The San Francisco Giants are blazing up a plan to smoke the rest of the NL West this season. They plan to daze their opponents with Mota.
Guillermo Mota, that is. The Giants signed right-handed set-up man Guillermo Mota to a minor league deal Wednesday, MLB.com reports. If Mota can bring his potent stuff, he'll surely have a slot in the in the Giants' 2010 relief rotation.
Mota is something of a cult figure among certain baseball fans, because his last name is a commonly-used euphemism for marijuana. Oh, they're going to love this guy in the bleacher bum section at AT&T Park.
Aside from his sticky-icky moniker, Mota is perhaps best known for a 2009 plunking incident on the Brewers' Prince Fielder. Mota nailed Fielder with a pitch, just innings after the Brewers hit Manny Rodriguez with a pitch. After the game, Fielder stormed the Dodgers' locker room looking to confront Mota, just like it was "Monday Night Raw" or something.
And Giants fans will surely appreciate that Mota has on several occasions in his career hit Mike Piazza with a pitch.
Don't be fooled by the minor league contract, this is some high-grade stuff being added to the Giants pitching staff. "He has pitched in some tough divisions," Giants' VP of baseball operations Bobby Evans told MLB.com. "And he has pitched in our division and is familiar with our division."
We're just hoping his short-term memory is still intact.
Sports
It's a little good news for Giants fans, who can't be happy to see Tim Lincecum's salary negotiations getting contentious. The San Jose Mercury News reported Thursday that Timmy's agent called the Giants' latest offer "insignificant."
But that was before Lincecum knew that the Giants were supplying Mota to their roster.
Joe Kukura is a freelance writer who has the mind of a 16-year-old when it comes to marijuana humor.
