Jason Grilli Is a Terrible Person Vol: 138

Today was perfect. I woke up early and went to class for one of the last times in my life. I got called on by my professor and aced all the questions he asked me. I left school in the early afternoon and when I went outside it was beautiful. Sun-shining, blue skies, high 60's temperature, gentle breeze. I played catch for about an hour, I saw a little Asian toddler feeding a squirrel bread crumbs, I held out my arm and a couple of cute animated bluebirds alighted on my forearm and started whistling "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes," from Cinderella. Or did they whistle "Don't Know What You Got (Till Its Gone)" by Cinderella? I can't remember but either way it was pretty awesome. So what could possibly ruin this beautiful afternoon? What kind of cold-hearted, terrible, sick, perverse person could possibly ruin this magnificent, marvelous, splendid, stunning, phantasma-fucking-goric spring afternoon? Who I ask? Who else but Jason Grilli.

I know, I know, everything is wrong with the Tigers right now and it's completely unfair to place all of the blame for the teams struggles on one middle relief pitcher. Is it Grilli's fault that Miguel Cabrera is hitting .100 after the first week of the season (maybe)? Is Grilli responsible for the bad luck the Tigers have experienced in the first few weeks of the season (probably)? Has Grilli's mere precense in the bullpen made all of the other relief pitchers ineffective, like he's some sort of human kryptonite towards good pitching (definitely yes)? But it's so much fun to have a scapegoat, and since there are no Irishmen on the team, I'm placing all the blame on Grilli.

While I was watching Grilli implode today many thoughts were raced through my mind. Most of them involved some kind of tortuous grisly demise for Grilli, such as that hawk that flies around Fenway swooping down and plucking his eyeballs, and another thought that involved a gnome riding a sleigh pulled by rabbits and chipmunks, which kind of made me happy for a second. Then Grilli walked in a run and the rage returned. By the time I snapped back into consciousness I was naked, covered in blood and had piles of panther carcasses piled up around my apartment. I don't really know what happened during those few hours but I picture it looking like a scene from 28 Weeks Later or to a lesser extent Rob Schneider's "The Animal."

Seriously though, when I watched the game I couldn't help but wonder what kind of pitches does Grilli even throw? Of course there is his bread and butter pitch that can only be described as a 94MPH 4 seam cockshot with just enough movement to swing back over the heart of the plate, but what are his other pitches? From what I saw today I think they are an 87MPH BP fastball that he can't locate and another pitch that clocks in at 79MPH, which I think is supposed to be a changeup but since it bounces three feet in front of home plate every time he throws it I can't say for certain. The only thing I do know for certain is that Grilli doesnt seem to possess one major league caliber pitch in his whole repertoire of shit. The Red Sox were just teeing off on him this afternoon and the damage would have been much worse had Cabrera not flopped onto the ground and stabbed a grounder by Manny that almost certainly saved two runs. Grilli just had absolutley no chance against the Sox and if I didn't hate him so much I might have felt bad about him being completely overmatched and helpless on the mound. However, as much as I enjoy seeing Grilli twist in the wind I realize that he's hurting the team in the process. Wait, I don't mean hurt, I mean absolutely killing any chance his team has at winning while also completely demoralizing an entire fan base.

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Another thing that drives me nuts about The Cheese Man is his seeming complete lack of accountability after he melts down on the mound. I don't ever think I've ever heard or read from Grilli after a game he lost where he said, "Yeah, I know I sucked ass-barf tonight and it's completely my fault that we lost the game 24-1 mainly because I walked 96 batters in a row." If anything I always seem to read that he was testy after the game or wouldn't answer questions from the media at all or was upset about the lack of support from the home crowd.

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Look, if I went into court and forgot to wear pants, stammered a bunch of racial slurs during my opening statement and then accidently set my case notes on fire while listening to testimony and my client finally lost patience and yelled out, "Why I declare, Mr. Adonis X. Wisdom Esq. that you maybe the worst god damn barrister the great state of Alabama has ever seen." I wouldn't get pissed at him or moody in fact I would probably take responsibility and return to him the sandwich he had paid me on retainer. If I were a teammate this lack of accountability would drive me nuts about Grilli. For example if I were a respected veteran and somewhat crazy like Sheffield I would go up to Grilli and say, "I'm keeping it straight Grilli. I've been in the bigs for two decades and I've played with a lot of sucky white dudes...like.....um...that guy with the Brewers....Chuck Crim or some shit, but you are the suckiest suck that I've ever seen suck."

I need to wrap this shit up, so from my possibly irrational and biased point of view I think this is a got-to-go situation. Grilli has had his chance, several of them, so many in fact that for a split second I actually questioned Leyland's decision to bring Grilli into the game today and I've never questioned anything Leyland has done before. I trust Leyland so much that he could tell me it's a good idea to turn to hardcore drugs as a cure for my crippling anxiety and depression and I would probably do it. Grilli just can't get guys out and putting him on the mound doesnt give the Tigers the best chance, wait no, ANY chance of winning and if he comes back to Detroit and blows up on the mound again it's going to be ugly as the Tigers fans have absolutely no patience for him anymore. It's past the point of no return.

One last thing. On Grilli's MySpace he sells t-shirts that have a picture of him pitching with his arm blurred out and the headline "Grilli's Gone Wild" with a tagline of "It's Filthy." Jesus Christ. When I become Emperor of the World in about 20 years I'm going to invite everyone that purchased one of those shirts to a special free screening of "Meet The Spartans." When the lights dim and the movie starts the audience will be shocked to see the movie is just clips of Grilli giving up doubles and homeruns with footage of me laughing spliced in between. As the moviegoers became confused gas would start creeping in from the vents and.....well I don't want to ruin the surprise.