Wednesday A.M. Links

And let us never speak of the shortcut again.

The prophets warned that Tanner Scheppers carried catastrophic injury risk when he was drafted. He stubbornly refused to get injured. But, like Death in the Final Destination movies, the delay only resulted in a more Rube Goldbergian calamity. The Injury Bug shall not be mocked. Who can we blame? We should blame Evan Grant. He taunted the Injury Bug by labeling the bullpen "fully healthy" shortly before game time.

Scheppers came in to relieve Ryan Dempster, promptly hit Erick Aybar, and then threw a wild pitch to LSB punching bag Torii Hunter, injuring himself by tripping over Chris Iannetta in the play at the plate, probably in divine retribution for LSB laughing at Kendry Morales' grand-slam-celebration-cum-injury. Man, what a crappy inning.

Want to read more about it? Here's Lyle Spencer's game recap, and here is Jeff Wilson's, and here's the rapid reaction from Blair Angulo, in each of which you can relive the joy of going up 3-1 on the Angels ace and then S'ing-TFB. According to Evan Grant, Ron Washington didn't have a problem with Mike Trout's sliding in to score while Scheppers was violently evaluating his injury at home plate, saying "he didn't do anything out of the ordinary." What wasn't ordinary, according to Washington, "was that they put eight runs on the board," which may or may not be intended as an insult.

Also somewhat disconcerting was that Josh Hamilton left the game in the fourth inning and was replaced by Leonys Martin. He was apparently bothered by blurry vision and a headache, probably brought on by some kind of mystical foresight of the beating that would occur in the bottom of the inning. Washington says he does not know how long the sinus- and/or prophesy-related vision problems will keep Hamilton out of the lineup.

Evan Grant tells us that Yu Darvish has a chance to set the rookie record for wins by a Japanese-born pitcher with three starts remaining in the season, and Yu Darvish says through an interpreter where Evan Grant can stick those "numbers" and "records:" "I don't put much into them and I don't have much interest in them." Also at the DMN, if you missed Hamilton's appearance on Jimmy Kimmel you can see part of it here. He says he can't reveal who would play him in a movie about his life, but my money is on Jonah Hill.

Lyle Spencer has a notes column at the Rangers' MLB.com site, and we learn that Washington would have four MVP's if he were responsible for the award, Darvish says he has not and is not changing his repertoire, and that Michael Young is a good guy that does good things.

If last night left you feeling down in the dumps, I've got something that will cheer you up. It's a short film about the last moments of an astronaut crashed on an extrasolar planet. I feel better already!