May 27, 2003

What the heck was I talking about? How about a little accountability for spouting off!

5/19/03 - 300 Wins

Roger Clemens will get 300+ wins. That’s a foregone conclusion; when and where is a separate issue. Our subsequent discussion on my commentary sidetracked into how/why, but my point was and is, the 5-man/day rotation does not mean the demise of the 300-game winner. As I said, he hasn’t existed since 1920.

In Clemens bid for 300 against the Red Sox on Memorial Day, he got hit, but hit in a DIPS-hit way. He gave up no home runs and only one extra-base hit. He walked one (not counting the IBB) and he struck out nine. That means nine singles looping in there. Some were solid singles like Nomar’s in the third inning, but Clemens had a bunch of bad luck. Of course, fastballs down the middle often result in bad luck. Sorry, Vörös.

Rick Sutcliffe, no offense, is the worst commentator I have ever heard. He actually claimed Clemens would be allowed to throw 170 pitches in the game. He should stick to commenting on the pitching that he knows about.

Clemens did throw over 130 pitches, so he may struggle in his next start, but he may not - that’s left to Kerry Wood – which brings us to:

5/12/03 – Head of Wood

Kerry Wood threw 141 pitches in seven innings and all sorts of hullabaloo kicked up about what his arm would react like. I certainly thought he would still be a little tired for his next start. He didn’t. In my smart-aleck game chatter lead-in, I predicted Wood would give up a run per inning. There were a few guffaws in the May 16 chatter the next day, after Wood hammered the Brewers, allowing just 3 hits and no runs in seven innings. He threw another 121 pitches. Then he got an extra day off before facing the Pirates, where he did give up a run per inning, allowing 5 in 5.1 IP (close enough!). Maybe he was tired; maybe he just had a bad day. At any rate, he’s pitched well, as has the Cubs starters in general. He’s definitely in the running for the Cy Young Award. Particularly with his latest performance.

Which brings us to:

5/7/03 – The King is Dead!

An early look at the ERA leaders, which I call the Cy Young Award (from this point forward – CYA) leaders, had an interesting table. Some members got sniggered to death. Others stepped up. Boots Day suggested I go by wins, which is a good point, but in the end, I think the ERA leaders will get plenty of Wins. And Randy Johnson, the King, is still out of the race.

Pitchers leading the hunt so far (through May 5):

Not a bad match up, with half of the leaders hanging tough. Williams has been awesome and so has Morris. If the Cards get a third starter to step up, they could stop these middling performances.

Zach Day is hanging tough, especially after getting ejected from his May 17 start for having a foreign substance on his hand while pitching. What? No, he wasn’t doctoring the ball; he was doctoring a blister on his finger. One of the little tricks used on blisters is Superglue. Well, Day tried it, didn’t like it and as he tried to scrape it off, the umpires found out and tossed Day.

The Cubs have three great starters with Prior, Kerry Wood, who’s 7th in ERA at 4-3, 2.78. Carlos Zambrano is 12th at 5-4 with a 3.02 ERA. If Dusty Baker will stop playing Lenny Harris and Tom Goodwin, the Cubs could win a few more games.

What’s missing from this list is the Los Angeles Dodgers. On May 5, they had no pitchers in the top 10 in ERA. Since then, Kevin Brown has just dominated – On May 5th Brown had a decent 3.25 ERA, most of it coming in two poor performances against the Giants. In May, Brown has a 1.25 ERA in 5 starts. He ranks second in ERA behind Williams with a 2.24 ERA. He’s 6-1, and looks strong. Right behind Brown are Hideo Nomo (Rk 6, 6-4, 2.70 ERA) and Kaz Ishii (Rk 8, 4-1, 2.79 ERA). For dominance sake, the other two Dodger starters, Odalis Perez and Darren Dreifort are 15th and 18th in ERA. With Eric Gagne vaporizing hitters in the ninth inning, the Dodgers are charging up the standings. Gagne actually struck out 10 straight batters, tying Tom Seaver’s 33-year old mark. Gagne’s was over four games, but impressive nonetheless.

The only pitcher in the top 10 in ERA I haven’t mentioned is Kevin Millwood. Millwood has thrown a no-hitter and been everything the Braves thought he would be. He’s 7-1 with a 2.84 ERA. Johnny Estrada? You’re kidding me.

So half of the CYA leaders were there after the first month. There are some absolute stud young pitchers in the new list: in order, Williams, Brown, Morris, Prior, Schmidt, Nomo, Wood, Ishii, Millwood, Day.

I’m surprised no team’s PR group has started the hype – I think it’s going to be a sales job by whomever ESPN deems the best. Grrr.

The Mets lost Mike Piazza for an indefinite period. That’s not good.

Jeromy Burnitz returned from the disabled list to hit a game-winning grand slam against the Braves and a game-tying home run two days later. Burnitz has changed his swing, ditching the "hand off the bat" posing finish and staying down and through the ball more. Oh, there’s still a whopper of an uppercut, but he stays level a little longer. While he’s hit two home runs already, I will remain skeptical. I’m encouraged, but his last season’s body of work will out-weigh this season so far.

What’s more entertaining is that Burnitz is also playing centerfield. Why? Cliff Floyd can barely move and Roger Cedeno is joke extraordinaire in CF. While Shinjo cannot hit righties and Timo Perez is just injured enough not to play, that’s all the Mets have. If Timo gets healthy, and Burnitz does continue to hit, proving me grossly wrong, the Mets’ outfield will actually hit pretty well, and field pretty well in center and right.

I have started the "Move Cliff to First" campaign. Anyone can see Floyd turns routine flyball outs into base hits. Well, anyone but Art Howe.

Art Howe is one of the worst in-game tacticians I have ever seen.

Someone in the Mets’ front office tell Howe this:

When you relieve a left-handed starting pitcher, bring in a right-handed pitcher. That screws up the opposing team’s platoons. It is the K2 of stupidity to take out a LHSP and bring in a LHRP to face Gary Sheffield, Chipper Jones, and Andruw Jones.

Seriously, Art, just do this:

SP       1st RP      2nd RP     Closer
Leiter   Weathers    Stanton    Benitez
Glavine  Strickland  Cerda      Benitez
Trachsel Stanton     Weathers   Benitez
Astacio  Feliciano   Strickland Benitez
Seo      Stanton     Weathers   Benitez

It’s a simple flip-flop of arms, varying the pitch delivery, changing the batter’s eye, turning the switch-hitters around, getting the lefty masher platoon out of the lineup. That also keeps your relief pitchers on a "every other day" rotation, decreasing burnout. Then you have Grant Roberts when he comes back, and you can dump Benitez for either a good 3B like Joe Crede and a AA pitcher, or JD Drew, and move Strickland into the "closer" role. Trust me, he can do as well as Armando.

Whatever you do, Art, get better defense on the field.