Marty Lurie Talks San Francisco Giants Baseball
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Monday Morning Baseball


Believe it or not, the Texas Rangers are sitting comfortably atop the AL West this morning.

There are many reasons why a team suddenly jells and the Ranger story begins with Michael Young. Not only is he hitting .362, but he is playing nice shortstop replacing you know who.

Alfonso Soriano hammered the weak pitchers last year and he is starting to heat up as the Rangers walloped the Red Sox this weekend.

Make no mistake, the Red Sox are good, but their offense is a shell of what it was last year. When you have no alternative to Cesar Crespo with the game on the line in the ninth inning, you know there is trouble in paradise. The Sox miss Nomar and Trot Nixon. Just too much Pokey Reese, Mark “the walking man” Bellhorn and David McCarty in this lineup for me.

Bill Mueller and Brian Daubach haven’t hit much to date either.

So, the Rangers have a bullpen and last night Francisco Cordero saved his 10th game of the year. RA Dickey shut the Angels down earlier in the season, last night he mesmerized the Sox with his knuckle curve. Is he for real? Could be, and we’ll see this month.

Chan Ho Park, Kenny Rogers, Ryan Drese, and Jaoquin Benoit lead the starters, need I say more. Enjoy the resurgence while it lasts.

Texas can hit, they are playing nice and loose and I hope they hang in because it makes the West a terrific place to play.

With Tampa Bay and its band of underachievers due in this week, things look rosy in Texas.

click below for more.The Yankees are cooking. Jon Leiber pitched a nice game Saturday against a Kansas City team that couldn’t beat a righty if you were pitching. The Yankees don’t walk people right now and that is bad news for the A’s who rely on the walk like some teams rely on hits.

The Yanks throw Jose Contreras, Kevin Brown, and Javier Vazquez against the A’s and Mulder, Zito, and Harden.

The A’s got great production from Erubiel Durazo, Scott Hatteberg, and Eric Byrnes this week. Eric Chavez gets three more righties to hit off of this week and needs to heat up now before the lefties in the Central come in.

The A’s are hurting in the bullpen. Jim Mecir can’t get the screwball diving, Arthur Rhodes is laboring already, and Ricardo Rincon won’t throw strikes. Someone needs to step up, maybe it will be Chad Bradford? The way Justin Duchscherer gets hitters out, I’d give him a look if the others keep struggling. The A’s are home which generally means good things.

Gil Meche finally pitched a nice game, the Mariners swung the bats and clobbered Detroit and Nate Cornejo, the weakest Tiger starter.

Ichiro tripled, scored three runs, stole a base, and got things rolling. If he breaks out of his funk, this offense will look different. Raul Ibanez crushed the Central last year and hit Detroit hard this weekend.

How about Jeremy Bonderman? Power game for him Saturday.

Arizona continues to struggle with its pen. No one will take Matt Mantei so the DBacks just keep rolling him out there hoping it will come together for him sooner than later. Sort of what the White Sox are doing with Billy Koch who is starting to settle down.

Jon Garland can pitch. If Loiaza, Buehrle, and Schoenweiss keep pitching well, then the Sox may surprise some people. With Cliff Politte and Damaso Marte in the pen, they aren’t half bad right now.

Jake Westbrook threw two excellent games against the Tigers, tonight it’s the Red Sox and Curt Schilling. Not good news Cleveland fans. Maybe Westbrook will hold the Sox to two runs and Cleveland can pull one out.

John Lackey threw his third excellent start in a row. With all the injuries to the Angels right now, good pitching is a welcome surprise. The Anaheim bullpen is lights out and really didn’t get overworked against the Twins.

Bartolo Colon got ripped by Detroit last week, I say tomorrow night he evens the score at the Big A.

If you can get into the Marlins bullpen early, you have a chance to beat them. Nate Bump, Justin Wayne and Matt Perisho will get better as the season moves on, but right now they have trouble putting two good innings back to back.

Armando Benitez does look terrific. Juan Pierre is some player. Miami’s offense is really good, and they will score plenty. Josh Beckett is not in command right now, but you know within his next three or four starts all that will change.

Art Howe may be right, Padre reliever Akinori Otsuka balks everytime he throws a pitch when he removes his hand and ball from the glove before throwing the pitch, then puts it back in to hide the grip. If he does this with a runner on base, the umps will call a balk. The umps told Art they will call it with men on base if he does it. Art contends it should be a ball if he does it with no one on, since it is an illegal pitch. He’s right.

In any case, the Padres bullpen is clicking with Otsuka leading the way right now.

Maddux versus Jason Marquis today. When these two teams play the games are always close and tense. Matt Morris and Carlos Zambrano pitched beautifully Sunday. The Cards pen maybe be stronger than the Cubs, so I’ll go with St. Louis today. Jason Marquis could take a big step if he continues to pitch well.

The Braves are not the same team as last year. As smart as Bobby Cox is, there are simply too many things wrong with this team right now and the infield defense is one.

Shawn Estes needs to get ahead in the count so he can throw his curve ball to keep the hitters off balance. He is doing it and when he gets an umpire that can call the curve he is tough to beat. Nice story if it lasts. Joe Kennedy same thing.

The Giants played a nice game yesterday, the fans loved it, and no Barry Bonds until the eleventh inning. Pitching is the Giants problem, take a look at the starters ERA other than Jerome Williams, around 9.00. The hitters are pros and will come around.

Hideo Nomo still isn’t recovered from his arm surgery. You know that when the Expos hit him.

Can the Reds bullpen be any worse? Astros hope it lasts for one more day. I like Paul Wilson, but he isn’t going nine today.

Who are the Wilson’s who play for the Pirates. Who knows, but they are hitting over .360.

Ryan Vogelsong pitched well Sunday because he faced a team that wasn’t from Chicago.

Astros need a third baseman. Arizona needs a reliever. Is there a match here?

Whatever happened Jose Reyes? Longest hammy injury in history. Something is up with this guy. Does he not get the rehab? Mets are pitching well, but man oh man, that offense is weak.

And I’m outta here.

0 comments

1 Anonymous { 05.03.04 at 11:29 am }

Good for the Rangers. They will come down to earth once their pitching stops overachieving though.
Marty, rumor has it that A’s are close to trading Saarlos for Lightenberg. Heard anything about it? They must be getting tired of Mecir’s inconsistency, huh? And it looks like they finally realized that Bradford is only a situational pitcher. I think Lightenberg would definately help.
-Mike E.

2 Anonymous { 05.03.04 at 11:39 am }

At least Ligtenberg has pitched effectively in the majors, more than I can say for Saarloos a righty with ordinary stuff so far. Mecir is in the last year of an inflated four year contract, so don’t expect him to disappear in the near future. Bradford to Rincon to Foulke, seems like a distant memory. Anyway, it’s still early.
Marty

3 Anonymous { 05.03.04 at 3:36 pm }

so much stuff to digest. I’m getting a headache. The AL west , AL east and central will be dogfights to the end.
NL central too. Marlins look good in the east and who knows in the west. As far as Otsuka goes,the TV replays clearly show him hesitating with the ball before
pitching and they say he does it with no one on. It is a balk and the umps should starting calling it a ball
because he is deceiving the hitter. Plain and simple.

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