Monday, July 25, 2005
A Wrap on the Weekend
End of a weekend, and I still feel like I’m catching up on all the action that transpired in the majors since Friday.
It’s drifting towards 10:00 on Sunday night and the Cubs and Cardinals are playing the last game of the day in St. Louis. 3-2, Cards.
I don’t know about you, but the weekend has a way of pushing baseball, and I guess sports in general, to the back burner a little bit. I’m not saying that’s the case every weekend; a huge chunk of my time this afternoon consisted of either listening to baseball on the radio or watching it on television. In addition, Friday and Saturday nights are really the only nights of the week that allow me to watch West Coast games to their conclusion without consequences, i.e. walking into work the next morning like an absolute zombie.
However, depending on other things going on in my life – family functions, time spent with friends, to-do-lists, music and other fun activities – sports becomes more background music than the main attraction from Friday night to Sunday night. The game is a backdrop to conversation. The voices of a radio broadcast provide a consistent chatter on the back deck while you’re trying to cook those burgers to perfection. At social gatherings, whether it’s a birthday party or barbeque, the scores come in like stock ticker updates from someone who glanced at the TV on the way back outside: “Tigers 4-3 in the 5th.”
A close game in late innings necessitates a mad dash to a radio, a television, something with immediate access to the game.
Things are different during the week. You’re in your working week routine. Things are a bit more controlled, a bit more ordered. And the game has its own unique place in the fabric of that routine. Afternoon games are antidotes to help push you through those last couple of hours at the office. A night game offers a multitude of purposes: it can be the centerpiece of the evening, simply a diversion, a backdrop for the everyday interaction with your family, even just a way to drift off to sleep. Baseball is the most flexible of sports in this way, and one of the most flexible ways to pass your time. One game can be a multitude of things to a multitude of people at once. And one thing isn’t necessarily more right or wrong than the next.
Other things of note from this weekend:
The A’s sweep of the Rangers. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised anymore, as they’ve now been playing good baseball for almost two months. But Oakland’s surge back into contention for the post-season after their dreadful start is probably the biggest team surprise of the season for me.
Seven weeks ago they were 12.5 games behind in the Wild Card race. Today, they caught the Twins for the lead for the Wild Card; the Yankees are even in the loss column with those two teams, but trail by percentage points.
This run (six in a row, 12 of 14, and 22 of 27) is reminiscent of those great second half runs of the ’00-’02 Art Howe teams. This one though is more impressive to me, as many observers had resigned this team to “rebuilding” status.
On the other side of the field, the Rangers have been reduced to the fringe of the AL post-season race at 48-49. David Pinto hinted this morning that maybe Buck Showalter and Orel Hershiser should start worrying about job security. While I think firing Buck is not the answer, Hershiser could be a target for a franchise that is going to start wanting results from this young, talented nucleus of players. However, it would ultimately be making a move for the sake of making a move. The Rangers’ pitching numbers are not good, but looking at that staff, is there a pitching coach alive that would really make that much of a difference?
Lights Out, Game Over. For four days, the Yankees and Angels played a game called “Who Can Get to the Closer First?” The Angels won that game within a game 3-1. And of course, that matched the final results of the actual games played in Anaheim from Thursday-Sunday.
The Combined Numbers of Rodriguez and Rivera from the four-game series:
The surprising aspect of the team’s now concluded 3-7 road trip is the offense has been the weakness in this stretch of games.
From the Balitmore Sun:
.127 w/RISP. That’s hard to do.
The Sun also reported that Javy Lopez will be back in the line-up tonight as the O’s return home to start a four-gamer with Texas. A series featuring two teams that are fighting for their post-season lives as we hit the last week of July.
Finally, a win. It had been 52 days since Wade Miller had won a game for the Red Sox. Saturday night in Chicago that changed as he threw his best game in a Boston uni. The seven innings equaled his longest outing of the year, an amount he tallied May 31 vs. Baltimore and June 11 vs. the Cubs. He got the win in a low-scoring affair, allowing 5 hits, 0 runs; he walked 4 and struck out 4. The Sox won 3-0.
If Miller can become a bit more consistent, it would be a huge boost to a Boston starting rotation that has been spotty of late. Since the break, they’ve gotten two nice starts from David Wells (14 IP, 11 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 1 BB, 9 K), but the rest of the crew has been less than impressive.
Matt Clement is enduring his roughest stretch of the season after a great first half. Despite going the distance in a loss to the Yankees last week, Tim Wakefield’s knuckler has been getting knocked around and out of the park: 6 home runs allowed in his last two starts. Arroyo has been hit to the tune of 18 hits/11 runs (10 earned) in his last two outings, and isn’t fooling anybody: three strikeouts in 12.1 IP.
Overall, the Boston starters are 4-5 with a 5.19 ERA since July 14 in games against New York (1st in AL in RS); Tampa (T-10th); and Chicago (5th).
The Padres continue to make things harder for themselves than it needs to be. After games played on July 17, San Diego had a seven-game loss column lead on the sub-.500 Diamondbacks. Now, after seven losses in a row, the Padres are only one game over .500, and Arizona is back in the race: three games out in the loss column despite being 48-52. None of the other three division teams are even on anyone’s radar at this point, as the next closest team, the Dodgers, are ten games under the .500 mark.
No afternoon games today. Ten series get underway tonight under the lights, and none of them are a stop-what-you’re-doing-and-get-in-front-of-a-TV-right-now series. The Texas/Baltimore and Houston/Philadelphia match-ups are probably the most enticing, as they involve teams fighting it out for a Wild Card spot, and in Philly’s case still thinking about the division.
End of a weekend, and I still feel like I’m catching up on all the action that transpired in the majors since Friday.
It’s drifting towards 10:00 on Sunday night and the Cubs and Cardinals are playing the last game of the day in St. Louis. 3-2, Cards.
I don’t know about you, but the weekend has a way of pushing baseball, and I guess sports in general, to the back burner a little bit. I’m not saying that’s the case every weekend; a huge chunk of my time this afternoon consisted of either listening to baseball on the radio or watching it on television. In addition, Friday and Saturday nights are really the only nights of the week that allow me to watch West Coast games to their conclusion without consequences, i.e. walking into work the next morning like an absolute zombie.
However, depending on other things going on in my life – family functions, time spent with friends, to-do-lists, music and other fun activities – sports becomes more background music than the main attraction from Friday night to Sunday night. The game is a backdrop to conversation. The voices of a radio broadcast provide a consistent chatter on the back deck while you’re trying to cook those burgers to perfection. At social gatherings, whether it’s a birthday party or barbeque, the scores come in like stock ticker updates from someone who glanced at the TV on the way back outside: “Tigers 4-3 in the 5th.”
A close game in late innings necessitates a mad dash to a radio, a television, something with immediate access to the game.
Things are different during the week. You’re in your working week routine. Things are a bit more controlled, a bit more ordered. And the game has its own unique place in the fabric of that routine. Afternoon games are antidotes to help push you through those last couple of hours at the office. A night game offers a multitude of purposes: it can be the centerpiece of the evening, simply a diversion, a backdrop for the everyday interaction with your family, even just a way to drift off to sleep. Baseball is the most flexible of sports in this way, and one of the most flexible ways to pass your time. One game can be a multitude of things to a multitude of people at once. And one thing isn’t necessarily more right or wrong than the next.
Other things of note from this weekend:
The A’s sweep of the Rangers. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised anymore, as they’ve now been playing good baseball for almost two months. But Oakland’s surge back into contention for the post-season after their dreadful start is probably the biggest team surprise of the season for me.
Seven weeks ago they were 12.5 games behind in the Wild Card race. Today, they caught the Twins for the lead for the Wild Card; the Yankees are even in the loss column with those two teams, but trail by percentage points.
This run (six in a row, 12 of 14, and 22 of 27) is reminiscent of those great second half runs of the ’00-’02 Art Howe teams. This one though is more impressive to me, as many observers had resigned this team to “rebuilding” status.
On the other side of the field, the Rangers have been reduced to the fringe of the AL post-season race at 48-49. David Pinto hinted this morning that maybe Buck Showalter and Orel Hershiser should start worrying about job security. While I think firing Buck is not the answer, Hershiser could be a target for a franchise that is going to start wanting results from this young, talented nucleus of players. However, it would ultimately be making a move for the sake of making a move. The Rangers’ pitching numbers are not good, but looking at that staff, is there a pitching coach alive that would really make that much of a difference?
Lights Out, Game Over. For four days, the Yankees and Angels played a game called “Who Can Get to the Closer First?” The Angels won that game within a game 3-1. And of course, that matched the final results of the actual games played in Anaheim from Thursday-Sunday.
The Combined Numbers of Rodriguez and Rivera from the four-game series:
IP H R ER BB K SVThe Orioles are teetering on the brink. Can the Orioles recover from an ill-timed (but really when would it be a good time?) sweep at the hands of the woeful Devil Rays?
4.2 3 0 0 1 5 4
The surprising aspect of the team’s now concluded 3-7 road trip is the offense has been the weakness in this stretch of games.
From the Balitmore Sun:
But when everything was said and done at Tropicana Field, the Orioles scored
just nine runs in the series. They managed six hits in their final 17 innings
this weekend, continuing a slump that started in the first post-All-Star break
series in Seattle.
Over the past eight games, the Orioles are batting
.247 overall and .127 with runners in scoring position. They scored only 21
runs, an average of 2.6 a game, during that span.
.127 w/RISP. That’s hard to do.
The Sun also reported that Javy Lopez will be back in the line-up tonight as the O’s return home to start a four-gamer with Texas. A series featuring two teams that are fighting for their post-season lives as we hit the last week of July.
Finally, a win. It had been 52 days since Wade Miller had won a game for the Red Sox. Saturday night in Chicago that changed as he threw his best game in a Boston uni. The seven innings equaled his longest outing of the year, an amount he tallied May 31 vs. Baltimore and June 11 vs. the Cubs. He got the win in a low-scoring affair, allowing 5 hits, 0 runs; he walked 4 and struck out 4. The Sox won 3-0.
If Miller can become a bit more consistent, it would be a huge boost to a Boston starting rotation that has been spotty of late. Since the break, they’ve gotten two nice starts from David Wells (14 IP, 11 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 1 BB, 9 K), but the rest of the crew has been less than impressive.
Matt Clement is enduring his roughest stretch of the season after a great first half. Despite going the distance in a loss to the Yankees last week, Tim Wakefield’s knuckler has been getting knocked around and out of the park: 6 home runs allowed in his last two starts. Arroyo has been hit to the tune of 18 hits/11 runs (10 earned) in his last two outings, and isn’t fooling anybody: three strikeouts in 12.1 IP.
Overall, the Boston starters are 4-5 with a 5.19 ERA since July 14 in games against New York (1st in AL in RS); Tampa (T-10th); and Chicago (5th).
The Padres continue to make things harder for themselves than it needs to be. After games played on July 17, San Diego had a seven-game loss column lead on the sub-.500 Diamondbacks. Now, after seven losses in a row, the Padres are only one game over .500, and Arizona is back in the race: three games out in the loss column despite being 48-52. None of the other three division teams are even on anyone’s radar at this point, as the next closest team, the Dodgers, are ten games under the .500 mark.
No afternoon games today. Ten series get underway tonight under the lights, and none of them are a stop-what-you’re-doing-and-get-in-front-of-a-TV-right-now series. The Texas/Baltimore and Houston/Philadelphia match-ups are probably the most enticing, as they involve teams fighting it out for a Wild Card spot, and in Philly’s case still thinking about the division.
