A tarantula on a slice of angel food

The game was as taut as the preceding paragraphs. 

Raymond Chandler's dead. Throw strikes.

In this grinder, there came a display of the lineup depth that makes these the highest-scoring teams in the American League: When have you seen a 2-1 game in which the Nos. 9 hitters drove in all the runs?

"Nos. 9 hitters" could be the awesomest Safire plural in the history of the world in space. Do writers actually do this to themselves, or was the copydesk making the new guy carry the grammar bags back to the hotel or something?
Or you could conclude that the desk wasn't watching much of anything at all:

Scherzer missed his chance to match Roger Clemens (2001 Yankees) as the only pitcher start a season 20-1. Now 19-2, he try for a third time for No. 20 on Monday night in Chicago.

And with all the writering going on, it'd be hard to keep up:

In the land of the original Tea Party, Iglesias paid a tax for daring to drive in a run in this duel. 

That's a lot to keep up with. Just covering the routine bungles people make when they write in a hurry is a full day's work. But surely, if we want to be friends to the writer and the reader at the same time, we need to remind the former that the latter don't always like the parts that sound all writerly. Especially if they have a pennant race to follow.