You wouldn't like him when he's angry

So, you know the Hulk? Big green guy, you wouldn't like him when he's angry, etc.? Well, let's just say Edward Norton's got nothing on Dan Haren. The guy is seriously a second away from erupting off the mound, skin a bright Sedona red and his clothes tearing away, leaving him in only a ragged pair of baseball pants.

You wouldn't like Dan Haren when he's angry and the poor guy is definitely starting to get a little hot under the collar.

On a personal note, I've managed to fulfill twelve months of wanting by getting to see a Dan Haren start in person when Trinity and I made like Annie Savoy and worshipped at the church of baseball - see her awesome post about it. Watching him pitch in person is a delight. Not only did we get to see his unusual delivery - Haren pitches slowly, freezing in the top of his windup like Neo just before he dodges a bullet. I've described it before as Dan Haren pitches like he's standing undwerwater: languid and slow. No one that graceful should be so devasting. The man is a beast and I love it.

If he is a beast though, he's one that's about two seconds away from trampling you to death. You can see him seethe. The Dodgers invented a run - turns out if a runner fails to tag up, you have to protest before you leave the field in order for the runner to be called out. Essentially, the Dodgers scored on the fourth out. Damn Dodgers, of course they did. And afterwards Dan Haren was practically blowing steam from his ears. You could make a cup of tea just by setting a mug of water on top of the man's head. It was obvious he blamed himself for the situation, since he was the one who allowed the baserunners to begin with. He tore through the lineup after that and the Dodgers didn't score against him again.

In return, the Diamondbacks' offense gave him a measly one run of support - a season high actually, after the zero runs he recieved a few days before.

Getting the offense to score in games Haren starts has been like pulling teeth. You'd think the team didn't want to win and personally, I wouldn't be surprised to see Dan Haren taking extra batting practice, because clearly, he's going to have to do everything himself.

It was the same old problem again last night. Haren worked over the Giants, giving up only one lousy run. In return, Mad Scientis Melvin pulled him in the seventh for a pinch hitter after only 79 pitches. We were approaching the Hulk line. Haren walked immediately into the clubhouse while San Fransico made a pitching change of his own. He returned to the dugout, folding his arms over the railing at the top step and resting his chin on his hands to see Tony Clark fly out to left in his place. The team never did manage to score a run.

Dan Haren now has an ERA of 1.89, a WHIP of .789 and record of 0-3. At this rate, Dan Haren will become the first pitcher in history to win the Cy Young with a losing record.

The Diamondbacks better get him some runs, or he just might hurt somebody.

So. That happened.

The first series of the year is completed - an interesting feeling after the long offseason, as if your psyche has to relearn how to handle the ups and downs of rooting for a proffessional sports team. For instance, if you told me that opening day would have Brandon Webb getting knocked around for six runs in a slugfest and that the next day Dan Haren would throw a three-hitter, one-run effort and still lose, I'd laugh in your face.

The Diamondbacks did lose the series though, in all the old familiar ways. The offense sputtered and then collapsed on the field, gasping choking for one last breath of life. Jon Rauch happened. New season means new hope but it felt like watching the same team that came apart down the stretch last September.

But all is not lost! (I mean, it's only been three games for crying-out-loud). Dan Haren is a beast, who continues to prove Trinity's theory that the only difference between him and Josh Beckett is some facial hair and half-a-dozen hemp necklaces. Sweet Jesus, I love this man. Trinity and I are taking a pilgrimedge to Chase Field Easter Sunday to watch Haren take on the Dodgers.

Also promising: Felipe Lopez. He had two homeruns on Mon and made a great play yesterday. I like you, Felipe Lopez.

I have other things to post about sometime, like why I can never remember what Baby Drew looks like and how Conor Jackson is totally the type to get drunk and go walk around the 99 Cent Store, but those are other thoughts for another time. Right now let's make like Barack Obama and reflect that hope springs eternal. Example: I eternally hope we beat the Dodgers.

What dreams are made of

I don't have any kind of baseball commentary to offer today because there are only so many variations of "Oh good god why? WTF bullpen! WTF offense! Please, somebody make the pain stop." So instead, a lighter note. I totally dreamt about Dan Haren last night.

I was living in the middle of nowhere, on a street with like, two other houses. A couple of kids ran away from the neighbor's house, and since our houses are sorrounded by desert and they had no place to go, we took them in.Then we went to a baseball game. At Yankee Stadium. Where Dan Haren plays as a left fielder when he's not pitching.

So my sisters and I are at Yankees Stadium and we decide we want to sneak into the clubhouse but wind up in this underground network of abandoned corridors, stepping over giant rolls of discarded carpet. Then who should come looking for us but Dan Haren. Dan Haren leads up out of the dusty catacombs of Yankee Stadium. This takes so long that by the time we're finally out, we've convinced Dan Haren to come to dinner at our house with us and the rugrats we've taken in.

And he does. But my sister Stephanie is putting some major moves on him and I was just like, "You need back up off Dan Haren. He's mine and you don't even like baseball." After that, Dan Haren got up from dinner to answer a phone call from Stephen Drew, at which point I woke up.

Duel in the Diamond

So, I'm trying to think of a way to describe last night's game and can't. I went into the game with nothing but pessimism. When friends asked if I thought the Diamondbacks had a chance against the Red Sox, I laughed derisively in response. I mean, they're the Diamondbacks. They tanked, going from the best record in baseball to sitting atop the worst division in the league, in large part because the Dodgers have a habit of losing whenever the Dbacks do. The Diamondbacks can't hit, can't field, and their starting pitching has struggled. Clearly, we were going to get trounced.

But Dan Haren pitched like a rockstar. In what may have been the best pitcher's duel of the season, Beckett blinked first, giving up two runs while Haren threw seven innings of shutout ball. It was a thing of beauty. After Haren made a diving stop on a line drive it was clear that Haren was in it to win it.

Not that the Dbacks didn't get a few lucky breaks. No one told Kevin Youkillis that you're not supposed to catch baseball with your face and was pulled in the fifth with a hell of shiner. Since Sean Casey was sitting in timeout, the Sox had to send in Someguy Moss, whose timely bobble allowed the Dbacks second run to score. And we needed that run, as reliever Jose Pena loaded the bases in the eigth and a sac fly by Elder Drew brought the Sox within one run. Runners at second and third, two outs and Manny at the plate. I was nearly sick. Manny's plate appearance never ended. But then Mark Reynolds made the play of the night, somehow managing to get his glove on a bullet on a line drive. I'm pretty sure I saw Reynolds checking to make sure he still had all his teeth when he got back to the dugout.

What a game. It was amazing.

Oh, that goes for everyone but you, Eric Byrnes who came back from the DL and promptly picked up a gold sombrero, going 0-5. If Melvin puts you in the leadoff spot again tonight, he and I are going to have words.

I don't know what's going to happen in the game tonight. The Sox may come out and score a hundred runs off finesse pitcher Doug Davis (how dissappointed am I that it's not Davis and Lester in Battle: Cancer?) though Davis has been stellar in his last two starts, giving up one run in thirteen innings. Maybe he's due, I don't know. I do know the Sox are probably looking for some payback because they just lost to the Diamondbacks. I do know that Haren and Beckett probably went out and got drunk after all was said and done (they probably had a fierce competion of darts and tiddlywinks and checkers and who knows what else until Beckett won something). I do know that Baby Drew, who is probably crashing with his brother was probably made to sleep in the bathtub and when he protested J.D. told him that he was older, had more homeruns and more RBI and when Stephen was the best player in the league for a month, he could sleep in a big boy bed.

Trin: It's not often that Char's the wordy one and I'm sitting here with nothing much to say, but here I am. For completely different reasons, I really can't think of a way to describe last night's game either. Well, except for this:

I blame Julio Lugo.

Why? Because I can, I guess. I mean, losses like this are usually his fault anyway, he of the 16 errors so far this season. Amazingly enough, he managed not to rack up another couple last night, but I still blame him. He's a good scapegoat. And I can't blame Brandon Moss, I just can't. At the major league level, he's an outfielder. Yeah, he's been playing first for triple-A Pawtucket but it's a whole different level of play in the big club and coming in to make your major league debut at first base the middle of a game like that had to be a little nervewracking. I suppose I could blame Sean Casey for dropping his appeal or for getting in that brawl in the first place, or Mike Lowell for clobbering Youk during that warm up; I mean, there's a lot of blame to be had.

But mostly, I think that offensively it just wasn't our night. Pedroia struck out for the first time in 72 at-bats, reassuring me that no, he's not actually the unknown fifth Cylon. Manny gave us a couple of heart attacks, but nothing of substance. Even red-hot J.D. Drew couldn't produce (but he could catch his brother's fly ball!). I was a little surprised, because generally our guys give Beckett some pretty good run support - probably because they're afraid he'll skin them alive if they don't - but generally our guys aren't facing a pitcher whose only difference from Beckett is more facial hair and fewer hemp necklaces. When Beckett picks up the L, it's because the offense failed to back him up, not for any lack of badassery on his part. Yeah, Dan Haren pitched like a rock star, but Beckett was pretty studly himself. Too bad the rest of the team couldn't back him up.

Tonight, the Sox will put baby phenom Justin Masterson on the mound (4-1, 3.00 ERA). No word on whether Youk will be playing tonight; his CT scan was negative but he had one hell of a shiner last night, so who knows. Maybe we'll actually be able to score some runs without Beckett's evil twin in front of us. We could use a win at home. Hopefully we'll get it tonight, but until then, I'll console myself with this:

My boyfriend struck out more guys than Char's.

Small potatoes, I know. But after last night, I'll take what I can get.

A House Divided: Battle of the Boyfriends

Josh "Commander Kickass" Beckett vs Dan "The Pirate" Haren
7-4, 3.87 ERA 7-4, 3.26 ERA

It's the battle of the Baseball Boyfriends at Fenway Park tonight as the Josh Beckett and the Red Sox take on Dan Haren and the Diamondbacks. The Red Sox are coming off a 5-3, 13 inning win over St. Louis yesterday, in which both teams decimated their bullpen (seriously, I think David Aardsma was the only relief pitcher who didn't play yesterday) after Jonathan Papelbon gave us his best Eric Gagne impression, blowing a one-run lead that we'd worked our asses off to get. Do not want, Paps. Do. Not. Want. Beckett's pitching on seven day's rest, though, so expect to see him locked in, executing pitches, throwing fucking strikes, and whatever other curse words he usually drops at press conferences. As for Haren, he looked good in his last start againt the As, throwing a cutter fastball he kept in his back pocket all year. But it's the split-finger he dominates with, so we'll have to see if he can smoke it by the Sox.

The Diamondbacks just got swept in three games by the Twins. The Dbacks outscored the Twins in the Metrodome (which is so ugly, it looks like they're playing baseball in somebody's rec room) for 24 innings but were never able to pull out a win. The Twins picked an inning a game to throw up a crooked number and the Dbacks could never recover. It's good to have our number-two ace on the mound as the pitching has been especially rough recently. Even Brandon Webb has struggled; after earning the nickname 'The Tourniquet' for his ability to snap a losing streak, his pitching the past few starts has had more holes than a cheese grater. Tonight also sees the return of Eric 'Star of The Eric Byrnes Show' Byrnes after spending three weeks on the 15-day DL with bad hammies. Hopefully, we'll see the return of the good Byrnes, the ten million dollar man (he's the highest paid person on the team who's initials aren't RJ). The Dbacks need a spark, need him to do all the things you can't see in a box score that we pay him so well for (Trin: You mean like flailing around in the batter's box and grounding into double plays? Yeah, I'd like to see that Byrnes, too!).

Both teams are at the top of their respective leagues, Boston leading the AL East at 47-31 and the Dbacks heading the NL West at 39-37. The last time Arizona faced Boston at Fenway was in June of 02, with all three games of the series going to the Dbacks. Can they repeat that? Trin says it's highly unlikely, but she's a Red Sox fan, so she has to say that. She admits, however begrudgingly, that Dan Haren might be the NL's answer to Josh Beckett. Both right-handers are 1-3 in five outings against their respective opponents, with Haren posting a 3.26 ERA against the Sox and Beckett with a 5.65 ERA against the Diamondbacks. Still no word on the rest of tonight's lineups, but we'd be surprised if it didn't include the Drew brothers, Nancy...I mean, J.D. (I can't help it!) and Stephen, aka Baby Drew. Everybody knows that J.D. has been smokin' hot this month; it's like after ten years in the major leagues, he finally decided to actually play. I mean, he's leading the league in home runs for the month of June! And it's been beautiful to watch. Also expected in the Sox lineup is the second coming himself, Dustin Pedroia. Know anyone else who's gone for 69 consecutive at-bats without striking out? We don't (certainly not anyone wearing a Sedona Red uniform). Missing from the lineup will be occasional first baseman Sean "The Mayor" Casey, who begins serving his three-game suspension tonight for his role in the June 5 bench-clearer against the Rays.

The Diamondbacks again find themselves in a position to have a designated hitter (if anyone so much as thinks the name Micah Owings, I will kill you) (Trin: *thinks* Micah Owings!). My guess before the lineup comes out? Chad Tracy. He played the DH in Minnesota and it will be good to get his left-handed bat in there while still allowing Gravity to play first - now that Byrnes is back, no more starts in left field for everyone's favorite gravitational pull.

So in conclusion, it's the Sox vs the Dbacks, and it's totally on.

Victory

Perhaps the single greatest sentence ever written about the Diamonbacks:

Mark Reynolds beat Dan Haren in a spirited, dramatic game of Jenga in the clubhouse this afternoon.

Like A Bad Car Engine

That was hardly the outing I expected after all my glowing praise yesterday. I love you Dan Haren, but you're going to have to do a bit better that nine hits, two walks and five earned runs in less than five innings if this is going to work between us.

Not that Danny Boy is solely responsible for this trainwreck. With the exception of Baby Drew's solo shot, the Dbacks' bats were made of lead and the defense was hardly impressive. Yes, that means you, Young and Upton. I know you're young (one of you literally) but committing errors that let the other team score is bad. Do we understand each other?

I read somewhere that Young is still shaking the flu, and you know, I blame Typhoid Tek. Clearly, Varitek has infected everyone. I wouldn't be surprised if Josh Beckett was mailing out Tek's used tissues to opposing clubs.

Let's do better tonight boys, okay?

Things I Do At 5 AM

A haiku:

O! Danny Haren
I love your hair and fastball
Are you a pirate?

The Dbacks play the Padres today and I have a feeling they may be a little sluggish tonight. Seeing as how they went 22 innings against Colorado last night. It was after 1 am when the Rockies finally won and the Padres still have to travel to Phoenix today. I mean, six hour game. Damn.