The more I think about it, the more I’m annoyed that I missed the Nationals game today. How often do you see a guy like Albert Pujols walk on to the field as a pinch hitter and hit his 297th career home run? This guy is twenty-eight. His career batting average is .333, OBP .423, SLG .621. If you aren’t a baseball fan, you may not understand those numbers. That’s okay. They’re absurd. If he plays at more or less this level for the next five to ten years, which is what’s going to happen unless he gets hurt, he is a first ballot Hall of Famer, the kind of guy you don’t even debate. It’s just a given. So I’m pretty disappointed that I didn’t get to see him. And the Cardinals aren’t coming back to DC this season. I’ll see him one of these days, though. Next year I get an earlier shot at the company season tickets, so I should be able to pick up a Cardinals game. Now back to the basketball game.
Tag: baseball
Rainout
The Nationals game was rained out last night, so I didn’t get to see Albert Pujols. It was fun anyway – we wandered around the stadium, stopped at Ben’s Chili Bowl, and then came home. I actually saw someone wearing a McGwire shirt. I’m kind of surprised – I thought he was pretty much disgraced and forgotten. I mean, he was my favorite player growing up, and I wouldn’t wear a McGwire shirt. There was also a tiny girl in an Eckstein jersey, probably about the size of Eckstein himself. I’d guess she weighed about 95 pounds. I almost took a picture of her to send to Fire Joe Morgan, but then I thought she might not appreciate it. Edit to add: They’re making up the game today at 1, which doesn’t really work for my schedule, but Pujols isn’t playing. I don’t really mind missing a game between the awful Nationals and the Pujols-free Cardinals. Edit again to add: Pujols pinch hit in the 7th and hit one out in a 4-1 Cardinals win. Now I’m annoyed. I should have gone to the game.
A trip to Camden Yards
The Orioles climbed out last place yesterday with a win over the Yankees. The wife and I went with two other couples. I had almost forgotten how much I like the stadium in Baltimore. The new Nationals Park is nice, but it’s no Camden Yards. I suppose that may be because the Orioles are my team, and I’d love their park no matter what. Anyway, it’s kind of depressing to go to a game there these days. Thanks to Peter Angelos and his commitment to pretending to want to win, attendance at Camden Yards is pretty sad. There were more Yankees fans than Orioles fans (Although most of the Yankees fans left after the Orioles went up 6-0 in the seventh). I’ve never been to a sporting event where the visiting fans were so overpowering. There were Yankees chants that Orioles fans mostly ignored. I guess it’s hard to yell back when you’re outnumbered. The win was nice. Garrett Olson was pretty dominant in seven shutout innings. Nick Markakis had three hits, two runs, and two RBIs. And aside from Matsui and his three hits, the Yankees were pretty pathetic on offense. And we saw a drunk woman in a Jeter shirt get escorted out by security. We saw an Orioles fan propose to his girlfriend (She said yes). And the weather was beautiful. Now all we need to do is a few more wins to put some distance between us and the bottom of the division.
Saturday Night at Nationals Park
We went to our first game using my company’s season tickets. The seats are great, just past first base. The results of the game weren’t too great – a 5-2 loss to the Brewers. Luckily, I’m an Orioles fan, and I don’t really care too much if the Nats lose. Not many others seem to care, either – 30,029 was the announced attendance, just shy of 3/4 full. For a beautiful Saturday night over Memorial Day weekend, I expected a full house. There were a ton of kids there – the lines for ice cream were crazy, but it was easy to get a beer. The rest of the pictures are here. They’re probably only really interesting to me, but you’re welcome to look at them, too. 
I’m looking forward to our next game – the Cardinals are in town, and we’ll get a good look at Albert Pujols at first. Always nice to see a future first ballot Hall of Famer in the prime of his career. And we saw Charlie Manning’s major league debut. He gave up a hit and struck out two, so I imagine he’s pleased with that. Finally, we made a return trip to Ben’s Chili Bowl, fantastic as usual. For $7, the veggie chili cheese fries are a deal by ballpark standards. Going to the stadium and skipping Ben’s is just crazy.
Jim “One Inning” Johnson and the Orioles
The other day I wrote about how Orioles reliever Jim Johnson picked up a nice hold, then gave up a run before getting lifted. Well, he did it again. The first inning he closed out wasn’t dramatic – he got Jeter to line out with a runner on to end the inning in a tie game in the bottom of the eighth. But his second inning was sure dramatic. Single, strikeout, strikeout, walk, and then Robinson Cano singles to win the game. It seems pretty clear from these two games (which is too small a sample size but I don’t care) that Johnson should not be allowed to pitch a second inning. Looking at his gamelogs on Baseball Reference, this isn’t true. It’s just the two games that I’ve noticed where he closed out an inning nicely, then pitched badly when he came out to start the following inning. Anyway, tough loss. Wastes a nice start by Brian Burres. But we’re still third, and they’re still last. So that’s cool.
THAT’S how you pitch
Orioles thump Yankees, 12-2 What is going on with Daniel Cabrera? Seven innings, 86 pitches (52 for strikes), no walks, and the only runs he allowed were on a two run home run by the guy who’s going to break Bonds’ record. His season WHIP is 1.23, down from over 1.5 for his career. It sounds like he’s actually listening to me when I say, “Hey, Cabrera, you have a hell of an arm – THROW STRIKES”. Apparently there was a little bit of an uproar after LaTroy Hawkins retaliated for Cabrera hitting Jeter in the hand by throwing one behind Luke Scott. As is my usual disclaimer, I didn’t see the game. But if Daniel Cabrera hits your guy in the hand, you can pretty much assume it was accidental. Yes, he’s been throwing more strikes recently. But he still has a 7 walk game this year. He walked 9 in his first 10 innings pitched. The guy has control issues. I mean, if Greg Maddux hits your guy, then absolutely retaliate. It was totally on purpose. But Cabrera? Give him a break. The best part about this is it keeps the Orioles three games back, keeps the Yankees in last place, and was a rare “good hitting performance and good pitching performance in the same game” for the Orioles.
Orioles beat Beckett and the Sox
The Orioles came back from an early 3-0 deficit last night to beat Josh Beckett and the Red Sox. I’m sorry I missed the game, but I was having dinner with the wife (Post to come) and then watching basketball. The game puts the Sox a half game back from first place Tampa Bay (Never thought I’d write those four words) and keeps the O’s in third, 3 back. Not a bad place to be for a team expected to win 65 games this year. Now, I’ve complained about the hold before. It’s a stupid stat that rarely measures anything of real value to a baseball team. But there was an interesting hold credited last night to an Orioles pitcher. So, top of the seventh, Boston leads off with two singles, so we have guys on first and second with no outs. It’s 5-3, Baltimore. Jamie Walker relieves Jeremy Guthrie and promptly throws a wild pitch and walks Ortiz to load the bases for Manny. Pretty much anyone who has ever heard of baseball knows that no outs, bases loaded, and Manny Ramirez at the plate is bad times for the defense. This could be very ugly, very soon. Jim Johnson relieves Walker and Manny grounds into a double play, then Mike Lowell pops out to end the inning. THIS IS A HOLD. Bases loaded, no outs in the seventh, two run lead, and the 4-5-6 hitters coming up – allowing no runs here is a really nice pitching performance. I have no problem giving the guy credit for a hold here. But I do have a problem with the next inning, where with one out, Johnson walks two and gives up an RBI single before getting lifted for the closer. So, we have to try and get to the root of the hold. Is it given for getting out of a jam, regardless of the next inning? That is, let’s say he had given up a two-run home run before getting lifted, making the score 6-5 Sox. Does he still get the hold for the previous inning? Maybe my real problem here is my reaction to pitchers issuing walks. I think it’s because I feel like, if the pitcher allows a hit, then the batter beat him. It sucks, but it happens. But if the pitcher allows a walk, then he beat himself. I mean, sure, some guys are better at drawing walks than others, but in the end, the pitcher still has to throw four pitches that don’t go through the strike zone and don’t provoke a swing. Maybe my initial reaction to Johnson’s night would have been better if he’d just given up two hits and the run instead of the two walks. Anyway, I still hate the hold stat. But at least Johnson earned it this time.
This is what happens when you throw strikes, Cabrera
I didn’t see the game, but it’s quite clear from the box score that Daniel Cabrera is a tremendously effective pitcher when he’s throwing strikes. He threw 76 of them versus only 40 balls. The result? A 4-1 complete game victory over the (hapless, I know) Kansas City Royals. He struck out seven, allowing only three hits and a walk. Lucky for the Orioles that Nick Markakis had a good game, hitting three run homer and scoring on a wild pitch to account for all four of the Orioles runs. Losing a complete game shutout 1-0 is kind of a kick in the teeth. The game also pulled the Orioles a half-game ahead of Toronto into fourth place in the AL East.
And there we are
And the Orioles have lost their fifth in a row to fall into last place. I think everyone saw this coming, but some of us held out hope it would come a little later in the season. It’s pretty clear what the problem is – they’ve now scored fewer runs than anyone in the AL except Kansas City. Their runs allowed are tolerable, they just can’t score. Still, they’re nearly a third of the way to their predicted win total, and we’re not even a quarter done with the season. So that’s encouraging.
That was money well-spent
A little while back I sponsored two pages at Baseball Reference. It was mostly for fun, and because it’s one of my favorite sites on the whole internet, and it’s cool to give something back. So I thought I’d give a report on how that sponsorship is going in terms of referrals. My sponsorship of Mark Knudson has resulted in TWO new visits to the site. Since I’m surprised that two people have even looked at Mark Knudson’s career stats since April 7th, that seems like a good result. And my sponsorship of Chad Bradford has resulted in FOUR new visits to the site. Bradford’s status as an active player having a good year (Small sample size, but he’s got a 1.03 WHIP and a 297 ERA+ in 12 innings, can’t complain about that) means that he’s probably getting more traffic, so it makes sense that he’d drive more people here. To put the traffic in perspective, though, over the same time period, I’ve had 504 total visits (It’s been a slow posting time, so my traffic is down). 27 of those hits are from people Googling “vector security”. Five are from “mccain nude”. Six are from outside.in and twenty are from Facebook. Anyway, I’m certainly not going to quit my day job anytime soon and make a living here. Of course, since I don’t sell ads here, paying for traffic is kind of silly, but that wasn’t really the point of my sponsorship.