A baking and gardening journal. Mostly.
By Blaidd Drwg
In a follow up to the “Greatest Play Ever” post, another Blue Jays highlight.
Sometimes a baseball is hit and a great play is made. Sometimes a baseball is hit really hard an strange things happen; but it does make for an interesting highlight.
By Blaidd Drwg
With apologize to the great Terry Chapman.
They called him “Stretch”, he is a hall of famer and he was only the second best Willie on his team. He also had the distinction of almost bringing a World Series title to the Bay Area in 1962. Fifty years later, the Giants are back in the series, so it seems like a good time to post this.
Wilie McCovey almost made a place for himself in baseball lore in the 9th inning of game 7 of the 1962 series. Here is what happened (from Wikipedia):
The only run of this classic game came in the fifth inning when Tony Kubek grounded into a double play, Bill Skowron scoring from third. Ralph Terry, pitching the seventh game instead of Jim Bouton because of the rain delays, had given up Bill Mazeroski’s Series-winning walk-off home run two years earlier in Pittsburgh, but in his third start stifled the Giants’ power hitters. In the bottom of the ninth, pinch-hitter Matty Alou, batting for reliever Billy O’Dell, led off the inning with a bunt hit after first having a foul ball dropped, but Terry struck out the next two batters, Felipe Alou and Hiller. Mays hit a double into the right-field corner, but Maris played the carom well, then hit cut-off man Richardson with a throw that was quickly relayed home. Alou, aware of Maris’ strong arm, stopped at third. Facing Willie McCovey with two outs, Terry elected to pitch to him rather than walk the bases loaded, which would have brought up slugger Orlando Cepeda. Terry’s inside fastball on the second pitch handcuffed McCovey, who nonetheless adjusted his bat in mid-swing to extend his arms and hit what he later claimed was the hardest ball he had ever struck. The line drive appeared at first to be going over the head of a well-positioned Richardson, but was in fact sinking from topspin and Richardson made the catch without leaping to end the game. Terry was named the World Series MVP.
McCovey had a chance have one of the most dramatic series ending hits in history, but instead, he will have to be immortalized in the only two Peanuts baseball strips that mention an actual baseball game:
There is also a great interview with McCovey here.
By Blaidd Drwg
It was a good week for pitchers in the strikeout department:
On Wednesday, Doug Fister set an AL record when he recorded 9 consecutive strikeouts. He broke the record of 8, which had been done by several pitchers, most recently by Blake Stein (!) in 2001. He didn’t quite make it to the MLB record, which is 10, held by Tom Seaver.
On Tuesday, the Oakland A’s set an AL record for hitters strikeouts in a season with 7 games left on their schedule. The A’s batters swung past the Tampa Bay Rays 2007 total with their 1,325th K. They will end up obliterating the AL record. They still have a way to go to set the major league mark – that is 1,529 set by the 2010 Arizona Diamondbacks
On Monday, the Angles showed us just how bad the Mariners can be by tying a MLB record by striking out 20 Mariner hitters in a 9 inning game in a 5-4 victory. Zach Grienke struck out 13 in just 5 innings before giving way to a parade of reliever who fanned 7 over the final 4 innings of the game. With all of those strikeouts, the Angles did somehow manage to put Miguel Olivo down on strikes only once in his 4 plate appearances (even more shocking – Olivo had 3 hits in the game).
By Blaidd Drwg
Are the schedule makers for MLB really that stupid? Here is a partial list of where opening day is going to take place in 2013:
LA Angels @ Cincy
Boston @ NY Yankees
San Diego @ NY Mets
KC @ Chicago
Detroit @ Minnesota
Seattle @ Oakland
St Louis @ Arizona
Philly @ Atlanta
SF @ LA Dodgers
Colorado @ Milwaukee
Chicago @ Pittsburgh
Miami @ Washington
Baltimore @ TB
Cleveland @ Toronto
For some reason the article did not mention where Texas vs. Houston is going to take place, not that it really matters. My point is the location of some of the openers. What do you want to bet at least half of the games taking place on April 1 & 2 in New York, Chicago, Minnesota, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh get cancelled due to bad weather (or at least get delayed).
I hate the new divisional alignment, I hate seeing interleague play every day and I hate the “unbalanced” balanced schedule. I really think that baseball is about 2 years off from adding the DH to the National League, which might be the only good thing to come of this – I really hate seeing pitchers flail at the ball, or worse yet, not even swing at an incoming pitch.
Don’t even get me started on the Mariners bizarre schedule, that is for a separate post.
By Blaidd Drwg
Miguel Batista was recently released by the Mets and it appears his career is over. He will be “best” remembered around these parts as one of the worst free agent signings of the Bavasi era, sporting 2 mediocre and 1 terrible season for a 3 year, 24 million dollar contract.
Batista was exactly league average (his OPS+ according to baseball-reference.com is exactly 100) over his 18 year career and he did have a couple of decent seasons with the Diamondbacks back in the early 2000’s, but he was never great.
One interesting fact if he does indeed retire before the end of the season: He is the last remaining active member of the 1992 Pirates team, having appeared in one game for them back in ’92. Why is that significant? Well, 1992 happens to be the last time the Pirates had a winning record. That is how long Miggy has been around
FlatbreadGarden 