Marco's Baseball Blog-O-Roonie 2020: "The Un-Perfect Storm"

 

MARCO’S BASEBALL BLOG-O-ROONIE 2020: “THE UN-PERFECT STORM”

Los Angeles Dodger Manager Dave Roberts post-game comment to the media after Game 4 of the World Series with the Tampa Bay Rays: “It was an un-perfect storm.”

To tell you the truth, Game 4 of the 2020 World Series, (aka Year of the Virus) was a great ballgame to watch. The lead changed hands nearly every half inning...there were home runs all over the place... and the game ended with an all time Epic Goat Rope of a Botch-Job Crazy Ass play. Or, as Roberts so aptly described it...an un-perfect storm.

Now, if the Los Angeles Dodgers had gone on to lose the World Series to the tenacious Tampa Bay Rays, that play would go down as one of those special Series-defining plays that fix baseball history in our heads:

1926: Old Pete Alexander comes in with a hangover and strikes out Tony Lazzeri with bases loaded to lead St. Louis over Yankees .

1932: The Babe calls his shot as Yanks trample Cubs.

1936: Tiger fans trash Medwick in the outfield as St.Louis Gashouse Gang triumphs.

1960: Bad hop grounder hits Kubek in throat—Mazeroski cashes it in.

1988: Gibby walks it off.

As it is, this play will fade from memory because it didn’t lead to a fateful turnaround in the fortunes of the Rays. But it could have. It could have entered the pantheon of Dodger Disasters. (You Dodger fans may want to take a few deep breaths before you read this part).

1916: They were the Brooklyn Robins then, and were no match for the Boston Red Sox, who featured a young leftie pitcher named Babe Ruth (Series ERA: 0.64). Lost 4 games to 1.

1920: First series after the Black Sox scandal of 1919 broke, which had Tris Speaker’s Cleveland Indians performing all kinds of “firsts”. First grand slam in a series, first homer by a pitcher, only triple play in series history...all at the expense of the hapless Robins. Lost 5 games to 2.

1941: It was the year of Joe DiMaggio’s 56 game hitting streak and Ted Williams’ .406 masterpiece of a season. The Series, however, is remembered for the horrible thing that happened to catcher Mickey Owen in Game 4.

The Yankees were up 2 games to 1 and losing by a 4-3 score in the ninth inning. Brooklyn (now the Dodgers) had Hugh Casey on the mound, dealing goose eggs since the fifth inning.

The game was being played in the burrough of Brooklyn, and the faithful fans were ready to celebrate when the first two Yankee hitters made out. With Tommy (Old Reliable) Henrich swinging, Casey strikes him out on a dandy curve ball (some say spit ball) in the dirt. Hooray! Series tied 2-2! We’ll moider ‘em tamarrah! Whoops! Owen drops the third strike and it rolls to the backstop. Henrich is safe at first. Next hitter DiMaggio...single. Then King Kong Keller...double off the right field wall. Bill Dickey walks. Joe Gordon doubles to left...that was a quick 4 run rally folks. The Bums is dead. Down 3 games to 1 they go meekly the next day...the beginning of a decade and a half of World Series frustration. (21 year old Pee Wee Reese was in his first full season as the Dodger shortstop...he would be on the losing side in 5 more series vs. the Yankees) Lost 4 games to 1.

*You can watch the disaster unfold here*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anJzGIVapAA

1946: Brooklyn finishes season tied with the St. Louis Cardinals who beat them in the 3 game playoff.

Lost 2 games to 0.

1947: A couple of heroic moments had the Brooks thinking that the worm had turned against the Yanks. In Game 4, New York pitcher Bill Bevens had a no-hitter going in the ninth (albeit with 10 walks) when, with 2 on and 2 out, Cookie Lavagetto pinch hit a double off the right field wall for the 1 hit Bevens allowed...and the game winner. In Game 6, Joe DiMaggio, again with 2 on and 2 out, bombed one to the 415 foot mark in left where Al Gionfriddo caught it while smashing into the bullpen fence. It was a famous moment because DiMaggio actually displayed emotion on the field when he kicked the dirt in disappointment. But New York won Game 7 anyway and neither Bevens, Lavagetto nor Gionfriddo ever played another major league game. Lost 4 games to 3.

*For more visuals...*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2aSI0u7F3A

1949: The Boys of Summer were now assembled. Duke Snider, Gil Hodges, Don Newcombe and Roy Campanella joined established stars Reese, Furillo and Jackie Robinson to form one of the all time great lineups. But they still couldn’t deal with the Yankees, in their first year with Casey Stengel platooning like crazy. Lost 4 games to 1.

1950: Lost the pennant to the Philadelphia Phillies Whiz Kids on the last day of the season when Dick Sisler hit an extra inning 3 run homer against them.

1951: Had a 13 1/2 game lead in August but wound up losing to the Giants in a 3 game playoff when Bobby Thompson hit “The Shot Heard Round the World” to overcome a 4-1 Dodger lead in the ninth.

Lost 2 games to 1. (Some 50 odd years later it finally came out that the Giants had employed an illegal signalling system using a coach with binoculars stationed in the centerfield scoreboard at the Polo Grounds to flash what pitch was coming to the Giant hitters. A weird parallel with the now acknowledged fact that the Houston Astros also cheated to beat the Dodgers (and other teams) in the 2017 Series.)

1952: “It Keeps Right On A-Hurtin’: (Johnny Tillotson). Took a 3-2 game lead into Ebbets Field for the last 2 games against the Yankees and still... Lost 4 games to 3.

1953: Lost 4 games to 2. To the Yankees again. Do you sense a trend yet?

1955: “Man Bites Dog” is the headline in the paper when the Brooklyn Bums finally defeat the Bronx Bombers. High water mark for the Brooklyn version of the Dodgers. Won 4 games to 3.

1956: “A Return to Normalcy”. The boys get Perfect-oed by Don Larsen in Game 5 and get 3-hit by Johnny Kucks in Game 7. Lost 4 games to 3.

1957: The Dodgers last season in Brooklyn. The last game at Ebbets Field was played in front of only 6000+ fans. Duke Snider hit the last homer at the ballpark...his 40^th. Sandy Koufax threw the last pitch for the Brooklyn Dodgers on Sept. 29 at Philadelphia. The Dodgers finish third.

1958: Dodgers move to Los Angeles, become one of baseball’s two richest teams. Brooklyn is still heart broken.

1959: The season finishes with a tie at the top between the Milwaukee Braves and you know who. There have been 4 playoffs in the National League before 1969 when the division system started...the Dodgers have been in all of them. 1959 was the only one they won, and the heroes were Larry Sherry, an unheralded relief man who came up from Spokane, and three of the Boys who came west with the team and struck a blow for the snakebit. After winning Game 1, the Dodgers are down 5-2 in their bottom of the ninth in Game 2. Duke Snider and Gil Hodges get hits and Carl Furillo hits a sacrifce fly to tie the game. They win in the twelfth when Hodges is on second with 2 outs and Furillo’s hard grounder up the middle causes Felix Mantilla to throw past first base and allow Hodges to score... L.A. goes to its first World Series. Won 2 games to 0.

1959: Maybe the demons who have tormented the Dodgers with so many near misses and horrible defeats snatched from the jaws of victory etc. have finally been satiated. The Dodgers walk over the Chicago White Sox in 6 games. L.A. bleeds blue.

1962: On the other hand, maybe that old Brooklyn bad luck was just marshalling its forces for the debacle of 1962, a playoff repeat of the Giants-Dodgers wars of the East Coast era.

Ahead all year with Maury Wills setting a stolen base record, the Dodgers lose 10 of their last 13 to blow a 4 game lead over the Gigantics. Sandy Koufax had gone out in July with a circulation problem and is rusty when he starts Game 1. He lasts 1 inning and the Giants go on to win 8-0 with Mays hitting 2 homers.

Game 2 is one of the great games in baseball history. Drysdale gets knocked out in the sixth and the Dodgers look dead in the water down 5-0, not having scored in 36 consecutive innings. Suddenly they score 7 runs in the bottom of the sixth. The Giants come back to tie with 2 in the eighth but lose in the ninth on 3 walks and a short fly to center that scores Wills just ahead of a great throw by Willie.

Game 3. Johnny Podres, the hero of the ‘55 series, against Juan Marichal, The Dominican Dandy. 3 throwing errors have the Dodgers down 2-0 early. It’s 2-1 when the Giants load the bases on 3 singles in the sixth, but Ed Roebuck comes out of the pen and shuts them down with no more runs. A Tommy Davis home run in the bottom of the frame has the Blue Team up 3-2 and in the seventh Maury Wills singles, steals second, steals third and scores on catcher Ed Bailey’s throw into left field. Going into the ninth it’s Dodgers 4 Giants 2.

Roebuck gives up a pinch hit single to Matty Alou and with one out walks McCovey and Felipe Alou to load ‘em up. Willie Mays hits a rocket off Roebucks torso to bat in 1. That brings in a new pitcher, Stan Williams. Cepeda hits a sac fly to deep right to tie the game, and a wild pitch puts two runners into scoring position. Williams walks Bailey to set up the force all around. 45,693 fans are feeling that special kind of suffering only the Dodgers can deliver. Williams walks Davenport with the lead run, then defensive replacement Burright blows a ground ball by Jose Pagan for an insurance run. The Dodgers are out of comebacks and lose 6-4. Lost 2 games to 1.

1963: The bitter Playoff defeat of ‘62 could have crushed a lesser team, but the Dodgers were nothing if not resilient after living through their history. In fact, they were on their way to dominating the decade (along with the St. Louis Cardinals) in the National League. Koufax has learned to take enough off his fastball to keep it in the strike zone but it’s still too fast for the hitters. He also features a forget-about-it curveball to inflict additional pain. Don Drysdale is dominating and the offense features enough stolen bases and sacrifice bunts to win a bunch of 1-0 and 2-1 games.

The Hollywood Bums now face their familiar foe, the New York Yankees in the ‘63 series. Nolo Contendere. Dodger pitchers hold the Yanks to 4 total runs in a 4-game sweep. Meet the new Boss.

Won 4 games to 0.

1965: Will success spoil the Dodgers? Not as far as the Minnesota Twins are concerned. Koufax leads Team Freeway to a brilliant victory, shutting them out in the seventh game on 2 days rest and with a sore elbow that precludes the use of his curve. Won 4 games to 3.

1966: The Dodgers have won 4 of their last 5 World Series. But any hints of cockiness evaporate in a 4 game sweep at the hands of the Baltimore Orioles. L.A. is shut out in the last 3 games. They make 6 errors in Game 3 with Willie Davis making 3 in one inning out in center field. After the season, Sandy Koufax, (who won the pitching triple crown with 27 wins, 317 Ks and a 1.73 ERA) retires with an arthritic elbow. Maury Wills is traded to the Pirates and Tommy Davis to the Mets. The Dodgers are moving on. Lost 4 games to 0.

1974: Los Angeles against Oakland. The first all-West Coast Series. And one of least notable series of all time. (the Series MVP was Oakland’s second sacker Dick Green who goes...0 for 13! Okay...he has a terrific defensive presence.) 4 of the games finish 3-2 with the A’s winning 3 of them. But the Dodgers never seem that close. They couldn’t get the big hits late. This was their first Series featuring their infield of Steve Garvey, Davey Lopes, Bill Russell and Ron Cey. Lost 4 games to 1.

1977: The Dodgers do their best to re-promote the Yankees as the Big Dogs of Baseball by giving up 3 home runs to Reggie Jackson in Game 6. Lost 4 games to 2.

1978: L.A. wins the first 2 games in California then does the El Foldo as the Yankees batter them around. Lost 4 games to 2.

1981: This year was analogous to this Covid Season we’ve just been through. The players went out on strike and the whole middle of the season was lost. In the re-jiggered Playoffs, the Dodgers beat the Montreal Expos 2-1 behind their rookie pitching phenom Fernando Valenzuela and Rick Monday’s “Blue Monday” 2-out homer off Steve Rogers in the ninth.

They go on to spank the ever-present Yankees in a direct mirror image of the ‘78 series. This time the Yanks win the first 2 games at home and then lose 4 in a row to L.A. Won 4 games to 2.

1988: You remember this one. Kirk Gibson limping out of the dugout and creating a whole new wing in the pantheon of Greatest Baseball Moments? That one at bat dominates the Series, even though Orel Hershiser is the stud that gets the team over the highly favored Oakland A’s in 5 games. It’s a Big, Big Series for the Dodgers…Won 4 games to 1.

...and its good thing because it’s had to last them 32 years! Hard to believe that the National League’s second most dominant team of the ‘40’s (3 Series... 1 behind St. Louis), most dominant in the ‘50’s (5 Series), ‘60’s (3 Series... tied with Cardinals), and second best in the ‘70’s (3 Series...1 behind Cincinnati) hasn’t made it back to the ultimate challenge until 2020! But that’s what the Playoff Era has wrought. So many ways to lose.

All teams suffer disappointment. It’s written into the Law of Averages. Especially perrenial contenders like the Dodgers. I mean, they’ve been to the Big Show 21 times! That’s 21 opportunities to Screw Up in front of a large number of viewers. Which they have done 14 times. Since 1916, the year of the first Dodger Series appearance, the Boston Red Sox have been 10 times and blown it 4 times. So would you rather have been to the Show and gone 7-14 or 6-4?

But if you add up the truly painful moments, the Dodgers win going away. It’s one thing to get beat...it’s another to get crunched when you look like a winner. 1941,1950,1951,1962, and not to mention the Joe Morgan home run that let the Giants knock them out of the division win in 1982, the Ozzie Smith walk off homer to win Game 5 of the 1985 Playoffs followed by the 3-run Jack Clark shot the next game that eliminated L.A. And the curious case of world beater Clayton Kershaw getting hammered in the clutch in multiple Playoffs, especially the back to back homers he gave up to the Red Sox in 2018...

2020 was the eighth straight year of the Dodgers winning the Western Division of the National League. And so, to celebrate, they came up with one of the wackiest and most painful ways to lose a game they had in hand ever seen upon the Hallowed Diamond of Our Dreams. Presenting…

“The Un-Perfect Storm.”

The Situation: Dodgers up 2 games to 1 playing in their home-away-from-home park, the new sliding dome thingie they’ve built in Arlington, Texas for the Strangers. (They’ve given it the drab corporate- purchased name “Globe Life Field”. They should call it The Globular Metroplex Ten Dollar Hot Dog Stand.) The Dodgers played their first three Playoff rounds in the same park...a big advantage over the Rays. If the Dodgers win this one, they have Kershaw going in Game 5 knowing that 40 of 46 teams all time have won the Series after going up 3 games to 1.

Justin Turner and Corey Seager homer early and the Bluebloods keep the lead despite dingers from Hunter Renfroe and Randy Arozarena. The latter seems to be the reincarnation of the Toy Cannon, Jimmy Wynn.

Jimmy was a vastly underrated hitter for the Astros (and the Dodgers for 2 good years in ‘74 and ‘75). He hit taters in a brown rice era and he hit them in the Astrodome...where extra base hits went to die.

The Cannon was 5’10” 160 pounds. Arozarena is listed at 5’11” and 185 and just hit an unreal 10 circuit clouts in 86 plate appearances in the Playoffs. He hit them out everywhere in the park. The guy must have wrists like steel cables because he was just flicking balls into the right field seats. That’s some pretty impressive yardwork.

In the sixth, the so-called “best” hitter on the Rays, second baseman Brandon Lowe, hits a go-ahead 3 run shot to left field. (A leftie hitter, Lowe had slumped through the whole Playoffs until he found his opposite field stroke with 2 big flies in Game 2.) But of course, L.A. comes back with a clutch 2-run single by Joc Peterson in the top of the seventh. Tampa ties it in the bottom of the seventh with a moon shot to right by Kiermaier.

The Rays bring in yet another reliever in the eighth...(it doesn’t matter who...they’re all 6’7” with beards and 98mph fastballs.) This one gives up a 2-strike, 2-out single to Series MVP Seager to give the Dodgers a 1-run lead of 7-6 with their once ironclad but now rusty-hinged closer Kenley Jansen coming on.

Kenley strikes out pinch hitter Joshi Tsutsugo whose name will never make the papers until somebody can spell it. It’s right up there with Bill Wambsganss (of the old Cleveland Indians who turned the unassisted triple play in the 1920 Series vs. the Brooklyn Robins, remember? Everything comes around eventually!) Kiermaier singles and pinch hitter Joey Wendle, who has played marvelous defense at third base and shortstop in the Series, continues his offensive frustrations with a liner to left. So two outs and look who is up...Randy “Steel Cables” Arozarena!

This is interesting! The next hitter is Brett Phillips who pinch ran for Ji-Man Choi (a joy to watch Choi!) in the eighth. But he’s a leftie and Kenley is a rightie. Should the Dodgers walk the menace that has become Arozarena and take their chances with a bench warmer whose last at bat was back in September? Or pitch to Arozarena with the rightie to rightie advantage? Or bring in a leftie to get the advantage on Phillips, who is the last hitter available except for the emergency catcher Perez? (Kenley has pitched to the prescribed 3 hitters, thus fulfilling his minimum batters-faced mandate with the new rule).

Dave Roberts decides to pitch to Arozarena and take the chance. I think it’s a mistake. Roberts was risking:

A: losing the game outright by letting the hottest hitter on the Rays beat him.

B: letting Kenley throw a ball in the dirt that advances Kiermaier into scoring position and still have to get Arozarena out or decide to walk him or not all over again.

I think with a hitter that hot you have to take the chance on an undoubtedly rusty bench player like the now famous Brett Phillips.

So Arozarena puts together a cool-headed at bat that ends in a 7-pitch walk. 2-on, 2-out. Here comes Phillips, whose mother must have held him by the heel and dipped him into the River Styx to imbue him with impervious immortality when he was yet a Babe.

He takes ball inside. Then a strike high inside, just barely. Phillips winces at the unfairness of it all. Now another strike, this one outside corner and very close to ball 2. Phillips is getting no help from the ump. Now Kenley has him in jail, but he throws a not-cutting cutter belly button high and almost down the middle of the plate...Phillips pounces on that pitch like the proverbial wolf on a lamb chop.

It’s a liner to short right center! Kenley Jansen sinks to his knees in horror. Chris Taylor, playing center field with Bellinger slightly injured and at DH for the day, scoops the ball and comes up looking at the runners to see where they are. Kiermaier got his jump and is going to score for sure. That’s the tieing run. But Arozarena also got the 2 out jump on that hit and Taylor wants to keep him from going to third (it looks like). Anyway, Taylor takes his eye off the ball and it slips out of his glove webbing and rolls about fifteen feet away toward first base.

Arozarena sees the error and charges around second headed for third. Taylor picks up the ball about the time Arozarena hits third base with the coach sending him all the way. Taylor fires the ball to his cut off man, Max Muncy, who has dutifully stationed himself between first base and the mound, like the good first baseman that he is. A good relay throw will nail Arozarena by twenty feet. It won’t be close. Perhaps sensing this, Arozarena stumbles and does a barrel roll up the third base line. But catcher Will Smith doesn’t notice. Eager to catch the relay throw, he slides up the first base line, which takes him AWAY from home plate. Muncy doesn’t see Arozarena because Kenley Jansen, totally at sea, has backed up toward the third base line and is standing right in front of Randy blocking Muncy’s view.

Muncy makes his throw to Smith a little too far to Smith’s right side..but that’s where Will had set up. Now, thinking that Arozarena is coming into the plate instead of doing his beached seal imitation half way home, he starts making his sweep tag and forgets to catch the ball first. There is no back up because Kenley, whose job it is, is still camoflaging Arozarena up the third base line. Randy scrambles to his feet and scores the winning run with an ever-to-be famous triple pat of precious home plate.

I’ve never seen anybody look so happy on a ball field. Outhouse to Penthouse in 3 seconds.

Let’s count the Bolixes: First up, Kenley’s pitch was terrible considering he was up 1-2 in the count. Way too good a pitch to a hitter who must have been ready to swing at anything close under the circumstances.

Then Taylor looking up before he secured the ball and making the first official error. That’s Bolix Number 2.

Then Jansen wallowing around on his knees on the mound instead of backing up either third or home. As soon as the ball left the infield the pitcher should be heading to back up third to protect from the winning run scoring on a bad throw to third. When he saw Taylor boot it, he should then have run to back up home before Arozarena made his turn and tried to score. Instead, Jansen backed up toward the third base line and stood there in No Man’s Land sucking his big stupid thumb, blocking his fielder’s vision. When Arozarena fell down he rumbled toward the plate very late. Bolixes 3,4,5 and 6.

Muncy’s relay throw was to the wrong side of the plate. Of course, that was where Will Smith was setting up for some reason. Bolixes 7 and 8.

Will Smith dropped the relay throw. Everybody who has ever played catcher or any infield position where you feel you have to hurry to tag the runner has made the same mistake of turning to make the tag before you catch the ball, but in that situation, with the runner supine on the grass, it looked bad...real bad. Bolix 9.

And for good measure, Bolix Number 10...Arozarena fell on his ass and should have been out like men’s garter socks.

After the game Kenley Jansen was full of excuses. (paraphrased) “It wasn’t my fault!” /“It was just luck.” /“Neither hit was hit hard.” /“It wouldn’t have mattered if I’d backed up home”. To which I answer in order: Whose fault was it then? The ghost of Mickey Owen? / That weak 1-2 pitch wasn’t luck...it was lack of skill. / And those soft hits were enough to beat you. / We’ll never know what might have happened if you’d backed up home...because you didn’t back up home you Putz. That was your only job in that situation and you didn’t do it!

That play would be hailed as one of the great Screw Ups of all time had L.A. gone on to lose that Series. But the Dodger pitching and 2-out hitting said otherwise and they triumphed, deservedly. I said going in that the Dodgers needed a big series from either Betts or Bellinger or both. They got very little from Bellinger, who fell in love with his uppercut-pull-everything-to-right swing and had yet another disappointing Series. Betts was a hero on defense and the bases but didn’t hit too much. He had a big double in Game 6 when Rays manager Kevin Cash pulled his starter after 73 pitches.

Blake Snell was sizzling in 5.2 innings, giving up two scratch hits and striking out 9, including the 3 best hitters for the Dodgers... Betts, Seager and Turner... 6 times. For some reason with Betts up and 2 on, Cash pulled Snell, who had the Dodgers offensively disfunctional, to let a right hander face Betts. Cash believes in the stats that say a hitter has the advantage when they’ve seen the same pitcher 3 times in a row. Well Snell had seen Betts twice and fanned him both times. He’s 0 for 5 vs. Snell with 4 K’s. Betts’ average against lefties this year? .205. How do those stats stack up against your precious no-third-time-through-the-order edict Kevin? Mr. Manager of the Year, Sir?

If we left it up to Kevin, there would never be another one-pitcher no-hitter in history.

Somewhere Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson, Nolan Ryan and Madison Bumgarner are laughing.

Also, when the Rays were starving for runs most games of the Series, why did Cash stick with Adames at short, Wendel at third and Zunino at catcher? The bottom of the lineup for the Rays was like a bottomless pit of outs. Adames struck out in every big situation. Wendel was sub-Mendoza as a third baseman and Zunino was Mr. K. All of them were great defensive players but why didn’t Cash at least try to let Wendel play more shortstop and get another good bat into his lineup? You can’t afford that much poverty in your ability to produce runs.

The Dodgers were the better team and they won. Off the snide after 32 years. Congratulations and always remember the immortal words of Brett Phillips (God’s Favorite) …

“BASEBALL IS FUN! WOW!”

Marco's Baseball Blog-O-Roonie 2020: Who's Got the Mojo?

 

MARCO’S BASEBALL BLOG-O-ROONIE 2020: WHO’S GOT THE MOJO?

This ultra strange, one-of-a-kind baseball season unfolds in all its eccentric improbability. Now we are dealing with the Wild Card Round of the playoffs, where all the teams that fought so hard to finish first in the division ...are almost exactly equal to the teams that finished second or just barely made it into the playoffs. Talk about a low threshhold of motivation!

The first round is 2 out of 3 with the higher seeded team getting all home games. Anybody can beat anybody 2 out of 3, home park or not. (The Astros promptly went out and proved that against the Twins.)

Some quick thoughts about the playoff setup :

1/ It strongly favors the teams with 2 or 3 strong starters. If you can get two strong starts you might win the whole round.

2/After the Wild Card Round you have a couple of off days to reset, and then you play the rest of the playoffs without days off...(except maybe 1 before the World Series starts?) so that favors a strong team that can eliminate their opposing number quickly and earn themselves some off days to rest their pitching.

3/to win the World Series a team has to win 3 games in the best of 5 divisional series, then win 4 games in the 7 game ALCS or NLCS, then 4 games out of 7 in the World Series. With no off days you better have some depth in your bullpen. And the teams with at least decent pitching in the 3/4/5 spots of their rotation have a lot better chance of surviving the marathon. If you try to play a lot of bullpen games you may be screwed.

4/Look at the teams with 3 strong hitters in the lineup and a couple more guys who can hit one out for you now and then...in this era of no-small-ball you have to hope the launch angle crowd can deliver for you.

5/If you watch the playoffs I hope you like strikeouts. A lot. Atlanta vs. Cincinnati had a 13 inning game with what...37 Ks?

Rundown so far:

YANKEES WIN!...oh goody, the Yanks beat long-suffering Cleveland and we get to slobber all over ourselves and think up new rhymes for Urshela what a happy fellow. MLB is so glad the Yankees rose from the dead and got into the playoffs after they caved in September when all their stars were on the IL.

You thought the Garret Cole vs. Shane Beiber matchup was a classic set up for a double no hitter in the first game or something? Sorry! Beiber coughed up furballs and the Yankees hit them to the moon. Gleyber Torres and Cole owned game one.

That second game in Cleveland was pretty good. Longest 9 inning game in history. Not just playoff games...ALL games ever played. 4 hours and 50 minutes. And add on 76 minutes worth of rain delay. Who needs a life when you can spend it watching one baseball game? 19 total walks in that contest. Most Happy Fella hit a big grandslam to remind the Indians why they never let him play for nine years. Then he started a crucial double play from the seat of his pants later on. Yanks scored two in the ninth to take the lead and sent Chapman out there to nail it down.

Tampa Bay...remember them? Don’t worry about it...nobody else does either. They had the best record in the AL by far and are number one seed in the AL playoffs. The Rays feature a whole lot of real good pitchers and a bunch of hitters nobody ever heard of. All they do is win with this ridiculous combination. They just spanked the young Toronto (now Buffalo) Blue Jays and held serve. Next up...the Yankees and watch the beanballs fly! These two hate each other...especially this year after Aroldis tried to kill somebody.

The Houston Enemies pulled a rabbit out of the hat in Game One against the Twinkies. With the Twins infield in the shift and the runner Carlos Correa getting a huge lead off first, shortstop Polanco pulled his quick throw to second on a ground ball and the error with two outs led to a fateful 3 run rally that beat the home team. That pretty much sealed the Twinkie’s Fate. They didn’t hit at all in the next game and went meekly like lambs to the slaughter. 18 straight playoff game losses for the Twins. At least they didn’t lose to the Yankees again.

That means Oakland/Chicago is the only AL series tied up. Jose Abreu got the Sox off to a strong start with a homer off phenom Jesus Luzardo and the home town team was routed in Game One. Giolito looked way strong in his start for the Chisox. Game Two was the reverse as the A’s got contributions from long-slumbering Khris Davis and Marcus Semian. A’s win that one 5-3. Bassit had a strong start for Oakland. Both these teams live by the home run. Expect quite a few long balls in Game Three later today.

The NL started up a day later than the AL so only 1 game has been played. Dodgers beat up on Milwaukee 4-2. Game 2 is Kershaw vs. Woodruff? And the Brews are short a couple of starters, including Mr. All American Ryan Braun who is being venerated by the media and fans for his stellar sportsmanship and love of humanity. If he does play in Game 2 it will be the first time 5 former MVPs have ever appeared in the same regular season or playoff game. (Braun, Yelich, Betts, Bellinger, Kershaw).

I don’t think L.A. will blow this series but its a weird year.

Chicago Cubbies vs. the Miami Nemesis. The Twins have the Yankees as their special Boogeymen and the Cubs have the Marlins. The Marlins won the first game at Wrigley and lost Starling Marte to a broken hand. Who is the Man for Chicago? Who is Master of Jockstraps? Somebody has to step up on that team. Can’t Justin Heyward give them a weight room Pep Talk or something? They do have Yu Darvish feady to go, and then Lester. But the Marlins are loose, loose loose because nobody thinks they can win.

The Cardinals beat the Padres 7-4 in Game 1. St. Louis scored 4 times in the first with Goldschmidt hitting a 2 run homer. The Cardinals have a great bullpen and they look poised to discipline the upstart Pads, who made some atrocious baserunning mistakes that cost them in the first game.

The most competitive series in the NL should be the Atlanta Braves vs. Cincinnati Reds. The first game lived up to the hype with a 13 inning zero- zero tie until Freddie Freeman won it with a big hit. The Reds had many many opportunities to score with runners in position with none or one out. They failed every single time. They didn’t bunt even in classic bunt situations, letting their free swingers strike out and fail to advance anybody again and again. A pitiful performance. I don’t know, but if my team was sriking out 19-20 times a game I might try a bunt or two once in awhile.

The Reds also made some truly horrible decisions on the base paths and deserved to lose this game.

I went into this post season hoping for a Series between somebody like the Reds vs. the White Sox just for variety’s sake, but these young teams aren’t looking that good. The Reds have some strong starting pitchers though and could rally. But I think that first game loss will finish them mentally. Especially the way they let it all slip through their fingers. The White Sox have an injured Eloy Jimenez and a seriously slumped up Luis Roberts. Not looking good for a repeat of the famous Black Sox series of 1919, when the Reds beat the Black Sox who were trying to lose games.

So the odds say get ready for Dodgers vs. Yankees...just like everybody predicted...except me.

Somebody will find the mojo...and it could be the Braves, or the A’s or even the Rays. I just hope baseball keeps playing. Are you not entertained?

--Marco

Marco's Baseball Blog-O-Roonie 2020: UNDER THE BIG TOP

 

Marco’s Baseball Blog-O-Roonie 2020: UNDER THE BIG TOP

Yes, I was a pessimist when it came to believing that MLB could pull off a shortened season and somehow get through it without super-spreading COVID-19 from Fenway to Chavez Ravine. I expected the worst and in some ways I was right...can’t be done. I fully expected the whole thing to fold like a flattened inflatable circus tent and everybody go home.

Things started bad with bunches of players, coaches and clubhouse staff getting sick and being forced to the sideline. Lots of stars sat out because of family considerations. Vulnerable people at home like Buster Posey with his premature twin boy-babies. I didn’t think we’d get baseball for more than three weeks at one point...just too many cases.

But my churlish negativity has been overwhelmed by the bright spirit of the players, coaches and yes, even the front offices of the game. Gosh Darn it, everybody decided to just keep playing ball, no matter what happened. (Sure, Yoenis Cespedes quit and left the Mets without even telling anybody, but he was due for pulled hamstring number 22 anyway so small loss.)

The quality of play has been spotty. Some guys got enough spring training and played well, some guys obviously didn’t and started slow. The pitchers seemed generally ahead of the hitters but both species have been pulling up lame and tweaking various exotic ligaments right and left. And when the injury list on any given team is already filled up with stars (like the Yankees who lost Stanton, Judge, LeMahieu, Torres and Paxton in short order) nursing traditional injuries, here comes the ravenous virus to knock out five or ten guys with one sneeze.

But baseball is so much fun after the long hiatus that teams have just been quarantining the casualties and bringing up another passel of minor league prospects. Then they shove a bat or a resin bag in their hands and it’s “Go Get ‘em Kid!” It’s chaotic. It’s haphazard and inevitably contagious. Half the guys on the bench wear masks, half don’t. Two or three players in the field wear masks, the rest hug each other and spit on their gloves. The Marlins got shut down for a week or so for ignoring anti-virus protocols. The Cardinals had only played 5 games while most teams had played 20. Half of Cleveland’s starting pitchers snuck out of the hotel to go party and were suspended. Games have been cancelled willie nilly. But somehow, baseball abides and we’re actually playing a season.

Every team you watch has player after player making their major league debut and most of them seem to hit homers or strike out 10 in 4 innings or something. It’s kind of wonderful. Bunches of suburban strong boys and Cuban Apollos flooding the ball fields saying “Put me in, Coach!” Then they get sick and sit out two weeks and we get to watch dozens more talented young men who can hit a ball 450 feet or throw it 99 mph take their place.

Those of you have followed my meanderings on this blog know that I am a “Three True Outcomes” catastrophist. The Three True Outcomes is what some Stat-Nerd came up with (while picking lint out of his belly button) to describe the purity of the contest between pitcher and batter when the whole game is reduced to one of three outcomes. A strike out, a walk or a homer. No defense, no singles, no bunts, no hit and runs (God forbid!) no steals. Only the pitcher and the catcher need touch the ball. Although I agree that this is an accurate observation and description of what is happening, I hardly approve. In fact I find this loathsome trend a banal reduction in the beautiful variety of the game.

But while I rue the trend I must still admire the powerful athleticism of 21^st Century Baseball. We are now witnessing a sport where every hitter goes downtown and flips the bat with a haughty, snarling gesture of superiority. Every pitcher can throw the damn ball 98 miles per hour. When the batter fails to “barrel it up” and actually puts the ball in the field of play you see extraordinary speed and powerful arms in the field and players sacrificing their bodies with diving catches and wall climbings.

Starting Pitching has seemed to settle into a basic pattern: throw the baseball real, real hard. Add a cutter or a slider and maybe a change up or splitter to disrupt timing. Pitch all out for four innings and then go take a shower. The batters are going to an all-or-nothing swing just about every time they take the bat off their shoulder. But the pitchers are overthrowing so hard that they run up pitch counts and walk too many. And when they get the ball just a little up in the zone they give up ...

“high exit velocity/optimum launch angle” big flies.

...(all together now….OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!)

Now add a dash of juiced baseballs and Result!...Games where the best pitchers totally dominate but still lose 5-3 contests because their mistakes get hit out so frequently. And the rest of the hurlers are Stat-meat for the bludgeon-eers. Those games are your 13-10 four hour specials. Every year we see a new record for total home runs hit. And strike outs. I guess we’re supposed to like it like that.

Well I don’t really, but even I am impressed when Fernando Tatis Jr. hits 12 dingers in only 21 games. And leads baseball in rbis and runs scored and steals. And there’re about thirty other young stars in the game that are almost as good. The Wow Factor is off the charts in baseball right now.

To add to the excitement, MLB has encouraged the addition of recorded crowd noise and cardboard cutouts of fans to fill the stadiums with a semblance of real human response. If they didn’t have the crowd noise, it turns out, all you’d hear would be the participants cussing each other out with repetitious but emphatic explitives. (*you should take a short break and watch this brief illustrative cussing demo* )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAd8pCjh3mk

And the cut-out cardboard photos propped up in the seats are based on real fans and celebrities and fashion models so the players can pretend that they are strutting their stuff for the beautiful people.

The teams still travel from park to park, but in retrospect, that may have been a mistake. Traveling in airplanes and sharing hotels, even when you are careful, inevitably spreads the microbials. Turns out the NBA was right to bubble-up their players in one place for the whole abbreviated season. Only one case in a month! But if baseball had bubbled up , it would have been in the two Virus/Heat-Hells of Phoenix and Florida. And there aren’t enough enclosed and air conditioned venues in those states for anybody to survive even a sixty game season.

After seeing the quaint old minor league stadium, I kind of wish the whole circus could have been played in Buffalo, home of the Toronto Canadians for the duration. (No diseased American baseball teams need apply for a visa to enter the sacred pristinity of Canada. Eat Hockey Pucks and Die American Baseball Dogs!)

More circus acts have been provided by the thoughtful Daimyos of the Grande Olde Game. This year they are trying out every crazy ass idea that anybody ever had to speed up the game, slow down the game, increase offense while expanding the strike zone (huh?), banish the zone defense, insist that the third baseman plays second base and the second baseman plays right center field unless Joey Gallo is up and then he’s forbidden to hit to the opposite field, add the DH to the National League, make relievers run around the bullpen three times and kiss their mommies before being allowed into the game and make all double-headers 7 innings except when there’s a tie game in extra innings in which case you put Mookie Betts on second base and see if he can steal third and home before anybody can bunt.

“Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! Step right up! Watch the Dog-Boy play Take Me Out to the Ballgame on the Kazoo! Hurry, Hurry! Only a nickel! ...(Go away Kid, you bother me!)”

The funny thing is, some of these wacky ideas are working! Double headers should be seven innings! They should make rain delayed games automatically turn into seven inning contests too, retroactively, whenever there’s a delay of over forty-five minutes. No more games that have to be completed at a later date or rain delayed games being finished up at 3:30AM with only the batboys watching. Plus...The National League should use the DH. I’ll miss watching Madison Bumgarner and Bartolo Colon hit, but that about covers it.

The real surprise for me was this new rule where relievers have to face a minimum of 3 hitters when they come in unless they get the third out of the inning sooner. I thought this was going to be an absurd and arbitrary impediment to the manager’s perogative to manipulate his lineup in order to try to win the game. Turns out that this rule does something that really makes the game better. To wit:

You are the manager of a major league club. Your team is playing the Los Angeles Angels. Your starter is tiring. Mike Trout is the batter, followed in the lineup by Ohtani and then Rendon. In the old days where a relief pitcher only had to legally pitch to one batter before you took him out, you have no problem. You bring in a right-handed reliever to pitch to Trout, then a leftie to deal with Ohtani, then another right hander to pitch to Rendon. With this new rule, if you bring in the rightie to face Trout, you have to leave him in to negotiate the dangerous left-hand bat of Ohtani before he matches up again with rightie Rendon. So what to do?

Maybe you bring in the leftie, pitch around Trout and go after Ohtani and then see if you can get Rendon with the leftie as well. Or maybe you leave your starter in to face Trout before you bring in the leftie. Or maybe you say the hell with it and just let your starter get through the minefield. One way or another, there’s more of a chance to see a couple of those three great hitters get an advantageous matchup where they get a chance to hit than in the old specialized reliever era. And that’s what we want! Plus, we knock off ten minutes game time of managers walking out to the mound to remove the pitchers and another five minutes watching the relievers warm up. In the immortal words of Dizzy Dean, “Who’d a thunk it?”

So what about this vaunted “60 game sprint to the playoffs” we bought into? Hey! I’m interested...how about you? We can’t really take this too seriously as a real baseball season, but it’s fun and engaging. And maybe some new teams will get to participate in the playoffs. I predicted we’d see Oakland win the West, the Reds win the NL Central and the Chicago White Sox nab a Wild Card. So far only the Athletics look like a sure thing with their lineup of beefaloes and some pretty good pitchers (especially in the bullpen).

Let’s examine the contenders:

AL EAST:

Everybody said it was all about the Yankees and the Dodgers this year, and it certainly started like that. Aaron Judge hit a ridiculous number of homers right out of the gate and pretty much dismantled the Boston Red Sox and their slim playoff hopes in a week of mayhem. The Red Sox have the best Double A staff in the major leagues. Even the Orioles beat up on the Red Sox. Watch Boston sell the rest of their stars and welcome their fans into a new cycle of futility.

I thought the Blue Jays would be interesting and dangerous. Well, one out of two. While they haven’t won enough, their young stars are impressive. They’re a couple of pitchers shy. A recent hot streak has them at least relevant and anything can happen in a short season.

As usual, the Rays sneak up on you. They are in first place while the Yankees get used to their new roster after the decimation of twenty games eliminated half their stars like last year. If the Rays could only get more thump in their lineup to match their always potent pitching staff they might dominate, but like the other small market teams, there just isn’t any budget for anything but limited offensive players and negative depth. And now injuries to Uncle Charlie Morton (he of the great “Yacker”) and other pitchers leave them short in that area as well.

AL CENTRAL:

The Indians have an impressive starting staff of Ace pitchers. Shane Beiber is the new Top Gun of the AL, along with Gerrit Cole. Unfortunately, a couple of their starters keep their brains in their dicks and can’t resist cheating on the Covid regulations. So just when they were crushing, the Indians come back to the pack and are now second to the Twins.

The Twins are in first without having really gotten the engine running smoothly. They have the powerful lineup and some great defense in key positions...if the pitching holds up they could steadily move away from the rest of the pack. An easy playoff pick.

I thought the White Sox were going to threaten this year. Finally! But it’s the same old thing with the White Sox...inconsistency! And lousy pitching! Still, you keep waiting. They have some incredible everyday players...half of their starting lineup are Cuban (Jose Abreu , Yoan Moncada, Luis Robert, Yasmani Grandal) and half are from The Dominican Republic (Edwin Encarnacion, Eloy Jimenez, Nomar Mazara, Leury Garcia.) And a tip of the hat to shortstop Tim Anderson...from Tuscaloosa, Alabama! (Hitting .345) And catcher Brian McCann from Santa Barbara, California! (Hitting .347) This team leads MLB in hitting at a very strong .270. Seems like the Sox could do better than third place in their division. They’ll make the playoffs though.

Kansas City? Seems like a lifetime since they played in back to back World Series. They may be reviving. But watch and see if they start trading what’s left of their stars. They tend to live up to their small market credentials.

The Detroit Tigers brought up their top rookies so the fans in Detroit would have something to amuse them while they watch Miguel Cabrera disintegrate (he will be remembered as a great one who stayed too long...just like Albert Pujols. They are each making over $30 million a year! How can you walk away from that?? And their contracts are still paying and paying…while Miguel is hitting .181)

A top ten rookie phenom, RHP Casey Mize, is supposed to be the new Tom Seaver. They say he has the best splitfinger in baseball and he threw a no-hitter in Double A. In his only big league outings thus far, he struck out 7 in 4 innings but also gave up 7 hits and then against the Cubs he allowed 4 runs in 3 innings. I watched him pitch and I don’t like his arm angle. It looks like he isn’t getting his body behind his pitches and is relying on an intense shoulder/elbow whip to give him speed and movement. He looks like he’ll need a new elbow in a year or so. I hope he proves me wrong.

AL WEST:

Oakland has gotten hot early. And they’re pummeling the Astros!

In fact, everybody wants a piece of the Astros. On field fight scrums have been outlawed for the protection of the players, but all that is forgotten when the Astros are playing. They hit Ramon Laureano of the A’s 3 times in one series and then wondered why Ramon got a little upset. The Astros seem to be happy to be the Dicks of Baseball. And that’s coming from a fan. When Ramon wasn’t charging the dugout quick enough to get thrown out of the game, the ‘Stros sent their 41 year old hitting coach Alex Cintron out of the dugout to say nice things about Ramon’s mother. Ramon, who had been pounding the ball all over the place, got axed for 6 games for fighting. Mission accomplished Coach! But wait...MLB gave Cintron 20 games and a fine! That shows that they knew what was going on with the goading. Nice move MLB!

I had to laugh at Astros starter Zach Grienke telling the other team’s hitters what pitch was coming. A brilliant bit of gamesmanship, that. And he made his point...”You can hate on us for cheating, but we still had to hit the ball...you can’t!”

The Texas Rangers team batting average is .210. Their team OPS is .635. That’s pretty much all you need to know. They are wasting an outstanding season by starter Lance Lynn who has an ERA of 1.37 and a WHIP of 0.814.

Well, we got dazzled by all the shiny objects on the Los Angeles Angels roster. Trout! Rendon! Ohtani! Rookie Jo Adell! Trout and Rendon have been as advertised but Ohtani is batting .181, Odell is at .197, Albert Pujols is cruising along at .208 and second baseman Luis Rengifo is tearing it up at a .146 pace. And those averages are ALL higher than Justin Upton, who has gone 6 for 64 this year...that’s .094! Welcome to Mendoza-ville. And even with all those holes in the lineup, hitting isn’t their main problem! Only Dylan Bundy has been at all effective on the mound. Shattered dreams, Angels.

A few words about the tragic Seattle Mariners, a last place team that looks farther away than ever from making their first World Series. Rookie of the Year favorite Kyle Lewis is hitting .368...the rest of the team is hitting .206.

Playoff Prediction:

Let’s say the Yankees, the Rays, the Blue Jays, the Twinks, the Cleveland Politically Correctables, The Caribbean White Stockings, the Athletics and the Astros all make it. That’s all eight of the AL playoff teams. Write it down in pencil though, for the Blue Jays and the White Sox.

NL EAST:

As I predicted at the beginning of the season, the Mets’ starting rotation would be taking turns on the injured list by this time. DeGrom is still standing but Porcello and Matz have been getting bombed. Wacha and Peterson and of course Thor are on the list. That fiasco with Cespedes should be a warning to teams shelling out multi year contracts.

Philadelphia has been getting a big year from Harper and Realmutto and good pitching from Aaron Nola and Zach Wheeler. But the bullpen reeks and they just traded for Boston’s Workman and Hembree to help. They can still get a wild card but with this stuffed playoff format...who can’t?

Washington...Come the Sober Dawn. Howie Kendricks and Trea Turner are still on the roster and Juan Soto is hitting .400. But Anthony Rendon is gone and Strasburg gone for the season. Max Scherzer is starting to show some age, although he still competes like almost nobody else. 2019 was a beautiful dream, though, wasn’t it Nationals?

The Marlins jumped up and surprised some teams early, then went into a massive Covid induced quarantine and now they’re at .500. They have some good young pitchers to build around. I don’t think they’ll make the playoffs this year.

The Atlanta Braves look like the hammer in the East. This despite the loss of Ozzie Albeis and Nick Markakis recently to the ten day injury list. Acuna has a bad wrist and Freddie Freeman had to come back from the virus this year. Their Ace, Mike Soroka tore his Achilles tendon...a scary injury. Yet somehow they took the hit and are solidly in first place. I don’t think they have the pitching to go far in the playoffs, but rookie phenom Ian Anderson looked sharp in his first start. The teams that have contended in recent years all look alike: strong lineups with power and at least two Ace starting pitchers. That isn’t the Braves with those injuries.

NL CENTRAL:

The Adorables are back! And the difference maker has been Yu Darvish, who got it together the second half of last season and is now DOMINATING. He’s won 5 games and lost 1 with an ERA of 1.70 and an unreal 44 K’s against only 6 BB’s. He’s the MVP of the Cubbies and along with Lester and Hendrix he makes the Chicago squad a formidable opponent in the playoffs.

The Cardinals of old St. Looie have played ten less games than everybody else and were shut down for three weeks because of Covid exposure. It’s kind of remarkable that they’ve done so well despite that shutdown. They need one more stopper to go with Jack Flaherty so they can win some playoff series.

Wisconsin is a very stressed state right now. And if you are following the baseball Brewers as a way to get a pleasant break from all the pain, you picked the wrong ballclub. The team is batting .213. Christian Yelich is hitting .200. Leftie Josh Hader hasn’t given up a run yet and the Brewers should trade him to the Yankees for players like Andujar and Frazier and some of those top prospects in the rich Yankee system. Not that the Yankees really need that big a move to help an already loaded bullpen, but they don’t seem to have ways to get Frazier and Andujar enough at bats, and those guys are major league hitters (fielding is another category!). And flame throwing skinny pitchers like Hader have a limited use-by date. Same problem I pointed out with Chris Sale...too much arm and too violent a delivery for that body type. My prediction for Sale was unfortunately correct. I hope I’m wrong about Hader because he is good for baseball.

I picked the Cincinnatti Reds to win the Central. They loaded up with offensive players and then went out and hit... .203? A complete meltdown of the bats. Their pitching has been superlative at the top with Trevor Bauer and Sonny Gray. The Bullpen is thin though and they just can’t hit. Unexpected and very, very disappointing. They are on the outside looking in for a playoff spot. How Long Oh Lord, How Long?

Everybody expected the Pirates to be at the bottom of the standings in the Central.

Everybody was right.

NL WEST:

Half of the NL playoff teams will probably come from the West...everybody but Arizona would be in if the playoffs started today.

Everybody picked the Yankees and the Dodgers to meet up in the World Series (if we get that far) and . I picked them to win their divisions.

The Dodgers have not shown that they can finish yet. Year after year they cough up furballs instead of chewing up the mouse. We’ll see. There is no doubt that Mookie Betts has changed the atmosphere a lot. What a great player to watch! 3 homer games, throws from the warning track to nail a runner at third, base running like Jackie used to do it. All done with a smile.

To dramatize how much the game has changed, take this in:

The 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers...one of the greatest teams of all time...led the majors in home runs that year with 201 in a 154 game season. So far in 31 games in the year 2020, the Los Angeles Dodgers have hit 61 4-baggers. Project that to 154 games and you get well over 300 homers hit if the Bluebloods could continue that pace. It’s a whole new world, isn’t it?

But the 1955 Dodgers won the World Series. These current Dodgers have something to prove. But right now they are the class of baseball...having scored the most runs and given up the least. They are Load-ED...Super Loaded. But one thing nags me...neither Mookie Betts nor Cody Bellinger have been effective in the playoffs. I think at least one of those two has to get hot in the playoffs for them to win. It’s just too easy to lose a couple of games in a three game series..or three in a five gamer...even if they are home games...and the Dodgeheads should get home field for the duration. If they run into a couple of hot pitchers on one of the other teams...well you saw what happened the last few years.

The Padres are coming! If a few more of their vaunted prospects show up and play as well as Fernando Tatis Jr. has, San Diego might actually become a great West Coast rival for the Dodgers. The offense is humming and they’ve hit 56 homers...close to the Dodgers. And remember, the Padres play in Petco Park...one of the great mauseleums of offensive baseball. They have 4 starters just entering their prime. If not now Padres...when? Barring injuries, it could happen...even this season.

Colorado also made some noise in the early going when Charlie Blackmon was hitting .500. But now Charlie’s hot streak has gone bye-bye and Arenado still hasn’t gotten his timing. Drew Story is doing his job and if everybody was their usual productive self, the Rockies would have plenty of offense to compete. Without a unison push, though, their pitching can’t sustain them.

The Rockies created the feel-good story of this year when they called up Daniel Bard to help their bulllpen. You might remember Bard as an overpowering set-up man for the Red Sox several years ago. The Red Sox tampered with his repetoir trying to turn him into a starter and it screwed him up so bad he couldn’t start OR relieve. He lost control. He lost velocity. The hitters murdered him and he got a mental block like Steve Blass and Rick Ankiel before him and could never get over it. He last pitched in the majors in 2013. Seven years later he’s the Rockies closer and pitching well. In 14 innings he’s struck out 17 and walked only 3. Can you imagine what it feels like? To be 35 and making it back to the Major Leagues and be doing well? Like the I Ching says...”Perseverence Furthers!” Good for you, Daniel Bard!

There’s been a San Francisco Giant sighting. From out of nowhere they come, rebounding from a truly moribund offensive performance last year with bats exploding to life. I guess all it took was for team leader Bustser Posey to opt out of the Covid circus to wake up the bats. Belt, Longoria, especially Austin Slater and Mike Yaz and Donovan Solano...even Wilmer Flores! Have RAKED. With power! The pitching has been solid with Cueto back and Gausman, Anderson and Logan Webb all throwing well. Wouldn’t it be a story if the Giants showed up to spoil the Dodger party. Lest I speak too soon, the gigantics just got shut out in consecutive games of a double dip with the Trolley Dodgers. Even so, I think the Dodgers would rather face almost anybody else in the playoffs. Too much spooky playoff history with the Giants franchise.

Right now those four clubs...Dodgers, Pads, Rocks and Gigantics would make the playoffs. The only NL West franchise on the outside is the Arizona Diamondbacks. Which is weird because the Rattlers were the best competition the Dodgers had last year in their division and Arizona is playing just about as well. It’s a quirk of the winning percnetages. They could get hot and jump up a couple of spots. They could also fold their tents in the Phoenix heat (a record hot summer...again!).

Playoff Prediction:

From my lofty perch I see the Dodgers and Padres making it to the playoffs from the West, the Cubs and Cardinals from the Central, and the Braves from the East. The other 3 teams? Depends on the roll of the bones, the whims of the microbes and the State of the Nation. But I‘ll take the Phillies, the Reds and the Giants.

Solidarity ...

--Marco

Marco's Baseball Blog-O-Roonie 2020: NELLA FANTASIA

MARCO’S BASEBALL BLOG-O-ROONIE JUNE 2020:

“NELLA FANTASIA”*

*song by Ennio Morricone/lyrics by Chiara Ferrau

(Nella Fantasia means “In my Fantasy” in Italian…)

“In my fantasy I see a fair world

where everybody lives in peace and honesty…

In my fantasy there is a hot wind

that blows across the cities like a friend...”

BASEBALL 2020...The Plague Year:

First they got rid of the umpires.

The whole image of some middle-aged, heart-vulnerable, lung- defective fatty arbiter leaning over and breathing in the catchers face was just the kind of COVID-sensitive image that the Lords of Baseball would not and should not and could not promote.

So they decided to go for Robbie the Robot and his Magic Virtual Strike Zone. Of course some smarty pants from the Houston Astros hacked the thing in the first week of the shortened season while all parties were still distracted after the blood-letting at the bargaining table between the owners and players. Almost from Day 1 of the 58 game 2020 “season” the Astros’ busy elves were trimming two inches off the strike zone for the home team and adding two for the visitors.

Pedro Martinez was color man on an early telecast of a Dodgers/Astros contest at Minute Maid and called the hack when the ‘Stros won it 12-2 with 10 walks compared to 0 for the Dodgers. The teenager who was responsible for the Astro’s tech was suspended and banned and fined and excoriated and the Astros continued to play the season. Nobody booed them because nobody was allowed at the games on the road and the home Houston fans who were allowed to attend under the lax Texas social distancing laws were quite lenient as long as they got victories.

When the owners got used to the subtraction of a home plate ump they went ahead and got rid of the base umps as well and outlawed stealing as being “too intimate” with sliding into the second baseman and getting tagged in the mouth and such. Base runners were given a line in the base path dirt passed which they could not take a lead. Cameras shot all the base action and the out/safe calls were made from the booth. Every play at every base took 2-3 minutes to call with all the replay delay. The owners and TV execs didn’t mind though; more time for commercials.

The coaches were next to go and we said goodbye to the friendly old Uncle- Third- Base- Coach patting the newly arriving runners on the butt and leaning in to tell them to keep an eye out for the bunt sign. All signs were now relayed from the dugouts without benefit of the middleman base coaches. Health first!

The owners took some of the money they were saving on umps and coaches and started a fund for the ballpark vendors who had nobody left to sell hot dogs to except the fans in Texas who were the only ones in the country allowed to attend games.

There was a big fight between the Cubs and the Cardinals when Javy Baez hit a homer at Wrigley and came out of the dugout afterwards and tipped his cap to the empty stands in a mocking gesture that was not appreciated by the Cardinals and especially by catcher Yadier Molina, who called for inside fastballs to Javier’s ass the next two times he came up. Javier took offense after the second such pitch and the dugouts emptied and caused a huge broohaha on social media when all the players writhed around in big pile of pushing, sweating, shoving and spitting bodies. It was the opposite of social distancing.

The owners and commissioner expressed righteous indignation at this unsafe spectacle in the Age of Viruses and armed the ballpark guards in each city with tasers to use on any rhubarbians participating in future melees.

So the next fight...this one started by the Phillies’ Bryce Harper and pitcher Marcus Stroman of the Mets...turned from a traditional “let’s take turns holding each other back” type major league rhubarb into a police brutality case when the white New York cops at Citi Field just tased the black players.

The games themselves were wildly successful ratings-wise as a sports-starved public tuned in by the quarantined millions to see the new mixed divisions battle it out. The Yankees especially were a huge draw as East Coasters watched them punish National League East teams like Philly and Washington and Miami while continuing to dominate their familiar patsies like Baltimore and Boston. The New Yorkers had an 8 game lead in the 10 team Eastern division by August 10.

The style of play was really more like extended Spring Training rather than a traditional mid-season pennant pursuit. The veteran players whined a lot about not having had enough time to get used to the grind and so were rested after 4 or 5 innings if they were a position player and after 2 or 3 innings for pitchers. The expanded rosters (30) allowed managers to pitch the staff almost every game. Rotations were a quaint memory. Hitters had to get used to seeing a new arm pretty much every at bat. Teams would use 7 or 8 pitchers today and a new set of 7 or 8 tomorrow. Fewer pitchers were coming up sore armed with this limited work, but fewer pitchers were finding their groove, either. Relievers did the best, being used to this kind of schedule, and with almost all ball games becoming Bullpen Shuttle Fests.

In the East, the limited work didn’t help the Mets, who had their whole starting staff of DeGrom, Syndergaard, Metz, Porcello and Stroman on the injured list by mid-August and had to re-hire Bartolo Colon to eat up some innings. Bartolo struck a blow for old-time baseball when he went ten innings in a 17-16 Mets victory over the Atlanta Braves, throwing 213 pitches...all fast balls. He gave up 6 homers and 8 doubles but struck out 10 with no walks and was a much adored guest on both Colbert’s Late Show and Governor Andrew Cuomo’s midday COVID report.

The lethargy of the veteran players who were leisurely ramping up their playing time created a vacuum for the rookies. Young players were all over the majors...hungry and productive. With expanded rosters and more playing time while older stars nursed their sore hammies, young hitters like Guerrero, Biggio and Bichette with Toronto and Soto and Robles of Washington raked early and often.

Ronald Acuna Jr. of the Braves had 24 home runs in 58 games for the mini-season, even though the Braves finished in the middle of the pack when their young pitching couldn’t adjust to the new pitching paradigm.

The number one prospect, switch-hitting Dominican shortstop Wander Franco of Tampa Bay, hit close to .750 in the first week, causing all sorts of quasi-rapturous hyper hysteria. Then Gerrit Cole of the Yankees struck him out three times in a row and Aroldis Chapman struck him out a fourth time in the first meeting between the teams. The dreaded Golden Sombrero. Wander’s fielding left something to be desired at shortstop, so they tried him at second, then third, then left field and finally DH. By this time his swing was screwed up and poor Wander was benched. The Rays banned reporters from the clubhouse. Wander made a speech through his translator that he was “taking it one day at a time”. By September he was a steady, productive player and future star.

Every young player brought up by the Yankees turned into Gleyber Torres. Even when another ten Yankees went down with injuries, the rookies taking their place were prime talents. And the Yankees’ deep, deep bullpen was custom-ordered to dominate the league. They ran away from the Eastern Division. Highly touted teams like the Nationals with their 3 Ace starters finished way back. (Yes, they missed Anthony Rendon).

The Yanks only real competition was from within their own AL East...Toronto and Tampa. Tampa had lots of pitching, but Blake Snell refused to play the season and was permanently suspended from baseball. Last I heard he was pitching in the Korean League.

The finish?

1/New York Yankees

2/Tampa Bay Rays

3/Toronto Blue Jays

4/Philadelphia Phillies

5/Boston Red Sox

6/Atlanta Braves

7/Washington Nationals

8/New York Mets

9/Miami Marlins

10/Baltimore Orioles

The Central Division race was extraordinary. Every team was flawed. Every team could beat each other on any given day. The lead changed 16 times in the abbreviated season! Only the Tigers never tasted a day in first place.

The AL Centralians hit but couldn’t pitch. The White Sox came out smoking with a lineup that had 7 hitters with double- digit homers after the first six weeks. Their young Latin stars Yoan Moncada, Eloy Jiminez and Luis Robert led the way. The Sox pitching came crashing down in September, though.

The Twins, who set a home run team record in 2019, also blasted their way through the early going. Their pitching never came up to the mark either.

Likewise the Indians. Francisco Lindor and company entertained but ultimately didn’t have the depth to compete passed mid-August.

The Royals were punished by the elimination of the running game, which neutralized speedsters like Whit Merrifield and Adaberto Mondesi. But KC wouldn’t have won anyway...not with that retread pitching staff. They traded closer Ian Kennedy to the Athletics in September to signal their surrender.

After the AL teams faded midway through the summer, it was left for the Cardinals, Cubs and Reds to take the stage in the best pennant race of the year.

The Cardinals were the steadiest of the three and had superior depth on the mound.

The Cubs played happy under new manager David Ross, but their starting staff got old all at once and they faded in the last week with not enough fire power in the pen to get them through.

It was the Cincinnati Reds who shocked them all. They won 3 classic extra inning games against a tough Pittsburgh Pirate team late in the year with Joey Votto summoning up his best hitting since days of yore. Backed by Mike Moustakis and Eugenio Suarez, and with pitcher of the year Luis Castillo dominating with his A+ change up and leading a good not great rotation that included Sonny Gray and Trevor Bauer, the Reds overtook the Cards in the last game of the season to take the division.

1/Cincinnati Reds

2/St. Louis Cardinals

3/ Chicago Cubs

4/Chicago White Sox

5/Minnesota Twins

6/Cleveland Indians

7/Pittsburgh Pirates

8/Milwaukee Brewers

9/Kansas City Royals

10/Detroit Tigers

The Western Division had a nickname bestowed upon them by a tart-tongued sports reporter early in the summer: The Dodgers and their Doormats.

It had been hoped that somebody...anybody...would give the Dodgers a run for the flag just to provide a little juice for the late night TV watchers in the later time zones. But with Mookie Betts becoming a .410 hitting phenomenon for 58 games and Gavin Lux hitting .350 and all of the Dodgers hitting the long ball it was obvious that the rest of the Division was playing for the Wild Card at best. L.A. employed a 6 man starting rotation led by Walker Buehler and Clayton Kershaw. Nobody got over 80 pitches in any one game. And with 5 days to rest between appearances, the vet pitchers mixed in with the big-armed rookie core to flat out shut down the opposition offenses.

Pennant race? What pennant race? Unfortunately, the 58 game season was an exercise in competitive futility as the rest of the league drowned in the Dodgers wake. Only the Astros could stay with the Angelinos even a little bit and the games between the two rivals were the only interesting thing happening in the Western Division. These games were murderous affairs featuring hard slides, hard tags, brushbacks and backtalk.

Bellinger and Max Muncy each admired a home run off of Verlander and both of them got fastballs in the back next at bat. Verlander was thrown out of the game, but since these offenses occurred in the fourth inning, he was going to be leaving anyway. MLB was discovering that the game couldn’t really police itself vis a vis beanball wars with pitchers leaving so soon, and the DH being in universal employ.

MLB kept hoping that the California Angels, with their stars Trout and Rendon, would catch fire and compete with the Dodgers, but the Angels were nascent at best and finished near the bottom with truly awful pitching. Shohei Ohtani was a bright spot with 10 starts as a pitcher for a 2.45 ERA and 20 home runs as a hitter. He had one game of 10 strike outs and 3 extra base hits.

Oakland wasn’t entirely a surprise since they had been steadily improving in recent years, and were due for a peak before Billy Beane dismantled his latest creation. Still, the A’s... as usual... started slow and then got hot late. By September they were knocking on the Wild Card door, though still many miles back of the Dodgers. In a lineup with power threats like Matt Olson, Matt Chapman, Marcus Semien, Mark Canha, Ramon Laureano, Stephen Piscotty and Khris Davis somebody was always hot. Their defense was good enough to help out their thin pitching staff, and Beane made some strategic bullpen pickups that won some late games for the Greenies. Basically the A’s lived by the home run and great D.

1/Los Angeles Dodgers

2/Houston Astros

3/Oakland Athletics

4/Arizona Diamondbacks

5/San Diego Padres

6/Seattle Mariners

7/Texas Rangers

8/Colorado Rockies

9/Los Angeles Angels

10/San Francisco Giants

So the Playoff set up was New York Yankees, Cincinnati Reds, Los Angeles Dodgers (with the best record) and two Wild Card teams… Houston and Oakland. (The A’s snuck in just ahead of the Cardinals and Tampa Bay and just behind the Astros.)

It had been decided that the 2 wild cards Play-In game system would be retained , mainly to insure that the Wild Card winner would use up their best pitchers before facing the next Division winner opponent. But with Bullpen games now the norm and extended rosters, one game wasn’t punishment enough to really hurt a pitching staff.

Las Vegas had big odds that the Dodgers and the Yankees would face each other in a Plague Year World Series. But first the preliminaries.

The Oakland Greenies travel to Minute Maid park for the only game of the Playoffs witnessed by live fans actually present in the ballpark. The Houston fans yell cacophonously through their COVID masks as the ‘Stros take an early lead with homers by Altuve and Correa. Verlander pitches three strong and gives way to Zach Greinke, who shuts out the A’s for another three. Lance McCullers throws curveballs to continue Houston’s stroll to the promised land as the Astros pad their lead with a double into the Crawford corner by Bregman, a single by Gurriel and a home run by Yordan Alvarez for a solid 5-0 lead going into the eighth.

Enter fireballing right hander Josh James, who has terrified hitters with overpowering stuff all year.

But Josh is playing young tonight. The A’s wait him out for 2 walks and then Ramon Laureano catches up to a fastball for a huge home run up onto the train tracks above the Crawford boxes. With nobody out, in comes closer Roberto Osuna. Single, walk, single, single and the score is 5-4 with the bases loaded. Still no outs. New pitcher Ryan Pressley gets a force at home. An intentional walk loads them up again and another force at home makes it two outs and things in the balance.

The Astros decide to put another man on base to create the force everywhere. Trouble is, it means Ramon Laureano is coming up for the second time in the inning with all bases populated. Pressley wants to induce another grounder but he tries to be too fine and the robot calls ball four to walk in the lead run. The Oakland bullpen holds them for two innings to win 6-5 in a shocking El Foldo for the Houstonians, who leave cursing all robot umpires..

The next round has the Reds playing best of seven against the Yankees and the Dodgers hosting the high flying Oakland A’s.

Cincinnati changes up the drama when they shut out the Yankees for eight innings in the Bronx behind a no hit bid by Luis Castillo. Leading 2-0, Castillo walks DJ LeMahieu to lead off the ninth...only the third Yankees base runner. Now manager David Bell has a decision. He takes a long walk out to the mound and then gestures to the bullpen to bring in closer Rasiel Iglesias to pitch to Aaron Judge. Iglesias throws 96 mph but loses control of his fastball when he gets excited. In this game, he gets excited. A fastball tits high and Judge puts it into Yonkers. Stanton hits the next pitch 500 feet to left field. SEE YA! YANKEES WIN!

A tragic night for Luis Castillo, Iglesias and manager David Bell. All three face the reporters and take the punishment. David Bell wins the respect of the media by staying to answer for his actions, but the Reds are finished. The next three wins by the Yanks seem like a mere formality as the Bombers sweep.

Over in La La the Dodgers seem set to accomplish the same, winning the first two games in Chavez Ravine by identical 7-3 scores. Mookie Betts runs wild on the bases. He’s one of the few players who chooses to wear a mask (Dodger blue of course!) on the playing field and he looks like a bandit running the bases. His new nickname is Mookie Betts: “The Blue Bandit” in an MVP season. Even if he can’t steal ‘em, he takes extra bases on a single to make it a double and a turns a double into a triple before scoring again on a wild pitch. Betts scores 4 runs in the first game and 3 in the second and gets under the A’s skin.

The A‘s seem tired and are constantly late on fastballs, hitting pop fouls for easy outs in the spacious foul territory at Dodger Stadium.

The third game in Oakland is disrupted by a huge protest march through the Bay area streets as the game is pre-empted by violence, looting, and an epic traffic jam on the Bay Bridge. Instead of the game being on TV, Oakland stars Semien, Khris Davis, Ramon Laureano and pitcher A.J. Puk go out in the streets and appeal to the protesters for calm. They lead a prayer session and still the waters. The next night, Game 3 begins in a whole new atmosphere.

With a strange symmetry, the four players who led the appeal for peace in their city each star in the game. Starting pitcher A.J. Puk shuts the Dodgers down for four innings. Semien makes a beautiful stab on a liner up the middle to rob Bellinger and save two runs. Then Laureano makes one of his patented cannon throws from centerfield to cut down Mookie Betts on a double to the gap that Mook unwisely tries to turn into another triple. Khris Davis wins it in the ninth with a solo homer to left off of Kenley Jansen.

The lost game day allows Oakland Ace Sean Manaea to start Game 4 at home and he is sharp, cutting up the Bluebloods for a businesslike five innings before turning the game over to some of the A’s young gun relievers. The A’s win it 6-3 to tie the series.

Game 5 becomes critical...and the Dodgers bring on Walker Buehler, who totally overmatches the Oakland hitters in a six inning start using only 78 pitches! BOOM... there it is! Four Dodger relievers finish the job and L.A. is up 3 games to 2 and going back home.

The Oakland team is universally given up for dead and the Dodgers management makes a stupid mistake. Trying to get the jump on the souvenir market, somebody makes up a truckload of tee shirts emblazoned with the image of Kirk Gibson running around the bases doing his arm pump after hitting his famous home run off Dennis Eckersley in the 1988 World Series against the A’s. Printed above the pic it says “Welcome A’s, Gibby says Hi!” Gibson, who was supposed to throw out the first ball for Game 6, hits the roof and refuses to appear. This makes headlines in all the papers and on all the sports shows in America. By game time the Dodgers have issued apologies, blamed everybody they can find and have truly got their noses out of whack. So too does their defense. They make 5 errors and walk 6 to lose handily to the Athletics 6-2.

Game 7. But now the A’s are out of pitchers. They’ve used everybody up twice except 23 year old leftie Jesus Luzardo, a September call-up who had been expected to compete for a starter job but had continuing shoulder problems after surgery in 2019. He wound up with only twelve innings pitched in the bigs this year. But in those twelve innings he struck out...17! Bob Melvin is not the longest tenured manager in the majors for nuthin’. He announces Luzardo as the starter and gets a full night’s undisturbed sleep.

So Game 7 features Clayton Kershaw pitching against a rookie with no track record at all as far as the major leagues go. The commentators speculate that if the A’s get one good inning out of Jesus Luzardo it’ll be a miracle.

After Clayton dispatches the A’s in the first, Luzardo takes the mound and promptly walks Betts. Then he walks Lux, then he walks Muncy. Just so things don’t get too monotonous he then hits Cody Bellinger with a 98 mph fastball to the ribs. Bellinger goes down in a heap and takes five minutes to get to first base.

Luzardo can use five minutes. He wanders around the mound looking as if he’d rather be anywhere else while manager Melvin trudges out. No signal to the bullpen yet. But who is that running into the infield? It’s Ramon Laureano from center field. What is this? There’s nobody in the stands to make noise so you can hear what is being said. Laureano comes up to Melvin and asks permission to speak to Luzardo. Melvin stands by as his centerfielder looks his pitcher in the eyes and says...nothing! He just stares at him, then pats his cheek and runs back to the outfield. Just a little love. Melvin pats the kid on the back and goes back to the dugout. Strike one to Justin Turner. Strike two. Strike three. Corey Seager repeats the K event. Then Chris Taylor hits a lazy pop fly to Laureano in center and the defense sprints in, down only one run. It could have been so much worse.

Luzardo strikes out 7 hitters in the next three innings. The score remains 1-0 as Kershaw has his curveball going, but the buzz is Jesus Luzardo. He’s completely turned it around and is dominating with a sizzling fastball and goodnight-slider. Back at the top of the Dodger’s lineup in the fifth, he faces Betts for the third time and ties him up with fastballs inside. Mookie winds up dribbling a grounder to third.

In the top of the sixth Kershaw leaves in favor of Pedro Baez. Baez stiffs the first two hitters but comes inside with a pitch that Matt Chapman times. The score is now 1-1. Luzardo take them into the sixth, the seventh and the eighth. Melvin makes no move. He knows all of his other arms are down to the nubbin, so he just sits in the dugout watching his young pitcher burn it down. Luzardo has not allowed a base runner since the first. Those three walks and one hit batter are the total offense for the Dodgers. Since then Jesus has been perfect. He’s struck out 15 going into the eighth. He has thrown 118 pitches though. And the A’s go in order in the top of the eighth.

Luzardo gets two quick outs and then faces Betts again. On a full count Mookie unloads a deep fly to right center. Laureano makes a leaping grab at the wall...a tremendous catch. Mookie tips his cap to Ramon and the A’s greet Luzardo at the dugout with high fives. Jesus Luzardo has shut the Dodgers out on no hits since the first inning...but the score is still tied.

Kenley Jansen goes out to face the Athletics lineup in the top of the ninth. He gets two quick outs but gives up a bloop hit to Olson. The next hitter is Laureano. Jansen uncorks a wild pitch that bounces to the backstop. Olson to second. Now Ramon Laureano is the man of destiny, and destiny speaks Spanish this day. Base hit up the middle and Olson scores the lead run to make it 2-1.

Will Luzardo come out for the ninth? Melvin ponders, but he can’t bring himself to remove lightning from his jar. Here’s Jesus again.

Everybody on both teams is up on their feet in the strangely empty, silent ball yard. Gavin Lux takes two strikes and then watches two fastballs in the dirt. Luzardo is obviously struggling. He tries a slider and Lux foul tips into the catcher’s mitt. One away. Muncy looks dangerous digging in but swings wildly at the first pitch. Third baseman Chapman chases a towering foul ball all the way to the stands and leaps into the empty seats to haul it in for a truly outstanding defensive gem. If there’d been fans in the stands...no play! One more out between Oakland and the Plague Year World Series. The Dodger fans are in torment, but Luzardo has the magic today. He fans Bellinger on three straight dipping sliders to complete his no-hitter and is carried off the field in total social distancing disintegration.

The first call he gets after the game is from the Cincinnati hard luck near no hit pitcher Luis Castillo. Billy Beane, Bob Melvin and Jesus watch Rob Manfred present the MVP trophy to Ramon Laureano.

*******************************************************

After that mighty, mighty game maybe it’s just as well that the World Series was postponed after two Yankees tested positive for Corona the day before Game 1. It was a bitter pill for the players and for the whole Yankees organization, and a let down for the fans of both clubs. Only the headline a few months later that a vaccine had been found, tested and approved for use seemed to help, and the Yankee players both recovered nicely.

The World Series of 2020 was never played. We all went on to 2021 gratefully. By all means, let’s move on from 2020...the Plague Year.

Except in Nella Fantasia, where baseball, like it often does... helped us forget.

--Marco Perella

6/2020