The State of Pitching

OMG, a post about sports!!!!

MLB needs to hold a summit meeting in the off-season to discuss the state of pitching, particularly starters. I got this idea after hearing the news about Stephen Strasburg's latest injury.

 I've never seen a season where there were so many early exits, skipped starts, innings limit issues, pitchers shut down for the season, multiple times on the disabled list, etc. This has led to what seems to be an endless stream of pitchers called up to make their major league debuts...and then shortly after that they're on the DL as well.

Baseball has a lot of problems, but this is a crisis to me. They need to evaluate their training and workout programs as well as how they handle pitch counts and innings limits (face it, not only did the Nationals screw up their playoff hopes in 2012 with how they handled their end-of-season Strasburg shutdown, the last two seasons he's been oft-injured.)

What do you think of my idea?

My Return To Baltimore

I've got a new album on Photobucket featuring pics from my quick trip to Baltimore in September. It was a double dose of nostalgia for me. The reason I went was to see a Baltimore Orioles-Toronto Blue Jays old-fashioned doubleheader -- "old-fashioned" meaning you pay for one ticket and see two ballgames (thanks to a previously rained-out game). None of that day-night separate-admission nonsense! So I bought a ticket on StubHub at a good discount below face value, and booked a hotel for one night.

The other part of my nostalgia was because I have a soft spot for Baltimore since I lived there for nine months in 2002 when I was selected for a special work assignment. The government paid for a furnished apartment and I got some per diem money for meals and such. I've been back a time or two since, and every time I go I like to look for familiar landmarks and see what's changed. Take a look at the album and photo descriptions for more about my trip.

Free bus service with a few different routes. Philly needs this.

MLB Stupid, CFB Stupid

Just a couple of sports rants here. Perhaps "annoying" is the more appropriate word for one of the two  mentioned in the post's title, but I'm sticking with "stupid."

Major League Baseball: They decided to add a second Wild Card team in each league, determining that the two Wild Card teams in each league would have a one-game playoff to decide which team moves to the Division Series. Then, they decided to rush to implement it this year. First, it allowed mediocre and underachieving teams like the Diamondbacks, Angels and, yes, Phillies to pretend they were actually contending at the end of the season.

Then, because they rushed it into effect this year, when the schedule had already been set and there was little flexibility for fitting another playoff game into the schedule, it was decided that the winner of the Wild Card game would start the best-of-five Division Series at home instead of flying to the city of their opponent, the team with the best record in the league. So that team got punished by starting with two games on the road followed by three at home, instead of the customary two home, two road, final game at home. I didn't realize it at first but the same rule applied to the Division Series involving the other division winners as well.

The result of this, besides a World Series between the Detroit Tigers and San Francisco Giants (Tigers in 5, by the way)? Home field disadvantage. There have been 33 games in the playoffs so far, and the road team has won 17 -- more than half. The two Wild Card games went to the road teams, and in the four Division Series the road teams went 11-9. Some sanity was restored in the League Championship Series as home teams won 7 of 11 games.

College Football: This is the one that's more annoying, and part of my problem is that, because I didn't go to college, I have no true rooting interest. I can sort of root for the local schools, but that only goes so far. What's made things worse is the big schools' switching conferences in recent years, chasing after more and more money. It's watered down or ended a number of traditional rivalry games, caused ridiculous anomalies such as the Big Ten conference having 12 teams and the Big East soon to include schools from places like Idaho and California, all of which makes it more difficult for the casual fan to keep track of. And (helped by the television networks) it's led to about thirty different games available on TV every Saturday, many of them being played at the same time on different networks. With all of this, when I do want to sit and watch a game, I have no idea which one I should watch, so I end up flipping back and forth hoping to find something compelling, usually without success.

And don't even get me started on the BCS or the eventual switch to a four-team playoff.

Phils' Wild Card Hopes...

I just finished watching the Dodgers score 2 in the 9th to stun the Cardinals. What it does, besides LA and St. Louis now being tied for the last NL Wild Card position, is keep the Phillies within 3 games despite the Phils' disgraceful two losses against the putrid, worst-record-in-baseball Houston Astros.

I hate to say it, but although there seemed to be real hope going into Thursday, I think the Phils' chances of pulling off the miraculous comeback are almost dead now. They're a game behind the Pirates and a half-game behind the Brewers, thanks to those two losses to Houston. So with 16 games left, the Phils are back to having to pass four teams in the standings. And after St. Louis leaves LA, they have a week of games against those same lowly Astros (who just managed to beat the Phillies twice) and the almost-as-bad Cubs.

I do think it would be fun to see the Phils sneak in as the second Wild Card, beat Atlanta in the single-game Wild Card round and then beat Washington (if the Nats finish with the league's best record) in the Division Series, thus "winning" the National League East despite finishing in third place. But with each day (and each loss to Houston...notice how I keep harping on that? You can't lose to the worst team in baseball, you just CAN'T) it seems more unlikely.

Holy Cow, A Sports Blog Post!

I was planning to write a little post about the Eagles, with their season beginning tomorrow and all, but events have inspired me to make this post about a few different topics.

For one, the Phillies are 6 1/2 games behind St. Louis for the second NL Wild Card because the Cards lost while the Phils, after a long delay, were rained out. People think of last year, when other teams made huge comebacks to get into the playoffs -- that very same St. Louis team not only got in, but eliminated the Phillies and won the World Series -- and think that the Phils could do the same.

But it's so extremely unlikely. The Phils have to pass not only the Cards, but the Dodgers, Diamondbacks, Pirates and Brewers. The Pirates are fading fast. (Sorry, Kurt.) They're 9-19 over the last month. But the Brewers are on fire, 15-4 in their last 19. In addition, the Phils have no games left against any of these teams, which means even if they finish strong, they'll have to rely on all of these other teams losing enough games to get the Phils in. So there's really no reason at this point to get excited.

On another baseball note, normally I'd enjoy a team that's been an underdog for so long making a strong run at a championship. But then there's the Washington Nationals. From this spring's sad attempt to keep Phils fans out of their ballpark, to Jayson Werth's various comments since he left town, to their butthead general manager whining like a baby when Cole Hamels hit their hyped rookie Bryce Harper with a pitch, to their continued mediocre attendance despite a new ballpark and a winning team, I've developed a bit of a dislike for the Nats.

And the last straw is how they've completely mishandled Stephen Strasburg.

Phillies 2012!

The season begins tomorrow in Pittsburgh. The Phillies go after a sixth consecutive National League Eastern Division title, on the road to a third World Series appearance and their ultimate goal, a second World Series championship in five years. I think there's a lot to worry about, especially early on with both Ryan Howard and Chase Utley out with injuries. If games are close because the offense is struggling, the Phils will need their bullpen to do the job and I'm not sure they're up to it right now. Then again, it seems like the bullpen has always a concern and somehow things work out.

They seem to have dodged a bullet by letting Ryan Madson go away and signing Jonathan Papelbon to be the closer. Madson had Tommy John surgery and is out for the season after signing for one year with Cincinnati. But if the guys in front of Papelbon can't hold leads for the monster starting rotation...anyway, although it's tempting (particularly for those national "experts" I love so much) to say that Atlanta or Washington or Florida Miami will overtake the Phils, I'm going to do with the Phils what I did with the Braves for all those years in the 1990s and early 2000s: keep picking them to win until they don't. So I present my picks for the divisions and wild cards (yes, two...ugh...). I again present my disclaimer that I don't have a deep awareness of what's going on with each team, so these are very uneducated guesses:

NL East
1. Phillies
2. Miami
3. Atlanta
4. Washington
5. New York Mets

NL Central: St. Louis
NL West: San Francisco
NL Wild Cards: Miami, Arizona
AL East: New York Yankees
AL Central: Detroit
AL West: Los Angeles Angels
AL Wild Cards: Texas, Tampa Bay

MixBlog 10-27-11

I need to put some content up here so the twelve or so of you who are actually reading this stuff (as compared to all the hits I get from people doing Google searches for pictures of shirtless guys*) continue to stop by, so here are some little observations...

Baseball: Right now I'm watching Game 6 of the World Series. It's kind of bizarre. It's 4-4 in the 6th as I write this and both the Texas Rangers and St. Louis Cardinals seem to be trying to give the game away with various displays of ineptitude. If they're this mistake-prone in Game 6, what happens if the Cards tie the series and they have to play the dreaded all-or-nothing Game 7? Update: 7-4 Texas in the 7th. Will this game end before I finish this post?

Hockey: Speaking of mistake-prone, I had the Flyers game on earlier. They were playing the Atlanta Thrashers Winnipeg Jets 2.0, who came into the game with a 2-5-1 record, at the Whatever-The-Bank's-Called-This-Week Center. Last night the Flyers lost at Montreal by a 5-1 score. The Canadiens were 1-5-2 before beating the Flyers and hadn't won a home game. So you had to figure the Flyers would be kind of desperate to put together a solid effort.

They fell behind 5-1 in the second period. I tweeted about it at the time and used these hashtags: #karma #apologizesimmonds (referring to this). After the teams traded goals, the Flyers then scored two more in the second and three in the first three minutes of the third period to take a 7-6 lead. I was worried that my tweet was serving as a reverse jinx.

2011 World Series

It's the St. Louis Cardinals and the Texas Rangers this year.

Bleh. I don't want either team to win (although I suppose, if you held a gun to my head, I'd say I hate St. Louis and their phony fans and their slimy manager who supports the Tea Party nuts more than the team once co-owned by George W. Bush). I don't plan to watch very intently. It might be on in the background while I'm online or something but that's it. But since I've been making predictions for the playoffs, I guess I have to do it for this series as well, so...Rangers in 5.

Wake me up when pitchers and catchers report to Clearwater.

Ballpark Rankings Update - O.co Coliseum

While I was in the San Francisco area I was able to get to an Oakland Athletics game. They play in what is now called the O.co Coliseum. O.co is the new name for Overstock.com. It's a terrible name but the sponsorship makes sense, since the whole Moneyball theory the A's operate on is based on trying to get quality players at a cheap price. Anyway, O.co is an old place -- older than the Vet. It opened in 1966 for the NFL Raiders and the A's moved in from Kansas City in 1968. So old that the men's room had troughs instead of urinals. I've taken a vow to never use a trough.

Being one of those multi-purpose places, the sightlines aren't so great in some areas. And even where I sat (seven rows behind the visitors' dugout; thanks for not buying up the good seats, A's fans), it seemed far away because there's a lot of room between the stands and the foul lines. That helps pitchers a lot, because foul pops that go into the seats in many places are easily caught here.

I stood up between innings of the game (in which the former Philadelphia A's beat Detroit, the day after the Tigers clinched the AL Central title) and circled around to take this video. YouTube is having issues again, or something, because the sound

Phillies: So Much For Those "Previews"

At the end of June the Phillies and Boston Red Sox played a three-game series at Citizens Bank Park. The media, fans, etc. hyped it as a "World Series preview."

The Phils took two of three. The Red Sox aren't in the playoffs after their mighty September collapse, capped off by last night's stunning 9th-inning loss at Baltimore combined with the Tampa Bay Rays' rally from a 7-0 deficit to beat the Yankees in extra innings.

At the end of July, and again in early August, the Phils and San Francisco Giants got together for the first time since last year's NL Championship Series. The matchup was hyped, again, as a "preview" of a possible playoff rematch.

The Phils took 4 of 7, including 3 of 4 out west. The Giants faded badly and finished eight games out of first place. They aren't in the playoffs.

At the beginning of September the Phils welcomed the Atlanta Braves to town

I'm Baaaaaaack

Hello!

I don't have much time at the moment to write about things but I wanted to post something. Anything. So, a couple of coming attractions:

• A fun story I read recently about a group of people at a gay bar -- and one of them was a Major League Baseball player. Did I say "was"? I mean "is."
• Speaking of baseball, I managed to knock another ballpark off my list of MLB stadiums where I've seen a game. If you follow me on Twitter you know which one.
• Maybe, just maybe, I'll get to see a movie again. It's been some time since I've seen one.
• And probably other stuff.

So, for now, just enjoy these pics of tennis star Rafael Nadal posing for Armani underwear ads (via TooFab.com)...is it my imagination or is Nadal's butt looking smaller than it used to?

A Phillies So-Right-Yet-So-Wrong Stat

This stat was just tweeted by MLB.com Phillies beat writer Todd Zolecki. Here are the Phillies leaders in runs batted in for the month of July:

Raul Ibanez - 14
John Mayberry Jr. - 12
Michael Martinez - 11

Ibanez -- I didn't think he was having such a big month. Mayberry -- great news if he can keep it going. They need a righthanded bat, and since the Phils are unlikely to bring back Ibanez in 2012 there's a job for Mayberry if he can prove he can hit major league pitching. Martinez -- well, that's just ridiculous.

What's really ridiculous is: where's Ryan Howard on this list? Where's Chase Utley? Are you kidding me? These are supposed to be the biggest run producers. (Granted, Utley got a huge game-tying two-run double tonight in the 8th, which set up Martinez to do the same in the 9th to win the game.)

It still amazes me that the Phillies are winning so many games -- tonight's was win number  60 -- with their offense continuing to be so inconsistent. And what could potentially happen in October still scares me. As we head towards the July 31st non-waiver trade deadline, it's going to be really, really interesting to see what, if anything, the Phils do.

The Blog Is Mobile, And Other Stuff

Now and then I check out a website using my cell phone, and it's not a pretty experience because there's no mobile version. My blog was once one of those sites. However, Blogger added a setting for a mobile template. I'm no expert but supposedly if you visit the blog from a mobile phone you'll automatically get the mobile template. Apparently, though, it doesn't work with certain phones or browsers or whatever. So here's a link to the mobile version.

So, what else is going on?

It's been wicked hot the last couple of days -- 97 and 99 degrees were the highs, breaking one record and tying another. We had one official heat wave already (3 or more days of 90-plus temperatures), and if we make it to 90 one more day we'll have another. I've been trying to make do without my central air, just to cut down on electricity usage. I finally put it on for a few hours today, mainly to make sure it works for when we have a really extended period of hot weather.

One thing that's not hot? The Phillies' offense. But that's nothing new. Everyone's back in the lineup now, though. So now it's time for them to produce. Part of me tries not to worry -- their pitching has carried them to the best record in baseball before their loss tonight. But as this goes on, more and more I think that they're never going to regain the hitting prowess of past years, and that will continue to strain the pitchers, and this will lead to an epic failure in the playoffs. And considering the expectations coming into this season, it could get ugly.

Oh, and our Pride Parade and Festival is Sunday. It looks like I'll be working at the City of Brotherly Love Softball League table -- signing up people to play Fall Ball and/or to volunteer with the ASANA World Series (the Women's World Series) in August, and selling raffle tickets. You can win two free round-trip Southwest Airlines tickets, or Phillies tickets. So stop by and say hello!

The S Words

Since the topics in this post all begin with "S" the title I've given this seems appropriate. And in one case, as you'll see, very appropriate.

Sarah: First, more information on the wife of Phillies pitcher Ryan Madson and her comment on fans. I'm glad I didn't really attack her on her comment, as I imagine others have. There are questions about the background of the woman who wrote the original blog post, as well as whether she identified herself as a reporter to Sarah Madson or not. The Phillies have issued a statement that says, in part: "(The writer) began to ask many personal questions about the life of a wife of a professional baseball player. The comments reported by Ms. Goldman were taken completely out of context, and as a result, Sarah is extremely upset and feels violated by the situation. Sarah says, 'For every one fan that may upset us, there are 99 Phillies fans that we love. We have lived here for years, have many friends, neighbors and acquaintances -- who also happen to be Phillies fans -- for whom we have the utmost respect.'" This post on PhillyChitChat.com states that the  woman offered him the story first, and had offered it to the Metro newspaper as well. Both rejected her. There's another "S" word that seems to apply to this woman's handling of this "story" -- sleazy. I'm definitely on the side of Sarah Madson now.

Softball: Weather permitting (or, to be accurate, if the field is dry enough Sunday after Saturday's rain), the City of Brotherly Love Softball League season opens at 9:50 am on Sunday morning. I don't expect anyone to come out and cheer me on (heck, I wouldn't be there that early if I didn't have to) but if you might be so inclined, come to Fairmount Park's Edgely Fields -- my team, now sponsored by Valanni, is on field 8. The opening day block party (200-300 blocks of S. Camac St.) takes place later that afternoon and evening.

My 2011 Phillies/MLB Predictions

Ignoring the fact that I still have to turn on my heat, and that areas to the north of the city might get a little snow mixed in with rain tomorrow night, it's spring. And tomorrow (in some cities) and Friday (in others, including Philadelphia), the 2011 baseball season begins. Here are my predictions for the division and wild card winners. Keep in mind that I'm going basically on what little knowledge of other teams I have in my head. I used to avidly follow every little transaction and study up on the teams and their prospects. That was before there was the Internet and a zillion cable television channels and the occasional real-life event to dilute all of the information I may try to gather. I can speak in some detail about the Phillies (and will do so below), but not much about other teams. So these are nothing more than very slightly educated guesses...

American League East: Boston
American League Central: Minnesota
American League West: Oakland
American League Wild Card: New York Yankees

And in reverse order...

National League Wild Card: Atlanta
National League West: Colorado
National League Central: Cincinnati
National League East:
5. New York Mets
4. Florida
3. Washington
2. Atlanta
...and the Phillies to win the division for the 5th year in a row.

That, of course, will take some things going the right way. While I'm amused that, from what I've heard, a lot of the so-called "experts" are picking against the Phils, I'm not surprised.

MixBlog 2-26-11

I've got a couple of movies to write about, and I want to see another if I get up early enough (it's 1:36 am now). But I've got a couple of thoughts first.

For one thing, this commercial (well, it's actually the full music video version) is a lie. Oh, Megan Mullally, how could you?



Okay, let me clarify. The original version, the light version, the Mediterranean Blend version, they're all fine. However, the other day I picked up a fat-free version which has only 5 calories per serving. It tastes awful! I think it tastes worse than old-fashioned margarine (which, granted, I haven't had in a long time). I'm almost suspicious that I got a bad batch or something, it's that bad. I've hardly used it and I think I'm just going to throw it away.

On a happier note, the 76ers have climbed all the way back to the .500 mark. Even though my interest in the NBA is so low, as I mentioned in my last post, I still want the Sixers to do well, so it's a nice thing. This is a testament to the job Doug Collins is doing as head coach. Too bad they didn't go after him a year earlier. Imagine how much more improved they'd be.

Oh, and guess which baseball team is a Mess off the field as well as on?

Hounded by a multimillion dollar lawsuit filed by the trustee trying to recover money for victims of the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme, the New York Mets acknowledged Friday that they received a loan in November to help cover expenses.

Makes sense. Because, after all...

Time To End All-Star Games?

With two All-Star games this Sunday, the NFL's Pro Bowl in Hawaii and the NHL All-Star Game in Raleigh, North Carolina, we need to discuss the fact that these games (in all four major pro sports) are pretty much irrelevant.

Too many players back out because of minor injuries or other reasons, so that the "best" players aren't in the game. The rosters don't always include the "best" at any rate because fan voting either decides the starters or plays a part in the decision, and there are always undeserving players who are voted in because they're popular or well-known. And with the NFL moving the Pro Bowl to the week before the Super Bowl instead of the week after, the two Super Bowl teams' players are automatically off the Pro Bowl rosters.

As much as baseball likes to tout that their game "counts" because the league that wins gets 4 of 7 home games in the World Series, the game is a shell of its former self. The rosters are now bloated thanks to expansion and the need for enough pitchers to try and ensure that another debacle like the tie game in 2002 never happens again.

The NBA game doesn't interest me anyway, but at least they used to have a fun slam-dunk contest.

MixBlog 12-15-10

The usual 1:20 am blogging time slot. So awesome. Anyway...

• Yesterday (Tuesday) I made a small donation to a toy drive for BEBASHI, a local HIV/AIDS services organization, after a column last week in the newspaper that said their donations were falling well short from previous years. Considering my financial situation I didn't spend much, but I still felt it was necessary. If you read this quickly there's still time to donate before Thursday's deadline. Information is here.

• After that I went down to Citizens Bank Park hoping to run into Cliff Lee. However, he hadn't arrived in town yet. Then I tried to see Roy Halladay but, as you can see from the picture, he was not around either. Okay, actually I was at the ballpark because the Phils were running a "12 Days of Christmas" promotion at the Majestic Clubhouse Store. Different discounts each day and other special things, and today the special was a free tour of the team's clubhouse. Here's a tip from the employees giving the tour: go for the full ballpark tour, during the season when the team is on the road. Then you see the players' cubicles with their uniforms and other stuff inside. They really have a nice facility. I took a few other pictures with the camera in my phone and I'll post them somewhere sometime.

• It was quite a day sports-wise. Besides the big Cliff Lee news,

Phils Sign Some Guy. Something Lee. Sounds Familiar...

I was going to write a "MixBlog" post touching on a few different things. I may still do that tomorrow. The following paragraph is something I planned to mention...

So there are these rumors going around that the Phillies are still in the running to sign Cliff Lee. It's ridiculous that people are actually getting their hopes up. How can the Phillies sign Lee if they couldn't sign Jayson Werth, whose pricey new deal still isn't going to earn him as much as Lee? The Phillies traded Lee a year ago because they didn't think they'd be able to sign him to a long-term deal. The Yankees have already made their typical big-money offer, and the Rangers are really trying to keep him in Texas. If the Phils didn't want to give Werth more than four years, and they definitely don't want to give pitchers such long-term deals, and Lee has been angling for five or more years, why anyone is getting excited about this "news" is beyond my comprehension.

Oops.

They got the back page online before 2 a.m. Impressive.

Phillies Werthless

Ha ha, punny post title. Jayson Werth went for the money instead of an opportunity to keep winning. I figured he'd get a large enough contract from someone that he wouldn't return to the Phillies, but I would never have expected that it would be the Washington Nationals -- not the Yankees, not the Red Sox -- that landed him. To do so they gave him a 7-year deal worth $126 million. You can't fault Werth. He was signed for pennies on the dollar (relatively speaking) by the Phillies in 2007 coming off a wrist injury. Even with salary increases after that, they got four years of good production out of him at a bargain price. The Nationals are overpaying, but it's the only way that sad-sack franchise is going to sign anyone of quality at this point.

It's just a shame that the Phillies couldn't find a creative way financially to make a deal that would have persuaded Werth to stay. The platoon of Ben Francisco and Ross Gload or Domonic Brown (who was so bad in Winter League play in the Dominican that he was removed from the team; the Phillies' saying he was "tired and sluggish" comes off as spin doctoring) will not match Werth, at the plate or, especially, in the field. And the best of the free agents may be, God forbid, Jeff Francouer. Barring a clever trade, the Phillies are weaker in right field. Their spin is that if the players who struggled or were hurt last year improve on their numbers, they'll more than make up for the loss of Werth. But none of them can play right field and their own position at the same time, so even if the offense is fine there's still a defensive hole.

There's a lot of spin going on now, but make no mistake: even with that pitching staff and most of the same players that have contributed to four NL East titles, two NL titles and a World Series championship, even if you feel that despite losing to the Giants in the 2010 NLCS they're still the team to beat in the National League, the Phillies are a weaker team than they were a few days ago.