Beaneball

The A's are going to have to work hard tonight and get a good outing from Mark Mulder to avoid a sweep in Boston. It's been an ugly series, so far, with the losses coming by scores of 12-2 and 9-6. In game 1, Tim Hudson was awful while Curt Schilling was essentially his usual self, while in game 2, the defense let Mark Redman down after the A's offense put themselves in a position to win against Derek Lowe. Starting with the first game: Tim Hudson gave up nine hits and four walks in just four innings, resulting in five Boston runs. Just for flavor, four of his nine hits were doubles, he threw a wild pitch, and he even managed to hit two batters with pitches. In other words, he was terrible. All of that said, Hudson left the game down 5-0, which is a big deficit, of course, but not one that a good offense and good bullpen couldn't overcome. Of course, the A's offense is bad, and the bullpen decided to be awful that night. Chris Hammond gave up four more runs in his two innings, helped along by Manny Ramirez's 12th homer of the year and Kevin Youkilis's first major league double. Ricardo Rincon then came on and gave up three more runs while getting just two outs. He was pulled for Justin Duchscherer with the bases loaded, and the Duke saved his bacon, getting his one batter that inning out. Duchscherer pitched the ninth, also, giving up a hit, but allowing no runs (making him the only Oakland pitcher to help his ERA this night). He finished with three more strikeouts than he started with, and maybe a lot more fans than he started with, too. Sometime soon, he'll have to start getting the appearances that Chris Hammond and Ricardo Rincon are getting, platoon split be damned. The offense managed ten hits, but no walks, and seven of those ten were singles. When you're getting only small hits (since the other three were just doubles), you're going to have to bunch them together to score, and it's going to be all but impossible to overcome a 12-run night from the other team. Indeed, the A's did even worse than you might expect, scoring just two runs despite hitting into no double plays and not having anyone thrown out on the bases. That's pitiful in the "timely hitting" department. If you're a Boston fun, it's a fun night to look at the box score. David Ortiz hit his 19th and 20th doubles of the year, putting him (wait for it) OPF 71 for the season, which would break Earl Webb's 73 year-old record by four. I already mentioned Youkilis's first career MLB double, but it's sort of neat that he's hitting .320/.471/.480 after struggling mightily in AAA last year after a late-season callup, earned by his on-base ferociousness and decent doubles-power in AA. Youkilis hit his first home run earlier in the season, and those two hits remain his only ones for extra bases, so it's pretty clear that his "power" is batting-average driven. His on-base percentage, though, isn't, as he's walked seven times in just 32 plate appearances, which is a much healthier rate than he showed at Pawtucket last year, with just 18 walks in 127 PA's. That's still above that standard 10-1 ratio, but this is a guy who had previously walked in the 1-in-5 range, so it's probable he was pressing to impress, and it's pretty clear that he's not doing so now, going back to his old ways of waiting for his pitch or waiting for his free base, whichever comes first. Last night was maddening, because I was watching the progress of the game on the out-of-town scoreboard at Shea. The A's fell behind 1-0, then took a 2-1 lead, then it was suddenly (the next half inning) a 6-2 deficit before they closed the gap quickly (the next half inning) to 6-5, only to, an inning later, fall behind for good, 9-5. They did score once more, but that run only served to make the game a save situation for Keith Foulke, who of course shut the A's down on 12 pitches, earning his 10th save of the year and lowering his ERA to a preposterous-for-late-May 0.37. Mark Redman pitched ok in the game, but two Bobby Crosby throwing errors meant that five of his nine runs allowed were unearned. Still, though, with the A's having just a one-run lead to overcome, Redman giving up a three-run homer to Jason Varitek can be blamed on no one but himself. The bullpen pitched well this time around, as Chad Bradford ended the sixth before ceding the right-of-mound to Justin Duchscherer, who threw two innings, allowing just one baserunner (he hit Manny Ramirez) while striking out four. This lowered Duke's ERA to 1.05. I hereby declare the "Make Duke stopper" campaign. Oakland got fourteen hits, four more than the night before, but eleven of them were singles, they walked just once, they hit into two double plays, and Erubiel Durazo was caught stealing (!). Bobby Crosby compounded his defensive issues by going 0-4. Crosby and Damian Miller were the only two hitless A's, though, so at least there's that bright side. Eric Chavez hit his 12th homer of the year, which means he's OPF a career-high 44 despite hitting a Griffey-like .249. That batting average can almost be thrown out, though, because he's also OPF 113 walks, which is a pretty amazing Giambi-like number, especially considering his previous best is 65 in 2002. In other words, if Chavez could just hit a few more singles and doubles (he's still hit freakishly few doubles this year), he'd be an easy MVP candidate. Of concern, in our yearlong watch to see the effects of Rick Peterson's exit from Oakland, is that Mark Redman threw 127 pitches in the game. Redman's no longer a real young guy, of course, but that's still quite a few pitches for a guy on the way to giving up nine runs in a game. Again, the system that Peterson put in place is probably still in place, but it's certainly possible that Ken Macha doesn't buy into that system as much as he should, and that Young doesn't exert the kind of influence in the organization, much less the dugout, that Peterson probably did. Or I could be completely overreacting, as usual. Whatever the case, Oakland needs Mark Mulder to be strong tonight. A fourth straight complete game, assuming it comes because he's pitching well, would be a blessing.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 13:56 | |

I went out of town this past weekend, up to see friends graduate at Hampshire, so I missed a nice A's sweep of the Royals that helped push them into a tie for second with Texas, three games back of the Angels, who lost last night to Toronto in 10 innings. It was a good thing to take all three games against Kansas City because the A's now head into a three game series in Boston, and while I guess they'll miss Pedro Martinez, they have to face Curt Schilling in the opener tonight. Tim Hudson's going for Oakland, though, so it ought to be a great pitching matchup. Mark Mulder started things off with a complete-game, three-hit, no-walk (though he hit three batters) shutout on Friday, leading Oakland to a seven-run win. Mulder struck out six, lowered his ERA to 2.98, and threw just 108 pitches, a typical night for him, really. It was Mulder's third consecutive complete game, after he led the league with nine last year despite missing the last month of the season with his hip problem. Doing all of this while not even coming close to being overworked is a testament to his overall ability as a pitcher, and especially his attitude: just get guys out on ground balls, get them to swing early in the count, don't walk anyone, and everything will work out. Bobby Crosby, who the game recap says lives with Mulder, hit a pair of home runs to support his buddy, giving him seven on the season, two more than Miguel Tejada. Don't be fooled, though: Crosby's power has been nice so far, but his batting average and on-base percentage are pitiful enough that Tejada is far outstripping him in offensive value, which is, of course, no surprise at this early stage in Crosby's career. The early power has to be encouraging, though, especially since the common wisdom was that Crosby would flash nice on-base ability while waiting for his major league power to come around in a few years. Instead, it looks like we're seeing the reverse. Barry Zito had another shaky outing (four runs in seven innings), but the A's came from behind as Eric Chavez's two-out, ninth inning homer off of new closer Jeremy Affeldt tied the game, allowing Bobby Crosby to hit an RBI infield single to win it in the 11th. Highly regarded prospect Zack Greinke got his first major league start for the Royals, pitching five innings and giving up two runs (on a homer to Erubiel Durazo), which is not a bad debut. He was handled conservatively, which you like to see, being pulled after just 84 pitches. The Royals had the lead at that point, but Affeldt blew his teammate's chance at his first major league win. The bullpen continued its fine work after that disastrous week and a half or so earlier in the season, getting four shutout innings from Chad Bradford, Arthur Rhodes, and Justin Duchscherer, who earned his second win of the year by pitching the top of the eleventh. Duke continues to prove Billy Beane right in choosing him over Chad Harville for the last spot in the A's bullpen. He could take a Ramiro Mendoza-with-the-Yankees-type role for the A's, pitching setup sometimes, long relief other times, and generally helping the team be secure knowing that they have a spot starter available all the time. The series finale was a pitchers' duel, with the A's getting two runs in the second, Kansas City rallying to tie the game with single runs in the fourth, and fifth, and no scoring thereafter, until Eric Byrnes came through (again! Who needs Matt Stairs?) in the tenth to finish the sweep. Rich Harden pitched a good game, giving up two runs in six innings, with just one walk. That low walk total, especially paired with his six strikeouts, is the best sign of something going right. He did give up eight hits, including two doubles and a homer, but he still managed to keep the Royals mostly off the scoreboard, so you can say he did his job. The bullpen again pitched well, giving up just two hits in four innings, with Arthur Rhodes finishing things with a shutout inning in the top of the 10th to take the win, his first as an Athletic. After the debacle in New York, I can only hope this Boston series goes better. The A's are on a roll, having won five straight, and the last thing they need is for things to fall apart in Beantown. They've got their top three starters going, but that was true in New York, too. Clearly, I'm a worrier. The Wednesday game is on ESPN2, but I'll be out: we're seeing the Mets at Shea that night, so I'll have to track the game on the out-of-town scoreboard, assuming they have one.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 09:39 | |

There weren't so many games on Monday, 5/10. What a relief.

• What on earth happened to BH Kim? He got roughed up by Cleveland for six runs in 3.1 innings, the final straw that would result in his demotion to AAA. This is a guy who blew through the minors in one year, making his major league debut as a 20-year old, had ERAs of 2.94 and 2.04 in Arizona as a reliever with dominant strikeout and ground-ball rates, he's traded in the midst of a good, though not as good as before, year to Boston, where he has some public meltdowns, gets hurt, and then ... suddenly he's a crap pitcher? Maybe there're some lingering effects of the shoulder injury, which doesn't speak well for the Red Sox medical staff, or maybe he's not comfortable, or maybe he's just had a tough eleven innings (it happens) and now he's been sent down to the minors and possibly put on the trading block. Kim could be a high-risk, high-reward guy for some team willing to take him on. There's no way Boston can demand much for him after what they've gone through, the humiliation, essentially, they've put him through. I hope he can make it back. Maybe Oakland can trade a minor league spare part for him and give him back into a nice, supportive West Coast environment where he'll be appreciated even if he has some bad playoff games (after all, we still love Tim Hudson, don't we?). I can dream.
• When you're signed to eat innings, as Brian Anderson was for the Royals, sometimes they'll leave you in for awhile even after you've taken a six-run pounding in the first inning. It was not a happy day for Anderson, though half of his eight runs allowed ended up unearned due to a first-inning error by Joe Randa. Orlando Hudson in particular got to Anderson, hitting a three-run homer in the first and adding a solo job in the third. The unheralded second baseman is having a nice little season, hitting .270/.348/.461, which puts him in the top third of the majors by VORP and RARP. He didn't hit this well last year, but it's not a batting average-related increase: he hit .268 in 2003. Instead, he's walking more (once every 9.8 PA's, rather than once every 13.2) and hitting for more power (he's increased his isolated slugging by .064). He's 26, so this is the kind of growth you expect. Toronto can probably figure on a few more nice seasons from him in his late 20's, then let him go to free agency, where, in the new market for talent, he'll probably immediately start getting one-year, $1M offers at best. Carlos Beltran hit his ninth round-tripper of the year, which just means the Yankees are going to have to plop a little bit extra down for him in July.
• Oh, those Arizona old guys. Luis Gonzalez hit three homers, and had two more chances to add a fourth, giving him ten for the year. Steve Finley also hit his tenth homer of the year, in the same inning that Gonzalez hit his third bomb. The Mets hit for some power, too, knocking five doubles and a jack (Mike Cameron's seventh), and scored eight runs, but James Baldwin and Dan Wheeler allowed six runs apiece, the former in two innings, the latter in 1.1, to force the Mets to have to fight and claw just to get the game within four runs.

Posted by jason in Baseball at 14:05 | |

The A's did indeed finish out the Tigers series with a win, taking advantage of two Detroit errors in the bottom of the eighth to scratch out the tie-breaking run in a 3-2 win. Arthur Rhodes then came on and threw an easy one-two-three ninth with a strikeout for the save. The inning started with Erubiel Durazo reaching on an error by normally slick-fielding first baseman Carlos Pena. He went to second on a sacrifice by Damian Miller (which, incidentally, was probably, for once, a good move: Miller is not a very good hitter; Durazo and Miller are both slow runners, so the chance of a double play was relatively high; and the A's only needed one run to hand a lead over to their closer), to third on a groundout by Mark McLemore, and scored as Eric Munson made a throwing error on pinch-hitter (for Bobby Crosby) Billy McMillon's ball, which, to be fair, is reported in the game recap at MLB.com to have been a "smash" toward left field that Munson had to dive to stop. Scoring three runs against the Tigers means I'm not going to have many fun notes about the offense. Jermaine Dye did hit his tenth double of the year, which is already four more than he hit last year for Oakland. Tim Hudson, though, held the Tigers to just two runs over eight innings, though he gave up ten hits and struck out just two batters. Fortunately, seven of those hits were singles, and he had some defensive help, as Mark Kotsay and Bobby Crosby teamed up on a relay play to throw Alex Sanchez out at home in the seventh. That run would have given the Tigers the lead; instead, the game remained tied, allowing the A's to just score one to win later on. Sanchez just had a bad day on the bases, as he was caught stealing second earlier in the game. It was the eighth time Sanchez has been caught this year, which tells you that he's not using his speed wisely, especially since he's only stolen nine bases to go with those eight times caught. He stole 52 bases last year for his two teams, but at just a 68% success rate, which hurts. He was better for the Tigers than for the Brewers, but not so great that he was doing all that much except expending energy. These ugly numbers were portended by his minor league rates. Even when he stole 92 bases in A-ball in 1997, he was also caught 40 times. On the other hand, you have to be amused by that number of attempts (132) from a guy whose hits+walks equaled 192 that year. And he certainly wasn't in a position to steal every one of those 192 times, because he surely had men on base in front of him at least a few times. In other words, Sanchez was stealing every opportunity he got, which I guess is what you do when you're in A-ball and you've got a fast guy on your squad whose sole attribute is his speed. You let him run and hope he learns to become a base stealer so he can contribute to your big league club some day. Of course, Sanchez ended up making it to the bigs without ever learning how to steal bases, so that didn't work out so well in the end, did it? The game recap claims that Arthur Rhodes threw a number of cutters in his inning, which is unusual, because he's never thrown that pitch before this year. Curt Young apparently taught it to him, and he's testing it out. I guess Young's a big proponent of the cutter, since Barry Zito is reportedly struggling with one as well. In Zito's case, given his 5+ ERA, perhaps he'd be better off just going back to his potent fastball-nasty-ass-curve combination. That's what wins him awards. The Royals come to town tonight, with Brian Anderson battling Mark Mulder. I guess that means we'll see Zito on Saturday afternoon and Harden on Sunday. The A's remain a game back of Texas and 3.5 back of Anaheim, who are matching up with the Yankees and Orioles, respectively. The Yankee-Texas series means that this weekend is a good time for the A's to jump to second place.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 09:32 | |

Continuing with Sunday, May 9th, as I prepare for my trip back to school to see friends graduate and visit some old professors. From all the way back last year.

• Darrell May finally earned his first win of the year, giving up just two runs in seven innings to the "mighty" Boston offense. The quotes are there because Dave McCarty started at first and Pokey Reese is still the starting shortstop. I think it's safe to say that Trot Nixon and Nomar Garciaparra are making their absences felt. Reese, by the way, probably should have just stayed at home plate all day. He had a single and two walks, but made an error (his fifth) and was picked off by May.
• Todd Helton and Aramis Ramirez traded tenth inning homers before the Cubs finally got to Jeff Fassero in the 13th. Joe Borowski and Shawn Chacon, the closers for each team, were the pitchers who gave up the homers.
• Adam Eaton got roughed up in Florida. He gave up 6 runs in just 1.2 innings to the Marlins. Four of those runs scored on two homers, including Miguel Cabrera's eleventh. I'll say it again: was he supposed to be this good this soon?
• Seattle scored six runs in the second against Donovan Osborne, but the Yankee bullpen kept them off the board from there on. Indeed, in 7.2 innings thrown by Bret Prinz, Gabe White, Paul Quantrill, Tom Gordon, Mariano Rivera, the Mariners managed just two hits and a walk. This stand-up work allowed the Bombers to claw their way back in, eventually winning by scoring two runs in the seventh against Julio Mateo and one in the eighth against Rafael Soriano. Rivera picked up his 12th save, and lowered his ERA to 0.49.
• Francisco Rodriguez struck out five of the nine batters he faced in throwing a shut-down 2.1 innings to earn a save in Anaheim's ninth straight win, this time over Tampa Bay. As of today, 5/20, Rodriguez has struck out 33 batters in 21 innings. That's a pretty decent ratio, reducing to 11/7.

Posted by jason in Baseball at 21:31 | |

Oakland's split the first two games of its home series against the surprising Tigers. We knew they'd be better, but who figured they'd be essentially a .500 team at this point? They're just two games worse than the A's right now, though they of course play in an easier division. Tuesday's game saw Jeremy Bonderman shut down the A's yet again, holding them to one run (Erubiel Durazo's seventh homer) in seven innings. The whole "Bonderman beating up on the A's" thing is getting a little annoying, both the constant harping on it any time it happens and the fact that it does happen. Rich Harden had another quality start for the A's, giving up three runs in six innings despite striking out just two and walking three. He gave up a lot of fly ball outs, also, so maybe we should consider it lucky that he escaped with his nice 3.95 ERA still intact. Ricardo Rincon proved his ever-uselessness by giving up a two-run homer to Craig Monroe in the top of the ninth that turned a two-run game, winnable against the Tiger bullpen, into a four-run match, which is a little harder to overcome, especially with the demoralization factor that comes from the jump from "almost there" to "need a grand slam just to tie." Yesterday's game went better, as the A's apparently were on the same page with their scouting reports against Mike Maroth this time, touching him for four runs on three homers in 5.1 innings. Two of those homers were hit by Bobby Kielty, who had hit Maroth successfully before last weeks game, and appears to be back on track this time around. Jermaine Dye also had his ninth homer of the year, and he seems to be settling into a nice groove. He's not hitting like he did at the start of the year, but who needs that? He hits some homers, some doubles (he added his ninth one of those, also), walks occasionally (14 in 169 PA's), and is generally the solid presence in the cleanup hole the A's have been waiting for him to be. Not that he's been a disappointment performance-wise before, of course, but with the last two years being completely lost to injury, and Erubiel Durazo not quite able to crack that .500 SLG barrier, a power guy in the middle of the order, even one with a middling on-base average, has been desired. Speaking of middling, Mark Redman gave up two runs in five innings, but probably had some luck, given his seven hits (just one for extra bases, a double) and three walks allowed. That's two base runners every inning, but only a single run in the second and third innings. That's pitching out of jams. Justin "Ducky" Duchscherer continued his nice pitching run, throwing two scoreless innings despite giving up four base runners himself, on two hits and two walks. Jim Mecir and Chad Bradford then threw perfect innings to close things out, with Bradford striking out all three batters he faced. That's a nice sign from Bradford, because with the notorious volatility of relievers, it's good to have a cheap guy hanging around who you can depend on for outs in the seventh and eighth innings. The rubber match is this afternoon, 12:30 Oakland time, with Tim Hudson going up against Gary Knotts. I like Oakland's chances to take another series win and go four games over .500 for the first time in a little less than a month (April 22, 10-6 after a win over the Mariners).

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 09:24 | |

On to Sunday, May 9.

• How'd Russ Ortiz throw 133 pitches in just 6.2 innings, even while giving up only two hits? Despite throwing 80 of those pitches for strikes, which is not a horrible ratio, he walked four. I'm guessing he got into a deep count with basically every batter and generally got out of the jams, but missed a few times for some walks. Probably lots of foul balls, too. That must have been a fun one for the fans. Amazingly enough, the whole affair was over in under three hours, which is, on the other hand, quite a long time for a 2-1 game with just three hits for each side.
• The Stars and Scrubs approach was on exhibition in the Montreal-St. Louis game. The Redbirds had the stars (Jim Edmonds hit his seventh homer, a three-run shot; Albert Pujols hit his ninth, for two scores), and the Expos had the scrubs (Endy Chavez is still leading off).
• Milwaukee box scores make me so excited. Scott Podsednik, ol' Silent D, didn't let me down, knocking two singles and stealing his 18th base of the year. After a wild eighth inning, though, the Mets ended up winning in eleven, 6-5. Brooks Kieschick threw a shutout inning, lowering his ERA to 1.17, and hit a double, raising his average to .353. Brooks "Babe Ruth" Kieschnick?
• Whoa! Flash back to the early '90's, dude! Todd Van Poppel with a four-inning start!
• Baltimore and Cleveland played a wild game in which only five of the half innings went scoreless. The final score was 12-11, and the difference was essentially in the two biggest innings: four runs for the Orioles, just three for the Indians. Miguel Tejada popped a pair of two-run homers for the Orioles. He's trying to keep pace with Bobby Crosby in the A's shortstop home run race. Wouldn't that be a surprise if Crosby had more home runs at the end of the year than Tejada? Anyway, Loomer Loney hit the only Indians home run, Merloni's first for the team.
• Pittsburgh scored five runs in the bottom of the eighth to tie the game, only to lose in the 14th on a home run by Olmedo Saenz and some shut-down pitching by Brian Falkenborg (signed as a minor-league free agent by the Dodgers this winter). You heard me, shut-down pitching by Brian Falkenborg.
• Eric Young was caught stealing for the fourth time this year in a loss to the Tigers. Already four times caught, and it's only May, when guys like Derek Jeter and Carlos Beltran go whole seasons of stealing 25-35 bases and being caught that many times total. In other words, stop letting him run if you want to stop giving away wins, Buck.

Posted by jason in Baseball at 14:08 | |

Randy, Randy, Randy! That's getting ahead of myself, considering I'm still working on two Saturdays ago. But for a perfect game, I'll get ahead of myself. I saw the ninth inning, cheered on that last 98 mph fastball that struck out Eddie Perez, jumped and ran around the house like a nut, scared poor Joey out of his mind ... Randy, Randy, Randy! That was so cool!

• A tale of two offense: the Yankees had eleven hits off of Gil Meche and Ron Villone, eight of them for extra bases, including a homer by Jason Giambi and two doubles apiece from Gary Sheffield and Jorge Posada; meanwhile, the Mariners managed just four singles and two walks against Mike Mussina, who also struck out seven in his eight innings. JJ Putz pitched very well in his two innings, giving up nothing and striking out five of the six batters he faced. Putz was called up for three days in April, was sent back down for 12, and has now been with the team since the 29th of last month. He's thrown in nine games, eleven innings, and has given up just four hits, though he's walked five. Those runners haven't turned into runs, though. Putz was starting as recently as 2002 in Tacoma, but was a full time reliever there last year, and did well for himself, posting a 2.51 ERA in 86 innings. His home run rate has always been pretty ok, but it was excellent last year, as he gave up one every 21 innings or so.
• Somehow, even though he's been up since April 21st, and has played in 24 games, I didn't realize that well-regarded Arizona minor-leaguer had become a well regarded Arizona major-leaguer. I'm talking about Andy Tracy, who's had a hot start to his major league career, hitting .348/.402/.500, even if that is inflated by his home park. What's not inflated is the seventh error he made on this Saturday. Speaking of defense, the two catchers in this Arizona-Philadelphia tilt had days they'd probably rather forget. Robby Hammock gave up four stolen bases, including two to Doug Glanville. He also made a throwing error. He did catch one man stealing, and it just happened to be Philly catcher Mike Lieberthal, who was also called for catcher's interference in the game, for his third error of the year.
• What a way to hit your first homer of the year: Shane Halter, pinch-hitting in the seventh for Jeff DaVanon (former A's minor leaguer Jeff DaVanon, that is), hit a grand-slam to highlight a five-run inning that provided the difference-making runs in a 7-2 victory over not-surprisingly-still-woeful Tampa Bay.

Posted by jason in Baseball at 13:25 | |

Continuing with Saturday, May 8.

• Jason Jennings had an interesting day. He retired the first two batters he saw, gave up Sammy Sosa's eighth homer, then gave up Moises Alou's eighth also. Later on, Todd Walker popped a shot. In the end, though, those three runs were all Jennings gave up, and his fifth inning two-run homer off of Greg Maddux tied the game at three. The Rockies scored in the top of the next inning to complete the scoring, so, especially since Jennings's blast came with two outs, the homer was key. For six ok innings and one big homer, I think Jennings earned a game ball.
• Jody Gerut and Travis Hafner each hit three run homers, but the Cleveland bullpen (4 runs in 1.2 innings) and defense (three errors, including Omar Vizquel's seventh) were awful, so the Orioles were able to overcome a bad Kurt Ainsworth start (seven runs on six hits and five walks in 4.2 innings) to win. Brian Roberts continued his chase of Scott Podsednik with his fifteenth steal of the year.
• The San Diego-Florida line score is a cute mirror, with a run for each team in the second, fourth, and fifth innings. The Padres pulled out the win with three runs in the top of the tenth, though, against Franklyn Gracesqui (who I'll admit is a new one on me), followed by a perfect ninth from Trevor Hoffman for his ninth save of the year. The last three relievers (of four) for the Padres were Scott Linebrink, Akinori Otsuka, and Hoffman. Their ERAs? 1.50, 1.06, and 1.50. Granted that ERA is often not the best measure of reliever performance, especially non-closers, those are fun numbers to have on your side. On the losing side, did anyone thing Miguel Cabrera would already be this good? He hit his tenth homer in this game, singled twice, and walked once. The Padres never got him out. This is a 21 year-old with less than 300 AA plate appearances, and no AAA at-bats. In the jump from Carolina last year to Florida this year, he's lost all of 38 slugging points. He didn't hit quite this well last year, and he's probably on a hot streak right now, so we shouldn't really expect him to maintain this all year, but if he did, it wouldn't really surprise anyone. The comparisons to Albert Pujols are abundant, but also somewhat apt. If Cabrera can keep his throwing arm healthy, though, he won't have to move to first base, as Pujols has, which will help his overall value to the team.
• Crazy game in Atlanta: two Brave runs in the eighth tie the game, one in the top of the ninth for Houston gives them the lead, but Brad Lidge blows things in the bottom of the ninth, allowing the run that sends the game to extra innings; Antonio Alfonseca, of all six-fingered pitchers, holds down the Astros in the tenth, and Andruw Jones blasts a game-winning homer with two outs in the Brave half. Jones is a guy who has similar minor league credentials to Cabrera, but who, to most people, hasn't lived up to his promise. Jones never made those promises, though; other people made them for him. Jones had a very good 1995 in Macon, then destroyed everyone in 1996, when he played at four levels, including not embarassing himself in the majors, hitting five homers in 106 at-bats. When you look at his 1996 numbers, you start to unfairly expect Willie Mays. Well, not everyone who kills in the minors is Willie Mays. Someday, baseball fans will learn this. Sometimes they just end up damn good ballplayers, guys who could be Hall of Famers without quite being in that inner circle. And that's what Jones is. He's just 27, but he should get to 250 homers this year. His home run totals since 1998, his first full season: 31, 26, 36, 34, 35, 36. He hits about 30 doubles and a few triples to augment those homers. His career line is .268/.342/.494 as a Gold Glove center fielder, someone who, while he may not be one of the greatest anymore, could legitimately be compared to the best of all time in his defensive prime. His top ten "most similar through age 26" list contains five Hall of Famers, including one who just happens to have hit the most homers of all time. What disappointment?
• I'm not sure why I don't follow Shawn Green as much as I used to, but he popped his seventh homer of the year against the Pirates, a three-run job in the first. The Dodgers couldn't score again over the next seven innings, and the lead slowly eroded, but they pushed one across in the top of the ninth to take the 4-3 lead, at which point it became Gagne Time. I don't need to tell you what happened.
• Speaking of disappointing, Tomo Ohka shut down St. Louis for eight innings, giving up no runs on three hits and a walk. He earned just his first win of the year, to go with five losses, even though the game lowered his ERA to 3.93. Wasn't someone saying something about wins being irrelevant? I swear someone was.
• Woohoohoo, this one was fun. Texas took out Detroit 16-15 in ten innings after a fifth inning that saw the Tigers score eight to take a 14-4 lead only to allow ten runs in the bottom half. Some of the pitching lines are predictably (and hilariously) ugly: Mike Maroth: four innings, seven hits, nine runs, six walks; Danny Patterson: two walks, two runs, no hits, no outs; Al Levine: three runs, four hits, one walk, one out; Craig Dingman: no runs, no hits, but three walks in 1.1 innings; Ugueth Urbina finally took the loss, giving up a run on two walks and a hit, getting just one out; on the other side, RA Dickey: nine hits, six runs, eleven outs; Doug Brocail: one hit, four walks, five runs, one out; Ron Mahay: four hits, three runs, two outs. On the offensive side, there were basically a lot of singles and a lot of walks. Out of 32 hits, nine went for extra bases, but the teams combined for 21 walks, including 15 by the Rangers. Of course, any game like this always has the one guy you feel terrible for. This time around, it was Rondell White, the only starter for either team who didn't earn his way on base, going 0-6 and leaving seven men on.

Posted by jason in Baseball at 17:40 | |

Beginning all the way back with Saturday, May 8:

• Vernon Wells popped two doubles off of Scott Schoeneweis, giving him eleven on the year. He's since hit two more, bringing his OPF all the way to 54. This would tie for the 21st best season of all time, with Mark Grudzielanek, Todd Helton, Hal McRae, John Olerud, and Alex Rodriguez. That's a pretty funny list: an all-time great, a modern great, two very good players who aren't really up on the "great" list, and one guy who had a really weird fluke season. Grudz was with Montreal back in 1997, when he hit his 54, and despite all those doubles, along with a respectable .273 batting average, he still managed to slug just .384. How do you do that?
• Scott Podsednik had one hit, a single, but ended up on second base, then stole third for his 17th steal of the year. He's the Energizer Bunny, but with better on-base ability. Ben Grieve had a single, double, and walk in the game. I've always been a fan of his, vigorously defending him on message boards from those who took his quiet demeanor for a lack of passion for the game. He had a couple of awful, injury-marred seasons in Tampa, as any young player traded there might, but he's trying to get his career back on track with Milwaukee. He's hitting .264/.393/.458 in 86 plate appearances. He's lost some of his power from his early days with the A's, but his already healthy walk rate is better than ever (16 walks this year), which, combined with a batting average that's essentially holding steady, means his on-base percentage has moved from the "good" range up toward "very nice." He could bounce around for a lot of years on one- and two-year contracts, and provide some nice hitting wherever he goes. That's a disappointing career considering the heights he started from (very early pick in 1994, a preposterous three-level 1997, rookie of the year in 1998), but he'll make some money and probably be able to play for essentially as long as he wants, so he can't really complain, and neither should we.
• Ken Griffey continued his bid for a comeback year with two homers to lead the Reds over the Giants, helping Paul Wilson to his fourth win of the year and allowing the opportunity for Danny Graves to get his 13th save. He's since added four more, putting him OPF 74 for the year, which would break Bobby Thigpen's mark by 17 saves. He gave up a run, and his ERA is 3.24, so it's not like he's having a Gagne-type year so far or anything. He's just getting a weird number of opportunities. His 13th save came in his team's 16th win, which is a downright freaky percentage. Fun note from his bio: Graves was born in Saigon. Who knew? Griffey, as some people noted last year, has turned into an oddly low-average, high walk, high slugging hitter. It's weird for a guy who's career major league batting average is .293 to hit .248, but be successful doing it. Griffey's drawing close to the 193 plate appearances he had last year. He needs 44 more to reach that mark, which he should get in ten or eleven games, I'd guess. If he stays healthy. There, I said it.
• Pokey Reese did his best Nomar impersonation, popping his first two homers of the year against the Royals. I'll check later, but I wonder if Reese has ever had a multi-homer game before. Hell, has Reese ever had a multi-hit game before? Meanwhile, Jason Varitek was busy doing his Pokey Reese impersonation, stealing second base twice in the game. On the other hand, Reese has probably never had a multi-steal game before, either, because you can't steal unless you're on base first.

Posted by jason in Baseball at 14:46 | |

I've missed four games, the last three of which were the A's sweeping the Royals, so let's see what happened over the weekend. There's not really a lot to say about Thursday's series-ending loss to the Tigers, except that the A's offense sucks. Mike Maroth (yes, that one) shut the A's down for eight innings, allowing just one run, while Mark Redman pitched almost as well against his former team, but a first-inning two-run homer by Ivan Rodriguez would prove to be enough to doom him. Redman gave up twelve hits, including two triples, but the Tigers' baserunning helped keep their score down: one Tiger was caught stealing by Damian Miller, two were picked off by Redman, and one was thrown out at third base by Eric Byrnes. In the end, all that defense couldn't make up for an anemic offense. Eric Chavez's hot walking streak continued, as he worked the only base on balls given up by Maroth. The offense came alive a little more on Friday in Kansas City, as Oakland scored six runs on eleven hits and three walks (including one more by Chavez), beating Jimmy Gobble. Two of those hits were homers by the A's two generally punchless first basemean, Eric Karros and Scott Hatteberg. At least Hatteberg hasn't been so punchless this year: his line stands at .308/.405/.490 right now, and the gains in power aren't all batting average driven, so that's nice to see. As I mentioned before, the lack of lefties beating him into the dirt every few days is really helping him, but he seems to be having a good year in general. After all, Gobble's portsidedness didn't seem to impede Hatteberg's homer much. Tim Hudson's strong pitching had as much to do with the win as the A's hitting, though, as he went eight innings and gave up just two runs, lowering his ERA to 3.13. Raise your hand if you honestly thought Hudson would be this good six years into his career, as he arguably continues to improve his game. The A's got even better pitching the next night, as Mark Mulder continued his skein of good outings against the Royals with a complete-game four hitter, with the only Kansas City run coming on a Joe Randa solo homer. This overcame a strong game from Darrell May, who gave up three runs in a complete game of his own, but took his tough-luck fifth loss of the year. The difference-making runs in the 3-1 victory came on Eric Chavez's two-run homer in the sixth, his tenth of the year. Chavez had earlier singled and scored Oakland's first run on a double by Scott Hatteberg. Mulder used 116 pitches to throw the complete game, which is a higher number than I think the A's used to allow their pitchers to throw regularly. This coupled with Rich Harden's 121-pitch outing against the Yankees makes one worry about the loss of Rick Peterson, but this game at least, is mitigated by the fact that Mulder is 26, has thrown big innings and deep into games before, is a large man (6'6", 210), and wasn't throwing too many high-stress pitches with men on in tough situations. Because Mulder and May both pretty much breezed through the opposing offenses, the game took just 2:08 to complete, sending the 30,000 fans home earlier than usual, so they could at least mitigate the loss with a nice barbecue. Barry Zito threw a lot of pitches in his six innings the next night, but he settled down after a two-run first, allowing the Royals nothing thereafter. Jim Mecir, Chad Bradford, and Arthur Rhodes came on for the final three innings, with the only baserunner allowed by those three being a single in the ninth against Rhodes. Zito's line is interesting: he gave up just four hits and two walks in the game, but he also hit two batters. On the other hand, half of the hits were given up to Joe Randa. On the other other hand, those hits were a double and a triple, Randa's first three-bagger of the year. The offensive side was a little more positive, as the A's scored six runs again, even as the top five hitters went just 3-21. The bottom four made up for this deficit, though, as Erubiel Durazo had a double and a ninth-inning homer, Damian Miller doubled and walked, Bobby Crosby, singled, doubled, homered, and stole his first major league base, and Mark McLemore added an RBI double. While Crosby's batting average is still .221, that's better than it was before, and he's still hitting for pretty good power: a homer every 20 at-bats. He's still not walking much: just 7 in 111 PA's, which means that while his average is Chavez-like, he's been much less valuable than his infield-mate. As I said before, there's no reason to think he won't get on base in the majors, either via the walk or the hit, so it's just a matter of waiting until he comes around. It's not like he has anything more to prove in AAA, after destroying the PCL last year. This three-game sweep of the Royals, in Kansas City, which is suddenly a nice place to hit, in which Oakland starters allowed a grand total of four runs in 23 innings, flies in the face of Tom Verducci's claim that the A's pitching is falling apart without Rick Peterson and Ramon Hernandez. The claim that Hernandez in particular was such a big part of Oakland's mound prowess is crazy, if for no other reason than because Damian Miller is a guy who's at least as highly regarded as a handler of pitchers as Hernandez ever was. Besides which, Keith Woolner pretty well addressed the issue of game-calling and found it to not really be a detectable ability. Miller and Hernandez have both ridden the coattails of their pitchers for years, Miller in Arizona with Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling and in Chicago with Kerry Wood, Mark Prior, et al. Hernandez, meanwhile, has had the A's current crop of pitchers making him look good. Peterson is a much bigger loss, but I'm not sure what more Verducci wants from Oakland's starters. Only Barry Zito is struggling, as his 5.63 ERA and 60 hits allowed in 48 innings attest, since the other four starters all have sub-4 ERAs. Even Rich Harden, who's been sort of hot-and-cold, has a 3.86 ERA in six starts, with 40 strikeouts in just 37.1 innings. By the Support-Neutral numbers at Baseball Prospecuts, Oakland has the fourth-best rotation in the game, behind only (predictably) Chicago and Houston and (surprisingly) Montreal. Finally, it's not like the A's are now having to adjust to a whole new system or deal with some guy from outside who wants to have all his pitchers now pitch his way. Curt Young was in the organization and is indoctrinated in the A's way of handling pitchers. He "grew up" on the Peterson method, essentially. This is the secret sauce of the A's continued winning. They lose JP Ricciardi, Paul DePodesta, and Rick Peterson, and keep right on chugging, because those guys helped implement the system that guys like Curt Young and David Forst carry on and keep tweaking. It's the same reason it wouldn't have been the huge deal the media made it out to be if Boston had gotten Billy Beane: Paul DePodesta would have stepped up and fit right in, probably keeping him from taking the Dodgers job. In other words, then, Verducci's talking out of his ass, as so many old-time sportswriters (which SI has in abundance, Daniel Habib notwithstanding) seem to do.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 09:30 | |

So we went to a benefit for Stop Smiling Magazine at The Bowery Ballroom. It was my first visit to one of the notable venues in downtown Manhattan, and it was a fun time. The magazine got a bunch of comedians to come in and do sets, and had a Comedy Central honcho on hand to MC things. Said honco was terrible. He was unfunny, didn't keep the crowd motivated, and ... did I say that he wasn't funny? For a guy who's in charge of things at a network dedicated to funny, he couldn't deliver a joke for the life of him. Or write one. Which is completely explained by the fact that he used to write for Jay Leno. It didn't help that the first comedian he introduced, Neil Hamburger, was similarly atrocious. He had some sort of odd schtick with a weird voice, a suit with a corsage, spilling drinks, auctioning a broken George Foreman grill, and lots and lots of unfunny playground-style jokes ("What's the difference between J-Lo and ..."). Maybe five people (out of a solid couple hundred) liked him, from what I could hear, but he insisted on doing what appeared to be his full set, which sucked for the whole room, and really made it hard on the next performer, Eugene Mirman. Mirman was funny, if bizarre. He had videos which he projected onto the screen behind the stage, including one that was a pretty funny parody of anti-marijuana commercials. He seemed to be a bit obsessed with robots. Frankly, I don't remember it very much. He was sort of mediocre, but it was a welcome enough relief from Hamburger that he got a decent round of applause from a well lubricated crowd. Certain members of that crowd were better lubricated than others. The woman in front of us appeared to be on some drug or drugs and repeatedly waved her arms in the air rapturously, perhaps mistakenly believing that she was in a revival tent with Billy Graham. That idea left her mind midway through the show, as she whispered something to her male companion and then led him off in the direction of the bathrooms. I'll not insult you by articulating what they were probably heading off to do. Mirman was followed by Todd Barry, a small balding man who claimed to be performing in his own backyard, noting "Maybe you've seen me walking." Which isn't funny on screen in any way, but was hilarious with his delivery, a generally monotonic deadpan spoken while cradling the mic stand, tilting it over enough to his right so he could reach the microphone. As that implies, he's pretty short. I saw him after the show, and he can't be over 5'5". He was the first traditional "observational" comic, and he was also the first genuinely funny performer. I don't really remember any of his jokes, but he made my face hurt: it's hard to keep smiling and laughing for that long. The only woman on the bill, Laura Kightlinger was more energetic than Barry, and also more personal, less observational. She moved around a lot, channeled Rodney Dangerfield a little, and did a bit about screaming at her stepfather (who she didn't grow up with) for daring to suggest she drink Diet Coke to help with her hangover. She was funny, though her constant referring back to her notes and some dead jokes helped her kill any momentum Barry might have built for the show. Demetri Martin, another white guy, but this time with a guitar, was my favorite comedian of the night. He didn't actually sing; he just used the guitar as kind of a pace setter and background noise generator. He had a similar delivery to that of Barry, but he may have been even less expressive 95% of the time than Barry was. The exception might be in his most memorable bit: Martin informed us that sharks were scary ... in the water. If he met one on land, they wouldn't be so tough. He'd probably tell it, "Fuck you!" In fact, this was the opposite of how he felt about lions. "Come on into the swimming pool! Ahh, you're a cat!" (This was particularly funny because it was a reference to two prior jokes: One about someone being a cat person, and one about the difference between peeing in the pool and peeing into the pool). This was funny enough, but I didn't see the finale coming: "If I see an alligator, I'm screwed." Barry had his notes on stage with him as well, but it wasn't as obtrusive as with Kightlinger, as he barely glanced at them, rather than actually stopping his set to rifle through them. That didn't stop the final comedian, Patrice O'Neal, the co-headliner with Kightlinger, from blasting the previous three comics for being "heroin addicts" and miming them looking through their notes. O'Neal brought more energy than all the other acts taken together, and he needed it, because he didn't really have many jokes. His set took the theme of men vs. women, particularly men who bow down to tofu-eating, wheat-germ-drinking women. It was sort of funny ... until he kept on going with it over and over and over again. And laughing at his own jokes the whole way through. He had a funny laugh, and it made me laugh, but his laughing combined with a little more mean-spiritedness than I was prepared for (he was the only comic to really interact with the crowd) turned me off. I missed the first part of the last act, which was basically three guys stripping down to American flag thongs and humping each other. It wasn't funny, and they screamed things about George Bush and whatnot into their mics, which hurt my ears and didn't really provide me with any new information or desire to do anything new in my life (I'm already voting for Kerry. Would they like me to vote twice?). Some people laughed, but it was sort of weak, and no-one could see because the humping took place too low to the ground (as humping usually does) for it to be in anyone but the tall folks' lines of sight. Then the MC came on and told us all to go home. As I said before, I had a good time, and my gin and tonic wasn't bad for a club drink in a plastic cup, and I've got a few new comedians to keep on the lookout for on TV and at the clubs around the city.

Posted by jason in Personal at 04:37 | |

Last night's game was what everyone could have hoped for out of Jeremy Bonderman and Rich Harden. Both pitchers went seven innings, and probably would have gone more but for pitch counts (99 for Harden, 105 for Bonderman), and neither gave up many runs: two by Bonderman, but just one by Harden, as he was able to lead his team to victory. Harden's performance looks a little nicer overall, even aside from allowing one less run: Adam Melhuse hit a homer off of Bonderman for one of Oakland's runs, while Harden's only run allowed came on a mini-rally that ended with a ground-ball double play, and Harden won the strikeout battle, 8-2, and the walk war 3-5. Bonderman did give up just four hits, though, to Harden's seven, and allowed no one to reach base more than once, except for Eric Chavez, but one of his two walks was intentional. Those two walks for Chavez gave him 26 on the year (in 153 plate appearances), which places him third in the American League, and seventh overall. Of the guys above him, only Mark Bellhorn is hitting as poorly overall as Chavez is, and even then, Eric's hitting for better power. If Chavez can maintain this patience and power (his nine homers are third in the AL, though he's hit only two doubles, an alarmingly low number) combination and just get a few more singles to drop in, he'll be the MVP candidate A's fans have been waiting for the last few years, especially when you consider his excellent defense at third. A minor oddity of Melhuse's third homer of the year is that it also gave him his third RBI of the year. Melhuse is hitting for very nice power (.543 SLG), just as he did last year (.584 SLG in 77 AB's) and a useful OBP (.333). When your starter is a catch-and-throw singles hitter like Damian Miller, it's useful to have a guy on the bench who could provide a little late-innings pinch-hitting pop and on-base ability in tight situations. Macha hasn't really shown a willingness to use Melhuse this way, which is a shame. Oakland may have won that 15 inning game the other night a lot earlier if Miller hadn't been left in to keep piling up outs as the game went on. He later became the hero, but Melhuse might've done the same thing five innings earlier and saved some wear and tear on Justin Duscherer's arm. Final note: Bobby Crosby's single in three at-bats pushed his batting average to .200. Here's to the Mendoza line!

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 13:39 | |

I've missed a bunch of days, so this could be a long entry. I'm doing this more for me than for you (to keep up on the baseball activity), so feel free to not read it. Of course, you've been free to not read all along, but whatever. I feel like a benevolent pope or something when I tell people to do things that could be good for them.

• Pedro Martinez struck out eight Indians to lead Boston to victory, as he overcame a first-inning homer to Matt Lawton and was able to wait for the Sox offense to come around on CC Sabathia, who pitched five shutout innings before giving up two runs in the sixth and seventh innings. Sabathia's line looks odd: eight hits, four runs, no walks ... and no strikeouts. Granted, Sabathia's strikeout rate has declined since his rookie year, in 2001, but he still struck out about six and half hitters per nine last year, and it's not like the Red Sox lineup is full of a bunch of high-average slap hitters or anything. Mark Bellhorn and the other guys tend to not be afraid to strike out, but Sabathia couldn't really miss the bats on Thursday.
• Atlanta made three more errors on Thursday to help lose to the Padres. Mark DeRosa made his sixth of the year, though he was at short, with Mike Hessman (who also made an error) at third and Jesse Garcia (who also made an error) at second. That infield is a far cry from the Chipper Jones, Rafael Furcal, Marcus Giles offensive terror a lot of us thought we'd be seeing for a number of years. Jones wasn't in the game, either, much less at third base, and Damon Hollins (thank goodness - for a second I thought it was Dave, still hanging on) played in left. Hollins is getting his first big-league action since 1998, when he was with the Dodgers and Braves.
• Both starters in the St. Louis-Philadelphia tilt lasted six innings despite giving up a combined eight runs in the first inning. Philadelphia couldn't climb out of the early 5-3 hole, and the Cardinals won a LaRussa special, using five relievers, with only the final one, Jason Isringhausen, pitching for an inning or more. This despite Jeff Suppan lasting six innings. Isringhausen threw 18 pitches, and no one else threw more than nine, so they were probably all available on Friday, too, so LaRussa could pull the same thing if he wanted.
• Matt Mantei can't even pitch well in mopup at this point, as he gave up three runs in the eight inning of an 8-3 loss to the Cubs. Five runs would have been a lot for the Cubs to score in the ninth, but eight is obviously much harder. Mopup innings aren't meaningless, and as much time and money as the D'Backs have invested in Mantei, they also need to know when to cut bait. It's time to let him wander the independent league paths.
• Livan Hernandez's nine-inning, one-run performance against Colorado lowered his ERA to 2.94. That's pretty good. His opponent, Scott Elarton, gave up two runs in five innings, lowering his ERA all the way to 8.91. That's pretty bad. There's a good reason for Elarton's 0-5 record in this case. Meanwhile, Vinny Castilla popped his thirteenth double of the year. Castilla is murdering the ball, with a 1200+ OPS at home, and a .509 slugging percentage on the road (I'll be generous to him and not mention his road on-base percentage). He won't maintain that home hitting, mile-high environment or not.
• It's a good thing Milton Bradley hit a home run in the fifth inning of the Dodgers's win over the Fish, because he struck out in his four other at-bats. That's funny, because Florida's pitchers only got six whiffs all day. The real offensive star was Shawn Green, who popped his fifth and six round-trippers, turning a decent Kaz Ishii start (6.2 innings, two runs, despite five walks) into his fifth win. Eric Gagne got one out (alas, not a strikeout) for his ninth save. The homers doomed Dontrelle Willis to a loss for Florida, which is notable, because it was his first of the year. Meaningful or not, getting to May before losing is pretty neat.
• Scott Podsednik had two hits and two walks, so I was hopeful, but he disappointed me: no steals. One of the hits was a double, so that reduced one opportunity. Cincinnati ran off a five-run seventh inning to win the game, helped along by some Milwaukee errors. Brooks Kieschnick pitched the last of the seventh and the eighth, giving up a hit and a walk, lowering his ERA to 1.26. Pretty good for an outfielder. Danny Graves is carrying my fantasy team, as he picked up his twelfth save of the year and got two strikeouts in the process. Graves's twelve saves becomes cooler when you realize the Reds had only won fifteen games at that point.
• Al Leiter dropped his ERA to 1.53 with a one-run, eight-inning start against the Giants. Leiter's got no business pitching this well at this age. He debuted (for the Yankees, of course) ten days before I turned six. Leiter had a decent year as a starter in 1988, though he only pitched 14 games, but then didn't have another one until 1995. Since then, though, Leiter's highest ERA was his 4.34 for the Marlins in 1997, which I'm sure he's not too upset about, because he got a ring in the bargain. Florida and Shea Stadium are nice places to pitch, but he's earned his ERAs. He doesn't have a Hall of Fame chance, but whenever he retires (and that could be years from now) he should be remembered as a guy who was among the best at his profession for quite a long period.
• It was all the rage last year to jump all over Freddy Garcia, proclaim him to be a disappointment, that he needed to just be considered a decent third starter, and so on. And now he's off to the start of his life. He had a seven-inning, one-run, eight-whiff game against Minnesota, leading Seattle to a 2-1 win, indicative of his overall season: 2.11 ERA, 33 K's and 10 walks in 42.2 innings, 1.8 Support-Neutral Wins Above Replacement (tops in the baseball), 19.9 VORP (tops in baseball for pitchers, and eighth overall). In other words, don't count Garcia out yet.
• Speaking of not counting guys out, how about Jose Guillen? He hit his fifth homer of the year, a three-run shot that hightlighted a five-run fifth, leading Anaheim to its sixth straight win. He's hit .328/.398/.529 on the year, good for 12.1 VORP, which is second among AL left-fielders, behind only Manny Ramirez. When you consider the NL, he drops, though, because of that freak group of superhuman left-fielders in the Senior Circuit: Barry Bonds, Adam Dunn, Lance Berkman, Luis Gonzalez. It's a good thing for Guillen that Albert Pujols is a first baseman now.
• Moving to Friday, Carlos Zambrano continued to go nuts on the league, throwing a two-hitter against the Rockies in Chicago. He did exactly what he needs to do to succeed: get 18 ground ball outs vs. just 4 fly ball outs. He struck out five batters as well, which is a respectable number. More importantly, though, he didn't walk anybody. That apparent lack of wildness (or perhaps the Colorado propensity to swing early in the count) helped keep Zambrano's pitch count down, so he was able to complete the game with just 97 pitches. You can't underestimate the importance of that last number for a guy who's still just 22. Zambrano ranks 9th in the majors in pitcher VORP, with 16.7, and fourth in SNWAR, with 1.8 (or perhaps tied for first, with the aforementioned Freddy Garcia).
• Mike MacDougal, who's since been sent to the minors, got blasted by the Red Sox, costing the Royals a game as the Sox scored three runs in the bottom of the ninth to take their third straight victory. You can't like Jeremy Affeldt throwing 122 pitches in the game, either, especially since it's not like he pitched especially well: 11 hits and four runs allowed in seven and a third. The runs arne't terrible, but the hits indicate that he was getting knocked around a little. Why you leave a guy who's only marginally effective in the game for so long, especially a 24-year old, is beyond me.
• The fact that Wilson Alvarez has continued last year's ridiculous pace is ... well, it's ridiculous. It's astounding. He spun a one-hit, seven inning performance against Pittsburgh, giving up just a single to Chris Stynes (and I mean just; no walks, either), before making way for Guillermo Mota, who pitched a perfect two innings to finish the win in just 2:08. Alvarez threw only 85 pitches, so there's no obvious reason why he came out. It was his first start of the year, so I guess he was just shaking off the rust. At this point, it's been forgotten that Alvarez was supposed to be a pretty good pitcher back in the day, with a nice minor league track record leading to a 2.95 ERA in his first full season in the majors before he turned semi-mediocre, then started getting hurt. Anyway, he's now a neat story, but even more importantly for the Dodgers, he's a guy who just might give them some brilliant innings this year to push them toward the playoffs in Paul DePodesta's first year as general manager.
• Scott Podsednik got on base two more times on Friday with a couple of singles, and with Mike Piazza behind the plate, you know he's running. He did, in fact, steal his 16th base of the year in the seventh inning (you can tell from the box score since he stole it off of Orber Moreno, who threw just 0.1 innings, which came immediately after Tom Glavine's six innings). Podsednik's teammate Lyle Overbay hit two doubles in the game, giving him 15 for the year, which is a pretty nice number. He's OPF 81 for the season, which would break Earl Webb's 1931 record by 14. I think it's safe to say he'll fall off.
• Larry Bigbie had a good game on Friday for the Orioles, hitting the game-winning homer in the tenth inning and throwing out an Indian baserunner at third base from his spot in left. Melving Mora made another error, his tenth of the year. He's OPF about 55 of those, which is a pretty astounding number. Also, Brian Roberts stole his 14th base of the year.
• Carl Pavano pitched a gem for the Marlins, giving up one run on four hits in eight innings. For a few teams, the Marlins being one of them, it seems like every other day, you look in the paper and a new one of their pitchers has thrown a game like that one. I'm just happy that one of those teams is the one I chose to be a fan of all those years ago. Anyway, Armando Benitez finished things out for his twelfth save of the year, lowering his ERA to 0.46 in the process. Benitez is pitching very well, but it's a measure of how important pitching really well over a number of innings really adds up to value that he's 37th in VORP for pitchers. On the offensive side for the Marlins, Hee Seop Choi hit his first triple of the year and, in fact, his first major league triple. Mike Lowell, meanwhile, popped two homers, both on Jake Peavy, who's otherwise having a very nice year, giving him nine on the year. Lowell's thirty, and he's not really a superstar, so he's probably nearing the end of a nice little run of good play that started in 2000, a year after he was liberated from the Yankee organization. In other words, that four-year contract he signed this past December was probably a bad idea for the Marlins.
• In a happy turn of events for lots of baseball fans, the Yankees couldn't manage an extra-base hit off of the always-infuriating Ryan Franklin or his bullpen mates, falling 6-2, as Jon Lieber had himself a bit of an ugly little game, giving up six runs in six innings. It's always nice when the Yankees struggle, but it's especially nice when two of my least favorite Bombers, Jason Giambi and Jorge Posada, each go 0-4.
• A theme of this blog is getting to be ridiculous old guys. Steve Finley is a prime example. I went on at length about him the other day, but he popped his ninth bomb of the year for the only D'Back run in a loss to the Phillies. Four of Arizona's six hits went for extra bases, but a combination of just one walk and not many singles conspired to keep Arizona off the scoreboard. Randy Johnson struck out ten in six and a third, but gave up a couple of runs, one on a Jim Thome's 10th homer, and thus took the loss, more due to Vicente Padilla than anything he did wrong.
• John Lackey and Mark Hendrickson duelled in SoCal, but Lackey was a little better, giving up just three hits and a walk in nine innings for no runs, earning his third win of the year. Pitch conservation is another theme of the blog, and it took Lackey 107 pitches to complete his game, which is a perfectly good number for a guy on his game, not throwing too many high stress, runners-on-base pitches.

Posted by jason in Baseball at 23:18 | |

... nine inning game. Just when I was getting really down on the A's bullpen, they came through last night with eight shutout innings, holding the Tigers down until the A's could finally come through against Detroit's even more effective (nine shutout innings) bullpen. Damian Miller, who'll almost certainly get the day off today after catching 15 innings last night, finally came through with a go-ahead single, scoring Eric Chavez (it would have been a two-RBI single had Jermaine Dye not been thrown out at the plate). Miller had been 0-6 with two strikeouts, leaving six men on base, up to that point. That his hit came with two outs makes the win all the sweeter, and the hit all the more energizing, for the A's. Barry Zito had an ok start, giving up four runs in seven innings. That'll win the game a lot of the time, but it's not the dominating Zito outing we're used to. He gave up ten hits in those innings, but there's also some encouragement: all ten hits were singles (in fact, the Tigers didn't have an extra-base hit all night), and Zito walked just one man. What was truly helpful for the A's in this game, though, was having Justin Duscherer in the bullpen (as opposed to Chad Harville, I suppose). Duke pitched five innings, giving up a hit and a walk and getting four strikeouts. A five inning start with no runs and that few baserunners would be a tremendous success, with the only qualm being that it was a relatively short outing. In fact, seeing as how he'd thrown 79 pitches at that point, I think it's safe to say he had another two innings in him if the A's hadn't scored, prompting Ken Macha to bring on Jim Mecir to protect the lead, giving Mecir his second save of the game. The A's put a lot of men on base, getting 16 hits and five walks, so there are a lot of positive individual games, including Eric Chavez's two walks, Jermaine Dye's eighth homer (finally), Erubiel Durazo's two hits, and Scott Hatteberg's 5-7 day in on-base terms (three singles, a double, and an intentional walk). Hatteberg is hot right now, having started the year at .322/.419/.489 in 105 plate appearances. Incredibly, he's struck out just six times all year. Six, in ninety at-bats. It's OPF time, of course: Hatteberg, on this pace, would end the year with 37 strikeouts. Another cute note: Hatteberg has six doubles on the year. If he's hitting a double for every strikeout, you've got to think he's having a pretty good year. A big factor in this production might be the Weaverization of the first base job this year by Ken Macha: Hatteberg has come to the plate just fourteen times this year against left-handed pitchers. In true form to how he's performing in the rest of his at-bats this year, though, he's got five hits and two walks in those fourteen trips. Bobby Crosby's struggle with the Mendoza line continued, as he inched closer with a 2-5 day, including his fourth homer of the year. Crosby's walk rate and isolated power are respectable, and a guy doesn't get to the majors if his ability pegs him for a .195 batting average, so he'll come around. His 33 strikeouts in 87 at-bats are alarming, of course, as, while strikeouts aren't inherently bad, strikeouts in huge bunches can be a warning sign. On the other hand, while Crosby struck out a lot in the minors, he didn't strike out this much, so it's probably just a cold spell. He's a young guy, he's replacing something of a living legend at short, and the closest thing he's tasted to failure in his professional career is hitting "only" .281/.335/.443 at Midland in 2002, so the biggest chore for A's hitting coach Dave Hudgens is to keep Crosby from pressing. This is a guy with a minor league record of a walk every ten plate appearances (very nearly exactly, as a matter of fact), so he knows what he's doing at the plate, and the last thing he needs to start doing is swinging at unhittable pitches to try to drive up his batting average. If Hudgens helps Crosby keep the same approach he's had his whole professional career, I'll consider it a job well done. And I know how much my approval matters to this team. By the way, Mark McLemore's been called up now, replacing Frankie Menechino. So long as he doesn't take too much playing time away from Marco Scutaro, it's all right. If Mac can still play six positions like he used to, he's a good guy to have around.

Posted by jason in Baseball, Oakland A's at 13:38 | |