Didn't have the time to punch out a post last night and so tonight, with a light day in baseball, we're going to cover two nights at once. Lucky treat. On the slate from last night: Scott Kazmir learns to throw - kinda, the Tigers have the best record in MLB, the Cubs are getting balls thrown at them, and Barry Bonds is forced to dodge bullets at the plate. As for tonight: Chris "The Liar" Duffy is bent that the Pirates sent him down to Triple-A. Meanwhile, the Reds are back to their old M.O. - losing games, a minor leaguer attempted to convince an umpire that he was hit by a pitch, while the Angels hand the Blue Jays a game.
Scott Kazmir learns to aim - well, at least he's better at getting away with not doing so.
Now, Scott Kazmir of the Devil Rays has always - since his 2004 MLB Debut - had 'good stuff.' One problem, he can't exactly tell that good stuff where to go. So he walks guys. A lot. In his first full season last year, he walked 100 batters while striking out 174 batters in 186 innings. He also had a 3.77 ERA and went 10-9 on a Devil Rays team. Anyway, Kazmir had a hot start last year, but he started off slow this year - and now he's back. He's 6-2 with a 2.73 ERA, 56 K's and 20 BB's. Despite the fact that he has given up 20 walks - still 3/5 off the pace he was running last year - his WHIP is a respectable 1.375. Not amazing, but pretty good. Especially when Randall is trotting out his shiny 2.00 WHIP in the last seven games or something.
When you have 4 wins in your last 19 games, people are gonna chuck stuff at you
Turns out, Life Without Lee is just as impossible as Cub fans thought it would be. That is, they can't score runs, and their pitching is still unruly. But on Tuesday, things reached a new low. The Cubs won, 4-0, but that didn't stop a "drunk woman" at Wrigley from slinging a ball at the struggling - I mean, bad - Jacque Jones. The ball missed and Jones escaped without harm. Here's the thing, though. Jones is acting like it's an isolated incident, and he "won't let one incident ruin what I came here to do." But understand this - maybe most of Chicago won't throw a baseball at your head. But most of Chicago is pissed that, while the team's offense, pitching, defense, and base running are all in the tank, you're being paid $16 million over three years for harming the team in three of those areas. You have a .264 avg, a .967 fielding percentage, and you just got doubled off that night and couldn't even think of a post-game excuse for why. Here's the deal; the Cubs are just bad this year. Again. We've talked about why, most recently on Tuesday.
Turns out, cheating doesn't win you any friends.
Barry Bonds got nailed on Tuesday night, as we all know by now. I'll forget, for a second, that it took Russ Springer five tries until he finally was able to hit Bonds. As I said last night, you might not like the guy, but that doesn't mean you can cheer when a pitcher intentionally hits him. The pitch that ended up hitting Bonds was not that far from his head - see above for video. I'm the last guy to stick up for Bonds, and fans can boo him if they don't like him. But it is not ok for a player to throw at Barry Bonds because he doesn't like him, for whatever reason. Especially when you know - as Russ no doubt did - how it would be interpreted by the fans. That is, with cheers. Retaliation is ok, to a point. But to throw a baseball at a guy because you don't like him - that's assault, not sport.
The Tigers have the best record in MLB
Alright, if I've said it once I've said it 500 times - I knew the Tigers would be good, but I didn't think they'd be this good. 27-13? The best record in MLB, 40 games into the season? 4, maybe. But 40? How? Well, tomorrow is my day off, so we'll be taking an in-depth look at what's going right for the Tigers. And then I'll be attending the Tigers-Reds game tonight with Soifer and Kevin. But, for a look at a team where everything is going wrong...
Chris Duffy thinks his .194 average is too good for AAA
Well, besides the fact that .200 is the Mendoza Line which, by definition, is when it becomes not okay to be in the Major Leagues, Duffy might just be in the right here. But the Pirates disagree, and placed him in the Restricted List after Duffy decided not to report to AAA ball upon his demotion. Recall that Duffy single-handedly lost a game for the Pirates earlier this year, and not accidentally. That is to say, he told a fib, and he got in trouble for it. Of course, the kicker will come if Duffy announces that he is commencing Operation Shutdown because, hey, he's never had to compete for an MLB job before, and if there's competition, someone better let him know. If there's competition, they should just eliminate him right now because he ain't never hit in April or May and he never will. Next to the Royals and Cubs, no team has ever made losing this much fun. Ever.
Good, someone found the real Reds.
I was getting worried there for a moment. I thought the Reds might have been a legit good team. I still maintain that they're not the "3rd worst team in baseball" as SI claims; far from it. The Reds might still be 4-6 in their last 10, just 2 games back of first, and have a 24-17 record - but the writing is on the wall. Well, let me have Bronson Arroyo, who lost to the aforementioned Pirates 7-2 last night, explain it to you:
I felt like I was embarrassed to get behind 4-1 early in a game like that. It's not a secret. They don't have a bunch of All-Stars in that lineup... I was embarrassed to be beaten by those guys. That's not to say you can't be beat on any given day, but I thought it was a horseshit outing, especially against a team like that. I mean, they are one of the weakest teams in baseball... This can’t happen, period. If I can’t stand on the mound and feel comfortable against that lineup, then something’s wrong with me.
Bronson... you do know that pitchers have to bat in the NL, correct? Strap on the elbow protector next time you step up to the plate against the Pirates. But the fun doesn't stop here. Last night, the Reds finally went over on the Pirates to snap their 5-game losing streak. But, it didn't start well. The Pirates jumped out to a 6-0 lead in the bottom of the first, (sound familiar, Texas? Minnesota?) only to watch the Reds slowly chip away at that lead as the game wore on. Final score, 9-8, Reds. The AP's Alan Robinson had this to say about the win: "The Cincinnati Reds seemed out of this one early... Then maybe they realized who they were playing." Basically, if you lose to the Pirates, someone is going to get after you for it.
You have to see this - "Unbelievable!"
Your team is down one run, in the third inning. You don't know how else to get on base, so you think that maybe getting hit by a pitch is your best bet. Problem is, the ball has to actually hit you before you get that free base. And if the ump tells you that it didn't hit you - while the fans confirm as much - you don't have the right to threaten him. You've got to love College Baseball. It doesn't look like Mr. Walker has much of anything under control here. Maybe the Cubs will draft him in the first round.
The Angels just handed a game to the Jays
The Angels had this game won. Bottom of the 9th, no outs, 4-4, Chone Figgins on 3rd base. You can't lose, can you? Actually, you can, and they did. The Angels managed to get themselves out of that inning without scoring a run, and then the Jays came back to score 3 in the top of the 10th to pretty much seal the victory. I'm not going to watch the rest of the game, but I'm assuming the Jays will win. Of course, that's what happens when you miss two chances with speedy guys on 3rd and less than 2 outs in the late innings. That also happens when you give the opposing team 5 outs in one inning, which happened when, A) the Angels 1B forgot to pick up the ball when he went to toss it to the pitcher covering the bag, who then collided with him and nearly knocked him down, and B) Vlad catches a routine pop up, but not really, as it rolls out of his glove. The entire night, the Angels gave the Jays every chance they could to win the game. You can't do that if you want to win baseball games. Then again, the Angels haven't been doing much of that lately, so it looks like we're straight. UPDATE: Another ball just flew by Vlad in right field, allowing another run to score for the Jays, 8-4.
Thanks for reading. Sorry about the posting mix up last night. Devin - it's good to see that you've finally got a blog. You're one of the more frequent readers here on BHGM so that's always a nice thing to see. I'll check it out tomorrow. Your comment is reasonable - that Posada isn't exactly over performing as he isn't putting up mind-blowing numbers. I'm just saying that he won't be able to keep that pace up for a whole year, because he hasn't done so in the past, and he's only gotten older. He won't go into a major slump for the rest of the year, he just won't produce at the level he's doing so now. See you guys tomorrow.
Yankee OF and Catchup - Part II - May 16th, 2006
Bonds' chase gets a jolt from Springer (ESPN.com) - May 16th, 2006
'This is our year!' - April 6th, 2006
I guess Operation Shutdown also involves Cocaine - April 22nd, 2006
We scored 14 runs tonight. - May 16th, 2006
Yankee OF and Catchup - Part I - May 15th, 2006
Finals Edition: Abnormal Psychology - May 6th, 2006
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