Code:
AMERICAN LEAGUE STANDINGS
East W L PCT GB
Cleveland Guardians 21 16 .568 -
New York Yankees 23 18 .561 -
Milwaukee Brewers 17 16 .515 2.0
Detroit Tigers 17 18 .486 3.0
Boston Red Sox 18 20 .474 3.5
Baltimore Orioles 15 20 .429 5.0
West W L PCT GB
Minnesota Twins 23 10 .697 -
California Angels 20 19 .513 6.0
Chicago White Sox 16 18 .471 7.5
Texas Rangers 17 21 .447 8.5
Kansas City Royals 16 21 .432 9.0
Oakland Athletics 16 22 .421 9.5
Code:
NATIONAL LEAGUE STANDINGS
East W L PCT GB
St. Louis Cardinals 22 14 .611 -
Pittsburgh Pirates 19 15 .559 2.0
Chicago Cubs 17 16 .515 3.5
Montreal Expos 15 15 .500 4.0
Philadelphia Phillies 18 19 .486 4.5
New York Mets 17 21 .447 6.0
West W L PCT GB
San Diego Padres 26 17 .605 -
Atlanta Braves 23 17 .575 1.5
San Francisco Giants 22 19 .537 3.0
Los Angeles Dodgers 18 21 .462 6.0
Houston Astros 18 24 .429 7.5
Cincinnati Reds 9 26 .257 13.0
Maybe we're just starting to get out of early-season Parity League, finally? 3 out of the 4 divisions feature a leader who's won at least 60% of their games and the 4th, the AL East, is a mess. Cleveland, how? The Yankees at least make some sense after they've bought their way into contention. Pythagorean records don't even explain that: both of those teams are basically where they ought to be by FUN differential. Detroit will pick things up eventually but they've legit had issues scoring runs so far this year, it's weird. They are dead last in baseball in hitting homers with just 17 of them so far.
The AL West is, crazily, owned by the Twins. Like I said before, it's all pitching and defense and by the raw numbers it seems legit... well, the fielding is ahead of itself and I can't see a team who's 11th in the league in Ks keeping this up but they really and truly are doing a job in the field with plus defenders at shortstop (Charles Bradley (.260, 2, 10)) and the outfield corners (LF Jose Villasenor (.263, 2, 14) and RF Gilles Villeneuve (.210, 3, 18)). CF Ronnie Hellstrom (.380, 6, 22) his looking like an early MVP candidate in his 3rd season in the league.
The Cardinals went 6-0 this week to push themselves well on top of the NL East. Will they be able to hold off the Phillies when they eventually solve whatever issues they're having so far? Time will tell. They've been doing this for the most part without their stud 1B and cleanup hitter Lorenzo Martinez (.307, 8, 18), who hasn't played since May 5 thanks to blurred vision. Instead, they're riding the best pitching staff by ERA in all of baseball, lead by Senor Smoke Roger Quintana (6-4, 2.39) and lockdown closer Tom Brumfield (0-0, 1.12, 10 Sv). The offense hasn't even been that good so far - 3rd fewest runs in the NL so far in spite of leading the league and being tied for 2nd in all of baseball in HRs (36).
And in the NL West the Padres rode a 5-3 week against the Braves and Giants to assert themselves to the top of the division. Here it's the offense that's finally starting to come together, although they swept the Giants in a doubleheader this weekend on the basis of pitching: 3-0 and 4-3. They've also been doing things without some key guys: 2B Paul McCartney (.188, 4, 27) has been playing every day but only very lately has started to come out of a season-long slump, and his double play partner Joe Wicker (.341, 4, 24) has been in and out of the lineup over the past week with an abdominal strain. In spite of this they've got 3 guys in the regular lineup hitting over .300 (Wicker, LF Jesse Lockhart (.318, 5, 14), and 3B Dale Earnhardt (.333, 5, 25)) with a 4th right on the cusp (CF Dr. Phil McGraw (.293, 3, 14)).
There will suuuuuuurely be some turnover between now and October but hey, that's what baseball is all about!
May 12 (evening): Power rankings!
Code:
Rank Team W-L PCT AVG ERA Pyt.Rec Diff
1st (1st) Minnesota 134 o 19-8 .704 .265 3.74 17-10 2
2nd (10th) San Diego 113 ++ 21-14 .600 .263 3.31 22-13 -1
3rd (2nd) Pittsburgh 110 - 17-11 .607 .251 3.30 14-14 3
4th (11th) Chicago 107 ++ 15-12 .556 .273 3.97 15-12 0
5th (3rd) Atlanta 107 - 20-13 .606 .252 2.93 20-13 0
6th (6th) San Francisco 103 o 19-15 .559 .271 3.33 18-16 1
7th (15th) Detroit 102 ++ 16-13 .552 .284 3.82 16-13 0
8th (5th) Milwaukee 98 -- 14-12 .538 .291 4.01 16-10 -2
9th (22nd) Texas 97 ++ 16-16 .500 .262 3.36 15-17 1
10th (7th) St. Louis 97 -- 16-14 .533 .250 3.53 14-16 2
11th (13th) Montreal 95 + 12-11 .522 .258 3.73 12-11 0
12th (4th) California 94 -- 17-16 .515 .254 3.62 17-16 0
13th (12th) New York 90 - 18-17 .514 .272 4.59 16-19 2
14th (16th) Cleveland 89 + 15-15 .500 .274 3.94 15-15 0
15th (8th) New York 88 -- 16-15 .516 .254 4.19 15-16 1
16th (14th) Boston 86 - 15-16 .484 .267 3.71 13-18 2
17th (23rd) Houston 84 ++ 15-20 .429 .267 3.68 17-18 -2
18th (19th) Baltimore 81 + 13-15 .464 .262 4.15 14-14 -1
19th (21st) Kansas City 75 + 12-18 .400 .276 4.74 14-16 -2
20th (17th) Philadelphia 72 -- 13-18 .419 .247 3.75 15-16 -2
21st (9th) Chicago 72 -- 13-15 .464 .270 4.18 13-15 0
22nd (20th) Los Angeles 68 - 13-19 .406 .251 4.74 13-19 0
23rd (18th) Oakland 63 -- 12-19 .387 .268 4.13 13-18 -1
24th (24th) Cincinnati 36 o 7-22 .241 .231 5.21 10-19 -
CLEARLY the Yuppies of the week are the Padres, who jumped from 10th to 2nd in these rankings. They went 6-1... okay, against the Phillies and the Dodgers, but the Phillies are probably still at least pretty good and someone had to send the Dodgers back to reality. Detroit also gets consideration for also pushing their way to the top of their division and jumping 8 places forward in the rankings. They swept the White Sox (more on them in a second!) in a 2 game series and then won 2 out of 3 vs the Red Sox to get there. The record isn't great so far but they're starting to hone in.
The DIRTY HIPPIE is cleeeeeearly the White Sox, who dropped from a top 10 team to 21st in these rankings last week. They went 0-5, with the aforementioned swept to the Tigers and then another 3 game sweep vs the Rangers, who battled them wire to wire last week. They've got a 2-game series coming up vs the Twins so, you know, good luck with that.
May 13: White Sox RP Brian Bruno (1-0, 1.46, 1 Sv), who was an... interesting All Star choice last year with the Pirates (he finished 5-3, 4.33 and IIRC he was better but not like fantastic over the first half) is now mad because the Sox are struggling and he doesn't have a big enough role in the potential turnaround. Bruno's a career swingman so pushing him into the rotation isn't anything crazy. With Chicago sitting at 13-15 and the dirty hippies of the week (see above!)... yeah, why not, we'll drop into a 5 man rotation for now and push Bruno in there to give him yet another shot in a major league rotation.
May 13: The first AL PotW seems like an inevitability and in fact I'm a little surprised this was his first such award this year:
Mauricio Mendez (.359, 10, 25) has been a major component of why the Guardians haven't just fallen right apart after trading away key assets the past couple seasons, and last week he was major component-er. Mendez went 11-22 (.500) with 3 doubles, 2 HRs, 7 runs scored, and 7 RBIs. He even drew 4 walks and added in a couple steals in just 5 games. That's a lot of work! Mendez currently leads the AL in HRs and is tied for 2nd with sevearl players in RBIs. This is actually his first Player of the Week award, although you'll recall that he juuuuust won the AL Batter of the Month so, um, I was wrong, this isn't his first award this year.
(not pictured because I already have a card for him this year)
The NL also honored a vet that y'all have heard from many times before: Cubs 1B Antonio "Walrus Gunboat" Lopez (.330, 6, 22). Just when you thought he was tailing off after winning the same award on April 22, Lopez went 9-19 (.474) with 2 ding-dongs and 7 RBIs in 5 games to win his 2nd weekly award already this season. That gives him 9 for his career... and he's only 28. I seem to see first basemen in particular just fall off a cliff as they get into their 30s (see Boston's Mike Miller) so it's nice to see Lopez keep it up. He also passed the 1,000 hit plateau earlier this year and is 25 HRs away from 200 - we aren't quite in range of real milestones but we're starting to get close.
May 13: In the pursuit of getting another baseball card, OOTP gave me a weeeeird weekly stat: relief Ks on the road. Like, what?
Paz Lemus, PIT, 13
Darius Parchman, SD, 11
John Winn, ATL, 11
John Landis, MIL, 10
Doug Ellis, CHC, 9
Hey, it's an excuse to show Sparky Lemus I guess.
May 13: The Brewers purchased RF Phil Hartman (.253, 2, 14) from the Yankees. Hartman's just started to turn it around this year but with CF Norm Hodge (.236, 1, 4) due to return next week the New York outfield is about to get super crammed. Hartman doesn't immediately have a spot to play in Milwaukee either but hey, this is how these things go: it's easier to trade a guy somewhere where he won't start than to just bench him on your own. (I wanted to note that the original object of this trade was Mike Hegan, who played for the Pilots and had a small part in the book Ball Four. JTIS)
May 13: I got the craziest OOTP Special I think I've ever seen: a game tied 8-8 after regulation that stayed that way through 15, tied again at 9-9 after 16, tied *again* at 11-11 after 17, and then FINALLY ended in the 19th after a run in the top of the inning was overcome by a run in the bottom. I just... UGH. Real-life gametime was 6 hours, 43 minutes so IRL this definitely would have gotten cut off by the league curfew. Also, Dodgers won over the Astros.
May 14: On a day when Angels OF John Belushi is back, Brewers SS Anatoly Karpov (.286, 1, 11) received word that he'll be out for 8 weeks with a strained hamstring. Man, I wish the game had more intimidating sounding injuries for the longer term ones. Anyway, this is kind of a massive hole in Milwaukee's lineup; Ian Reeder (.316, 0, 0) was the backup but he is the dictionary definition of a AAAA guy (he did start the whole year for the White Sox in 1971 so there is that).
May 14: Yankees SP Manny Carbajal (2-0, 3.58) has had a rough time of it the last two seasons with a combined 17-26 record. I guess 2 years ago he was 11-16 in spite of a 2.63 ERA but last year he was just plain bad: 6-10, 4.92, and he'd moved into the bullpen by the end of the year, where he also began this season. Has he gotten his juice back? Carbajal made his 2nd start of the year today and threw a 7-hit shutout with 6 Ks and just one walk. Last year he'd been bedeviled by an inability to generate Ks - just 4.8/9 - so 6 of them was solid, especially against the Tigers.
The Yankees took their own time scoring runs in this game, finally hitting rookie Martin Buchan (4-2, 3.19) for 3 in the bottom of the 8th, thanks in large part to 3B Jaak Joala (.314, 0, 5), who came on as an injury substitute for 1B Aitor de la Rosa (.171, 1, 8), cracking an RBI double to commence scoring. "I will take any runs I can get," said Carbajal after the game. "Just please score."
May 14: Hey, heading into a midweek doubleheader even... the A's are not off to a good start at all. Just, everything is pretty humdrum this year: 4th worst scoring, 4th worst runs allowed. They're the first team in the AL to 20 losses. They had a bit of a nice run going after setting AL loss records in the late 60s but that run might be over. It's too early to just give the lineup over to unproven youngsters but, you know, it's sad and all that.
There are a couple guys doing well in the rotation and 2 guys who are not. We're just not at a point where I want to demote the suckos although frankly Philip Trapasso (1-3, 5.22), who is starting today, is close. He was a lefty specialist last year and maybe that's his ceiling. The bullpen has been kind of terrible so far but again I don't think it's time to make moves: Jesse Kelly (1-2, 4.58, 3 Sv) and setup man Willis Chavez (0-2, 6.14) were really good last year... really, everyone should be better than they are. ZR isn't even that bad on this team (it's not good; 8th in the AL) so just bad luck I guess.
DH/OF Tommy Pron's (.239, 0, 7) been playing hurt all year and it's one of those annoying nagging injuries too. I've been playing him through it but he's also been struggling terribly at the plate. I think we should probably drop him to the bench until he's 100%. That gives me the excuse to start both Alex Canales (.283, 1, 9) and Ray Hawkinson (.302, 1, 7), the team's two first basemen, at least for now.
OF Viv Richards (.316, 2, 11) should really, really play more often and the Pron injury means he can get in and play full time since he was already starting vs RHPs. The AI keeps trying to bat him 3rd which is a sign. OF Frederick Sumaye (.125, 0, 2) is another guy the AI keeps trying to bat in the middle of the order whenever he's placed into the lineup but he's not exactly hiting at that level right now so I'll just keep him mixing in vs LHPs mostly.
I'm seeing 3 OF prospects in the minors in addition to Richards and Sumaye so if this ship really does stall, we might see some turnover out there...
May 14: Phillies SP Danny Plaunt (2-4, 4.26) was really hot and cold last year: he threw 5 shutouts in 35 starts (13-10 overall with a 3.62 ERA) but also had 13 games where he failed to throw a quality start. This year has been more of the same. Plaunt's averaging barely 6 IP a start so far but on the other hand over his last 2 games he's finished them both, allowing 1 earned run combined over the two. Today he shut out the Expos 8-0 to drop his ERA down from 7.45 as of May 6 to 4.26.
"Sometimes he's a bit too nice for his own good," said bench coach Romani Reni after the game. "Tonight he had that good tenacity. We'll laugh about it over a beer."
May 14: Sometimes a Battle of the Crap is still a good matchup. Today's game between the Astros and Dodgers saw their two aces Tony Rivera (4-6, 3.24) and Fernando Apolonio (5-1, 3.06) go down to a 1-0 pitchers' duel in favor of the City of Angels. Apolonio scattered 7 hits in spite of only 2 Ks and 1B Joshua Waltenbery (.254, 3, 11) drove in 2B Danny Fager (.264, 6, 15) to score the only run in this contest. LA improves to 4-7 on the month including 3 straight wins.
May 15: Another day, another 1-0 pitching duel! This one went between the Cardinals' Alec Cosby (4-2, 2.91), who truth be told has got some real stamina issues, and the Mets' David Bowie (1-2, 4.58). Cosby emerged the winner after 142(!) pitches (he won't be available for a while), 8 Ks, and just 4 hits allowed. Bowie only allowed 4 hits himself but one of them was an RBI single by 3B Mike Galeana (.200, 9, 24) in the 4th inning.
The Cardinals lowkey (or highkey?) have got a really good pitching staff this year: 1st in the NL in starters ERA (3.29) and 3rd in bullpen ERA (3.57). There's no question why they're only a game back in the NL East.
May 16: The Braves (re)purchased RP Omar Sanchez (1-1, 3.94) from the A's. Sanchez's month in the AL was... fine (1-0, 3.75 in 12 IP) but Atlanta needed him more. I figured I'd completely forget who was involved in this deal but by putting that in my head I was sure to remember it. Anxiety!
May 16: The Kansas City Royals got themselves swept in a road doubleheader at Oakland to lose that series and also drop to 20 losses (13-20). This was hoped to be the year this team finally had enough pitching to make that offense work but it just hasn't worked out that way. KC's still doing well hitting-wise: 4th in baseball in runs scored, the 2nd best batting average in the majors too (.281), and even 29 HRs (tied for 6th most in MLB)... but the pitching, oh boy. Only one team in baseball - the lowly Reds (5.04) - have a worse ERA than KC's 4.77. I think we're still in "let's wait and see" mode but man there are some bad, bad performances so far...
Like, first and foremost, do I do anything with Tom Bertan (0-3, 8.14)? He was one of the best pitchers for KC down the stretch last year (4-1, 3.57 following his being signed after his release from Milwaukee) but he seems like he's back to his bad ways again. Looking at the peripherals he's not *that* bad, although he's allowed a loooooooooot of HRs 10 in 42 IP). I think I am going to go ahead and demote him to the bullpen - for now - in favor of 28 year old minor league vet Carlos Hernandez (2-0, 2.77), who's got the stamina to start and has been... fine in relief so far.
Steve Tidwell (1-4, 6.94) has also been bad and I'm not a big fan of some of those peripherals, like only 13 Ks in 35 IP so far, but I don't want to turn over 40% of the rotation so I'll let it go for now. He's on a tight leash though.
Chris Regan (0-0, 5.51) was awful last year as a starter (7-17, 5.54) and now he's awful as a reliever. He's also really unhappy, which is to be expected given how bad he's been I guess. Why is he still here again? I'm going to go ahead and grant him his release - he's 33 so his career might be done - and calling up P Michael Brecker (3-1, 2.10 at AAA Omaha) to fill that spot. Brecker wasn't great in 7 September appearances last year (3-1, 5.03) but he's been flashing in the minors this year and he can be a guy we drop into the rotation if Tidwell can't turn it around or someone gets injured.
C Johnny Becton (.329, 2, 11) has been bad across the board and I can now see why he was left unprotected in the Rule V draft. That still doesn't mean I want Mike Perez (.258, 1, 5) taking that job over. Perez, frankly, isn't that great of a fielder anymore either at age 35 and I am not fooled by that average over 31 at-bats to date. He will play a bigger role but that's as far as I'm going to take it.
As awesome as 1B Christopher Durang (.400, 3, 11) has been, 1B Dave Cowens (.309, 7, 21) needs to play more or less full time. They'd been platooning previously but now less so. This kind of reminds me of that real-life Blue Jays situation where they had to decide between Fred McGriff and Cecil Fielder. They chose the Crime Dog of course but Fielder was pretty good himself. Well, Christopher Durang, author of some funny and thought provoking plays, you are Cecil Fielder I guess.
Last year 2B James Ellroy (.228, 1, 22) hit .264 and seemed like a future fixture in this lineup. Now he's hitting in the .220s and there are grumblings about his defense. There are a couple guys on the farm to maybe bring up in the 2nd half if this doesn't improve, including intriguing SS William H Macy (.279, 5, 11 at AAA Omaha) but for now Ellroy will stay in there.
One side effect of losing Dave Corona (.210, 3, 8) for the next month is that it's meant OF Carlos Hernandez (.285, 2, 18) has played in RF with Keith Carradine (.300, 0, 3 at AAA Omaha) taking his cuts in center. Hernandez has been a solid CF in the past but he's 32 and is losing range. We'll need to revisit this in 4ish weeks but hopefully Carradine hits well enough to make this a tough decision.
May 16: Um, so see above... Steve Tidwell (2-4, 5.52) earned himself at least a small reprieve from the doghouse with a 1-0 shutout win over the Rangers and Billy Crystal (2-4, 2.92). Kansas City has been hoping for production from Tidwell, who went a combined 12-9, 4.25 with the Cardinals and Yankees last year with pretty OK peripherals (149 Ks and 83 walks in 226.1 IP). He's been, from the numbers, a little unlucky this year. Today was a reversal of that: Tidwell allowed just 3 Rangers hits in spite of picking up just 1 K.
Crystal was pretty great himself with 7 hits allowed and just the one run that came on a single from DH Tony Danza (.326, 2, 19), who's been staying out of the field for the most part while he nurses a strained quad. This was game 1 of a 4 game over-the-weekend series.
May 17: Philadelphia got 125 games out of CF Bryant Tarala (.193, 3, 4) last year and that was... an awful lot. They're not going to get that much play from him this year, as the 32 year old was diagnosed with a torn quad that will keep him out of action for the next 2 months. "He's a real fan favorite from the way he's always running into walls and so on," said bench coach Romain Reni. "I'd personally love it if he ran into walls a little bit less often."
May 17: We always knew that KC had this in them and DH/OF Alonso Rivera (.317, 3, 25) too. Today's 11-5 thrashing of the Rangers featured the Royals picking up 23(!) hits in 47 at-bats, including 6 by Rivera, which tied the AL record. Tony Danza (.333, 3, 21) added another 3 himself in this one that was pretty much never in doubt from the point that Kansas City dropped 3 runs in the bottom of the 2nd off of starter Mike Larsen (3-3, 4.14).
For the Royals, SP Alex Izquierdo (3-4, 3.16) got himself out of a bad jam in the 9th that was only partly self-inflicted, leaving runners on at 2nd and 3rd following 2 runs scored - 1 earned - in the inning. "I'm not gonna say I didn't get support before," said Izquierdo after the game, "but it's nice to get support." The last time an ALer collected 6 hits in a game was Ray Herring with Cleveland on August 24, 1968 (so before I took over the save, hey!).
May 17: Twins DH Aloha Dan Gilmet's (.288, 0, 7) best days are behind him but the 36 year old showed he still has some magic in his bat tonight. He drove in the game-winning runner with a pinch single in the bottom of the 9th off of fellow oldste Montay Luiso (2-2, 1.12) of the Angels. 2B Massimo D'Alema (.292, 0, 0), getting a rare start tonight over Tyler Webster (.245, 3, 13) scampered home from 2nd on a single to right and juuuust beat the throw from Jared Ferrell (.304, 6, 16).
The win puts Minnesota at 21-9. Just... how? This is baseball, folks.
May 17: Reds SP Tracy Mosher (2-3, 5.55) is a guy who looks like he spent his arm in a monster 1970 season (25-12, 2.67) but the former Yankees stud sure looked like he still had something left tonight. Granted, he was pitching on guile and subterfuge all game, and granted squared that he was playing the Astros in the Astrodome, but he threw a 7-hit shutout with just 1 walk and lots and lots of pop-ups and took home a 2-0 win.
Mosher has 189 wins lifetime so it's maaaaaaybe possible he can get up to 200 this year. The active career leader in wins right now is actually an Astro himself, Andres Castillo (3-5, 4.65), who was traded away from the Dodgers this year. Castillo is 205-177 for his career, so Mosher is a distant 2nd (and unfortunately the way OOTP handles the 60s, I think any 300-game winner will be a product of the current decade).
May 17: Sooo much mediocrity in the AL so far... the Rangers are the latest AL West club to drop its 20th game and they're doing it the way they did in the past: good pitching (best starters' ERA (3.52)) and terrible offense (2nd worst in runs scored in the AL, dead last in average (.252)). Here, too, the bullpen has been really bad so that's something new. This was a team who won 91 games and were 2 games away from the playoffs so... it's disappointing.
The starting pitching, as noted, has mostly been good enough. Where it's been a little off, it hasn't been nearly so bad that you'd want to think about replacement. The one thing I do see is that the rotation had moved to a 5 man out of the 4 man and I'm going to go back to 4 in the hopes we can kick-start things. P Amir Sudler (1-0, 1.77) is the odd man out. Really it's Joey Kramer (0-0, 10.80), who got himself one game to prove himself before he got sent back down. It's cool! You'll be back up, I'm sure!
C/1B Jon Hernandez (.182, 2, 8) has barely played catcher the past few years because he's not very good at the position anymore. A poor start to the year plus just the need to shuffle guys around has meant he's now the backup backstop so, you know, good luck and stuff. Meanwhile the starter John Bonham (.290, 0, 9) is hitting a veeeery empty .290 and he hasn't even been hitting singles lately... so Hernandez will get some backdoor starts since he's a left-handed hitter.
I'm meanwhile just about to cut CI Roberto Hernandez (.130, 0, 0) outright. He did got .269/14/81 last year but even that came with a .284 OBP. I'm soooo close... it's just, you know, inertia at this point.
I'd already dropped starting SS German Ybarra (.206, 0, 9) into a timeshare with last year's guy Michael Luna (.450, 0, 4). Ybarra is slightly better at fielding than Luna but they aren't that far apart, not so far that you'd use a replacement level hitter over a guy who's got a hot bat. On the other hand, Luna hit .230 and .224 the previous 2 years.
LF Nelson Vargas (.276, 1, 17) looks very meh for an American League corner outfielder but everyone else who could play there seems just plain bad. Well, OF/DH Josh Damon (.302, 0, 2) has been OK but he's a 33 year old who hit .259, .261, and .264 in the past 3 seasons as a starter with the Braves and then Rangers.
There are a couple of guys (as yet unnamed) who are looking pretty good in AAA who I'll have no problems calling up if this team continues to struggle. They're both corner OFers so I guess I can't expect tooooo much but that's a thing that exists at least.
May 17: The Phillies continue to struggle, falling to 16-19 today with a 3-2 loss to the Pirates, but 2B Tony Shannon (.376, 3, 22) at least is doing his part. He went 2 for 4 today to push his hitting streak to 20 games, the 3rd longest streak in the NL this year and 5th longest on the season (including the ones that started last year). The streak has so far raised Shannon's average almost 100 points and the former batting crown contender - Shannon finished 2nd in average in 1971 - is now 3rd in the league, just 10 points behind San Francisco's Bob McAdoo (.383, 3, 25).
May 18: Shocker of all shockers, Cubs RF Alex Vallejo (.300, 2, 12) is going to miss a bunch of time, this time 6 weeks with a strained PCL in his knee. Vallejo was one of Chicago's best hitters when he was available but of course this is Alex Vallejo we're talking about so he wasn't available that much. See you in July, Alex.
May 18: Speaking of Chicago, Southsider 3B Brain Maccioli (.328, 2, 17) will also miss a couple weeks with a herniated disc in his back. Some of these injuries, I swear... this one isn't extensive enough to stick him on the DL so we'll just see a platoon situation between utility IF Yukio Hatohama (.200, 0, 2), who's barely played this year, and IF Chris Morgan (.000, 0, 0), who also hasn't played much - I guess all of this comes down to the infield otherwise being pretty healthy for the White Sox so far.
May 19: Ahhhh, the 1970s are in full swing: a full NINETEEN games happening today. Can't wait to see those 31 game Julys...
May 19: The Red Sox at least expected themselves to be in contention for the AL East title. That's not happening, even with the Tigers struggling a bit out of the gate, and it's all on the offense. Call this team Texas Rangers East because maaaan, they are dead last in runs scored in the AL and 3rd worst including the non-DH league (that includes a .260 BA (11th in the AL and 17th overall) and just 18 HRs (also 11th in the AL and 22nd overall)). The pitching has been better, although not nearly good enough to make this team look like they deserve to be out of the cellar.
So far Mike Stuckey (1-7, 7.29) has been all kinds of terrible. Clearly a lot of that's bad luck although the new advanced stats don't paint a super pretty picture of his xERA either (4.44). His normally solid control dipped last year and he's only gotten some of that back, and he's on pace to allow 27 HRs in Fenway Park. I'm still going to keep him in the rotation because look, this guy's a career 101 game winner and 1968 wins champ (with just 18 - OOTP come on), but I'm going to start keeping a close eye on him.
The bullpen's had the best ERA in the league. I've been running a two-headed closer situation and so far Jake Duckett (1-2, 2.76, 4 Sv) has clearly outplayed newcomer Travis Livingston (1-1, 5.62, 6 Sv), but this is overall not part of the problem.
With C Jeremy Dolak (.312, 1, 7) out with back spasms for another day and backup Joel Moise (.146, 1, 6), formerly of the Tigers, slumping terribly, I'd love for there to be another option on the farm but there is not. Moise will have to do.
1B Mike Miller (.209, 1, 7) took a turn for the worse the last couple years, going from MVP candidate to .260s hitter with middling power, and looks like he might have taken another negative turn. This is more of a "oh yeah I'll need to find a replacement next year" situation though, not anything close to a "we need to replace him now" situation. Miller got his 1,000th hit with Boston last last year and is 6th all-time in Red Sox WAR. We can't just toss him out because he and the team are doing poorly.
2B Bert "Be Home" Blyleven (.250, 2, 15) is no longer hitting super great but he's a really awesome defensive 2B and the guys who'd replace him: Brian Long (.217, 0, 4) and Mike Runfola (.333, 1, 3) have their own issues. I'm talking myself into not doing anything with this team a lot... it's the plague of a ballclub that's falling off I guess.
CF Jon Glynn (.269, 0, 2) literally just came off the DL today to take CF back over. The issue here is, that's one of the few positions where we've gotten decent offensive contribution, as Goodwill Zwelithini (.282, 0, 4) hit... okay, that's an empty average but still. Glynn does have almost half the team's steals (5 out of 13) in spite of missing about half the season so far so there's that at least.
May 19: Baseball is a freaking weird game sometimes. The Guardians have pretty well dismantled their roster the past 2+ seasons and the Tigers conversely have won 90+ games in each of the past 3 years. So... what do you think happened with these guys? Yeah, of course, the Guardians finished up a 4-game sweep of the defending champs with a 1-0 duel where Claudio Rainieri (1-0, 4.30) came out on top of Chris Benavides (4-5, 3.17). The only run of the game came in from CF Luis Delgado's (.253, 2, 15) sacrifice fly that brought pinch-runner Bobby Kaplan (.257, 0, 11) home.
Look for Detroit at the top of the hippie list next week. Cleveland, who finished the week 6-1, isn't just going to be on the yuppie list, they'll be on top of the AL East this week.
May 19: A close loss to the Expos and the Mets (16-20) are in the cellar and the first 20 game loser in the NL East. This is just a generally meh team at this point. Remember when they were a contender? Yeah, they're not close. This team isn't anything special on offense or defense and some of the younger guys who were supposed to make a difference - particularly CF Lindsey Buckingham (.140, 0, 9) just plain aren't.
These guys were never supposed to do much this year so they opened and will probably close with a 5 man rotation. None of the guys in there right now look downright bad enough to demote. The game thinks this bullpen is really bad and so far the stats back that up (11th in the league in bullpen ERA) but honestly these look like 4 solid vets led by Geoff Saus (0-2, 3.38, 7 Sv). Yeah, we'll hold off here until/unless this team completely falls apart.
I don't think 1B/3B Vicente Luna (.265, 2, 15) does anything like what you want a first baseman to do enough to play and 3B Mark Hamill (.244, 1, 5) seemed to have reverted back to being the kind of guy you'd trade for a 38 year old corner infielder. Yeah, this whole team is a giant sack full of "meh".
At shortstop I do think I'm going to do some changerinos... Bora Dugic (.198, 3. 16) was supposed to be a guy whom you lived with the iffy defense in exchange for some good pop (he was .267/17/57 at AAA Toledo in 1972). Now he's scratching the old Timonen Line and the team has an okay prospect who's off to a good start, 25 year old (juuuust missing the "name this guy" cutoff a lot this year) Corey McGee (.323, 3, 17 at AAA Tidewater).
LF John W Henry (.247, 4, 11), an avid OOTPer in real life, is having a pretty bad sophomore slump following a .311/4/30 rookie campaign. He's not like "oh god replace him" bad (which is where Buckingham is at, frankly) but hey, why not mix lefty Bobby Turner (.333, 2, 7) into the mix a bit more?
Buckingham took the CF job away from Kjell Isaakson (.243, 0, 1) in midyear last season and now I feel like I'm about to switch them back. Buckingham is still easily young enough that he can find what he was missing so far and I'm not like super enamored with Isaakson either, obviously, so for now what I'll do is enter them into a timeshare in center.
May 19: It's taken the Padres a little bit to emerge in the NL West, and they still have a road to go here (8 games this week!) but their top of the line pitching is holding up at least. Stephen Tyler and Don Henley are a combined 14-3 to start the year following Henley's 3-0 shutout victory over the Giants in the first game of their double-header today. Henley did it with control, scattering 7 hits and 2 walks over 9 while striking out only 3 guys. His Ks have been down this year (4.2/9) but you can't argue with those results.
3B Dale Earnhardt (.329, 5, 24) scored 2 of the team's runs tonight; he's really stepped up throughout 2B Paul McCartney's (.181, 4, 25) season-long slump (Paul did have a multi-hit game today so maybe he's snapping out of it). OF Tom Petty (.229, 2, 11) cracked a solo HR in the 8th for the other score in this one.