In Case You Were Wondering About Payrolls

Above: A baseball (atop money)

Were you wondering about payrolls? I'm just here to mention that the top nine teams by payroll are now eliminated, in case you were interested. Here's what we're down to:


Detroit Tigers: 10th ($105,700,231)
St. Louis Cardinals: 11th ($105,433,572)
Texas Rangers: 13th ($92,299,264)
Milwaukee Brewers: 17th ($85,497,333) 


However, Major League Baseball is utterly broken beyond repair because the richest team won a World Series one time in the last eleven years. In summation, I demand the union be broken.


KS

Cardinals 1, Phillies 0: But Mostly I Still Hate J. P. Ricciardi

A tough one to leg out, especially if your leg explodes en route

After giving up a lone run in the first off a leadoff Rafael Furcal triple and a Skip Schumaker double (lol wut?), Roy Halladay totally pitched like Roy Halladay the rest of the way, even working his way out of a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the eighth without allowing a run. He was terrific, but not as good as Chris Carpenter, who opted instead for the three-hit, complete-game shutout (an excellent selection, sir, if I may say so). In the buildup to this one, there was a lot of talk in the national sports media about how Halladay and Carpenter are quite close friends dating back to their time together in the Blue Jays' minor league system. Closer to home -- like, literally in my house -- there was also a lot of talk about how galling it was/remains that J. P. Ricciardi wouldn't offer the then-injured Carpenter a league-minimum contract, and instead let a future Cy Young Award winner just walk for nothing when he totally wanted to stay. That is the lens through which I watched last night's game, from earliest goings-on to Ryan Howard blowing out his leg while making the last Phillies' out for the second year in a row. Thanks again J. P. 


Hey, isn't it odd that there are no teams from either the AL or NL East left now? We would have all agreed that those were the two best divisions in baseball this year, right? But the playoffs, man: just a crapshoot, a rad, rad crapshoot.


Finally, look at how sad this Phillies fan with the profane flask is:

The flask is asking to much of this man right now

KS

Brewers 3, Diamondbacks 2 (F/10): The Best Game

Not pictured: Bob Uecker, pleased

In the end, it was totally worth seeing the Diamondbacks tie it up in the top of the ninth on a safety squeeze, and add insult to injury with another ridiculous snake gesticulation (how I loathe "The Snake" -- say what you will about the Brewers' "Beast Mode," which is itself far from ideal, but I will take it over what basically amounts to this any day). Because holy cow, what a finish: ex-Regina Pat Nyjer Morgan, who you almost certainly know better as the ineffable Tony Plush, dribbled a single up the middle to bring Carlos Gomez, who had singled and stolen second, racing home ahead of the throw to the plate. It was awesome, an awesomeness rendered truly sublime by the even-more-ecstatic-than-usual Bob Uecker. Then Nyjer Morgan said "fuck" a lot on mic, and revealed in the post-game press conference that his greatest motivation is his desire to show the haters he can play this game. It was more than any of us could have ever asked for.


Have I mentioned Chris Young's catch? It is shabby of me if I have not, because it was pretty incredible, even though nobody will end up caring because the Diamondbacks lost.


Anyway: loved this one, absolutely loved it. As tight and tense a playoff game as you could ever hope to see.


KS

3-2

I know, right?

It’s easy to forget just how fucking intense the playoffs are when you don’t have a team in the fight. Well, I mean you can understand it because the tension is palpable regardless of who’s playing but when it’s your team, the team of your youth, the team who first introduced you to the idea that sports fandom was an actual thing, involved, that tension goes to another level entirely.

Look, I have an incredibly hazy memory of Lance Parish hitting a grand slam against the A’s in 1984 at Tiger Stadium. It’s one of those memories which was formed so early, which so predates any understanding of the world that isn’t purely instinctual, that it almost feels raw and animalistic. It’s just a memory, pure and undiluted by something so profound as reason. It’s hard to explain what reason does to the mind, to memories, how it twists and taints and colors and bends the mind to the needs and wants of right now. But without it, there is a primal purity that is hard to explain.

I only bring this memory up to let you know that my fandom predates even basic reason. Sure, sure, by that age I was starting to read and obviously understood how to think things through on a simple, basic level but as a sports fan, I didn’t know what the fuck was going on. All I knew was that this dude who played for a team that I loved even though I didn’t understand what the hell was happening or why I was supposed to love that team, had just hit a ball really fucking far and people around me were freaking out.

It’s not a memory connected to anything other than the moment, to the actual raw footage which lives inside of my head. Shit, the colors even look different, hazy and yet vibrant at the same time, like some Technicolor treated old newsreel, artificial and real at the same time. I’m not sure what it is I’m even trying to say here other than this series made me think of that moment, of that newsreel which somehow survived all the massive rewrites my brain has undergone since then, and I think it’s because it touched that same nerve center which has allowed that memory to live.

I’m not a goddamn brain surgeon (although I play one on the internet from time to time) so I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about but that’s fine because honestly, when it comes to this series, there’s a part of me that doesn’t know what the hell it just watched. All it knows is that there were moments when it felt like my heart was going to pick itself up and drive a fucking van straight out of my mouth and it knows that there were other moments when it felt like I could shoot lightning out of my fingers or resurrect the dead.

Obviously that is ridiculous but then again, so is fandom. What I’m left with are impressions more than actual thoughts, of memories and ideas which make me smile like a mongoloid, of Jim Leland getting choked up just because he was so, so happy for Don Kelly, of Papa Grande coming through even while the whole world was making fun of him, of dancing when he danced, of laughing at Alex Rodriguez and cursing the announcers on TBS just because they weren’t saying the right things, man. Sometimes rationality is beside the point and sometimes all you’re left with is a childish connection to the events taking place before your eyes and when this happens it can be both devastating and absolutely wonderful.

There were times when I felt like the whole universe hated both me and the Tigers, when I was envisioning Bud Selig in a trench coat screaming at his underlings to fire up some super-secret weather satellite to ensure that Justin Verlander was kept from ascending to his proper place in the heavens. These were not rational thoughts, but I still felt cheated somehow and honestly, to the fan in me, that’s all that mattered.

But there were other times when the world seemed like it was made just for me, when I felt charmed and in possession of some brilliant secret that left me giggling like a fool and wanting to sing songs with my friends. Every time the Tigers took the lead in this series my whole body began to buzz and I began to dream of bigger, better things, even while a team made up of mega-millionaires wearing the baseball uniform equivalent of some terrible Nazi SS getup were waiting to tear it away from me.

I’d be lying if I said that the fact this came against the Yankees didn’t magnify all of this – all the good and the bad – and I have a feeling that the sort of elation this series drove me to just wouldn’t be the same had it involved, say, the Rays. This was a goddamn Holy War, a fight between good and evil and combined with my own intense desire to see my team move on in the playoffs the effect was something more like watching the US Hockey Team take down the Soviets in 1980 at Lake Placid than just another baseball series.

Obviously that is hyperbolic as hell, and yet, there it is. Every moment, every damn pitch of that series felt bigger than it normally would have just because it came against the Yankees. There is a part of myself that hates that, that doesn’t want to give the Yankees and their insufferable fans even that much credit because this moment didn’t belong to them. It belonged to me and it belonged to people who remember stupid things like Lance Parish hitting a grand slam even though they didn’t even know what a grand slam was at the time. But I can’t lie either. I can’t sit here and pretend that because the Yankees were involved that the stakes didn’t feel extraordinarily heightened. It would have hurt worse to lose to the Yankees just because, well, fuck the Yankees, you know? But it feels so much better to beat the Yankees than some other team because, well, fuck the Yankees.

I’m still having a hard time translating my baseball feelings into baseball words here and I realize that I haven’t even talked about many of the particulars of the series but that’s because I’m not sure I can without devolving into a gibbering mess of HEY REMEMBER WHEN THAT HAPPENED foolishness. The Tigers won and all three of their wins were tense, Here Take This Paper Bag For When You Hyperventilate kind of games. Going into the 9^th last night I tweeted that I was going to throw up. I didn’t, but goddammit, I felt like it. Meanwhile, both of the losses felt like some deleted scene from one of the Saw movies or something, just a gory shit show that refused to end and left me questioning not whether or not I believe in God, but whether or not God believes in me. Or, you know, hates me.

Kendall has already written about that moment in the bottom of the 8^th when Jeter almost hit that ball out, but I’m going to talk about it anyway for a second. When he hit it, and that crowd of infernal beasts went wild with the glee they so maddeningly believe is their birthright, I closed my eyes and said, for just the briefest of moments, that I was never going to watch baseball again and I fucking meant it. But then the ball landed in Don Kelly’s glove, the crowd’s joy died in their throats and . . . well, Kendall has already done a fine job explaining the symbolism of the moment, but for me it was more than just the feeling that the Yankees were finally beaten, it was the feeling that this whole damn thing might work out after all. I think, until that moment, the weird energy which has accompanied this whole season for Tigers fans felt like it was just a tease, something vaguely surreal that could evaporate – and would evaporate – at any second. But after that catch, it felt somehow more solid, somehow worthy of the attention and belief that it was demanding of all of us. It wasn’t just that the Yankees were dead, it was that the Tigers – my Tigers – were, and are, unquestionably alive. And so is that little kid who remembers Lance Parish and remembers a time when things were simpler, unclouded by anything other than the flight of a simple ball into a sea of screaming people.

Tigers 3, Yankees 2: Our Long (Inter)National Nightmare is Over

shucks

When Derek Jeter hit a fly ball to deep right field with the tying run on and two outs in the bottom of the eighth, and the Yankee Stadium crowd reacted like you would expect the Yankee Stadium crowd to react in that moment, I was sure it was gone -- just for a second, but sure, absolutely sure. That it settled easily into Don Kelly's glove a few feet in front of the wall was, to me, more surprising than the Yankees leaving the bases loaded twice, more surprising, even, than the back-to-back home runs from Kelly and Delmon Young in the first inning. It just seemed like here was Derek Jeter, in the playoffs, in Yankee Stadium, and that was it, the Tigers luck had run out, and the natural order of the universe was about to reassert itself. When Jose Valverde came out in the bottom of the ninth, as is his custom, to face Curtis Granderson, Robinson Cano, and Alex Rodriguez, that weighty-as-all-hell task seemed lighter to me (no doubt not to him) because Jeter's ball had stayed in the park, suggesting that the usual yet intolerable rules that govern all things Yankee might not hold. If there is a sweeter way to dispense of the Yankees than by getting Alex Rodriguez swinging to end the ninth, I don't know what it could be. 


Bless you, 2011 Detroit Tigers. You have done us a gracious service, for which we thank you with all sincerity. 


KS

Diamondbacks 10, Brewers 6: This is Unacceptable

Unacceptable.

This has to stop. I totally get that the Diamondbacks had a worst-to-first turnaround, and they're an exciting underdog team, and they're hitting tons of home runs this series (including grand slams two nights in a row, which is something), and they've even got a couple of recently departed Blue Jays on the roster (Aaron Hill can still hit sometimes, looks like), so there is really no reason for me to feel this way. But, again, this has to stop. Because I hate it. Happily, the Brewers were a ridiculous 57-24 at home this year, and game five is indeed in Milwaukee, so things are looking up, a little, maybe?


KS

Cardinals 5, Phillies 3: Go Squirrel!

go squirrel go squirrel go squirrel

For the second day in a row, a squirrel -- the same squirrel? --- stole the show in St. Louis, and I am all for it, let me tell you. Tuesday night, s/he bombed around the infield and booked it down the left field line; last night, the marvelous creature you see in the above photograph made an appearance whilst Skip Schumaker took his cuts. Other cool things that happened: Shane Victoriano fell all over himself trying to get the ball back in from centre, and ended up throwing it behind him, which is not something you see every day; Albert Pujols pulled off the bag at first on a throw from short because he saw the runner at second breaking for third, gunned it, and got the out, which was amazing, frankly; Scrabble struck Ryan Howard out swinging in a key at bat late; and David Freese went berserk with a three-run home run and an RBI double. From that catalogue of notable occurrences, you might conclude that I have hopes for the Cardinals, but that is not in fact the case: it is entirely my hope and desire that Roy Halladay best Chris Carpenter Friday night in a winner-take-all showdown of former Blue Jays starting pitchers whom I will never forgive J. P. Ricciardi for losing. Play ball!


KS


UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE 


Here's Victorino:

also there is SQUIRREL GIF:

HERE HERE HERE is a link to some squirrel video, and below you will find an outstanding single frame from that video, which I have captured on my own using advanced computer technologies.

Why AM Radio is the Superior Form of Baseball Following

So work is crazy - like three 14 hour days to start the week, then wind down to the regular 8, and wait until you die, because "that's the nature of the job" as it is explained. So I don't do shit other than work, and when I am in that mode, I tend to slip into sports radio during the commute, because it gives me the false impression of other human beings being in my life. During the regular year, your local team is all that you find on AM radio in the day time (Orioles and Nationals where I live), and at night, AM goes into that chaos zone where you don't get local radio but all of a sudden some powermonger signal from Denver comes in better than anything else. During the playoffs, this is fun because then there is pretty much important baseball on, instead of randomly getting like a meaningless Reds/Pirates game like a month ago.
Well, yesterday night, the wife was wore out as I called her on the way home, so I ordered pizza from the little joint in our little town called Slice of Heaven, who sometimes makes awesome pizza and sometimes makes not-so-awesome pizza, but when the dude who works there answered the phone, I knew it was good because he is the awesome pizza maker at that 4-person establishment. Ordered up a pepperoni (out of pepperoni, so had to go sausage) and a white pizza with tomatoes and basil (out of basil, so we went with just tomatoes). "20 minutes" which was my ride to my hometown from stupid work, so I scan through the AM and get a feed of the Phillies/Cardinals game which I assume was the Phillies team because the color dude was referred to as "Sarge" which I have to guess was Gary Matthews (who I also guess now must be referred to as Gary Matthews Sr.).
Game sounded cool, AM radio baseball is such a soothing meditative background effect to life, and really, I can imagine nothing better than some sort of super cybertronic AM radio magic machine that is more radio than smart phone and I can sit in my back yard in my old age in the summer time, drinking vegetable juice out of a mason jar, listening to baseball games from around the universe. (I assume we will have space baseball by then, with epic long balls due to gravitational factors. Also epic curveballs though.)
I get back in the truck with the pizzas after picking them up, and the radio is calling the game, and basically it's like this: Oswalt throws a strike, but a squirrel ran across home plate, but Angel Hernandez didn't call it a strike and it's 2-1, how is that a ball, Oswalt is wondering what is up with that call, the squirrel is running up the stairs, Charlie Manuel is coming out...
So basically, that instance, which happened live on the radio broadcast is discussed by a baritone voiced play-by-play guy and Sarge for the next ten minutes (it seemed like) before Roy Oswalt finally got around to throwing his next pitch. I'm sure being this is the interwebs there is some sort of audio clip of the whole affair, but I also am sure being this is the interwebs you've already seen an animated gif of the squirrel. I just want you to know that seeing that thing pales in comparison to hearing it through the snap and crackle of AM radio, where your mind fleshes out the words with your own internal visions based on your personal frame of reference. Thank you AM radio, for still existing, and being transpermutated into my raggedy Nissan truck last night.

Yankees 10, Tigers 1: Good A. J. + Granderson's Treachery + The Existential Fact of Rick Porcello = Bad Times Man Bad Times

Shades of Eric Davis in the 1990 World Series (except Granderson totally caught it)

I am not about to praise Granderson for that first catch, the one in the first inning where he totally misread the ball and started in before realizing that was totally not the thing to do. Yes, his recovery from that error of judgment was impressive, and it saved a bunch of runs, but that was a bad read, and if you think I am about to sit here on my couch with a bag of Hickory Sticks and a Dr. Pepper and laud a man for a bad read, you are sorely mistaken (and you can't have any Hickory Sticks), but man, oh man, that second catch was pretty tasty. Sticking with our snacking motif, I will suggest to you in closing that Granderson's two big catches last night combined with his RBI double to produce a Hertz Doughnut that might spend but a moment on the lips of Detroit baseball fans, but, could potentially last a lifetime on the hips. 


Also, phooey. 


KS

Diamondbacks 8, Brewers 1: shaunmarcum.gif

Not the homer, but still

In the fifth inning last night, Paul Goldschmidt hit grand slam off of former-Blue-Jay-of-whom-I-am-still-fond Shuan Marcum, as you can see from the following animated gif:

I tuned out in the eighth, with Ueck standing upon the perilous edge of going full Harry Doyle.


KS

Phillies 3, Cardinals 2: Pitchers' Duel, Motherfucker

I left my heart in Ben Francisco and you know what, it was incredibly erotic.

If you wanted to be a jerk about it, you could point out that there were an awful lot of baserunners for a game that I am calling a pitchers' duel, but when you are scoreless headed into the seventh in the playoffs, then mister, you've got yourself a pitchers' duel as far as I'm concerned. Yesterday, the contemptible Tony La Russa, who is also a genius according to sportswriters who are fools, decided that there is just no way you can let a monster like Carlos Ruiz beat you, so you put him on, basically, never mind that, although the pitcher's spot is up next, Cole Hammels has thrown like 117 pitches so they would obviously go to the bench for a bat, right? You ignore that, because it isn't important. So then Ben Francisco comes up, and guides a three-run shot just over the wall in the left-centre, and that's pretty much the ballgame. Good game Tony! Really managed the shit out of that one! In his defense, it is entirely possible he was blinded by sublimity at the time. I mean, look:

Above: Baseball, a game played in the interest of awesomeness.

KS

Rangers 4, Rays 3: Nice Ups, Adrian Beltre

Touch 'em all

Jeremy Hellickson is a philosophical problem: if you are a pitcher who throws pretty much nothing but changeups, do you actually throw a changeup at all? This is not strictly speaking true, this thing I have just said about Jeremy Hellickson, but dang does that guy throw a lot of changeups! Ian Kinsler hit the second pitch of the game (a changeup) out of the park, and Adrian Beltre hit three solo home runs as the Rangers edged the Rays to make their second ALCS appearance in a row, which is pretty rad of and for them. Good series, guys! I would like to note in closing that this deciding game was played before a truly lousy crowd of 28,299, making it the worst-attended MLB playoff game in thirty years. Good job, Tampa! 

Huzzah!

Nolan Ryan and Ron Washington and also some other guy (far left)

KS

Tigers 5, Yankees 4: Verlander Not At His Best, Strikes Out Only Eleven

Swing and a miss.

Justin Verlander wasn't sharp early, and allowed two runs in the first. He wasn't sharp late, and gave up another pair in the seventh before stranding a runner in the eighth to wrap up his evening. But in between, he kind of lit it up, hitting 101 MPH on the radar gun and throwing a curveball that was simply unfair and probably wrong. C. C. Sabathia pretty much walked everybody and relied on the double play to get out of it, which is one approach, granted, but he didn't make it out of the sixth. With the game knotted at four in the home half of the seventh, it was Rafael Soriano on the mound for the Yankees in relief, which is almost certainly the right move, but the right move didn't work: Delmon Young yeah Delmon Young lofted one over the right field wall to put the Tigers in front for good. It was . . . so awesome. Equally awesome: Jose Valverde -- who is at once worse than his fifty saves in fifty opportunities might imply, and better than those internet baseball nerds (no dis; they are my people) who fall all over themselves to tell you that he is much, much worse than that statistic suggest would have you believe -- striking Derek Jeter out swinging (a pitch after striking out Derek Jeter looking, if you know what I am implying when I say that to you) to end the game with two runners aboard. 


In closing, let's all look at this picture of Jim Leyland looking like the most lovable Muppet.

KS

My First World Series

Do you remember your first World Series?  For me, the first World Series I happened to watch was the 1988 World Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Oakland Athletics.  The big story of the series going into the first game was the injury to Kirk Gibson and everyone assumed that he would not play.

I was laying down in my bedroom and watching a small black and white TV and going into the bottom of the ninth it looked as if Oakland was going to take the game.  As Gibson was batting with a runner on second, NBC posted a graphic saying that Dennis Eckersley had not given up a home since sometime in July. 

With a 3-2 count, Gibson deposited a backdoor slider into the bleachers in what was possibly one of the greatest World Series moments of all time.  That moment quite possibly is the reason that I remained a baseball fan for life.

Fast forward in my life about 18 years and I was about to have my first World Series experience yet again, but this time it was the World Series of Poker.  I chose to play in an event at the 2006 WSOP to see if I could hold my own with the best in the game.

Taking my seat in the massive poker room at the Rio in Las Vegas was very much like stepping up in the batters box.  I happened to be seated with Erik Seidel, one of the game's best, almost on par with having to face Miguel Cabrera if you were a pitcher.

One by one the players fell in the event and I remained in contention in the event.  As night fell, the tension rose as I had a legitimate chance to make the money in the event and take a shot at winning a bracelet.

The money bubble burst and I was guaranteed to cash in the event.  I felt a sense of great accomplishment in my feat but my chips were so short that I needed some luck in order to make a comeback and win the event.

Unfortunately, I was not able to pull off a miracle performance like Gibson in 1988 and did not even make the final table.  However, I did outlast several hundred players and performed very well for my first World Series event.

While the World Series of Poker is not the same as baseball's World Series, it was still my personal attempt to become a world champion and prove myself against the best in poker.  I didn't win the event, but I can still go through the rest of my life saying that I played in the World Series and played well, even if it was in poker.

- Daniel

Deal With It

I guess I will have to!


KS

Tigers 5, Yankees 3: I Kind of Love Balks

Boone LOLgan, imo

Look. Sunday's game was amazing. Max Scherzer, of all people, was utterly magnificent; Miguel Cabrera continues to build his legacy as one of baseball's all-time great drunks; Victor Martinez is unstoppable with runners on. I am not going to expand on any of those topics here, though, because whatever baseball feelings I could muster on those subjects could only ever be but the merest droplets of rain compared to the raging ocean of baseball feeling that is washing over our dear Neil with every pitch. I wouldn't even presume to presume. Those things are his. They are his.


But I would like, for a moment, to talk to you about Boone Logan's balk, because it was an amazing balk, one of the best, in my view. At first, everything was cool, which is of course always the case before a balk, but is notable all the same, I feel. Then, Derek Jeter begins to yell at him, as though there were some kind of play on that he just hadn't picked up on, which is entirely possible. Also, it would just be upsetting for Derek Jeter to yell at you at all, ever, for any reason, probably. And so Boone Logan just kind of stopped what he was doing, Boone Logan did, and then totally balked. 


I mean, just look at it. It is a tremendous balk.


KS

Rangers 4, Rays 3: Another Dandy!

If thinking about Ron Washington makes you any less happy than Ron Washington himself appears in the above photo, then you have missed the point of literally everything ever and I don't know that we can even continue this conversation, frankly.

Holy cow! What a game! Headed into the seventh, the only run either team had scored came on the Rays only hit, a Desmond Jennings solo shot in the fourth. But then! A four-run Texas seventh: Mike Napoli, who was unawesomely traded by the Blue Jays for Frank Francisco only to go on to have perhaps the third-best offensive season ever by a catcher, hit a two run shot; and Josh Hamilton pulled a single into right to plate a pair. The Rays chipped away -- and Desmond Jennings hit another one out, no big deal -- but Neftali Feliz nailed down the four-out save to, well, to save it, really. 


Baseball!


KS

Man Getting Hit By Baseball

Argh; his groin.

In the groin! Imagine it!


And that came only an inning after this:

Boom; head shot.

Yikes!


KS

Cardinals 5, Phillies 4: Kind of A Hell of A Game, Actually

yer out

Stake Cliff Lee to a four-run lead early, and you're good to go, right? Apparently not so! The Cardinals put together a three-run fourth that ended with Jon Jay tagged out at the plate, gunned down, as they say, by Raul Ibanez to much bellowing of "Rauuuuuuuuuuuul." Or were they saying "Ruuuuuuuuiz?" As you can infer from the above photograph, it's kind of amazing Carlos held on, really. Jay brought the Cardinals even in the sixth, knocking in Theriot, and then in the seventh Pujols brought in the winning run. Notably, the win went to Octavio "Don't Ask" Dotel, who was repealed in the eighth in favour of Mark Rzepcynski; both of these fine gentlemen, as you will no doubt recall, were until quite recently members of your (which is to say "my") Toronto Blue Jays, and so are of particular interest go me. Good job, fellows! Also, the ESPN Radio broadcast kept talking about how Chris Carpenter was picked up for nothing after the Blue Jays decided to be dumb. That's totally what happened! I remember that vividly!


Also, and in closing, I hate Tony LaRussa, because he is literally the worst.


KS

Brewers 9, Diamondbacks 4: I Totally Didn't Catch Any of This One But Here Are Some Sausages

GO SAUSAGES!

KS

Yankees 9, Tigers 3: How About Everyone Ease Off Jim Leyland A Little

somewhat gone

"Did MLB issue an edict forbidding use of LH relievers in obvious spots today?" Keith Law asked on Twitter last night, and certainly wasn't the only one questioning Jim Leyland's decision to bring in Al Alburquerque to face Robinson Cano with the bases loaded. As you can see from the above photograph, it is not a move that paid off for the Tigers. Had Leyland gone with a lefty, few would second-guessed the move, regardless of the result, because of the widespread, slavish adherence to lefty/righty that is, in fact, quite dumb. You've got to actually look at the splits; you really shouldn't bat Simpson for Strawberry because there's a lefty on the hill. Possibly a bad example, that, because there's a move totally worked out, but what I am getting at here is merely that Alburquerque, in addition to having the best name ever, is murder on lefties, and Cano hits lefties better than righties, so how exactly is bringing in Alburquerque the wrong move? Yes, it is too bad Cano homered, this is true, but everyone needs to ease of Jim Leyland a little, if for no other reason than that Jim Leyland is super old. Tom Gage of The Detroit News, in particular, should shut it. Here's Gage:


Why did he bring Al Alburquerque, a right-hander, into Game 1 of the Division Series on Saturday night instead of a left-hander to face Robinson Cano with the bases loaded in the sixth inning?


Cano made it a hot topic because he hit a grand slam off Alburquerque in the Tigers’ 9-3 loss to the Yankees, the first home run Alburquerque has allowed as a Tiger.


“To me,” Leyland said, “that’s one for everyone else to second guess. Obviously, that’s one people could talk about. But to me, that was really a no-brainer.


“Alburquerque also has had a tremendous ratio of swings and misses. He had faced Cano one time and had struck him out. He’s been one of the best in all of baseball in swings and misses.


“Left-handers (of which Cano is one) are hitting .177 off Alburquerque. Cano is hitting .320 against lefties and .295 off righties.

“That’s the reason.” 

Correct, those were the reasons. 


A lot of them, in fact. But numbers are just that, numbers -- and they can't overcome the risk of a hanging slider, which Alburquerque threw to Cano. 

That last sentence is truly a miracle. 

I leave it to Neil to bemoan the rest of this rain-suspended first game that suggested -- to me, at least -- that God probably hates Detroit.

KS

Rangers 8, Rays 6: For Shame, Big Game James, For Shame

Yikes

Until James Shields fell apart in the home half of the fourth, things looked pretty desperate for Texas: in the first, Derek Holland walked Kelly Shoppach with the bases loaded, which is totally the least auspicious way to allow a run (with a balk, at least, there is the relief of novelty), and in the top of the fourth Holland got two quick outs before he threw the ball away trying to get Casey Kotchman at first and promptly surrendered a two-run shot off the bat of Matt Joyce. So, not only were the Rangers down by three, but they were down by three runs scored in galling circumstances. However! Shields just totally lost it in the fourth, hitting two batters and throwing two wild pitches to go with three singles in the inning. That wasn't quite enough for the Rangers, because Evan Longoria, who continues to insist on being ridiculous, launched a three-run homer in the seventh, so as it turned out it was totally worthwhile for Ian Kinsler to knock in a couple with a double in the sixth. Good job, everybody except James Shields! (Also Koji Uehara.)

KS   

Phillies 11, Cardinals 6: "That's More Like It"

Pictured above: baseball

The monster three-run shot Roy Halladay gave up in the top of the first -- off the bat of the surprisingly excellent Lance Berkman -- completely silenced the Philadelphia crowd and upset the WPHT radio guys like I had not previously heard the WPHT radio guys upset. "Roy Halladay just doesn't do that; he doesn't give up three-run home runs," they quite rightly observed. It wasn't just that the Phillies were behind, which would be understandably disappointing to them; it was that the fundamental order underlying the universe that keeps hamburgers from taking bites out of us had been undercut by Roy Halladay allowing a three-run home run in the top of the first inning. When the tide turned in the sixth on home runs from Howard and Ibanez, I honestly lost track of how many times the WPHT crew said, "That's more like it," but believe me when I tell you that it was kind of a lot. Halladay was Halladay the rest of the way, and finished the night with a completely respectable line of just those three runs on three hits and a walk, striking out eight. In the end, all was well. But for about an hour there, the very fabric of space and time was nearly rent asunder, or something. 

More riding on that right arm than you can ever imagine.

KS

Brewers 4, Diamondbacks 1: Arguably, You Don't Pitch to Prince There

First pitch: Bob Uecker

Not that it mattered, much: the real mistake was probably pitching to Lucroy with two outs, Betancourt on third (from a triple! a triple that nearly killed Bob Uecker through excitement!), and the pitcher's spot due up next. Amazing, isn't it, that I can pay almost no attention at all to the National League all season, and yet front like I have a firm grasp on the strategies most appropriate to it as soon as the playoffs begin?


Anyway. Go Brewers. Also, please station paramedics immediately outside the radio booth. I worry that we almost lost Bob Uecker this afternoon, and this was only game one.

That's right: Bob Uecker.

KS

Rays 9, Rangers 0: Kelly Shoppach, Home Run Hero?

Dr, Pepper IS the one-of-a-kind fan favourite, that is TRUE.

Momentum is a tricky thing to talk about in baseball. A favourite aphorism of mine is Earl Weaver's "Momentum is the next day's starting pitcher," because, well, yeah, totally. What if the next day's starter is almost entirely untested rookie? Then you would probably be boned, right? Sure, he had looked awesome in the very limited action he had seen so far, but could anyone have anticipated a two-hitter in Matt Moore's second career start? Or, putting that unlikelihood aside, even, how about two home runs from Kelly Shopach, he of the .176 batting average and .607 OPS? All of that was pretty neat, but neatest of all was an early home run from Johnny Damon, who, after all these years, I still find particularly, especially neat. C. J. Wilson, who has one of the best post-home-run headshakes in the game, was shaking up a storm yesterday, and I never would have guessed, man, I never would have guessed. 


I would also like to mention that while Josh Hamilton is getting a lot of flack from baseball nerds for bunting while down a million runs, the third basemen was playing way off the line, and although it was scored a  sacrifice, Hamilton was bunting for a hit, so settle down, internet: they needed baserunners, and he was trying to get on.  


In the end, though, Hamilton was left looking like this --

I'm ronery . . . so ronery . . .

-- and one can only assume that, wherever he was, our dear friend and resident Rangers fan, Chinballs, wasn't looking any happier. 


Poor, sweet Chinballs . . .


KS

My First-Round 2011 MLB Playoff Preferences Expressed In A Form That Recalls Haiku But Is Not In Keeping With All Principles of Haiku, Honestly

Go Tigers! And Phils!
Rangers over Rays, I guess --
And may Ueck's heart sing!


KS

There Was No Baseball Yesterday

It was awful.

95-67

Blue Jays 3, White Sox 2: Well, that's it.

You would think 162 games would be enough, but I am not convinced.

Last night was maybe the single best night of regular season baseball I can remember, with four games with serious playoff implications going on at the same time, all easily followed through the glory of baseball on the internet. (Bill covers all of this superbly in the post just below mine, but I got about halfway through this earlier today, saved it, and am returning to it now, hours later, and I think it would be wrong of me to deny you my, you know, word bounty, so here it all is. Inevitably, we cover some of the same ground, but get used to it: everyone is writing about last night, and I would be stunned if there were not at least one 28 September 2011 book on the shelves this time next year. So here we go.) 


The Cardinals got out ahead of the Astros early with a five-run first, and Chris Carpenter allowed only two hits all night, so the pressure was on the Braves to stay alive against the Phillies, which they very much did not, losing in thirteen in a straight-up hell of a game. "Braves Cap Collapse," the headline says, and yeah, they sure did. I don't want to diminish the severity of that collapse, or the agony of the Braves fans who endured it, but the Red Sox implosion has been far more vivid to me, a streak of incompetence so wide and so deep that it began to look like self-abnegation. Last night, when Papelbon threw the last of his fifteen pitches in twelve minutes -- the one that ended up lined into and then out of Carl Crawford's glove in left, allowing the winning Baltimore run to come across in the bottom of the ninth -- it was the perfect ending to a seven-win, twenty-loss month, a fitting bookend to Boston's equally improbable two-and-ten start to the season. 


Meanwhile, the Rays, with a total payroll that exceeds the combined salaries of Papelbon and Crawford but not by as much as you might think, clawed themselves back from a seven-run deficit through seven-and-a-half innings, with Evan Longoria's three-run shot in the home half of the eighth bringing them to within a run. When pinch hitter Dan Johnson, who came into the game batting .108, and who I had literally never heard of, homered to tie it in the ninth, it was ludicrous, even more so than Longoria's walk-off shot in the twelfth, I think. According to FanGraphs, the only player in either leagues with worse production in at least ninety plate appearances this season is Roy Halladay. Just amazing stuff. Too bad they couldn't even put thirty thousand in the seats for it, but that's baseball in St. Pete, I guess.


Despite all of that amazingness last night, in all honesty my attention was much more firmly focused on a perfectly meaningless afternoon game between the Blue Jays and the White Sox. A game of utterly no playoff consequence, it was played entirely for the benefit of a bunch of people with nothing better to do on a pretty nice fall afternoon, people like:


(i) An old man with a scorecard.

(ii) A man with a helmet full of nachos.

(iii) A couple of Frank Thomas fans.

(iv) A lady with a beer.

(v) A kid with a rally cap behind the bullpen and his brother.

(vi) A young couple messing around with their phones but in a way that looks fun and shared and not alienating.

(vii) Seventh-inning stretchers.

(vii) And this guy.

So the usual, basically. 


What they saw was, from their perspective, I'm sure, kind of a debacle. With the White Sox up 2-1 in the top of the ninth after perfectly OK outings from both starters (Humber for the Sox, Morrow for the Blue Jays), Chris Sale just pretty much blew it: double, single, sac bunt, intentional walk, run-scoring walk, run-scoring walk, and then, inevitably, the hook. That Frank Francisco managed to seal the deal in the bottom of the ninth was both a relief and a pleasure. (After an absolutely abysmal first couple months, Francisco has actually kind of almost salvaged his season, and so good for him, I guess, but the hurt remains, a little.) I was entirely satisfied with the slightly strange way this one ended, but I've got to think White Sox fans felt it the worst bullshit ever. 


The win on this last day of the season brought the Blue Jays back to .500 for the thirty-third time this season. I don't know if Mike Wilner was entirely accurate when he called the 2011 Toronto Blue Jays the five-hundredest team to ever five hundred, probably not, but it has definitely felt that way: no great streaks one way or the other, no real can-you-even-believe-this runs of elation or let's-trade-everybody stretches of incompetence and despair. Things have been even-steven. I will have more, much more, senselessly more, to say about the 2011 Toronto Blue Jays in the coming weeks and months, but for now I'm just like, "Well, that's it. Last game of the season. I am, as always, genuinely sad to see it end." That is what I am like for now. But I had fun! 


To return, finally, to the dramatic stuff from last night, I've got a few things I'd like to share with you, the first a .gif that shows pretty clearly that Dan Johnson's game-tying solo blast totally bag tagged some guy. Here you go:

Next, here's a graph from FanGraphs (where else?) of AL wild card probabilities throughout the evening (click here for more):

Here are Harold Reynolds and Dan Plesac of MLB Network losing their minds, a little:

And finally, here's a pretty terrific video timeline that MLB put together, definitely worth ten minutes of your time on this, a night without any baseball:






Enjoy!


KS