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The Full Count: How do the A’s do it?


1. No offense means nothing: They have the lowest slugging percentage and batting average in the AL. They have scored just one more run on the season than the pitiful Kansas City Royals. No one in their lineup is batting over .300. And yet they still lead their division. The mystery team is the Oakland A’s, and they have rolled through their division despite numerous underachievers in their everyday lineup. The A’s pounded through the Red Sox 9-0 last night, as Esteban Loaiza continued his remarkable resurgence. Loaiza threw seven innings and gave up no runs, his third straight start with no earned runs. His ERA has dropped from 6.72 at the end of July to 4.82 now after an outstanding 4-0 August. Oakland got some offense too, with homeruns from their best two players: Frank Thomas and Nick Swisher. Each player went yard for their 28th time this season as the A’s pounded the ailing Red Sox. Boston has now lost four games in a row. Even worse, David Ortiz was hospitalized for an irregular heartbeat. The length of his absence is unknown.

2. Rookie madness: Without a doubt, this has been the year of the rookie in the MLB. From Justin Verlander to Jonathan Papelbon, rookies have been drawing headlines all year. But one of the best first year players, surprisingly enough, hasn’t received enough attention. He’s Josh Johnson, one of many outstanding young players for the Florida Marlins. Last night Johnson improved to 12-6 after a 7-strikeout performance against the Brewers. His ERA, at 2.87 is numero uno in the National League. Johnson has been a tour de force all year, with a winning record in every month since he became a starting pitcher. The Marlins are hot, too: they have won 8 in a row and have moved to just 2 games back of the Wild Card lead.

3. Simply unbeatable: In a National League filled with inconsistent, unpredictable floaters; at least one team is looking good. They are the New York Mets, who have won 9 of 10 to move to an outstanding 80-49. Yesterday they dismantled the Phillies 8-3, sending them back to .500 on the year. The Mets featured two RBIs each by Carlos Delgado and David Wright as well as Jose Reyes’ 16th triple of the season. The latter is good for the MLB lead and gives him two consecutive 15+ triple seasons, the first player to do that in 60 years according to Elias Sports. For the losing Phillies, Ryan Howard jacked his 47th homerun of the season.

4. Inconsistent phenom: Will the real Felix Hernandez please stand up? The second-year pitcher has puzzled many this season while other young pitchers have shined. Hernandez has an 11-12 record and a 4.57 ERA, both very mediocre. But last night he looked like the ace he could be, recording a complete-game shutout of the Angels. Hernandez walked none and allowed just five hits in the effort, which came just one start after being blown away with seven earned runs. Felix is one of the reasons for the Mariners’ disappointments this year. The team had lost 20 consecutive divisional games before their victory last night over the Angels.

5. Your future MLB stars: Almost every major league player started out in the Little Leagues, right? So maybe there were some future MLB players out there in Williamsport, where the Little League World Series final was held last night. In a matchup of Columbus, Georgia, the US champions, and the Japanese champions, the US team showed that our country can still win something in international competition. The Columbus squad took the game and the tournament with a narrow 2-1 victory. This gave the US back-to-back victories in the series for the first time since 1992-93, when Long Beach, California took two straight titles. So while our major league Americans showed they can’t beat Japan (who won the WBC), at least our country’s 13-year-olds can do it.

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The Full Count: Who is Gary Bennett?


1. Take a walk: Who is Gary Bennett? Most people besides Cardinals fans have no idea. But for one weekend, Bennett has captured the baseball world with his performance. After hitting a walk-off single and driving in both Cardinals runs in their 2-1 win on Saturday, he followed that up with an even more impressive performance. With the game tied 6-6 in the bottom of the ninth yesterday, Bennett hit a walk off rand slam that capped a Cardinals sweep of the Cubs. The career backup catcher helped win two games as the Reds lost two, giving St. Louis a three game lead in the division. Here are two interesting tidbits about the NL Central: every team in the division has a three game streak going of some sort (either winning or losing), and the bottom three teams in the division have each allowed exactly 666 runs.

2. Seeing double: Derek Jeter and Bernie Williams are arguably the greatest Yankees from their 98-01 three peat. And yesterday they did something as a duo that they had never done before. Both Jeter and Williams homered twice against the Angels on Sunday as the Yankees won easily 11-8. Williams had his first multi-homer game of the season and drove in 6 RBIs. Jeter continued his incredible success this season with his two blasts and three runs. Both Williams and Robinson Cano went 4-5 on the day as the Yankees extended their divisional dominance. They lead by 6.5 with one week left before September.

3. Rebound: Mark Buehrle needed a good start. His ERA had inflated to almost 5 after multiple bad performances since the All Star break. But yesterday Buehrle finally got what he needed: a win. He allowed one run in 7 innings against the Twins for his 11th victory this year. He has 11 losses, however, and his ERA is still over six since the break. But he gave the White Sox a win in their last game of the series against Minnesota, though they still remain a half-game back of the Twins. The Tigers also won yesterday, meaning the White Sox remain 5.5 back.

4. Logjam atop the NL Wildcard: Cincinatti, which looked like they could even challenge for the division title, lost 3 in a row over the weekend to the Giants leaving them in danger of being caught in the wildcard race. The Padres did not help themselves by going 1-2 over the weekend and remain 1/2 game back. Meanwhile, the Phillies were rained out on Sunday but remain 1 game back after splitting the first two with the Mets. And of course, don’t count out San Francisco, who have moved to within 2 games. Should be a photo finish.

5. Let’s hope he doesn’t throw a bat: The Devils Rays are expected to call up Delmon Young from the minors on Tuesday. Just this April, Delmon was suspended 50 games for throwing a bat at an umpire after he disagreed with a call. The Rays find themselves with an open roster spot after Jonny Gomes hit the DL and sent Ty Wigginton down to Triple-A. They are trying to determine if Young can be their everyday rightfielder next season.

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August 28 in Sports History: Little League World Series

In 1993: Long Beach (CA) became the first U.S. team to repeat as Little League World Series champs with a 3-2 victory over Panama. Only South Korea and Mexico have won back-to-back titles. Long Beach was led by Sean Burroughs, a future first-round draft choice of the Padres (1999) and the son of former major leaguer Jeff Burroughs. (baseball library.com)

The New York Mets made one of the silliest draft choices in baseball history when they selected pitcher Kirk Presley with the eighth pick in the first round. Although they paid Presley a handsome $960,000 bonus, he never made it out of Single-A. The Mets passed on players such as Billy Wagner, Derrek Lee, Jason Varitek, Chris Carpenter and Torii Hunter to select a distant relative of Elvis Presley. They eventually paid Wagner $40 million to sign as a free agent in 2006. (baseball-almanac.com)

In 1942: The Chicago Bears defeated the NFL All-Stars 21-0 before 75,000 fans in the New York City . As a precursor to the modern day Pro Bowl, the popular exhibition pitted an NFL team against a collection of pro players from other teams. In later years, NFL teams would play a team of college all-stars. The games were very competitive (despite this lopsided score) and drew large crowds, including some over 100,000. (footballsearchengine.com)

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MLB Power Rankings Roundup for Aug 25 2006

As expected, the Red Sox took the biggest tumble this week across the board after the disaster that was last weekend at Fenway. However they still manage to stay in the Top 10 in all rankings. This week, the Angels and A’s make some moves as the AL West race heads into the home stretch.

Here are your MLB Power Rankings by top sites this week.

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

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The Full Count: Jered Weaver finally goes down



What losing feels like

1. Finally defeated: One of the greatest streaks this baseball season is finally over. Jered Weaver of the Angels, who had won his first 9 career decisions, lost for the first time yesterday to the Boston Red Sox. But Weaver didn’t have a bad start; in fact he allowed only one run and four hits in six innings. His only fault was allowing a David Ortiz homerun, Ortiz’s 46th of the season. But he lost due to lack of run support as the Angels put up no runs with him in the game. The broken streak left him tied with Whitney Ford as the only pitchers who won their first 9 games as a rookie. Boston’s 2-1 win gave them the series win over the Angels after their disastrous 5 game sweep against the Yankees last weekend. They stand 5.5 back from New York still in the division.

2. Showing off: In terms of talent level, the Twins might be the most solid all-around team in baseball. With their excellent starters, MLB-best bullpen, and dangerous young hitters, they can do everything well. The only thing they need is a new stadium and some fans to go along with it. Yesterday, they dismantled the Orioles 11-2 in an offensive outpour. Joe Mauer, who leads all batters with a .361 average, had 3 hits and 4 RBIs on the day to lead the charge. Justin Morneau hit his 32nd homer, while Michael Cuddyer went 4-4 and drove in 4 runs. The Twins won their second straight and 7th out of 10, though they still trail Chicago by a half-game. The White Sox won again yesterday over Detroit. The two teams will start a pivotal three-game series today.

3. Call it a draw: We now have co-division leaders in one division. That’s the NL Central, as the Reds and Cardinals are now tied with both teams going in different directions. That’s another way of saying the Reds are hot while the Cards are sucking it up. St. Louis got swept by the Mets yesterday when New York defeated them 6-2. Meanwhile, Cincy started off their series against San Fran well, with a 6-3 victory. The Cardinals will look to start winning against their rival Cubs over the weekend, while the Reds will play the Giants three more times as part of a 10-game West Coast trip.

4. Losing team, winning pitcher: Where would the Cubs be without Carlos Zambrano? Even further down the standings, most likely. They are 40-68 in games the Zambrano does not record a decision, while his record is 14-5. He got his NL-leading 14th yesterday against the Phillies, and now Zambrano is one of the leading Cy Young candidates in the league. He ranks first in wins and strikeouts in addition to innings pitched and opponent’s batting average. His 3.31 ERA isn’t in the top 5 but that doesn’t really matter in a year when no NL pitcher is below 2.90. In the end Zambrano will be a leading Cy candidate and will face off with the Diamondbacks’ Brandon Webb for the honors.

5. Back to the Past: Have you ever wondered what it would be like to play baseball in the pre-World Series era? When a walk was six balls, a foul didn’t count as a strike, a hit batter was only a ball, and the umpires were addressed as “sir?” Well, here’s your chance. Former major league pitcher Jim Bouton announced the creation of the Vintage Base Ball Federation, or VBBF. The teams will play using pre-1900’s rules and equipment. They will play games over the course of an unspecified season and will play a VBBF World Series next August. Now there’s something to get excited about!

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The Full Count: Phillies making a run


1. Here we come: One of the quietest yet most important stories lately has been the Philadelphia Phillies’ transformation from losers to contenders. Though everyone thought they were out of it after they traded Bobby Abreu for future prospects, they have suddenly rebounded and are in the NL Wild Card race. The Phils have won 5 in a row and 8 of 10 after they beat the Cubs last night. Jimmy Rollins drove in a run in the ninth to win it 2-1, while Ryan Howard’s earlier homerun gave him 44 on the year. Brett Myers pitched fantastically to win his 9th game of the year, as the Phillies improved to 16-8 since the Abreu trade. They are 1.5 back of the Wild Card after the Reds lost yesterday.

2. Two teams, a half game: That’s all that separates the Twins and the White Sox in the AL Wild Card race after both teams won yesterday. The 74-52 won their only game of the series against the Tigers by a 7-5 margin. Jermaine Dye hit a three-run homer, his 35th of the year, while Joe Crede hit two out as well. Bobby Jenks saved his league-leading 36th game of the year. Meanwhile, the 73-52 Twins beat the Orioles 4-1. Matt Garza, who is temporarily replacing Francisco Liriano in the rotation, pitched his first good start after two poor outings. He allowed no earned runs in six innings as Torii Hunter homered and Michael Cuddyer drove in 3. Both teams are still well back in the division but one looks to make the playoffs as we head down the stretch.

3. An untouchable offense: Despite scoring a combined 15 runs in their last two games, the St. Louis Cardinals have dropped both of them. That’s because the Mets offense has been even better, and they showed that yesterday in a 10-8 victory. Jose Reyes homered, drove in 3, and stole two bases to give him a league-leading 52 on the season. Slumping David Wright, who is hitting .211 on the month, had two RBIs. The Mets roughed up Mark Mulder for 9 earned runs in his first start after a lengthy stint on the DL. The Mets have the second-best record in the majors, while nine AL teams have better record than the Cards.

4. Even more scoring: If you’re one of the few who think the Mets-Cardinals series just doesn’t have enough scoring, then you would have been satisfied by the Indians-Royals game yesterday. The Indians started the scoreboard with Travis Hafner’s 39th homer of the season in the first. But in the bottom of that inning the Royals answered in a big way, with 10 runs. But the Tribe scored in each of their next 4 innings, making the score 10-9. The Royals scored three more runs then to put the margin at 4. But incredibly, Cleveland scored 4 runs in the ninth to tie the game up at 13. They won in the 10th on Hector Luna’s two-run single. The Indians’ 15-13 win showcased what their problems have been this year. While they have scored the 4th-most runs in the majors, their pitching staff has been too inconsistent. While they have shut their opponents out 12 times, second-most in the majors, they have only recorded 18 saves, by far the fewest in the majors. What a strange season for such a capable team.

5. Setback for the Yanks: The Yankees won again yesterday, 9-2 over the Mariners. Chien-Ming Wang won his 15th start as four players had multi-RBI days. While they now lead the division by 6.5 games and have scored the most runs in the league, it isn’t all good news coming from New York. Mike Mussina, the team’s ace this season, is hitting the 15-day DL. While the Yanks initially thought he would only miss one start, manager Joe Torre and Mussina decided it would be best for him to go on the DL. Admittedly the injury won’t affect the potent Yankees that much over the 15 days he is out. But if Mussina declines in any way after his return or the injury lingers, it could be a huge blow for a team that is poised to make an October run.

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August 24 in Sports History: Pete Rose is banned


In 1989: Pete Rose accepted a lifetime ban from baseball from then-Commissioner Bart Giamatti for betting on baseball. Although he vehemently denied gambling, Rose still signed off on the ban. Giamatti, who admitted that the decision took an awful toll on his health, died shortly afterwards. Rose, who holds the all-time career hits mark with 4,256, was also declared ineligible for the Hall of Fame. In 2004, he finally admitted to not only betting on baseball, but also on the Reds, the team he was managing at the time. In his book, “My Prison Without Bars,” Rose told current Commissioner Bud Selig that he bet because he “didn’t think he’d get caught.” No player ever declared permanently ineligible has ever been reinstated into baseball.

In 1951: Nobody could pull a PR stunt like St. Louis Browns’ owner Bill Veeck. In a game against the A’s, Veeck held “Grandstand Managers Day“, in which fans made the final decisions for the Browns. Coaches held up placards, and fans would vote yes or no. The 1,100 plus “skippers” apparently made the right ones, as a few of the players they elected to play helped the Browns defeat the A’s 5-3. They also told players when to bunt, steal, and when to change pitchers. www.baseballreliquary.org

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The Full Count: Mets vs Cardinals as good as advertised



Bill Clinton approves this series

1. NLCS Preview?: In possibly the best overall matchup possible between National League teams, the Cardinals took on the Mets last night in Flushing. The result was better than anyone could have even anticipated, as the best offensive players for each side really took off. Albert Pujols hit a 3-run homerun in the third and followed it up with a fourth-inning grand slam. His 2 homeruns and 7 RBIs gave him 38 and 105 for the year, and he completely carried his team’s offense for the night. For the Mets, Carlos Delgado hit two blasts of his own, including a towering grand slam that gave him 400 career homeruns. But the Cardinals were still winning 7-6 heading into the 9th inning. That’s when Carlos Beltran stepped up. The slugger, who was 0-4 going into the inning, hit a walk off two run homerun to win the game for New York. It was one of the best games of the year in the NL, and there are still two games to go in this series.

2. NL West Showdown: We can’t believe we’re saying this after months of NL West bashing, but there is actually a watchable series in the division. The Dodgers are taking on the Padres in a battle of the top two teams in the West. So far, the Padres have absolutely dominated the season series over the division leader. They have taken 10 of 13 from LA, including a 1-0 win last night. Jake Peavy pitched a great game to continue his recent success, while Mike Piazza drove in the only run of the night. Peavy has had one of the more puzzling seasons of any pitcher. While he is third in the league in strikeouts and has a good 1.23 WHIP, Peavy owns an awful 7-12 record. That’s due in part to poor run support, and in part to Peavy’s underwhelming 4.35 ERA. But he won last night as the Padres won their third in a row to close the gap between them and the Dodgers to two games.

3. Next step: division lead: With the Cardinals loss, all the Reds needed to do was win to put them one game back of the division leaders. They did more than that. Cincy annihilated the Astros 14-0, crushing them in every way possible. Offensively they put up 4 runs in the second and 8 in the third. Brandon Phillips started the scoring with a solo shot, while Scott Hatteberg and Adam Dunn tacked on two more homers. Then Kyle Lohse, who had been simply awful before being traded from the Twins to the Reds this year, pitched his fourth straight quality start with 8 shutout innings. His masterpiece gave Lohse his first win as a Red and his ERA is now 1.65 with the team. Now at 66-60, Cincinnati is one game back of St. Louis and has the same amount of victories as the Cardinals. They are closing in on the team that has won two straight Central division titles.

4. AL Roundup: There were plenty of events in the AL yesterday as well. The Seattle Mariners ended an 11 game win streak with a 6-5 defeat of the Yankees. Adrian Beltre hit a walk-off homer, his second of the night and 15th of the year. The Red Sox continued their poor play with a 4-3 loss to the Angels, keeping them 6.5 back of the Yankees. Also, Kenny Rogers pitched 7 shutout innings for the Tigers as they beat the White Sox again, 4-0. Marcus Thames continued the Detroit tradition this year of unknown players stepping up, with a homer, a triple, and 3 RBIs. And finally, the Blue Jays improved after last night’s embarrassment, defeating the Athletics 4-3 as AJ Burnett won his 4th consecutive start. Fortunately, Jays manager John Gibbons didn’t challenge Burnett to a fight for the 3 runs he allowed.

5. Winning games, losing money: While the Yankees continue to spend, spend, and spend some more on free agents, few people think about whether the team has the funds to support their gigantic $200 million payroll. Well here’s the answer: they don’t. Yankees GM Brian Cashman (what a name!) reported yesterday that despite all the money the team is making, they are still losing money due to revenue sharing. Last year they made the most money in baseball with $277 million in revenue, but still lost $50 million overall. Perhaps this isn’t a good time to remember their $1 billion-plus new stadium that the team has to finance in part.

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Slapping some sense into those f%$@ing kids

Staten Island manager Nick Doscher and one of his players have been reprimanded by the Little League World Series organizers after the kid was caught cursing on live TV and Doscher responded by slapping him. The video is no longer available on YouTube but in it, the kid clearly said “let’s score one fucking run” and was immediately shushed by his teammates because the mics were still on. However, the clip did not show Doscher striking the player.

ESPN will now use a 5 second delay so that kids around the country will not be subjected to another kid saying fuck on television. Thank God someone is looking out for the children.

Links:

[MSNBC]: Little Leaguer cusses, manager hits him

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The Full Count: This ship is sinking


1. A great game…: If you like scoring, comebacks, and a little controversy (see next story), then you would have loved the Blue Jays-A’s game yesterday. The Blue Jays developed an 8-0 lead after two innings that featured Alex Rios (16) and Troy Glaus (31) homeruns. But then the A’s stormed back with 7 runs in the third, all off Ted Lilly. They tacked on four more in the sixth to make it a 11-8 Oakland lead, and despite a few more runs by the Blue Jays they held them off 12-10. Jason Kendall had 4 hits while Bobby Kielty had 4 RBIs. Oakland’s win was their 71st of the season, and they have built a five-game lead over the Angels in their division. But the real story from this game was a rare player-manager fight:

2. …leads to another fight: What is it about Blue Jays manager John Gibbons that leads to so many confrontations? Gibbons, who infamously challenged Shea Hillenbrand to a fight earlier this year, got into a scrap with pitcher Ted Lilly. When he went to the mound to take Lilly out after he allowed seven runs, the two exchanged heated words in a face-to-face argument. Then when Lilly went from the dugout to the locker room, Gibbons followed him and they scrapped. Unfortunately there is no clear video of the fight, though both involved said they did not exchange punches. However, several reports claimed that Gibbons had a bloody nose resulting from the fight. Whatever happened, things like this are embarrassments to the organization. With all the money the Jays front office poured into the team this offseason, they should expect a little more discipline from the players and managers. Don’t be surprised if a new manager takes over before next season.

3. 80 is here: The Detroit Tigers were the first team to 50 wins, the first to 60, the first to 70, and yesterday they won the big 8-0. Playing the White Sox in the first game of a four-game series, they easily ousted their rivals in a surprisingly one-sided pitching matchup. Jose Contreras was pitching against Justin Verlander, but he was no match for the rookie. Verlander won his 15th game of the season by allowing one run in seven innings. Meanwhile, Contreras has played terribly since his win streak ended and had one of his worst starts of the season. The Tigers tagged him for 7 runs in just 5 innings, his second consecutive seven-run start. The Tigers got 3 RBIs from Sean Casey and a homerun by Craig Monroe to lead their 7-1 blowout. They now lead Chicago by 6.5 games in the division, though the White Sox are honestly more worried about their Wild Card lead right now.

4. A Wild Series: Can the two-time defending NL Wild Card champion defeat the team that is leading the WC race this year? That’s the basic premise of the Reds-Astros series, which should be entertaining. But so far this season series has been one-sided: the Reds have won 8 of 10 against Houston. That was no different last night, when Cincy slipped by 4-3. Houston was leading 3-0 going into the eighth inning due in large part to Andy Pettitte’s 10 K start. Lance Berkman and Aubrey Huff had also hit homeruns. But then the Reds made their charge in the 8th, with a Rick Aurilla shot tying it up and a Royce Clayton single giving them the lead. Cincinnati’s win kept their Wild Card lead at 2 games and put them the same distance back from the Cardinals in the division. This team just won’t go away.

5. What a start: When John Smoltz is on the top of his game, it can be very hard to stop him. Just ask the Pirates, who couldn’t get anything off of him in yesterday’s game. Smoltz pitched 8 innings, allowing no runs, while sending down 10 Pirates. He held a no-hitter through 5 innings and could hardly miss the strike zone all night. He gave the Braves a 3-0 win after Bob Wickman continued his 12 inning scoreless streak since he joined the Braves. Atlanta is still struggling and is no where near a playoff spot at 59-65.