Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Long Live The King


Twenty minutes ago, Felix Hernandez completed a perfect game. He struck out 12 batters, including 7 of the last 9 outs in said game. I can't seem to construct too many proper sentences, so I'm going to leave you with this picture. Enjoy:





Monday, August 13, 2012

Great Debate: Russell vs Flynn

Damnit Pete, make up your mind.
 
We are under a month from opening kick off and the Seahawks are still entertwined in a two man QB battle. Making matters worse,  both seem very capable of being a starting QB.
 
It's becoming a hot arguement between me and the people I argue sports with. As polorizing a discussion I can remember having in regards to the Seahawks in recent years. Seriously, this is approaching the "Is Shaun Alexander any good?"  arguement from 2006.
 
So let me go a head and get on record with what I think should happen.
 
I think Pete Carroll should choose Matt Flynn as the starting Quarterback. Flynn, of course was signed presumably to be our starter a few months back after absolutely TORCHING the Lions in week 17 for 6 touchdowns. Not 1, not 2, not 3... But six. In the history of professional football there have only been 35 occassions where a QB has tossed 6 touchdowns or more. Matt Flynn and his 2 career starts has one of them. I don't care if the Lions started a secondary made of autistic children, they were professional autistic children and so Matt Flynn had a night for the ages.
 
So now he is a Seahawk. He came her to start and start he should. Granted, in his two outting so far he hasn't looked AWESOME, but he hasn't looked bad either. Atleast not bad enough to let Russell "The Love Muscle" Wilson jack his starting spot.
 
Now I know the arguement. And I agree, Russell has looked GREAT in the first two preseason games. But seriously, he is tossing seam passess against people who will be assistant coaching high school football in three weeks. Lets not get too excited.
 
Do I think Russell is good? Hell yeah. I fist pumped my shoulder out of it's socket when we stole him in the 3rd round. Does that mean I'm excited about starting a rookie QB? Hell no. Rookie Qb's struggle. This defense is good enough to make the playoffs. We have good recievers. We have a franchise running back. Bitch, lets play for keeps.
 
Let Russell Wilson  "Carson Palmer"  under Matt Flynn. If Flynn sucks, then we can go Wilson. If Flynn gets hurt, we can go Wilson. But let Flynn prove he isn't our starter first.
 
He deserves that.
Full disclosure: I think Russell Wilson will be our starting Quarterback when we contend for Superbowls. But the dude is 24. There is no reason to not atleast see what we have with Flynnsanity.
 
I'm not going to be upset if #3 gets the nod. But alot of people think I am Russell bashing. I'm not. I just feel the need to preach patience. You know?
 
Of course, Pete Carroll is probably going to name Russell the starting QB and I will have to explain to everyone that I wasn't against him; I was just FOR Flynn. You know, because nobody will actually read this. 

Friday, August 10, 2012

Dwight Howard, Lakers and Wheat Grass

The Orlando Magic ended their near two year long Dwightmare last night.
He looks stupid in Yellow. Right?
The Magic are expected to announce this morning the trade that will send Dwight Howard to the Los Angeles Lakers, in return they will recieve Aaron Affalo, potential cap space and Crabs.

Thats almost not a joke. Please review the complete trade below:
  • Lakers get: Dwight Howard, Earl Clark, Chirs Duhon.
  • Magic get: Aaron Affalo, Al Harrington, Moe Harkless, Nikola Vucevic, a PROTECTED 1st round pick from the 76ers, Lakers, and Nuggets.
  • 76ers get: Andrew Bynum and Jason Richardson
  • Nuggets get: Andre Igoudala
Thats it. Thats the whole trade. The turned down two trades this off season with the Nets and Rockets that would've seen them unload all their bad contracts and in the case of the Nets offer, bring back Brook Lopez and Marshon Brooks. They said no, because anytime you can turn Dwight Howard into a chance to pair Aaron Affalo with Hedo Turkalou, you have to do that.

Seriously, Houston was willing take on Hedo and J Richardson and send back cap space, draft picks and Kevin Martin. Maybe I'm high, but Kevin Martin is better than Aaron Affalo.

Also, J Rich's contract shouldn't have been the mandetory move. He has 3 years and a shade over 18 remaining. Thats 6 million a season for a starting 2 guard (thats basically what Portland is paying for Wes Mathews right now). The man can still offer something productive. Orlando should never have made a move unless it involved Hedo's, who has 2 years at 23 million left. His contract is basically a dick punch whose sting won't fade for another two years.

I get it. You trade the guy who doesn't move like a mummy. This trade can be summed up in one more (coherent) point: Orlando traded the best center in the league in a four team trade that involved the 2nd best center in the league and another guy who is one of the best defensive perimeter players in the league and is currently playing for our American Olympic team. The Magic didn't recieve either of those players.

Yippy for draft picks that won't sniff the lottery (and if they do, perhaps if Bynums knee blows up like a gernade and Philly bottoms out- THAT PICK IS PROTECTED so it better not be too good of a pick).

Well done Orlando.

In other news, how awesome would it have been to be a fly on Steve Nash's wall this morning? He probably woke up about 6 am to the wonderful sound of the ocean flowing up to his rented condo in Malibu. Decided to let the aspiring actress/waitress/yoga instructor who was occupying the other half of his bed sleep longer, and go for a private jog by himself around the coast line of California's rich and famous.

When he gets back, he continues his morning ritual and busts out an hour of intense, mind freeing Yoga. This is how he keeps his back and mind healthy. He grabs a shot of wheat grass and throws it down the hatch while once again thinking about how life is smiling on him while staring at the ocean. Life is perfect, he thinks.

Its at this moment, he becomes content with any trepidations he has with playing with the moody Andrew Bynum and the homecidal Kobe Bryant. I can make this work, he confidently reminds himself.

At that moment, he is joined by the Yoga instructor who looks like Rebecca Romain  15 years ago. She is naked except for Nash's prized Wayne Gretzky Oilers Jersey. He is annoyed at her. She is not only wearing his favorite jersey, but she is holding his blackberry.

"What are you doing?" Nash asks, confused to why she thought she had permission to help herself to his phone.

"Um, some guy named Kobe just called like 10 times." she starts, Steve could tell she wasn't aware that she was talking about Kobe Bryant.  "He kept screaming about a bunch of bad words, something dirty Austrillians and..." she paused. "Something about buying a D-12. Or you guys sharing a D-12?Is that a new car?"

A rush of excitment and adrenaline over took his body. He jumped up and fist pumped like the end of a bad 80's sitcom. His new team had just replaced Andrew Bynum with Dwight Howard. IN the matter of 35 days he went from playing with guys named Gortat, Lopez and Dudley to guys named Bryant, Gasol and Howard.  Move over, Iron Man, I'm now the luckiest man on the face of the earth.

From that moment on, the rest of Steve Nash's day was a blur of experimental sexual positions, thought of his defensive mistakes being errased, and wheat grass shots.

And anal. Lots and lots of anal.

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Mariners: July Review

Anyone reading this I'm sure will agree: July was nothing if not eventful. There was an All-Star game (1 Mariner!), there was a stretch where we lost 7 of 8 games, and of course the current stretch where we have won 8 of the last 10 games.

Some individual highlights included: Felix
  • Felix, as per usual, was a monster, winning all 3 of his decisions and spreading 10 runs over 44 innings.
  • John Jaso and Jesus Montero both batted exactly .300 for the month. Unfortunately the rest of their numbers were 4 home runs and 22 RBI's. Combined.
  • Chone Figgins only played in 6 games. THEY'RE LEARNING!!!
  • But the most impressive bullet point, Jason Vargas. Mr. Vargas rebounded his awful June by going 5-0 with a 1.64 era. That is not a misprint. Somehow he tricked the Mariners batting order to help him win 5 of his 6 starts. Of course, it's SUPER hard to lose when you only give up 8 runs in 44.0 innings (unless your Felix, then the Mariners do find a way to lose).
 Eh, I gotta apologize. I'm just not into right now. I mean I love this team, but I feel fairly detatched right now. I just switch jobs, my wife is pregnant and I had to come to the realization that Justin Smoak will never reach his alleged Paul Bunyan potential (atleast while wearing a Mariner jersey). Maybe if they win another game or two I'll find the fountain of fan youth and pound out 2,000 words of glowing hyperbole, but right now, I kinda just wanna go to the gym then play some Madden. Sue me.

I just feel blah right now. Justin Smoak sucking has really been a dick punch. I haven't evne mentioned the whole trading Ichiro situation, which has left with this feeling similar to that when you'd delete a girl's phone number that you weren't quite over with.

I'm not going to get into that Ichiro thing again. It sucks.

Here is to hoping the stretch this win streak out for the rest of the season.