News You Can Use - Sun 9/16

[Frayed Knot]

* Duque hurtin and uncertain:
He won't make his sked start on Monday (Pelfrey instead?, maybe Humber?, Brian Lawrence?) and no timetable is known when he will start again.

* The Zephyrs lost - were swept actually - in the PCL championship by Sacramento, so a new haul of players is back in Queens: Joe Smith, David Newhan, Anderson Hernandez, and Brian Lawrence.

* Ramon Castro is also back (as of Saturday) but he was taking himself in and out of rehab games and I think his status for the playoff roster is still up in the air.

* Heard a few minutes with former NYM/current Zephyr color man Ron Swoboda on the radio last night. He was surprisingly honest in some of his opinions of N.O. players:
- Joe Smith: Never got the velocity back that he had earlier in the season
- Anderson Hernandez (Org's minor league player of the year): Has talent but doesn't bring it everyday, has lapses both offensively and defensively
- Humber: Fastball is straight, can't succeed at AAA much less the majors unless he controls his curveball

* Saturday's HP Ump Dan Iassongna seems to have been in a bit of a vindictive mood.
During the telecast, after Reyes visibly rolled his eyes at strike 2 early in the game, Gary Cohen speculated that he better be ready to swing at the next one. Sure enough the pitch was even worse and he got rung up anyway. Then Marlon Anderson is quoted in today's papers as claiming that Iassonga brought up past disputes immediately after thumbing him in the 9th; "Every time you come to bat you complain"
The Strike 3 on him was absurd for anyone who didn't see it and certainly smelled like a payback for something.

[G-Fafif]

The things we take for granted as fans...I explained to my wife the ol' "anything close, he better swing" unwritten rule, that a vindictive umpire can act as lord of the feudal manor and declare any ball a strike if he so chooses out of pique and the players are utterly subject to such whims.

She was aghast. As I continue to be. Complaining about umpiring is as old as Julio Franco, but 2007 seems worse than ever in this respect. And this crew was begging for projectiles aimed their way.