What we learned this week from the Mets and Phillies
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Category Archives: baseball
This is a call
Let it be known that under no circumstances short of Notre Dame advancing to the final four, or beyond, should college basketball ever be brought up in conversation with me while the Mets are playing baseball.
Penalties range from a vitriolic glare for a first offense to stabbing with readily available broken glassware for flagrant offenders.
Baseball season is one game old, and I’m angry already
Oh, it should have been a beautiful start to the baseball season. I woke up just as the Athletics were giving back an early 2-0 lead over the Red Sox in Tokyo.
No matter, as the A’s came right back in the bottom of the 6th, with Bobby Crosby bouncing a single up the middle. Jack Hannahan, filling in for injured Eric Chavez, followed with a two-run home run into the right field seats, putting the A’s on top 4-3.
Keith Foulke, back with the A’s after a stint with Boston and then a season on the shelf with injuries, pitched a very nice 8th inning, setting down Kevin Youkilis, David Ortiz, and Manny Ramirez. This should have set Huston Street up for a manageable with the bottom of the Sox order coming up in the ninth. I figured I could shower and get on the train by 8:15.
Unfortunately, Brandon Moss, who wasn’t even supposed to be playing today, dashed those plans with a homer of his own, tying the game at 4-4. Street continued his melt down in the 10th, giving up two more runs, which should have been more than enough for the Red Sox to close out the A’s and their paltry offense.
But nay! In the bottom of the 10th, Daric Barton, after falling behind Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon 1-2, worked a walk. Jack Cust struck out, but then Emil Brown sent a line drive to the wall in right center. While Barton raced around from first and headed toward the plate, Brown was rounding first and coming into second. If the throw from the outfield went through to the plate, Brown could have considered trying for third. But he had to be sure that the throw was going to the plate. Instead, Brown assumed that the throw was to home and barely slowed rounding second. Kevin Youkilis cut the throw, and Brown was stranded between second and third, eventually tagged out in a run down.
“I want to throw up,” was Mel’s reaction. I was livid. Instead of having a runner on second, representing the tying run, with one out, the A’s had nobody on base with two down. It would have been a poor play by a little leaguer or chemistry softballer, but for a major leaguer to run into an out like that is unacceptable. Oakland preaches a philosophy throughout the organization of not giving up outs. I can only imagine the tantrum that Billy Beane had seeing that play. Of course, Bobby Crosby and Jack Hannahan followed this horrible baserunning by knocking a pair of singles, at least suggesting that the A’s could have tied the game if Brown would have held at second base. Kurt Suzuki grounded out to first, ending the new threat and the game.
I shouldn’t put too much emphasis on any single play, but after watching his baserunning and looking over his stats, I have a feeling Emil Brown is the new Terrence Long.
Be sure to check this site tomorrow for a post which either rejoices in the return of Rich Harden to the A’s starting rotation or laments his latest injury.
Supernatural
Despite suffering arguably the worst collapse in baseball history, the Mets finished only one game out of the playoffs. They won 88 games and are bringing back essentially the same team in 2008.
Except replace Tom Glavine, and his 200 innings of corner nibbling, league average performance, with Johan Santana, and his 1+ strikeout per inning, two Cy Youngs in the last four years, and rightful holder of the title “Best Pitcher in Baseball.”
The end of 2007 was bitter. Now the end of 2007 is irrelevant.
See you in October.
Dwindling A’s Bobblehead Collection
Oh the dangers of becoming an A’s fan. Don’t buy the jersey of anyone good and don’t collect the bobbleheads. We have about 15 bobbleheads, but here are the ones currently with the organization:
![[Remaining A's bobbleheads]](http://www.realmofthewombat.com/images/misc/remainingas.jpg)
When Stomper gets traded, then Beane will have gone too far.
New Respect for the Amish
AJ Jacobs from the magazine/website Mental Floss recently visited the Amish of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and discovered that the Amish love baseball:
I spot a cluster of about 30 buggies. We pull over to see what’s happening. We have stumbled onto an Amish baseball game. Many discourage competitive sports. But here are 18 Amish teenage boys, their sleeves rolled up, their shirts and suspenders dark with sweat. Julie and I watch for a long time. These kids are good, but something is off about the game. I realize after a few minutes what it is: This is the quietest baseball game I’ve ever seen. No trash talk. No cheering from the parents in the stands. Near silence, except for the occasional crack of the bat. It is eerie and peaceful and beautiful.
Jeter’s a Criminal
When your baseball team has a historic collapse in the last two weeks of the season and rumors start that they might sign David Eckstein.
When the likes of Purdue, Boston College, and Navy beat your football team.
When your hard drive, nay, two hard drives fail within four days.
When TV’s writers go on strike taking away The Office indefinitely.
When you haven’t seen a Berkeley car in months.
When life’s got you down, it takes something special to make you smile. That something is Derek Jeter, like Al Capone before him, being investigated for tax evasion.
Innocuous
Here’s an exchange that recently transpired:
Labmate: Are you rooting for the Rockies in the playoffs?
Our Hero: Yes. They’re the most innocuous team left.
Labmate: Innocuous?
That’s a prompt for some learning action. Here’s the entry from Webster:
adjective
1 : producing no injury
2 : not likely to give offense or to arouse strong feelings or hostility
That #2 definition perfectly describes the Rockies.
Pitchers and catchers report in 141 days
Approximately. That’s about the amount of time it’s going to take for me to recover from this season. I will be paying only cursory attention to the playoffs, except to curse whenever the Yankees, Red Sox, Angels, Cubs, Phillies, or Indians win.
I’m going to anticipate some questions here.
“What happened [to the Mets]?”
Most of the Mets pitchers rely on good defense behind them. In the last couple weeks, that defense was not as crisp, which led to extra outs for the opposition. Furthermore, the pitching staff was patched together from the beginning of the season. The bullpen was heavily used throughout the season, and ultimately the overwork cost them runs at the worst time. On the offensive side, Jose Reyes stopped hitting, Paul Lo Duca couldn’t match last year’s performance, and the mix of players in right field was average at best. No matter how good David Wright and Carlos Beltran were, they couldn’t make up for all of the other outs in the lineup.
“So are you going to root for the Cubs now?!”
No. The Cubs are a trendy thing to do, and if there’s anything I revolt against, it’s the trendy. Let me add that they won 85 games in one of the worst divisions I can remember. Applying the St. Louis theory of prediction, they will win the World Series.
“Are you going to root for the Red Sox against the Yankees?”
I will root for Curt Schilling to break his arm throwing a pitch, which will miraculously send the ball into Derek Jeter’s face. The Red Sox are just as evil as the Yankees, and their fans deserve another 80+ years of disappointment.
“Is there anyone you don’t hate in the playoffs?”
San Diego is pretty innocuous. I would find it hilarious if Michael Barrett, formerly of the Cubs, does something good against his former team. Unfortunately, Milton Bradley got hurt, and he was probably my favorite player on a playoff bound team.
[UPDATE]
Since the Rockies beat the Padres in their one-game playoff on Monday, the Padres are out, and the Rockies are in. As such, they take the crown of “Least Offensive Team in the Playoffs.” Most of their players are home grown, and they exist far enough away from me that their fans can’t annoy me.
[/UPDATE]
“But won’t you watch the games just because you’re a baseball fan?”
These games will be broadcast on Fox, who finds it their mission to make baseball unwatchable. The only way they could make it worse would be to hire Joe Morgan as a special correspondent.
“Who should be the NL MVP this year?”
Thanks to the team’s late season collapse, he won’t get the award, but here’s David Wright’s line for the year:
.325 AVG / .417 OBP / .548 SLG / 153 OPS+ / 34 SB at 87% success
Remember that the Mets play half their games in Shea, which has a run environment 96% of the league average (compare to Citizens Bank Park at 109%). So that’s my biased pick. But I won’t feel much better if Wright wins it, and I doubt he’ll feel much better about the season either.
What a difference a weekend makes…
Thursday: The Phillies had just completed a four-game sweep of the Mets, closing the gap in the NL East to two games. Even if the Mets would have won just once in the series, the Phils would have been at least four back going into the final month of the season. The first loss of the series was acceptable, even expected, with retread Brian Lawrence starting for the Metropolitans. However, the next two games were imminently winnable, being lost by a combination of physical and mental errors, with a little bad luck thrown in for good measure. The series finale ranks among the wildest, most heartbreaking losses I can remember. Down 5-0 after three innings, New York battled back to tie the game. The Phillies reclaimed the lead on the “strength” of a walk and a few bloop singles. Once again, the Mets rallied, scoring five runs in the eighth against a potpourri of Philly bullpen jokers to take a 10-8 lead. Manager Willie Randolph called on closer Billy Wagner to come on in the bottom of the eighth to take on the middle of the Phillies order. Immediately, I thought the decision was a good one. Put our best against their best, then bring in Heilman in the ninth to face the bottom of the order. Willie had other plans however. He wanted Wagner to get the 6-out save, something he has not accomplished in years. Pat Burrell continued his Mets-killing ways with a homer in the eighth, and Wagner was largely ineffective in the ninth, giving up two more runs and the game.
Friday: The Mets traveled to Atlanta, who has won each of the series between the clubs this year. Even worse for New York, Oliver Perez, the only starting pitcher to beat the Braves for the Mets this year, was not scheduled to start this weekend. On Friday though, John Maine was up to the task, shutting down the Braves for seven innings. Meanwhile, the Mets offense, that had been sputtering in the games leading upto Thursday’s 10 run outburst, went deep twice against Tim Hudson and added some insurance late for a 7-1 win.
Saturday: Much maligned rookie Mike Pelfrey had the best start of his career, striking out seven over six innings, only allowing one run. Carlos Delgado, Carlos Beltran, and Lastings Milledge all went yard for the Mets, and Guillermo Mota and Pedro Feliciano combined for three innings of one-hit pitching to close it out. Florida helped the cause by scoring seven runs before recording an out against the Phillies, and Mets lead in the NL East rose to three games.
Sunday: Tom Glavine, who has not fared well against his former team, tossed a solid six innings the Braves. David Wright’s 2-run home run in the fifth put the Mets on top, and Jorge Sosa and Aaron Heilman handed Billy Wagner a 3-1 lead in the bottom of the ninth. Wags was shaky again, giving up a run on two hits, but managed to finish it off, completing the sweep in the Mets house of horrors. At the same time, the Marlins recovered from a 4-0 deficit to beat the Phillies 7-6.
The Mets now take a four game lead to Cincinnati, where Pedro Martinez will start on Monday. While New York plays the genetically-inferior NL Central, the Phillies and Braves will be beating up on each other. Mets fans everywhere are back off the ledge, heart rates back to normal, and waiting for those fading footsteps to end with thud of the Phillies falling flat on their faces again.