five quick baseball notes

1. Let’s say a team loses its catcher, right fielder, left fielder, #4 starting pitcher and All Star closer before the season even started. Their third baseman also spends half of April on the DL and the replacement closer gets demoted to Triple-A after a dreadful May. This same team is tied for the best record in all of baseball today. This is the Washington Nationals.

2. Alex Rodriguez got hit by a pitch, broke his hand, and will miss a couple months. There are people freaking out and saying the Yankees have to trade for a replacement , yada yada. Just for the record, I am not worried about the Yankees without A-Rod. He has been a glorified singles hitter much of the year and was taking up space in the middle of the batting order. I don’t wish for or celebrate any player getting hurt but as a Yankees fan I’ve got no problem where we are at. The Yankees can still win without a Hall of Famer at every position. One of his replacements, Jayson Nix, had a game winning hit against Oakland and Eric Chavez plays Gold-Glove caliber defense.

3. Speaking of A-Rod, he was not the only guy to get hit that game. Within a span of 5 batters, “King” Felix Hernandez hit Ichiro, Derek Jeter, and Rodriguez. Pitcher is the most important position in all of sports. The entire game depends on their abilities. If they can’t throw strikes the game practically stops. Every hitter almost literally puts his life at risk standing in the batter’s box. A-Rod got hit by a change-up (for you non-baseball-educated readers, that is a slow pitch) and it still broke his hand and he is out of action for 2 months. And yet there is almost no consequence for what a pitcher does. Felix will be back on the mound for his next rotation and there won’t be more than a mere mention of last game.

Hitting multiple batters with pitches displays an obvious lack of control. For someone firing missles towards another person, well, that is inexcusable. Whether he meant to or not shouldn’t matter. “I didn’t mean to do it” never helped me at school growing up. Hernandez’ blatant lack of control just caused the Steinbrenners to lose a player they are paying $30 million this season two months, or basically one third of the season. That’s pretty much a loss of ten million dollars.
If a pitcher hits a batter and it knocks said batter out of the game, the pitcher should be removed immediately. Additionally, if said batter lands on the disabled list because of the injury, the pitcher should be forced to miss a start. The pitcher should also pay a portion of any hospital bills. That’s the way the rest of the world works. Why should A-Rod and the Yankees organization pay for the carelessness of the Mariners’ player?

4. The Mets are like a bad, fiery, automobile crash; you can’t help but watch as they go up in flames. There were plenty of warning signs: Before the break they lost two series to the Cubs, and during the All Star break Dillon Gee had some health problems that causes him to miss the year, leaving them a man down. I wrote that they should have traded Johan Santana as soon as possible; they didn’t, and after three games in a row of allowing 6 runs he went on the DL. The clock struck midnight on Dickey’s carriage as his July ERA is around 6.50.Their bullpen has been terrible all year, and since their closer Frank Francisco went down a month ago they have been laughable. Despite a bullpen in shambles, GM Sandy Alderson made no attempt at making a move to patch it up. They have had two 6 game losing streaks this month that virtually buries their season and while pitcher Matt Harvey had a MLB debut like nothing we could have expected, there is still 10 more games on this West Coast trip.

5. The Law of Averages says that hot streaks will probably be neutralized by a big slump. Exhibit A = Josh Hamilton. At the end of May people were writing that he would hit 80 home runs and win the Triple Crown. Oh, how things have changed. He is still among the leaders in home runs and RBI, and the Rangers are still in first place, but he is not the same scary player he was early in the season. His monthly splits are pretty dramatic. Drop in batting average: from April to May = 55 points, May to June = 121 points, June to July = 69 points.