth watching.

It could mean Uncle Drayton has realized how to rebuild or he’s prepping the team for sale.

From that article:

The face of the Astros’ youth movement is Chris Johnson, a fourth-round pick by Houston in the 2006 draft who was recalled June 22 and given the third-base job when veteran Pedro Feliz was benched.

Johnson has become an under-the-radar rookie of the year candidate. He’s currently second only to Buster Posey among NL rookies with a .322 batting average. He’s third in slugging at .503. In fact, since the All-Star break, Johnson is hitting a sizzling .336. Feliz was eventually sent to St. Louis. Johnson could be at third base in Houston for years to come.

BB%: 4.5%
Slash stats: .322/.350/.507/.857
LD%: 23.5%
GB%: 39.4%
FB%: 37.1%
BABIP: .398
wOBA: .369
wOBAr: .329

He’ll be lucky to OPS above .800 next season.

I don’t know that they’ll win the Central, because they can’t really add anything of value in the offseason due to the FA market sucking horribly.

However, they’re 72-77 with the complete shit everyday player roster that they currently have. Of their everyday guys only two of them have OPS’ above .750: Pence and Johnson. Yet, they are still just 5 games under .500. Why? Because they have a pretty decent, and cheap, pitching staff, all of whom will be back next year. Myers, Wandy, and Happ are a good top 3, and they have Norris, Moehler, and Paulino to fill out the 4 and 5 spots in the rotation, or could even go after a FA to help fill one of those too. That’s a pretty decent rotation. They also have a 19 year old kid at AAA, Jordan Lyles, that could help them in the near future. 3.29 K/BB in AA at age 19? That’s pretty damn impressive.

As far as position players go, Johnson is likely to regress a bit, Pence is probably under-performing a bit, and Lee is just atrocious for the money he’s making. Bourn is still a decent player and provides a stolen base threat at the top — if he could just draw a few more walks he’d be pretty valuable. In order for them to really turn it around offensively, three things have to happen:

1. Brett Wallace has to hit.
2. Jason Castro has to hit.
3. Carlos Lee has to not suck, like .850-.900 OPS worth of not sucking — like a Vernon Wells type renaissance next year.

Wallace and Castro were good minor league hitters….but then again, so was J.R. Towles and he never amounted to much of anything. They will get all the chances in the world to prove they can hit for this team.

If you look around the division though, it’s not like there’s a juggernaut that will dominate this division. The Brewers have no pitching, no pitching on the way, and may or may not have Prince Fielder next year. The Reds are getting career years from a couple of players (Votto especially, although I think he really is this good) and have some decisions to make about pitching (re-sign Arroyo and Harang? is Chapman a starter? is Leake for real? can Wood be a 5th starter?). The Cubs are in transition with aging overpaid former stars and a headcase, and Pittsburgh is at least 2-3 years from being a contending team if they don’t fuck it up and deal McCutcheon to the Cubs for a pu-pu platter.

It’s not out of the question for the Astros to get better, but the question is whether you believe that McClane and Ed Wade can make the right moves to pull it off. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by their ability to go out and try to rebuild this offseason. They got Happ and two young players with ok talent in the Oswalt deal (they could have done better, but at least the Phillies picked up all the dollars, and that’s what the real point was), they got another young, speedy outfielder in the Berkman deal. They appear to be focussed on acquiring speedy players for the future, although I don’t know how that’s going to play in their ballpark really.

Yeesh. Look what we started…

(for the pedants, Norris vs STL was actually the second game in that streak, so no, we technically didn’t “start” it- but we helped).