Fun With Chip and Ron

By now, saying that Chip Caray and Ron Darling have made the first 2 games of the series borderline unwatchable would be a waste of breath and finger use.  So instead, let's just document their idiocy from last night and make fun of them.  Cool?  Cool.

*"Minnesota has lead every game against the Yankees this year."

I think the TBS production crew deserves just as much blame here as Chip and Ron for flashing the graphic showing how late in each game Minnesota had held the lead.  But when one of those games shows "Lead Game in 1st," that hardly constitutes leading the game.  It was in the May series at Yankee Stadium which means the Yankees hadn't even had a chance to hit yet when the Twins held the lead.  That's like saying Jeff Gordon is leading the Daytona 500 during the pace laps just because he's starting from the pole.  You would think one of them would have had the intelligence to point out that the game in which the Twins led in the first inning lead hardly matters, but no, they lumped that game in with the rest to keep hammering home the point that Minnesota can't hold leads against the Yankees.

* "He's a championship-caliber player for New York and he's won a few with the Yankees."- Ron Darling, talking about Hideki Matsui during his 2nd-inning at-bat last night.

Ron, Ron, Ron.  If you're going to discuss things as fact, you could at least double check them before blindly blurting them out on national television.  It took me all of 13 seconds to log onto Wikipedia and bring up Matsui's page, which you can check out here.  A quick once over of this page will show that since joining the Yankees in 2003, Matsui has not won any titles because the Yankees have not won any titles.

If you don't have the time to check the facts, then just do a little critical thinking.  The Yankees' last WS appearance was in 2003, but they lost to Florida.  Before that, they lost to Arizona in 2001, and before THAT, they beat the Mets, the team you do color commentary for all season on SNY, in the Subway Series in 2000.  I didn't even need a computer for that.

Worse than Darling blabbing this nonsense was Chip, a long-time announcer and someone who should know something about who won which championships when, not stepping in to correct him.  It's almost like they're both oblivious to the fact that other is in the booth.

*"It's hard to judge Nick Punto by the numbers."- Caray in the 3rd inning during Punto's first at-bat.

No it isn't.  Numbers and statistics are there for that exact reason, to document just how good or bad a player is to take the subjectivity out of it.  Another quick search on ESPN.com can bring you to Nick Punto's page, where one can clearly see that it is quite easy to judge him by the numbers.  His career OPS, the simplest and most accurate way to determine how good a hitter is, is .646, almost 100 points below the league average.  This season it was .621 and in 2007, the season in which Punto played a career high 150 games, it was .562.  Punto has never hit more than 4 home runs in a season, has never driven in more than 45 runs in a season, has never scored more than 73 runs in a season, and has never slugged higher than .382.

And these are just the basic numbers.  Sabermetrics that can compare Punto to all other players in baseball would show that he is statistically amongst the lowest-rated infielders offensively.  He is a lifetime jobber, a player out there merely for his ability to play more than one position and yes, it is actually very easy to judge Nick Punto by the numbers and have those numbers reflect just how mediocre a player he is.

*"In, out.  In, out.  Soft, hard.  Up, down."- Darling in the top of the 5th discussing Nick Blackburn's strategy of working both sides of the plate against the Yankee batters.

This was just damn funny.  If a blind man walked in while Ron said this, he would have throught you were watching porn.  At the moment it was said, I was at the fridge grabbing myself a beer and I hustled back to the TV to see just what he was describing.

It was actually a legitimate point and a point worth pointing out by Darling because at that point in the game, Blackburn had been shutting out the Yankees, but anytime an older dude says "in, out, in, out, soft, hard, up, down," it's fucking funny.  If Viagra were smart, they would sign Darling as a spokesman and just run a 15-second ad of him repeating that slogan while a voiceover discussed the benefits of Viagra and reminded you to seek medical attention if your boner lasts longer than 4 hours.

*"I think they had that written down in highlighted marker pen."- Caray in the top of the 7th, describing how determined the Yankees were to not let Joe Mauer beat them.

OK, Chip, let's review this.  There are highlighters...

There are markers...

And there are pens...

I don't know where you shop for office supplies, but I have never seen a highlighted marker pen anywhere and don't know exactly how one would look or what you would use it for if one did exist.

After last night, I'm thinking these 2 need to make like Champ Kind and just stop talking for a while.