Well, ackcherley, I’m not really curious. I’ve been around more than long enough to have a pretty good handle on things like peer pressure, late capitalist kitsch culture (and the way it conditions us to expect so little of ourselves) and what Ralph Ellison called the “crabs in a bucket effect,” wherein the crab on top of the heap keeps getting pulled back down when it tries to climb out of the bucket by the ones underneath.

And yeah, modern jazz as a rhetorical model…no sense letting a language die in its sleep, is there?

Luhnow, your game. We are watching.

Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian, p.85

It’s Like reading a different language and sometimes im not even sure if some of them are even words lol

Come on, are you really going to post that after using ur/u/lol?

TMQ you are not.

Otherwise, premium plenum postpubescent peetching prospect Jacob Turner, after coughing up a gopher to Invader Zim in the first, found some more dominant DNA than his bologna gene and retired 17 of the next 18 he faced, looking like he’d found his footing and demonstrating why the Feesh snatched at him. ‘Course it took Krazy Karlos Lamebraino to come in and nearly gift back the game, and he did cost the kid his first win, but we got to see some flashes of what attracted him to the Feesh notochord trust in the first place.

I suspect things will return to normal tonight in DC, though.

Nationals’ management understands that risk and has manged it carefully. Mike Rizzo is playing for the long run, and all but the most clueless fans should get that by now. Strasburg’s career is off to a Hall of Fame start. Doesn’t take Bill James to see that in a kid with superficial career stats of 21-10, 2.94, 1.09 WHIP. But another stat is important: 251.1 innings in 3 seasons. You don’t make the Hall of Fame if you don’t pitch. Ask Mark Prior and Kerry Wood.

After last night’s game, when Strasburg failed for the second time in three starts, Davey commented that he was distracted by the impending shutdown. That Stephen feels he’s letting down his teammates. This makes sense. One thing has emerged about Stephen Strasburg: he is an intense competitor. The kid makes the right noises, but this is killing him. Tim Kurkjian suggested that, if Strasburg is being affected, he might not make his last start. Davey doesn’t want to send out a starter whose head is somewhere else. Though I suspect he will start.

Oh, and the game. Regardless of their respective positions in the standings, the Nats scuffle to beat the Fish. Right now, I have a bigger concern than Strasburg, and that’s the bullpen. The Nats, not surprisingly, came back to tie the game at 6. Then Clippard blew it in the 10th. Also not surprisingly, the Nats came back again in the 10th, but Steve Cishek managed. A disappointing result because we Nats fans are used to the team winning games like this. But this team has shown a remarkable resilience, so no reason for much worry.

The Nats lost a game to the Braves, but still have a 6.5-game cushion. Still 2.5 games up for the NL #1 seed. Ross Detwiler vs. Mark Buehrle this afternoon.

Indians 7, Twins 6

At the other end of the spectrum, the Jays got off to a good start against the Red Sox thanks to the energetic return of Lawrie who had a lead off double and scored the first run. Rasmus broke out of his slump with a triple and a home run. The triple hit the base of the wall at the 420 foot mark in the outfield triangle. His homer only made it over the fence at the 380 foot mark. Rasmus seems to feed off Lawrie’s energy. When they bat first and second, good things happen.