I don’t get the hate by purists for interleague play. They act like it somehow robs league play of soooo many important games. It doesn’t, and sometimes presents cool matchups. I’m completely all for it, especially when AL teams play at an NL venue and their pitcher is forced to be a part of the batting order.
The problem for me is mainly the distortions in the standings potentially caused by a disparity in the strengths of teams’ interleague opponents. That, and the “natural rivalry” bullcrap. And the awkwardness of teams built to use the DH not having it, and vice versa, and the number of injuries caused to AL pitchers who try to show they can too hit.
The Padres’ anemic offense managed a single run against the Cardinals today. And it was still enough to win. Ten times so far this season they have scored 3 runs or fewer and still won the game. As a team, they’re giving up 3.27 runs per game.
My Orioles, on the other hand, not only have the second-worse offense in the AL, but they’re also one of the worst at giving up runs. Poor old Kevin Millwood has the best ERA of all the starters, and he still doesn’t have a Win by his name after 10 games. Brad Bergeson has the worst ERA, and the most Wins of any Baltimore starter.
Boston’s pitching is finally coming around. The starters have allowed only 1 earned run in the last 4 games, and that was against 2 first-place teams.
Yeah, the Rays have been sucking it the last couple of nights. I wouldn’t necessarily taking this as a sign of great pitching; we seem to get into these hitting funks at weird times. Boston has looked good in general, though, which is never a good sign (for us).
The Jays have a chance to pull even with the Yankees tonight if they can beat the Halos and the Yanks lose to the Twins. They could also end the night in fourth though, if they lose and the Yanks and Sox win.
Another tidbit: The career record for highest winning percentage for all pitchers, in MLB history, with 100 or more career starts, is .723 - set last night by Jon Lester.
And I would have been happy to see him included in the Johan Santana deal, too.:smack:
Mets have won four in a row, with two shutouts against the Phillies. Both the Phils and the Yankees had a bunch of fly balls that would have been homers in new-new-Yankees Stadium and the new-new-Vets stadium.
Nope. Warning track outs. Or maybe doubles off the wall.
The Mets were in first place on May 1, and in last place as of, well, now. I am pretty sure ESPN said that the Mets were only one of two teams to ever go first to last in May. And now the Mets could, with a streak and some help, get back to first. Surely this is only the last 20 years with expansion? It took an extraordinary effort for the 1969 Mets (with division expansion) to bypass the Cubs.
Padres score 2 runs in 13 innings, and win again! How often does a team score a total of 3 runs in 22 innings and come away with 2 wins?
And against a team like St Louis, no less! And thanks for that, btw…the Reds with their win over the Buccos are now in 1st place again!
Both the Yankees and Phillies have hit tons of doubles and triples this year, I’m not smart enough to figure out what Citi Field is doing to their offense that it’s not doing to the Mets as well. Neither the Yankees or Phils look like slow teams to me. But here’s a surprise, for me anyway: the Phillies have stolen just 16 bases this year, to the Mets’ 47.
Last place at the moment is also a three-way tie for third and only 3 games back. The NL East has been fairly close all season.
Here’s another surprise: according to baseball-reference.com, going by Wins Above Replacement the best centerfielder in the NL right now is: Angel Pagan!.
Also weird: the 20-27 Pirates are, by looking at their runs scored versus runs allowed, a whopping 7 wins “luckier” than they should be, with a Pythagorean record of 13-34.
AJ Burnett got the win in the suspended Yanks-Twins game yesterday. The game Burnett started was called after the 5th on Tuesday at 0 - 0. When it resumed yesterday, Jeter hit a solo HR in the 6th which held up in a 1 - 0 game.
Ozzie Guillen’s account was gold.
Jose Canseco upped the crazy ante.
Folks, I give you 1880s pitcher Old Hoss Radbourn. Some samples:
“I knew I had made it as a big-leaguer when they named a strain of opium after me. Stick that in your miserable candy bar, R. Jackson.”
“So apparently there is a “soccer” tournament going on now. I thought the GI’s took care of that nonsense back in the Second World War.”
“America. What a land of opportunity! In my day a man dressed like S. Van Gundy would have been no more than a carnival barker.”
I think the most depressing thing about your link is comparing those stats to the umbers of this page.
Justin Morneau, in just over one-quarter of a season, already has almost 4 Wins Above Replacement, and yet he’s running second in the AL 1B vote vote by over 100,000 votes. Leading the vote is Mark Teixeira, a guy who is not only well behind Morneau in performance, but who is having an awful season. He’s one of the highest paid sluggers in baseball, and his OPS+ for the year is 91, meaning he’s not just performing worse than he should be, he’s actually performing worse than the average MLB player.
And it’s not like Morneau is some no-name who happens to be getting lucky. He’s already won one MVP award, and come second on another occasion. And this year he’s just smashing everything, and leads the league in BA, OBP, and SLG.
But i’m just pissing into the wind here. The All-Star Game is about popularity. And having the biggest fan base is the key. Of the 4 Yankee infielders, the only one not at the top of the voting is Alex Rodriguez, who is second to Evan Longoria. As i said above, Teixeira has no place even being in the top five, and while Jeter had a very good year in 2009, and is in the top two or three this year, his performance doesn’t justify a lead of 400,000 votes. A-Rod is having a perfectly good season, but not as good as two or three other 3Bs. The only Yankee infielder who definitely deserves a spot at the top of the voting right now is Robinson Cano, who is having a fantastic year so far.
Well, they’re 10-5 in one-run games, which goes part of the way to explaining their position. But their Pythagorean record was also skewed pretty heavily by that three-game series against Milwaukee, where the Pirates lost three games with a combined score of 36-1. That sort of weekend will fuck with your X W-L pretty badly.
While I agree that Morneau obviously deserves the spot more than Teixiera does, I’ll object to your implication - I always object to this - that the most deserving player is the guy who’s having the best season this year.
The most deserving player is the best player in the league at that position. That’s not necessarily the guy who has the best stats as of May 27. Perhaps there are two or three other third basemen having better years up to today; are there really two or three third basemen who’re actually better than Alex Rodriguez?
No, there aren’t.
But, like players in every other sport, baseball players have runs of good and bad form. While looking at longer-term stats tells us a lot about how good they really are, and can help us make judgments about whether changes in performance are simply statistical aberrations, i think that current form is a perfectly reasonable criterion to use when evaluating players for an All-Star Game.
The 2010 All-Star game is not being played at some hypothetical time and place, based on career stats. It’s being played in early July this year, and if Mark Teixeira still has an OPS+ of 91 when the teams are decided, there’s no fucking way he should be on the team, even if his career OPS+ is 134.
While long-run stats generally give us better information about a player’s overall quality than short streaks of form (good or bad), the fact that we can’t predict streaks doesn’t mean that they are irrelevant. If have to make a choice, today, for a single game, between a guy who has hit .369/.487/.675 over the past two months, and a guy who has gone .210/.322/.370 over the same period, i’m taking Player 1 every time, no matter what their career stats might tell me about the likelihood of those streaks continuing.
As for A-Rod, the performances of the top five or six third basemen so far this year are close enough that, based on this year’s form alone, Rodriguez, Longoria, Beltre, Bautista, Callaspo, or Young would all be reasonable selections. When things are pretty close like that, i don’t have so much of a problem with sheer popularity being the final determinant. But the performance needs to be close enough not to make a mockery of the whole thing, which is what the current Teixeira/Morneau vote is.
I realize that i’m in the minority on this issue, but i think that the All-Star teams should be chosen by a panel of experts, based on who they think is most likely to actually win the game. If i were in charge, i would also ditch the rule that requires a representative from every team. If the Yankees have the best 8 position players in the league, then i’m happy to have a starting team of all Yankees; conversely, if the Yankees have none of the top 8 position players, then they shouldn’t get a bunch of representatives just because they have the most fans.
Hell, i’d even institute proper pitching rotations, and leave the starter in there for as long as he is effective. But, as i said, i understand that this sort of thing isn’t going to fly with most baseball fans, or with the folks in charge.
What on Earth is going on? The Reds are kicking ass at 28-20 right now and the Cardinals are losing games in bunches!
First place Cincinnati Reds! Is it 1990?
Is this some weird parallel baseball universe? Hello? Is this thing on?
It might be a parallel universe. One of my co-workers that is also a Yankees fan is afraid the sky is falling even though the Yanks are in second and playing a tough part of the schedule with several key players missing. He is talking about the Yanks dumping Teix.
All I can do is shake my head at this.
Anyone watching the Cards-Cubs game?
Randy Wells gave up hits to the first six batters he faced (4 singles, 2 doubles), conceding 5 runs without retiring a hitter before he was replaced.
Ouch.
It is hard being a Mariners’ fan these days. The best team ERA in the AL, but also the fewest runs scored in the AL. If they were getting blown out on a consistent basis, it might be easier to take. I’ve seen way too many one run, low scoring, losses this year. It is also harder because expectations were high coming into this season.