A few years ago, my buddy and I went to opening day at Fenway Park. We were sitting in a bar a few hours before the game next to a drunk who wouldn’t stop complaining about everything he ordered. I’d had a few, and eventually I got tired of listening to him whine — I looked over and asked him if he’d ever pissed himself in front of 35,000 people. When he gave the obvious reply that no, in fact he never had, I told him to relax because his day wasn’t going that badly. The drunk was confused and my buddy, who knows my story, practically fell off his barstool laughing.

Today is my anniversary. It was eight years ago today, May 10^th, 2005 when Barry Zito tried to kill me. Ok, not really, Zito actually didn’t have that much to do with it; I just like to pretend that he did. I was 18 years old and it was the first time my younger brother and I were making the trip to Fenway Park alone. We got there early, found our seats, had a couple hot dogs and watched batting practice. Our seats were up the line in left, close enough to the Green Monster that, had we wanted to (we didn’t), we could’ve spit on it.

As batting practice was coming to a close Barry Zito was signing autographs outside the visitors’ dugout so I walked down to have him sign a batting practice ball one of the A’s players had tossed into the stands. There was a small crowd around Zito, who at the time was still a highly regarded pitcher, but I managed to walk up to him without much trouble. He signed the ball, handed it back to me, moved on to the next autograph hound and that’s when all hell broke loose. As I was making my way back to my seat my heart rate spiked, causing me to pass out. Luckily, there was a small child walking in front of me who was nice enough to break my fall.

When I woke up there was a group of concerned Bostonians staring down at me. I was surrounded by medics who asked if I knew my name. I did, and gave them my ticket so they could retrieve my brother who was unaware that I was the reason for the gathering crowd. I was carted to Fenway’s medical center where my brother joined me shortly after, and at first he was concerned for my well-being. Shortly thereafter he realized I was doing ok and that’s when the medics started to get confused.

Before we go any further, it’s important to understand that my brother and I come from a long line of ball breakers. Our grandfather was smashing our balls before we were even out of diapers, and our Dad’s the same way. Even my 90 year old Great Grandmother would get in on the action: it’s a family tradition. Nothing is ever sacred in the Nichols’ household so when my brother joined me in the Fenway Park medical center and saw that I was in good spirits his concern quickly melted away. He ignored the fact that I had more tubes coming out of me than a soda fountain and started complaining that we were going to miss the game. I quickly apologized, as the medics looked on in horror, and my brother, incredulous about our shitty luck, called me an asshole. I laughed and told him it actually got worse than that. He really couldn’t see how that was possible, so I told him that when I passed out I’d pissed my pants. His response was less than sympathetic. When he asked how that affected him I reminded him that before we left I’d borrowed a pair of his pants. My brother cursed again, then looked at one of the nurses and asked if Fenway Park had an incinerator.

Soon after, we found ourselves on the way to the hospital, from which we called our hysterical mother and interrupted a card game my old man was involved in. While we waited for them to make the two hour trek from Connecticut, we watched the game on the television in my luxurious hospital room. Of course, it ended up being the greatest game we ever attended even though we left before the ceremonial first pitch was even thrown. In the bottom of the ninth inning, on that beautiful spring day, Kevin Millar hit a walk off home run that landed in the Monster Seats. The Red Sox won 3-2 while my brother and I watched on a 13” inch TV screen from a hospital room just two miles away from Fenway Park. My brother looked at me and again told me I was an asshole.  Shortly after the game, the Fenway Park medical staff stopped by to check on us. They told us about the game and for a second I thought my brother would go on a murderous rampage. He was not in a good mood.

The next few days were spent in the hospital. The doctors ran a multitude of tests trying to find out what it was that caused the arrhythmia to occur. Eventually, they decided the best course of action was surgery to implant a defibrillator that would shock my heart back to normal should another event occur, which is basically as much fun as it sounds like, by the way. After five days trapped inside a hospital meeting with more doctors than I can count I thought I was losing my mind. The doctors insisted on calling it an event (like I’d been in a freakin’ tickertape parade or something) and I’d had enough. After a week they finally granted me parole and I was sent home to recuperate.

The staff at Fenway Park was incredibly kind and couldn’t have possibly done a better job taking care of me. A few weeks after surgery I received a call from someone at Fenway Park who offered us three free tickets to a future game. The Sox ended up blowing out the Twins so it wasn’t nearly as exciting as the game we missed but my dad tagged along this time just in case something went horribly wrong. I sat there with my dad and brother watching players by the dugouts signing autographs and decided I’d stay put. I doubt my brother would’ve let me chase autographs that day even if I’d wanted to. I still have the ball that Barry Zito autographed for me. To this day it sits next to my bed and I’ve looked at it every morning for the last eight years.

Last year we were basically right beginning with the preseason thoughts all the way through the World Series. So you should probably take this one seriously — I certainly did with the production value on the intro.

Discussion includes the 2013 season, The Perfect Game, the World Series and of course TV and movies to round it up.

I can tell you that this website will be undergoing a fair amount of change before next season begins. There will be a renewed emphasis on photoshoppery/GIFs/macros as was the case when I first started this blog; there will be irregular but significant editorial and analysis entries by myself and possibly others; there will be Cobcasts; there will be layout changes, the degree of which I haven’t entirely decided yet.

One of the main reasons I’m shifting away from twitter and towards the site is that I did feel as if my working and waking hours precluded many of the people who would have enjoyed my content from even seeing it without effort, having to go back in their timeline a number of hours to even lay eyes on what I was saying/generating. I think I will end up creating an account to tweet links to content, like I used to on the CoB twitter account, but the complication is that I very much dislike twitter accounts that only shit out links and don’t interact with the reader base.

I can also tell you that I’m really, really close to unveiling a really funny website Lana and I came up with a little while back. The site itself is ready, and I’m just waiting on the first few rounds of content to be finished (without going into any amount of detail, the content involves my writing and doing some things and waiting for a corresponding set of writing to complete the entry). The style will be a bit dickish, a heap offbeat and entirely inconsiderate — I’m sure you’re shocked about this –  and has potential for the reader base to get involved as well.

I’m also planning on running an image hosting service through that domain that would be without restriction and available for CoB reader use. I really think the domain is a cool one, and emails could also be made available if anyone fancied one.

ETA on that site is late next week, but could come sooner depending on how things shape up.

ETA on the @gggiants Cobcast is as soon as you tweet him and nag the fuck out of him to get on that shit already. Well, and me too.

ETA on the massive secret project that has [redacted].

You can find me on twitter here, though I don’t/won’t be using it nearly as often and it might be a bit different than what you’re used to. Probably not, though.

Enjoy, and Go Giants.

You can find the corresponding article where I answer Giants questions here.

Now, into the meat of things.

Q: Yadier Molina entered the NLCS on a pretty bad note, having gone 2 for 21 facing Washington pitching. How much do you think he needs to improve to be a significant impact player offensively for the Cardinals, and furthermore is that a necessity for them to win the series?

I’ve always maintained that any offense the Cardinals get out of Molina above replacement level is a bonus.  He appears to be stuck in a “pull” mode mentality, and that rarely works for him.  He typically goes through this a few times a season and works his way out of it with a few plate appearances with his normal approach.  To be an impact player, he really has to make himself at least a tough out.  That said, he doesn’t have to hit well for the Cardinals to win the series.  The team approach to scoring runs has slowly matured into one of players trusting the next guy to step up and drive them in.  That’s where offensive production/distribution becomes a factor. 

Q: With both teams having gone 5 games and turning over their playoff rotation in the process, which team do you feel comes out at an advantage with expected matchups — factoring in the park played in as well, if possible.

With both going 5 and the Giants finishing Thursday, I give them the nod in terms of having a rotation setup advantage.  Having Bumgarner (10-3, 2.38 ERA, .219 BAA at AT&T) and Vogelsong (7-4, 2.86 ERA, .228 BAA at AT&T) going at home favors the Giants on paper.  They also gained a slight advantage in terms of how the Cardinals fell apart a bit on Friday, because Lynn made a brief relief appearance on Thursday.  That wouldn’t normally be an issue, but Lynn went from starter to reliever to starter in a matter of days.  To expect more than 75-80 pitches out of him might be asking a lot. 

Q: How do you feel Matheny has done over the course of the season as well as the NLDS with respect to utilizing bullpen pieces appropriately, and which pen arm do you think will be most effective in shutting down Scutaro, Posey, Pence and Belt?

If I had to hand out a grade to Matheny for using the bullpen, I would go with a “B-”.  He’s great at calling on the right guy for the right situation, but he’s often just a little slow on the trigger.  His hesitation nearly cost him last night, and he’s been much the same way all season.  To be fair, I’m not sure any bullpen arm the Cardinals have can shut down Scutaro, Posey, Pence, and Belt.  Given Scutaro’s penchant for finding holes in the defense to Posey’s power to all fields to Pence’s plate coverage to Belt’s batting eye – I don’t think they can be consistently shut down for more than 1 time through by a reliever.  Considering how similar some of the relievers are for St. Louis, I would probably go with Edward Mujica.  He’s basically the change-of-pace guy among a group of 4-5 who can throw 98+.  

Q: Considering the nearly 100 ABs Hunter Pence has had against active Cardinal pitching, how much of an impact do you worry he could have on providing intangible intel to fellow Giants? Do you think he has the potential to be an impact player for the Giants in key situations, or will that same level of experience work more towards the Cardinals’ advantage?

Pence’s experience against the Cardinals worries me as much as his ability to hit Cardinal pitching.  If teammates see Pence having a few great at-bats, it gives them a lot to work with in terms of adjusting their own approaches, and learning on the fly can really hurt by the 3rd time through the lineup.  In terms of guys who can really turn a game around, I think he and Sandoval can both be impact players.  Posey can as well, but I think the Cardinals will make it hard for him to beat them.  While I’d like to think familiarity with Pence will give the Cardinals an advantage, that’s always a game of cat and mouse.  Over what could be 7 games, I expect Pence to make a big difference for a substantial portion of the series.

Q: We saw in Game 1 that both Lynn and MadBum failed to provide a quality start for their respective team. However, it was MadBum’s second postseason outing in poor form whereas Lynn was making his first start after generally effective relief work against Washington. Do you think that, once the rotation turns over, these will be the two starters both managers tap, and if not, which Cardinal would you expect to fill that hole or start on short rest?

I would expect to see both starters match up again.  Bumgarner should have plenty of time to process what went wrong and make some adjustments.  At this point, the bottom of the Cardinal lineup is putting together some great at-bats.  That wasn’t the case for much of the season, so the book on them has changed a lot.  Bumgarner’s stuff is simply too good to relegate him at this point in my opinion.  Throwing Lynn again after a normal cycle of rest and a side session makes sense for the Cardinals.  Some of their other options have just been so valuable out of the bullpen that it’s likely that a guy like Joe Kelly would be unavailable anyway, and Shelby Miller hasn’t thrown much.

Q: Please try to put into words how much of an impact the absence of Dave Duncan in 2012 had on the pitching staff. Were there any indications of veteran pitchers taking a greater interest in coachable moments, what has Derek Lilliquist contributed to the staff, et al.

Not having Dave Duncan in that dugout is probably more of an emotional or psychological hit than anything.  Just seeing him standing there watching every pitch gave both fans and pitchers a sense of security.  Without the security blanket, it’s probably more disconcerting for the fans than the players, though.  Lilliquist is a Duncan disciple, and he really doesn’t deviate a lot from what you would expect Duncan to do.  The “keep some in reserve, pitch to contact” message still gets put out there.  For the younger guys, seeing Wainwright and Carpenter go out and be the embodiment of that message says everything.  With those guys watching, the Cardinals basically have pitching coach minions there to keep everyone else on message.

Q: Barry Zito has 17 strikeouts and 0 HR allowed against Beltran and Holliday. Zito also has allowed a fantastic 3 HR to Allen Craig. Barry Zito is growing his playoff pedostache back. Are you afraid of Barry Zito?

I’m afraid of Barry Zito for the same reason I’m afraid of Jeff Kent in a windowless van or an ice cream truck.  Also, he’s the kind of guy who could shut the Cardinals down for 5-6 innings.  The Cardinals have a tough time adjusting to soft-throwing left-handers who can nibble at the edges of the plate.  Imagining Zito facing the current 2-3-4 hitters right now makes me a bit nervous, because Holliday and Craig are a little off in terms of plate approach.  

Q: Compare Kozma’s late season and introductory postseason impact to that of Craig and Freese in 2011, and whether you expect to see a similar level of development offseason. Additionally, speculate if you can on what type of role he would ideally take on in 2013.

Craig and Freese in the 2011 postseason were exactly the players many have been waiting for them to be (or better).  Both have had the “potential impact player” label for a while, and many expected Craig to hit, because he absolutely raked at just about every level.  The difference with Kozma is that he’s been a disappointment offensively in the minor leagues, and he was actually projected to be a low OBP guy playing 2B.  With his ability to play both middle infield positions, he has a reasonable shot at getting a good share of starts next season.  With some doubts about what the team can expect from Rafael Furcal, it wouldn’t surprise me to see Kozma win a job out of spring training.

Q: The Cardinals’ .780 OPS is the highest of any team still in the playoffs (trailed by the Tigers’ .650) and while their 9 HR also lead the playoffs, they’ll play up to four games in one of the more longball-restrictive parks in baseball. How, if at all, do the Cardinals’ power hitters have to adjust their plate approach to sustain that rate? Do they need to sustain the power hitting or will a small ball approach achieve the same end with a bit more realism involved in speculation?

I don’t think they can really change their approach, and I also don’t think they are worried about sustaining anything.  McGwire preaches that home runs come with good at-bats, but a home run does not a successful at-bat make.  They showed that at the end of game 5 against the Nationals.  Freese and Molina both adjusted for their last at-bats and drew critical walks.  When you receive universal praise for a walk the same way you do for a home run or opposite field single, you have more faith in the message and the approach.  That’s why I think they will play more small ball than many expect, especially in San Francisco.  They just aren’t content to wait for the long ball.

Q: This should be fun for you. Two sentences. First is overall, second is with respect to this series.
a. Tell me why Yadier Molina > Buster Posey.
Molina is the best all-around catcher in the game, because he’s a 4 1/2 tool player (sneaky fast).  Molina gives the Cardinals an advantage, because he simply doesn’t allow some teams to steal bases and get into scoring position.
b. Tell me why Allen Craig > Brandon Belt.
Tough one, but Craig has slightly more power (134 vs 117 OPS+).  Craig has the confidence of a man who has nothing to prove in the playoffs after what he did last year.
c. Tell me why David Freese > Pablo Sandoval.
I despise you for this, because I truly appreciate Panda’s effort at losing weight and becoming even better with the glove than he already was.  I would take Freese over Panda, because Freese still has unfulfilled potential, and I tend to favor guys who take the ball to the opposite field a lot.  I like Freese in this series, because hitting 6th in a loaded lineup with 2 hot bats behind him comes with less pressure than Sandoval has hitting 3rd where he is expected to hit for power.
d. Tell me why STL bullpen > SF bullpen.
The STL pen doesn’t have any big name guys to defer to, so every guy is ready to go at any time.  In a series where fatigue can come into play, having a group of former starters who can go 2+ innings can save some arms.
e. Tell me why that dumb bird > Lou Mothafuckin Seal.
The Cardinals actually have a “Cardinal” as the mascot.  The Giants do not have a “Giant” as the mascot.  Heck, they don’t even have a cave troll.  Also, Lou Seal sounds a lot like “Lucille”, and that’s just lame.

Thank you Dennis for agreeing to do this little Q&A project with me. I really appreciate the opportunity to answer your questions, just as much as you answering mine. Best of luck to the Cardinals and may the best ump oops I mean team win.

Dave has promised to come on after every playoff series the Giants win, so hopefully we’ll have two more this season.

No guests on today’s show. Just conjecture, speculation, stupid stats and gut feelings.

You want to know why the team you hate won’t even make it to the ALCS/NLCS? Or even a divisional series? Listen to this shit. As usual, stream or DL using the links below as appropriate.

However.

I now have a comments/complaint line that I beg you to use.

1-866-432-2410

Dunce Cap:

Brandon Stewart had the most perplexing final entry, only submitting 12 picks when there were 15 games remaining. As such, his 7-5 (resulting record of 7-8) record earns him the dunce cap and brutal honor of being the Cobtest turd until next season. You get a song and a GIF.

 Third Place:

I don’t really understand how this happened, but three people finished with a 7-8 record that no doubt would have beat mine… so it’s not like I have any room to ridicule here. Congratulations go to Stuart Jones, Jeff Fukushima, and Greg Layton for earning themselves photoshops or mild design work, as well as a GIF. Better luck next time.

Second Place:

This one is going to hurt. Sorry, Matt Collins, but it looks like you’ll have to blow up that CoB comments/complaints line after all because your 9-6 record didn’t get it done. A respectable finish, one that nets you either a Surly 4-pack or a New Era cap. Additionally, you can provide a catchphrase that will be a part of the Cobcast intro segment for the next few installments and of course, a GIF.

Grand Prize Winnah:

Hats off toSteven Nichols, as his 10-5 record was best in the land. A 4-Pack of Surly, a shirsey and a GIF are all yours. Short and sweet for the victor.

I’m also pleased to roll out my new comments and complaints line that you can leave messages on, which can be found by dialing 1-866-432-2410 on your rotary or touchtone phone. Do what you do.

Take solace in the GIF, people.

Consider yourselves lucky this isn’t your reality.

This is part one, and part two will be up in the next day or so.

Aug 17: @SD Win

Aug 18: @SD Loss

Aug 19: @SD Win

Aug 20: @LAD Loss

Aug 21: @LAD Loss

Aug 22: @LAD Win

Aug 23: ATL Win

Picks this week must be sent by 7pm CST.

Here are the games over the next week:

Aug 17: @SD

Aug 18: @SD

Aug 19: @SD

Aug 20: @LAD

Aug 21: @LAD

Aug 22: @LAD

Aug 23: ATL

Aug 10: COL Win

Aug 11: COL Win

Aug 12: COL Win

Aug 13: WAS Win

Aug 14: WAS Loss

Aug 15: WAS Loss

Aug 10: COL

Aug 11: COL

Aug 12: COL

Aug 13: WAS

Aug 14: WAS

Aug 15: WAS

(all home games)

Submit by email to benitezhascursedyou@gmail.com by 5pm CST tomorrow (8/10/12). Congrats to all of you for beating my shitty 2-5 record.

Here are my picks for the first week:

Aug 3 – @ Colorado Win

Aug 4 – @ Colorado Win

Aug 5 – @ Colorado Loss

Aug 6 – @ St. Louis Win

Aug 7 – @ St. Louis Loss

Aug 8 – @ St. Louis Loss

Aug 9 – @ St. Louis Win

If you match or best my record, you move on to Week Two. If you have the worst record this week (and it is worse than mine), you’ll soon find yourself the subject of a parody song discussing your ineptitude. If two or more people are tied for the worst record (and it is worse than mine), you continue on to Week Two with your fellow cellar dwellers in a Sudden Death Week of Loserdom to determine the recipient of my lyrical doom.

Good luck to the entrants.

I’ve updated the prizes, which can now be found at the bottom of this post.

Ye of questionable sanity, here is the way this will work.

• Every Friday at 9am Central (yes, Central, because that’s where I’m fucking located and that’s just the way it is) I will post my W/L predictions for the Giants games over the next seven days. To be clear, this constitutes games from that Friday of the due date through the following Thursday.
• Every week, you will have up until 9am Central on Friday to email me your W/L predictions for the Giants over the next seven days.
• If your W/L predictions match or best mine, you stay in the contest for another week.
• It’s not day to day, it’s over the entire week’s worth of picks. If I go 4-2 that’s what you need to meet or beat, regardless of which days’ picks it takes for you to do so.
• If everyone is eliminated before the season ends, I’ll take the last two people who survived that had the best cumulative W/L record and buy them a New Era hat or whatever equivalent you choose.
• If one or more people make it to the end of the season, whoever has the best cumulative W/L record will get a shirsey of their choosing, on me.
• I may add more prizes depending on how many people participate. The more the merrier.
• The way I will do this is blind: you will see what my picks are on a week to week, just so you know I’m not going to cheat you at the end of the season. You’ll have to submit the next week’s picks before necessarily knowing whether or not you beat me for that week, but if you meet or beat my picks your entry for the next week will be admitted and you play on. If you have the worst record in the first week, just know that I have two months to write the last place prize for you (noted below).

You don’t have to be a Giants fan to participate, obviously, and who knows.. maybe you’re actually at a greater advantage not being a Giants fan. I just wanted to make things interesting, possibly humiliate myself by publicizing my weekly predictions, and reward y’all for subscribing to my depravity over whichever medium that may be.

Email submissions weekly to:

benitezhascursedyou@gmail.com

Remember, you have until 9am Central TOMORROW MORNING to get involved in this contest.

The first week of picks will be:

Aug 3 – @ Colorado

Aug 4 – @ Colorado

Aug 5 – @ Colorado

Aug 6 – @ St. Louis

Aug 7 – @ St. Louis

Aug 8 – @ St. Louis

Aug 9 – @ St. Louis

Good luck!

Updated Prizes:

-1st Place (last til the end of the season): 4 pack of Surly Wet or Surly Furious pints if you are 21, otherwise a 4 pack of Killebrew Cream Soda; shirsey of your choice.

-1st Place (nobody lasted til end): Top two finishers get either a shirsey of your choice or a 4 pack of either option as listed above.

-2nd Place: 4 pack option as listed above, or a New Era cap or some equivalent of your choosing. You can also provide a stupid catchphrase that I must use in the next 4 Cobcasts after the season ends.

-3rd Place: A few hours of my time to photoshop something for you, if you so choose. Otherwise, fuck you.

-Every entrant: I’ll make an animated GIF for you, under 700k so you can use it on twitter as your avatar, upon request. You can suggest a theme or whatever and I’ll try to stick to it.

-Last Place: God save you. I’m going to write a parody song about how terrible you are at this. Also worth noting that I myself am not exempt from this “prize.”

We talk NL West both in general and with respect to the trade deadline, deviating into other things baseball and then heading into the only lightning round a trade deadline guest participated in. I will go ahead and say that it was a lengthier lightning round, albeit entirely improvised and with great content.

Feel free to download using the appropriately named download button, or hit the play button to listen here on the site, or god forbid wait a few hours and find it on iTunes. Thanks for listening.

The primary topic of discussion was the NL East at the trade deadline and beyond, though we later delved into such topics as the roles of medicine and ethics in baseball, how advanced medicine might serve to prolong players’ careers and the chain reaction that could inspire for player development, and of course, Armando Benitez.

You can listen using the embedded player below, download using the link that well… says “download,” I believe, or wait a bit and find it on iTunes.

Lastly, his choice in intro music forces me to reupload this image:

This had nothing to do with his decision, contextually.

The first twenty or so minutes are rather standard Cobcast content, discussing the NL Central, the trade deadline and speculation on the divisional and wildcard races.

Then, Dusty Baker comes up.

Then, Kenley Jansen comes up.

Then, all hell breaks loose and the forty minutes that follow cannot be explained, but rather, must be experienced.

Feel free to listen using the embedded player below, directly download the mp3 using the link below that, or wait a bit and find it on iTunes. I should warn you that if you’ve found anything I’ve said or done in the past offense, be prepared to reevaluate that as pedestrian or forgettable after listening to this. Oh, and there’s some baseball science fiction involved.

Oakland (-105) @ Toronto (-115) 

It seems like with every start, Tommy Milone continues to fight against the undertow of regression, with perhaps his most impressive start to date in his last outing against the Yankees on 7/20 (7 IP, 10 K, 6 H, 0 BB, 0 ER). If there is one thing to be said, it is that all six of his starts in which he allowed greater than 2 ER were on the road. However, the most recent of those was six weeks ago at Colorado; since then, he has thrown 41 IP, given up a stingy 5 ER, and walked all of three batters (over 159 batters faced for a 1.89% BB rate, or .659 BB/9).

Over the last ten games, Toronto’s starters have averaged 5 2/3 IP with a .371 OBP and 1.63 WHIP. Their bullpen, for their part, have been equally garbage. They’ve allowed a combined average of 6.1 runs against over the past ten, allowing five runs or more in seven of those ten games. While the Blue Jays’ rotation and bullpen have been falling to pieces, their counterparts have been exceptional.

If you really want to see something interesting, look at the trends here for the A’s side of things. As a side note, I tend to harvest a lot of information from sources like Covers and recommend wasting tons of your free time there. I mean, it only brings you that much closer to death.

Bottom line for me here is that Milone and the A’s at a very slight dog, nearly even money, are a decent gamble.

Detroit (-190) @ Cleveland +165

If you want a weird Verlander stat, look no further. In his career, he has only once gone on the road to face Cleveland and not allowed a run (which was a CG SO back in 2009, for what it’s worth). Since that game he has given up at least two runs in every start at Progressive Field, going at least 6 IP as well. When I started writing this, the o/u was set at 8.5 and I was sitting here about to go nuts on how the under looked like a fantastic wager.

Well, I just looked again and it’s already down to 7.5 on my sportsbook which doesn’t surprise me in the least. If you really think the Tigers can tag the Indians for 6 runs — because that’s the much more probable source than Verlander & Co giving up more than 2 or 3 — go ahead and look at the over. I’m just much more inclined to either bet the under or pass on the game entirely when it comes to the o/u.

If the o/u is an unappealing wager depending on where it’s set or how you feel, this is a decent game to take Detroit ML at  (-190) in a parlay or round robin. Detroit is 21-5 in Verlander’s last 26 starts as a road favorite of -151 to -200, and Cleveland is 1-9 in their last 10 games as an underdog of +151 to +200.

If you care about which home plate umpire is calling the game, and you probably should, it’s worth noting that Detroit is 4-0 in Verlander’s last 4 starts with Tim McClelland behind the plate. Just an interesting fact that I wouldn’t weigh too heavily, though.

Strange future bet:

Right now my sportsbook has the Giants as -220 favorites to win the NL West, while the Dodgers are +220 dogs. Considering they face each other nine times before season’s end, and that the Dodgers only face above .500 teams 18 out of the 53 remaining games… I like those odds when you’re giving me greater than 2:1.

Schubesnote: I’ll probably come back to edit this once the runlines, alt runlines, team totals, and 1st five innings lines are posted, should there be anything of note. If nothing else, I’ll probably post a round robin involving the TB RL, DET ML, and KC/SEA o/u.

As a slight disclaimer, there is a bit of hypothetical armchair GM discussion that comes with the territory of talking trade deadline and organizational direction, but it doesn’t get terribly extreme. Nonetheless, feel free to attack me for it. I welcome this.

Feel free to listen using the embedded player, download directly via the link below that, or wait a bit and find it on iTunes. By the way, you can find my podcast under the Philosophy section on iTunes because I care so little about it, I didn’t even want to have it properly categorized. However, you can find it under my namesake should you choose to search for it. Enjoy.

He holds the land speed record for most words spoken per minute on the Cobcast, and this 40-odd minute venture into the AL East and the trade deadline is one that fans ought to listen to should they feel their team might be looking to either buy or sell, as nearly all the teams in that division have something to either gain or offer.

You can listen using the embedded player below, directly download via the link below that, or wait a few hours and find this on shitty ol’ iTunes once it updates.

We discussed Baseball Weekly, the progression of the game, tweetor, the second wildcard, various baseball rules, and so much more. Please feel free to listen through the link below to download, the embedded player, or wait a few hours to listen to the hated iTunes link. Ew, iTunes.

We discuss, among other things: his baseball history and how he developed into the writer and follower of the sport he is today; blackout restrictions on broadcasts; our shared hatred and hypothetical death wish of Bud Selig; baseball now, twenty years ago, and twenty years from now; replay and my proposal to eliminate the need for it entirely; PEDs and the legacy of players; a balanced schedule and the disadvantage of being in a strong division.

Believe it or not, there’s even more than that, so it’s definitely worth a listen. Besides, he killed the lightning round.

As always, you can download directly using the link below, listen using our embedded player, or wait a few hours and find it on iTunes. Fuck iTunes, though, I mean seriously.

The predominantly Giants-centered episode also features some general baseball talk, a bizarre lightning round, and some road noise. Hey, we recorded in Minneapolis proper, not out in the ‘burbs where I normally do.

You can listen using the player below, click download to grab the MP3 for a later date, or wait a few hours and find this episode on iTunes. This one time only, iTunes is an acceptable medium.

When Brandon Warne first tweeted me Thursday morning to inform me that my personal hero and former Giants goat Armando Benitez was signed by the Long Island Ducks, my immediate reaction was that of surprise. How had ducks evolved their wingtips to grasp a pen? How could they have so quickly learned how to autograph things, notably human beings like Armando Benitez? Furthermore, how could they comprehend the implied value, sentimental or otherwise, of an autograph?

Whatever. Who cares. Benitez is playing professional baseball again. I really hope he has some ridiculous Darren Oliver type of “I’m fucking old and I hope you don’t care that I sacrificed three infants and twelve cats to voodoo hex black magic the shit out of my throwing arm for this last hurrah” twilight. I hope this is the beginning of that. Or something.

Okay, now onto another happy subject. It’s Memorial Weekend! I, for one, am about to start enjoying my weekend in a few hours here. I hope  the CoB faithful (you exist, I just know you do) are looking forward to an enjoyable weekend. I also prepared the most COBtastic PSA, just for you! It’s important.

Like I said, very informative. Very necessary. Please heed my warnings.

Be safe, enjoy yourselves, and don’t kill horsies.

I don’t want to spoil a single bit of it, so just listen.

As is always the case, you can use the embedded player below, download the MP3 directly using the link just below that, or hold out a few hours and find this on iTunes. Fuck iTunes, though. Seriously, consider your life choices.