Todays' blog
is dedicated to Pete Milne...a lefthanded
hitting outfielder from Mobile, Alabama who only played 47 games in
the major leagues. But Pete had one shining moment that has never
been equaled...one transcendent baseball event...the only one of its
kind to ever happen in all the games in the history of the majors.
On April 27,
1949 the Brooklyn Dodgers are playing the New York Giants
at the Polo Grounds. It's 8-6 Dodgers in the bottom of the
seventh. Three men on one out for the Gigantics with the pitcher
coming to bat.
Giants manager
Leo Durocher sends Milne up to pinch hit. Milne gets hold of
an outside fastball and drives it to the deepest part of the enormous
center field at the Polo Grounds...over the head of Dodgers
centerfielder Duke Snider. The ball rolls forever and by the
time Duke gets it back in, Milne slides across the plate for the
only pinch hit grand slam inside the park home run ever.
It was the
only homer of Pete Milne's career...but what a wallop!
Some
random thoughts and then a tour of the majors:
*The
curse of the home run derby continues!
In case you didn't notice, Todd
Frazier, who won this year's
All Star Game Home Run Derby, is hitting .194 since the game, with 4
homers. He hit 25 homers pre-All Star Game. His opponent in the
finals, Joc Peterson
of the Dodgeheads, is hitting .165 with 3 dingers after hitting 20
before the contest. Mattingly
is batting him eighth now.(They still have a third of the season to
go, so maybe they can right the ship.)
This continues a trend of
competitors in all the rounds of the derby tending to somehow mess up
their swings and come crashing down after competing. Remember when
Josh Hamilton hit all those bombs and then collapsed second half?
Well it has happened to so many of the contestants.
My theory? They are hitting
batting practice fastballs, but in regular batting practice hitters
tend to go to all fields and try to hit line drives once in awhile.
In the Derby, they have to start pulling everything and lofting every
ball. After a hundred swings like this over three rounds, they have
regrooved their natural bat-path and are screwed up for months.
Most of the players who just do
one or two rounds are okay...Josh Donaldson
(two rounds) certainly didn't fall off. Pujols
(two rounds) has fallen off significantly. (7 homers in 128 ABs post
All Star/ 26 homers in 325 Abs pre All Star)
My conclusion: the Home Run
Derby hurts future productivity, especially for the finalists.
NL
EAST: Let's start here this
time. Washington has
been saying all season how they are the team to beat...it's a long
season, we're confident etc. etc. What they have been neglecting is
the small details...like winning some ball games.
Washington can't beat good teams
and they can't beat bad teams. Their vaunted starting staff gives up
3 runs, their offense scores 2. The offense gets 5, their staff gives
up 6. They can't even beat the Rockies. They get shut out at Coors
Field! Yeah, I know, they've had injuries. But so have the Cardinals
and they win anyway.
Harper has been the Nats
only real threat all season and opponents are pitching around him.
Getting up in a few umpires faces and slandering them to the media
has really done him a lot of good. Umps just loved being cursed at by
22 year olds who've been reading their own press clippings and say
things like (loosely quoted) “the fans don't pay to see the umps
call balls and strikes...” It's become obvious that they love
expanding the zone for him and are almost baiting him to complain so
they can throw him out.
So, Bryce, how's your approach to
the men in blue working out for you? Granted, it seems like it should
be your God-given right to have all the close pitches go your way
since you are so wonderful and awesome and everything.
Harper's
pre-All Star stats: 26 homers/.339/61 ribbies.
Harper
post-All Star: 5/.307/13
ribbies.
Leading the division? The
precious Metsi-poos.
They did the right thing in acquiring closer Clippard.
But like I said before, RIGHT-HANDED HITTERS CAN'T HIT HOMERS IN
CITIFIELD. They should have gone for Carlos Gonzalez
of the Rockies instead of Cespedes.
The Mets are 15 in average, 14 in
OB %, 13 in slugging, 15 in steals.
It's a testament to their
terrific starting staff that the Mets are in first place...but mainly
it's a testament to the wretched weakness of the Eastern Division.
The Mets can't beat anybody from the Central. But the New York fans
are swooning, like they always do whenever the Mets wake from the
dead every twenty years or so. I've heard three different “Go Mets”
type songs played on MLB radio this week alone.
They're just so lovable makes me
want to puke. Look at that sweet little infielder crying because he
thinks he got traded away from his warm, fuzzy friends! I almost hope
they win so the Cardinals can eviscerate them in the Playoffs.
Never thought I'd miss the famous
mid-80's underachieving coke-snorting Mets of Strawberry,
Hernandez, Dykstra and
Gooden.
Marlins:
When is Stanton gonna
play a whole season? Every body in the league pitches him inside and
he's going to get hurt again and again. He should armor up like
Biggio used to. Get one of those wacky hand protectors like Bagwell
had.
NL
CENTRAL: St. Louis.
Is this the year, Cardinals?
Maybe if the Giants don't make the playoffs. The Cards can beat
anybody else. They seem to have even more serious injuries than usual
this year, but they just plug in another phenom from the minors who
carries them until he
goes down, then bring up another. What a farm they have!
The Cubs
on a winning streak are almost as obnoxious as the Mets. I like the
team, I like the players they have now. I just can't stand the
rapture. Cub fans are so eternally optimistic and positive when the
Cubs lose. When they win the fans go absolutely ape-shit. All good.
But then watch when something
goes wrong...like Bartman
catching a foul ball. The Cub fans rip off their masks and you see
the Beast emerge. They can make the Phillies fans and the Red Sox
fans look tolerant. Still, I must admit, Madden
was the right choice for manager. He's got those young people working
together. Even Starlin Castro
has taken being platooned (at second base instead of his shortstop
position!) in a fairly team-first manner. I love Rizzo
and Bryant. The other
young people are delivering. They need one more good starter to help
Arrietta and Lester
and one veteran bat to be a bell-cow for the kids. A father figure
like Pops Stargell
was for the Pirates in '79.
As for the Pirates, gee
it's hard not to root for this team. Great team spirit...several
clutch hitters. Bulldog pitching from Cole. Slightly undermanned but
maybe just enough to get into the wild card...where they might win if
they can avoid Bumgarner
and the Giants. I think they are probably thinking of throwing some
games to the Cubs down the stretch if they can, just to keep the
Giants out of the playoffs.
Like I said last time, they need
to do it this year. The clock is ticking on their free agents and
aging pitching staff. And McCutcheon
can't avoid injuries forever the way the league tattoos him with
fastballs for every perceived slight by the “pitch-'em-inside”
Pirate pitchers.
NL
WEST: The Dodgers
are still sleep-walking through the season. Now that Joc Peterson is
slumping, Gonzalez is
their only consistent offensive threat. They've got Turner
batting cleanup and Turner ain't a clean up hitter. Puig
is off the charts inconsistent. And they think Chase Utley
(he of the sub .200 average almost all of this season) is the answer?
Hope so, Dodgers.
They jacked their payroll up to
300 million and still somehow avoided getting a good third starter to
back Kershaw and
Greinke. That's going
to hurt them in the playoffs.
That is, if they even make the
playoffs. What, I hear you say? Not make the playoffs? The sacred
Dodgers? What have you been smoking, Swami?
The Giants are coming up on a
stretch where they have 13 straight games against first division
opponents. Then they go 25-4 favoring second division foes. They play
the Dodgers 7 times and they always beat the Dodgers.
L.A. is pretty even between good
teams and dogs to finish the season. You could see a patented Giants
end-of-season surge. The Dodgers better beat up on the weak sisters
while they can.
Of course the Giants
saw Hunter Pence get
injured yet again. Whenever he is in the lineup they win. That
simple. They say two more weeks without him. They need to go .500 in
this next stretch of tough opponents. Somebody has to step up so
Bumgarner is not the only pitcher capable of winning a game.
Arizona:
Watch out for the Diamondbacks next year. Goldschmidt
is MVP. Pollock is
great support. A couple of good pitchers away.
San
Diego: After the dismal failure
of this year, trying to buy a good team, the Padres will probably
dismantle and start over. They need to remodel Petco park to make it
more inviting for offensive players. Either that or go to a
speed/defense/pitching team like the Royals.
Rockies:
Where do they go from here?
God knows.
AL EAST: The Yankees
played their best game of the year when they came up to Toronto
and shocked the Jays out of their 11 game winning streak with a
dagger-home run from Carlos Beltran
off of Price (the
newly anointed Ace starter they've needed for so long). Then they won
again the next day to put order back into the universe. Toronto still
hasn't recovered their swagger.
Beltran...I predicted he'd be
hurt all year, and of course I was right. But when he's in there, he
sure has a knack for delivering in the clutch.
So does A-Rod.
You see he passed Gehrig
on the all-time list of grand slams? (Gehrig...that poor scrub. What
did he ever do but play in every damn game for almost his whole
career and bat .340/.447OB/.632SA lifetime? And set an example of
humility and gratitude for being able to play the game until disease
struck him down so young?)
The Yankee fans swoon over A-Rod
like he's the golden steroid calf. I'm surprised they didn't go down
on the field and carry him around on their shoulders like worshippers
of Baal when he got his 3000th
hit.
Yes, A-Rod hits well for
plus-forty. But he can't field and he can't run and he can't make
some of us forget that he's a charter member of the LCB Club. He
probably doped for his whole career. He definitely lied every chance
he got until he couldn't get away with it. I hope he revels in his
lifetime stats. They don't mean shit to me.
(By the way, LCB stands for
“Lying Cheating Bastard”).
Toronto:
Donaldson may have
caught up with Trout
as MVP. (Of course, Trout hurt his wrist and is playing through it.
Hard on a hitter.) But The Donald comes through for the Jays a whole
lot. The Jays problem is not enough pitching to hold teams back.
Either the starters give up too many runs or the bullpen does. You
can't score 8 runs every game, Toronto.
They had that one exciting
stretch winning eleven in a row...probably a giddy reaction to having
finally gone out and gotten a starter in Price. Plus trading for
Tulowitzski to be
their...leadoff hitter? Tulo is inspiring all right...batting .217 so
far in the American League.
Toronto will probably make the
playoffs because all of the other contending teams have major flaws
as well. Just don't expect too much.
Baltimore:
...is still in the playoff hunt. They've been mediocre all year but
somehow are over .500. As a team they strike out over 3 times for
every walk. Adam Jones has
only 21 walks. That's pretty damn low for a power hitter. He has 70
K's. J.J.Hardy:
14/68. Ryan Flaherty:
17/61. Chris Davis:
55/155. Jimmy Paredes
has 17 walks against 100 strike outs. The home run bats of Jones,
Davis and
Machado (who, at 48/80 is their
only big hitter with a decent BB to K rate) are carrying them. The
Orioles are in Astro territory when it comes to air
conditioning-by-bat.
Their pitching is way worse than
last year. Tillman
looked like an Ace-to-be last year and has really regressed. (ERA
4.54)
So why should you care? Because
they won last year and I put them first in the East for this year.
You don't want your Swami to look like a brainless jerk, do you?
Tampa
Bay: Pity the Rays. Please,
MLB, get them out of that horrible ballpark. Actually, get rid of
both Florida teams and return that state to Spring Training games
only.
There
are good cities out there who will support a baseball team. San
Antonio, are you listening?
Red
Sox: So they canned the GM
Cherington and went
out and got the Big DD...Dave Dombrowski.
Dombrowski will trade all their prospects for established
stars...something that Cherington just didn't have the heart to do.
Of course, a lot of those Red Sox prospects turn out to be
duds...especially like almost all of their young pitchers.
They
could have won this division with Lester and
Lackey starting instead of
Porcello, Masterson and
Kelly. Boy, was that a misread
from Cherington. And how did the bullpen go to hell so quick? Is
Craig Breslow the
only left-handed pitcher who can go out and lose a game for you?
Early in the season the offense
was dead and that, plus execrable starting pitching and bullpen
work...with just a dash of miserable defense (especially from Hanley
and Panda) just
buried them. Now the offense is hitting over .300 since the break.
Too late Sox!
Actually, Dombrowski had a huge
blindspot in Detroit with the bullpen. He doesn't seem to think it's
a necessary part of a winning team. The Sox need a total makeover in
that department. They should also ditch Bucholz,
Porcello, Kelly, and everybody in the bullpen except Uehara
and Tazawa.
But they are fools if they don't
keep Bogaerts, Betts and
Swihart.
AL
CENTRAL: I've talked a lot
about Kansas City,
who have showed the small markets of baseball how to build a winner.
(At least for a couple of years until the Free Agent trap gets sprung
on them and they have to sell their stars cheap.)
There's not much of race left in
the Central since Minnesota
has subsided, Detroit
sold their free agents and gave up on trying to win with an aging
team, and Chicago and
Cleveland both
failing to make a dent after all their off-season maneuvers.
They tell me that Cleveland has a
great starting staff: Really? Great enough to go 49-58 so far and
hold down last place?
I think the whole division will
become irrelevant next year. KC will lose Cueto
and a few other free agents and have to retool. (They also have about
8 key guys on 1 year contracts and certainly can't resign all of
them.)
Detroit won't have a pitching
staff (Dombrowski got out just in time).
Chicago and Cleveland will still
be flailing around wondering why they can't beat anybody and
Minnesota will stop drinking Paul Molitor's
happy juice and remember they are a second division club.
But guess what? I think the
Royals will win it all this year.
AL
WEST: How bad is this division?
Bad enough to make the Astros
look like world beaters even if they CAN'T WIN A GAME AWAY FROM HOME!
JESUS, THEY STRUCK OUT 17 TIMES
THE OTHER NIGHT...AND WON! That's your pace setter right there.
The Angels
are an old wooden building that is still standing even though
termites have eaten through the floor joists. They are held together
by three stout wooden pillars named Trout, Pujols and Calhoun.
(I guess they have a couple of pitchers...Street
in the bullpen, starter Richards
occasionally but not much lately)
The Rangers
are still contending for God's sake! Their team batting is mediocre
(.255/.318/.407) and their pitching is even worse. They get injured
like bull riders. And yet they contend for the wild card.
I tell ya, gentle readers....the
whole AL is weak this year! Except for KC...
Seattle
and Oakland: Pass.
Let me leave you with a funny
story. Mickey Mantle used to love to tell this story on himself,
which goes a long way toward explaining why he was such a popular guy
and teammate.
Mickey was in a terrible
slump. He struck out over and over and couldn't buy a hit. It all
came to a head one day at the Stadium when he struck out 3 times with
men on base and after the last K, flung his bat high in the air in
frustration.
The umpire, of course, threw
him out of the game.
Boos rained down from the
crowd on Mickey as he stalked off to the empty locker room where he
ripped his shirt off and sat mournfully on a bench.
The locker room towel boy for
the Yankees at that time was Yogi Berra's little eight year old son,
Dale. Well Dale comes over to Mickey and puts his hand gently on the
big guy's shoulder. Mickey turns to him with gratitude, expecting
some gentle words of encouragement from a hero-worshipping,
pure-hearted true believer.
Dale Berra just looks him in
the eye and says: “You stink.”
Until next time...May your
baseball days be full...and drain the cup to the Dregs!
