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03-23-2026, 09:07 AM
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#341 | |
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Hall Of Famer
Join Date: May 2004
Posts: 10,668
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April 15-21, 1974
We are one week - well, a week and a half - in! Standings weirdness will be standings weirdness, although we're already beginning to see the wheat get separated from the chaff. Yikes, the Reds do not look good so far. The Yankees I think have lost some close-ish games but nope, they and the Royals legit have the two worst fun differentials in the American League so maybe they're just not very good. I keep having to say that it's still early because it is. The top of the standings are maybe more indicative - the Brewers are 7-4? The Cubs have the best record in the NL? April 15: Soo.... correct me if I'm wrong but this does not look like the actual 1974 Topps. It's in the master baseball cards template file and I'm gonna stick with it because it does look very, very 1970s... The very first AL Player of the Week award goes to the White Sox' Josh Wade (.600, 1, 8). The 30 year old Wade terrorized opposing pitchers to the tune of 13 hits in 19 at-bats, a homerun, 4 runs scored, and 7 RBIs. Even though it doesn't show me having made a card for him in the past, I'm seeing that Wade wonthis award once in the past in the week ending June 22, 1970 (maybe I hadn't been showing cards yet? I think I did that from the get-go though). In any case, Wade had an awesome big week. Good for him! In the NL, the award winner and wooow Miami Vice star apparently was Atlanta Braves 1B Peter Frampton (.419, 3, 8), who hit .455 (10-22) with 3 HRs, 9 runs scored, and 7 RBIs. Frampton's only a second year guy in this league and so this is his very first - but surely not his last - Player of the Week award. April 17: In today's game at Veteran's Stadium, Cardinals 1B Lorenzo Martinez (.304, 5, 10) became the 2nd player in major league history to hit 500 homeruns. Unfortunately for his team, neither #500 - a 2-run blast in the top of the 1st - nor his 2nd homer of the night were enough to take down the Phillies, who rallied late to win this one 6-3. "Lorenzo's been a real thorn in our side all these years" said Phillies bench coach Romain Reni. "I'm glad we got past him but man I'd love to, you know, not give up homers." Martinez has a .274 career average with 1,708 hits, 1,313 RBIs, and now 501 HRs. April 20: Hey hey hey another big hitting streak, this time by the Mets' Barry "The Ritz" Cooper (.367, 0, 5). The Ritz was 2-5 with a double and 2 runs scored in a 4-3 loss to the Pirates. Cooper has hit in all 11 Mets games this year plus the last 9 of last season. "I'd have liked it more if we won the game", said Cooper after the game, "but I'm a million dollar trooper". April 21: Ah, theeeeeeere's the 1970s Sunday baseball I know and love: everyone's playing and there are 14 games in all including double-headers between the Yankees and Orioles and the Padres and (terrible) Reds (2-10 right now!). I'm not saying I miss double-headers; it seems like a lot of baseball to watch in one day and I'm a baseball fan. I'm just saying, it's an interesting wrinkle to throw into the mix. I have rotations set to 4 man even though the game defaults to 5 man and Sundays are a big part of why - I still have a lot of teams running out 5 man rotations anyway and days like this I'll have to use emergency starters on a lot of teams with 4 man rotations. Both the O's and Yankees, for example, though, weren't expected to be very good this year and so came out riding with 4 man starting staffs (staves?). As such, boom, no emergency starter required. I still expect them to have to push their starters to not blow up their respective bullpens (that's a thing the game seems to love to do, by the way, murder the pen in Game 1). April 21: Are the Brewers actually kind of good? They completed a 2 game sweep of the defending world champion Detroit Tigers in Detroit with an 11-1 rout. Newly acquired ace SP Andy Ring (1-1, 3.38) threw a 7-hit complete game and a surprising Brewers lineup knocked Tigers SP Martin Buchan (2-1, 2.00, and that ERA looks low only because 5 of the runs he allowed today were unearned). Singing 2B Lionel Richie (.289, 2, 12) led the way with 3 hits in 4 at-bats, including a 2-run HR off of mop-up man Chris McGranahan (0-0, 11.57), a double, and 4 RBIs in total. "I like to think that when it comes to our team," Richie said after the game, "we are the world." The win, at least for now, puts the Brewers in a virtual tie with the Tigers atop the AL East. April 21: In other weirdly good early-season news, the Cubs doubled up the Phillies at the Vet today, 6-3, to take a game and a half lead over the Mets in the NL East. Yeah, it's super duper early, but Chicago should be spurred on by the excellent performance of new SP Mick Fleetwood (2-0, 2.78), who struck out nine batters in 6.2 innings before giving way to the Cubs' bullpen. Chicago's hitters KO'd Chris Olivares (0-2, 5.18), who was 19-4 last year, after 5 innings, with 1B Antonio Lopez (.283, 3, 9) belting a 3 run HR in the effort. "They were using a lot of backups today," said Cubs bench coach Sal Sifontes, never one to puff his team up too much, after the game. "I'm glad Mick could get it going tonight though. He's gonna make me eat my words about how rock and roll men can never become effective pitchers in this league."
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03-23-2026, 10:02 AM
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#342 | |
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Bat Boy
Join Date: Mar 2026
Posts: 1
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It sounds like you’ve hit that classic sim-gamer’s dilemma where the prep work is almost as addictive—and exhausting—as the actual gameplay. There’s a real charm to that 1970s era, but trying to be the league's lead historian and commissioner at the same time is often a one-way ticket to burnout city. Honestly, leaning into the chaos of those high TCR and injury settings might be exactly what keeps this save alive; it lets the league tell its own story while you just keep the wheels on the track. If The Baseball Timeline is calling, maybe just use it for occasional flavor rather than making it a manual for a second job. Sometimes the most fun dynasties are the ones where you stop worrying about the "perfect" archive and just enjoy watching a random 4-man rotation workhorse carry a team to a fluke pennant. |
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04-07-2026, 11:02 AM
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#343 | ||
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Hall Of Famer
Join Date: May 2004
Posts: 10,668
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Anyway, thanks for the feedback!
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04-07-2026, 11:05 AM
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#344 | |
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Hall Of Famer
Join Date: May 2004
Posts: 10,668
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April 29 - May 5, 1974
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AMERICAN LEAGUE STANDINGS East W L PCT GB Milwaukee Brewers 12 9 .571 - New York Yankees 14 13 .519 1.0 Detroit Tigers 12 12 .500 1.5 Boston Red Sox 13 13 .500 1.5 Cleveland Guardians 12 13 .480 2.0 Baltimore Orioles 10 13 .435 3.0 West W L PCT GB Minnesota Twins 16 7 .696 - Chicago White Sox 13 10 .565 3.0 California Angels 14 12 .538 3.5 Oakland Athletics 11 14 .440 6.0 Texas Rangers 10 15 .400 7.0 Kansas City Royals 9 15 .375 7.5 Code:
NATIONAL LEAGUE STANDINGS East W L PCT GB Pittsburgh Pirates 15 7 .682 - New York Mets 14 11 .560 2.5 Chicago Cubs 12 10 .545 3.0 St. Louis Cardinals 14 12 .538 3.0 Montreal Expos 10 10 .500 4.0 Philadelphia Phillies 11 14 .440 5.5 West W L PCT GB Atlanta Braves 17 10 .630 - San Francisco Giants 15 12 .556 2.0 San Diego Padres 15 13 .536 2.5 Los Angeles Dodgers 12 15 .444 5.0 Houston Astros 10 18 .357 7.5 Cincinnati Reds 5 18 .217 10.0 1 Jason Bushon - NYM .385 2 Bob McAdoo SF .381 3 Danny Seligman SF .380 4 Brian Maccioli CHW .379 5 Jesper Christensen PIT .378 LEAGUE LEADERS HR 1 Ernesto Garcia - NYY 9 2 Lorenzo Martinez STL 8 2 Mauricio Mendez CLE 8 4 Mike Galeana STL 7 4 Justin Lawson PIT 7 LEAGUE LEADERS RBI 1 Robin Gibb - LAD 23 2 Paul McCartney SD 22 3 Brandon Anderson NYY 21 3 Lionel Richie MIL 21 5 6 tied with 20 LEAGUE LEADERS W 1 Rich Reese - CHW 6 2 Ergot Newman MIN 5 2 Roger Quintana STL 5 4 Fernando Apolonio LAD 4 4 13 more tied with 4 LEAGUE LEADERS ERA 1 Juan Merino - MIL 1.11 2 Santos Arango PIT 1.80 3 Michael Pesco BOS 1.81 4 Roger Quintana STL 1.91 5 Paz Lemus PIT 1.93 LEAGUE LEADERS K 1 Roger Quintana - STL 50 2 Mario Garcia STL 43 3 Colin Rose ATL 41 4 Vince Bachler PHI 34 4 2 more tied with 34 Things are starting to sort themselves out, maybe, although man these standings still look craaaaaazy. The Tigers at .500? The Phillies in last place? The Twins leading the AL in wins and winning percentage? It's wild, man. Getting some of those league leaders in here too, you can at least see how the Pirates are on top of the NL East - yep, it's pitching! Who could have guessed? Also, crazily, the Bucs have yet to steal a single base in this, the era of the steal. They're 11th in the NL in runs scored but 1st in ERA. Pat Lemus is on pace for 103 games pitched and 171.2 IP. He won't keep up that pace, I'm sure, but he's the closest to Mike Marshall that I've got so far I think. Now onto the daily stuff... April 29: Monday meets us with some baaaaaad injury news. First of all in Chicago, White Sox 2B Juan "Cat" Perez (.237, 4, 11), acquired from the Cubs to shore up second base, will miss the rest of the year with a bad concussion. So, this is awkward... his replacement is the guy Perez replaced in the lineup, Chance Hopka (.267, 0, 2), who's... fine, just not an electric player the way Perez is. April 29: Before I get to the next injury... there are rumblings in the Mets clubhouse about SP Trevon Dean (2-0, 3.28). As one of the better pitchers on the roster it seems like he's gotten a big head about it. Rumors are that that's part of what chased him out of Atlanta... well, his clubhouse lawyer-ism and his inability to avoid the longball. The Mets had no official comment about this, although bench coach David Cerrato is reportedly not on the good side of several players for his handling of the situation including C Jason Bushon, 3B Mark Hamill, and RP Larry Hilbert. April 29: That other bad injury happened to Pirates SP DJ "Old Money" Cheeves (2-1, 2.82), who was expected to elevate his game with the loss of Jeremy Battaglia to the American League. Instead, 4 games in Cheeves tore his labrum and will miss the rest of the season. The Bucs had been sort of riding along with a 5 man rotation to open the year anyway given that they weren't considered strong contenders, so now adjusting for it is as simple as swapping down to 4 men. April 29: After the big two hits today it barely seems like bad news for the Red Sox that CF Jon Glynn (.269, 0, 2) was placed on the 21-day DL today with a strained back. Goodwill Zwelthini (.238, 0, 2) will take over the bulk of the CF duties while he's gone with organizational soldier Dean Perkins (.364, 1, 2) getting his first-ever major league time served as his backup (Perkins is already 25 so Dean Perkins he is). April 29: Cleveland's surge his year so far is a little bittersweet given the "Friday Night Massacre" where they lost OF Brandon Anderson (.329, 4, 17) to the Yankees. Well, news got even better for the Bronx Bombers because Anderson won the AL Player of the Week for the first time in his career. Anderson was, let's just say, very good: 10-15, 2 HRs, 7 runs, and 6 RBIs. "I miss my friends," said Anderson, "and I miss my adopted home town, but it is what it is, I guess." Anderson only spent a year and change in Cleveland, being traded from the Phillies in the offseason of 1972 in a trade involving OF Nelson Vargas (.257, 1, 10 with TEX). April 29: The NL guy of the week is another "old dog", 33 year old Pirates RF Justin Lawson (.280, 6, 13). Lawson, the #3 hitter in a surprisingly decent Pirates offense to date, went 9-21 (.429) for the week ending the 28th with 3 of his 6 HRs (2nd in the NL to St. Louis's Lorenzo Martines (.297, 8, 17)) and 6 of his 13 RBIs. This is Lawson's 5th PotW but his first in almost 4 years: he last won the award in the week ending May 11, 1970. April 29: A quick peek at the ol' power rankings: Teams (Total Points, Tendency): 1) Atlanta Braves (129.8, o) 2) Pittsburgh Pirates (129.1, ++) 3) Minnesota Twins (123.1, ++) 4) Chicago White Sox (117.0, +) 5) St. Louis Cardinals (115.8, ++) 6) Cleveland Guardians (113.2, ++) 7) New York Yankees (108.1, ++) 8) Milwaukee Brewers (106.3, --) 9) Boston Red Sox (100.0, +) 10) San Francisco Giants (98.1, ++) 11) San Diego Padres (97.0, -) 12) Baltimore Orioles (94.0, +) 13) Los Angeles Dodgers (93.3, --) 14) New York Mets (92.7, --) 15) Detroit Tigers (87.0, --) 16) Montreal Expos (85.1, ++) 17) Chicago Cubs (83.0, --) 18) Philadelphia Phillies (80.0, ++) 19) Oakland Athletics (69.8, --) 20) Texas Rangers (66.0, --) 21) California Angels (65.0, --) 22) Houston Astros (46.2, -) 23) Kansas City Royals (41.0, o) 24) Cincinnati Reds (29.0, o) It's really too early to talk about hippies and yuppies but there's been some big movement. I guess the Pirates are the big upward movers - okay, fine, yuppies - while the Angels rode a 1-1 split to the Orioles and then a sweep at Cleveland to be the big old dirty hippies this week. April 29: In an early week battle of... I don't want to say 2 unstoppable forces but two teams who are both waaaaaay overplaying, the Twins beat the Guardians 6-5 thanks to a walkoff dinger by CF Ronnie Hellstrom (.362, 4, 16). This was Hellstrom's 2nd ding-dong of the day; he'd previously knocked one into the cheap seats off of Guards starter Randy Nixon (1-2, 4.39) to give his team a 5-4 lead, only to have that surrendered by closer Eddie "Electric Avenue" Grant (1-1, 2.70, 4 Sv), who also picked up the vultured victory today. "During the day I swat soccer balls away from the goal," said the Swedish Hellstrom. "During the night I swat baseballs away from the plate." April 30: Rough morning for the Yankees, as they lost both CF Norm Hodge (.236, 1, 4) and DH Ernesto Garcia (.228, 9, 16) for three weeks apiece. It could have been worse, I guess. Hodge is a 9 time Gold Glover in his first season in New York and Garcia is, well, the self proclaimed homerun king. This does give the Yankees the opportunity to promote 1B/DH Jamil Mahuad (.303, 1, 4 at AAA Syracuse this year) to fill in for Garcia in particular instead of the struggling Edwin Manchego (.167, 1, 4). Brandon Anderson already slid over into center for Hodge with Phil Hartman (.208, 1, 8) and Lorenzo Escobedo (.226, 1, 5) getting their platoon in right field back, at least for now. April 30: The Angels traded OF Paul Stewart (.000, 0, 0) to the Royals for CF Prince Charles (.500, 0, 0). Neither of these guys have played much at all this year. The prince should compete with CF Jaco Pastorius (.226, 1, 5) for the job in center; they were stuck using Fernando Ceballos (.200, 0, 0), he of the .001 isolated walks in 1973. Stewart is quite a bit older than Charles but a much, much better hitter, although on KC he seems like a purely backup corner OFer and pinch-hitter. April 30: Cardinals SP Mario Garcia (3-3, 3.67) has had an up and down start to his season in 1974, allowing 4 or more runs in his first 3 starts. Today was an "up" day: he just missed becoming the 3rd Cardinal and first since 1967 to record 13 strikeouts in a game in a convincing 3-0 shutout of the Braves. Hey, it was at Busch Stadium, but with 12 Ks the Braves wouldn't have been doing anything in any park. Garcia did face some drama in the top of the 7th when he walked CF TC Boyle (.203, 0, 7) to drunken up the sacks with one out but two easy fly outs to C Gianluigi Farinelli (.266, 4, 18) and PH Ace Frehley (.154, 0, 4), in for Atlanta SP Ernesto Carillo (2-2, 2.94) got him all the way out of the inning. Garcia was frustrated this offseason by an unsuccessful attempt to increase his velocity but you wouldn't know it by tonight: his heater was occasionally hitting 97 on the gun. "The hitters, they can't hit what they can't see," said the imposing right-hander, who has 43 strikeouts in 41.2 innings pitched (an absolutely insane ratio for 1974), after the game. April 30: I didn't cover this while it happened but the Yankees won a pretty normal, ho-hum 5-3 game at their temporary home in Shea Stadium vs the A's, 5-3. What isn't so ho-hum is that this was the Yankees' 7th straight victory. With 2 key members of their lineup out this team seems to be on cruise control. Tonight Henning Mankell (2-0, 2.94) threw probably his worst game of the year - 6 innings, 3 earned runs on 5 hits, 3 walks, and 6 Ks - before giving way to Wally Vlahos, who threw two scoreless innings to be the pitcher of record when new A's closer Jesse Kelly (0-1, 2.25, 2 Sv) blew his first save of the season in the 9th. 3B Tiptoe Tommy Weiss (.250, 3, 16) hit a 3 run shot to transform this L into a W in that frame. "We don't have a lot of quit in us," said Weiss after the game. "I'm a Yankee at heart and that's who we are." May 1: It's time to award some Players of the Month for April! First, the rookies... the early contender for NL Rookie of the Month is 2B Jesper Christensen (.361, 2, 5). The Pirates dumped both halves of their long-running double play duo in Tyler Webster and Henry Villar over the offseason and at second base at least it's been like "Tyler who?". Was it just a good month for Christensen, who hit a pretty pedestrian .253/10/40 at AAA Wichita last year, or did he take a real uptick in his quality of play? Okay, the answer is probably the latter but if he hits in the .250s with double-digit power he's already an upgrade over Webster, who I remember as being a lifetime .226 hitter. The AL Rookie of the Month was Tigers SP Martin Buchan (3-1, 2.00). You don't usually see the reigning champs having to start a 25 year old rookie in the rotation but the Tigers got tired of Edgar Molina and liked the return on "5th man" Juan Merino (they really ran a 4 man rotation last year and Merino, who was 13-1 in 1972, barely played in the majors last season) so Buchan got the nod. And while the Tigers did not exactly have an April to remember, finishing 9-10 and tied for last in the AL East, Buchan has been pretty solid: 4 starts, 3 wins, 16 Ks in 27 IPs. His role is to get the team into the 7th and give the offense a chance to win. The NL Pitcher of the Month is Cardinals' SP Roger "Senor Smoke" Quintana (4-2, 1.27). When you do name a guy with 2 losses as the PotM? When he's a shutdown guy like Quintana, that's when. Quintana has allowed 0 or 1 runs in 5 of his 6 1974 starts, the 4th being a technical QS with 6 IPs and 3 ERs in a 5-2 loss to the Mets. Quintana is somehow only the 2nd best strikeout man on his team with Mario Garcia being a K beast but he's still preeeeeeeeetty good on his own. This is the 26 year old Quintana's first PotM award - he really only made the transition from good pitcher to ace last year - but probably won't be his last. Your American League Potcher of the Month is Chicago SP Rich Reese (6-1, 4.30). Um. I guess the writers decided to overlook ERA this month. Reese did win 6 games for the Chisox so that's nice. He's also given up 5 runs 4 times in 7 starts this season, so... he won the award based on his offense bailing him out a lot? He's gotten a decent if not amazing number of Ks (30 in 44 IP) but he always struggles with walks so I don't think I can just call the runs allowed bad sequencing / luck. I guess it shows up as a line drive in the books, right? Anyway, this is Reese's first major league PotM although he also won the award twice in the PCL. Finally, the Players of the Month. First up, I feel like the NL choice is pretty obvious, at least to me: Braves 1B Peter Frampton (.360, 4, 15). With teammate Henry Riggs battling injuries and a little slump all month, Frampton has really stepped up as Atlanta's big middle of the order guy. He's no longer in the top 3 in RBIs and isn't chasing .400 but I mean what he's doing is pretty damn solid. The 24 year old Frampton only came up midway through last season so needless to say this is his first PotM award, although he did win it twice in the minor leagues, both in 1971 in the Western Carolinas League (where he also won the MVP with a .300/12/52 year in only 377 at-bats) and in the International League with Richmond in 1972. In the AL, Cleveland's lost 3 of their best players in recent weeks but one guy they didn't lose was 2B Mauricio Mendez (.333, 7, 13), who rode a crazy uncharacteristic power surge to his first ever Batter of the Month. How wild were the 7 HRs? Mendez, who is now in his 7th season in the major leagues, has a career high of 12. Yeah, he has the rep of being a beltin' keystoner but we're talking middle infielder power, not 2nd in the AL in homeruns power. There's a great chance that this will be like half or more of Mendez's season ending total so enjoy it while it lasts, Guardians fans. May 1: Make that 8 in a row for the Yankees, who beat the A's 6-3 to pull off the little midweek 2 game sweep. This one was a done deal by the 5th when the Yankees scored 3 runs off Oakland starter Rick Shelton (2-3, 4.55) thanks largely to a 2 RBI single by 2B Geoffrey Rush (.330, 0, 9). Dylan Hamilton (1-2, 2,.41) picked up his first win in a Yankees uniform as well as in 1974 overall with 7 innings of getting out of jams: he gave up 13 hits and left with no outs in the 8th, then lucked out when RF Phil Hartman (.220, 1, 9) threw out A's catcher Texas Josh Lewis (.312, 2, 8) at home to end the inning. The Yankees are now 14-10 and in a virtual tie with the Brewers for the AL East lead pending Milwaukee's game today. They get Thursday off and then travel to Kansas City for a 3 game weekend series; the Yanks just beat them in a 2-gamer last week and, well, KC is struggling so this should continue..,. May 1: Whoops, make that division the sole property of the Yankees. Texas beat Milwaukee 6-2 at Arlington Stadium behind 3B Bobby Ramirez (.384, 2, 6), who had the 5th 5-hit game in franchise history and the first since they moved to Texas last year (the last one was by Ian Everett in 1970). Ramirez had 4 singles, a double, 2 runs, and an RBI for Texas, who knocked Brewers starter Andy "Lizard" Ring (1-3, 5.34) out of the game in the 5th. This was the second straight start where Ring, formerly the ace of the Angels' pitching staff, failed to go at least 6 innings - he was also KO'ed in 3+ innings by the Twins on April 26. Milwaukee is now 10-8 and, thanks to the weirdness that comes from them playing 18 games to New York's 24, a full game out of first place where they were in a virtual tie coming into today. May 1: What started as a terrible April just keeps on going for the Reds and for their closer Brian Yates (1-3, 9.75). Yates came in the 8th inning inheriting a 5-5 tie from starter Tracy Larazabal (0-0, 6.23) and reliever Pete Lynn (0-0, 0.69) and gave up a run to put himself in place to lose. Then the Pirates brought in their ace Paz "Sparky" Lemus (1-0, 2.45, 6 Sv) to finish up but after he struck out the side in the 8th he allowed a run on 3 straight singles in the 9th to tie it back up and presumably send the game into extra innings. But wait! Yates returned in the 9th and gave up it all on an RBI single to LF Jerry Sherk (.239, 2, 11) to end it. "I haven't gotten to see him much," said Sherk at the end of the game, "but I think I see him pretty well." Jerry Sherk is 1-2 lifetime against the Reds' closer, who finished the month of April with a 9.58 ERA. He also gave up 17 runs in 16.2 IP in spring training so, um... maybe it's time for a change? I tend to hold off on big moves until the 20-loss point but the Reds at 4-16 are fast approaching that point. May 1: Following another tough loss, 4-3 to the Giants, Phillies 3B Bobby Kraljevic (.242, 1, 11) exchanged some hard words with a fan at Candlestick Park. There is allegedly tape of this and it's not great, guys. "I've got nothing to say about this matter," said bench coach Romain Reni, who's been with the team since 1969 and is, per accounts, struggling to keep the clubhouse together for the struggling last place team that was projected to win 100 games and walk away with the NL East this year. May 3: The Guardians selected CF Russ Deuser (.100, 0, 0) off of waivers from the Padres. Deuser realy really isn't much but with Brandon Anderson now a member of the Yankees this team was completely bereft in center. Deuser replaces 31 year old Corey Harpst, who had 3 at-bats this year and hasn't been a major part of this roster since 1971. May 3: The Yankees traded a 23 year old SP TBNL (3-2, 2.60 at AAA Syracuse) to the Phillies for RP Victor Marin (1-1, 1.64, 2 Sv). This was, for NY, a necessary move following liquidating a lot of their relief staff in the trade to get Brandon Anderson. Marin is 33 years old and probably on the decline but he's a good pitcher right now and that's what the Yankees need. The PTBNL is someone I almost don't want to see come up before they're 25 because they have a cool name. May 3: If you're going to end an 8 game winning streak, do it in... "style", right? The Royals broke open a 2-2 tie in the bottom of the 5th with 7 runs off of starter John Carpenter (1-3, 3.64) and reliever Manny Carbajal (0-0, 6.17) and cruised to an 11-5 victory over the Bombers. 1B Christopher Durang (.371, 2, 9), who's gonna write him some funny ass plays in the future, was the man of the match with a 3-5, 2 run, 2 RBI game that included a solo shot off of Carpenter in the 3rd. SP Howard Rollins (2-1, 2.65) had a less than great game with 4 runs allowed on 8 hits over 7 IP but hey, that's why they call him Mr. Tibbs... ? In some less than great news for KC on an otherwise great day, LF Tony Danza (.318, 0, 8) left with an undisclosed leg injuries after running the bases. May 3: Are the Brewers, and for that matter SP Juan Merino (4-1, 1.11) for real? Today the 2nd place Chicago White Sox came into town and they were completely shut down by the former Tigers hurler. Merino surrendered 4 hits in a complete game shutout, already his 2nd of the season, and the Brew Crew KO'd Sox starter and April Pitcher of the Month Rich Reese (6-2, 4.76) in the 6th to cruise to an easy 7-0 win. LF Steve Winwood (.260, 4, 15) cranked his 4th HR of the year and RF Jun Kim (.318, 1, 12) had 3 hits in 5 at-bats to lead this team. We've seen this team retool the past couple seasons, too, but nothing seemed as organized as this one... May 4: The Twins traded P Pete Eason (0-1, 4.05) to the Yankees for a 23 year old RP TBNL (0-1, 2.45 at AAA Syracuse) and cash. Eason just returned from a spring training injury and at 34 is surplus to the team's plans, good record right now or not. They get moneys for him plus a kid who the scouts think could become a spot starter for them. Hooray? May 4: I pushed MY DAD (2-2, 2.53) up to start for the Expos today because he's playing well but also because today is his 26th birthday. To do so I had to take him away from his BRAND NEW BABY BOY (why is this all in caps???) who was just born 3 days ago but he really paid it off, outdueling Giants ace Justin Matthews (1-5, 6.05) to a 3-2 complete game win. DAD gave up 7 hits tonight but no walks, which is a bit crazy because he actually has not walked a single batter all year now. 0 walks, 33 Ks; I'm pretty sure that's the best K/W ratio ever. May 5: Josh Damon (.400, 0, 0) isn't happy with his new role with the Rangers and this time around I can't blame him. He was a starter last year, not, like, a good one but he was adequate and so far this season he's barely played. To make matters worse the Rangers have also stumbled out of the gate at 10-13. Blame trading away Geoffrey Rush but I can get the ire here. I've also been using former Tigers star Danny Villegas (.202, 6, 15) at DH and he's been hitting HRs and little else... actually. He's been crap but you know what's been crapper? The entire 1B situation. Villegas will get injured playing the field but hey for 6 games until that happens we have this solved! I am not a fan of Damon playing DH - he was .264/8/43 and roughly league average in 435 at-bats - but he's arguably one of the top 9 hitters on the team so... there's that at least. Jon Hernandez (.146, 2, 8) and Roberto Hernandez (.150, 0, 0) have both been amazingly terrible so Damon's right, a change needed to be made. May 5: Padres OF Ian Everett (.500, 0, 1) is also unhappy with his playing time as well as San Diego's inability to get separated from the pack (they're 14-12 now, on a 2 game winning streak). Here though I just don't see a case for him in this crowded outfield. Here I think I'm just going to remain inactive: the Pads should get better, which should solve some of this, there's no place to put Everett, but at the same time he's the only guy on the roster who can reasonably back up Dr. Phil McGraw. May 5: The Yankees purchased minor league IF Jonathan Odom (.294, 1, 1 at AAA Omaha) from the Royals. Hey! More purchasing of guys instead of giving up players for the Yankees. Here they do have a backup in Dustin Clark but mostly I don't trust that Jonathan Banks will be able to stay there forever. May 5: Now HERE is a Sunday I've come to expect: 16 games, so 4 double-headers. TEX-BOS, CLE-OAK, SF-MON, and SD-NYM. This is why you can do default 4 man rotations and still have teams not have guys with 48 starts or whatever. May 5: These Milwaukee Brewers have turned into an offensive powerhouse in just one season! Tonight they were losing to White Sox SP Chris Messina (2-2, 3.57) 4-1 in the 8th inning but DH James Hong (.376, 5, 16) blasted a 3 run homerun to tie it all up. That's where it stood at the end of regulation, and then in the bottom of the 10th Hong's fellow second baseman Lionel Richie (.337, 4, 21) belted a 2 run HR of his own to win it. Andy Ring (1-3, 5.45) threw a very meh 6 innings - 7 Ks but 4 ER - and RP John Landis (1-0, 3.00) threw 3.2 IP in relief to secure his first major league victory (he played in the majors last year but was just 0-2). The Brewers lead the AL in runs scored with 121 and are hitting .295(!) with 20 HRs in 21 games (which is only 6th in the AL and probably a sign I need to recalibrate but still). It wasn't that long ago - 1972 in fact - that it was looking like this same team might set a major league record for offensive futility. They wound up scoring 478 runs that year, which juuuuuuuuust put them out of the worst 3 of all time (the 1966 Senators, the 3rd worst team, scored 466). May 5: Game 2 of the Guardians/A's double-header was a real comedy of errors... literally. I don't think literally. But there were *6* errors in this game, including the game-loser, and oh boy was it ugly. The game was tied 7-7 going into the 7th after both starters, Cleveland's Claudio Rainieri (0-0, 11.12) in his first appearance in 1974, and Philip Trapasso (1-2, 5.19). At that the A's looked like they might cruise in this one before Guardians 2B Mauricio Mendez (.330, 8, 18) cracked a grand salami and his *8th* HR of the year to momentarily put Cleveland into a 7-5 lead. So in the top of the 8th, A's setup man Willis Chavez (0-1, 7.59) walked in to try to protect the tie - closer Jesse Kelly (1-2, 4.91, 2 Sv) had just gotten himself a vultured victory in the day game when he gave up a 4-1 lead and then was the moundsman of record when C Texas Josh Lewis (.297, 3, 10) hit a game-winning 2 run HR in the bottom of the 9th - and he suuuuuuuucked, surrendering two walks and a hit batsman to the first two batters. Sometimes guys get out of jams. This was not one of those times. The Guardians wound up scoring 4 times in the inning to give themselves a really solid 11-7 lead. Note that I did not say insurmountable. The A's got a run back in the 8th but going into the 9th they were facing a 3-run deficit and closer Bruno Kirby (2-3, 2.79, 4 Sv) on the mound. He delivered a flyout from the first batter and then had to leave with hand soreness. Hey, no problem; Gabriel Covarrubias (0-4, 3.12, 3 Sv) had handled closer duties for the Yankees when their own guy was out... right? He allowed a single to backup C Ramiro Gonzalez (.222, 1, 2), then 1B Ray Hawkinson (.333, 1, 5) reached first on a muffed ground ball by Guardians 3B Mitt Romney (.300, 0, 2), playing just his 2nd game of the season at the position. Then the flood gates opened. From this point on, all A's batters save one - 3B Sean Gabel (.215, 0, 10) got on base without an out, and finally with the score knotted up at 11 apiece, SS Bob Iger (.250, 5, 13) was unable to field a hard grounder right at him. Everyone was safe and boom, the game ended 12-11. UGLY. I guess this is how Cleveland falls apart but oh man... if there was ever a single game that makes you think "ugh, the sliders aren't where they're supposed to be", this was it. May 5: On my very last game this week... Phillies SP Richard "Ringo Starr" Starkey (4-3, 2.51) went from having the best game of his life to one of the worst. Pitching a perfect game through 6.1 innings, Starkey felt something pop in his elbow and had to leave the game immediately. The very next batter reached on an error by SS Henry Villar (.295, 1, 3), ending the chance at the team perfecto, and then the very *next* guy, C Gary McCord (.340, 5, 16) stroked a no-doubt-about-it double off the Veterans' Stadium wall to break up the no-no. At the end of the day the Phillies did win 6-2 but Starkey looks to miss the next month and a half of the year with the same elbow issues that made him miss the last month of the year in 1972.
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04-15-2026, 11:50 AM
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Hall Of Famer
Join Date: May 2004
Posts: 10,668
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May 6-12, 1974
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AMERICAN LEAGUE STANDINGS East W L PCT GB Detroit Tigers 16 13 .552 - Milwaukee Brewers 14 12 .538 .5 New York Yankees 18 17 .514 1.0 Cleveland Guardians 15 15 .500 1.5 Boston Red Sox 15 16 .484 2.0 Baltimore Orioles 13 15 .464 2.5 West W L PCT GB Minnesota Twins 19 8 .704 - California Angels 17 16 .515 5.0 Texas Rangers 16 16 .500 5.5 Chicago White Sox 13 15 .464 6.5 Kansas City Royals 12 18 .400 8.5 Oakland Athletics 12 19 .387 9.0 Code:
NATIONAL LEAGUE STANDINGS East W L PCT GB Pittsburgh Pirates 17 11 .607 - Chicago Cubs 15 12 .556 1.5 St. Louis Cardinals 16 14 .533 2.0 Montreal Expos 12 11 .522 2.5 New York Mets 16 15 .516 2.5 Philadelphia Phillies 13 18 .419 5.5 West W L PCT GB Atlanta Braves 20 13 .606 - San Diego Padres 21 14 .600 - San Francisco Giants 19 15 .559 1.5 Houston Astros 15 20 .429 6.0 Los Angeles Dodgers 13 19 .406 6.5 Cincinnati Reds 7 22 .241 11.0 But holy crap, what's going right with the Twins right now!? They've given up the fewest runs in the AL, although some of that is from only playing in 27 games so far. They do have top 5 ERAs for starters (3.92, 5th) and relievers (3.10, 2nd), which is nice. That's in spite of having the 3rd fewest Ks in all of baseball. The defense has been really, really holding up so far... their #1 defender by ZR is LF Jose Villasenor (.265, 1, 10) with 9.4 runs saved above average already. He is absolutely not that kind of defender though so again I ask: hoooow? And the NL East is just craaazy. I keep waiting for the Phillies to turn it around but they keep dropping games. They did win 2 out of 3 vs the Pirates over the weekend, but that's coming off of a 3 game sweep at the hands of the Padres in Philadelphia. They've had a weird bit of struggle to score runs so far. C Nikolai Volkoff (.136, 0, 6) is the most obvious culprit but come on, the man's hitting 8th every night, he's not THAT big of a deal. LF Alberto Juantorena (.254, 3, 15) isn't hitting at the MVP level of 1973 and overall the team just plain hasn't hit for power, being dead last in the NL so far in HRs with 16. I feel like I'm giving short shrift to Pittsburgh here. They're Pittsburghing it up as they always do: 12th in the NL in runs scored, a very meh .251 average (8th), but even without Jeremy Battaglia they're 3rd in starters' ERA (3.52) and they've been leaning extra-heavily on Paz "Sparky" Lemus (2-0, 2.05, 9 Sv) once they do get a lead. 2B Jesper Christensen (.323, 2, 10) still looks like a contender for Rookie of the Year so that's nice. May 5 (evening): The league power rankings because hey IT IS TIME TO NAME SOME DIRTY HIPPIES Code:
Rank Team Points W-L PCT AVG ERA Pyt.Rec Diff 1st (3rd) Minnesota 133 + 16-7 .696 .273 3.89 14-9 2 2nd (2nd) Pittsburgh 128 o 15-7 .682 .263 3.00 13-9 2 3rd (1st) Atlanta 114 - 17-10 .630 .261 2.95 17-10 0 4th (21st) California 107 ++ 14-12 .538 .258 3.27 14-12 0 5th (8th) Milwaukee 104 ++ 12-9 .571 .295 3.86 13-8 -1 6th (10th) San Francisco 103 ++ 15-12 .556 .272 3.49 13-14 2 7th (5th) St. Louis 102 - 14-12 .538 .248 3.34 13-13 1 8th (14th) New York 102 ++ 14-11 .560 .252 4.08 13-12 1 9th (4th) Chicago 101 -- 13-10 .565 .273 3.65 12-11 1 10th (11th) San Diego 97 + 15-13 .536 .264 3.32 17-11 -2 11th (17th) Chicago 97 ++ 12-10 .545 .271 3.91 12-10 0 12th (7th) New York 94 -- 14-13 .519 .270 4.31 12-15 2 13th (16th) Montreal 93 ++ 10-10 .500 .251 3.64 10-10 0 14th (9th) Boston 90 -- 13-13 .500 .263 3.47 11-15 2 15th (15th) Detroit 86 o 12-12 .500 .274 3.91 11-13 1 16th (6th) Cleveland 83 -- 12-13 .480 .270 4.14 13-12 -1 17th (18th) Philadelphia 81 + 11-14 .440 .245 3.89 12-13 -1 18th (19th) Oakland 80 + 11-14 .440 .264 4.05 12-13 -1 19th (12th) Baltimore 73 -- 10-13 .435 .257 4.07 11-12 -1 20th (13th) Los Angeles 72 -- 12-15 .444 .254 4.46 11-16 1 21st (23rd) Kansas City 71 + 9-15 .375 .276 5.12 11-13 -2 22nd (20th) Texas 66 - 10-15 .400 .258 3.51 11-14 -1 23rd (22nd) Houston 59 - 10-18 .357 .259 3.77 12-16 -2 24th (24th) Cincinnati 34 o 5-18 .217 .227 5.58 7-16 -2 The stinky dirty hippies this week have to be the Guardians, who sold off large chunks of their team and finally saw the chickens come home to roost on that. They got swept in a 2 game series vs the Twins and then lost 3 out of 4 to lowly Oakland... well. I guess the A's are a little less lowly than Cleveland will be in a couple weeks. Really the worst of all teams by far are Houston and Cincy but we don't award hippies of the week to bad teams, we award them to teams who fell off in the power rankings. May 6: When the Red Sox traded for DH/OF Matt Williams (.284, 2, 9), they did so knowign he's injury prone but also hoping that a move to designated hitter would help cut down on that. He tore his hamstring sliding into 2nd base yesterday and now he's going to miss the next 2 months. The 35 year old has played exactly two full seasons in his career in his age 22 and 23 seasons. He's missed substantial time pretty much every single season since and the last time he even got into 100 games was 1967. May 6: And on today's episode of "guys who need reality therapy"... Royals C Mike Perez (.286, 0, 2), who hit .186 last year as the Royals' starter, is unhappy at backing up a Rule V pick in Johnny Becton (.295, 1, 7) as well as being on a last place team. To be honest Perez has a better case than you'd think; Becton is really, really bad at catching, has 3 passed balls already this year, and has yet to throw out a single runner. I think I will push Perez back into the starter's role but I'll still mix Becton in pretty heavily, not because I think he'll, like, learn the tools of ignorance but because Perez is pitcher level bad at hitting. May 6: I'm all but positive I haven't called this number before... but journeyman OF Mike Schurke (.394, 1, 5), currently with the Cubs, won the NL Player of the Week award with an 11-21 (.524) performance with a homer, 5 runs, and 6 RBIs. Okay... maybe he's not such a journeyman. I think I'm thinking of Zachery Hadley. Schurke's played only with the A's and Cubs and he's been with Chicago since the middle of the 1971 season. In any case, this is in fact Schurke's first PotW in both the major and the minor leagues. His only other award, in fact, was winning the rookie league Silver Slugger for CF in 1966 (.307, 0, 38). That was... a long time ago but Schurke was only 18 at the time so he's still only 26. This feels like "flukey great hitting week" but hey, there could be more, presumably. Tigers 2B Joey Ramone (.312, 2, 17) was in a bit of a slump going into this week. Well... he went 15-26 (.577) with a HR and 4 RBIs to not only bust out of the funk but also earn the Player of the Week award. Too bad his team could only tread water at 3-3 during that time but hey, that's a performance. The 25 year old Ramone won his 2nd PotW, the other one coming the week ending August 6, 1973. He's also made 2 All-Star Games and won the Gold Glove at 2nd in 1972. May 6: I think the latest tweaks are properly in place and as if to show that this is the case I got a good old OOTP Special today: the Guardians and Angels were heading into the bottom of the 9th with a 5-3 for Cleveland and then Angels DH Ken Hitchcock (.310, 2, 5) belted a 2 run homerun to tie it. And that's where the score stayed... until the *18th* inning, when fiiiiiinally Angels long man Ignacio Visco (0-1, 5.23) got tired, walked the bases loaded, gave up a hit, and gave the ball up to Montay Luiso (2-1, 0.94) already having given up the go-ahead run. Luiso allowed 3 more runs, all charged to Visco, to score, and then the Angels got back and juuuuuuuust about tied it back up before Guardians RP Alfredo Contreras (2-3, 5.75) was able to shut the door on a 9-8 game. Games like this are where to be honest I'm not that unhappy about the ghost runner rule. May 7: The Yankees traded 1B/DH Edwin Manchego (.167, 1, 4) to the Rangers for RP Nate Kemp (0-0, 11.57) and cash. This is all about the Yankees still working to build up that bullpen that got kind of ravaged in the Brandon Anderson deal. Manchego just plain hasn't been playing and at this point he's behind Jamil Mahuad (.250, 1, 3) in the depth chart at first. Nate Kemp's been pretty bad but in very few innings and he had a 2.35 ERA as a lefty specialist for the Rangers last year. May 9: Astros OF Chris Tyree (.143, 0, 0) is a big ball of complainy about his role / the Astros' terrible start. Here too I'm in a spot where I don't blame him exactly and yet... what can I do? This guy can't be expecting more than a part-time role. It's true that 38 year old Justin Jensen (.143, 0, 2) is unbelievably awful so far. He had a nice comeback year last year but stories are for, um, novels, not BASEBALL what am I even saying. Anyway, let's do this... I'm gonna mostly satisfy young Larry Robinson (.323, 0, 5) by taking Jensen out of RF and putting him and Tyree in a platoon situation there. Is this the end of the line for Jensen? May 9: 12,633 Rangers fans collectively gulped when 3B Bobby "Ghost Runner" Ramirez (.371, 2, 9) left the game after complaining of an unknown upper body injury in tonight's 2-0 win over the Royals. Yeah, Texas did get the W (thanks to one solid start by Chad "Dog" Daugherty (5-2, 1.95), who picked up his 2nd shutout of the year) but if Ramirez, who finished 2nd in the AL in hitting last year, misses significant time, the season may be over for the 13-15 Rangers. May 9: I normally wait for the 20 loss marks to make changes like these but this is bothering me too much... Mets 1B Jim "Garfield" Davis (.115, 2, 8) had a pretty OK season last year with 25 HRs in 348 at-bats and also a .384 on-base percentage. He's doing absolutely nothing this year and I think it's time to send the now 28 year old down to AAA to work on his swing. The immediate impact here is 3B/old man Vicente Luna (.295, 2, 11) can move to 1st base; he'd made 6 errors with a .920 FA at third this year, with Mark Hamill (.268, 1, 4) taking over the hot corner. Mostly though this is about seeing if Davis can figure things out while trying to make 1st base work with a team who's surprisingly in contention in the NL East (15-12, 2 games behind PIT). May 9: Yankees 3B "Tiptoe" Tommy Weiss (.281, 4, 21) got off to a bad start this year but now he's hit in his 20th consecutive game. Weiss went 2-4 today in a 10-5 win at Boston to get it to the ol' 20 mark. When this streak started on April 18, Weiss was hitting .118. He's, um, much better now, even as I mess around with his position - the 35 year old has been splitting time with 3B Jaak Joala (.351, 0, 3) and playing first base when he's not duking it out at 3rd. May 9: And speaking of teams whose seasons are over... the Astros suffered a 5-4 loss today at the hands of the Pirates and what's worse they lost CF George Foreman (.333, 3, 12) for the next 5 weeks with a strained shoulder he suffered slamming against the Astrodome wall on a homerun-stealing catch. Looks like OF Larry Robinson (.286, 0, 6) is the new CF and RF Justin Jensen (.143, 0, 2) has a new lease on life. May 10: So... good-ish news for Bobby Ramirez: he only strained a ribcage muscle, an injury which has minimal impact on hitting and running (not throwing, which would have taken him right out of 3rd). It's still rough because man, so much of his ability is locked in the hitting. Still, the Rangers don't really have a choice... he's back in the lineup. May 10: Cubs CF Curtis Hope (.227, 2, 5) is only 28 and is convinced his starting career isn't over yet, no matter what happened last season (a pretty disastrous year where the Mets gave up on him as a starter and then traded him to Texas after he hit .190). The issue here is that the Cubs have Ed O'Neill (.280, 0, 7) out there now and he's just fine. Like, the corners aren't amazing but they also aren't so bad that I'm considering Hope in there. Even when Hope made his 2 All-Star appearances he did so with a looooooot of strikeouts and I just don't think he's a good enough power hitter to make up for that anymore. Best I can do is start mixing him in in right with Mike Schurke (.350, 1, 5), who did hit .293 last year, albeit with no power, and in place of Nuno Lucero (.150, 0, 3), who could probably get more PT in the minor leagues... May 10: In what I can only call an ugly ass game, Orioles C Frank Abagnale (.348, 3, 18) set a new AL record with 6 runs scored in a 17-9 game(!) where 12 of the 23 runs scored were unearned thanks to 8(!!!) errors. I swear, I've been *lowering* error rates since my first recalibration but here we are, I guess... anyway, Abagnale did go 4-6 and got on in the 9th on one of those 5 errors by the Guardians, and then came around to score to set the new American League mark. The former mark of 5 was set by a lot of guys, most recently Royals 3B JP Carter (.277, 4, 13 this year) on April 24 of last year. CF Efrain Morales set the same record of 6 for the Reds in 1959 in the NL. May 11: The Astros purchased minor league OF Carlos Montoya (.327, 1, 11 at AA Arkansas) and minor league 1B Jamie Kelso (.242, 2, 13). Like... maybe these guys might get a cup of coffee eventually, I guess. This is more or less just a little tiny minor league move (both players IRL had very short cups of coffee) in advance of my Astros review... May 11: Somehow - in fact, because they lost to the team - the Astros fell to 20 losses before the Reds. This team has had a winning record every year since 1969 but it looks like the good run of it is kind of over. The pitching, in spite of the Astrodome, is baaaad and the offense doesn't look good enough to make up for it (because that would be very, very hard). So, just generally with the pitching staff... it's not so much that I want to "stand pat" but the real badness is coming from places that ought to improve. Ernie Alvarez (1-3, 5.12) was a 17 game winner last year and Andres Castillo (1-5, 4.63) has been a solid pitcher with the Dodgers in recent years. I don't really want to dump either guy just yet. We did just move to a 5 man rotation to introduce Bae-hee Kim (1-2, 2.49) but he's been one of the best pitchers on the team so he won't go anywhere. Likewise, the bullpen has been... fine, in fact the Astros somehow lead the NL in bullpen ERA (2.17) so far. One place where we might help influence things is behind the plate. Latimer Roy (.282, 2, 12) has been doing a nice job of hitting but is a pretty meh defensive catcher whereas his backup Jonathan Hyde (.318, 0, 3) is much better. I'm going to make the miiiiild transition of dropping them into more of a half-and-half role, which means giving the right-handed batter Hyde all of the ABs vs LHPs and a bunch vs RHPs (Roy is a LHB). The infield is kind of all doing OK... Outfieldy, the recent loss of Big George Foreman (.333, 3, 12) both puts this team right smack in the "bad seat" and also kind of makes the 3 positions kind of set. Larry Robinson (.286, 0, 6) isn't a major league CF but he's a major league hitter at age 22 and he'll play there for now. He's bookended a lot of the time by Jason Workman (.237, 2, 9) and Justin Jensen (.136, 0, 2), who are both slumping in their own way and are also weeell over on the wrong side of 35. OF Terry Pavey (.213, 0, 4) is a Rule V pick who really should get PT whether he's actually good or not; I'll spell the 37 year old Workman a bit more for him. I was just about to bench Jensen and... man, he's been bad. I'll drop in Zach Hadley (.270, 0, 4), who's already played a fair amount as the team's 4th OF, into the mix there in right. I know I was already working Chris Tyree into things there but... Hadley's not exactly a spring chicekn either but he was pretty good last year. I haven't cut Jensen... yet but it's probably on its way. He's "helped" by the fact that their best prospect of a corner OF, Charles Frazier (.298, 2, 9 at AAA Denver) is himself out for the next month. May 11: In Montreal MY DAD (2-3, 3.23) finally allowed his first walk of the season, which really only makes his K/W ratio even gaudier: he had 1 BB vs 7 Ks and so he now has a 41:1 ratio(!). I'm pretty sure that would set a record. Unfortunately he also had some bad hit-luck (8 hits allowed) and worse sequencing luck (the Cards only left 5 men on base all game) and so gave up 5 runs in 7 IP and took the 6-4 L. The Cardinals' Mario Garcia (4-4, 3.88) got the win, aaaalmost lasting to a complete game before he faltered in the 9th and turned it over to Tom Brumfield (0-0, 1.42, 8 Sv) to close the door with runners on 1st and 2nd and 1 out in the bottom of the 9th. May 11: Remember how the Dodgers were off to a great start and looked like a team renewed or something? Well. With today's 3-1 loss to the Padres (now half a game out of first!) the Dodgers fell to 12-19 and in a virtual tie with the Astros (13-20) for 2nd to last in the division. The pitching has mostly been what's fallen apart; LA is currently last in the NL in starters' ERA with 5.38. Today though their SP Ken Hansen (1-3, 5.13) threw a quality start... well, one of those 6 IP, 3 ER QSes but it counts, right? But instead their hitters were stymied by Tim Anderlik (4-3, 3.96), who threw a 7 hitter in spite of only striking out 3 men. It's hard to be too critical, really, given that this is exactly where they were expected to be but whatever honeymoon was there, it's over now. May 12: Mets 2B Bill Heyen (.667, 0, 2) is getting cranky over playing time, which, to be fair, he has barely played. My main issue is that Mark Spitz (.290, 0, 8) has been going like gangbusters in that spot. For now I'll start mixing Heyen in but he wants to start and I'm not seeing how I can possibly accommodate that barring (further) injury. May 12: The Swamp Fox Kevin Landry (.250, 1, 7) also wants to start for the Reds at third base. On the one hand he's 41 so like come on... on the other, the Reds have been trying to make Chase Jones (.137, 1, 5) work there and... you can see the numbers. This time around, for once I'm going to do it... oh yeah, I'm looking at Cincy as a whole today anyway. We'll see if that sticks. May 12: So Cincinnati has been baaaaaaaaad this year, opening at 7-20. Their hitting sucks (3rd worst in runs scored, dead last in average (.232)), their pitching sucks (2nd most runs allowed in the league, league worst bullpen ERA (5.77)), and their fielders suck (worst ZR in the NL). Other than that... I kid. Starting with the rotation, 3 starts is too early to pull the plug on Tracy Mosher (1-2, 7.40), especially given that we're talking about a guy who was a 25 game winner just a few years ago. He's 35 now so it's not crazy if the end is coming but... is it? Other than him, the rotation is just a lot of "meh" that I don't think I want to trash just yet. In the bullpen though... Aaron Gebhart (0-1, 9.35) has just been trash. His LOB% is crazy low (49%) which indicates that this is mostly luck but what's the best case scenario here? He's a league average soon to be 30 year old reliever? I'll just call up a guy who apparently was briefly on the roster already: Kenny Ortega (0-1, 9.00), future character actor. He's also bad but is 24 and bad instead of 8 days away from 30 bad. The catching tandem of Leron Lee (.194, 0, 4) and Veit Beiler (.136, 0, 1) is not exactly filling me with joy but... they're getting better, I think. They're also kind of young, young enough that they both have names, so yeah, we're standing pat. Yeah, I'm just going to stick with Kevin Landry at 3rd most of the time (see above). Nick Weber (.125, 1, 1) but he's 27 and not even close to a prospect so it's not like Landry is stealing time away from someone. The game lists the literal only 3B prospect as a guy currently in rookie ball so... nothing on the horizon then unless a shortstop moves out of position (and we have 2 shortstops listed, Roberto Duran (.310, 4, 12), who's already in the pros, and a guy in AA) (incidentally the AAA Indianapolis Indians are 12-19 too so there's little help on the farm). There actually iiiiiiiiiiiis some help on the farm: Manny Trillo (.365, 3, 8 at Indianapolis) had a really meh rookie campaign last year but if his 21 games in AAA are any sign, he's taken a turn upwards. Frank Beard (.232, 3, 7) is still their best bet in CF (although the numbers say he has a negative ZR) but I can train Trillo in left field while still playing him every day. But do I? Their current guy there is RJ Dominguez (.265, 4, 21), who led the NL in walks last year and is actually kind of good. Okay FINE he will fill in everywhere. When a team is this bad, hey, everyone gets a turn! May 12: The Brewers salvaged a 4-game series with the Yankees today, avoiding a sweep with a 9-3 win at Shea, and in doing held Yankees CI Tommy Weiss (.285, 4, 24) hitless for the first time since mid-April. It was kind of not a rough day for Weiss, as he went 0-2 with 3 walks, but such is the fate of a man who walks as often as Tiptoe Tommy does (he led the entire AL in free passes last year with 118). "Hitting streak? What hitting streak?" asked Weiss, fakely, after the game. "I'm just sad we lost this game." The Yankees are a half-game behind Milwaukee for 2nd place in the division now, although the Tigers have passed them both and have a game today pending. May 12: White Sox long reliever Nick Colucci (0-1, 2.79) got a chance at a spot start today and made... well, I can't say the most, but a lot of it, pitching a complete game 6-hitter with 3 runs allowed. Unfortunately, his opponent, the Rangers' Amir Sudler (1-0, 1.77), who himself was only recently promoted to the starting rotation, tossed a 7 hit, 8 strikeout shutout to win it 3-0. The Sox stranded 10 runners today, 5 by LF Alice Cooper (.231, 6, 10); they got chance after chance but could never quite get that clutch base hit. This was Sudler's 2nd career shutout and his first since his rookie season all the way back in 1967. The former Angels prospect, at one point the #3 prospect in baseball, has floated around the league. Maybe he'll finally, at the age of 28, come through on all that potential? May 12: The Royals are also in a bad place and the bad place just got worse. RF Dave Corona (.210, 3, 8) had been struggling all year and he hurt himself on a throw home in an 8-4 loss to the Angels. He'll be out for the next 5 weeks. I'd love to figure out a way to get both 1B Dave Cowens (.306, 6, 17) and 1B Christopher Durang (.419, 2, 9) on the field at the same time but I'm just not seeing it so for now at least the career minor league vet Justin Hopkins (.333, 1, 2) will take over out there. May 12: As good as the Twins have been this year, they've been doing it without their longtime 1B Antonio Martinez (.299, 3, 25) just plain carrying them on his back. Today he had one of those games. He went 2 for 4 with 2 HRs and a sacrifice fly and drove in 7 runs in an easy 9-4 win over the A's at the Coliseum. The 7 ribbies tied the Twins' all-time record, including their time in Washington, and was the first time someone hit that mark since Aloha Dan Gilmet reached it in 1970. I checked and the current AL record is 9, held by two players (Tiptoe Tommy Weiss in 1968 and some guy named Mario Buelna in 1955). May 12: The Dodgers have come down to earth but you know who hasn't yet? The Giants. They swept a double-header today, 4-3 and 4-2, over the Braves to both win that series and keep their record at a tidy 19-15 on the year. Even though this series took place at the Launching Pad, the Giants' pitching held up, allowing 2, 4, 3, and 2 runs. Today's big guns were Oscar Amador (1-0, 1.00), coming in from AAA to make his first appearance of 1974, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (1-1, 2.08), who got hurt in the 6th but has had an annoying lack of stamina that might push him into the bullpen anyway. San Francisco's sitting at 4th in the NL in both starters' and relievers' ERA (3.49 and 2.78 respectively) and is also 4th in all of baseball in that category. The hitting has also been pretty nice for an NL team: they're 3rd in runs scored (partially a function of having played a lot of games but still) with a league high average of .281 and the 3rd most steals with 22. The one thing they don't do is hit a lot of HRs (20th in the majors with 18) but that does fit their park fairly well this year. May 12: The Dodgers have been slumping and are facing the reigning division champs at San Diego. Their starter Rogelio Salinas (1-5, 6.11) has been struggling terribly so far. So... pretty obvious what's going to happen, right? Welcome to baseball! Salinas threw a complete game 4-hit shutout, striking out 8, and the Dodgers' bats came to life for an easy 8-0 victory. Padres starter Bronco Ben Feldhusen (2-3, 5.45), who's spent more time on the DL than off of it the past several seasons, just looked extremely hittable and got pulled in the 3rd. This one could have been even worse, as the Dodgers got 11 hits tonight but only one for extra bases (a double by 3B Robin Gibb (.283, 0, 23) in the 7th) and they left 10 men on base too.
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04-26-2026, 02:03 PM
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Hall Of Famer
Join Date: May 2004
Posts: 10,668
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May 13-19, 1974
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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 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 - 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.
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