Results tagged ‘ Coaching ’
However many wins Tim Hudson finishes this year with, feel free to add one
Well here’s what happened. Huddy, (who, as you may remember, we discussed recently,) had a real gem going. Whole sha-bang. 8 innings, 12 K’s (12!), 6 hits. Now we are entering the 9th and dude has a pitch count the wrong side of 100. The Braves are up 3-0 against the Marlins. On the one hand, it is the Marlins, and you’ve got Huddy on the mound and, after all, your closer is Bob Wickman. On the other hand, it’s only a 3 run lead, and Huddy is north of 100 chucks on the night. So if you’re Bobby Cox, do you keep Huddy in and let him go for the complete game shutout, or do you pull him for Big Bobby? Well Cox chose to keep Huddy in, who promptly gave up three consecutive singles. Now, with the bags juiced and no outs, he reverts to Plan B, and pulls Huddy for the Wickman. Well that was a smart idea. Miguel Olivo then doubled, scoring two runs. Wickman intentionally walks Borchard, re-loading the bases. Now it’s 3-2, Braves. Wickman then throws in three consecutive balls to Josh Willingham, all three of which looked, from the Game Day, to be in the dirt. He somehow pulled back to strike out Josh. Just when you thought the fire might be dying down, Amezega singles, bringing in the tying run. Dan Uggla’s up, and Wickman throws a wild one in the dirt to bring home the winning run. Fantastic.
Hudson’s line before the 9th:
8 IP – 12 K – 6 H – 0 ER
Hudson’s line after the 9th:
8 IP – 12 K – 9 H – 3 ER
Now, I could really go on a tear about this… except that Bob Wickman is a great guy – from personal experience (you’re going to want to go near the bottom of that post for this story) – and Bobby Cox is probably one of the greatest managers this century. So, I guess you could chalk it up to that simple point-counterpoint argument we had at the top of the post. Cox just figured it was worth the gamble to leave Huddy in. However, when Hudson allowed that first single, he should have been pulled. You don’t throw a guy like Bob Wickman in the mix when you’ve got the bags loaded, no outs, and a meager 3-run lead. If you’ve got Francisco Cordero , (8 saves, 17 K’s, 0 ER, 9.1 IP), then you make that move. But not with Bobby Wickman. The L goes to Wickman, thank goodness, but the W stays away from Huddy. And, the three runs Wickman let score stay with Huddy as well. Just not right.
Nats owner news, Royals, Mariners, and big news
We all know the Nationals have a new owner now. What we didn’t know is that this makes them a better baseball team. Well, at least ESPN’s Tim Kurkijan thinks so. Actually, don’t read that article. It’s absolutely ridiculous. I’m serious. I’ve never read anything so BS in my life. Here are some quality excerpts:
Our long Nationals nightmare is over…now the team can start moving forward… The Nationals can begin to operate like a realmajor league team… The team has struggled this year, and attendance is down slightly, mainly because it was a rudderless team that
hasn’t gotten the support it needs from MLB, or the city… The first year and one month of existence for the Nationals was just practice. Now, the franchise officially begins… All the Nats needed was an owner. And now, finally, they have one.
No. The Nationals nightmare is not ever, and the team still isn’t going anywhere. The reason they’ve been so bad this season is not because they didn’t have an owner, it’s because they’re a flat-out bad team. The players don’t put up good enough numbers to win games. Don’t try to tell me that they went out there last year under the impression that they were playing 162 exhibition games. This team stinks, no two ways about it. If having an owner makes you a championship-caliber team, there would be (theoretically) 30 teams with .500 records at the end of the year. Tim also cites RFK stadium as being a "significant disadvantage" for the Nationals. Why is that? When the Nationals come up to bat, do they push the fences back 20 feet, only to move them back in when the opposing team steps up to the plate? Do you really think the Nationals are gonna go and set the world on fire now that they’ve got an owner? Heck no. Sure, firing Jim Bowden will make your team better, no doubt. But again, too little too late. Remember, call your shot in the Jim Bowden firing pool – so far, Jason has dibs on June 19th.
The Royals are still bad, and now they’re "your team"
The Nationals still have a shot at saving this season, but the Royals do not. By the way, they lost again last night. They’re now 5-20. As I said before, but how can you be that bad? Imagine taking the field five times and walking away with one win. The Royals also have a new slogan – "Your team. Your town." Of all the bad baseball slogans, that’s probably the worst. First off, that doesn’t tell me anything. Second – if I lived in Kansas City, that’s exactly the kind of thing that would make me want to move to, say, St. Louis. I’m guessing the average K.C. citizen had these thoughts upon seeing that slogan:
Just because I live in K.C., I have to be associated with the Royals? What will my friends think of me? Will I still be able to get a job? Will I be able to take out a loan? Rent a car? Vote?
Hearing that the Kansas City Royals are "your team" has got to feel a lot like getting hit in the forehead with a ton of bricks; pain so severe and hideous that you just black out. And of course, whenever I mention the Royals I need to mention PFC Mark Grudzielanek. Whatever General is heading up Mark’s War needs to develop a new battle plan. The current strategy isn’t working. Reports from the front indicate that the army is retreating, blowing up every bridge behind them, and that soldiers are deserting en masse. Doesn’t look good. If you don’t know why I continue to refer to the Royal’s season as a military campaign, wait until the "What you missed" post, coming up tonight or tomorrow. Or hunt the reference down here.
Everyday Eddie out of the closing role; Mariners still bad
Well, you didn’t need a crystal ball to see this coming. The Mariners have finally put Eddie out his misery, removing him from the closer role. Who’s the new closer? The best arm in the game, closer-by-committee. If you don’t know what this is, see Dusty Baker’s explanation. I’ll say the same thing here as I did when someone drafted Eddie as the #86 pick in my pay league draft this year – two picks in front of Thome, no less: "You can’t go wrong with Everyday Eddie. Wait… that was 2002." His career stats are misleading as well. For example, in 2004 he had just a 2.78 ERA. However, he blew 7 saves out of 25 total opportunities. If you’re the Mariners and you’re struggling to stay one step ahead of the Royals, you really can’t afford those kinds of losses. Then again, if you’re going to run an organization based on sound logic like that, you wouldn’t give a guy like Adrian Beltre $64 million for 5 years. Beltre’s 2004 fluke with the Dodgers was probably the most standout anomaly in the world. Of course, 2004 was Adrian’s contract year, so after he went wild he jumped ship and signed with Seattle. For the following statistical analysis, we’re going to look at Beltre’s stats for 2004 compared to his average stats from 1999-2003 and 2005, when he played full-time. I present the following visual aid: 
Note that the difference between the slugging and batting averages is diluted because of the scale; they are .443/.629 and .265/.334. As shown, Seattle is probably very angry with Adrian. Now, Adrian didn’t just fall from the sky in 2004. LA had been waiting for him to develop for some time. But after he went wild in 2004, did they try to re-sign him? I’ll give you a hint – the Dodgers are in the NL West. Remember the old 7-man batting order trick? Anyway, you’re probably asking – how can I jump on Seattle for signing him, yet jump on LA for not trying to sign him? Well, that’s a good point. But if you’re the Dodgers and you think you’ve got the sell-high candidate of the century and you’re convinced that he had a fluke of a year, so you don’t want to give him the money that you know he doesn’t deserve, you don’t just let him walk away. You test out the market and see if you can move him. If you think you can, you resign him and flip him away. If you didn’t think he had a fluke of a year, you shell out the cash to better your team. Beltre is currently hitting .202 in Seattle, with 1 HR and 6 RBI in 104 AB’s.
Tigers lose; Leyland’s clothing at fault
Remember when I talked about superstitions? I said that although Steve Finley’s magic bag doesn’t make him a better hitter, he thinks it does, so it does. Looks like Jim Leyland just developed a real good superstition. One that’s gonna make him a really popular guy whenever the Tigers are winning. Leyland had been wearing the same clothes since the Tigers began their 6-game winning streak. However, when the Tigers played the Angels today at home, Leyland had to change because he "looked like a hobo," and the team is about to go on a road trip. Well, the Tigers lost this afternoon, 7-2. Good job, skip. The team is now 19-10. So we’re still above .500, which is Detroit’s benchmark for success. If the Tigers had won today, it would have been their first 7-game winning streak since 1993. I was in elementary school then.
Quick notes
Jose Contreras has won 13 straight… I have nothing. San Diego is currently on a four-game win streak, dating back to last Sunday’s miracle win over the Dodgers. I suggest you read that, because it’s unbelievable. Let’s just say the World’s Worst Offense came back from being down 5-0 in the bottom of the 9th. On a related note, of the six division leaders, the two worst records belong to – guess – the AL and NL West. No way. Texas and Colorado both have 16 wins and 12 losses. If another 82-80 team goes to the playoffs, it’s Game Over. BPS agrees, as we’ll see soon. Check out the solution to this problem that I wrote a few days ago. By the way, that’s probably the 80th time I’ve made a post saying that the Padres and NL West are bad.
Comments and Notes
BHGM got some serious run on BPS today. Thanks Geoff.
I sauntered over to our boy Reid’s blog a few days back
and read one of his many posts bashing the Padres and the NL West [found here]. The BPS had consistently come down
pretty hard on the Pads and their whole miserable, rotting, wasteland
division. And you have to understand, Reid is the type of dude who asks
for his readers to throw him some questions, and then he proceeds to
hammer out an elaborate discourse on whatever it is they come back
with. Why? Because, as I commented on his blog a few days ago, he is
the Original Dedicated Baseball Monster. The ODBM. My question to him
(just to see what he would do with it) was what MLB can do about
wretched, barely-.500 teams like the Pads from ever making the playoffs again. Take a look
at what the kid wrote.
Great stuff. I have no idea how long it took him, but I know these
things don’t take fifteen minutes. The ODBM, a dedicated monster.
I would have paraphrased that (and I did take out a few words), but then you wouldn’t be getting the full effect. It took me about an hour and a half. But that’s really not that bad, because I spent the rest of the day – no joke – in class, from 8a-3.30p. Made that post at 5.45p. See how it goes? As for the next 5 days at BHGM, leading up to May 10th, when I go home – we’ll either be seeing a lot of posts or a little. I’m not sure how hard I’ll be studying for finals, (one on Saturday, Monday, and two on Wednesday.) However, the "What you missed" post is on it’s way. BHGM has picked up a lot of new readers in the past couple weeks, and they’re probably pretty confused when they read things like the account of Mark’s War found above. I’ve already made the list and I’m currently writing it out. It might even get out tonight. It should be good for a lot of laughs. As for the comments – your June 19th bid has been recorded, Jason. Thanks for the submission. If anyone else wants to enter the BHGM "Call Jim Bowden’s Shot in the Unemployment Line" Contest, drop me an email or leave a comment anywhere. There will be a prize. I haven’t decided what yet. See you guys later tonight.
Maroth, Dusty Baker v. BB, and Marlins
Tonight we’re gonna focus on Maroths (un)earned run, Dusty Baker wanting to do away with the Base on Balls, why the Cubs and Marlins are sad, upcoming games I’ll be attending, and tonight’s Yankees game.
Maroth came off the ERA leader board today, just as everyone was starting to cash in on him. He allowed 9 hits, giving up 4 runs and 3 walks while striking out 2 in 6 innings against the Angels today. Typical Mike Maroth, really. Now, I obviously didn’t see the game, but one of the runs scored when Chone Figgins stole third and continued home on Brandon Inge’s fielding error. For the rest of the inning, we had a ground out to short, a ground out to third, two walks, and then a fly out to right. So, in order for a run to be termed ‘unearned,’ a reconstruction of the inning without the error would have showed that the run hadn’t scored if the error hadn’t been committed. I’m going to assume that the scorer decided Figgins would have scored on the ground out to short. But still, isn’t a run scored on an error the definition of an unearned run? Scoring can be pretty interesting sometimes, huh. In any case, the Tigers finished the game with 2 hits, 5 walks, 8 K’s, and 2 errors. And no runs. John Lackey pitched the 8 solid innings for the Angels, accounting for the 8 K’s and 5 walks, as well as 1 hit.
It’s possible that the above game is the only case where Dusty Baker is right about any in-game tactic. A couple weeks ago Baker said,
I think walks are overrated unless you can run. If you
get a walk and put the pitcher in a stretch, that helps. But the guy
who walks and can’t run, most of the time they’re clogging up the bases
for somebody who can run.
Oh, alright. Well, like I said, this could be the only case where Baker is actually right. If you get 5 walks and only manage one hit in that time, those walks are basically no help to you. Of course, that’s the only tiny part of Baker’s statement that’s correct, and even that’s a one in a million shot. The day Baker made the above statement, the Cubs had just lost to the Cardinals 4-1. In the second inning of that game, the bases were "clogged" after two singles and one of those annoying walks, with Aramis Ramirez up. Ramirez grounded out but managed to knock in the Cub’s only run on the play. The Cubs had 6 hits and 4 walks through the whole game, yet only mustered that one run. See, it’s not that walks are useless, it’s that Dusty Baker is probably the worst in-game manager in the league, and he can’t take advantage of walks. He can’t honestly believe that walks are worthless. He’s gotta be saying that to prove to everyone that he really is "old school," or whatever.
In related news, the Florida Marlins won a game today against… the Cubs. Final score, 7-5. The Cubs and Marlins are two of the saddest teams in the league, but for different reasons. The Marlins are sad because they simply can’t produce anything, and when they do make a play, you’re surprised that they actually pulled it off. But, as much I rag on the Marlins, it’s not their fault. They’re not underachieving. It’s Jeffrey Loria, the Marlins’ owner, who should be held 100% responsible for the disaster that is the 2006 Marlins. Of course, it’s easy to argue that after 2005, when the Marlins were widely predicted as taking the NL East but didn’t come anywhere near the top for the entire season, that he decided to break up the team that wasn’t working and start over. And I guess that works. It’d be more believable if they had brought in just one quality veteran to help rebuild, but oh well. As for the Cubs, they’re sad because every day you look at the box score and you’re disappointed. It never adds up. For example, the Cubs drew 6 of those darned walks today against the Marlins, but managed only 4 hits and struck out 9 times. See, that should never happen. You just can’t see that many pitches and not put up more production, it’s just not possible. And 9 strikeouts? Lord. Look at some Cubs box scores for the next week, and I promise you that you’ll find at least one thing every day that just doesn’t add up.
Additionally, it’s official – Kevin and I, along with another friend of ours, Matt Soifer, will be attending the May 16th Tigers game against the Twins at 7.05pm. This is the first Tiger’s home game after the three of us get back from our respective institutes of higher education. We’ll likely be at the section you see on your right. We’ll also be in Section 103, Row G, in the Bleachers – sorry, the Pepsi Bleachers – on Wednesday, May 31st… for the Yankees; those tickets have already been purchased. We’ll probably make it to another Yankee game and a few games other games between the Yanks and aforementioned Twins.
Albert Pujols is currently the best baseball player in the game. More on him later in the week, or next week.
I’m currently watching the Yankees – Devil Rays game. First off, I’m getting really tired of hearing every broadcaster tell me about how dangerous Gary Sheffield is, and how hard he hits foul balls down the third base line. Now Jeter just singled to juice the bases. We’re down by 2, bottom of the 10th, 2 outs, Gary Sheffield up. 0-1. Sheffield takes 3 time outs, and they meet at the mound. 1-1. 2-1… Sheff grounds right to Wiggington at third, who bobbles it. I yell. Wiggington recovers, throws to 1st. The throw looks high… but it’s not. Game over. No big deal, really. You’re not gonna beat the Devil Rays, Royals, Mariners, etc, every time. And it was an extra inning loss, it’s not like we were never in it.
I was watching Law and Order earlier. Basically the cops busted into this place and found about 60 guns sitting around on the table. What do the inhabitants say? "I understand all those guns laying around doesn’t look good." No, they really don’t.
Well now I’m upset. No comments, from 10a Tuesday until now. That’s probably the worst performance I’ve ever seen. I mean, I don’t know what else to say. Are you freaking kidding me? I’ll be back tomorrow, as usual.
David Wright stays, C. Young, Rocket, and Chi Sox
One very quick note. For those of you using RSS Feed Aggregators, you can now subscribe to BHGM with any of your aggregators, (web-based or software-based,) by clicking the following link and choosing your desired feed in the right corner. There is also a link under the Site Tools, and for those of you using FireFox, you can always add BHGM as a ‘live bookmark‘ by clicking on that same orange icon in your address box at the top of your browser. More info on the benefits of FireFox here.
David Wright won’t be traded
Good news. Turns out, David Wright won’t be traded after all. I know, you thought the "next Jeter" (which he isn’t,) was as good as gone, right? Again, maybe I’m the one living under the rock, but I had no idea that such a rumor was circulating. Apparently the Marlins were going to trade Dontrelle Willis to the Mets for our man David Wright. Why? Well, forget for a second that Marlin’s owner Jeffrey Loria says the rumor was "the invention of some irresponsible reporter," and "never happened." Frankly, I’m inclined to believe him, but lets pretend that someone in either organization wanted this trade to go down. If so, they’re the greatest Saboteur this side of Scott Eyre. Think about it. The money-starved Marlins trade away one of the best pitching values in exchange for a power-hitting 3rd baseman. The Mets get to replace Victor Zambrano in the rotation with Willis, thereby nullifying every aspect of the infamous Scott Kazmir trade, and further enraging their fans. Miguel "Runs like a Bus" Cabrera gets to head back out to the outfield to make room for Wright… no, I’m sorry. Nothing about this trade discussion that "never happened" makes any sense at all. The Marlins trade away the future and bedrock of their franchise for the future and "next Jeter" of the Met’s franchise. No way. Never. I’d give up Jason Schmidt for Ryan Vogelsong before I do Willis-Wright from either side of the table, and that really happened.
Chris Young
More good news – I’m even more scared now than I was yesterday. Now I’m terrified. See, Young has some pain in his pitching thumb. When I first heard this a few days ago, my first reaction was a ‘not good but probably temporary.’ But I’ll admit, I was scared he would turn around and pull a small-scale Kip Wells on me. From what I gathered, there was not only pain but a slight loss of control in the thumb, which made me suspect a circulation problem. Apparently I was right, as Young is now going on medication to correct the "decreased blood flow" to his thumb. All this after jamming a finger? That’s no good. I’m currently searching for a replacement for Young for my pay league Fantasy Team. If the medication doesn’t work, Young will take a trip to the DL. I’m gonna go way out on a medical limb and suggest that he’s taking something like Coumadin, a sort of blood thinner. I’m no doctor, but I thought it’d be fun to take a stab. In any case, the medication is obviously not a long term solution to the problem. If it’s serious enough that it doesn’t fix itself, Young will probably get an extended DL stint. Something more minor, (C’mon, who hasn’t jammed their finger like 10 times playing ball?) and he’ll do a couple weeks.
Rick Monday
I want to talk about Rick Monday’s 30-year anniversary of the Flag Saving. However, my writing style precludes such discussion. It’s hard to offer an opinion on situations like these without offending or alienating someone. Obviously I’m the first guy to take a shot at someone’s actions if they do something stupid, but I’m not here to bash people’s personal views and beliefs, regardless of whether or not I agree. That said – Monday was a stand-up guy for what he did. Even more, he describes it as somewhat of a knee-jerk reaction. Good to know that Monday, a former member of the Marine Reserves at the time, had his head in the right place.
The Rocket
And how about the Rocket Race? Is he coming back? I’m 100% positive that even he doesn’t know yet. Think about it – would there be anything more un-Rocket-like to keep the media hype going when he knows it’s unwarranted? If he knew he wasn’t coming back, he would’ve told us a long time ago. If he knew he was coming back, he wouldn’t be saying things like, "It’s very flattering [but] it would be a mental challenge [to come back]." We also have some other variables to consider. For example, why did Rocket take a short term contract last year in Houston? It wasn’t because that was all they would give him, it was because that was all he wanted. He knew then that he wasn’t sure whether he’d be back in 2006. Furthermore, recall that Rocket retired once already, but returned to active duty for Houston, saying that being close to his family was a primary reason. Meanwhile, the Rangers, Yankees, and Red Sox are currently the front-runners for bringing him back. That said, why would he sign with the Yankees or Red Sox? I’m also assuming Clemens doesn’t want his time to go to waste, so why would he go back to Texas? I’ll bet good money that if Rocket does come back, he’ll be back in Houston. I won’t hazard a guess as to whether or not he’ll be back, but I would say he’s more likely to stay in retirement, but not by much. 45/55 maybe?
Mark Buehrle and Ozzie Guillen
Ozzie Guillen labeled Mark Buehrle as ‘underrated’ after going 3-0 with a 1.13 ERA in his last 3 starts. Guillen claims that, "every day he has done the same thing for three years and nobody talks about him. The only time they talk about him was last year when he threw like a one-hour game." Uh, that’s not true. Sure, Buehrle is the most underrated pitcher in the game. It’s been that way for the last two years, which is why he’s been a member of four of my last five fantasy teams over the last three years. Frankly, I was convinced that would change after all the attention he would get from the World Series, but it hasn’t. Buehrle has always been one of my favorite pitchers because he’s fun to watch (quick) and he’s downright consistent. I suppose the only other time people were talking about him last year was when he snapped his 48 (or something) consecutive 6 inning start streak by intentionally beaning a batter, (I plan on talking about the League’s phantom beaning rules in a subsequent post). In fact, on April 30th, 2005, I said, "Mark Buehrle is the most underrated pitcher in the
Big Leagues. He has amazing control and makes batters look foolish when
he’s on." And no, Ozzie, that wasn’t the only time they talked about him last year. I’m sick of Ozzie Guillen lying and exaggerating, but I’m even sicker of everyone subscribing to his worldview. It’s tired, it’s old, he’s an *ss, and I don’t like him. Does it work? Getting on your players for playing bad baseball works, a little. Swearing at kids for asking for an autograph, or swearing at the media for asking a question, or swearing at the general public for doing whatever they do – that doesn’t win baseball games.
Carl Everett
Turns out, Chicago wasn’t big enough for two A-Holes, (three if you count Frank, which I’m not willing to do.) So, one of them had to go. GM Ken Williams opted to send off Carl "Fan is short for fanatic – he’s crazy about something he doesn’t know
about. And it’s proven that 99 percent of baseball fans have no idea
what they’re watching" Everett instead of Guillen. And yes, Carl Everett did say this. Then again, he also believes that we should implode Wrigley, and that if "everybody in the world" got on steroids, we’d still lose more kids to a war than steroids. Anyway, getting run out of town didn’t sit too well with Everett, who claims that the White Sox lack leadership with him gone and will finish third in the AL Central because of it. He now plays for the Mariners, and claims that Ken Williams broke up the White Sox chemistry. When asked before Monday’s game against the White Sox if he would say hello to his "buds," Everett launched the following shot:
What buds? All my buds got traded. They’ve still got some cool people
- Jermaine (Dye) and I are still cool. But I’m not here to talk about
them.
Nice class, Carl. When asked about this, Guillen replied, "He didn’t mention me. He mentioned Kenny. Ask Kenny." Luckily, ‘Kenny’ Williams was able to douse the flames by saying he had not and likely would not talk to Carl. Good to hear that they’re taking steps to prevent another Frank Thomas-like disaster in Chi-Town.
Jason isn’t gonna let you forget that Brandon Phillips did win the NL Player of the Week. And as for Julien, hailing from France, I can’t agree with you more, and I encourage you guys to check out his comment. Not surprising that you ended up here googling for "baseball athletically." Keep the comments coming guys. I don’t think we’ll be seeing much game coverage until at least Thursday. Finals are coming. I also remade the sidebar over the last couple of days, check it out.
Bruce Bochy, Burnett, and Games
Bruce Bochy – Word Inventor
The more I learn about Chris Young’s ‘injury,’ the scarier it gets. When I first heard about it, I was led to believe that he merely had some pain in his thumb that had been bothering him. Next, I thought there might be some structural damage done, because I heard he was gonna get an MRI today. But now I’m scared. Padres Manager Bruce Bochy said,
I’ve never seen anything quite like this. It is hard to figure out what is going on. It has us buffaloed.
Buffaloed? What does that mean? Stumped? Are you left guessing as to the nature of the injury? According to urbandictionary.com, ‘Buffaloed’ means "to have your spirit broken." Does that mean your chances of finishing on top of the worst division in the history of sports have decreased from 0 to 0, and now you’re depressed? Now, it’s possible that I’m the one under the rock here. Maybe people walk around saying buffaloed to each other all day, and it’s a regular in the American lexicon. Maybe. Why do I bring it up? Because it will probably end up being the most exciting thing that happens to San Diego all season, as they continue to duke it out in their mile-long park and crappy division.
A.J. Burnett and the Info Mask
According to "noted orthopedic surgeon" (Medical Note: these guys tend to be real jerks,) Dr. James Andrews, A.J. Burnett has no structural damage in his arm. Instead, he’s suffered a ‘reoccurrence’ of his Spring Training injury – the whole scar tissue thing, the one that, with some rest, would be good for another two years or so. Interesting. You see, there’s nothing wrong with him. It’s normal to make just two short starts between DL stints. Is this the same Dr. James Andrews that works for Cubs Pitching and Co.? I can understand Roy Halladay being "fine" but still missing two of three scheduled starts, but I don’t understand Burnett having "no structural damage" yet not being able to pitch. Of course, that’s not as bad as Prior having "no elbow injury" but being unable to throw a baseball. Or Kerry Wood being "right on track" but with no timetable for a return. This is why the Cubs will always be my favorite team to take shots at – they make it so easy. In case you haven’t been paying attention, I’ve probably beat up Larry Rothschild and Dusty Baker in each of my last 20 posts.
Bank of America Presents the National League Player of the Week Brandon Phillips
That’s commercial he11 right there. But it gets better. The last sentence of this ‘article,’ or advertisement, was so crowded I had to re-read twice to understand it. And even then, I knew something was wrong, so I read it a couple more times and then finally deciphered it. Here, it’s your turn, codebreaker:
In recognition of this honor, Tourneau, the world’s largest watch
store, is proud to award the Bank of America Presents the National
League Player of the Week Brandon Phillips with a Tourneau luxury Swiss
timepiece.
Ok? Is Brandon Phillips a dude or a corporation? And did you know that Bank of America – one of the largest banks in the world – started out as an immigrants "Bank of Italy," and took off after the Great San Francisco Earthquake, somewhere around 1911?
Boring…
When I got back from a long, hard day playing Butcher and dissecting little pigs, I decided to flip to The MLB.TV and see what was on. Turns out, jokes’ on me! No games on. I mean, unless you count Cincinnati v. Washington, Colorado v. Philadelphia, and Florida v. Chicago. If you watched or went to any of those games, you’re a real fan. Not to take another shot at Bobby’s Fish, but especially the Florida v. Chicago game. Is there a worse matchup then the undisputed worst team in the league (Florida,) minus their DL-riding "Rookie of the Year" v. the Prior-Wood-Miller-Lee-less Chicago Cubs? Probably not. The only exciting thing about this is Carlos "I’m about to lose control" Zambrano. Despite the fact that he managed to give up 3 runs to the Marlins in 7 innings, he has 12 K’s. This is not as cool as it seems, as one half (yes, .5, or 1/2) of the Marlins 8 starters in the lineup are hitting below the Mendoza line. For those of you unfamiliar with the Mendoza line, it’s .200.
It’s generally accepted that if you hit below the Mendoza Line, you shouldn’t be in the Major Leagues. Then again, that’s irrelevant as the Marlins don’t really seem to be in the Major Leagues anyway. Oh well. And Zambrano has only thrown 116 pitches through those 7 innings. At this rate, he’ll still have enough bullets left at the end of the game to pitch two innings tomorrow. At least, that’s what Dusty tells me. Meanwhile, Marlins starter Jason Vargas held the Cubbies to just one hit, walking four in 6.1IP.
Justin; I don’t really think the Tigers will put it all together this year. They need at least one winning season before they make it to the Big Time. But, if by ‘put it together’ you mean, ‘get above .500,’ then yes, I do believe this is their year. I think their offense is a lot more set than the pitching, however. We could use one more #3-caliber starter, but I’m not gonna push it. One more thing for all you commenters out there – leave your website address at the end of your posts. I want to be able to check out your sites as well, (I really do mean this.)
If I see any games tonight I might be back. But it’s gonna be a busy next two weeks, culminating in a Calculus and Biology final on May 10th. Post May 10th, I’m headed back home. A couple weeks after that, I’ll hope to have to podcast up and running on www.baseballradioshow.com. Until then, check out Mike’s Tiger’s Podcast at http://dailyfungo.mlblogs.com.
Reds v. Brewers, Cubs, Yanks, and FireFox
Remember how the Brewers started 5-0? Well, did you know that they’re currently 8-9, and that the Reds are 11-6? The Reds are Brewers are currently doing battle at Miller Park. Actually, they were doing battle, but now they’re just playing around. Here’s a classic pitcher’s duel for you:
Dave Bush, (MIL): 7IP, 85 pitches, 1 hit, 0ER, 2BB, 9K’s.
Brandon Claussen, (CIN): 3IP, 86 pitches, 8 hits, 9 ER, 3 BB, 3K’s.
In the fourth inning, Bill Hall homered off Claussen. Damian Miller followed with a 2-run shot. Brady Clark followed with a 2-run shot. J.J. Hardy followed with a solo shot. Chris Hammond came in for relief. Prince Fielder followed with a solo shot. That’s 7 runs scored on five HR’s in one inning, and in case you’re wondering, that does tie an MLB record. Yikes. It’s currently the bottom of the 7th and the Brewers are up 10-0. As for Dave Bush, you may remember him from Toronto. He’s 26. He’s on a decent team. He doesn’t have a terrible track record for a guy his age. And with today’s game, he has an ERA of 3.81 so far. Bush finished the game allowing 4 hits, 2 walks, and 9 K’s in 115 pitches. I think that as the season progresses he’ll turn in more and more quality performances.
Can someone tell Dusty Baker how to use a double switch? I know I rag on the Cubs more than any other team. That’s because it’s fun and it’s easy, and I’ll never get sick of that picture you see to your left. I don’t watch a lot of NL ball, but I’ve seen enough Cubs games to know that Baker doesn’t really know how to use the Double Switch. That is, he never used it. At least not until today, when he managed to remove the lineup’s second and third best hitters – Todd Walker and Matt Murston – with two. I’ve been watching the Cubs v. Cardinals game for a few minutes now and I’ve already seen three double-switches. On top of that, one such double-switch brought Scott Eyre in the game. He’s still alive? After the beating he put on D. Lee, practically ending the Cub’s season? Surprising that no one has called his shot in the death pool, (I don’t participate in the death pool nor do I think it’s tasteful, but you should know it’s out there). In addition, Baker informed us that all walks are good for is "clogging the bases," which is why three of the six runners his pitchers put on for free scored. On the ‘information’ front, Kerry Wood was set to throw on the side yesterday – but complained of pain in his armpit. Of course, the Cubs have nothing else to say regarding when he will return, or if he still does, in fact, pitch. Ditto for Mark Prior. And Wade Miller was moved to the 60-day DL. Also, Cubs ‘pitching’ coach, who is more deserving of the title "Minister of Information," had this to say about reliever Bob Howry: "He’s got the cool, calm demeanor of an assassin. He wants to go out there and pitch every day." That’s bad news. Howry probably has, at most, one month left before he’s run down by overuse and experiences some freak accident… and oh great. Izzy came in to ‘shut’ the door against the Cubs, and he ending up dropping a routine toss from Pujols as he was running towards 1st, allowing Jacque Jones to reach 1st on the error, and now there’s a man on 1st with one out instead of empty bags with 2 down. That’s a concentration error. Dude dropped an easy, soft toss directly to his chest for no good reason. Ended up not making a difference in the game, but still – that’s not gonna win you any goodwill in this town.
Yanks won today. Watched that game for a little bit as well. Who would’ve thought Shacon would come back from getting skipped in the rotation to allow just 4 hits, 1 run, and 3 walks over 7 IP? Strange, especially after we saw Wang get owned last night. This win was also good news for the Yanks because, not only did our number 5 hold a team to one run, but we one without the big home run. In fact, Matsui’s double was the only extra base hit we had. Only 7 hits, but 7 walks. That’s big, and by putting men on base like that, you manage 6 RBI’s.
I also want to talk about Mozilla’s FireFox browser. I’m obviously a fan. I switched over about two months ago and I love it. It’s especially useful now that I’ve started reading a variety of different blogs. This involves what’s called RSS feeds. For those of you stuck in IE, RSS means nothing to you because you can’t use it unless you have one of those aggregators or something. With FireFox, all you have to do is hit an orange button in the address box, and it adds this feed to your bookmarks. It looks something like what you see on your right. It’s very easy to access blogs this way, and all you have to do is hover over the link to see what’s new. The feed automatically updates, which is what makes it so valuable. Instead of checking all of these sites yourself, all you have to do is check to see if there’s a new headline up there through your favorites, as IE users may know them. It’s also great for tracking simple news feeds, such as RxSN Baseball (almost every MLBlogger is featured on this site and probably doesn’t know it,) or Deadspin. FireFox is also, in my opinion, a much better browser than IE. FireFox is gaining in popularity very quickly; of the last 100 visitors to BHGM, 29 used FireFox and 67 used IE, (in case you’re wondering, Opera and Safari were also on the list.) There are very few compatibility issues when using FireFox – the only website I have trouble with is the auto-updating Fantasy Scoreboard on CBSsportsline.com; every so often the scripts will stop running. There are also thousands of add-ons, which are little ‘extensions’ created by other programmers for FireFox that do little useful things. For example, an in-browser Gmail notifer and in-browser media controls which can be easily downloaded and immediately applied to the browser. In any case, you can get FireFox right here. And there’s always a link in the site tools section at the bottom of my sidebar.
The Nationals and the NL East
Frank Robinson won his 1,000th game as a manager the other night with the Washington Nationals. Well, congratulations. Now, let’s take a look at the Nationals. Before the 2005 season started, things weren’t looking so good – in fact, they were looking awful. MLB had just awarded the team to DC, but then there was the whole issue of how the stadium would be funded. Then it looked like the deal was off. DC had a team for about 12 minutes, before they said, "wait, you’re gonna have to pay for half of the stadium… you’re still coming, right?" to which MLB replied, "Uhh, see ya later."
That was pretty close to being a disaster. Then someone stepped in at the 59th minute of the 11th hour to rescue the team from another disturbing year in Montreal, where they apparently don’t like to play baseball. However, by hiring Jim Bowden as their GM – and no, I don’t know who ‘they’ is, since the Nats still have no owner – they made a colossal mistake. If your goal is to
drive from Detroit to Orlando, you don’t start by shooting holes in your gas tank, slashing your tires, and punching out your headlights. Yet, this is pretty much the handicap the Nationals were forced to deal with when they started – not exactly helpful. For more on why I hate Jim Bowden, check out here. And here, here, here, and of course here. Nonetheless, they beat the odds and shocked millions when they started out the year and carried all the way through the All-Star Break on top of the NL East. Then they found their place and nosedived, managing to finish in last place in the NL East. Now, that was with an 81-81 record, and had they been in the NL West and won exactly two more games, they would’ve walked away with the division. That said, the Nationals haven’t really recovered. In fact, they’ve picked up right where they left off. After they made the mistake of the year by picking up Soriano, which was actually just routine incompetence for Bowden, they started off the regular season losing games again. Actually, they were already working on being bad in Spring Training. After Royce Clayton bobbled a "tailor-made double play
ball," he decided to toss it to Vidro at 2nd, mostly just for fun, since the play was already over. He missed, and Vidro proceeded to literally sulk after the ball as it rolled to third. For a while
it looked like the ball might out ‘run’ Vidro, but he eventually caught
up with it. By then, the Nats had already made 48 errors. Not good.
Like I said, it was bad news from the get-go. Back to the story of the 1,000th win. Before departing on their current road trip, the Nationals were 2-8. At that pace, Robinson was probably worried that he would have to wait until 2007 to get that win. But, a miracle came in the form of 2 three-game sets against the Marlins and Phillies – or so we were led to believe. The Nationals lost the first game against the Marlins 3-5. In game 2, they just barely squeaked by with a 2-1 win. And, in the all-important game 3, they were able to come out ahead 7-5. Fantastic – you just took 2 of 3 from the worst team in the game and you only managed to out-score them by one run. And so the Nats dragged their 4-9 record to Citizens Bank Park, where they beat a Philly team I had mistaken for a contender, 10-3. Next game, they lose 6-7. Tough. Now Robinson is sitting at win number 999. And the Nats manage to beat on the Phils, 10-4. Robinson has got to be going crazy inside, right? Actually, no. Apparently the post-game ‘celebration’ went something like this, according to Mr. 1,000 himself:
Mitchell Page was shaking my hand after the last out and he said, ‘Congratulations.’ He was holding on to my hand, shaking it. And I told
him, ‘Let go. What are you doing? Let go of my hand.’ He said, ‘Congratulations on your 1,000th win.’ I said, ‘Oh, that’s right.’ It
was the 4-2 road trip I was looking at… I tell you one
thing, they didn’t have the champagne iced down, though, because they
weren’t too sure when the win would come. But it tastes pretty good,
even hot.
So the dude was more excited about taking 4 of 6 from the Marlins and Phillies than he was about winning number 1,000. That’s when you know things aren’t going well. And then, Robinson was ready to take some shots at his team. Speaks for itself, really. The Nats are already having a straight-up bad year, and it’s only April. They’ve got six guys on the DL: Luis Ayala, Ryan Drese, Brian Lawrence, Robert Fick, Cristian Guzman, and Pedro Astacio. The club dodged a huge bullet after Jose "lose the ‘tude" Guillen strained his oblique in BP and had to sit out 6 days. Soriano isn’t doing half bad, and somehow has his average at .299. I know, a really shifty stat in the beginning of the year, but that’s remarkable for Soriano and his career .321 OBP. The problem with the Nats is that they have those holes – and they don’t have a player that can just load up and carry them through a bad stretch, and the team isn’t deep enough to perform consistently.
As for the Mets, I haven’t decided whether they’re for real or not, but they were certainly helped along by their weak schedule. The Braves, on the other hand, haven’t looked good of late, but they still are. Again, baseball’s version of a vampire. Their pitching seems to be back under control. Oh yeah, and after losing to the Mets 3-4 on Monday, they went ahead on them 7-1 and 2-1. Now they’re 8-8. Not dead yet, huh?
Still pissed about the comments. After I called on you guys to post a big 5-spot, you put up a meager three. Three. Now, I know I only gave you about 18 hours. I know the last two posts were a long one-two punch. But three is pathetic. Keep your eyes on the prize, guys. As for John requesting a link to the Greatest Play of All Time – I try to work that in whenever I can. Apparently, that story pretty much has taken on a life of its own. It’s posted on message boards, emails, and is quite a hit on Google. One such email even made its way to Korea. Which is good, because it deserves it. Check it out here. Also, if you ever need it really bad, there’s always the Classic Posts on the sidebar. And the search is working again, (try that out at the bottom of the sidebar.) Good to hear from Jason and Aaron again as well. Obviously Jason is another Yankee guy who made the trip to Toronto. Aaron runs another Tiger blog, for those of you interested.
Cranes, Cubs, Yankees, and DL Notes
I’m back from a brief hiatus. I hope you all enjoyed the Birthday posts – I thought the last one was good enough to carry me through a rough Wednesday off the blog. So, I’ve taken my vacation and I’m back. Sorry. As for the rest of the night, I’ll lay out what I have because it’s a lot. First, I’ve actually cut out the first part of this post in the interest of length. Basically, I didn’t like it as much and so I decided to get it out of here. It can be found in Part I. There, we’ll explore the dynamics of hitting a fastball, followed with a quick analysis of Detroit at Oakland – which will actually turn out to be more like Esteban Loaiza’s Biography, The Fernando Rodney Prophecy, and why Barry Zito plays for Oakland.
Back to this post, we go over the Miller Park Crane Disaster, followed by the Mike McClary Podcast. After that, we’ll explore the Chicago Cubs Universe, which is rapidly shifting away from the Red as it implodes, with a special emphasis on Magician Larry Rothschild and holograms Mark Prior and Kerry Wood. But, we’ll also touch on Scott Eyre, possibly 2003 Marlins’ Fan inside man, who was the replacement for the Bartman ball, which Cubs fans managed to wrest from 2003 Marlins Fan by blowing up. Never mind the fact that baseball is not voodoo. After this, we’ll hit on the Yankees. Then, we’ll take a look at some interesting DL Notes.
Miller Park Construction
I was watching the History Channel last night and they showed what happened when some giant crane (right) collapsed on Miller Park as it was being constructed. How did I not hear about this? A crane twice as high as the Statue of Liberty just came crashing down on Miller Park, killing three. I don’t remember this. In 2000, the county courthouse decided the operators of the crane were 97% liable. The manufacturer of the crane was found 3% liable. Does it matter? I just felt I had to include this because, not only was I oblivious to the fact that they made cranes that high, but I assumed that if they did, they would be running them on a pretty tight ship. Not allowing them to blow over while lifting up a section of the roof "twice as large as your average housing lot, in an average development," as some guy from OSHA described it. For those of you fortunate enough not to have worked in the retail business, OSHA are basically the dudes that get after your boss when he does something bad.
Mike McClary’s Podcast
Also, Mike McClary over at the Daily Fungo has just released his first Podcast. Check it out, I listened to it and it’s good stuff. This is kind of what Kevin and I are shooting to launch in about a month, but there will obviously be two of us.
Chicago Cubs
And Cubs Fans are probably ready to jump ship. Now, recall that I previously ragged on the Cubs for their dealings with Mark Prior and Kerry Wood – not exactly old news. I also cracked on Dusty Baker for being incompetent when given control of the two. For a quick recap, Baker should not be allowed near any young arms, and any order he issues regarding a pitcher should be put through pitching coach Larry Rothschild before being acted upon. Now, Rothschild is about the 2nd to last person I would trust with an arm, right before Baker. But it’s an improvement. My beef with Rothschild lies in the fact that he’s running a magical information force field around Wood and Prior. It’s almost as if the two pitchers held Rothschild’s hand as he jumped into an alternate dimension. Apparently, the three are hanging out in Arizona chucking practice pitches – despite the fact that it’s nearly May, and despite the fact that they allegedly have no injuries. Now, Larry isn’t going to let you get the wrong idea with this – "It will be more than a bullpen session – we’ll keep counts and outs, stuff like that," he said regarding Wood’s then-upcoming bullpen session. But back to the injury question – what’s wrong with these two guys 
in the first place? If you ask the Cubs if Prior is always in trouble because of his elbow, they’ll tell you he has no elbow injury. If you respond by asking why he’s on the DL, they’ll tell you he has a shoulder injury, not an elbow injury. Ask him what brought on this shoulder injury, and they’ll tell you he had a virus in the offseason, and that set him back in his Spring Training preparation, but that he should still be ready for opening day. Anyone see a hole in this reasoning? A little strange that you suspect an elbow problem, but by the time you’re done with the Chicago Ministry of Information, you think that Prior suffers from a mysterious shoulder injury caused by a mysterious virus that will mysteriously allow him to pitch a game 2 weeks in the past, despite the fact that he is – mysteriously – not with the team.
Anyway, the Cubs resemble the Bad News Bears in more than the obvious ways. You see, something truly spectacular happened the other night. Derrek Lee – All-Star and team leader – and last-reliever-standing Scott Eyre were both injured. In the same week? Yes. Same game? Yes. Same inning? Yes. Same play? Yes. One thing if they did it to each other, but they didn’t. Imagine having nearly a quarter of your players on the field go down within seconds. If that’s not a bad omen, I don’t know what is – I mean, besides not blowing up the Bartman ball. See, Eyre tried to flip a bunt to Lee, but instead ending up flopping down in front of the ball. This resulted in a ‘flip’ that, had Lee been 13 feet tall, would’ve been over his head. Not realizing the enormity of Eyre’s Error, Lee tries to back up a little, oblivious to the fact that it won’t make a difference, and certainly not realizing that Rafael Furcal is about .5 seconds away from occupying the same piece of real estate. The two collide, fracturing two bones in Lee’s hand. Well, he’s out 2-3 months, and that puts you in… July when your best player returns. Eyre, apparently, will be ok. Not that it matters, because The Saboteur won’t have too many leads to preserve for Ryan Dempster after that. See you next year.
New York Yankees
In Yankee News, Mike Mussina can still pitch, and he’s really smart (Stanford,) as well. Last night’s 3-1 victory over the Jays was a big deal, because it was the first time everything clicked. That is, we got solid pitching, solid defense, and solid hitting all in one game. We didn’t need to score 13 runs to bail out the pitching, and that’s a big deal. Right now, the Yankees are 7-7. Of those 14 games, 3 have been at home. And critics will tell you that those 3 games don’t matter, because they were against the Royals – and we won all three. In any case, once the schedule evens out, we’ll be back on top. I did a detailed breakdown of the Yankees and Red Sox stats thus far on Tuesday, so you can look at that if you want.
DL News
You see, the Disabled List is a bit of a misnomer. There is no actual list of disabled players, at least not one that I’ve seen. It would be interesting to have that list, because there are some splendid treasures to be found. Here are a couple ‘highlights.’
- D. Lee was placed on the D.L. with his previously mentioned busted hand.
- The Rangers transferred Adam Eaton to the 60-day DL while he continues to recover from a broken finger. This is bad for the Rangers, as Chris Young is better than Adam Eaton’s broken finger, but they made the trade anyway. The Rangers still need pitching.
- On April 18th, Greatest Play of All Time participant (in the role of in-the-park home run hitter,) David Newhan was placed on the DL by the Orioles.
- On April 17th, Ken Griffey Jr. was placed on the DL for the 29th time in 3 seasons – that’s right, he still plays. This time, it was his fault, because on the day of the injury he told us all about how happy he was to be healthy.
- The Marlins placed OF Jeremy Hermida on the DL. An early exit for the supposed Rookie of the Year. This move probably drops the Marlins from last place in the NL East to last place in the NL East.
- On April 16th, the Royals brought Mark "The Cavalry" Redman off the DL. Redman hopes to rescue Mark "We won’t be a bad team this year, but if we are, we’re gonna battle all season long" Grudzielanek from losing the battle of his life. There are few situations where the phrase "too little too late" can be applied in week 3 of the season, but this is one.
- Ben Sheets was brought off the DL. I am still waiting for him to strike out 3 guys on 9 pitches again.
- On April 12th, David Wells was activated from the DL. On April 15th, David Wells was placed on the DL, retroactive to April 13th. In other words, the Red Sox brought a guy of the DL, then put him back on the DL the very next day.
- Also on April 15th, the Pirates had an awful day. Sean Casey was placed on the DL with ‘lower back fractures,’ which is a nasty-sounding ailment. Former good pitcher Kip Wells was transferred to the 60-day DL with another injury – surgery to replace his axillary artery. The surgery, performed over a month ago, will allow blood to flow through Well’s arm again.
- On April 14th, The Dodgers activated Kenny Lofton from the DL. Surprisingly, they have not reversed this move yet, as Lofton remains uninjured. Former Savior Yhency Brozaban also joined former Savior Eric Gagne on the DL. Unsurprisingly, the McCourt’s continue to run the Dodgers.
- In Minor League Notes, the Toledo Mud Hens – the Tiger’s AAA Affaliate – lost Don Kelly for a couple days after he was hit with a throw. Thinking the throw was heading home, Kelly had his back to right fielder Ryan Ludwick – and everybody knows you don’t turn your back to Ryan Ludwick. Unless you want to get hit in the back of the head by a relay throw, which is what happened to Kelly. I learned this in little league – don’t throw to a guy who isn’t looking at you.
We’ve added Australia, Switzerland, Norway, and China to the visitor list. Thanks for checking in, and if I don’t start seeing some more comments, I’m going to get pissed. Jeremy, I’ve seen your Lasko commercials. I thought about including those in the list, but they’re just bad, not funny. Unfortunately, those are the only comments I have to talk about right now. I’m going to go ahead and assume that BHGM’s readers are just as busy as BHGM’s owner. Does that mean I’m granting you a free pass? No. Until I see five (5) comments, I’ll remain upset. People, five is a really small number. Despite the fact that no posts were made on Wednesday or Thursday (so far,) we received 211 hits. And one comment. Pathetic.
“This is our year!”
The Tigers are 3-0 atop the AL Central. Additionally, B.J. Ryan got booed in Rogers Center, which makes no sense, (and which I actually won’t be talking about.) The Rangers are collapsing, Chris Duffy is a liar, Jimmy Rollins is done, Eric Gagne is done, the Devil Rays are still bad, and Pedro got slapped around. We’ve got other things to discuss as well. Fun evening! This makes up for all the lame posts of the last few days, I hope.
First things first – I’ve decided this has to stop. There are a lot of you out there reading, but not a lot of you are out there making comments. For those of you MLBloggers out there, comments are a great way to get your blog read – just write your website address at the bottom of the post. Some people think this is a bad thing to do, because you might end up stealing other people’s readers… I don’t mind. No one would be reading my stuff if it hadn’t made it around the MLBlogs community, so feel free to post your own plugs. Anyway, make comments telling me I’m an idiot. Ask me what I think about something – this is how the entire Indian’s Overview got started. Most MLBloggers out here are a little shy about calling out their readers for not posting comments, with the notable exception of the Bleeding Pinstripes – and now I’m going to start taking after him. I’m obviously not afraid to take any shots at players, and I’m not afraid to bust you guys up either. I’m not trying to sound like Mark Newman here, but there are a lot of great blogs out there. Now that the season has started, it’s nearly impossible to keep your name up top the Recently Updated list. So, post your thoughts and your blog’s address in a comment. I’ll even let you pick the post. Besides, we will all learn more from each other than from me alone. So, lets get to the real business of baseball…
Detroit Tigers – It’s our year!
I’ve told you all before – all across Michigan, it’s the same thing every year at the beginning of the season. The Tigers win the opener, and for the next 32 hours or so, the whole state is chanting, "restore the roar!" Kids are walking around telling each other that the Tigers are undefeated this year, and that they’re in 1st place. We win another game, and it gets even worse. Even the Tiger’s homepage is joining in on the action tonight, with the headline, "Tigers look to extend undefeated streak." People don’t do this because they think it’s true – they do it because they know that after the first games of the season, they won’t even be able to brag about as much as a winning record. That said, is this year different? The Tigers beat the Royals in a short 2-game set earlier, which isn’t much of an accomplishment. However, considering that the Tigers lost to a college team a few years ago, it’s a start.
However, could this be the real thing? Legitimate changes have been made to the team. Cancers like Carlos Pena, Jason Johnson, and Franklyn German – guys that settled for mediocrity – were removed. Spring Training was a sort of experimental drug therapy, as Jim Leyland picked out all the players that deserved to make the team – as opposed to those who fit into the depth chart, regardless of their desire to play or win. That said, it would be logical to see a changed team emerge from Spring Training. The Tigers outscored the Royals 17-4, so they didn’t just beat them – they creamed them. The Royals might not be the best team in the league, but a bad team with an anemic offense can’t score 17 runs in 18 innings regardless of how bad the pitching is. Therefore, we can conclude that the Tigers must be doing something different this year. On top of this, the Tigers are up 9-3 on the Rangers right now in the bottom of the 8th. The Tigers will win this game, and then they’re 3-0 – the only undefeated team in the AL, and one of only 3 in the entire league, (Milwaukee and St. Louis.) This has to mean something. If these were 2-1, 6-5, 5-3 victories, I wouldn’t be saying a word. And it’s not a big deal to score a lot of runs against the Royals, or against the Ranger’s R.A. Dickey in Ameriquest Field. But again – it doesn’t matter how bad the pitching is, if you’re a bad hitter you still can’t hit them.
In Game 2 against the Royals, Bonderman went 6.2 innings, giving up 3 hits, 1 run, and striking out 8 while walking none. In Game 1, Rogers went 6 innings, gave up 3 hits and 1 run, struck out 5 and walked none. Make no mistake – this isn’t because Cluck – last year’s pitching coach, but no more – was bad. It’s because the Royals stink. But, the Tigers have made 0 errors this season. Anyone who watched them last year knows this must’ve taken a miracle. Can someone tell me why I can view more team stats in the MVP 2004 video game standings then I can from MLB.com standings? I want to be able to see how many errors a team has committed by looking at the standings page, or any other page, for that matter. Thanks. In any case, everyone is underestimating the Tigers this year, except those of us extremely familiar with the team. Which don’t seem to be many. I told a fellow sportswriter (as I like to call myself; this guy actually writes for the school paper,) that if the Tigers got into the playoffs this year, I’d be mildly surprised, but I wouldn’t lose my faith in the Universe. However, if you asked me what our chances were any of the past 13 years, I’d tell you zero. The Tigers don’t surprise people. They don’t suddenly go from really bad to really good for no reason. But this time, the reason is Jim Leyland and while it’s not likely, I wouldn’t be 100% shocked if the Tigers at least made a run for a spot. If the White Sox come crashing down to Earth, as I believe they will, and the Indians underachieve again, the Tigers suddenly look very good. I’m pretty confident that the Twins won’t do anything this year, and I’ll bet my life on the Royals not coming within 15 games of the division leader for the next three years. See the Tiger’s team overview for a more organized look.
That said, time for some in-game coverage. I’ve been following the game on Gameday, you see. I have one question – who the heck is Jordan Tata? He somehow managed to hold the Rangers to two hits over 3 innings in his major league debut. He was going great until inning 2.2 of his stint – aka, the bottom of the 9th. He struck out Kevin Mench, gave up a hit to Adrian Brown, then walked Rod Barajas and Ian Kinsler before he got bailed out by Fernando Rodney, who struck out Brad Wilkerson. Michael Young is up, 2 outs, 2-2 count. Then he hits a base-clearing double, new score, 10-6. Next time, Rodney can avoid giving Young a ball down the heart. Tex flies out, game over.
Texas is freaking out
I met a relative of the Ranger’s starting pitcher for this game, R.A. Dickey, at a Tiger’s game last year. That whole family must be in tears right now. Dickey gave up 6 bombs and 7 runs in 3.1 innings. He struck out only one, and walked another. And this is your #4 starter? If you’re the Rangers, you’re kicking yourself right now. Adam Eaton is on the DL with that bum finger, as are chair-thrower Frank Francisco and C.J. Wilson – two guys that will probably do the team more good by continuing to sit out. That means that your rotation goes Kevin Millwood, Vicente Padilla, Kameron Loe, Dickey, and John Koronka. Loe was a reliever last year, and had an ERA of 3.42. He took a 3-hit shutout into the 7th against Boston last night. Other than Loe – who is completely unproven – and Millwood, the rotation is in total collapse mode, just four games into the season. There are no words to describe how amazing that is, which is surprising because nobody thought it could get worse than it was in years past. But this is just terrible. The Padilla Flotilla is barely afloat with a 4.71 ERA after last season, and this other guy – Koronka – has a 7.47 ERA in 15.2 MLB innings. This brings up possibly the best question to be asked all year:
WHY THE HECK DIDN’T THE RANGERS TRY TO GET SOME RESPECTABLE PITCHING FOR ALFONSO SORIANO???
You’re set offensively. But you could score 10 runs a game, and with the pitching you’ve got you’ll barely break .500. How do you not turn over Soriano to the team that will give you the best pitcher you can get? You don’t need anything else but pitching. Not another struggling outfielder, but a proven starting pitcher. Not some pitching prospects – but a proven, MLB-ready starting pitcher. Especially for a guy you gave up Alex Rodriguez for. And don’t say they had to dump his salary, even though they did – remember, they signed him in the first place. If they decided it was too much dough, they shouldn’t have pulled the trigger. Additionally, Michael Young is a natural 2B forced into short when Soriano arrived. Rookie Ian Kinsler is a natural SS, forced in 2B because Young is already there. Young is the worst defensive SS in the league… am I missing something? I’m pretty sure that GM Jon Daniels should be indicted for all this. That is, if owner Tom Hicks doesn’t have him assassinated first.
Pirates centerfielder Chris Duffy is a liar
Anyone watching the Pirates Red’s game? Bottom of the 8th, and Masher Adam Dunn hits one between Left and Center. Pirates centerfielder Chris Duffy knew he wasn’t gonna be able to get to the ball in time, so he dove for it – and clearly trapped the ball. I mean, clearly. I literally knew it would be a trap before he even started his dive. Anyway, it was clear as day on MLB.TV as well. Then, Duffy did what any self-respecting outfielder in his situation would do – jumped up and fired the ball back to the field. Wait, no he didn’t. Before he had even completed the dive, he held up the ball that had bounced into his mitt, then got up and trotted towards the dugout, with the rest of the team following. You could tell they all knew they were lying, because I’d never seen a team make it into the dugout any quicker – it was like they were taking fire from the crowd, which they nearly were. Of course, they’re doing this because it makes it that much harder for the umps to overturn the call when they have to re-deploy the teams to the field. In this case, with the whole crowd booing, it took them about a minute to decide that they screwed up. So, they gave Dunn a single. One problem, when Duffy trapped that ball, the Pirates stopped playing defense. The Red’s had a guy on 1st and 3rd, and the guy on 3rd scored. That means that the Reds are now up 6-5 in the bottom of the 8th. Of course, this pisses off Pirates Manager Jim Tracy. He argues, he gets tossed. Play continues, with the next Red grounding out, inning over – for real this time. Then, who comes up to bat first? None other than Chris Duffy. Duffy runs the count to 1-2 on Red’s closer Dave Weathers, who then throws one in the dirt. What does Duffy do? Starts to toss his bat and says the pitch hit him. Are you freaking kidding me? His pants were practically aflame right there in the batters box. You think the ump is gonna cut you a break after you just tried to pull the covers over his eyes? Not a chance. Home Plate didn’t even check the ball for dirt. Play continues, Duffy strikes out, as does the next Pirate, and the next grounds out. Red’s win. Cheaters never prosper, Chris.
Jimmy Rollins fails
It’s about time… I couldn’t say this while the streak was going on for fear of interfering, but now I’m free. This whole talk of a hit streak was ridiculous. In the cold weather and in the form he was in, expecting that thing to live any longer than five games was pure stupidity. Besides, no one cares about a 2-season hit streak, because they just don’t. It means nothing. Thanks for the favor St. Louis – I owe you one.
Eric Gagne goes down again
No way. Is this guy ever gonna pitch again? Gagne went from that insane 90-some save streak – broken up when Alex Cora dove and missed that ball, something I’ll always remember – to walking around with a semi-bionic right arm. I don’t even know how many surgeries the guy has had now. Yet another NL West curse? Not too many details either – sounds pretty sketchy. Meanwhile, Derrick Turnbow is walking around pulling old-school Gagne – 97mph fastballs, followed by an 80mph changeup. Yeah right.
Mark Hendrickson shuts out the O’s
Hendrickson pitches for the Rays. He has a career ERA of 5.12… and somehow has pulled off one other shutout in his career. Guess lightening strikes twice after all. The Devil Ray’s team slogan this year is, "We come to Play." Not to win. But we really want you to come to watch. The Rays and Tropicana Field are the most pitiful thing in the AL, and I don’t care about ‘the youth movement.’ The O’s have Camden Yards going for them, and frankly they aren’t that bad. The Royals have a water fountain in Centerfield. The Mariners have Team Japan. Texas has offense. The Rays, however, have a crappy stadium, a ho-hum rivalry with the Red Sox, and no organizational plan. Whenever a guy goes on the DL, (as Julio Lugo just did today,) the media asks if they’re gonna call up B.J. Upton. Someone in the Rays organization flips a coin, and then Upton is either ‘still working in AAA’ or ‘still working on switching positions and improving defensively in AAA.’ Next thing you know, Upton is on the bench at Tropicana Field. Blink twice, and suddenly he’s back down in AAA, at least that’s how it went in 2004. In 2005, the Ray’s figured that until Upton can raise his fielding percentage above .905, he isn’t going anywhere near the Major Leagues. Good idea. Bad planning. A young player is a lot like a huge tanker – you can’t just stop, turn around, and head another way without considerable effort and waste.
Pedro got slapped around, cont.
As I said in my post earlier today, Pedro got slapped around today, because that’s what happens when you only throw 7 innings in Spring Training. Although the Met’s beat writer won’t admit it:
Martinez watched the decisive runs score from inside the clubhouse. He
had departed after allowing five runs, four earned, on four hits, five
walks, one intentional, and, for the first time in his career, three
hit batsmen. He also struck out six. And if his problematic toe was an
issue, it wasn’t obvious. Martinez threw 96 pitches.
Uh, how about the fact that he threw 42 balls and 54 strikes? How about the fact that he allowed 9 guys on base through some sort of walk? Maybe I’m just dumb, and this guy was being sarcastic. Maybe what he was trying to say was, ‘his problematic toe wasn’t an issue, but every other part of his body was.’ And what are you thinking leaving the dude out there for 96 pitches? That seems kinda stupid.
Thats all for tonight. Remember, leave some thoughts.
Flashbacks! Dusty Baker and Detroit Closers
18 hours until Opening Night. Someone needs to inform academia that Baseball is starting, and so they can lay off the course work for the remainder of the semester. Unfortunately, Albion College doesn’t get out for a ******** five more weeks. I have a boatload of finals to take as well, so I won’t actually be going home until May 10th, 2006. This is about 3 weeks after most of my friends at other schools. There is a 110% chance that I will be attending the May 16th Twins v. Tigers game at Comerica Park. And it’s also been about a year since MLBlogs got off the ground. This blog was started shortly thereafter. So, what better time than now for some good flashbacks from the 2005 season and beyond? I encourage you to check out my first couple posts, they’re pretty funny – and interesting, because so many of my predictions came true. For example, I noted that Roy Halladay was back and no one knew it, as was Mark Prior. I also talked about Mark Buehrle being the most under-rated pitcher in the league. This isn’t true anymore, because now people know about him, but that just proves I was right. I talked about Dusty Baker mismanaging his pitching and no one noticing, including a hilarious quote on the differences between ‘bullpen by committee’ and ‘bullpen by situation.’ It’s so juicy that I have to share it with you now.
After LaTroy Hawkins blew another 1-run save
opportunity on April 23rd, Dusty announced that he was going to go with
a ‘bullpen by situation’ concept. Apparently this is due to the fact
that ‘bullpen by committee’ doesn’t work. Pardon me for asking, but
what’s the difference? Well, we’ll ask Dusty. Dusty, what’s a bullpen
by situation? "[It's a] bullpen by who’s pitched two or three days in a
row. It could be a number of things. It’s not exactly by committee."
Well, how’s that different from a bullpen by committee? "You say
‘bullpen by committee’ and that sounds like everybody, and it’s not
everybody." Oh, ok. From what I gather, the
‘bullpen by situation’ is where Dusty decides, based on who he trusts
on that given day and who’s arm is rested, who his closer will be. On
the contrary, a ‘bullpen by committee’ is when the manager and pitching
coach decide, based on who they trust on that given day and who’s arm
is rested, who the closer will be. Forgive me for failing to see the
difference.
And of course, nothing is more disastrous than leaving Dusty Baker in charge of a bunch of multi-million-dollar-a-year arms. At that point, you’re just leaving the fox in charge of the hens and asking for a huge problem. Put it this way – deciding who’s gonna close a Cub’s game is a lot like firing a nuclear missile – at least, it should be. Anyone who’s seen Crimson Tide knows that, in order to launch a nuke, you’ve got to have more than one person think it’s a good idea. On a sub, the Captain’s key must be turned at the same time as the Executive Officer’s key, which is across the room. The Weapon’s Officer must also pull a fire trigger. This is what needs to be done in Chicago. Before Dusty picks up that phone, he needs to run it by – no, through – the pitching coach. And unless the call to the bullpen is authenticated by said pitching coach, it’s a no go.
On that note, it looks like Todd Jones might be starting the season on the DL for the Tigers. Great. Best part, injury happened on the last batter of the last game of Spring Training. Of course, the argument can be made that since Jones had been feeling a little tight in his hamstring it was going to pop sooner or later, so better now then Opening Day, I guess. Then again, another two days of rest might’ve eliminated the injury risk. Personally, if your new closer tells you he felt a little tightness in his hamstring two days ago, but now he’s ready to pitch – as Jones said tonight – you say, ‘heck with it, you’re not pitching, this is Spring Training, and you’re all ready to go anyway.’ Of course, I have no idea if Jones told Leyland about this beforehand, and I don’t think Leyland would’ve put him out there if he knew, but I just thought I would add that. Jones had this to say:
This is exactly the way I drew it up. This is perfect … exactly what
I wanted to see happen. Looks like I have to take a 15-day timeout. I’m
hoping it’s not too bad, and we’ll see what happens.
Yeah, he’s pissed. Hopefully this won’t turn into a chronic condition, because Detroit has a
way of disabling closers. That is to say, the Tigers haven’t been able to get through the year using the same closer wire-to-wire since Juan Acevedo had 28 saves and blew 7 more in 2002. Acevedo only had 35 chances because the rest of the pen actually blew 15 out of 20 saves. In 2001, they blew 16 saves, with Matt Anderson going 22 for 24, but with a 4.82 ERA. In 2003, they used seven guys. Chris Mears and the recently departed Franklyn German led the team with 5 saves each. German’s ERA was 6.04, Mears’ was 5.44. That’s really, really, really scary. The last time Detroit had a full time, legitimate closer who the coach didn’t try to steal saves away from and give to the rest of the ‘pen to screw up was in 2000. The closer? Todd Jones. 42 of 46.
And what of the previous Tigers closers? If you’ve seen Apollo 13, read this in the Tom Hanks Epilogue Voice. Matt Anderson posted a 12.60 ERA in 10 innings for the Rockies in 2005, and was a non-roster invitee for the Giants this year. Juan Acevedo vanished after 2003. Chris Mear’s 2003 stint in Detroit was to be his only Major League experience – he would never pitch for the Tigers again. Franklyn German went on to be a semi-successful reliever, but was out of options this year and released on waivers a few days ago. Ugueth Urbina, who the Tigers acquired a little ways into the 2004 season, was traded away at the deadline last year. He had a successful 2005, which was marred by the kidnapping of his Mother in his native country of Venezuela. In November of 2005, Urbina was arrested by Venezuelan police and charged with attempted murder. No one has heard from him since. Troy Percival, who was supposed to close in 2005, screwed up his right arm so badly that he could hardly brush his teeth, and has since retired. And as for the rest of us, we’ve moved on…
Again, bring in the New Year with style here at BHGM!
mlblogsreid
Recent Comments