Last night's game was vintage June 2006 from the very first pitch. Dead in the water before the game even started, not because we don't have any fight in us, but seemingly because we're given to clumsy panic, and if things go wrong early, get ready for some fly outs to deep center, and throw in a few errors just to spice things up!
How fitting, too, that Heap's poor ankle is apparently aggravated by a combination of June and bad baseball, like an old injury that aches when it rains, just to even more accurately recreate the circumstances of the Swoon. Was Chipper injured during the Swoon? Somehow, the only time I remember Chipper playing last year was during his three home run game in Washington, when we were out of all the races and were just kicking around the old ballpark for the heck of it. I hate that so many articles have been blaming our problems on Chipper's absence in the lineup -- I'm dying to have him back, but Chipper's wrists aren't swinging for the fences like anxious little leaguers, and they aren't pitching to Soriano after he's hit two home runs on two pitches. It will help to get Chipper back, but Escobar isn't exactly a big liability in the meantime, and we've got a lot more to worry about.
I need to cheer up, but when I was watching the game last night, I started getting that apathetic, defeated feeling I had during June, and I really don't want to go through that again, when watching games felt like a chore. Even the TBS Xtra stuff didn't cheer me up last night -- I typically enjoy Joe's stupid comments about soda, but with the game going badly they actually devoted about 45 minutes of the broadcast to he and Chip's dinner, and it was beginning to grate. Brian Snitker was miked, and they played audio of him talking about the weather. Dark times. At least we had cute pictures of Scooter as a kid. I'm going to need adorable childhood flashbacks every few minutes or so if these guys keep playing like this.