MARCO'S
BASEBALL BLOG-O-ROONIE 2018: LOOK OUT CLEVELAND!
“LOOK
OUT CLEVELAND...THE STORM IS COMING THROUGH
AND
IT'S RUNNIN' RIGHT UP ON YOU!
LOOK
OUT HOUSTON...THERE'LL BE THUNDER ON THE HILL.
BYE
BYE BABY DON'T YOU LIE SO STILL”
---The
Band
Thunder
is right...all this long, interesting season of our National Pastime,
one constant has persevered: the best teams in baseball are the
Houston Astros, the
Boston Red Sox and the
New York Yankees. Put them in any order you want, these three
have been the Big Dogs all year. Their success has been assured.
Confound these pretenders who get hot for two weeks and then fall
back into Bozo-dom. We all knew that when the Playoff dust settled
we'd be looking at two of these Titans playing for the American
League Crown.
Well
Lord Just Lay Me Down...the Astros went and got their offense
disemboweled when Altuve, Correa and
Springer all went down with boo boos. They've been mincemeat
since the All Star Game. (They are lying so still...like the song
says) New York has likewise lost Judge, Sanchez, Didi
Gregorius and have their Ace Severino trying to remember how to
throw his slider. The Yanks are looking vulnerable for the Wild Card
even. That's because the Seattle Mariners and
the Oakland A's...afterthoughts in the American League
West...started winning and wouldn't stop.
In
fact, the only sure thing left in the majors is that the Cleveland
Politically Incorrects will win the AL Central. We all knew that
of course, but we didn't give the Cleves much credit or hope of
knocking off one of the Titans. But Cleveland has Kluber,
Carrasco, Clevinger and
Bauer in the rotation...Encarnacion is back and so is
Andrew Miller in the pen. They are locked and loaded now and
the rest of the league better watch the frick out. These guys can
take anybody in any length series, and now that Chris Sale is
iffy for the Red Sox, might actually be favored to win it all. Their
four big offensive guns Lindor, Jose Ramirez, Mike Brantley
and Edwin Encarnacion may not be quite the equal of Betts,
Benintendi, Martinez and
Bogaerts of the Red Sox, but they're close enough to make things
uncomfortable behind a pitching staff that is out-performing the Sox
right now. I think that if Sale is hurt bad enough to keep him out
for awhile, the Sox are in trouble.
The
Yankees are injury-bugged, but they are playing the dregs of baseball
the rest of the way while the Red Sox have to play mostly teams over
.500. That means the Red Sox can't relax and let everybody heal up.
It would take the return of a vengeful Sitting Bull to keep
the Indians from winning the Central, so they can rest everybody and
keep them fresh. Thunder on the hill folks.
Meanwhile
the Oakland Androids have cloned a bunch of Rocky Horrors and
unleashed them upon an unsuspecting American League. Healy,
Chapman, Olson, Canha, Khris Davis...they're all pretty much the
same player. Big, strong guys who are all going to hit 25 to 35
homers. (Except Khris Davis who will hit 45) and strike out 140
times. (Except Davis and Olson who will strike out 170 times. Also, I
better mention Oakland's pocket battleship, Jed Lowry. He's a
better hitter than the bigger guys and has performed well all year.)
The Androids are only one game back of the Sacredly Secure Astros!
What does it portend? Yikes!
Other
Stuff:
The
poor old National League...remember them? They used to have
super teams too, but now they feature a bunch of dachshunds trying to
run with the hounds. They're scrappy, but there's just something
wrong.
In
the East, Washington looked great on paper...they ALWAYS look
great on paper. They feature that “is he the best player in
baseball?” guy, Bryce “Hairball” Harper, who seems to
have been pouting all year because teams put the shift on to defend
him and turn his line drives to right field into outs. This seems to
distress Bryce who wants MLB to ban the shifts (along with a lot of
other numbskulls like David Ortiz...shame on you Papi!) who
advocate a rules change.
A
lengthy aside here while we're on this topic...if a defense is set up
to give you half the field to hit into and even a topped roller down
the third base line will be a hit, why wouldn't you take that hit?
Players, especially left handed power hitters, seem to think they're
still better off taking their full pull-it-or-die hacks into the
shift so that once every week they can hit one out. So of course the
defense stays with the shift on them. Why? BECAUSE THEY KNOW THEY'RE
BEATING YOU THAT WAY, BOZO!
Now,
Ted Williams could hit into the shift and still hit 340.
Harper, you can't. Look, if a man is on second base, they modify the
shift to guard against steals anyway, so then you can pull it. But
with a man on first or nobody on and all but one guy playing right of
second, the whole of the left side is open for you. Sure, they're
going to pitch you inside to get you to pull into the shift. So keep
your hands back and even if you miss it with the fat part, a ground
ball is a hit. If you hit it to the outfield, you'll get a double a
lot of the time. And, in case you haven't noticed, a lot of players
are hitting opposite field home runs these days.
So
say you strike out one out of four times anyway like you do when you
try to pull and hit two grounders to the left side, or maybe you bunt
for a hit once and maybe one pop up into left field...you're batting
.500 or .750 at least! Do that for a week and see if teams still put
the shift on you. They won't ...they can't...they'll LOSE IF THEY DO!
Then when they go back to playing you straight up you can start
pulling the ball again. There's a reason they never put the shift on
players like Stan Musial, Tony Gwynn, Wade Boggs, Ichiro
Suzuki and Rod
Carew...they could hit to all fields. When you can do that...you
WIN! Isn't that the point of baseball, Bryce?
Forgive
me for repeating myself, because I know I rail on this a lot, but
really, people who advocate changing the rules of baseball in a
radical way to coddle these pull-hitting prima donas just chap my
ass.
So
anyway, the Washington Nationals have a superstar in Harper, good
offensive players in veterans Ryan Zimmerman, Daniel Murphy, Adam
Eaton and Anthony
Rendon, young fast guys like Tre Turner and
Michael Taylor and even a budding rookie stud in Juan Soto.
They have the best pitcher in the league in Max Scherzer and
as deep a rotation as anybody in the league with Strasburg, Gio
Gonzalez, Tanner Roark, and
Jeremy Hellickson. They fixed the bullpen (or thought they did)
with Doolittle, Grace and
Madson. Sure they had injuries, but no more than a lot of other
teams who still contended.
And
yet the Nationals are 64-64 for the season and just traded Murphy and
Matt Adams, essentially giving up in Bryce Harper and Anthony
Rendon's walk year. This, my friends, is one of the great
underachieving teams of all time.
The
National League East also features has-been teams like The
Florida Mudlins and the New York Nyets. Let's
not belabor the point...they suck catsup bottles.
The
new darlings of the East are Atlanta and
Philadelphia. If I was a kid just getting interested in baseball
(if there are any kids still interested in baseball...stats
say the average age of a baseball fan is something like 55!) I'd root
for the Atlanta Braves.
First
of all they have Ronald Acuna, as appealing a young player as
I've seen since Ken Griffey Jr. And they have players with
cool names, like Ozzie Albeis and
Dansby Swanson. Freddie Freeman plays for them, and
he's one of the best hitters in baseball. They have a Polish person
(Mike Foltynewicz), a Columbian (Julio Teheran), two
Venezuelans (Albeis and
Acuna), a Greek American(Nick Markakis), a Japanese
Hawaiian American (Kurt Suzuki) and a Haitian (Touki
Toussaint) on their roster. It'd be like rooting for the U.N.!
I
had to laugh at all the broohaha about Marlins pitcher Jose
Urena hitting Ronald Acuna with his first pitch of the
game. Acuna had been hitting homers at will off the Marlins, most of
them leading off the game. So Urena came in on him, and since he
obviously has very little control of his pitches, the ball sailed
into Acuna and plunked him on the arm.
“MURDER!
OUTRAGE! VENGEANCE! You hit our cute little outfielder who we like a
whole lot and hits homers for us and have you seen him smile? He's SO
CUTE!” (That's the Atlanta fans and press and manager after this
outrageous event which happens every day in major league baseball.)
I've
seen an old interview with Don Drysdale where they asked him
about throwing at Willie Mays. Drysdale said, (approximately)
“First of all, if I didn't brush him back off the plate he would
absolutely kill me. (Willie batted .330 lifetime against Don. He was
only hit by two of DD's pitches.) So I'd come inside with the first
pitch. Willie knew I wasn't trying to hit him. Hell, you couldn't hit
him, he was like a cat. He'd just get up, brush off the dirt and we'd
go about our business.”
Times
have changed I guess. But remember, I'm on record as saying if the
pitch comes up and in above the letters and the umps say it was
intentional... fines, suspensions and expulsions are in order. We
can't go throwing at people head high. Those pitches seem to break a
lot of arms, elbows, hands, wrists and fingers too.
You
might remember that I picked the Phillies as the surprise team in
baseball, and even then I only allowed them second place to the Nats.
(Yes, I fell for the Nats bullshit again...a team so much less than
the sum of its parts.) The Phils are in it but go on long losing jags
fairly regularly. But that's the thing with these National League
clubs...nobody is good enough to create any big leads in the
standings. The Phils look good in a possible Wild Card play-in game
because they have Ace Aaron Nola. He's the best in the league
after Scherzer (but Max ain't goin' to the playoffs this year, is he?
Because Washington is throwing in the towel.)
I
think the Phils are still a year away...maybe two. Part of their
strategy was keeping the payroll really, really low so they could
afford to make a play for Harper or Machado in the free agent
market at the end of this year. But the Dodgers got Machado (and will
probably keep him...as I predicted) and Harper has had a dismal year.
I think the Phils will wait and then lure Mike Trout (eligible
for FA after 2020)back to his roots on the east coast to help his
childhood hero team win. The Angels can't get over the hump and I
think Mike wants to have a shot to make the playoffs more often.
Whoever he goes to is going to have to pay him $40 million a year for
at least ten years, so money won't be the deciding factor.
The
NL Central is another under-achieving collection of imperfect
clubs, most of them lacking pitchers. The Cubs have been the
favorites all year, but without Kris Bryant they haven't
pulled away. Darvish stayed hurt and their starting staff
never jelled. But they went out and traded for some of the things
they lacked (like hitting...hello Danny Murphy!) and are winning
more. I think they should use their high on-base percentage guys
more...LaStella, Bote, Zobrist and Murphy. Put them up top in
the lineup and let Rizzo, Baez and
Schwarber bat 5,6 and 7 and drive them in. The Adorables should
have put this race to bed long ago.
The
reason they didn't was that when St. Louis was down, the Cubs
didn't step on their necks. Now the St. Louis Carpenters have gone
19-4 in August. Whoops! Might have a pennant race here! But watch out
for that really bad defense! That stuff always rears its ugly head
come Playoff time.
Milwaukee
is still looking good mathematically, but they always seem to allow
as many runs as they score...and their record reflects it.
The
NL West has the real thing going...a three team Donnybrook
with both the Diamondhumps and the Rockheads pushing
Los Angeles. The Dodgerinos finally shot their wad for Manny
Machado, and he's starting to do damage. He doesn't have much range
at short but Damn!... Manny has the best arm I've ever seen on an
infielder! I mean...Wow! He and Puig should have a contest. I'd pay
to see it. The Bums in Blue also got Brian Dozier, which
shouldn't hurt. And they have two worthy studs in the rotation who
are pitching well right now: Clayton Kershaw and
Walker Buehler. We're talking 6-1 and 5-1 K/BB rates with
these two. Nobody in this division matches up with those two.
I'll
own up to my courageous pre-season pick of Colorado to win this race,
but the Dodgers have a better lineup with much more depth and much
better starting pitching right now. Their bullpen Ace Kenly Jansen
is serving up gopher balls because he's rusty after a month off from
throwing his cutters, but he'll come back. The Rocks are in first
place right now, but they'll have to get hotter than they've been
against the Cards this weekend if they want to even win a wild card.
The
Diamondbacks are basically Goldschmidt, Pollack and Peralta
against the world. If those guys don't hit, the Rattlers lose. Their
pitching is good, but they have no margin for error.
The
Rockies are playing 22 more games against plus .500 clubs, the
Diamondbacks a hefty 24 more and the Dodgers?...only 17 games against
plus .500 teams the rest of the way. These three clubs play each
other a lot, of course, and that should decide it for the most part.
But the Dodgers have also scheduled 11 games with
big
Loser teams like San Diego (3 games), Cincinnati (3
games), NY Mets (3 games), and Texas (2 games).
Big
Advantage Los Angeles...here's your odds on faves in the NL.
Cubs,
Cards, Braves, Dodgers, Diamondbacks
And
now, a little story from the baseball past:
Herb
Score was a great lefty pitcher for the Cleveland Indians in the
early fifties (rookie of the year 1955 with a rookie record 245 K's;
20-9 with 263 K's in 1956) whose career was unfortunately cut short
in 1957 when Gil McDougal of the Yankees lined a fastball into
Score's face. Herb was never the same. He could have been one of the
all-time greats.
Well,
when he first came up, even though he was pitching great, his
manager, Al Lopez, wasn't happy with his bunting. After one
complete game shutout, Lopez kept him from going to the locker room
and made him take bunting practice on the field. After that, Lopez
said in the next game he pitched, he wanted Score to bunt every time
he came to the plate, to get some more practice.
Well,
Score's first game after this managerial directive is against the Red
Sox and as luck would have it, the Indians jump out to a lead
of...like... 19 to 0 before Herb even gets his first at bat. He has
to do what his manager ordered of course, but he doesn't want the Red
Sox to misunderstand, the unwritten Rules of Baseball being what they
are about bunting or stealing when you have a huge lead.
So
Herb says to the catcher, “There's going to be a bunt, so get ready
to throw me out and everyone will be happy.”
Thanks
for the Memories, Herb Score...and Bye Bye 'til next time, ball fans.
