Category Archives: ‘Weekly’ Hit Ground Ball

Matt Smith’s Monday morning column, looking back at the previous week in MLB and looking ahead to the ‘early’ games scheduled for the week ahead

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Making a choice

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WHGB11We normally have to wait until later in July before the trade deadline begins to loom large and teams are prepared to pull the trigger on a trade that could make the difference between making the playoffs and waiting for another year.

The Oakland A’s are not afraid to buck the trend and they did just that on Friday evening in a blockbuster trade with the Chicago Cubs.

I was completely out of the baseball-loop at the time so it was only when I woke on Saturday morning and checked my Inbox that I first heard any news. It came via fellow BGB writer Mark George:

“Oakland may be ready to deal for a Cub SP (according to FOX) @MattBaseballGB – Samardzija or Hammel?”

Hmm, I thought, that would be interesting move depending on who we (‘we’ declaring my A’s allegiance) give up in return. Just as I was about to head to MLBTradeRumors to catch up on the latest gossip, I realised there was another message from Mark …

“Ah, wait @MattBaseballGB, looks like you may have traded for both!”

I couldn’t get to MLBTradeRumors quickly enough to confirm the news that, yes, the A’s had added not one but two starting pitchers to their roster.

My first reaction focused on the other side of the trade, most notably the name ‘Addison Russell’. Russell was the A’s top prospect, a talented shortstop who had been drafted in the first round of the 2012 amateur draft. Oakland have not had much luck in bringing through position players in recent years, made all the more stark by the strong careers of Andre Ethier and Carlos Gonzalez who had been traded away. The trend continued over the winter when Michael Choice, a much-touted outfielder in the A’s farm system, was traded to the Texas Rangers.

Addison Russell represented an enticing change, a position player at last that A’s fans could get excited about. The news that he was now headed to the prospect-laden Cubs was therefore a bit of a kick to the gut, added to by the knowledge that Oakland’s first round selection from 2013, Billy McKinney, was part of the deal too.

As Russell moves through the Cubs’ farm system and ultimately makes his Major League debut later this season or next, it will be difficult not to cast an envious eye in Chicago’s direction and think about ‘what could have been’.

And yet once the initial emotional reaction had moved to quiet contemplation, the trade could only fill me with excitement.

After two division titles in a row, both leading to devastating playoff defeats in close series against the Detroit Tigers, the A’s are going for it. It’s not quite ‘World Series or bust’, but it’s somewhere close to it.

Quality young players are very valuable to a team so it is always a risk to give up a talented prospect like Russell; however for the A’s Front Office it is all about the team, seeing an opportunity to have some success and increasing the odds of making that happen.

Russell may well develop into a good player, yet there’s no guarantee the next four or five years of his career would have played out on a contender in Oakland. Whilst fantasy owners or baseball analysts could look at his performance on an individual basis if that occurred, for the A’s it would very much be a case of an opportunity missed. Of course it would be fun to watch him playing well, but if he wasn’t doing it whilst the team was competitive then it wouldn’t add up to quite so much.

Despite being reigning two-time AL West champs, they once again came into the season with many expecting the big bucks of the LA Angels and Texas Rangers to take away their crown. The current A’s are a wonderful example of getting the most out of every player, from batting platoons to infield shifts, and – accepting that I’m biased in this case – that makes them an easy team to get behind.

Still, if a few players move on and a few more injuries come the A’s way – it’s doubtful the team would have made this move had Jarrod Parker and A.J. Griffin not been lost for the season before it had even started – then it’s quite possible that they could slip back into the pack once more for a few years.

The A’s had a choice of keeping Russell, hoping he would live up to expectations and that he could do so on a winning team, or adding two good, experienced Major League pitchers to a team that currently has the best record in MLB and should have a real chance to get back to the playoffs once again.

History will be the ultimate judge. For now, it looks to me like a slight gamble that is well worth taking.

Although if Samardzija walks off the mound shaking his arm in discomfort during his A’s debut this evening, I’ll reserve the right to be a fickle fan and to state that I always thought it was a bad idea.

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: All-Star selections

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WHGB11The online 2014 MLB All-Star ballot is open until 23.59 Eastern Time on Thursday (just before 5 a.m. on Friday for us in the UK).

This year’s Mid-Summer classic is being held at Target Field in Minnesota. My ballot is explained below and we’ll see how close to the target it is compared to all the other voters when the rosters are announced next weekend.

American League

Catcher – Salvador Perez (Kansas City)

There isn’t an outstanding option on the ballot this year now that Minnesota’s hometown hero Joe Mauer has moved out from behind the plate (it would have been difficult not to vote for him to start at Target Field). Perez is a very underated player as he provides a lot of value defensively whilst also putting up decent numbers with the bat. Brian McCann was the pre-season favourite for this spot, but his slow start to life as a New York Yankee means his previous performances don’t quite justify him getting the chance this year.

First base – Miguel Cabrera (Detroit)

Only a length injury would have prevented this selection as soon as it was confirmed that Cabrera would move across the diamond from third base for the Tigers this season. He’s the best hitter of his generation and he’s putting together a strong case to be put in the group of the best of all-time. Jose Abreu gets an honourable mention for his seamless start to life in the U.S. after his switch from Cuba over the offseason.

Second base – Brian Dozier (Minnesota)

Put his strong start to the season alongside his position as an All-Star hometown player and Dozier deserves to enjoy some national limelight for the first time. Ian Kinsler presents a strong candidacy too whilst the previous exploits of Robinson Cano and Dustin Pedroia will ensure they get plenty of votes too. Houston’s Jose Altuve should have his name mentioned in the running as well.

Shortstop – Derek Jeter (New York Yankees)

Unashamedly a sentimental selection; if any one player has been ‘the face of MLB’ over the past 15 years or so it has been the Yankees’ captain and as there isn’t another overwhelming candidate based on performances so far this season, voting him onto the All-Star team again in his final season is an easy choice to make.

Third base – Josh Donaldson (Oakland)

The A’s deserve to have at least one starter on the AL’s roster and there’s no better candidate than Donaldson. He’s been an excellent player with the bat and the glove for a couple of years now and an All-Star start would be fully deserved, especially as he has the misfortune of competing for the MVP award with Cabrera and Mike Trout.

Outfielders – Mike Trout (LA Angels), Jose Bautista (Toronto), Yoenis Cespedes (Oakland)

Trout and Bautista are hard to argue with based on 2014 so far and previous performances, making the third outfield slot the tricky choice. Cespedes is a slightly biased A’s fan selection but last year’s Home Run Derby champ would be a good bet to do something spectacular again, whether at the plate of by showing off his outstanding throwing skills. Alex Gordon and Adam Jones would both be good shouts for Cespedes’ slot, with Nelson Cruz being an interesting test of how All-Star voters few the candidacy of a player who has very recently sat through a drugs ban.

Designated Hitter – Victor Martinez (Detroit)

I’m not a fan of voting for a DH; however it’s on the ballot so I’ll add to the lineup the other half of the Tigers’ devastating duo. It was understandable that Martinez started slowly in 2013 after missing the entire 2012 season, so those looking to write him off were extremely premature. So it has proved: he found his feet as the season went on and has got even better this year.

Starting pitcher – Felix Hernandez (Seattle)

Pitchers aren’t on the voting ballot, but if I could vote for one then I’d give the ball to King Felix. There are other candidates who I wouldn’t strongly argue against, not least Masahiro Tanaka, but I love watch Hernandez pitch and he is once again putting together an outstanding season to little national fanfare.

National League

Catcher – Jonathan Lucroy (Milwaukee)

A bit like Perez in the AL, Lucroy isn’t a star name yet but he certainly deserves to get much more attention and what better way to start than beating out popular and talented candidates in Yadier Molina and Buster Posey to become the NL’s starting catcher. The Brewers have the best record in the league and Lucroy’s contribution to that – on both sides of the ball – should not be underestimated.

First base – Paul Goldschmidt (Arizona)

The D-Backs’ first baseman has continued to put up excellent numbers despite all those around him struggling through the first half of the season. The Cubs’ Anthony Rizzo has arguably had the best 2014 so far of any first basemen on the senior circuit and he could well grab the position in 2015. For now, I’ll give Goldschmidt the edge based on his outstanding 2013 campaign.

Second base – Dee Gordon (LA Dodgers)

There are a few candidates for this position, ranging from the surprising rise of Milwaukee’s Scooter Gennett and the welcome return to form of Chase Utley. Gordon edges it based on his success on the bases and the way in which he’s kept working on his game after bouncing down to the Minors as a shortstop and getting his young career back on track at second base.

Shortstop – Troy Tulowitzki (Colorado)

One of the easiest selections across the two teams. It’s the usual story with Tulo: if he stays injury-free then you know he’s going to perform as one of the very best all-round players in the Majors. The Cubs’ Starlin Castro deserves an honourable mention for – hopefully – turning a corner this year and finally starting to convert his talent into consistent production.

Third base – Anthony Rendon (Washington)

The hot corner selection is very close between Rendon and Cincinnati’s Todd Frazier. The latter slightly has the advantage across most of the hitting stats, yet I see Rendon as the slightly better player overall (i.e. adding in his fielding) and he’s also had to cope with being shifted around during his blossoming Major League career, something that now seems to be a thing of the past with him rightfully taking third base duties away from Ryan Zimmerman in Washington. It’s a bit of a coin-flip, but I’ve ended up going for the younger player.

Outfielders – Andrew McCutchen (Pittsburgh), Yasiel Puig (LA Dodgers), Giancarlo Stanton (Miami)

This is a case of having four players I wanted to vote for and only three spots to fill. In the end, I couldn’t look past the reigning MVP winner in McCutchen, the thrilling talent of Puig and the staggering raw power of Stanton, leaving Milwaukee’s Carlos Gomez as the unfortunate odd-man-out.

Starting pitcher – Clayton Kershaw (LA Dodgers)

There can be only one: the best starting pitcher in MLB today.

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Gwynn, Kershaw and more

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WHGB11There was very sad news to start the week with Hall-of-Famer Tony Gwynn passing away at the age of 54.

Gwynn was one of those players that everyone liked, regardless of which team they supported. He was a brilliant hitter, had an infectiously cheerful character and was a one-team man for his entire career.

It’s rare in most sports now for a player to stay with a single club, especially when they are not playing for one of the big-name teams.

Players are shown little loyalty if a team decides to move them on, so we shouldn’t let emotion cloud our thoughts when a player does decide to move onto a club that can offer more chance of success and more financial security for their family. Whilst it may not seem like ‘real work’, it is a career for these men and they have every right to make a career-minded decision.

However, it always makes for a nice story if a player does decide to stay where he is. Gwynn and his family were happy in San Diego so any offers from other teams were put to one side. He weighed up what was most important to him and his family and did what he thought was right for them.

The 1998 World Series was the first one I saw and I vividly remember that, even though the New York Yankees swept their way to the title, there was a real sense of joy that Gwynn had finally gotten the chance to play in the Fall Classic. Typically, even though his Padres couldn’t get the better of a formidable Yankee team, Gwynn went 8-for-16 at the plate. He knew it might be the only chance he’d get at playing in a World Series and he didn’t let that chance pass him by.

It’s a great shame that such an intelligent hitter and generous person, who had already done so much in helping the next generation in his role as baseball coach at San Diego State, wasn’t given the chance to share even more of that wisdom and warm spirit.

Kershaw close to perfect

More cheerful news arrived on Wednesday night in the form of a glorious no-hitter by the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw.

This wasn’t a no-no built on near misses and a handful of walks; Kershaw’s effort was absolutely masterful and it was only an errant throw by shortstop Hanley Ramirez – who has seemed to take a step back defensively this year after showing improvement last season – that allowed a single Colorado Rockies hitter to reach base on the throwing error.

If we wanted to classify it, perhaps we could say it was a ‘resume’ no-hitter.

For some pitchers, a no-hitter is the ultimate moment in their career, one game in which skill and a dash of luck come together and take a solid Major Leaguer into the headlines. When you think of a Phillip Humber or a Dallas Braden, it’s their one great day that always comes to mind and the slight unlikeliness of their feat makes it seem all the more enjoyable.

For a pitcher like Kershaw, it’s yet another thing to add to his list of great accomplishments. He is unarguably one of the very best starting pitchers around and if you wanted to single him out as the best of the best currently you’d get no arguments from me. The word that instantly springs to mind when you watch him at times is ‘unhittable’; you wonder in amazement how anyone could ever manage to square a ball up against him.

So there’s no real surprise when a seemingly unhittable pitcher puts together nine innings when he is exactly that. The lack of surprise doesn’t make it any less thrilling when it unfolds though, especially with the legendary Vin Scully on hand to call the action.

Brad Mills for a dollar

It is still obligatory for MLB commentators to refer to Moneyball when covering the Oakland A’s, even though it’s now 11 years since Michael Lewis’ book of that name was first published. The 2011 film version starring Brad Pitt naturally brought it into the spotlight again, but still it’s a bit of a tired platitude.

The Oakland A’s under General Manager Billy Beane look to put together the best team they can with the limited budget they’ve got and, beyond that simple premise, they are not necessarily wedded to the specific ideas espoused in the book (such as stealing bases being an overly risky strategy).

Moneyball ultimately can be summed up as one repeated motto: “how can we make the most out of every single dollar we spend”.

You don’t tend to get much for a pound these days and I’m sure the same applies to a dollar, yet the A’s excelled themselves this past week by acquiring a new pitcher for that princely sum.

Brad Mills had the dubious honour of moving from the Milwaukee Brewers to the A’s for ‘cash considerations’ that amounted to a token gesture of 1 dollar. Whilst a precious personality may take offence at being ‘valued’ so lowly, in this case Mills is wise enough to know that the move gives him an opportunity to play, which is all any Minor Leaguer asks for.

He didn’t feature prominently in the Brewers’ plans and the A’s needed to add a pitcher cheaply following Drew Pomeranz’s unwise decision to punch a chair (injuring his hand in the process), so this was the quickest way to get him to a new team.

Mills’ debut start came against the Boston Red Sox on Friday night and he lasted only four innings whilst giving up three runs, but even if that’s his only contribution then the A’s can say they’ve more than had their money’s worth.

Royals return

The A’s hold the best win-loss record in the Majors currently and whilst they are doing a terrific job, it is fair to say that so far this season has been characterised by there being no truly exceptional teams.

You could argue, as Tom Verducci has recently, that the parity MLB is keen on has created a landscape of mediocre teams with every much of a muchness. There is some truth to that, although that doesn’t necessarily mean the season is any less exciting. Having teams bunched together keeps lots of them in the running and a good winning streak can really turn their fortunes around.

No team epitomises that better than the Kansas City Royals. On 1 June they were bottom of the AL Central, seven games behind the Detroit Tigers and with manager Ned Yost and General Manager Dayton Moore being castigated by all and sundry.

A 10-game winning streak, ended this past Thursday, rocketed them up to the top of the division, past the much-fancied Tigers. Even though Detroit seem most likely to win out in the end, the recent run has at least giving the Royals fans something to cheer about of late.

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Catching Up

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WHGB11There are lots of different sporting events competing for our attention at the moment, from the World Cup to the grass-court tennis season and the summer cricket test series.

MLB adds brilliantly to the mix, but it can be more difficult at busy parts of the year to keep on top of the daily thrills and spills.

MLB.com provides lots of great video content for free to help you along the way. There are the ‘Must C’ clips showing the most exciting or bizarre moments, the game recaps giving you 3 minutes or so of highlights from any game as well as the ‘Condensed Game’ version that distills all of the innings down into a package lasting 10-15 minutes.

The latter two are especially helpful for catching up on your chosen team, yet if you want a good overview of all the day’s play across the Majors then the MLB.com Fastcast is the way to go. They are a useful daily recap and can also help you to catch up if you’ve missed anything over a few days. Take the last six days as an example. (Note that MLB.com doesn’t allow you to embed the FastCast video from the last couple of days, so click the links for those until they do become available).

Monday 9 June

The Cleveland Indians’ Lonnie Chisenhall was the star of the show on Monday, going 5-for-5 at the plate against the Texas Rangers with three home runs and nine RBI. The third baseman has had an impressive start to the season and whilst he’s unlikely to keep up his current batting performance (.377 batting average, .428 on-base percentage and .594 slugging percentage) for the entire season, he does appear to have settled into life as a Big Leaguer.

Chisenhall is 25 years old and is a good example of how it came take time for a talented prospect to find their feet in the Major Leagues. He bounced down to Triple-A and back several times over the previous three seasons following his MLB debut in 2011 as a 22-year-old.

It’s understandable that we’re dazzled by the likes of Mike Trout who come in and excel quickly, yet we shouldn’t forget that the reason we are in awe of such cases is that they are the exception. We get spoiled by the quality of play in MLB at times and it’s easy to forget that mere ‘average’ Major Leaguers are very talented players on any normal scale. Chisenhall is the latest in a long, long line of talented young players who has found out how competitive it is in MLB and to his credit it appears that he’s kept working hard, learned from the knocks and now is reaping the rewards.

Tuesday 10 June

With Chisenhall’s cautionary tale in mind, what should we make of the hype surrounding the Pittsburgh Pirates’ Gregory Polanco? He made his much-anticipated Major League debut on Tuesday and made an impression from the off by getting his first Big League hit.

Polanco’s promotion was slightly controversial as he has been held back by the Pirates to delay his service-time clock. When a team brings through a player they have him under contract for six MLB seasons. Normally the first three of those are at much reduced ‘MLB minimum’ salaries before the player becomes eligible for salary arbitration in years four to six; however the best young players, such as Polanco, can potentially gain ‘Super Two’ status and be arbitration eligible in year three.

By delaying the call-up until this point, Polanco cannot accumulate enough service time to gain ‘Super Two’ status, thereby giving the Pirates the full three years of salary control. It’s a cynical stance that simply makes business sense and hopefully when the next Collective Bargaining Agreement comes along it’s something that can be adjusted.

Wednesday 11 June

Wednesday’s action was dominated by the outstanding pitching of Yu Darvish and Masahiro Tanaka.

The disappointing return the Boston Red Sox received from their $103m investment in Daisuke Matsuzaka brought into question whether star-level pitchers in Japan could have similar levels of success in North America. Darvish and Tanaka have put those generic doubts to one side and demonstrated that Japanese pitchers can successfully adjust to the different baseball routines and culture they encounter when the make the move (Seattle’s Hisashi Iwakuma can be added to the argument too, even though he was picked up for a much smaller financial commitment).

Tanaka picked up his 10th pitching win of the season on Wednesday and his apparently seamless transition to New York is all-the-more impressive considering how much pressure there has been on him to perform based on the struggles much of the rest of the Yankees’ rotation have been through. Even though they gave Tanaka a seven-year, $155m contract (and his Japanese team, Rakuten Golden Eagles, the $20m posting fee) it was asking a lot to expect him to be an ace in Year One, yet that’s exactly what he’s been so far.

Thursday 12 June

The pitching theme continued on Thursday with the Detroit Tigers’ Max Scherzer pitching his first career complete game, the only surprising part of which was that he hadn’t achieved the feat already.

You could add him to the MLB maturity theme referenced above with Chisenhall. Scherzer always had the talent and the pitching weapons, it just took him several years of competing in the Majors before he started to put everything together as he gained more experience.

The reigning Cy Young winner has shown impeccable timing with the way he has developed into one of the best pitchers in the game over the past couple of years just as he heads onto the free agent market at the end of this season. Scherzer turned down a reported seven-year, $144m contract offer from the Tigers prior to this season and Sports Illustrated quoted him recently in revealing that he has taken out an insurance policy just in case an injury comes along and scuppers his chance of receiving even more lucrative offers when he becomes a free agent.

Friday 13 June

Gregory Polanco stole the headlines again on Friday as he hit his first MLB home run in a five-for-seven night at the plate against the Marlins. Miami’s Giancarlo Stanton went three-for-five and also hit a longball, his 18th of the season, in a game that perfectly illustrated how two of the lower-revenue teams in the Majors are able to draft and develop exciting young players.

The New York Mets provide an interesting contrast. They are being run as a lower-revenue team despite being in one of the biggest markets in North America (and in the world). Poor performances on the field alongside losing established players through free agency and trades in recent years has allowed them to accrue a good collection of young talent that is gradually making its way through the Minor Leagues, and yet on Friday night fans at Citi Field saw their team win largely on the back of two roly-poly retreads in their forties, Bartolo Colon and Bobby Abreu.

Saturday 14 June

Saturday’s lead story came at Citizens Bank Park where Jimmy Rollins became the all-time leader in hits for the Philadelphia Phillies with 2,235, passing Hall-of-Famer Mike Schmidt.

It was a great moment for Rollins to enjoy in front of his home crowd, especially with Schmidt on hand to celebrate with the shortstop. Unfortunately for Phillies fans, it’s the only thing they’ve had to celebrate of late and talk is already turning to which players may be shopped before the trade deadline at the end of July despite the team being only 5.5 games behind the NL East-leading Atlanta Braves.

 

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Streaking teams

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WHGB11Playoff places can be determined by slim margins in MLB and that’s always something to keep in mind when looking at each team’s marathon 162 regular season game schedule.

One thing British sports fans have to adjust to when coming to baseball is that in an MLB season individual wins and losses aren’t celebrated or bemoaned with much emotion until we get into the final couple of weeks of September.

A great come-from-behind win or a depressing late loss certainly creates strong feelings when the final out or walk-off-run occurs, yet the next game comes along so quickly – normally the very next day – that it can, in and for the players must, be quickly forgotten.

However, winning or losing streaks are a bit different. Every streak will come to an end but it’s length can be important as the season moves on.

Whether there is a significant impact on a team of professional players from a few wins or losses is up for debate. Every day is a new day on which the worst team can, and sometimes does, beat the best, so whilst we may make assumptions that five previous consecutive losses played a part in the sixth defeat, that may just be a narrative we’re applying to a series of coincidences.

Whatever the reason for them, long streaks do have an impact because they either put wins on the board that can put future losses into perspective, or they can put you in a hole in which the hard work of several wins is clouded by the fact that the victories are only helping you to make up ground you had already lost.

The Boston Red Sox’s last sixteen games are a great case in point.

A 9-4 victory over the Minnesota Twins on Wednesday 14 May took them one game above .500 (20-19) and moved them to within half a game of the AL East division-leading Baltimore Orioles. When the Red Sox came off the field last Sunday after an 8-5 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays things were very different. Ten consecutive losses had plunged them to the bottom of the division with a 20-29 record and an eight game deficit to the revitalised Toronto Blue Jays (more on them in a moment).

The impact in the standings wasn’t the main issue. Boston still had 113 regular season games to play after that tenth defeat so there was, and still is, a lot of time to make up lost ground. What hurt the Red Sox was that they had put themselves into a position where they needed to put a series of wins on the board just to get back to where they were (one game above .500).

The reigning World Series-champs are a good way along the process of achieving this. Last night’s 7-1 victory over the Rays made it six wins in a row so they’ll go into their Sunday game with a win-loss record of 26-29; however they know they cannot be complacent. A win for Tampa Bay today followed by a 2-1 series defeat in Cleveland during the first half of next week and the benefit of those six victories would still be set within a 27-32 record that is not what they would have been hoping for from their first 59 games before the season began.

It’s an obvious point perhaps, but the aim of every team is to accept you’ll lose your share of games (the Red Sox and St. Louis Cardinals shared the Major League lead for wins last season with 97, so even the best still tasted defeat 65 times) but to keep the losing sequences short so that your winning periods really count.

It also depends on your expectations for the season. The Red Sox’s streakiness is all-the-more frustrating due to their rightful status as a World Series contender heading into the campaign.

For the Houston Astros, their seven-game winning streak this week (ended last night by the Baltimore Orioles) still left them bottom of the pile in the AL West, yet as a rebuilding team they can enjoy the fun of the winning run regardless of the losses that come around it. That’s particularly the case as it was driven by an incredible week from rookie George Springer who homered six times over those seven wins. Springer’s exploits will not lead Houston to a winning season in 2014, but they may well offer a glimpse to a very bright future a couple of seasons down the line.

Whilst the Astros’ recent run isn’t going to change their fortunes in 2014, the Toronto Blue Jays are a different story. They put together a five-game winning streak earlier in May and followed it up with a nine-game streak that came to an end on Thursday. With a few wins and losses in between they put together a Major-League best 21-9 win-loss record for May and launched themselves to the top of the AL East, with Edwin Encarnacion launching 16 home runs in the process.

It may be a bit much to expect the Blue Jays to put together a similar month in June, yet they look like a team that could be turning 2014 into the sort of competitive year that they were supposed to have in 2013. That’s the sort of impact that winning streaks can have.

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Unlucky Yu

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Just a short reflection on the most memorable moment of the past week in MLB.

‘(Un)Lucky Y(o)u’ by the Lightning Seeds

You’ve done it again
The night would soon belong to you
A no-hitter loomed
It seemed this time nothing could stop it coming true

But Yu, it didn’t happen

Ooh-ooh-eee-ooh
Ooh-ooh-eee-ooh-eee-ooh-eee-ooh

No-hitter blues now, unlucky Yu

Unlucky Yu
What more could you do
Except get one more out
Unlucky Yu

….

Coming within a single out of pitching a no-hitter is heartbreaking enough. Doing it twice seems a cruel twist of fate handed down by the baseball gods.

The Texas Rangers’ Yu Darvish could manage a wry smile at David Ortiz’s ground-ball eluding Elvis Andrus with two outs in the eighth inning (it was fitting that the Rangers were playing a defensive shift at the key moment – nothing defines the 2014 season so far quite like teams moving their infielders about).

 

 

It’s tempting to say that it’s inevitable Darvish will get a no-no at some point considering how close he’s come to it on several occasions. He has more than lived up to his ace-type billing since making the move from Japan and he has the ability to dominate teams whenever he’s on top of his game.

Yet perhaps luck will determine that he remains the nearly no-hitter man for the rest of his career.

Nothing is ever certain in baseball, which is exactly why we are so captivated by the sport.

 

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: One week

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WHGB11A week is a long time in politics, so they say, but how long is it in MLB?

There are many different ways that you could look at it. In the context of a 162 game regular season, one week perhaps doesn’t count for too much and therefore shouldn’t overly concern anyone. However, that’s not so easy a position to adopt in the second half of September when one week can define a season.

Similarly, early on in the season teams are often bunched together; therefore a good or bad week can see spirits rise or fall more markedly as the immediate impact of those results is more pronounced.

Take the last seven days as an example.

AL East

26 April 2014

3 May 2014
NY Yankees 14-10 NY Yankees 16-13
Baltimore 12-11 Baltimore 15-13
Boston 12-13 Boston 15-16
Toronto 11-13 Tampa Bay 14-17
Tampa Bay 11-13 Toronto 13-17

 

The AL East fell into a holding pattern over the past week, with the Yankees and Blue Jays both adding two wins to their totals and the Orioles, Red Sox and Rays all adding three. New York and Baltimore are still the only two teams to be playing over .500 and that’s a little surprising as coming into the season the AL East was labelled by many as being the best division in the Majors. That could still prove to be the case if the Red Sox and Rays can overcome their faltering form.

AL Central

26 April 2014

3 May 2014
Detroit 12-9 Detroit 16-9
Minnesota 12-11 Kansas City 14-15
Chicago WS 12-13 Minnesota 13-15
Kansas City 11-12 Chicago WS 14-17
Cleveland 11-13 Cleveland 13-17

 

Detroit came into the season heralded as the class of the Central and they started living up to that title this week by putting some distance between themselves and the rest of the division. The Tigers’ game against Minnesota was postponed last Sunday and they also had two off-days this week as well. Still, they made the games they did play count by winning all four of them.

The Twins, White Sox and Indians all lost four times over the week, allowing the Royals to climb up to second by playing .500, starting with wins against the Orioles (1) and Blue Jays (2) before dropping the final game of their series against Toronto and then losing twice to the Tigers.

AL West

26 April 2014

3 May 2014
Oakland 15-9 Oakland 18-12
Texas 15-9 Texas 16-14
LA Angels 11-12 LA Angels 15-14
Seattle 9-14 Seattle 13-15
Houston 8-17 Houston 10-20

 

The best way to make a quick difference in the standings is to sweep a series against a division rival. That’s exactly what the A’s did over the Rangers this week, hitting back after Texas had swept them in three games the week before. Even one month into the season, the division is taking shape in the way most expected, with the Mariners and Astros loitering at the bottom, the A’s and Rangers battling at the top and the Angels being the team in the middle.

The big question in this division is whether LA can make it a three-way battle for the division title and/or get into the Wild Card mix. Four wins on the week suggest they might, although it depends how you want to see the three wins courtesy of a sweep against Cleveland. Are they ruthlessly picking up wins or playing the role of ‘flat track bullies’?

NL East

26 April 2014

3 May 2014
Atlanta 16-7 Atlanta 17-12
Washington 14-11 Washington 17-13
NY Mets 13-11 NY Mets 15-14
Philadelphia 12-12 Philadelphia 14-14
Miami 11-13 Miami 15-15

 

The best thing that can be said for the Braves this week is that at least they ended it still at the top of the division. It started well enough with a win on Sunday against the Reds to complete a three-game sweep, but three losses in Miami and then two at home against San Francisco have seen their early lead over the Nationals cut drastically.

What jumps out the most is that prior to Sunday’s games, this is the only division in which none of the five teams have a losing record. You wouldn’t have put much money on that heading into the season.

NL Central

26 April 2014

3 May 2014
Milwaukee 18-6 Milwaukee 21-10
St. Louis 13-12 St. Louis 15-16
Cincinnati 11-13 Cincinnati 14-16
Pittsburgh 10-15 Pittsburgh 12-18
Chicago Cubs 7-16 Chicago Cubs 11-17

 

The Brewers entered the week with the best record in MLB and their three-game series in St. Louis was seen as an early test of their potential staying power. They took two of three from the Cardinals, despite playing short-handed with injuries mounting up on their roster, to make it a fairly positive week even though they went 3-4 overall with a loss to the Cubs and a 1-2 record from the first three games of a four-game series against the Reds.

Much as the overall record of the NL East is a surprise, you wouldn’t have thought only one team in the NL Central would be .500 or better on 3 May. The Cardinals and Reds are not too far away so that could change quickly, although the Pirates are giving themselves a lot to do if they are to repeat their feel-good story of 2013.

NL West

26 April 2014

3 May 2014
San Francisco 14-10 San Francisco 19-11
LA Dodgers 14-11 Colorado 19-13
Colorado 13-12 LA Dodgers 18-13
San Diego 11-14 San Diego 13-18
Arizona 8-19 Arizona 11-22

 

Finally in the NL West, take your hat off to the Colorado Rockies who went 6-1 on the week to leap past the Dodgers into second place, building on some good recent form. Since losing two of three against the Giants over 11-13 April, they’ve split a four-game series against the Padres and then taken two from three in series against the Phillies, Dodgers and D-Backs, before starting their current series against the New York Mets with three wins.

Meanwhile the Giants have won eight of their last nine games whilst the dangerous Dodgers swept three games in a bitterly cold Minnesota to keep them close.

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Rules and Confusion

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WHGB11A catch wasn’t necessarily a catch on Thursday, but by Friday it was.

If that sounds a confusing way to start then that about sums up where we are in MLB so far this season. The laws of the land have changed and no one’s on a sure footing with any of it.

The ‘transfer’ rule fiasco was one of the first unintended consequences of baseball adjusting to the game being played with the possibility of instant replay challenges hanging over every act.

Being able to use slow-motion replays to judge if a catch had been made or not was always going to lead to a grey area around plays when the fielder loses their grip on the ball on the ‘transfer’, taking the ball from the glove quickly so that a throw can then be made.

MLB knew this all too well and therefore adjusted the definition of what constituted a catch so that umpires basically had to rule ‘no catch’ if the ball was fumbled in that situation. This change was made to make it easier for umpires as there then was no real grey area once the replay footage kicked in; the laws said it wasn’t a catch and if people didn’t like it then that was their problem.

It was a similar thought-process that went into deciding that ‘neighbourhood’ plays (when an infielder is awarded an out at second-base whilst turning a double-play even if they don’t quite touch the bag) shouldn’t be reviewable under the new instant replay. Subjecting those plays to such scrutiny would have changed the game in a way no player wanted, so they solved this simply by not allowing that type of event to be challenged.

It was a noble intention to take away the area of judgement on transfers, but it’s not always the case that making rules black-and-white leads to a satisfactory outcome. Referees in football may be glad in one sense that they have no choice but to award a penalty and a sending off when a clear goal-scoring opportunity is denied, yet they know better than anyone that most people think this ‘double jeopardy’ outcome is unfair.

So was the case in the opening weeks of this MLB season. Catches in both the outfield and the infield – the latter particularly on the pivot during a double-play attempt – that players, managers, fans and, most probably, umpires would normally see as being a good catch were now being turned down. Something had to give and that’s why MLB acted to implement a change on Friday to take the interpretation back to how it used to be.

It’s to MLB’s credit that they admitted the change had caused issues and quickly reversed course, although it would be welcome if they took that decisive approach more often (more than four years on and the Blue Ribbon panel looking at the Oakland A’s potential relocation to San Jose still hasn’t given any clear steer on the matter, for example).

It’s one of the helpful things about MLB being a largely self-contained competition that they can implement such changes, with the agreement of the respective unions of the players and umpires, rather than being at the mercy of the industrial-scale bureaucracy created by UEFA and FIFA in football.

Rules do need to adapt over time as the games change and it’s important that the rule-makers are sensitive to potential issues when they implement something new or different. Football has a slightly bizarre tendency to bring in changes at the biggest tournaments – the 1998 World Cup ruling on harshly penalizing tackles from behind being a good example – which often can leads to those changes providing the post-match talking points rather than the skill of the players.

We’re seeing the same situation with MLB’s new rules on home plate collisions. Early in the Rangers-A’s game on Wednesday it looked like Alex Rios had scored to make it 2-0 to Texas, only for Oakland’s manager Bob Melvin to challenge the call that he was safe on a close play at the plate.

Upon review the footage showed that the A’s catcher Derek Norris had applied the tag just before Rios got to the plate and the run therefore came off the scoreboard, yet former Major League catcher and current A’s commentator Ray Fosse got more convinced with each replay that Norris probably hadn’t complied with the new plate-blocking rules and that Rios should have been given the run anyway due to the plate being blocked before Norris had the ball.

The truth was that no one, from Fosse to Norris to Rios to the umpires, seemed to know exactly what should be allowable when blocking the plate.  It appears as though runners and catchers are still ending up in that situation in a game far from clear precisely as to how their actions will be interpreted.

And then we return after a two-week break to the sticky matter of pitchers using pine-tar. We’re in a situation there were the rules are clear that a pitcher shouldn’t use pine tar, yet they are doing so and both pitchers and hitters don’t seem to have an issue with it so long as it’s not excessive and is done discretely.

The Yankees’ Michael Pineda could not have been less discrete when putting pine-tar on his neck in a game against the Red Sox this week and even the Yankees agreed that Red Sox manager John Farrell had little choice but to alert the umpires to it. It tells you a lot that as standard an opposing manager – even in the red-hot heat of a Yankees-Red Sox rivalry – wouldn’t want to take such action, presumably as his own pitchers are sometimes breaking the same rule too.

Joe Torre, in his role as MLB executive vice president, has cautioned against the growing idea that the rules should change to allow pitchers to use pine tar and such caution is advisable (there are rules on how much pine tar hitters can apply to their bats, but it would be difficult to draw a line between using enough pine tar simply to get a safe grip of a baseball and actually gaining an unfair advantage), but pressure will grow if those in and around the game don’t feel the current laws are viable and realistic.

Confusion abounds at the moment. The only thing we can be thankful for in the current tangle of rules is that checking if a pitcher is using pine tar is not something that’s reviewable under the instant replay challenge system. So far, at least.

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Precious Porter

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WHGB11Those fabled old ‘unwritten rules’ of baseball frequently come along and cause confusion.

Houston Astros manager Bo Porter’s reaction this week to what he perceived to be a breach of the code by the Oakland A’s Jed Lowrie was one of the more bizarre of recent years.

The A’s had jumped on Astros starter Jarred Cosart for seven runs in the first inning on Friday night and Porter decided to try to stop the bleeding by putting a defensive shift on with Lowrie stepping into the batter’s box.

The A’s infielder saw the shift and attempted to beat it by laying down a bunt. Lowrie was put-out on the play but that wasn’t enough punishment in Porter’s eyes.

When his turn to bat came around again in the third inning, Lowrie had to dodge two pitches coming at him and Porter then came onto the field and started shouting at him at the end of the inning.

Clearly, Porter thought Lowrie was taking liberties by trying to bunt with his team leading 7-0.

There aren’t many greater crimes in baseball – perhaps any sport – than deliberately showing up the opposition, but how the Astros’ manager thought that was what Lowrie was doing here is anyone’s guess.

Firstly, it was still only the opening inning of the game. The Astros aren’t exactly an offensive juggernaut so their chances of coming back and scoring enough runs to win the game weren’t great, but it was hardly insurmountable. Two runs scored in one inning, then another two in the next and they are firmly back in the game, with the A’s starting to feel the pressure of blowing a great starting position.

Had it been 7-0 in the bottom of the eighth inning then Porter’s anger would have been more understandable. A bunt in that situation would be akin to standing near the corner flag doing step-overs when leading 5-0 in a football game, an act likely to provoke opposing fans to scream “take him out” or “put him into the stands” and for one or two players to do their best to act on the advice.

However, had it been the bottom of the eighth, it’s unlikely Porter would have shifted his infield and that was the only reason Lowrie attempted the bunt in the first place. He wasn’t taking the proverbial, he was reacting to the way the Astros had lined up their infield to try to keep the inning going.

It’s always the way with this type of situation; the team leading has every right to keep playing to the best of their ability. They are letting themselves down if they don’t.

To oppose this is to say either a) that the leading team should ease off to let the opposition back into the game, or b) that the team losing should give up and take the loss without putting up a fight. Whilst neither option is getting close to match-fixing, they are starting to stray down the route of one or both teams not doing all they can to win the game and that’s a bigger injustice to the sport than any perceived slight caused by contravening an ‘unwritten rule’.

Baseball’s unwritten rules are similar in essence to the spirit of the game in cricket. At heart, they are about creating a culture in which teams play to win but do so in a fair manner, what you would call the ‘sporting’ way. Maybe some would call such niceties a relic of an amateur age out of place in the billion dollar/pound industries that the sports have become; however, they are an intrinsic part of the charm and character of the games.

The ‘unwritten rules’ are no bad thing, yet sometimes those involved in baseball could do with injecting a bit of common sense into their thought-process before applying them.

Maybe Porter was just trying to gee-up his young team with a show of defiance? If so, you’d like to think there are better ways of doing it than acting like a 5-year-old who has been told to share their toys with their friends.

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Head-first hurts

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WHGB11Josh Hamilton was one of the major question marks hanging over the Los Angeles Angels coming into the 2014 season.

If he could regain his position as a fearsome hitter then the Halos would be one step closer to pushing for playoff contention; if he got lost in a mire of wild swinging again then they’d need to hope someone else could pick up the slack.

As always seems to be the case with Hamilton, things haven’t turned out quite that simply. He had shown encouraging signs at the plate that he was being more selective over his first eight games. The trouble is, he’s not going to be stepping into the batter’s box again for at least six weeks after tearing a ligament in his left thumb whilst sliding head-first into first base.

There’s no doubt that the all-action head-first slide looks good; it gives the impression of a player going all out to try to be safe regardless of any risk to his body. It’s not a smart way to play the game though; the Angels needed Hamilton in their lineup for the next six weeks much more than they needed him to be safe at first in the seventh inning of an early April game.

Sliding into bases does pose an injury risk, whether head-first or with your legs, and, as with any risk, you have to weigh up the rewards for the effort. The Nationals’ Ryan Zimmerman fractured his right thumb diving back into second base on Saturday and he’ll be a loss to Washington, but from second base through to home plate the slide is often your only option to get there quickly whilst avoiding a tag play. You accept the risk that it’s the right way to do it and every now and then a digit can get caught in the wrong place.

That’s not the case at first base. The rules specifically allow you to run through the bag and not be tagged out. It’s the quickest way to get there, as shown in an ESPN Sports Science experiment, and is much the safer way. In a crucial late inning moment when a throw to first base is high it can be worth the gamble to slide, but in any other case it just doesn’t make sense and calling it ‘playing hard’ is to overlook the facts.

Facts that include Josh Hamilton sitting on the sidelines for the next six weeks or so, rather than helping his team to win games that may prove to be the difference between making the playoffs or not.

Injuries

Hamilton and Zimmerman were only two of the players to land on the Disabled List this week.

Much of the Tampa Bay Rays’ recent low-payroll defying success has been built on their young pitching talent and their ability to keep their hurlers relatively healthy.  That made it all the more painful a sight to see Matt Moore clutching his pitching arm elbow after throwing a pitch against the Royals on Monday.

Moore had problems with his elbow last season and was able to come through them. His consultation with Dr James Andrews didn’t provide a definitive prognosis so there remains some hope that he will not be added to the Tommy John surgery list, but the Rays will be looking at their pitching options with the potential that they could be without Moore’s services for the next year or so.

That fate has already been decided for another bright young pitching prospect. The Pirates hoped to add Jameson Taillon to their rotation at some point this season, joining fellow youngster Gerrit Cole as a great duo to build around for years to come. Instead, Taillon will spend the next year rehabbing after undergoing Tommy John surgery on his right elbow this week.

Elbow injuries to pitchers are a common theme, which makes them all the more frustrating as – rightly or wrongly – they seem like something the sport could do more to prevent.  Injuries will always be a part of the game though and we saw that this week when the Chicago White Sox’s outfielder Avisail Garcia landed awkwardly on his left shoulder when attempting a diving catch against the Rockies on Wednesday. Had he landed slightly differently he may have just been winded, instead he suffered a torn labrum in his shoulder and will now miss the rest of the season recovering from surgery.

When is a cheat not a cheat?

Cheat: verb, “act dishonestly or unfairly in order to gain an advantage” (definition as per Oxford Dictionaries)

Cheat is a word that gets bandied about quite a bit, but despite the seemingly straightforward definition, it is a muddled label to apply to someone, based predominantly on subjective opinion.

Take the topical case of Michael Pineda, the New York Yankees’ resurgent pitcher, and the dirty mark on his pitching hand during Thursday’s game against the Boston Red Sox.

Rule 8.02, paragraph 4 of MLB’s Official Rules states that a pitcher shall not “apply a foreign substance of any kind to the ball”. Within the Rules themselves, the only indication of what constitutes a foreign substance is in Rule 3.02, which explains that  “No player shall intentionally discolour or damage the ball by rubbing it with soil, rosin, paraffin, licorice, sand-paper, emery-paper or other foreign substance”.

If, as it appeared, Pineda was putting some pine tar on his pitching hand, and therefore onto the ball, then that would contravene the rules and be an illegal act. The Boston Red Sox TV crew made much of the footage, not surprising perhaps after two of Boston’s pitchers – Clay Buchholz and Jon Lester – were hauled over the coals for the same thing last season. However, after the game players from both teams collectively shrugged their shoulders.

Pineda claimed it was just dirt used to stop the ball from slipping from his grasp and – after seeing Omar Infante get hit in the face by a pitch this week – if a bit of dirt or similar helps to avoid pitches slipping into a batter’s head then you could understand players being relaxed about such ‘cheating’.

Something brewing in Milwaukee

We’ve seen teams get off to hot starts in the past many times, only to quickly fall away. Still, the Milwaukee Brewers were touted as a team that could potentially pull itself up into Wild Card contention this season and their MLB-best 9-2 record to start the year gives fans of the Brew Crew something to shout about again after their disappointing 74-88 season in 2013.