August 2007 - Posts
There are Joba Rules now in New York. A new phrase has been introduced to baseball fans. A young phenom has been thrust into a pennant race between baseball’s most heated rivals. His organization is trying to limit his use, protecting future value from present day abuse.
The Yankees hope Joba Chamberlain will be this year’s Francisco Rodriguez, an electric arm whose spark added to the Yanks’ bullpen could propel them to postseason success. Right now, he is the biggest and brightest example of another change in baseball.
It’s talent over experience.
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Last Friday, Detroit and the Yankees played a game that started at 11 p.m. In New York, the outcry, especially with the Yankees losing the game, was extraordinary.
MLB was right in ordering games be played whenever possible. Doubleheaders are gone, victims of the greed that comes with financial success. No team willingly surrenders a gate, off days are prehistoric notions, and split doubleheaders are the single worst scheduling notion in the history of Western Civilization.
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A terrific week of baseball with major postseason ramifications is ahead as August draws to a close. If you have an out-of-market subscription to games -- either on television or online, you'll spend the next four days in baseball heaven.
Here's what's on tap in five huge series with playoff implications:
BREWERS AT CUBS: This is the last series of the season between these two NL Central rivals (don’t get me rolling on the schedule again!). These games have major importance for both teams, especially the Brewers, who are the hunters instead of the hunted for the first time this year. Milwaukee’s starting pitching has crumbled, and its bullpen can no longer carry the load. A quick fix is needed this week for a team that is an un-playoff-like 25-40 on the road.
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An interesting debate was created by an offhand comment on a radio talk show. I declared the Mets to own the best lineup in the NL only to be promptly scolded by several callers who claimed the Braves' lineup tops in the league.
Today’s baseball debates are framed in two phases. Assuming the debaters actually watch games, talk to insiders and attack the issue with more than a cold-hearted statistical breakdown then you judge what your eyes see and ears hear with what the numbers tell you.
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The best stories of this baseball season reside in the NL West. The division that produced the worst winning percentage ever for a postseason team just two years ago now houses two teams that are building back from the bottom using home-grown talent.
Arizona leads the division and Colorado has quietly moved into wild-card contention. Look at the lineups. See the names unfamiliar to a casual fan. See the handful of veterans who are serving as leaders: Eric Byrnes and Tony Clark in Arizona, and Todd Helton in Colorado.
Beyond the names, here’s what else you see: Baseball is changing. The game is becoming athletic. Defense and speed are returning while the “slow-pitch softball” game of the BALCO era is fading. Pitching is emphasized and prioritized, witness the contract given Barry Zito last winter.
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Here are the quiet achievers. Those who are establishing themselves in the majors, some as everyday players or leaders on contending teams. These are the players -- five from each league -- who live out of the limelight. Not many casual fans know them, but in the game their accomplishments are well known.
AMERICAN LEAGUE
JEREMY ACCARDO, BLUE JAYS
A steal by Blue Jays general manager J.P. Ricciardi, Accardo is establishing himself as a closer. Given the chance to replace the injured B.J. Ryan, Accardo has 24 saves while holding lefties to an insane .141 average. Ricciardi says Accardo will be “a great eighth-inning guy” if he doesn’t remain a closer. But his electric arm and performance in Ryan’s absence make a strong case to close for the pitcher heisted from San Francisco last year for Shea Hillenbrand.
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On this Friday in August Detroit is showing signs of life after a dormant stretch that had Tigers manager Jim Leyland puzzled and fuming. The Tigers split two games in Cleveland to begin this week and won Thursday night in the Bronx in the opener of a four-game set with the Yankees. Why are the Tigers favored to win the AL Central? Road wins. They have 37 of them, the most in the majors.
And that same measure hurts Milwaukee in the suddenly-fierce-if-not-strong NL Central race. Actually, it’s the worst division of the six, but may provide fans with the best race now that the Cardinals have joined the Cubs in pursuit of the front-running Brewers. The young team from Milwaukee has played poorly on the road and that doesn’t figure to improve down the stretch.
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As Giants manager Bruce Bochy made his way to the mound on July 22 in Milwaukee, I found myself stunned and screaming at the television.
Barry Zito was on the mound -- the pitcher San Francisco signed to a $126 million deal to be the post-Barry-Bonds face of the franchise. It was the sixth inning and Zito had settled into a smooth flow after a rough first inning. However, the Brewers had loaded the bases. The batter was Rickie Weeks, a .222 hitter on that day. The game meant a ton to the Brewers, ensconced in a pennant race, but little to the last-place Giants.
The moment called for leadership. Bochy had to remind Zito that the left-hander is the centerpiece of the Giants' rotation, and he needed to show that to his teammates by getting out of the jam. Zito should have told his manager that he wanted to stay on the mound. Instead, Bochy took the ball from a passive Zito and summoned Vinnie Chulk from the bullpen.
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It's truly August. Look at the standings and the biggest division lead is four games. And who could have truly thought that the Yankees would get this hot and narrow Boston's lead. The Sox are still playing .600 ball, but the Yankees have simply been on fire.
Each division has a race and six NL teams are within three games of the wild card. A great final seven weeks of the season loom, and here are some things that I'm watching in each division:
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How big is the home run record?
I watched Monday night’s game from the fifth row behind first base in San Francisco. Tuesday night I watched Barry Bonds’ record-setting home run from a Montreal hotel room. That’s right…the city that used to house the franchise that opposed Bonds Tuesday night actually aired the Giants-Nationals telecast, nearly three years after baseball left this town. This is the biggest record in American sports. This is the one record of which Americans -- sports fans or not -- have awareness.
Ask us the name of the all-time NFL rushing leader or the all-time leading NBA scorer and, if we know at all, we have to think for a moment before answering. Ask anyone walking the streets of America who is baseball’s home run king and odds are they will know.
We saw unbridled joy Tuesday night in San Francisco, just as expected. We saw a player and a city that have enjoyed a 15-year love affair rejoice. Those in attendance, even those like the Mets fan who bought tickets outside the park and ended up catching the record baseball, wanted to be part of the spectacle.
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This baseball weekend will long be remembered. Alex Rodriguez, a failure last October in the playoffs, became the youngest player to reach 500 home runs, once the absolute benchmark of home run greatness, but now a number that appears to be merely a signpost.
Barry Bonds tied the greatest record in American sport, hitting home run No. 755 in San Diego (defying the prediction in this space of some wise guy), and reveling in more cheers -- although they were far from outnumbering the boos -- than anyone could have expected.
Yet, these eyes were riveted on a television screen in Los Angeles International Airport Sunday night, watching Tom Glavine win his 300th game. I couldn’t move nor could I deny the emotions I felt watching a player I came to know well and admire reach the goal he long sought and occasionally doubted he could reach.
Shouldn’t those words have been written about Bonds? After all, these eyes watched about 400 of Bonds’ home runs and this voice called a fair percentage of those, including the magical quartet of 500, 70, 71 and 73 in 2001.
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Barry Bonds idled into this weekend's series in San Diego at 754 career home runs and to my view he won’t hit any more balls out of the park until Monday at the earliest, when the Giants open a seven-game homestand (the Nationals for four and the Pirates for three). This being the case some thoughts consume me.
Why does the collective body of national columnists hold MLB commissioner Bud Selig accountable for his attendance at San Francisco games when Giants' owner Peter Magowan was not in Los Angeles earlier this week when the Giants visited the Dodgers for three games. Magowan's absence drew nary a peep from the writers?
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The overarching story in baseball leading up to the July 31 trade deadline was which teams with young prospects were willing to deal. The answer turned out to be Atlanta and Boston. Those teams that elected not to part with promising younger players included both New York clubs.
Atlanta got the gold medal by filling two huge holes and placing itself back in contention in the NL East. As much of an admirer of the John Schuerholz-Bobby Cox era as I have been, the instant analogy of the Braves' trade for Mark Teixeira to their deal for Fred McGriff in 1993 is a reach. This Braves team isn't as good as the 1993 team, thus these Braves will need Andruw Jones to awaken from a season-long slumber and the Chipper Jones-John Smoltz combination to stay healthy.
Boston is playing the 21st-century game of depth in the bullpen. Adding Eric Gagne -- it took financial incentives (bribery?) to seal the deal -- to the Hideki Okajima-Jonathan Papelbon tandem gives the Red Sox every reason to believe they can close games better than Mariano Rivera and anyone else in the Yankees' world. When was the last time Boston could make that claim?
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