Tag Archives: Kansas City Royals

On to the offseason

Leave a reply

MlbHlSqAfter the 2014 MLB season was brought to a close by the San Francisco Giants enjoying a title-celebrating parade for the third time in five years, attention immediately switches to the offseason and the hopes of players, managers and teams eager to put themselves into a situation where they could be spraying the champagne at this time next year.

Recent history suggests the Giants will take 2015 off to give the other teams a chance and offseason activities could have a strong bearing on which team takes the opportunity before handing the trophy back to San Francisco in 2016.

Scherzer leads the pitching class

This year’s pitching free agent market is topped by Max Scherzer, Jon Lester and James Shields. Scherzer will be the most important domino to fall as, rightly or wrongly, it’s assumed that Lester is most likely to head back to Boston after a brief spell in Oakland, whilst Shields – a very good starting pitcher – doesn’t quite have the elite-level performance of the other two pitchers.

Talks of a contract extension between the Tigers and Scherzer ended prior to the 2014 season with a proposed six-year, $144m deal not being agreeable to one or both parties. From the pitcher’s perspective that’s likely to be the lower end of his expectations now, meaning that whoever wants the dominant right-hander is going to have to make an enormous investment.

Whilst the usual suspects (Dodgers, Tigers, Yankees, Red Sox) will be in the mix, the Mariners’ signing of Robinson Cano last year showed that other teams can emerge ready to spend big to take advantage of an increasingly rare opportunity to sign a premium player.

Hitters hitting free agency

As for position players, the list is led by two Venezuelans (Pablo Sandoval and Victor Martinez) and an infielder from the Dominican Republic (Hanley Ramirez).

There are doubts about Ramirez’s abilities at shortstop, yet his contributions at the plate are there for all to see and he will be in demand by any team wanting to upgrade the left-side of their infield. Sandoval also comes into that equation too. He is understandably a fan favourite in San Francisco and you would expect his offseason to begin with talks on a potential new contract to remain a Giant. If that doesn’t come to fruition then plenty of teams will be quick to act.

As for Martinez, he will be in much demand after an exceptional 2014 season and would be a welcome addition to any lineup, although you would expect him to land with an American League team where he can spend a good proportion of his time as a Designated Hitter.

Trade targets

The starting point with potential trade targets is always players who are currently scheduled to become free agents after the upcoming season. Outfielder Yoenis Cespedes is on that list and, if the rumours are to be believed, he could be on the move again only a few months after being traded from the A’s to the Red Sox.

In contrast, Jason Heyward has known nothing else than playing for Atlanta so far in his Major League career; however his status as one of the few Braves players that hasn’t signed a contract extension in the past 18 months puts his future with the team in question. The Braves will see what offers are on the table for Heyward if they aren’t confident of being able to keep hold of him beyond 2015.

On the pitching side, the key team may be the Cincinnati Reds would had a disappointing 2014 season and will need to assess what their plan should be over the next few years before deciding what to do with Johnny Cueto and Mat Latos, who both have one year left under contract.

Away from those candidates, the most exciting name that keeps cropping up is the Miami Marlins slugger Giancarlo Stanton. We all know the Marlins are a team that trades players away and Stanton is exactly the sort of talent that a team would be prepared to part with a bundle of valuable prospects for. Whether there is any real possibility of him changing teams this offseason, or if it’s just reporters and fans having fun dreaming up potential blockbuster trades, will be one of the key storylines over the next couple of months.

Cubs on the up?

The 2014 season was the Chicago Cubs’ fifth consecutive losing year, but there were signs that the rebuilding project set in motion by Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer is starting to have a positive – rather than depressingly negative – effect on the Major League team. Top prospects Jorge Soler, Javier Baez and Arodys Vizcaino all got some Big League playing time and others will soon be joining them, not least third baseman Kris Bryant (arguably the best prospect across all 30 teams) and shortstop Addison Russell.

So, there was already reason for optimism when looking ahead to 2015, but the confirmation on Friday that Joe Maddon has been installed as their new manager will raise expectations even further. It says a lot about the Cubs’ ambitions that they weren’t going to let the fact that they already had a manager, Rick Renteria, get in the way of grabbing one of the most high-profile managers in the Majors.

It will be interesting to see if the Cubs continue that aggressive approach and decide to jump into the free agent market to add a few experienced players to help jump-start their return to being contenders.

Motor City moves

Recent offseasons would suggest the Detroit Tigers will be one of the more active teams. The presence of two of their best players now sitting at the top of the free agent lists makes that a certainty, whether that’s in spending large sums to bring Scherzer and/or Martinez back or in replacing them.

David Price was acquired at the trade deadline in July and they may look to sign him to a large contract extension if Scherzer looks like he will be out of reach. Torii Hunter is also a free agent so another outfielder will be on the shopping list as well as a few more darts being thrown at the reliever dartboard in the hope that they might finally hit a bullseye (or even a double) after too many years of failing bullpens in the Motor City.

Opportunities for all

Whilst the Cubs and Tigers will be two teams worth watching in particular, in truth every team must be looking at the current MLB landscape and weighing up the increased odds of having a successful season. The Giants and Kansas City Royals proved that coming through the Wild Card route doesn’t put you at a significant disadvantage against the division winners.

San Francisco’s success may suggest they have a winning formula, but it feels more like we’re now moving into a climate where there aren’t any truly dominant regular season teams on a consistent basis and, with a few exceptions (Colorado being the most obvious), there is genuine reason to believe that a team can make a playoff bid and then go all the way.

World Series Rules

Leave a reply

MlbPostseason2014The American and National League setup in MLB takes a bit of explaining to Brits new to the sport.

There are two leagues, but they’re not different leagues in the sense that we’re used to in British sports, where the league denotes a different level of competition.

Despite there being two leagues, it’s still all a single level of MLB and teams from the different leagues do play each other during the regular season.

Finally, even though the two leagues come together as MLB, they actually play under slightly different rules.

When this is all new to you, no single aspect really stands out. You learn how it all fits together and accept it as the way it is. However, it seems that the different rules is still an aspect that raises strong feelings Stateside.

From a logical standpoint it makes complete sense to have one set of rules that everyone plays by, yet the opposing view of the interest created by having different brands of baseball is one that really demonstrates itself during the World Series. It adds an extra element to the home field advantage and gives the managers something else to think about too.

MLB has brought in various changes in the last 20 years, but it’s unlikely that a standardisation of the rules across both leagues is going to be added to the list. Both sides have strong proponents and there’s no compelling reason to pick one over the other and create a boatload of unnecessary grief.

Despite being a fan of an American League team, if a choice had to be made then I would opt for the National League rules holding sway and Game Four of the World Series was a perfect example of why I hold that view.

It’s quite common in North American sports for players to specialise in distinct roles, but I’m a fan of top athletes having to work on the weaker parts of their game. Pitchers, for example, largely live and die on their ability on the mound, but in both leagues the ability to field their position is also important and working hard on this side of the game, or not, can sometimes be the difference between a win or a loss.

The San Francisco Giants got into trouble in the top of the third inning when pitcher Ryan Vogelsong was unable to find first base to make an out. It wasn’t the easiest of plays as Vogelsong initially tried to field the groundball, so didn’t take the usual pitcher path to the bag; however not making that out helped to set up a four-run inning for the Kansas City Royals.

The National League rules then added to the strategy of the inning as the pitcher’s spot in the Giants’ lineup was due up first in the bottom of the third inning. Under American League rules it would have been easy for manager Bruce Bochy to pull Vogelsong out of harm’s way. Instead, he had to weigh up the benefit of doing so against the negative impact of using up a pitcher by having to pinch-hit for them so early in the game.

The top half of the third inning was also bookended by the Royals’ pitcher Jason Vargas standing in the batter’s box. The biggest criticism of the NL rules is that pitchers as a group struggle to hit effectively and the result is two or three cheap at-bats per team in every NL game.

The additional strategy that this creates more than makes up for this in my view and if there are nine pitcher at-bats that don’t lead to much, there will be one in which a pitcher works hard to put down a good bunt or gets the runner over and that side of the game is important too.

It’s sometimes easy to forget that baseball is a game; it’s there as a form of entertainment and is meant to be fun. The strictly analytical view would see Kelvin Herrera’s at-bat in Game Three as a shocking waste of an out and that’s a perfectly valid conclusion. Looking at it from any other view and it was one of the more memorable moments in a good game, just as seeing the joy of Yusmeiro Petit getting a rare hit in Game Four couldn’t help but bring a smile to your face.

Personally, I’m fine with carrying on as we are and having two different sets of rules. Far from causing problems, it makes the World Series even more enjoyable.

Three games in

Leave a reply

MlbPostseason2014Three games into the World Series and it’s shaping up to be the close battle that we all hoped for (aside from Giants and Royals fans dreaming of a 4-0 sweep in their favour, of course).

The possibility of a six or seven game classic appeared to take a big hit when the San Francisco Giants won the series opener in Kansas City 7-1.

The Royals had been on such a tremendous roll that it was easy to fear an early win for the Giants might be a fatal blow.

Instead, the loss prompted KC to prove that they had plenty of battling qualities too and now that they’ve taken a 2-1 series lead they are in the ascendency. They know they can head back home with the series alive even if the Giants win the next two games at AT&T Park.

Starting the World Series on a Tuesday night creates a good sequence for those of us wanting to follow the action outside of the U.S. timezones.

Friday evening could serve as a break to re-live the key moments from Games One and Two before heading straight into Game Three in the early hours of Saturday.

The third game brought us a new batch of impressive fielding displays, not least some good catches out in right field by Lorenzo Cain and Hunter Pence and then bare-handed plays by Salvador Perez and Pablo Sandoval, whilst the Royals’ devastating relief corps took over once again.

The Giants will be looking at Game Four starter Jason Vargas and Game Five starter James Shields (more ‘shaky Shields’ than ‘Big Game James’ in Game One) and thinking that those are the pitchers they need to attack. Expecting to get anything out of Herrera, Davis and Holland will be expecting too much.

Game Four can be enjoyed tonight knowing that an extra hour of sleep can be recovered tomorrow morning with the clocks going back (in the U.K. at least, not in the States).

ESPN UK generally runs the MLB International coverage with Gary Thorne and Rick Sutcliffe on commentary so MLB.TV will be the place to go if you want to catch the Fox coverage that’s seen Stateside.

The main feature of Fox’s coverage this year is the new commentating crew following Tim McCarver’s retirement after last year’s Fall Classic. Joe Buck is now joined by Harold Reynolds and Tom Verducci and they are an acquired taste, although it seems that the only major sport commentators that don’t divide opinion are those that make the masses unite against them.

Commentary aside, Fox’s in-game graphics have impressed me. Simple things like the way fielding positions are displayed normally only stand out when they’re down badly, but neat little touches like this all add up to a well-presented game. Features like the strike zone replays and slow-mo cameras work best when they are not over-used and Fox have got the balance just about right in these opening games; not an easy thing to do in the World Series where there must be a tendency to throw every bell and whistle in as much as possible.

One thing that they could do even better is showing fielding shifts during at-bats. Shifts are becoming an ever-increasing part of the game and it’s something  TV broadcasters need to adjust to as it’s one part of the experience that those at the ballpark currently see much better than us armchair viewers. The MLB Network coverage this postseason added a Shift Trax box in the top right-hand corner of the screen and what it lacked in style it made up for in terms or providing a quick reference point without the director needing to switch between different camera shots.

Sky Sports’ cricket coverage has used a fielding box like this for several years (albeit in a larger more stylish way) as one of the key aspects of cricket is the setting of different fields. Seeing how a captain is adjusting his field for different batsman or to try a different tactic of getting the same batsman out is a fascinating part of the strategy of cricket.

Whilst fielding positions in baseball probably will never be quite so fluid, it would be great to be able to see when the fielding positions change even for more subtle changes like a slight shift in the outfield alignment for a specific hitter, or when the third baseman plays close to the third-base line at certain strategic points. MLB Network’s Shift Trax is definitely a step in the right direction.

For now we’re left Shift Trax-free with Fox and the MLB International feeds but that’s only a minor issue. We’ve got two good teams battling it out in a close series and that counts for far more than any graphic or commentator (good or bad) ever will.

2014 World Series preview

Leave a reply

MlbPostseason2014This year’s World Series pits a team that is gunning for their third title in five years against a team that is making its first postseason run since winning the Fall Classic in 1985.

The good thing is that doesn’t mean there is a clear favourite. Far from it, in fact.

Neither the San Francisco Giants nor the Kansas City Royals won their respective divisions this season, making this only the second occasion that the World Series has been contested by two Wild Card teams since they were introduced in 1995.

This has prompted some onlookers to question the quality of this year’s season finale and based on the regular season it is a fair line of questioning to pursue. Six teams won more regular season games than the Royals’ 89 this year, whilst the Giants’ total of 88 was joint-eighth best.

However, this is the nature of any competition that uses a playoff format to determine the ultimate season victors. Earning the best win-loss record in the Majors doesn’t crown you as champions so there’s no great value in knocking a team for making the World Series without doing so.

All you have to do is make the playoffs and once you’re there it all comes down to taking the opportunities that come your way. No one can question that the Giants and Royals have done that brilliantly so far and the result is a World Series between two teams in great form.

Kansas City have provided a remarkable story this season and their World Series appearance is exactly what the expanded playoff format is designed to help create. A fan base that has had precious little to cheer about for nearly 30 years suddenly has a team that seemingly can do no wrong. After squeaking past the Oakland A’s in the Wild Card game, they have swept away the Los Angeles Angels and Baltimore Orioles and come into the Fall Classic having won all eight postseason games they have played so far.

As for the Giants, manager Bruce Bochy is looking to guide his team to yet another World Series title and it will be fascinating to see how the experience they have gained in recent years works out against a team that is playing in such an uninhibited fashion. The Royals are yet to freeze on the big stage and we’ll soon find out whether that’s because they haven’t quite realised just how big a stage they are on.

There’s possibly a parallel here with the 2007 Colorado Rockies who won a Wild Card spot and then swept their way through the Division and Championship Series only to find that when their winning run ran out, they couldn’t recover. It was as if they had been swept along on a magic carpet ride until they lost the first game of the World Series against the Boston Red Sox, at which point they were reminded that magic carpets aren’t real and subsequently went into free-fall. Maybe all the Giants need to do is burst the Royals’ bubble?

Kansas City shouldn’t be too concerned about that though. The Rockies had to sit about for several days whilst the Red Sox completed their epic seven-game series against the Cleveland Indians, potentially leaving them slightly undercooked when they had to get back to the action. And, more than anything, the Red Sox were clearly the better team that year. They won 96 games compared to the Rockies’ 90 and Boston’s Phythagorean win-loss record (their expected win-loss record based on runs scored and allowed) was 101; the best in the Majors and ten clear wins better than the Rockies.

Baseball-Reference puts the Giants’ Phythagorean win-loss record this year at 87-75, three wins better than the Royals’ 84-78. That seems about right, San Francisco being just slightly ahead but there not really being much between them that would swing a short series.

What should we make of the expectations on San Francisco? They have been there and won it twice in very recent memory. Typically you would expect there to be some extra dynasty-making pressure on a team in this situation, but that doesn’t seem to be a part of this story, fairly or not.

Outside of their own fan base – who are in dreamland and have no reason to care what anyone else thinks about their team – they are a team that is admired without being feared in the way that, for example, the New York Yankees of the 1996-2004 era were.

Perhaps it is the way they win a third title that might allow them to attain ‘greatness’ status? They will have to achieve the feat first before any such deliberations can be considered.

What we do know is that these are two teams capable of producing a different hero every night. The fact that there isn’t a dominant team in the World Series may marginally reduce the hype leading into it, but it also makes it all the more likely that this will be a very evenly-matched series with the potential to go six or the full seven games.

There is no real favourite here and that should make it a memorable Fall Classic.

Schedule

The series starts in Kansas City due to the American League winning the mid-season All-Star Game and it follows the standard best-of-seven game format: two games in one city, three games in the other, then two back where we started.

All of the games begin at 8.07. p.m. Eastern Time in the States so they take place in the early hours of the following morning from a U.K. perspective. The one thing to be mindful of is that we move out of British Summer Time a week earlier than Daylight Time ends in the States, so whilst the start times are the same throughout from an American standpoint, they are one hour earlier for us from Game Five onwards. That does at least mean we get an extra hour in bed to catch up on sleep from Game Four.

Tuesday 21st – Game One. SFG at KCR – 01.07. BST on Wed 22nd. *BT Sport1

Wednesday 22nd – Game Two. SFG at KCR - 01.07. BST on Thurs 23rd. *BT Sport1

Friday 24th – Game Three. KCR at SFG - 01.07. BST on Sat 25th. *BT Sport1

Saturday 25th - Game Four. KCR at SFG - 01.07. BST on Sun 26th. *ESPN

Sunday 26th - Game Five. KCR at SFG - 00.07. GMT on Mon 27th. *BT Sport1

Tuesday 28th - Game Six. SFG at KCR - 00.07. GMT on Wed 29th. *BT Sport1

Wednesday 29th - Game Seven. SFG at KCR - 00.07. GMT on Thurs 30th. *BT Sport1

Division Series done, Championship to come

Leave a reply

MlbPostseason2014The Division Series round of the 2014 postseason was brought to a close on Tuesday.

The San Francisco Giants’ closer Sergio Romo got the Washington Nationals’ Wilson Ramos to ground into an out to finish off a 3-1 series victory for the NL Wild Card winners.

It came a few hours after the St. Louis Cardinals completed their own 3-1 series victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The National League Championship Series lineup was therefore set two days after the American League version with both the Baltimore Orioles and Kansas City Royals completing swift sweeps over the Detroit Tigers and Los Angeles Angels respectively.

As there were a potential 20 games to enjoy from the four best-of-five series, seeing it all wrapped up within just 14 was a tad disappointing. It’s the quickest that the division series round has been completed since the 13 games of 2009 and is the first time since then that there wasn’t at least one series that went the distance.

We were definitely spoiled by the four 3-2 thrillers in 2012.

Looking through the Division Series match-ups of recent years was a reminder that this year’s NLCS has a very familiar feel to it.

The Cardinals and Giants faced each other at the same stage in 2012 as San Francisco prevailed 4-3 on their way to a second World Series in three years. St. Louis had won the Fall Classic the previous year and have now made it to four consecutive NLCS appearances. Both teams know what it’s like to play in these pressure games and that could make it all the more difficult to split them.

Meanwhile it couldn’t be more different in the ALCS. Never mind a Championship Series, the Royals hadn’t been anywhere near a playoff game since 1985 before making their Wild Card bow a week ago. The Orioles were dumped out of the Division Series by the Yankees two years ago, but had last made the playoffs before that in1997.

In short, there’s is a series full of players on the big stage either for the first time or only the second. Based on the quick work the two teams made of their Division Series opponents, they are revelling in their new-found status.

So far the only Championship Series start times confirmed are from Friday and Saturday, as follows in BST:

Friday 10 October
01.07. KC at BAL (early hours of Saturday for us) *ESPN

Saturday 11 October
21.07. KC at BAL *BT Sport 2
01.07. SFG at STL *ESPN

At this stage of the postseason, there really is little to choose between the teams so predicting the winners is a guessing game. I had Baltimore and Washington as my World Series picks heading into Division Series, so I’ll stick with Baltimore and then San Francisco as the team who knocked out the Nationals.

Let’s hope the Championship Series makes up for the brief Division stage with two contests going either six or the full seven games.

A Friday filled with Division Series drama

2 Replies

MlbPostseason2014We are only a few days into the 2014 postseason, but it’s safe to say that when we look back over the offseason Friday’s bonanza of baseball will turn out to be one of the most memorable days from it.

It was the only day on the Division Series schedule in which we were guaranteed games from all four series – Monday could provide that too if the two American League series both go to a fourth game – and all four served up the sort of drama and excitement that playoff baseball is all about.

The MLB.com Game Recap videos combined provide a great way to spend 15 minutes re-living the action from the four Friday contests.

Detroit and Baltimore got the day underway with Game 2 of their series starting at 17.07 BST. The Orioles staged an incredible comeback to turn around a 5-1 deficit and to put themselves in the best possible position of a 2-0 series lead heading to Detroit.

The loss for Detroit highlighted the flaws of a team containing several outstanding players, yet having weak links in other parts of their roster despite it being put together at considerable expense. Although a home win for the Tigers in Game Three will put a completely different spin on the series, you would expect the Orioles to complete the job based on their regular season performance and the first two games of the series.

San Francisco and Washington went next and the Giants showed the World Series-winning magic of 2010 and 2012 may still be with them by grabbing the advantage by winning Game One.

One big change from those two title triumphs and this year is the introduction of the Video review challenge system. We saw the huge benefits of that in the third inning when the Giants’ Travis Ishikawa was called out on a close force-out play at second base only for the review process to prove that he was safe.

Ishikawa came around to score the opening run of the game two batters later and that’s exactly why replay is so important; getting potentially crucial calls right rather than relying on the hoary old tosh of ‘luck evening itself out’. Just as importantly, the umpire was able to come out of the game knowing that even though his professional pride may have taken a very slight dent by getting a tricky call wrong, the mistake didn’t cost the Giants and he didn’t have to deal with a bunch of reporters and irate fans.

Two other things stood out from the game for me. Firstly, there was the monumentally important bases-loaded strikeout by Hunter Strickland to end a Nationals threat in the sixth inning. Save-compiling closers apart, relief pitchers tend to fly under the radar until the playoffs come along. Strickland’s 100MPH punch-out pitch will certainly have gained him some attention last night.  Secondly, the Bryce Harper hype is something I’ve written about before, but even the naysayers have to admit that he has enormous talent. Mark down his gargantuan moonshot in the seventh inning – off Strickland, such is the hero/zero highwire act that relievers walk – as his first real playoff highlight.

Then came the ding-dong drama of the series opener between the St. Louis Cardinals and Los Angeles Dodgers.

The Cards beat Clayton Kershaw in the playoffs yet again and whilst their fans will be desperate to take the next two games in as trouble-free a manner as possible, the rest of us can only look at all that happened in Game One and ask for four more of those, please.

It was a game that had everything, not least the sort of amped-up aggro that looks certain to turn the rest of the series into a passion-filled tussle that may well spill over from a figurative fight to a literal one.

In every best-of-five-game series, the home team that has lost Game One is desperate to win the next game rather than head to their opponent’s backyard in an 0-2 hole, yet it must carry even more weight here. The facts are simple: the Dodgers somehow lost after knocking out the Cardinals’ ace Adam Wainwright and handing a 6-1 lead to Kershaw to protect. If ever a team needed a win to wipe away the memories of yesterday with a win today, it’s these Dodgers.

A small crumb of comfort for the Dodgers is that they’re not yet in as big a hole as their cross-town rivals, the Los Angeles Angels.

After two games at home, they’ve now suffered two extra inning defeats to Kansas City as the completely spurious but always-attractive feeling of a ‘team of destiny’ really starts to take hold around the Royals.

Kauffman Stadium is going to be absolutely electric on Sunday night as Kansas City hosts their first postseason game since 1985. The Angels didn’t win 98 regular season games by chance and so a comeback cannot be counted out, yet they are going to need C.J. Wilson to find a quality start from somewhere after an inconsistent patch of form. Despite his nickname, ‘Big Game’ James Shields hasn’t been particularly impressive so far in his playoff appearances. Sunday night would be the perfect time for the Royals’ starting pitcher to live up to his billing.

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: When the final day may not be the final day

1 Reply

WHGB11The final day of the MLB regular season is always tinged with sadness.

It’s caused by the realisation that the daily delight of baseball that has been a constant for the last six months is about to reduce to a trickle of playoff games and then a long baseball-free winter.

The one thing you hope for on this day is that there is one last hurrah, a gripping pennant race to be decided that will have you flicking between games and getting caught up in the drama.

The high-water mark of recent times to judge any final day against came in 2011. Here’s how I summed it up at the time:

“It’s just gone seven a.m. and while I’m tired I know there is little chance that I will be able to fall asleep again any time soon.

My head is still spinning from the most incredible end to an MLB regular season you could imagine.  The lack of sleep isn’t helping with my futile attempt to take it all in, but even if I was wide awake, I would still be shaking my head with disbelief and wondering if this has really happened.

In the early hours of Thursday, the Tampa Bay Rays somehow snatched the American League Wild Card from the Boston Red Sox

…

It was 5.07 a.m. in the UK.  That’s not a very sociable hour to be cheering or screaming in frustration, but anyone following the action would have found it impossible not to let their emotions get the better of them.

The Rays were one strike away from losing in the ninth inning of their game.  The Red Sox were one strike away from winning their game.  Somehow it is the Rays that have ended up winning the AL Wild Card.

I can’t summon the energy or concentration required to think much about the postseason right now.  All I know is that it has got a lot to live up to”.

I can’t imagine anything could top that final day – or very long night as it turned out to be for us in the U.K. – however the 2014 final day is set up to potentially come some way close to it.

After the games on Saturday there are still three key postseason matters to be decided:

  1. Who out of the St. Louis Cardinals and Pittsburgh Pirates will win the NL Central, with the ‘loser’ heading to the NL Wild Card game to face the San Francisco Giants
  2. Who out of the Detroit Tigers and Kansas City Royals will win the AL Central, with the ‘loser’ heading to the AL Wild Card game
  3. Who out of the Oakland A’s and Seattle Mariners will win the second AL Wild Card spot, with the winner facing the loser of the Tigers-Royals race, whilst the loser of the A’s-Mariners race seeing their playoff hopes dashed at the last.

If the results go the right way – or the wrong way depending on who you support – any or all of the three races could be tied after the teams have completed their 162 schedule meaning that a single 163 game decider will be needed.

In all three cases both results need to go the way of the chaser: them to win and their opponent to lose. And just to add to the drama, the key games today are all starting at different times.

In the National League Central race, the Pittsburgh Pirates begin their game against the Cincinnati Reds at 18.10. BST needing to win to keep their division title hopes alive. If they lose then the St. Louis Cardinals will be able to play their game against the Arizona Diamondbacks, starting at 21.10., with the freedom that they’ve avoided the Wild Card ‘play-in’ game. If the Pirates have won their game, all the pressure suddenly sits on St. Louis’s shoulders needing to win their game to clinch the division and knowing a loss will lead to a nervy game 163.

It’s a similar scenario in the American League Central, only in this case it’s the current division leaders, the Tigers, who get underway first. They start their game against the Minnesota Twins at 18.08, one hour ahead of the first pitch between the Kansas City Royals and Chicago White Sox.

As with the Cardinals’ scenario, if the Tigers win their game then the Royals’ result will be irrelevant and we would probably be in a situation (subject to the Tigers-Twins games going into extra innings) where the Tigers clinch the division while the Royals are still in mid-game. However if the Tigers miss their chance then it will be an anxious wait for them to see if the White Sox can do them a favour.

The same story could play out in the AL Wild Card race and that is the most tense of them all. At least in the other two races the ‘loser’ will have a Wild Card playoff place to soften the blow. There will be no such consolation prize for whoever misses out between the A’s and Mariners.

Oakland are in the ‘all we have to do is win’ spot and begin their game against the Texas Rangers at 20.05, with the Mariners starting their game against the LA Angels at 21.10. in the ‘we need the A’s to lose and for us to win’ spot.

The different start times mean that it’s possible all three cases will come to a calm conclusion as the evening progresses, with the first result in each deciding everything, yet you wouldn’t bet against the drama continuing right down to the wire.

It should be a great final day to the 2014 regular season, because there’s every chance that it will not be the final day of the regular season after all.

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: The race is on

Leave a reply

WHGB11After close to thirty years spent languishing between false hope and no hope, fans of the Kansas City Royals have entered this September in an unfamiliar competitive position.

The unfamiliar encourages a sense of excitement but also trepidation.

However much Royals are trying to outwardly enjoy this season, inwardly there is bound to be a sense of foreboding. Good things don’t happen to their team. This isn’t really happening. It’s all about to come crushing down.

Watching Danny Duffy leave the mound at Yankee Stadium on Saturday after throwing a solitary pitch was the moment when those fears were realised.

Look beyond the largely irrelevant 8-11 win-loss record and you’ll see that Duffy has been excellent for Kansas City this season. It’s not just been the way Duffy has pitched but also that he’s finally broken through after years of promise since he was drafted back in the 2007 amateur draft.

He was one of a crop of young players that were hailed as the answer to the Royals’ many years in the doldrums and, up until now, like most of the rest he had failed to live up to the billing. This season, in deed and in the sense of hope, Duffy has personified the way that things have finally turned around for Kansas City.

Seeing him grimace in discomfort and exit early with a sore shoulder was the last thing the Royals needed, again both in terms of actual impact (losing him for the game and potentially the foreseeable future) and the demoralising effect this blow could have on the team.

Kansas City went on to lose that game against the Yankees 6-2 to compound their misery and yet there was a chink of light from Detroit where the Tigers failed to capitalise. Despite having their recently-acquired ace David Price on the mound – an addition thought at the time to hammer another nail into the Royals’ coffin – Detroit lost 5-4 to the surging San Francisco Giants, keeping Kansas City two games ahead at the top of the AL Central.

Duffy’s condition will be assessed further over the next few days to determine whether it was a mere blip or something that could see him miss extended time, potentially the rest of the season. If he is out for the year then he’ll be a big loss, yet maybe it won’t be a sign of things inevitably going wrong for the Royals and instead will show that this is destined to be the year playoff baseball returns to Kansas City, regardless of the obstacles that come their way.

The Royals’ emergence in the AL Central, where many – including myself – predicted another season of Detroit domination, is one of many great stories building to a crescendo this month.

Baltimore look set to win the AL East division for the first time since 1997, whilst in the AL Wild Card race the Seattle Mariners may just turn their offseason splurge on Robinson Cano into a first playoff appearance since 2001.

The Mariners are even catching up the Oakland A’s who looked certainties for a third consecutive AL West title before a startling collapse over the last month that has seen a rampant LA Angels team fly past to gain not only a lead in the division but the best win-loss record in the Majors.

The A’s were able to snatch a walk-off win on Saturday against the Houston Astros, turning around a 3-1 deficit in the bottom of the ninth inning, and that’s the sort of win that could spark an all-important change in fortune as we head into the last few weeks of the season. That’s what this A’s is clinging to, at least.

In the National League it’s been the Milwaukee Brewers playing the role of the A’s, plummeting from an unexpected stay at the top of the Central and seeing the St. Louis Cardinals resuming normal service at the summit. The Brew Crew have won only three of their past 16 games and now need to forget about what has gone. They are still firmly in the Wild Card race, a position they would have been delighted with if offered it before the season began, and need to somehow find a way to make that their mindset.

And as the regular season begins to wind down, the Philadelphia Phillies reminded us all on Monday that there’s something to play for every time you take the field. Their combined no-hitter was a rare enjoyable moment in what has been yet another poor season for a team that enjoyed so much success between 2007 and 2011.

The Texas Rangers are another team to quickly hit hard times after a recent run of excellent seasons. They were the first time to be eliminated from playoff contention this season and questions were already being asked about manager Ron Washington’s future before he stepped down for personal reasons on Friday. Wash had his game-management called into question at times, but there’s no doubt he was a manager that his players fought for and it’s one of the harsh realities of sport at the highest level that his time in charge will be remembered for the two World Series championships his time narrowly missed out on, rather than all of the other regular season success they had.

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Royals for real

Leave a reply

WHGB11Sky Sports News have a habit of making mistakes on their MLB scrolling news section, such as mixing up team names with other U.S. sports or getting player names wrong.

Consequently when it popped up on Sunday morning at breakfast that the Kansas City Royals had a three game lead in AL Central and had won 24 of their last 30 games, I wasn’t prepared to believe it until checking the facts myself.

The doubt wasn’t just down to typical SSN sloppiness but also a reflection on the fact that you don’t associate the Royals with leading or winning much.

That’s not been their way for many years and yet, sure enough, they have overhauled the Detroit Tigers and have been playing some great baseball over the past month or so.

Based on Fangraphs, over the last 30 days the Royals’ batting production has been the second best in MLB based on a 5.5 Wins Above Replacement (WAR) mark, with only the even-more-unfancied Minnesota Twins bettering that with a 6.2 WAR. The pitching sits 10th based on WAR over the same span, more than holding their end up to support the hitters.

Over the season so far Alex Gordon has been the actual and symbolic leader of the Royals’ resurgence. He struggled initially when he made the Majors in 2007 whilst trying to live up to the expectations of being the next George Brett as a star Royals third baseman.

A move to left field and an impressive determination to learn from his difficult days has turned Gordon into one of the better players in the American League over the past few seasons.

According to FanGraphs, Gordon is having the best season of any position player in the Majors this season with a 5.8 WAR, bettered only by pitcher Felix Hernandez with a 6.2 mark.

Part of Gordon’s standing comes from a large boost due to FanGraphs’ calculations of his defensive value, which – purely from a sniff-test point of view rather than anything more studied – often seem a little overly generous to me.

Baseball-Reference’s version of WAR leaves Gordon sitting just outside the top ten of all MLB players this season and eighth among position players, which seems more appropriate. He’s not been quite the best player in the game, but he’s been among the elite and is having a tremendous year.

The Royals are also receiving an impressive return this season from James Shields and Wade Davis, the two players they acquired from the Tampa Bay Rays prior to the 2013 season for their best prospect Wil Myers in a deal that provoked considerable negative comment against the Royals’ General Manager Dayton Moore (whose track record had not built up much in the way of credit or benefit of the doubt, to say the least).

Despite finishing 2013 ten games over .500 with an 86-76 win-loss record, missing out on the playoffs yet again immediately cast more doubt on the wisdom of trading away Myers for short-term gains.

Royals fans will be more than happy with the decision if their team is able to hold onto their division lead and play postseason baseball for the first time in a long time, with Shields and Davis contributing handsomely to the effort from the mound alongside another pitcher, Jason Vargas, who has performed much better than the naysayers predicted when he was signed as a free agent over the past offseason.

In fact, the ESPN.com game report from the Royals’ win over the Texas Rangers on Saturday included this nugget from their Stats and Information team that shows Kansas City may well have every reason to be getting excited about their baseball team once again:

“Following Saturday’s games, the Royals now lead the AL Central by 3 games. This is the furthest into a season they have led the division by at least 3 games since 1985. That was the last time they made the postseason and the only season in which they won the World Series”.

MLB Commissioner Bud Selig has put ‘parity’ among clubs as one of the key cornerstones of his regime, alongside revenue-raising and labour peace. Like much else during his tenure, the positive value of Selig’s actions can be debated. Is this parity merely produced by mediocrity at the expense of seeing truly great teams battling it out and lowering the bar to reaching the playoffs with first the wild card and then the recent introduction of a second wild card team? If so, is that good for baseball or not?

Whatever your personal view, the Royals will be delighted to make the postseason regardless and it would be seen as a fitting end to Selig’s last year as Commissioner if it happened.

Scorecards in Action: Jon Lester’s debut for the A’s

Leave a reply

keeping_score_200x225It’s been a while since I’ve written a ‘scorecards in action’ post.

Jon Lester’s debut for the Oakland A’s on Saturday against the Kansas City Royals seemed like a good excuse to get a scorecard and some colour pens out and to score along with a game.

I used a standard ‘fan’ scoring system (as opposed to the IBAF version, for example), but added in a bit of colour. I used a red pen for outs, blue for hits, walks and normal base advancement, and green for errors.

[box]Click here to open a scanned pdf copy of my scorecard.[/box]

Looking back at the Kansas City side you can see quickly that it wasn’t a completely vintage Jon Lester display, with only one clean three-up, three-down inning in the sixth. However, the Royals’ hits were scattered and were generally only going for a single base. Even the double by Alex Gordon to lead off the fourth inning wasn’t all it may seem, as hinted at by the asterisk I put next to the ‘2B’ designation.

Gordon’s double was ‘sun assisted’, as third baseman Josh Donaldson lost a high pop-up in the Oakland sky and he could only cower for cover as the ball dropped harmlessly to the turf. After the next batter, Erik Kratz, grounded out to the second baseman Nick Punto, Gordon moved across to third base thanks to a Lorenzo Cain single that was originally ruled an error on Donaldson, as you can just about see from my hastily scribbled out annotation.

It was a sharp play for Donaldson to collect as the groundball fizzed up at him off the infield dirt, but he was behind the ball and for someone of his ability, it was probably a play he would have expected to make. I am stubborn and will hold firm on my own scoring call if I strongly disagree with the official scorer’s decision (adding an annotation to my scorecard just to make clear I’ve diverged from the official stance), yet in this case it was marginal enough for me to go with the flow.

Error or not, it almost proved costly for the A’s as Mike Moustakas lofted a flyball into centrefield for what looked like being a regulation sacrifice fly. Sam Fuld – recently reacquired from the Minnesota Twins – had other ideas and let fly with an acrobatic circus throw that gunned the tagging-up Gordon out at home plate to end the inning.

As an A’s fan, I was busy celebrating the great play so I didn’t jot down the out straight away and that was fortunate because as the A’s headed to their dugout, the Royals’ manager Ned Yost asked for the play to be reviewed. The new instant replay system is something that score-keeping fans now need to take into consideration, especially if using a pen rather than an easily-rubbed-out pencil mark. If a play looks debatable, now it’s always worth holding fire and making sure if there is going to be a challenge or not before committing anything to paper.

In this case, replays showed catcher Derek Norris had tagged Gordon out in time and the play could be scored as it was called initially called by the umpire. I added in a dotted red line just to more clearly link the Moustakas and Gordon outs.

Switching across to the A’s lineup side, the coloured pens come into their own by painting a very clear picture on a strange afternoon for the Royals.

Jason Vargas, returning from a stint on the Disabled List, overshadowed Lester early on by pitching four perfect innings to start the game. Then the wheels came off in quite spectacular fashion in an extended bottom of the fifth that had me scribbling out the pre-printed inning numbers for the sixth inning onwards.

The A’s batted around as they put up eight runs on eight hits. After Norris broke up the no-hitter with a lead-off double, the A’s didn’t necessarily hit Vargas hard but, in the words of the excitable A’s TV commentator Shooty Babitt, they just “kept the train moving” by racking up seven singles.

The last single came courtesy of Jonny Gomes – another player reacquired by the A’s on the trade deadline – and it was his second of the inning, but thanks to a Gordon error he ended up standing at third base.

This is another example of where the coloured pens help to capture a bit more detail quickly and neatly. The first leg of the diamond is entered in blue with a ‘1B’ alongside, then the line is continued in green – to show advancement on an error – before coming to a stop at third base.

Gomes collected two RBI as it was judged that Fuld and Lowrie would have come home on a single, whilst Donaldson’s final leg to home plate on the play was rightly put down to Gordon’s mishap in allowing the ball to skip under his glove in left field and to head to the wall. I probably should have noted Donaldson’s third-to-home line in green rather than blue, but I’ll put that slight slip down to excitement.

After Aaron Crow relieved Vargas and ended a long inning, Scott Downs and Bruce Chen came out of the Royals’ bullpen and kept the A’s quiet for the rest of the way, aside from a single in the eighth by Norris. The contrast in the long run of blue for the fifth inning and then the short bursts of red either side show how that one inning completely turned around the entire game.

In truth the A’s hitters were not their normal patient selves from the sixth inning onwards as they handed the game over to their pitching staff to complete the victory. The eight-spot put up in the fifth inning had given Lester a seven-run cushion and, although he may have been disappointed to concede two runs in the seventh, it paved the way for a winning debut in the green and gold for the ace for hire.