FanHouse AnnaBenson

The picture to your right is not of former Oriole Kris Benson throwing a pitch. He tried to wave goodbye to a friend and his arm just snapped back like that.

In baseball news you may have missed (because you could not possibly care about it), the former first pick in the 1996 draft and perennial bench-grimacer signed a minor league contract last Saturday with the Texas Rangers. He pitched two solid innings in the Rangers Wednesday opener. Huh.

Tonight's Dugout, alternately titled "Return of the Living Dead," is after the jump.

It's Official! Kris Benson signs with the Phillies! Good for him. Have you seen the Orioles motto for this season? "THIS IS BIRDLAND." That's a great way to get fans into the park. "We traded away our stars. COME SEE THE BIRD, THE ACTUAL ANIMAL THE BIRD"

With the migration of Anna Benson comes the next chapter in a Dugout story that began in the long long ago before the darkness came about how Anna would sleep with everyone on the team including the mascot if she ever caught her husband cheating. The only way this could get better for us is if she got traded to the Red Sox and got to deflower Wally the Green Monster. She would have to go into the police force and get choked by Dmitri Young to be more Dugout ready.

Anna Benson wears a jersey around her cleavage like we'd never expect and Kris Benson gets into a plane crash and misses the '08 season with a dilated brain in today's Dugout, after the jump.

Sorry everybody, that's Kris Benson is a free agent, not Anna. The Baltimore Orioles declined Benson's $7.5 million option for 2008, instead buying out for $500,000 and making Benson eligible for the free agent market. Benson missed the entire 2007 season after having surgery on his partially torn rotator cuff. Benson started 30 games for the O's in 2006, going 11-12 with a 4.82 ERA.

Benson fell from grace with the Orioles when he waited until January of 2007 to inform the team of his shoulder pain. The team believed Benson was not faithful to his off-season workout program and that contributed to the injury.

From The Baltimore Sun:

When his shoulder was examined in late January, team doctors told him surgery wasn't necessary.

Benson got two other opinions but ultimately reported to spring training and consented to an aggressive rehabilitation program.

However, three weeks into the scheduled four-week program designed to strengthen the muscles around his shoulder, the pain was getting worse and Benson was given permission by the Orioles to have season-ending surgery.

Benson, who is perhaps more famous for his hot, outspoken wife then for his pitching ability, will test the free agent waters. The pitching free agent market is thin, but I'm not sure what the demand for a 33-year-old, sub-five-hundred pitcher recovering from shoulder surgery will be.

We here at the MLB FanHouse will be musing twice a month until the end of the season on who we think leads the AL and NL Cy Young award races. This is the second installment.

National League: John Maine

The Mets can thank Anna Benson. If you believe the tabloids, it was Anna's plunging Christmas dress at a team function where hubby Kris was Santa Claus for a group of children that was the last straw in trading Benson for Jorge Julio ... and a throw-in named John Maine. Maine is now 5-0 with a 1.37 ERA, and wouldn't it be funny if the Mets came up with a Cy Young award winner in 2007, the season where their starting pitching was widely thought of as just a step above kitchen grime in its usefulness. Maine, who pitches tonight against San Francisco, barely beats out Brad Penny, who after striking out 15 and walking 17 in his first six starts this season, struck out 14 and walked none on Monday night against Florida.

Also in the mix:
Brad Penny: 4-0, 1.39 ERA
Jake Peavy: 4-1, 1.75 ERA 56 K's
Rich Hill: 4-1, 1.73 ERA
Tim Hudson: 3-1, 1.70 ERA

American League: Josh Beckett

At 7-0 after last night's drubbing of the Blue Jays, Beckett is threatening to make a mockery of the Cy Young race. C.C. Sabathia is keeping pace at 5-0. But Beckett's 1.06 WHIP, .219 batting average against, and 2.72 ERA bests Sabathia significantly, and those numbers are before last night's game, where he went seven innings, giving up five hits, only one walk. (Hey, that Hanley Ramirez trade doesn't look so bad now, does it?) Beckett leads a good starting staff, with Daisuke Matsuzaka providing the hype, Curt Schilling providing the biting commentary, Tim Wakefield providing the knuckleball, and Beckett providing nothing more than solid pitching. The Blue Jays announcers tried to hate during Tuesday night's game, remarking that at some point, "this roll's gotta stop ... Beckett's not going to go 35-0". Probably not ... but winning the Cy Young award isn't going to take a 35-0 record.

Also in the mix:
C.C. Sabathia: 5-0, 61 K's
Roy Halladay: 4-1, 2 CG's, 1.06 WHIP
Gil Meche: 3-1, 2.23 ERA

Apparently the "it's early in the season" mantra isn't good enough anymore. It sure isn't flying for Jorge Julio (or as Anna Benson calls him: Julio Jorge), as it sounds increasingly like Julio's days as closer of the Marlins are numbered ... numbered in the low single-digits.

"We'll do what's best for the team, the organization and the individual," Gonzalez said Wednesday afternoon.

Not exactly a ringing endorsement. In fact, it sounds more like a ringing kiss of death.

"If he wants to push me to like the sixth inning, and give a little break for me, I'll come back," said Julio, who has been standup to the media throughout his struggles.

Julio was reminded that he is a veteran, and he responded: "I know my role ... I'm staying focused, and I want to help this team. This team is good."

It's an eerily similar scenario to his time in New York, where even though he wasn't the closer, he bombed as a setup guy before being relegated to mop-up duty. Sounds like that's the same scenario that's playing out in Miami. With the Marlins losing two games on Wednesday (well, more like one and a half) and the Braves starting to build a little bit of a lead over them, Fredi Gonzalez can't afford to let Julio work out his mechanical problems in the ninth inning. Henry Owens and Matt Lindstrom would be candidates to close if Gonzalez indeed pulls the trigger.

Previously on The Fanhouse:
Jorge Julio needs a Mechanic
Jorge Julio traded to Arizona
Julio Jorge ... I mean, Jorge Julio dissed by Anna Benson

Oh, yeah ... Anna Benson exists. It's easy to forget that now that she's spent a season in Baltimore after her husband was traded ... a trade possibly caused by Anna's appearance at a 2005 children's Christmas party in a very low cut red dress. Her new found irrelevance must really bother her, because she's trying to get back into the consciousness of America by bashing the Mets in a recent article for Penthouse magazine. For those who don't read Penthouse for the articles, the best quotes are recanted here:

On trading her husband on the brink of winning a World Series: "The Mets lost (a chance at winning) the World Series because of a little red dress. That doesn't bother me. That should bother them."

On the "Anna Claus" incident: "What do they (the Mets) care more about, a bleeping dress or a World Championship?

On the Mets getting the better of the trade: "They got a bleeping bag of balls for Kris. They didn't get expletive. Julio Jorge and John Maine. They traded a number one stud pitcher who was 30 for at the time, and they blame the red dress."

Let me get this straight: She can't get Jorge Julio's name right, she thinks her husband is a number one pitcher even though he has a career record under .500, breaks down at the end of every season, and isn't going to throw a pitch in 2007, and she would take a bag of balls over John Maine, who pitched shutout ball in Game 6 of the NLCS last year.

Hey, she's qualified to be a baseball analyst for FOX.

Could Jorge Julio be on his way to his fourth team in three years?

Florida on Monday sent a scout to Hi Corbett Field to watch Jorge Julio, who retired six of the seven batters he faced in two scoreless innings against Colorado regulars. He walked Kaz Matsui.

Florida, which has no proven closer on its roster, again is expected to have the lowest payroll in the major leagues, and it remains to be seen if the Marlins would accept Julio's $3.6 million salary in 2007.

Oh that pesky salary thing.

Julio was traded for Kris and Anna Benson at the start of the '06 season (John Maine was the "throw-in" on that deal), and was immediately known around Mets fan circles as "Armando Jr.", which would be a compliment except that the comparison centers around the worst traits of Armando Benitez ... the hangdog look in his eyes after giving up a 500 foot bomb, with the voice of the Snickers commercial seemingly popping into your head saying "wanna get away?" But after a rough start, Julio was doing some good things under Rick Peterson's guidance before being traded for Orlando Hernandez just a couple of months into the season. Julio had 15 saves and a 3.83 ERA in Phoenix, but isn't being guaranteed the closers role for the Diamondbacks with Jose Valverde ready to be handed that role ... again. The Marlins could use a closer with some credentials instead of depending on guys such as Taylor Tankersley (who's battling injury problems), Henry Owens (who was converted from catcher), and Matt Lindstrom (who's a hard thrower but kinda has a Rick "Wild Thing" Vaughn motif to him).

Remember that Seinfeld episode where Elaine keeps floating around from doctor to doctor because of her poor and questionable behavior at each doctor's office? You know, they just kept marking her chart with red pen and sent her on her way without any advice or help?

Well, that really doesn't have anything to do with Kris Benson. Seinfeld is SO funny though, isn't it?

Actually, OK, it does have something to do with Kris Benson:

Orioles pitcher Kris Benson will put off surgery to repair his torn right rotator cuff and instead undergo a rehabilitation process, which could last a month, in a final attempt to pitch in 2007, a baseball source said last night.

Dr. James Andrews examined Benson's shoulder yesterday in Birmingham, Ala. It was the third opinion sought by the Orioles' pitcher. A member of the New York Mets' medical staff recently recommended that Benson have surgery, but Andrews provided a small glimmer of hope.

If the rehab doesn't change the condition of Benson's shoulder, he will have the surgery and most likely miss the season.

So yes, after getting a third doctor's opinion, Benson still has a chance of pitching for the Orioles this season. That's your news hook to this post.

Also, it's a requirement of the blogosphere that I splash in an Anna Benson picture in a post about Kris. I think I read that somewhere.