Results tagged ‘ Johan Santana ’
The Sunday Scuttlebutt
And now, it’s time for something entirely new. Here is the first edition of the “Sunday Scuttlebutt.”…
The Red Sox are playing very well right now, with six
straight victories heading into Patriot’s Day, but are also facing the very real
possibility that Jed Lowrie will miss the rest of the season with a serious
wrist injury. If that happens, GM Theo Epstein will have to make a trade for a
more seasoned shortstop. Journeyman Nick Green, currently filling in, is not a
long-term answer, nor is the declining Julio Lugo, who remains on the disabled
list. Do not be surprised to hear rumors of the Red Sox dealing for someone
like Oakland’s Bobby Crosby or Pittsburgh’s Jack Wilson…
The Yankees’ Chien-Ming Wang will receive at least one more
start before being demoted to the bullpen–or to Triple-A Scranton-Wilkes Barre.
If Wang endures another beating in his next start, which is currently scheduled
for next weekend in Boston,
the Yankees will replace him in the rotation with Phil Hughes and move the
sinkerballing right-hander to the bullpen. There is an outside possibility that
the Yankees could send him back to the minor leagues, but as a vested veteran,
Wang would have to grant his permission to such a move…
Jorge Posada isn’t exactly thrilled with Joe Girardi’s plan
to remove him from the latter stages of games in which the Yankees are nursing thin
leads. On Friday, Girardi pulled Posada before the top of the ninth, replacing
him with defensive specialist Jose Molina. Posada then left the Yankee
clubhouse before reporters arrived, fueling speculation that he was upset by
being yanked from the game. From where I stand, Girardi’s plan is a smart one.
Posada, returning from major shoulder surgery, has thrown out only two of eight
basestealers this year. Even when fully healthy, Posada is vastly inferior to
Molina in terms of arm strength and general catching skills. Right about now,
Molina might just be the major leagues’ best throwing catcher…
The Johan Santana trade is looking better and better for the
Mets. Earlier this week, the Twins designated right-hander Philip Humber, a
major piece in the package the Mets surrendered for the great Santana. The
Twins will now have to trade Humber at a
bargain basement price or hope that he clears waivers and accepts an assignment
to Triple-A Rochester. Humber has been a huge
disappointment in the Twin Cities, unable to crack a young rotation that lost
both Santana and Matt Garza over the past two years…
Notwithstanding Luis Castillo’s game-winning infield single
on Friday and his current flirtation with a .400 batting average, the Mets
still have major worries over the future production they can expect from the
aging middle infielder. The Mets are already considering a contingency plan
that involves a platoon of Alex Cora and Fernando Tatis. Here’s the problem:
Tatis has almost no experience playing second base, having started his career as
a third baseman before learning to play the outfield corners. But Mets GM Omar
Minaya believes in Tatis, largely because of his athleticism and the way that
he has taken to playing the outfield…
Citi Field, the Mets’ new home, has received criticism for
detailing too much baseball history that has no direct connection to the Mets
and for failing to acknowledge the team’s own rich history, which dates back to
1962. The latter criticism is legitimate–the Mets should have a Hall of Fame,
or at least a Wall of Fame somewhere within the large confines of Citi
Field–but the former criticism is bogus, to say the least. Why shouldn’t the Mets honor the legacy of
someone like Jackie Robinson, who not only changed the course of the Brooklyn
Dodgers’ franchise, but laid the groundwork for alterations to all of
baseball’s rosters? The Mets, like all other 29 franchises, have had important
African-American players along with dark skinned Latinos, many of whom would
have seen their major league debuts delayed if Robinson had failed. The Jackie
Robinson Rotunda is a fitting tribute to someone who remains pertinent to the
game today, even 62 years after he first took the field at Ebbets Field…
How much did Harry Kalas mean to the Phillies’ organization
and their nation of fans? On Saturday, Kalas lay in state at Philadelphia’s
Citizens Bank Park,
making him the first baseball man since Babe Ruth to have his casket displayed
at his team’s home ballpark. Thousands of fans poured through Citizens Bank
Park to pay tribute to
the man who had become almost as synonymous to the franchise as Mike Schmidt.
Kalas, who died on Monday at the age of 73, was still regarded as one of the
game’s best play-by-play men and was likely years away from retirement. He will
be missed enormously.
Opening Day Arrives!
If ever a team needed a dramatic come-from-behind win on
Opening Day to rejuvenate the hopes of a sagging fan base, it was the
Pittsburgh Pirates. Down by two runs with two outs and a man on base in the top
of the ninth, the Pirates mounted a nearly miraculous rally. Facing newly
crowned Cardinals closer Jason Motte, Adam LaRoche kept the Pirates alive with
an RBI single. Eric Hinske, one of the team’s few veteran winter acquisitions,
followed with a double, putting runners on second and third. After Motte hit
Brandon Moss with a pitch, light-hitting Jack Wilson delivered a two-strike
double to the gap, clearing the bases to give the Bucs a 6-4 lead and setting
the table for one of the franchise’s most thrilling wins in recent memory.
The Pirates did little of tangible consequence over the
winter, adding only Hinske, backup outfielder Craig Monroe, and utility
infielder Ramon Vazquez as low-end free agent signings. With such little cause
for optimism, most Pirates fans have resigned themselves to another last-place
finish in the NL Central. That still might happen, unless the Reds or the
Astros fall back even further in a weakened division, but at least the long
suffering Steel City can take some solace in an
exhilarating Opening Day win against a division rival. Watch out, ’71 Pirates,
here comes Mashing McLouth and the LaRoche Brothers!…
While the Pirates have few burdens of high expectations, the
Yankees find themselves at the opposite end of the rainbow. Their high-priced
winter pickups failed miserably on Day One as part of an ugly 10-5 loss to the
ever-rebuilding Orioles. CC Sabathia failed to make it through five innings,
while walking five batters and failing to register a single strikeout. Mark
Teixeira didn’t fare much better; he went 0-for-4, topped off by an
eighth-inning at-bat in which he stranded the potential tying run on base.
Still, the Yankees found themselves in the game, down only 6-5, before watching
relievers Phil Coke, Brian Bruney, and Damaso Marte implode during a four-run
eighth. Hey, it’s only one game, but CC and Tex will surely be reminded of their
exorbitant salaries in Tuesday’s editions of the Post and Daily News. The
pressure will only grow if their Opening Day futility becomes a trend, and
that’s something the Yankees don’t need as they try to avoid repeating what has
become a bad habit in recent seasons–lousy play in April and May that puts the
team into early holes…
The Mets did much better than the Yankees in their opener,
clipping the Reds, 2-1, on a dreary, cold afternoon in Cincinnati. Jerry Manuel surprised the Mets
broadcasters, most of their fans, and yours truly by pulling Johan Santana
after only five and two-thirds innings. With Santana’s pitch count nearing the
dreaded 100 marker (he was at 99)–and bells, whistles, and alarms sounding in
the minds of the pitch-count preachers–Manuel called on ex-Mariner Sean Green
to quell a sixth-inning rally. Manuel decided to use the rest of the game as a
showcase for three of his newest relievers, with Green followed by more
heralded pickups J.J. Putz and Francisco Rodriguez. The trio of bullpen
newcomers pinned the Reds down the rest of the afternoon, combining to pitch
three and a third innings of hitless relief. From the Reds’ perspective, Dusty
Baker will surely draw the wrath of the aforementioned pitch counters, as he
allowed ace Aaron Harang to throw 114 pitches in 39-degree weather. As long as
Baker remains in charge, Sabermetricians and second-guessers alike will have
plenty of material with which to attack Baker for his old-fashioned way of
doing things…
With a new season upon us after an extraordinarily long and
bitter winter, you may have noticed a few subtle changes to our homepage here
at “Cooperstown Confidential.” For the first month of the 2009 season, we’ll honor
the memory of the fallen Dock Ellis by displaying his Topps rookie card from
1969. Hopefully, Dock was wearing curlers and smiling from above as he watched
his Pirates pull out a finish that would have made the “Lumber Company” proud.
In other changes, we’ve added links to some of our favorite baseball web sites,
including Baseball Think Factory and Bronx Banters. Lovers of film and TV will
notice the link to the incredible IMDB site, too. We’ll be adding more links as
the season progresses.
Other plans are in the works. We’ll be adding some few
features (including an historical piece on great nicknames), keeping tabs on
Keith Olbermann, and generally posting more often during the new baseball
season. Please let us know what you think of the changes, and feel free to make
suggestions about what you would like to see and read in this space. Let the
comments fly in 2009!
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