Oswalt is Dealt

They traded Roy Oswalt, who’s one of my favorites,
A could-have-been-franchise but he asked to leave.
While I understand it, I don’t have to like it–
I may be unhappy but I’m not naive.

They brought us a pitcher who spent the year injured.
How well he’s recovered, we don’t really know.
Tonight he’ll be facing the Brew-crew in Houston–
I guess we’ll discover how well he can throw.

I’m not too impressed with the minor-league shortstop,
Whose forty-two errors just boggled my mind.
The number’s so high that it’s not on the website.
An empty placeholder is all that you’ll find.

In Triple-A Round Rock you’ll see the first baseman,
Though they say Lance Berkman has nothing to fear.
The kid bats three hundred to Berkman’s two-fifty.
So who’ll be the starting first-baseman next year?

The deal’s completed and some folks are happy.
And others complain that the Astros were had.
But good play erases a lot of bad feelings,
And if they start winning, the fans will be glad.

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Roy Oswalt was traded for J.A. Happ and two minor-leaguers. One Of the minor-leaguers was swapped with the Jays. So the Astros have Happ, a shortstop named Jonathan Villar (who really did make 42 errors, Matt Thomas said so on 790 the Sports Animal) and Brett Wallace, the future first baseman for the Astros.

According to the Minor League Baseball Wallace is hitting .301 for the Las Vegas 51’s though he’s now listed with the Round Rock Express where he’ll be preparing for his new role. Berkman, according to astros.com is batting .245. Now I realize that Wallace is in AAA, but ya gotta figure that even adjusted that’s better than Berkman.

Now, about Villar and the 42 errors. Click here and see the stats for the Lexington Legends–Villar’s new team. Notice the error column. There is a space for Villars’ errors. Not a 0, not a 42, a space.  Matt Thomas don’t lie so I know what number should be there.  And that’s for this season, folks.  In 100 (not rounded) games.  That’s almost one every other game.

I’m really not as down on Happ as the song implies. He just hasn’t pitched much and only one game since he got back from injury. So the Astros are getting a pig in a poke.  He was a contender for Rookie of the Year, but I don’t know that being first among seconds is a sufficient recommendation.

I think good play erases bad feelings and it’s entirely possible that this turns out to be a good thing for the Astros. But only time will tell.

Pitching Repertoire

These are fakeku about some different pitches a pitcher might throw. You saw the fastball on Easter, now see me mixing it up with some other pitches…I almost feel pro

white and red snowflake
floating homeward on the breeze
taunting the hitter
•
the pitch razor-sharp
slicing through the batter’s swing
a horsehide scalpel
•
oops–not a fastball
it’s slower than it should be
and swung on too soon
•
lazily spinning
meandering toward the plate
to buckle the knees
•
pellet coming fast
sweeping hard across the dish
down, away, a strike
•
a mirrored curveball
totally unexpected
impossibly slow

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Good pitchers don’t necessarily have a lot of pitches, but what they do have, they know how to mix up and confound the hitter.  I’m not confounding anyone here I hope.  If you don’t recognize a pitch, I’ll be happy to tell you what it is supposed to be.

This was something that was fun to do. I had some help from Mike Molholt, who pitched in high school and a couple of guys whose names I forgot to ask permission to use (and who may be edited in). I also got help from Letstalkpitching.com though not as much as I’d’ve thought–they are all about hands-on and that doesn’t work for me because of the lack of vision I have due to having cataracts removed when I was an infant. “Getting out there and pitching.” isn’t an option.

I didn’t know if it was possible to describe a pitch recognizably until I wrote the knuckler. Then I thought, hey, I need more of these.

I’m trying to write them in tanka as well, but it’s Just Not Working. There are too many words to be concise and too few to be complete. I’m not going to force you to look at any of that.

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I wrote a tanku (English Tanka) about Shaun Marcum and the continual ESPN Mobile Alerts about him. Really, people, it’s not a no-no until the last out.

Marcum
Six innings
No hits
Next inning
The hits come