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Luke Scott doesn’t like your wiener near his face


Here’s another one for the “This is why Philly fans get a bad rap” file. During last night’s game, the fans were harassing Luke Scott all night but play finally had to be stopped in the eighth inning when someone threw a hot dog that almost hit him.


The umpire’s like, ‘What’s happening?’ I said, ‘They’re throwing coins and hot dogs in my direction. If they want to throw stuff whatever. But if it’s a couple inches from my head, that’s not right. They did say that they were taking someone (out of the stadium).

Now why would someone waste a perfectly good hot dog at the ballpark. (It certainly looked good on TV, even though it was lying broken on the ground.) Oh right, it was dollar dog night. Good thing it wasn’t dollar car battery night. By the way, when this incident is spoken of years later, it’ll turn into a story about how a gang of Phillies fans sodomized Luke Scott with a polish kielbasa.

[Houston Chronicle]: Philly fans get unruly with Astros OF Scott

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The Full Count: Losing the Arms Race


1. All Bats, No Arms: The Yankees have a problem. Their lineup is great — probably the best in the majors — and Alex Rodriguez is already breaking records this season. But, due to injuries and bad trades, they have awful pitching. After allowing four homeruns in a row in a Sunday loss to the Red Sox, the Yanks were torched by the Devil Rays on Monday night. Kei Igawa allowed 7 earned runs and could make it out of the 5th inning. His ERA in four starts is 7.84. Rocco Baldelli, BJ Upton, and other youngsters took advantage as the D-Rays continued their offensive success with a 10-run performance.

Even in a winning effort, the Devil Rays could not stop Alex Rodriguez. He hit two homers, giving him 14 on the year. That ties Albert Pujols’ record for homers in the month of April (set last year), and A-Rod still has six games left in the month. He also now has 34 RBIs, one short of the record. But still, despite scoring 8 runs, the Yankees lost their fourth in a row and are now just a half game ahead of Tampa for last place in the division.

2. Fluke or no Fluke?: Could the Brewers actually be a good team? At 12-7, they lead the NL Central division easily and have won 4 out of their last 5 games. Milwaukee beat the Cubs on Monday in 12 innings. They were down 4-0 but rallied back to tie the game in the eighth. Then Prince Fielder had a solo homerun to win the game, his second of the day. Shortstop JJ Hardy homered, giving him 6 on the year which ranks second in the league. I’m still not sold on this team, but their upcoming series against the Astros and Cardinals will help show if they are for real.

3. AL Central Delivers: The division race that seemed exciting even before the season started — the AL Central — has not disappointed. The top four teams (the Tigers, Twins, Indians, and White Sox) are all within a half-game of the division lead. On Monday the White Sox and Tigers beat the Royals and Angels, while the Indians beat the Twins. Minnesota has led the division most of the season, but they just lost a series to the Royals. Maybe when Johan Santana pitches tonight they’ll do better. Upcoming interdivision series include Tigers-White Sox and Tigers-Twins.

Co-Players of the Day: Alex Rodriguez, Yankees: 4-5, 2 HR (14), 3 RBIs in 8-10 loss to the Devil Rays. Jimmie Rollins, Phillies: 4-5, HR (7), 4 runs, 2 RBIs in an 11-4 win over Houston.

Stat of the Day: The Yankees starting pitchers have averaged 4.8 innings per start, the worst mark in the majors.

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Big Papi has a message for you Yankees fans


Have you ever been sitting around the house just wondering about what would be the best way to inform your friends and family about the partnership between MLB and XM Satellite Radio? Yea, we didn’t think so, but we figured that you might want to know about the duo’s latest promotion.

XM Radio has now created a service that allows you to create unique and personalized messages from David Ortiz, Derek Jeter, or Cal Ripken Jr. that can be sent to your friends. Personalized phone calls from celebs seem to be all the rage in sports marketing but we think it’s more fun to use these tools to annoy your friends. What Red Sox fan wouldn’t love to have Big Papi tell some Yankee loser to listen to him on XM Radio?

So don’t delay, start piecing together your insulting messages today. XM and MLB thank you for your support.

Fun with Derek Jeter and A-Rod:

Links:

[XM MLB promotion]: Call Stars

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The Full Count: Need run support? How about 4 HRs in a row?


1. Streak to a Sweep: Daisuke Matsuzaka was pitching for the Red Sox, but he was completely overshadowed by the team’s offense in a 7-6 win over the Yankees on Sunday Night Baseball. Boston tied a major league record with four homeruns in a row in the third inning, all off Yankees rookie Chase Wright. Manny Ramirez started the streak with a deep shot over the Green Monster in left-center. Then JD Drew, Mike Lowell, and Jason Varitek each hit shots of their own, two of which also went over the Green Monster. That got the fans going at Fenway and sent Chase Wright out of the game. Still, the Yankees were leading 5-4 in the 7th inning, until Lowell hit another homer, this one a three-run blast. Dice-K got the win for Boston despite allowing six runs in seven innings. Ironically, he had come into the game as the pitcher with the least run support in the AL. This game marked only the 5th time in major league history that a team hit four homers in a row, and the first time in 43 years for an AL team. The Los Angeles Dodgers did it last September against the Padres, in a streak that also featured JD Drew. Boston swept the Yankees over the weekend, but New York will seek revenge next week at Yankee Stadium.

2. Bonds is Back: Barry Bonds may be 42 years old and well past his prime, but he can still mash. The slugger hit solo homeruns on Saturday and Sunday, providing the majority of the Giants’ 3 runs in those games. The team still won both games due to back-to-back complete games by Barry Zito and Matt Cain. The Bonds homers gave him 6 on the year and 740 for his career, 15 short of Hank Aaron’s record. He is tied for the NL leads in homers, and ranks first in on-base percentage, slugging, and OPS. At this rate, we might see baseball’s most prestigious record fall before the All Star break.

3. Back on top: For those who thought the Braves’ early season success is a fluke, it’s time to reconsider. The team has played the Mets twice and won 4 out of those 6 games. On Sunday, a Glavine vs. Smoltz pitching matchup turned out to be a game filled with offense. Atlanta’s Kelly Johnson hit two homers, including a shot to leadoff the game and a three-run blast that won the game for the Braves. Smoltz and Glavine allowed a combined 9 runs as the Braves came out on top 9-6. For the Mets, Jose Reyes continues to be the National League’s best player. He is hitting .370 with league-leading totals in runs and steals. The Braves now lead the division by a half-game.

Player of the Day: Scott Rolen, Cardinals: 5-6, HR (2), 3 runs, 3 RBIs in a 12-9 win over the Cubs.

Stat of the Day: Albert Pujols has 5 homers and 12 RBIs this year. Oddly, 4 of his homers and 10 of his RBIs have come on Sunday. He is hitting .438 on Sunday, as compared to .166 on all other days.

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MLB Cost Index for April 23 2007


The MLB Cost Index is one measure of how well your GM did over the course of the offseason and during the season. The Index takes a look at the payrolls for each team and calculates a Cost per Win number. Pretty simple stuff right? But in the wide open world of baseball with no salary cap, it’s the best way we can think of to judge teams on a level (monetary) playing field.

There isn’t much change at the top of these rankings except the Brewers, 7-3 in their last ten and leading the NL Central (yes, we checked it twice), moved into the top 10. Meanwhile, the Mariners, losers of 6 in a row have dropped all the way down to 29. This was the biggest drop this week. The Blue Jays and Cardinals also fell after a bad week.

The complete MLB Cost Index after the jump.

Continue reading “MLB Cost Index for April 23 2007”

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MLB Power Rankings Roundup for Apr 20 2007

Now that we’re three weeks into the season, the Power Rankings are shaping up and the bad teams are shaking out. The Power Rankings are published on various days of the week for different sites so a lot of sites dropped the Yankees before they swept the Indians. On the flip side, rankings rewarded the Braves, Dodgers and Brewers (!) for being three of the hottest teams in the past week or so.

Here are the major Power Rankings this week:

Rank Sportscolumn ESPN FoxSports Sportsline USA Today TSN.ca
1 Mets Mets Indians Red Sox Mets Indians
2 Red Sox Dodgers D’backs Mets Red Sox Mets
3 Tigers Tigers Mets Tigers Dodgers Braves
4 Yankees Yankees Red Sox Indians Braves Dodgers
5 Dodgers Braves Braves Dodgers Yankees D’backs
6 Twins Red Sox Tigers Braves Tigers Blue Jays
7 Braves Twins Twins Blue Jays Indians Padres
8 Padres Blue Jays Yankees Twins Twins Twins
9 A’s D’backs Blue Jays A’s D’backs Reds
10 Angels Brewers Angels Yankees Blue Jays Brewers
11-30 more more more more more more

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2007 MLB franchise valuations


A lot was made recently about about Bud Selig’s $14.5M salary in 2006 but when you look at the financial numbers for baseball as a whole, he deserved every penny. (Holy crap we just defended Bud Selig.)

Forbes published their annual “Business of Baseball” feature and despite everything, MLB is doing pretty damn good for themselves. The total valuation for all baseball teams went up $1.6B to $12.9B, a gain of 15%. Meanwhile, no team lost value last year — even the Nationals went up $7M in value.

Leading the way as usual are the New York Yankees, valued at $1.2B, adding $174M in value. Curiously enough, the Yankees were the only team that posted an operating loss last year (-$25M).

There’s a huge difference between the Yankees and everyone else though. Second on the list are the Mets who leapfrogged the Red Sox and are now valued at $736M. Want to buy the Red Sox but don’t have $724M lying around? Don’t worry, the Florida Marlins can be had for a cheap $244M.

The complete list of MLB franchises and their 2007 valuations after the jump.

Continue reading “2007 MLB franchise valuations”

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The Full Count: See NY? This is what happens when you don’t boo A-Rod



Boo me now, bitches!

1. Who’s Booing Now?: Alex Rodriguez getting booed at home was not a newsworthy event last year. But this season, he’s been the only reason the Yankees aren’t in last place. A-Rod has been absolutely sensational to say the least, and he continued on Thursday with a walk-off three-run homer. The blast was his 10th of the year; he has 26 RBIs and leads the majors in almost every major category. Rodriguez’s game-winner simply put an exclamation point on an already impressive comeback by New York. The Yanks were down 6-2 to start the ninth, but Josh Phelps hit a solo homer, then Derek Jeter and Bobby Abreu each hit RBI singles. A-Rod’s shot won the game, sent the Yanks to second place, and ruined Joe Borowski’s ERA.

2. MVP vs. LVP: Another player who has proved invaluable to his team this year is Cubs starter Rich Hill. While Chicago stands at a mediocre 6-9, they would be even worse if it wasn’t for Hill, who has won half their games. He pitched 8 innings against the Braves, allowing no runs to bring his ERA down to 0.41. The Braves’ starter, Mark Redman, gave a much better effort than his first two starts of the year, but was not supported at all by the offense. Redman is now 0-3 on the year, accountable for the majority of the Braves’ 5 losses. Hill seems like he’s an All Star selection right now, while Redman could be demoted from the rotation unless he improves.

3. Manny’s Back: Many stars have struggled this year, and Manny Ramirez was one of them. The slugger had no homeruns in the team’s first 13 games, and was hitting under .200. But last night his first homer was huge for the Red Sox. The Blue Jays were up 3-1 entering the eighth inning, when Manny launched a two-run shot to tie the game. Then the Sox scored two more runs in the ninth, and Jonathan Papelbon sealed the deal for his fourth save. Boston is now 9-5, good for the division lead. But that all could change when they face the Yankees at Fenway for a three-game set this weekend.

Player of the Day: Rich Hill, Cubs: 8 innings, 9 runs, 7 strikeouts in a 3-0 win over Atlanta.

Walk Off: Here are the division leaders right now: Boston, Minnesota, Oakland, New York, Milwaukee, and Los Angeles. Of those, five have been perennial contenders the last few years. But how is Milwaukee so good? They were a sleeper pick to start the year, but do they have any potential to continue their success? The answer lies in their pitching. In six of their nine wins, the Brewers have allowed 3 runs or less. Francisco Cordero hasn’t given up a run in 5 saves, but beyond that, their pitchers have simply been lucky and/or inconsistent. Chris Capuano hasn’t made it out of the fifth inning but is 2-0. Jeff Suppan has been good but not dominant, while Ben Sheets and Doug Davis have only been good one out of their three starts. Of course Sheets has ace potential, but the rest of the rotation seems mediocre. I don’t think this team will last–their above average hitting will regress as well. I still think St. Louis is the team to beat in the division, even though they’re in last right now. If they can’t do it, Houston will take advantage and win the division.

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The Full Count: Almost Perfect — 27 up, 27 down


1. Surprise of the Year: Mark Buehrle of the Chicago White Sox strugged enormously the second half of last year and wasn’t so great in his first two starts of 2007. But, in a surprising performance to say the least, he tossed a no-hitter against the Rangers, a good-hitting team. Buehrle went the distance ans was only one walk shy of perfection. He struck out 8 and picked off the only baserunner he allowed. The no-no was the 16th in White Sox history but their first since 1991. On the offensive side, Jim Thome hit two homers and Jermaine Dye had a grand slam to supply all of the White Sox’s 6 runs. Another major league pitcher, the Mets’ John Maine, went into the seventh inning with a no-hitter going as well. Maine and the Mets disposed of the Marlins, 9-2.

2. Worst team in the league: Many would be surprised to find that the worst team in the entire majors is the Philadelphia Phillies so far this year. They fell to 3-10 after a loss to the terrible Nationals in 13 innings on Wednesday. Nothing has gone well for the Phils this season. Ryan Howard and Chase Utley, their two best offensive players, are hitting under .230. Brett Myers was so bad as a starting pitcher that they moved him to the bullpen. Absolutely nothing has gone right for the Phillies, except for Jimmy Rollins’ surprising power.

3. Star Power: Albert Pujols and Barry Bonds faced each other on Wednesday,. and they both showed why they are two of the game’s most feared hitters. Pujols, who has been struggling, hit his fourth homer of the season and increased his average 40 points via three hits. Bonds, meanwhile, hit a solo homer in the eighth to tie the game, which the Giants eventually won in 12 innings. The Bonds homer was his fourth of the year, and number 738 on his career. He’s had a fantastic start to the season, and ranks first in the NL in slugging and OPS.

Player of the Day: Mark Buehrle, White Sox: 9 innings, no-hitter, 8 strikeouts.

Walk Off: Ryan on Poor Man’s PTI had a great idea: the best snub ever for a sports editor on a major newspaper would be to bury the story to a blurb when Barry breaks Hank Aaron’s record (by now, it’s inevitable) next to some story about womens water polo or something. “And in other news, Barry Bonds breaks Hank Aaron’s Home Run Record.”

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The Full Count: Dice-K can’t catch a break


1. Bad Roll of the Dice: Daisuke Matsuzaka is perhaps the unluckiest pitcher in baseball this season. He has lost two starts in a row despite pitching a quality start in both games. Dice-K was simply outpitched by Felix Hernandez a week ago and Gustavo Chacin on Tuesday. Chacin improved to 2-0 for the Blue Jays after allowing one run into the seventh inning. Matsuzaka, meanwhile, allowed three runs and struck out 10 but didn’t get any support from the offense. With the win the Blue Jays passed the Sox for first place in the AL East, and there are still two games left in this series.

2. Powerhouses: Everyone knows Alex Rodriguez is great. He is having an April like Albert Pujols did last year, as he leads the majors in homers (8) and RBIs (21). Last night A-Rod was part of a Yankees offensive rampage that led to eight runs in the firs two innings and a 10-3 rout of the Indians. While it shouldn’t surprise too many people that Rodriguez is having this type of season, what is surprising is the second-most-powerful player in baseball–Ian Kinsler of the Rangers. Kinsler, a fantasy breakout pick by many this year, has provided a monstrous 7 homers and 13 RBIs, including 1 and 3 in the Rangers’ 8-1 romp over the White Sox. Also in that game, Sammy Sosa hit his third homer of the year, a three-run blast that gave him 10 RBIs. While nobody should expect Sammy to hit above .250, he could have a 30-homer season if healthy.

3. Beasts of the East: The Braves and Mets have been exchanging wins recently as they crush their divisional competition. The Braves beat the Nationals on Tuesday, led by Chipper Jones’ 4th homerun and four hits by leadoff man Kelly Johnson. The Mets, meanwhile, manhandled the Phillies 8-1. Moises Alou of all people had 2 homers and 3 RBIs for New York. The Braves and Mets are a half-game separated in the divisional race, with their next series against each other this weekend.

Player of the Day: Carlos Lee, Astros: 3-4, HR (5), 4 RBIs (16), and 2 runs in a 6-1 win over Florida. If there had been a Full Count on Saturday, Lee would have won this as well with a 3-homer, 6-RBI performance.

Walk Off: The Detroit Tigers are showing this year that their 2006 run was no fluke. They are 9-5 and are standing out in the crowded AL Central race. While their strength of schedule hasn’t been too impressive–they’ve played the Blue Jays twice, Orioles, and Royals twice–they are beating the teams they should beat while going 3-3 against the potent Blue Jays. The Tigers have crushed Kansas City a combined 19-11 the past two nights, showing that they have more ways to win than a pitchers duel. And the top half of their rotation–Verlander, Robertson, and Bonderman–have been fantastic. Detroit was my preseason pick to win the division, and they haven’t showed anything that would make me change my mind.