Category: MLB (Page 417 of 448)

For a moment, this one looked like it could be interesting. St. Louis ace Chris Carpenter, who walked a total of nine batters in the first inning all season, walked three in the first inning of Game 4 of the NLDS. And that was after giving up two singles. The Padres were given the rare gift of an ace pitcher out of sorts, his curve ball all over the place, and they exploited that situation to the tune of…two runs. Two, runs. With the bases loaded and one out, after Carpenter had walked in a run, Mike Cameron had to beat out a double play ball to plate a second run. And that would be it. Carpenter would regain his composure, and the Padres would go back to their flailing ways.

Here’s the most damning stat of the series: San Diego was 2-32 with runners in scoring position. Wow.

Watching the performance by St. Louis, along with the Tigers’ upset of the Yankees, is a testament to Tony Kornheiser’s adage that momentum is tomorrow’s starting pitcher. It didn’t make a lick of difference that both teams were on the verge of historical collapses at the end of the regular season. All that matters now is that they’re in the Show, and both teams are ready to play. Just like the White Sox last year.

St. Louis now heads to New York to take on the M*A*S*H unit New York Mets, who lost Pedro Martinez and Orlando Hernandez before the NLDS (anyone else out there thing Pedro is pretty much done?), and are now looking at losing Cliff Floyd to his lingering Achilles injury. What once seemed like a done deal for the Mets early in the season is looking like a mixed bag at best now. That should make for an interesting series, hopefully more interesting than either NLDS series was.

Well, at least one New York team came to play in the divisional round this week.

The Mets swept the Dodgers thanks in big part to right fielder Shawn Green going 3 for 4 with two RBI and a run scored Saturday night. Green made the contest 3-0 in the first inning by knocking in David Wright – who had singled in Carlos Beltran earlier in the inning to give New York a 1-0 lead to start off the game. After the Dodgers cut the lead to 4-2 in the fourth, Jeff Kent hit a two-run shot to tie the game at four apiece. James Loney then scored off an unintentional walk to give LA its first and last lead of the game. The Mets would go on to tack three more runs on the scoreboard in the sixth inning and then followed up with two more in the eighth to give New York its deciding 9-5 advantage.

Pedro Feliciano (1-0) got the win for New York tonight while Jonathan Broxton (0-1) took the loss for the Dodgers.

I think one of the Dodgers biggest problems coming into this series was their inconsistent play after the All-Star break. LA went on that huge winning streak, but then faltered enough in the end to give San Diego the division. I think the Dodgers just never could capitalize on any momentum that they built. That double play at home plate to lead off the Game 1 didn’t help either and that seemed to just set the tone for LA the entire series.

For New York, it was all about run production. You would think that a team with a weak pitching staff would eventually go down for the count, but the NY Mets might just be the exception. Other than Jose Reyes and Carlos Beltran, every single Mets batter hit well over .300 for the series. When you get that contribution from your lineup, it won’t matter if guys like Pedro Martinez and El Duque aren’t pitching. The nice thing for the Mets is that they’ll have a little time to rest since the Padres were able to push their series with the Cardinals at least one more game. Outfielder Cliff Floyd had to leave Saturday’s game with an Achilles’ tendon injury after scoring in the first inning. There is no timetable right now for Floyd’s return.

Welcome to Detroit City Yankees – now get out.

Let me first say this about the New York Yankees before I get into what a masterful job the Detroit Tigers did in winning this best of five series. Everybody who complains about the Yankees buying their team every year, getting all of the best talent and winning only because they spend the most, need to stop. They haven’t won anything in six years, okay? Got that? NOTHING since 2000, so obviously they don’t have the best talent, they don’t spend wisely and therefore don’t deserve the attention that most of the nation pays to them good or bad. New York’s juggernaut of a lineup produced four runs in three games. This goes out to the media too – nobody wants to hear about how good the Yankees are anymore. They got destroyed by a team that played together, again. They got knocked out by a team with better pitching, again. And finally, the New York Yankees fell to the better overall team, again. So, next offseason when the Yankees go out and buy Jason Schmidt, Barry Zito or whoever big name pitcher is out there, everybody need not worry, because this is the Indianapolis Colts of the MLB…without a salary cap. The Yankees are a team filled with talent, are always picked to win the big one, but have no cohesiveness when it matters most.

Now, on to the team that should get the more recognition than the Yankees, but won’t. The Detroit Tigers limped into the playoffs after a choke job only Michigan State could duplicate by being swept by the Kansas City Royals. The Tigers get waxed on the national stage Tuesday night by the Yankees 8-4, but then what happens? They don’t collapse, they don’t fall to what many believe was a superior team and they don’t wilt under pressure. Detroit capitalized on the rain delay that killed any of the Yankees momentum on Thursday night, were more patient than New York at the plate and won with better coaching (why was Gary Sheffield not in the lineup Friday night? Or Jason Giambi on Saturday? What a joke). Joe Torre got schooled in coaching by Jim Leyland in this series.

What a job by Jeremy Bonderman in the Tigers clinching game Saturday. This was a kid that a lot of people in Detroit were worried about sending to the hill in a game of this magnitude, because the guy can never settle down. Well, he settled in today and pitched 8.1 innings of strong baseball and limited the Yankee hitters to just two runs on five hits. Once again, what a job by Carlos Guillen (3 for 4, one RBI), Placido Polanco (2 for 5, two runs scored) and Magglio Ordonez (2 for 4, three runs scored and two RBI). Guillen hit .571 for the series while Polanco finished with a .412 mark and Sean Casey hit .353. Guillen is one of the best players nobody has ever heard of in the American League. And guess what? He did it all season in leading the Tigers in batting average, runs, stolen bases and on base percentage.

The Tigers were the better team for three out of four games and what a great thing to happen to the city of Detroit. This city hasn’t had a baseball winner in over a decade and a half and after years of atrocious play, Motown finally has a reason to be excited again. Oakland is on the horizon, but for right now, let the Tigers celebrate an impressive victory over Peyton Manning, Edgerrin James, Marvin Harrison and Reggie Wayne…err, you know what I mean.

Okay, first thing’s first: Unless broadcaster Jon Miller was sick, there was no excuse for his lifeless performance behind the mic today. Now, I love listening to Jon Miller and Joe Morgan on Sunday Night Baseball, but he totally phoned this game in, sounding bored that St. Louis was losing and denying him the opportunity to talk about Albert Pujols for three hours.

In fairness to Miller, the game wasn’t terribly exciting. Chris Young took the Cardinals hitters to school, striking out nine in 6 2/3 innings. The vaunted foursome of Pujols, Jim Edmonds, Scott Rolen and Juan Encarnacion went 0-15 with seven strikeouts, including two from the impossible-to-whiff Pujols. Their only run came from a blast in the eighth by So Taguchi (!). I have never heard a St. Louis crowd as quiet as this one.

San Diego scored all their runs in one inning as well. Russell Branyan doubled to right, scoring Adrian Gonzalez and Mike Cameron. Branyan took third on Ronnie Belliard’s fielding error, then scored on Geoff Blum’s sacrifice fly. That brings the total number of runs scored by the Padres in three playoff games to…four. When they actually get hitters on base, they either choke at the plate– they hit four doubles today, but only one of them resulted in any runs – or they space out on the base paths. Witness Mike Piazza getting picked off at first by catcher Yadier Molina.

San Diego now has to face Chris Carpenter for a second time in Game 4. Uh oh. If the Padres have been saving their hits for a rainy day, this better be it.

So much for that slump the Tigers had while limping into the playoffs.

Kenny “The Roaster” Rogers (1-0) gave Detroit fans reason to smile as they enjoyed their first postseason win in the Motor City since 1987. Rogers went 7.2 innings, gave up just four hits and struck out nine in a masterful performance at Comerica. One of the biggest things that Rogers accomplished Friday night – besides giving the Tigers a 2-1 series lead – is out dual one of the Yankees aces, Randy Johnson (0-1). Johnson gave up five runs in barely over five innings and never even surrendered a long ball – Detroit got all of its runs off the big lefty from timely hitting and good base running. The hero’s for Detroit along with Rogers were Placido Polanco (2 for 3, one RBI), Carlos Guillen (2 for 4, two runs scored) and Sean Casey (2 for 3, two RBI).

The thing that will get overlooked in this game and thus far in this series is the job manager Jim Leyland has done. He was somewhat criticized for pitching Nate Robertson in Game 1, but Leyland knew that Rogers struggled mightily in Yankees Stadium, so he held his veteran ace for the home opener. Obviously, the results worked. Another thing that Leyland did was go with a crafty pitcher in Robertson in Game 1, a flamethrower in rookie Justin Verlander in Game 2 and then back to an off speed guy in Rogers for Game 3. The New York batting order, which has been often credited as being possibly the best lineup in Yankees history, has been completely fooled since scoring eight runs in the opener. New York’s hitters look off balance, confused and just plain over-matched.

The Tigers will get the chance to close out the series Saturday at 4:00pm ET and set up a date in Oakland with the A’s early next week. Detroit will send Jeremy Bonderman to the hill to face the Yankees’ Jaret Wright.