{"id":7557,"date":"2010-07-09T11:20:16","date_gmt":"2010-07-09T18:20:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=7557"},"modified":"2010-07-09T11:20:17","modified_gmt":"2010-07-09T18:20:17","slug":"luke-warm-july-9-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=7557","title":{"rendered":"Luke Warm: July 9, 2010"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Landestoy Luke<\/p><\/div>\n

By Landestoy Luke<\/p>\n

How about Joey T. having to emphasize I wasn\u2019t part of the staff? I think it\u2019s a ploy to make sure he doesn\u2019t have to cover me at the next Mid Valley banquet at the Steer \u2018N\u2019 Ale. Whatever gets you through the day,\u00a0Mr. T.<\/p>\n

What gets Dodger fans through the day? Knowing that the Padres are overachieving. Problem is, Blue ilk, it\u2019s not the Padres that should be focused on. The best team in this division is managed by the king of asking himself his own questions at press conferences. I\u2019m talking about Jim Tracy and the\u00a0Colorado Rockies. They stumbled a little out of the gate, but they\u2019ve got themselves within three games of the Friars in the NL West at 47-38. They\u2019ve done all this despite losing\u00a0Todd Helton\u00a0(but he was stinking up the joint anyway),\u00a0SS Troy Tulowitzki\u00a0(who wasn\u2019t stinking up the joint), having to demote their starting CF and C (Dexter Fowler\u00a0and\u00a0Chris Iannetta) and just getting closer\u00a0Huston Street\u00a0back. What\u2019s the secret? Stellar pitching from Cy front-runner\u00a0Ubaldo Jimenez\u00a0and unexpected performances from C Miguel Olivo and\u00a0SP Jhoulys Chacin. LF Carlos Gonzlaez has also shown flashes of being a future star. The bullpen is pretty solid also, including former El Rancho standout\u00a0Randy Flores\u00a0(there\u2019s your local stuff, Bonita Alum).<\/p>\n

If you want any further proof that\u00a0batting average\u00a0is overrated, guess who is leading the AL in batting average: The\u00a0Kansas City Royals. Guess who is 9th<\/sup> in the AL in runs scored: The Kansas City Royals. \u2018Nuff said.<\/p>\n

Speaking of the Royals, they haven\u2019t sucked lately. They find themselves 8 games back in a weak division after a 5-1 start to the month. New manager Ned Yost has talked about the Royals making a run at the division. OK, now that we\u2019ve all stopped laughing, eeeeeasy Neddie. This team is horrible. They have the worst everyday player in SS Yuniesky Betencourt, a horrible starting staff outside of reigning\u00a0Cy Young winner Zach Grienke\u00a0and a relief staff that\u2019s a disaster outside of All-Star\u00a0Joakim Soria. Nothing could get this team to contend\u2026not even minor league hurler and Rosemead High alum Henry Barrera (there\u2019s a second local reference Bonita Alum\u2026it\u2019s like freakin\u2019 Christmas for you). I dunno if Neddie is hitting the purple drank with JaMarcus, but the only thing the Royals are contending for is an even more pointless existence in\u00a0Major League Baseball.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t forget to follow me on\u00a0Twitter: #LandestoyLuke. It\u2019s the best thing you\u2019ll ever do for yourself.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve done such a great job, I\u2019m taking the next 3 days off. See all of ya\u00a0on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Landestoy Luke is a former semi-pro baseball player in the California-Nevada\u00a0Independent League. As a member of the Henderson Florencias, he set the CNIL record for most balks in an inning with 4.\u00a0 After the 4th<\/sup> balk call, he shoved former\u00a0major league umpire\u00a0Dave Pallone and served a 31-day suspension. After spending some time as an advance scout in the Mexicali League, Luke now spends his time as a freelance writer.<\/em><\/p>\n


\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Landestoy Luke How about Joey T. having to emphasize I wasn\u2019t part of the staff? I think it\u2019s a ploy to make sure he doesn\u2019t have to cover me at the next Mid Valley banquet at the Steer \u2018N\u2019 Ale. Whatever gets you through the day,\u00a0Mr. T.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[2252,908,434,3378,27],"class_list":["post-7557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-bonita-alum","tag-el-rancho","tag-henry-barrera","tag-randy-flores","tag-rosemead"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7557"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7559,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7557\/revisions\/7559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}