Here's my running diary of the action in major league baseball tonight.

7:20 PM The Twins got rained out tonight. They'll play two tomorrow. I'm surprised that the start time is 4:00 PM Eastern. I would think that the Yanks would want to play that game early and clear out the stadium to collect two gates. Atlanta lost to the Mets in the first game of a double header today. Don't look now, but LA is only one game behind Atlanta in the loss column. Atlanta does hold the tiebreaker, I think, based on their head-to-head record, but if Atlanta does fall in the standings, they could draw St. Louis in the first round. I like this. Atlanta is playing the Cubs this weekend, and I'd like them to have something to play for. In the second game, it's scoreless in the third. Cincinnatti has the bases loaded in the second against Greg Maddux and the Cubs. I had the thought, get to him early, and it took me back to a game I saw at the Metrodome a couple of years ago. The Twins got to Maddux for 5 in the first inning and never touched him again. The Braves caught up and the game went 14 innings. Meanwhile, a huge windstorm is going on outside and the roof is moving so much that the foul screen in left field was bouncing about three feet. That was something else. Oh, and the Twins won. :) Damn, nothing across. Boston is in a slugfest with Tampa. I don't think that Boston really believes that they can catch the Yanks. Considering that they are the Twins likely first round opponent, I'd hate to see them get red hot right now. Derrick Lowe lasted just 2 1/3 innings. I can't believe he'll start in the playoffs against the Twins. 8:10 PM The Cubs are trailing 4-0. This is clearly the biggest game happening right now in the National League. Houston and St. Louis are tied at 1 in the fourth. The Truck Washer is batting right now. C'mon Truck Washer, strike out! Anaheim is leading Texas 2-0 in the fourth. Another loss and Texas is pretty much out. Hell, they're out already. Boston is tied 8-8 with Tampa. No pitching tonight for the Sox. Atlanta and the Mets are tied 2-2 after 5 1/2 at the Ted. I'm probably the only guy in America thinking about the ramifications of this game. Well, me and Bobby Cox. I wonder if Dusty Baker is thinking about it. I wonder if he's watching the scoreboard. I wonder how tight his shirt collar feels. 8:40 PM Atlanta has taken control, 5-3. I would love to see the Dodgers lose starting tonight, but realistically, it's gonna be tough for the Giants to catch the Dodgers. So, in a perverse sort of way, the Dodgers winning isn't the worst thing in the world if you are a Giant fan, especially if the Cubs continue to struggle. And they are stuggling tonight. They trail the Reds 6-2 after five. Adam Dunn, he of all the strikeouts and walks, also has 44 HRs after homering tonight. Houston leads St. Louis 2-1. Anaheim leads Texas 4-0. If you read my column earlier today, you know that these are the two teams I foresee coming out of the wild races that remain. Make it 5-0 Anaheim. Kansas City is going to lose its 100th game of the season. Wow, what a disappointing season for the Royals. I'll bet they feel real good about that Juan Gonzalez signing. For $4,000,000 they get 33 games and five home runs. Ouch. 9:15 PM Doug Mientkiewicz is 2-5 with a double and an RBI. Tonight is his first 2 hit game since August 11. But, he popped out with a runner on second in the tenth. Seattle has scored one in the first against Oakland and is threatening for more. What has happened to Oakland's pitching? Their ERA in September is 5.23 and this is after pushing Our Favorite Nine for the lowest team ERA. Now, Seattle has three runs in the first. Could Anaheim be in first place by the end of the night? The Astronauts are still hanging on against the Cards and the Cubs are getting pasted. Buster Olney has a story on ESPN.COM right now where he says, "Everything is in place for the Cubs to win the wild card. " If you read ESPN.COM regularly, you know that Buster is a big Yankee guy and has written a book about the latest Yankee dynasty. Hey, Buster. Stick to writing stories about Derek Jeter. The Astronauts are coming and the Cubs are the ones about to splash down. Colorado has an early 1-0 lead on the Dodgers. That, of course, is subject to change. The Giants in the top of the second. No Score. Sisyphus is coming to bat. He lined out on a 3-1 pitch. What? No intentional walk? 10:05 PM The Astronauts hold on and beat the Cards. The Cubs lose to the Reds. Atlanta splits. Boston wins in 11. Giants trail by two. In his second at bat, Sisyphus is walked intentionally with men on 1st and 3rd and two out. Snow grounds out. Good God. As of this moment, Houston is 1/2 game behind the Cubs and tied with the Giants. They have one game left with St. Louis and Roger Clemens is pitching it! Then, they have three left at home with Colorado. The Astronauts are blasting off! Oh, before I forget, Milwaukee and Arizona are tied at 4. These are two historically bad teams. I mean, Arizona might not win 50 games, and Milwaukee might not win 20 in the second half. Yuck. Seattle is beating Oakland 4-0. Anaheim is gonna be in first place. My picks are looking good! 10:20 PM Giants explode for 5 in the 4th and they are still batting. Sisyphus is walked with 5 runs in and a guy on second. Too late, the horse has left the barn. Oakland's picked up a couple of runs. Bonds has now reached base 367 times this year, the second most ever. Babe Ruth reached 379 times in 1923 according to Baseball-Reference.com. With five+ games to play, he's got a pretty damn good shot of topping that record (in fact, he's right on pace). Giants get 6 in the 4th and lead 6-2. Surprisingly, Colorado still holds a 1-0 lead in the fifth inning. Did I mention that Detroit beat Chicago? :)

9/29/2004 09:37:00 AM|W|P| SBG|W|P|Yeah, I missed the late night theatrics. The Dodgers get five in the ninth? They did nothing all night and then get five in the ninth to win and maintain their three game lead. Crazy!9/28/2004 08:49:00 AM|W|P|SBG|W|P|I wish I had been publishing this blog last year. When the playoffs started, while everyone else was trying to analyze which teams would advance by looking at each team's statistics, I looked at the playoff field and something sharpened into focus. I realized that there was a tremendous potential for heartbreak -- and I made my predictions. I shared those predictions with three people, two of which I am sure can probably remember what I said. And here's what I said: The Florida Marlins would win the World Series. I am not kidding. I used my theory of heartbreak to determine that if the Marlins won the World Series, that would break more fan's hearts than anybody, especially those of long suffering fans. Let's look back. The Giants haven't won the World Series since they moved to San Francisco in the '50s. The Cubs? Well, we know about that. The Braves? Lots of post season heartbreak for a team of otherwise unbelievable success. So naturally, the Marlins would beat the Giants, and the Braves will beat the Cubs. (oops, missed there). And the Marlins would deny the (Cubs) and win the National League. In the AL, I thought if the Yanks beat Our Favorite Nine that would break my heart. And of course, Oakland had to go early, adding to their post season frustration. And, in a moment of weakness, I thought that the Red Sox would end their 80 year run of futility against the Yanks, only to lose in seven games to the Marlins. Well, that didn't quite happen, but I'm willing to bet that had I been in an office pool, I'd have done all right by picking the Marlins to win it all. Which brings us to the present moment. I look at the last week of the season -- each team has a little more than one turn left through their rotation, and three teams are alive in the AL West and four teams are alive for two spots in the NL (West and Wild Card). I suppose you could sit down and analyze the pitching matchups, the remaining schedules, and so forth, but really, where's the fun in that? So, I will attempt to call the last week based on feel. In the AL, I like the Angels. They trail the Oaklands by one game. Texas has really blown their opportunity by not playing well (or well enough). Here's why I like Anaheim. If they beat the Oaklands, then people like Joe Morgan can crow about how Billy Beane shouldn't have written that book about himself and how the "Oakland way" of doing things no longer works. Nevermind that the Anaheimers have about double the payroll. Nevermind that Oakland has had a tremendous run when it really shouldn't have been able to. Nevermind that the "Oakland way" is spreading. This year it's gonna be the Angels. The Twins are going to hold off the Angels and get the second seed. In the NL, I like the Dodgers and the Astronauts. Well, I don't like the Dodgers and Astronauts, but I like them to win the two remaining spots. The Cubs won big last night, but I foresee a collapse. I know, that's not too daring, but there's another reason that I'm picking the Astronauts. I see this as being a very painful result for Sisyphus. The team he hates more than any is the Dodgers. They're gonna be in. And who does he hate more than anybody else? None other than the Truck Washer himself, Jeff Kent. I think ole number 25 is gonna hate watching Kent smirk in the playoffs while he's sitting home. With these predictions, I see another trend. It's gonna be a cold fall in the Bay Area. The A's and Giants are out. The 49ers are dreadful. And the Raiders? Don't think so. I realize that these predictions are not at all supported by any rational analysis. They could be completely wrong. I don't really care. The point is, anything can happen. What I am looking forward to is another good week of baseball down the stretch. If I'm wrong, well, I wasn't really taking a serious look at it. And if I'm right? You heard it here first. Have a good day everybody. |W|P|109637942745431154|W|P|Baseball's Last Week|W|P|sbg@stickandballguy.com9/27/2004 07:52:00 AM|W|P|SBG|W|P|Well, the Giants lost two out of three to the Dodgers. This leaves the Giants 2 1/2 games behind the Dodgers with 6 to play. Sigh. It wasn't because of the efforts of Sisyphus, who was 3 for 7 with 2 home runs and 7 walks in the three games. Let's see. That's a .429/.714/1.286 weekend, and it's not enough. On Saturday, the only game that the Giants won, he was walked 5 times, three intentionally, including one time with the bases empty. Obviously, the Giants have to win out next weekend, or the Dodgers will be in. But, the Giants might get in, too. Oh, what a difference one inning can make. On Saturday, I wrote that the Cubs were going to win in New York. Ah, but our old friend, LaTroy Hawkins gave up a three run home run in the ninth inning, and the Cubs lost in ten. And then, they lost again yesterday. So, with one week to play in the season, the Cubs have a 1/2 game lead over the Giants, and lo and behold, the Astronauts are still in it. Phil Garner was right. They're only 1 1/2 behind the Cubs. The Giants have to play San Diego this week and the Cubs get four with Cincinnatti. The Cubs should win, but I'll bet they'll play the games anyway. I look (and hope) for a very tight and interesting week. As for Our Favorite Nine, they split with the Indians this weekend. Once again, My Personal Hero Brad Radke got jobbed out of a win, this time by our once again ordinary left handed reliever, J.C. Romero. Romero has really struggled since his scoreless inning streak ended. Seth Stohs remarked [accurately] that Romero's streak wasn't all that great - he allowed 9 of 16 inherited runners to score. Now Romero has struggled, and the Twins have a big question mark in the bullpen as the playoffs start. On Sunday, the Twins got another good performance from Carlos Silva. He pitched seven innings, allowing just one run on eight hits, two walks and just one strikeout. There can be no doubt that Carlos Silva will be the game three starter for the Twins. Five of his last seven starts have been quality starts, and in the other two, he failed to get a quality start only because he did not finish the sixth inning. In those seven starts, he has the following numbers.

  IP    H    R   ER   HR   BB   SO   WHIP   K/BB    K/9    ERA
 42.2   42   9   9    1    8    14   1.17   1.75    2.95   1.90

Carlos Silva has definitely amassed a collection of mirrors. The guy doesn't strike anybody out. He gives up hits, lots of hits. But, there it is, a 1.90 ERA over almost a quarter of his starts. What he has been doing well is that he hasn't walked anybody (1.7 walks per nine innings) and he hasn't given up home runs. While I'd prefer that he struck out more batters, he's done the two other things a pitcher needs to do to be successful. So, I for one will have a little bit of confidence that Silva can give the Twins a chance to win in the post season. Let's look at Silva against another pitcher for the entire season.

        IP    H   R  ER  HR  BB  SO  WHIP  K/BB   K/9   ERA
Silva  197.0 246  96 91  21  34  74  1.42  2.18   3.38  4.16
Milton 188.0 189 102 98  40  71 151  1.38  2.12   7.51  4.69

Look at that WHIP. Look at the HR allowed. Yes, Eric Milton has struck out a lot more guys, but Silva has otherwise outpitched him this year. What a good trade for the Twins. I am still thinking about that Expected Wins stuff. Don't get me wrong, I love how statistics can help everyone to understand a player's contributions. I think that the explosion of statistical analysis in baseball (or at least, the increased availability of statistics to everyday fans) has made the game much more enjoyable to me. But, sometimes, I think maybe enough's enough. I'd like to hear what you have to say. Take my poll and comment about if you are so moved. Have a good week and enjoy the final season. And go Twins! 1 1/2 game lead over Oakland!

And Exactly How Was He Punished?

I read this awhile ago and thought I'd comment. Peter Gammons was discussing Ichiro's AL MVP candidacy and he made this "point":

But to most who have voted over the years, there is a difference between the Most Valuable Player and the Player of the Year. Was Alex Rodriguez the POY in 2003? Absolutely. Was he the MVP? Probably not. Was he therefore punished for being on a last-place team? Yes.

In case you don't remember, Alex Rodriguez was voted AL MVP. I'm not sure exactly how he was punished. |W|P|109629260716213955|W|P|Down the Stretch They Come|W|P|sbg@stickandballguy.com9/27/2004 10:23:00 AM|W|P| Anonymous|W|P|Gammons needs to get off the hippie lettuce.9/27/2004 11:30:00 AM|W|P| SBG|W|P|Thanks for the kind words.9/25/2004 02:15:00 PM|W|P|SBG|W|P|I spent a fair amount of time today doing some research on the value of the "Expected Wins" metric. I had hoped to put together a finished article, but I didn't get all that I wanted to done on it. That's going to have to wait until the post season. Here's what I think about Expected Wins (or, if you prefer, Pythagorean Wins): I think it is a useless piece of information. It is not at all predictive. I fail to see what it really tells you. I think it's pretty clear that if you score a certain percentage of runs more (or fewer) than your competition you will likely win a certain amount of games within a given range. The key here is the statement within a given range. It is entirely expected that a team will regularly vary over five wins away from the number designated as expected wins. If Team A and Team B each score the exact same number of runs that it gives up, it should be expected to win about the same number of games. If that Team A wins 85 games instead of 81 and Team B wins 77 games, is that luck? It may have to do with something entirely different. If you believe it's luck, then the Twins should be embarrassed about their 2003 AL Central crown. If you go by expected wins, the White Sox would have won the division by four games. And in 2002, the Twins and White Sox should have had a one game playoff for the title instead of the Twins coasting to a win by 13.5 games. That is, if it weren't for "luck." I read earlier that the AL East should tighten up because the Yankees were playing above their expected win percentage and that they should start dropping back toward the Red Sox. Damn the "luck." I don't buy this at all. I think that a simplistic metric like this doesn't really explain anything. I never use it, I cringe when I see people talking about it as a predictive tool, and I hope to eventually have solid analysis showing how it is not a terribly useful tool. If you have any ideas about how to deconstruct this, I'd appreciate it if you e-mail me. I have thought about analyzing the variation that teams have, but I'm afraid that doesn't really show anything other than the fact that expected wins are in a range. Another thought is this: if you score and allow a certain number of runs, you will be in a certain range of wins. Where you fall in that range may have to do with strategy, variation in starting pitching on a team, or an unusually large variation in the number of runs a team scores. Here's something I've found. Teams for the most part do much better against their expected number at home than away. The reason that this is because winning home teams typically don't bat in the ninth. This means that they don't score as many runs at home as they might otherwise. So, their win number at home is normally going to be higher than "expected" or at least better relative to their expected number on the road. For example, the Yankees have won more than their expected win total 59% of the time in club history. By contrast, they've done so 79% at home and 82% of the time they've performed better on the road than at home. The Red Sox are similar. They've won more than their expected win total 51% of the time in club history (actually, since they've moved into Fenway Park). By contrast, they've done so 85% at home and 84% of the time they've performed better on the road than at home. It seems that if the expected win formula were adjusted to account for the difference between road and home, it might have a little better fit. I'm just guessing because I'm not sure and I want to watch the Giants/Dodgers game (so no more of this!). As for last night. Johan Santana struggled. He couldn't throw his off speed pitches for strikes. He walked four batters, tying a season high. He threw 92 pitches in just six innings. He just didn't seem right. That's the bad news. The good news is that he allowed just two hits (and a run, dammit, he didn't set the club record for shutout innings). Oh, and he picked up that 20th win, all but ensuring a Cy Young Award. Yahoo! :) I mean really. This guy was struggling, fighting, and clawing last night. And still, he gave up almost nothing. Oh, and the Yankees are going to win the AL East. News Flash! It's over! Yawn! The big news is whether the Red Sox can cut the Yankees' lead to 4.5 games today. Whooopee! Now, for the important stuff. Barry Bonds does yard work. Dodgers win 3-2. Dodgers intentionally walk Bonds in the ninth with a man on first. Greg Gagne's Brother then walks the bases loaded, but escapes. A very tough loss for my second favorite team, especially because the Cubs won yesterday. Check the standings on the right. If the Giants can win today and tomorrow, they've got a chance. If not, it is going to be very tough. No doubt about it, the season is on the line. The Astronauts are still in it, but they gotta pray that the Mets (the Mets!) win today and tomorrow. Update: Mets losing in the eighth. Astronauts losing big to the Brewers. To quote Rick Pitino: it was a nice run. If the Giants somehow don't get in, I'm thinking that I'll start refering to Bonds as Sisyphus. I'm not sure that the analogy is perfect, but if you believe that the goal is to win a championship, it seems Barry's been rolling that rock uphill a long time. |W|P|109614206236667507|W|P|Friday's Action and Research|W|P|sbg@stickandballguy.com9/24/2004 07:59:00 AM|W|P|SBG|W|P|Don't count us out. The Astronauts are still alive. -- Phil Garner, manager Houston Astros Last night, even as the Dodgers opened a little daylight, the National League Wild Card tightened. While the Dodgers were beating San Diego and dimming their playoff hopes, the Houston Astros staged a huge rally in the ninth to beat the San Francisco Giants 7-3. With that loss, the Giants are now 1/2 game behind the Cubs, who won Thursday afternoon behind the incomparable Greg Maddux. Check over on the right hand side of my website for a rundown on the standings. This loss was huge for the Giants. While every game that they have left in their season is against winning teams, the Cubs are heading to Shea Stadium this weekend and then host the Cincinnati Reds for four before playing the unmotivated Braves in the last weekend. It's hard to imagine that the Giants will be able to outplay the Cubs over the last week and a half of the season. That means that in all likelihood, this is a win-or-die set of games that the Giants play with the Dodgers. And that's just as it should be. Houston has Milwaukee, Colorado and an unmotivated St. Louis team left. They also trail the Cubs by 2 1/2 games. The Astronauts might not be dead, but they need both the Cubs and the Giants to collapse. It might take an Apollo 13 like miracle for them to get in. As for Our Favorite Nine, last night was game three of the post clinch hangover. J.D. Durbin struggled in his first major league start, apparently he was a little too amped up. Al Newman, in his post game interview on WCCO said that Durbin threw an 88 MPH changeup. Chalk that game up to first time jitters. I think Durbin will be just fine. He was nervous. Tonight, Our Guy Johan Santana will go for the Twins. While I hope the Twins win this game - I want our Our Guy to win the Cy Young award, I'm a little ambivalent about where I want the Twins to end up in the standings. Aaron Gleeman analyzes the differences between the Yankees and the Red Sox as a first round opponent for the Twins over at Hardball Times. After crunching the numbers, Aaron comes up with the same conclusion that a lot of us have -- that is, I don't know who the Twins really want. I've said before that I think maybe the Yanks are the more favorable opponent, and I'll repeat my next thought: "I can't believe I just said that." If you didn't happen to hear the Twins' post game show last night, well let's just say that you missed some entertainment. There was a play in the game where the Casey Blake scored from first on a double to left. I was driving home when the play occurred and I heard Danny Gladden and John Gordon express their disgust on the play. Apparently, Michael Restovich threw the ball to the second cut-off guy, Corey Koskie, and according to Dazzleman, Koskie was out of position. Both Dazzle and Gordon indicated that the Twins had played the ball poorly. Dazzle asked Newman about the play and Newman swore up and down that Restovich threw the ball to the wrong cutoff man. Now, friends, Danny Gladden is no Vin Scully. He's a little rough. But, despite his lack of radio polish, I love the guy. Here's why. He started an argument with Newman about the play. They sat on the radio and disagreed about the play for at least a couple of minutes. It was very entertaining. I suspect that Gladden and Newman are pretty good friends. (I once spotted them sitting together at a Rolling Stones concert. I had a better seat. :) ) But they went at it on the radio. It was great. After the interview, Dazzle went back to it again. He was basically telling his radio audience that the Twins coach was wrong. How many times have you heard a Twins announcer go after a member of the coaching staff like that? Go get 'em Dazzle! Have a good day everyone. Enjoy your weekend. I may or may not post this weekend, so if you have time stop on by. |W|P|109603301496000230|W|P|WHITE HOT|W|P|sbg@stickandballguy.com9/27/2004 10:36:00 AM|W|P| Anonymous|W|P|I completely agree with you on Gladden. The radio guys get a lot of heat for their poor game calling, but at least Gladden and, to a lesser extent, Gordo will call out the Twins for poor performance. I've gotten to the point where I can hardly stand to listen to Dick and Bert. Those guys wouldn't know where to start if they were gonna be critical of the Twins. They prefer to wait until the player has left the team before making any negative comments (see Doug Mientkiewicz and AJ Pierzynski). Are they THAT afraid of losing their gig? Or just afraid of the plane ride with the players the next day?9/23/2004 05:10:00 PM|W|P|SBG|W|P|As the Minnesota Twins prepare for the post season, there are some exciting races to watch. I've already talked about the Giants-Dodgers plenty: there is no question, the NL West is up for grabs. With six games left between the two teams and 0.5 games separating the two, well it will be a hot race to the end. If the two teams beat each other up, San Diego could have a chance to get in. They are 4.5 games out and need a miracle. But, they play the Giants three times, so it is not impossible. And of course, there is the wild card situation. The Cubs won today behind their career underachiever, Greg Maddux, and are at this moment tied with the Giants. For slacker Maddux, it was his fifteenth victory of the season, the 17th consecutive year he's reached that mark, a major league record. More on Maddux later. With a relatively easy schedule, they could sneak into the post season as the wild card winner while the Giants and Dodgers pound on each other for the next week or so. In the American League, the AL West has suddenly heated up even hotter. Oakland has been in first place for almost all of the second half, and the feel good Texas Rangers had fallen on hard times and just a week ago seemed out of the playoff race. Now all of a sudden, they have jumped back into the race and stand just two games out of first place, tied with the Anaheim Angels after knocking of the Oakland A's on Thursday afternoon. (Good news Twins fans, Oakland keeps losing and allowing us to hold on to the second seed. At least I think it's good news.) This weekend, Oakland plays Anaheim while the Rangers get Seattle. Then Texas plays Anaheim while Oakland plays Seattle. Then Oakland plays Anaheim while Texas plays Seattle. By God, Texas can win this division. Their series with Anaheim is at home. Their top two contenders are playing each other repeatedly while Texas gets six with the worst team this side of Kansas City. If you want to watch some exciting baseball, you should head west, because six teams are vying for two divisional championships. Now, let's get back to Mr. Maddux. At 38 years of age, he has not really slowed down that much at all. Consider this: he has 15 wins in 30 starts, a nice total and quite consistent with his career total of 303 wins in 601 starts. Folks, winning half your starts is no mean feat, especially in these days of diminished complete games. Maddux has completed 102 of his 601 starts and he has 173 losses, meaning he has at least 125 no decisions (he has 4 relief appearances that why I say "at least") in his starts. You say big deal, Stick and Ball Guy, wins are overrated. True enough, we've talked about that quite a bit lately, especially when discussing Our Guy Johan Santana. However, I'll say that if you get up around 300 wins and you win 15 or more for 17 years in a row, well, you are a great pitcher. The 2004 version of Maddux compares relatively well with some of his other career statistics as well. His innings are down a little -- he'll only get to about 210 innings compared to an average of 236 innings over the previous 16 years. His ERA is up -- he's at 3.68, compared to 2.76 over the previous 16. His 2004 WHIP is 1.17, compared to his previous 16 year average of 1.09. He's not the dominant pitcher of years gone by, but to be fair, the league is a little tougher, too. I talked about how the increasingly smaller ballparks in the national league has made things tougher on pitchers, and this has no doubt impacted Maddux as well. It seems that Maddux can continue to be a very effective pitcher for years to come. |W|P|109597957408771792|W|P|Races Heating Up!!!!|W|P|sbg@stickandballguy.com9/23/2004 08:36:00 AM|W|P|SBG|W|P|I picked up a Star Tribune this morning and lo and behold, the story on the Twins loss last night was on page 9 of the sports section. Even though the Twins have something to play for -- home field advantage in the first round -- it's really not clear how important that really is. As Aaron Gleeman points out, the reward is getting a potent offensive attack with Curt Schilling and Pedro Martinez to lead the pitching staff. At least the Red Sox don't have Mariano Rivera. The fact is, after the clinch, the Twins are pretty much playing out the string and getting ready for the playoffs. The big news is that tonight J.D. Durbin gets his first start of the season. I saw Durbin pitch in person earlier this season and he was very sharp. I doubt that Durbin would actually get a chance to start a post-season game (stranger things have happened) but clearly he is going to get a chance to show whether he is ready to start at the major league level. If it goes well, I think he'll get another shot. It will be interesting to see how the Twins handle his start -- is this the end for Lohse or Mulholland -- or will they go to six men in order to rest guys up and get them ready for the playoffs. It looks like the Twins are going to keep Johan Santana on his regular rest and start Brad Radke the day after Santana. Last night's starting pitcher was Terry Mulholland. I heard manager Ron Gardenhire say he was going to get as many innings out of Mulholland as he could last night. If you ask me he got more than enough. Let's visit our trusty friend, the Mulholland Theory. After four innings, the White Sox were leading the Twins 3-2. Having given up the three runs already, the Mulholland Theory states that the first instance of trouble would definitely be time to go get him. In the fifth inning, now ahead 4-3, Mulholland gave up a single to Joe Crede to start the inning. Warm up the bullpen. He then struck out the next two batters, and Crede was caught stealing to end the inning. Whew! Now, the sixth. The Twins are now ahead 6-3. First batter ground out. Second batter. Single. Next batter hit by pitch. Ding, ding, ding!!!! Go get him right here. Alas, that did not happen. Next batter infield single to load the bases. Still in there. Next batter two run single. Now, Gardenhire goes and gets him. Apparently, Gardy is going to let Mulholland pitch until he hurts the Twins. Why, with expanded rosters, he wouldn't have an early hook with this guy is beyond me. Now, don't get me wrong. I think that Mulholland has been an asset. But, he's a 41 year old soft tosser. If Mulholland does pitch in the playoffs, Gardy should use my Mulholland Theory or the Twins will get hurt.

National League Mayhem

Wow, it is getting interesting. The Giants win and the Dodgers lose. The Dodgers now have a 1/2 game lead. With Houston's loss to the Giants, the Astros are now 3 games out of the wild card. The Cubs won, too, and they are just 1/2 game behind the Giants. So, here you have it. Three teams within one game of each other with about 10 games to go. One team is not going to make the playoffs. And the Giants play the Dodgers six more times! Awesome! You may have heard this before, but I believe that the Giants and the Dodgers are the best rivalry in baseball. Bar none. As Mike Tice would say, "enjoy the season." Last night, Barry Bonds had an RBI triple in the in the first inning and was intentionally walked the last four times he went to the plate last night. Houston lost 5-1. By the way, Bonds has 72 extra base hits in 351 at bats. If all his singles were counted as outs, he'd still be hitting .205. He has only 48 singles! He almost has as many home runs as singles. By comparison, if Ichiro had all his singles counted as outs, he'd be hitting .054. He's got just 36 extra base hits in 660 at bats. (His 211 singles are a record.)

Poll Results

The results are in. 65% of you think Lew Ford was the most valuable outfielder for the Twins this year, with Shannon Stewart getting 19% of the vote and Torii Hunter getting 15%. I myself didn't vote, but I think it's pretty close between Ford and Hunter. I'm going to analyze the Twins season after the playoffs are over. Thanks for voting! Have a good day everyone! |W|P|109594863700435746|W|P|Move that Story to the Back!|W|P|sbg@stickandballguy.com9/23/2004 11:57:00 AM|W|P| Anonymous|W|P|Unbelievable. Who is voting here? Stewart??? He was hurt for a HUGE chunk of the season. The answer here is Hunter...and I don't think it's all that close. Ford was very valuable early in the season....and was pretty steady most of the year. But Hunter was the one guy who lifted this team offensively and defensively as we made our move blowing past the White Sox and Indians.9/23/2004 05:05:00 PM|W|P| Anonymous|W|P|Torii is definitely emerging as a leader (in fact, Batgirl sassily pointed that out today as well), but my vote went to Ford. With the early injuries to Hunter & Stewart, we desperately needed someone to step up and keep us in the hunt -- and who the heck expected it from Lew? And while he's not as hot as he was early in the season, he's continued to put up good numbers. Plus, he oozes hustle. Gotta love it.9/24/2004 01:51:00 AM|W|P| Andrew|W|P|I voted for Lew Ford. He is the kind of player that appeals to me. I can relate to Lew. I was never atheletically gifted. I worked for my playing time - batting cage an hour before practice, extra pop flies afterwards. Lew worked hard to get to the Major Leagues and he made the most of it.

He came in from nowhere and kept the Twins alive while Torii's hamstring was acting up and then Shannon's foot was going south. He pulled so much weight around that Gardenhier went out of his way to get Lew in the lineup as much as possible, which I see as a huge testiment as to how much he helped the team.9/22/2004 08:58:00 AM|W|P|SBG|W|P|The day after the clinch, Stick and Ball Guy is resting his starters. Unfortunately, there isn't a second team. So, this is it for today! Check back tomorrow!|W|P|109586162702045335|W|P|Post Clinch|W|P|sbg@stickandballguy.com9/21/2004 08:06:00 AM|W|P|SBG|W|P|My fiancee and I had a marriage preparation class to attend last night, our appointment was scheduled for 7:00. Obviously, this was a little more important than the Twins game last night. After our session, I got into my car, I turned on the old Twins game, and I heard the score -- after five, the Twins were ahead 6-0. And I smiled as I drove south towards home. The Twins took care of business on the first night in Chicago, and against Mark Buehrle, to boot. That is sweet. Four runs in the first, including a two-run homer by Torii Hunter. Hey Buehrle, do you see it now? After 36 years in North Dakota, I've now lived in the Twin Cities for 3 full seasons, and the Twins have won their division all three years. I should have moved here earlier! I've been a fan of the Twins all my life. As a Twins fan, you sometimes have to be patient (like for example, between 1970 and 1987). And sometimes you can be critical of the team or certain players. But, I'll always be a Twins fan. And after this three year run, I can only say to the organization, thank you for putting a good team out on the field. I've enjoyed watching you, and I attend a lot of games. I'll talk more about the Twins' chances in the playoffs as the season goes along. But for right now, I say Thank You to the Twins and Congratulations on another fine season! Oh, and way to stick it in the White Sox's eye. :) Here are some links to game stories about the clincher. ESPN. Star Tribune. Pioneer Press. Chicago Tribune. Chicago Sun Times. Enjoy. Oh, and I liked this line from the Chicago Tribune: The Twins have won 11 of their last 12 decisions against left-handed starters. And how about Carlos Silva? He looks like the third starter in the playoffs.

Vikes :(

Man, that Philly defense was swarming! This was one of those games where you can say we lost it by our own mistakes. If the Vikes had scored a couple of touchdowns early, like they should have (protect the ball, Daunte!) it might have been a completely different game.

Instant Replay -- How come the booth (it was in the last two minutes of the first half) didn't let the officials on the field look at that replay of Daunte fumbling at the goal line???? I thought it was extremely close! And how about that "touchdown" by Terrell Owens? Mike Tice said that he didn't see a replay until after the kickoff! I think that the NFL Manifesto will have to include some discussion about instant replay (I promise to work on it after the Twins season.)

Last Word

I heard on the radio that the Minnesota State Patrol arrested a Stillwater man for riding his motorcycle 205 Miles per Hour on Highway 61. He was going faster than the airplane that clocked him! I'm sorry, I just don't get that.

Update: Check out this little chat between Eric Neel, Jim Caple, and David Schoenfield. It is an enjoyable discussion. I especially liked this exchange:

Jim: Personally, I'm just going to sit back and enjoy the Dodgers-Giants series this weekend. It's the best rivalry in sports. They've been rivals for more than 100 years and they've extended a rivalry once based in New York to the West Coast. Unlike the Red Sox and Yankees, their rivalry isn't grossly one-sided. They're as evenly matched as Betty and Veronica. Almost the same number of pennants and one or the other is always screwing the other guy over in the end. David: Are the Dodgers going to hold on? The lead is down to 2� games. Jim: The Giants will whip the Dodgers and take the West crown the final weekend. Eric: You can never say with these two. Even if you have, like I do right now, a sick, creeping feeling that the Dodgers are going to tank, you just can't say. These teams will be in each other's business right up until the last. I think it's possible the Dodgers will hold on, and I'm not just thinking with my heart. I mean, of course I'm just thinking with my heart, but my heart says if Brad Penny returns, and they get some quality innings out of Edwin Jackson, and the Yhancy Brazoban-Giovanni Carrara-Eric Gagne trio keeps getting the ball with a lead, which I think is a good bet in head-to-head matchups with Giants' pitching (after Schmidt), then they could hold on. And you're right about the rivalry: The great thing about the coming two weeks is that one of them, as you say, is going to screw the other, which is going to add a layer of pathos and bliss to the race, a mix of anguish and joy, you know? If Houston knocks out Chicago, what's the big deal? if the Dodgers hold off the Giants and Bonds misses the playoffs, it echoes across the country and across generations. Jim: You look at the Yanks-Red Sox, and yeah, it's passionate. But it always ends the same. With the Dodgers-Giants, you never know what you're going to get, other than one team lying in a pool of blood at the end and the other team holding the gun or, in the case of Juan Marichal, the bat.

|W|P|109577411917354102|W|P|Three in a Row!|W|P|sbg@stickandballguy.com9/21/2004 04:38:00 PM|W|P| Butch|W|P|Love the Twins, Vikes are going to once again break by heart, (where was the offensive line)- motorcyle story, now you know why I was the happiest dad in the world when my youngest son sold his rocket!!9/20/2004 04:15:00 PM|W|P|SBG|W|P|In the summer of 2001, Twins fans were waking from a long slumber. After eight consecutive losing seasons and four years in a row of losing more than 90 games, the Twins started 2001 off with a bang, going 18-6 in April and 16-11 in May. On July 1st, the Twins were 48-31, and the air was ripe with possibility. Could the Twins, a last place club the year before win the American League Central? And who was that hotshot shortstop with blazing speed lacing triples all over the park? Why, it was Cristian Guzman, and he was headed to the All-Star Game and the Twins were 55-32 at the break. Best of all, he, along with Eric Milton (and Brian Buchanon), was part of the Chuck Knoblauch trade. Twins fans everywhere took no small delight in the fact that the trade with the Yankees, which seemed to signal the end of any hope for the Twins, was actually quite lopsided in Minnesota's favor. After 20 triples in 2000, Guzman would hit another 14 in 2001. However, after his trip to the mid-summer's classic, he came back to Minnesota where his fans would soon be hugely disappointed. Guzman had a sore shoulder, and he would miss a large portion of the second half of the season. When he did play, he wasn't the same player. The Twins faded dramatically as well, finishing 85-77 and in second place. Still, there was alot of hope in Minnesota for the Twins, and for Guzman. Despite a disappointing second half, Guzman hit .302/.337/.477, stole 25 bases, hit 10 home runs along with those 14 triples in just 118 games. And, he was only 23! True, he didn't walk much, but he seemed to be improving so rapidly that that didn't seem to be much of a concern. The Twins promptly locked him up with a long term deal through the 2004 season, with a team option for 2005 somewhere in the neighborhood of $5 million. Well, the Twins realized their promise of 2001 and are on the verge of clinching a third consecutive AL Central title. For the first time since their move from Washington in 1961, the Twins have had four consecutive winning seasons. The Twins are really only a World Championship away (I know it's a tall order) from this being indisputably the best era in Twins history. If only Cristian Guzman had shown such promise. In 2002, Guzman's numbers declined dramatically. He hit just .273/.292/.385 with just six triples and he stole just 12 bases while being caught 13 times. While the Twins blew out the rest of the AL Central, winning the division by 12 1/2 games, Guzman was no longer the star of the show. Twins fans were now talking about Torii Hunter, he of the nightly circus catches and the newfound homerun punch (20 HRs at the All-Star break). 2003 brought another Central division title and another poor year from Guzman. He hit .268/.311/.365 and it now seemed that 2001 was the exception and not the rule. Coming into the season, it seemed clear that the Twins would not pick up Guzman's option. After all, $5 million is a lot of money for the Twins, especially for a shortstop who couldn't hit. Now, however, the talk in the local media is that Cristian Guzman is having a very good season in 2004, and the Twins will have a difficult decision, when it comes to his option in the off-season. When the Yankees were in town, both the Pioneer Press and the Star Tribune talked about what a good year that Guzman was having and how the Twins might be forced to pick up his option. At the time, I thought, well, it's the Yankee angle, the Twins traded the Yankees for him, it's nothing more than a passing story that will evaporate when the Bombers head off to the next town. Only, it's not going away. The beat seems to be getting louder. Last night on "The Sports Show" Patrick Reusse said that Guzman was playing great. Now, I'll admit that Guzman has been hot lately. Let's go to the stats. For the month of September, Cristian Guzman is hitting .328/.359/.525. Truth be told, these were the kind of numbers I was envisioning from Guzman back in 2001. For the whole season. Ahhh. The full season. For the season, Guzman is hitting .283/.316/.396. Of the eleven shortstops that qualify for the batting title in the AL, Guzman is ninth in OPS at .712. Of the 22 shortstops in the majors that qualify for a batting title (3.1 PA/G), Guzman is 17th. That's right, he's only better than five everyday shortstops. Let's look at those five players. In 18th place is Angel Berroa. His OPS is .710, .002 worse than Cristian Guzman. The Royals (the Royals!) were so happy with the 2003 Rookie of the Year's play, they optioned him to AA in August. His 2004 salary? $372,500. In 19th place is Alex Gonzalez of the Florida Marlins. Here's what ESPN.COM had to say about Gonzalez in their scouting report on the seven year veteran: "Lacking both the on-base ability to be an asset near the top of the order and the power to hit in an RBI spot, he has no clear offensive role. " His OPS? .692, which is .011 higher than Guzman's was when the Yankees came to town and Guzzie got all his positive press. He's making over $2 million. In 20th place is David Eckstein. Eckstein, who plays the game the right way, can't hit at all. He has one home run, and is likely going to be replaced in the starting lineup next year. His OPS? .681, the same number Guzman had when the Yankees came to town. He's making just over $2 million. In 21st place is Alex Cintron of the Arizona Diamondbacks. He's been a major disappointment for the worst team in baseball. After compiling an .848 OPS last year, he's fallen to .647 this year. He's making $335,000. In 22nd place is Craig Counsell, with an OPS of .637. No doubt about it, Guzman is better than this guy. He's also making $3.1 million, which is disgraceful. I think it is safe to say that Guzman cannot hit. He has no patience and he tends to cheat himself with a half swing way too often. He will occasionally move up in the batter's box during the pitcher's windup as if to say, "here take this at bat. I'm going to give it away." On a team that is 10th in most offensive statistics in the 14 team American League, that is not good. But, is he a good fielder? Having seen him play in person 10 times this year, it appears that Guzman has improved defensively. He's certainly better than Jason Bartlett, who appeared to be his eventual replacement. Of course, it's hard to quantify defense. I will say he looks good. Let's go to the stats. Guzman is 3rd in the AL in fielding percentage, having comitted 12 errors this season. His fielding percentage is almost identical over the last three seasons. Of course, fielding percentage is not a terribly reliable metric. If a player never makes an error but has concrete feet, he's not much good unless the ball is hit right at him. One metric to consider is Range Factor, which is the sum of putouts plus assists multiplied by nine and divided by innings played. Guzman's range factor is 4.65, good for 6th out of our eleven shortstops. This determines in raw numbers how many balls a player gets to, but it is somewhat dependant upon the pitching staff a player is playing behind. For example, when Santana is on the mound, Guzman isn't likely to be busy. Santana strikes out a ton of guys and induces fly balls. On the other hand, Carlos Silva, a ground ball pitcher with few strikeouts can keep a shortstop busy. Guzman's range factor has improved from 2003, when it was .399, and in 2002 when it was .433. So Guzman is making more plays, but does that actually mean he is better? Consider the zone rating metric. Zone rating is the percentage of balls fielded by a player in his typical defensive "zone," as measured by STATS, Inc. Guzman's zone rating is .818, good for 9th out of our eleven shortstops. This matrix seems to suggest that Guzman has a below average range. Guzman's zone rating in 2003 was .821, in 2002 it was .807, and in 2001 it was .809. Let's summarize. Although he seems to be fielding a little better to the naked eye, Guzman's zone rating is essentially unchanged from last year and is well below the league average. His fielding percentage is about the same. He's making more plays, but it's hard to tell if that means he's playing better. His hitting, while slightly better than the last two years, is still well below the league average for shortstops. In other words, he is NOT having a good season. The problem is that the Twins do not have an acceptable replacement in their otherwise rich farm system. Be that as it may, there is NO WAY Guzman is worth $5 million. Personally, I'd try to roll the dice and decline his option, hoping to sign him at a lower number, like about $2 million. If he goes elsewhere, maybe the Twins can sign Chris Gomez or his equivalent to replace a once promising, but ultimately disappointing player. |W|P|109572147528074528|W|P|Is Guzman Having a Good Year?|W|P|sbg@stickandballguy.com9/20/2004 11:59:00 PM|W|P| Anonymous|W|P|Get with it TWINS WIN....TWINS WIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Once again another Division Title!!!!!!!!!!!!9/21/2004 08:40:00 AM|W|P| Anonymous|W|P|Err... Aguie Ojeda? Nick Punto? What's wrong with those guys that we'd need to sign a Chris Gomez? Just Curious...9/21/2004 09:01:00 AM|W|P| Anonymous|W|P|Nothing wrong with Punto. I forgot about him when I wrote the article. He's a no-hit guy, too, but much cheaper. I'd take that $5 million and give it to Santana and let Punto play shortstop. Ojeda? Well, I like Punto better.9/21/2004 09:02:00 AM|W|P| SBG|W|P|That last comment was me.

Stick and Ball Guy9/21/2004 11:18:00 AM|W|P| Andrew|W|P|Personally, I'm a big fan of putting Nick Punto in at short until Bartlett works on defense a little bit. Keep Augie around for when Nick or Rivas (another disappointment if you ask me) need a day off.9/21/2004 12:13:00 PM|W|P| SBG|W|P|Don't you mean when Cuddyer needs a day off at second base? (A guy can dream.)9/21/2004 07:37:00 PM|W|P| Andrew|W|P|I too dream of a day were Cuddyer is in the lineup everyday, preferably at 2B.9/19/2004 11:48:00 PM|W|P|SBG|W|P|Hi. I'm the Stick and Ball Guy, or SBG. I started this website as a way for me to communicate about sports, politics, and life. Part of writing a blog is finding what you really want to write about. I've found that what I want to write about is sports. So, I have decided to limit my topics here to sports in general, with focus on Minnesota teams, especially, my favorite team, the Minnesota Twins. I believe that baseball is the greatest American sport. I like football, I love basketball, but I need baseball! I grew up in North Dakota and lived there for 36 years. I now live and work in the Twin Cities area. I used to be an engineer, but now I am a lawyer. Some might say that I've gone ahead and screwed up a productive career, but I like what I do. :) I used to travel quite a bit, and I have seen major league baseball games in 14 different major league stadiums in my life.

• Metropolitan Stadium (no longer in existence), Bloomington, MN
• Metrodome, Minneapolis, MN
• County Stadium (no longer in existence), Milwaukee, WI
• Busch Stadium (pre remodelling), St. Louis, Mo
• Royals Stadium (now Kaufmann stadium), Kansas City, MO
• The Ballpark in Arlington, Arlington, TX
• Bank One Ballpark, Phoenix, AZ
• Three Rivers Stadium (no longer in existence), Pittsburgh, PA
• Veterans Stadium (no longer in existence), Philadelphia, PA
• Shea Stadium, New York, NY
• Yankee Stadium, New York, NY
• Wrigley Field, Chicago, IL
• Comiskey Park (no longer in existence), Chicago, IL
• Camden Yards, Baltimore, MD

I have seen games in the Eastern League AA Minor League, including in Portland, ME, New Haven, CT, and New Britain, CT. I saw Luis Rivas play a couple of games at the AA level and thought, man, he's not that good. I went to college at North Dakota State University during the glory days of the Bison football team (five D-II national championships while I was enrolled for my two degrees). I have degrees in Electrical Engineering and a masters in business from NDSU as well as my Law Degree. I can honestly say that I am never going to go back to school again! I played summer baseball from 1972-83 and I played slowpitch softball until my mid 30s. I was Doug Mientkiewicz, a good field, no-hit (although I could hit a softball pretty well) first baseman. I played basketball in high school, and was the best player on an absolutely crummy team, which means I was a little better than the average small town ND basketball player. My high school was private with a very small enrollment, so we didn't have football, although I did play it in junior high school when I went to public school. Hope you enjoy the website. People ask me why I am writing it. For one thing, I consider it a hobby. I enjoy writing and thinking about the game of baseball. I have also enjoyed reading the writing of other bloggers, especially that of Aaron Gleeman. For another, I have really gotten sick of the mainstream media coverage of the game. It is guys like Aaron who have shown me that the fans can indeed be a part of the coverage. I don't aspire to hang out with baseball players, I don't even want to meet them. But when the media says "Jeter is great, Barry's an ass, Erstad is the best player on the Angels" or whatever, well I want to voice my opinion, too. I think that reading Aaron, Seth, Bronx Banter and a lot of other sites makes my experience more enjoyable. I hope you like it, too. People I Refer to As I go along, I may refer to people I know in my posts. If I introduce someone new, I'll put a little mention here. Lucy -- My wife. Her favorite old TV show is "I Love Lucy." In a lot of ways, she reminds me of the great Redhead. She's so charming. She's so enthusiastic. She makes me laugh, and all I can say is that I, too, love Lucy. (Just don't call me Ricky.) She doesn't give a damn about baseball, and I think that's a pretty good thing, if you want to know the truth. Aaron -- Aaron Gleeman, the king of Twins bloggers, in my opinion. I've had the honor of meeting Mr. Gleeman, and he's a nice guy. I've also read his stuff pretty much everyday for the last couple of years. He's a very good writer and thinker about baseball. He also co-founded the Hardball Times, another great baseball website. Big Henk -- Henk's dad and my uncle. The Captain or Captain October -- Derek Jeter. The most despised baseball player in SBG's world. He reminds me of this roommate I had in college (not by choice), Larry the ROT-C. Larry always used to brag that if he could select ten guys his group would be able to kick everyone's ass. Well, if I could pick the biggest, meanest, toughest guys around, I too, could win every fight. I'd love to see how many winning seasons Jeter would have had in Detroit. Drew -- A co-worker and good sports guy. Not too high on Ron Gardenhire. Cleveland Rocks! Henk -- My cousin. He and I have been to a few games together over the years. We both used to live in Fargo back in the day, and he and I watched game 5 of the 1991 World Series together, one of the most depressing games in team history. Li'l Harmon -- Justin Morneau Moss -- My co-worker and resident Ron Gardenhire critic. Note the trend on that topic? Not to be confused with Number 84. Number 25 -- Barry Bonds Number 8418 -- Randy Moss Our Guy -- Johan Santana. Really, I should call him Aaron's Guy, because Aaron Gleeman has been promoting him from just about day one of his blog. Now, everybody's a Johan guy or he's our guy. Sisyphus -- Barry Bonds Stan the Man -- My Cardinal loving friend. Unless you are Cubs fan, you cannot have enough friends who love the Cardinals. Superboy -- Kobe Bryant|W|P|109029915460428813|W|P|Stick and Ball Guy's Story|W|P|sbg@stickandballguy.com9/19/2004 03:10:00 PM|W|P|SBG|W|P|Just one week ago today, J.C. Romero gave up a run, ending his club record scoreless streak at 36 2/3 innings. He may not hold that record for very long. Our guy Johan Santana hurled eight scoreless innings at the Baltimore Orioles and the Twins won 5-1. Santana's streak of scoreless innings now stands at 30 1/3 innings, just 6 1/3 innings less than Romero's streak. Danger! Record falling! He has not given up a run in September. Santana seems poised to win yet another pitcher of the month award, his third consecutive. More importantly, he is now the clear front runner for the American League Cy Young award. Johan Santana appears to be flapping his arms, but it was the Orioles who were flailing Sunday As I had discussed before, Curt Schilling was someone who could stand in Santana's way. I have never thought that Schilling was deserving of the award, just that he could possibly win it if he beat the Yankees in a crucial game down the stretch drive of the season (and the Red Sox win the AL East). Well, Schilling missed the Yanks this time around and New York took two out of three against the Red Sox, an outcome the Red Sox could ill afford. I checked the Red Sox schedule, and Schilling would face the Yankees next Sunday, the last meeting of the year between the two teams. Now, if the Red Sox make a run this week, and if the Red Sox sweep the Yanks, and if Schilling shuts the Yanks out, well then his candidacy may be revived. But, the Red Sox seemed destined now for second place (and man, I'd rather face them now) and the national media seems to be starting to focus on Santana, and that is as important as anything. A while back, I offered a comparison between Santana, Mark Mulder, and Schilling:

Pitcher	IP	H	R	ER	SO	BB	W	L	ERA
Mulder	203	186	91	88	129	72	17	4	3.90
Santana	195	137	68	64	224	48	16	6	2.95
Schilling	197	190	74	72	172	28	18	6	3.29

Since then, Mulder has pretty much fallen by the wayside with a 0-1 record and a 7.58 ERA (16ER in 19 IP) in three starts in September. We know about Santana, but Schilling has continued to win games, even if he isn't pitching as well as Santana. In three starts, Schilling is 3-0 with a 3.52 ERA in September. Those are nice numbers, and he's now reached 20 wins, but they aren't quite Santana like. Here's Santana and Schilling at this point.

Pitcher	IP	H	R	ER	SO	BB	W	L	ERA
Santana	217	151	68	64	254	49	19	6	2.65
Schilling	211.2	202	82	80	183	30	20	6	3.40

Wow. Santana has increased the gap in ERA from 0.34 to 0.75. He's now got 71 more strikeouts and 16 less earned runs. And he's passed Schilling in innings (albeit Schilling has one more start left). He's allowed 51 less hits. His WHIP is 0.92 compared to Schilling's 1.10. Some might argue that Schilling is facing tougher opposition than Santana. Well, look at this. Santana's opponents are collectively hitting .264/.331/.420, and Schilling's .266/.335/.423. In other words, almost identical. Santana's opponents are hitting .194/.248/.317 against him, a departure of .070/.083/.103 from their average. By comparison, Schilling's opponents are hitting .249/.277/.406, a departure of .017/.058/.017. In other words, Schilling is pretty damned good. And Santana is devastating. But we know that. Bottom line: Schilling is a great pitcher and he is having a great year. But, I don't think that his one or two extra wins will play into the equation. Santana has been far superior to the second best pitcher in the league, and the voters can not ignore that.

Don't Forget to Vote

Check out Stick and Ball Guy's polls every day!

Last Word

I'll bet it's cold in Green Bay today.

Update (Warning -- Rant Alert!): As I have written in my little bio on the right, I get tired of listening to the mainstream media and their take on baseball. Sometimes, I think that I sound like a broken record (Barry, Johan, Derek's overrated). Then I read Aaron Gleeman's column over at the Hardball Times today and I was shocked to find out that Schilling continues to have support for the Cy Young Award.

"Santana or Schilling?" has the potential to be one of those questions. I know for me, I hope to find out which voters cast their ballot for Schilling, so that I can avoid reading their work for the rest of my life. Because in my mind, anyone who sees what Santana and Schilling have done this year and comes away thinking anything other than that Santana has been the better pitcher is completely undeserving of an audience, and probably should have a scarlet "W" permanently placed on their press-pass. And if for some reason you need even more evidence that I'm right, consider that John Kruk and Jeff Brantley are in complete agreement that Schilling deserves the award.

I'll admit that I don't watch Baseball Tonight anymore. How can these guys sit there and say that Schilling deserves to win? I think it's because he pitches for the Boston Red Sox, a big market team and one of the mainstream media's darlings. (I think that Aaron's point is because they're stupid.) One or two wins wouldn't make a difference for Schilling if he was pitching for Texas. Perhaps they believe that he's facing stiffer competition because he's playing for a team in the AL East (which I have shown to be false, see above). Again, this is not to denigrate Schilling, he's been great. But, Santana has been phenomenal. The lesson here is that you need to look beyond what the mainstream media is feeding you on baseball. These guys don't necessarily think before they write or speak. Let me give you an example. I'm reading an article the other day by a baseball writer on ESPN.COM. He's talking about a home run that Adam Dunn hit that went out of the park in Cincinnati and ended up on a piece of driftwood in the Ohio River. Impressive. He bemoaned the fact that someone picked it up, because he thought it would be cool if it would float in the river. He mused that it could have floated all the way to Pittsburgh. What?!?! Pittsburgh? Hello, Cincinnati is downstream! It's gonna go the other way, towards the Mississippi River! A minor point, to be sure. But, when I read it, I immediately thought, this is stupid. This is the same guy who confidently wrote at the beginning of the season that Hank Aaron's home run record is safe, that Bonds is too old to get to 755. When I read that back in April, I thought, this is stupid, he's not thinking. I also recently read a respected national sports columnist proclaim that Derek Jeter is this year's AL MVP. I am not making that up. So, I'll write about Santana and Bonds and the Giants. And I won't say that "society needs its sports icons to help uphold a wavering faith in humankind" and that Bonds is somehow letting civilization down by not smiling more or talking to stupid sportswriters. |W|P|109562466543139108|W|P|Hey, J.C. Romero, Remember That Record You Set?|W|P|sbg@stickandballguy.com9/19/2004 11:53:00 PM|W|P| Anonymous|W|P|it must be cold in green bay...
Rex Grossman out duals Brett Farrrrve...9/20/2004 03:22:00 PM|W|P| Andrew|W|P|This is more about about the ball floating to Pittsburgh, and how Cincinatti is down stream. The quote you used was actually from Sean Casey, so calling the author out on that was actually wrong. However, a paragraph up from the quote the writer says "That Ohio River, after all, flows all the way into western Pennsylvania" This is where he is wrong, as the Ohio flows from Western PA, not into Western PA.9/20/2004 04:11:00 PM|W|P| Anonymous|W|P|You are right, it was Sean Casey who said Pittsburgh. But, you will notice that I didn't quote the author, I merely [correctly] characterized his statements.9/20/2004 04:13:00 PM|W|P| SBG|W|P|By the way, I posted that last comment.

Stick and Ball Guy9/19/2004 01:07:00 PM|W|P|SBG|W|P|Well, Number 25 didn't sit on 700 too long, did he? Do you think the Yanks were tired of hearing about how the Red Sox were going to catch them? I went to work yesterday and then I remembered that power was going to be off in our building, so I couldn't get my work done. Sigh. So, I decided to go to the Twins game and see My Personal Hero Brad Radke pitch. From the first inning, I could see that he did not have it, and they got clobbered. Sigh. The Twins are now 8-3 when I attend a game this year. So, now I am going to work today and will miss Our Guy Johan Santana. Double sigh.

Stick And Ball Guy Polls

Check out the Stick and Ball Guy Poll! I just started the polls this weekend and I hope to have polls every weekday. Come on by and vote on important issues of the day (or at least some diversionary topic)!

Rivalry? I got your rivalry right here.

I know that the entire world is watching Red Sox and the Yankees, but there is another pretty damn good rivalry heating up again in September. In case you haven't noticed, the Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Francisco Giants are just 2 1/2 games apart in the standings and they play each other six more times this year. Some people think I might be crazy, but I believe that this is the best rivalry in Major League Baseball. You might disagree, but hear me out. First of all, they have a longer tradition than the Red Sox and Yankees. They have been playing and hating each other since before there were Yankees and Red Sox. They used to play in the same city. Their rivalry has produced the greatest moment in baseball history. Second, each team has actually beaten the other. How can it actually be a "rivalry" unless each team wins at least some of the time? In the entire history of the American League, Boston has never beaten the Yankees in a close race. It has never happened. The Yankees always win. That's like fighting with your little brother. Mine kept trying to fight me. It wasn't a rivalry, I was physically much bigger. I would just push him away and tell him to stop fighting. Just because he kept coming after me doesn't mean it was a rivalry. Boston fans have a desperate obsession to beat the Yanks. The are passionate about their team. They live and die with the Red Sox. And so forth. And so on. Beat the Yankees once, and maybe it'll be a rivalry, instead of an inferiority complex. It says right here that once again, the Yankees will win the AL East. On the other hand, the Giants and Dodgers have beaten each other silly over the years to the delight of each team's fans. Yeah, Barry Bonds hit number 71 against the Dodgers in 2001, but the Dodgers eliminated the Giants by beating them in that game. How delicious was that for Dodger fans? You can have your record, but you aren't going to the play in the playoffs, ha, ha, ha. In 1993, the Dodgers beat the Giants on the last day of the season, leaving the Giants with a 103-59 record, good for second place behind the Atlanta Braves, and just out of the playoffs. In 1997, the Giants beat the Dodgers by 2 games after trailing by three games on September 1. It goes on and on. Third, isn't baseball better when every story doesn't feature the Yankees? I'll be watching the Dodgers and the Giants closely down the stretch.

Pitcher's Park?

One of my friends asked me why I considered SBC Park a pitcher's park in my article last week about the effect of pitching. Let's see if it is. Over at Baseball Reference, they have a formula that they use to rate parks called Park Factor (read their disclaimer about their ownership of this information). Let's look and see how different parks in the National League stack up. A number of greater than 100 is favorable to hitters, a number of less than 100 is favorable to pitchers.

Team	Pitching Park Factor			Hitting Park Factor
	2001	2002	2003	2001	2002	2003
Arizona	106	108	111	105	107	109
Atlanta	101	100	97	97	98	99
Chicago Cubs	96	98	99	97	98	99
Cincinnati	99	108	100*	99	107	100
Colorado	122	121	112	119	119	111
Florida	96	97	94	97	97	94
Houston	105	104	104	104	104	103
Los Angeles	90	91	93	92	92	94
Milwaukee	101	96	102	101	97	102
Montreal	107	101	118**	106	101	116**
New York Mets	94	94	99	94	95	99
Philadelphia	98	91	95	98	92	96
Pittsburgh	100	106	99	100	105	99
San Diego	91	92	91	92	93	92
San Francisco	91	91	99	92	92	100
St. Louis	99	94	96	99	95	97

* Moved into their new stadium in 2003 ** Played a bunch of games in a bandbox in Puerto Rico. This chart shows a number of things. One, that SBC Park in San Francisco was an extreme pitcher's park. Now it seems to be neutral, or at least it was last year. A one year blip? We'll see. Two, other parks show some fluctuation as well, athough few as much as SBC. For example, there was a huge change at Cinergy Field in its last two years. Did they move the fences in? I don't recall that. PNC in Pittsburgh had a blip in 2002, but it's now back to being a neutral park. Three, Colorado, wow. There was some improvement in 2003, and I seem to remember that they were chilling the baseballs before the games. It might be that that had an effect. Four, Wrigley Field is a pitcher's park. Truth be told, if the wind is blowing in, that is a bad place to hit. And, with the wells down the line, it is deep to the corners, over 350 feet. But, those power alleys, hey, I could hit it out there. This is a reminder that these numbers are relative. Let's face it, parks are a lot smaller than they used to be, especially in the National League. Here are the numbers for Wrigley field in years gone by: 1984 -- 109, 109 1985 -- 111, 111 1986 -- 108, 109 1987 -- 104, 105 1988 -- 105, 105 1989 -- 107, 108 1990 -- 107, 108 1991 -- 107, 108 The same ballpark, which is basically unchanged, is now a pitcher's park when it used to be an extreme hitter's park. Hmmm.

Mulholland Theory

I'll admit that I didn't see the game on Friday night. My fiancee and I went to a get together and I missed out. So, I can't really say how Terry Mulholland looked. But, let's apply my Mulholland Theory just by reading the box score. After four, the Orioles were blanked, so unfortunately, were the Twins. Top of five. Two outs. Leon doubles. Oops, that's it. Go get him. Well, Mr. Mulholland stayed in. Next batter, Larry Bigbie, doubled, run scores. Go get him! Mulholland gets third out. According to my theory, he's gone, twice. Top of sixth. Twins now leading 2-1. Raines, Jr. singles. Mora strikes out. Raines steals second. Tejada lines out. Now? Well, hard to say. Only one hit and a stolen base, plus two outs. He's gotten three of the last four guys. Next batter, Raphael Palmeiro homers. Damn. Gotta go get him now, right? Uh, no. Next batter, Javy Lopez singles. Gardenhire goes and gets Mulholland. Unfortunately, Jesse Crain comes in and can't get anyone out. The Orioles score three more times in the inning, and the game is over. Mulholland's line if following the theory (assuming the bullpen doesn't blow up): 4 2/3 IP 3H 0R 0ER 3BB 2K Mulholland's actual line: 5 2/3 IP 6H 4R 4ER 3BB 3K I know that this is not quite a fair comparison, given that the bullpen blew up. Just working the theory, ma'am. Have a good day. Come back for another look on Monday. |W|P|109561727823012419|W|P|Yesterday's news|W|P|sbg@stickandballguy.com9/18/2004 11:02:00 AM|W|P|SBG|W|P|

700


|W|P|109552452993756236|W|P|Barry|W|P|sbg@stickandballguy.com9/18/2004 01:20:00 PM|W|P| Andrew|W|P|I was a much bigger fan of Barry back when he was a 40/40 guy. In general, I don't think its good for the game for guys to think the only way to produce offensively is to hit it 500 feet.

Having said that, what he has done is amazing. Hitting like he does in a pitcher's park is flat insane. I can only imagine what would happen if people would pitch to him.9/19/2004 11:56:00 AM|W|P| SBG|W|P|Point well taken. Age and bulk (however acquired) has robbed Barry of his ability to steal (and really, to play left field). Everyone once in a while, he shows some of the abilities that he used to have, besides hitting the hell out of the ball, like field and run, but it would be nice if he could still do things like he used to.9/19/2004 11:56:00 AM|W|P| SBG|W|P|This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.9/19/2004 12:42:00 PM|W|P| SBG|W|P|Just in case you were wondering, the post I removed was a duplicate of the first post.9/19/2004 01:07:00 PM|W|P| SBG|W|P|Just in case you were wondering, the post I removed was a duplicate of the first post.9/17/2004 08:58:00 AM|W|P|SBG|W|P|Good morning! I spent a lot of time last night figuring out whether a team can survive on pitching alone. You can see my long and frightfully boring posting. After thinking about it some more, I think the only conclusion I can draw from my little research project is that the five best teams in the AL have good pitching, or at least the best five pitching staffs. In doing all this, I missed the Twins game. I could have gone to the game and enjoyed another blowout, but no, I wasted my time with this crap! Wow, the Twins just keep rolling on! I can't imagine a more satisfying ending to the Chicago series. Let's hope the Twins can clinch at home and keep on pushing to the number 2 seed! Have a good weekend everybody, and thanks for stopping by. Update: Thanks to John "Twins Geek" Bonnes for a shout out on his site. Like Aaron, John's column has always been an inspiration to me. I am not sure how I found his site, but I did, and he's written a ton of great Twins columns. I've sent him many e-mails over the years, and he's always been very good about replying, and I thank him now for the mention. If you are new to my site, take a look around. I've had some problems with archiving, which I hope to work out. I try to write every weekday and add a weekend column from time to time. Update: Blogger has fixed my archives, so I can take down some of my posts off of the main page. If you are interested in searching the archives, they are located over on the right. Also, I have a short bio, "A little about me" in the upper right hand corner. Update: Be sure to vote in my new poll! New questions frequently! |W|P|109542976671454132|W|P|TGIF|W|P|sbg@stickandballguy.com9/16/2004 07:12:00 PM|W|P|SBG|W|P|If you would ask the average fan what they would prefer, a 2-1 game or a 9-8 game, I think that an overwhelming majority of fans would opt for the 9-8 game. Offense is exciting. Players are on base, there are home runs, there is strategy involved. In the pitcher's dual, there seems to be little action and a game can seem, well, a little boring. Of course, I recognize that a well-pitched game can be very exciting, as all of Twins Nation has been raving about Our Guy Johan Santana. On the whole, I think it's safe to say that home runs and high scores capture the imagination of most fans. I think it is pitching, however, that wins games. Consider the teams in the American League playoff race.

American League East
Team	W	L	PCT	GB
New York	92	54	.630	--
Boston	87	57	.604	4.0
American League Central
Team	W	L	PCT	GB
Minnesota	85	60	.586	--
American League West
Team	W	L	PCT	GB
Oakland	85	61	.582	--
Anaheim	82	63	.566	2.0

Now let's look at their respective pitching rankings in the American League in a variety of categories:

Team	ERA	WHIP	OPS Against	K/BB	DIPS
New York	6	3	5	3	4
Boston	2	1	1	2	2
Minnesota	1	2	2	1	1
Oakland	3	4	3	4	5
Anaheim	4	5	4	6	3

DIPS is defense independent ERA, in other words, it is a formula that tries to evaluate a pitcher's ERA regardless of who is actually playing in the field. As you can see, the five teams that have a shot at the four playoff spots are dominant in the relevant pitching statistics. These five teams have the best pitching in the American League. Now, let's look at these five teams' offenses.

Team	Runs	OBP	SLG	BB/K	IsoP
New York	2	2	3	1	3
Boston	1	1	1	5	2
Minnesota	10	10	9	6	8
Oakland	8	4	7	3	7
Anaheim	6	6	8	8	10

Wow. I'll admit that I started this article with a hypothesis and without the facts. Clearly, New York and Boston are the most well-rounded clubs in the league. But, just look at the other three teams. They all have mediocre, or worse, offenses. And yet, all three are right there in the hunt, and two of them, Oakland and Anaheim play in the toughest division, top to bottom, perhaps in the majors. We've known that the Twins' offense is sub-par. It is a little surprising that Anaheim's is as relatively crummy. By the way, IsoP is isolated power, which is slugging percentage minus batting average. Let's take a look at the National League Contenders.

National League East
Team	W	L	PCT	GB
Atlanta	86	60	.589	--
Florida	76	67	.531	8.5
National League Central
Team	W	L	PCT	GB
St. Louis	95	49	.660	--
Chicago	79	64	.552	15.5
Houston	79	67	.541	17.0
National League West
Team	W	L	PCT	GB
Los Angeles	84	61	.579	--
San Francisco	82	65	.558	3.0
San Diego	78	68	.534	6.5

Here is a chart of the contending teams ranking in the pitching categories I used above.

Team	ERA	WHIP	OPS Against	K/BB	DIPS
Atlanta	1	8	4	9	5
Florida	5	4	5	6	3
St. Louis	2	1	1	4	7
Chicago	3	5	3	3	1
Houston	7	7	7	2	2
Los Angeles	4	2	2	7	8
San Francisco	12	10	11	11	9
San Diego	6	3	9	1	10

The National League's contenders don't quite dominate the pitching as thoroughly as the AL contenders do, but it is close. With eight contenders, I guess it would be more likely that a team or two would be an outlier as opposed to when there are just five contenders. Still, the lowest seven ERAs are owned by contenders, as are 7 out of the top 8 WHIP numbers. The other rankings are a little more dispersed, but it appears that the top seven pitching staffs in the National League are contending. Only San Francisco seems to have a pitching staff of a non-contender. Now, let's look at the offense.

Team	Runs	OBP	SLG	BB/K	IsoP
Atlanta	6	3	7	8	9
Florida	11	9	12	5	12
St. Louis	2	7	2	7	2
Chicago	8	11	1	14	1
Houston	5	2	6	3	6
Los Angeles	9	8	8	10	10
San Francisco	1	1	5	1	7
San Diego	7	6	10	2	14

Hmmmm. What does this say? Well, for one, Colorado showed up a lot in offensive leaders. As we know, Dodger stadium and Petco Field are known pitcher's parks (so is SBC, go figure). So, ball parks can have an effect. Five of the top seven Runs, OBP, SLG and K/BB teams are here. So are 4 out of 7 IsoP teams.

The contender's pitching staffs in the National League are not quite as tightly bunched at the top of the rankings as they are in the AL. Still, only one bad pitching staff, San Francisco is among the contenders. San Francisco may just have the best offense in the league (it's close with St. Louis), and a couple of pretty average offenses, Los Angeles and Florida, are still contending.

Bottom Line: The numbers seem to show that this season unless you have a very good pitching staff, you probably aren't going to contend. Offense isn't really all that important if you can prevent runs.

|W|P|109537997183164491|W|P|Is Pitching Everything?|W|P|sbg@stickandballguy.com9/16/2004 07:55:00 AM|W|P|SBG|W|P| Back in September 1974, after Richard Nixon resigned the presidency, Rolling Stone magazine, who was no friend of the 37th president ran this cover proclaiming Nixon "The Quitter." I think that in 2004, if you wanted to have a new "Quitter" cover, Rolling Stone could use the team picture of the Chicago White Sox. What I saw of that game last night was a team clearly defeated and going through the motions. Privately, I worried (as I am wont to do) about the Twins in these last two games of the series. Trotting out Carlos Silva and Kyle Lohse against an angry and frustrated team could lead to a couple of losses and lost momentum. I don't know if the Twins will win tonight, but after Wednesday's game, I wouldn't be one bit surprised if the Twins blow the White Sox out. I don't mean to belittle Carlos Silva, because every indication is that he is a tough kid. But, friends, Carlos Silva gives up hits. Lots and lots of hits. In fact, before last night, the league was hitting .315 against Mr. Silva. But, not last night. No, last night, Carlos Silva was Greg Maddux. He held the White Sox to one hit (one!) until he had to leave after a ball struck his leg (he hustled to first to get the putout after it ricocheted to Justin Morneau). The Twins weren't hitting either until the 4th, when Joe Crede lollipopped a couple of throws over to first base resulting in two errors. All of a sudden, the Twins bunched some hits together and boom, three runs were on the board. The next inning, the Twins attacked again, and Ross Gload misplayed a Lew Ford hit for an error allowing Ford to advance. The Twins scored two more in the fifth, and the game was over. After the game, the inimitable Danny "Dazzleman" Gladden called the Twins hyenas, pouncing on a wounded animal. I think the correct term is vulture, because the Twins were picking at the remains of a dead animal. In the ninth, Paul Konerko hit a popup that turned into a hit when it struck the roof and was misdirected. If Konerko had hustled at all, he would have had a double. Instead, Mr. Konerko was standing on first base at the end of the play. Then, he was sitting in the dugout, replaced by a pinch runner in a five run game by a no doubt very angry manager. The White Sox had a chance to come into Minneapolis and make a statement. Boy, have they ever. Instead of playing hard and trying to show the Twins that they were a competitive team, they came in and plunked Torii Hunter, bad mouthed the Twins and played execrable baseball. Mark Buehrle can say that he thinks the Twins aren't very good, that he can't see how they'll compete in the playoffs. But, while he's doubting the Twins, they'll be off playing either the Yankees and Red Sox in the playoffs. Oh, by the way, Mark, the Twins are 6-3 against those two teams. You can bet that neither team is thinking that they can just show up and win.

Mark Buehrle and his teammates have quit trying on the field, but they have made quite an effort lately to badmouth the Twins.

I've made it known that I hate the Yanks and I can't stand the praise piled on Derek Jeter by the media like he was some kind of god or something. But, make no mistake, the Yanks don't quit, and Jeter is a competitor. If you quit on the Yankees (hello, Raul Mondesi) you are on the first train out of town. If you quit on the White Sox, you are part of the fraternity. What the Twins need is a team in the Central division that can and will compete. Back in the late '80s and early '90s, the Twins had the Oakland A's. I hated the A's. Despised them. But, I also respected those guys for the most part, because they played hard. Yeah, some of them were cocky, but they backed it up with wins. The Twins need the Indians or the Tigers to rise up and provide some excitement. These White Sox are poseurs and aren't worthy of the Twins.

Twins News

The Pioneer Press is reporting that Terry Tiffee may be back soon:

Third baseman Terry Tiffee received encouraging news Tuesday about his injured right shoulder, making him optimistic about returning in seven to 10 days. Tiffee said an evaluation revealed that his right shoulder was not separated as severely as he originally was told. He injured it Monday when he collided with Detroit catcher Ivan Rodriguez. Tiffee said the medical staff will evaluate his shoulder this weekend, and he hopes to be ready to play by Sept. 23, when the Twins open a four-game series at Cleveland.

This is good news. I'm not sure that Corey Koskie will be ready to go anytime soon. While Koskie says he's nearly ready, I am reminded of Troy Hudson's high ankle sprain that effectively ruined his 2003-04 season. I know, I know, apples and oranges, but still, Tiffee might be needed.

In Case You Are Interested

I've put together a little profile on myself. Check the link over on the right, "A little about me."

|W|P|109534138093755674|W|P|The Quitters|W|P|sbg@stickandballguy.com9/15/2004 08:06:00 AM|W|P|SBG|W|P|As many of you may know, I attended the Twins game last night. Wow, what a performance by Our Guy Johan Santana. He was brilliant again. It is fun to go when you know the Twins are going to win. I got my Bat-Girl inspired Johan Santana for Cy Young button. I settled into my seat next to my aunt right behind home plate. (Sorry to rub it in.) And I watched Our Guy go to work. I was very excited. How bad would the Twins win? How many strikeouts would Our Guy have? And, would Barry Bonds get number 700? And if he did, would I know? Much to my delight, the new scoreboard around the rim of the stadium (and that is a nice addition by the way) had a real time update on Bonds. Even though he didn't get it last night, 0-2, with 2BB, the Giants won, and the already explosively exciting NL Wild Card chase got even more interesting. But, a funny thing happened on the way to the Our Guy Love Fest last night. Freddy Garcia came out and was not allowing a hit. Now, mind you, he didn't have great control or anything, but no hits. He did plunk Torii Hunter in the first inning with his second pitch to him after brushing him back with the first one. Could it be the White Sox were exacting revenge for Hunter's very un-Tiffee like collision with the Chicago catcher awhile back? I thought so. Our Guy responded by putting one right between Carlos Lee's shoulder blades, earning a warning for all involved. (Memo to Jorge Julio -- don't ever throw at a guy's head.) At 8:28, I looked at the scoreboard, and it looked like this:

Chicago       000 000     0 2 0
Minnesota     000 00      0 0 1

I was thinking, wow, he's no-hit us through five. Then I looked at the pitch count.

            B     S     T
Garcia      36    36    72

I turned to my aunt (who by the way is a great baseball fan, just like my grandmother was) and said, you know, he hasn't allowed a hit, but he's really thrown a lot of pitches out of the strike zone. He hasn't had great command. Freddy Garcia was once one of the better pitchers in the AL. He's not anymore, which is why I love the idea of the White Sox locking him up. He threw a lot of slow breaking balls last night -- high 60's on the gun -- and he seemed to be getting that over for strikes. I don't remember Twins hitters swinging at them a lot, but he was able to bend that thing over. (I also remember thinking that I seemed to be able to tell when it was coming. Perhaps I'm dreaming.) So, the game was 1:18 old and already 5 1/2 innings were in the books. For the next 28 minutes, the game ground to a halt as the Twins exploded. Augie Ojeda walked on five pitches. Henry Blanco walked on four. Shannon Stewart sacrificed?!? (I know the guy hadn't given up a hit, but he'd just thrown 8 out of nine bad ones. Then, the freeswinging Jacque Jones came up to the plate. He takes a pitch, and then he swings at two pitches out of the strike zone and I'm fuming. This guy can't find the strike zone with a map and Jones is basically giving up his at bat. I said as much to my aunt -- immediately before Jones laced a two run single to left center. And the rout was on. It was great. After 4 runs were in, Ozzie Guillen went to his bullpen and brought in a right hander to face Cristian Guzman. Guzman hit a double play ball on the first pitch, but the second baseman muffed it. Everyone's safe. Out of the dugout pops the Oz. In comes a right hander. That's right. Ozzie brought in a relief pitcher in a five run game to face one batter, Cristian Guzman, who's a switch hitter! Just bring in your lefty, Ozzie. I guess Guillen wants to pretend that he's in a pennant race. He also wanted to pretend that the game was close. Poor Ozzie. After 28 minutes of fun, the scoreboard looked like this:

Chicago       000 000     0 2 2
Minnesota     000 009     9 6 1

Granted, the Twins got six hits, but this inning was more about the wheels just coming off. Garcia walked three batters, the White Sox committed two errors, and Ozzie made THREE pitching changes in the middle of the inning. I don't know what's better - watching the Twins clobber the White Sox, or watching the White Sox just lie there and take it. After that, the game was over. Santana went seven brilliant innings, and his night ended when Hunter made a spectacular catch off the bat of Joe Crede, coming in and diving for a ball that I didn't think he had a chance of getting. I wasn't sure he actually caught it, but the first base umpire ruled him out (where was the second base umpire, it was right there in front of him). Our Guy's night was over. Somebody named Joe Beimel started the Twins' eighth and he struggled, giving up two runs in one third of an inning. That prompted a call to the bullpen for The Real Deal. Boy, did he look good. He induced a double play on his first pitch. Then, in the ninth, he threw hard, he had a nice breaking ball and his motion was beautifully smooth. Kyle Lohse watch out. His name is J.D. Durbin and he's taking your job. Notes: Hunter was caught stealing in the first after he was picked off. Torii, the rest of the league has now caught up with that move. Justin Morneau made a nice over the shoulder catch on a foul pop up and deftly scooped a couple of throws. He wasn't able to stop a poor throw by Augie Ojeda, but he looks like he's gonna be just fine at first base. The attendance last night was a disappointing 22,145. I know it was a school night, but damn, you may never again see a pitcher pitch like Santana is pitching right now. Only 27,000+ came to see if Barry would hit 700. As I was sitting at the game, I was thinking about how I could maybe get to Milwaukee to see it. And only 27,000 bothered in Milwaukee. Probably hungover from the Monday Night Packer game. After the game, I called my dad to report on it. I then remembered he wasn't home, but Stan the Man would be proud of my reporting diligence. :) See you tomorrow! |W|P|109525360025710866|W|P|28 Minutes|W|P|sbg@stickandballguy.com