The Cubs chose Piniella over Girardi, who has Yanks on cusp of Series title
Three years and three weeks ago, Joe Girardi interviewed for his dream job. He didn't get it. That job, of course, was manager of Chicago Cubs.
He waited a year, did some TV, and then got another job. A pretty good one managing the New York Yankees, the team with which he won three World Series rings.
Girardi is managing a $200 million ballclub in the World Series and, as I'm writing this, is one win shy of the team's first title since 2000, when Girardi left the team for, coincidentally, a second go-round with the Cubs.
The Cubs, as usual in early November, are a month into waiting 'til next year.
When the Cubs job opened after the 2006 season, I was firmly in the Girardi camp. In his lone season with Florida, he proved to be a quick study, managing a young, talented and low-spending team to contention in the NL East. But Girardi is no one's patsy. He didn't get along with owner Jeffrey Loria and was fired shortly before winning the NL Manager of the Year award.
The Cubs had a chance to hire a manager for the present and the future, but they went a different way, hiring the more seasoned Lou Piniella to skipper a team that was being hastily, and expensively, built for a World Series run. If you've been paying attention, you know how that worked out. Did general manager Jim Hendry & Co. make a mistake?
It would be unfair to label the post-Dusty Baker transformation of the Cubs a complete failure. Two playoff appearances in three years is something truly special for an organization that hadn't put together at least three consecutive winning seasons since 1967-72.
But this team wasn't built to play .516 baseball. In the past three seasons, since the 2006 disaster, the Cubs have added about $46 million in annual salaries, going from $94 million in 2006 to $140 million this past season. In that time, the Cubs have given $136 million to Alfonso Soriano, $91.5 million to Carlos Zambrano, $75 million to Aramis Ramirez, $52 million to Ryan Dempster, $48 million to Kosuke Fukudome, $30 million to Milton Bradley, and so on. They don't spend like the Yankees, but it's not too far off (Just $60 million or so, chump change.).
The Tribune Company let Hendry run wild once the media conglomerate knew it was selling the team. No one knew then that it would take three years to complete. So the emphasis was: Win now, worry later.
With that in mind, the Cubs picked Piniella over Girardi in a two-man battle of former Yankees heroes.
At first, I was against this move for many reasons, most notably that Piniella offered the Cubs no continuity. No one thought Piniella was going to stay in Chicago for a decade. He was brought in as a hired gun, a tried and tested mercenary who knows how to win.
The Cubs needed to be competitive immediately because, for three years after the 2003 playoff collapse, Baker's teams got worse and worse until injuries (and perhaps not enough faith in Baker to reload on the fly) wiped out 2006 by the summer's start. By September, empty seats were prevalent around the ballpark. Time was money here. Wrigley Field can't do all the work to lure in fans.
Piniella proved his worth from the get-go, immediately voicing his displeasure over the work habits of the players he inherited and vowing to change the culture. It worked. After a couple of months of tinkering, Piniella's Cubs took off and played exciting, fun baseball for two regular seasons. By August 2007, I was wrong about the move. Piniella was the right choice.
Now, I wonder just when I was thinking correctly because Piniella hasn't won a playoff game and Girardi's still managing.
To be fair, Girardi, who managed the Yankees to their first non-playoff season in forever last year, hasn't set the world aflame with his managing style this postseason. His overmanaging has been a consistent storyline recently, but it seems there's a method to his madness. Girardi keeps a thick binder at his side with more than 200 pages of "scouting reports, statistics and observations," according to a story in Monday's New York Times. The former engineering student is just trusting the numbers. It's also his first time managing in the playoffs, so he deserves a break for changing pitchers a little too frequently.
And, of course, while Girardi is dealing with Joba Chamberlain, Piniella is taking leisurely walks around the neighborhood in Tampa with his wife.
I like Lou. Everyone does. He's an excellent manager and a godsend to baseball. But he's going to be leaving soon. One more year, most likely, and he'll join the Yankees' payroll in Tampa. Then the Cubs will have to find a new manager, and in all likelihood, a whole new coaching staff. (Can Larry Rothschild manage to hang on for another regime?)
The Ricketts family will be front and center on this decision, and there are no clear favorites. I'm sure the Rickettses are glad not to be inheriting a manager with years left on his deal, but at the same time, I'd bet Girardi is their kind of guy.
Girardi didn't deserve the Cubs job simply because he's from Peoria and played at Northwestern and started his career with the Cubs. He didn't deserve the gig simply because he embodied everything we love about our athletes.
Everyone knew he was going to be a manager during his playing career, and his one year in Florida showed he knew how to handle a team. He has even learned to relax a bit as manager of the Yankees. When he first replaced Joe Torre, players complained about Girardi imposing new rules, such as no junk food in the clubhouse. Now, he has eased up and players are praising him for welcoming families in the workplace, among other things.
Would Girardi have been able to corral Bradley? Would he have put a shoe to Zambrano's keister and stopped the cycle of babying the volatile pitcher? I'd surmise yes for the first and yes on both counts for the second. As good as Lou has been at managing lineups, he's not the same guy who threw down with Rob Dibble in the clubhouse. Girardi wouldn't have let some things fly here.
No one can say what Girardi would have done with the Cubs. Odds are the Cubs went as far as they were capable, as far as the players could take them.
Was this another bad decision by Hendry, a missed opportunity to give the franchise a leader for a decade or more, in exchange for the hope of a quick title to appease the masses and line the pockets of the Trib? I think Hendry honestly thought Piniella gave the Cubs the best chance to win then, and maybe he was right.
All I know is Piniella is going to be a lame duck in 2010 and Girardi is going for another World Series ring. I'm sure Girardi's dream was to manage the Cubs to a World Series title. He'll settle for the Yankees. And that's the reality we're dealing with here.
(c) 2009 ESPN Internet Ventures.
Bringing the Negro Leagues to life
Baseball historians often read between the lines to grasp the essence of the Negro Leagues. They were formed out of necessity in 1920 in Chicago when black players were excluded from the Major Leagues because of racial discrimination. After Jackie Robinson broke the color line in 1947, the leagues continued until 1955.
The Negro Leagues have been characterized by folklore, mystery and intrigue.
But the players come to life with uncanny detail in "Strat-O-Matic Negro League All-Stars," which debuts this week through the Strat-O-Matic game company in Glen Head, N.Y. The Strat-O-Matic board game debuted in 1962.
Just like life, inventor Hal Richman based his game on the roll of the dice: 5,000 times in his first effort. Players roll one red die and two white ones. Statistical player cards describe what happens. Charts and advanced rules are available depending on the sophistication of the participants. Baseball fans from 9 to 90 years old have played "Strat-O," as they call it.
A generation of Strat-O players includes comic Drew Carey, musician Geddy Lee of Rush, actor Tim Robbins, sportscaster Bob Costas and filmmaker Spike Lee, who used the game in "Crooklyn."
None is as important as Scott Simkus of Carol Stream. Simkus, 39, has spent the last 10 years of his life reviewing more than 100 baseball books and 3,000 Negro League box scores. Simkus' research informs the 103 players that make up "Strat-O-Matic Negro League All-Stars." The players are all young again.
They have a wink in their eye and swagger in their soul.
I played Simkus in a five-inning affair in the kitchen of the home he shares with his wife, Joyce, a very understanding elementary school art teacher in St. Charles, and their children Joe, 13, and Libby, 11.
Negro League legend Cool Papa Bell was my leadoff hitter, and he went 3-for-3 with a double and a stolen base. Satchel Paige was my starting pitcher, striking out five and giving up just one run in four innings. He was poetry in motion. Chicago great Ted "Double Duty" Radcliffe closed the game for me, surrendering one run in one inning.
I learned stuff I never knew: Chicago American Giant Dave "Lefty" Brown was hiding in my bullpen. He played blackball from 1918 to 1925, according to a fascinating 30-page booklet written by Simkus that accompanies the game. Each player has a scouting report. Simkus writes of Brown, "Murdered a guy in NYC, then spent 13 years on the run."
The game incorporates league formats, its schedule lengths (Negro League teams rarely played more than 80 games in a season), its aggressive play and even its funky equipment. In his game notes, Simkus points out most Negro Leaguers bought their products at the neighborhood hardware store. Simkus even took Negro League ballparks into account, calculating home runs by left-handed and right-handed hitters to size up stadium dimensions.
There's a Damon Runyon quality to Simkus' muse. He is a writer and works the night shift as a limousine dispatcher. He gets home about 2 a.m. "During the day I do Strat-O research, and I'm writing a book about outsider baseball pre-1947," he says.
Simkus became interested in the Negro Leagues when he discovered his grandfather played against Cuban stars. Cuban legend Martin Dihigo is included in the set. A member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, Dihigo appeared in two Negro League all-star games.
"The challenge was tracking down box scores for the blackball leagues," Simkus says in a pre-game interview. "I looked at more than 100 newspapers. I started 15 years ago at the Chicago Public Library. I was looking for my grandfather's, who played semipro ball in the 1930s. One was from Pilsen, which was all Czech back then. Lawndale. Then I'd come across the Negro League stuff. The box scores are why Hal at Strat-O-Matic has held off for so long."
Richman had talked with acclaimed Negro League author John Holway. "Scott had more box scores than Holway," says Richman, 73. "More importantly, Scott was willing to extract the information we needed, which is essential for the advanced game. No one wanted to do such a difficult job. This is Scott's passion in life. I've had this idea for many years, but the information was never available."
Richman says Negro League players such as Ernie Banks and Jackie Robinson who succeeded in the Major Leagues are not included because they are in the Strat-O Hall of Fame set.
"Satchel Paige played in the majors at the end of his career," he adds. "We wanted to get the men at their best," during their five to seven prime years in the Negro Leagues.
Simkus will get royalties on game sales, similar to a book deal.
He is a fourth-generation Cubs fan.
"When you're a Cubs fan, all the exciting stuff has happened in the past," he says, glancing at the Strat-O game board with a Wrigley Field backdrop. "I was intrigued and frustrated by the Negro Leagues. You couldn't figure out how good these guys were. It was all sort of myth."
Simkus got his first Strat-O-Matic game in 1981 as a Christmas gift. "So my first season was 1980," he says. "George Brett hitting .390. Mike Schmidt hitting 48 home runs. That stuff is stuck in my brain. I recruited all my buddies. They're going to come over and play this game. We haven't played head to head in a long time."
But why Strat-O? Just in the baseball board-game lexicon, there's also All-Star Baseball and APBA (American Professional Baseball Association), for starters.
"Strat-O will never have as big an audience as video games," Simkus answers. "But video is all about atmosphere. The graphics are fantastic, but the game is about how well you can manipulate your controller. Strat-O has been a breeding ground for baseball executives. In 2002, Alan Schwartz wrote [in his book The Numbers Game: Baseball's Lifelong Fascination With Statistics] about a poll of 50 Major League executives that found half of them played Strat-O-Matic growing up. Strat-O-Matic is geared toward intelligent people."
Simkus' parents are retired. His father, Bob, was a system analyst at Western Electric. "It's probably where I get my analytical thing," Simkus says. His mother, Barb, was a business administrator for the same Winfield limousine company where Simkus works.
"There's a lot of Negro League information out there," Simkus says, rolling the dice for his designated hitter Oscar "Heavy" Johnson. "Just reading African-American newspapers, I have a new appreciation for how segregated this country was. In those papers, there were poets, cartoonists, excellent writers and photographers.
"It was an entire different America."
(c) Chicago Sun Times.
At cost-effective baseball, Twins win -- and Yankees finish dead last
Forget the actual scores of last weekend's ALDS playoff games between the Minnesota Twins and the New York Yankees -- especially since we lost -- and consider instead the cost-effectiveness competition. That contest is over, actually, and the Yankees will never catch our Minnesota Twins.
Comparing wins against total team payroll, our beloved and humble, self-effacing, team-oriented, egalitarian Twins are first among teams that made it to the playoffs. And those dang-blasted, individualistic, egotistical, rich and overbearing Yankees are dead last.
The Twins rank slightly ahead of the Colorado Rockies and the St. Louis Cardinals as the most cost-effective of the eight teams in the playoffs this year, not counting playoff wins and losses. Let's doff our caps to owner Jim Pohlad and manager Ron Gardenhire for getting the biggest baseball bang for the buck.
Last by a long, long ways, and in a league by themselves for extravagance, are the arrogant and presumptuous Yankees, who stand for the economic aristocracy and much of what is wrong in America.
Remember, all that Wall Street greed that wrecked our economy occurred just a few miles from their brand new billion-dollar ballpark in the Bronx. (Next spring we'll have a new park too, much more reasonable in total cost, and publicly owned.)
Look at the stats for the playoff teams, drawn from Massachusetts blogger Matt Sly's up-to-date analysis of Major League Baseball statistics.
I personally have been a Yankees hater since about 1958, when the overpaid overlords of baseball beat my Milwaukee Braves in the World Series, but I have not been lonely during that time.
Thousands of us progressive, egalitarian Minnesotans have resented the elitist Yankees for decades. We've always been rankled by their hollow claim to dominance. They thrive in a phony meritocracy where the field really is not level at all. They hit all those home runs, but as the numbers show, they were born on third base.
Whether baseball fans or not, fans of politics will find echoes of some of their favorite themes here.
On the one hand, the Yankees achieve a measure of success by investing huge amounts of money toward their goal, which undercuts the classic conservative view that we can't solve every problem by throwing money at it.
On the other hand, progressives are often skeptical of those who insist on looking for efficiencies and accountability to avoid any increase in spending. There is no denying that the Twins have found ways to deliver wins for less money.
In the end, baseball, like politics, is the art of the possible. The Yankees' success would be impossible -- it's absurd to contemplate, really -- without all the other teams. Let them play by themselves and let's see how much money they end up with.
(c) MPRnewsQ.
The Tools of Ignorance
Philadelphia, PA (Sports Network) - While the major league baseball playoffs unfold over the next few weeks, for fantasy owners the season is long over. It's all about examining the past year, finding our successes and our failures so we will be better in 2010.
We will begin our position-by-position analysis with catcher and then swing around the infield, outfield and finally to the pitching staffs.
Fantasy catchers are usually regarded as a necessary evil. You start one because the rules say you have to, not because you want to. That is, of course, unless you drafted Minnesota catcher Joe Mauer.
Mauer was easily the most dominant player at any position. Despite the fact that he didn't play his first game until May 1st (back problems), he led all catchers in runs (94), home runs (28), hits (191), walks (76), batting average (.365), on base percentage (.444), slugging percentage (.587) and OPS 1.031.
Mauer has always been a good hitter (he won his third American League batting title in the last four years), but he added power to his repertoire. His 28 homers were more than double his previous high of 13 which he hit in 2006.
Behind Mauer, far behind Mauer, were three closely matched receivers - Victor Martinez, Brian McCann and Jorge Posada. Posada was the best hitter of the three, but because he had 200 less at-bats than Martinez and 100 less than McCann, ended up placing fourth on the list.
Oakland's Kurt Suzuki is a player on the rise, posting career highs in at-bats, runs, doubles, home runs, runs batted in and stolen bases. He put up the numbers fantasy owners were hoping to get, but didn't, from Russell Martin.
But Martin wasn't the most disappointing at the catching position, that dubious award goes to Chicago Cubs catcher Geovany Soto. Coming off a NL Rookie of the Year campaign in 2008, Soto's numbers dropped across the board. After a surprising 23 HR, 86 RBI, .285 rookie season expectations were high. Soto had an Average Draft Position of 54 - a fifth-round pick. Unfortunately, he couldn't live up to those expectations and gave owners an ugly season, one in which he had just one homer and a .216 batting average through the end of May. Many owners released him so even his finishing statistics are misleading because he was likely a free agent for most of his season total 11 homers and 47 RBIs.
Top-10 Catchers
Player..........Team....AB....R...HR..RBI..SB.....AVE.....SLG.....OPS...ADP
Joe Mauer........MIN...523...94...28...96...4...0.365...0.587...1.031....55
Victor Martinez..BOS...588...88...23..108...1...0.303...0.480...0.861....63
Brian McCann.....ATL...488...63...21...94...4...0.281...0.486...0.835....48
Jorge Posada.....NYY...383...55...22...81...1...0.285...0.522...0.885...149
Kurt Suzuki......OAK...570...74...15...88...8...0.274...0.421...0.734...299
Mike Napoli......ANA...382...60...20...56...3...0.272...0.492...0.842...162
Miguel Montero....AZ...425...61...16...59...1...0.294...0.478...0.833...438
Bengie Molina.....SF...491...52...20...80...0...0.265...0.442...0.727...146
Miguel Olivo......KC...390...51...23...65...5...0.249...0.490...0.782...459
Yadier Molina....STL...481...45....6...54...9...0.293...0.383...0.749...263
(c) 2008 The Sports Network. All Rights Reserved.
Five Keys to Yankees-Twins
NEW YORK -- Near the end of the Yankees' one-hour-and-45-minute workout on Tuesday, as workers swept and power-washed new Yankee Stadium's concourses in anticipation of its first-ever playoff game on Wednesday evening, a driving, drum-heavy rock song blared over the ballpark's P.A. system. Some quick Internet research revealed the song to be something called Uprising, by a band named Muse. "Rise up and take the power back," the singer bellowed melodramatically, while the Yanks shagged fly balls and took batting practice. "It's time the fat cats had a heart attack/ You know that their time's coming to an end/ We have to unify and watch our flag ascend."
It was all a little disconcerting, as the Yankees remain the fattest of Major League Baseball's fat cats, and even though they are now nine seasons removed from their last World Series title, the role of oppressed upstarts fits them about as well as Lindsay Lohan's frocks fit the models at her recent universally maligned Paris fashion show. At the workout's conclusion, the Yankees were still five hours away from knowing whether their first round opponent would be the Tigers or the Twins -- "I think you're talking about two great teams, and either way, it's going to be a battle," said outfielder Nick Swisher, charitably -- but there was little question that whichever of the AL Central clubs advanced, that club would be a firm underdog. The Twins, of course, ended up winning the play-in game by the score of six to five in 12 innings. Even though none of the Yankees would dare suggest it, that development played right into their hands, for several reasons.
1) Play-In game hangover
Last season, the White Sox beat the Twins 1-0 in their play-in game but then meekly bowed out to the Rays in their ALDS series, losing three games to one. Two years ago, the Rockies beat the Padres in Game 163 on Matt Holliday's chin-banging slide and phantom touch of home plate, and that allowed them to continue their late-season momentum through NLDS and NLCS sweeps of the Phillies and the Diamondbacks, before they were trounced in four World Series games by the Red Sox. Merely participating in a play-in game does not always represent a harbinger of first-round doom; but in the Twins' case, it very well might. Alexi Casilla's game-winning single on Tuesday came just 20 hours and 20 minutes before Wednesday's first pitch was due to be thrown, and during that time the Twins had to travel from Minnesota to New York. Fatigue will be a factor for everyone, but even worse for Minnesota is that the man who is arguably their most reliable starting pitcher, Scott Baker, was forced to pitch on Wednesday and won't be available until Game 3 at the earliest. Momentum and adrenaline can only carry the Twins so far.
2) Offensive talent gap
The Yankees beat the Twins in all seven regular-season games the teams played in 2009, and outscored them 41-25. Minnesota first baseman Justin Morneau, the 2006 AL MVP, played in all seven of those losses, and led the Twins in batting average during them, hitting .346. Morneau, though, was lost for the season in mid-September due to a stress fracture in his lower back, and his absence means that while the Yankees will feature eight regulars with an OPS better than .850, the Twins' roster will include only three: Joe Mauer, Jason Kubel and Michael Cuddyer. The Yankees' clear-cut offensive superiority will be difficult for the Twins to overcome, particularly with a depleted pitching staff that will rely on rookie Brian Duensing, he of the nine career big league starts and the 33-36 minor league record, to start the opener.
3) Joba will rule
Last June, just as the Yankees were beginning the seemingly endless process of turning Joba Chamberlain into a starting pitcher, I had the opportunity to sit down with him for 20 minutes or so to discuss the transition. "You know you're going to be in for six, seven innings, so you have to save something every once in awhile," Chamberlain said then. "When you're in the bullpen, you know you're not going to see this guy more than once, so you can just let it go as hard as you can. As a starter sometimes you want to pitch less than what you can, so if you have to get a big strikeout you can throw that one harder."
Chamberlain has still not mastered that balancing act, as his career splits as a starter (4.18 ERA, 1.480 WHIP, 8.4 strikeouts per nine innings) and as a reliever (1.50 ERA, .983 WHIP, 11.9 K's/9) suggest. The Yankees, though, plan to deploy Chamberlain in relief in this series, and in preparation for that they used him out of the bullpen in his last outing of the season, on Oct. 4. He looked like his old, dominant self, throwing 97 miles-per-hour and retiring the Rays in order. The Yanks' pen has been terrific ever since the club moved Phil Hughes into a relief role on June 8 -- the pen has a cumulative 3.37 ERA and a .219 batting average against since then -- and it now might feature the best closer in baseball (Mariano Rivera), the best eighth-inning man in baseball (Hughes), and the best seventh-inning man in baseball (Chamberlain). If, in other words, the Yankees enter the seventh inning with a lead over the Twins, the rest of the game should be a mere formality.
4) Which CC Sabathia will show up?
CC Sabathia has, to this point in his career, been labeled a "small-game pitcher," due in large measure to his poor postseason performances -- he's 2-3 with a 7.92 ERA in five playoff starts. His explanation has usually been the same: that he was trying too hard. "I think maybe [I] just [try] to go out and do too much," Sabathia said again on Tuesday "Trying to go out and throw shutouts and throw no-hitters and things like that."
Sabathia, however, is probably being too hard on himself, as five clunkers -- the last of which came during last season's NLDS, after he has pitched magnificently on what seemed like every other day down the stretch to get the Brewers into the postseason at all -- make for a small sample size indeed. The fact is that Sabathia remains one of the game's true aces, and an ace who has pitched very well against the Twins: statistics provided to SI.com by Bill James show that no active Twin who has more than three at-bats against Sabathia has hit better than Mauer's .217, except, weirdly, Casilla, who is 9-for-13 (.692), and backup catcher Mike Redmond, who is 13-for-26 (.500). Sabathia will start Game 1 and, if necessary, Game 4, and the odds seem good that that "small-game pitcher" label won't persist much longer.
5) What about the 'intangibles'?
These would be things like the aforementioned momentum, which the Twins -- as winners of 17 of their last 21 games -- have; chemistry, which the Twins clearly have; and crowd support, which the Twins have, as evidenced by the raucous atmosphere in the Metrodome on Tuesday night. But the Yankees, who had little to play for as their AL East title and home-field advantage has seemed secure for ages, won 13 of their last 21 games; feature better clubhouse chemistry than they have in years thanks to jovial imports like Sabathia, Mark Teixeira, A.J. "Pie In The Face" Burnett, and Swisher; and had an MLB-best 57-24 record at home. In other words, while the Twins' Morneau-less streak into the playoffs has been stirring, all signs indicate that their run will end no later than Sunday.
THE PICK: Yankees in three.
(c) 2009 Time Inc. A Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved.
The Races: Dodgers, Cards one away
For two, it has come down to one, and for four more, it's getting closer and closer.
That was the summation of the pennant picture in the aftermath of Thursday's Major League slate, as the Los Angeles Dodgers and St. Louis Cardinals ended the night with magic numbers of one and the Detroit Tigers, Boston Red Sox, Los Angeles Angels and Philadelphia Phillies inched nearer to postseason paydirt.
In Washington, the National League West front-running Dodgers' 7-6 win over the Nationals reduced their magic number to one, but they could not clinch yet because Atlanta, still kicking in the NL Wild Card race, was idle.
But Matt Kemp's 100th RBI and Rafael Furcal's four-hit night paced Los Angeles, which can take care of business in Friday's series opener against the Pirates in Pittsburgh. Kemp, who hit triple digits in RBIs for the first time in his young career, said personal statistics don't mean much for a club on a mission.
"I'm on a winning team and we have a really good chance of doing some big things this year, so playing good and winning, everything else is extra," Kemp said. "But the World Series, that's what I'm trying to get, what all of us are trying to get."
Meanwhile, the idle Cardinals stayed stuck on one when their closest pursuers in the NL Central, the Chicago Cubs, won in San Francisco, meaning a Cardinals win or Cubs loss on Friday night would give the Redbirds the division title and another October berth.
"Everybody wants to clinch," Albert Pujols said Wednesday night. "But ... when you go to Spring Training, you want to have an opportunity to play in October. And we have a pretty good chance to get there."
So do the Tigers, who got a key defensive play from third baseman Brandon Inge and a clutch start from starter Justin Verlander, who picked up his 17th win of the season, as Detroit won in Cleveland, 6-5. The victory reduced the American League Central to a two-team race, eliminating the third-place White Sox. Though Chicago could technically still finish with the same record as Detroit, doing so would require a four-game sweep of the Tigers next week by the Twins, which would push Minnesota in front. So now the Tigers have a three-game advantage on Minnesota, and for a night, Verlander was happy with that.
"I told all our guys, 'Thanks for picking me up,'" Verlander said.
In the AL Wild Card race, a Red Sox victory in Kansas City and a Texas loss in Oakland reduced Boston's magic number to three, and young right-hander Clay Buchholz continued to serve notice that he could be a major player in the Boston rotation in the postseason.
The Sox, who are closing in on qualifying for their sixth October in the last seven seasons, seem ready for the challenge now that their offense has come alive and they've won two in a row and seven of their last 10.
"We're playing well, man," Red Sox slugger David Ortiz said. "This is the time of year where you want to make sure you have everything [clicking]. Your hitting, your pitching, your defense. Everything is clicking at the right time."
The NL East-leading Phillies have to be feeling the same way after a 9-4 win in Milwaukee. The Phillies had no chance to clinch their third consecutive division title Thursday, but they have whittled their magic number down to four. Still, general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. admitted that the protective plastic adorning the Phillies' clubhouse in Milwaukee in lieu of a clinching champagne bash was probably a bit of a premature touch.
"Let me put it this way," Amaro said. "We didn't order it."
As for the idle Angels, they got a tad more of what the doctor ordered in the AL West on Thursday when Texas lost. That gave the Angels a seven-game lead in the division as they stay home to face the A's on Friday. Their magic number is down to four.
"We're just trying to win games," reliever Kevin Jepsen said. "We haven't made it to where we're for sure in the playoffs. So once we get to that point, we'll start looking ahead, but for now, we still have a lot of work to do."
For the rest of the pennant picture, let's go to The Races:
If the postseason started today ...
AMERICAN LEAGUE
Yankees (1) vs. Tigers (3)
Angels (2) vs. Red Sox (4)
NATIONAL LEAGUE
Dodgers (1) vs. Cardinals (3)
Phillies (2) vs. Rockies (4)
Leaders and contenders
AMERICAN LEAGUE
AL East
Yankees, W 3-2 @ LAA (9/23)
Lead: 5.5 over BOS | Next: vs. BOS
AL Central
Tigers, W 6-5 @ CLE
Lead: 3 over MIN | Next: @ CWS
AL West
Angels, L 3-2 vs. NYY (9/23)
Lead: 7 over TEX | Next: vs. OAK
AL Wild Card
Red Sox, W 10-3 @ KC
Lead: 8 over TEX | Next: @ NYY
Top AL contenders
Twins, W 8-6 @ CWS (9/23)
Deficit: 3 behind DET in Central | Next: @ KC
Rangers, L 12-3 vs. OAK
Deficit: 7 behind LAA in West, 8 behind BOS in WC | Next: vs. TB
NATIONAL LEAGUE
NL East
Phillies, W 9-4 @ MIL
Lead: 7 over ATL, 7.5 over FLA | Next: @ MIL
NL Central
Cardinals, L 3-0 @ HOU (9/23)
Lead: 9.5 over CHC | Next: @ COL
NL West
Dodgers, W 7-6 @ WAS
Lead: 6 over COL, 10 over SF | Next: @ PIT
NL Wild Card
Rockies, L 5-4 vs. SD
Lead: 4 over SF | Next: vs. SD
Top NL contenders
Braves, W 5-2 @ NYM (9/23)
Deficit: 3.5 behind COL in WC, 7 behind PHI in East | Next: @ NYM
Giants, L 3-2 vs. CHC
Deficit: 4 behind COL in WC, 10 behind LAD in West | Next: vs. CHC
Marlins, W 7-6 vs. PHI (9/23)
Deficit: 4 behind COL in WC, 7.5 behind PHI in East | Next: vs. NYM
Cubs, W 3-2 @ SF
Deficit: 6.5 behind COL in WC, 9.5 behind STL in Central | Next: @ SF
(c) 2001-2009 MLB Advanced Media, L.P. All rights reserved.
Fatigue not a factor for Giants' Sandoval
LOS ANGELES -- Pablo Sandoval's statistics suggest that he's fatigued. But the man himself insisted Friday that he's merely enduring a temporary slump.
"I think it's the moment," Sandoval said. "One month you're going to be there; one month you're going to be quiet."
The switch-hitter's bat has remained relatively silent lately. He entered the Giants' series opener against the Los Angeles Dodgers hitting .226 (12-for-53) with no home runs and two RBIs in September. By contrast, Sandoval hit .307 in April, .309 in May, .394 in June, .298 in July and .355 in August.
Logic dictates that Sandoval should be tired. He estimated that he has taken two weeks off since the beginning of last season. After playing 153 games for Class A San Jose, Double-A Connecticut and the Giants last year, Sandoval played 52 more games for Magallanes in the Venezuelan Winter League. He then participated in a physical conditioning camp for Giants Minor Leaguers shortly before Spring Training began.
Nevertheless, Sandoval feels fresh. The 23-year-old attributed this partly to his mental outlook.
"I want to be there 100 percent every day," said Sandoval, who entered Friday leading San Francisco in batting average (.322), home runs (21) and RBIs (77). "When you put your mind like that, you're going to feel great."
Sandoval added that his postgame workouts, which include riding a stationary bicycle and exercising his core, have helped his stamina.
Giants manager Bruce Bochy agreed with Sandoval, dismissing fatigue as a factor.
"I think as much as anything, he's getting a little anxious," Bochy said. "You start pressing a little bit, trying to do too much. We just have to get him back to being himself. He doesn't have to carry this ballclub. He's getting a little bit pull-conscious, I think. Relax and have some fun with this."
Assuming the cleanup spot from Bengie Molina, an assignment that might unnerve some players, hasn't affected Sandoval. "I'm the same guy, whether I hit first, third, fourth, fifth," Sandoval said.
Sandoval will opt for a less frenetic routine this offseason, however. He plans on spending more time with his family in Weston, Fla., and probably will play only about 20 games in winter ball.
(c) 2001-2009 MLB Advanced Media, L.P. All rights reserved.
|
