Ok, so over the last while this blog I think I've more found what I'd like to focus on in terms of the content on this blog, which may seem a bit obvious to you readers but I'm going to be completely pushing out posts on the Cardinals, Orioles and Blue Jays in under the 'Bird Watch' tag from here on out with the exception of some on and off unrelated stuff, like off the field antics by players, trades, signings, etc. So keep your eyes open.
-Eric
Saturday, July 20, 2013
Saturday, July 13, 2013
Bird Watch: Almost At The All Star Break
So the past week hasn't shown a hell of a lot of development on the part of the Orioles or Cardinals as per usual as they both seem to keep up their usual methods of winning. Though the Orioles have had their starting pitcher Wei Yin Chen return to the rotation and in a big way as he pitched 7 innings of 1 run ball, which makes for a fantastic return from the disabled list. In addition to this both Kevin Gausman and Zach Britton got demoted to AAA to make room for him which, is not unexpected as Zach Britton was pretty ineffective in his last start on Tuesday when he gave up 5 runs including a 4 run 5th inning. Then when we look towards the Cardinals they have been a bit up and down, they had a close game against the Marlins with Lance Lynn pitching against Jose Fernandez which, turned out to be a fairly well pitched game, ending in a 3-2 score. Next they had a blow out game against the Astros in a 9-5 win though we must keep in mind that 4 out of the 5 runs were allowed in the 9th inning by a relatively new pitcher to the Cardinals bullpen, Michael Blazek. They next won another game against the Astros with Shelby Miller on the mound however, this game was won by only 1 run so their pitching was a little less effective in this instance, though again isolated incident. The last 2 games have been against the Cubs, the first of which they lost 3-0, which is a bit disturbing considering Edwin Jackson was the starting pitcher for the Cubs, who hasn't been too effective as of the last few seasons. Then in the latest game on Friday, the Cardinals just barely squeaked by in a 3-2 win against the Cubs. Now this was again very surprising as the pitcher for the Cubs, Carlos Villanueva, is not that great of a pitcher again.
Overall however the Jays have had the most roller coaster like week or so, they've been turning in outings both good and bad, Johnson was good against Cleveland as he only allowed 2 runs, however the offence has been completely turned off as they didn't score any runs at all, despite all of their hitters they had on base, and it was against Jimenez at that! Then the next game, they barely won 5-4 where Esmil Rogers pitched a great game, and in a surprising turn of events the bullpen coughed up 3 of the total runs that Cleveland scored overall. Thankfully the offence wasn't completely asleep during this game, now I say 'completely' asleep because they still were only hitting 2-8 with runners in scoring position which, is still not great considering what we have in the line up. Then R.A. Dickey turned in a great outing on Thursday but again the offence was only able to scrap together 2 runs despite being against a relatively unexperienced starter and Dickey only giving up 2 earned runs and another of them being scored due to a fuck up by Rajai Davis, who over threw. Now the we have the last game on Friday they lost against the Orioles 8-5, again the offence was asleep as they only hit 2-10 with runners in scoring position and in a complete turn around Mark Buerhle gave up all 8 runs of the game flipping the series of good pitching outings by the Jays starters. I feel like the Jays are being like a dyslexic team as they do something positive but then turn it around and all of a sudden have a negative outing in the same aspect. All in all they have to win the remaining games before the All Star Break or they are going to have no hope of redemption and a shot at the playoffs.
-Eric
Overall however the Jays have had the most roller coaster like week or so, they've been turning in outings both good and bad, Johnson was good against Cleveland as he only allowed 2 runs, however the offence has been completely turned off as they didn't score any runs at all, despite all of their hitters they had on base, and it was against Jimenez at that! Then the next game, they barely won 5-4 where Esmil Rogers pitched a great game, and in a surprising turn of events the bullpen coughed up 3 of the total runs that Cleveland scored overall. Thankfully the offence wasn't completely asleep during this game, now I say 'completely' asleep because they still were only hitting 2-8 with runners in scoring position which, is still not great considering what we have in the line up. Then R.A. Dickey turned in a great outing on Thursday but again the offence was only able to scrap together 2 runs despite being against a relatively unexperienced starter and Dickey only giving up 2 earned runs and another of them being scored due to a fuck up by Rajai Davis, who over threw. Now the we have the last game on Friday they lost against the Orioles 8-5, again the offence was asleep as they only hit 2-10 with runners in scoring position and in a complete turn around Mark Buerhle gave up all 8 runs of the game flipping the series of good pitching outings by the Jays starters. I feel like the Jays are being like a dyslexic team as they do something positive but then turn it around and all of a sudden have a negative outing in the same aspect. All in all they have to win the remaining games before the All Star Break or they are going to have no hope of redemption and a shot at the playoffs.
-Eric
Monday, July 8, 2013
The Final All Stars
Ok so for those of you who don't know how the whole process works for the All Star Game, fans vote on a selection of players they want to see play and the ones with the most votes at each fielding position get the starting job. Now there are also a set of 'reserve' players who get the call when they are highest voted amongst other major league players, then there are the pitchers who are selected specifically by the All Star Team's manager and in most case some or a lot of bias is seen here (managers stacking pitching with their teams pitchers when there are better or more deserving players). Then after all of these selections are made we come down to the 'Final Vote' basically what happens here is the manager of each league selects 5 players that he thinks could make the cut for the All Star Game and then fans over a short period of time vote on it and whoever of the each group has the highest vote count gets the final roster spot on the All Star Game. So let's start off by looking at who we have as our AL and NL Final Vote players
AL: Ok so a bit of an oddity as Jim Leyland thought that to only select relievers, especially when there were a lot of impact players better than say Tanner Scheppers, David Robertson or Joaquin Benoit. (Josh Donaldson for instance?)
Joaquin Benoit, RP, Tigers
Steve Delabar, RP, Blue JaysDavid Robertson, RP, YankeesTanner Scheppers, RP, RangersKoji Uehara, RP, Red Sox
Now there is no reason to go through these guys one at a time because they all are part of the sample position so instead I'll give you my top 2 for this and explain why. So the two I would vote for are Koji Uehara and Steve Delabar, now the reasoning for this is strictly because they have been solid and part of a solid bullpen whereas the Tigers bullpen is a god damn mess and Benoit is no exception to that, the Yankees bullpen hasn't been all that stellar either (Rivera is beginning to show some cracks in his armour), and the Texas bullpen has been above average but not fantastic, much like their starting rotation (excluding Yu Darvish). Whereas Koji Uehara has been bounced around from set up man to 7th inning man to closer and he hasn't faltered a bit in fact he seems to be pitching better in the closer role, which makes him invaluable in any bullpen and then Steve Delabar, while not quite as effective as Uehara (mainly because of walks) he has still managed to keep a very impressive ERA and WHIP, throwing hard in the mid 90's and being an integral part of the Jays bullpen and again like Uehara he's been moved around from being the 7th inning guy, to the set up man to the long man so he also has a lot of value for any team.
NL: Ok so this is a better spread than the AL in terms for position players that deserve a spot. Though what the hell is with having 2 Dodgers players on there, not that they don't deserve a spot on the roster but just seems a bit spiteful as it may separate fans in the voting and in the end neither might get in.
Ian Desmond, SS, Nationals
Freddie Freeman, 1B, Braves
Adrian Gonzalez, 1B, Dodgers
Hunter Pence, OF, Giants
Yasiel Puig, OF, Dodgers
Ok so this one is a pretty easy choice for me, though all of the players on this list have been performing pretty well above their usual (with some exception to Hunter Pence as he's been up and down for a while, and his ups aren't that phenomenal). Anyhow my choice for this is Yasiel Puig, now I've seen plenty of people out there bitching about how he doesn't deserve a spot for this reason or that reason and I'd just like to set the record straight. First off the comparison to other players that have been one hit wonders, Puig isn't just a hitter like these come and go players, he's a five tool guy, he hits for power and average, he can run the bases as well as anyone else, he is stellar defensively with a really athletic style and he's got a cannon of an arm for throwing guys out, all of which he has demonstrated time and time again, whereas these comparison players just have a spurt of power and then fade away. Now to top this part off let's compare Puig's stats vs a couple other players' first month in the majors.
Puig: AVG: .440, OBP: .466, SLG: .743, SO: 23, BB: 4, HR: 8, AB: 109
Player A: AVG: .306, OBP: .368, SLG: .514, SO: 28, BB: 11, HR: 4, AB: 120
Player B: AVG: .286, OBP: .372, SLG: .514, SO: 19, BB: 13, HR: 4, AB: 117
Player C: AVG: .274, OBP: .284, SLG: .491, SO: 21, BB: 2, HR: 4, AB: 109.
Now who are those three players? Mike Trout, Bryce Harper and Manny Machado. In only slightly more plate appearances they either didn't hit as well as Puig has, struck out more than Puig has or walked less than Puig (and hell I'm a Blue Jays fan). And we gave Harper and Trout All Star Game invites without a question last year despite that they were both what some considered to be over performing rookies, just goes to show you shouldn't judge the man until the years over and you can actually see his full season of work.
-Eric
AL: Ok so a bit of an oddity as Jim Leyland thought that to only select relievers, especially when there were a lot of impact players better than say Tanner Scheppers, David Robertson or Joaquin Benoit. (Josh Donaldson for instance?)
Joaquin Benoit, RP, Tigers
Steve Delabar, RP, Blue JaysDavid Robertson, RP, YankeesTanner Scheppers, RP, RangersKoji Uehara, RP, Red Sox
Now there is no reason to go through these guys one at a time because they all are part of the sample position so instead I'll give you my top 2 for this and explain why. So the two I would vote for are Koji Uehara and Steve Delabar, now the reasoning for this is strictly because they have been solid and part of a solid bullpen whereas the Tigers bullpen is a god damn mess and Benoit is no exception to that, the Yankees bullpen hasn't been all that stellar either (Rivera is beginning to show some cracks in his armour), and the Texas bullpen has been above average but not fantastic, much like their starting rotation (excluding Yu Darvish). Whereas Koji Uehara has been bounced around from set up man to 7th inning man to closer and he hasn't faltered a bit in fact he seems to be pitching better in the closer role, which makes him invaluable in any bullpen and then Steve Delabar, while not quite as effective as Uehara (mainly because of walks) he has still managed to keep a very impressive ERA and WHIP, throwing hard in the mid 90's and being an integral part of the Jays bullpen and again like Uehara he's been moved around from being the 7th inning guy, to the set up man to the long man so he also has a lot of value for any team.
NL: Ok so this is a better spread than the AL in terms for position players that deserve a spot. Though what the hell is with having 2 Dodgers players on there, not that they don't deserve a spot on the roster but just seems a bit spiteful as it may separate fans in the voting and in the end neither might get in.
Ian Desmond, SS, Nationals
Freddie Freeman, 1B, Braves
Adrian Gonzalez, 1B, Dodgers
Hunter Pence, OF, Giants
Yasiel Puig, OF, Dodgers
Ok so this one is a pretty easy choice for me, though all of the players on this list have been performing pretty well above their usual (with some exception to Hunter Pence as he's been up and down for a while, and his ups aren't that phenomenal). Anyhow my choice for this is Yasiel Puig, now I've seen plenty of people out there bitching about how he doesn't deserve a spot for this reason or that reason and I'd just like to set the record straight. First off the comparison to other players that have been one hit wonders, Puig isn't just a hitter like these come and go players, he's a five tool guy, he hits for power and average, he can run the bases as well as anyone else, he is stellar defensively with a really athletic style and he's got a cannon of an arm for throwing guys out, all of which he has demonstrated time and time again, whereas these comparison players just have a spurt of power and then fade away. Now to top this part off let's compare Puig's stats vs a couple other players' first month in the majors.
Puig: AVG: .440, OBP: .466, SLG: .743, SO: 23, BB: 4, HR: 8, AB: 109
Player A: AVG: .306, OBP: .368, SLG: .514, SO: 28, BB: 11, HR: 4, AB: 120
Player B: AVG: .286, OBP: .372, SLG: .514, SO: 19, BB: 13, HR: 4, AB: 117
Player C: AVG: .274, OBP: .284, SLG: .491, SO: 21, BB: 2, HR: 4, AB: 109.
Now who are those three players? Mike Trout, Bryce Harper and Manny Machado. In only slightly more plate appearances they either didn't hit as well as Puig has, struck out more than Puig has or walked less than Puig (and hell I'm a Blue Jays fan). And we gave Harper and Trout All Star Game invites without a question last year despite that they were both what some considered to be over performing rookies, just goes to show you shouldn't judge the man until the years over and you can actually see his full season of work.
-Eric
Sunday, July 7, 2013
Roster Spots For The All Star Game
So the rosters for the all star game came out earlier and there was quite a bit of discussion as to who should be elected to the final spots in the AL and NL rosters respectively and who should have made it and who shouldn't have. So first off I'll go over the rosters and who if any I believe should have been on instead of others, etc.
Starters:
AL:
-C: Joe Mauer (Not much to say here I thought he was the man for the job and thankfully he got it)
-1B: Chris Davis (Same as above, no complaints on that)
-2B: Robinson Cano (Nothing here either)
-SS: J.J. Hardy: Ok so theres not many who are going to talk about this but I think I will, so like I said in my previous post my vote was for Jose Reyes. Now while that may have been partially done because he's a Blue Jay it is also because it adds an element that there isn't much of in the AL starting roster, and thats speed. Reyes is like lightning on the base path and if we look at the other players who were potentials for the All Star Game, there are none that have any speed to at least make things exciting when their on base like Reyes can. Now I'm not saying that Peralta or Hardy don't deserve a spot but I think that Reyes would have been a smarter choice as if he was uninjured up until now his numbers would be better than the other two, in terms of overall value.
-3B: Miguel Cabrera: Now I have no complaints about inclusion about Cabrera although I have seen some people talking about Longoria and I agree that he should have been included because he's been having an amazing time so far this year and hasn't been majorly sidelined by injury like he usually is. However you can't dethrone the best hitter in the league for him, and Manny Machado (who got the call in the reserves) is much better than Longoria defensively and to be honest he's a close match offensively as, despite not having the same level of power, he is still able to put up Mike Trout-esque numbers and if you were to look at both players on the ESPN Player Rater for all hitters you'd notice that Longo and Machado are right next to each other.
-OF: Mike Trout, Jose Bautista and Adam Jones (Nothing to say here)
-DH: David Ortiz: Now I was VERY disappointed with this choice on the side of the fans, David Ortiz isn't a bad player or anything but Edwin Encarnacion has been MUCH better, even being still in the top 3 of home run leaders and is more versatile at different positions than Ortiz (who has only played DH for a few years now).
NL:
-C: Yadier Molina: No complaints here, I voted for Posey but it isn't a huge difference
-1B: Joey Votto: No complaints here, though plenty of people are saying that Paul Goldschmidt should have gotten the spot, now while he has been putting up numbers similar to Votto he has been a bit anxious at the plate as you can see his On Base Percentage is not that much higher than his average which tells me that he might drop under the pressure, and Votto is much better at the plate in terms of getting on base and has shown more consistency that Goldschmidt. Now I do believe that he should have made the reserves instead of some.
-2B: Brandon Phillips: Nothing Here
-SS: Troy Tulowitzki: Nothing to say
-3B: David Wright: Nothing to say
-OF: Bryce Harper, Carlos Gonzalez and Carlos Beltran: Now all of these fit in my mind except Beltran because just like Ortiz he is putting up half decent numbers but players like Andrew McCutchen are MUCH better than him, hell there are even players on his team that deserve a spot for the Cardinals more than him (no Shelby Miller? WTF).
Reserves:
AL:
C: Jason Castro, Astros (expected as he's the best performing Astro at the moment, though I would have picked Jose Altuve)
C: Salvador Perez, Royals (Same as above, though he hasn't been as good as he was expected to be so far)
1B: Prince Fielder, Tigers (No real complaint here)
2B: Jason Kipnis, Indians (For both Kipnis and Pedroia the pick fits as they are both dominating the 2nd base position)
2B: Dustin Pedroia, Red Sox
2B: Ben Zobrist, Rays (this one doesn't make as much sense since Zobrist, despite his versatility has been rather lacklustre and like I said before Longoria would have been more deserving of the position that Zobrist)
SS: Jhonny Peralta: Tigers (Like I said before I think that the hitting numbers are clouding what Peralta is and like previously stated Reyes would have been a better fit as his numbers (outside of power stuff) would be more in line with Peralta had he not been injured for so long.
3B: Manny Machado, Orioles: Got no gripes here
OF: Nelson Cruz, Rangers: Got no complaints about Cruz, but Gordon and Hunter have hardly been amazing this year, their reserve outfield positions would have been better suited to better performing players like Jacoby Ellsbury, Nate McClouth or Alex Rios as all three of them are playing MUCH better than Gordon and Hunter and can easily fit into the positions in the batting order you would expect Gordon and Hunter to take.
Tomorrow I'll be going over the final roster spot guys.
Starters:
AL:
-C: Joe Mauer (Not much to say here I thought he was the man for the job and thankfully he got it)
-1B: Chris Davis (Same as above, no complaints on that)
-2B: Robinson Cano (Nothing here either)
-SS: J.J. Hardy: Ok so theres not many who are going to talk about this but I think I will, so like I said in my previous post my vote was for Jose Reyes. Now while that may have been partially done because he's a Blue Jay it is also because it adds an element that there isn't much of in the AL starting roster, and thats speed. Reyes is like lightning on the base path and if we look at the other players who were potentials for the All Star Game, there are none that have any speed to at least make things exciting when their on base like Reyes can. Now I'm not saying that Peralta or Hardy don't deserve a spot but I think that Reyes would have been a smarter choice as if he was uninjured up until now his numbers would be better than the other two, in terms of overall value.
-3B: Miguel Cabrera: Now I have no complaints about inclusion about Cabrera although I have seen some people talking about Longoria and I agree that he should have been included because he's been having an amazing time so far this year and hasn't been majorly sidelined by injury like he usually is. However you can't dethrone the best hitter in the league for him, and Manny Machado (who got the call in the reserves) is much better than Longoria defensively and to be honest he's a close match offensively as, despite not having the same level of power, he is still able to put up Mike Trout-esque numbers and if you were to look at both players on the ESPN Player Rater for all hitters you'd notice that Longo and Machado are right next to each other.
-OF: Mike Trout, Jose Bautista and Adam Jones (Nothing to say here)
-DH: David Ortiz: Now I was VERY disappointed with this choice on the side of the fans, David Ortiz isn't a bad player or anything but Edwin Encarnacion has been MUCH better, even being still in the top 3 of home run leaders and is more versatile at different positions than Ortiz (who has only played DH for a few years now).
NL:
-C: Yadier Molina: No complaints here, I voted for Posey but it isn't a huge difference
-1B: Joey Votto: No complaints here, though plenty of people are saying that Paul Goldschmidt should have gotten the spot, now while he has been putting up numbers similar to Votto he has been a bit anxious at the plate as you can see his On Base Percentage is not that much higher than his average which tells me that he might drop under the pressure, and Votto is much better at the plate in terms of getting on base and has shown more consistency that Goldschmidt. Now I do believe that he should have made the reserves instead of some.
-2B: Brandon Phillips: Nothing Here
-SS: Troy Tulowitzki: Nothing to say
-3B: David Wright: Nothing to say
-OF: Bryce Harper, Carlos Gonzalez and Carlos Beltran: Now all of these fit in my mind except Beltran because just like Ortiz he is putting up half decent numbers but players like Andrew McCutchen are MUCH better than him, hell there are even players on his team that deserve a spot for the Cardinals more than him (no Shelby Miller? WTF).
Reserves:
AL:
C: Jason Castro, Astros (expected as he's the best performing Astro at the moment, though I would have picked Jose Altuve)
C: Salvador Perez, Royals (Same as above, though he hasn't been as good as he was expected to be so far)
1B: Prince Fielder, Tigers (No real complaint here)
2B: Jason Kipnis, Indians (For both Kipnis and Pedroia the pick fits as they are both dominating the 2nd base position)
2B: Dustin Pedroia, Red Sox
2B: Ben Zobrist, Rays (this one doesn't make as much sense since Zobrist, despite his versatility has been rather lacklustre and like I said before Longoria would have been more deserving of the position that Zobrist)
SS: Jhonny Peralta: Tigers (Like I said before I think that the hitting numbers are clouding what Peralta is and like previously stated Reyes would have been a better fit as his numbers (outside of power stuff) would be more in line with Peralta had he not been injured for so long.
3B: Manny Machado, Orioles: Got no gripes here
OF: Nelson Cruz, Rangers: Got no complaints about Cruz, but Gordon and Hunter have hardly been amazing this year, their reserve outfield positions would have been better suited to better performing players like Jacoby Ellsbury, Nate McClouth or Alex Rios as all three of them are playing MUCH better than Gordon and Hunter and can easily fit into the positions in the batting order you would expect Gordon and Hunter to take.
OF: Alex Gordon, Royals
OF: Torii Hunter, Tigers
DH: Edwin Encarnacion, Blue Jays: No complaints here though again I think Ortiz and Encarnacion should be switched
OF: Torii Hunter, Tigers
DH: Edwin Encarnacion, Blue Jays: No complaints here though again I think Ortiz and Encarnacion should be switched
NL:
C: Buster Posey, Giants: Good
1B: Paul Goldschmidt, D-backs: Good
1B: Allen Craig, Cardinals: No Complaints
2B: Matt Carpenter, Cardinals: No Complaints
2B: Marco Scutaro, Giants: Scutaro? Really? There are plenty of better players that could have taken his place and again he's aged to the point that he's nothing more than a batter who hits for average with little to no power and fairly little speed.
SS: Everth Cabrera, Padres: Good on both short stops and Alvarez
SS: Jean Segura, Brewers
3B: Pedro Alvarez, Pirates
OF: Domonic Brown, Phillies: Good on all accounts for outfielders as well
OF: Michael Cuddyer, Rockies
OF: Carlos Gomez, Brewers
OF: Andrew McCutchen, Pirates
1B: Paul Goldschmidt, D-backs: Good
1B: Allen Craig, Cardinals: No Complaints
2B: Matt Carpenter, Cardinals: No Complaints
2B: Marco Scutaro, Giants: Scutaro? Really? There are plenty of better players that could have taken his place and again he's aged to the point that he's nothing more than a batter who hits for average with little to no power and fairly little speed.
SS: Everth Cabrera, Padres: Good on both short stops and Alvarez
SS: Jean Segura, Brewers
3B: Pedro Alvarez, Pirates
OF: Domonic Brown, Phillies: Good on all accounts for outfielders as well
OF: Michael Cuddyer, Rockies
OF: Carlos Gomez, Brewers
OF: Andrew McCutchen, Pirates
Pitchers:
AL:
RHP: Clay Buchholz *, Red Sox: Got no problems though he's injured and was replaced with Colon, and don't have any issue with that considering Colon's ridiculous strikeout to walk ratio
LHP: Brett Cecil, Blue Jays: Great idea as he nearly pitched a combined perfect game and it was only interrupted by a couple intentional walks.
RHP: Bartolo Colon @, A's
RHP: Jesse Crain *, White Sox: Has been pitching really well and is known to have versatility as having been a reliever and starter with a fair amount of success at both spots. Though he's injured and has been replaced with Perkins, again I have no problem with him as he's done a better than average job as the Twins closer.
RHP: Yu Darvish, Rangers: No complaints he's been dominating this year.
RHP: Felix Hernandez, Mariners: No complaints with him or Iwakuma as both of them have been dominant
RHP: Hisashi Iwakuma, Mariners
RHP: Justin Masterson, Indians: I don't have any complaints now, but if you asked me a couple months back I would have laughed my ass off due to Mastersons ridiculous inconsistency (he was great in 2011, then terrible in 2012 and was so so in 2010)
RHP: Joe Nathan, Rangers: No problem here or with Rivera
LHP: Glen Perkins @, Twins
RHP: Mariano Rivera, Yankees
LHP: Chris Sale, White Sox: He sits nicely in the top 15 of pitchers and deserves this spot as he's been consistently good and with a rather lacklustre team in the White Sox
RHP: Max Scherzer, Tigers: Nothing to say here, Scherzer has been even more dominant that Darvish with a current record of 13-0
RHP: Justin Verlander, Tigers: Now this just seems like favouritism on the part of Leyland because there are many pitchers who are playing a lot better than Verlander is this year, now I don't know if it's the reduced velocity that's causing it but pitchers like Ervin Santana and Hiroki Kuroda have been worlds better than him so far this year (despite that Verlander is on a MUCH better team than the two of them).
LHP: Brett Cecil, Blue Jays: Great idea as he nearly pitched a combined perfect game and it was only interrupted by a couple intentional walks.
RHP: Bartolo Colon @, A's
RHP: Jesse Crain *, White Sox: Has been pitching really well and is known to have versatility as having been a reliever and starter with a fair amount of success at both spots. Though he's injured and has been replaced with Perkins, again I have no problem with him as he's done a better than average job as the Twins closer.
RHP: Yu Darvish, Rangers: No complaints he's been dominating this year.
RHP: Felix Hernandez, Mariners: No complaints with him or Iwakuma as both of them have been dominant
RHP: Hisashi Iwakuma, Mariners
RHP: Justin Masterson, Indians: I don't have any complaints now, but if you asked me a couple months back I would have laughed my ass off due to Mastersons ridiculous inconsistency (he was great in 2011, then terrible in 2012 and was so so in 2010)
RHP: Joe Nathan, Rangers: No problem here or with Rivera
LHP: Glen Perkins @, Twins
RHP: Mariano Rivera, Yankees
LHP: Chris Sale, White Sox: He sits nicely in the top 15 of pitchers and deserves this spot as he's been consistently good and with a rather lacklustre team in the White Sox
RHP: Max Scherzer, Tigers: Nothing to say here, Scherzer has been even more dominant that Darvish with a current record of 13-0
RHP: Justin Verlander, Tigers: Now this just seems like favouritism on the part of Leyland because there are many pitchers who are playing a lot better than Verlander is this year, now I don't know if it's the reduced velocity that's causing it but pitchers like Ervin Santana and Hiroki Kuroda have been worlds better than him so far this year (despite that Verlander is on a MUCH better team than the two of them).
NL: No surprisingly I have no gripes with any of the decisions that were made about the pitchers for the NL, mainly due to the fact that in cases of Travis Wood or Jose Fernandez, they were the only ones chosen from their team and thankfully they really are the best players on their teams. Now on the other hand I would have liked to see them work in Shelby Miller as he's been just as good as some of the NL's top pitchers.
LHP: Madison Bumgarner, Giants
LHP: Aroldis Chapman, Reds
LHP: Patrick Corbin, D-backs
RHP: Jose Fernandez, Marlins
RHP: Jason Grilli, Pirates
RHP: Matt Harvey, Mets
LHP: Clayton Kershaw, Dodgers
RHP: Craig Kimbrel, Braves
LHP: Cliff Lee, Phillies
LHP: Jeff Locke, Pirates
RHP: Adam Wainwright, Cardinals
LHP: Travis Wood, Cubs
RHP: Jordan Zimmermann, Nationals
LHP: Aroldis Chapman, Reds
LHP: Patrick Corbin, D-backs
RHP: Jose Fernandez, Marlins
RHP: Jason Grilli, Pirates
RHP: Matt Harvey, Mets
LHP: Clayton Kershaw, Dodgers
RHP: Craig Kimbrel, Braves
LHP: Cliff Lee, Phillies
LHP: Jeff Locke, Pirates
RHP: Adam Wainwright, Cardinals
LHP: Travis Wood, Cubs
RHP: Jordan Zimmermann, Nationals
Tomorrow I'll be going over the final roster spot guys.
-Eric
Friday, July 5, 2013
The All Star Game
Ok so I finished spamming the MLB site with my All Star game votes, now before I just list off who I voted for I want to weigh in on something thats come up over the last couple weeks and thats whether Yasiel Puig, the Cuban rookie phenom for the Dodgers, should be allowed to play at the All Star Game. In a word YES, now I think the people who think otherwise, Jonathon Papelbon and Mike Scoscia, are brain dead and don't even understand what the All Star Game is anymore. It's not an arena where the players that other players think are deserving attend it's a show for the fans, so if the fans what Puig in the lineup he sure as hell should be in there. Now on top of this plenty of people have complained about it because he 'hasn't paid his dues' or 'he doesn't have the experience' but then your saying that being the top player in all of the MLB for a month, by a LONG shot, doesn't give him enough merit? Let's not forget that both Bryce Harper and Mike Trout made the All Star roster last year even though neither of them had a full season worth of experience, but we let them through because the two rookies were having amazing seasons, it did't matter if they were a flash in the pan so to speak because they were playing amazing baseball and people wanted to see them. So all in all I think Puig, should he keep this up until the final rosters are to be decided more than deserves a spot in the roster, maybe not a starting position but he should be there.
Ok so now that thats out of the way here are my picks for the All Star Team
-AL
C: Joe Mauer: Now this is pretty easy to defend, the guy has been hitting for average driving in runs and hitting for some power just like whats expected of him and given that there aren't any real high end catchers in the AL (I'm talking Buster Posey/Yadier Molina level) it's pretty easy to decide
1B: Chris Davis: Now this again seems like a no brainer, the man has found himself at the plate and is mashing home runs like theres no tomorrow and I hope he keeps at it so we can, if lucky, we can wash that filthy stain of Barry Bonds off the single season home run record.
2B: Robinson Cano: This was a bit harder as there hasn't been a real run away player but when I consider the situation the Yankees have I believe that Cano this year is better than his stats say he is because the Yankees offence is not nearly as potent as usual with all of C and D class players they've been subbing in it seems like Cano just isn't getting the pitches he needs to get those home runs, RBIs and runs in.
3B: Miguel Cabrera: Again like Davis a complete no brainer, though I would have liked to vote for Longoria since this seems like his big season were he isn't set back with injury after injury and is actually managing to put some respectable stats on the board. However Cabrera is having a year just as good as his Triple Crown year last year and that sure as hell gets him my vote.
SS: Jose Reyes: Now I know Jose won't get the call for the game as starting short stop, but I chose him for a couple reasons. The first being my loyalty as a Jays fan, the second is that if you look at how he played pre injury and since coming back he's much better than the competition for the starting position (despite the small sample size) and third the 3 players who are in the lead for the starting short stop position are rather underwhelming, J.J Hardy has proven to be a one trick pony for years (can only hit for power and not much for avg with littler to no speed), Johnny Peralta is a pretty lacklustre defensive player and for reasons I can't understand is surging well above what any season he's had (despite being 31 and most analysts not thinking he'll be able to sustain this) and then Elvis Andrus just hasn't been playing up to what you'd normally expect out of him, especially when we look at last year and the year before.
OF: Jose Bautista, Mike Trout, Adam Jones: Now these guys again seems like no brainers, Trout is by far and away the best outfielder in the AL presently, Bautista has found his power stroke and is still a defensive and offensive monster and Adam Jones like Bautista has been hitting the ball well, not much else to say other than that it's not necessarily a large pool of amazing players we have to choose from.
Write In: No One
-NL
C: Buster Posey: Now the debate between Molina and Posey has been a big one, and I could have gone either way but I believe more in Posey because he has consistently shown that he can perform at this level since he first got called up to the majors where as Molina has more developed into the same level of power and average as Posey more recently.
1B: Joey Votto: Another no brainer, surprise! Though I have the same reasoning in the argument between Votto and Goldsmidt as with Posey vs. Molina.
2B: Brandon Phillips: Again we have pretty slim pickings here, the only competition in this position are Matt Carpenter and Marco Scutaro, now Scutaro I believe doesn't have much beyond his ability to hit for average so he was out in my mind and then Matt Carpenter is very much a rookie and I don't think I can vote for a guy who is only performing at or around Brandon Phillips area with not having shown it for a fair amount of time.
3B: David Wright: Now this is too me again a no brainer, now I love seeing Pablo Sandoval play but he's been in a rut since coming back from injury and to be perfectly honest the extra weight is affecting the man defensively and you can tell it where as Wright is playing better than Sandoval and he's the home player so that wins him points in my books, I mean Mets fans tried to campaign on a cougar dating site to get him into the starting position.
SS: Troy Tulowitzki: Now I mulled over this decision over and over and it's not because I think another player is better than him at SS but I wondered if he'd actually be back for the game, if so great I say he starts but if not I would like to see the position go to Jean Segura and not Brandon Crawford because as always Segura has been MUCH better than Crawford in every respect at short.
OF: Carlos Gonzalez, Andrew McCutchen, Bryce Harper: Not much to say here all of these guys are easy to debate about, CarGo has been one of the top 3 hitters in baseball for an extended period of time, McCutchen has been playing just as good if not better than previous years that got him on the All Star team and Bryce Harper, until his collision with the wall, was putting up numbers that would have dwarfed his previous season.
Write In: Yasiel Puig: See the first paragraph of this post
And thats all of them, post your picks if you feel like it and hopefully we'll see a good turn in the voting when it comes out Saturday night.
-Eric
Ok so now that thats out of the way here are my picks for the All Star Team
-AL
C: Joe Mauer: Now this is pretty easy to defend, the guy has been hitting for average driving in runs and hitting for some power just like whats expected of him and given that there aren't any real high end catchers in the AL (I'm talking Buster Posey/Yadier Molina level) it's pretty easy to decide
1B: Chris Davis: Now this again seems like a no brainer, the man has found himself at the plate and is mashing home runs like theres no tomorrow and I hope he keeps at it so we can, if lucky, we can wash that filthy stain of Barry Bonds off the single season home run record.
2B: Robinson Cano: This was a bit harder as there hasn't been a real run away player but when I consider the situation the Yankees have I believe that Cano this year is better than his stats say he is because the Yankees offence is not nearly as potent as usual with all of C and D class players they've been subbing in it seems like Cano just isn't getting the pitches he needs to get those home runs, RBIs and runs in.
3B: Miguel Cabrera: Again like Davis a complete no brainer, though I would have liked to vote for Longoria since this seems like his big season were he isn't set back with injury after injury and is actually managing to put some respectable stats on the board. However Cabrera is having a year just as good as his Triple Crown year last year and that sure as hell gets him my vote.
SS: Jose Reyes: Now I know Jose won't get the call for the game as starting short stop, but I chose him for a couple reasons. The first being my loyalty as a Jays fan, the second is that if you look at how he played pre injury and since coming back he's much better than the competition for the starting position (despite the small sample size) and third the 3 players who are in the lead for the starting short stop position are rather underwhelming, J.J Hardy has proven to be a one trick pony for years (can only hit for power and not much for avg with littler to no speed), Johnny Peralta is a pretty lacklustre defensive player and for reasons I can't understand is surging well above what any season he's had (despite being 31 and most analysts not thinking he'll be able to sustain this) and then Elvis Andrus just hasn't been playing up to what you'd normally expect out of him, especially when we look at last year and the year before.
OF: Jose Bautista, Mike Trout, Adam Jones: Now these guys again seems like no brainers, Trout is by far and away the best outfielder in the AL presently, Bautista has found his power stroke and is still a defensive and offensive monster and Adam Jones like Bautista has been hitting the ball well, not much else to say other than that it's not necessarily a large pool of amazing players we have to choose from.
Write In: No One
-NL
C: Buster Posey: Now the debate between Molina and Posey has been a big one, and I could have gone either way but I believe more in Posey because he has consistently shown that he can perform at this level since he first got called up to the majors where as Molina has more developed into the same level of power and average as Posey more recently.
1B: Joey Votto: Another no brainer, surprise! Though I have the same reasoning in the argument between Votto and Goldsmidt as with Posey vs. Molina.
2B: Brandon Phillips: Again we have pretty slim pickings here, the only competition in this position are Matt Carpenter and Marco Scutaro, now Scutaro I believe doesn't have much beyond his ability to hit for average so he was out in my mind and then Matt Carpenter is very much a rookie and I don't think I can vote for a guy who is only performing at or around Brandon Phillips area with not having shown it for a fair amount of time.
3B: David Wright: Now this is too me again a no brainer, now I love seeing Pablo Sandoval play but he's been in a rut since coming back from injury and to be perfectly honest the extra weight is affecting the man defensively and you can tell it where as Wright is playing better than Sandoval and he's the home player so that wins him points in my books, I mean Mets fans tried to campaign on a cougar dating site to get him into the starting position.
SS: Troy Tulowitzki: Now I mulled over this decision over and over and it's not because I think another player is better than him at SS but I wondered if he'd actually be back for the game, if so great I say he starts but if not I would like to see the position go to Jean Segura and not Brandon Crawford because as always Segura has been MUCH better than Crawford in every respect at short.
OF: Carlos Gonzalez, Andrew McCutchen, Bryce Harper: Not much to say here all of these guys are easy to debate about, CarGo has been one of the top 3 hitters in baseball for an extended period of time, McCutchen has been playing just as good if not better than previous years that got him on the All Star team and Bryce Harper, until his collision with the wall, was putting up numbers that would have dwarfed his previous season.
Write In: Yasiel Puig: See the first paragraph of this post
And thats all of them, post your picks if you feel like it and hopefully we'll see a good turn in the voting when it comes out Saturday night.
-Eric
Bird Watch: Two Faced, Meaningless Win and More Close Calls
Ok so the last set of games for the Blue Jays, Cardinals and Orioles didn't really have anything out of the ordinary with the exception of the Blue Jays, who seem to be incapable of staying on one side of the spectrum, and the Cardinals to a lesser extent.
Ok so let's get the Orioles out of the way, the Thursday game as well as the Friday game did not have anything unexpected, they played just like they have for about a week and a half, scoring well below double digit runs, the game being decided by a very small margin and the bullpen, coughed up a few runs that caused the loss for the team. So the obvious thing to say here is, just like last post, that the Orioles need help in their bullpen and their offence needs to get scoring more runs as they definitely have the talent at the plate with Chris Davis, Adam Jones and Manny Machado alone. Now outside of these theres not anything to complain about because the closeness of the games means that the Orioles starters are doing a good job of holding the opposing team to a small number of runs, Feldman allowed 2 on Wednesday, Britton allowed 2 on Thursday and Gonzalez allowed 1 on Friday all over 6-7 innings.
Next we have the Cardinals, who got back to their winning ways on Wednesday, completely destroying the Angels 12-2 with Shelby Miller on the mound which, considering his usual pitching performance, should come to no surprise. However on Thursdays game the Cardinals lost the series finale against the Angels 6-5, which was a bit of a surprise as Wainwright allowed 4 runs in the game and Mujica the closer gave up the runs that cost them the game. Now it should be noted that the runs given up by Wainwright were for the most part in one inning and the one that brought the Angels within 1 run was in the 9th inning so despite the bad line, he did pitch nearly an entire game, which is commendable. On the other side Edward Mujica was BAD, in just 2/3 of an inning he allowed 4 hits 2 earned runs and a home run and the Albert Pujols single scoring that Wainwright gave up should be attributed to Mujica as he was the one that allowed the home run by Josh Hamilton that brought in Pujols and tied the game. He then proceeded to allow singles by 2 more batters and then Erick Aybar came to the plate and singled in the final run of the game, a bit of a disappointment as Mujica had not had a blown save until that game and the performance itself was really bad. Now the Friday game was sort of back to the typical Cardinal play as they won 4-1, however this was against the Marlins and when you see the box score the one thing thats glaring back at you is 2 fielding errors by Matt Carpenter, which they only got out of because of lucky ground balls that they turned into double plays. So all in all it seems Matt Carpenter is beginning to show cracks in the armour as he has allowed a fair number of errors over the last week or so of games, though it would seem he just to get in more fielding practice as he is still solid enough at the plate that there is little to no chance he looses his starting position due to defensive inability.
Finally we have the Blue Jays, now I can't really understand what team these guys are anymore. the last 2 series against the Tigers and the Red Sox had me cringing every time I saw a hit from the opposing team and nearly every starting pitcher of theirs fell victim to the other team's offence. Now overall these series were immensely disappointing as the Tigers had been struggling and, in my mind, the Red Sox have one of the most over-rated offences in the MLB (with the exception of Pedroia and Ortiz, none of their players currently have the ability to hit with huge power, hell even the numbers say Napoli is in for a big regression). But thats neither here nor there, the problem of course is how the Jays can loose to the Tigers, without Miguel Cabrera I might add, 11-1 and then turn around and beat the Twins senselessly 4-0 the next day. Especially when the same pitcher, Mark Buerhle, was responsible for giving up 4 runs to the Red Sox not even a week ago. The Jays really need to decide what kind of team they are in order to move forward because there loosing streak up until today has almost completely negated the good that the 11 game winning streak did, which is a real shame because that would take them out of contention again and make a lot of fans angry. Now the theme for nearly all of the lost games over the last 2 games was bad pitching as all of the starters that had shown themselves as consistent individuals got rocked over and over again, and a few errors were made by Bonifacio and Rasmus, and I'll admit some of them did seem like a loss on concentration because those were routine plays that we've seen these players make hundreds of times and I'm sure everyone thought that Bonifacio was over the error hill. The game against the Twins though had the Jays back to what was good about them in the winning streak, consistent batting with runners in scoring position, good pitching and a near perfect bullpen, now they just need to hold onto that as Adam Lind and Edwin Encarnacion find their footing again after their few game absence. Overall this is nearly the end for the Jays season in my mind, if they can't get to within a respectable distance of the wildcard or first in the AL East in the next week (before the All Star Game) they won't have a hope in hell of reaching the playoffs.
-Eric
Ok so let's get the Orioles out of the way, the Thursday game as well as the Friday game did not have anything unexpected, they played just like they have for about a week and a half, scoring well below double digit runs, the game being decided by a very small margin and the bullpen, coughed up a few runs that caused the loss for the team. So the obvious thing to say here is, just like last post, that the Orioles need help in their bullpen and their offence needs to get scoring more runs as they definitely have the talent at the plate with Chris Davis, Adam Jones and Manny Machado alone. Now outside of these theres not anything to complain about because the closeness of the games means that the Orioles starters are doing a good job of holding the opposing team to a small number of runs, Feldman allowed 2 on Wednesday, Britton allowed 2 on Thursday and Gonzalez allowed 1 on Friday all over 6-7 innings.
Next we have the Cardinals, who got back to their winning ways on Wednesday, completely destroying the Angels 12-2 with Shelby Miller on the mound which, considering his usual pitching performance, should come to no surprise. However on Thursdays game the Cardinals lost the series finale against the Angels 6-5, which was a bit of a surprise as Wainwright allowed 4 runs in the game and Mujica the closer gave up the runs that cost them the game. Now it should be noted that the runs given up by Wainwright were for the most part in one inning and the one that brought the Angels within 1 run was in the 9th inning so despite the bad line, he did pitch nearly an entire game, which is commendable. On the other side Edward Mujica was BAD, in just 2/3 of an inning he allowed 4 hits 2 earned runs and a home run and the Albert Pujols single scoring that Wainwright gave up should be attributed to Mujica as he was the one that allowed the home run by Josh Hamilton that brought in Pujols and tied the game. He then proceeded to allow singles by 2 more batters and then Erick Aybar came to the plate and singled in the final run of the game, a bit of a disappointment as Mujica had not had a blown save until that game and the performance itself was really bad. Now the Friday game was sort of back to the typical Cardinal play as they won 4-1, however this was against the Marlins and when you see the box score the one thing thats glaring back at you is 2 fielding errors by Matt Carpenter, which they only got out of because of lucky ground balls that they turned into double plays. So all in all it seems Matt Carpenter is beginning to show cracks in the armour as he has allowed a fair number of errors over the last week or so of games, though it would seem he just to get in more fielding practice as he is still solid enough at the plate that there is little to no chance he looses his starting position due to defensive inability.
Finally we have the Blue Jays, now I can't really understand what team these guys are anymore. the last 2 series against the Tigers and the Red Sox had me cringing every time I saw a hit from the opposing team and nearly every starting pitcher of theirs fell victim to the other team's offence. Now overall these series were immensely disappointing as the Tigers had been struggling and, in my mind, the Red Sox have one of the most over-rated offences in the MLB (with the exception of Pedroia and Ortiz, none of their players currently have the ability to hit with huge power, hell even the numbers say Napoli is in for a big regression). But thats neither here nor there, the problem of course is how the Jays can loose to the Tigers, without Miguel Cabrera I might add, 11-1 and then turn around and beat the Twins senselessly 4-0 the next day. Especially when the same pitcher, Mark Buerhle, was responsible for giving up 4 runs to the Red Sox not even a week ago. The Jays really need to decide what kind of team they are in order to move forward because there loosing streak up until today has almost completely negated the good that the 11 game winning streak did, which is a real shame because that would take them out of contention again and make a lot of fans angry. Now the theme for nearly all of the lost games over the last 2 games was bad pitching as all of the starters that had shown themselves as consistent individuals got rocked over and over again, and a few errors were made by Bonifacio and Rasmus, and I'll admit some of them did seem like a loss on concentration because those were routine plays that we've seen these players make hundreds of times and I'm sure everyone thought that Bonifacio was over the error hill. The game against the Twins though had the Jays back to what was good about them in the winning streak, consistent batting with runners in scoring position, good pitching and a near perfect bullpen, now they just need to hold onto that as Adam Lind and Edwin Encarnacion find their footing again after their few game absence. Overall this is nearly the end for the Jays season in my mind, if they can't get to within a respectable distance of the wildcard or first in the AL East in the next week (before the All Star Game) they won't have a hope in hell of reaching the playoffs.
-Eric
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
Bird Watch: Bad Calls, Bad Pitching and Moving Along
Ok so I figured I'd wait a day to post this just so that I could make sure that the streak, whether positive or negative, was actually not just a one game thing and seems like some interesting things occurred in the games on Tuesday. Now to break things down for the last 2 days we had 2 back to back losses for the Cardinals, one blow-out win and one close loss for the Blue Jays and two close games for the Orioles, one win and one loss. Now there were some specific things to look at in these games that definitely bring the results into better context, so let's get to it.
First off we have the Cardinals, still second in the National League because of the winning streak that the Pirates have going but even so the rest of the National League teams are doing much worse so they are ways ahead in the wild card race. Now in the first loss against the A's the offence seemed to have been clicking since they scored 5 runs right? Well thats not entirely true, the team just took advantage of Milone's weakness to the long ball, so all of their runs came through home runs. In addition they were only 1-11 with runners in scoring position and only scored these runs in 2 innings, so this all means that they were unable to take advantage of runners on base in order to further their score, 5 times to be exact. In addition to this their fielders made 2 errors, which contributed to the score that Oakland achieved in the game and as we all should know Jake Westbrook is not that great of a pitcher anymore, especially when he only lasts 4 innings, allows 10 hits, 6 runs, 2 walks and only strikes out 3. Overall not the greatest performance by the Cardinals but of course you can't really make a conclusion about one game so lets look at the following game. Now this game was again a loss, agains the Angels 5-1, and the pitchers were Lance Lynn and Jered Weaver. Ok so this game went fairly similarly to the previous one in that one of the people who made an error in the previous game made another during this game (Matt Carpenter), the offence went 1-7 with runners in scoring position and the offence still had a high number of hits. Now the difference is that all of the Angel's runs came in the 2nd inning, when Lance Lynn had a hiccup in his delivery as he only allowed 2 base runners after that inning. So it seems the pitching is not a problem however the offence and defence still needs to get itself together to an extent to avoid slipping any further back in the standings.
Now the Blue Jays, again being frustrating. So the first game looked at was the 8-3 blow out win against the Detroit Tigers, which was somewhat of a surprise for me, as I expected Dickey to implode against one of the best offences in the MLB. However that sure did not happen, Dickey did a pretty great job on closing the door on the Tigers only allowing 2 runs and getting a fair number of strikeouts and ground ball outs. The offence followed suit as well going 3-7 with runners in scoring position, got a good number of hits and their runs didn't come over just one or 2 innings, which means they DID eat into the starter and didn't just take advantage of one or two break down situations on the part of the starter. Now what was disturbing is that before this game began we found out that Edwin Encarnacion, Adam Lind and J.P Arencibia are day to day, which is worrying as 2 out of 3 of those players have been our offensive core and the third can be a difference maker at times when he gets the right pitch. However they still managed to overcome it. Now of course from this one might expect something similar the next game similar to what you'd expect from the Cardinals games. They started off the game similarly to their last in that they pounced on the starter, Doug Fister, VERY early as they scored 4 runs in the first inning and then two more in the second. However the Toronto starter Chien-Ming Wang pitched worse than Fister and allowed 6 runs in the second inning, unfortunately much like his previous outing his sinker was fairly flat, in didn't have it's usual sinking motion, and his control was a bit off as more than half of the pitches he threw were balls. However once he was pulled out our bullpen dominated for the most part for the rest of the game, with the exception of the one run that Neil Wagner allowed in the 8th and unfortunately his deflection of Jose Reyes' return is what cost the Jays the run. Now one thing I've talked about a fair amount that I believe honestly stopped any hope the Jays had of coming back was the Umpiring, in the bottom of the 9th their was a few really bad blown calls, so much so that when the last batter, Jose Reyes, came to bat the count was 2 out none on when it should have been 2 on and none out. This is because there was a bad call at the first batter, which meant that Emilio Bonifacio should have been on base then the up blew a foul ball call, which first wasn't a foul and second hit Kawasaki and thus he should have been on base too and considering the speed that Bonifacio has I can guarantee you he would have had no trouble making it to third and with Reyes, Bautista and DeRosa coming up they would have easily come back. Either way I just have a BIG thing against the terrible umpiring this year as many strikes/balls have been blown in games I've watched (both Jays and others) and then theres the self righteous umps like Angel Hernandez that make me think they should just replace all of them.
Ok so finally we have the Orioles, now theres honestly not much to say about these two games as it's just the same style they've been playing at for the past week or so, which is scoring under 5 runs per game, while still getting a steady amount of hits and coming within 2-3 runs of winning or losing and their pitchers don't give up a huge amount of runs. Now what I'm more interested about is the fact that the Orioles just put together a trade with the Chicago Cubs for Scott Feldman, and the reason I find him interesting is because he is a ground ball pitcher who has spent the brunt of his career in Texas one of the worst hitters parks in the league. Despite this he still was able to keep a respectable ERA and win-loss ratio and given that the Orioles have a better defence than the Rangers and that Camden Yards is a fair bit less homer friendly than Rangers Ballpark I expect he could be a very successful pitcher with Baltimore and not to mention he had a time at Texas when he was managed by Buck Showalter so he has an established relationship with the Orioles skipper and Buck knows what Feldman is capable of.
-Eric
First off we have the Cardinals, still second in the National League because of the winning streak that the Pirates have going but even so the rest of the National League teams are doing much worse so they are ways ahead in the wild card race. Now in the first loss against the A's the offence seemed to have been clicking since they scored 5 runs right? Well thats not entirely true, the team just took advantage of Milone's weakness to the long ball, so all of their runs came through home runs. In addition they were only 1-11 with runners in scoring position and only scored these runs in 2 innings, so this all means that they were unable to take advantage of runners on base in order to further their score, 5 times to be exact. In addition to this their fielders made 2 errors, which contributed to the score that Oakland achieved in the game and as we all should know Jake Westbrook is not that great of a pitcher anymore, especially when he only lasts 4 innings, allows 10 hits, 6 runs, 2 walks and only strikes out 3. Overall not the greatest performance by the Cardinals but of course you can't really make a conclusion about one game so lets look at the following game. Now this game was again a loss, agains the Angels 5-1, and the pitchers were Lance Lynn and Jered Weaver. Ok so this game went fairly similarly to the previous one in that one of the people who made an error in the previous game made another during this game (Matt Carpenter), the offence went 1-7 with runners in scoring position and the offence still had a high number of hits. Now the difference is that all of the Angel's runs came in the 2nd inning, when Lance Lynn had a hiccup in his delivery as he only allowed 2 base runners after that inning. So it seems the pitching is not a problem however the offence and defence still needs to get itself together to an extent to avoid slipping any further back in the standings.
Now the Blue Jays, again being frustrating. So the first game looked at was the 8-3 blow out win against the Detroit Tigers, which was somewhat of a surprise for me, as I expected Dickey to implode against one of the best offences in the MLB. However that sure did not happen, Dickey did a pretty great job on closing the door on the Tigers only allowing 2 runs and getting a fair number of strikeouts and ground ball outs. The offence followed suit as well going 3-7 with runners in scoring position, got a good number of hits and their runs didn't come over just one or 2 innings, which means they DID eat into the starter and didn't just take advantage of one or two break down situations on the part of the starter. Now what was disturbing is that before this game began we found out that Edwin Encarnacion, Adam Lind and J.P Arencibia are day to day, which is worrying as 2 out of 3 of those players have been our offensive core and the third can be a difference maker at times when he gets the right pitch. However they still managed to overcome it. Now of course from this one might expect something similar the next game similar to what you'd expect from the Cardinals games. They started off the game similarly to their last in that they pounced on the starter, Doug Fister, VERY early as they scored 4 runs in the first inning and then two more in the second. However the Toronto starter Chien-Ming Wang pitched worse than Fister and allowed 6 runs in the second inning, unfortunately much like his previous outing his sinker was fairly flat, in didn't have it's usual sinking motion, and his control was a bit off as more than half of the pitches he threw were balls. However once he was pulled out our bullpen dominated for the most part for the rest of the game, with the exception of the one run that Neil Wagner allowed in the 8th and unfortunately his deflection of Jose Reyes' return is what cost the Jays the run. Now one thing I've talked about a fair amount that I believe honestly stopped any hope the Jays had of coming back was the Umpiring, in the bottom of the 9th their was a few really bad blown calls, so much so that when the last batter, Jose Reyes, came to bat the count was 2 out none on when it should have been 2 on and none out. This is because there was a bad call at the first batter, which meant that Emilio Bonifacio should have been on base then the up blew a foul ball call, which first wasn't a foul and second hit Kawasaki and thus he should have been on base too and considering the speed that Bonifacio has I can guarantee you he would have had no trouble making it to third and with Reyes, Bautista and DeRosa coming up they would have easily come back. Either way I just have a BIG thing against the terrible umpiring this year as many strikes/balls have been blown in games I've watched (both Jays and others) and then theres the self righteous umps like Angel Hernandez that make me think they should just replace all of them.
Ok so finally we have the Orioles, now theres honestly not much to say about these two games as it's just the same style they've been playing at for the past week or so, which is scoring under 5 runs per game, while still getting a steady amount of hits and coming within 2-3 runs of winning or losing and their pitchers don't give up a huge amount of runs. Now what I'm more interested about is the fact that the Orioles just put together a trade with the Chicago Cubs for Scott Feldman, and the reason I find him interesting is because he is a ground ball pitcher who has spent the brunt of his career in Texas one of the worst hitters parks in the league. Despite this he still was able to keep a respectable ERA and win-loss ratio and given that the Orioles have a better defence than the Rangers and that Camden Yards is a fair bit less homer friendly than Rangers Ballpark I expect he could be a very successful pitcher with Baltimore and not to mention he had a time at Texas when he was managed by Buck Showalter so he has an established relationship with the Orioles skipper and Buck knows what Feldman is capable of.
-Eric
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