This should teach me to write an article pointing out the weaknesses of Albert Pujols.
Phat Albert seems to be back.
Month: May 2010
Kendry Morales’ moments before the crash
twitpics from MLBā¦
a joyous moment gone bad. gotta be one the worst freak accidents of 2010 so far.
B-R.com tool: Totaling up a range of seasons
Maybe this is common knowledge but I just came across another useful tool at BaseballReference.com. It now allows you to total up range of yearsā stats of any particular player on fly. Very handy!
Itās done just by clicking on the first year in the range then the last year in the range. By doing that, a stat window pops of with the range totals you wanted.
Hereās an example using Hank Aaron.
You do need to enable this feature and itās done at this page.
Another reason why Baseball Reference is as good as it is. Sean and team there continue to make it better. And another reason I donāt hesitate to throw a couple bucks their way every year. As much as I use it, itās worth it.
Carlos Silva: 7-0 record coming out of nowhere
Is Carlos Silva really this good? I hope so. He just pitched seven shutout innings against the Cardinals to up his record to 7-0 for the year. His season ERA is a decent 3.52.
Not that Iām complaining as a Cub fan, mind you but it does rather surprise me. In his past two years, Silva was 5-18 with a 6.81 ERA. Donāt get me wrong but I just donāt think the Cubs coaching staff can work miracles like this.
Historically, Carlos Silva has had his strengths and his weaknesses. Heās had a penchant for giving up the longball even leading the AL in homers allowed in 2006 with 38. That said, he helps himself by his extremely low walk count. For his career, he has allowed only 1.7 walks per nine innings (again, he led the AL in that category with a miniscule 0.4 figure). This year, heās right on track with that statā¦ heās giving the free pass at a 1.8/9 IP pace.
But the wins.. seven wins.. Run support has been key, I suppose. The Cubs have scored 45 runs in the seven wins for an average of 6.42 runs per game. No pitcher has gotten off to such a good start for the Cubs since Illini graduate Ken Holtzman in 1967. Silva will have a couple more wins to go to match Holtzmanā¦ he started out 9-0.
The Cubs have done all right in those games that Silva had started but didnāt get the decision too. They are 2-1 in those games. Their only loss in a game which he started was his very first in April 9th in Cincinnati when they lost 5-4.
Letās look at it from one more angle. How would the Cubs be doing without Silva and his 7-0 record? Even if we assume that his replacement won roughly half his games (Iām being generous), the Cubs would be at 21-29 instead of 24-26. Thatās a wide difference this early in the season considering how much ground they would have to make up.
Whatever it isā¦ whatever theyāre doing.. letās keep it up. Itās keeping the Cubs in it as much as they are.
Go Cubs!
Oswalt anglin’ for some offense
Ok, Roy Oswalt has made news by surprising some people and making a trade request. Surprising, I guess but the gist behind it was that the Astros arenāt going anywhere and he wants to play on a postseason team.
Since that request, Oswalt pitched a dynamite game which he won against the Brewers. Fox Sports Houston had an interesting twist on that game as it pertains to Oswalt in their opening sentence:
Roy Oswalt made a convincing argument for the Houston Astros to keep him in his first start since the team publicly acknowledged the ace’s trade request.
Funny, I saw it differently. If I was a reporter and looking for an angle, maybe Oswalt was showcasing his talents for any takers out there in the market for a quality starter. The cynical side of me, I guess. In either case, both sides are downplaying the trade thing at the moment anyway.
In related news (maybe more related than we think) Andy from Baseball Reference has a post on how little support Oswalt is getting from the Astrosā offense. Hereās the gist of it:
According to his neutralized pitching stats, Roy Oswalt deserves a .731 winning percentage this year, which projects to a 19-7 record for the season. Instead, he’s actually 3-6 with a .333 winning percentage.
Heās got the numbers to back it up on his post.
I think good olā Roy wants some decent offense. Maybe this is his way making his wished heard.
Cardinals need rock-steady Albert Pujols back
When May ends, Albert Pujols will no doubt have recorded his worst month on record. For the month, heās currently hitting .256 with one homerun. His slugging percentage? .385. Heās managed 10 rbis and 10 runs scored and has a .396 OBP which certainly isnāt embarrassing but quite honestly, Iām afraid something is wrong with the God of Baseball ™.
Letās put it in perspective. In May, Cubs infielder Mike Fontenot had a better slugging percentage than Albert.
Not only that, MLB.com reports that Pujols denies having words with Tony LaRussa. Letās face it, if it gets by the editors at MLB.com than there is probably something to it.
This is a bad time for Pujols to go into the first slump of his career. Itās possible that he could be a free agent at the end of this season should the team decline his option at $16 million. I seriously donāt think that will be an issue but you never know.
Add into the mix that Dan Lozano who is Pujolsā agent, is making an exit from Beverly Hills Sports Council to start his own agency. Lozano plans to keep Pujols as a client.
Iām no Cardinals fan but with them battling it out with the Reds, this is no time for their star player to get into a slump possibly fueled by a nagging injury (purely conjecture on my part) or to get involved in any dugout dramas.
80 years ago today: Joe Sewell fans twice
Eighty years ago today, something happened that has occurred only twice ever.
Joe Sewell struck out twice in one game.
Sewell, who was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1977, was famous for his penchant for contact hitting. In 14 seasons and 7132 career at-bats, he fanned only 114 times. In nine straight full-time seasons between 1925 and 1933, he never went into double digits in Ks.
And yet on May 26, 1930 as a member of the Cleveland Indians ballclub, he struck out twice at the hands of White Sox pitcher Pat Caraway. For his part, Caraway wasnāt much of a flamethrower. For his career, he only struck out 2.8 batters per nine innings.
Seeing that it was relatively early in the season, I suppose some wondered if Sewell was losing his touch. Instead, he finished the 1930 season striking out only one more time. That total of three strikeouts was tied for his lowest total in his career.
Sewell had struck out twice in a game earlier in his career in 1923. That year he had the obscene total of 12 strikeouts.
| Date | Tm | Opp | Rslt | PA | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | SO | SB | Pos. Summary |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1930-05-26 (2) | CLE | CHW | W 5-2 | 4 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 3B |
| 1923-05-13 | CLE | WSH | W 5-2 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 1 | SS |
Irabu in trouble again
Oops, it looks like former pitcher Hideki āFat Toadā Irabu was arrested for drunken driving in the LA area this week.
The connection of Irabu and trouble seemed to ring a bell and I did a quick search. Sure enough, in 2008, he got in trouble in a Japanese bar for public drunkenness after failing to pay his bill.
Lay off the booze, Hideki.
Interview with UI Asst. SID Ben Taylor
A week or so ago, I did an interview of Ben Taylor whoās an assistant Sports Information Director at the University of Illinois. He is responsible for coordinating publicity for the U of I baseball team. The resulting article is posted at the Illinois Baseball Report.
I correspond with Ben fairly regularly especially during the college baseball season and we have a pretty good relationship. So I threw him this slightly hard ball question.
IBR: As SID for college athletics, you act as a public relations guy for the team. Is there a fine line between providing as much information as possible about the baseball program to the public yet at the same time keeping the program in a good light? For example, we donāt hear too much about injuries and the like in official press releases. Is that University AD policy?
BT: Yes, there definitely is a fine line. Fans have become much more adept at sniffing out spin in the last decade, so most of them can tell when they arenāt being given the whole story. But as the official spokesperson for the athletic department, our office doesnāt release much in the way of injury updates unless itās of the season-ending variety. Even then, itās often up to the head coach because it can be construed as a competitive advantage for opponents. We realize that it is our job to portray the program and the university in the best possible light, so we try to focus on the positive aspects rather than injuries, suspensions, etc., but we also realize that in order to have credibility with our constituents (i.e., fans) we sometimes have to provide the less positive side of things.
All things considered, I like how Ben handled the question. He at least recognized that folks out are becoming more media savvy and recognizing āspinā when they see it.
You can read the whole interview at IBR.
Not-so-random Baseball Birthday: Bob Knepper
Bob Knepper was born 56 years ago today.
Categories which Knepper has led his league:
Shutouts |
6 |
1978 |
Fielding Errors |
5 |
1979 |
Hit by Pitch |
8 |
1980 |
Shutouts |
5 |
1986 |
Fielding Assists |
47 |
1986 |
Losses |
17 |
1987 |
I always liked Bob Knepper but the one thing I remember about him was his inconsistency from one year to the next. One season he would be 17-11 with a 2.63 ERA and the next he would be clobbered with a 9-12 record. You never knew which Bob Knepper you would get.