Although virtually nobody was aware of it due to the high-impact game 7 of the NBA finals last night, Ubaldo Jimenez spun another gem on the hill. 8 IP, 1 ER. He is now 13-1 -- yes, thirteen-and-one -- with a 1.15 ERA. These numbers are straight filthy. His worst start of the season was a 6 inning performance in which he allowed 3 earned. What I would give to have this guy in my rotation right now. He's literally just making batters look sillier than his own first name. And the best part about it is that we will get to see him during interleague play. Jimenez is slated to start during the Red Sox-Rockies series that will take place next week. And while Sox fans have every intention of seeing their team tee off on Ubaldo, it will still be a good show either way. Because the guy is doing something magical, and it is always an honor to watch a player continue a magical run.
You're telling a story that doesn't exist
ReplyDeletethat’s very true. Fans in general treat luck as a byproduct of ability, as if they genuinely believe the old maxim “you create your own luck.” To them, luck is not independent of an agent’s actions; it is intimately connected to those actions, becoming part of the great athletic narrative they would wish to weave. Consequently, when a ML-proven pitcher makes mistakes, and is “unlucky” on the result (perhaps he surrenders 3 consecutive HRs, which clearly is unsustainable), the fans lay all of the blame at his feet. He was not unlucky; he threw bad pitches. It is unthinkable to consider that a mistake should not yield automatically a HR. Certainly you don’t cube anything, and if the pitcher kept throwing fastballs down the middle, he’d get his just deserts if he never recorded a single out. Conversely, when a hitter ropes a ball to the outfield and it’s caught, the fans bemoan his foul luck because the hitter did something positive by “doing what he’s supposed to do; hit the ball hard” - luck, then, comes to his rescue.
This all connects neatly to what fans want from baseball and from sports at large...a narrative and parable, more than simply the results of a game determined by unknown quantities of talent and of luck. Luck is the enemy of fandom. To consider that what bestows victory is NOT perseverance or a Puritan work ethic or a thousand other names for the same thing, and it may NOT even be talent, is so offensive to their worldview as to necessarily be ignored, dismissed, opposed. The Lakers just beat the Celtics by four points to win the NBA Finals. Having gone 7 games, having gone down to the proverbial wire, the Series could not have been closer. For all intents and purposes the Lakers or Celtics could win on any given night. That story is unacceptable. It must be that the Lakers triumped where the Celtics failed, that they crossed a deep impenetrable valley whilst their opponents languised behind smelling flowers like the soporific crew of Odysseus. It cannot be that Gasol’s clinching basket, with 1:30 remaining in regulation, bounced on the rim not once and not twice but thrice. In many ways, sports operate as childhood fantasies for adults, simplified stories of justified outcomes and binary moralities (good versus evil, lazy versus hard-working, respectful versus arrogant). Luck cannot fit.