Ok, so we don't need to go down that road more than once. Needless to say, this is the time of year that the little kids stand up and shout - for the whole world to hear - "Hey! I can fail just like that old guy!"
Here are the stats for the month of August:
Suspended Indefinitely - 34
Cap'N Kanani - 34
You Dead, Dawg - 34
Conduct Detrimental to Team Baseball Team - 31
Billz - 26
Steve Howe's Pocket Mirror - 20
Woah! A three way tie at the top, keeping the race for the championship neck and neck. It's going to really come down to heart (or lack of it) this last month. The Twins seem to have given up, as have the Brewers. Jump on now if you want a title shot! Remember, if you've got a guy on the DL or who was sent down, now is the time to pick up a scumbag for that stretch run in September!
To highlight some individual performances:
Suspended Indefinitely and Cap'n Kanani continue to assault the rest of the league with their errors. They committed an average of 21.8 and 21 respectively. Holy smokes! Just run the ball in from the outfield like they do in little league, failures!
No surprise on the top of the strikeout list, with Cap'n Kanani edging out Suspended Indefinitely yet again by a count of 160 to 151. BJ Upton wins a free steak for going down 37 times without putting the ball in play.
Suspended Indefinitely sports a 10.594 ERA. That's the stuff of legend!
Lots of walks in the summer heat - hard to grip that ball with sweaty palms - but nobody put them on at a rate higher than You Dead, Dawg, who's pitchers walked 52 batters. Walks haunt, failures!
No surprises in attendance again... as the local production of Tony and Tina's Wedding draws more paying customers than the Devil Rays. They bring in damn near a THIRD of San Francisco's attendance! Competitive Balance, my crotch!
And finally, "runs scored at home" continues to be a problem area for those Giants - along with "winning games" and "putting a decent team on the field" and "trying". They scored only 50 runs at home all month. That, for 649,720 tickets sold. So, less than a run for every ten thousand people that attended the games. If the Rays did that, they would average 0 runs per game!
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Before we get to the Jose Contreras award winner this month, I simply have to give some honorable mentions. Every one of these players should, by all rights, be taking home the trophy. But I regret that we have but one trophy to give to our champion. Here they are:
John Danks
He started 6 games and lost all 6. He was perfect in his failing. Sporting a 7.62 ERA, he also gave up 8 home runs. The one and only reason he does not take the trophy home is because there is a clause in the championship contract that does not allow us to give it to two failure White Sox pitchers in consecutive months. Well, that and the fact that the White Sox losing games no longer surprises anyone. 1963 Sandy Koufax could pitch for the Sox and go 0-6 in August. But nonetheless, he deserves mention for his perfect failure record. Huzzah!
Byung Hyun Kim
A 10.32 ERA in August is a great start. But how about this: he was cut TWICE. The Marlins cut him early in the month, then he signs on with the Diamondbacks and throws two of the worst games ever thrown in as long as pitchers have used overhand throws. So then Arizona cuts him, and he signs BACK WITH FLORIDA! Outstanding! That's two bonus points for being released in one month! Plus, he's still in the bigs, and will continue to rack up awesome stats in September. Good find, Billz.
B.J. Upton
Hitting .270? Ok, that's respectable. 7 home runs in the month? Damn, that's pretty good.
You know what's not good? 37 strikeouts and 5 GIDPs. That's very very not good. So it seems to me that it's either a strikeout, home run or double play every time up, huh? Great!
All of those listed above excelled in failing, but none of them could wrestle the crown away from the one, the only:
BRANDON INGE
Let's take a look at this failure: He came up to bat 88 times in August and struck out in 35 of them. When he did hit the ball, it didn't go anywhere, as is evidenced by his .193 batting average and .284 slugging percentage (we refer to this as "Nick Punto Territory" from now on). He took 7 walks all month - compared to earlier this season when he took 28 in April, with less at-bats. He failed to hit a home run (surprise) and scored only 8 runs all month.
This award goes to Inge primarily because of the slide that Detroit fell into during August. As their team disintegrates - again - it's nice to know that guys like Inge will keep doing everything they can to pour gasoline on the fire. Keep it up, Brandon, and we'll see you and Carlos Silva on the golf course very soon!
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