The Washington Nationals did something amazing on April 27. In a game at Philadelphia, they hit five homers and drew 10 walks… and lost. The Nats are the third team since 1954 to meet or exceed those totals and not come away with the victory. (There have been 19 such games in total.)
Back in ‘77, [...]
Have you noticed any strange trades in the past couple weeks? If you weren’t paying close attention, you might have missed them because they involved fairly minor players.
First, the San Diego Padres acquired infielder Chris Burke from Seattle for cash considerations. This in itself isn’t so interesting; however, a few weeks earlier, the Padres had [...]
It concerns me that my teams are doing so well in the early going. If this were September, I wouldn’t know what do with myself. Thankfully it’s still only April, so there’s plenty of time for normalcy to be restored.
The Padres are off to a ridiculous start. I have no idea how they’re doing it, [...]
I attended my first minor-league game in 1987. Opening Day at Old Orchard Beach, Maine. The Maine Guides hosted the Columbus Clippers. Veteran Al Holland started for Columbus. Prospects Jay Buhner and Orestes Destrade were the big names behind him.
Ron Jones, who eventually enjoyed a brief but productive (.272/.330/.485) big-league career, knocked two homers for [...]
Got my third look at SDSU right-hander Stephen Strasburg Friday afternoon. He shut down UC Davis, as the Aztecs cruised to a 14-0 victory at Petco Park. For Strasburg, it was business as usual, but without all the strikeouts; presumably he was trying to be less fascist.
The scoreboard had his fastball at 96-99 mph [...]
Do you realize how amazing Livan Hernandez’s 2008 was? Since 1901, there have been 44 seasons in which a pitcher:
Qualified for the ERA title
Posted an ERA+ of 70 or lower
Had a K/9 of 4 or lower
Of those 44 seasons, three came with a winning record. Hernandez was the first to pitch that badly and still [...]
Got my second look at SDSU right-hander Stephen Strasburg on Friday night at Tony Gywnn Stadium. Reminded me a lot of the first time I saw him: Many ugly swings, not much contact.
Strasburg allowed two hits and two walks over seven shutout innings against BYU. He struck out 15. Yawn.
The two hits were singles. The [...]
Here’s my question about the World Baseball Classic: Why is the target audience rich, childless, jobless people who don’t like basketball? I’m no marketing genius, but I’m thinking the folks in charge would have been better off going after baseball fans.
I went to all four games at Petco Park in 2006 and had a blast. [...]
I got my first look at SDSU right-hander Stephen Strasburg in Friday night’s contest against the UNLV Runnin’ Rebels at Tony Gwynn Stadium. He struck out 14 of the 28 batters he faced and lived up to the hype. I sat to the first base side of home plate looking straight down the left field [...]
Here’s what I love about spring. I was thinking about the 1990 Reds — you know, the ones that swept Oakland in the World Series — and got to wondering how “likely” it was that their season would turn out the way it did.
I’m not going to run any numbers for you; that is too [...]
