The Same Old Story

I know, I know….It’s only spring training, but still. Hochevar got lit up today.

I think there are two camps in the Hochevar debate at this point:

1. This group wants to see Hochevar dominate spring training to justify his stupid contract. They want to see him finally pan out and earn back some of the trust he’s betrayed over the last several years. They read the articles about Hochevar’s “discovery” of problems he had pitching out of the stretch and they hope that maybe this is the “discovery” that finally actually makes a difference because, Lord knows, none of the others have amounted to much. Now I’m not saying this group is naive to Hochevar’s deficiencies. I think you’d have to be a fool not to see them at this point. But they realize that organization will probably refuse to abandon Luke at this point and are just hoping a miracle happens.

2. This group, of which I am a part, hopes that Hoch just blows it throughout spring training and the organization somehow comes to the realization that they’d be better served cutting the ties before the regular season starts and saving themselves some money. As I stated above, I don’t think the organization will be willing to part ways with Hochevar unless he absolutely implodes.

This presents an interesting conundrum. Is it okay, as a fan, to kinda sorta halfway root for one of your pitchers to suck? Here, I’ll put it nicely. I hope that Luke Hochevar pitches like the Luke Hochevar we’ve seen over the last few years. I guess that’s a bit vague as he’s shown a FEW flashes of brilliance in that time. But I think if you look at the overall product, you’ll catch my drift.

So far, Luke Hochevar has pitched in three different games:

• On February 27th, Hoch was knocked around for 2 ER in 1.2 innings. He gave up 2 hits and 3 walks to the Milwaukee Brewers.
• On March 5th, he gave up 3 hits and a walk in 3 innings against the Athletics. Nothing resulted in runs, though, so I’m sure the outing was looked on as a positive one by the organization.
• Today, Hoch showed some 2012 form as he got tagged with 4 ER over the course of 3.1 innings pitched against the Angels. 3 SO, 2 BB, and 5 hits before he was replaced by Bruce Chen.

Look, I know it’s spring training, but we’ve done this dance before. I don’t need to see Hochevar blow games in Arizona to know that I don’t want him blowing games during the regular season. My mind was made up before he ever took the mound this spring.

What do you think? Is it wrong for me to hope he blows it?