Simmons: WTF?

A hilarious exchange from last night's debacle re: the Sports Guy's erstwhile candidacy for President of Red Sox Nation.

What's going on with this dude? Making calls like this? Is the west coast getting to him? Inexcusable, and props to Remy for putting him in his place.

Write a column on something other than the goddamn NBA, Simmons.

Ed: Bugs & Cranks has a good take on the increasingly disappointing Bill Simmons - the Sports Guy.

It's unfortunate - I think that at his best, in his heyday - 4 or 5 years ago - when Simmons was living on the East Coast, steeped in the Boston sports scene, before his jokes had become tired, humorless clichés - he was a decent, funny writer, a genuine sports fan, and a slightly more intelligent, witty version of one's "sports guy" friends in general (unless of course one rolls in circles such as I, hobnobbing with minds that can with equal facility handle topics as diverse as history, physics, genetics, food, music, videogame golf, surly bartenders, and Julian Tavarez's latest batshit antics). I also think that he deserves a lot of credit for getting to where he is today. From what I understand, he started up his own sports-centered Web page back in the mid-late '90s and carved out his own niche on the internets, exploding into a career replete with TV show writing, extremely successful regular contributions to ESPN, a dedicated following, a book, and a move out to Hollywood, with which I am disproportionately jealous.

But (and I've mentioned this before) he's lost a lot of his appeal. Too much NBA, too many reused jokes, too much pop culture nonsense, too little Red Sox, too little insightful sports commentary.

In other news, the Sox lost yet another absolute groaner to the Kansas City Royals. Being that I am increasingly mindful of the nature of the MLB season, the nature of statistical trends, and the nature of reactionary what-have-you-done-for-me-lately Boston sports fanaticism, I'm not concerned.

Not really.

We're talking about a team that has the lowest Runs Against (371) in MLB. A team with the second-best run differential (Runs Scored - Runs Against) at 93. A team that has the best record in MLB. A team that has a seven-game lead in the AL East. These are not insignificant statistics at this point in the season.

However.

We're not playing well. And yes, it's a skid - at the moment. And yes, the MFNYY are abjectly horrendous - at the moment. And yes, we will get into the playoffs, barring an unspeakably awful performance spiral of the most horrific proportions.

But will we progress? Not if we keep this up. It's annoying to be losing when we should be padding our lead, but that's baseball to a large degree.

But, again - I'm not worried. 95% of me is not. But we need to start winning again, and looking like the championship team we have for the bulk of the season.