Good: 1) We’re still in front of the Yankees, with a big series coming up. Should be interesting. Even when the starting pitching is struggling it’s been good.
**Bad: ** Hitting has been anemic lately, but still finding a way to win. Maybe not so bad. Finally jettisoned Pat Burrell, who seems like a nice guy, but was a major bust here.
**
Major Injuries**: Good chance that JP Howell will have season ending labrum surgery. Not sure what a labrum is - is that the piece of cartilage that holds together one’s chest?
Prospects: Still good. Playoffs a decent probability.
On a side note, some guy who used to manage the Yankees organization spoke at my daughter’s middle school sports banquet. I think he got the job by marrying the boss’s daughter.
I’ve just arrived at the stage where i feel the same about talking with Yankee fans as i feel about the team itself—a general sense of melancholy resignation.
I don’t hate them anymore, nor do i particularly dislike the fans. They just make baseball uninteresting for me. I love talking baseball, i love talking about almost any aspect of it, and i love talking about it with just about anyone. But the exception is talking about the Yankees with Yankee fans, because what you get is either a highly predictable litany of how awesome they are, or a complaint about how the latest 15-million-dollar-a-year acquisition isn’t playing quite up to his reputation.
It’s sort of like swapping car stories with the guy who owns a $400,000 Lamborghini Murcielago. Either he’s telling you about the fact that his car can go 0-60 in 3.4 seconds, which you knew anyway, or he’s complaining that he can only get it to 60 in 3.7 seconds, which you find hard to sympathize with. Either way, it’s not an especially interesting conversation.
Is all that sour grapes? I guess it probably is. I’m probably better off just letting Yankee fan comments go rather than making an issue of it. I’ll try to do that in future.
Hey, I know a lot of obnoxious Yankee fans too. However, I think that if you check the permanent record, I tend to be a fairly low-key, balanced fan, who talks about the bad as well as the good. I don’t get to follow much in the way of the National league, and a lot of the posts in this thread tend to be about the latest game or series, so I thought it would be a good way to catch up on the teams that I don’t keep up with.
Right, the Yankees aren’t really hateable anymore. Reggie Jackson, Billy Martin, Paul O’Neill, and Roger Clemens are gone, and George Steinbrenner might as well be. There’s no good targets now. The Torre/Jeter/Posada/Rivera era ruined it for fans of other teams.
A-Rod is keeping the tradition alive, though. Main reason for Yankee hate down here are the fans that love New York so much that they moved away from it. They’ll come to the Trop and then cheer for the Yankees if they’re winning, then cheer for the Rays if they’re winning. It’s just annoying. Red Sox fans are also annoying (lately), but at least they’ll stick to the Red Sox through thick or thin. Phillies fans are nasty mutts who deserve, in most cases, to be tased. Fortunately we don’t have to deal with them too often unless you’re in Clearwater.
Well, the Blue Jays are 24-17, three wins off their pace from last year. The hitting has actually gotten better in the month of May, going from a .749 OPS on April 30 to .780 right now. Of course a lot of guys have been playing over their heads, but it’s been fun to watch so far. Fred Lewis has really been a surprise, and Travis Snider was starting to come around until he got hurt. Lyle Overbay’s not great, but he’s certainly better than .190, and Aaron Hill is definitely better than .175. Hopefully they’ll come around soon to compensate for the inevitable decline from Jose Bautista and John Buck, as well as Vernon Wells to a lesser extent.
Pitching’s kind of been up and down. Shaun Marcum is great except he’s not getting any run support, and Ricky Romero’s having a great sophmore year. Eveland, Morrow and Cecil have been anywhere from great to bad. The bullpen has been quite good so far. Gregg’s doing well as the closer and Shawn Camp and Scott Downs are pitching well. Only Frasor and Janssen amongst the regular relievers have ERA+ below 100.
I’ll insert the exact same thing for Cubs fans who go to Diamondbacks game. Cubs fans get a special circle of Hell for that stupid throw the home run ball back on the field crap.
The Diamondbacks have been just awful. The bullpen has blown numerous games. Will Brandon Webb ever pitch again?
The D-backs will be sellers by June. Going to be a long season.
I’m considering springing the big bucks for a game when the Diamondbacks come to town in late June. Not so much to see the Diamondbacks, but because there will be an on field concert by the Bare Naked Ladies after the game. Of course that’s just icing, but normally I buy seats more in the $20-50 range but I can get box seats at field level just past 1st base, which also gives prime seats for the post game concert. Seats are $115 each plus whatever Stubhub tacks on to have them printed. Is $500+ too much for a middle class family of four to go to a ballgame?
Example #372 demonstrating why Saves are a stupid stat.
It’s a tale of two Bay Area teams.
Last night, the Giants brought closer Brian Wilson into the game at the start of the 12th inning, when they had a 7-4 lead over the Padres. Wilson gave up 3 hits, 1 walk, and 2 earned runs, for a WHIP of 4.00 and an ERA of 18.00, but he got the Save.
Oakland brought closer Andrew Bailey into the game with 1 out in the 8th inning, and runners on 1st and 3rd. At the time Oakland had a 5-4 lead. Bailey gave up 0 hits, 1 walk, 0 earned runs over 1.2 innings, for a WHIP of 0.6 and an ERA of 0.00. But because the first hitter he faced also brought in a run on a sacrifice fly (the runner was inherited from the previous pitcher), Bailey gets charged with a Blown Save.
Blew the lead? Well, i guess he did. But i think that the “blew the lead” stat should actually fall on the shoulders of the person most responsible for it. In this case, the pitcher who put guys on first and third with one out.
Bailey gave up a sac fly that scored an inherited third base runner. He retired 5 of the 6 guys he faced, giving up a single walk that never got further than first base.
All your post does is reiterate the current definition of a save. I’m not arguing that what happened last night was outside the current definition. I’m arguing that the definition itself is stupid, and that last night’s examples demonstrate why it is stupid. The very presence of a “Didn’t blow the lead” stat is silly.
The “Blown Save” stat isn’t at all relevant, since no one pays attention to it. I understand that its existence is dependent upon the Save stat, but these are two different things.
That’s great. And if the As had regained the lead in that period he’d have gotten the Win. Are you arguing in favor of a stat for a reliever that comes in and maintains the score if there’s a tie in place?
I don’t exactly agree that the definition is stupid - it’s a pretty clear-cut definition that can have some crappy margin examples that happens an incredibly rare number of times a season. But I would agree that some people’s love affair with the stat is overblown because they’re unaware of those weird outliers (or think that the 9th inning is WAY more important than any other inning).
Tell that to someone who plays in a Fantasy League where Net Saves is important. I went -2 in that category yesterday, between Bailey and Trevor Hoffman.
And herein lies another problem. A pitcher can come in and make a complete hash of his appearance, giving up two or three runs in a single inning and blowing the save, and then if his hitters manage to score another run or two in the next inning, he gets credited with a win.
Not really.
Given that baseball has so many stats that actually mean something (WHIP, ERA, etc.), i’m not sure we need stats like Holds and Saves at all. I realize that those stats are unlikely to go away, but that doesn’t change my opinion.
Fun story: during the third game of the recent Tigers/Yankees series, we had an obnoxious Yankee fan and his kid sitting behind us. He made it known to everyone within earshot that the Tigers were “…the Yankees AAA team” and that it was “…inevitable that the Yankees would win” and be totally awesome.
Yeah. That was the only game they won for the series. I’m glad the asshole Yankee fan caught that one in Detroit. I told my girlfriend “See, fans like him are why people hate the Yankees. Let’s hope his kid has enough sense to understand his dad is an ass.”
The story of the Jay season so far is, basically, home runs. Going into tonight’s game they’ve hit 65 homers, the most in the majors by a good margin, and allowed just 32, which is a bit on the low side. The 33-home run difference accounts for the entirety of their positive run differential and then some. They don’t really do anything else well offensively; they don’t hit for average, draw walks, or steal bases.
The 65 homers hit is a much greater fluke than the 32 allowed. Guys like Jose Bautista and The Other Alex Gonzalez on a pace to hit 40 homers? Ain’t gonna happen. But the pitching staff is legitimately loaded with good young pitchers, most of whom are taught in the Blue Jay manner, which is to do nothing but keep the ball down.
So the offense will fall off, but I think the pitching will remain decent.
For the Mariners it has come down to two things: trade Cliff Lee for a power hitter that might help them pull off a miracle in the lowly AL West now, or trade Cliff Lee later for prospects to help them next year and beyond later. He won’t re-sign and they need power in a bad way and have enough pitching with Vargas and Fister pitching the way they have and with Bedard returning eventually. Every move the Mariners made this offseason has turned out bad, except maybe for Lee. They really, really, really miss Branyan.
So here’s what’s going on with the Indians, 8.5 out in the AL Central…
Grady Sizemore hasn’t been doing well this season, at all. Now he’s on the 15 day DL for a “bone bruise.” Might sound innocuous but they are “looking into treatment options.”
Our best fielder (SS) and best batter and leadoff man, Asdrubal Cabrera, is out for 8-10 weeks with a broken arm. A broken arm he got when that oaf Jhonny Peralta fell on him.
We’ve got Austin Kearns who is looking spiffy at the plate, and this kid we just called up to replace Asdrubal isn’t doing too bad. No one is hitting for shit. Chris Perez, our “closer” is still junk and Kerry Wood is back but his performance is laughable.
Once again we can’t get run support for our starters, or good starts when there is run support.
I guess we’re just in for another growing season. I’m still listening to games every day, but I’m just in it for the baseball. We’re not going anywhere this year.
(I totally hope I have to eat my words come September! Woohoo!)
I went -2 in that category yesterday, between Bailey and Trevor Hoffman.