Marty; At the start of yesterday’s game against St. Louis the Giants had two outstanding starters, Schmidt and, surprisingly, Williams. Each of the remaining members of the rotation presented problems. Rueter had been lit up in his two previous starts, Foppert was a promising youngster who had not developed in a manner consistent with his spring training numbers,and Moss had for two months been a disaster. By the second inning the problems were magnified. Reuter had come down with a sore left shoulder and removed himself from the game.He now is on the DL. When he returns is anyone’s guess.

Click below and I’ll give you my thoughts.
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Barry Zito gave up 15 hits and seven runs to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays Tuesday night in another mystifying performance for the reigning Cy Young award winner.

In Zito’s last three starts he has surrendered thirty five hits.

How come?

Zito has given up a number of cheap hits, but that doesn’t account for his problem. His fastball location does. Zito hits about 88 MPH on his heater, not a lot by major league standards. Consequently, when he puts it over the plate he gets hit. Zito has not been able to throw the fastball without getting creamed.

Zito lacks command of his pitches right now, his curve ball is still superb, but major league hitters can eventually sit on a pitch if they know that is the only one you can throw when the going gets tough.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with Zito other than his being human. With all the hits he has given up, he still has pitched 126 innings and been tagged for only 111 hits, pretty good.

More importantly, he has to figure out a way not to let big league hitters foul off so many of his pitches, so he can still be in the game in the eighth inning, he needs to keep his pitch total down.

The Yankees lost Alfonso Soriano and Derek Jeter for a couple of games at least, when both were hit by Pedro Martinez fastballs on the hand in Monday’s game.

Martinez pitches up and in, these hitters dive over the plate, the collisions are inevitable. That’s baseball, when Martinez is on the hill, you don’t dive across the plate, Don Drysdale did the same thing to batters, so did Bob Gibson and they are in the Hall of Fame.

Click below for more. [Read more →]

Many of my friends have no

idea how the Giants keep

winning. Some tell me

“…they are playing weak

teams…” or …”they’re a lucky

team…”

Well, recently they beat the

Cardinals 3 of 4 in St Louis.

The Cards are the only team

in baseball that have 4 guys

that could drive in 100 or more

runs this season.

By Amaury Pi-González

Click below and I’ll explain why. [Read more →]

The triple crown run of Luis Pujols is one of the quietest in baseball history. Carl Yastrezmski did it last in 1967 for the Red Sox. Leading the league in batting average, runs batted in, and homers is simply amazing in today’s game of big time sluggers. Pujols is doing Mickey Mantle stuff with his .378 average, 26 homers, and 80 RBI’s heading into the game at Wrigley today.

The guy might hit .400 too, which is another complete story.

Until the Cradinals do something about closing a game with Jeff Fassero, Esteban Yan, and Cal Eldred I can’t take them all that seriously.

I’m just curious is Erubiel Durazo trying to hit all those balls the other way, is he only seeing pitches on the outside part of the plate, or is his bat speed slower than I think?

I know his average doesn’t reflect it, but Jermaine Dye has hit some balls very hard lately. His knee injury has sapped him of his ability to lift the ball regularly, but he can hit some shots for doubles and contribute to the team if this trend continues.

Miguel Tejada is a tough out, but he still looks like he is very uncomfortable once he has to make up his mind as to whether or not to swing at the pitch. It seems to me his head is up in the air instead of buried in his shoulder immediately after his swing.

Eric Chavez will hit 35 homers, drive in over 100 runs, but will still not be a 3 or 4 hitter. Amazing that he hasn’t stepped up his game in this his fifth year in the majors.

Folks therein lies the story of the A’s 3,4,5,and 6 hitters. Don’t blame the lack of little ball or any other supporting member of the offense, the big guys need to get it done just like they do it in NY, Boston, Toronto, Anaheim, and Seattle.

The A’s have 76 games to get it together, so all is not lost, but they sure don’t look like champions right now.

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Here’s how the A’s can get one of the Dodgers stud setup men, Paul Quantrill or Paul Shuey (I prefer Quantrill.)

They need to send a good prospect and a so-so prospect to the Rockies for Preston Wilson, who is having a great year but makes a ton of money (9 mil next year and 12 mil in 04). The A’s get the Rockies to also throw in the remaining $2 mil on Wilson for this year. The Rockies will do this to get the prospects and to be rid of his 04 and 05 salary. The A’s might have to give up two good prospects (Duchscherer and Joe Blanton?)

The A’s then send Wilson and the cash for 03 to the Dodgers for Quantrill. The Dodgers can afford Wilson’s 04 and 05 salaries more than the Rockies or the A’s.

This also takes the Dodgers out of the running for guys the A’s might want, like Rondell White. [Read more →]

Today, July 5th, is the anniversary of the day Larry Doby broke the color line in the American league in 1947. Just 11 weeks after Jackie Robinson integrated the National League, Bill Veeck brought Doby, a tremendous athlete into Cleveland.

Doby’s teammates looked the other way when introduced to him. Doby had not been part of the team in spring training like Robinson had for the prior two springs.

Doby played nine innings at first base for the Indians and then only pinch hit for the rest of the season.

In 1948, with the friendship of second baseman Joe Gordon helping him, Doby played a major roll getting the Indians to the world series against the Braves.

It was not easy for any man of color in those days to do anything significant in America’s white society, but Larry Doby stood tall and paved the way, just as Jackie Robinson did, in waking up America to the inequites of racial prejudice.

He did it on a baseball field in Cleveland July 5th, 1947.

Now, folks question why the Giants are doing so well in the NL West. Two words. Barry Bonds. As Ed Stern pointed out wisely in his commentary the other day, the opponent’s must always be aware of Bonds at every turn of the batting order. He makes everyone a better player, and when he is hot, which he is right now, he is the “Man”.

Jesse Foppert and Damian Moss are the two weak links on the team right now and will cost the Giants if not replaced.

Click below for a look at baseball today. [Read more →]

I always wondered as I grew up why the veteran baseball writers made such a big deal of who was leading the race on July the 4th.

They had all sorts of statistics demonstarting that the leaders on the holiday would be meeting in the world series that fall.

More often than not, they were wrong and some Cinderella team arose from the doldrums and charged to the pennant, erasing an 8 or 9 game deficit along the way.

There is some validity to looking at the teams that are in the hunt on July 4th because we have just passed the literal half way point of the season and you can get a pretty fair idea of why a team is either struggling or playing well.

Of, course all this can change quickly. My good friend Leonard Koppett always told me that as long as a team’s record was .500 on August first, they were in the race. He amended that date to September first because of the wild card, which allowed teams at the break even point heading into the last month to be within striking distance of the newly created way into the playoffs.

With that in mind let’s look at the leaders on the 4th and see who may catch them.

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Marty: There is a story in today’s morning paper by one of the paper’s major sports writers concerning the Giants. It analyzes the club’s personnel and makes all the talent, or lack of talent, assessments that could have been made before the season started. It’s conclusion is that the team could “still make the post season as a wild card but the run won’t go as smoothly as in that giddy first month”. Nothing of great consequence respecting personnel has changed since the first day of the season except the injury to Ainsworth and emergence of Williams. A more interesting story would have revolved around the question, why do the Giants win, particularly if one had a reasonable answer to give.

Let me try to answer, what Glenn Dickey in the SF Chronicle couldn’t, in my analysis of the Giants.

Click below for more! [Read more →]

If you saw Ted Lilly pitch last night you saw a very inconsistent young major league pitcher.

Keep in mind that Ted Lilly’s delivery had been reworked by A’s pitching coach Rick Peterson, just this past winter and spring.

At times, Lilly has the correct release point which propels his pitches to the exact point of the strike zone intended. At other times, Lilly can’t find his release point causing his breaking stuff to hang directly over the hitting zone (5 homers versus Atlanta).

Lilly has been tagged for many critical homers, then he turns around and strikes out five in a row. A frustrating pattern for all involved.

What to do?

The first option is that Lilly should work out of the bullpen until he can throw with the consistency necessary to be a major factor on this pitching staff. It is no disgrace to work out of the pen when one is struggling.

The second option, the A’s send Lilly to AAA to give him a chance to really learn his new delivery without the pressure of a pennant chase.

Rick Peterson is a very technical pitching coach, insisting on sessions in the videoroom, countless discussions about pitching, and studying computer enhanced images of ones delivery. Perhaps Lilly isn’t suited for Peterson’s methods. A trade in his future?

In any case when Lilly gets in trouble his mechanics are out of whack because he isn’t comfortable with his new delivery, baseball is muscle memory, acts repeated countless times, Lilly’s muscle memory only goes back to March, not a very long time in baseball.

He needs to work it out somewhere before his confidence is completely shot.

Click below for more. [Read more →]

The White Sox believe. They believe they can catch the Twins and the Royals and have put their money where their mouth is to bring back an old expression.

With the acquisitions of Roberto Alomar and Carl Everett, the Sox now have two things. One, some speed on the bases and two, lefthanded hitting to go with those big slow righthanded batters, Frank Thomas, Magglio Ordonez, and Carlos Lee.

More importantly they didn’t give up anything from their major league roster and now can chase the division leaders with Bartolo Colon, Esteban Loaiza, Mark Buehrle, Dan Wright, and Jon Garland.

If you follow the Daily Dish, I’ve opined that Chicago has had great potential in this race because of its starting rotation. Now, let’s see if they can get it done with Sox catcher Sandy Alomar’s little brother, Robby and Carl Everett, a handful to deal with, but a very talented player.

I like the moves.

Terrence Long adds to the A’s bench. Funny but one scribe called the following move Ken Macha’s finest of the season, the A’s manager called upon Terrence Long to pinch hit for Adam Piatt when Jeff Nelson came into the game in the eleventh inning. It was a basic move that every manager in the game makes, lifting a platoon right handed hitter for a platoon lefthanded hitter to face a tough righty pitcher. Long came through and tied the score with his single. This is the way the game is played and Long is an excellent player off the bench. Key word is bench.

More on the game below.

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