AaronGleeman.com

Especially when the room is on the second floor, at the end of the hallway and without air conditioning.

Especially when you have to park like 50 miles away and bring all the stuff through the entire parking lot before you even get to the building.

Especially when it is like 90 degrees and humid outside.

And extra especially when you are doing all of this for one specific reason: School is going to start again on Tuesday!

I know a lot of people really like school, particularly college.

But I hate it.

There are certainly aspects of it that I enjoy, but as a whole, I am here so I can be done with school.

I want to be done reading textbooks for hours at a time, I want to be done writing papers about stuff I don't care about and I want to be done taking tests.

And even if I finish school and I am not done doing all those things (if for some reason I have a job that requires them) I at least want to get paid for doing them!

Ok, enough anti-school talk.

You know you are in trouble when you just wrote 200 words on a Baseball Blog about how much you are sick of school...and you are about to start your sophomore year!

On to the baseball...

Last night the A's extended their winning streak to 17 games by (once again) beating my Minnesota Twins.

Eric Chavez drove in the winning runs in the 8th inning with a broken bat blooper that missed Luis Rivas' glove by about an inch, somehow finding its way into centerfield.

But that is the sort of stuff that needs to happen if you want to have a 17 game winning streak.

The Twins did manage to score the first earned runs off of Cory Lidle this month.

The Twins once again got good starting pitching (7 IP and 3 ER from Kyle Lohse), but this time their bullpen failed them.

J.C. Romero, who has been awesome all year, gave up 3 runs off of 2 hits and 2 walks in 2/3 of an inning, and got the loss, dropping to 8-2 (with a 1.87 ERA).

I am always upset when the Twins lose, especially in a close game like last night, but as least I can get some happiness in knowing that I was right about not wanting to play the A's in the playoffs.

In other news...

I just read that the Marlins are considering letting A.J. Burnett pitch again this season, "to test his elbow."

This strikes me as something that is incredibly dumb, although that would certainly not be anything new for the Marlins.

Apparently they want him to throw a few innings in a game in September to see whether or not he needs surgery.

Whether or not he needs surgery?!?!

So there is a chance he already needs surgery and a) they don't know it and b) they want him to pitch again.

Absolutely incredible...

The Red Sox are saying that Pedro Martinez might miss his next start (against the Yankees).

Pedro is apparently being bothered by a sore hip and will be getting and MRI on it sometime soon.

I wrote about how dumb I thought it was for the Red Sox to let him throw so many pitches in his last start against the Yankees, so it didn't suprise me when I read that he might miss his next start.

However, it did surprise me that the reason was a sore hip, which I don't think could be traced to throwing more pitches (although I guess technically it could).

But it does go back to my main point about Pedro's last start, which is that he is one of the greatest and most fragile pitchers ever and needs to be "babied" as much as possible (which the Red Sox usually are good at).

So to let him throw 130 pitches makes no sense to me.

That would be like making your kid wear a helmet and pads everywhere he goes so he doesn't get hurt and then letting him play with a set of steak knives.

Man, I am the king of analogies, aren't I?

The Giants are on a roll, having won 7 in a row, including the last two against Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling.

I personally think the Giants have been disappointing all season long.

When you have the two best offensive players in your league (and one is having one of the top 5 seasons ever) and a pretty good pitching staff, you should be doing a lot better than 2nd place in the Wild Card standings.

The main reason they are not doing better is their inability to surround Bonds and Kent with quality hitters.

They have given 340 ABs to J.T. Snow, 340 ABs to Tsuyoshi Shinjo, 139 ABs to Tom Goodwin and 136 ABs to Shawon Dunston.

And that isn't even counting the ABs for Rich Aurilia, Reggie Sanders and Kenny Lofton, who are all below league average offensive (according to EqA, so don't email me to say they play in a tough hitters park, because I know).

I am not sure how much of this is Brian Sabean's (the GM) fault or Dusty Baker's (the Manager) fault, but I suspect it is a little of both.

Cashman signed and/or traded for Snow and Shinjo, etc., but Dusty is the guy making out the lineup card that starts with things like:

1) Goodwin - CF

2) Dunston - RF

I do hope that the Giants make the playoffs, because I would love to see Bonds hit about .400/.750/1.250 in October.

And finally, just because I am a jerk...

Remember when I mentioned that Charles Nagy was done? (I believe my exact words were, "Stick a fork in Charles Nagy, he's done.")

Well, Nagy started for the Indians today against Boston in what was quite possibly the biggest gambling "lock" of all-time (Boston -210 with Wakefield pitching against Nagy).

Chuck and duck didn't make it out of the 2nd inning, giving up 5 runs on 7 hits, two of which were homers.

His ERA is now 9.06, which is coincidently what I got on my SATs I think.

Mark Shapiro (the Indians GM) has done a decent job acquiring good prospects (like Brandon Phillips) for veteran players, but he has simply stalled the rebuilding process when he failed to trade other guys like Jim Thome, Omar Vizquel, Ellis Burks, Matt Lawton, Bob Wickman, etc.

He has said that he is aiming to contend again in like 2004 or 2005.

First of all, guys on the wrong side of 30, like Thome, Vizquel and Burks might be good players now, but in 3-4 years when they are approaching 35?

And second of all, the rebuilding process would be helped an awful lot by acquiring more good prospects and young players for your valuable veterans.

I just don't get the thinking.

You have older guys who are good (and valuable) now, but who probably won't be as good when you are aiming to contend again.

But for some reason you don't trade them for younger players that will help you contend again.