Wednesday, April 16, 2003
A Tampa Uprising? (Sort of…)
Considering the history of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, they are relatively flying right now at 5-8. In the ten games played against two of the AL’s best, Boston and New York, they have proved to be a more formidable opponent, i.e. they appear more competitive than in the past. They are 3-7 in those ten games, which is nothing to get excited about, but all three wins came in their last at-bat, and four of their losses overall have been by one run, including last night’s 6-5 9th inning loss at Fenway Park. One gets the sense early on that these aren’t the same ol’ Devil Rays, just for the simple fact that they're playing exciting baseball.
Lou Pinella is getting plenty of credit already. I’m hearing things like “They’re fundamentally better” and “They’re doing the little things, like hitting the cut-off man.” All those things may be true. But usually fundamentals are most obvious on the defensive side of the field, and to this point in the season, the Devil Rays haven’t improved at all defensively from last year.
Entering yesterday’s game, they were last in fielding percentage in the AL at .967; last year they were next-to-last in the league at .979. They were also last in ERA: 6.09 compared to last year’s 5.29, which was the worst in the league.
No, the reason the Rays look better is simply due to the fact they’re hitting the ball better. They’re hitting .296 (2nd in the AL) and have scored 69 runs (6th) in 13 twelve games. Last year they were 11th in batting and 12th in runs/game.
I think Pinella is a good manager, no question. But I also think the Rays’ subtle emergence as a legitimate major league outfit has as much to do with the fact that they have better players in their line-up than in past years. Carl Crawford’s numbers from the lead-off spot aren’t too impressive (a scary-bad .281 OBP, 15 K to 1 BB, before Tuesday night), but he’s shown a couple of flashes (four steals). Rocco Baldelli appears as talented as advertised. Aubrey Huff is a good hitter, and Travis Lee is proving to be a sensible pick-up.
I don’t have any illusions about Tampa competing for anything other than avoidance of last-place, but the early returns have been better than expected. For one of the few times, if not the only time, a follower of this heretofore moribund franchise can have that valuable commodity: hope.
Quick Hits
For the first time this season, I watched an absolutely unbearable baseball game on Monday night. The kind of game that my football-fan-friends will point to as why baseball is so darn boring. I’m proud to say (or maybe not) that I stuck with it till its conclusion, a good four hours and eight minutes after the first pitch was thrown. In that four hours there were:
383 pitches
24 hits
A mind numbing 20 walks
19 runs
10 pitching changes
24 runners left on base
Throw in three hit batters, three errors and a wild pitch, and you have one ugly game.
If it didn’t feel like Chinese water torture, the game between the Yankees and Blue Jays would’ve been very exciting. The pattern of the game went something like this: 1-0 NY; 2-1 Toronto; 4-2 NY; 6-4 Tor.; 6-6; 10-6 NY; 10-7 NY; 10-9 NY final. The Jays actually made a heckuva rally in the 9th off the Yanks’ closer Juan Acevado, as they scored a run and had runners at the corners with no outs. New York brought in lefty Chris Hammond who induced a 1-6-3 DP (run scored on what was nearly a game-ending triple play, with Posada's tag just late), and then got a fly ball from Vernon Wells to end it.
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I was wondering how long it would take for Kansas City fan Rob Neyer to write on the first-place, playing-out-of-their-skulls Royals. He made a mention of them in one of his columns last week, but today he gave his readers the first full column dedicated to his favorite team. Check it out here.
In terms of the bottom line, i.e. number of wins, he writes that at this point, after an 11-1 start, the Royals are very capable of going 72-90, which would be a ten-game improvement over last year. If I’m a Royals’ fan, I’m thinking “81-81” at this point, especially playing in that division. That would be close to a 20-game improvement, and in my book would be one amazing season.
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I wish I could think of something constructive and insightful to offer about the ugly incident last night in Chicago. I’m angry, for one thing. The idea of Major League Baseball putting netting in front of the field-level seats will soon be a reality if behavior like this continues at their ballparks. It’s a sad state of affairs that something like that could actually happen, due to the idiocy of a couple of spectators-turned-attackers. But all it would take is for one of these attacks to inflict serious harm to a coach, player or umpire, and things would change very quickly.
In fact, the Royals have already announced that they will not play tonight’s game in Chicago if they are not guaranteed that security has been improved. Short of putting a security person at the end of each aisle, or putting a barrier up, there is not one precaution that will guarantee that a similar incident won’t occur again.
The best way to prevent an on-field incident like last night is to not have those people at the game at all. But that’s a difficult, almost impossible, task for an organization to confront, as it is starting to address deep-rooted societal problems that go beyond the confines of arenas and baseball stadiums.
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A quick perusal of the standings shows that the Diamondbacks are 9 ½ games behind the San Francisco Giants. The only team drifting further from shore is Detroit at 10 games out. Arizona got hammered last night by the Rockies, 12-2, and Randy Johnson has been scratched from tonight’s game with a bad knee. They’re next-to-last in the NL in runs with 45 (the Mets have 41), and 13th in ERA at 5.27. Their early slump has been somewhat shocking considering they’ve been a perennial playoff team, and aren’t that much different, roster-wise, from last year.
I didn’t pick them to make the playoffs this year, mainly because I’m not crazy about their offense. I wasn’t expecting this, however. For the record, I have the Dodgers winning the West, with the Giants picking up the Wild Card. Those predictions look shaky right now with the Giants sitting at 12-1, and going for the sweep tonight against a good Houston team. But at least I had the Giants making the playoffs…
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Line of the day from a columnist: “The way he has pitched, one could swear he was still on the Yankees’ payroll.” David Heuschkel, staff writer for the Hartford Courant, after Ramiro Mendoza’s nine pitch, four hit, four run outing Tuesday night in Boston.
Considering the history of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, they are relatively flying right now at 5-8. In the ten games played against two of the AL’s best, Boston and New York, they have proved to be a more formidable opponent, i.e. they appear more competitive than in the past. They are 3-7 in those ten games, which is nothing to get excited about, but all three wins came in their last at-bat, and four of their losses overall have been by one run, including last night’s 6-5 9th inning loss at Fenway Park. One gets the sense early on that these aren’t the same ol’ Devil Rays, just for the simple fact that they're playing exciting baseball.
Lou Pinella is getting plenty of credit already. I’m hearing things like “They’re fundamentally better” and “They’re doing the little things, like hitting the cut-off man.” All those things may be true. But usually fundamentals are most obvious on the defensive side of the field, and to this point in the season, the Devil Rays haven’t improved at all defensively from last year.
Entering yesterday’s game, they were last in fielding percentage in the AL at .967; last year they were next-to-last in the league at .979. They were also last in ERA: 6.09 compared to last year’s 5.29, which was the worst in the league.
No, the reason the Rays look better is simply due to the fact they’re hitting the ball better. They’re hitting .296 (2nd in the AL) and have scored 69 runs (6th) in 13 twelve games. Last year they were 11th in batting and 12th in runs/game.
I think Pinella is a good manager, no question. But I also think the Rays’ subtle emergence as a legitimate major league outfit has as much to do with the fact that they have better players in their line-up than in past years. Carl Crawford’s numbers from the lead-off spot aren’t too impressive (a scary-bad .281 OBP, 15 K to 1 BB, before Tuesday night), but he’s shown a couple of flashes (four steals). Rocco Baldelli appears as talented as advertised. Aubrey Huff is a good hitter, and Travis Lee is proving to be a sensible pick-up.
I don’t have any illusions about Tampa competing for anything other than avoidance of last-place, but the early returns have been better than expected. For one of the few times, if not the only time, a follower of this heretofore moribund franchise can have that valuable commodity: hope.
Quick Hits
For the first time this season, I watched an absolutely unbearable baseball game on Monday night. The kind of game that my football-fan-friends will point to as why baseball is so darn boring. I’m proud to say (or maybe not) that I stuck with it till its conclusion, a good four hours and eight minutes after the first pitch was thrown. In that four hours there were:
383 pitches
24 hits
A mind numbing 20 walks
19 runs
10 pitching changes
24 runners left on base
Throw in three hit batters, three errors and a wild pitch, and you have one ugly game.
If it didn’t feel like Chinese water torture, the game between the Yankees and Blue Jays would’ve been very exciting. The pattern of the game went something like this: 1-0 NY; 2-1 Toronto; 4-2 NY; 6-4 Tor.; 6-6; 10-6 NY; 10-7 NY; 10-9 NY final. The Jays actually made a heckuva rally in the 9th off the Yanks’ closer Juan Acevado, as they scored a run and had runners at the corners with no outs. New York brought in lefty Chris Hammond who induced a 1-6-3 DP (run scored on what was nearly a game-ending triple play, with Posada's tag just late), and then got a fly ball from Vernon Wells to end it.
-------------
I was wondering how long it would take for Kansas City fan Rob Neyer to write on the first-place, playing-out-of-their-skulls Royals. He made a mention of them in one of his columns last week, but today he gave his readers the first full column dedicated to his favorite team. Check it out here.
In terms of the bottom line, i.e. number of wins, he writes that at this point, after an 11-1 start, the Royals are very capable of going 72-90, which would be a ten-game improvement over last year. If I’m a Royals’ fan, I’m thinking “81-81” at this point, especially playing in that division. That would be close to a 20-game improvement, and in my book would be one amazing season.
----------------
I wish I could think of something constructive and insightful to offer about the ugly incident last night in Chicago. I’m angry, for one thing. The idea of Major League Baseball putting netting in front of the field-level seats will soon be a reality if behavior like this continues at their ballparks. It’s a sad state of affairs that something like that could actually happen, due to the idiocy of a couple of spectators-turned-attackers. But all it would take is for one of these attacks to inflict serious harm to a coach, player or umpire, and things would change very quickly.
In fact, the Royals have already announced that they will not play tonight’s game in Chicago if they are not guaranteed that security has been improved. Short of putting a security person at the end of each aisle, or putting a barrier up, there is not one precaution that will guarantee that a similar incident won’t occur again.
The best way to prevent an on-field incident like last night is to not have those people at the game at all. But that’s a difficult, almost impossible, task for an organization to confront, as it is starting to address deep-rooted societal problems that go beyond the confines of arenas and baseball stadiums.
---------------
A quick perusal of the standings shows that the Diamondbacks are 9 ½ games behind the San Francisco Giants. The only team drifting further from shore is Detroit at 10 games out. Arizona got hammered last night by the Rockies, 12-2, and Randy Johnson has been scratched from tonight’s game with a bad knee. They’re next-to-last in the NL in runs with 45 (the Mets have 41), and 13th in ERA at 5.27. Their early slump has been somewhat shocking considering they’ve been a perennial playoff team, and aren’t that much different, roster-wise, from last year.
I didn’t pick them to make the playoffs this year, mainly because I’m not crazy about their offense. I wasn’t expecting this, however. For the record, I have the Dodgers winning the West, with the Giants picking up the Wild Card. Those predictions look shaky right now with the Giants sitting at 12-1, and going for the sweep tonight against a good Houston team. But at least I had the Giants making the playoffs…
-------------
Line of the day from a columnist: “The way he has pitched, one could swear he was still on the Yankees’ payroll.” David Heuschkel, staff writer for the Hartford Courant, after Ramiro Mendoza’s nine pitch, four hit, four run outing Tuesday night in Boston.
