Monday Fungos, Week 3: Warnings to All Sides
For all the pace-of-play posturing this spring, Mother Nature sure weighed in this past week with a hot take of her own. By postponing two of the three Cubs-Cardinals games and at least 25 total contests throughout baseball, she essentially said, “Count me with Rizzo. I totally prefer a slower pace of schedule.”
And the unexpected funny fungos didn’t end there. Enjoy:
- Say what you will about the hated Cardinals franchise, but they are single-handedly keeping America’s red support-sock industry afloat.
- Fans rooting for Javier Baez to make history were sorely disappointed last week. By going 12-for-25, he’s no longer on pace to be the first National League MVP to hit under .200.
- Good news on Tyler Chatwood: Batters have managed a mere .237 average against him. Bad news: he has walked everyone hitting over .220.
- The Cubs made their first trip west since last year’s disastrous Dodgers playoff series. Sadly, a still-frazzled Jed Hoyer forced yet another emergency landing out of fears of being “incepted.”
- You don’t need all those
Hoyer’s flip-out also briefly forced the team to visit Nebraska. VisitNebraska.com signs at Coors Field to know Colorado has some liberal cannabis laws. But is “Visit Nebraska” an actual ad campaign? Sounds more like a Jedi mind trick.
- Speaking of which, the first 4,200 Colorado fans at Sunday’s game received promotional baggies of something labeled “Bud Black.”
- On Friday, Joe Maddon brought Justin Wilson in to protect a 12-run lead. But it sure still felt like trusting a Sicilian to guard the Lufthansa terminal at JFK.
- Eerily replicating a famous TV commercial, Andre Dawson was just pulled out of Charlie Blackmon’s beard.
- As a final warning, Theo Epstein put Ben Zobrist on the 10-day DL for continually stuffing the front office idea box with the same suggestion. Because even if Theo promoted Mark Zagunis and Rob Zastryzny, gave one-day contracts to Carlos Zambrano, Oscar Zamora and Richie Zisk, and dug up Don Zimmer, you still can’t field an all-Z lineup.
- And for all those who doubt the organization’s great bullpen depth, take that! They just called up Luke Farrell. Just overlook that “feral” means wild.
