Tasser: Baseball seasons predictable

Ah, it’s spring again — which means another glorious baseball season and the many sensory… Ah, it’s spring again — which means another glorious baseball season and the many sensory experiences that go with it: the crack of wood on rawhide, the sweet smell of pine tar and the ever-familiar sight of the Pirates at the bottom of the standings. With no salary cap and pay-disparities between players that are unheard of in hockey or football, America’s pastime is fairly easy to predict. So I will give you a date-by-date rundown of completely made up scenarios that I think could happen this summer in the world of Major League Baseball.

March 28 — Pitcher Mark Prior injures his arm and is out for the season.

April 11 — Derek Jeter tears his ACL walking up the steps to his mansion. Hank Steinbrenner: “Jeter needs more focus … especially when walking up stairs. He should also get rid of his mansion.”

May 16 — Pittsburgh Pirates mathematically eliminated from postseason.

June 6 — Heralded super-prospect Bryce Harper makes his debut for the injury-riddled Washington Nationals after tearing up the minors. Giants’ closer Brian Wilson beans him in the head in his first at-bat, a ninth inning pinch-hit, and then proceeds to charge the batter’s box. After the fracas is resolved, Wilson apologizes, stating that because Harper was wearing so much eye black, he mistook him for “some sort of demon-ninja.” Harper responds by saying he will cease wearing the eye black immediately.

July 1-4 — The Philadelphia Phillies throw three consecutive no-hitters against the Toronto Blue Jays. Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee and Cole Hamels combine for only five walks and 33 strikeouts. Roy Oswalt ruins the festivities by giving up a home run on his first pitch to the Florida Marlins in the next game, before settling down and pitching a complete-game two-hitter. General Manager Rubén Armaro Jr. states that he’s “disappointed. We expected this when we put this rotation together, but Roy couldn’t hold up his end of the deal. A home run? Really, Oswalt?”

July 30 — The Pirates trade Andrew McCutchen, José Tábata and Pedro Alvarez to the Boston Red Sox for an MLB-record 14 minor league players and 15 players to be named later. General Manager Neal Huntington gushes about how “excited” he is and continually throws out words like “potential” and “rebuilding.” Ryan Doumit, a long-tenured Pirate, mutters an expletive when he hears the news, then proceeds to call Red Sox G.M. Theo Epstein, asking him to please “take me too.”

August 25 — Tampa Bay Ray Manny Ramirez gets thrown out of a game for running the bases backwards after a home run against the Detroit Tigers. The home-plate umpire ejects Ramirez for showboating, while Manny contends that running the bases backwards was “just something I always wanted to do.” “It’s just Manny being Manny,” manager Joe Maddon says in a post-game interview. Meanwhile, the outmatched Rays continue to keep pace with the Yankees and the Red Sox.

September 30 — The Pittsburgh Pirates are mathematically eliminated from the postseason. Next year’s postseason.

November 5 — Alvarez blasts a double in the bottom of the eighth inning off the Phillies’ Oswalt, driving in McCutchen from first. Tábata then pinch-runs for Alvarez, steals third and scores on a sacrifice fly for the only two runs in a 2-1, series-clinching victory for the Red Sox. Somewhere, Doumit weeps.

See how simple predicting a baseball season is?