Sunday Wrap: Week Five is in the Books

Tanner and… Jose Altuve

 

Oofta, as my Mom would say.  The Astros got swept by the Tigers, were beaten so badly, that even though not much was expected of them, the players had a closed-door meeting after Justin Verlander nearly no-hit them. They were outscored in the four-game sweep 37-8. They’ve lost six in a row.  And now, they are indeed, on track to lose more than the Mets record of 120 games.

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How about them Giants?  A three-game sweep of their rival Dodgers in dramatic fashion with Posey‘s walkoff HR on Friday, Quiroz in a 10th-inning walkoff HR on Saturday, and Matt Cain finally showing his old form in today’s nationally televised 4-3 defeat. They Gigantes have now won six in a row and are back in first place. The poor Dodgers had Hanley Ramirez back for four games before he returned to the DL with a hamstring injury sidelined him in Friday’s game.

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The Rangers made a statement.  They swept the Red Sox, who were the hottest team in the league.

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Roy Halladay is probably going on the DL.  He got spanked- hard- again.

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Playoff picture if the season ended today:

NL West: Giants [Last Week: Diamondbacks/Rockies tied]

NL Central: Cardinals [Last Week: Pirates]

NL East: Braves [Last Week: Braves]

NL Wild Cards: Rockies & Reds [Last Week: Diamondbacks/Rockies & Cardinals]

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AL West: Rangers [Last Week: Rangers]

AL Central: Tigers [Last Week: Royals]

AL East: Red Sox [Last Week: Red Sox]

AL Wild Cards: Royals & Yankees [Last Week: A’s & Yankees]

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Now let’s take a look at the league leaders in all 10 statistical categories that our Fantasy League competes in:

Runs

1) 31: Austin Jackson

2) 26 (two tied): Miguel Cabrera, Carlos Gonzalez

4) 25 (two tied): Shin-Soo Choo, Nate McLouth

[Last week leaders falling out of Top 5: Coco Crisp (2-T), Adam Jones (2-T), Matt Carpenter (4-T)]

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Home Runs

1) 12: Justin Upton

2) 10: John Buck

3) 9 (five tied): Chris Davis, Edwin Encarnacion, Bryce Harper, Mike Morse, Mark Reynolds

[Last week leaders falling out of Top 5: J.P. Arencibia (T-4), Anthony Rizzo (T-4)]

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RBI

1) 36: Miguel Cabrera

2) 32: Prince Fielder

3) 31: Mike Napoli

4) 30: Chris Davis

5) 29: John Buck

[Last week leaders falling out of Top 5: Brandon Phillips (3)]

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Stolen Bases

1) 12: Jacoby Ellsbury

2) 11: Juan Pierre

3) 10: Starling Marte

4) 9: Nate McLouth

5) 8 (three tied): Everth Cabrera, Coco Crisp, Jean Segura

[Last week leaders falling out of Top 5: none]

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Batting Average

1) .385: Miguel Cabrera

2) .379: Carlos Santana

3) .368: Carlos Gomez

4) .361: Torii Hunter

5) .348: Troy Tulowitzki

[Last week leaders falling out of Top 5: Chris Johnson (T-1st), Bryce Harper (4)]

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Wins

1) 6: Clay Buchholz

2) 5 (five tied): Yu Darvish, Jason Hammell, Lance Lynn, Matt Moore, Jordan Zimmermann

[Last week leaders falling out of Top 5: Doug Fister (T-4), Matt Harvey (T-4), Jon Lester (T-4), Justin Masterson (T-4), CC Sabathia (T-4), Adam Wainwright (T-4)]

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Saves

1) 12 (two tied): Jason Grilli, Sergio Romo

3) 11 (two tied): Jim Johnson, Mariano Rivera

5) 10 (two tied): Addison Reed, Rafael Soriano

[Last week leaders falling out of Top 5: Rafael Betancourt (T-4), Craig Kimbrel (T-4), Brandon League (T-4), Joe Nathan (T-4), Tom Wilhelmson (T-4)]

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Strikeouts

1) 72: Yu Darvish

2) 57: A.J. Burnett

3) 54: Max Scherzer

4) 52 (two tied): Clayton Kershaw, Jeff Samardzija

[Last week leaders falling out of Top 5: Felix Hernandez (4), Ryan Dempster (5)]

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E.R.A.

1) 1.01: Clay Buchholz

2) 1.07: Jake Westbrook

3) 1.55: Madison Bumgarner

4) 1.55: Justin Verlander

5) 1.56: Matt Harvey

[Last week leaders falling out of Top 5: Matt Moore (2), Anibal Sanchez (4)]

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WHIP

1) 0.75: Jordan Zimmermann

2) 0.76: Hisashi Iwakuma

3) 0.82: Matt Harvey

4) 0.84: Madison Bumgarner

5) 0.88: Mike Minor

[Last week leaders falling out of Top 5: Yu Darvish (3), Carlos Villanueva (4)]

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So there you go.

 

 

Day in Review: Three Weeks in the Books

A few items from today…

Ryan Braun continues to prove that he’s a dick.  Mr. Class himself through a little hissy fit, throwing his bat in the air when an umpire had the gall to call a third strike on the douchebag.  C’mon MLB– suspend this PED ass clown already.

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The Red Sox lost both games of a double header.  While it is appropriate to care about Boston and the victims of the heinous crimes from last week, it is okay to now resume not liking the Red Sox, as is a grand tradition.  The Royals lead the AL Central.

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The Diamondbacks cooled off the Rockies, scoring two runs in the top of the 9th, to end the Rockies winning streak at 8.

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The Rays finally are showing some life.  They swept the A’s– no small feat- in authoritative fashion, outscoring them 17-4.  A non-surprise, Brett Anderson hurt himself again.  Josh Reddick tamed his mane and beard, to no positive effect.  Matt Snyder of CBS Sports pointed out that six teams swept series this weekend: Twins over White Sox (though due to cold weather, they only played twice), Rangers over Mariners, Giants over Padres, Brewers over Cubs, and Angels over Tigers.

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Barry Zito rebounded from a thumping in Milwaukee earlier in the week to pitch 7 SO innings versus the Padres.  It was his third time this season so far that he has done so at home. The Padres haven’t scored a run in 21 innings.  More good news for the Giants: Buster Posey finally hit his first HR of the year.

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The Dodgers won.  And if that wasn’t news enough, Matt Kemp also went 3 for 5.  I’ll take my digs now, because part of me is also saying “uh-oh”.

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I feel like I should write about how the Tigers are in trouble, but like ESPN’s Buster Olney pointed out, the Tigers were under .500 in early July last year and they ended up in the World Series.

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But it is Sunday, and it is a good time to take a look at what the playoff picture would be if the season ended today!  I like this part of the week:

AL East: Red Sox   [Last Week: Red Sox]

AL Central: Royals [Last Week: Royals and Tigers were tied]

AL West: Rangers [Last Week: A’s]

AL Wild Cards: A’s/Yankees [Last Week: Royals/Tigers]

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NL West: Rockies [Last Week: Giants]

NL Central: Reds [Last Week: Cardinals]

NL East: Braves [Last Week: Braves]

NL Wild Cards: Giants plus 4-way tie of Nats/Pirates/Cards/D-Backs [Last Week: D-Backs/Rockies]

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Now let’s take a look at the league leaders in all 10 statistical categories that our Fantasy League competes in:

Runs

1) 19 (two tied): Austin Jackson, Carlos Gonzalez

3) 18: Coco Crisp

4) 17 (four tied): Shin-Soo Choo, Adam Jones, Daniel Murphy, Josh Rutledge

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Home Runs

1) 9: Justin Upton

2) 7 (six tied): J.P. Arencibia, John Buck, Chris Davis, Dexter Fowler, Bryce Harper, Mark Reynolds

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RBI

1) 22: John Buck

2) 21 (three tied): Chris Davis, Prince Fielder, Brandon Phillips

5) 20: Mike Napoli

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Stolen Bases

1) 8: Jacoby Ellsbury

2) 6 (two tied): Coco Crisp, Andrew McCutchen

4) 5 (eight tied): Everth Cabrera, Rajai Davis, Austin Jackson, Desmond Jennings, Josh Reddick, Ben Revere, Jose Reyes, David Wright

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Batting Average

1) .407: Chris Johnson

2) .403: Chris Davis

3) .392: Torii Hunter

4) .385: Adrian Gonzalez

5) .382 (two tied): Shin-Soo Choo, Jed Lowrie

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Wins

1) 4 (two tied): Clay Bucholz, Matt Harvey

3) 3 (sixteen tied): Madison Bumgarner, Jhoulys Chacin, Yu Darvish, Doug Fister, Jon Lester, Lance Lynn, Paul Maholm, Justin Masterson, Tommy Milone, Matt Moore, Eric O’Flaherty, Andy Pettite, C.C. Sabathia, Adam Wainwright, Jordan Zimmerman, Barry Zito

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Saves

1) 8: Sergio Romo

2) 7 (four tied): Rafael Betancourt, Jason Grilli, Jim Johnson, Craig Kimbrel

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Strikeouts

1) 38: Yu Darvish

2) 35: A.J. Burnett

3) 33 (two tied): Ryan Dempster, Jake Peavy

5) 32: Matt Harvey

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E.R.A.

1) 0.90 (two tied): Clay Bucholz, Ross Detwiler

3) 0.93: Matt Harvey

4) 0.95: Mike Minor

5) 1.00: Matt Moore

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WHIP

1) 0.52: Hisashi Iwakuma

2) 0.66: Matt Harvey

3) 0.68: Garrett Richards

4) 0.77: Derek Holland

5) 0.79: Yu Darvish

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Hopefully you see some of your players in those leader categories.  If not, don’t fret, next week could change all that.

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Day in Review: Saturday, 4.20.13

Big day at Fenway as the Red Sox resumed play following the events in Boston the past few days. During pre-game ceremonies- broadcast live by the MLB Network– David “Big Papi” Ortiz (his first game of the season) made a speech that was both popular, and well, he dropped an F-bomb on live television: “This jersey that we wear today, it doesn’t say Red Sox. It says Boston. We want to thank you, Mayor Menino, Governor Patrick, the whole police department, for the great job that they did this past week. This is our fucking city! And nobody’s going to dictate our freedom. Stay strong.”…  And yes, there are already t-shirts available… What was really surprising was a tweet from the FCC that came out shortly after: “David Ortiz spoke from the heart at today’s Red Sox game. I stand with Big Papi and the people of Boston – Julius“.  That’s right, Julius Genachowski, Chairman of the FCC supported it and let it slide. It isn’t often that you think of the FCC as cool.  That is really cool… On top of that, Neil Diamond himself showed up to perform his “Sweet Caroline”.  The thing that makes that so cool, is that the Red Sox didn’t arrange it.  Neil booked a flight himself, caught a 4AM flight that he paid for, and then offered to perform.  Classy… And then, down 4-2 in the bottom of the 8th, the Red Sox managed to take the lead on the strength of a three-run HR from Daniel Nava, a player who had almost retired twice… They held on after the Royals Lorenzo Cain hit a HR in the 9th (he went 4-4), and the storybook ending was complete… A slight non-baseball add-on.  Boston.com compiled a list of twitter responses to Arkansas state senator Nate Bell‘s tasteless tweet from Thursday/Friday night when the manhunt was on, the one that went: “I wonder how many Boston liberals spent the night cowering in their homes wishing they had an AR-15 with a hi-capacity magazine?”  The replies are worth reading.

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The Tigers Rick Porcello had a crappy day.  He pitched only 2/3’s of an inning vs. the Angels before getting the hook.  In that time he had given up 9 hits, a walk, 9 ER, and a grand slam to Mike Trout.  The performance rose his ERA to 11.08 on the season.  On top of that, the Tigers were shutout, losing 10-0.

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The opposing pitcher, Angels Garrett Richards went 7 innings, giving up only two hits and no runs. It was the first time this year that an Angels starting pitcher had pitched into the 7th inning.

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Porcello had some company in the crappy day department. Astros (oh, poor Astros) SP Philip Humber made it through only 1/3 of an inning against the Indians.  He gave up 8 hits, a walk, a HR to Mark Reynolds, and 8 ER.  The Indians beat them 19-6.  Oofta.

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Nationals Gio Gonzalez had another bad start, giving 5 ER on 5 hits and four walks in just four innings.  Walks have always been a problem for him, but the Mets had no problem with him. The Nationals did win the game though, 7-6, with some power.  Bryce Harper, Adam Laroche and Ian Desmond all hit homers—- Harper hit two of them.

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The Nationals picked up a game on the Braves, who finally lost a game in which they weren’t shutout.  The Pirates beat them 3-1. Paul Maholm was handed the loss, and he saw his scoreless streak to start the season end at 25 1/3 innings. A good run.

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White Sox SP Jake Peavy had a good day, striking out 9, giving up one run on six hits and four walks in seven innings.  The Twins SP Vance Worley had an even better day though, given how lousy he has been in his previous starts.  He also went 7, giving up one run on 5 hits and 2 walks, striking out 7. The Twins continue to show that they aren’t as bad as everyone thought they would be.  Joe Mauer kept up his great hitting, going 2 for 3 with a couple of walks.  The Twins won in 10 innings, 2-1.

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Tim Lincecum had his best start of the season.  He pitched 6 2/3, striking out 8 and walking two, while giving up no runs.  It lowered his ERA to a respectable 3.97.  The Giants beat the Padres 2-0, the scoring courtesy of a Pablo Sandoval 2-run HR.  The Giants were outhit 5-3.  That’s Giants baseball right there.

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The Dodgers got beat by the Orioles…. twice!

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Day in Review: Tuesday, 4.16.13

1. It started with the Yankees announcing that as tribute to Boston following the terrorist attack yesterday, they would play the theme song of their longtime rival Red Sox during the game. Then, the Indians, who were hosting the Red Sox, announced that they would do the same. After that, I think every host stadium played “Sweet Caroline” today, a sweet enough gesture, especially by the Yankees…of course the hyperbole by some sportswriters/broadcasters, especially when the Red Sox won, was sports schmaltz.  Cranky?  No.  Emphasizing baseball too much in the face of real-life tragic events is embarrassing. Paying proper tribute/recognition is fine. Stating that the Boston Red Sox winning a frickin’ baseball game means anything to people affected by the bombings is moronic.

2. Teams that had an off-day yesterday observed Jackie Robinson Day today… Living in Portland now, I miss the Giants broadcasts so much.  Now I listen to the Mariners, which is fine- it is nice to have some baseball to listen to, but today one of the announcers (I don’t know his name) kept going on about how he loved the scene in 42 where Brooklyn Dodgers SS Pee Wee Reese comes up to Robinson during his first game and puts his arm around him, showing support.  That was a very fine gesture, but to pick that as your favorite part, and then to mention it again and again is, to me, akin to lavishing praise on Branch Rickey for promoting Robinson. Credit is due, but it is like making Kevin Kline the hero of a movie about Steve Biko.  It is Jackie Robinson Day– not a day for the white guys that did the right thing day. Again, not cranky, I just don’t see how so many middle-aged white guys can’t see the underlying aspect to their viewpoints.

3. Speaking of cranky, I loved Texas Rangers‘ Lance Berkman‘s comments about Wrigley Field today.  Click the link to read all of it, but my favorite part was: “But really, what kind of history is there? It’s not like there has been one championship after another. It’s mainly been a place for people to go and drink beer.”  I’m with Lance.  I am fine with the billy goat curse or whatever forever preventing the Cubs from winning the World Series. There are a lot of reasons, but the main one for me is the way they treated Steve Bartman.

4. April is wreaking a bit of havoc weather-wise. There was a fake tweet that made the rounds yesterday stating that MLB had given the Rockies permission to host a triple-header against the Mets. Well, they were snowed out yesterday, with a double-header scheduled for today.  They had tons of snow to remove, and so the first game started late.  There were so few people in the crowd, that the Rockies offered everyone brave enough to show up for the first game (which was scheduled to begin at 1:10 but was delayed two hours), were welcome to stay for free for the second game, which finally just ended at 11:06pm MT (the second game went into the 10th).  Any fans that spent ten hours at the games today should be given some kind of season-long discount.  Those that showed though did get to see the Rockies win both games against the Mets…  The Mets were snowed out two games in a row- both yesterday in Denver, and the day prior in Minnesota…  Minnesota’s Target Field, which opened in 2010, has a Rain Water Recycle System that has- according to the Twins official Twitter feed- has captured, purified, and reused more than 1.8 million gallons of rainwater… The start of the Reds/Phillies game in Cincinnati was delayed by 80 minutes. They then played to the middle of the 9th with neither team scoring before they were delayed again, the game eventually suspended and will be completed tomorrow before their scheduled game.  Fans from tonight were welcomed back to tomorrow’s game.

5. After taking the final two games against the Astros, the Angels troubles have resumed, losing the first two games against the Minnesota Twins– a team not picked to do much better than the Astros this year.  Josh Hamilton is back in a slump, now hitting .200.  Mike Trout continues to show life (up to .300 after flirting with the Mendoza line), but the Angels now sit at 4-10 and tied for last with the Astros in the AL West. Part of the problem is Albert Pujols.  He isn’t hitting poorly (.280), but he has foot/leg problems that make him a problem on the base paths, which isn’t great with speedy Trout ahead of him and two power hitters behind him.  That batting lineup needs a shake-up… It didn’t help the Angels that Joe Mauer is in prime form. After a slow start, Mauer (.368) has been on fire, getting four hits in each game of the series so far.

6. The Dodgers aren’t doing well either.  They dropped another (7-7, 4th place) to the Padres tonight, scoring only two runs (9-2 to Jason Marquis).  While Carl Crawford is performing well, something which seemed iffy when the season started, it has been canceled out by a dreadful start from Matt Kemp, who is now hitting .185…  Dodgers pitching injury woes continue.  Starter Chris Capuano left the game with a calf injury with no outs in the third after giving up 5 ER… Luckily for the Dodgers, Ted Lilly relented and agreed to make another rehab start, a situation that looked to be a problem for the Dodgers.  Lilly had declared himself healthy, and if the Dodgers hadn’t accommodated him, he would be free to sign with another team.

7. The Giants lost against the Brewers today, and with the Rockies winning both ends of a doubleheader vs. the Mets, the Rockies have overtaken first place. It was Barry Zito‘s first loss since last August, a span of 16 games in which the Giants won (including the post-season).  It also ended his run of 15 2/3 scoreless innings to start this season. Zito gave up 9 ER, 8 of them alone in the third inning. The Giants almost bailed him out, coming back only to lose 10-8, the last play of the game a deep drive from Andres Torres with one on that came up just short…  On the bright side, steroid boy Ryan Braun struck out four times!  (That’s a golden sombrero!).  Braun has been striking out a ton lately.  His neck is hurt more than he’s willing to admit. My heart bleeds for him…  Also, the Brewers bullpen stinks… Pablo Sandoval continued his hot start with 4 RBI.  Both Panda and SS Brandon Crawford extended their hitting streaks to 9 games.

8. The Braves continued their phenomenal start, beating the Kansas City Royals 6-3 on the strength of five HRs- including Justin Upton‘s 8th- and won their 10th game in a row to bring their record to a remarkable 12-1.  The Braves lead the league in ERA and HR and on top of that, Jason Heyward showed he’s coming out of his slump, hitting 2 HRs in the game.  It is a good time to be a Braves fan.

9. The Rays continued their disappointing start (4-9), losing 5-4 to the Orioles.  On the bright side, The Rays scored more than two runs, which seems to be all they’ve been good for this year.  At the start of the game, six of the Rays starters were hitting below .200, and two of them were hitting below .100.  One of the few players that has been hitting- Evan Longoria– wasn’t hitting for power, but today, for the second time in two games, he hit a HR.  So that’s 2, but a good sign of things to come.  He’s heating up.

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A sad day in Boston

The pale blue dot… in the last ray to the right.

1. I was looking at Twitter when I saw a Deadspin tweet alluding to an early report of an explosion at the Boston Marathon.  There were five tweets right after it, and none of them mentioned anything in Boston.  I turned on the TV and went to the news channels, and nothing.  Other websites, nothing.. I got a little confused.  I had to remind myself that Deadspin isn’t the Onion, so it wouldn’t be some joke I didn’t understand.  And then seven or eight minutes after reading that first tweet, it became evident that it was all tragically real.

Fuck!  What the fuck!? I was about to ask why, though terrorism doesn’t really need a why. It is self-explanatory. Still… why? We don’t know who did it. The FBI and police, as I write this have gotten a search warrant for an apartment in Revere, a suburb of Boston, but that’s all we know. Three dead, over 100 injured.  When shit like this happens, I just think of- for some reason- Carl Sagan’s reflections on the “Pale Blue Dot”. I don’t know that it comforts me, really, though I suppose it does. I don’t know. We’re a weird beast. Thankfully, like Patton Oswalt pointed out today, the good far outnumber the bad.

2) The Red Sox game had already been completed by the time of the explosions. The Celtics game was canceled. The rest of MLB observed a moment of silence prior to each game. First responders and those that ran to help were given much deserved commendation. Virtually every MLB player with a Twitter account responded appropriately.  The rest of Twitter?  Not quite as much.  A re-tweet from user @rolldiggity by Giants beat writer Hank Schulman summed up the Twitter universe pretty well: “Twitter does its best work in the first five minutes after a disaster and its worst in the twelve hours after that.

There is no phrase I can add to the end of this that seems appropriate or that matters.

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I’m not gonna do a full nine items tonight, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention what today was supposed to be all about: Jackie Robinson day.

Today marks the 46th anniversary of the day Jackie Robinson debuted with the Brooklyn Dodgers, thereby breaking the “unofficial” ban on black players that had been in effect for half a century.

Robinson’s day has been getting a bit more press than usual given the release of the movie 42, which is just great.  Judging by tweets from so many players, it is obvious that many of them were not all that aware of Robinson’s landmark debut and what his character meant to that “experiment” succeeding.

Robinson agreed with Branch Rickey to “turn the other cheek” to abuse for three years before the plan to break the color barrier was put in motion.  Robinson spent one year in the minors playing in Montreal before being called up to the Dodgers. I thought I remembered from Ken Burns series that Robinson had to go two more years in the big leagues without retaliating in any way to abuse.  The EPSN radio host I listened to tonight said he only spent one year… I’m not sure that is true.  I looked up many sources, and I only found a few that alluded to the amount of time.  Whatever it is, the man put up with a ton of racist bullshit.

I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I will. Spike Lee wanted to make a movie of Robinson many years ago, and then was planning one on the Negro Leagues (Spike first wanted to be a baseball player- and if you’ll remember his landmark Do the Right Thing he spends half the movie wearing a Robinson jersey).

If you have Netflix Watch Now, Ken Burns 18-hour documentary Baseball is on there last I checked.  If you haven’t seen it, I recommend the entire thing, but for today, you can just skip to Episode 6: The National Pastime, which documents Jackie Robinson’s arrival to the Dodgers.  Seriously though, I’d take the time to start with Episode 5: Shadow Ball, which puts the whole thing into context, documenting the Negro Leagues and MLB’s exclusion of black players.

Finally, while Jackie Robinson Day is appropriately about Jackie Robinson, credit should be given due to Branch Rickey for leading the way.  I don’t condone treating a white guy as a hero for doing what should have been done, but like I said, credit is due, and I bring it up mainly to share this link to legendary, and still current, Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully talking about his interviewing with Rickey for a job all those years ago.

safe

Doctor, always do the right thing.

Meet: Mishandled Samples

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1. Where do you live?

San Francisco, CA.

2. How many years have you played fantasy baseball- this league in particular?

Fantasy baseball: 1 year.  This league: just started.

3. What is your favorite team?

SF Giants, then Oakland A’s, then the BoSox (born there). Everyone else can suck it. In fact, sometimes the BoSox can suck it.

4. Describe yourself however you want/brief intro.

Baseball & rock n roll. I play in a few bands and also play in a 6 month hardball league. Fantasy baseball is what I do when I’m taking a shit, but it works out, as I shit a lot.

5. Who do you think will win the World Series?

I have to say the SF Giants here. Fandom supersedes all, and the 8-year-old in me won’t abide anything else.

6. Who is your favorite player on your fantasy team?

Yoenis Cespedes.

7. Who, if anyone, are you open to trade?

Derek Jeter, fuck that guy.

8. Anything to say about what your team name means/how you came up with it?

Hat tip to Ryan Braun.

9. Who is your favorite baseball player of all time?

I’m breaking the rules! Three way tie: Will Clark-Wade Boggs-Jose Canseco.

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Extra inning question: If you were a player- batter or reliever – what would your intro song be?

“Totally Wired” by The Fall  [listen here]