Leading Off #3 — BDD Weekly Delay, Rained Out Live Blog & The Greatest Week In The History of April Baseball?
Posted by Brian Joseph on Monday, April 20, 2009 at 4:15 am
Someday “New” Yankee Stadium will be replaced by “Newer” Yankee Stadium… and the Cleveland Indians 14-run inning in 2009 will be the most runs scored by one team in an inning still.
The Greatest Week of April Baseball… Ever?: There was the previously mentioned 14-run inning by the Indians, Paul Konerko and Jermaine Dye’s back-to-back homers to put them both at 300 each, Gary Sheffield’s 500th, Tim Wakefield’s and Randy Johnson’s near no-nos, grand slam after grand slam after grand slam after grand slam, three players hitting for the cycles, a number of comebacks including two walk-off homers on Sunday. It’s hard to remember a more exciting week of April baseball. Forgive me if I left something out.
Someday the Mets will score runs for Johan Santana… but even when they don’t, he’ll probably win it by himself anyway.
The Final Acta: This week’s nominee for worst week ever? Nationals manager Manny Acta. If this were written on Sunday morning instead of Monday morning, this would have been about how Acta is likely to be the first manager fired in Major League Baseball this year and why I, in particular, agree that should be the decision even if it isn’t Manny’s fault. However, after the Nats bullpen blew yet another lead on Sunday en route to their 10th loss of the season, it’s hard to agree when it’s obvious how undermanned the Nationals are this year. It was good to see Acta lose his patience on Sunday and the team totally retool their bullpen. Out went Saul Rivera, Steven Shell, Wil Ledezma and Josh Bard and in came Garrett Mock, Jason Bergmann, Kip Wells and Jordan Zimmermann immediately following Sunday’s game. Zimmermann, 22, will make his Major League debut which is something for Nats’ fans to be excited about… if there are any. Watching Nationals games in that beautiful, empty ballpark is depressing as an on-looker. I can’t imagine it’s much easier for Acta. So, maybe it isn’t the right decision but it might be fair to put Acta out of his misery.
Someday the Astros will win a World Series… and Ed Wade won’t be around to see it even if he’s mostly responsible for it.
Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper: How many people had Cecil Cooper in their “Fired Manager Pool”? Despite their rough Spring Training and equally rough start, the Houston Astros have exercised their 2010 option on Cooper thus easing their manager’s mind and further perplexing those critical of the Houston franchise. It’s nothing new from GM Ed Wade who has a way of making unconventional moves. He did it Philly and now has continued his puzzling ways in Houston. While picking up Cooper’s option is by no means monumental in the grand scheme of things, it definitely sent a message that Wade will make an unpopular decision if he thinks it is the right one. That’s if trading for Randy Wolf and LaTroy Hawkins at the deadline last year didn’t do that already.
Someday the term “band box” will wear out its welcome… and we’re open for suggestions to replace it.
What’s New at BDD?
First, it’s important to address jumping the gun last week on the BDD Weekly PDF edition. While there is a finished product, we’re struggling with how to properly distribute it. My goal is to have the first edition and the second two-week edition downloadable by next week but there are no guarantees. Stay tuned!
Second, our first live blog of the year was rained out yesterday and thanks to Andy Dolan of Desipio.com for coming by and hanging in for the first hour or so. The replay of the live blog is available on the blog and we’ll be announcing the date of the second live blog of the season shortly. Thanks to those who stopped by and commented. We might have to aim for the next BDD live blog to take place in a domed stadium to break the weather curse that has now carried over from last year’s World Series Live Blogs.
Finally, we’ll be looking to ramp up our news coverage this week. If you haven’t noticed Joe Hamari’s Twitter feed on the front page, there’s a good flow of updates there but expect more news and, more importantly, analysis of the latest moves this week.
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