He’ll generate plenty of talk show chatter, which will translate into ticket sales and that’s all the Rangers management seems to care about anymore, IMHO. If you can’t generate ticket sales by winning games, generate ticket sales by stirring up controversy. I’m about ready to start following the Astros or the Royals.
Confirmed–it’s a torn Achilles. Surgery is scheduled for Thursday and they anticipate a 9-12 month recovery. Damn. The Cardinals need to find someone who can effectively fill 200 innings.
The hoodlums have caused the postponement of tonight’s White Sox/Orioles game
Do the Rangers still market aggressively to church groups? When I lived in Dallas from 2006-2009, it seems like at least once a month there was some Christian concert after the game, usually with a Josh Hamilton speech as well .
NOOOOO!
Well, that just sucks. At least the Cards have gotten a lot of good pitching from the rest of the staff so far this year too. So they won’t completely crater without him.
Come to think of it, the last time Wainwright went down for the season was 2011. And we know how that turned out. This could be just the break they need!
Another pitcher injury that could easily have been avoided with a simple rule change. The latest in a long set of good reasons for the National League to finally modernize and bring in the DH.
Fuck that! Everybody plays, everybody hits. The DH is Communism, pure and simple. Pitcher got hurt swinging a bat, boo hoo. Can’t be much of a baseball player then.
Actually the DH is pure capiltolism, it was/is 1 extra high paying job per team and it improved offense and therefore attendance & ratings when MLB was at a low point of popularity during a dead ball era.
Well, of course it’s all about the bat. AL pitchers NEVER go on the disabled list, unless they have just swung the bat in an NL stadium.
Justin Verlander, Alex Cobb, Tyler Skaggs, Greg Holland, Marcus Stroman, Joe Nathan, Hisashi Iwakuma, Yu Darvish, Matt Harrison, Matt Moore, Ivan Nova? The exceptions that, um, prove the rule.
Thudlow Boink–off the top of my head, both Mark Mulder and Johan Santana had their comeback attempts thwarted, at least temporarily, by Achilles tendons, and neither was injured while hitting. I’m pretty sure Mark Prior missed significant time with a (non-hitting) Achilles injury too. I suppose we could ban pitchers from fielding, pitching, and agility drills, because hey, you never know. But Wainwright’s sounds like a freak injury. Certainly a big loss.
To be fair, due to the risk of injury, it probably would be best if pitchers didn’t pitch either. To protect their health, they should just come out before the National Anthem and ride a golf cart around the warning track. I’m not sold on whether they should be allowed to wave to the fans. You could seriously wrench a shoulder that way.
Ah, the problem is that Wainwright just isn’t man enough. Gonna go tell him?
My post was intended ironically. It is not really my view that pitchers should be protected from possible injury at all costs. I do not actually believe that a pitcher being injured while batting is a good justification for the DH. I also don’t think that watching a pitcher ride a golf cart around the warning track would be enjoyable as entertainment, nor do I think the risk of injury due to waving is particularly high.
Another reason pitchers need to stop being babies and learn how to play offense properly
I know. The DH rule is not normally amenable to *rational *discussion, with costs and benefits and all that considered dispassionately, but maybe it’s about time, hmm?
Short version: The Cards are now without their ace for the season, and any longer-term effects are unknown but could only be negative. It didn’t have to happen. What would be required for it not to have happened, and what would be the other effects?
BTW, Max Scherzer agrees.
Anyone can get injured batting. Why do we have to keep pitchers in a bubble. The same problem is in the NFL where it’s illegal to tackle the quarterback now
no one wants to bring in a second DH for fielders when your right fielder gets injured playing offense
Because the fans (who are the revenue source, not incidentally) want to see the stars, not the backups. Reducing injuries, especially ones to the players the fans most want to see, *especially *when they can easily be prevented by simple rules changes, is good for business as well as good for the game and for the fans.
And is Scherzer right? Wouldn’t you rather see Papi at bat than him anyway? Admit it, yes you would.
If Papi wants to bat, Papi should play the field.
I still fail to see how Wainwright’s Achilles injury serves as evidence that pitchers shouldn’t bat.
And I don’t know of any argument for the DH that wouldn’t, when taken to its logical conclusion, be an argument for completely separate offensive and defensive lineups.
You don’t really want to see that, do you?
It’s evidence that pitchers are exposed to injury unnecessarily and uselessly, sometimes with tragic consequences for their fans.
Notwithstanding that football already made that move, generations ago, nobody is making that argument for baseball. There IS an argument that the DH is already universal in baseball, except for one league. That one league has to justify not doing it, and has no argument available other than tradition and “everybody should play, just like Little League” and “I just *love *watching managers make the double switch”. The main arguments against it are that the NL rule clogs up the lineup, ends rallies, and forces pitchers out of games prematurely. The injury argument is in addition, but the effects are all that the quality of the entertainment product for the fans is degraded.
I agree with this. To me the DH is kind of a bizarre hybrid. The more logical approach would seem to be separate offense and defense. Of course, I grew up in an NL town, so a lot of my opposition to the DH is rooted in tribalism. I think pitchers should bat mostly for non-rational reasons, and I try to shoehorn logic onto the position I already hold.
Anyway, I keep hearing that the DH is probably coming to the NL, maybe with the next collective bargaining agreement. I suppose I will get used to it. Baseball is the only sport I really follow, and I’m unlikely to move to another sport if the NL gets the DH. But it will disappoint me.
Although I used to be a big hockey fan. Maybe I can go back to watching the Blues tank in the first round every year.
“Taken to its logical conclusion” is a code phrase for “taken ridiculously out of context, twisted, and made deliberately ridiculous.” Nothing logically proceeds from using the DH to having separate lineups.
Having separate lineups is really stupid, for the straightforward reason that you would unnecessarily have to increase every team to 40 guys year-round. There is, conversely, no particular reason why it has to be done. Generally speaking, position players can hit competently, and hitters can field. Even Big Papi can play first base well enough to not kill his team. He’s not good, but given a few weeks to get back into the swing of things his bat would still make up for his glove. He DHs not primarily because HE personally has to, but because someone has to and he’s the best choice.
Pitchers can’t hit. They have not, for the most part, been able to hit for crap since before they invented TV, and they will never be able to hit, because they are not selected for hitting ability. Players at other positions CAN hit, because they are selected for hitting ability. That is how it has been for generations and how it will be for generations to come. The DH rule makes perfect sense to prevent one ninth of all at bats from being taken up by a guy who is no more able to hit than a lot of random clowns you could pull out of the stands. It solves that problem and in so doing takes nothing of substance at all away from the game; there is no other problem that needs solving in a similar manner, so the DH does not “logically” extend anywhere from where we are now.