becoming worse than the Pirates and almost as bad as the Nationals

basically, what i am asking is if the washburn/waiver wire saga is over?

Matchup: White Sox (68-52) at Athletics (55-65), 7:05 p.m. PT
Probable Starters: Gavin Floyd (140 2/3 IP, 4.93 RA, 1.26 WHIP, 99 K) vs. Dallas Braden (37, 4.62, 1.41, 23)
Pythagorean Record: Chicago, 68-52 (607 RS, 526 RA); Oakland, 60-60 (480 RS, 477 RA)
Hit List Rankings: Chicago, #5; Oakland, #17
Prospectus: The White Sox blasted the Royals in historic fashion yesterday afternoon, getting back-to-back-to-back-to-back home runs by Jim Thome, Paul Konerko, Alexei Ramirez, and Juan Uribe in the sixth inning of a 9-2 rout. Chicago became the sixth team to hit four straight home runs, and the third in the last three years. The 2006 Dodgers pulled off the feat in thrilling fashion—Jeff Kent, J.D. Drew, Russell Martin, and Marlon Anderson all left the yard in the bottom of the ninth to erase a 9-5 deficit in a game that LA won 11-10 in the tenth on a Nomar Garciaparra two-run blast—while last April 22 the Red Sox battered Yankees’ rookie Chase Wright in his second major league appearance with third-inning Fenway shots from Manny Ramirez, J.D. Drew (remarkably involved in his second superfecta), Mike Lowell, and Jason Varitek. The other teams with four in a row are the 1964 Twins, 1963 Indians, and 1961 Reds.

The Athletics also had a bit of history made in their afternoon tilt yesterday, as the first run crossed the plate in a major league game against side-arming right-hander Brad Ziegler after 39 straight scoreless innings. Ziegler had already set the record for consecutive scoreless frames to begin a career, and he tied Al Benton of the 1949 Indians for the overall mark by a relief pitcher with a scoreless eighth, before B.J. Upton got to him with a double to left field that scored Akinori Iwamura. The rookie’s remarkable feat was best summed up by his postgame quote: “I didn’t think about the streak until I started walking back on the mound. The first thought that popped in my head was, ‘I can’t believe that just happened with a runner on first…’” Ziegler’s streak is tied for the 23rd longest in major league history, and tied for the ninth longest in the last 50 years with Kenny Rogers in 1995 and Ray Culp in ’68, behind Orel Hershiser (59 in ’88), Don Drysdale (58 in ’68), Bob Gibson (47 in ’68), Brandon Webb (42 in ’07), Luis Tiant (41 in ’68), Gaylord Perry (40 in ’67), Tiant again (40 in ’72), and Maddux (39 1/3 in ’00). What makes his season even more impressive is that he gave up just two runs in 24 1/3 innings at Triple-A Sacramento to open the season, and tossed eight in a row without a run before getting the call to Oakland, meaning his overall streak was actually 47 innings.

The Twins, whose greatest strength is their starting rotation, decide for no obvious reason, that what they really need to do is move one of those guys to the bullpen so they can replace him with a slightly better version of the giant bag of suck they just unloaded so they could finally bring up the most promising of their many young pitchers. They propose to achieve this by trading a cheap, formerly well regarded prospect at the absolute lowest point of his perceived value.

The M’s, handed this bounty by virtue of this uncharacteristically dunderheaded move by the Twins – an opportunity to unload an expensive, frankly useless (to them) player for at least something of potential value – fuck up the whole thing by making laughable demands (they obviously just forgot to include Mauer, Morneau and the 1977 version of Rod Carew).

That about cover it? Honestly, I’m pissed – the sox would likely have been the biggest beneficiary of this colossal screw up.

http://www.intimidatorsbaseball.com/clubhouse/statistics.asp?stats=g_box&gid=2008_08_15_kanafx_hicafx_1

the two ’84 draft products (2nd round for maddux, 6th for moyer) both started games for the cubs (16 for moyer, 5 for maddux) in ’86. both posted whips north of 1.7. in 2008, well into their 40s (maddux 42, moyer a few months shy of 46), both are posting above average whips (1.35 for moyer, 1.24 for maddux).