Category: MLB (Page 415 of 448)

Did home plate umpire Tim Welke have a flight to catch? Based on the strike zone he was calling tonight, he clearly had a better place to be. He was calling strikes that were half a foot off the plate. It was like Atlanta in the ‘90s all over again, when John Smoltz and Tom Glavine (coincidentally, tonight’s starter for New York) got an extra four inches on each side of the plate. Even Jeff Weaver, the starting pitcher for the Cardinals, was upset when a bad pitch was called a strike when he was batting.

Curiously, Welke called a good game from then on. He probably thought he was squeezing Weaver, but in fact he was calling balls and strikes according to the rulebook of Major League Baseball. Fox’s equivalent to the K Zone was repeatedly showing balls out of the strike zone called as strikes. Welke’s gonna hate reviewing that video in the morning.

Cliff Floyd pulled up lame in the second inning rounding first on a fly out, and oddly enough, that turned out to be a good thing. His replacement, defensive specialist Endy Chavez, made a Web Gem-worthy play in left on a sinking fly ball that would have meant all kinds of trouble for the Mets. I’m betting Floyd won’t play again in this series, so this may cause problems for the Mets in the short term. But for this game, Endy Chavez was The Man.

For a series that everyone expected to be a series of 9-7 games, the first one was anything but. Jeff Weaver has been so phenomenal in the post-season, someone should do a DNA test to make sure it’s not his little brother Jared on the mound instead. Yeah, they showed a shot of Jared in the stands during the game, but come on, his cap was down low, that totally could have been Jeff.

So yeah, the runs. Paul LoDuca hit a single, and then Carlos Beltran, who has atrocious numbers in Shea Stadium this season, absolutely crushed a pitch from Weaver into right-center. The thing hit halfway up the scoreboard, a good 400+ feet away. That’s all they needed.

Expect more of the same tomorrow, when Chris Carpenter comes back from three days’ rest to take on rookie John Maine. Suddenly, this slug-happy series is turning into another pitchers’ duel.

Sports Radio AM1130 WDFN out of Detroit announced Thursday afternoon that Major League Baseball has decided to push Game 3 of the Tigers-A’s series up from 8:15pm ET to 4:15pm ET Friday.

Officials for the MLB said the change was because of bad weather in the forecast for Friday night in Detroit.

I realize that with Cory Lidle dying in the tragic plane accident yesterday that the MLB may want to make this game a nationally televised event. Maybe the league is planning to do something special in New York to honor Lidle.

If the league doesn’t honor Lidle, however, and this was just a ploy for ratings (which isn’t that far-fetched considering the ’06 playoffs have produced a record low audience thus far), this move should be definitely criticized.

I’ll hold off judgment until I see what the MLB is planning, but for now, I question why the game was moved at all considering both Detroit and New York could both possibly face bad weather come Friday night.

Why move just the Detroit game out of prime time if you’re worried about bad weather?

ESPN.com is reporting that New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle died in a plane crash Wednesday afternoon.

A small plane piloted by New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle crashed into a 50-story condominium tower Wednesday on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, killing at least four people, authorities said.

Lidle died in the crash.

The twin-engine plane came through a hazy, cloudy sky and hit the 20th floor of The Belaire — a red-brick tower overlooking the East River, about five miles from the World Trade Center — with a loud bang, touching off a raging fire that cast a pillar of black smoke over the city and sent flames shooting from four windows on two adjoining floors.

It has been reported that Lidle was the pilot of the small plane and was on a path that most experienced fliers would deem small and narrow to fly through. Lidle had his pilot license for only eight months before the crash.

At first, many people on the ground around Manhattan thought it was another Sept. 11 attack, but onlookers were quickly notified that it was a random accident. Most of the details are still a bit hazy.

Lidle pitched against the Detroit Tigers in the Yankees divisional playoff series just last week. He was 34 years old.