Black Sabathia

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Tonight Collin Balester will face the Milwaukee Brewers' CC Sabathia in game 1 of a 4 game series. Balester is doing pretty well in his very first season as a big leaguer, with a 4.55 ERA, 2 wins and 3 losses.

Sabathia is, well, better known. Maybe you remember him as the 6'7", 260 pound lefty who pulled the Indians into the post-season, like those guys who pull dump trucks with their teeth. That said, the fact that these guys have one of the league's most talented and intimidating pitchers on the mound does not mean that the Brewers automatically get to claim tonight's win, Jack.


Collin Balester extends a handshake to
CC Sabathia before tonight's matchup


Once the Banner gets sung and Blue says play ball, stats stop being historical and start updating in real time. Anything can happen. This is August, baby, and July has been euthanized and quietly buried in the backyard. So we can make the "anything can happen" declaration. Even though the DC club is in dead-last place in the National League, they now have at least some chance of winning every game - even the ones in which there is NFW they're going to win.

Every night, before Stan Kasten goes to bed, he says to our GM, "Goodnight Jimmy. Rest well. I'll most likely kill you in the morning." After winning only five games in the entire month of July (with 19 losses), and being swept an astounding four times within that same month, with fans screaming for his balls on a platter, Bowden probably didn't get a whole lot of REM time last month.

Oh but August, sweet beautiful August, has been a different story - completely. The team that swept the Reds at Nationals Park last weekend was a completely different team than the team that the Reds swept back in the beginning of July. Lopez, Estrada, and God Bless America even LoDuca are gone. Not traded, FIRED. Jon Rausch was traded for some guy in Arizona named Emilio Bonifacio. Some guys criticized this as an uneven trade, with AZ getting a quality closer for an untested 2b man. Then Bowden sent minor league pitcher Jhonny Nunez to the Yankees for a SS named Alberto Gonzalez, and some guys said the team was trading away our future and torturing the fans. All along, Bowden insisted that AG does not torture. "We don't torture!" he would say. Turns out he was right and some guys are ignorant morons who don't know what they're talking about. Jim Bowden is a jerk, a drunk, and a damn fine GM. They'll most likely kill him in the morning.

If today's date were 7/7/08, we wouldn't even have bothered to tune-in to tonight's game. It would have been nothing but a stat-packing game for the Brewers. With the configuration on the field on traffic-and-weather-together-on-the 8/8/08's, the Washington Nationals will still probably get crushed, but at least it will be fun to watch.

Now, pray silence please, for a few more graphic representations of tonight's matchup:






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