The Morning Wood- 06/22/2006

Stud: Jose Reyes
What do you want from me? No more NBA/NHL Finals, I didn't pay much attention to the World Cup yesterday. Reyes hit for the cycle last night in a 6-5 Mets loss. Now if they could only teach him to pitch.

Honorable Mention: Two young talented AL East lefties: Erik Bedard and Jon Lester. Bedard should be spelling his name with a K after his 8 inning, 12 strikeout performance. Lester pitched 6 innings, K'ing 10, the high number for the Red Sox on the year. Frank Robinson said it was the most beautiful thing he's experienced since this and then he cried.

Dud: Billy Wagner.
4 years, 43 million dollars. 4 blown saves so far this season. 43 batteries thrown at him in Citizens Park. Per night, that is. Anyone else think that the Mets might be regretting the length of this deal last night as Wagner was topping out at 91 MPH? Where's John Franco when you need a soft throwing lefty?

Talk Around the Cooler:

Ozzie Guillen calls Jay Mariotti a homosexual slur and then tries to play it off as a cultural thing, explaining that "f@g" doesn't refer to someone's sexuality in Guillen land. Let's hope he accuses people of being racist when they accuse him of being homophobic. Ozzie, learn from Marshall Mathers, do a salsa duet with this guy and you're off the hook.

Roger Clemens returns to the majors tonight in Houston against the Twins in an interesting match up with phenom Francisco Liriano, who was still crapping himself when Roger made his major league debut. My prediction: Clemens throws 5 innings, gives up three runs, the crowd gives him a massive ovation when he leaves, and Lirano pitches a better game.

Quick Hits...
Rasho Nesterovic was traded for Eric Williams and Matt Bonner, securing the superlative of Ugliest Trade Ever in the NBA. Kerry Wood's season could be over. Enough is enough, he's less reliable than this guy. Lance Armstrong and Dick Pound are having a cat fight about something. Pound called Armstrong's letter to the IOC "silly". Pardon me, and I'm certainly no Lance Armstrong fan, but I don't think I would be calling anything "silly" if my name was Dick Pound. The U.S.A. soccer team has probably already started losing to Ghana. But not in terms of food availability! ESPN's Rachel Nichols reports that the Heat went through 22 bottles of Cristal on their plane ride home from Dallas. She failed to mention how many diaphragms she went through however.