Reckless optimism must be stopped

Well I'm back! Did everyone miss me? No? Well then cram it, ugly!

So good to be back!

In my absence I note that Mike has shattered any ideas I might have had about his sanity, as he has violated the Euclidean number system somehow to put the Mets on top of the rest of the division, possibly through the use of mysterious dark matter/ shaky logic. He also made allusions to the quality of my writing being below that of a monkey, however it's been scientifically proven that monkeys are better at throwing feces at a computer screen than typing on it.

So screw you, Mike, my typing is at LEAST of the same quality as a ferret would produce by jumping on the keyboard repeatedly, and the Mets will be put in their proper place (dead last) in this preseason ranking as soon as the group of rocking chair enthusiasts known as "The Mets pitching staff" is looked at in depth. Also folks, Mike is probably going to attempt to use some cool sounding phrases like "bounceback season" and "Contracts with Satan" to hype up the Mets season. Do not let him get away with this.

But sometimes I forget, this site isn't just a Mets bashing site, it's also a Red Sox bashing site! Red Sox information has been, to put it mildly, lacking lately. It's been suggested that I do a Red Sox/AL East ranking to go along with Mike's postings, however I've already gone to that standby three freaking times and it's not even Pitchers and Catchers yet. The well might be runnin' dry, folks.

I did recently read something that bugged me. MLB.com has done their own AL East Analysis and marked the Red Sox down for 105 wins. Yes, that's 105 wins, or 10 more wins than Mets losses last year, if you'd prefer to think of it that way (I would). I'm not a real big fan of MLB.com, anything you can see there that has even the slightest signifigance was probably on ESPN the day before. They're the last to hear about breaking news and I haven't found any of their writers as easy to appreciate as ESPN's Peter Gammons or Jayson Stark. And seriously, HOW do you predict a 105 win season for a team? Anything over 100 wins, and a lot of luck was involved. I have no statistical data to back that claim up, but it simply feels wrong to assume any team, no matter how good, can be penciled in for well over 100 wins. There's too much chance and luck and injury stuff to make a prediction like that anything but insane. I mean obviously it's just for fun, but it's supposed to the flagship internet publication of Major League Baseball, and an important article is basically Tom Singer going "Hyuck hyuck wouldn't it be cool if the Red Sox were AWESOME this year?" The idea that this was simply a Sox fan writing down his wet dreams is strengthened by his predicting 92 wins for the Yanks, which while it's enjoyable to think about, is ludicrous to assume. Or maybe the Red Sox Nation persecution complex everyone writes about is real and I just hate my team not being the underdogs. Who knows.

Jerry Remy's apparently on the 15 day DL. Poor guy. When the Sox were in a pressure situation (For example, a 4 run lead coming into the ninth with Embree closing) I usually prayed to Jerry Remy rather than God, for two simple reasons. One, Jerry Remy knows more about baseball than the Big Guy, and secondly, if things started going really bad, I have no doubts whatsoever that Remy would not be above shooting a laser pointer into the pitcher's eyes to work a walk for the Sox, or throwing a Fenway Frank at whoever was up to bat. Buried in that article is the GREAT news that Sean McDonough will be back to call the Friday channel 38 games. He nearly walked last year because of the decreased air time, but he's infinitely better than Don Orsillo, and I like Orsillo plenty as well. I was also a little worried that he simply had gotten canned, as Sean was not above making snide comments about Jerry's still being a main announcer ("How do you find the time to go golfing with me anymore, with your new hotshot partner and having to call more than 30 games?") nor was he shy about making his feelings regarding the other team or the Umps known. "Apparently I've gone blind, either that or Hunter Wendelsted is calling the new low strike at the shins. Oh wait, that strike doesn't exist" or "Jose Lima is yelling at someone now, not sure who. Oh, maybe it's the outfield grass, if it had grown faster that double would have been a single"

And, geez, there's nothing else. Why won't the Sox DO something? Sign a ridiculous waiver pickup to take at-bats away from Bill Mueller, announce that Nixon's contract was for 13 million per, trade Schilling to the Yankees, do SOMETHING to at least anger me so I can have an offensive post to write. In the meantime, enjoy Part III of Mike's NL East Preview, "The Mets Rotation: Some Geezers, Some teasers"