Archives › 2009 › October

Sean McAdam of the Boston Herald wrote a good article today about the Red Sox’s rotation plans heading into the offseason, noting that this season’s low-risk, high-reward deals for John Smoltz and Brad Penny working out poorly won’t stop general manager Theo Epstein from pursuing other pitchers with injury issues. Here’s what Epstein had to…

Albert Pujols declined to undergo Tommy John surgery last winter and there’s no indication that he’ll opt for the procedure this offseason, but he is scheduled to have his injured right elbow examined next week by Dr. James Andrews. Tommy John surgery is much easier on hitters than pitchers, but Pujols would still be facing…

Irish tenor Ronan Tynan has become a Yankee Stadium staple during the playoffs, singing “God Bless America” during the seventh inning, but the New York Daily News has details on why he won’t be at the ALCS opener tonight: His attempt at telling a joke offended a Jewish doctor who found it to be anti-Semitic.…

Count me among those who think that the playoffs involve a lot more luck and random chance than most people would like to believe. An example of the unpredictable, anything-can-happen nature of the postseason was on display last night when George Sherrill came out of the Dodgers’ bullpen to pitch the eighth inning of a…

* No. 1 overall pick Stephen Strasburg will make his Arizona Fall League debut today after pitching five innings for the Nationals’ instructional league team. Barring any injuries, Strasburg seems like a near-lock to be in Washington to stay by the middle of next season. * Darryl Strawberry will be a contestant on the upcoming…

John Harper of the New York Daily News, after talking about how Bartolo Colon and the Angels stymied Alex Rodriguez in the 2005 playoffs by pitching him inside, passes along the Angels’ top-secret plan to contain A-Rod this year: As a scout from a different AL team said yesterday: “The book on (A-Rod) hasn’t changed over the…

More Tweety fun from SI’s Jon Heyman: Angels offered abreu a 2-year extension for about $16 million. after MVP calibre year with LAA, he is looking for more. This is ridiculous for a couple of reasons.  For starters, I have a hard time featuring the Angels, who are, you know, getting ready to play the…

Either Tim Hudson is telling different things to different people, or else yesterday’s report that he’s rejecting his half of the mutual option was bogus.  This from Dave O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution who says that he was told the following by Hudson himself:  a. He has made it clear – which he did again…

Jon Heyman tweets and then reports that the Cubs are talking to the former Rangers’ hitting coach and that “he’s likely to take the gig.” His salary would be $750,000, which would be a $150,000 raise.  Not a bad deal for a guy whose old employer didn’t want him. From what I’ve heard from my…

Matthew’s live chat and Bob’s recap covered almost all you want to read about last night’s NLCS, but given that I watched the thing and my wife doesn’t like talking about baseball, I figured I was as share my observations as well: We’ve taken your National League division champions and secretly replaced them with the…

Still worried about the Phillies bullpen? For all the talk of Brad Lidge falling off the ledge, he certainly looked fine on Thursday night in the NLCS opener. So did the rest of his bullpen mates (aside from Ryan Madson’s hiccup), holding the Dodgers in check in a wild 8-6 victory. The Dodgers figured to…

Jack Curry of the New York Times, working from the Angels clubhouse on Thursday, reported via Twitter (if you’re interested, I’m Tweeting, too) that Torii Hunter is not only the “go-to” guy, he’s the “go-get” guy. How much of a quote machine is Torii Hunter? When 100 reporters entered Angels’ clubhouse, Mike Napoli told Howie…

NLCS Game 1 live blog/chat

If listening to Chip Caray and Joe Buck just isn’t enough for you, we’ll be blog-chatting throughout the LCS. I’ll be your host for the Game 1s in primetime tonight and on Friday. Also, D.J. Short will take Sunday night’s NLCS Game 3.

Braves acquire OF Carlos Lee from the Astros for RHP Derek Lowe and OF Brandon Jones. Why it works for Atlanta: the Braves would love to bring Tim Hudson back, yet they already have five starters in Lowe, Javier Vazquez, Jair Jurrjens, Tommy Hanson and Kenshin Kawakami. One of the vets needs to go, and…

Following their first-round victories the Yankees, Dodgers, and Phillies have each made a slight roster change for the LCS. New York has dropped bench bat Eric Hinske in favor of pinch-runner Freddy Guzman, which makes sense given that Hinske would rarely get the call to pinch-hit for anyone in the Yankees’ stacked lineup after batting…

* MLB announced the umpiring crews for the ALCS and NLCS, and first-round goats C.B. Bucknor, Jerry Meals, and Phil Cuzzi are all absent. Committing to improving umpire performance and utilizing instant replay further to avoid obvious blown calls would be nice, but short of that keeping the offending umpires off the field is something…

Rudy Jaramillo has spent the past 15 years as the hitting coach in Texas, but he’s now a free agent after leaving the Rangers earlier this week: I’m not going to be in this position very often, and I don’t know what’s going to happen with the Rangers and the ownership situation. I didn’t want…

Page 6 of the New York Post provides a few details on how Alex Rodriguez has spent the long layoff between ALDS and ALCS: What are a few thousand miles to a man in love? Alex Rodriguez flew from New York to Miami for one night to wine and dine Kate Hudson at Prime 112…

According to the Associated Press, Albert Pujols said yesterday during an interview with a Dominican radio station that he’s “not desperate to sign a contract extension.” Pujols confirmed that general manager John Mozeliak has approached him about a new deal, but added: “We have not yet sat down to talk about contracts. I still have…

Jimmy Rollins spent the first six seasons of his career as Vicente Padilla’s teammate in Philadelphia before the right-hander left on a sour note in 2005. Padilla is now back in his life as the Dodgers’ starter for Game 2 of the NLCS and Rollins likes the Phillies’ chances: I don’t know what you’re going…

There are ways in which public money is used to benefit baseball that are far more egregious than this – say, in the billions of tax dollars used to give shiny new ballparks to billionaire owners — but this is at least cranky-letter-to-the-editor-worthy, isn’t it? Hamels threw 82 pitches last Thursday and when he was told his wife…

Overall, TV ratings were down for the 2009 baseball season, especially late in the year when, outside of Detroit and Minnesota, there wasn’t all that much to play for.  Fortunes have changed in the postseason, however: The first round of the Major League Baseball playoffs helped TBS to its best one-week ratings in its 33-year…

Aaron and Matthew have both noted how a superfluous offday is going to allow the Yankees to go with a three-man rotation, thereby giving them an advantage.  When people plan, Mother Nature says “Ha!” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said that the possibility of showers affecting Games 1 and 2 is playing into the decision-making process…

Rematch.  And from a historical perspective, a rubber match of sorts as well.  The Dodgers beat the Phillies in the 1977 and 1978 NLCS.  The Phillies took 1983.  For our purposes, however, really only last year is relevant, and the Phillies won 4-1.  Going in to that series the question was whether the Phillies’ big bats would…