Spoilt for choice

Reds vs. Cubs? Angels vs. Rangers? Mariners vs. A's? I don't know which game I'll be watching (probably bits of all three) but it promises to be a very interesting afternoon of baseball. The AL West and the NL Wild Card look like they could go down to the wire - for the casual fan, this is a great lead-in to the postseason.

The Dark Side and lighter stuff

The races for the remaining playoff spots are still tense, so it's nice to have a little light relief, courtesy of the Boston Globe (thanks to Steve Brady™ for the link).

At long last

Major League Baseball finally announced yesterday that the Expos are moving to Washington. The road to that decision has been long and winding, but now the city can get on with its preparations to host major league baseball for the first time in over thirty years.

Thomas Boswell is, understandably, delighted:

Generations of Washington area children will now get to feel some contemporary version of what captivated me from 1956 to 1971, when I took the streetcar to Griffith Stadium to root for Roy Sievers or rode my bike to RFK Stadium to watch Frank Howard's homers or took my dad to the last Nats' game 33 years ago today.

It's a sad end for the Expos and their fans, who've had a raw deal over the years both from their management and from Major League Baseball, but this is a great opportunity to make a fresh start and to do things right.

Update: Just in case our enthusiasm gets the better of us, Jayson Stark weighs in with a list of all that still remains unresolved in the Expos' relocation.

Wild Card

My brain was already starting to hurt trying to make sense of the NL Wild Card race, but now even our ballclub is involved in complicated end-of-season calculations. As stated in yesterday's post, we qualified for the playoffs - we didn't play all 16 of our games, finishing instead with a 10-5 record, but that was enough to secure fourth place and a playoff spot - good news.

However, things are a little more complex than they seem - the team in first place is automatically guaranteed to move up a division, so it doesn't matter if they win or lose their playoff game against us. If they beat us, then they go through to the playoff final against the winner of the second place vs. third place match. If they lose to us, then we go through to the playoff final against the winner of the second place vs. third place match. The problem is that one of those two teams is unable to be promoted, even if they win the playoffs, because their 'A' team (I mean, their 1st team...) is already in the division above (clubs are not allowed to have two teams in the same division). In the event of that happening, the second promotion spot available would not be decided according to the playoff games, but according to the records in the regular season (OK, so that kind of negates the idea of having playoff games in the first place, but that's how I understand the situation...).

As a result, it now turns out that we might have a better chance of getting through the playoffs if we make up (and win) our missing game, which would give us an 11-5 record and tie us with two other teams for second place.

Is that clear? It is? OK, then could you please now explain the NL Wild Card possibilities to me?

Men Behaving Bradley

Milton Bradley lost it again last night in another regrettable incident. I agree with Dodger Thoughts' opinion on the subject:

The fan who threw the bottle is the villain. The criminal. The stadium security appeared inadequate. But Milton Bradley needs to learn to let the authorities deliver punishment on his behalf. He has more to lose. It frustrates me and breaks my heart all at once.

There was no excuse for what Bradley did, since he knows - particularly after the last incident - that he needs to control his temper, but the 'fan' who threw the bottle should be banned from Dodger Stadium for life.

I thought California was a laid-back state of sea and sunshine, but it appears I was wrong: A's fans get on Frank Francisco's case and that ends up with him throwing a chair into the stands; the Angels' Jose Guillen throws a tantrum that gets him suspended by his own club for the rest of the season; and now we have Bradley's second outburst of the season. What's wrong with California? Is it their new governer? Is it something they're putting in the water? The Baseball Desert demands an answer...

Step one

The Red Sox clinched their playoff berth with a victory over the Devil Rays last night, and then, according to the Globe's Gordon Edes, celebrated in style. No doubt the Yankees looked at the joy in the Boston clubhouse and thought "Wait until you have something to cheer about", but I wouldn't begrudge these guys their celebration - they were pretty much dead and buried not so long ago and have every right to be delighted to have a chance to play some more October baseball.

They still have a chance - albeit a slim one - to catch the Yankees and win the division, but that and other issues - such as who will be their first-round opponents - will be decided this week. All the talk right now is about the Twins, but Edes makes a very valid point as regards the Red Sox:

This much you should understand: No one wants a piece of these Sox in the playoffs. "People talk about the Red Sox having to face [Johan] Santana twice in the playoffs?" one scout said with a snort, referring to a possible first-round matchup between the Sox and Minnesota. "How about the Twins having to face Schilling twice? Good luck to them."

On a related topic, I found out today that our team made the playoffs too. Since we finished fourth in our division, we get to play the team which finished in the top spot, with a 15-1 record, but hey, it's a one-game playoff, and we don't have to face Schilling or Santana or in fact anybody twice, so anything could happen. Today's message therefore goes out both to our team and to the Red Sox:

In a nutshell

The Yankees-Red Sox series, as seen by The Soxaholix - great stuff.

The hostilities are over

Curt Schilling painted a masterpiece yesterday at Fenway to help the Red Sox to an 11-4 victory in the last of the 19 regular-season games played this year between Boston and New York. Kevin Brown's first outing since he broke his hand didn't quite go as the Yankees hoped - he threw 65 pitches in two-thirds of inning, giving up 6 hits and 4 earned runs in the process. The Red Sox led 7-0 after two innings, and that was more than enough cushion for Schilling, who gave up just one hit over seven innings and became the first pitcher this year to reach 21 wins.

The only vaguely uncomfortable moment for Schilling came in the fourth inning, when he threw twelve straight balls to load the bases. I haven't checked the stats (though I'm sure there are those who have), but I'm betting that hasn't happened to him very often in recent times. He got back on quickly, though, and proceeded to make the Yankee hitters' lives miserable for the next three innings.

This being a Yankees-Red Sox game, tempers flared late on, but nothing like on the scale of what we saw earlier this season - there was a lot of arguing and pointing of fingers, Pedro Astacio, Brad Halsey and Joe Torre were ejected, but that was about it. Of course, this may not be the last these two teams see of each other this season - although players and managers are reluctant to evoke a possible repeat of last year's ALCS because it would be disrespectful to Minnesota, Oakland et al, certain sportswriters are already lining up the possible rotations - so there might well be other opportunities for Boston and New York to express their love for each other in a few weeks' time.

The business of baseball

Thomas Boswell has some harsh words for Orioles owner Peter Angelos on his attempts to prevent the Expos being relocated to Washington, D.C..

Way Out West

Apart from being the title of one of my favourite movies of all time ("Tell me about my dear dear daddy! Is it true that he's dead?" - "I hope so, they buried him!"), it's also where I'll be this evening. I've decided to give the East Coast the day off - I'll be seeing how Oakland, Anaheim, Los Angeles and San Francisco shape up.

Reality check

Barring a major miracle, the Red Sox are now almost certain that the AL East title is beyond their grasp after yet another defeat at the hands of the Yankees. Red Sox Nation has a variety of reactions to the situation: Surviving Grady doesn't want to dwell on the subject of Plan B; Bambino's Curse is a little more pissed and vents its frustration on the mainstream media and certain well-known bloggers (NB the post is pre-Pedro's loss); and Beth at Cursed and First (a self-proclaimed "verbose f*cker") rips Bud Selig for banning Johnny Pesky from the Red Sox dugout.

It's easy for me to comment casually on this from a distance, but it seems to me that the Red Sox need to put away their angst for the next week or so and just go out and play baseball. (I know, asking the Red Sox to put away their angst is like

Trying to tell the cockerels not to crow
Or like trying to tell the striker
Not to think about the goal).

Stop worrying about what Pedro says about the Yankees (he's just playing with their minds, trying to lull them into a false sense of security...) or whether Grady Francona (or is it Terry Little?) should have left him in last night or not - chill out, relax, have a couple of beers. Go out there tonight, show the baseball world that you really don't give a crap who wins the AL East - it's not a pissing contest with the Yankees, it's all about wrapping up that all-important playoff spot (whether it's via Plan A or Plan B). Get all those horrible toxins (the bad starts, the bad decisons, the bad hops) out of your system now and get ready for some October baseball.

If you don't, I'm jumping ship and defecting to the Cubs...

Getting the job done

I don't know what the benchmark is for major league pitching, but I would imagine that there are a lot of guys out there who would be happy to post a 15-win season. Greg Maddux did just that last night, but he's no stranger to the accomplishment - 2004 is Maddux's 17th straight 15-win season. Just like Maddux's 300th career win earlier this year, this one has pretty much passed under the radar, but it's an amazing feat - just to stay healthy enough to pitch for that long is an achievement in itself, but to win that consistently really does put him up amongst the greats. If you want to know why we should be tipping our collective cap to Maddux right now, you need to look no further than the lofty company Maddux is now keeping - the only other pitchers to have 16 or more 15-win seasons? Cy Young (18), Walter Johnson (16) and Warren Spahn (16). Those three gentlemen haven't been seen playing baseball for a very long time, which is why - just like for Ichiro's amazing season - we should be sitting up and taking notice: we're not likely to see another pitcher that consistently good for a very long time.

Leaving it late

They might have left it to the bottom of the ninth with two outs and two strikes on David Dellucci, but the Rangers came through in the clutch yesterday with a 5-4 victory over AL West rivals Oakland. When Brian Roberts slid into home plate to score the winning run you could would have thought that the Rangers had just won the World Series - the 23,075 fans in Arlington went wild, but then they have every reason to do so. Over the last three years (2001-2003) Texas has finished 43, 31 and 25 games behind the division winner; this year they are just two games back, with 10 games to play. They've had some good streaks all year, but they couldn't have picked a better time to have this one: Oakland has lost its last three games (to Texas) and is 4-6 over its last ten; Anaheim has lost its last two and is also 4-6 over its last ten; Texas, meanwhile, has a 5-game winning streak going, and is 7-3 over its last ten games.

Despite Oakland and Anaheim stumbling, nothing is as yet decided in the AL West, since the schedule for the last ten days of the regular season has a sort of inbreeding feel to it - the AL West teams will play games only against other AL West teams: Oakland will play Anaheim six times, Texas will play Anaheim four times and potential party-pooper Seattle will play four against Oakland and six against Texas. It's going to be interesting to watch how Seattle affects this race - the team has been playing like a real baseball team over the past ten days or so (much to the frustration of its fans), fuelled in part by Ichiro's hot hitting. The Mariners don't have a ton of guys who can beat you, but Ichiro getting on base 3, 4 or 5 times in a game can't be good for the Mariners' opponents - with the NL West pennant up for grabs, I initially had the feeling that clubs may well be a little more cautious in the way they pitch to him. Having said that, a glance at Ichiro's stats shows that he has the grand total of 96 runs and 56 RBIs to show for his 247 hits, so maybe it's not such a big deal after all, since nobody's getting on base in front of him, and nobody's driving him home.

Whilst we're on the subject of party-poopers, the Orioles managed to halt the Red Sox' momentum last night with a 9-7 victory, despite an attempted comeback by Boston in the 9th. Tampa Bay, on the other hand, was unable to prevent the Yankees clinching a postseason spot for the 10th consecutive season.

You know, I don't hate the Yankees, I don't begrudge them their success and I'm even willing to tip my cap to them for clinching their postseason berth, but what rubs me the wrong way sometimes is the overly business-like way they go about the game of baseball. We all know the party line (toed yesterday by A-Rod: "It's good to clinch, but we expected that when we came to Spring Training. Our ultimate goal is to be the last team standing in late-October,") but guys, c'mon, lighten up a little, show some emotion. The scene on the field last night:



looked more like a funeral procession than a victory celebration - it was depressing enough for me to find myself actually having a warm fuzzy feeling towards Yankee captain Derek Jeter, because at least he's got a smile on his face. Having said that, he'll probably be summoned to George Steinbrenner's office today to explain just what the hell he thinks there is to grin about. Aaah, the joys of life in pinstripes... ;-)

Back on track

The Red Sox needed to get their act together after three straight losses, and they had the right guy on the mound last night to stem the bleeding. Curt Schilling turned in a stellar performance in a close pitching duel with Baltimore's Rodrigo Lopez to help the Red Sox to a 3-2 victory. If you still don't believe that Schilling is getting better as the season goes on, check out his pitching line:

IP 8, H 3, ER 0, BB 1, SO 14, PC-ST 114-90

90 strikes and 24 balls? As Bob Ryan says in today's Boston Globe, the 'W' is for 'Wow'. It might not have been the Yankees that Schilling put away, but the Orioles have hurt the Red Sox all season and this was a much-needed win. It didn't help Boston gain any ground in the division, because the Yankees beat the Blue Jays (thanks in part to Jason Giambi's first home run since June), but it did increase their Wild Card lead over Anaheim, who were on the short end of Ichiro's 5-for-5 night, and I'm sure it did wonders for the team's self-confidence. It was a timely reminder of what they can do on the field, even when they have their backs to the wall.

Ichiro inches closer

Like Barry Bonds approaching Ruth's and Aaron's home run records, the air Ichiro is breathing right now is starting to become more and more rarified. Last night he went 5-for-5 in the Mariners' win over the Angels, giving him 243 for the season, the most hits anyone has had in the major leagues since 1930.

All the focus is on Ichiro trying to break George Sisler's 84-year-old single-season record of 257 hits, but we should also take a minute to look at yesterday's specific achievement, which was Ichiro having his fourth five-hit game of the season. Tony Gwynn, Stan Musial, Ty Cobb and Willie Keeler are the only other players to have accomplished this feat, so Ichiro is in some pretty prestigious company. As for me, I can only sit back and marvel at Ichiro's feats - we haven't quite had the same number of at-bats this year, but I'll be lucky if I have a five-hit season, let alone a five-hit game...

Seeing-eye, (single)

There was a debate a little while back here in (on? at?) The Baseball Desert as to why certain players wore their caps slightly askew - the conclusion seemed to be that it was an ultra-cool ghetto-chic thing, but there are exceptions. I recently came across an article on ESPN on a player who has good reason to wear his cap at a strange angle. I somehow managed to miss the story earlier in this hectic season, but it's still worth reading now.

The shape of things to come

The postseason is starting to take shape - the Cardinals 'clinched' their division title last night, as did the Twins (for the third straight year). Despite watching their rivals clinch a title they believed might be theirs back in April, the White Sox were magnanimous in defeat. White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen had this to say:

"When you have a team that shows up every day and performs like they do, they should be proud of themselves because I know how to be prepared to be in that position. I know how hard you work to get to the postseason. [...] Ronny [Gardenhire, the Twins manager] did a better job than me and that's why he's there. I have no regrets, but believe me, I will think about what we did wrong and think about how we can get better. I guarantee I see myself winning with the White Sox."

Update: Batgirl weighs in with a fan's view of the Twins' division title, and has one or two choice words for the White Sox (thanks to Baseball Musings for the link).

Fear not, for I bring you glad tidings of great joy

Red Sox Nation is not yet in a state of despair, but the Red Sox really need to get out of the rut they're in and start playing smarter baseball. A case in point was last night's failed rundown attempt in the top of the 5th: it started with the Orioles' Melvin Mora thinking that the bases were loaded, when in fact there were runners on 2nd and 3rd - he started to walk home and was immediately caught in a rundown by the Red Sox infield. Ten seconds later, the Red Sox had made five five-yard throws - two of them errant - and still failed to get Mora out at the plate. The NESN broadcast team pretty much said it all: "And that's about as ugly a play as you're ever gonna see in a game of baseball". This must stop - they need to 'Cowboy Up' and start playing real baseball again.

Older and wiser

I apologise to Red Sox fans reading this, who are probably sick of the sight of him after this weekend's series in the Bronx, but I thought it worth mentioning that Jay Jaffe has published the concluding part of his mammoth three-part piece on Gary Sheffield. It's a fine piece on one of the game's more, shall we say, 'enigmatic' players, and well worth checking out.

Yankees don't suck

For Boston it was less "veni, vidi, vici" and more "we came, we saw, we got beaten up."

Larry Mahnken tackles the "we're better than you are" question and concludes that things are closer than they look.

In addition he would also seem to have the last word - at least for now - on New York's shaky starting rotation:

Mike Mussina's September ERA is 1.20, Orlando Hernandez's is 1.88, Jon Lieber's is 2.96. They gave up a combined 5 runs to the Red Sox this weekend.

Next person to complain about the Yankees' rotation gets a punch in the face.

You have been warned...

To whom it may concern

If you are the person sitting in the upper deck at Yankee Stadium this afternoon, Tier 29, Row W, seat 10 or seat 13, and you find that it's nice to be able to stretch out your legs and elbows on a day when they've announced a sellout crowd, then please give a silent prayer of thanks to a baseball fan you've never met who lives 4,000 miles away from the Bronx and who wasn't able to use the tickets he bought six months ago for seats 11 and 12.

I'm not one for rubbing salt in the wound, but I will still be at the Stadium this afternoon (in spirit if not in body) thanks to the magic of MLB.TV. Pedro vs. Moose, the Yankees on a roll and the Red Sox wanting to leave New York with their heads held high - it has all the makings of a great game. Enjoy!

Dog day afternoon

Yesterday the Red Sox got the crap kicked out of 'em by the Yankees, our ballclub lost 13-3 to the league-leading Savigny Lions and I went 0-for-1, with an error on an easy fly ball in the outfield. Apart from that, it was a pretty good day...

All I can do is echo Pedro's thoughts the other day: sh*t happens. Let's just forget all about it and move on. After all, tomorrow is another day...

Join the club

You may not like him, but you have to respect Barry Bonds' achievements. Tonight he became just the third member of one of baseball's most exclusive clubs: the 700 Home Run Club. The two remaining magic numbers for Bonds are now 715, which would take him past Babe Ruth, and 756, which would dethrone current all-time home run leader Hank Aaron.

On the comeback trail

The Red Sox and the Yankees played a rain-interrupted game at Yankee Stadium tonight which at one point looked like it might never get finished. El Duque started for the Yankees and threw 68 pitches over three innings before being forced out of the game by an extended rain delay. Bronson Arroyo managed to stay in the game for the Red Sox and pitched valiantly, giving up just 2 runs on 4 hits over six innings, but it looked like his efforts would be in vain - the Red Sox failed to muster any kind of run support and in the process made Yankee reliever Tanyon Sturtze look like Sandy Koufax.

The Yankees took the lead in the fifth inning on a home run by John Olerud, but the key play of the game came on the next at-bat, when Manny Ramirez made a great leaping catch at the left-field wall to rob Miguel Cairo of a home run and keep the Yankees' lead to one run. I don't think anyone thought Manny would actually get to the ball (in fact Cairo actually completed his home run trot, so sure was he that the ball had left the ballpark), but he did his best Torii Hunter impression and hauled it in.

That one run saved proved to be the difference in the ballgame. In true Red Sox fashion, having failed to score a single run off Sturtze in 3 2/3 innings they then proceeded to put together a walk, a stolen base, a single and a bloop hit against the normally infallible Mariano Rivera - who looked anything but infallible out there tonight - and won the game 3-2.

Going into this game, the Yankees were 79-1 when leading after eight innings - that figure is now 79-2, and both of those losses have come against the Red Sox. Tonight's win was crucial for Boston - not only does it put them just 2 1/2 games behind the Yankees in the division, it also sends a timely reminder to the arch-enemy that the Red Sox can and will hang in there, even against the mighty Rivera.

I took a nap earlier in the evening so as to be able to watch the game, which was a 1am start over here. I figured it would be over by 4am, but the rain delays extended that to 6am, and it's really not worth my while going to bed now. It's going to be a tough day, and I'll be running on fumes for most of it, but I'll trade a little sluggishness on the basepaths this afternoon against a game like that any day of the week.

Apocalypse Now?

It's not quite the end of the world, but it's the next biggest thing: Red Sox / Yankees in the Bronx.

Ed points us in the direction of George King at the New York Post, who has this to say:

"It's Red Sox-Yankees in The Bronx with the AL East on the line. If you don't like this weekend, you don't like baseball."

Enough said...

State of the Art

The rumours that had been flying around for the past week or so were confirmed yesterday: Art Howe has been fired as manager of the Mets, effective at the end of the season.

Howe has taken a lot of flak for being too laid-back and not being able to motivate his players. If proof of that was still needed yesterday, it can be found in the fact that several players arrived late at the meeting Howe called to make the announcement:

Howe told the team about the move before they took batting practice, and said the clubhouse was "very quiet." Critics often said Howe was too laid-back and too easy on his players -- in fact, outfielder Richard Hidalgo and pitcher Victor Zambrano walked into the meeting after it already had started.

My favourite quote came from outfielder Cliff Floyd, who has been quick to criticise both the Mets' organisation and the club's fans over recent weeks:

"It's unfortunate," Floyd said. "We all know that when things don't go well on the field, the first person to take the blame is the manager." Asked what Howe said at the start of the meeting, Floyd said he missed that part of the talk.

Need we say more?

The Eddie Kranepool Society takes a look at possible replacements for Howe, ranging from Lou Piniella to Lenny Dykstra.

Sweet home Chicago

I'm with Ol' Blue Eyes on this one - last night Chicago was my kind of town, at least as far as baseball goes. At Wrigley Field the Cubs battled back from 2-0 down against the Pirates to win 3-2, thanks largely to Corey Patterson, who accounted for all three of Chicago's RBIs with a game-tying two-run home run in the 8th inning and a walk-off solo home run - his second of the year - in the bottom of the twelfth.

Cubs' manager Dusty Baker said of Patterson: "Once you start doing it, you can do it again -- the hard thing is to do it the first time. He's going to be an impact player. He's getting better and better." Across town, manager of the 'home town' Florida Marlins Jack McKeon was probably thinking the same thing about Miguel Cabrera, who made a major contrbution to Florida's 8-6 win over the Expos.

Cabrera came to everybody's attention at the back end of last season and showed what a promising young player he was, hitting .268, with 12 home runs and 62 RBIs, over 87 games. This season he's shown that it wasn't mere promise - he has delivered the goods for the Marlins, with a .307 batting average, and a team-leading 29 home runs and 100 RBIs. He does strike out a lot (he has the team lead in that category too, with 128), but bizarrely not at the expense of drawing walks (he has 62 walks, which is not exactly Barry Bonds territory, but it is good enough for second place on his team, just behind Luis Castillo).

When I saw this picture of Cabrera:

the face and the hair and the gesture made me think of Manny, so, just for the hell of it, I checked out a few stats. Below is the comparison between Manny's first 'full' season and Cabrera's season thus far (I can't for the life of me insert a table here, so bear with me...):

G: 137 / 139 (Manny '95 / Cabrera '04)
AB: 484 / 524
R: 85 / 95
H: 149 / 161
HR: 31 / 29
RBI: 107 100
BB: 75 / 62
SO: 112 / 128
OBP: .402 / .381
SLG: .558 / .532
AVG: .308 / .307

They're not identical, but they're close enough - this guy is a star in the making.

Great Scott!

There is a certain irony in the Red Sox' defeat last night - a team that had had the hottest five-week stretch you could imagine suddenly loses back-to-back games to the for the first time since early August. And to whom do they lose the games? Seattle and Tampa Bay... Still, there's no need to hit the panic button just yet, provided that the Red Sox can get their act together over the remaining two games of the series and get into a New York state of mind before the showdown in the Bronx this weekend.

I'm sure that Boston's loss elicited two completely different reactions in New York last night: the Yankees - even though they're not looking over their shoulder - must have been happy to see Boston lose ground in the divisional race; the Mets, on the other hand, must have read Scott Kazmir's pitching line (IP 6, H 3, R 0, ER 0, BB 3, SO 9) and wondered why they ever let him go.

Roll over and play dead

It's that time of the season again, the time when teams who have little left to play for but their pride suddenly become important cogs in the playoff machine. Beth at Cursed & First is annoyed at the Orioles, who seem to be exhibiting a Jekyll and Hyde personality right now.

However, Red Sox Nation will no doubt be delighted to learn that the Kansas City Royals had no intention of being an easy victim for the Yankees last night - with the Yankees leading 3-2 in the fifth inning, the Royals sent 15 runners to the plate, scored 10 runs and ended up winning 17-8. The KC fifth inning play-by-play looked like something out of a horror movie:

-D DeJesus walked.
-A Berroa reached on bunt single to pitcher, D DeJesus to second.
-T Sturtze relieved B Halsey.
-A Nunez reached on bunt single to first, D DeJesus to third, A Berroa to second.
-K Harvey walked, D DeJesus scored, A Berroa to third, A Nunez to second.
-A Berroa scored, A Nunez to third, K Harvey to second on wild pitch by T Sturtze.
-A Nunez scored, K Harvey to third on balk by T Sturtze.
-J Randa grounded out to shortstop.
-M Stairs intentionally walked.
-J Buck homered to left, K Harvey and M Stairs scored.
-D Brown grounded out to second.
-R Gotay singled to left.
-D DeJesus singled to center, R Gotay to third.
-A Berroa singled to right, R Gotay scored, D DeJesus to third.
-B Prinz relieved T Sturtze.
-A Nunez walked, A Berroa to second.
-D DeJesus scored, A Berroa to third, A Nunez to second on wild pitch by B Prinz.
-K Harvey walked.
-J Randa singled to left, A Berroa and A Nunez scored, K Harvey to second.
-C Nitkowski relieved B Prinz.
-M Stairs grounded out to pitcher.

10 runs, 7 hits, 0 errors

Although this wasn't the top end of the Yankees' rotation, Dave Pinto still wonders how well this bodes for the Yankees' chances in the playoffs, and Alex Belth weighs in with a specifically Bronx-focused look at the same problem.

Go figure

It's probably easier to guess the winning lottery numbers than it is to predict what will happen on any given day in Major League Baseball. Yesterday was a good case in point: the Royals scored 26 runs in the first game of their doubleheader against the Tigers, and were then promptly shut out by Jeremy Bonderman in Game 2.

Meanwhile, the Red Sox - having won 8 of the 9 games in their crucial series against Anaheim, Texas and Oakland - stumbled against the Mariners, whose 7-1 victory over Boston broke a seven-game losing streak. Given the Red Sox hiccup, the Yankees did themselves a big favour by winning both games of their doubleheader against the Devil Rays, the first 9-1 in front of an Expos-like crowd, the second 10-5, in front of a far more respectable 41,230 fans. The two wins coupled with Boston's loss allowed New York to stretch its lead in the AL East to 3 1/2 games.

I'm not a great advocate of playing baseball games in front of tiny crowds, but I watched a good part of the first game, and it was nice to hear the little details of the game that you miss when there are 50,000 fans in attendance: the crack of the bat, the umpire's ball / strike calls and the fans' encouragement of different players. The atmosphere was almost a kind of batting practice one, and, for once, it felt like I had my own private major league baseball game going. I can't claim to have gained any kind of major insight into the game (except maybe the discovery that Gary Sheffield's mighty swing is even scarier when it's accompanied by a vicious crack of the bat), but for a couple of hours it at least felt like being a true baseball insider.

Playing catch-up

Despite what David Pinto wrote earlier this week, the doubleheader is not quite dead. Today's schedule will see no less than three doubleheaders played: Kansas City at Detroit, Houston at Pittsburgh and, of course, Tampa Bay at New York. Yesterday's postponed games at Yankee Stadium mean that the ongoing issue of the Devil Rays / Yankees game originally scheduled for April 13 has still not been resolved. Although the situation is messy, I suppose we should be grateful that Ernie Banks is not Commissioner of Major League Baseball, or we might be in danger of hearing him decree: "Let's play three...!"

Attack of the killer B's

Carlos Beltran wasn't in the Astros' starting lineup last night, but Biggio, Bagwell and Berkman all hit home runs in the first inning to stake Roger Clemens to a 5-1 lead? That was pretty much all Clemens needed to rack up his 16th win of the season and, more importantly, Houston's 12th straight win. The Cubs' 6-0 loss to the Expos means that the Astros are now tied with the Giants for first place in the NL Wild Card race, with the Cubs 1/2 game back.

RSN

At those times when I long to have a team to root for, this is the kind of thing I'm thinking of: a nice sketch of Red Sox Nation from The Cub Reporter.

Play ball!

The Yankees-Devil Rays forfeit mess seems to be making more waves than the hurricane that brought about the situation in the first place. Both Larry Mahnken and Jayson Stark rightly lay the blame squarely at the door of Major League Baseball, which has once again proved that - as they say in my neck of the woods - it couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery.

The one good thing to come out of Monday's fiasco was that the fans who turned in the Bronx for the first scheduled game got free hot dogs and Coke, courtesy of the Yankees, but Alex Belth explains that even that wasn't quite as joyful an experience as it should have been.

If the cap fits...

A little mathematical equation:

Fan Of The Game (me) + Cap Collector (me) = The Perfect Cap, right?

Well, no, because that has to be the silliest cap 've ever seen (including those A's / Giants half-and-half caps that were all the rage during the 1989 'Battle of the Bay' World Series). Wearing a cap because it looks cool or because you're a fan of the team is fine, but this is taking the "I Live For This!" concept a little too far.

On their way Backe

Houston posted its tenth straight victory yesterday, thanks to an 8-strikeout performance by outfielder-turned-pitcher Brandon Backe, who helped his own cause by hitting his first major-league home run.

Things are really hotting up in the National League, just as they did last year, and it's easy to see why they call it the Wild Card - right now there are five teams with a serious shot at making the playoffs. At a glance, the race looks very close (Florida is the fifth-place club and is only 3 games behind the Cubs), but it's a little more complex than it looks. Chicago is 1/2 game ahead of San Francisco, but they had games postponed over the weekend due to the hurricane in Florida and so have played five games less than the Giants. San Francisco, Houston and San Diego have - give or take a couple of games - played the same number of games, so the real threat is Florida, which has played seven games less than the Giants. They're on a 7-game winning streak right now and could do some real damage if they continue in the same vein.

The one thing that is not in their favour is that there are only three weeks of the regular season left, so making up those games will involve playing doubleheaders and making up the games on scheduled days off. It won't be easy, but it's not impossible, either.

Crisp play

I haven't posted anything on Coco Crisp recently, so it was nice to see him diving around the outfield once again last night. There were some questions on here a couple of weeks ago as to why Coco wears his hat at a funny angle, and now we have the answer: it's to get a better view of long fly balls over his left shoulder.

Beyond the brouhaha

As usual, Jay Jaffe at Futility Infielder goes beyond the standard "Kevin Brown is a moron" point of view and asks some bigger questions about the Yankees' pitching staff, notably pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre and his seeming inability to manage a number of cases of pitching ineffectiveness.

One-run games

The Red Sox were unbeatable for eight innings last night against the Rangers. Texas didn't look bad - it's just that they looked like they could keep playing until after Labor Day and still not hit Curt Schilling. Schilling had given up just one run over the first eight innings when he came out looking to go the distance, but with the score 6-1 in favour of the Red Sox he gave up a two-run home run to Michael Young (Young's second of the game). Although it was clear that Schilling wanted to stay in the game and finish things off, Terry Francona took him out and brought in Keith Foulke. Foulke promptly gave up two more runs to make it 6-5 (wouldn't want Red Sox fans thinking that wins can come easy, right?) before finishing off the job.

There was another classic one-run baseball game played yesterday, but you won't find it in today's boxscores, because it was played in the Paris suburbs. Forced to play the game without a single established pitcher in the lineup, our ballclub gave up 12 runs in the first two innings and it looked like it was going to be a long, hot afternoon in the outfield. However, there was some kind of breakdown in communication at the local operatic society - the fat lady never turned up to sing, so we just kept chipping away at the lead: 12-1, 12-5, 12-8, 13-8, 13-11... We tied this unglamorous but exciting game in the bottom of the seventh and last inning and then won it 14-13 on an unglamorous but exciting walk-off sac fly. Yogi would have been proud :-)

"What can Brown do for you?"

Not a question the Yankees must be asking right now, since Kevin Brown can do nothing for them for at least three weeks. Without wanting to state the blindingly obvious, neither the Yankees nor their fans are happy about Brown's stupidity. David Pinto also brings together the best quotes on the incident.

Gary Sheffield is feeling bad for Brown:

"You just hope anybody can control their emotions. Sometimes your emotions get the best of you. Hopefully, if you’re going to harm yourself, it’s not going to harm the team. He’s probably the most competitive guy I’ve ever played with. He cares about his performance and how the team does. And he takes it all on his shoulders when he doesn’t have to. In this situation, I’m sure he didn’t want to hurt the team. He’s probably feeling worse than anybody.” (Newsday)

Mike Mussina doesn't really understand, but is too polite to diss his teammate:

"I think we’ve all been frustrated about stuff," Mussina said. "We’ve all been upset. We’ve all said stuff. But to physically do something to cause injury to yourself, I don’t relate to that." (N.Y. Times)

The best quote, however, came from Joe Torre, who showed his legendary calm and tact whilst basically saying that Brown was a total knucklehead:

"For certain I’m happy it’s the left and not the right. But the thing that bothered me is the fact that he thought enough to throw the left and not the right. I wish he would have thought a little bit more on that subject." (Newsday)

Break out the brooms

Normally I'd be unhappy about about my fantasy baseball team taking a hit last night with Bartolo Colon's 11th loss of the season, but in this case I'm OK with it, because it means that the Red Sox took the third game of their series against the Angels to complete the sweep.

With all this excitement in the American League it had escaped my notice that their are other teams starting to put together good runs and make a challenge for the postseason. The Marlins are also on a roll right now - yesterday they swept the Mets and rang up their seventh straight win, putting them just 2 1/2 games behind the Cubs in the Wild Card race. The two clubs are scheduled to play a three-game series this weekend, but Hurricane Frances seems to have other plans.

However, the imminent arrival of the hurricane has done nothing to dampen the spirits of Florida manager Jack McKeon, who was in a playful and buoyant mood after last night's win and had this to say to the New York press:

"It was nice seeing you guys. We'll see you in the playoffs. We'll see you over in Yankee Stadium."

After last season's performance, it wouldn't be that much of a surprise...

Inside the Dark Side

Alex Belth has a fascinating interview with Buster Olney on the subject of his new book on the Yankees - check it out.

Told ya

As I suspected, the Yankees didn't fall apart after their 22-0 drubbing at the hands of the Indians. They opted instead for Plan B, which was to send out El Duque and have him give up just one run over seven innings to put the Yankees back on track with a 5-3 victory.

As I've said before, El Duque is one of my favourite players, and last night's game had an MLB play of the day which involved both El Duque and new Baseball Desert favourite Coco Crisp. Coco hit a ground ball to the right side of the infield which was fielded by El Duque, and as they both approached the bag, Coco tried to dance around the Yankee pitcher in order to avoid the tag:

In the end, El Duque just stood his ground, and Coco returned to the dugout whilst El Duque stepped on the bag for the out.

When I saw the play this morning on MLB.TV, it just looked like a great light-hearted moment on the field, but Larry Mahnken suggests that it was more than just that:

It was just an out -- and El Duque quickly fell behind Omar Vizquel 3-0 -- but as the crowd cheered, the announcers chuckled, and Crisp laughed in the dugout, all the weight from Tuesday was lifted. This was a new game, and if they hadn't figured it out already, El Duque showed the team that all they could do about Tuesday was move on, play baseball, and have fun. From that point on, I was confident that the Yankees would win.

Meanwhile up in Boston, the Red Sox maintained their momentum with a 12-7 win over the Angels, although the Yankees' win means that they are still 3 1/2 games behind New York. The Red Sox began their crucial 9-game run against their fellow Wild Card contenders (3 games each against Anaheim, Texas and Oakland) under a lot of pressure, but after two fairly emphatic wins against the Angels, it would seem that the balance of power is changing.

Rising stars

After having been written off less than a month ago, the Houston Astros seem to be on the comeback trail. Although Roger Clemens is already looking ahead to next season with a view to completing some unfinished business, the Astros don't seem to have given up yet on this season. Five home runs last night against the Reds ensured them their fifth straight win and put them within 3 games of Wild Card leaders Chicago.

It's September 1st and the weather is starting to cool off a little, but major league baseball seems to be just warming up.

Tormented by the Tribe

I saw the Indians / Yankees 22-0 score before going to bed last night, but didn't realise what a historic game it was. Omar Vizquel tied the American League record for hits with 6 (in 7 at-bats), and both teams set records:

The 22-run deficit was the worst ever for the Yankees. For the Indians, they matched the largest shutout win in the Majors since 1900, which the Pirates set Sept. 16, 1975, against the Cubs.

I don't expect the Yankees to suddenly crumble after losing such a lopsided game, but at the same time, this is hardly the kind of game they needed with Boston breathing down their necks.

Much has been said recently about the weaknesses in the Yankees' starting rotation, and it probably wasn't very reassuring for management and fans to see their starting pitcher give up 6 earned runs in 1 1/3 innings. Joe Torre probably summed up best New York's view of the defeat:

"The only thing you can say is that it only counts as one,"

but Red Sox fans have to be rubbing their hands in glee at the thought of the Yankees taking this one on the chin and trying to bounce straight back.

Hard going

Nothing is ever quite as easy as it seems in Boston - the Red Sox were coasting 10-3 until the top of the ninth, but with the bases loaded Amezaga has just hit one out of the ballpark to make it 10-7. Terry Francona has been forced to bring in closer Keith Foulke to try to put out the fire.

Whew! Foulke has done his job by pitching a scoreless 9th, and the Red Sox win 10-7. In New York, the Indians are currently kicking the crap out of the Yankees - it's 22-0 to Cleveland in the top of the ninth, so I'm off to bed, safe in the knowledge that the Red Sox are now just 3 1/2 games behind New York.