Shot Of The Night

Shot Of The Night is Off Base Percentage's toast to a player who had an exceptionally good or bad night. There's always a reason to drink.

Tonight's shot of the night is All Night Hunter: 1 oz Red Bull® energy drink, 1 oz Jagermeister® herbal liqueur. So kinda like a Jager Bomb? Anyway, it's in honor of Torii Hunter.

Derwood stole my thunder by writing a post about Drew Stubbs and his 3 home runs but Torii Hunter bailed me out and prevented the Angels from being swept by the Royals. Hunter went 3-4 with 2 home runs and 7 RBI. His performance justified his spot on the All Star team but Jered Weaver's absence from the AL roster is causing me to drink a couple extra shots.

Honorable Mention: Catfish Hunter (1969)
Catfish struggled a bit historically on Independence Day but July 4th 1969 was especially poor. Hunter only made it through 3.2 innings against the Twins that day serving up 3 home runs and giving up 7 runs on 8 hits. I can only assume he celebrated that year's Independence Day and loss by getting drunk off of hot dogs and liquor.

Drew Stubbs Hit Three Home Runs Today

And his teammates hit four others in a 14-3 win over....the Chicago Cubs! Hit you with a bit of an RBI Baseball-wobbly pitch there didn't I? When you heard...

* Team hits seven home runs
* Wins 14-3

...you thought, "well it certainly wasn't against the Cubs".



Anyway, Stubbs had a .233/.308/.380 slash line and an 83 OPS+ until he went deep twice against Ted Lilly and against Andrew Cashner in the ninth. Lilly was so good in a nine-run Cincy seventh that Lou Pinella, who will be managing somewhere else in two weeks, or worse, Baltimore, had to leave the left-hander in to allow long balls to Brandon Phillips and Jonny Gomes and complete the magical 6 2/3 IP, 9 ER line.

Getting back to Pinella: it's just a matter of time for Sweet Lou. The Cubs are a disgrace, having won 11 times since May 29, and someone has to take the fall. It's certainly not going to be Aramis Ramirez (.177/.242/.297) or Derrek Lee (.230/.329/.372) or Ryan Theriot (.277/.317/.303) or Carlos Zambrano (78 ERA+/loonytunes). I'll give him through the all star break.

Curtis Granderson's Golden Sombrero

A golden sombrero is awarded to a player who manages to strike out four times in a single game (real golden sombrero not included). It's quite the feat unless you're Ryan Howard or Mark Reynolds. Unfortunately, cycles and no-hitters are all the rage nowadays. Not for me, though. I will pour over the box scores to bring you the finest at swinging and missing.

Well, well. Happy Fourth of July to me. Curtis Granderson went 0-5 with 4 strikeouts. But it kind of feels weird handing out a giant golden Mexican hat on our Independence Day. I tried to think of a way to Americanize the Sombrero for the Fourth of July but Golden Hat That Holds Two Cans Of Beer seemed a little long.

I really like Curtis Granderson the person. He writes a blog and he seems like a genuinely nice guy. Curtis Granderson the player is nothing more than a platoon player. He can't hit lefties a lick. Let's see if that mattered today.

Bottom 2nd: Granderson struck out swinging against the northpaw Brandon Morrow. My friend Jenny asked me why they call lefties "southpaws" and I said because it sounds cooler (I know the real answer, dont email me). She then coined the phrase "northpaw" for right handers which I am now stealing and trademarking. Northpaw™ See? It's mine now. I plan on making tens of dollars off of that somehow.

Bottom 6th: Granderson struck out swinging against northpaw™ Morrow again. Catchy isn't it?

Bottom 8th: Granderson struck out swinging against southpaw Scott Downs. 3 pitches. Dude can't hit lefties.

Bottom 10th: Granderson struck out swinging against southpaw David Purcey.

Recap: Granderson struck out swinging twice against lefties and twice against righties, proving nothing. Except that maybe he's just not a very good hitter. Or he just had a bad day. What do I know? I'm drunk off of hot dogs and liquor.

Happy Fourth!

I'd like to extend a very happy Fourth of July to all of our American readers. That's right Canada, there's nothing for you here today. Today is all about celebrating our independence from equally bad at soccer England. And we do it the American way, dammit. We drink too much, eat too much and then let our kids blow their arms off with fireworks we drove to Alabama for. Those rapscallions.

I love a good drinking holiday. And I will certainly be indulging today. So you can look forward to a good drunken All Star snub post sometime later tonight/tomorrow. Try to be responsible though. Don't drink and drive kids. Please, drink as much as you can but sleep it off on your friend's linoleum floored kitchen. And please don't use those two cheeseburgers as buns for your steak sandwich. I'm worried about your cholesterol, America (I am engineering that steak burger burger for Chilis though). Also, those homemade bottle rockets are most likely going to hit Steve in the eye. They're completely unpredictable. Please just go buy real ones.

While it may seem un-American of me to use British model Lucy Pinder for this post, I dare you to find a hotter chick in an American flag bikini. And no, British model Keeley Hazell does not count.

Curveballs for Jobu

Curveballs for Jobu is Off Base Percentage's daily trip around the ballparks.

Today's honorary bat boy: Mike LaVailliere

All right boys and girls and mainly shut-ins, I'll be handling Jobu for Derwood today while he's out having fun. I lost the Rock, Paper, Scissor contest when I fired off double birds and claimed Stone Cold Steve Austin beats Rock. Then I got disqualified for making a bad wrestling joke. Let's try to shake that off and go to some baseball.

Nationals 6, Mets 5. Strasburg got off to a rough start walking 3 in the first inning. He made it through 5 innings and allowed 2 runs while striking out 5. The Nats would get him off the hook and win it when K-Rod completely melted down in the 9th. K-Rod pitched 1/3 of an inning and gave up 3 walks, 3 hits and 3 runs. And had this to say...

"The freakin' worst performance I ever had in my entire life," K-Rod said. "I should be ashamed of myself. So embarrassing."

I'd like add that you should also be ashamed of that beard.

Tigers 6, Mariners 1. Verlander cruised through 7 innings while striking out 10 and only allowing 1 earned run. The win moves the Tigers into a first place tie in the Central. The loss gets Cliff Lee one game closer to getting his escape from Seattle.

Yankees 11, Blue Jays 3. The Yanks exploded for all 11 runs in the 3rd inning led by an improbable grand slam by Brett Gardner. Even Teixeira chipped in going 2-3 with 2 RBI. His batting average then skyrocketed to .236. Kendry Morales still has a higher WAR than Tex despite missing over an entire month. Just sayin. Jose Bautista hit his major league leading 21st home run of the season. When reached for comment, Chris Shelton mumbled some expletives and said, "It won't last."

Royals 4, Angels 2. Bruce Chen retired the first 18 Angels he faced and Jeff Mathis hit a home run. Nothing in this game made any sense. In fact, you had to watch this game through one of those pinhole eclipse viewers to prevent going blind. Wilson Betemit, 0-4.

Giants 11, Rockies 8. The offensive juggernaut know as the San Francisco Giants roughed up NL Cy Young leader Ubaldo Jimenez to the tune of 7 earned runs over 6 innings. Zito wasn't much better allowing 6 runs over 5+ innings. But the next 4 Rockies' pitchers were outclassed by the next 5 Giants' pitchers to earn the win.

Shot Of The Night

Shot Of The Night is Off Base Percentage's toast to a player who had an exceptionally good or bad night. There's always a reason to drink.

Tonight's shot of the night is Jim The Destroyer: 1/2 oz Jim Beam® bourbon whiskey, 1/2 oz Bacardi® 151 rum, 1/2 oz Chivas Regal® Scotch whisky, 1/2 oz Jose Cuervo® Especial gold tequila. And it's in honor of Jim Thome.

Jim Thome went 3-4 today with 2 home runs. He also only saw 7 pitches so he wasn't wasting any time. The 2 jacks give him 574 for his career and moves him past Harmon Killebrew for 10th all time. I'm not sure if anybody noticed but Thome's career slash line is .277/.404/.556. A career .400 OBP? Yep. And he has a career .406 wOBA. For a guy who only made 5 All Star appearances, he sure looks like a first ballot Hall of Famer to me.

Honorable Mention: Matt Joyce
Matt Joyce helped ruin Thome's career milestone by hitting a pinch-hit grand slam in the top of the 8th to put the Rays ahead for good. What a dick. Joyce was traded for Edwin Jackson a couple of years ago and hasn't been able to break into the Rays never-ending rotation of everyone but Pena, Longoria and Crawford. Joe Maddon is like some kind of mad scientist when it comes to handing out positions.

Strasburg Returns To No Walk Zone Washington

After getting roughed up on the road in Atlanta, Hall of Fame rookie phenom, Stephen Strasburg, takes the mania back to home sweet Washington to face the Mets. Strasburg gave up 3 runs against the Braves and continued his road walking woes by giving 2 hitters a free pass. That raises Strasburg's walk total to 7, all on the road. I really hope Washington finds a way to only pitch him at home from now on because I put a lot of money on under 10 career walks for Strasburg. Don't worry, I hedged my bet by taking over of 8,000 career strikeouts. Vegas is such a sucker.

The Mets are right in the middle of the league in strikeouts which is surprising for a lineup that includes Jeff Francoeur. Also, who is Josh Thole and why is Alex Cora still in the majors? The Mets are in the bottom third of the league in walks which makes sense for a lineup that includes Jeff Francoeur.

The Mets will start R.A. Dickey against Strasburg. This should be fun. Strasburg might actually throw twice as hard as the knuckleballer. Strasburg has big strikeout numbers but has yet to hang a Golden Sombrero on anyone. I think that changes today. Francoeur seems almost too obvious so I'm putting Ruben Tejada on watch. As always, you can join me on Twitter for the event and you can watch it live on Fox. See, Fox isn't that stupid. They made Strasburg the Saturday game. They gave Gordon Ramsey like 9 shows but at least they got this game right.

Bobby Bonilla's Fantastic New Contract

Some of you might remember Bobby Bonilla as part of the "Killer B's" with Barry Bonds in the early 1990's. When did we all stop loving alliteration? Others might remember Bonilla from one of his two separate stints with the Mets. Bonilla played last for the Mets in 1999 and then they bought out the remainder of his $5.9 million contract in January of 2000. But get this, they agreed to defer the payment at eight percent interest.

So now the Mets will pay Bonilla $1.2 million every year until 2035. To recap, the $5.9 million buyout will pay Bonilla a little under $30 million from 2011 to 2035. Wow, that Steve Phillips just continues to molest the Mets after all these years.

I don't know what Bobby Bonilla is doing in his post playing days. Motivational speaker, charity worker, broadcaster, Doritos eater? I don't know. But I'm sure he could use part of that free $1.2 million per year to invest a little in Off Base Percentage. Our sombrero/donkey expenses ended up being a little higher than what we budgeted.