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Why did the ‘star’ pitchers get left out?
Posted in Baseball, Dodgers Baseball on May 25, 2015
This was the AP recap from the Dodger-Padres game from Sunday, May 24, 2015:
Interestingly, the names of Fernando Valenzuela, Orel Hershiser, and Ramon Martinez were left out – all Dodger aces, of course – even though they had done the same thing before too!
I had referenced Dodger starting pitchers who gave up 10+ runs on this website a year ago, just before my book on Tom Candiotti was officially released.
I’d written the following, in reference to Candiotti’s worst career start in August of 1995, when he gave up 10 runs against the Giants in just four innings:
Interestingly, Candiotti was not the only Dodger starter to give up that many runs in a single game that season. Just one month earlier, on July 2, Dodger ace Ramon Martinez allowed 10 runs over 4.2 innings in a 10-1 loss to Colorado at Dodger Stadium. Also, Candiotti and Martinez were not the only prominent Los Angeles starters to be tagged for 10 or more runs in a single game. On August 9, 1992, Orel Hershiser also gave up 10 runs over 4.2 innings in Atlanta. Back on June 29, 1983, Fernando Valenzuela surrendered 10 runs in 4.1 innings of work in San Diego. Ismael Valdez (10 runs in Houston in 1998) and Chan Ho Park (11 runs in Los Angeles versus the Cardinals in 1999; 10 runs in Colorado in 1998) would later accomplish the feat as well. It happens.
Now, the AP story didn’t include Valdez either, and that’s just poor reporting. It’s not like Martinez, Hershiser, Valenzuela, et al, pitched in the 1900s or 1910s, when record keeping was not reliable, for crying out loud! This just goes to show that sometimes you can’t believe every story you read… But, oh well, to echo what I’d said in that other post I’d written… It happens.
Omissions on ESPN.com lists
Posted in Baseball on April 6, 2015
ESPN.com recently posted its Top 20 Moments of the Last 20 Years as part of its 20th anniversary celebration, and there were some glaring omissions on that list.
Let me first state that I like the Patriots and the Saints, and I do watch hockey, so I’m a bit biased here. In ESPN.com’s Top 20 list, again, this is a list of top MOMENTS, with the Boston Red Sox rallying from an 0-3 deficit to beat the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS being ranked No. 1. No argument there with the top-ranked moment. What’s missing on the list, though, are the 2001 New England Patriots winning the Super Bowl about four months after September 11, which at the time seemed very fitting that a team with the nickname “Patriots” won a championship. That’s missing from the ESPN.com list.
Image courtesy thehallatpatriotplace.com
And what about the fact the 2007 Patriots completed the first 16-and-0 regular season in NFL history, with Tom Brady and Randy Moss setting league records? That was not on the list. As a side note, the Giants upsetting the Patriots in the Super Bowl following that season did make it at No. 7 on the list. But to not have the Patriots’ historic regular season as a top 20 moment, just doesn’t seem right.
Also missing was the 2009 New Orleans Saints winning the Super Bowl four years after Hurricane Katrina, which I believe should have been on the list. It was the first ever championship for a hard-luck franchise, and should be a top 20 moment. Similarly, there was no hockey moment that made the ESPN.com list, even though in the last 20 years we’ve seen teams such as Detroit (1997), Chicago (2010), and Boston (2011) end lengthy droughts to win the Stanley Cup. You would think that at least one of them would have made it on the list, but there was no hockey moment on there.
Speaking of droughts, the fact that the 2005 Chicago White Sox ended a World Series drought that went all the way back to 1917, should have been acknowledged as well, but didn’t crack the list. There were quite a few basketball moments that did make it, but missing was Ray Allen’s three-pointer for the Miami Heat against the San Antonio Spurs in Game Six of the 2013 NBA finals.
Some of the ones that were on the ESPN.com list included Jackie Robinson’s No. 42 being universally retired at No. 17 and Vince Young’s comeback versus USC at No.15. The No. 42 being retired across baseball was long overdue when it happened in 1997, but it isn’t a moment from a game. I believe this should have been No. 1 on its own separate list, its own separate category, a great off-the-field moment. But it doesn’t fit on this list, which seems to be a list of top moments on the field, on the court, on the ice, etc. I’m not sure that Vince Young’s comeback belongs here as well. Some of the other moments I mentioned, the Patriots’ first title and their 16-0 regular season, definitely do belong. Look at the Saints’ Super Bowl championship, and at least one of the Original Six teams’ Stanley Cup titles recently.
And oh, ESPN.com also posted a list of the Top 20 TEAMS in the Last 20 Years. Let me say that I liked the Red Sox, but I don’t agree with the 2004 Sox being ranked No. 2 behind the Chicago Bulls’ dynasty. The 2004 Boston Red Sox weren’t even the best team in their own sport in the last 20 years, as the Yankee teams from 1998 to 2000 won three straight titles and that 1998 club also was considered one of the greatest in the history of baseball. They set an American League record with 114 wins and then went on to capture their first of three straight titles. I would have to rank that Yankee dynasty ahead of the 2004 Red Sox, and I’m speaking as a Boston fan.
The top four were No. 1, the Bulls dynasty. No. 2, the 2004 Red Sox. No. 3, the New England Patriots dynasty teams. No. 4, the Yankees dynasty clubs. I would have put the Yankees at No. 2. Again with this list, there are some glaring omissions, such as the Greatest Show on Turf, the 1999 St. Louis Rams, not being on there. Teams that won multiple titles over a short period of time, such as the New Jersey Devils and the San Francisco Giants, didn’t make the cut. You could even make an argument for the 1995 Dallas Cowboys, the last of the three Super Bowl championships they won in the 1990s. The Cowboys, in fact, became the first team to win three Super Bowls in a span of four seasons when they won that championship following the 1995 season.
So, Happy Birthday, ESPN.com, and thank you for coming up with these lists as they definitely help to stir up some great debates. But I’m afraid you’ve missed the mark with some of the omissions and poorly-ranked teams.
Congratulations to the Patriots!
Posted in Odd plays on February 2, 2015
The right team won Super Bowl XLIX, with New England rallying to beat Seattle 28-24. (Hey, didn’t a simulation game play out exactly the same way?? Down 24-14, the Pats came back and won on a Tom Brady TD pass??)
Naturally, given what happened to clinch the victory at the end there, tons and tons and tons of football fans, analysts, and broadcasters across North America all suddenly think they know better than NFL coaches and offensive coordinators, with all their second-guessing. Okay, yes, if it were former NFL players second-guessing the call to pass instead of handing it off to Marshawn Lynch, then that’s fine. But what I’m talking about is people that’ve never stepped on the field in their lives thinking they are smarter than Pete Carroll or coordinator Darrell Bevell. The thing is, with only 26 seconds left, the Seahawks wouldn’t have had time to run the ball on 2nd, 3rd, and 4th down (if necessary), so they opted to throw on 2nd down. Malcolm Butler – ahhhh…the classic “The Butler Did It” headlines…. – happened to make a great play to clinch it for New England.
The bottom line is that it would be easy to knock Pete Carroll and point to his failures as an NFL head coach, but c’mon. Another comment is at least the NFL was spared from embarrassment…think about it, had Lynch gotten the ball there and scored to win the game, he would have treated the post-game on-camera interview as a joke and said nothing, the way he’d done all week with his “I’m just here so I don’t get fined” and “Y’all know why I’m here” nonsense. (And shame to those people who defend him for his actions.) And of course, with that loss, the Seahawks’ defense can finally shut up about how great they are.
(Image courtesy Getty Images)
And this victory by Brady should, once and for all, end that ridiculous debate of whether he or Peyton Manning is better. It’s no contest. Brady is 4-2 in Super Bowls – and easily could be 6-0 – while Manning is 1-2 with a blowout loss (Seahawks last year) and another game where his interception cost Indianapolis a chance to tie (Saints in 2009). Okay, yes, the elements were different, and the Seahawks’ secondary was banged up this time around, but Manning and his record-setting offense lost 43-8 to Seattle last year. Brady led a comeback from a 10-point deficit in the fourth quarter against these Seahawks. Case closed.
Finally, wow… the Boston team with the longest championship drought is the Celtics, and they last won in 2008! The Bruins won a Cup in 2011, and the Red Sox won the World Series in 2013. I still think those Sox should have an asterisk next to their name, though, as they practically tanked the previous season just to get Bobby Valentine fired. That’s real gutless and unprofessional, but I digress.
Congratulations to the New England Patriots, once again the model franchise in football. Haha to those haters who all came out after that KC game earlier in the season.
Don’t think he’s worth it…
Posted in Baseball on January 22, 2015
My thoughts on Max Scherzer’s $210-million deal with the Washington Nationals are simple: No pitcher is worth that much money, and certainly not for seven years, as the length of that deal is. You never know when pitchers’ arms break down, so a long-term deal is certainly a risk.
Then you look at Scherzer’s stats. In his Cy Young year in 2013, the Tigers gave him an average of 5.64 runs of support, and he finished 21-3 with a 2.90 ERA. Now, a 2.90 ERA is certainly respectable, and Comerica Park is no longer considered the pitchers’ park that it was when it originally opened. Having said that, though, a 2.90 ERA in Scherzer’s best year does not make him elite. It’s not like Bob Gibson or Pedro Martinez or Greg Maddux in his best years. It’s not like Roger Clemens or Kevin Brown (whose record deal with the Dodgers back in 1999 turned out to be a bust). Those guys at least posted ERAs under 2.00 in their greatest years and were the dominant pitchers of their time. In the cases of Martinez, Maddux, and Clemens, they had their best years while pitching in hitter-friendly parks (and in Pedro’s case he also pitched at the height of the so-called Steroid Era).
True, Scherzer does strike out a lot of guys, fanning over 10 batters per nine innings in each of the last three years. But then you look at the American League, where he pitched for the last five years. In his own league, guys like Chris Sale and Felix Hernandez were arguably better pitchers than Max Scherzer was. Put Scherzer in a Mariners uniform in 2013, and how many games would he have won? (For the record, Hernandez went 12-10 with a 3.04 ERA with Seattle in 2013.)
And naturally, with the Scherzer signing, there’s some hype. For example, there’s talk about how Washington’s rotation might give up the fewest runs in NL history (something that owner Mark Lerner said during the news conference to announce the signing). There’s talk about them perhaps having one of the best rotations in baseball history. Again, that’s laughable. Well, let’s not forget how the Phillies’ 2011 rotation of Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels, and Roy Oswalt was talked about possibly being the best ever. That team didn’t even make the World Series. Their season ended with a 1-0 loss, with Halladay on the mound, in Game Five of the Division Series. Sure, you can assemble the “greatest” staff “in baseball history” but you still need to score runs. You still can’t count on everyone staying healthy. And you can’t count on Max Scherzer, a guy with a 2.90 ERA in his best year, as one of the elite. (Let’s not forget his two starts against Boston in the 2013 ALCS, where he left both outings after 108 and 110 pitches, respectively, and the Red Sox came back to win both games.)
At this point, it’s all hype and I’m definitely not buying in. Congratulations to Scherzer on getting that contract. I just don’t think he’s worth it.
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