Despite the fact that he hasn't been able to stay on the field for more than two games in a row, I'll always be a Rex Grossman fan.
It stems from his rookie preseason, when he drew the ire of John Shoop for daring to throw to a receiver beyond the first-down line on a third down. Shoop had called one of his classic plays for five yards on a third-and-8, and Grossman shook him off. I want to say "stupid" was the word he used, but I can't find anything on Google to back it up.
At any rate, he basically thought and said everything Bears fans were thinking and saying for Shoop's entire tenure, and it refreshed my
soul. So despite the various failings and disappointments of the Grossman Era, I can't get too mad at him.
In the same vein, I'd like to thank Rob Mackowiak for expressing my thoughts, probably more kindly than I would have, when he told the
Sun-Times' Joe Cowley:
''I think I've been a little surprised because I haven't played the greatest defense, and you have to have your best out there at this time of the year, especially center field."
The headline going along with that story makes my eyes bleed.
Couple these with his comments from before -- "I've been horrible, actually. There's no point in lying or candy-coating anything. It's been bad" -- and you can see he's trying to phrase it as politely as possible that he doesn't belong there. Barring an unforeseen turn of events, I'm a Rob Mackowiak fan. I just don't like him in center field.
Speaking of center field, Brian Anderson touched .235 today with his
second hit against Oakland, though a subsequent out knocked him down to .234. Anyway, .235 is
where I predicted he'd end up last month, so a couple more multi-hit games and he'll officially exceed my expectations.
Since he solidified his spot on the big-league roster on June 11, Anderson's batting .284/.334/.430. That's somewhat unimpressive compared to Mackowiak's .323/.371/.433 stretch during that time, but a definite improvement over Scott Podsednik's .260/.307/.332.
That's right, Anderson's on-base percentage in the last three months is higher than Podsednik's slugging percentage. It's all well and good when
Ozzie says he's looking for more offense during the stretch run, but he's looking in the wrong place. Twice over.
Ozzie and Co. have had
nothing bad to say about Ryan Sweeney since his call-up. That's fine. But if
Mark Gonzalez's answer to a reader e-mail reflects Ozzie's thinking, color me utterly confused.
Brian Anderson has tailed off a bit at the plate, and he's likely not to reach the .250 mark. I think Ozzie is looking at the big picture and wants Brian to improve. I think Ozzie will be the first to admit that Sweeney still has a long way to go, but he's starting to close the gap.
With regards to his first sentence, here's a graph representing Anderson's batting average throughout the season:
Maybe they're all reading the charts through the reverse side of the paper. I'm guessing this "tailing off" speak is indicative of saying anything to keep Anderson from playing, because as Dave Van Dyck says in the Sweeney article, Anderson has "crept into Guillen's doghouse." Why? Beats me. Van Dyck mentions Anderson's "gregarious" nature, but that's almost an entirely positive adjective. Much like Gonzalez does with Anderson's batting average, "gregarious" is somehow framed in a negative light.
But why is Sweeney the cat's ass all of a sudden? He's doing the same thing Anderson did early in the year.
Anderson had two hits in his first game,
Sweeney had two hits in his first game. Sweeney went into a funk thereafter (0-for-12), and so did Anderson. Sweeney and Anderson can also vye for two of the worst games of the year, the former having an
0-for-6 game with a double play and two strikeouts, and the latter
going 0-for-5 with a double play and two strikeouts.
I want Sweeney to succeed as much as anybody, because we need a replacement for Pods pronto. But his
minor-league track record shows him to be about equivalent to Anderson, with less power and better contact.
Nevertheless,
Ozzie is charmed by him:
"This kid played the game right. I loved when he went to third base with the ball in the dirt. I wish my players would look at themselves in the mirror when you see a rookie guy playing the way he played. He has great instincts in the outfield. … He seemed like he was playing there every day. … Good at-bats. … He reminds me of Ozzie Guillen."
I'm sure Ozzie said that last note tongue-in-cheek, but all this because he managed to take an extra base during a loss? If reminding Ozzie of himself is a good thing, then why is Anderson in trouble for being "gregarious"?
I never knew what to make of this situation, and now Sweeney clouds the picture further.