We had three playoff games, managerial changes, some front-office reshuffling, and a few early off-season rumours. Let's go, people!
With the Padres trailing 1-0 in the third inning yesterday, Jake Peavy felt a sharp pain in his rib-cage. He gave up another 5 runs before coming out of the game and discovering that he had at least one, and possibly two, broken ribs. Reggie Sanders led the St. Louis attack, hitting a grand slam and driving in six runs. San Diego scored three in the ninth and actually put the tying run on base, before a shaky Jason Isringhausen finally struck out Ramon Hernandez to end it.
Peavy is done for the season, which may end for the Padres before this weekend. Peavy outpitching Chris Carpenter looked like San Diego's best chance of upsetting the Cardinals. Now they need Pedro Astacio to beat Mark Mulder tomorrow, which would surprise pretty well everyone.
Matt Clement stunk the joint out yesterday. He hit two of the first three White Sox hitters, and was tagged for three home runs. The Red Sox were down 8-2 before Tito finally got him out of there. Jose Contreras cruised into the eighth inning, and the White Sox pummelled the defending champs 14-2. A.J. Pierzynski homered twice and drove in and scored four runs. Mark Buehrle will try to put the White Sox ahead 2-0 tonight, while Boston responds with The Fat Man.
In the late game, Robinson Cano cleared the bases with a first-inning double, as the Yankees cuffed Bartolo Colon around in the early going. Mike Mussina kept the Angels scoreless into the sixth, and Leiter, Sturtze, and Gordon were able to hand a 4-1 lead over to Mariano Rivera. There are few things in life more dependable than that.
What's up with Vladimir Guerrero's base stealing? With his team down by three, he was caught stealing to end the sixth. He was successful stealing in the ninth, but still... it was the ninth inning, and his team was losing 4-1. He would come around to score on Erstad's single, but what was the point? The risk far, far outweighed the almost irrelevant benefit.
We noted the two managerial moves yesterday: Alan Trammell was cashiered in Detroit, and Jim Tracy is out in Los Angeles. The Tigers wasted no time filling the vacancy - Jim Leyland returns to a major league dugout for the first time since 1999. Leyland was a two-time NL manager of the year in Pittsburgh, and managed the Marlins to a world championship in 1997. Welcome to the American League...
The Texas Rangers will have the youngest GM in major league history. Jon Daniels, age 28, takes over from John Hart. Owner Tom Hicks insists that Hart was not pushed, but jumped of his own accord. While they'll no doubt remember Hart in Texas for trading Alex Rodriguez, the transaction that hangs around his neck like a very dead and smelly albatross was his signing of Chan Ho Park to a five year $65 million dollar contract. Oops.
The Cleveland Indians say they plan to offer Kevin Millwood a multi-year deal. I think Millwood is the most attractive FA pitcher out there, and the Indians operate under a very tight budget ($42.5 million this past season.) Cleveland can generally be outbid - they haven't be able to re-sign their own FAs all that often - and Millwood didn't enjoy everything about his year in Ohio.
In the Rumour Department, in yesterday's Star Richard Griffin suggested that the Blue Jays may try to send Corey Koskie back to Minnesota as part of a deal for Justin Morneau. This interested me because I was actually wondering to myself what it would take to pry Morneau loose. Honest I was! At first glance, this makes no sense for the Twins - they are seriously challenged offensively, and Morneau has some real big-time power potential. But they don't seem to like him much in Minnesota. I figured that a deal for Morneau would probably require Aaron Hill and something else - the Twins need infield help pretty well everywhere, and Hill would make a wonderful fit at any of three positions for them. But if they insist on Koskie instead of Hill as the big item coming back... well, gosh. I guess I could live with it. Although I absolutely do expect Koskie to be a more productive hitter in 2006 than Aaron Hill.
Is there any reason that ESPN still hasn't managed to update their Team Stats Pages? They're still stuck on 161 games... and I need to use their splits! Get with it, you knuckleheads!
Is that enough Raw Material for you lot? I hope so! Here's today's schedule:
Houston (Pettite 17-9, 2.39) at Atlanta (Hudson 14-9, 3.52) 4:05
Boston (Wells 15-7, 4.45) at Chicago (Buehrle 16-8, 3.12) 7:05
New York (Chacon 8-10, 3.40) at Los Angeles (Lackey 14-5, 3.44) 10:05
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20051004201146624