Dear Dusty

Dear Dusty

Dear Dusty,

Yesterday, I watched a baseball contest played between the clubs from Milwaukee and Colorado. Coincidentally, it is the same Colorado team that you are playing today.

I saw the Milwaukee club (The Brewers, or Brew Crew, if you will) bludgeon Colorado very nearly to death.

In Milwaukee's victory, they ran like mad over the Colorado pitching staff. Specifically, in beating upon the starter, they forced Colorado to pitch a goodly number of the innings of the game using relief pitching.

As such, I would bet that a great number of their relievers are a little tired, today. Ineffective, even. Even moreso than they have been this year.

That said, I turned on my television this afternoon, just in time to hear that Rockies starter Jason Jennings had just relieved the Cubs in the fourth inning on four pitches.

Four!

Now, I'm not very adept at my maths, but if he were to average 4 pitches an inning, he'd just have to throw the ball 36 times.

Granted, four is a low, and maybe something of an anomaly.

However, if I may, I would like to offer you and your hitters a word of advice. Three words, even. You may have heard, because I just hollered them at my television set:

Take a Pitch.

I left the obscenity I yelled out, because such words are not polite.

Even a shithead like you deserves respect in polite conversation.

Take a pitch, I say again. Take a few pitches. Here's the thing: The Colorado batters can't hit anything, here lately. I know this owing to that I had about 7 of them on my fantasy team, so far this season.

So, while I appreciate aggression, and I realize that you can't win without scoring runs...the runs might be a little easier to get if you'd just tell your batsmen to ease up at the plate, and let the Rockies starter wear himself out, so that we might feast upon the juicy innards of the Rockies' bullpen.

You see, if the Cubs are using four pitches in an inning, Mr. Jennings could concievably throw upwards of 30 to 32 innings. Which would be a record, I would guess, outside of a W.P. Kinsella novel.

So. We'll never see that bullpen unless we get the batters to take a few pitches.

One more thing:

Just because the Rockies have been losing on the road doesn't necessarily mean that they will lose, just because they're playing in the Friendly Confines. (In fact, the Rockies are "winning" right now.) Hence, you probably shouldn't be taking your brain out and playing with it prior to the game. You might need to use it come game time.

Even if it is the Rockies.

So. That's all I have to say.

Hug the family for me, you big dope.

Tommy