Marty Lurie Talks San Francisco Giants Baseball
//

Playoffs are Set, A's, Cards, Giants, and Yankees Are Hot Teams

Is it better to enter the playoffs on a roll or just cruise in playing .500 ball over the last fifteen games or so?

I have felt in the past that it is better to come in winning.

The Cardinals still have a shot at the better record between themselves and the Diamondbacks. St. Louis has closed a lot of ground on Arizona over the last two weeks.

St. Louis is a threat to dethrone the champs.

Arizona saw eighth inning set up man Mike Fetters give up five runs in the eighth yesterday. How good can they feel about Fetters setting up Byung Kim this week?

The Giants have quietly won 28 of 38, holding off LA for the Wild Card, and putting a scare into Arizona.

The Giants play solid baseball and have done it when it counts the most, in September.

Remember, I wrote that if you are just close heading into September, you have a chance to win, the teams that play the best baseball in September usually get in.

The Giants played better than the Dodgers the last month. The A’s and Angels played better than Seattle, knocking the Mariners out. St. Louis ended Houston’s hopes by consistently winning in September, while Houston never got it together.

Let’s look at the last Sunday of the regular season.Jim Thome has quietly rewritten the record book for Cleveland, breaking Albert Belle’s team mark for homers in a season when he hit his 51st Friday, well, he hit number 52 Saturday.

Will Cleveland pay Thome next year? If not, wouldn’t he look good in Atlanta and he still could play for a team that ridicules Native Americans.

Why don’t the A’s resign their coaches for next season? The Orioles rewarded Mike Hargrove and his staff with a 2003 renewal and that team has lost 31 of its last 35 games.

Why let Rick Peterson pitching coach entertain other offers? Why not just do the right thing and acknowledge the contributions of employees Brad Fischer, Ron Washington, Thad Bosley,and Mike Quade.

Art Howe delegates much authority to his coaches, the team has won over 100 games for the second year in a row, they are in the playoffs again (three years straight), why don’t the A’s step up and take care of business?

Ken Macha will leave for an opportunity to manage in the big leagues. Why not offer him a nice deal just in case a manager’s job is not in his future this off season?

The A’s jump to sign so many lesser members of the team to multi year deals (Jim Mecir, Jeff Tam and Olmedo Saenz for openers). The A’s didn’t negotiate with Miguel Tejada when they had the chance, they did the same thing to Jason Giambi, they have always strung Art Howe along, now why let the coaches twist in the wind?

This is the right time to reward them for next season. There are no excuses for not rewarding the staff with nice raises from the 10 million coming in from revenue sharing next year plus this year’s team playoff share.

Tampa Bay and Detroit fight it out today to see who could have the worst record in the league. Both are sitting on 105 losses. I’m betting on both to tie. Tampa Bay plays the Red Sox and Detroit can lose to Toronto very easily.

Where will Hal McRae be employed next year? If Tampa Bay brings him back to manage the team, they’ll lose 110 next year.

How about David Wells not listed among the first three starters for the Yankees in the ALDS with the Angels? He hasn’t walked a batter in a month and has 19 wins.

Is there anyone outside of FOX TV that is rooting for the Yankees to win? The Bombers are loaded at every position, if the Angels just had some real starting pitching, they could scare the Yankees.

If Barry Zito can get number 23 today maybe he will sneak by Pedro who has to lose some points for shutting it down early.

Advice to Billy Koch and John Smoltz take the next couple of days off, let somebody else save the game, you still have another three weeks to pitch.

Texas is bellyaching that the A’s aren’t giving A Rod pitches to hit. The Tigers Hank Greenberg went through a similar scenario in 1938 when he had 58 home runs and was chasing the Babe’s record of 60. The opposition didn’t want the Jewish slugger to top the Bambino.

That’s baseball, it isn’t right, but that is baseball. Batting champions have been crowned because the opponent laid down in the last few games when a favorite hitter came up to bat.

We need an investigation. Anyone seen the commissioner recently?

Worst record in the NL belongs to the Brewers, maybe that is part of the reason we haven’t heard from him. He was busy firing his daughter as club president this week.

How about Jose Hernandez voluntarily sitting out the final four games of the year, so he won’t have a chance to break the all time single season strikeout record?

Ted Williams played a doubleheader the last day in 1941 so he could say he really hit .400 instead of settling for a rounded off .3995 to get to the .400 average. Williams went 6-8 and ended up at .406.

The Splendid Splinter is probably rolling over in his refrigerator in the cryogenic lab, thinking about Hernandez sitting on the bench.

On that note, let’s think playoffs and enjoy the party.

If you are in the game right now, it can end quickly, so fasten your seat belts.

0 comments

1 Anonymous { 09.29.02 at 10:38 pm }

Too bad all of the young guys that Oakland has traded are blowing up. Jason Hart has four hits against the A’s alone and Erik Hinske will probably win the rookie of the year. I guess tht evens things out for the Jose Ortiz trade or should I say robbery. Here’s the thing, Oakland is opening the playoffs on a Tuesday afternoon. This is a horrible time for attendance. If the last few Wednesday night home games are any indicator, a night crowd would probably be a sellout. With the one o’clock start they will be lucky to draw fourty thousand. You know what though, I don’t care. I’ll be one of those fourty thousand and it is going to be great.

GO A”S!!!!!

2 Anonymous { 09.22.07 at 1:14 pm }

3 Anonymous { 09.22.07 at 1:51 pm }

You must log in to post a comment.