Note to self

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Dear Self,

Brett Tomko is not good. There is nothing good he does on the mound to merit the consideration of him possibly being good.

Self, please don't talk about Tomko's "stuff" anymore -- banish such thoughts from straying into the vast wasteland that often doubles as your mind. Tomko's well into his 30's, and if he were to magically "get it" or "put it all together", it would've happened somewhere around April...of 2001.

Tomko could be a serviceable 5th starter if he made league minimum, but that's it, Self. No more.

Sincerely,

Your other self (no, not THAT one, the other one)
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Fourth inning, and here comes Mr. MopUp, Jeff Fassero, who is probably going to throw four shutout innings to solidy the "Brain" Sabean's likely growing inclination to sign the 52,674 year-old lefty hander (edit: I lied, it only ended up being three shutout innings), despite the fact that the list of successful 40-plus year-old pitchers is very short, and usually has names like Johnson and Clemens on it.

Tomko, after he was taken out after the 3rd, did the obligatory abuse the Gatorade container (edit: found out the damned thing was a sunflower seed bucket...whatever)...hey, why is it that there's always an empty one of those things just lying around for frustrated ballplayers to kick? I mean, it's the 3rd inning -- shouldn't that thing still be full of Gatorade? Are there ever frustrated-ballplayer-tirades that are cut short because a guy goes to kick the Gatorade container, only to find it still full of lemon-lime refreshment?

What does the ballplayer do afterwards? Is there a frustrated-object hierarchy that we don't know about?

1. Gatorade container
2. Batting helmets
3. Bats
4. Gloves
5. If none of the above are close by...
6. Cameramen (how's the post-cameraman-abuse pitching going, Kenny?)

The answers to these and many other questions plague me...

UPDATE: As I watched Todd Linden hit a double as a pinch-hitter, I marvelled -- how quickly the Giants get off the young guys. Linden was getting hot, had a four-strikeout game, then promptly had his starting job taken for what...three straight games now? I mean, I would normally be able to buy the Michael Tucker-is-a-left-handed-hitter argument, but Linden switch-hits...

And into the game again comes the uber-useless Jason Christiansen, who will promptly allow a run to cancel out the run the Giants just scored in the bottom of the 6th to pull within three. I call it! (edit: I lied again, as Christiansen has already allowed two runs while only recording one out, and there is a man on 3rd)

Would it be that hard to let Christiansen go? He's only due around $250K on his deal -- he's a sunk cost. Why not cut bait on him? Why keep him? (edit: I just felt like adding another one of these edit-thingies in here just for good measure, in case I didn't have enough already)