Lookout Landing: 1-1 Putz wooo > : (

The game you waited all winter long for…

With JJ Putz, a lead in the ninth is a win in the standings. The Texas Rangers had given us this game.

Then, like ########, they took it back.

On the one hand, you could kind of see it coming. JJ had neither his usual command nor his usual velocity, and as soon as the pitch to Hamilton left his hand you knew it was going straight to Hamilton’s wheelhouse. But on the other, this is JJ Putz, and even though I say I could see it coming, based on my dumbfounded reaction, I couldn’t really see it coming. I honestly don’t remember anything that happened between that swing and Yuni’s double in the bottom of the ninth. It’s just a gap in my memory, a gap left unfilled because while the rest of the game was taking place, I was sitting here blankly staring ahead wondering how I was ever going to come to terms with this.

The answer is: I’m not sure yet. I mean, it’s early, and we had no right to so much as even be in the game. But it’s not the fact that they lost; it’s the way that they lost. I hate it when JJ blows a save because every single bad outing of his rattles my core and makes me think that he could revert to what he used to be just as quickly as he ascended to awesomeness. It’s stupid, because he’s a different pitcher now than he ever was before the splitter, but it’s a feeling I can’t shake, and it’s incredibly unpleasant. This will not be a comfortable sleep.