The Velvet Fogg?

The Nats dropped a tough one last night to the Rockies, and Jamey Carroll nearly single-handedly beat his old team---which makes Distinguished Senators halfway prescient, which is sort of like being a little pregnant, except if you were halfway prescient there likely wouldn't be a little pregnancy . . . but I digress. Unfortunately, the other half of Ryan's nostradamizing (which amounted to Bodes being hit in the head by a Carroll foul ball and playing the "Why you gotta play me like that, dawg" card) didn't come to pass. Oh well.

Tonight, the Nats stand a decent chance of evening things up, seeing as Mike O'Connor is on the mound. Purple Row doesn't know much about O'Connor, and considering O'Connor hails to the Buff & Blue, I'd consider that rather unforgivable. But Rox Girl's got a heck of a blog over there, so I'm more than happy to let it pass.

This time.

Anyway, O'Connor is opposed by Josh Fogg. A brief history of Fogg:

• 2002: "Hey, who is this guy? He's pretty good."
• 2003: "Okay, maybe he's not so good."
• 2004-05: " . . . "
• 2006: "Where is Josh Fogg these days? Colorado? Or was that Kip Wells? Nope, that was Josh Fogg. Colorado, then."

Actually, for a guy with a 5.21 ERA, Fogg has been pretty steady; for instance, he's given up more than three earned runs in a start only twice in a dozen times out. The most recent occurrence was the last go-around, however, when he gave up eight earned in the first 4.1 innings of a 16-9 loss to the Pirates (?!) and bounced his ERA up by nearly a run.

One thing I've never noticed about Fogg: He was born in Lynn, Mass. That's where my best friend was married back in '97. I was the best man. Basil Trivia: Catch the Fever!

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Interesting link o' the day: Capitol Punishment abstracts the Baseball Primer Hall of Merit discussion on Frank Howard. The long and short of it is that Hondo could really mash, but he did so in a bad offensive era.