Friday, June 12, 2009

MIlton Bradley and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Between the Penguins Game 7 win (the first Game 7 win on the road in any major US sport since 1979's Pittsburgh Pirates) and Luis Castillo's humbling fielding error that gifted the Yankees a win over the Mets, it is possible that Milton Bradley's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad day went unnoticed by a good chunk of the sporting nation. It's a shame, because it was a pearler of a bad day.

First off--how well do Twins fans travel? Very well, judging by the number of jerseys, and how loud the crowd got when Nathan was closing the game. Awesome. Suck it, Chicago.

But let's talk about poor Milton Bradley and his horrible, no good day. To quote the AP:

"He lost Jason Kubel's pop-up in the sun for a single, couldn’t catch Michael Cuddyer's RBI bloop double, made a baserunning blunder and, most egregiously, flipped the ball into the stands after catching Mauer’s one-out sac fly.

Fans even booed Bradley when he was robbed of a hit on a diving catch by left fielder Delmon Young."

Let's be fair--Delmon robbed him, and the crowd booed--it took a sliding catch to keep Bradley from adding to his RBI total. And he did plate 2 of the Cubs four runs. And he wasn't the victim of any Kevin Slowey's 10 strikeouts (Soriano, at the lead off position, had two of them). Soriano, for the season, is hitting .237. So while Cubs fans like to jump on the problem of the day, and to be sure, Milton Bradley had a horrible, no good day--their problems go much deeper than one guy having a super Brain Farty day. Like Geovany Soto's 0-4 day, with 2 K's, and 3 men left on base, and his .213 average.

Or their bullpen, aside from Sean Marshall, was hittable--in the final three innings, the bullpen of the Cubs gave up 6 hits, 3 earned runs, which included a fantastic mistake to Jason Kubel, who parked a homer deep into the bleachers of Wrigley. So congrats, Cubs and National Media--you have a new person to blame for why your teams sucks--but there will be another person soon enough.





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