Filthy Pitches

It’s time for Jose Melendez’s KEYS TO THE GAME.

1. Jonathan Papelbon has a new pitch. He calls it the slutter. Really.

It’s too easy isn’t it? It’s like making fun of former Congressman Dick Swett.

This is the sort of thing Jose normally hates, like the name Coco Crisp, because it makes things far too simple for those who are less adept and wordplay than Jose. It just lowers the bar. Still, he can’t help but be enchanted by the name of this fastball-slider hybrid.

Slutter.

Slutter, slutter, slutter, slutter, slutter.

It just rolls off the tongue doesn’t it?

Well, if Paps is going to go the misogynistic route for his new patented pitch, we should probably go that way on a few other famous pitches right?

A friendly note to sensitive readers. This is likely to get unpleasant and make you think less of Jose, a lot less. Consider skipping this and moving on to KEY 2, a delightful little satire on the state of Florida. Please. Jose can’t stand your accusing glances and the sense that you are totally disappointed in him.

• Mariano Rivera’s Cut Fastball: The Nasty Whore(side)
• Tim Wakefield’s Knuckle Ball: The Five Knuckle Shuffle (note: not technically misogynistic, just dirty.)
• Pedro Martinez’s Change Up: The Filthy Martinez
• Dice-K’s Gyroball: The Hooker With the Heart of Gold (Note: Because they both sound appealing, but don’t actually exist.)
• DLowe the Paranoid Android’s Back Door Curveball, You Know the One He Got Terrence Long With: The Back Door Hooker

Thanks Papelbon. Look at what you’ve made Jose do.

2. A curious piece of news emerged yesterday as Curt Euro expressed interest in playing in Tampa next year if the Red Sox do not resign him.

At first, Jose found this perplexing. Curt is an ultracompetitive guy, he loves to win, so why would he consider going to the worst franchise in Major League Baseball. Sure they have some young talent, but that’s been the case for years and they’ve never been anything other than awful. And yes, Joe Maddon seems like a good manager, but it’s not like Curt would ever go to a team for the manager, right Tito?

Jose kept rolling it over and over in his head. Why? Why? So he can play in a dome? So he can be on a 90 game loser? And then it hit Jose like a Pedro fastball to that little b*tch Jorge Posada. It was a lesson from his frequent trips to “the continent” as the aristocrats call it. Euros love Florida. Inexplicably, Euros absolutely adore the place. All over Europe, travel agencies promote places like Fort Myers and St. Petersburg as exotic destinations for Euros looking for a taste of the new world. So Jose figures Curt is no different, the lure of sun, sand and seniors is simply too much for him, or any other Euro, to resist.

3. Jonathan Papelbon last night became the first pitcher in Red Sox history ever to have two 30 save seasons with the team. Moreover, he became the first professional athlete of any kind in Boston to have two 30 save seasons since Andy Moog. (Note: Jose doesn’t watch much hockey and more, but the Bruins have probably had a goalie or two somewhere in there who isn’t that horrible. Or maybe not. At least Jose is sure that Blaine Lacher never had consecutive 30 save seasons.)

While the accomplishment sounds underwhelming when one first hears it, it is shocking that Papelbon is the first to do it given some of the names who have closed for the Red Sox, such as Jeff Reardon, Lee Smith, Tom Gordon and Dick Radatz. This is of course, in sharp contrast to Red Sox who have had two 30 blown save seasons, which Jose figures must include Heathcliff Sloccumb, Jeff Russell, Ken Ryan, or maybe it just felt like they blew 30 a year.

I’m Jose Melendez, and those are my KEYS TO THE GAME.