Well, the Jays lost yesterday 4-3 to Oakland.
But at least I was there with my wife, my parents, my grandparents and my brother.
And I saw Oakland catcher Josh Donaldson hit his first major league homer.
The Rays have yet to win a game in May. We’re doomed!
Okay, I can breathe now. The Rays eke out a 1-0 win against the Royals and split the series. Greinke gave up one run in a 4 hit complete game. Wade Davis (who?) wins to run his record to 3-1. He has faced the opposition’s opening day starter in every game, including Beckett (no decision, Rays won) and Sabathia (his only loss). He’s making 400k/year and the team has won 4 of his 5 starts. Oh, and he’s from Mrs Shibb’s hometown, which also produced 1992 WS MVP Pat Borders*.
*She was friends with him growing up and I met him once before an Orioles game. I’m fairly sure she has no idea who Wade Davis is, along with 95%+ of the US population.
The O’s have one 7 games this year. 4 of them are against Boston, including the last 3.
I’m a bit miffed.
You’re wired too early. It is a long season. The Royals played the series pretty tough though.
Nah, I’m just a bit peeved that the Rays are coming strong out of the gate and I’m across the ocean and not able to enjoy it. By the time I do get back I worry that they’ll hit the inevitable swoon. I was a bit peeved that they’re doing so well on the road and then can only split with the Royals. The Rays big weakness this season is their middle relief, so if they can stay away from that they’ll mostly be fine. But that’s why the Yankees will win the AL East pennant and the Rays won’t.
Oh, and my post about about them not winning in May were facetious. I feel for Greinke getting no run support. I fear him being bought by the Yankees or Red Sox. Hopefully the Dodgers or Cubs will pull him over into the NL instead.
Is anyone keeping up with Greinke’s line this year? 39.66 IP, 2.27 ERA, 0-3. His last three starts are even worse-22 IP, 0.82 ERA, 0-1. If his luck (or his team) doesn’t improve, we’re looking at the real possibility that he’ll be the best pitcher in the AL again this year and card 10 wins or fewer.
Thank god he’s pitching in the sabermetric era and will garner some recognition for his pyrrhic excellence.
Halladay took his first loss on the 26th against the Giants, giving up 10 hits and five runs over seven innings.
Doc being Doc, and being obviously not pleased with this, decided to take out his frustration on the Mets yesterday, firing a three-hit shutout.
You should read this about Greinke.
The pitching for my M’s has been fantastic. Everybody knows about Cliff Lee and King Felix, but Doug Fister has been their best pitcher so far. You can’t win games 0-0 though. Their offense has been offensive. They got rid of Byrnes and Tui and replaced them with Ryan Langerhans and Josh Wilson. I don’t see that as much of an improvement, but at least it’s something. I think they should flip flop Ichiro and Figgy at the top. An Ichiro single followed by a Figgy walk puts men at first and second most of the time, while a Figgy walk followed by an Ichiro single would put men on first and third more often. And they need to get rid of the old guy platoon at DH. Unfortunately they can’t touch Jr. I wasn’t the biggest fan of them signing him in '09. Sure, he is a Seattle icon and there probably wouldn’t be a baseball team still in Seattle without him, but I seem to be the only one who remembers that he left the M’s on bad terms. I was okay with him signing for one year with him retiring with the team that he started with, but signing him in '10 was silly. The guy is a great clubhouse guy, but he can’t hit anymore. The article I linked to mentions possibly getting rid of Sweeney, which would be great. He was offered a job as a coach pre-season, but he wanted to try to make the team and had a hot spring. It was fool’s gold.
Greinke needs to learn Halladay’s secret to maintaining a good record while playing on a shitty team: never let the bullpen touch the field.
That didn’t work for him yesterday.
Meh. He just needs to hang out with rotation-mate Brian Bannister some more, and continue to hear him talk sabermetrics, and figure out that a pitcher’s record is meaningless. He certainly already knows this - he sees exactly how much a shitty ass bullpen affects that W-column with him making fewer mistakes than the other guy.
I wasn’t being serious.
How often did Roy Halladay ever play for a shitty team? The only really shitty team he ever played for was the 2004 Blue Jays, and arguably the 2009 team. The rest of his teams were all okay.
By way of comparison, the Royals during Greinke’s career have averaged 64-98. I mean, holy shit, that’s bad. That’s a worse average than the single worst season the Jays had with Halladay, a season that was an extreme outlier. And he only went 8-8 for that team. Oh, and in every year of Grienke’s career, the Royals have had one of the three worst offenses in the league, except for the year they were just fourth worst.
I don’t think it’s possible for a pitcher to post a really good record over a number of seasons with a legitimately shitty team. One year, maybe; Steve Carlton in 1972 being the most extreme example. But I can’t think of any pitcher who put up a really impressive winning percentage over multiple seasons with a legitimately bad team.
Back to May baseball… how in the hell are the Blue Jays leading the major leagues in home runs? Three more tonight. They don’t do anything else well offensively, but they’re raking 'em into the stands.
Amen to RickJay’s comparison of Halladay’s Jays v. Greinke’s Royals.
Hell, I just crunched the numbers in Ataraxy’s link (detailing the Royals 24 losses during Greinke starts since mid-August 2008) and get a load of this-
6.4 IP per appearance, 3.16 ERA. And the Royals went 0-24.
The more I look at the numbers the more absurd they become.
Ataraxy, what about the M’s? I saw the Sports Illustrated article on the concept of an all field/no hit team, and it’s a fascinating experiment. I loved the Lee/Wilson additions and I think Guttierez can blossom into a decent producer for that lineup, but what the hell are they doing after that? Casey Kotchman/Milton Bradley/[del]Larry King[/del] Junior are the meat of the order? Seriously? As you said, flip Ichiro/Figgins and deal for a respectable cleanup man-maybe someone out of the Twins leadfooted 4 man OF/DH platoon, Kubel if you can get him.
You could argue that the only (or at least the main) reason that the Blue Jays weren’t a shitty team is because they had Roy Halladay pitching for them. From 2002 (Halladay’s breakout year) to 2009, the Blue Jays went 642-653. Solidly mediocre. Meanwhile, Halladay went 130-59 during that same stretch. So when Halladay didn’t get the decision, the Jays went 512-594.
Still not quite as shitty as Greinke’s Royals, but it’s doubtful that the Jays’ brain trust would have even considered being called contenders if Doc was merely average.
Great start for Brett Cecil last night though, even if it was against Cleveland.
C’mon Reds, find your stride, become a relevant franchise in this discussion one of these decades!
I’m tired of waiting!
Watched the Rockies beat the Padres (on TV) last night.
Ubaldo Jimenez is a monster. He hit 101 mph in the first inning, was still hitting 98 in the sixth, and was fooling the batters with 88 mph change-ups. He struck out 13 Padres, although he had some help from an umpire who was apparently under the impression that home plate is about three feet wide, at least when the Padres were at the plate.
Did you see this?
That article uses Brian Bannister’s words to try to make Zack Greinke look like he’s contradicting himself. IOW, it’s juvenile shit.
Hearsay isn’t admissible in a court of law for a reason.