Baseball 2012 -- The In-Season Thread

[Blue in the Face]

Baseball is a young man's game.

Jamie Moyer was designated for assignment by the Colorado Rockies on Wednesday, the move being made about six weeks after he became the oldest starting pitcher to win a game in major league history.

[DU82]

As a Mets fan, I have literally been waiting for that all my life (other than the first two years, when there were no Mets.)

I remember as a nine-year old watching Tom Seaver's "Imperfect Game" against the Cubs, and Jimmy Qualis getting a bloop hit with one out in the ninth, and his two other late no-hitters.

I believe that leaves San Diego as the only team without a no-hitter. (Yep, and Wikipedia has already been updated.) Preston Gomez sent in a pinch hitter at least once, and I believe it may have been twice, while the pitcher (Randy Jones?) was throwing a no-hitter, and the relief pitcher gave up a hit.

[fisheyes]

Congrats to Johan Santana who just pitched the Mets first no hitter!!!!

[duke74]

This is so long in coming. As a Mets fan since 1962 (yes, their first year at the polo grounds), and after waiting for over 8,000 games, I am thrilled. Especially since our former pitchers have so many--Tom Terrific, Doc, Coney, and of course Nolan.

Congrats to Johan and the rest of the Mets, especially Mike Baxter, a Queens kid (like me) who saved the no-no with a miraculous catch, sacrificing his body in the process.

[Olympic Fan]

It would be a lot easier to celebrate this feat if it weren't tainted by an obvious blown call on Beltran's drive down the left-field line in the sixth. Replay shows the ball hit the chalk:

http://espn.go.com/new-york/mlb/stor...nchise-history

This is kin of the reverse of Gallaraga's perfect game that was spoiled by a bad call ... this was a no-hitter that was a gift from the umps.
Note: They had a much better, close, slow motion replay on MLB Network, including a close-up shot afterwards that clarly showed the mark left my the ball in the chalk foul line. But this was the best replay I could easily access.

[OZZIE4DUKE]

It would be a lot easier to celebrate this feat if it weren't tainted by an obvious blown call on Beltran's drive down the left-field line in the sixth. Replay shows the ball hit the chalk:

http://espn.go.com/new-york/mlb/stor...nchise-history

This is kin of the reverse of Gallaraga's perfect game that was spoiled by a bad call ... this was a no-hitter that was a gift from the umps.
Note: They had a much better, close, slow motion replay on MLB Network, including a close-up shot afterwards that clarly showed the mark left my the ball in the chalk foul line. But this was the best replay I could easily access.

Congrats to Johan/Nohan and the Mets! I was watching the Yankee game on the MLB network last night and was glad they switched over for the bottom of the 9th inning! The blown fair/foul call is the breaks of the game, and this one went in his favor. It didn't happen in the 9th inning, and it wasn't a home run (or grounds rule double) so it couldn't be reversed via instant replay. Them's the breaks!

Hard to believe that Seaver, Ryan, Koosman, et al, never had one during their Mets careers back in the 60's.

[Olympic Fan]

Baseball is a young man's game.

Well, now that Jamie Moyer is (at least temporarily) out of the league, that means the active career win leaders are:

1. Andy Pettite -- 242
2. Roy Halladay -- 192
3. Tim Hudson -- 184
4. C.C. Sabathia -- 183
5. Livion Hernandez -- 175 (I wouldn't have guessed this one)
6. Derek Lowe --172
7. Mark Buehrle -- 166
(tie) Kevin Millwood -- 166 (another surprise to me)
9. Bartolo Colon -- 165
10. Barrty Zito -- 149

[dukebsbll14]

Orioles have drafted Ryan Ripken (son of Cal and USC signee) with the 612 pick in the draft.

[Jim3k]

It may not amount to much in the long run, but last night a 2007 draftee from UVa, Sean Doolittle, made his major league debut for Oakland against the Rangers.

At UVa he had been a two-position star, 1B and pitcher, who was known as a hitter. The A's drafted him as a 1B and he played in the minors for several years, eventually hurting his knee. He was making a bit of a comeback this spring but re-tweaked the knee and told the A's he'd like to try pitching again. So, he went to the instructional league, then AA Modesto, and then to AAA Sacramento and then to the A's last night. All since the season began. I dunno if any pitcher has moved up the chain that fast. In the minors he was unhittable--had an ERA of .067 or something.

Last night, relieving the struggling call-up Travis Blackley, Doolittle was brought in with two outs to face Nelson Cruz with Michael Young on third, due to his run-scoring triple. Showing a blazing fastball--mid nineties and exquisite control, he blew Cruz away to end the inning. The following inning he struck out Napoli swinging and Torrealba looking. For the third out he got Gentry to hit a weak liner to first. I think all fastballs.

Total: 21 pitches, 13 strikes. Four batters, three strikeouts.

What does all this mean? Not much. Cute story, though--converted first baseman strikes out three in debut after becoming a pitcher two months ago.

He will need another pitch or two to succeed, but it was a promising start. His college pitching must have been helpful.

WaPo Link

[Rogue]

Padre's / Cubs,, in race to the bottom still..

Long , long , long season for me..

I do enjoy the Braves, Nationals, and O's

[Turk]

It's June and the streaking Buccos are tied for first in the NL central, with the best record in MLB since May 25. Is this the year they finish over .500? I'm feeling uncharacteristically frisky for a Monday morning, so I'm going to say yes.

They were in the hunt into July last season, until that crippling 19th inning blown call against the Braves stole all their mojo. This year, the pitching is better, McCutchen is better, and the rest of the dink-and-dunk offense is about the same. Let's go, Bucs!!

[Reilly]

It's June and the streaking Buccos are tied for first in the NL central...

They play the equally-surprising Orioles this week. I read recently that 8 to 9% of MLB games go extra innings in a season. This year, the Orioles have had 11 of their 60 games (18%) go extra. Most amazingly, the O's have won their last nine extra inning games (including two this weekend against the Phillies).

[Mal]

Well, now that Jamie Moyer is (at least temporarily) out of the league, that means the active career win leaders are:

1. Andy Pettite -- 242
2. Roy Halladay -- 192
3. Tim Hudson -- 184
4. C.C. Sabathia -- 183
5. Livion Hernandez -- 175 (I wouldn't have guessed this one)
6. Derek Lowe --172
7. Mark Buehrle -- 166
(tie) Kevin Millwood -- 166 (another surprise to me)
9. Bartolo Colon -- 165
10. Barrty Zito -- 149

While it's been the case for awhile, I think this list, and the rest of the active leaders list all the way down to about 100, just further underscores that we're done with 300 game winners. At least until the game changes again. Sabathia is the only one of the listed pitchers younger than 33, and he'll turn 32 pretty shortly. So he's the only one who, from an age standpoint, has a reasonable shot - he and Buehrle are the only active pitchers to even get half way to 300 before turning 34 years old. And despite the evidence proving me wrong thus far, I continue to believe that at some point the fact that CC's carrying just shy of 300 lbs. on him is eventually going to cost him, especially given that he's already thrown almost 2,500 innings. He might slim up and extend his career, but there's no immediate reason to think that (a) he will, and (b) he'd be effective as a smaller, older pitcher. All that said, if he can average 17 W's for the next 5 years, he'll be at 168 and within spitting distance during his twilight years, especially if he's still with the Yankees.

But beyond that, there are really only three guys on the entire list that struck me as having enough W's at a tender age to even possibly project out to the 250+ range: Verlander, Felix and Kershaw. Verlander's 70 wins behind Sabathia and only 2 years younger. He might pitch effectively at an older age (although as a power pitcher that's less likely), but that's a lot of ground to make up. Felix has spent the early part of his prime on too awful a team to get full credit in W's and will never catch up. Kershaw's only 24 but already has one 20 win season under his belt. But who knows? All it takes is the Dodgers becoming mediocre for 4 or 5 years, or a few pedestrian seasons with 10 or 11 wins to fall off track.

With so many wins going to relievers, so few starts for starters, more and more pitchers being drawn from the college ranks and/or not being rushed to the majors and/or put on aggressive pitch and inning count tracking, the structural elements just aren't there anymore for a 300 game winner. Think Strasburg - probably the biggest young pitching talent in the last decade, but he'll probably enter his Age 25 season with no more than 20 W's, and need to average winning 18 games a year until he's 40 to have a chance. For a guy who's already lost a season with TJ surgery, that doesn't seem likely.

Not that it matters, I guess (and I'm a big fan of the devaluation of W's, anyway), but interesting that that counting stat milestone has died such a quick death.

[dukebsbll14]

Brian Roberts played his first game since May 16, 2011, going 3 for 4 with an RBI. Good for Baltimore to have him back as they now have a consistent lead-off hitter. BRob has been battling concussions for about 2 years now and there was actually a strong possibility that his career was done, but he worked hard and made his way back. Hope he has a successful rest of the year!

ACC connection here: Roberts is from Durham and played at UNC for two years until his father, the coach, was fired. B-Rob then transferred to South Carolina.


Also, after a game between the Nats and Blue Jays, a reporter asked Bryce Harper if he would have a 'celebratory Canadian beer' since he his old enough to drink North of the border. Harper responded with, "That's a clown question, bro."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...OsZV_blog.html

[awhom111]

Perfection here in San Francisco!

[JBDuke]

Big series this weekend as the AL East leading Yankees come to DC on the heels of a 6-game winning streak over the Mets and the Braves. The Nationals are riding a 6-game winning streak of their own, and have had a bit of a coming-out party against the Red Sox and the Braves. Both teams are leading their divisions and both are playing .600 ball or so (the Yanks have one more win, the Nats two less losses). Only the Dodgers have a better record than these two teams. The Nats are doing it with exceptional pitching and timely hitting. The Yankees are getting only average pitching, but their offense is considerably more powerful.

Now, the Yankees are used to being in this position, and they are certainly used to the glare of the spotlight. For the Nats, the spotlight is new. Pretty sure the quote I heard on the radio is that this is the latest in the season that a Washington baseball team has been 15 games over .500 since 1933, which just happens to be the last year a Washington team made the baseball playoffs, too. So far, the Nats youth and easy-going style has served them well in handling the success, but if they can handle the Yankees this weekend and take 2 out of 3 or sweep, they'll be sitting on baseball's mountaintop, from a media perspective.

Should be a fascinating 3 games. First pitch is tomorrow night at 7:05 pm in Nationals Park. Gio Gonzalez (8-2, 2.35 ERA, 89 K's, 1.00 WHIP) vs. Phil Hughes (6-5, 4.76 ERA, 63 K's, 1.34 WHIP).

[Olympic Fan]

Perfection here in San Francisco!

And, along with Cain's gem, there is the controversial no-hitter by Dickey of the Mets.

At the moment, it's a one-hitter, but the Mets have filed a formal "protest" of the scoring decision that gave BJ Upton a hit on his infield grounder in the first inning. If you find the replay, Upton bounced a slow roller down the third-base line that David Wright tries to grab barehanded, but can't. No controversy when it was ruled a hit, but it's the kind of play that in the eighth or ninth inning of a no-no, might have been ruled an error. The Mets admit that their no-no has almost no chance of succeeding, but they're going to tru anyway.

Interesting that after 51 years without a no-hitter, the Mets came within a mishandled grounder (and a blown call in the Santana no-hit) of getting two in a fortnight.

PS As a Yankee fan, I'm looking forward to the series with the Nats. The only bummer is that neither ace will be available this weekend -- no Strasberg and no Sabathia. But the Yankees are expected to activate Robertson from the DL and that ought to help the NY pen.

[Blue in the Face]

So less than 2 weeks after Santana got a no-hitter with a little help from the umps, RA Dickey throws a one-hit shutout, the lone hit coming in the 1st inning, on a ball David Wright tried to barehand and couldn't come up with. So the Mets are appealing the official scoring, trying to get it changed to an error, giving Dickey the franchise's second no hiter (and making 6/13/12 quite a special day for pitching). Good luck with that.

[throatybeard]

Perfection here in San Francisco!

Good thing I have Cain on two of my three fantasy teams. Bad thing that I don't have him in the pay league.

[-bdbd]

Big series this weekend as the AL East leading Yankees come to DC on the heels of a 6-game winning streak over the Mets and the Braves. The Nationals are riding a 6-game winning streak of their own, and have had a bit of a coming-out party against the Red Sox and the Braves. Both teams are leading their divisions and both are playing .600 ball or so (the Yanks have one more win, the Nats two less losses). Only the Dodgers have a better record than these two teams. The Nats are doing it with exceptional pitching and timely hitting. The Yankees are getting only average pitching, but their offense is considerably more powerful.

Now, the Yankees are used to being in this position, and they are certainly used to the glare of the spotlight. For the Nats, the spotlight is new. Pretty sure the quote I heard on the radio is that this is the latest in the season that a Washington baseball team has been 15 games over .500 since 1933, which just happens to be the last year a Washington team made the baseball playoffs, too. So far, the Nats youth and easy-going style has served them well in handling the success, but if they can handle the Yankees this weekend and take 2 out of 3 or sweep, they'll be sitting on baseball's mountaintop, from a media perspective.
Should be a fascinating 3 games. First pitch is tomorrow night at 7:05 pm in Nationals Park. Gio Gonzalez (8-2, 2.35 ERA, 89 K's, 1.00 WHIP) vs. Phil Hughes (6-5, 4.76 ERA, 63 K's, 1.34 WHIP).

Yes, Davey Johnson's easy-going coaching style has really meshed for the young Nats.

Two very hot (6-win streaks) Division-leading teams, though the Nats have the slightly better record. I like today's pitching match-up too, Phil Hughes for the visitors vs lefty Gio Gonzalez of the Nats. Gio doesn't have a great record vs NYY (pitched for several years in the AL for the A's). Several sub-plots too. If Harper does well it'll solidify him with the national media, and maybe get him more All-Star discussion. Sweeping Boston at Fenway last weekend helped the Nats with their national cred, but winning the Yankees series would be even more so. Lose the series and, well, lots of dismissals (rightly or wrongly).

I think this could be a great match-up of great hitting (NYY) vs great pitching (DC). But don't ignore that the Yanks' pitching has been coming on strong of late.

..Starting Pitchers :
Phil Hughes, New York Yankees V Gio Gonzalez, Washington Nationals

6 W 8
5 L 2
4.76 ERA 2.35
63 K 89
18 BB 30
1.34 WHIP 1.00



http://sports.yahoo.com/news/yankees...3799--mlb.html

I like to look at it as the young $80M payroll vs the old $200M payroll. Let's see who survives...