You know what we’re getting this season that’s always a part of surprising, exciting teams? Production from nobodies and scrubs. We’ve spent a lot of time here talking about how guys like XPaul and BWood and JHarrison aren’t really good, even if they’re productive for short spurts. But they don’t need to be really good; they just need to contribute, especially during this crazy rash of injuries.

Now, we’d be in trouble if we needed to rely on these guys long term, but we don’t. NH isn’t going to mistake any of them for permanent pieces. But in the meantime, we get XPaul personally wearing down the opposing starter while going 1/3 (He saw over 1/4 of all pitches thrown by the ’stros SP yesterday); we get BWood running into one in a tight ballgame when nobody was getting hits for the Bucs; we get Harrison showing a bit of opposite field power to stretch the lead a bit.

It doesn’t matter if any of those guys ever end up with a positive WAR; right now, they’re helping us win in real life. And that’s part of why this is turning into a bit of a Freak Show season for us.

(Note: this is a repost of a comment I made in the game thread; a few people suggested I FanPost it for broader readership)