2011 MLB Season

[alocispepraluger102]

http://texas.rangers...29670-216007610

Kudos to Michael Young on the occasion this evening of reaching career hit 2000. I'm told that his is the third fastest pace ever for a RH hitter to hit this milestone, and the 11th fastest of anybody..

Much love, and more respect than ever, especially for putting the friction of the off-season behind him and going on to answer whatever call has come to him (and they have been many and diverse). Great player, class act.

Michael Young, y'all, Michael Young.

weren'they(rangers) trying to get rid of him during the winter?

[JSngry]

Maybe, if they could get value...no real traction though. But Michael got righteously PO'd & disrespected about Beltre coming in to play 3B and him being expected to be a DH/Super-Utility infielder, allegedly demanding a trade, to which the org said, no, we need you, really, we do.

And so they have. During the Cruz/Hamilton absence, it was pretty much Micheal Young and Adrian Beltre carrying the team. Now, with AB out for what's probably going to total 6 weeks (OUCH), Micheal's the everyday 3B. Beltre he's not, not with the glove, but the neat thing to watch is how the two have become good friends and teammates. Young now will readily admit that Beltre is a significant defensive upgrade and an invaluable addition to the offense. It's also easy to see that the plan to use him as a Super Utility infielder, has worked out well, with him giving everybody the chance to take a break every now and then. Also not hard to see that having him as DH has very much agreed with him offensively as well.

In the end, professionalism came to respect professionalism, skill came to admire skill, serious player embraced serious player, and Michael Young's reputation as The Face Of The Franchise remains not only intact, but enhanced, all of it pretty much honestly so.

[ghost of miles]

Huge RISP fail and huge bullpen fail by Mo and Phil Hughes tonight--that was pathetic. What a way to lose the game and lose the series... nice way to throw away a good start by Garcia and excellent relief work from the rest of the Yankees' pen, too.

[Dave James]

Huge RISP fail and huge bullpen fail by Mo and Phil Hughes tonight--that was pathetic. What a way to lose the game and lose the series... nice way to throw away a good start by Garcia and excellent relief work from the rest of the Yankees' pen, too.

I'm still trying to figure out why the Yanks bother using Mo in Boston. I swear, as soon as he came in tonight, I knew it was over. You're right, David, that was a tremendous effort that wound up being completely wasted. Damn, I hate losing games like that. I'd much rather get blown out like we did last night.

[Dan Gould]

Flip the situation around, Mo does his usual thing, and you get how I expected to feel waking up to what has turned out to be a glorious morning. I went to bed thinking we'd been beat on a Brett-fucking-Gardner home run. What were the odds of that?

Apparently just a little lower than a Mo-malfunction. I'll happily take it but the fact is that this team will desperately need Bedard to pitch as well as he ever has, and even then they don't match up with the Yankee bullpen.

[BERIGAN]

Oy vey!

As I always say, Go Brewers.

jlhoots, did you see Brett Lawrie's first homer???

http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=17753533

hindsight being 20/20 , the Brewers might have done better to trade Prince for some pitching, and played Lawrie at 1st. Just listen to the ball go off his bat, and it sounded even better the first day he came up.

Yankees and Red Sox fans are going to learn to hate seeing him up with runners on, mark my word.

the pace of the yankees-bosox game is painfully slow. i could have heard 4 or 5 lugubrious mahler symphonies in the same amount of time.

Why not do both at the same time???

[Tim McG]

OK...so, what in the hell is going on with the Giants lately?

Grrrrr

[jlhoots]

Brewers continue to roll.

2 wins in a row in St. Louis.

I believe that trading Fielder would have sent the wrong message to the fans & to the rest of the team.

BTW Brewers will draw well over 3 million at home this season.

Edited August 11, 2011 by jlhoots

[JSngry]

[BERIGAN]

Brewers continue to roll.

2 wins in a row in St. Louis.

I believe that trading Fielder would have sent the wrong message to the fans & to the rest of the team.

BTW Brewers will draw well over 3 million at home this season.

And of course no guarantee that Lawrie would have hit at the beginning of the year either...Too Bad Fielder is represented by Satan....

[BERIGAN]

And what about Mr. Uggla??? Never seen anyone hit .173 for half a season then go on a tear like this...then again, don't think anyone else has either!

Edited August 11, 2011 by BERIGAN

[alocispepraluger102]

And what about Mr. Uggla??? Never seen anyone hit .173 for half a season then go on a tear like this...then again, don't think anyone else has either!

i think he's up to .221 now.

the great beauty of baseball is its incongruity and it's timelessness(no clock).

[JSngry]

Also beautiful is that the season is so long that, almost always, talent eventually restores to its natural level.

[alocispepraluger102]

Also beautiful is that the season is so long that, almost always, talent eventually restores to its natural level.

yeah, but then it is resolved in blasphemously short series, kind of like quickie sex.

to make baseball really cool, there should be no playoffs to speak of between the leagues, and all seeding should be left to endless pointless mindless espn buffoonery and conjecture(kind of like bigtime college footbal and religion)

[JSngry]

In a perfect world, there would be no championship series or even seasons, just baseball every day that the weather allowed, with a little time off for everybody now and then.

Then there really would be no clock in baseball!

[Quincy]

And what about Mr. Uggla??? Never seen anyone hit .173 for half a season then go on a tear like this...then again, don't think anyone else has either!

I heard he's had the most 1 hit games of the players who have had streaks of 30 games. Maybe it was when he was at 28 games too - oh the slicing & dicing that can be done with stats nowadays. Since it only takes 1 hit to keep the streak going I've always wondered if one day I'd see a sub-.250 pull something like this off. No more wondering necessary.

[Chalupa]

What's his batting avg. since the streak began?

[JSngry]

Recommended reading:

[Chalupa]

Found the answer...

Uggla has batted .355 (44-for-124) with 12 homers and a .685 slugging percentage during this streak, and he has seen his batting average rise from .173 to .224, which stands as his highest mark of the season.

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20110810&content_id=23035488&vkey=news_mlb&c_id=mlb

[alocispepraluger102]

In a perfect world, there would be no championship series or even seasons, just baseball every day that the weather allowed, with a little time off for everybody now and then.

Then there really would be no clock in baseball!

.and the timeless beauty of EACH game could be savored.

[Neal Pomea]

Roy Tucker returns uneasily from World War II and injury to the Brooklyn Dodgers. I loved this book when I was maybe 12.

Edited August 11, 2011 by Neal Pomea

[alocispepraluger102]

Roy Tucker returns uneasily from World War II and injury to the Brooklyn Dodgers. I loved this book when I was maybe 12.

how many of these items did tunis spit out???

they were my bedside books of the time, after i'd read madd.

they had their harlequins; we had our john r. tunis.

Edited August 11, 2011 by alocispepraluger102

[ghost of miles]

Boy, Mo's cutter is just not cutting (or cutting it) lately--only the 8th time in his career that he's given up a run in three straight appearances, according to a poster at Pinstripe Alley. NY was lucky to still pick up the win.

On a lighter note, somebody posted this doctored photo of the Angels' rally monkey after Cano's 7th-inning grand-slam:

Edited August 12, 2011 by ghost of miles

[Quincy]

A couple of videos from the Midwest. First, footage Mike Laga hitting a foul ball out of Busch Stadium in 1986. Other than former NFL Cardinal kicker Jim Bakken hitting a golf ball out of the park it's believed to be the only ball to leave the stadium. Tim McCarver almost sounds like a kid.

Mike Laga foul ball

As for the next one, someone slip & slides in one of Wrigley's bathrooms.

I'm going go take a shower now.

[BERIGAN]

Quincy, who hasn't wanted to slip and slide in a urinal?

Uggla to 32 straight games! as of 10 PM EST, ESPN.com doesn't give a flying f***! Man, they covered Andre Ethier's 31 game streak like he was going to break DiMaggio's record....