The next time I feel like complaining about some shaky performance by Broxton I ought to ask a Snakes fan what they feel about their closer. They have cause to complain. I think we Dodger fans sometimes don't realize how good we have it when it comes to relievers.
Eugenio Velez beat the Snakes today in the bottom of the ninth. My wife and I call him Honest Abe because we think he bears a mild resemblance to Abe Lincoln. His face is kind of the right shape, and his little beard thing with no mustache also adds to the effect. I just hope Honest Abe is honest about his limited hitting skills when he plays the Dodgers and refrains from any late-game heroics. I wouldn't want to have my defense of Broxton put to the test by a late Giants rally led by a fringe hitter, after all.
Though Broxton may not be the closer by the time the Dodgers are playing the Giants again. Saito seems ready to come off the DL soon. I look forward to Saito's first save back, when he breaks into his great grin and then Manny runs in from the outfield and gives him a bear hug. I just hope Saito is all the way ready when he returns.
There is still time for the Snakes to ride a hot-streak past the Dodgers, but it's going to be tough for them since they don't play the Dodgers at all again. The only thing I worry about is the Dodgers collapsing on the road. They've taken two of three in San Diego but Colorado is something else again Pittsburgh is in an evil non-Vinny time zone. Not that having someone other than Vinny announce games should influence how the Dodgers play, but it makes the losses even harder to bear when they come in an early game narrated by Steiner and Lyons.
I like Steiner's enthusiasm but I also feel like he has yet to really grow fully into the job. That's a problem since he's already pretty old and unlikely to get any better. Steiner is like Casey Blake, in that he's solid but his game has also has some holes and he's never going to suddenly become a revelation of excellence like Ethier. And Vinny is like Manny without all the strange baggage. It would be nice if we had a young announcer backing up Vinny who could be compared to Ethier or Kemp in potential but what I really want is Ross Porter back.
2 comments:
What I'm curious about is - with all the adulation for Vin, how come there's no one, anywhere, so far as I know, who emulates him? Sure, no one would have his unique characteristic turns of phrase that hark back to 1950, but they'd have something else of their own.
It's the essential component of Vin's commenting - decency, integrity, absence of homerism, and good research - that others could at least *try* for. Why don't they? I guess just having two commentators naturally leads to mindless chatter.
Vin used to do games with partners. I wonder if anyone knows how exactly this changed - by happenstance, when a partner wasn't available and he just had a go on his own, or did he insist upon it some year when a colleague retired? I've never seen any discussion of this anywhere.
Go to Scully's Wikipedia page.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vin_Scully
According to that, his partner, Cornelius Desmond, was often gone because of alcoholism, so Scully just sort of took over.
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