Friday, June 04, 2004
Right Where He Left Off
While I think this is overstating the case a little bit:
There is no question that Mark Prior is the most dynamic pitcher in baseball, and it's good for the game that he's finally part of the 2004 baseball season. I can't say I stayed up nights longing for the return of Mark Prior to a big league mound, but it was nice to see this result from this afternoon's game at Wrigley:
6 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 8 K, 0 BB, 85 pitches; he retired the first 13 batters he faced in the process. Can't ask for more than that in the guy's first start since last October.
Of course, the Cubs gave up two in the 9th, and lost to the Pirates 2-1, but no one's really paying attention to that right now.
Other things on the part of my brain that is occupied with baseball:
I'm going to try and go back, at various points in the season, to see what I wrote about a topic and see if it's worthy for a follow-up comment. Case in point, my piece on the Reds last week. With Ken Griffey Jr. continuing to swing the bat as well as he has in years, and the entire team getting timely hit after timely hit, I'm sure they'll be a team in the forefront for quite some time.
One week isn't going to change my mind; I still foresee their eventual demise this year. But it certainly appears they'll be sticking around for a bit. Btw, they are now playing 5 over their projected record, the highest number in baseball. The Giants, after their 10-game winning streak, is 2nd at +4.
Are Red Sox fans concerned with falling two back (three in the loss) to the Yankees? Speak up.
The Angels, who struggled in the 2nd half of May after the Glaus announcement, appear to be well again and are now 13 games over .500. Their performance this week against Boston, coupled with the win last night vs. Cleveland, is the best they've played in a few weeks.
A couple words on a few of the series being played this weekend:
Texas @ New York: To Yankee Haters: at least their done playing the Orioles, for now. The shellacking will continue on June 22 in Camden Yards. Wasn't this supposed to be the year that Baltimore closed the gap? At least a little bit? It felt like the Yankees set that franchise back a couple seasons after going 6-0 against them in the span of just over a week.
Kenny Rogers comes into tonight pitching to a 3.10 ERA. As a starter, that mark would be the lowest of his career. He actually bested that mark as a reliever earlier in his career. The Gambler's best ERA seasons:
1989: 2.93, 73 games, 0 starts
1992: 3.09, 81 games, 0 starts
1990: 3.13, 69 games, 0 starts
1998: 3.17, 34 games, 34 starts
Off the top of my head, I don't remember Kenny Rogers' early phase of his career. But it looks like he was a helluva reliever. Being that he was a lefty and had stamina, it's easy to see why he was converted to a starter. He's been at 200+ IP five times in his career, and in the 190s a couple other times.
If it wasn't for the fact that he wilted under the New York lights, he'd probably be looked on more favorably by the general public than he is. What everyone remembers from '99 is the walk he gave up to "lose" the NLCS as a member of the Mets. What everyone forgets is he was very solid for New York that year after coming over in mid-season from Oakland. In 12 starts, he went 5-1 and pitched to a 4.03 ERA. With the Yankees, he was just plain bad.
Florida @ New York Mets
What can I say about the Mets? Yeah, I'm surprised. Yeah, I like a lot of guys on this team, including the manager, who comes across as one of the most easiest-going-aw-shucks characters in the game. I don't know if that's true about Howe, but that's how he continually comes across.
No, I don't think they're going to actually win anything.
However, I probably have a little more confidence in them staying within sniffing distance of first in the long-run, than I do the Reds. I can't stop hammering on Cincy can I...
I write that b/c 1) I like the Mets pitching better than Cincinnati's. 2) I think the NL East is going to be a conglomerated mess for most of the summer.
But let's face it: the Mets' bacon was saved in Philly this week by Todd Zeile. Todd
Zeile, for godssakes. They've been fun though, some wild wins in there.
Detroit @ Minnesota
The Tigers are starting to fade from being a real interesting story. Nonetheless, their current winning pct. of .453 played out for a full season would translate into a 73-89 record. No great shakes, except for the fact that would be a 40 game turnaround from last year, which I'm not sure has ever been done before.
Go to www.aarongleeman.com for all you need to know about the Twins. As Gleeman noted with an exceeding amount of venom this week, the Twins (my non-Yankees pick for the World Series this year) are playing brutal baseball against the supposed under-belly of their schedule.
Since sweeping Seattle and taking two of three from the ChiSox from May 11-15, they have bungled around the diamond losing 12 of 18 to the likes of Tampa Bay, Toronto and Kansas City. Throw in a three-out-of-four loss to Chicago as well. There is precedence for this poor play against poor opponents:
Although the Twinkies are only two back in the Central, they better be careful. The White Sox have an expected record right now of 32-19, the best pct. in baseball. They're playing three games under their expectations; Minnesota has to hope they don't actually catch about to their run differential.
Philadelphia @ Atlanta
I can honestly say I'm glad I never took the time, not that I have a ton of it to spend on this site, to write off the Atlanta Braves. It seems we (meaning writers and baseball followers) have predicted and/or tried to will the demise of the Braves into existence for a long time now. They're 27-26 coming into tonight which isn't up to the standards they've set, but they are right in the thick of the NL East race.
And despite their fall-off offensively from the great numbers from last year, I still don't see a convincing reason that the Braves won't be in this thing until the end, again taking their competition into account.
The Braves record vs. Florida and Philadelphia this year: 8-3
I don't know about you, but I'm starting to get sick and tired of hearing about the Phillies.
While I think this is overstating the case a little bit:
Finally. Everybody's favorite Cy Young candidate three months ago is finally going to pitch in a game that matters. I don't know about you, but baseball just wasn't as interesting without Mark Prior.(Rob Neyer)
There is no question that Mark Prior is the most dynamic pitcher in baseball, and it's good for the game that he's finally part of the 2004 baseball season. I can't say I stayed up nights longing for the return of Mark Prior to a big league mound, but it was nice to see this result from this afternoon's game at Wrigley:
6 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 8 K, 0 BB, 85 pitches; he retired the first 13 batters he faced in the process. Can't ask for more than that in the guy's first start since last October.
Of course, the Cubs gave up two in the 9th, and lost to the Pirates 2-1, but no one's really paying attention to that right now.
Other things on the part of my brain that is occupied with baseball:
I'm going to try and go back, at various points in the season, to see what I wrote about a topic and see if it's worthy for a follow-up comment. Case in point, my piece on the Reds last week. With Ken Griffey Jr. continuing to swing the bat as well as he has in years, and the entire team getting timely hit after timely hit, I'm sure they'll be a team in the forefront for quite some time.
One week isn't going to change my mind; I still foresee their eventual demise this year. But it certainly appears they'll be sticking around for a bit. Btw, they are now playing 5 over their projected record, the highest number in baseball. The Giants, after their 10-game winning streak, is 2nd at +4.
Are Red Sox fans concerned with falling two back (three in the loss) to the Yankees? Speak up.
The Angels, who struggled in the 2nd half of May after the Glaus announcement, appear to be well again and are now 13 games over .500. Their performance this week against Boston, coupled with the win last night vs. Cleveland, is the best they've played in a few weeks.
A couple words on a few of the series being played this weekend:
Texas @ New York: To Yankee Haters: at least their done playing the Orioles, for now. The shellacking will continue on June 22 in Camden Yards. Wasn't this supposed to be the year that Baltimore closed the gap? At least a little bit? It felt like the Yankees set that franchise back a couple seasons after going 6-0 against them in the span of just over a week.
Kenny Rogers comes into tonight pitching to a 3.10 ERA. As a starter, that mark would be the lowest of his career. He actually bested that mark as a reliever earlier in his career. The Gambler's best ERA seasons:
1989: 2.93, 73 games, 0 starts
1992: 3.09, 81 games, 0 starts
1990: 3.13, 69 games, 0 starts
1998: 3.17, 34 games, 34 starts
Off the top of my head, I don't remember Kenny Rogers' early phase of his career. But it looks like he was a helluva reliever. Being that he was a lefty and had stamina, it's easy to see why he was converted to a starter. He's been at 200+ IP five times in his career, and in the 190s a couple other times.
If it wasn't for the fact that he wilted under the New York lights, he'd probably be looked on more favorably by the general public than he is. What everyone remembers from '99 is the walk he gave up to "lose" the NLCS as a member of the Mets. What everyone forgets is he was very solid for New York that year after coming over in mid-season from Oakland. In 12 starts, he went 5-1 and pitched to a 4.03 ERA. With the Yankees, he was just plain bad.
Florida @ New York Mets
What can I say about the Mets? Yeah, I'm surprised. Yeah, I like a lot of guys on this team, including the manager, who comes across as one of the most easiest-going-aw-shucks characters in the game. I don't know if that's true about Howe, but that's how he continually comes across.
No, I don't think they're going to actually win anything.
However, I probably have a little more confidence in them staying within sniffing distance of first in the long-run, than I do the Reds. I can't stop hammering on Cincy can I...
I write that b/c 1) I like the Mets pitching better than Cincinnati's. 2) I think the NL East is going to be a conglomerated mess for most of the summer.
But let's face it: the Mets' bacon was saved in Philly this week by Todd Zeile. Todd
Zeile, for godssakes. They've been fun though, some wild wins in there.
Detroit @ Minnesota
The Tigers are starting to fade from being a real interesting story. Nonetheless, their current winning pct. of .453 played out for a full season would translate into a 73-89 record. No great shakes, except for the fact that would be a 40 game turnaround from last year, which I'm not sure has ever been done before.
Go to www.aarongleeman.com for all you need to know about the Twins. As Gleeman noted with an exceeding amount of venom this week, the Twins (my non-Yankees pick for the World Series this year) are playing brutal baseball against the supposed under-belly of their schedule.
Since sweeping Seattle and taking two of three from the ChiSox from May 11-15, they have bungled around the diamond losing 12 of 18 to the likes of Tampa Bay, Toronto and Kansas City. Throw in a three-out-of-four loss to Chicago as well. There is precedence for this poor play against poor opponents:
If it seems like the Twins have done this before, it's because they have. Last year, just before the All-Star break, the Twins dropped nine out of 10 games to three bad teams -- Cleveland (68-94), Texas (71-91) and Anaheim (77-85).
Back in 2001, when the Twins surprised everyone with a good first-half and then completely fell apart, they had an incredibly demoralizing stretch in which they surrounded losing two sets of games against the first-place Indians by going 2-9 against Tampa Bay and Toronto, who won 62 and 80 games respectively that year.(Aaron Gleeman)
Although the Twinkies are only two back in the Central, they better be careful. The White Sox have an expected record right now of 32-19, the best pct. in baseball. They're playing three games under their expectations; Minnesota has to hope they don't actually catch about to their run differential.
Philadelphia @ Atlanta
I can honestly say I'm glad I never took the time, not that I have a ton of it to spend on this site, to write off the Atlanta Braves. It seems we (meaning writers and baseball followers) have predicted and/or tried to will the demise of the Braves into existence for a long time now. They're 27-26 coming into tonight which isn't up to the standards they've set, but they are right in the thick of the NL East race.
And despite their fall-off offensively from the great numbers from last year, I still don't see a convincing reason that the Braves won't be in this thing until the end, again taking their competition into account.
The Braves record vs. Florida and Philadelphia this year: 8-3
I don't know about you, but I'm starting to get sick and tired of hearing about the Phillies.
