MARCO'S BASEBALL
BLOG-O-ROONIE 2016: HERNIATED PENNANT RACES
All of a sudden
we have pennant races...because of catastrophic injuries to key
players.
It's been a dull
season as far as the races go, with only the AL East really tight.
The National League has been very predictable (even I got it almost
right!) with a clear separation between the “Haves” and the
“Zombie Walking Dead” teams.
The Haves are
Washington and New York in the East, Chicago,
Pittsburgh and St.
Louis in the Central and San Francisco and
LA in the West. The rest of the league is clearly fodder with the
exception of Miami, which has shown signs of life.
In fact, now that
New York has lost Harvey to a vascular constriction in his
thorax and is on Tommy John watch with Syndergaard and
Matz, in addition to losing Wright for the season with a
herniated neck, the Marlins are probably favored to finish second.
(Cespedes is also down with a quad.)
The Cubs are
finally getting Soler back from an endless stay on the DL.
They need something because Zobrist has totally stopped
hitting since they moved him to leadoff and the DL stay of Fowler
has obviously disrupted their offense. They can't seem to win unless
Rizzo or Bryant
hits a couple of
homers. Heyward is turning out to be one of the worst free
agent signings in history (at least judging from this year. I mean,
if you can't hit but .230 with no power in Wrigley Field you just
aren't much of a hitter.)
I see the Cards
and the Pirates crowding Chicago at the top. The Pirates got
face-slammed by the injury to Gerrit Cole...their Ace.
If he can make it back they have a chance to go on a streak. The
Cards were surging behind suddenly potent pitching (Martinez,
Wacha especially) until they lost Matt Carpenter. I still
see them catching up with the Cubs and making it close.
In the West the
Giants are only 4½ games up on the Dodgers and are still coping with
the loss of Pence (hammy...just reinjured) and Panik
(coming back soon). Trouble is, that lineup is and always has been
incredibly brittle. As soon as somebody heals up, somebody else will
go down.
They only have
two reliable pitchers with Bumgarner and
Cueto. Samardzja is all over the place. Peavy and
Matt Cain are Tee-ball pitchers now.
So the Dodgers
had a chance to catch up and maybe win the division again. But here
comes a herniated disc for Kershaw. Then he reinjured
it....now they're talking surgery. Kershaw has carried that team for
a while now. He's the only starter they have who can eat up innings
and save their vulnerable bullpen. Either the Dodgeheads call up some
of these awesome young pitching prospects they've been nurturing in
the minors or they write this season off.
Come on LA...see
what the kids can do...you can always send them back to Albuquerque
if they suck.
In the AL
East, Boston was
suddenly looking like the sexy choice to start dominating the
feathered friends (Toronto Blue Jays and
Baltimore Orioles). Both of those teams beat you to death with
the long ball and just slide by with some pitching. Just a week ago,
the Sox were looking resurrected with Price, Wright, Porcello
and the newly healed Rodriguez all throwing great games. They
traded for Drew Pomeranz who looked great against the Giants
last night...for three innings. Then the Sox had a big rally and
Pomerantz had to sit on the bench for half an hour. When he came back
he was a tee ball pitcher for the Giants hitters. Against a team he
had dominated all season when pitching for the Padres, he allowed 5
runs and had two men on base with NO OUTS when they had to come get
him. This was predictable. Pitchers who looked like studs in the
National League are always coming over to pitch in Fenway and getting
lit up. Just automatically add 2 runs to their ERA whenever you see
that. Petco devours fly balls that bounce off the wall in Fenway. You
have to change your patterns and that takes a while to adjust. Price
regressed in his last start. Porcello and Wright look pretty steady.
We'll see about Rodriguez.)
The Sox also lost
Kimbrel to injury, Tazawa to injury and now Koje
Uehara to injury...bang, bang, bang. Either they make some more
trades for bullpen help or they crater. Trouble is, they just traded
away a pitcher who some say is the next Pedro Martinez in Anderson
Espinoza. I say they should have gotten somebody with better
stuff than Pomeranz. Good stuff is the place to start when you are
pitching in the AL East. Finesse pitchers don't last long.
(Knuckleballers excepted!)
Baltimore needs a
starter and bullpen help but can't trade any of their
hitters...that's how they win. Toronto has seemingly lost Bautista
for the duration. They have better starters than Baltimore.
But the dark
horse is New York.
The Yanks just
swept the Orioles at the Stadium with their unbeatable bullpen trio.
Everybody says they should trade those guys for young building
blocks. I say if you have the best bullpen trio in history (yes, even
better than the Nasty Boys of Reds fame and Kansas City's trio last
year) you should keep them.
You are New York
for Garden Sockie! All the old guys are going to finally get off your
payroll eventually...then you can get some position players and a
couple of young starters. Keep this trio together and you can't get
beat in the late innings. Who cares how big a luxury tax you
pay...you're the New York By God Yankees!
The Central
is led by the Cleveland Indians. Yes, those Indians...the Ohio
Politically Corrects. They're living on timely hitting and steady
pitching from Kluber and Salazar and Carrasco.
Bradley was supposed to be well...and he's
been one of the top
players in the league...but his shoulder is hurt again and it looks
like curtains for this season. This young guy Naquin has come
out of nowhere to bat .324 with power and play center field for them.
Lindor is a budding superstar and Napoli has hit some
dingers for them.
Still, it's not
so much that the Indians are great...it's that everybody else in the
division is so ordinary. Detroit is 7½ back and not much of a
threat. They keep losing to the Twins. Chicago has been
sluggish since April and Kansas City has been decimated by
injuries. (KC also has sucky pitchers and can't win on the road.)
In other
herniated news, Prince Fielder of Texas has a brand new
herniated disc in his neck and is going to be rendered surgically
disqualified shortly. It's a shame. The Rangers don't mess
around...when they get injured, it's for years. Profar, Choo,
Colby Lewis, Darvish, Hamilton...all these guys have been out for
season after season. Right now they're looking for pitching before
the Astros catch them.
Yes, the Astros.
They're B-aaa-ack! Keuchel remembered how to pitch and trying
Springer at clean up seems to have sparked something. But the
main thing is that Altuve is such a gamer that his enthusiasm
and leadership have fired the team up. (a .350 average doesn't hurt
either!)
Altuve: MVP.
If you get
Netflix watch the documentary FASTBALL. It's a really
satisfying study of the greatest fireballers and how that pitch
really works against hitters. All the greats are examined (a little
short on Randy Johnson) and they even have an interview with the
Unicorn himself...Steve Dalkowski.
Dalkowski was
almost universally accepted as the fastest pitcher anybody ever saw.
But he never made the majors and there is no film of him, even though
he pitched in the early sixties in the Oriole organization. In 970
minor league innings the guy had 1324 strikeouts! He also had 1274
walks and 145 wild pitches! He once struck out 26 batters in a nine
inning game...and walked 20!
I won't give away
the ending, but they've figured out how to adjust the new radar
gun-era readings to make sense against the famous fastballs of
earlier generations. The earlier guys had their fastballs measured at
their plate velocity while the new radar guns measure speed right out
of the pitchers hand. You'll be surprised at the results.
Hope you're
enjoying the summer! Check with you later!
