The Weekly MLB Rundown 10.03.08: From Thirty to Eight...

Posted by A.J. Stevens on 10.03.2008

Wrapping up the season and diving straight into the playoffs, it's the Rundown! Join us!

LEADING OFF
The Season Ends With a Bang

We were all raving about how close the pennant races were. Then, out of nowhere, came a hidden 162nd game. Minnesota had dropped 2 of 3 to the Royals at home, and the White Sox rallied to win their final game against Cleveland. This placed the Sox one-half game behind the Twins, and meant that the September 12th Detroit-Chicago rainout would have to take place. Detroit flew in to Chicago and was promptly squashed, 8-2, to lead to a tie between the Twins and the White Sox on top of the AL Central. Having won a coin flip, the White Sox hosted Minnesota at U.S. Cellular Field on Tuesday to determine who would lose to face the Tampa Bay Rays in the ALDS.

It was a dark and stormy night. Well, not really, but that's what Sox fans wanted the Twins to believe. A coordinated "blackout" of all fans dressed in black made for an ominous backdrop to a play-in game. Pitchers Nick Blackburn of the Twins and John Danks of the White Sox brought their best stuff to the party, though, as it was a duel for the ages. In the 7th inning, Jim Thome deposited a Blackburn mistake deep into the center field stands for the eventual winning run, as the Sox downed the Twins, 1-0.

...And, We're Off!

Hooray TBS for covering so much of the playoffs. But boo-urns to early/late start times. Games are either starting waaay early on the West Coast, or waaay late on the East Coast. I know that this is somewhat of a necessity because there are so many playoff games now, and network contracts and exclusivity, and not everyone has DVR or whatever, and I'm really not complaining, too much. I would like to lament that there are sections of the country where kids have to stay up really late to watch baseball, or can't watch it at all due to school. One of my favorite memories growing up is watching playoff baseball on TV, and I think it's a shame that kids are deprived of that these days.

Anyway, a quick recap of the series so far:

Cole Hamels came out firing against the Brewers on Wednesday, retiring the first 17 batters he faced, and hurling 8 shutout innings for the Phillies. This was the Phillies' first post-season victory since the 1993 World Series, which they lost 4-2 to the Toronto Blue Jays ("Touch 'Em All, Joe!" WOOOOOO... sorry). The Brewers are still waiting for their first post-season victory since Game 5 of the 1982 World Series, which came against... the Philadelphia Phillies. (I hope the Phillies phaithphul will phorgive me phor bringing up the '93 Series... and for overusing the "f=ph" gimmick.)

Game 1 of the other NLDS turned into Homerfest at Wrigley, with the Dodgers winning 7-2, and all run but 1 being scored on home runs. Cubs 2B Mark DeRosa got the game off to a great start for the Cubs, hitting a 2-run dinger to put an early lead on the board. Things fell apart for Ryan "There are two people up in the bullpen, please take me out now" Dempster in the 5th, as he was obviously out of gas after throwing 12 straight fastballs and loading the bases via walks. James Loney came up and whiffed at two straight changeups, fouled a third changeup off, and then deposited an 86 MPH "too slow to be a fastball, to fast to be a changeup" BP pitch into the bleachers to put the Dodgers permanently on top. Manny Ramirez golfed one into the seats, and Russell Martin added another shot in the 9th for the Bums. Interesting fact: the Cubs have lost the last seven games that Dick Stockton has been announcing. I'll give you three guesses (and the first two don't count) who TBS has assigned to call this portion of the NLDS.

Over in the American League, the Angels and the Red Sox have an interesting dynamic. The Angels have completely owned the Red Sox this year, at home and on the road, going a combined 8-1 against Boston. However, entering the series, the Red Sox have won 9 straight against Los Angeles, going back to the 1986 ALCS. They continued that streak on Wednesday night, as Jason Bay crushed a John Lackey pitch deep into the night to give Boston a 2-1 lead. It took broadcaster Chip Caray exatly .0035 seconds after Bay crossed home plate to intone, "Manny who?" Sigh. I know I talked about Manny in the LDS preview column I did with Frank Fedele, and it's part of the storyline, sure. But please, don't talk about him unless you're at the Dodgers-Cubs game.

Watching Cubs-Dodgers and Red Sox-Angels is interesting: it's hard to tell who the fans in the crowd are rooting for, for the most part. Cub fans and Red Sox fans are so ubiquitous that Angel Stadium erupted when Bay hit his home run. Can't tell the percentage of fans, though: everyone is dressed in red. Wrigley shut up, mostly, after Loney's tetra tot, but there were still a few cheers from brave Dodger fans. Again, though, can't tell without a closeup: everyone is dressed in blue. This concludes the fashionista portion of the column.

Welcome to the playoffs, Evan Longoria! Please keep up this pace for the rest of the series, thank you very much. Ya know, I think that Dan Wheeler must play a lot of MLB: The Show 2008. I play that game when I can find the time, which is close to never these days, but that's beside the point. When I do play, sometimes the hitter I'm pitching against will foul off something like 23741 gajillion pitches. And I get bored. So bored, in fact, that I'll just groove a fastball to see what happens. I was thinking about that while watching Wheeler go up against Paul Konerko in the 9th, and Konerko had a 10-pitch at-bat and was still at a full count. The 11th pitch? Weak fastball sent into the left field seats. Dan Wheeler, I salute you for finally giving in and just moving on to the next batter. Although next time, I suggest throwing a pitch outside of the strike zone. Longoria hit two homers and the Rays won, but it still wasn't a complete day at the park watching the game on mlb.com without seeing A.J. Pierzynski get hit by a pitch. Ah, the sweetness.

What?

POST-SEASON AWARDS

MLB likes to stagger its postseason awards, and that's just fine with me... it gives me more material to work with.

The other day, the awards for Comeback Player of the Year were announced, and the winners were Cliff Lee of the Cleveland Indians, and Brad Lidge of the Phillies. I'm OK with Lee: he had an absolutely horrible season last year, riddled with injuries, bad attitude, and bad performance overall. This year, he is the consensus choice for the AL Cy Young award. I'm not sure what exactly Lidge came back from, unless it was finally recovering from this:


That one's not coming down anytime soon.

And in the spirit of a rather famous columnist that also gives out post-season awards, I would like to offer up my counterpart awards. The counterpart to the Comeback Player of the Year award? I'd like to introduce the "Don't Come Back Player of the Year" award, given to a player in each league that, for whatever reason, managed to remain employed by one team throughout the entire season, but had an execrable year.

We'll start with the obvious choice: In the National League, this "honor" goes to none other than Andruw Jones of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Yes, folks, this former Silver Slugger, 10-time Gold Glove winner, and 5-time All-Star, signed to the very questionable 2-year, $36.2 million dollar contract, was more or less booed off the team by Dodger faithful this year. Making over $14.5 million this year (which was actually a RAISE after his notable - and noted - decline last season), Jones was the highest paid bench player in history, after Joe Torre finally succumbed to pressure and sat him down. Andruw wasn't the only bust on a team that's made some questionable spending decisions over the past few years, but he was at least competitive enough to prevail in one category: awfulness.

In the American League, the Seattle Mariners are used to having a perennial All-Star Japanese import in their lineup. Unfortunately, they're also going to have to get used to having Japanese offensive black hole Kenji Johjima in their lineup over the next three years. Channeling his best Eric Byrnes, Johjima signed a multi-million dollar contract extension, then went about the business of absolutely sucking, finishing near the bottom of the American League in every offensive category imaginable. I do feel somewhat bad for him, though: if it weren't for Richie Sexson getting released twice in one season, he wouldn't be such an obvious candidate.

CLOSING IT OUT

We'll be with you throughout the postseason for extended baseball coverage. Keep it right here at the Rundown! Until next time... AJS