Friday Falkenbergs: Games of 9/2/2011
Posted by John Autin on September 3, 2011
[No emery-ball specialists on the mound tonight -- that I know of -- but there was a "Cy" in action....]
-- Justin Verlander won his 9th straight start, 8-1 over the White Sox. The last longer streak within one season was in 2004, 12 games by Johan Santana.
- Austin Jackson (5-2-3-2, HR) has 9 hits and 7 runs in his last 3 games.
- Detroit maintained a 5.5-game lead over Cleveland, who held on for a 5-4 win in KC, snapping Bruce Chen's 5-start win streak despite Alex Gordon's 20th HR.
- Since 1919, just 6 pitchers have more wins as a starter in their first 195 games than Verlander's 104: Dwight Gooden (109), Vic Raschi, Juan Marichal, Roger Clemens, Tom Seaver, Mike Mussina. Verlander tied CC Sabathia with 58 wins over the last 3 years.
-- Brett Gardner might not get big love from the Win Probability Added scores, due to the early timing of his heroics. But anyone who saw the game knows that he had the biggest hand in New York's 3-2 win over Toronto, which put them back in 1st place.
- In the Blue Jays' 1st, with men on the corners, a run in and none out, Gardner -- the runaway leader in Defensive Wins Above Replacement over the past 2 seasons -- made an excellent running catch on Adam Lind's liner towards the LF corner, although the runner scored from 3rd.
- The next batter hit one harder and farther in the same direction, but again Gardner got his usual great jump on the ball, ran it down, made a diving, ice-cream-cone catch, and then doubled off Jose Bautista, who was off and running from 1st base. (Perhaps Joey Bats doesn't keep up with the dWAR rankings.) Then, in the 3rd, Gardner tied the game with a 2-run HR.
- Ivan Nova was sharp after the 2-run 1st, working through the 7th while allowing just 1 more hit and an intentional walk to Bautista. He won his 8th straight start and 11th straight decision, becoming the 1st Yankee rookie with 15 wins since Stan Bahnsen in his 1968 R.O.Y. season.
-- Milwaukee got nada through 6 against Houston rookie Lucas Harrell, then strafed the Astros' bullpen for 8 runs in the last 3 innings to snap their 3-game skid. The comeback was led by -- can you guess? -- Prince Fielder and Ryan Braun.
- Zack Greinke won for the 7th time in his last 8 starts and is 14-5 on the year. The Brewers have scored 7+ runs in 11 of his 23 starts.
- Milwaukee's lead is back to 8.5 games, as the Cards fell at home to Cincy, 11-8.
-- The Angels hoped to make up ground this weekend, hosting the Twins while Texas went into Fenway. Not tonight: Fill-in SP Tyler Chatwood didn't get out of the 4th, Trevor Plouffe led Minnesota's balanced attack with a HR and a double, and Angels pitchers walked in 2 runs in a 5-run 4th inning.
- Every Twins starter had at least 1 hit, and each of the first 7 hitters in the lineup had both a run and an RBI.
- Oddity: In his first 7 minor-league seasons, Plouffe's OPS never topped .736, but his 1.019 mark was best in the I.L. this year, in 51 games in between MLB stints. (He has a .742 OPS with the Twins.)
-- Elvis Andrus reached 4 times and scored 4 runs, and Derek "Fire & Ice" Holland showed his good side with 7 innings of 2-hit, walk-free, shutout ball against the Red Sox.
- It was the 2nd time this year that Boston was held to 2 hits; the other game was Cliff Lee's 3rd straight shutout.
- One run too many? It was the 5th time that Holland has been backed by at least 10 runs, but he still needs a "9" to fill out his Run-Support Bingo card. Texas has scored every other number from 0 to 11 at least once in Holland's 28 starts, plus a 20.
-- In the opener of a series the Giants almost have to sweep, Carlos Beltran had his first big game for the Bayfolk, with a go-ahead HR and a triple among his 4 hits in a 6-2 win over the D-backs. Beltran singled in his 4th AB, when a double would have completed the 1st cycle of his career.
- It was just the 6th time in his 29 starts that the Giants scored at least 5 runs for Matt Cain, who is now 12-10, 2.85.
- Cody Ross hit a 2-run HR in the bottom of the 7th, then made this pretty catch in the 8th.
-- Florida turned the prettiest DP of the night, but it wasn't enough to slow the Phillies' assault on the franchise wins record.
- Philly's .636 road W% (42-24) is better than any other team's overall W%. The Red Sox (42-26) and Yankees (41-27) also have outstanding road records.
-- Dexter Fowler, who led MLB with 14 triples last year, hit his 14th tonight, tying him for 2nd with Shane Victorino, 2 behind Jose Reyes. With 13 SB last year, Fowler became the 1st player since 1989 with at least 14 triples and more triples than steals; he's on track to do it again this year, with 9 SB and 9 CS.
-- Pirates rookie Josh Harrison made a heads-up play, taking advantage of Starlin "Head Down" Castro, for an unusual infield double. In the 1st inning, Harrison beat out a grounder deep in the SS hole, and on his way back to 1st he realized that 2nd base was uncovered -- 2B Darwin Barney had hustled to back up the throw -- and Harrison took the free base.
- On the day the Cubs announced that their highest-paid player will miss the rest of the year as a consequence of his self-centered behavior, the club is faced with another dilemma over their only 2011 All-Star. It was the latest of several troubling on-field episodes for Castro, things as basic as not paying attention during pitches in a game about 2 weeks ago, that prompted Mike Quade to give him a "mental day off."
- If you listen to the clip all the way, you'll hear an announcer say that 3B Aramis Ramirez should have covered 2nd. I don't buy it. Sure, Castro was deep in the hole when he made the throw, but there was a long time between when he released the ball and when Harrison broke for 2nd. What other responsibility did Castro have after the throw? Apparently, he thought his involvement ended with the throw; you see him in the video with his head down, grooming the dirt at his position, completely unaware.
-- R.A. Dickey has won consecutive decisions for the 1st time all year, and the Mets have won 7 of 8, chasing that elusive .500 mark.
September 3rd, 2011 at 3:44 am
Actually, Shane Victorino also added a triple tonight, his 15th. The NL now has Reyes (16), Victorino (15) and Fowler (14). Nice retro leaderboard there.
September 3rd, 2011 at 4:30 am
If Verlander can get to 25 wins, he'll be the first AL pitcher to do it in over 20 years. Bob Welch was the last in 1990 with 27 wins for Oakland. The last Tiger to win 25 was Mickey Lolich with 25 wins in 1971.
No NL pitcher has won 25 since Steve Carlton's 27 win season in 1972.
September 3rd, 2011 at 4:42 am
re: the Cubs play: how about Pena at 1B?? What was he doing?? Yuck. Looks like the only Cubs infielder that did anything right, was the 2B Barney......
sad, considering that if I had the talent to do so, I'd play baseball for like 12 bucks an hour, plus the meal money, and the lodging.
What a life.
What the hell is wrong with these people???
September 3rd, 2011 at 4:43 am
Great call JA on Brett Gardner's decisive plays against the Jays.
As good (and as fast) as Gardner is defensively, I wonder why he and Granderson don't swap positions. Pretty unusual to have a superb defensive outfielder who is also a speed demon, and NOT have him in center (especially a big center field like Yankee Stadium).
September 3rd, 2011 at 4:44 am
(while also giving props to the Pirates rook, at least somebody gets it)
September 3rd, 2011 at 6:24 am
Juan Marichal had 110 wins after 195 games (3 were in relief). He had 112 wins as a starter in his first 195 starts.
September 3rd, 2011 at 10:55 am
@6, Charles -- Thanks for the correction on Marichal. I was aiming the P-I for "first 195 career starts," and should have said so.
I'm unable to update the full list, though -- the P-I is currently bombing out on the same search I ran last night, for all years since 1919.
September 3rd, 2011 at 11:36 am
Updating the Gardner/WPA note: His .182 WPA was tops among the Yankee position players, but second overall to Nova's .251. His 2 defensive gems scored at a combined .060 (rounded), which value was credited to Nova; reverse those charges, and the WPA tally would be roughly .240 for Gardner, .190 for Nova.
I'm not trying to make a big issue out of it; we know that WPA basically turns a blind eye to defense, and we know that its purely probabilistic method makes events in later innings much more important than earlier ones.
It's not every day that a team makes 4 huge defensive plays in the first 4 innings (counting the play up the middle by Nunez in the 3rd with a man aboard and no out, and the leaping catch by A.Jones at the RF wall in the 4th). But when that does happen, we know that WPA doesn't begin to tell the story of the game's key plays.
September 3rd, 2011 at 12:19 pm
R.A Dickey continues to be a remarkable story. He is similar to Ankiel in that he had to totally reinvent himself. He may get to 200 IP for the first time in his career if he can pitch 20 more innings. the words "consistent" and "knuckleball" He is a better knuckleballer than Wakefield is or was. Wake never had back to back years of era sub 4 let alone any sub 3 seasons.
Dickey is a pro, get no run support.
maybe good enough to be an AS one day
September 3rd, 2011 at 5:09 pm
I tuned in late to the Phillies game - in the bottom of the 1st with the score tied 1-1. When I saw the #5 hitter, Hunter Pence, lead off the top of the 2nd, I knew that the Phillies had to have left no one on base when their half of the 1st ended. While the most likely guess for the source of that one run thus would have been a solo homer by the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd hitter (but not a Ryan Howard dinger unless he hit it with a guy on base and then forgot to touch one of the bases himself), I thought that another possible scenario would have been a leadoff triple by Victorino (hitting in the top spot while Jimmy Rollins is on the DL) followed by a sacrifice fly by Polanco hitting 2nd or Utley hitting 3rd. And indeed it did turn out to be a Victorino triple and a Polanco sac fly.
September 3rd, 2011 at 11:47 pm
So, John..you can run but you can't hide.
What was your "OMG" moment from my comment relative to what Carl Pavano said about free agent contracts?
September 3rd, 2011 at 11:57 pm
A request for follow-up. How rich.
Can you share that Pavano comment with us one more time?
September 4th, 2011 at 4:50 am
Didn't the Blue Jays' Morrow set a new record for consecutive innings pitched without the benefit of a double play?
September 4th, 2011 at 12:13 pm
It wasn't your comment, (hence the "John" and not the "Johnny").
September 4th, 2011 at 9:20 pm
I know what you're referring to.
September 6th, 2011 at 11:07 am
Re: Castro, I'm sure it doesn't help his development to have a bunch of no-hustle, no-care, overpaid bums like Soriano and Ramirez to "look up to." I don't care what their stats are, Soriano and Ramirez and of course Timmy P's favorite nutjob pitcher have no business being on the field with the way they approach the game and a guy like Castro probably picks up on that a little bit.
September 6th, 2011 at 5:23 pm
@11, Chuck, my "OMG moment" was nothing but the shock that Carl Pavano would have the chutzpah to say ... well, to say anything, really, on the subject of big-contract disappointments.
Looking back, I can't even pin down the intended meaning of his remarks as you phrased them -- "there's a huge difference between a player getting a big contract and being hurt and a player getting a big contract who sucks." At the time, I took it as a self-serving rationalization on his part. But maybe he meant something else.
It hardly matters, though. For one thing, nobody who knows the way Pavano mishandled the aftermath of his car crash would really want to hear his views on different flavors of big-contract underachievers. For another, it's a bit of a false distinction; some guys who aren't on the DL but just "suck" (as he/you put it) are sometimes playing through an injury because they just signed the big contract and would feel guilty about getting paid while sitting out. (A lot of fans would say that's more honorable than going on the DL for the better part of 3 years, though I generally disagree with that view.)
To be clear, I'm not one of those bitter Yankee fans who wouldn't p**s on Pavano if he were on fire; I'm not a Yankee fan at all, and in fact I was sort of pleased at his comeback over the previous 2 years.
But I don't have time for the point of view of a guy who's already shown that he'll lie if he thinks it makes him look better.
September 6th, 2011 at 11:04 pm
Jiffy/16, I don't disagree. I don't get carried away with "chemistry" and "leadership" BS because I don't think it usually means much, except perhaps the reporter in question has found a good interview. But I think if your team leader is a player like Derek Jeter, who always plays hard and always plays smart, it's bound to have an influence.
September 7th, 2011 at 11:27 am
@18, JT -- Good to mention Jeter in this context. I can't help wondering where on the field Starlin Castro would have been if he'd been the Yankee SS in the Jeter "shovel pass" game.
We may tend to see these incidents as little things, but that play by Jeter could have been the difference between a 1st-round exit and a World Series title -- and there's no way he makes that play without an ingrained habit of being involved in every play.
I happen to think it's a pretty big problem for the Cubs organization that this kid, whom they apparently want to become the face of the franchise, does not have a shortstop's "field general" instincts.