July 2009
Three-ring circus
Interesting week in baseball; I think the “three-ring circus” metaphor applies. The third ring: Mark Buehrle. Coming off of a perfect game (and 28 consecutive batters retired dating back to the final one of his previous start), Buehrle retired the first 17 batters he faced to break the record of 41 straight shared by former San Francisco Giant Jim Barr and current Buehrle teammate Bobby Jenks before giving up a two-out walk. One batter later, he lost the no-hitter, and one batter after that, he lost the shutout and the Sox’ recently-earned 1-0 lead. He then proceeded to retire only one of the five batters he faced in the seventh inning and got charged with 5 runs, the last scoring as an inherited runner after he’d been relieved, and the loss. When it’s over, it’s really over. The second ring: trades. The Pirates continue to sell, sending Jack Wilson and Ian Snell to the Mariners for Ronny Cedeno, Jeff Clement, and three minor leaguers, then swapping Freddy Sanchez straight-up for a minor leaguer from the Giants, and finally shipping John Grabow and Tom Gorzelanny to the Cubs for three minor leaguers. Weirdest of all, they sent a Double-A pitcher to Toronto for future considerations. The Mariners, however, are not quite so sure they are buyers, sending Jarrod Washburn to Detroit for two minor league pitchers a minor leaguer and a rookie pitcher–but then again, Washburn’s trade value is at its peak, as he’s having a career year. The Dodgers acquire George Sherrill from the O’s for two minor leaguers and send Claudio Vargas to the Brewers for one minor leaguer, while Oakland also continues to sell, sending Orlando Cabrera to the Twins for a minor leaguer. The big deal, of course, is Cliff Lee being sent to the Phillies along with Ben Francisco in exchange for four minor leaguers. And the center ring: PEDs. Two more of the 104 names from 2003 leak out–then-teammates Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz. Papi releases a statement that he was “blindsided” and that he’ll find out what it is he’s been accused of taking, and when he does, he’ll share it with the team and the public, saying he wants to be open and not make excuses. Um…right. Sounds kind of like an excuse to me. Other members of the 2003 Red Sox weighed in as well. Nomar Garciaparra, in Boston as a member of the visiting A’s, dropped the bombshell that because players were led to believe there would be no names attached to the tests, only numbers, some players opted to not take the test and just be put down as positive so as to drive up the number towards the mandatory 5% because they wanted testing. Excuse me for a moment, news just broke that Victor Martinez has been traded to the Boston Red Sox for Justin Masterson and two Single-A pitchers. Back to the PED issue, Garciaparra also said that one team, the Chicago White Sox, he thinks there were like 7 or 8 guys who did that. Meanwhile, completely unprompted, Bronson Arroyo said he “wouldn’t be surprised” if he was one of the 104, saying that he took the steroid precursor androstenedione (which wasn’t banned at the time) but stopped after he’d heard rumors that due to lax production standards, some of it might be laced with steroids, as well as taking amphetamines, which were not banned until 2006. This is what is generally known as “damage control”–preemptive action in case something unsavory comes out. Arroyo spent most of the 2003 season with the Red Sox’ Triple-A affiliate in Pawtucket (where he pitched a perfect game) rather than with the major league club, so this all definitely seems suspect, and introducing the idea of the then-legal andro that may have been tainted, well, it’s creating an excuse before there’s even anything to be making an excuse for! And yet, it’s still the first time I can remember a player admitting using anything without being prompted by a news story about their drug use breaking since Jose Canseco himself. Speaking of Canseco, he now says that a member of the Hall of Fame used, but refuses to say who it is. Trying to drum up publicity for a third book, perhaps?
Update: Red Sox making trade moves again! I had a feeling when the Red Sox got Adam LaRoche that he might not be staying in Boston long, and sure enough, rumor has it that he’ll be heading back to his former team, the Atlanta Braves, straight-up for Casey Kotchman.
Another Update: Scott Rolen from Blue Jays to Reds; no details yet. Wait, first detail is that Rolen has to waive a no-trade clause in order to make it happen.
Next update: Joe Beimel from Nats to Rockies for two minor leaguers; Jerry Hairston Jr. from Reds to Yankees for a minor leaguer. Also missed from previous days: Josh Anderson from Tigers to Royals for cash; Brian Anderson for Mark Kotsay straight-up; Ryan Garko from Indians to Giants for a minor leaguer.
Post-deadline news break number 1: Nick Johnson goes from Washington to Florida for a minor-league LHP.
Post-deadline news break number 2: Jake Peavy will be going to the White Sox, after all. Chicago tried to make this deal before and failed to convince Peavy to waive his no-trade clause, but this time, he apparently decided to relent. Clayton Richard, who was supposed to start for the White Sox tonight, was among the group that Chicago sent to San Diego, along with three minor leaguers, two of which have major league experience. Also, details are coming in on the Rolen deal, and Edwin Encarnacion is among the players Toronto will receive in return. Sounds like the trades have returned to the center ring, after all, even with Halladay still a Blue Jay.
Perfection
Y’know, you’d think I would’ve been paying more attention; I had the MLB scoreboard up during class. You’d think it might have hit me that the 2:05 start was already in the bottom of the eighth by around 4:00. Hell, if it weren’t for the rain in that morning golf pick, I’d have that game in SftC! All I know is that when I entered my car just past 4 PM Eastern, tuned to MLB Home Plate, I had been wondering what game to listen to, wondering if there was maybe a 4:05 start, and when I heard the guys on The Show talking about how hard it is to put 27 up, 27 down, I wondered if maybe they were interviewing someone who’d had a perfect game before. (The 10th anniversary of David Cone’s perfecto was just five days ago, after all.) When I learned what they were talking about, I rushed over to the play-by-play and listened to the ninth inning in full. Never did find out if there were any 4:05 starts; I just listened to the postgame show the whole way home.
On April 18th, 2007, Mark Buehrle faced the minimum 27 batters in a game against the Rangers at U.S. Cellular Field, and it was a no-hitter but not a perfect game, as Sammy Sosa walked and was picked off of first. Today, Buerhle didn’t need to pick anyone off. 27 Rays came to the plate, and all were out. Just listening to the final inning in the car, I was going nuts–and why shouldn’t I? That catch by Dewayne Wise sounded amazing. I’m anxiously awaiting this evening’s SportsCenter so I can actually see it. Wise was a defensive replacement, the first time this series he got to go in in that capacity because the first three games were all so close. Today, in Chicago, Mark Buehrle pitched the 18th perfect game in Major League history.
Passed Ball at the All-Star Game
Well, well, looks like I actually got a comment for once! Yeah, for the most part, this is just an extension of me having fun. Still, after utterly failing at last year’s All-Star Game–writing a potential entry on paper, but never typing it up–things are going to be different this year. We have a wireless network in the house now, so I can be typing it up as I watch. Here’s hoping it’s half as surreal as the last one.
As we continue our pregame coverage, I found out from Sirius/XM’s “The Show” that in last week’s appearance, Chone Figgins said that if he made the All-Star team, he’d do the Ozzie Smith somersault–apparently he was a big Ozzie fan. Now, thanks to the sudden scratch of Evan Longoria, Figgins is in–even though we still have two third basemen, even without Longoria, while we only have one second baseman thanks to Joe Maddon’s weird decision to replace Dustin Pedroia with a fourth first baseman. Good thing Inge, Figgins and Zobrist are all kind of utility guys…Inge has never played second, but that’s okay because we need to save him in case we need a third catcher. Oh, right, so anyway, be on the lookout for Chone Figgins to attempt to do a tribute to Ozzie Smith in tonight’s game!
The resurrection of Andruw Jones
I’ve been doing fairly well in SftC recently, and when I went to look at the play-by-play of last night’s Rangers-Angels game to see how Josh Hamilton did overall (already knowing that he’d failed to get a hit or a walk in his third plate appearance), I noticed that each of those first three ABs were immediately followed by “A Jones homered to left” (or left center, in one case), and I was thinking, “Wait, is that that ‘A Jones’?” Yeah, it is. Was his Dodgers contract up already? Nah, couldn’t have been. They must have released him. That’s the only explanation that makes sense, since there’s no way the Rangers would take on that kind of salary (and he’s not making nearly that much)…okay, maybe they would. It doesn’t say anything about him being released, but it’s quite obvious that that’s what happened. Anyway, he’s obviously been there this whole time, since those three home runs last night give him 14 on the year. How did I not know about this until now? (Or did I find out earlier in the season and just forget about it already?) One article written in the wake of last night’s game mentions how badly this must have stung fans on both sides of the LA divide, since the Dodgers only managed to get three home runs out of his bat all year in 2008. All I can say is, wow. Wait… Texas has always been one of the “red flag” teams, and I had my suspicions about him near the end of his time with the Braves after members of the ESPN show then known as Cold Pizza made note of how he’d gone from a speed guy to this huge slugger that shatters bats…You don’t think he’d be going back to an old habit, do you? …Eh, nothing’s ever been proven in the first place. Let’s just let sleeping dogs lie on this one.
To bee or not to bee
Okay, now that’s just weird. We’ve seen the local wildlife interfere with the game before–just ask the Royals about the birds in the outfield at the Jake, or the Yankees about the midges at…the Jake…yeah, Cleveland really needs to do something about those animals. But this afternoon’s Astros-Padres game was delayed for nearly an hour in the top of the ninth inning when a swarm of bees descended upon left field at Petco Park, apparently attracted to a ballgirl’s jacket that was draped over a chair. I first found out about this thanks to ESPN.com’s “Streak for the Ca$h” game (yes, that’s how it’s spelled), as the game in question was one that I’d made a pick on. Figuring the game would be just about over, I found it in the top of the ninth, two outs, no one on, and then as I was looking for something more detailed, a hit was recorded. Following it initially on the live scoreboard, it continued to say that it was a 1-0 count. For quite awhile. So I pulled up Gamecast, with the same results. Thinking ESPN.com might be lagging, I went to MLB.com. Same results. Intrigued, I turned on the actual game, and saw the bugs buzzing about–it took a little while before one of the announcers mentioned what they were, and at first I was in disbelief–”Did he just say bees?” Yes, yes he did. Bees. It also took my mind a little while to sort out which park they were in, at which point it made slightly more sense–but only slightly. Still, there are so many questions left unanswered. Where did all of those bees come from? Why were they attracted to the ballgirl’s jacket? Why did she even have a jacket for an afternoon game in San Diego? Hopefully more details will be released soon.
Update: Okay, some answers have been given: The bees, which reportedly numbered in the thousands, had attached to a queen bee. Padres president Tom Garfinkel said that head groundskeeper Luke Yoder has a beekeeper on speed-dial–which sort of says that they knew that there’s a high bee population in the area. However, this only brings up more questions. How did the queen bee get there? Why did the swarm not appear until the ninth inning? And if they knew that there might be a bee problem, why wasn’t anything done before then? To try to ascertain some of these answers, I consulted Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_bee. There, I learned about the swarming process and the virgin queens, which I presume is what we had here. You can follow the link if you’re interested in learning more. Interesting what this game can teach you, eh?
Cyberchao X
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