When Mitch Talbot’s injury was made public, a week or so after the inciting incident, I was not in a particularly good mood. I felt that the team had intentionally misled reporters and lied to fans.
Perhaps I shouldn’t get so worked up about things like these—things that don’t really matter much in the larger context. A mature person would have taken the team’s deception in stride, realizing that more important things are happening in the world these days than a silly baseball team and their guarded relationship with the press. Yes. That’s what a mature person would do.
This is the part of the story where you find out that I am not a mature person. Rather than moving on, I continued my little rant. When Columbus announced that David Huff would be taking Jeanmar Gomez’s turn in the rotation (so that Gomez would be ready to replace Talbot in the rotation), I decided to make what was probably mean-spirited comment.
Here’s the twitter feed:
Now you may remember that last season David Huff got himself in some trouble when he tweeted about being called up before the team announced it. The team was so mad that they reneged on the deal and decided to call up Josh Tomlin instead. The rest, as they say, is history. David Huff has not pitched in a Major League game since.
I imagine this might be a touchy subject. I also, if you will recall, am not mature.
Luckily, David seemed to take it well. At least I think that’s what this means:
Now that I think about it, maybe he didn’t take it all that well? Either way, it made me chuckle, and immediately put me in a better mood about the whole Talbot-deception.
Which, I must say, is the first time in quite a while that David Huff has put me in a good mood. To say the least, he’s had a rough stretch on the North Coast. His career ERA is 5.84. He has struck out fewer than 4.5 batters per nine and walked more than three. As I’ve written several times, he doesn’t do anything particularly well, and that’s not a recipe for success at the big league level. That’s not a recipe for success anywhere, I wouldn’t imagine.
On the other hand, I’ve always had a soft-spot for David Huff. And though I’m not particularly proud of this fact, I have on more than one occasion compared his potential to that of a young Cliff Lee. That comparison is obviously nonsense, but David Huff doesn’t have to be a terrible pitcher. He can throw 93 mph as a left handed pitcher. He has three decent pitches. He has had some intermittent success, and appears to be an adjustment or three away from putting it all together. I still believe this can happen. I really do.
But if it weren’t for Carlos Carrasco’s “tight elbow”, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be writing about David Huff’s potential again. I’m pretty sure that David Huff knows this too.
Last Chance, Davey.
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AP Photo/Amy Sancetta
