Thursday, June 24, 2010
And That Happened
Posted by Craig CalcaterraPhillies 7, Indians 6: Walkoff jack for Jimmy Rollins gives the Phillies a come-from-behind victory. Gentlemen, you may commence the "the Phillies' swoon was all about missing Jimmy Rollins" narrative . . . now.
Rockies 8, Red Sox 6: We can't be terribly surprised at ninth inning rallies off the Indians' pen, but two homers off Johnathan Papelbon in the ninth inning? Oy! And let's put it this way: if you score six runs on ten hits off Ubaldo Jimenez you have no business losing that ballgame.
Yankees 6, Diamondbacks 5: Another rule: if you walk seven times in two and a third innings against the other team's starter, you should score more than two runs off him and thus not be required to rely on a tenth inning home run from Curtis Granderson in order to win the game.
Royals 1, Nationals 0: They could barely touch him and they owe the game's outcome to their own pitching staff and the Nats' offensive ineptitude, but the Royals' batters can say with 100% accuracy that they handed Stephen Strasburg his first major league loss.
Cardinals 1, Blue Jays 0: Damn shame both starters couldn't have won this one. Chris Carpenter gets the W after flinging eight scoreless innings while allowing only three hits. Rickey Romero was just about as good with eight shutout innings of his own. A ninth inning RBI single by Matt Holliday -- who no longer stinks, by the way -- was the difference in the ballgame.
Mets 5, Tigers 0: My displeasure with the Mets' win is more than outweighed by the fact that it was occasioned by the continuing excellence of R.A. Dickey (8 IP, 4 H, 0 ER). Viva knuckleballers.
Padres 5, Rays 4: The particular schedule I look at to track teams' long term success lists "W"s in green and "Ls" in red. For the Rays, as Lt. Al Giradello used to say on "Homicide," there's a lot of red up on that board! Well, he used to kind of mumble it, and he wasn't talking about the Rays, but you know what I'm getting at. Wait, you don't know, because you didn't watch the show, which caused NBC to make the producers drop Jon Polito and Ned Beatty from the cast in order to try to make it appeal to a younger demographic, thus killing all that was great about it. Seriously, Michael Michele? Jon Seda? Who the hell ever would have bought them as murder police? Honestly! Uh, where was I? Oh yeah, the Rays are 8-11 in June.
Marlins 7, Orioles 5: Edwin Rodriguez wins his debut as the Marlins' manager. I wonder what bogus excuse Loria will use when they fire him in order to replace him with Bobby Valentine or whoever. Maybe "you know how I feel about wins! I really expected to win the rest of our ballgames and you lost one at the end of July!" Or how about "This has nothing to do with anything Hanley Ramirez said. In fact he communicated his displeasure and disrespect for you telepathically, so he never had to utter a single word!" Oh, and that's 21 of 25 games denoted by little red "Ls" for the Orioles. Since both they and Giradello are from Baltimore, maybe I should have saved my "Homicide" rant for this one. Maybe not: a lot of those Ls are stone cold whodunnits, and no one gets worked up about those. The Rays' losses are red balls.
Reds 3, Athletics 0: Speaking of red writing, the A's are 6-16 in June. Speaking of the color red in general, the Reds have righted the ship quite nicely after that nightmare weekend in Seattle. Seven shutout innings for Johnny Cueto and a 3 for 3, 2 RBI night for Jay Bruce.
White Sox 4, Braves 2: The White Sox keep rolling and now the Braves are starting to skid. Two homers for Carlos Quentin.
Mariners 8, Cubs 1: That Cliff Lee fella is pretty good (CG 9 H, 1 ER, 9K, 0 BB). Maybe someone should think about trading for him.
Angels 2, Dodgers 1: This one ended on two base running screw ups: First Matt Kemp was picked off at second for out number two. Then, a couple batters later, Jamey Carroll hit a single that should have scored Reed Johnson easily from second. But Russell Martin was in his own world somewhere, rounded second too far and then got pegged at the bag trying to get back before Johnson could cross the plate. Martin out, no run, game over. I think I already used an "Oy" this morning, but extreme times call for additional "Oys" so Oy!
Rangers 13, Pirates 3: The Rangers refuse to lose -- that's ten straight for them -- and the Pirates refuse to even approach the appearance of a major league team. Michael Young was 3 for 4 with a double, a homer and four RBI.
Brewers 5, Twins 3: I guess maybe I shouldn't have assumed Ken Macha was so foolish as to install Trevor Hoffman as the closer after all. I mean, if he's not going to use Hoffman to close a game the night after John Axford gets a six out save, he may never do it. Pfun Pfact: Manny Parra had four wild pitches.
Astros 6, Giants 3: Brett Myers has been one of the few bright spots for Houston this year. Last night he gave up three runs -- only one earned -- in seven innings and even went 2 for 3 with an RBI.
Craig writes the HardballTalk blog for NBC Sports.com
One thing to note about that Nats game, Roger Bernardina scored in the 6th inning. The ump pretty obviously blew the call at the plate…it’s sad to see it happen that way.