The Barking Crow is in the unique position of being the only NIT/Joe Kelly blog on God’s Green Internet. At its best, this leads our dual constituencies joining forces to bully Astros shock jocks and the University of North Carolina alike. At its worst…
At its worst, half our following gets ignored.
Joe Kelly masses: I promise, it has not been our intent to ignore you in this most glorious month of March. Joe Kelly’s book is on our kitchen table, ready to go, ready to be read in Las Vegas just in time for Opening Day. But no, I haven’t read it yet. And no, I haven’t yet caught a Joe Kelly spring training outing. This is my confession to you all. We’ve had updates here and there, but we haven’t been locked in on Joe Kelly Spring. This is us ramping up.
Knock on all the wood, but all the off-field headlines surrounding Joe Kelly stem from him being willing to talk to the media. He’s been talking about baseball, he’s been talking about the White Sox, there isn’t any injury concern or other thing like that right now. On the field? On the field, he’s been great.
Our guy has made six spring training appearances so far, and he’s yet to issue a walk. This is the big thing. Joe Kelly was relatively unhittable last year. Did he allow hits? Yes. But an unnatural number of those were ground balls, ground balls that made it through one of the most porous defenses in the league. Those hits might still happen. When contact is made against White Sox pitchers, there still could be a lot of hits, through little fault of the pitchers’ own. But if our guy can cut down the walks, the hits won’t hurt as much. This is the key to Joe Kelly’s 2023.
The strikeouts are hanging around. It’s spring training, he’s definitely working on stuff (specifically, probably working on not walking dudes), the strikeout numbers are down. But they’re not absent.
The vibes? The third true outcome after strikeouts and walks? (Joe Kelly doesn’t allow many home runs, historically, and this spring has been no different.) The vibes are unstoppable. This is the nice thing about being a Joe Kelly blogger. You always know the vibes are going to be there. The flesh may be weak, but the vibes will be willing.
Fargo’s Bracket Got Busted
This has been mercifully buried under the excitement of other NIT Bracket Challengers, but all of us here at The Barking Crow did quite badly with our picks. I’ve been harshly criticized by one guy on Twitter and my own internal narration for getting New Mexico wrong and then also getting Oregon wrong, but it’s been a joint effort. Of the 819 entries, Joe tied for 799th, scoring just eight points. Fargo had 13, getting worked by a bracket named “Fargo’s worst nightmare (Jax).” Stuart had 15, and while he had Oklahoma State winning it all and was therefore holding on later than the rest of us, Oklahoma State lost that game. The margin doesn’t matter in this case. I had 17 points.
Does it give me joy to have the best bracket of my peers? No. I must do better next year. Especially because others who run NIT pools around this beautiful web of computers ask me to join theirs, so I fork over ten bucks a year apiece to multiple strangers every March. It’s bad business.
The Bulls Are Fine, Haters
Haters will see that the Bulls scored just 91 points in regulation in each of their last two games and say that the team stinks. Realists know this is the new identity. Once you decide to build your NBA Play-In Tournament run around Pat Beverley, you become a defensive-minded team. Does Zach LaVine know this? Of course not. But that doesn’t change that this is how it works.
Sens vs. Lightning
The Penguins won last night in Colorado, so our beloved Sens are an additional point back in the playoff chase. I don’t know much of anything else, but I know that. Our beautiful boys play the Lightning tonight, but it’s in Ottawa, and with Pittsburgh down in Dallas playing the second leg of a back-to-back and the Panthers hosting the Leafs and the Islanders idle (we’ve got a game in hand), there’s enough here for me to hope. That’s the beauty of not fully paying attention. It’s easier to be optimistic.
The Bucket Hat Is Genetic
My cousin’s in town this weekend, so she and I and her brother (also my cousin, but lives here) got lunch today, and it turns out my cousin owns multiple bucket hats?? Great bit. You walk up to the food truck and you see your immediate family wearing your work uniform, and you chortle a little. Good times all around. Also, we got to see a space heater bust up its sombrero. Really windy today. Keep your center of gravity low if you are a space heater in Austin.
