Forward thinking

Next time I arrange to have dinner with good friends of mine, I'll check that it's not on the day the playoffs start! After all my complaining that games generally start at 1am or 4am French time, Major League baseball finally schedules some playogff games at a reasonable hour (first pitch of the Twins / Yankees is in about ten minutes...) and I'm off out to dinner with friends... All I can say is that the food had better be good!!

With a bit of luck, I'll be back in time to see some of the Marlins / Giants game on the West Coast. I'll start practicing tonight's line on the train into Paris: "Waiter - can I get the check, please?"...

One last thing

Before we hit playoff cruising speed, there was just one thing that bothered me a little from yesterday's games. This is a bit like that age-old debate as to whether it's OK to break up a no-hitter with a bunt - here, the question is: are the Padres playing to win the game (admittedly not to win their division, but at least to go out at Qualcomm Park with a bang), or are they playing to give Colorado's Todd Helton a shot at the NL batting-title?. If walking Helton in that situation gives you a better shot at winning the game, then I say you walk him, because once you start skating on the very thin ice of personal stats vs. (or in preference to) team performance / victory, it's only a matter of time before you get very cold and wet.

Well, anyway, that's my opinion - you play the game to win, not to pad anyone's personal stats.

OK, end of rant - let's get on with these playoffs!

Not alone

I'm not the only one looking forward to some good baseball in the coming days. The Washington Post's Thomas Boswell may well be a professional journalist, but this article proves that he's first and foremost a fan of the game. It's nice to be in such distinguished company for a change...!

One more win

Roger Clemens won his 310th career game in Yankee Stadium on Saturday (see post below), but his regular season wasn't quite over. Yesterday, Clemens chalked up career win #1 as manager of the Yankees! Joe Torre traditionally hands over the reins to one of his players for the final game of each season, and yesterday, it was Clemens' turn. He got appointed manager on the right day, too - yesterday saw David Wells win his 200th career game. All I got to see on MLB.com was Clemens checking the line-up card in the dugout before the game and Yankee CF Bernie Williams exchanging line-up cards at home-plate and going over the ground rules with the umpires, but I would love to have seen Clemens going out to the mound in the eighth inning to take Boomer out of the game. Five hundred career wins on the mound - a nice sight...

Never-Never Land

YESSSSSSSSSSS!!! The Cubs AND the Red Sox in the playoffs. Life really does sometimes give us the things we wish for! I have no idea how I'm going to manage a week of work and playoff games at 10pm ET (4am here in Paris), but I'll find a way somehow.

It doesn't matter that I'm following all of this over the Internet from 4,000 miles away - I love this time of year. At the same time, it's a bit like looking forward to Christmas when you're a kid - you spend months making plans and hoping that you get all the gifts you asked Santa Claus to bring, and then it's all over in the blink of an eye. The playoffs are better than Christmas, because the period is longer (and this week, for example, there are days when there will be three different playoff games played), but I know that in a month's time, I'll already be experiencing withdrawal symptoms and starting to count the days until Spring Training... So, this week's motto is: carpe diem - seize the day, enjoy the games and hope that the playoffs are as good as the pennant / Wild Card races were.

GB

Not 'games behind', which is the stat we've all been watching for the last month or so, but GooseBumps, which is what I got watching Roger Clemens walking back to the dugout in Yankee Stadium yesterday after being taken out of the game by Yankee manager Joe Torre. Torre deliberately sent Clemens out to the mound as if he were going to pitch the seventh inning, and then Torre came out to take Clemens out of the game, so that Rocket could get the standing ovation he deserved from the Yankee Stadium crowd in his final regular-season start. The respect that Clemens has earned over 17 seasons and 310 career wins can be measured by the fact that not only were the crowd and his team-mates applauding him, but also the Baltimore Orioles, led by manager Mike Hargrove. There was a nice symmetry to Hargroves's gesture - he was Clemens first strikeout victim back in Clemens' rookie season in 1984, and he was there on the dugout steps as Clemens took his final (regular season) curtain-call at Yankee Stadium...

The phall of the Phillies

I know, I know, but I just couldn't resist an MLB.com-style headline on this one. The reality behind the tacky headline, however, is a harsh one for the Phillies - after a promising season during which it looked like they could be playoff contenders, they fell at the final hurdle. A third straight loss to the Marlins last night means that the Phillies are eliminated from the Wild Card race, and those same three Marlins wins mean that Florida is now at least assured of a tie for the Wild Card.

And speaking of ties, Houston and Chicago are now tied atop the NL Central, so that divisional race will be decided over the final three games of the season. I like both ballclubs, but I have to say that I'm rooting for the Cubs, if only to keep my hopes of a 'Field of Dreams' Cubs-Red Sox World Series alive...

Flame-thrower

Best baseball moment from yesterday's games? The Astros' Billy Wagner striking out Barry Bonds with a 101-mph fastball with the game on the line (Houston leading 2-1, top of the ninth, Bonds coming up as a pinch-hitter and representing the tying run). I couldn't even follow the trajectory of the ball on my computer screen, let alone try to imagine standing up there at the plate trying to hit the thing. Great moment, though - out of the tens of thousands of game situations that occur every season, there are always one or two that stand out, and this will probably be one of Houston's, if they manage to leapfrog over the Cubs into the playoffs. You have to tip your hat to Houston manager Jimy Williams for refusing to walk Bonds (and thus let the winning run come to the plate) and letting Wagner challenge him with his best blazing fastball.

Houston is still one game back of Chicago in the NL Central. The fat lady ain't singing yet...

Déjà vu all over again?

In the playoffs so far: Braves, Giants, Yankees, Twins, A's... Those names ring any bells at all? Five of the eight teams which made the postseason in 2002 are there once again this year. Barring a Seattle miracle in the American League, they should be joined by the Red Sox, who once again won in extra innings last night, thanks to Todd Walker's dramatic game-tying 3-run home run in the bottom of the ninth and David Ortiz' walk-off home run in the 10th. (Today's Baseball Desert question: how many times have I logged on to the Internet this year to see Boston's winning score followed by F/10 or F/11? I'd love to know how many games the Red Sox have won in extra innings this year. These guys have refused to give up all season...).

Although the American League seems pretty much decided, things are still up in the air over in the National League. The Cubs have a one-game lead over the Astros in the NL Central - one of these teams is going to win the division (the Cardinals could still in theory win, but their elimination number is down to 2), whilst the other will have a shot at catching the Marlins and the Phillies in the Wild Card race. I'm sat here at my desk during my lunch-break trying to figure out just who has a good shot at what, but my head's starting to hurt after 20 minutes of looking at the standings! However, what is still a possibility is a 'Field Of Dreams', we-ain't-done-this-in-almost-a-century World Series between the Red Sox and the Cubs...

Oops, sorry, I'm more exhausted than I thought - I must have nodded off at the keyboard and drifted off to Never-Never Land... I'm not going to say anything more about the chances of either of these teams, because over the past few days I've managed to kill off the Mariners and possibly the Phillies. So, today there'll be no team-based sign-off - I'll just make do with: "Go baseball...!"

Just what the doctor ordered

Let's tidy up these divisional races a little bit, shall we? Philadelphia @ Florida, 7:05pm ET - Dontrelle Willis going head-to-head with Kevin Millwood for the second time in a week. Even with an iron will and a lot of caffeine, catching this one is going to be beyond me (it'll be 1:05am here in France), but I hope the game is as good as the one they played last Thursday at the Vet.

Erratum

My apologies - for some strange reason, a "Go Phillies!!" rallying cry mysteriously appeared at the bottom of the previous post. This is of course an error - it should have read:

GO PHILLIES!!!!!!!!!!!!! ;-)

Up for grabs

Most Major League baseball teams have already played 156 or 157 games this season, and yet, as I write, only two teams (Atlanta and San Francsisco) are assured of winning their division. Certain teams are mathematically assured of a playoff spot but necessarily of the divisional title (Yankees), some are almost home (Twins, A's), and then there are the others (Houston, Chicago, Seattle, Boston, Philadelphia) whose fate will be decided over the last 5 or 6 games of the season.

It's going to be interesting to see which of the big (and maybe not-so-big) names are going to step up and do what they're supposed to do for the ballclubs in question. Watch this space for further episodes of our new mini-series "MLB 2003" - we don't as yet know who's going to be a hero and who's going to be a villain, but one thing is for sure: it's going to be fun to watch.


Go Phillies!!!

Oops...

Apologies to any Mariners fans who might be reading this - I think I just about put the kiss of death on their season by talking yesterday about their mini-revival. The M's got beaten up by the A's 12-0, thanks, in part, to a great pitching performance by Oakland's Ted Lilly. Tim Hudson was due to start for Oakland, but when he was scratched, Lillly went to see manager Ken Macha and told him he wanted the ball. In a high-pressure situation, Lilly then proceeded to throw one of his best games of the season, giving up just three hits over six innings, and that, combined with Oakland's 15 hits (including a grand-slam by Mark Ellis), just about put paid to Seattle's chances of winning the division.

All change?

Once again, the lead in the NL Wild Card race changed hands yesterday. The Marlins had an extra-inning victory (against the mighty Atlanta Braves, no less), whilst the Phillies lost to Cincinnati, which means that Florida leap-frogged back over Philadelphia to take a 1/2 game lead in the race. These two clubs just can't seem to deal the killer blow which would put them clear ahead of everyone else - it promises to be a fun week of baseball in the National League (unless you're a die-hard fan of either of the above clubs, of course...).

Meanwhile, changes are possibly afoot over in the American League - all of a sudden, the A's seem to have gone to sleep, whilst the Mariners have suddenly realised that the season doesn't end on August 31 but on September 30, and that it's a good idea to play hard right up to that date. Ichiro went 4-for-6 yesterday, as the Mariners put together 17 hits against the A's. The win not only puts them three games back of the A's in the division, but it also brings them to within 1 1/2 games of Boston in the Wild Card race. Boston also inexplicably fell apart in Cleveland last night - they were cruising 4-1 against the Indians until the seventh inning, and then proceeded to give up 12 runs over the 7th and 8th inning without a hint of a reply. The Red Sox are going to have to be careful if they want to preserve that Wild Card spot that has seemed to have had their name written on it all season. The Yankees'win against the Devil Rays means that they are assured of a playoff place (at least the Wild Card spot), but it's fairly likely they'll win the AL East outright, so Boston now has to concentrate on the Wild Card. The combination of AL West and Wild Card means that there are three teams in contention (Oakland, Seattle and Boston), and only two spots available - somebody is going to end up not going to the ball...

Old school

I make no apolgies for citing a Thomas Boswell article for the second time this week - this guy knows his baseball and how to write about it. The article deals with the 'old school' managerial styles of the two protagonists in yesterday's Wild Card head-to-head.

Fools rush out...

I knew I shouldn't have stopped watching last night's game when I did (top of the eighth) - Jim Thome scored the game-winning with a homer in the bottom of the eighth, to put the Phillies just 1/2 game behind the Marlins in the Wild Card race.

Thome really is the man right now - he has hit three home runs in the last three games, and last night he was pretty pumped-up as he rounded the bases. This is why the Phillies brought him in from Cleveland, and he's one of the reasons that they're still in with a shot at a playoff spot.

Anything you can do...

The Marlins and the Phillies are playing a see-saw game at the Vet: the Marlins scored 3, the Phillies scored 3, the Marlins took the lead, the Phillies tied it up at 4. It really doesn't come as any surprise - a game like that is simply a reflection of the season we've seen so far. Even the series so far has been like that - each ballclub has been the victim of a huge blowout, and now they're back even again. I'm not going to be rash enough to make any predictions on this one - I'm just going to sit back and enjoy the game...

Me too

Major League Baseball will today unveil its new "I Live For This" advertising / marketing campaign, featuring some of the game's biggest stars (Derek Jeter, Sammy Sosa, Ichiro Suzuki and Pedro Martinez) speaking about why they love the game. It's obviously a very rose-tinted view of the game, but I like the ads - I've watched all four, and every time the "I live for this" punchline comes, I want to shout out "Yeah, me too...!"

This is swiftly becoming a Baseball Desert trademark phrase, but, God, I love this game!

What you see...

...is not necessarily what you're gonna get. The Washington Post's Thomas Boswell (a Baseball Desert favourite) has written a good article on the playoff / Wild Card races, with some great input from Yankee bench-coach Don Zimmer, who he sees as a kind of Every Fan, with a stake in the 11 different ballclubs he has been involved with, as either player, manager or coach...

Neck and neck

The Phillies sent an emphatic message to the Marlins last night, riding Vincente Padilla's eight shutout innings to a 14-4 victory at Veterans' Stadium. The clubs, now separated by a mere 1/2 game in the Wild Card race, will face each other a further five times before the end of the season, and those five games may well hold the key to the whole thing. If either ballclub manages to put together a string of victories against the other club, they'll have every chance of making the playoffs. What would harm both clubs' chances, however, is a continuation of the see-saw that's been going on in the NL all season - if the clubs split those crucial games, it would leave the door open for the Dodgers and / or the Cubs to make a run at the Wild Card spot, since they are only a couple of games out of first place and playing against teams that are either more or less out of contention (San Diego, Arizona, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati) or more or less already assured of a playoff spot (San Francisco).

Unlike the Marlins and the Phillies, the Cubs obviously also have a legitimate chance of winning the division, if the Astros slip up somewhere along the way. It's a big "if" given the Astros' current hot streak - they hit six home runs in a 14-4 victory over the Rockies in the rarified Colorado air - but you never know.

Today's advice is therefore simply this: keep your eyes on the National League - it's where it's all happening...

Old as the hills

With only two weeks of the regular season left, fans and players alike are caught up in their favourite late-September activity - scoreboard-watching, but above and beyond the results of games and the ensuing debate as to who's going to make it and who isn't, there's the age-old debate about WHY certain teams will make it and other won't.

MLB.com's Mike Bauman has a good article on the Red Sox / White Sox series that took place over the weekend which touches on a topic which has fascinated baseball fans for decades: will great pitching always beat great hitting? Bauman says that the Red Sox, despite being a team of sluggers who have broken countless club offensive records this season, will still make it to the postseason ahead of Seattle. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that he's right...

Radio silence

Things have been very quiet on the Desert for the past week or so - I've barely had time to check the box scores, let alone share my thoughts on what's happening in the divisional races. Having said that, nothing much seems to have changed - the divisions look more or less the same as they did a week ago, except that Florida is suddenly hot - they've won five straight games and grabbed a one-game lead in the NL Wild Card race. This thing ain't over yet...

Manny who?

The Red Sox won yet another game in extra innings yesterday. Manny Ramirez was back in the lineup after his trials and tribulations of the past week, but it was David Ortiz who was the real hero of the hour - he hit two home runs, including the game-winning shot in the tenth inning, and had 4 RBIs on the night. Ramirez wasn't exactly a spectator either - he went 2-for-4 and made a great defensive play to prevent the White Sox from scoring the game-winning run - but Ortiz is hot right now, having hit nine home runs in the last thirteen games. I don't know whether you can define that as 'carrying the team', but he's certainly one of the reasons that Boston is still in contention, just two games behind the Yankees in the AL East and tied for first place in the Wild Card race.

Slip slidin' away

It's pretty amazing - professional ballplayers, whose bodies are the tools of their trade, who are able to perform amazing feats on the field, who can hit towering home runs, steal bases and strike out the best hitters in the business, are nonetheless apparently unable to stop themselves sliding all over the ballfield and accidentally bumping into umpires...

Yesterday, both the Cubs' Antonio Alfonseca and Oakland's Terence Long lost control of their bodies and 'slipped' on the field, bumping into umpires in the process. Both players were involved in disputes with umpires over calls that went against them and ended up getting physical. The players' managers immediately began damage-control action:

Chicago's Dusty Baker: "Alfonseca wasn't even talking to the umpire. He was talking to Porky (Juan Lopez), our bullpen catcher. The guy threw him out. Then I talked to Al and he said he wasn't trying to bump the umpire. When the guy threw him out, he ran up to him and tried to stop and it was wet out there and he slid right into him. It wasn't intentional and he feels terrible about it."

Oakland's Ken Macha: "To me, it looked like Brad [Fischer - Oakland's first-base coach] was trying to hold him back and [Long] slipped out of Brad's hands. I think there was contact. It wasn't intentional."

It remains to be seen whether the powers-that-be at Major League Baseball will see things in the same light.

Montreal Expos-ed

The Expos are just about hanging in there in the NL Wild Card race (they're four games back), but they really need to put together some wins on the road if they're going to mount a serious challenge between now and the end of September. At home, the Expos are 46-23, but when they hit the road, they're 25-46 - only Tampa Bay, Detroit and Colorado have less wins on the road than the Expos (the Devil Rays and the Tigers are just not very good, and the Rockies seem to have trouble in ballparks that are not at altitude...).

Montreal has 22 games left to play - 10 on the road, and 12 at home, although 6 of those 12 'home' games will be played in Puerto Rico. I guess if they don't make the playoffs, they can at least take comfort in the thought of all those lovely air miles they've racked up over the summer...

Family Bonds

I know a lot has been written on the subject, but Thomas Boswell's article on Barry and Bobby Bonds is still worth a read.

Home-run Trot

Yesterday I saluted the Fenway faithful for their standing ovation for Roger Clemens, and today I found myself grinning when I logged on to MLB.com and saw that the Red Sox had beaten the Phillies yesterday thanks to a Trot Nixon grand-slam in the ninth inning. Is the Dark Side of the Pinstripe finally loosening its grip on me??

The Sox still have a mountain to climb in their division - they're 4 1/2 games behind the Yankees, although with a three-game series coming up this weekend in Yankee Stadium, things could change quickly. The win does however put them just one game back of Seattle in the Wild Card race, so I'm going to cross whatever it is that Red Sox Nation crosses at this time of year (fingers, arms, legs, eyes, ...) and hope that we can see some postseason play at Fenway Park...

Sowing the seeds of love

Oakland is once again hitting its stride at just the right time - the A's swept the Devil Rays over the weekend, and have now won nine straight games. One of the highlights of Sunday's game was a dispute over a check-swing third strike, which was called a ball by the home-plate umpire and which ultimately led to Tampa Bay manager Lou Piniella being ejected, along with coaches Lee Elia and John McLaren, after the Devil Rays had shown their feelings about the call by throwing candy, gum and sunflower seeds onto the field from their dugout!

In keeping with his reputation (see Aug 22 post), 'Sweet' Lou had one or two choice words to say about the third-strike-that-was-a-ball: "That's as blatant a check-swing as I've ever seen, and I've been in the big leagues since 1969. Oakland doesn't need any help. They're playing well as it is. ... Three blind mice could have called it."

Baseball management at its very best. The Baseball Desert salutes you, Lou...

I should be so lucky

Jim Edmonds robbed Kelly Stinnett of a home run on Friday night in the Cardinals' loss to the Reds, and then, for the benefit those fans who couldn't make it to the ballpark on Friday, he made another spectacular catch beyond the wall on Saturday to take a two-run homer away from Russell Branyan.

I appreciate the modesty with which Edmonds goes about the business of playing baseball, but as a sometime center-fielder, I do have a bit of a hard time accepting his analysis of the amazing catch: "I don't think it's that big of a deal. I got lucky...". Twice in two nights?? Hey Jim, come on over and help me fill in this week's lottery coupon, will ya?

Do not adjust your set...

No, your eyes and ears weren't playing tricks on you - the Red Sox were playing host to their sworn enemies, the New York Yankees, at Fenway Park; the Yankees were leading 8-4 in the final game of an important three-game series at the top of the AL East; and the Fenway crowd really did give the "Evil Empire"'s starting pitcher a standing ovation as he went back to the dugout in the middle of the seventh inning...

It's not the kind of thing that happens all the time, but it does show what great fans they have up there in Beantown, fans who are prepared to look beyond Clemens' departure from the Red Sox in '96, beyond his subsequent move from the Blue Jays to the arch-enemy in the Bronx and simply applaud one of the club's greatest-ever pitchers. Yesterday's game gave Clemens 306 career victories, 192 of which he won in a Red Sox uniform (including his two 20-strikeout games in '86 and '96). There were boos from the crowd, but you couldn't really hear them above the cheering - whatever uniform Clemens may wear today, the 13 years he spent with Boston have certainly not been forgotten.

It was a great baseball moment, way beyond the score, way beyond the divisional race, way beyond the rivalry between the two clubs - fans saying thankyou (and goodbye - this was Clemens' last-ever regular season appearance at Fenway) to a great ballplayer, and the ballplayer coming out of the dugout to take his curtain call and acknowledge both the moment and the fans' amazing and invaluable support. It certainly gave this particular fan goosebumps, even more so than watching For Love Of The Game last week, because this wasn't some Hollywood movie - this was the real deal...