Keeping Things Interesting: April 9, 2009

Of the three teams looking to start the season 3-0 this afternoon, only the Marlins were able to achieve the feat. Thanks to a four-run fifth-inning, highlighted by a bases loaded double from Dan Uggla, Florida was able to pull away from the Nats to sit atop the NL East alone. Up the coast, the Braves looked assured of joining the Marlins at 3-0 when they took a 10-3 lead into the bottom of the 7th. But then something clicked in Philly's offense, and 8 runs later, the Phils were ahead. They won the game 12-11, and now Braves fans are stuck wondering just how good their team really is, despite a strong showing in the first two games. Atlanta wasn't the only team to melt down in the late innings, though. Leading the A's 4-0 heading into the top of the 8th, the Angels decided to go to their new look bullpen. That didn't work so well, as Arredondo, Shields, and Fuentes gave up 6 runs in the last two innings on nothing but singles (with one walk and one wild pitch thrown in). The A's beat the Angels 6-4.

Over in San Francisco, the Brewers showed their willingness to swing the bat early on, notching six strikeouts against the Big Unit in the first three innings. But their bats woke up just enough to earn the win, as Mike Cameron hit a solo shot in the second and Yovani Gallardo, the 23-year-old pitcher, crushed a 3-run bomb off Johnson in the fifth. That Gallardo-Johnson at-bat proved to be a much more interesting face-off than their pitching match-up did, but it's difficult to imagine that anyone left AT&T Park disappointed in how it played out.

In Texas, the Rangers were able to once again handle the Indians and their pitching staff, beating them for the second time. They'll try for the sweep today. The Mets will also be going for a sweep this afternoon, after battling back for a 9-7 victory over the Reds. K-Rod notched his second save in two games. At this pace, he'll shatter his save record with 162 saves. That would definitely be something to see.

A few pairs of teams will be playing each other for the 4th time tonight. The Cards, Mariners, and Tigers will each be looking to steal a series split before the weekend.

Today's game of interest is found in Baltimore, between the Yankees and the Orioles. The O's go for the surprising sweep of the big spending Yankees after shelling both CC Sabathia and Chien-Ming Wang in the first two games of the season. They'll have to beat AL strikeout leader and $82 million man AJ Burnett in order to do that.

The most interesting thing about this game, though, isn't the O's chance at an early 3 game division lead over the Yankees, but what they're young outfielders are doing with the bat. Granted, we're only two games into the season, so extrapolations aren't possible. That's fine - I wasn't trying to do that anyway. Instead, I just want to point out what Nick Markakis and Adam Jones have been able to manage in their first two games of the year:

Nick Markakis (25 years old): 7 ABs, 5 hits, 4 Runs, 5 RBIs
Adam Jones (23 years old): 6 ABs, 4 hits, 4 Runs, 3 RBIs, 2 BBs

That's a pretty strong start for two young outfielders, and it should be interesting to see how long they can keep it up. If they can get to Burnett the same way they got to Sabathia and Wang, then Baltimore fans might have a legitimate reason to get excited even before Matt Wieters hits the bigs.

Changing World Series Game Times Is Not New

If you recall last October, there was a lot of talk from bloggers and mainstream media guys alike about changes that Major League Baseball should make to the World Series. It was an (over-)reaction to the Philly-Tampa World Series, with its wacky weather, postponed games, and early-morning endings, that thankfully died out by mid-November. After all, no one *really* wants to hold the Series at a neutral site. That was just an easy column to write in the wake of an eventful postseason.

But it's been a few months now, and, hopefully, cooler heads have prevailed. Any talk today about changing the way we play the World Series will likely be discussed and debated in a more rationale manner than it would have in November, and that's pretty much all we can really ask. So the news that Commissioner Bud and his people are looking into starting World Series games half-an-hour earlier in the future is noteworthy:

"In the past, Fox typically has gone to air at 8 p.m. Eastern, with the first pitch coming around 8:20 p.m. in Games 2, 4, 5, 6 and 7. In Games 1 and 3, when player introductions take place, Fox goes to air at 8 p.m. Eastern, with the first pitch in the 8:35 p.m. range.

"The real question is how early we will be getting to first pitch," Goren said. "It will be earlier than in the past. I'm confident we will come up with a plan that will be effective."

Commissioner Bud Selig said during an interview with Sirius XM Radio on Monday that it was his desire to put in place earlier start times for the World Series this season.

Selig also said he would like to see a day game start for a Series game.

"I'm working hard because I happen to believe not only in a late afternoon game but in earlier starting times and I'm not going to be happy until we get those.""

I'm in the same camp as Rob Neyer, in that I don't think that an extra 30 minutes is really going to make much of a difference. A rain-delayed game like last year's Game 3 is still going to end after 1 AM on the east coast, no matter what Commissioner Bud & Fox Sports agree to.

What I find interesting about this news, though, is the discussion that it seems to be garnering. People seem to believe that this sentiment is new and that the issue is the fault of one Bud Selig alone. It isn't hard to find people around the internet expressing these opinions. But, as with most issues in baseball, this just isn't true. As recently as 15 years ago, the issue was front and center.

In the 1994 Street & Smith's preview guide, Dave Anderson begins his "Rx (Prescription) for Baseball" article talking about just this issue (the piece is framed as a conversation between MLB and its doctor, so bear with it):

"[MLB:] 'People keep complaining that the World Series games start too late. That kids who have to get up early for school can't stay up to see the final innings - or sometimes even the first few innings. That grown-ups who have to get up early for work don't stay up for the final innings.'

[Doctor:] 'I know, I know.'

'How do you know?'

'I'm one of those grown-ups. My kids are those kids. During the fourth game of last year's World Series, I went to bed when the Phillies were leading, 14-9, after seven innings. Driving to my office the next morning, I found out the Blue Jays had won, 15-14. I missed the end of one of the greatest games. ... [Y]ou've got to do something about it.'

'What, doctor?'

'Start the weeknight World Series games at seven o'clock in the Eastern time zone so that they'll be over at a reasonable hour. Start the weekend World Series games at one o'clock in the afternoon in the Eastern time zone so that everybody has time to see them and savor them.'"

Sorry for the "dialog" in that piece. I don't think Mr. Anderson made the best choice when framing that article, but the content is pretty clear: by the end of the 1993 World Series, there was definitely a clamor for some earlier start times. Which is funny, of course, because now we look back on that game as an example of things going right. From Bill Chuck over at Dugout Central, in the immediate aftermath of 2008's Game 3:

"How many fans were singing that song as they were drifting off during Game 3?

On October 15, 1988, Game 1 of the World Series began at 8:35 Eastern time. The game ended 3:04 later when Kirk Gibson hit one of the great walkoff homers of all-time. That meant viewers of the game only missed the first 10 minutes of Matthew Broderick and the Sugarcubes on Saturday Night Live.

In the 1991 World Series, one of the greatest Game 3’s took place at Atlanta’s Fulton County Stadium. The game ended at 12:34, when the Braves’ Mark Lemke hit a walkoff single – in the bottom of the 12th inning. Game 6 ended at 12:14 on Kirby Puckett’s walkoff homer – in the 11th inning. One of the greatest Game 7’s ended at 12:01 on Gene Larkin’s walkoff hit – in the 10th inning.

On Saturday, October 23, 1993, Game 6 ended on Joe Carter’s walkoff homer as Toronto won the World Series, defeating the Philadelphia Phillies at 11:37 Eastern time. As disappointed as Phillies fans were, at least they got to root for their team, support their team and console each other as they saw the ending of this exciting game."

At least we can all agree that the 1991 World Series, as great as it was, provided fans with a pretty good value. Eleven and twelve inning games ending right around midnight? That seems fair.

Or not. In the 1992 Street & Smith's, the Philadelphia Inquirer's Glen Macnow penned this suggestion in his "Matters of Opinion" piece:

"Seven moves that major league owners should make:
...
5. Play weekend World Series games during the day. The 1991 Series was one of the best ever. Unfortunately no kid east of the Rocky Mountains was awake to see it. If a nine-year-old has to go to bed after the second inning, what kind of fan can we expect him to be when he grows up?"

I have a feeling that I could keep going back through these preview guides and other magazines and find the same thing. Just like the constant lament over the state of the bullpen, this worry over the World Series is a perpetual theme of the "everything was better in the past" group of sportswriters. It's just that this specific refrain occasionally gets picked up by others in reaction to certain games or events. In the end though, it's no different than most of these complaints: an appeal to a past that probably never existed and that should probably be ignored.

One more thought: people today cite their concern for the state of the game's future as a reason to make these changes because, with all these much-too-late World Series games, it'll be hard to grow a new generation of baseball fans. After all, if kids can't stay up to watch David Price mow down the Red Sox, then how will they ever learn to love the game the same way we do? It's a fair point, and definitely one to ponder, but I think it loses some of its strength when you consider the nearly-20-year-old passages above. A nine-year-old kid in 1991, for example, would be 27-years-old today and, last I checked, the sport seems to be doing pretty well among that group. Personally, I was eleven years old during that Series and I can't say with any certainty that I stayed up to watch all ten innings of that Game 7. But I definitely remember the excitement of the Series and I know it rubbed off on me, even without watching it myself.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I think the sport of baseball is going to do just fine over the next generation, whether Commissioner Bud gets the start times changed or not. I'd welcome it, of course, but it's definitely not necessary for the survival of the sport.

Keeping Things Interesting: Apr 8, 2009

It's Wednesday and, for the first time this (very young) season, all 30 teams are scheduled to play today. It's the first 100%-full day of the year, and that's something to celebrate.

Yesterday's action saw twelve different games play out, including a couple of home openers that weren't originally on the schedule. In Chicago, Royals' manager Trey Hillman decided to not go with his closer in the game's highest leverage situation and ended up paying for it, as Jim Thome hit a late 3-run homer to steal the victory for the White Sox. The Red Sox, on the other hand, rode a third-inning rally (and a couple of solo shots from Pedroia and Varitek) to a season-opening 5-3 victory over the AL pennant-winning Rays. The NL Cy Young winner had some control problems in San Francisco's choppy weather, throwing 78 pitches in only 3 innings of work, but the rest of the Giants lineup was certainly awake in their 10-6 Opening Day win over Milwaukee.

In other games, the Braves, Marlins, and Blue Jays are the only teams still undefeated after two games and will be looking for the sweep today. The Marlins will have the first chance to bring out the brooms, with a 12:10 Eastern start time. Top-prospect Chris Volstad will face off against O's castoff Daniel Cabrera. The Braves may be going for the most surprising sweep, though. Very few people gave them much of a chance against the World Champs, and they've proven more than capable so far.

The most interesting game of the day, though, is the Milwaukee Brewers - San Francisco Giants matchup late tonight (and I'm not just saying that because I'm a Brewers fan, I promise). Milwaukee will be trotting out their 23-year-old ace-in-waiting Yovani Gallardo while the Giants haul out the Big Unit himself, the 45-year-old Hall of Famer. Gallardo lost nearly his entire season last year after tearing his ACL in a collision with Chicago's Reed Johnson in only his third start of the year. He came back to pitch very effectively in late September, and even started Game 1 of the NLDS for the Brewers. Johnson, on the other hand, surprised everybody by pitching a full season of quality ball for the Diamondbacks. In 184 innings, he struck out 173 batters with a 3.91 ERA - not bad for a 44-year-old coming off a 10-game season the year before.

The face-off between the ace-to-be and the ace-of-old should help keep today's games interesting. I can't wait.

Something of Interest: Apr 7, 2009

Yesterday was Opening Day, and, oh, what a day it was.

In Baltimore, we saw an inauspicious start in pinstripes for CC and a 3-for-3 (with a triple) day for the young and exciting Adam Jones. In Cincinnati, Johan "the best pitcher in baseball" Santana made quick work of the Reds despite a game-time temperature of 37 degrees, with a sure-to-be-icy drizzle. In Arlington, the Rangers reminded us that their bats aren't to be taken lightly by roughing up the defending AL Cy Young winner while the Cardinals embarrassed themselves in front of Stan Musial and Red Schoendienst by blowing a ninth-inning lead to the Pirates. Chase Field in Phoenix provided a good example of why Cactus League numbers always look so impressive, as the D-backs and Rockies combined for 8 home runs in a 9-8 Diamondbacks victory. The good people of Miami, meanwhile, showed exactly why they are so deserving of a new publicly-financed stadium by packing 34,000 fans into the sardine-boxcomfy Dolphins Stadium to watch what turned out to be a very exciting game that featured a grand slam and an inside-the-park home run.

In the late games, pitching seemed to dominate. The Cubs' Zambrano finally pitched well in an Opening Day start, as the Cubs beat the Astros 4-2. Doc Halladay dominated the (mostly) punchless Tigers until they got to him for 4 runs in the 7th (after getting down 9-1). The Jays won, 12-5. Kid Griffey went yard for the 612th time in his career in Minneapolis last night. It was his 8th home run ever on Opening Day, and the first home run as a Mariner since September 22, 1999. The Mariners beat the Twins 6-1. In Los Angeles of Anaheim (not sure that's a city), the Angels' #4 starter blanked the "new look" A's 3-0, while in San Diego the Dodgers were the first of many, many teams to beat the Padres this year.

That was all yesterday, though. Now that the regular season is completely underway (assuming the Brewers/Giants and Red Sox/Rays can actually play games today), I wanted to start something new here. The beauty of the baseball season is, among many other things, the fact that it is an everyday sport - if you watched or attended the game last night, you have a pretty good chance of being able to do the same thing tonight. It's almost relentless at times. Thirty teams, 162-games each... that's a lot of baseball to be played. I thought it was important, then, to discuss the season everyday. I won't go into the type of detail that you might find over at ShysterBall or at Big League Stew (two blogs that try to recap the day's games, at least in brief) because that would just be redundant.

Instead, I thought it might be fun to focus on one game and talk about why that game is interesting. I'll try to go beyond just the normal analysis that you can find on a hundred other sites to find something a little different. Now, I reserve the right to cancel or change this at any time, if I find it too demanding or ambitious (or boring). Like I said, though, I just want a good reason to follow and highlight the season on an everyday basis. I'll definitely still do the other pieces that I like to do, like the Through the Years or Prospect Previews posts, but those aren't something that I can do daily.

I'm a little late in starting this today, so the game I am mentioning is already underway. That doesn't mean it's no longer interesting, though.

As The Common Man said in the comments yesterday, one of the coolest little things about Opening Day (besides the whole Opening Day-thing, of course) is looking at the box scores the next morning to see all the nice, round numbers. Along that same line, another neat little thing about the Opening Day scoreboard is looking at the standings the next day and seeing all those 1-0 and 0-1 teams. It's not often that you get to see the Pirates all alone in first, for example.

Rarer still is looking at the standings and seeing an 0-0 team in first place. But that's what we have today in the AL Central. Because of the "snow-out" in Chicago yesterday, neither the Royals nor White Sox played while the other 3 teams in the Cental all lost. This puts the Sox and Royals tied atop the division with zero wins and zero losses. When they finally play this afternoon (and they're currently playing... my fault for getting this up late), that distinction will disappear. In the meantime, though, it's the battle of the winless *and* undefeated titans of the AL Central. Enjoy!

In the Spirit of Opening Day: the 1991 World Series

With Opening Day yesterday, we were once again reminded of the joy and optimism that a new season brings to all major league cities, even those that most would agree have little or no reason for such. This year, those cities that seem to have been written off by the majority of pundits and fans are the Pirates, Nationals, and Padres (among others). In the spirit of Opening Day, I thought it might be nice to take a look back at the not-as-close-as-it-seems past for a reminder of why predictions are just predictions and why we play 162 games.

It seems that these days the 1991 World Series is remembered for one thing above all else: Jack Morris' 10-inning shutout of the Atlanta Braves in the deciding Game 7. Sure, there's plenty of esteem to be found for that Fall Classic, even outside of Minnesota. I've seen a couple of different lists that rank that Series as one of best of all time, and you'd be hard-pressed to find someone willing to argue that. With that said, it still seems like the only time we ever really talk about the '91 Series anymore is when we're discussing the merits of Jack Morris' Hall of Fame candidacy.

And, no matter how deserving of legend that game is, it's a shame that the conversation today seems to ignore the other aspects of such a great Series. First among these is the fact that the 1991 World Series was the first time that both participating teams had finished in last place the year before. In 1990, the Twins finished 29 games behind the A's in the AL West, with a 74-88 record. Meanwhile, the Braves finished 26 games behind the Reds, with a 65-97 record. Somehow, both teams were able to shake off those poor seasons and win their division crowns en route to the 1991 World Series.

Neither team was expected to do much in '91. In fact, of the four preview guides I can find from 1991 - The Sporting News, Street & Smith's, Sports Illustrated, and Baseball Digest - the Twins were predicted to finish in last place in each of them, and the Braves were only predicted to finish higher than 5th in one. If there were ever two teams to have been written off before the season started, they were these two.

Here is what the preview mags were saying about the Twins before the season started:

Street & Smith's

"The Minnesota Twins appear to be a team in disarray, having deteriorated from their World Series championship in 1987 to last place a year ago. They may have been fooled into thinking they were on the right track in May when they had a 21-7 record, but it was a mirage. They were 7-21 in June and finished with only one double-digit pitching winner and one .300 hitter, and had more errors (101) than home runs (100). Thus, the basement for the first time since 1981.

'I've been in the majors nine full years and we've gone full circle, from worst to first to worst again,' Kent Hrbek said. "

Baseball Digest

"The World Series champions of 1987 continued to decline, and improvement this year is largely dependent on the young pitchers acquired in recent years.

Some of their veteran Metrodome sluggers are begining to show a little wear and tear, home runs falling off last year.
...
Still, there is little to suggest the Twins, with their power waning, will rise again in 1991. Last place is likely."

Sports Illustrated

"The poor Twins. They will play their tails off and finish last. But in the process, they will continue a well-planned rebuilding program. "We're going to surprise people," Kelly says. "We've got some starting pitching. I've never had that. I've had three starters before, but one would always be Freddy Toliver."
...
The Twins can climb out of the toilet, but they won't get out of the cellar."

And about the Braves:

Street & Smith's

"If the Atlanta Braves are ever to escape last place in the National League West, this should be the year. All those young players the Braves have been bragging about the last three or four seasons now have a year or two of big-league meal money, should know the Braves' secret handshake, and can throw hard, especially the pitchers.
...
Bobby Cox has a long, tough job ahead of him. The Braves have been down so long the team is beginning to believe its own bad clippings. Cox's main job is to restore this team's confidence and pride and give the ability of his players, especially his young pitchers, a chance to take hold.

The Braves won't win anything in 1990 [sic], but they may start causing some other clubs to use their best players to beat them. That will be the surest sign of progress."

Baseball Digest

"The lean years have piled up for the Braves, but new general manager John Schuerholz is making ever effort to repair the situation.

In free-agent signings last winter, he added first baseman Sid Bream and third baseman Terry Pendleton to shore up what had been a disastrous infield defense for a number of years.

"We've got a lot of building to do," Schuerholz said, "and we have to be aggressive. We got two of the top defensive players at their positions and by getting them we dealt with a couple of priorities."
...
Essentially, this is a team trying to get respectable while rebuilding. It's not an easy task."

Sports Illustrated

"The day camp opened, instructor Willie Stargell emerged from the Braves' clubhouse, lowered his highway-patrol shades, surveyed the field and announced, "This is one ugly group."

U-G-L-Y, the Braves ain't got no alibis. After signing free-agents Rafael Belliard, Juan Berenguer, Sid Bream, Mike Heath, Terry Pendleton and Deion Sanders, management cannot be blamed should the team again finish last. Or finish no higher than fifth, as Atlanta has done for the past six years. Or continue its astonishing streak of 22 consecutive months of losing baseball.
...
The Braves, at last, are above the poverty line. And—stop us if you've heard this one before—their rotation of Charlie Leibrandt, John Smoltz, Tom Glavine, Steve Avery and Paul Marak is downright upwardly mobile. "Atlanta can't be overlooked," says Giants G.M. Al Rosen. "I've always thought Bobby Cox was an excellent manager, and he's got impact players in Gant and Justice." Of course, this year in this division, that isn't nearly enough."

Both teams were able to move past these weaknesses in only one year of play. Of course, each team seemed to have every break fall their way, from young, talented players like Smoltz and Glavine pulling it all together to older players reaching back to find something more, like Pendleton's MVP year or Morris' terrific performances. It also helped to be competing in relatively weak divisions.

The point of the story, though, isn't to nitpick about what had to go right for each team and what had to go wrong for each competitor in order for these two worst-to-first teams to square off in the World Series. The point is that, every April, as the optimism in every city grows in anticipation of Opening Day, there is legitimate hope to be had for all 30 franchises, no matter how depressing or gloomy their situation logically seems to be. If a 65-win NL team can come back the next year to defy expectations and play an equally surprising 74-win AL team in the World Series, then there's not much that can't be hoped for.

So, good luck, fans of San Diego, Washington and Pittsburgh. I hope you get your chance to be talking about the miracle World Series run of '09 sometime in the near future. After all, what is the spring good for if not hope and optimisim?

Birthdays and Triple Plays, Opening Day Style

Smile! It's Opening Day!

The sun has come up on another Opening Day, and I couldn't be happier. (Well, figuratively, at least - no sun over here. Instead, there's going to be snow all day today, though at least there's no chance of a snowed-out Opening Day like they're having in Chicago.) It's the promise of a new year for everyone, and the first true day of spring. As a baseball fan, it's downright impossible not to be excited about Opening Day and everything that goes along with it: the optimism, the fanfare, the sold-out ballparks, the awakening of an entire city to the sites and sounds of spring. It's a great day.

I've been to four Opening Day games, and the Brewers home opener this Friday will make it five. There's always a great buzz going through the ballpark (and the tailgaters in the parking lot) and, as long as you can get past the slightly-too-high percentage of drunk college kids, it's one of the best days of the year to be at the stadium. My first taste of Opening Day baseball happened at Dodger Stadium in 1999. I've already written about this some, but it was a Kevin Brown-Randy Johnson matchup, with each pitcher making their club debuts after signing big free agent contracts in the offseason. The game was tied up on a two-out, ninth inning two-run home run by Raul Mondesi, and then won on another Mondesi two-run home run in the 11th inning. It would've been one of the more exciting games of the year if it had happened in July or August, but, since it happened on Opening Day, it's one for the ages. It's hard to ask for a better first game.

I could go on about the other Opening Day games that I have had the privilege to go to, but that seems a little too self-indulgent. Instead, I thought I'd point out a couple of interesting things about Opening Day (and April 6 Opening Days more specifically) that I found while playing with the Retrosheet database this weekend. I hope I'm not stepping on Mark's toes (from Way Back and Gone) with these "This Day In History"-type stories.

Opening Day Birthdays
One of the biggest honors a pitcher can receive from his team is to be named the Opening Day starter. When a team makes the choice to name a certain pitcher as their Opening Day starter, that teams is (usually) saying that this is their best pitcher, their #1 guy. There might be some instances where the choice for Opening Day starter is made due to other priorities, and, yes, there are some Opening Day assignments that are more telling than others, but, overall, being named Opening Day starter is an honor that any pitcher would gladly accept.

It occurred to me, then, that the Opening Day start might be even more special for those pitchers who were also celebrating a birthday. With Opening Day in late-March or early-April every year, that really limits the pool of potential Opening Day birthday-starters. In the Retrosheet era, there have actually been five pitchers who pitched either Opening Day or the home opener on their birthday, and one of them actually did it twice (each time on April 6).

The Opening Day birthday starters were:

• Catfish Hunter, on April 8, 1976, Yankees @ Brewers. Catfish started his second season with the Yankees on his 30th birthday, in a 5-0 loss to the Brewers. Hank Aaron DH'd that day, and drove in 3 runs in the first two innings.
• Marty Pattin, on April 6, 1971, Brewers @ Twins. Pattin took the hill on his 28th birthday in the Brewers' second year in Milwaukee. His offense was definitely behind him that day, as the Brewers beat the Twins 7-2 in a complete game from Pattin
• Kirk McCaskill, on April 9, 1996, White Sox vs. Rangers. McCaskill started the White Sox home opener on his 35th birthday in his last year in the majors. He had actually appeared in a few Sox games before making this start, which makes me believe he wasn't the first choice. The White Sox lost the game, 3-2, though the loss was credited to Larry Thomas.
• Charles Nagy, on May 5, 1995, Indians vs. Twins. It's safe to say that Nagy, being born in May, never expected to be pitching the home opener on his birthday. But with the delayed start to the season due to the players' strike, that's exactly what happened in 1995. Nagy pitched well, as the Indians went on to win the game 5-1.
  
• Bert Blyleven, on April 6, 1973, and on April 6, 1979. The should-be-HOFer Dutchman is the only pitcher in the Retrosheet era to have started two Opening Days on his birthday, with the second happening 30 years ago today. He pitched great in the first start, beating the A's with a complete game, seven-strikeout game. He didn't pitch quite as well in the second, though the Pirates only lost 3-2 that day.
  

Opening Day Triple Plays
One of the rarest plays in baseball, the triple play is incredibly exciting. In the 100,000+ games in the Retrosheet era, there have only been 222 triple plays total, which comes out to a little less than 4 triple plays a season. With the triple play happening so rarely, its surprising that it has even happened at all on Opening Day. But it has, four different times, actually. Here's a list of the four Opening Day triple plays:

• Orioles @ Senators on April 9, 1959. In the bottom of the 5th inning, Ed Fitz Gerald stepped up to the plate against Hoyt Wilhelm, with runners on first and second and the Sens up 5-0. With the runners (apparently) going, he smacked a line drive to the first baseman. A quick toss to the shortstop would record the second out, while a toss back to the first baseman would get the third, for a 3-6-3 TP. It was the first Opening Day triple play in the Retrosheet era. The Senators would go on to win handily, 9-2.
  
• Astros @ Red on April 6, 1978. Thirty-one years ago today, the Reds, one full year removed from their consecutive World Series wins, started Tom Seaver against the Astros' JR Richard. The game was beset by inclimate weather, with over an hour and a half of rain delays periodically stopping the game, but the Reds made due. As the Reds entered the 7th inning, they were already leading 9-5. A leadoff walk from Rose, followed by a Griffey single, a Morgan double, and a Foster single would add two more runs to the board before Dan Driessen could step to the plate. With a two strike count on Driessen and runners on the corners, Sparky called for a double steal. Driessen struck out, Foster was tagged out trying to steal second and Morgan was caught in a pickle for the ultra-rare K-2-6-5-6 TP. The Reds would hang on to win, 11-9, in a wet and wild game.
  
• Phillies @ Cardinals on April 11, 1981. It was Opening Day for the Cardinals, though the Phillies had already played a game a few days earlier. In the top of the 8th, the Phillies were already leading, 4-2. Three consecutive singles from Pete Rose, Manny Trillo, and Bake McBride would put runners on second and third after an error on the pitcher (16-time Gold Glover Jim Kaat). With Mike Schmidt up and first base open, the Cards did the logical thing and intentionally walked him. It paid off in spades, as Gary Matthews grounded to the shortstop, who started the very pretty 6-2-3-4 TP. The Phillies would go on to win, 5-2.
• Twins @ Yankees on April 5, 1988. Viola started the game for the Twins, but did not last long, as the Yankees got to him in the 4th. By the time the Yankees batted in the 8th, they were already well-ahead of the defending World Series champs, 7-0. Tippy Martinez came in to pitch for the Twins, and could not find the plate. A walk, single, HBP, and another walk would leave the bases loaded for #9 hitter Rafael Santana. On a 1-2 count, Santana grounded the ball to the third baseman who stepped on the bag and tossed it around the horn for a quick and simple 5-4-3 TP. The Yankees would win the game, 8-0.

As I said, those are just a couple of interesting facts I found about Opening Day. I actually thought it was pretty amazing that April 6 kept coming up. I don't know if it's the most common Opening Day in the Retrosheet era, or if it's just the most interesting, but it's nice to know. Maybe today will bring about something just as exciting.

Enjoy the full slate of baseball on tap today, and enjoy it for all it's worth. There are few days on the calendar as hopeful and optimistic as today, as fans of all teams can welcome the spring with open arms (even if the day is full of snow), and I think we owe it to ourselves to enjoy it for all it's worth. Personally, I'm hoping for a snow day so I can stay home from work and watch tv all day, but I suspect I'll be stuck listening to MLB Gameday Audio all day instead. I guess that's not a terrible last resort.

Prediction Thread

Well, this is it - we're finally here, the last Friday without real baseball for 7 months or so. It's an exciting time with Opening Day only two full days away. It's been a long off-season, but a fun one (in some ways, at least). The CC and Teixeira sweepstakes, the Dunn-Burrell-Abreu all-hit/no-field contract hunt, the Peavy non-sweepstakes, the Maddux-Moose-Schilling retirements, the Manny saga... it's all made for a rather interesting 6 months.

And then of course I started this blog back in December, which has certainly changed the way I read and talk about baseball (for the better, of course). It's been a lot of fun these last few months, and I can only imagine how much more fun it will be when there's baseball to write about every day of the week. I'm looking forward to it.

Anyhow, now that we're only one weekend away from Opening Day, it's time to make predictions for the year ahead. I have to be honest here - I'm terrible about this prediction thing. The first time I remember making an "official" prediction for the upcoming year was in 2004. It was the winter after Kansas City's surprise winning season, and I was sold on them as an up-and-coming team. So I predicted them to go all the way to the World Series. Of course they went on to lose 104 games the next year. Last year, I predicted the Tigers to be in the Series; they finished the season 14 games under .500. So I'm terrible at this, and I'm very aware of that.

Still, it's fun to do and my buddies and I do it every year. And since I have this blog to post on, I figure I might as well make my predictions public for all to see. But to make it even more exciting, I've decided to invite some others to give their predictions too. My brother was ingenious enough to set-up a spreadsheet using Google Docs that can record a bunch of predictions, and I've invited all my friends and fellow bloggers (that I could remember at the time) to use that spreadsheet to record their predictions. Hopefully, a few of them will, and we'll be able to compare the various predictions side-by-side. Feel free to view the predictions here, and if you want to be involved, drop me an email.

With all that said, here are my predictions. And, please remember, I'm an idiot when it comes to these things (I feel bad for Mets and Red Sox fans).

AL East............W...L......NL East............W...L
Boston............93..69......New York..........95..67
Tampa Bay.........91..71......Philadelphia......90..72
New York..........88..74......Florida...........84..78
Toronto...........80..82......Atlanta...........75..87
Baltimore.........73..89......Washington........65..97

AL Central....................NL Central
Minnesota.........89..73......Chicago...........94..68
Cleveland.........86..76......Milwaukee.........91..71
Chicago...........79..83......St Louis..........84..78
Kansas City.......77..85......Cincinnati........83..79
Detroit...........67..95......Houston...........74..88
..............................Pittsburgh........68..94

AL West.......................NL West
Anaheim...........89..73......Los Angeles.......89..73
Oakland...........82..80......Arizona...........87..75
Texas.............79..83......San Francisco.....82..80
Seattle...........61..101.....Colorado..........76..86
..............................San Diego.........59..103
Playoffs
Boston over Minnesota & Tampa Bay over Anaheim
New York Mets over Milwaukee & Los Angeles over Chicago

Boston over Tampa Bay
New York Mets over Los Angeles

New York Mets over Boston

Awards
MVP: Evan Longoria & Manny Ramirez
Cy Young: Francisco Liriano & Johan Santana
Rookie of the Year: Matt Wieters & Colby Rasmus

A few notes:

• I kind of fudged the numbers to get the Brewers in there. I think they'll battle with the Phillies for the Wild Card all year, but I'm not sure who'll end up winning more games. Since I'm a Brewers fan, and since these predictions mean nothing, I might as well make them look like something I'm rooting for.
• I'm not positive how Manny will react to being in LA for the full year, but I can easily see the writers voting him the MVP if he puts up a pretty strong year. With the excitement that he'll cause in Los Angeles if he really is playing well, and if the Dodgers do win 89 games, I think the writers will have a hard time not giving in to the excitement. It'll be David Wright otherwise.
  
• I can't really think of a good MVP or Cy Young candidate in the AL. I'd like to say Halladay for Cy, but I'm not sure the Jays will support him enough. And if Longoria does win the MVP, he'll be the third player this decade to win ROY and MVP in back-to-back years, after only happening once or twice before (I know Cal did it in '82 & '83, but I can't remember if anyone else I had done it).

Don't forget to check out the "community" spreadsheet, and drop me a line if you want in.

The State of "Today's" Bullpen

I came across this great article discussing the state of today's bullpen and how it's changing the way teams and fans view the game. It seemed worth sharing.

"If you believe the old-time pitchers, it was a disgrace to need relief from the bullpen, as that outdoor meeting place is quaintly called. It is believed by most baseball historians that the term 'bullpen' came from the old fence posters in the minor leagues featuring a bull advertising chewing tobacco and "makin's" back in the dear old days when people rolled their own without thought to marijuana.

Anyway, the firemen in baseball have come a long way and to the point where they now are as revered, respected and as well-paid as starters."

So far, so good. This is nothing we haven't heard before (though the random marijuana reference seems odd), and it seems to be a pretty standard view of the state of relief pitching in baseball today.

"Some oldline baseball men think too much attention has been given to the relievers and there have been grumblings for years to change the rules so a relief pitcher's actual contribution to his team may not be measured by the specious earned run average or even the newest thing in the game - the 'save'."

Well, there's something there, a little hint that this article wasn't written in the last few years. It's been a while since anyone could call the save the "newest thing in the game". In fact, this article - "Let's Toast the Firemen" by Bob Addie - was included in the 1973 Street & Smith's preview guide. What's most interesting about it is that, despite the facts being slightly different these days, the mentality is the same today as it was 35 years ago: the way managers use relief pitchers is continually changing the game, and those "old-time starters" who "did it the right way" just don't like it.

"But the reliever has had a profound influence on baseball and has made for a revolutionary change in the game. The complaint of some fans is that baseball never changes. It has been suggested that the game needs some changes such as occurred in football where specialists abound and where the defensive platoon sometimes never meets the offensive platoon.
...
The suggestions have been many that baseball, too, should have its offensive and defensive specialists with the weak-hitting glove men never getting to bat and pinch-hitters permitted for pitchers. There also have been suggestions that the automatic pass should be adopted but then we would have lost the thrill of sneaky strategy such as happened in the [1972] World Series when Cincinnati's Johnny Bench thought he was getting an intentional pass and Oakland's Rollie Fingers struck him out."

That's a great little story about Bench and Fingers just thrown into that sentence. I've watched many, many baseball games and every time there's an intentional walk, the thought crosses my mind about what would happen if the pitcher or batter decided to sleep through the free pass. I just can't imagine someone as legendary as Bench letting that happen to him - in the middle of the World Series, no less. The mention of a "defensive unit" and "offensive unit" is also pretty interesting to me. I can see how, in 1973, when the DH was implemented, people could realistically be wary of the Commissioner wanting to shove a "defensive" and "offensive" squad.

"Every year, it seems, we get a new record for saves. A save means going into the game with a lead and preserving it - although the margin you preserve could be anything from one to five. In the 1972 season, Sparky Lyle, the Yankee southpaw, had 35 saves to surpass the mark of 34 by Ron Perranoski, of Minnesota, in 1970.

But the over all leader - and more important because his team won a pennant - was Clay Carroll, of the Cincinnati Reds who came up with 37 saves, another record."

Francisco Rodriguez just reset the saves record this past season, saving 62 games. It's a little different than the mid-70s, I imagine, since the saves records aren't changing from year-to-year. But it's not that much different, though, if you consider how quickly all-time saves numbers are changing or who is considered top closer from year to year. It's almost like being in the middle of the stolen base revolution of the '70s and '80s.

"There is remarkable similarity between the two leagues in a couple of 1972 vital statistics - complete games and saves. In the National Leage, the 12 clubs registered 507 complete games and 361 saves. In the American League, it was 502 complete games and 372 saves. That's close enough to be twins.

The oddity is that although relief pitchers gained even greater prominence, the total of 1009 complete games for both leagues represented the second highest in history. The paradox is that the use of relievers is more popular than ever and yet complete games are holding up well, as the stock market would phrase it."

This is where the comparison between the modern era and the 1970s finally falls apart. Complete games are not a likelihood these days, and there's no way you're going to see a club with 30 complete games on it ever again, let alone the entire league. It just costs too much money to risk. There were 136 complete games in the majors last year, across all 30 teams - that's 4 CGs per team, on average. On the other hand, there were 1,134 saves in the league, or about 38 saves per team. As the article points out, the MLB lead for saves in '72 was only 37, less than the average team has today.

Much of the rest of Addie's article goes on to pay tribute to the retiring Hoyt Wilhelm and to discuss the current crop of relievers - Fingers, Dave Giusti, Mike Marshall - and how they're being used more and more in big games. In fact, Addie seems to lament how the World Series "got to be not a question of which pitcher was going to start but when the ace relievers such as Fingers for the A's and Carroll for the Reds would be brought in." The article ends, though, on an intriguing suggestion by Tug McGraw, the Mets star closer. Some of what he suggests has been adopted in the intervening years (inherited runners scored), but not everything. It seems a fitting way to end this post:

"'It's not right to regard a reliever the same way as a starting pitcher,' [McGraw] told Red Foley of the New York Daily News. 'A won and lost record and earned run average is okay for the guys who pitch a lot of innings but a reliever gets shortchanged.'

McGraw suggests a grading system for the bullpen by keeping a record of the times a reliever enters a game with men on base.

'The way it stands now,' explained McGraw, 'a guy comes in from the bullpen with somebody else's runners on base and if one or more of these men score the runs are charged to the pitcher he relieved. The relief pitcher, under that circumstance, didn't do his job. Why not have a method that charges him a plus and minus system. A column could be added to the statistics to indicate how often a reliever succeeded and how often he failed.'

As McGraw sees it, a reliever would be charged a minus for each man who scored and a plus for those left on base.

Among other suggestions, the reliever gets one point every inning he preserves a lead or prevents the other team from scoring. Subtract one point each time he loses a lead or a tie or is responsible for losing it.

But we're getting to the point now where computers are taking over everything and baseball is overloaded with statistics.

The old rule of thumb seems to be good enough for the relievers - if he gets more guys out than he puts on base, he's doing his job."

(Oh, and don't you love the jab at computers and stats - from 1973 - at the end there?)