Baseball Blog

Archive for October, 2007

Before 2004, the Boston Red Sox had not won a World Series in 86 years. Many attributed this to a curse. My thoughts on that is that it probably had more to do with playing with the best team historically in baseball in their division and choke jobs. It wasn’t a curse that forced them to lose game seven in 2003 against New York, it was Grady Little’s decision not to remove an ailing Pedro Martinez from the game.

But all that is moot now. The team has won two championships in four years and has the talent to contend for years to come. They have the right mix of young, exciting players and veteran players who use their smarts to help the team win.

Now I’m not going to regal readers with recaps of the last two games and the ensuing celebration. The Red Sox swept the series and are the best team for the 2007 season. The real story here is how the team that used to be a lovable loser has now become the enemy. What are the things fans hate about the Yankees? That they spend more money than most teams can afford? That they make the playoffs every year while other squads fight to make it once every few seasons?

Well the Red Sox are now in the same overspending, perennial contending boat that New York is. The fact is that Boston, while never completely adapting the Yankee’s philosophy, won their titles in much the same way Steinbrenner went about winning. They bought big names and free agents and put together a team that would be a failure without a title by the end of the year.

So I hope now that the team is prepared to take the hate that comes with being elite and wealthy. I highly doubt fans outside of Boston are going to sympathize with the organization anymore. And I fully expect some other lovable loser, like the Cubs, to get nationwide attention now.

But at the end of the day, I doubt Boston really cares. After all, they do have two more rings than they did when everyone liked them.

Congrats to the Bo Sox.

After watching the first two games of the World Series, it seems more and more likely that the Red Sox are going to have an easy time claiming their 2nd title this decade over the Colorado Rockies. Not only is Boston up 2-0 after two games, they have dominated Colorado’s mighty sluggers. In the first two contests, the Rockies have only managed a total of 11 hits and 2 runs. On the flip side, the Red Sox have had 23 hits and 14 runs (though to be fair most of that production came in game 1.)

This is pretty much what any reasonable baseball fan would have expected. The Red Sox have the better starting pitching. Both Josh Beckett and Curt Schilling are proven post-season performers with championship rings under their belt already. And the Boston bullpen is just nasty. Jonathon Papelbon, Hideki Okajima, Mike Timlin, and Eric Gagne is better than what any other team has.

To regain some degree of momentum in this series, Colorado has to go back to its one game at a time philosophy and forget about the early losses. The fact of the matter is that they lost two road games and are going home. If they can manage to win all of their home games, they will have a great shot to take the series in Boston. And even if they do end up losing this series, they should not be disappointed or unhappy with their season. No one, and I mean no one, would have picked this team as a World Series team. I can’t stress enough just how impressive their late season run has been.

Overall this has been a pretty good series so far. Game 2 was an incredibly close contest that was won by the superior, if only by a slight amount, pitching staff. I do expect Colorado to put up a fight before they go down, however. Expect a very different effort offensively from the team as they face the end of Boston’s four man playoff rotation.

And on a final note, if the Red Sox do win the title…can we all agree that Boston fans have no right to complain about futility for the next century? Between the Celtics in the 80s, the Patriots dynasty a few years ago, and the Red Sox, the team has had more success than any other city in sports. Add in the fact that the current Patriots are tearing up the NFL and that the current Celtics are the talk of the NBA, and it would be hard to ever take a disgruntled Boston fan seriously for the foreseeable future.

So far on this blog, I have tried previewing one series and I am oh-for-one. But as the popular saying goes, whenever you fail, try, try again. So here I am once more, trying to predict the outcome of the final series in the 2007 MLB season.

After several short, and one long, playoff rounds, the two teams left are the Boston Red Sox and the Colorado Rockies. My hat goes off to both teams. The Rockies are a team that no one would have picked before the playoffs began, or the season for that matter, while the Red Sox overcame great adversity against Cleveland to get to the Fall Classic at all. Again, congratulations to both teams.

With that said, only one team is going to walk away with baseball’s greatest achievement. So which will it be? Well to answer, let’s look at each team’s strengths and weaknesses.

Pitching - During their miraculous winning streak, the Colorado Rockies have gotten solid contributions out of everyone, including their starting line-up, but they have nowhere near the talent Boston does in arms. Josh Beckett has already won a World Series MVP with Florida. Curt Schilling has helped two teams win titles. And the bullpen of the Sox rarely gives up leads when it has a chance to close a game. The advantage here clearly goes to Boston.

Hitting - Coming out of the regular season, the Red Sox had the fourth-most runs scored and the Rockies had the fifth-most in the majors. Colorado has gotten timely hitting and clutch bats throughout their last twenty games or so. But so has Boston. In fact, the Sox hitters scored thirty runs over the past three games. Picking a winner in this category is just too tough, so for now we will go with even.

Managers - With no disrespect meant towards the Rockies’ skipper, Terry Francona has been here before and left successfully. And he has came back from two big deficits in ALCS rounds.

Overall - The Rockies have been proving everyone wrong throughout October, but to win the World Series they will have to overcome superior talent and heavy odds. Its hard to go against a superior pitching staff, especially when the batting is about even.

Prediction - Red Sox in six.

Back before the 2007 baseball season began, the Red Sox were a team in disarray. They had just finished third in their division and out of the playoffs and were seemingly reverting to their losing ways before 2004. To keep the team from seeming complacent, the management opted to spend money and improve the team. The most talked about move, of course, was the signing of Daisuke Matsuzaka. After paying over fifty-one million dollars just to talk to him, the Red Sox then dished out an additional fifty-two million to get him in uniform.

For those who can’t add, or don’t want to, that sums up to 103 million dollars. For a player who had never thrown a single pitch in the majors before.

Ridiculous? Maybe a little. But Daisuke had the natural skills and hype to justify the move. And his first season, while it was more of a roller coaster than the consistent success teams want, was pretty good. Fifteen wins with over two-hundred strikeouts is not a bad thing from the third pitcher in a rotation.

But now, with his team tied 3-3 in the ALCS, Daisuke has to prove he was worth the money, worth the hype. It may not be fair to put this much pressure on a first-year starter. But when you play for a team in the majors, in a city like Boston, and for a team like the Red Sox, that is what you should expect.

So now we get to see. Did the Bo-Sox pay over a hundred million dollars for a pitcher that took them to the World Series? Or did they overpay for a player who wasn’t as ready for the show as everyone thought he was?

Either way, game seven is must-watch television for any fan of baseball.

Before I start this blog, I want to clear any thoughts that I might be focusing only on the Yankees and Red Sox. The truth is that I hate it when ESPN and other media outlets spend eighty percent of their time focusing on two of all the teams in the major leagues. With that said, the sports stories are slow this time of the year with so few teams in play. And with the Yankees in the midst of many big stories, such as A-Rod’s impending free agency and the current Torre dismissal, it seems relevant to talk about them.

OK, so back to the Torre story. After reports that Steinbrenner and the Yankees would just straight-up fire Torre, the team ended up making him an offer to return. Five million dollars over one season. There were two main complaints Torre had with this offer. One, the team decreased his salary from the previous season despite his overwhelming success over his twelve-year tenure. Two, it was a one year deal that basically made Joe into a lame duck.

So was this offer really that insulting? To most of us, five million dollars to manage a team is not a bad thing. But would any of us be happy with a pay cut? After your boss publicly stated his dissatisfaction with your work? Probably not. Joe Torre had good reason to feel under-appreciated and not wanted, and it made perfect sense for him to turn down his insulting offer.

What the Yankees don’t seem to understand is the next manager is not going to have it easier. How is a new manager going to take over the team, with the same pitching and age problems, and turn them back into a World Series winner? How are they going to deal with the pressure of managing in New York? I wouldn’t be surprised to see the team take a drastic downturn and miss the playoffs next year.

Joe Torre deserves all the praise and all the credit for the Yankees success. Any other team in the major leagues would have given him a lifetime contract for his results. Too bad the one team that won’t was the one he managed.

Forgive me if I seem a little anti-Cleveland, but these Indians are the same team that beat my Tigers out for the AL Central crown. These Indians are the same team that pulled out more close games than any team ever deserves to. And more over, these Indians are from the same town as LeBron James, who took out my Pistons singlehandedly. So again, forgive me if I openly root against the Cleveland Indians.

But that aside, what is wrong with the Bo Sox? Going into the series they had reliable pitching, a good bullpen, and big-time hitters. Why haven’t they been able to contain the Indians since game 1? Why haven’t they been able to hit since game 1? Maybe these Indians, like the Rockies in the National League, are just a team of destiny. A team that defeats traditional odds with momentum and total teamwork.

The same thing happened to the Tigers last year. A miraculous run all season led them to a five game defeat to the Cardinals. And lets not forget that the Cardinals managed to win the World Series after barely squeezing into the playoff picture.

So maybe these Red Sox were set to lose from the beginning. Or maybe they just plain are not worthy of a championship this year. Maybe they have problems from within, in their rotation, in their lineup, and in their philosophy. Just recently, Manny Ramirez dismissed a possible loss with a flippant, “who cares” comment.

If he doesn’t care, why should we? I guess all that is wrong with the Red Sox is that they just aren’t good enough to get to the World Series again. Too bad.

A few days ago, before the championship series begun, I wrote that the Arizona Diamondbacks would ride their aces to a series victory. Two games later, the Rockies are up 2-0 and have won both of their games in Arizona. The statistic being run around is that no team has ever come back to win a seven-game baseball series after losing two games at home. If that holds true, it appears as if the Rockies are on their way to the World Series.

Maybe they are a team of destiny. Maybe their momentum, which I so callously disregarded before, is too great for any team to overcome. Or maybe, just maybe, they really are the best that the National League has to offer. But no matter what the reason is, the Rockies deserve all the credit for playing a wonderful last two months of the season, thus far at least.

As a Tigers fan, I can say from personal experience that Colorado fans should enjoy this. Deep runs in the playoffs don’t happen every year for teams outside of Boston and New York and the Rockies may lose their “team of destiny” status to some other hungry team next year. So enjoy this run right now.

As for the Diamondbacks, it is still possible to come back from this deficit. The truth is that stats like the one above are meant to be broken. But to win, they have to play near perfect baseball now. They have to show that they can get timely hits and continue their hot pitching. And they have to remember that each game starts at 0-0, and not worry about the Rockie’s momentum or 2-0 series lead.

And to all baseball fans, watch this series. It is entertaining and worth watching.

Who would have expected this? Of all of the teams to face off in the National League Championship Series, the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Colorado Rockies probably would have made the bottom of the list on most predictions. But here they are, both vying for a spot in the World Series and a chance at baseball’s highest glory.

Going into the series, both teams are coming off of 3-0 beatings of their first-round opponents. The Diamondbacks handled the Cubs while the Rockies shocked the Phillies, who perhaps spent too much time celebrating their division crown. Momentum, therefore, should not be an advantage for either team. Both squads are hot and confident.

In these types of games, the team with the better pitching usually ends up taking home the National League ring. The Diamondbacks, while a little weak in the later parts of their rotation, have the best pitcher, by far, of the two teams in Brandon Webb. It wasn’t too long ago that Webb was in the running for the all-time scoreless streak. He should have no trouble pitching in three games and taking home two, or more, wins.

In terms of hitting, the Rockies have an advantage. The team just knows how to bring home runs and this fact alone should make this series more competitive than any of the divisional series games. But hitting alone rarely wins a playoff series. Because the Diamondbacks can pitch well and have good enough hitting, it is not much of a stretch to pick them to win this series in six games. But the Rockies shouldn’t feel bad if they do lose, they have had one of the best seasons of anyone this year.

In professional sports, one of the hardest jobs to coach/manage has been the Yankee’s position. The enormous pressure put on the unlucky soul who gets this job is almost too much for one person to handle. Joe Torre, the man who has held the job for the past twelve years, may become the latest victim to succumb to this pressure. After his team fell down 0-2 to the Cleveland Indians, owner George Steinbrenner declared that Torre would not be back if the Yankees did not win the series.

Now, a few days later, the Yankees are once again out of the playoffs and Torre’s job is seemingly gone. But does the long-time skipper deserve to be canned after leading his team to the playoffs every year? I would say no.

How many people really thought New York could win the World Series this year? A faulty and old pitching staff with an injury-prone line-up hardly seemed very threatening. Still, the team shook off a horrible start and made the playoffs as the wild card. Why not give Torre some actual young talent for once instead of overpaying old sluggers? If anyone deserves to go, it is Brian Cashman, the man making all of these personnel decisions.

How many other managers could win three titles and take the team to the World Series four times? How many others could take on different personalities, injury problems, and big-time pressure and produce twelve playoff seasons in a league where only four American League teams get to go every year?

The answer is not too many. If the Yankees fire Torre without giving him a chance with a competent general manager, they will find themselves regretting it next year and longer.

Going into this year, the baseball playoff picture in both leagues was seemingly set. The Mets and Tigers were coming off great years and seemed to have the momentum to make the playoffs again. Then both teams fell down the stretch and lost. And the Indians, Phillies, Rockies, Diamondbacks, and Cubs came out of nowhere to make it in. Most unexpected of all, however, is how uncompetitive the first round of the playoffs have been. If the Yankees fall to the Indians tonight, every series would have resulted in a 3-0 sweep. Since when did October become so one-sided?

The biggest problem of the playoffs may now lie with Joe Torre. According to the omnipresent boss, a loss to the Indians means that Torre’s career with New York may finally be over. Down 2-0, a win in the first round may be the toughest task the manager has ever had.

And are the Cubs really cursed? Or is that just an excuse. Personally, I lean towards the latter. The Wood and Prior injuries were a direct result of Dusty overusing them. And the Bartman fiasco really had nothing to do with the team losing. Bartman didn’t make the error at shortstop to put a man on or drive in the winning run for the Marlins. The Cubs fans who moan and groan about this curse should really just stop blaming outside factors. Your players stink, your managers stink, and your front office stinks. Its not a goat’s fault or Bartman’s fault. It’s the teams. Deal with it.

On a similar note, does anyone else feel more bad for Phillies fans than Cubs fans. Between the Eagles, Phillies, 6ers, and Flyers, the city almost always comes up short in athletics. Throw the town some sort of bone.

This has been a very weird season in baseball. Whose gonna win the championship? The favorites now have to be the Red Sox…but the way this month has gone, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Rockies win in six over the Angels (not my prediction.) Stay tuned.