Ten years from now, if you needed to describe the 2011 Tampa Bay Rays, you’d probably just send people to the box score from August 24, 2011. The starting pitching was fantastic, the offense was infuriating, but they managed to win in some inexplicable way.
This team has become bizarrely interesting because they are such a dichotomy in monotony and entertainment.
They are unwatchable at the plate. The last three nights have made me crazy watching them flail around against the Tigers starting pitching. It is hard to believe that they are the same team that looked so confident against the plate against Seattle’s young stud just four days ago. Watching this offense just makes me numb. I cannot get excited about baserunners or scoring opportunities. I know nothing is going to come of any of them. If anything, I almost reassured when the Rays go 3-up-and-3-down because that gets us back to the stuff we are good at faster.
But, then, right when you get to “I’m not watching for a few nights because I need a break from this madness” Sam Fuld goes flying around the bases on the most entertaining 3B/E9 ever. Or Sean Rodriguez sprints to second on a routine inning-ender and wins a game. And you feel like this:
So, I am going to keep watching. I am not even sure if I want to keep watching, but I will, because I cannot miss the next Fuld/Rodriguez/[Next guy] experience. I love it and I hate it.
Give credit where it’s due, please. You were very into Seinfeld and I believe I’m the one who was requesting you to change back over to the game! Just FYI.
Sad but true. If this goes on, “Questions from the Mrs.” is going to become “The Mrs. told you so…”
there are several nights where i’d rather “yada yada yada” the rays game and watch seinfeld. just have a calzone or some mulligatawny, followed by some fat free frozen yogurt, and not get mad when what i’m watching produces nothing. i would declare that the summer of george.
I think you just inadvertently nicknamed those games where the Rays offense goes to sleep.
“David Price pitched great, and yada yada yada, we lost 2-1.”
From this day hence, they shall be known as YadaYadas.
The games can be very monotonous. So much so I have resorted to putting the game on the tv and watching neflix on the lap top. When I hear the crowd (or lack there of) roar, I look up. I wonder what this season would have been like if Manny didn’t test positive. Any thoughts?
That is the million dollar question. About all we know for sure is that we would never have known TheLegendofSamFuld.
Outside of that, a season of drug-less Manny could have gone either way. There was some evidence that his hands were slowing down in LA and Chicago but, he was also presumably injured. So, you could claim that, without PEDs, he didn’t have the hand speed to compete. And you can argue that he had the hand speed for another monster year but was limited by injury.
It is fun to speculate.