Tag: MLB

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MLB General

We want… no… NEED this CD

Why pay $3.99 for TO’s rap song when you can get an entire album of Major Leaguers singing for $17.99? Good Sports Recordings has unleashed “Oh Say Can You Sing” on the American public.

Their web site says that it “is a COOL project with no cheesy or campy elements allowed!” We’re going to go ahead and ignore that marketing copy. When you have Coco Crisp rapping an “original track”, there’s something very wrong. Still, on 11 tracks, there must be some good stuff here right? Besides Matt Ginter of the Tigers playing banjo on a song we’ve never heard of, that is. Actually, what we really want to hear is Matt Ginter rapping.

It’s for a good cause so we won’t make fun of it too much. However, they missed a golden opportunity on a can’t miss song that would make this a bestseller. How do they not have a duet of Enter Sandman with Mariano Rivera and Billy Wagner? That’s gold, jerry, gold!

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MLB General

Full Count for Thur Apr 27 2006: Babe-3



Getting ready to roll over

1. 7-11 closes at 11: It looks like Barry Bonds is trying to prove everyone wrong who said that he couldn’t play at a high level anymore. The former MVP (and steroid user) bashed his third homerun of the season on Wednesday, giving him 711 on his career. This was his second round-tripper in his last two games, and it left Bonds only 3 shy of Babe Ruth on the all-time home run list. However, the Giants lost to the Mets in a high-scoring 11 inning game. Carlos Delgado homered for New York in their 9-7 edging of San Francisco.

2. “There’s a first time for everything”: Those were the words of Ben Sheets after the Brewers swept the Braves for their first time in franchise history. Sheets achieved his first win of the season, striking out 9 in six innings of work. Derrick Turnbow picked up his eighth save of the year, and his 3rd of the 3-game series. Jorge Sosa, who was one of the best pitchers on the Braves’ staff last season, lost the game to decrease his record to 0-4. The four losses are more than he had all last season. The Braves dropped to 9-12, five games back of the Mets in the NL East. The Brewers are now 12-10.

3. 6 up, 6 out: Kevin Mench wasn’t expected to carry the Rangers with his bat this season. Mark Teixeria and Hank Blalock were supposed to be the power hitters for the Rangers. But after yesterday, Mench is leading the team in RBIs and is second in homeruns. His 6 game in a row with a homer set a new Texas Rangers record, and all of his 20 RBIs have come in the last 7 days. However, thanks to another blown save by Francisco Cordero, Oakland defeated Texas 6-4 in 10 innings. Cordero’s 5th blown save set a major league record for the month of April, and Cordero’s ERA ballooned to a pitiful 11.70. Both teams trail the LA Angels in the AL West.

4. They are Lackey-ing some runs: Remember when the Detroit Tigers were the hottest offensive team in the majors? Chris Shelton was hailed as the Next Big Thing, and the Tigers were the talk of the major leagues. Shelton and the rest of the team have stumbled recently on offense, and that was showcased in their 4-0 loss to the Angels. John Lackey shut them down, with only 1 hit allowed over 8 innings. His ERA dropped over a point to 3.09, and he recorded 8 strikeouts as well. Vladimir Guerrero provided some offense for LA, with his 5th homerun of the season. Tigers pitcher Mike Maroth came into the game with an unbelievable .49 ERA, but after four earned runs it rose to 1.85.

5. The Royals don’t even have to deal with this: It’s not like the Tampa Bay Devil Rays needed any more problems to deal with. They already had more rebuilding to do than Bill Parcells’ wardrobe designer. But now, one of their top minor league prospects is getting himself into behavioral issues. Delmon Young, a former #1 overall draft selection and minor league player of the year, was ejected for throwing a bat at an umpire after striking out. Behavior like this belongs in Little League, not a professional organization. Young should be fined and further punished for his actions. We almost feel sorry for the Devil Rays.

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MLB General

Full Count for April 26 2006: Barry inches closer


1. Bonds on Babe: Barry Bonds is now only 4 homeruns behind the one and only Babe Ruth after his shot Tuesday night. Bonds took a pitch from Steve Trachsel into left field and even received chants of “Barry! Barry!” from the home crowd. His second home run on the season turned out to be the only San Francisco run in their 4-1 loss against the Mets. Xavier Nady and Cliff Floyd both homered for the 13-7 Mets, and Floyd’s shot reached McCovey Cove.

2. 14 innings, 14 wins: The Astros NL-leading 14th win of the season was much harder to obtain than their previous 13. Though they lead through 8 innings thanks to Preston Wilson’s run and RBI, Brad Lidge blew his second straight save for Houston, sending the game into extras. Of course, extra innings are nothing unusual at Minute Maid Park, as two playoff games there last year went at least 14 innings. Anyway, Preston Wilson proved to be the hero, with a 14th-inning sacrifice fly to end the game. The game lasted 4:41.

3. A new trend has started: On Monday night, Nomar Garciaparra hit a game winning grand slam in his second game off the DL. Last night, in his first game off the DL, Atlanta’s Chipper Jones hit a 2-run homer against the Brewers. However, those proved to be the Braves only runs of the night in a 4-2 loss. Geoff Jenkins homered for the host Brewers, and Prince Fielder hit a go-ahead RBI in the 6th inning. The Braves fell to 9-11, four games behind the division-leading Mets. The two teams will play at Turner Field over the weekend.

4. A baseball shootout: In a matchup of two of the best offenses in the majors, the Red Sox prevailed over the Indians by a score of 8-6. The Indians had a 4-2 lead after 3 innings thanks to Travis Hafner’s RBI double. But the Red Sox big bats proved to be too much, as both David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez homered. Ramirez’s 3-run blast in the 8th gave Boston a lead they wouldn’t give up. Curt Shilling was hit with his first non-win of the season, with 5 allowed in 6 innings. Keith Foulke was the one who picked up the win, and Jonathan Papelbon got the save.

5. Show us the money!: Minor league umpires have begun a strike, and major league umpires are protesting with them. These umpires are upset because AAA umps only make around $15,000 a year, while major league umpires make from $92,000 to $375,000, according to USA Today.com. The strike, which began March 24, has resulted in college and some high school umpires calling minor league games.

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MLB General

Full Count for April 25, 2006: Rick Monday is the man

1. God Bless America: 30 years ago today, Rick Monday made the “greatest heroic act that’s ever happened on a baseball field”. After a man and his son jumped onto the field at Dodger Stadium and spread a flag out so they could burn it, Monday ran over, grabbed the flag and ran off with it. The crowd was shocked but then broke into a spontaneous rendition of God Bless America. Major League Baseball and the NFL try to manufacture this kind of patriotism all the time post-9/11 but nothing will ever come close to that one night in 1976. Monday has been offered $1M for the flag; “But the flag is not for sale. What this flag represents, you can’t buy.” (from USA Today)

2. The streak is over: Coming into last night’s White Sox-Mariners matchup, the game just didn’t seem fair. The White Sox had won 8 in a row, and the Mariners were a four-game slide. Both streaks are now over and done with, because the Mariners bested the Sox in an 11 inning brawl. Both teams had excellent games from their pitchers. Chicago starter Jon Garland allowed 3 runs over 8 innings, while Seattle’s Jamie Moyer gave up just 1 in 7 innings work. With the game tied 3-3 in the 11th, unheard of Mariners pinch hitter Yuniesky Betancourt hit a bloop single to left to score the winning run for Seattle. Chicago’s streak was the highest in the majors so far this year, and if they had won this game it would have been the team’s longest streak since 1977. They still share the MLB-best 13-5 record with the Astros.

3. The surprise of the season: Just about everyone wrote off the Reds coming into this year. Some said they had no pitching, others that they played in a murderous division. Well, they don’t, and they do, but they are still getting the job done so far this year. Last night, they scored 4 runs in the first two innings against the Nationals in a winning effort, and starter Elizardo Ramirez picked up his first career victory. This improved the Reds to a hard-to-believe 13-7 record on the year. They are tied with Houston and Chicago as the teams with the most wins in the MLB, though the Reds have one more loss than those teams.

4. And the team right below them…: St. Louis, one of the top five teams in the majors on anyone’s list, has suffered through a semi-slow start so far this year. Their record is a decent 12-7, but that puts them in 3rd place in the riotous NL Central division. Anyway, they have showed signs of their usual excellence, including in yesterday’s 7-2 win over the Pirates. Guess who homered for the Cardinals? Albert Pujols, what a surprise! It was his league-leading 12th slam of the year. Chris Carpenter continued his dominance against the Pirates as he pitched 6 strong innings to get the win. Pittsburgh has the worst record in the NL at 5-16.

5. Mr. DL wins the game: Nomar Garciaparra has joined Ken Griffey Jr. and Jeff Bagwell as players who are more often on the DL than off of it. Well, Nomar’s back, and in his 2nd game for the Dodgers, he won the game for them. With a 2-2 game coming into the 9th, the Dodgers loaded up the bases against usual stud closer Brad Lidge. Then Nomar came up, and hit a big-time grand slam off Lidge to win the game. These were his first RBIs as a Dodger. Lidge was hit with his first blown save and loss of the season.

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San Francisco Giants

Barry will pass Ruth but not Hank Aaron



Steroids give you psychic abilities

It seems that Barry is giving Bud Selig and George Mitchell’s “independent” investigation a way to save face. In an interview with MLB.com on Sunday, Bonds said that doesn’t think he can catch Hank Aaron because of his deteriorating knees.

Bonds will posture that he’s chasing Aaron and not Ruth but it is clear that Ruth is his target. By passing Babe Ruth but not Hank Aaron, there won’t be as much of an uproar over Bonds’ place on the all time HR list because he won’t be at the top of it. Over the weekend, Bonds hit his first HR of the season, putting him just 6 shy of breaking the Babe’s mark. Most people have already assumed he would pass Ruth’s record at some point this season so that 715th jack will get plenty of time on Sportscenter but register a collective shrug from baseball fans. Yes, there will be plenty of boos but there won’t be the protests and petitions to put an asterisk next to Bonds’ name like there would be if he got to 756.

Perhaps Barry can’t take the abuse anymore. We wonder how he could have put up with this much. This year, he’s already had a syringe (sans needle) and a tube of Icy Hot thrown at him, not to mention the banners and signs at every game. He knows he has to get through this year so that the hecklers won’t get the satisfaction of driving him from the game but there is no real incentive to go through another off season of speculation and another season of knee pain, ridicule and scrutiny just to be on top of a list that, if he were to get to reach the pinnacle of, might very well render the list inconsequential.

Plus, getting out of baseball and disappearing from view (anyone see Mark McGwire lately?) might just get the feds off his back about that pesky perjury charge.

Links:
[MLB.com]: Bonds: Passing Aaron not likely
[SFGate]: Jeers, not cheers for man who would be king of swat
[Cincinnati Post]: Bonds pays for sins of baseball

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New York Mets

Keith Hernandez named NOW man of the year



Keith is old school

During Saturday’s telecast of the Mets-Padres game, Hernandez spotted massage therapist Kelly Calabrese in the Padres dugout and said “Who is the girl in the dugout?” When told that Calabrese was a member of the training staff, Hernandez said,


I won’t say women belong in the kitchen. But they don’t belong in the dugout.

Then he added that they’re better barefoot and pregnant. OK, we made up that last part. Hernandez quickly said he was just teasing about the kitchen comment but that he felt strongly that MLB “is a man’s game and I feel very strongly about it” It’s rare that we defend stupid athletes, but people need to lay off Keith Hernandez. While inappropriate, Hernandez’s comments aren’t something you get your panties in a bunch over. (Wait, perhaps that expression was poorly chosen.)

Hernandez was reprimanded by SportsNet New York and gave the standard athlete-non-apology on Sunday: “In my discussion I made a couple of inappropriate comments. If I have offended anybody I sincerely apologize.” Gotta love the ‘if I offended anybody (then f you)’ apology.

By the way, there’s a rumor going around that Keith didn’t actually say it and it was really Roger McDowell.

Links:
[NY Daily News]: Amid ‘kitchen’ heat, Keith sorry

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MLB General

Full Count for April 24, 2006: Wake us up for the fight



Alou gets tossed

1. ‘Extracurricular activities’: The Giants and the Rockies aren’t exactly heated rivals, but they played like they were on Sunday. Ejections started piling up in the first inning, when Giants pitcher Matt Morris was tossed after hitting his second batter of the inning. Manager Felipe Alou was ejected automatically, and pitching coach Dave Righetti was thrown out as well after arguing. Jose Mesa was ejected for the Rockies for hitting Omar Vizquel, who in 2002 wrote a book which included a criticism of Mesa for blowing a save in the ’97 World Series. The Rockies won in 10 innings, 3-2.

2. Un-Uribe-able: Juan Uribe powered the White Sox to their eighth win in a row on Sunday. He hit 2 homeruns and 4 RBIs in the 7-3 win by the Sox, who completed a series sweep of the Twins. However, Jim Thome failed to score a run for the first time this year, snapping a record 17 game streak. The White Sox are now a major league best 13-5.

3. Yanks improve to .500: Jason Giambi is probably off the juice right now, but he’s still pretty powerful. The slugger crushed Orioles pitching for 2 homers and 5 RBIs, both season highs. Yanks starter Randy Johnson rebounded from a terrible loss last week with only 3 hits allowed over 8 innings. New York is finally above .500 on the year at 9-8.

4. The big 4-0: Greg Maddux’s best years may be behind him, but he’s sure forgotten that so far this year. At 40 years old, he has a 4-0 record so far this year, supplying nearly half of the Cubs 10 wins. After shutting down Albert Pujols and the Cardinals to no runs over 7 innings, Maddux’s ERA dropped to 0.99, best in the National League. The Cubs became the 4th team to reach 10 wins in what will be a crowded NL Central division this year.

5. Victory…at last: The Royals have been an absolute disaster this year. They have the worst record in the majors, have terrible pitching problems, and their most expensive player is hitting .173. Adding to that, they had yet to have a starter win a game all season. Until last night, when starter Jeremy Affeldt picked up the win against high-powered Cleveland. Overall, the Tribe was held to only 1 run and 7 hits in the 5-1 loss.

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MLB General

MLB Power Rankings Roundup for Apr 21 2006

As expected, this early in the season, the rankings between sites are all over the place. However, most agree that the Red Sox, Mets, and White Sox are the top three teams in the league.

We’ll be tracking them every week on Fridays, folks, so come back to see where your team is ranked.

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

Rank Sportscolumn ESPN FoxSports Sportsline USA Today TSN.ca
1 Red Sox White Sox Red Sox Red Sox Mets Mets
2 Mets Mets White Sox Mets Red Sox Indians
3 White Sox Red Sox Mets White Sox Indians Astros
4 Astros Indians Indians Indians Astros Cardinals
5 Cardinals Yankees Cardinals Astros Cardinals Red Sox
6 Yankees Cardinals Yankees Cardinals White Sox Giants
7 Cubs Blue Jays Braves Giants Yankees Reds
8 Indians Astros A’s Cubs Cubs White Sox
9 Giants Angels Angels A’s Brewers Cubs
10 Reds Braves Tigers Angels A’s Tigers
11-30 more more more more more more

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MLB General

Full Count for April 21 2006: The AL’s other 4-win pitcher

[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.]



Erik Bedard is red hot

1. Out of nowhere: Baltimore’s Erik Bedard isn’t exactly a household name. In fact, many serious baseball fans probably don’t know who he is. That’s likely because he only had 12 career wins coming into this season. But now he’s become the second 4-0 pitcher in the AL, joining Curt Shilling. He picked up his fourth win last night against offense juggernaut Cleveland, limiting the Indians to 3 runs in 6 innings. His ERA on the season is now 2.77, and he has recorded 18 strikeouts. The Orioles’ 9-4 victory gave them a 2-1 series win over the Indians, and they became only the 5th team to record 10 wins.

2. The Disabled List Blues…: Some star players have landed on the DL within the past few days. Derrek Lee, the Cubs’ power-hitting first baseman, will be out 8 to 10 weeks with a wrist injury. He broke two bones in his wrist after colliding with the Dodgers’ Rafael Furcal. Lee’s injury will obviously be a huge blow to the Cubs’ hopes of reaching the playoffs for their first time since 2003. Additionally, the Angels’ defending Cy Young winning pitcher Bartolo Colon went on the disabled list with a much less serious injury. Though affected by an inflammatory throwing shoulder, Angels manager Mike Scioscia said he’ll only miss two starts. Colon has not been up to form so far, with an ERA above 7 and an 0-2 record.

3. Old man can play: At 47 years old, Julio Franco became the oldest player in major league history to hit a home run, breaking a 76-year-old record in the Mets’ comeback win over the Padres. Franco’s 2-run, pinch hit home run gave the Mets a 3-2 lead. It sparked a 6-run rally in the eighth inning that gave a Mets a 7-2 lead, which became the final score. “I hope I hit one when I’m 50,” Franco said in all honesty. The Mets win spoiled a great game for Padres ace Jake Peavy, who pitched 7 innings and only allowed 1 run. Scott Linebrink blew the save for San Diego. The Mets improved to an 11-4 record on the season, giving them the highest winning percentage in the majors.

4. Rocky relief from yesterday’s games: In three games on Thursday night, relief pitching either cost teams games or came very close to doing so. In the A’s loss to the Tigers, Oakland starter Barry Zito had his finest game of the year, with one run allowed in 7 innings pitched. But without usual closer Huston Street, who was out with an injury, the A’s bullpen was unable to hold on to a 3-1 lead. In the Giants-Diamondbacks game, San Francisco built a 6-1 lead through six innings, but usually excellent relievers Steve Kline and Tim Worrell combined to allow 5 runs. However, the Giants still won because of a three-run 9th inning. More bullpen antics occurred in Seattle’s loss to Texas. Mariners reliever Eddie Guardado, who has been awful so far this year, walked four Ranger batters in the ninth, including the game-winning run. Texas won 4-3.

5. Will Barry hit a homer in Coors Field?: The Giants open a three-game series tonight againt the Colorado Rockies in the friendly hitting park of Coors Field. If Barry is going to get his first home run of the season, this will likely be the place. Of course, most people are rooting against Bonds and his chase of the Babe Ruth/Hank Aaron records but we actually found someone rooting for him. Go figure.