You're the worst team in the American League. You've gone from six division titles in nine years to a possible second straight season in the cellar. Your pitching and defense is so bad, you need a telescope to spot the next-worst run prevention team in your league. You have one or two impact prospects in your farm system, but they're years away from cracking the majors, let alone making a significant impact. You're Terry Ryan, general manager of the Minnesota Twins. What do you do? What do you do?
In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports on Wednesday.
Despite Rajon Rondo's stellar performance — 44 points, eight assists, and 10 rebounds — the Miami Heat rallied from 15 points down to beat the Celtics 115-111 in overtime to take a 2-0 lead in the Eastern Conference Finals. On a sad note, LeBron James missed a potential game-winning shot at the end of regulation, and the part of his brain where he stores repressed memories of failing under pressure has reached what doctors call "the overflow point," meaning he will soon start to lose other crucial functions. When asked for his thoughts on the subject, James said, "SPAGHETTI! DOGS ARE LIBELOUS! FUN IS A SIMILAR IDEA TO CARDBOARD?"
In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports over the weekend.
A chestnut colt named I'll Have Another won the 138th Kentucky Derby on Saturday. Nobody was happier about the win than Rex Ryan, who celebrated deep into the night until someone told him that the horse wasn't named after his personal food motto. In related news, golfer John Daly is suing the horse for copyright infringement.
The defending NBA champions are out of the playoffs. James Harden scored 29 points and made several late baskets as the Thunder swept the Mavericks with a 103-97 Game 4 win. When he saw the result, a therapist in L.A. sighed, realizing that Metta World Peace would spend the full hour of this week's session expounding on his theory that his vicious elbow from two weeks ago gave Harden superpowers, and that the only way to reverse them is to elbow him again.
Jamie Moyer, 49 years young, just became the oldest dude in the history of old dudes to get a win in Major League Baseball. He threw 87 pitches in seven innings, allowing six hits and two runs (none of them earned) in a 5-3 Rockies win over San Diego. You can watch the highlights here, which are remarkable for the fact that they include a lot of double-play balls and other grounders, but only one strikeout. In fact, Moyer managed to break the 80-miles-per-hour barrier exactly zero times over the course of his historic start. That means his fastest fastball had less velocity than almost every other pitcher's slowest changeup.
Moyer has never been a strikeout pitcher (his highest single-season K/9 rate came in 1987 with the Cubs, a year in which Nolan Ryan led the league), and now … well, now he's the oldest guy to ever win a major league baseball game. So we shouldn't expect a lot of punch-outs. We also shouldn't expect him to leave an inning without giving up roughly 15 runs, but somehow he has the craftiness and guile to leave major league hitters waving at air. It's counterintuitive and absurd, but he's been old for a long time now, and it's still happening.
