umm. . . . . why don't you guys all just go back and read yesterday's post again?
no really, i mean it; what the hell is there to say about a game like that? i guess i could say "thank god mulder got that out of his system before the playoffs." about once every five weeks he seems to get blown out in a game but then bounces back as if nothing had happened. last night was the 6th time this year mulder has yielded 6 runs or more in a start; the other five came on april 13, may 14, june 5, june 22, and august 11. in the starts after those five games, mulder went 4-1 with a 2.31 era. . . .
or i could say that, with the pennant and the home field in the bag, "the cardinals are entitled to a week's complacency." since the clincher last saturday they have gone 1-5 and held the opposition below 6 runs just once. they are dead last in nl era over that seven-day period . . . .
i could say: "put anthony reyes on the postseason roster." and i might really mean it if they had given him a more serious look. i asked two months ago, idly: "am i the only one who'd be tempted to bring this guy up and get him eligible for the postseason? just pitch him out of the pen -- an inning here, a couple innings there. . . ." but with career totals of four games and 16 innings, he just isn't ready.
i could say: "the cardinals are like michael corleone at the end of the godfather part II: they have vanquished every enemy and now rule their domain so unconditionally that it has left them in an existential dilemma. with no external threat against which to defend and by which to define themselves, they are suffering a profound identity crisis -- drifting aimlessly, without bearings, sans honor, sans soul." if this is indeed the problem, it should self-correct with the re-emergence of new enemies and threats in october -- which i sincerely hope will play better than the godfather part III did.
(let's go with that riff for a second: which cardinals correspond to which godfather II characters? i nominate carpenter as michael corleone: cold-blooded, ruthless, terrible temper. la russa is obviously tom hagen: lawyerly, analytical. and what of the de niro character, the young vito corleone -- the godfather himself? gotta be pujols: quiet, methodical, deadly. and don fanucci, the street hoodlum whom de niro murders? that'd be dusty baker. hyman roth = bobby cox. pathetic fredo corleone? maybe roger cedeno, maybe edgar renteria for selling out la familia.....no wait, it's gotta be steve kline.)
i could say: "the cardinals are like the titanic right after it hit the iceberg -- already doomed to sink, though the passengers have no idea how seriously damaged the vessel is" . . . . . and remember people: first seats in the lifeboats go to women, children, and bloggers.
i could amuse myself (and make some of you mad) surfing vaguely applicable word origins at etymology online:
- slump: 1677, "fall or sink into a muddy place," probably from a Scand. source, cf. Norw. and Dan.
- flop: sense of "fall or drop heavily" is 1836, that of "collapse, fail" is 1919.
- nose dive: "sudden large decrease" is 1920, from airplane sense, first attested 1912.
- pratfall: 1939, from prat "buttocks" (1567), originally criminals' slang, of unknown origin. Prat in British slang sense of "dolt, fool" is recorded from 1968.
- fizzle: c.1532, "to break wind without noise," probably altered from obsolete fist, from M.E. fisten "break wind" (see feisty). Sense of "failure, fiasco" is from 1846, originally U.S. college slang for "failure in an exam."
- stink: O.E. stincan "emit a smell of any kind" (class III strong verb; past tense stonc), from W.Gmc. *stenkwanan (cf. O.S. stincan, O.H.G. stinkan, Du. stinken), from the root of stench. . . . . meaning "be inept" is recorded from 1924.
- wreck: 1228, "goods cast ashore after a shipwreck, flotsam," from Anglo-Fr. wrec, from O.N. *wrek (cf. Norw., Icel. rek) "wreck, flotsam," related to reka "to drive, push" (see wreak).
- nervous wreck: first attested 1899.
- nervous: c.1400, "affecting the sinews," from L. nervosus "sinewy, vigorous," from nervus "sinew, nerve" . . . sense "restless, agitated, lacking nerve" is 1740.
- ominous: 1589, from L. ominosus "full of foreboding," from omen (gen. ominis) "foreboding" (see omen).
- scaredy-cat: "timid person" first attested 1933, in Dorothy Parker.
- lame duck: originally (18c.) "any disabled person or thing"; modern sense of "public official serving out term after an election" first recorded 1863 in Amer.Eng., attributed to Vice President Andrew Johnson, in reference to Col. Forney.
- dead duck: from 1844.
- turkey: meaning "stupid, ineffectual person" is recorded from 1951.
- quail (v.): "to lose heart, to shrink," c.1440, of unknown origin, perhaps from M.Du. quelen "to suffer, be ill," from P.Gmc. *kwel- "to die" (see quell). Or from obsolete quail "to curdle" (1398), from O.Fr. coailler, from L. coagulare (see coagulate).
- on a wing and a prayer: title of a 1943 song about landing a damaged aircraft.
- for the birds: recorded from 1944, supposedly in allusion to birds eating from droppings of horses and cattle.
