"Same Old Sad Story" lived up its name, as the show's writers seem intent on punishing the faithful who continue to view this cliched nonsense week in and week out. For those of you who wisely tuned out, here's what you missed.

* Carl continued to try and fail to battle his demons (we did learn something about his father being murdered by a strikeout pitch, so I guess that was new)
* Some lame subplot about how it sucks to fail when it really counts
* The opposing team won

Sound familiar? It ought to. We've seen this same episode no fewer than seven times now. At this point, I'm not even sure why Carl is still a recurring character, as we've obviously seen everything he has to offer. I suppose there's something to be said for a familiar face, but there's no way that a fresh face could be worse (on the other hand, I've seen previews of some of the upcoming character "spotlight episodes" featuring characters like Frankie and P.J., so maybe the producers are just working with what they have - what can I say? Times are tough.) The point is, this episode wasn't any good the first seven times, it's not good now, and based on what we've seen, I think the writing staff is out of new ideas. I know this season was written to be a rebuilding of sorts - bring the plot back to "bunch of scrappy losers find a way to win three times" - and while that makes the occasional good episode a real pleasure, it's an awful slog to go through. Let's just say nobody's going to be streaming anything from this season on Netflix anytime soon.

Confession time. I'm beginning to think that this show is miscast. Joe Mauer tries admirably, but he simply doesn't have what it takes to pull off the villain character the show's producers and advertisements so clearly want him to be. He's much better suited to be one of the hero characters. Maybe they'll cast him that way later, but I don't have any faith that the producers know what they're doing.

It doesn't seem that long ago that this show was one of the best things on television. The plot was tight and unpredictable, the characters were all well played and likable (and those that weren't were pruned from the cast before they became the avatars of frustration that some of this season's characters have been). Who can forget the heartbreak of 2008's season finale? Or the joy of 2010's string of exceptionally strong episodes? This show has become rote, and as such, I cannot recommend further viewing until several things are remedied.