Category: MLB (Page 445 of 448)

This weekend is going to be the most exciting weekend of regular season baseball in ages.

The Red Sox, Yankees and Indians all have the same record, 92-64, with six games left to play. Each team is playing the first three games, curiously, against the bottom three teams in the AL East. Cleveland faces off against the Devil Rays (who swept the Tribe when they came to the Jake in August), the Yankees play the Orioles, and the Red Sox play the Blue Jays, starting the series off with a win earlier today. Cleveland then hosts the White Sox to finish the season, while Boston hosts the Yankees. Don’t be surprised if neither division is clinched until Sunday afternoon.

If these teams are smart, they will not look past their games tonight. Misery loves company, and teams that have been eliminated from playoff contention love taking other teams down with them (witness Detroit’s glee in beating the White Sox last night, which pulled the Indians to within two games of first in the AL Central). These first three games may look like pushovers, but they are anything but, and if the Sox, Yanks or Tribe lose two out of the next three, they put themselves in serious trouble.

And let’s not forget the NL West, where the Giants are staging a massive comeback on the sluggish Padres. The Giants have won 10 of 14 since Barry Bonds returned (say what you want about the guy, but no one impacts a game the way he does), while the Padres look gassed. The Giants could very easily take that division over. Meanwhile, the Phillies haven’t given up on the wild card, a game and a half down to Houston and playing the Mets and Nats. The ‘Stros, meanwhile, have to go through division arch rivals St. Louis and the Cubs, and those games will not be taken lightly.

Still, the real story here is the Sox/Yanks/Tribe scenario. Two of those three are going to the playoffs, and it’s entirely possible that all three of them could wind up going, depending on what the White Sox do. No matter how you slice it, this is gonna be fun to watch.

Rafael Palmeiro doesn’t know it, but he just ended his baseball career.

During a conversation with an arbitration panel, Palmeiro fingered a teammate as the source of a substance that may have triggered his positive test for steroids. I can’t even begin to explain what a bad idea this was. If this were the Mafia, Raffy the Rat would get whacked.

There is no question that Palmeiro is embarrassed, and likely harbors resentment for the teammate who let him down. But you don’t break the code, man. If you get caught cheating, you do your time and keep your mouth shut. Raffy, of all people, should know this. After all, his Cub teammates kept their mouths shut while he was banging Ryne Sandberg’s wife, so the story goes.

While he didn’t go out and say that the substance he obtained is directly responsible for his positive steroid test, he’s clearly trying to lay the groundwork for his defense that he’s an honest guy who trusted a dishonest person. But it’s a little late for that story. Had he kept his mouth shut, and taken his lumps, he would still have been accepted by the other players in the clubhouse, if not by the fans. By ratting out one of his teammates, he guaranteed that no one will ever want to play with him again.

Perhaps the most curious part of all is: who is this mysterious teammate? Conventional wisdom would suggest Sammy Sosa, but I honestly can’t imagine that Sosa would ever risk getting caught with any of that stuff, not after already suffering through a corked bat scandal, which many speculate was a result of no longer using steroids. So who is it, then? Is it a starter? What would the ramifications be if it turned out to be a stud like Miguel Tejada? Just how deep, and how widespread, is the steroids issue?

There was talk that Palmeiro planned to play the final week of the season. To that I say, Raffy, do yourself and the rest of the Orioles organization a huge favor and stay home. You don’t even want to know what’s waiting for you, and quite frankly, your teammates, even the one who gave you the juice, deserve better than that. And based on recent developments, the interim skipper for the O’s agrees. It’s sage advice, Raffy. I’d consider it.

Well, it was good while it lasted, wasn’t it? Great, actually.

.301 – 35 HR – 92 RBI

And with that, in just 128 games, 491 at-bats, Ken Griffey Jr. proved to the baseball world that he still matters. The Reds may not, but Junior certainly does. Griffey’s rejuvenation came to an end on September 4, when he sprained his foot while running the bases against Atlanta. The injury wasn’t believed to be serious, and in truth it may not be, but with the Reds out of contention (were they really ever in contention?), the team decided to let Junior rest for the remainder of the season while also sending him in for surgery to clean out his left knee and the scar tissue surrounding his right hamstring.

The 128 games are the most Griffey’s played since 2000, his first season with the Reds. Not so coincindentally, the 35 homers and 92 RBI also mark his highest end-of-year totals since 2000, while Junior hadn’t hit above .300 since his MVP campaign in 1997.

Of course, just because Griffey was healthy for the majority of the season doesn’t mean he’ll be healthy next year or the year after that. But his production this year does prove that, as long as he’s out there, he’s still dangerous. His .576 slugging percentage ranked fifth in the NL, behind Carlos Delgado and MVP candidates Derrek Lee, Albert Pujols and Andruw Jones, and his .946 OPS (on-base + slugging) ranked seventh in the league. He may not run anymore (0-1 in stolen base attempts) and he’s certainly not the picture of health, but he’s still got that picture-perfect swing and when he’s out there, he can still mash.

Let’s also not forget that now Junior is tied with Mickey Mantle for 12th on the all-time home run list with 536 career dingers. Two more seasons like this one (he’s still just 34), and Junior would sit behind just Hank Aaron (755), Babe Ruth (714), Barry Bonds (707, as of today) and Willie Mays (660) on the sport’s most revered list. Take into account his 12 All-Star games, 10 Gold Gloves (might another be on its way?) and his MVP award, and you wonder how anybody can argue that Ken Griffey Jr. is not a first-ballot Hall of Famer.