Will the mystery guest please sign in?

If you've ever spent an idle moment wondering whatever happened to Ponch from CHiPs (and I'm sure you have...) I can tell you: he's alive and well and currently pinch-hitting for the San Diego Padres:

The early bird

Dear Santa Claus,

I know it's a little early, but with you being so busy come December, I thought that writing now might help ease your delivery schedule. I'm thinking that this might look good on the shelf next to last year's present:

Thanks a lot.
Iain

You're Wellcome...

It's tough to make a personal contribution to a team's fortunes when you're stuck on another continent, but I'd like to claim some of the credit for David Wells' sparkling effort last night against the Yankees.

I thought long and hard about leaving Wells in my fantasy rotation over the weekend, but decided that I didn't want to take the risk after his last couple of starts. Of course I was forgetting about Murphy's Law of Fantasy Baseball, which goes something like this:

A pitcher's performance in real life will vary in inverse proportion to the faith you have in him on your fantasy team.

I usually get frustrated when this happens, but since I was having a terrible week anyway, I'm willing to take one for the (real) team.

The Numbers Game

I didn't see the broadcast of the game, so I was puzzled to see photos of Wells wearing #16, but it appears he traded his old number (3) to red-hot Edgar Renteria, who ended up adding almost 30 points to his batting average with a 10-for-12 series.

Good hair day

It was definitely one of those days at Yankee Stadium - the Red Sox left 13 men on base, and still managed to score 17 runs on 27 hits. Shame it only counts for one in the win column...

Running into trouble

I don't even want to try to begin to describe the ugliness that was last night's game, so I'll let the very aptly-named Joy of Sox do it for me. I will confess to feeling the same utter disbelief that the Red Sox managed to turn five straight solid hits against Randy Johnson into one single run - if it had happened to any other team, it would have been almost laughable.

Still, at least I didn't stay up until some godforsaken hour of the morning to have the whole thing gleefully described to me by the YES Network. Oh, shit, hang on a second - you mean that wasn't just a very vivid nightmare?

In for the long haul

Words of wisdom - if not words of comfort - for Nats fans from Thomas Boswell.

Boswell's focus is on the Nats, but his words apply to any and every baseball fan:

For both teams and individuals, baseball is a game of almost incomprehensible hot streaks that are so exciting, and equally mysterious slumps that are so demoralizing, that your own daily moods can be affected by the team's bipolar fortunes.
[...]
Baseball doesn't help you back up to your feet. You have to do that yourself. Whimpering doesn't help. The schedule maker just sends you to St. Louis for three days.

For the Nats, it's St Louis; for the Red Sox, it's the Yankees. The ballpark will be different, but the song remains the same:

You have a choice: Show up or fold up.

Captain Courageous?

Here's the scenario: a colleague goes barrelling into someone else's workspace, runs over his co-worker with little regard for the co-worker's safety and well-being, and grabs a piece of work that his co-worker seems, by all accounts, to have in hand. A bad thing, right?

Not if you're Derek Jeter, it's not. I wish Robinson Cano no harm, but a little part of me wishes he had been injured a little more seriously, since it might well have put "The Catch II" (or whatever this will be called from now until the end of time) into a little more perspective.

OK. Jeter-worship rant over. Back to regular baseball real soon.

Redsurrection

A professional sports team which wears red socks, coming back from 3-0 down to record a historic win - does that ring any bells? Well, last night, another team came back from the dead to do just that.

I don't watch much football any more, but Liverpool are a huge part of my sporting past, so I couldn't let the opportunity pass me by. It didn't look good for about 45 minutes, but three goals in the space of 6 minutes completely turned the tide, and had me doing this all over again.

It's baseball, Jim, but not as we know it

Kristen has a great post on the Red Sox' loss last night to the Blue Jays.

As someone who generally just wants to watch what is going on on the field, I can relate to her feelings about the Rogers Centre experience:

And so to, I guess, keep these people’s attention, Skydome and the Blue Jays have so much distracting shit going on between innings and during the game that it’s a sensory overload and those of us who are more traditional fans are all “Could we maybe just shut the fuck up and watch some freakin’ baseball? It’s a pretty good game.” But no. [...] It’s like being at an overly caffeinated minor league hockey game.

More minor league hockey tonight: Arroyo vs. Ted Lilly.

Digging your own Graves

In a somewhat surprising move yesterday the Reds designated Danny Graves for assignment. Graves has struggled recently, but then so has the rest of the team. David Pinto points out that his release has more to do with his walking two more batters per 9 innings than he wa striking out than it does with his obscene gesture, but, by their own admission, the Reds have no-one in mind to replace Graves. If I were a Reds fan, this kind of statement:

"Without pinpointing one guy, we'll look at the matchups and different things like that," [manager Dave] Miley said. "Hopefully somebody will run with it."

would not inspire me with a great deal of confidence.

Although Graves' release is puzzling, I can state one thing with the utmost certainty: he is not a victim of the legendary Baseball Desert curse, which has seen a huge chunk of my fantasy baseball team not playing any baseball at all right now. Since the season started I've lost six players to the DL (Rocco Baldelli, Jeff Bagwell, Corey Koskie, El Duque, Tim Worrell, Steve Trachsel (I know - no great loss...)), with two more in the pipeine (Brad Wilkerson and Mark Loretta). I'm really not getting any breaks here - I'm starting to feel like Frank Robinson, who seems to have a new player on the DL every day. And just like the Nats, I'm hanging in there, but only just...

Good news

We're taking things one day at a time right now, so I'm happy to report that not only did the Red Sox not lose last night (OK, so they didn't play, but I'll take what I can get right now...), but they also gained half a game on Baltimore, thanks to an unexpected win by the Royals.

Since there was no Red Sox game to watch, I caught up with the Nationals, who rode yet another great performance by Livan Hernandez to a 3-2 win over the Brewers.

Hernandez gave up just 1 earned run over 6 innings, to run his record for the season to a more-than-respectable 7-2. I have to say that I like this guy (as I do his half-brother), and I like what he brings to the team. He pitches a lot of innings (at least 215 innings a season over the past five years) and goes deep into the ballgame, which has to be good news for a team's bullpen. And on top of that, last night - despite the pressure of pitching in a close game - he was quite happy to chat away with fans behind the dugout whilst he was stood in the on-deck circle, waiting to bat, which is always great to see.

Whilst we're on the subject of fans, it's worth checking out the attendance for yesterday's game: 30,968, for a Thursday afternoon game against the Brewers. After two years of being the Montreal Globetrotters, the Nats must be delighted not only to be settled in one place, but also to be drawing crowds like that. Although there's no statistic to back up my opinion (as far as I know), I'm betting that those two factors are worth at least a couple of notches in the win column.


The bottom line
There was one other thing that struck me from the game - in the 5th inning, with no outs and a runner on second, Cristian Guzman tried to lay down a sacrifice bunt to advance the runner to 3rd. Since Guzman is struggling at the plate (he's hitting .206, 2 points lower than Livan Hernandez) I can see why Frank Robinson would want to do this, but to say that Guzman made a mess of the whole thing would be putting it mildly. He bunted foul twice, and then, with two strikes on him, proceeded to try to bunt once again. No prizes for guessing the end result: another foul bunt - strike three.

MASN color commentator Ron Darling questioned the wisdom of bunting with two strikes, but that, whilst a very valid question, seems to me to be missing the main point, which is this: if you're a professional baseball player making $4.2m a year, shouldn't you be able to at least lay down a sacrifice bunt now and again? Just a thought. Thanks for listening.

Lifting the lid

Thomas Boswell tries to reveal a little bit about one of baseball's best-kept secrets.

Despite having a number of key players on the DL, Cordero and his team are hanging tough in the NL East, where they're just a game behind the Braves. The Red Sox could do them a big favour with a good series against Atlanta this weekend; the Nationals could return the favour by softening up the Blue Jays prior to their series with the Sox next week.

The NL East is by far the tightest division in the major leagues, with only 1 1/2 games separating the top four teams (Braves, Marlins, Nats, Mets). The only team left out in the cold is the enigma-wrapped-up-in-a-mystery that is the 2005 Philadelphia Phillies.

Caveat emptor

It's always a risky business, handing over the task of redeeming a crappy day / week / life [delete as appropriate] to a bunch of 25 guys you have never met - there's a 50% chance that they'll do it and a 50% chance that they won't.

Last night saw the return of David Wells to the Boston rotation, and even this staunch Wells supporter has to admit that it was not pretty (and I'm not talking about the Clement-esque facial hair). He managed to last just 1 1/3 innings, and his outing looked more like batting practice than a big-league start. His problem wasn't wildness - he didn't walk any of the 13 batters he faced and threw 33 of his 49 pitches for strikes - but rather that his strikes were thrown in spots where the A's could hit them, which is exactly what they proceeded to do.

This has not been the best of road trips for the Red Sox - they've gone 2-4 against teams they should have beaten. They need to get back on track quickly, because their upcoming schedule is no picnic: a whole bunch 3-game series against either division rivals (Blue Jays, Yankees, Orioles) or division leaders (Braves, Angels, Cardinals).

I would say - for want of a better phrase - that it's time to "Cowboy Up!"...

"Big-time ugly"

That was the phrase Jerry Remy used to describe last night's game against the A's, but for once, ugly worked out in favour of the Red Sox.

Oakland needs to have a word with Coliseum sponsors McAfee to see whether they can't come up with a revolutionary Anti-Walk / Error software - last night Barry Zito gave up 7 walks in 5 innings (out of a total of 11) and the A's committed two crucial errors to allow the Red Sox back into the game. I'm no NESN analyst, but even I know that an 8th inning that goes HBP, BB, BB, K, E, 1B (+E), K, K (4 runs given up on just 1 hit) is not the best way to win a ballgame.

The late start-time of games on the West Coast (10pm ET / 4am CET) means I don't usually get to see much baseball action, but this morning I had the unexpected pleasure of being able to catch the last three innings of the game - including Renteria's game-winning hit - over breakfast. Tonight is better still: a 12.35pm start on the West Coast, which is a very user-friendly 9.35pm for me. MLB.TV? Best thing since sliced bread...

A hairy loss

The Red Sox continued their week of philanthropy by letting the 14-23 Oakland A's beat them 6-4 last night. While a statistician might look at the box score and point to the 13 guys left on base as the cause of the Red Sox' downfall, here at the Baseball Desert, we have the real reason: superior beard mojo.

The A's started this guy:

in left field, and any baseball manager worth his salt knows that you have to counter facial hair that ugly with some aberration of your own. Unfortunately, the Red Sox refused to start their own bearded Matt (or is it matted beard?):

on short rest and ended up paying the price - Watson hit the game-winning two-run single in the 8th inning to give the A's their first win in 9 games.

Clement is scheduled to start for the Red Sox in tonight's game. If you're watching in the company of young children, I suggest you shield their eyes when Watson comes to the plate to face Clement - exposure to that much ugly facial hair in one place could well scar them for life...

Small consolation

I hate to see my team lose, especially to the Mariners, but the one bright spot in these defeats is being able to watch the one-man highlight-reel that is Ichiro. He hits (for average, rather than for power, which is cool, because I'm not a big fan of the long ball per se, except perhaps on milestone occasions), he steals bases, he fields his position as well as, if not better than, any other player in the major leagues and he runs like the wind. Even when he's thrown out at the plate, he manages to turn the play into what Denton calls "a baseball version of Twister":

(photo: AP)

I love his Zen-like ritual at the plate, which is a perfect picture of concentration: arm outstretched, bat upright, staring out at the pitcher. A little tug on the sleeve of his jersey and he's ready to go. He's not scary in a Gary Sheffield, psycho-bat-wiggle way, but you know that he can inflict some serious damage on the opposing ballclub. I can't root for him when he's playing against the Red Sox, but I can still admire him from afar.


In other, non-consolatory news, it would appear that reports of the Yankees' death have been greatly exaggerated. I knew it was too good to be true.

Widescreen Wednesday

I've just discoverd NESN's Widescreen Wednesday feature. Although I'm not convinced that I'm seeing all that much more of the action (80% of the shots we see during any broadcast are of the batter at home plate, so all I'm really seeing is more of the first- and third-base lines), I do like the look of it. On a regular PC screen it comes up in letterbox format, which gives the whole experience an unusual, movie-like feel.

So unusual, in fact, that, despite the fact that's it's now 1:40am, I'll probably now end up watching the whole game. Thank God for those frequent French public holidays - cue a long lie-in tomorrow morning!

(Out)Field of Dreams

Thanks to a severe public dressing-down one day by our team's catcher during my rookie season, one of the first lessons I learned as an outfielder was that you have to give every ball your best shot. I now do that, and occasionally make a nice play, but only in my dreams do I put on the kind of outfield show that was on display in the major leagues last night: check out Cliff Floyd's great sliding catch (and Pedro's little dance) in New York and Ichiro's Spiderman catch in Seattle.

(photo: AP)

Wow...