alright, that’s it

Wells, if the Cardinals were Survivor and I had a vote you. would. get. it. There is absolutely no question that you would get my vote to be kicked off the island. You are a lucky, lucky man that when I saw you in the grocery store last week I had not yet decided to give you the Jason Marquis Treatment if I ever encountered you in person and were reasonably sure there wouldn’t be enough witnesses to convict me on a minor assault charge.

Let’s flash back to August 2006 (I’m still amazed that it took that many months for my patience to run out) to review the Jason Marquis Treatment:

“As for Marquis, trade him, DFA him, lock him in the hotel bathroom, disable him, send him to the bullpen, whatever it takes to get him out of our rotation. … I’d be liable to trip him if I saw him in the grocery store.”

Essentially, my concern for the team compels me to encourage something else to go out there to the mound every fifth day. I am not above tripping injury-prone pitchers to buy a few days’ absence. I am also not above telling the world that after tonight Wells does not deserve to eat that Edy’s vanilla ice cream (he most certainly does not deserve the Ben & Jerry’s Cinnamon Bun that I was buying) nor does he deserve to drink that half gallon of ready-made chocolate milk. Although if I had been smart, I would have offered him a Gallon Challenge.

Simply put, we cannot keep throwing that (*points vigorously in Wells’ general direction*) every fifth game. Wins are hard enough to come by — it’s not like this team can afford to flush a few down the toilet and never know the difference. It’s not like we dominate our opponents and have the luxury of sending out a warm body every fifth day without disabling the entire team. Very realistically, we have a rotation of:

• one guy whom made everybody laugh when management announced he would compete for a starting spot and whom makes everybody laugh when he tells them his middle name is LaVerne.
• one guy whom was not trusted by the Royals (the Royals!) to occupy a spot in their starting rotation, was DFA’d by the Royals (the Royals, for Carp’s sake!), and had never made a major league start until the end of May.
• one guy who looks like a month of starting in the bigs has aged him quickly… to seventeen. And just in time to take your daughter to prom!
• one guy who sounds legitimate: he struck out Beltran and Inge to nail down NLCS and World Series wins for the Cardinals but is having a terrible time keeping his ERA around 4.00 and might be starting the playoff push a little too early with his wild facial hair.
• one guy who basically missed the last two seasons to various unfortunate injuries and has not at any point established himself to be a good pitcher.

When Carp and Mulder come back, we’ll be plus two guys who have collectively missed a season and a half due to throwing arm surgery! Hooray, they’ll save the rotation!

As much as I’d like to see thousands of Brewer fans pee their pants in September, at the end of the season I still want to see my team playing in October. As we stand now, this is neither a rotation nor a team with the wiggle room to permit this — unless of course the goal is to be home in time to watch the playoffs with members of the Cubs. I do believe we would be better off with a bullpen start every fifth day — that’s essentially what we’ve got now — only it would be really, really great if the first pitcher didn’t give up seven runs in his two innings.

If there’s one good thing about this (and if you’re one of those people who gets sickened by optimism in the face of tragic starting pitcher performances you might want to stop now), it’s the run support. We’re gonna need some friendly aliens (one mad scientist would make an acceptable substitute), a truckload of sugar, and some high socks to pull it off, but what would happen if we get some aliens to abduct Kip Wells and Anthony Reyes?

If we could get that one Bug from Men in Black, that would be fantastic because he could pull a switcheroo with their insides and outsides, resulting in Anthony Reyes in Kip Wells’ skin/vice versa. We’d get Reyes’ arguably superior arm and mind (for better or worse) contained in a shell that to the rest of the club looks like a pitcher who should get plenty o’ run support. As a double bonus, we would get Wells mind and physical structure contained in a shell that can be optioned to AAA. And that’s why I think it’s a good plan. If anybody in rural America has a hookup with some aliens (and not the Weekly World News), you might want to pass that idear along if you love the Cardinals.

Fantasy Baseball Update: You know what’s great? Watching your roto league fantasy catcher hit a home run (Brian McCann). Hooray RBI! HR! R! You know what’s terrible? Realizing that he hit it off your head to head league fantasy pitcher (Johan Santana). Boo hit allowed and earned run.