And That Happened

Rays 7, Indians 5: As you probably read yesterday, Joe Maddon screwed up the lineup card by listing two third basemen and no DH, thereby causing the pitcher to have to bat because, hey, rules are rules. Even worse: Sonnanstine had to bat third. Even worse, for the Indians anyway: he went 1-3 with a double and an RBI. Ban the DH!

Padres 3, Reds 1: OK, it’s probably a good time to stop saying things that imply that Jake Peavy isn’t awesome anymore (CG, 4 H, 1 ER, 8K). It’s also time to stop, for a while anyway, saying that the Reds are serious challengers, because serious challengers don’t get swept by the Padres.

Mariners 3, Red Sox 2: a key error by Nick Green led to the loss. A team as good as the Red Sox don’t have any business not having a solid shortstop. Makes me think that we’re going to see the 2004 Orlando Cabrera deal redux sometime in the next couple of months.

Astros 6, Cubs 5: I’ve also made some Ivan Rodriguez = corpse jokes this season. Looking up and seeing him with a .286/.336/.509 line, however, makes me think I need to can that stuff for a while too. Pudge goes 1-3 with a homer — his 300th — and 2 RBI in the win.

Royals 7, Orioles 4: John Buck had a triple — his third of the year — which has me wondering if the Kauffman/Kougar renovation didn’t do something unexpected. Buck also distinguished himself by trotting off the field and flipping the ball into the stands following the second out of the second inning, so the day was something of a mixed bag for him. Luke Hochevar pitched better than his debut (3.1 IP, 3 H, 3 R, 3 BB), but that’s damning with faint praise. Trey Hillman basically said after the game that if he doesn’t shape up for his next outing, he’s out of the rotation. As for the Orioles, when your opponent commits four errors, pulls their starter in the fourth inning, blows a late lead and strands 10 men on base and you still don’t win, man, you’re probably suffering some Karmic justice of some kind, aren’t you?

Brewers 8, Cardinals 2: Prince Fielder is on a tear, with four home runs and 10 RBIs in his last five games. His three-run job in the seventh did the trick today, putting the game basically out of reach. The Cards are sputtering, but got some good news yesterday when it was announced that Chris Carpenter is coming off the DL and will start against the Cubs on Wednesday. Well, at least it sounds like good news. If he gets shelled, it will be something of a downer, now, won’t it?

Rangers 3, Angels 0: The Rangers have won seven straight and are 13-3 in the month of May. Good for them, but I gotta tell ya, seeing them win low scoring games that last less than three and a half hours is a somewhat disorienting experience.

Pirates 11, Rockies 4: Ubaldo Jimenez left after six, no doubt thinking “well, if they can just hold on for me, I’ve got a win.” Er, yeah. Ten runs cross in Pirate 7th, as the Rockies couldn’t retire any of the first 11 batters they faced that inning. Pirates’ reliever Matt Daley started the hit parade, and was mercifully removed from it when an umpire threw a bad out of the way, Daley stepped on it, and he sprained his ankle. He’s probably happier that happened to him than he’s willing to let on, given how ugly it was out there.

Phillies 8, Nationals 6: An ugly series all around, but if you’re a Phillies fan, you’ll take it.

Blue Jays 8, White Sox 2: Its Roy Halladay’s world (7.2 IP, 6 H, 1 ER, 8K), everyone else is just livin’ in it. I am fully aware of the limitations of the “on-pace” game, but it is fun to note that Halladay is on pace for 275 innings pitched. No one has pitched 275 innings since Dave Stewart did in 1988.

Yankees 3, Twins 2: Alex Rodriguez homers again, but it was Johnny Damon’s walk-off job in the 10th that won this one. The last time New York had three consecutive walk-off wins was August 27-29, 1972, which is back before people used initially-catchy, but since then played terms like “walk-off.”

Dodgers 12, Marlins 5: I think it would be fun to start pushing the meme that the Dodgers seemed lost until they met with Manny Ramirez in their hotel down in Florida, at which point they started kicking butt. Laud Manny as a motivational hero or something. Doing such a thing would be worthy because (a) it would be based on just as much — actually a little more — evidence than your typical “Player X is a leader for Y” reasons story; and (b) because it would drive people absolutely nuts to have to switch to their “Manny is the savior” story lines early, because you know they’re saving all of them up for the playoffs. Kershaw carried a no-hitter late into the game. Oh, and Juan Pierre continues his torrid start (3-5 2 2B, 3 RBI).

Tigers 11, A’s 7: Armando Gallaraga retired only two of the batters he faced and the A’s were spotted to a 6-0 lead. You lose a game like that and, really, I don’t even want to talk to you for a while. Detroit outscored Oakland 34-9 over the three game series.

Giants 2, Mets 0: The Mets pounded the Giants for the first three games of the series but went really quietly last night, with Matt Cain pitching six shutout innings, and Bob Howry, Jeremy Affeldt and Brian Wilson finishing it off.

Diamondbacks at Braves: Postponed: Long as I remember the rain been comin down. Clouds of mystry pourin confusion on the ground. Good men through the ages, tryin to find the sun; And I wonder, still I wonder, wholl stop the rain.

A Hardball Times Update
Goodbye for now.

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Bill
14 years ago

Thanks for the link, Craig!

dtro, I was watching that game too, and yeah, it’s getting out of hand. I think Phillips might have been put in just to make Joe sound smart by comparison, since Joe IS in favor of the Mets hanging onto that Beltran guy. But that talk about leadership, what makes a good leader, etc. was maybe the most inane thing I’ve ever heard on television. And my wife watches American Idol.

George
14 years ago

Re the Mets’ leadership issue, I thought the point was that when the team is struggling, it appears no one has stepped to the fore and shown sufficient leadership (noting what has gone on the past two years). Morgan rightly noted that Beltran hasn’t assumed a visible leadership role; that Jose Reyes probably will not; that Delgado does exercise some leadership, (which was echoed by his manager) and that David Wright, at his young age, appears willing and headed toward the assumption of that role, but that he is still quite young on a veteran team.

Not a Phillips’ liker here, but I think he believes that due the size of Beltran’s contract—and lack of team success—the team might be better off if they moved him.

Hopefully you didn’t turn the picture off and miss Fernando Tatis’ flawless shortstop play.

Drew
14 years ago

Phillips also said something to the effect of “As a GM, I’d be more worried about building a team around grit”.

I’d think if I was Phillips, I’d do everything I could to avoid saying what I’d do as a GM, since prevailing opinion in the sport is that he’s not actually good at that.

Sara K
14 years ago

Money quote from Todd Wellemeyer, who walked 7 and hit 2 batters: “I hit the pitcher in the foot on a 1-2 changeup. That shouldn’t happen.”

Pete Toms
14 years ago

I don’t care if Halladay’s arm falls off.  My team hasn’t been the playoffs since 93 (is that correct?)and he’s gone in less than two years anyway.  Selfish?  Absolutely.

APBA Guy
14 years ago

The A’s were worse than I originally had predicted last Friday. At that point I feared only the game against Edwin Jackson would be one sided (14-1), but as it turned out the other two were disasters also.

Giambi is hitting .204, and it’s time for him to be “rested” similar to the rest Ortiz is getting with Boston. It’s also time to plan his retirement party.

As for the young starters experiment, I wonder how Beane thinks that’s working out now? True, Detroit is hot right now, but you face hot teams during the year, not just cold ones like KC a few days ago. I don’t think the A’s 21 year olds have seen anything quite like Miguel Cabrera yet, who, at 25, is only now coming into his prime.

The A’s look bad now, but worse, they do no look like they have the position player talent to win for at least the next two years.

RoyceTheBaseballHack
14 years ago

Re: LAA-TEX
What is really disorienting this season is seeing Rangers batters get thrown at, which has not happened much in the past 20 years or so. They have a history of good offense, but not much history of terrorizing their own division with respectable defense and moderately good pitching to go with it. The Angels and Rangers have another dozen or so games left, so those matchups will be entertaining.

Jake (San Diego)
14 years ago

Love the blog, but I get frustrated by people who can’t spell “Galarraga”…

Craig Calcaterra
14 years ago

Sorry Jake. I always seem to screw that one up. I always tell myself I’ll go back and check it before I hit “publish” but I often forget.

Eric J
14 years ago

Fun pitcher-as-DH fact: Earl Weaver listed Steve Stone as his starting DH 12 times in 1980.  He never batted.  Weaver listed Stone as the starter because he wanted to make sure he’d have the platoon advantage at DH, on the off chance that the other team’s starting pitcher would be pulled before the DH spot came up.  The league got rid of that pretty quickly… link to Weaver’s description in my username.

YankeesfanLen
14 years ago

Oh no- John Fogerty is back-is this the second Opening Day at NYS? Maybe the Boomer can do the play-by-play.

dtro
14 years ago

Shyster, don’t know if you watched the Mets-Giants Sunday night game at all, but I switched it off in the 5th inning. I’m a Mets fan living in DC and take almost any opportunity to watch a Mets game I can, but the Phillips-Morgan combo was absolutely unbearable. The Mets have been on ESPN a lot this year and here are ESPN’s only 2 talking points:

1) The Mets lack leadership, therefore they suck (regardless of the fact that they were 11-2 coming into this one).

2)Carlos Beltran hit a bunch of homeruns in the playoffs for Houston 5 years ago then signed a big contract. He hasn’t hit a billion homeruns for the Mets therefore all us fans hate him and do not accept him (not remotely true).

That’s literally the only thing they talked about for 5 innings aside from mentioning that Bengie Molina is a nice guy and Pablo Sandoval has energy. It was exquisite torture for a Mets fan to listen to your former horrible GM criticize your team.

More than that, the tone of the broadcast surrounding the Mets was so decidedly negative and so completely ignored their opponents that I’m not sure who the hell would be entertained. I hope those Sunday Night Baseball ratings start plummeting, because it is just gotten ridiculous how terrible they are.

Bill
14 years ago

I wrote about the Sonnanstine and other such incidents on my blog today. Interesting things:
– AL teams that have let a pitcher bat twice in a game since the DH rule came into play are now 7-4.
– Mike Hargrove did the exact same thing Maddon did in 1999 when he caved to Manny’s demand to play RF and have Alex Ramirez DH instead of vice versa, but then gave the wrong lineup card to the ump, forcing Chuck Nagy to hit in AlRam’s spot. I think this is the only other time that exact mixup happened, which puts Maddon in some inept and unflattering company.
– Fergie Jenkins was once allowed to bat for himself for the Rangers and broke up a no-hitter with a single in the sixth inning.

the-daily-something.blogspot.com

Chuck
14 years ago

You did a little bit of cheating to come up with Halladay’s on-pace number of 275 innings. Yes, (162/40)x68 is 275. But Halladay is going so sit out games 41-44, having just started yesterday, so a truer projection would be (162/44)x68 which is 250.

Craig Calcaterra
14 years ago

Bill—good writeup.  I’m going to post a link to it over at the NBC blog in about 5-10 minutes.

Chuck: good point. I’ll admit that I simply glanced at ESPN’s little “on pace” line on his player page to get the 275.  Actually calculating such a thing is above my pay grade, as pathetic as that is.