Can we get the Save Kyrie's Toe people to start Save Mariano's Knee?
I hate this. I hope Mo can find a way back and pitch next season. Not the way for the greatest of all time to go out.
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He's now gone homer-less for 32 straight games, 133 at bats, and is hitting .202.
This is really becoming quite a train wreck. It's going to take him getting very hot for pretty much the rest of the season (which he is showing zero signs of becoming) for his final numbers to even look decent. He (and his team) have dug some pretty deep holes in a very short time.
A torn ACL is a a pretty awful way for a great career like Rivera's to end. Hopefully he manages to come back, though that will obviously be a very tough road at this point.
Just want to point out that the Cards are doing something incredible with their hot start. Their run differential is +62 right now. To put that in perspective, the next best in the NL is the Braves at +17. Texas, at +49, is the only other Major League team with a run differential of better than +25 right now.
To do this after losing the legend/Hall of Famer who defined your team for a decade is truly remarkable. Props.
-Jason "this may be as good a story as Albert's Angel (Mis)Adventure right now" Evans
The Braves won tonight in Colorado when Eric Hinskie blasted a two-run homer in the 11th. Chipper homered earlier in the game.
The stat of the night: The Braves are now 12-2 in games where Chipper has started ... and 4-9 in games where he has not started. And I know that in at least one of those four non-Chipper wins, he came off the bench to get the game-winning hit as a pinch-hitter.
He's still a pretty caluable player.
Another night ... another comeback.
Saturday night at Colorado -- for the second straight night, the Braves rallied from a 6-0 deficit to win (13-9). That's twice in a row and three times this week (they did it earlier against Roy Halladay and the Phillies).
Chipper was huge again with three hits and five RBIs. The Braves are now 13-2 in games he starts and are leading the NL in runs scored!
Braves, National , and O's are LQQKing GOOD :cool:
This one was #4 in Sportscenter's Plays of the Week, if I'm not mistaken. Perhaps more impressive to me was Harper getting a double out of a little flare hit over the shortstop. He had no business getting two bases out of that, but it wasn't even that close a play. Too bad his effort was wasted as the Nats pitching fell apart late and Cole Hamels had an excellent outing. Still, taking 2 out of 3 from the Phillies is nice.
The biggest news of the game was Werth breaking his wrist on an attempted catch. That means that the Nats are without their predicted #3, #4, #5, and #6 hitters, along with their closer and their backup closer. Getting to 18-10 under these circumstances is pretty amazing, IMO. With Zimmerman and LaRoche due back in the lineup this week, here's hoping that Werth's DL stay won't hurt too badly.
The subtext to that play was the fact that with two outs Hamels had hit Harper deliberately, figuring the kid couldn't hurt him. Once Harper got to third, his theft of home was payback--and Hamels has acknowledged it. Welcome to the Bigs, kid. And Hamels' little gift backfired. Payback's a bit*h, Cole.
I loved the fact that in the Orioles-Bosox game, two position players finished the game on the mound. Baltimore won it 9-6 in 17 innings. Both teams had depleted their bullpens and DH Chris Davis ended up being the winning pitcher over outfielder Darnell McDonald.
Seems that hadn't happened since 1925 when Ty Cobb and George Sisler pitched against each other in the last game of the season.
The Hamels-Harper HBP is getting some administrative level reaction. I didn't realize that Nats pitcher Jordan Hamilton had hit Hamels in the third. Not intentionally, says Zimmerman. Hmm.
Looks like the GMs will help create a new rivalry.
I predict that the Bryce Harper-Cole Hamels contretemps will be chapter one in the book of heroic feats by slugger Harper. With two outs in the first Hamels threw directly at Hamels on the first pitch and hit him in the back above the belt. Hamels later admitted it was intentional... duh. Harper didn't say a thing but trotted to first. Harper then went from first to third on a single by Tim Werth. Then, as Hamels was thowing over to first to hold Werth on the base, Harper broke for home and made it easily. I have never seen a player steal home in such circumstances, and he was clearly motivated by the HBP. For good measure, Nats starter Jordan Zimmermann threw at Hamels during his first at bat and hit him on the calf.
But you gotta love Bryce Harper!
sagegrouse
From MLB.com
Quote:
A day after Phillies pitcher Cole Hamels stoked the budding rivalry between his team and the Washington Nationals by hitting Bryce Harper with a pitch and then admitting that he did it intentionally, Major League Baseball responded by suspending the left-hander for five games and hitting him with an undisclosed fine.
There is nothing phonier than suspending a starting pitcher for five games.
Now, a position player suspended for five days is going to miss five games. But a starting pitcher only works once ever five games anyway, so at most he misses one start. But it's not even that much of a penalty, because all you do is push the start back one day to the sixth game.
It's less than a slap on the wrist.
Of course, Hamels deserves something -- not so much for hitting Harper, but for being dumb enough to brag about it afterwards.
Agreed. Would be interesting to know the size of the fine. Could be a knuckle rap or a week's lost salary. The latter might almost be significant. But his 2012 salary is said to be $15M, so a week's lost salary wouldn't likely be noticed. It would still be a little north of $288,000.