Pocket Pair 7/9/12

Hello again folks!  I hope you didn't miss me too much while I was basking in the non-humid heat of the Texas sun.  If you follow me on Twitter then you are well aware of my stops down there.  If I wasn't being a tourist, I was eating and if it wasn't Mexican food, it was burgers.  The best thing I ate in Texas was at the #1 rated burger joint in Austin, Hopdoddy (@hopdoddy).  Their Terlingua burger consists of Angus Beef, Chili con Carne, Corn Fritos, Tillamook Cheddar and Sassy Sauce.  I can't say that I've ever had or ever heard of Tillamook cheddar cheese, nor will I be able to go into depths about the flavor profile because my palate isn't suited for that.  I couldn't decipher the ingredients of the Sassy sauce, nor did I ask someone about it.  I'm not a food blog, but I love eating.  I can tell you that the chili was awesome and the burger was cooked well which made for a very good overall taste.

Outside of stuffing my gullet, I did what other tourists do...looked at famous and not so famous sites.  My wife and I started in Dallas and went to the spot where JFK was assassinated.  We went to San Antonio to check out the Alamo and the River Walk.  We stayed in Austin and went to the University of Texas where my wife was enamored with the turtle pond.

We also saw some weird things along the way including a swarm of 1.5 million bats that live under a bridge in Austin and come out to feed at nighttime.  We went to the underwhelming Museum of the Weird (save your money tourists), saw a 23 foot high spider and a now closed arcade that was built in the shape of a Star Trek ship.

On our way home, back in Dallas (well Arlington, Texas to be exact), I saw another space ship that I am told holds an overrated NFL team.

I was half expecting that behemoth of a monstrosity to start hovering and eventually take off back to the planet from where it came.

BREAKING NEWS: IT HAS BEEN SPOTTED IN SAN FRANCISCO!!! Adios Cowboys!!!

Thank you Flight of the Navigator for helping me out with my humor.

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I missed a lot of sports last week because my wife and her sister were too caught up watching HGTV and Investigation Discovery.  I tried streaming baseball games on my iPad, but the AT&T U-Verse sucked down there and couldn't hold a signal at times.

I can tell you that it is the All-Star break in baseball and my two teams are doing better than expected.  The Oakland Athletics sit at .500 with a 43-43 record thanks to their league leading 8th walk off win of the season.  They can't hit (save for home runs), but they can pitch.  It doesn't seem to matter who they run out to the mound, but they usually turn in a quality effort keeping the offense in the game.  I can easily see both Bartolo Colon and Brandon McCarthy being shipped away at the deadline to more serious contenders.  The Athletics have both Brett Anderson and Dallas Braden coming back from injury in or around August and if Oakland has any shot at adding another young hitter they need to jump at it.  Even though the Athletics sit only 2.5 games out of a playoff spot they are still one or two (or three) good hitters away from a serious playoff push.  Josh Reddick has played out of his mind, but I can't expect another 20 home runs in the second half.

Even with dropping two of three to the lowly Colorado Rockies this weekend, my local favorite team, the Washington Nationals still hold the best record in the National League.  They could be in line to take either of the Athletics starters named above because of the supposed innings limit restriction on All-Star Stephen Strasburg.  Outside of that storm that is forming in the Caribbean the Nationals don't have too many holes to fill.  Even though SS Ian Desmond has played far better than anyone projected, I don't think anybody else on the offense will regress.  Both Michael Morse and Ryan Zimmerman have been either injured or inconsistent all 1st half so a full second half of both of them will be more than enough to offset any drop off by Desmond. The pitching has been excellent and with the addition of Drew Storen to the back end and probably a veteran arm to take the spot of Strasburg it should continue to be the strength of a well balanced team.  The wild card will be rookie Bryce Harper.  Will he continue to get better or hit the rookie wall that most rookies run into in late August.  He's never played this many meaningful games in a single season and being only 19, the toll that it will take is immeasurable.  He sparked the team with his gung-ho attitude, but has quietly taken a back seat with the return of Zimmerman and Morse.  As long as those two produce along with crafty veteran Adam LaRoche, even an extended cold streak by Harper can be negated.