This Day In Baseball: 14 July 2005

Thursday, July 14 2005 @ 11:59 AM EDT

Contributed by: Magpie

You can't sit on a lead and run a few plays into the line and just kill the clock. You've got to throw the ball over the damn plate and give the other man his chance. That's why baseball is the greatest game of them all.
------ Earl Weaver

Is everybody rested, refreshed, ready?

Because the next 17 days will tell a tale. The 31st of July is, of course, "the trading deadline." It's actually not precisely a trading deadline - but from 1 August through the end of the season, players may not be traded between major league teams without first clearing waivers.

Some teams are going to decide during the next two weeks if they want to bet on the whole pot right now, or fold their hand. (I'm not a poker player, please correct my metaphor if I screwed it up!)

The Red Sox bullpen has been an ugly, open wound all season. I have no doubt whatsoever, though, that Curt Schilling is capable of solving that problem. The Red Sox have a .632 winning percentage at home, and 43 of their remaining 75 games are at Fenway.

The Yankees have been roasted all season for not going after Carlos Beltran with more enthusiasm. Fair enough, because despite Beltran's problems this year, he's still much better than anything the Yankees have. Still - despite Randy Johnson's sub-Unit type of season, does anyone want to think what the Yankees pitching would be like this year without Johnson?

The Orioles need Erik Bedard back (he's supposed to start on Monday). They also need Bruce Chen to resist the urge to turn back into a pumpkin, and they need to figure out what to do about Sosa.

The Blue Jays need to see if they can even survive without Halladay. If they can fight the league to a draw over the next couple of weeks, maybe - maybe - they'll do something that would help over the final two months, as well as beyond.

Tampa has some interesting young talent, and someday they'll all sign somewhere else as free agents.

The good news for the White Sox, besides having a 9 game lead, is that they're finished with Oakland. The A's account for almost one-quarter of all the White Sox losses this year (7 of 29).

The White Sox have won with great pitching and a mediocre offense. The Twins offense has been a little worse than mediocre; their pitching, while very good, hasn't quite as good as Chicago's. Mark Buehrle has been better than Johan Santana, and Jon Garland has been better than Brad Radke.

Cleveland's offense has begun to wake up. Most of them anyway - Casey Blake, Aaron Boone, and Victor Martinez are still missing in action. Jake Westbrook has actually pitched much better than his 6-11, 4.67 line would suggest.

Detroit isn't really in the Wild Card race, and they're just trying to maintain the climb back towards respectability.

The Royals dream of respectability.

The Angels lead in the West has been shrinking, but they look pretty good anyway. They lost Vlad Guerrero for a few weeks, Kelvim Escobar had made just 7 starts, Steve Finley has been a huge disappointment. But Vlad has been on fire since returning and Bartolo Colon has been sensational.

The Rangers are hanging around, as they continue to sift through pitchers trying to find guys who can survive in the Texas heat. The impending loss of Kenny Rogers is not going to help.

If anyone is going to challenge the Angels, it will be Oakland. They have almost no power whatsoever, and one has to think Beane will do something to address that. But Harden, Zito, and Haren is the new Big Three and they haven't lost a step.

The Mariners, meanwhile, are wondering when Raul Ibanez became a better hitter than Adrian Beltre.

Tomorrow, a few thoughts about the National League. For now, some News, Rumours, Lies, and Gossip:

The long-rumoured Oakland-Boston swap of Jay Payton for Chad Bradford has finally been consummated. Gammons, who was reporting this deal weeks ago, now says that Payton may end up in the Bronx. The Red Sox have also activated Curt Schilling from the DL. To make room, Kevin Youkilis and Scott Cassidy are going down to Pawtucket.

The Rockies have traded Preston Wilson to Washington in exchange for Zach Day, J.J. Davis and a PTBNL. The Nationals have added LH Mike Stanton, the cast-off Yankee, to their bullpen.

The Rockies also sent Joe Kennedy and Jay Witasick to Oakland for Eric Byrnes and Omar Quintanilla. Kennedy has had the misfortune to spend his entire career in Tampa and Denver - this would be a great opportunity for him, except that Oakland's rotation already looks pretty solid.

Finally, Brad Radke found a letter in his locker, on what looked like LA Dodgers stationery. It was a request that Radke be available to pitch to Hee-Seop Choi in the Home Run Derby. It was signed "Hee-Seop Choi." (Choi hit three homers off Radke back in June.)

Apparently, the letter was the work of Torii Hunter. Good one, Torii.

Today's schedule:

AL
New York (Mussina 9-5, 3.97) at Boston (Arroyo 7-5, 4.02) 7:05
Chicago (Contreras 4-5, 4.26) at Cleveland (Millwood 3-7, 3.58) 7:05
Kansas City (Greinke 1-11, 6.20) at Detroit (Bonderman 11-5, 3.99) 7:05
Tampa Bay (Fossum 3-7, 4.42) at Toronto (Lilly 7-8, 5.42) 7:07
Los Angeles (Washburn 5-4, 3.23) at Minnesota (Lohse 7-7, 4.42) 8:10
Texas (Rogers 10-4, 2.54) at Oakland (Harden 5-4, 2.53) 10:05
Baltimore (Cabrera 7-7, 4.90) at Seattle (Pineiro 3-4, 5.44) 10:05

NL
Washington (Hernandez 12-3, 3.48) at Milwaukee (Davis 9-7, 4.11) 2:05
Pittsburgh (Redman 4-8, 3.76) at Chicago (Prior 5-3, 3.41) 2:20
Florida (Burnett 5-5, 3.33) at Philadelphia (Myers 6-5, 3.20) 7:05
Atlanta (Ramirez 8-5, 4.65) at New York (Glavine 6-7, 4.94) 7:10
Arizona (Vazquez 7-8, 4.54) at San Diego (Stauffer 3-4, 4.55) 10:05
San Francisco (Schmidt 6-5, 5.01) at Los Angeles (Penny 5-5, 3.43) 10:10

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