MLB 2008

[papsrus]

KC just swept Detroit

[Tim McG]

Pedro "Always swings at the first pitch" Feliz is no loss. He blew more rallies and lost more games at the plate then I care to remember.

Man, last night Feliz came up w/ the bases loaded and swung at the first pitch and popped up. Rally over. Phils lose 1-0. Mind you this was against the same pitcher who lost the game today by throwing 4 straight balls w/ the bases loaded.

Welcome to my nightmare of the past several years.

Feliz is a great glove man....but he just plain doesn't know diddly squat about hitting.

I feel your pain, JH.

Trust me.

Edited April 4, 2008 by GoodSpeak

[Dan Gould]

KC just swept Detroit

And Cabrera missed the game with a quad "strain" and Sheffield could be on the shelf for a while with a torn tendon in his finger. If that's the case, they better hope that the Indians don't pull too far out in front.

And how's Hampton's comeback going, Conrad?

I hate to laugh at your pain and I've never thought of Hampton as the original "American Idle" Carl Pavano, but I admit I laughed when I heard that he injured a chest muscle while warming up for his first start in three years.

[Dan Gould]

Since you started the thread, what say you get rid of "baseball" from the thread title?

Thank you in advance,

Society for the Prevention and Elimination of Redundancy and Unnecessary Repetition

Sure....but how?

Go to the first post in the thread. Click "edit". That will bring up both the post itself and the thread title/subtitle. Change accordingly and click "complete edit" or whichever the choice is.

Done and done.

Thanks, Dan.

No, the Department of Redundancy Department thanks you.

[Dan Gould]

OK, I may be leaping to conclusions here but Bartolo Colon's campaign for Comeback Player of the year got off to a very nice, impressive start last night at Pawtucket:

Colon pitched five scoreless innings, striking out five and allowing one hit and one walk, as the Red Sox beat the Indianapolis Indians, 3-0, in their season opener before 10,681 at McCoy Stadium. Colon faced one batter over the minimum (16).

...

Colon's control and arm strength were terrific. He threw 74 pitches (45 for strikes), and his fastball topped out at 96 miles per hour. He threw 17 pitches in the first inning, 12 in the second, 11 in the third, 12 in the fourth, and 22 in his final inning. His final pitch was a 95-m.p.h. fastball to strike out Kevin Thompson.

The thought of Colon being healthy and throwing mid-90s heat as the fifth starter makes me positively giddy. He really could be the steal of the year.

[BERIGAN]

OK, I may be leaping to conclusions here but Bartolo Colon's campaign for Comeback Player of the year got off to a very nice, impressive start last night at Pawtucket:

Colon pitched five scoreless innings, striking out five and allowing one hit and one walk, as the Red Sox beat the Indianapolis Indians, 3-0, in their season opener before 10,681 at McCoy Stadium. Colon faced one batter over the minimum (16).

...

Colon's control and arm strength were terrific. He threw 74 pitches (45 for strikes), and his fastball topped out at 96 miles per hour. He threw 17 pitches in the first inning, 12 in the second, 11 in the third, 12 in the fourth, and 22 in his final inning. His final pitch was a 95-m.p.h. fastball to strike out Kevin Thompson.

The thought of Colon being healthy and throwing mid-90s heat as the fifth starter makes me positively giddy. He really could be the steal of the year.

Someone mentioned(Forget who somebody on TV I think) that some players like Colon have outs in their Minor league contracts if they are not called up by a certain date. Have you heard anything like that with him???

And yeah, thanks for the salt in the wound with Hampton! We(On a braves blog) were all trying to guess how long he would go...figuring adrenaline would be the biggest problem with him going deep(I think he went 6 innings in his 2nd to last start in ST) didn't think he wouldn't even make it out of the bullpen!

Though looking back on it, "they" should have been smart, and waited a day...It was in the low 50's and rainy, not the best time to make a first start....We have both Chuck James and Jo-Jo Reyes coming up....Chucky is coming up to start(He had a slight tear in his rotator cuff last year we found out this year) and Jo-Jo, a starter,is to relieve, since Booby Cox has somehow managed to wear out the bullpen after 4 games....and the Braves go with 12 pitchers! Don't the majority of teams still go with 11??? Or is it just the way Cox has his roster??? We only have 4 outfielders, 6 infielders, and 3 catchers....Bobby Cox, supergenius!

[Dan Gould]

OK, I may be leaping to conclusions here but Bartolo Colon's campaign for Comeback Player of the year got off to a very nice, impressive start last night at Pawtucket:

Colon pitched five scoreless innings, striking out five and allowing one hit and one walk, as the Red Sox beat the Indianapolis Indians, 3-0, in their season opener before 10,681 at McCoy Stadium. Colon faced one batter over the minimum (16).

...

Colon's control and arm strength were terrific. He threw 74 pitches (45 for strikes), and his fastball topped out at 96 miles per hour. He threw 17 pitches in the first inning, 12 in the second, 11 in the third, 12 in the fourth, and 22 in his final inning. His final pitch was a 95-m.p.h. fastball to strike out Kevin Thompson.

The thought of Colon being healthy and throwing mid-90s heat as the fifth starter makes me positively giddy. He really could be the steal of the year.

Someone mentioned(Forget who somebody on TV I think) that some players like Colon have outs in their Minor league contracts if they are not called up by a certain date. Have you heard anything like that with him???

May 1 is his opt-out date. My guess is that they'd like to see Colon start a couple of more games, get his pitch count to 90 and beyond, before making a decision. I'd love to see Buchholz come out and dominate but I am not particularly confident of that based on his decidedly mixed results during spring training. If Colon shows that he is back and healthy, I really like the idea of him in the rotation ahead of Buchholz. Let Clay get his stuff together at Pawtucket rather than asking two very young guys to perform in the bigs this year. Still leaves us with Clay, Masterson and potentially Big Schill in the wings to step in if someone goes down with an injury.

About the only problem with Colon is that he has a mixed record against the Yanks and a downright scary history against A-Rod (I think A-Rods OPS is 1.1 or something against the big guy). But so what? There are 14 other teams to beat in the league, let them try to juggle the rotation if they really think that the Yanks will have his number.

[WorldB3]

Pedro "Always swings at the first pitch" Feliz is no loss. He blew more rallies and lost more games at the plate then I care to remember.

Man, last night Feliz came up w/ the bases loaded and swung at the first pitch and popped up. Rally over. Phils lose 1-0. Mind you this was against the same pitcher who lost the game today by throwing 4 straight balls w/ the bases loaded.

Welcome to my nightmare of the past several years.

Feliz is a great glove man....but he just plain doesn't know diddly squat about hitting.

I feel your pain, JH.

Trust me.

I think in a real lineup like the Phillies have he will be fine. But I would recommend pitch hitting for him in the later innings if the game is on the line.

[Tim McG]

Since you started the thread, what say you get rid of "baseball" from the thread title?

Thank you in advance,

Society for the Prevention and Elimination of Redundancy and Unnecessary Repetition

Sure....but how?

Go to the first post in the thread. Click "edit". That will bring up both the post itself and the thread title/subtitle. Change accordingly and click "complete edit" or whichever the choice is.

Done and done.

Thanks, Dan.

No, the Department of Redundancy Department thanks you.

Glad to be of some service.

[Tim McG]

Pedro "Always swings at the first pitch" Feliz is no loss. He blew more rallies and lost more games at the plate then I care to remember.

Man, last night Feliz came up w/ the bases loaded and swung at the first pitch and popped up. Rally over. Phils lose 1-0. Mind you this was against the same pitcher who lost the game today by throwing 4 straight balls w/ the bases loaded.

Welcome to my nightmare of the past several years.

Feliz is a great glove man....but he just plain doesn't know diddly squat about hitting.

I feel your pain, JH.

Trust me.

I think in a real lineup like the Phillies have he will be fine. But I would recommend pitch hitting for him in the later innings if the game is on the line.

Long as you guys have a good bench, you bet. Giants never did.

[Man with the Golden Arm]

Alex(a) Rodriguez attacked at Fenway!!!

[Tim McG]

You should see the seagulls at ATT Park in SF after a game.

Yike!

[Tim McG]

Giants got whapped today by the Brew-ha's, 13-4.

Sanchez gets roughed up for 7 Runs in only 4IP.

Hennessy comes out of the bullpen to give up 5 more runs and now has an ERA of 37.80

[Soulstation1]

I like Larry Bowa's meltdown in the first game

[papsrus]

Watching the Rays try to give it away to the Yankees after running up a 6-0 lead and knocking Kennedy out in the third inning. ... Crawford looks shaky in left again, getting to a ball in deep center-left but missing it while feeling for the fence. Same thing happened in Baltimore.

(as a Rays fan, it looked to me like Kennedy wasn't getting any calls at all. Tough outing.)

[Dan Gould]

Watching the Rays try to give it away to the Yankees after running up a 6-0 lead and knocking Kennedy out in the third inning. ... Crawford looks shaky in left again, getting to a ball in deep center-left but missing it while feeling for the fence. Same thing happened in Baltimore.

(as a Rays fan, it looked to me like Kennedy wasn't getting any calls at all. Tough outing.)

Yeah, well I thought that the umpire saw the ridiculous calls that Hughes was getting the night before and reminded himself that these are rookies. They're not entitled to close calls yet. And it really wasn't Kennedy getting squeezed anyway - the ump was consistent in his strike zone for both teams, from what I saw.

And most importantly, after the unknown youngsters kept it close, Hawkins and Farnsworth combined to blow it open in the eighth inning. 13-4 Rays, which takes away some of the sting of tonight's debacle in Toronto.

[papsrus]

Watching the Rays try to give it away to the Yankees after running up a 6-0 lead and knocking Kennedy out in the third inning. ... Crawford looks shaky in left again, getting to a ball in deep center-left but missing it while feeling for the fence. Same thing happened in Baltimore.

(as a Rays fan, it looked to me like Kennedy wasn't getting any calls at all. Tough outing.)

Yeah, well I thought that the umpire saw the ridiculous calls that Hughes was getting the night before and reminded himself that these are rookies. They're not entitled to close calls yet. And it really wasn't Kennedy getting squeezed anyway - the ump was consistent in his strike zone for both teams, from what I saw.

And most importantly, after the unknown youngsters kept it close, Hawkins and Farnsworth combined to blow it open in the eighth inning. 13-4 Rays, which takes away some of the sting of tonight's debacle in Toronto.

Agreed on the strike zone. He was consistent. Huge 8th inning. I'm liking this Rays lineup so far. Hinske and Floyd look like great additions. And what a bomb by Pena in the 8th! ... Nice start to a four-game series.

[Dan Gould]

Watching the Rays try to give it away to the Yankees after running up a 6-0 lead and knocking Kennedy out in the third inning. ... Crawford looks shaky in left again, getting to a ball in deep center-left but missing it while feeling for the fence. Same thing happened in Baltimore.

(as a Rays fan, it looked to me like Kennedy wasn't getting any calls at all. Tough outing.)

Yeah, well I thought that the umpire saw the ridiculous calls that Hughes was getting the night before and reminded himself that these are rookies. They're not entitled to close calls yet. And it really wasn't Kennedy getting squeezed anyway - the ump was consistent in his strike zone for both teams, from what I saw.

And most importantly, after the unknown youngsters kept it close, Hawkins and Farnsworth combined to blow it open in the eighth inning. 13-4 Rays, which takes away some of the sting of tonight's debacle in Toronto.

Agreed on the strike zone. He was consistent. Huge 8th inning. I'm liking this Rays lineup so far. Hinske and Floyd look like great additions. And what a bomb by Pena in the 8th! ... Nice start to a four-game series.

Just keep it up and beat those Yankees! I think Pettitte should be ripe for the picking tomorrow, but the question is always whether or not the Rays pitching can get the job done. With Mussina against Shields on Monday night, I think anything less than a split would be disappointing for you and me both. But as far as Hinske and Floyd go - Floyd is guaranteed to hurt himself at some point, and Hinske has fallen about as far a RoY winner can. I just wouldn't expect him to be much more than an average hitter/fielder, most likely in need of a platoon partner. Then again he shouldn't even be playing third base but the owners are too cheap and stupid to let Longoria start in the majors where he belongs. Better to keep his service clock from starting too soon. I'd be pissed if I were a Rays fan.

[papsrus]

... Then again he shouldn't even be playing third base but the owners are too cheap and stupid to let Longoria start in the majors where he belongs. Better to keep his service clock from starting too soon. I'd be pissed if I were a Rays fan.

I think we'll see Longoria soon. Middle of the month is the trigger that pushes his free agency into 2014.

Yankees just looked ... old ... tonight. Jeter should have had two errors, Giambi was unwilling to even throw from first to third to try to nail Hinske after he took a wide turn, and their pen, I dunno, pretty shaky ... what do you think? ... Fourth place wouldn't shock me for them. Wishful thinking maybe, and I'm not going to get too excited after one blowout, but still, I wouldn't be shocked.

Edited April 5, 2008 by papsrus

[Dan Gould]

First I'd say "your lips to God's ears".

Then I'd say that's pretty wishful thinking when you consider that Yankee fans can't imagine falling to third place, let alone fourth.

I'd say there's a possibility if everything goes right for the Rays (and Jays) and everything goes wrong for the Yanks (namely, Pettitte gets hurt; Hughes is inconsistent and Kennedy gets pounded (that's the possibility with the most odds); Joba is forced into the rotation, with the result that there is no reliable bridge to Mariano and Joba discovers that its not so easy to maintain your velocity and get through an AL lineup three times; and finally, all the old guys calcify simultaneously - Damon, Giambi, Matsui, Abreu.

Its a real tall order and that's not even considering how the Rays and Jays would have to turn it around to hold up their end of the bargain. My guess though is that the Yankees ultimately pound a lot of mediocre teams into submission but their starters do not do enough of a job. 89-91 wins, second or third place, no playoffs.

Edited April 5, 2008 by Dan Gould

[Dan Gould]

Well, so far it looks like I was right about the Rays chances against Pettitte, 6-1 in the eighth, which is great to see since Buchholz was betrayed by his defense and then the dregs of the bullpen blew the game completely up, 10-2 at the end of six. So all that stands between us and a sweep in Toronto is Beckett. I guess that's why they call him a "stopper" but it won't exactly be easy with Doc Holloday taking the mound for Toronto.

Just saw the news out of New York - I noticed that Betamit pinch hit for Giambi in a still winnable game - turns out Giambi came out with a groin injury. I imagine that doesn't exactly surprise anyone - the problem being that Duncan, who was playing 1B today anyway, starts serving his well-deserved two game suspension on Sunday. That will leave Betamit as the main 1B. I guess Posada could play 1B in a pinch. But no surprise in Giambi getting hurt, the question is how long he'll be out.

[jlhoots]

Giants got whapped today by the Brew-ha's, 13-4.

Sanchez gets roughed up for 7 Runs in only 4IP.

Hennessy comes out of the bullpen to give up 5 more runs and now has an ERA of 37.80

Brewers defeat Giants again today (5 -4).

Brewers now 4 - 1.

[Tim McG]

Giants got whapped today by the Brew-ha's, 13-4.

Sanchez gets roughed up for 7 Runs in only 4IP.

Hennessy comes out of the bullpen to give up 5 more runs and now has an ERA of 37.80

Brewers defeat Giants again today (5 -4).

Brewers now 4 - 1.

No surprises here.

The Brew-ha's are legit.

Although with two errors, the were doing their damnedest to give the game away to the Giants.

Edited April 5, 2008 by GoodSpeak

[Tim McG]

Good news is Pads beat the Dodgers, 4-1

[papsrus]

Well, so far it looks like I was right about the Rays chances against Pettitte, 6-1 in the eighth, which is great to see since Buchholz was betrayed by his defense and then the dregs of the bullpen blew the game completely up, 10-2 at the end of six. So all that stands between us and a sweep in Toronto is Beckett. I guess that's why they call him a "stopper" but it won't exactly be easy with Doc Holloday taking the mound for Toronto.

Just saw the news out of New York - I noticed that Betamit pinch hit for Giambi in a still winnable game - turns out Giambi came out with a groin injury. I imagine that doesn't exactly surprise anyone - the problem being that Duncan, who was playing 1B today anyway, starts serving his well-deserved two game suspension on Sunday. That will leave Betamit as the main 1B. I guess Posada could play 1B in a pinch. But no surprise in Giambi getting hurt, the question is how long he'll be out.

Interesting about Giambi. ... Jays look tough, I guess. But my money's on Beckett. ... Pretty excited that the Rays already have the split in the bag with the Yankees and can go for the series win Sunday. Gomes taking Pettite deep with a couple of baserunners was nice ... the ball juuuust made it over the left field wall. Rays escaped a bases-loaded, no-outs situation in the eighth giving up just a pair of runs (whew). ... Even though Pena and Crawford were held hitless, the Rays are getting contributions elsewhere up and down the lineup, which is nice (for a change). ... Jackson seemed to want to start Yankee batters off with a couple of balls before throwing some strikes. Got himself in trouble a few times (bases loaded in the second) but he managed it, also good. Overall ...

Edited April 5, 2008 by papsrus