Good Lord. I’m an Athletics fan, and when Piazza went down, perennial minor-leaguer Jack Cust has won game after game for my team. 8 home runs over 13 games and 42 at-bats.
Haren will of course be the A’s all-star representative, but Cust can’t be ignored for much longer if he keeps this up. We’re still 3 games behind those fucking Angels though.
Haren has been a godsend to my team. What do cards fans think of the Mulder trade these days? Did you see him becoming a staff ace?
Cust could and always could hit, according to reports I’ve heard. He is a PATHETIC fielder, though. In any interleage games, he’d have to be used like Erubiel Durazo was for the A’s and Diamondbacks a few years ago.
I’m a Tigers fan, but I would have thought of Mulder as being a staff ace. Mulder had the pedigree and game, but has fallen off the face of the planet with injury after nagging injury. It’s too bad, he’s a solid pitcher. I remember people backing Billy Beane up when he dealt him, too, saying that Mulder’s mechanics weren’t as sharp as they were previously and that hihstory shows that he’d have a decline for a few reasons, and a couple of other things. I don’t know if Billy Beane knew those things or saw them, or just got lucky, but Beane is one smart dude. I’m more than willing to give him the credit.
I’d say you got a good deal with Haren, by the way…
On the A’s:
3 starters in the top 10 in ERA: Haren (leads the league), Kennedy (pitching in tough luck, can’t catch a break) and Gaudin (pleasant surprise). And this with two of the team’s projected top starters having either pitched very little (Harden) or not at all (Loaiza) at all this season. Haren has established himself as true #1 starter, one of the best in baseball. And the team is still over .500, despite fielding what amounts to a AAA team most of the last three weeks. Put it all together, and I’m revising my expectations upward for this team. Assuming Duchscherer and Street straighten themselves out (because the bullpen has been a disaster so far), when the position playing regulars get back from the DL, this team will be ready to go on a tear. And by the way, Cust doesn’t have to keep it up for long–just until Piazza is ready to come back. But if he does stay hot, it will give the team an interesting dilemma: Piazza and Cust can’t both be the DH. One will have to sit or go.
Around the leagues (in no particular order):
St. Louis is having one hell of a championship hangover. I can’t remember a title team having a worse time of it the next season.
Detroit, on the other hand, is for real and maybe better than last year. Big time battle brewing in the AL Central, though I think both Detroit and Cleveland will make the playoffs, so maybe it won’t matter so much.
I’m beginning to face the grim reality that neither the Mets nor Red Sox will be going away any time soon. I wasn’t convinced coming out of spring training, but they’re living pretty large right now.
However, I still have high expectations for the Phillies. They’ve made it back to .500 after doing squat the first few weeks of the season. They may not catch the Mets, but the wild card is very much a possibility, maybe even running away with it (if the Mets stay well out in front). Obviously, I have no faith in Atlanta, though I do like hearing that Tim Hudson has gotten back to form this season.
The NL West is looking exactly as expected–a three (possibly four) team dogfight. Only one will survive, though; the teams will beat each other up enough to deny the second place team the wild card.
Milwaukee will be laughing all the way to the All Star break. We’ll see what happens after that.
Lots of interesting stuff all around the leagues. We’re having a good season.
I have a hard time thinking that the Cardinals are going to suck like this for the rest of the year, not with the offense they (can) have.
But every report out of St. Louis these days seems to imply the word “malaise.” I’m not sure it will matter who’s on the team–it’s all up in their heads now.
Yanks have been snake bit. We have had more starters than ever before in our history this early in the season and more rookies than any team since 1894 or some such ridiculous stat.
We lost Rasner and Karstens to freak come-backers in the first innings of their starts. We lost Philip Hughes in the middle of pitching a no-hitter.
On the bright side, the Yanks will probably be sending A-Rod, Jeter and Posada to the All Star game on merit.
We are 9½ games behind Boston, but we still have hope for the division and more hope for the Wild Card. Of course Clemens is on his way and Hughes will return right behind him. Wang is looking good, Pettitte is mostly looking good and Moose not so much. The bullpen is settling down but Mo has yet to get in any sort of groove.
Jim
I can throw a baseball. Can I have a job with the evil Yankees?
You would have to renounce God and Decency and accept Steinbrenner and his minions as your new leaders. Of course you would also get to accept his greenbacks, so many greenbacks.
Seriously, if you are a southpaw, you should apply. 
Jim
The Yankees should be thinking about targeting Boston. I just don’t see them beating out either Cleveland or Detroit for the wild card. Much better chance of getting the division. And the last I checked, the words “epic collapse” remain in the vocabulary.
So apparently, ridiculously overpaying* for your top-end pitching and making up for it by filling out your pitching staff on the cheap isn’t a good idea. Who knew? Not the Jays, it seems.
Rats. Well, I’m not a lefty. Looks like I’ll have to hold back on the dream…
To be fair, you guys have had some naughty injuries. They just keep on coming in, too. When the offense got healthy, the pitching got sick…
Good to some other A’s fans here.
I think the team has over-achieved so far this season. Expectations will be high come the All-Star break but don’t ever rule out Beane making a move, even if it is for next year.
Cust has been unbelievable. Feel good story for the first half of the season. Swisher is really starting to put it together - he could potentially go 30/100 and may even bat .280. Chavez is having his typical season at the plate with plenty of big hits in meaningless games - thank god he plays defense so well. I’m glad to see Johnson back up and getting regular time - it will be interesting to see what happens when Bradley and Kotsay are both back full time and Swisher moves back to 1st.
Cust really should have been in the major leagues full time a long time ago; I know he’s an awful fielder, but 14 AL teams have to put a DH out there every day and most of them have had to replace their at least once or twice in the last four years. I mean, I don’t want to harp on the Blue Jays again, but why would they give Frank Thomas $18 million to go out and waddle around with a sore back when they could have had Cust for nothing? Cust is as good a bet to hit as Thomas is and he’s ten years younger, and if he doesn’t work out you could swing a trade for an expensive bat someone’s looking to unload.
It amazes me that legitimate major league hitters like Cust rot in the minors for as long as they do.
The Yankees will have to play .600 baseball here on out to get within sniffing distance of the Wild Card. It’s not impossible, but Clemens can only win the games he starts. The team I just saw play the Mets does not look like a team on the brink of ripping out a historic run. Then again, I’ve been a Mets fan for 35-ish years and am generally wrong about everything as a matter of course.
The Jack Cust thing is exciting – it’s great to have an underdog to pull for. My favorite Met might be Endy Chavez. For a scrappy little bench guy, he’s hitting something like .370 and makes great plays in the outfield with his speed and his arm. If the Mets can play him, Beltran, and Carlos Gomez next year, that’s 3 great defensive centerfielders in one outfield who might all hit. And they still won’t weigh as much as Mo Vaughan.
Oh, and I look forward to the next great A’s pitching prospects – Harn, Han, Ha, and H.
Not sold that Clemens will be that good. 45 is pushing it.
Tigers are doing well with bad pitching injuries. Zumaya and Rogers are due about mid season. Then they have to work themselves into pitching shape. Roger will have to too.
Those of us in Denver are still feeling the breeze created by Cust’s mighty whiffs five years ago. This guy strikes out about 40% of the time. You’ll forget those homers when he whiffs four times in a game and leaves 10 guys stranded.
The league is going to catch up to Cust, no doubt about that. As Lamar correctly points out, his line from his Colorado is fearful. However, the strikeouts won’t be such a big deal with the A’s; Oakland’s specialty is getting the first two runners on base, then having the next hitter (usually Chavez, my favorite whipping boy) ground into a double play. Striking out in that situation is still a better play. Plus, as I said before, he only has to keep fooling them until Piazza comes back–then it will be decision time.
Ichbin, wait till you see the stuff Had has. I think he’s in AA right now, but a call up is inevitable…
Are there any other Custs out there right now, guys who are making a splash in the show after too many years in the minors? I can’t think of anyone else in that category. But you’re right, RickJay; too many guys spend too long in the minors because teams only want the established guy. They think if a guy’s not already a star, he’s not going to be a star. But almost every guy in the majors was, at one point, just another kid with a question mark over his head. That’s why Beane is as good as he is: if you don’t deal away Hudson and Mulder, then Joe Blanton doesn’t come up and win 16 games last year (after 12 the year before). Players have to come from somewhere. Put them on the field and give them a shot. You may get the next Clemens that way, instead of just renting the old model for half a year.
Chien-Ming Wang is an average to mildly above average pitcher, IMO - however, there’s something to be said for a very consistent average pitcher backed up by the Yankee offense: that such a pitcher can easily win 18-20 games a year. Just don’t confuse him with an actual ace. If I were a Yankee fan, I’d be a little worried about him long term in that most of his rates are in line with his minor league numbers with the exception that he’s getting half as many strikeouts per 9 IP; I know the sinker is shiny and everything, but it’s hard (though not unheard of) to get away with that sort of K drop while keeping everything else the same.
I can EASILY see Clemens averaging 5 IP a start with an ERA over 4 back in the league with real lineups, and unless the status of the Yankee bullpen improves greatly, that won’t guarantee him that many wins.
re: Cust, I have absolutely no problem with a hitter striking out 200 times if he walks a ton and hits a ton of home runs. There’s a place for the odd sacrifice fly or moving the runner over, sure, but there has to be some value that you can put on a guy who just plain creates scoring opportunities.
Wang’s problem is that he doesn’t strike people out; he’s not merely league average he’s wayyyy below league average and always has been. Last start he got a few tho. But unless he comes up with a good strikeout pitch the long-term track record for such pitchers is pretty abysmal; they almost invariably pitch themselves out of the league after a few good years because the lack of Ks puts too much pressure on the other parts of his game.
I (Red Sox fan) have to laugh at all the Yankee fans who are counting on a near-45 year old pitcher and a 20 year old kid to resurrect their season. Yes one is a HoFer and the other a definite phenom but such pitchers at the extreme ends of their careers tend to be rather inconsistent.