Bleah. Bleah. Bloody thumb, bloody loss. Lowe was okay for the first few innings - RoLo was gold, but I held out hopes that we could chase him out and get to the bullpen. And then the moment we all knew was coming but hoped valiantly wouldn’t happen… To watch Lowe pitch this year is to watch a grown man crumble, to watch $500,000 of his contract go down the tubes with each pitch. You know the implosion is coming; you know that, despite Reese ranging and the swirl of infielders valiantly pursuing the balls in play, it’ll all end in tears. All I want is to see is anger. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
He’s still, amazingly, 4-5 despite that 6.84 ERA. What if being win-lucky is persistent for one or two select folks? What if Lowe is baseball’s Chauncey Gardiner, stumbling into success? What if, what if, what if…? And that’s what I’ve been reduced to when Lowe pitches lately: searching for luck, wishing on a rabbit’s foot, holding myself still not moving not budging hoping that nothing goes terribly wrong. I’ve stopped looking for greatness, stopped looking for the devastating sinker that plows through the strike zone, stopped looking for the parade of ground-ball outs. I just want to survive till the fifth inning, just want to make it through. I just want to be able to exhale.