Chicken Pie Shop, Pinback, and Nady

by Geoff Young on Apr 18, 2003

It’s been a long week at work and the Padres lost a game last night they had no business losing. I’m bored, tired, and in a lousy mood. I’ll work my way back over to baseball before too long, but first I have to talk about some other stuff or it’s all gonna be one big Jaret Wright hatefest. And none of us wants that, right?

Chicken Pie Shop

You know it, you love it. Get over there and have a pie dinner already!

Pinback

Before I get started, understand that Heavy Vegetable is one of my all-time favorite bands. So I’m approaching this CD in much the way a Beatles fan might listen to a Wings album. Which is to say I may not be the best person to ask.

I’ve listened to Pinback’s debut CD about 15-20 times now, and I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, I love Rob Crowe’s guitar tones and idiosyncratic playing style. And melody in a pop song is a novel (and welcome) concept these days. But some of it plods a bit for my taste. Maybe it’s just that I’m used to his work with Heavy Vegetable and Thingy, which were more chaotic and energized. Youthful exuberance and all that.

The first two tracks could be Thingy songs. Real nice acoustic guitar work, plus those warm, clean arpeggios that mirror the vocal melody. I love that. And they’re always really messed-up chords, which keeps things interesting.

The third song isn’t bad but it doesn’t move enough. The next three tunes are cool, but not up to the standard set by the first two. Then there’s a track that swings, followed by three that don’t.

I like the CD well enough to keep listening. The songs are mostly engaging, the arrangements tight. And I give them extra credit for putting this together in a home studio. Tripoli, Hurley, and Crutch are all fine pop tunes, and there are flashes of brilliance elsewhere. But the CD is uneven and generally makes me wish Heavy Vegetable were still together.

Other Music

Coltrane, Mingus. Can’t go wrong there. Audioslave, Pete Yorn. I’ll probably talk about those after I’ve had a chance to absorb them. Apparently Sonny Rollins is quite the baseball fan. Likes the pace of the game. I’m going to have to listen to more of his stuff.

Fantasy Baseball

This is more for me than you, but you’re welcome to take a look if you’d like. These are my fantasy leagues this year:

The Scoresheet leagues are perpetual, the Yahoo is a one-year.

Real Baseball

I don’t feel like going into great detail about the past three games. Here are links to the ESPN game logs for each. General commentary follows.

The starting pitching has been solid. Jake Peavy worked six strong innings Tuesday night and picked up his third win in as many decisions. Two encouraging signs from that game were that Peavy came out after 102 pitches and that Bruce Bochy was willing to pull a struggling Brandon Villafuerte in the ninth. Jaret Wright recorded the last two outs for his first big-league save.

Xavier Nady is struggling. He didn’t have a hit against the Dodgers in LA. Here’s what he did in the series:

  #
pit. result
-----------------
  5  SO (looking)
  1  F9
  4  BB
  5  F9

  1  G5 (DP)
  6  SO (looking)
  1  L3
  2  HBP

  6  BB (after falling behind 0-2)
  5  SO (swinging)
  7  G6
  1  F3 (end game)

Nady is having some decent at-bats, but that’s way too many one-pitch outs. He’s young, he’s inexperienced, he’s overanxious at times. It will be interesting to see how long it takes him to make the necessary counteradjustments.

Brian Lawrence dominated for five innings on Wednesday before getting beat on a couple of seeing-eye hits and a hard double by Fred McGriff. The latter brought home Brian Jordan, who collided with catcher Gary Bennett on the play. Bennett tried to keep playing but his right knee wouldn’t let him. Was it a cheap shot? I don’t believe so. Jordan appeared to lower his shoulder, but guys do that all the time. It’s easy to look at the outcome and then look back at the replay and conclude that Jordan came after him. But if Bennett escapes injury, maybe we’re not even thinking about this. It’s a shame he got hurt, but I don’t think there was anything dirty about the play.

Not that this is how you want to see it happen, but the bright side is that Wiki Gonzalez has been playing well since emerging from the doghouse and we’ll also get our first look at Michael Rivera.

Adam Eaton was tough to hit last night but had trouble finding the strike zone. In what is becoming a recurring theme for this year’s rotation, he was not nearly as efficient as he needs to be to succeed. Eaton threw 111 pitches in just six innings. Contrast with Greg Maddux (never a fair comparison, I realize), who used just 59 to get the same number of outs in his most recent start. These guys need to get outs earlier in the count. It will help the bullpen, it will help themselves.

And now I’ve settled down to the point where I can talk about Jaret Wright without going completely ballistic. But that pitch he threw to Todd Hundley was terrible. And is it just me, or did Wright have a play on the ball Daryle Ward hit back through the box? Damn Jordan, fouling off all those pitches from Old Man River. Okay, maybe I can’t talk about this yet. That was really a terrible pitch. Wright had Hundley 1-2, and hung a breaking ball. Then he gave up a single to reliever Troy Brohawn, which allowed Eric Gagne to warm up and come in to close the game.

And what’s up with Gagne’s strike zone? Do all umpires turn into Eric Gregg when he pitches? Not to take anything away from Gagne, who is a fine pitcher, but if he gets calls like he did last night, nobody’s ever going to hit him. Ever.

It’s starting to fall apart. Think I’ll stop now.

Places to Go

While you’re waiting for the next exciting installment (aka, Geoff loses it entirely), why not check these out:

  • Eddie Kranepool Society — Stephen discusses the Mets and, like the rest of us, is baffled by Rey Ordonez’ offensive outburst in Tampa.
  • Syntax of Things — Jeff ponders the nature of blogging and, well, he’s just getting started so you’ll have to go check it out for yourself.

Go. You’ll be glad you did…

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