Mariners @ Dodgers April 14, 2015: David Huff Is A Real Person

You knew that David Huff was coming up to start tonight, right? This isn’t really news. We knew this yesterday, and we all but certainly knew that Darwin Barney would be optioned down to make room. That’s what happened. Huff up, Barney down.

Mariners
Dodgers
7:10 p.m.
Los Angeles, Ca.
LF
Weeks
SS
Rollins
CF
Jackson
LF
Crawford
2B
Cano
1B
Gonzalez
RF
Cruz
2B
Kendrick
3B
Seager
C
Grandal
C
Zunino
RF
Ethier
SS
Miller
3B
Uribe
1B
Bloomquist
CF
Pederson
P
Iwakuma (R)
P
Huff (L)

Dustin went over who Huff is a few weeks back, trying his best to come up with complimentary things to say, but ultimately it doesn’t really matter. Set those expectations properly. If you’re expecting Huff to go out and throw six innings, you’re doing it wrong. He won’t, nor should he be expected to. He’s simply the long man who happens to be starting a bullpen game, and if he works into the fourth inning without getting killed, I think I’ll be blown away.

But listen, no one cares that much about David Huff. (Sorry!) The news today is partially that Yasiel Puig is sitting to rest a sore left hamstring, and mostly that the uptight old guard of the game have succeeded in pounding the fun out of him:

Puig said recently he intends to cut down on his trademark bat flips, if only because he is sensitive to how they might be perceived.

Though acknowledging that some fans are entertained by his theatrics, Puig said in Spanish, “I want to show American baseball that I’m not disrespecting the game.

NO. No! Yasiel, no! Don’t listen to them. We love the bat flips. Love ’em. Maybe even more so when you do it on balls that don’t actually go out of the park. Because hey, why would a sport that’s constantly trying to deal with accusations that it’s having difficulty connecting with younger viewers want to showcase a superstar doing incredible things?

Damn straight.

Oh, and Juan Uribe is back in the lineup tonight, because despite the reaction of some fans that Alex Guerrero is suddenly somehow an irreplaceable must-start demigod, Don Mattingly isn’t completely out of his mind. On this topic, anyway.

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About Mike Petriello

Mike writes about lots of baseball in lots of places, and right now that place is MLB.com.