It’s Friday, time to pick the Lizzies! We’re also talking about roster cuts, and starting pitching with this week’s GirlieView Quiz/Survey/Contest (no prize) being to choose which of the listed pitchers will start at least one game in April. Place your bets!



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A funky little diddy about the joys of March, a discussion about condiments streaming from your fingers and a quick shot at both the republican and democratic parties and their sexual escapades make up this edition of Funtastic Friday.



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Yes sir, Ron Washington knows how to party.

The Texas Rangers manager said he made a “huge mistake” last season, referring to his past use of cocaine, which was made public Wednesday when major league baseball announced that he failed a drug test last summer.

Before apologizing for partying like a rock star, Washington offered to resign as the Rangers’ skipper, but team president and former badass Nolan Ryan was not having it.

“I made a huge mistake and it almost caused me to lose everything I have worked for all of my life,” he said. “I am not here to make excuses. There are none.”

Of course, he admits to using the amphetamine only once.

Texas outfielder Josh Hamilton, who has snorted his fair share of rails in his day, said Washington was “very emotional” and that he could tell that his manager is “a broken man from this one bad choice he made.”

Ron Washington wins the 2010 Shocker Award. Already. Seriously, who saw this one coming?

[SI.com] | [Midwest Sports Fans] | [Rangers Blog]

Monday’s contest between the Mariners and the Diamondbacks saw the benches clear and Cliff Lee get ejected for… not knowing how to pitch?

Lee was tossed for supposedly trying to hit Arizona catcher Chris Snyder in the bottom of the third inning. There had been an incident in the first where Snyder ran into Lee, who was trying to cover home, and knocked him down. “All I know was I was rolling on the ground,” Lee said. “I got knocked down. I didn’t see it all. I was looking at the play.” Hmmm. Lee claimed this had nothing to do with the poorly placed pitch, instead saying that he was having a hard time landing inside pitches that day. If Lee wasn’t one of the best pitchers in the game, we might have believed him….

After almost getting his head taken off, Snyder stepped out of the batters box and walked toward Lee telling him what he thought of the ‘missed pitch’. At this point, the benches cleared and to our disappointment, no punches were thrown by either side. What’s a brawl without at least a little slapping? For future reference, boys, a good bench clearing brawl entails more than some name calling and whining.

While Lee and the Mariners claim the near-bean wasn’t intentional and that it wasn’t a big deal, the D-backs are a little upset. Snyder was quoted as saying “It’s Spring Training, that’s all it is, I don’t see a reason for it,” and “He got me good, man. He charley-horsed my leg, then he threw at my head. He’s up, 2-0,on me.”

The two teams face each other again on Saturday. Let’s hope for entertainment’s sake that if there is retaliation and the benches clear that someone at least gets their hat knocked off. But please, boys, be careful not to hurt Griffey. We love him, and he’s kind of old and fragile.

With pitchers and catchers reporting to Spring Training camps this week, it’s time for one of our favorite things in all the world: Season Previews. Three years ago, they began as a semi-serious analysis and ended up as half-assed haiku. We’re just gonna go with what we know. Continuing with our preview of the American League West, here are the Texas Rangers.

The Texas Rangers
Are a fairly young team. The
Roster’s still not set.

Taylor Teagarden
And Saltalamacchia
Vying for catcher.

Neftali Feliz
And his hundred mph
Fastball hope to start.

Can Hamilton stay
Healthy for more than a week?
Vlad is still scary.

Uncertainty looms
Over their season. Will they
Crash or will they shine?

FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) — Sitting a few feet from the people who inspired him to become one of the games best players, Minnesota Twins catcher Joe Mauer became one of the game’s highest-paid ones as well.

NEW YORK (AP) — Alex Rodriguez is scheduled to meet with federal investigators probing a Canadian physician on Friday, The New York Times reported on its Web site.

MESA, Arizona — If only today’s 9-2 Cubs loss to the Indians had started in the ninth inning, instead of ended there.

The Cubs‘ farm system’s latest Carlos Marmol/Randy Wells project, Jake Muyco — who was drafted as a catcher in 2005 and who converted to pitching in 2008 after barely, just barely, hitting over the Mendoza line — threw a 1-2-3 ninth inning (granted, against a couple of Indians wearing numbers in the 80′s and 90′s).

Then the Cubs pounded out three hits off of an actual major league reliever, Rafael Perez, and Micah Hoffpauir‘s two-out single drove in a pair of consolation runs, unearned due to a Cleveland error.

The rest of the game, not so much. Jeff Samardzija today, I think, definitively proved that he’s got to go to Iowa, either to start or to get used to relieving (if it were up to me, the latter), because although he didn’t pitch too badly, he didn’t pitch that well, either. He did throw a couple of nice breaking balls for strikeouts, but also allowed four hits and two runs. I’ll grant that the first run wasn’t really his fault — Derrek Lee made an ill-advised throw to third to try to get Austin Kearns, who had doubled, rather than take the easy groundout. The run possibly would have scored anyway on a subsequent ground ball — which could have been a DP ball, except Bobby Scales airmailed a throw to D-Lee. (Airmail. Man, that dates me, right? Is airmail even a choice any more?)

After that it was open season on Cubs relievers. The two runs John Grabow gave up weren’t his fault (and were unearned) as a result of a Jeff Baker bobble on what was a tough, but playable, ground ball — if Baker makes that play, Grabow has a 1-2-3 inning; instead he gave up three more hits including a bunt that no play could be made on, and had to be pulled in favor of Jeff Stevens.

Which raises a question: with two weeks until Opening Day, why was much of this game pitched by relievers who have either already been assigned to minor league camp, or who have no chance of making the team, such as Stevens and Blake Parker? I can understand using Muyco in the 9th inning of a 9-0 blowout, but aren’t there other guys who need the work who actually are part of the competition?

That said, can we now declare the Mike Parisi experiment over? Parisi faced four batters and gave up, in order: a ringing double down the LF line, a walk, another walk, a wild pitch, and then hit a batter before he was mercifully pulled in favor of Justin Berg. This team does not need another David Patton, who sits and rots in the bullpen for ten days and then gets pounded. I’ll say it again: there’s no reason that the Cubs need any more than 11 pitchers. I’d like to see that extra bench player, just to give Lou the versatility on the bench that he says he never has.

Speaking of which, Andres Blanco returned to game action for the first time in 16 days, and showed his defensive prowess, ranging far past 2B on a ground ball, and also catching a foul popup that normally would be the third baseman’s ball. The Cubs need that kind of defense late in the game. I hope Blanco still has a shot at making the team.

The lineup, which was essentially the regular lineup without Aramis Ramirez, got shut down by Fausto Carmona, who looked really good in allowing only a pair of hits to Alfonso Soriano, a single and a double. Carmona has had a fine spring; he’s the first pitcher I’ve seen go six innings this year, and he has a 0.69 spring ERA.

Speaking of Soriano, he still looks slow on the bases and did not hop while catching a fly ball in the first inning. Whether this is by design or because knee problems continue, I don’t know.

Things heard today: the Cubs are still scouting relief pitchers. This does not mean a deal is imminent or even possible; teams scout players all the time. Also, all five remaining Cubs home spring games are sold out. Today’s attendance of 12,327 (third largest of the spring) brought the spring total to 98,790 and the average to 10,977 — larger than last year, and it’ll likely be close to 11,500 when all is said and done.

Finally, just about the time the Cubs were rallying in the ninth, BCB reader socalicubsfan stopped by on the lawn to introduce himself. When Jessica then introduced herself as “Doggie Stalker”, he bowed at her feet. It’s a scene you had to see to believe. Ryan Dempster will face Luke Hochevar tomorrow at Surprise.