[Editor’s Note: Sportscolumn Blog welcomes Jackson Govatos as the lead baseball blogger. Jackson’s daily feature, The Full Count, will take you through the five baseball stories you need to know.]
Ineptitude
1. “What the hell is goin’ on out there?”: The Atlanta Braves lost another game on Sunday due to pitching. While they have traditionally had one of the majors’ best staffs, their pitching has let them down so far this year. Besides John Smoltz’s shutout last Saturday, the Braves have not received a win from a starting pitcher. They are 15th in the NL in ERA–only the Pirates rank lower. This is to say nothing of their bullpen–which has been an absolute disaster besides 4-win Oscar Villarreal. There is good news in Atlanta: their hitting has been excellent. They lead the NL in runs and homers, and Andruw Jones is picking up where he left off last year. If they could just put pitching and hitting together, we will see another division title for the Braves.
2. Is Chris Shelton the Next Big Thing?: He’s certainly looked like a true star the first two weeks of the season. Nothing changed on Easter Sunday, when Shelton belted his league-leading 8th homer to beat the Indians 1-0. Shelton has led the team to a division-leading 7-5 record. While the Tigers have won mainly due to 26 home runs (first in the majors), they proved on Sunday that they can win pitchers’ duels as well. Mike Maroth, subject of ridicule after his 21-loss 2003 season, pitched 7 scoreless innings to decrease his ERA to a softball-like 0.73. If the Tigers can add pitching like this to their impressive lineup, they could actually prove a challenger in the AL Wild Card race.
3. Department of Redundancy Dept.: It seems like the same group of top players are jacking balls out of the park every day. Albert Pujols headlined the group of homerun hitters yesterday, with his 6th, 7th, and 8th slams of the season. St. Louis’ opponent, the Cincinnati Reds, got a 7th homer from slugger Adam Dunn. While the White Sox-Blue Jays game was rained out in the 5th inning, Jim Thome still managed to hit his 7th jack of the season. Some other big names to touch `em all on Sunday were the Yankees’ Alex Rodriguez and Jason Giambi, Vlad Guerrero of the LA Angels, the Mets’ Carlos Delgado, and Aramis Ramirez of the Cubs.
4. It had to happen eventually: Over the course of the 11 years and 888 games played at Coors Field, never had there been a 1-0 game won by the Rockies’ opponent. Until yesterday, when Brett Myers of the Phillies combined with closer Tom Gordon to shut out Colorado’s offense. A Ryan Howard home run provided to only score in a rare Coors Field pitcher’s duel. Amazingly, the win pushed Myers’ career record at the homer heavy Coors to 4-0 with a 2.64 ERA. This kind of win is important for the Phillies, who lack a true ace and lost closer Billy Wagner to the Mets over the offseason. They need Myers and Gordon to pitch like they did today in order to have a winning record in the tough NL East.
5. The Battle for 29th: We can all agree–the Devil Rays and the Royals have probably been the two worst teams in baseball the last few years. They just finished a series in Tampa, which probably drew less people than the NCAA women’s bowling championships. However, this series was interesting because of how one-sided it was. The Rays swept KC by a combined score of 22-10, extending a streak of seven straight victories over the Royals. When does one of the worst teams in a sport ever dominate another one of the worst teams like the Devil Rays have? It’s certainly rare to say the least.
