Let’s be honest: A lot of us don’t like Kyle Kendrick. I’m talking about Kyle Kendrick, the pitcher, and not Kyle Kendrick, the person, who I assume is a pretty swell guy with a pretty wife who lets him pose in awkward and embarrassing photo shoots like this one.

But this is not about Kyle Kendrick, the person-slash-model-slash-perennial prankee. This is about how he manages to succeed, in some capacity, at a sport in which he is not considered to even be an average player.

Wednesday night, in a tie game against the Florida Marlins, in a game that is as important as a game can be in May, Kendrick was charged with pitching, at the time, the biggest inning of the game – bottom of the eighth, tied at three. This all in light of the fact that there were no fewer than three pitchers who were not only better, but available, and that he had to snake his way through the middle of the Marlins lineup, which, if you’re keeping score, is pretty damn good.

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