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Archive for May, 2010

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In a matchup that saw Marlins ace Josh Johnson square off against Phillies ace Roy Halladay the fans in Sun Life Stadium in Miami were expecting a pitcher’s duel. Johnson & Halladay didn’t disappoint. Johnson went seven innings giving up one unearned run. Halladay pitched the 20th Perfect Game in MLB history.

Roy Hallday has spent the better part of his career toiling in baseball obscurity for the Toronto Blue Jays where his dominant outings went unnoticed by most. Roy Hallday will be a first ballot hall of famer when his career ends but now he has put his name on a list with Cy Young, Sandy Koufax & Randy Johnson.

Halladay joins the most elite group in baseball history by pitching a perfect game against the Florida Marlins. The Marlins only had two well hit balls during the entire game, both at third baseman Juan Castro, once in the eight & the last out of the game.

Halladay was his typical dominant self getting groundballs as best he could. Halladay & catcher Carlos Ruiz also took advantage of home plate umpire Mike DiMuro’s generous strike zone. Halladay received a number of strikeouts courtesy of DiMuro calling strikes on balls on the outer half of the left side of the plate. Ruiz intelligently kept going to that pitch on two strike counts, it must have resulted in seven or eight of Halladay’s eleven strikeouts during the game.

While no hitters have become an after thought in the last few years due to random unknowns having them in recent years the perfect game still remains to be a great accomplishment. The perfect game is the second this season, a record in its self, and the third in the last fourteen months.

Roy Halladay is a hall of fame ballplayer but proved this evening he is a hall of fame person as well. Halladay gave all the credit to catcher Carlos Ruiz for calling such a great game. Ruiz as mentioned, took advantage of the home plate umpire, but rarely do pitchers thank the catchers in public, usually they just buy them watches.

In any event Roy Halladay is making Phillies fans quickly forget about Cliff Lee. Halladay becomes the only Phillies pitcher not named Jim Bunning to pitch a perfect game. To add to the excitement was the score being 1-0 after a Cameron Maybin error, ironically enough Maybin was pulled in the 9th for pinch hitter Wes Helms. Halladay took advantage of the Marlins aggressive nature & made history on this night.

If not for Tim Lincecum Giants starter Matt Cain may be the one getting all the accolades. And deservedly so, Cain pitched another one hitter last night, this time against the Arizona Diamondbacks. Cain had a typical dominating performance pitching a complete game, giving up only one hit while striking out nine batters. Unfortunately Cain’s stats don’t tell the whole story.

Cain is only 3-4 on the season with an ERA of 2.50. In three of his four losses Cain gave up two runs or less but still took the loss due to the San Francisco Giants anemic offense. Cain had lost his last three starts before pitching the shutout on Friday night, though he pitched well enough to win in the last two.

Cain cut down on his walks & when he does so he pitches like he did on Friday where he is nearly unhittable. Cain may be lost in the shuffle in San Francisco but if he was on the Yankees or Rays he could be an 18 to 20 game winner every year. He’s stuck in a place where 90 games out of the year the offense doesn’t try & in the past few years he’s been in the shadow of Tim Lincecum. Cain can start rolling at any point with dominant efforts like this, Giants fans are hoping that point is now.

Tim Hudson had been a master on the mound from his debut in 1999 until mid 2008 when he went down with an injury. In 2009 Hudson came back at the end of the season to make seven starts for the Braves. Hudson pitched okay in those seven starts but wasn’t his typical dominant self, leading the Braves organization to consider trading him this offseason. Instead they decided to trade Javier Vasquez & now they are reaping the benefits.

Hudson has yet to give up more than three runs in any game thus far this season, resulting in his 2.24 ERA. While his strikeouts are surprisingly down Hudson continues to get the groundballs he needs to get through innings & continue to master the game. Hudson was once thought of as one of the next 300 winners, while that may be out of the question now, 250 wins isn’t out of the question, especially if Hudson keeps this up.

The only problem this year with Hudson is Braves manager Bobby Cox keeps pulling him before he should. In three instances this year Hudson was cruising along, was pulled way too early & sat in the stadium watching as the bullpen lost the game. There have also been two games where Hudson could’ve easily pitched complete games but was pulled after the eight inning. While it may make sense due to the injury issue of 2008-2009 to not overuse Hudson he has been dominant & has kept a struggling team in the mix. Hopefully, as the season moves along & Hudson has proven he’s over his injuries Cox will allow him to let loose on the mound & actually pitch deep into games when it isn’t a blowout.

The Orlando Magic had everyone believing in them going into Game 6 of their series with Boston. They had physically dissected the Celtics in Game 5, they had between Boston on their home court in Game 4 & they had all the momentum in the world, despite two of their good players not showing up for the series. Many thought the Magic could steal another game in Boston in Game 6 but the Magic had a disappearing act.

In Game 6 Rashard Lewis didn’t bother showing up yet again but Vince Carter gave some efforts in an attempt to salvage Game 6. It wasn’t enough. Dwight Howard had a dominate big man game with 28 points & 12 rebounds. It wasn’t enough. In spite of turning the ball over more than the Magic the Celtics found themselves victorious largely due to out rebounding the Magic, every other statistically category (except points) was fairly close. The Celtics extra ten rebounds helped them send the Magic off into the Orlando sunset.

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The Celtics shouldn’t feel good though after their victory. They yet again played horribly & were lucky that Rashard Lewis didn’t show up yet again & that Jameer Nelson forgot where the basket was. The Celtics received nothing from key contributors Tony Allen, Big Baby & Kendrick Perkins. Paul Pierce had an amazing game, one he needs to do more often, Ray Allen made some threes but what really ruined the Magic in Game 6 was Nate Robinson.

Nate Robinson was such a clown that the New York Knicks traded him to the Celtics during the season knowing the Celtics would hardly use him. Currently Robinson is laughing about this, as he put the Celtics into the NBA Championship by having his best game as a Celtic. Robinson scored thirteen points in nine minutes off the bench, then entered the game for four more minutes later in the game & kept chucking shots, only to miss terribly as he had done while on the Knicks. Robinson had contributed nothing prior to Game 6 & oddly enough the Magic lost by 12 & Robinson scored 13. Had the Magic tried this game would be going to Game 7. They didn’t & now the media will continue to ridicule Dwight Howard for being a godly specimen who can’t do anything, even though he did all he could but his teammates didn’t bother trying.

At the end of April everyone wrote off David Ortiz because he was hitting .143, had only one homerun & only four runs batted in. What a difference a month makes. Ortiz is now hitting .266 with ten homeruns & twenty seven runs batted in. Many would assume Ortiz is back to form, but let’s look at the numbers a little deeper.

In April Ortiz faced Sabathia, Burnett, Pettitte & other dominant veteran pitchers. Once May hit Ortiz has been playing against these teams a second time around, where the pitchers are doing exactly what they did in April expecting the same results. Big Papi has made the adjustments. It also helps Ortiz has faced the Orioles & Blue Jays embarrassing pitchers, as well as facing the Tigers lesser pitchers.

People were calling for Mike Lowell to replace Papi in the lineup but things have calmed down quite a bit & Ortiz has actually returned to the third spot in the lineup due to his hot streak. Ortiz can easily keep up his current hot streak as the Red Sox only have five series in June & July against decent teams. Ortiz can feast on the Orioles & Blue Jays some more, as well as the terrible Indians & Diamonbacks. It is very possible Ortiz could be hitting .285 or .290 come the end of July.

In August & September the Red Sox play more of a legitimate schedule that could level out Ortiz stats. But for now things are looking good for Big Papi. The only issue for Ortiz is that the Red Sox have a few people who can take his spot in the lineup if he goes into another tailspin, luckily Terry Francona has yet to pull Ortiz for a prolonged period keeping Ortiz confidence up.

On May 16th Tim Lincecum was looking like his typical dominant self with five wins & his typical low ERA. On May 15th Lincecum recorded his fifth victory but walked five batters against the Houston Astros. In his last two starts one thing has been the same, Lincecum has struggled with his command, walking five batters against both the Diamondbacks & the Nationals.

The walks did Lincecum in against a terrible hitting team in the Diamondbacks as he gave up five runs in the bottom of the fifth inning. The battering he took against the Nationals was more expected considering he walked five batters. The Nationals have mashers Zimmerman, Dunn & Willingham, along with budding star Ian Demsond. The Nationals handed Lincecum his first loss of the season. As a result of Lincecum getting lit up like a Christmas tree the last two starts many will start suggesting Lincecum has been “found out” & he will become a pitcher like Javier Vazquez (aka average).

Individuals who would say that are severely jumping the gun. Lincecum has been so dominate he is now in the position Johan Santana was in during the 2007 season. Johan had a three year stretch where he was almost unhittable, so any time he had a bad outing everyone assumed there was something wrong physically or mechanically. Lincecum will now have to face that the rest of his career considering how dominant he’s been but given his track record let’s not write him off just yet.

No one expected the Blue Jays to win more than sixty games this year, yet they find themselves in wild card contention almost a third of the way through the season. If I told you at the beginning of the season that Adam Lind & Aaron Hill would be struggling to hit over .200, they only had two pitchers pitching well & their closer was Kevin Gregg you’d assume the team would be likely to have ten wins right now. That hasn’t been the case.

Lind & Hill have struggled mightily, the rotation has been mediocre at best after Romero & Marcum & the Blue Jays have the worst closer in the majors in Kevin Gregg. Yet they are finding ways to win. The Blue Jays are doing it the only way they possibly can, by hitting better than they’re capable of. Minor league talents Jose Bautista & Alex Gonzalez are having career years & Vernon Wells is trying for the first time since 2006. Then you include they are getting a good season out of Fred Lewis, who everyone else gave up on, it is no wonder the Blue Jays are in contention.

Don’t get too happy Blue Jays fans. The Jays have played the easiest schedule in baseball thus far & are only five games over .500. The Blue Jays still have to play real teams like the Yankees, Red Sox & Rays so they will be under .500 soon enough. As the season strolls along Lind & Hill will start playing to their abilities & the rest of the team will start playing to their capabilities. The Blue Jays have hit a lucky streak by having a bunch of players no one else wants doing good thus far but all good things must come to an end.

I wouldn’t know Joe West from any other umpire if he did his job & just keep quiet but West constantly goes out of his way to make himself the most important part of a baseball game. Joe West is a joke of an umpire & purposely makes idiotic calls & idiotic comments to get himself in the paper. We should petition Bud Selig to fire West immediately.

Last month West made idiotic comments that Red Sox & Yankees play four hour games because they talk too many pitches. The premise is incompetent to begin with as baseball games take forever because every player steps up to take swings or adjust themselves after every pitch, not because of excessive pitches. But West knew making stupid comments about the best series in baseball would get him on the paper & get him noticed.

On Wednesday West decided to make himself the story yet again. In the White Sox game West called two balks that weren’t balks, tossed Ozzie Guillen, tossed Mark Buehrle & proceeded to prove what a clown he is by simply saying he made the right call afterward. Guillen ridiculed West after the game for constantly making terrible calls during games, so he can get his name on SportsCenter & in the news. Buehrle extrapolated from the situation that West made the calls to immediately toss Guillen & himself after terrible balk calls in order to get himself in the news & some free publicity so people go out & buy his CD which comes out soon.

I’d agree with both Buehrle & Guillen, as West has always felt the need to act like a clown & make stupid calls so he can dispute them later in order to get in the headlines. If only MLB had a commissioner with a brain, West would be fired for being a terrible umpire & constantly making himself a novelty at games. Shame on you Joe West.

Ubaldo Jimenez won his first six starts, including a no hitter before finally losing his first start of the season. He’s given up two runs in twenty three innings since, recording three more victories. Jimenez has only given up seven runs in 71.1 innings thus far this season. To put that into perspective, those are the type of numbers I get in MLB The Show with created pitchers with sliders all the way up on easy mode. In other words Jimenez is putting up historic numbers.

While it may be a month too early to give Jimenez the Cy Young award it may be safe to do so. Consider that most of the unusual suspects have fallen back to earth. Then consider the fact that Tim Lincecum hasn’t looked like Tim Lincecum in a few weeks, his team doesn’t hit & his bullpen doesn’t perform when he leaves. Then consider Roy Halladay has underachieved the last few starts, the Phillies are failing to score for him & it is easy to think Jimenez can run away with the Cy Young award.

In ten starts this season Jimenez has only given up runs in five of them. He has yet to pitch less than six innings in any start. And the reason his ERA is so out of this world, is because he has yet to give up more than two runs in any start this season. Since the Rockies are facing terrible teams into mid June Jimenez could be 12-1 by time we reach flag day.