Masterson's Musings: Judgment Day

So here's what I've been doing the last week:

- I've been dining at gourmet restaurants around the Denver area every night and ordering such "gourmet" items as the Premium Bacon Mac n Cheese in hopes that I will be tricked and that Pizza/Pasta Hut will have switched the restaurants 'sghetti for their own. I've struck out thus far.

- I still can't, in good faith, find the strength inside my soul to root the Red Sox onto victory against the Rays, but my cousin (Justin Masterson) is really making it hard on me. Inserted into the 9th inning in a 7-7 game, in the most crucial inning of the Red Sox season in which Sox manager Terry Francona put his faith in a 23 year old rookie, Justin came through in a big way by working around a hit and an unintentional intentional walk of BJ Upton by inducing a double play ground ball off the bat of Carlos Pena. The Sox capped off their impossible comeback win to stave off elimination in the bottom of the 9th and Justin got the win. His ERA in the ALCS now stands at 1.93 and 2.09 overall in the postseason. As a rookie. He's done more than could have possibly been asked from him and will be a fixture for the Red Sox for years to come......that is unless he gets traded the offseason. Hmmm, I hear that the Sox are in the market for a third baseman with Lowell shelved for an unknown period of time.......I believe the Rockies are shopping their own third baseman in Garrett Atkins.....I think Justin would fit in just fine in the purple pinstripes in Colorado. I'm just sayin.

- As for the Red Sox: seriously, think of another way to win a playoff series. This whole come-from-behind-when-everyone-thinks-you're-dead-thing is getting really old.

- So the Avs finally got their first win of the season last night by trouncing the Philadelphia Phlyers 5-2. Not surprisingly, the Avs finally got a mediocre-plus performance from their goaltender. Not Peter Budaj, the "number 1" starter, but backup Andrew Raycroft. After an abysmal season last year in Toronto, Raycroft, the Calder Trophy Winner in 2004 for Rookie of the Year, showed flashes of brilliance while only facing 18 shots. The only two goals he gave up last night were on a penalty shot and a 5 on 3 power play for the Flyers, two very low percentage opportunities for goaltenders. Every other year, Raycroft has had major success. After his Rookie of the Year campaign, he sucked in 05-06 (8-19, 3.71 Goals Against Average), regained his confidence in Toronto in 06-07 (37-25, 2.99 GAA), and then regressed to the aforementioned abysmalness last year. That means he's due this year. And when the number 1 goalie has surrendered 13 goals in only 74 shots (4.38 GAA, yikes spikes) he should get his number called a few more games a week. At least give him a shot to see what he can do because he looked very sharp last night.

- Why is no one calling Bill Beeeeelichick a genius this year without Tom Brady? Anybody? Bueller?

-The Pats looked Detroit Lion-esque against the Chargers last Sunday night and the Broncos will need to capitalize on the fact that the Pats will most likely not have either of their top two running backs in Lawrence Maroney and Lamont Jordan. Make Matt Cassel beat you. They're not going to be able to run the ball effectively (even on the Broncos D, Elway willing), and Cassel hasn't shown very much skill in reading defenses, getting rid of the ball, or throwing the ball down the field. That being said, the Broncos D hasn't been good at defending any of those things either.

Masterson's Musings: Return of the Jedi

- Thank Elway for the new South Park episode completely validating everyone here at Frost Brewed Baseball's opinions of the new Indiana Jones movie. Though we didn't take our criticisms as far as Trey Parker and Matt Stone did, we agree wholeheartedly nonetheless.

- To everyone who thinks that Ryan Howard should be the NL MVP because he led the NL in HRs and RBIs (but hit .250)......don't watch baseball anymore because you obviously have no idea how the game works or what it takes to be the best player in your league. Go live on an island somewhere where you're unable to follow the game or get internet access (no matter what Bill Curtis tells you) because you're a horrible fan of the game and should be banned from watching the sport altogether. Albert Pujols is the hands-down pick to win the MVP this year (.357, 37, 116 with a .462 obp on a team that has literally no other offensive threat or pitching to speak of.) Anyone who votes against him is un-American and slits the necks of baby seals on top of Old Glory.

- While watching Game 1 of the NLCS tonight (and pouring out a cold one in remembrance of what we were doing at this time last year,) I was marveling at Joe Buck trying to explain how Manny Ramirez had transformed the Dodgers from an also-ran into a playoff team. In one sentence he said that the Dodgers had finished with an 84-78 record, 15th among Major League teams. Maybe two sentences later he made the statement that until Manny arrived on the LA scene, the Dodgers were a .500 team.............last time I checked 84 wins wasn't really that far off from a .500 team. In fact, it's about 3 wins. Yeah, Manny hit a ton when he got to California, but he didn't really make the Dodgers that much better of a team alone. Andre Ethier started hitting everything from here to Kathmandu and you could easily argue that Greg Maddux had a much stronger influence on the pitching staff than Manny had on the Dodger hitters (you really think Jeff Kent would take time off his motorcycle riding, wrist breaking, teammate pushing schedule to listen to a guy with 500 homers?) Maddux, one of the greatest pitchers of all time, has had a calming effect on everyone on that staff. Derek Lowe thinks it's 2004, Chad Billingsley has harnessed his immense talent, hell, even Hiroki Kuroda has stopped doing his Hideki Irabu impression since Maddux joined Los Doyers. Here's what I'm getting at: Manny sucks. Maddux is smart. Joe Buck says contradictory things.

-The Avs had their opening game tonight (yeah, that's right, hockey's back...you had no idea it was gone, did you?) Well, good thing the offense showed up because we might as well have played with an empty net. We still lost 5-4 but at least our O showed some skill. Peter Budaj, however, should be perusing the want ads come tomorrow morning. Here's the deal: We've given this guy a chance, many chances in fact, to be our number 1 goaltender and he has never taken the initiative and ran with it. Hell, even Jose Theodore came around when given the reins last year. Tonight, we outshot the Bruins 39-20, but still came up on the losing end. 5 goals on 20 shots? Couldn't we just stick a fat guy between the pipes and reap the same results? What's Roseanne doing nowadays? I'm sure she's free.

-So the Rockies decided to fire pretty much all of their coaches? Most, but not all. In fact, only pitching coach Bob Apodaca and first base coach Glenallen Hill were spared. I have to wonder why them? With the pitching suffering the way it did this year, why didn't Apodaca get the axe? The hitting slumped and hitting coach Alan Cockrell got canned. Did O'Dowd just throw a bunch of darts at a board with all the coaches names on it? Shouldn't the firings have started with Clint and ended with Hurdle? In any other city he'd have been fired 5 years ago. But not here, we don't seem to care enough to make any major changes. We'll just sit on our laurels of our World Series appearance from a year ago and think that our fans are dumb enough to not notice/care.

-I'm only rooting for my cousin to do well in the Red Sox/Rays series. I can't in good faith root for the Red Sox after what they did to my Rockies and Indians last fall. Though it would be cool to see a World Series ring in person.

Oh yeah, I know someone in the Major Leagues

Congratulations are definitely in order for my cousin Justin Masterson after his scintillating Major League debut yesterday for the Boston Red Sox against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim not including Orange County but parts of Bakersfield. Making an emergency start since the flu bug (hopefully the plague) was barreling its way through the Red Sox clubhouse as a result of the Sox players’ constant make out parties, my cousin was called up from Double A Portland to see what he could do. One of the top prospects in the entire organization, my cousin straight up put the realness on the Angels. In 6 innings, he gave up only 2 hits, 1 run, and racked up 4 k’s while throwing 95 pitches, 58 for strikes. He made the Angels lineup, the second most powerful in the American League, look like they’d spent the whole night before drinking S’more Schnapps. He’s got a bit of an unorthodox delivery and it consistently kept the Angels off balance. His power sinking fastball was clocked anywhere from 90-94 with a darting slider and a whiffle ball changeup to go along with it. Though he was sent right back down to AA after the start, his performance showed it won’t be too much longer before he’s back for good to paraphrase the 90s smash hit by the English boy band Take That. On top of being probably one of the 3 nicest people on earth, my cousin is perfectly built to play baseball. At 6’6” and 250 lbs, he’s a force to be reckoned with on the mound. Here’s his profile in Milb.com: http://www.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?n=Justin%20Masterson&pos=P&sid=milb&t=p_pbp&pid=475416. His nickname is Mr. Clean because of his pitching prowess and uncanny resemblance to the beefcake that takes all the grease and grime from your stovetops and linoleum floors. The only drawback to my cousin being a Major League pitching star will be that it makes me root for the Red Sox at least once every 5^th day and poses the earth shattering question: Can I perform the unthinkable and actually buy a Masterson Red Sox jersey? Stay tuned as I will be wrestling my ethics for that answer for quite some time. Anyway, congratulations cousin, you made the Masterson family proud and put our name on the map before I had a chance to.