2010 MLB Season

[Dan Gould]

Would also be a season high five game losing streak. Would be nice to know the Sox have a hot Beckett on the mound with a chance for a 3.5 game deficit for the WC.

How ironic would it be if the Rays and Red Sox prove my prediction wrong and the end result is that they lose to Texas in the Division Series?

[papsrus]

Longoria breaks up no-hitter with two out in ninth.

[ghost of miles]

"Dead arm" is a temporary muscular condition identified by fatigue and minor discomfort. It normally appears at some point during spring training for nearly every pitcher who is not yet ready for the physical demands of regular throwing designed to ramp up toward longer and longer outings, and it resolves without any treatment whatsoever in a week or so. In-season "dead arm" is less common but hardly unheard of.

Why your "impression has always been that it's often a season-ender" is completely beyond me.

Doc Gooden 1996, for starters. And I was referring to this point in the season (early/mid-August), not in general, though I didn't make that clear.

Edited August 8, 2010 by ghost of miles

[ghost of miles]

The AL East is plenty tough, but now even the Orioles are getting in on the act...

Baltimore improves to 5-1 under Showalter

Edited August 8, 2010 by ghost of miles

[ghost of miles]

Wha...? Via Sweeny Murti on Twitter:

Stay tuned for more Midnight Run jokes. Moseley starting in place of Burnett. Oh, ARod in the lineup at 3b.

What's up with Burnett being scratched for Moseley? I was hoping for Good A.J. tonight--we're going to need a quality start from someone against Beckett.

UPDATE from Star Ledger:

AJ felt back spasms yesterday; bumped to Tuesday. Hughes tomorrow.

Either way, we've got our work cut out for us simply to make this series a tie, what with Beckett on the hill tonight and Lester tomorrow.

Edited August 8, 2010 by ghost of miles

[Dave James]

This is going to sound like nit picking, but if Manny Delcarmen comes into the game tonight, have a look at what appears to be about a 12 inch piece of stringing leather hanging off the little finger of his glove. I'd think someone on the Yankees would call him out on this. When you're pitching, you're not supposed to have anything on your person that's potentially distracting to the hitter.

Edited August 9, 2010 by Dave James

[Matthew]

Joe West is right about these Yankee / Red Sox games: If you're not a fan of either team, they're boring and way too long.

[Quincy]

Joe West is right about these Yankee / Red Sox games: If you're not a fan of either team, they're boring and way too long.

Yup, and Bill Simmons took a look at game length a week or so ago.

A sample from the article where I'll destroy the formatting, so you might as well see the column:

"1975 Red Sox


2 hours or less -- 12 games


2:01-2:30 -- 62


2:31-3:00 -- 63


3:01-4:00 -- 18 (4 extra innings)


More than 4 -- 2 (both extras)

(Note: Twelve games that ended in less than two hours!!!!!! Are you kidding me? And 137 of the 162 games ended in less than three hours.)

.

2007 Red Sox


2 or less -- 0


2:01-2:30 -- 11


2:31-3:00 -- 48


3:01-4:00 -- 97 (5 extra)


More than 4 -- 6 (2 extra)

(Note: Uh-oh. One-hundred three of 162 games dragging past three hours??? Call it the Tipping Point ... as in, "I'm tipping over because I just fell asleep." I blame the recent frenzy of milking pitch counts, the constant preening between pitches and more frequent pitching changes. Yes, I look forward to those arguments being struck down by an angry blogger within the next 48 hours.)

.

.

.

I'll write that again: The 2010 Boston Red Sox have played one game in four months that ended in less than 150 minutes."

Edited August 9, 2010 by Quincy

[ghost of miles]

Beckett was not aided at all by Cash's errant throw to third in an attempt to pick off Cano--an error that ultimately cost the Bosox three runs--but Pete Abraham tweets that the Yanks seem to have JB's number this year in general so far:

Beckett vs. the #Yankees this season: 19.1 IP, 33 H, 24 ER, 11 BB in four starts.

I was aware of his struggles against NY in earlier starts, but he's been so good since coming off the DL that I thought he'd probably turn in a more dominating performance tonight. Nice turn by Moseley for the Yanks.

Edited August 9, 2010 by ghost of miles

[Matthew]

It is going to be interesting to see how Josh Beckett season goes, he just didn't look as effective last year as he had in the past. It seemed as if he'd be going great, piling up the k's, and then an inning would come along, a walk here, infield hit there, then a three-run homer. I saw him as inconsistent in the final two months on the season last year. He needs to come up big this year if the Red Sox are going to have a chance. The weather looks like it's going to be good for tonight, though I still prefer the tradition that Cincinnati opens the season -- just another little part of the baseball I grew up on gone for good.

...and I still think that Beckett is not as effective as he was, I can never figure him out.

[Matthew]

What a joke, the Mariners fire their manager, Don Wakamatsu, and the entire coaching staff. Yeah, that was the problem. Zduriencik needs to look in the mirror, he's the one who put this team together with no offense; he's the one who kissed Griffey's ass all year; he's the one who kissed Figgins ass all year, and never backed Wak up in the least; he's the one who brought in that worthless player Bradley. It was probably the dust-up Wakamatsu had with Figgy that sealed his fate as manager of this team. With all the money the ownership has, and they are one of the wealthiest clubs in MLB, this is the best they can do? And please Lord, do not let Zduriencik even think about bringing back Lou Piniella, he is the most useless manager in baseball. I think Z's "genius" tag has been tarnished, just a bit!

edit: For spelling

Edited August 9, 2010 by Matthew

[ghost of miles]

NY's left 10 runners on base through 8, including bases loaded with no outs in the 7th (Granderson, Jeter and Swisher then all promptly K'd). Great pitching today by Boston and epic fail by NY with RISP.

EDIT: well, Dan, Boston's still in the hunt, afaic. You guys came away with a split at Yankee Stadium and are still just 6 games back--I know that seems like a lot at this point in the season, but with all of the NY/Tampa/Boston games coming up in September, I think you have plenty of opportunity to at least slide into the wildcard, esp. if either NY or Tampa goes into a late-season dive. Hats off to the Boston pitchers, who kept us from scoring outside of Tex's homer... I was listening off and on, but I think Swisher struck out three times with RISP. And if Sterling's stat was right, Swisher and Tex remain hitless in their lifetimes against Papelbon.

Edited August 9, 2010 by ghost of miles

[Quincy]

What a joke, the Mariners fire their manager, Don Wakamatsu, and the entire coaching staff. Yeah, that was the problem.

Gee, was it just a week ago he got a vote of confidence? Classic.

While in spring I may not have thought the M's had a lock on the division with 2 aces, I did have high hopes for Ichiro & Figgins in the lineup. I figured at least they'd be fun to watch replicating a little bit of '80s Cardinal "Whiteyball." Ah well, nothing like rebuilding yet again.

[Dave James]

Quite a dust-up between the Reds and Cardinals tonight.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_8__dOlGRw

Edited August 11, 2010 by Dave James

[Quincy]

Quite a dust-up between the Reds and Cardinals tonight.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_8__dOlGRw

Yeah, the annoucners refer to Phillips recent quotes about hating the Cards which can be found on Deadspin (or maybe SportsByBrooks). La Russa's retort was that the Reds have a lot of ex-Cards on the roster, though he failed to note that the big one is Rolen who didn't care for Tony at all. It's a good race between those 2 teams, and the NL WC could come from any of the divisions though last I looked the West has the slight lead. And in a sign of I'm older than I think I am, I hadn't realized that the Reds hadn't been in the playoffs in 15 years. Though I suppose I had "counted" the year they lost the 1 game playoff as a playoff year.

Nice to see some high strung emotions from somewhere other than the AL East!

And hey hey, the M's score 2 and win. Wooooooooo...watch out Texas!

Jury duty for me tomorrow...oops, wrong thread.

[vajerzy]

I can't stand LaRussa....

[Matthew]

I can't stand LaRussa....

Completely agree. For me, he comes off as a holier-than-thou-I'm-the-smartest-person-in-the-room-blow-hard.

[JETman]

I can't stand LaRussa....

Completely agree. For me, he comes off as a holier-than-thou-I'm-the-smartest-person-in-the-room-blow-hard.

Everyone knows that the Enron guys were the smartest people in the room!

[Matthew]

I can't stand LaRussa....

Completely agree. For me, he comes off as a holier-than-thou-I'm-the-smartest-person-in-the-room-blow-hard.

Everyone knows that the Enron guys were the smartest people in the room!

LaRussa completely lost me with his "I never knew McGwire was on steroids in Oakland" bs over the winter. Tell me another fairy tale....

[PHILLYQ]

I can't stand LaRussa....

Completely agree. For me, he comes off as a holier-than-thou-I'm-the-smartest-person-in-the-room-blow-hard.

Everyone knows that the Enron guys were the smartest people in the room!

LaRussa completely lost me with his "I never knew McGwire was on steroids in Oakland" bs over the winter. Tell me another fairy tale....

And there was the free pass the sportswriters gave him when he was drunk and passed out in his car at a red light...

[Dave James]

Cliff Lee is showing the Yankees tonight why they should have tried a little harder to put him in pinstripes. Five innings, three hits and seven K's. Boston is trouncing the Jays so we'll lose another game to them tonight putting them four back. Fortunately, Detroit beat the Rays earlier today, but before this is over, New York is going to be pushed to the limit by both these clubs. Assuming Texas wins tonight (a pretty safe assumption) that will be seven losses in the last 10 games. I hope the Yanks find whatever it is they're missing pretty soon or this is going to get ugly.

[Dan Gould]

Nothing a trip to KC can't ease. There's a chance the Red Sox could lose 2 in the standings with them playing at Texas (though its nice that the Yankees get Lee and the Sox will miss him). The Rays face the O's which would normally be a cakewalk but you've got the lingering positive effects of Showalter taking over and the O's are playing very well right now. So really the Yankees ought to come out of the weekend in better shape than they go in. I'm just hoping the Orioles help us out a bit.

Whatever happens down the stretch the best thing about this season is the emergence of Buchholz. It was right about this time last year that Buchholz was called up, and he pitched the best he had in his career down the stretch, but no one really knew if this was a transformation or just a fleeting glimpse. So who knew he'd be a starter all season and post a 2.50 ERA?

Matthew (or was it Quincy?) was questioning Beckett's stuff lately. Whatever he has, its gotta work pretty well if he is in effect the number three starter behind Lester and Clay, right? Then Lackey and Dice. I can't stand Lackey to date, but he's not the worst #4, just the most overpaid.

[ghost of miles]

Cliff Lee is showing the Yankees tonight why they should have tried a little harder to put him in pinstripes. Five innings, three hits and seven K's. Boston is trouncing the Jays so we'll lose another game to them tonight putting them four back. Fortunately, Detroit beat the Rays earlier today, but before this is over, New York is going to be pushed to the limit by both these clubs. Assuming Texas wins tonight (a pretty safe assumption) that will be seven losses in the last 10 games. I hope the Yanks find whatever it is they're missing pretty soon or this is going to get ugly.

Dave James, how many times will we see NY down 6-1 to Cliff Lee in the 6th inning and then come back to win it? Even though we whiffed 17 times overall tonight (good Lord!), I'll take the 8 hits and 4 ER off Lee in 6 IP and the come-from-behind win... every time I feel prepared to write this team off, they seem to pull some big win out of their hats. And Tex will be back for the KC series (he took two games off to be with his wife & new baby). Another mediocre performance from Javy tonight, though. Still, a great victory that stops the bleeding and puts us 1.5 ahead of Tampa again (with the Red Sox continuing to steam on down the tracks... Dan, no insult to your Bosox, but they're beginning to seem like the monster in some horror movie that can't be killed!)

[Dave James]

A win like this is more than welcome, the kind of thing that can be catalytic. The deadline deals Brian Cashman made are starting to pay dividends.

Interesting stat. 14 times during Marino Rivera's career, he has had a runner on third base and no outs. Opponents record? 0-14 with 0 RBI's. Wow!

[ghost of miles]

A win like this is more than welcome, the kind of thing that can be catalytic. The deadline deals Brian Cashman made are starting to pay dividends.

Interesting stat. 14 times during Marino Rivera's career, he has had a runner on third base and no outs. Opponents record? 0-14 with 0 RBI's. Wow!

Aw, now you jinxed him! I didn't know that stat, but after that lead-off triple, I thought we were looking at extra innings or worse. Nice plays by Kearns and A-Rod to help Mo get out of that inning with the save.

Also glad to see us tap the Texas bullpen for several runs, in addition to breaking through a bit against Lee.