Jamie Moyer wants to make love in this club (HEEEEEYYYY) in this club

Jamie Moyer is really quite something. Just to be clear - this post isn't going to be the typical "Moyer is so goddamn crafty I could spit" piece. I'm going to focus more on the horror that is watching this guy go through a lineup. Every single time I watch him heel-toe it out to the mound I get nervous. There are only a few pitchers on the Phillies that make me comfortable to watch and he isn't one of them. (That list, by the by, is one name long - Cole Hamels.) Last season I almost couldn't bring myself to watch Jamie Moyer starts until the 4th inning or so. I did this a few times because by the 4th inning or so, you could get a fairly decent idea of whether this would be a face-punchingly frustrating baseball game to watch.

Today. Moyer tossed six plus innings and gave up only a single run. If there was a gun to my head I couldn't tell you how it happened. Journalists and announcers get positively horny when they talk about his veteran leadership, deceptiveness, pitchability, guts and guile. Typically these are all nice adjectives used to describe a pitcher whom - for lack of a better phrase - sucks balls. Oh really? He's a veteran? He uses guts to get hitters out? Well, Jesus, Ed. Why didn't you say so? Give that man a 10 year contract! Seriously, these things are nice in principal but since they are impossible to quantify I'll take the guy who is able to make hitters fail in their attempts to hit the ball over a guy who uses "guile" instead of "ability".

When one takes a look at the Brewers' line-up you've got to admit they can really score some runs and all but one of their best hitters are right-handed. These right-handed sluggers, Rickie Weeks, Cory Hart, Bill Hall and Ryan Braun beat the living snot out of lefties last year. Also, Prince Fielder (the only lefty of the group) hit two home runs last night against Hamels who is left handed just like Moyer. Oops. Anyways, match=ups didn't exactly favor our hero on this particular day.

I suppose when a guy has been alive for 45 years and pitching for most of those years he grows accustomed to it. The wind-up, the raising and lowering of the front leg and letting go of the same ball for the millionth time likely doesn't seem like something that should strike fear in a person watching it happen. However, every time Jamie Moyer throws a pitch I lose a little hair, the remaining hair grows a touch grey and I forget 10 more things I used to know. I age horribly watching him pitch. What in God's name is keeping these professional hitters from pummeling the crap out of this guy? IT'S A CHANGE-UP, PEOPLE!! HE DIDN'T REINVENT THE WHEEL! HE JUST MADE IT ROLL A LOT SLOWER!! I imagine this is what hitting coaches scream and their hitters after they are early on a change-up and roll over it for a weak ground ball out.

Ever watch a guy shoot an apple off of another guy's head? Neither have I, but that's something akin to the high-wire act that is Jamie Moyer trying to get big league hitters out. If the guy misses by just a little, tiny bit that's it - the guy with the apple on his head is dead. He's just been shot in the face with an arrow by a guy he used to think was his friend and now is just the person who will forever be known as the guy that shot somebody in the face with an arrow. And where does one even get a bow and arrow nowadays? And what the hell ever happened to CHiPS? OK, stop now. While the stakes aren't as high as they would be were the possibility of getting shot in the face with an arrow involved, the stakes for Moyer's pitching are high enough to make my stomach try to escape through my face.

The absolute bottom of the pit of despair that is watching this guy pitch comes when he falls behind in the count. When this happens a few things turn against him: 1) he, more than most pitchers, can't afford to walk people because due to his inability to miss bats he's going to give up hits 2) he has to throw a fastball which is relatively misleading when it's referred to as such and worst of all 3) the hitters know all of this. What does this do? Well, to keep with the absurd metaphor previously used, the wire gets higher and thinner and the apple shrinks to the size of a Lima bean and the guy's head becomes the size of a Volkswagen. Shit. Bad news for everyone involved.

The fortuitous situation this puts the batter in sometimes backfires simply because they react like a little kid. By that I mean they swing really hard, miss and fall down. I doubt that messes with their confidence much because, ya know, they're professional baseball players but that's about the only hope when Moyer's third change-up in a row sails outside to Prince Fielder.

Whatever, it's over, I won't have to watch another Moyer start until next week. That's years form now. Let's see who's starting tomorrow.......oh Jesus Christ.