Derek Jeter homers, Jason Giambi homers, Albert Pujols homers, Frank Thomas homers. Twice. And FOX says you can't script October. Hmm, but if you could, wouldn't you want all your marquee stars going deep on the first day to draw interest for the rest of the playoffs?
The game of the day was the early game. Twins/Athletics Game 1 did not turn out to be a classic, but was still wildly entertaining for the brief two hours, 26 minutes it was on. It was a scintillating pitchers' duel between Johan Santana and Barry Zito. They were like two gorgeous girls at a bar: everyone who went after either one of them ended up whiffing and walking away frustrated and confused. Both pitchers were working quickly and making quick use of batters. This made the game so much easier and more fun to watch.
The Frank Thomas fountain-of-youth-for-the-umpteenth-time story continues in a big way. Two home runs, one against the unhittable Santana. The other one I do not like though. Sure, it was a good pitch, but Santana, having thrown 109 pitches after eight innings with no signs of slowing down. He should have had a chance to go nine in a close game.
Sadly, I cannot prove to you that I said this before reliever Jesse Crain gave up said home run to Thomas. You will have to take my word for it. Prior to either starter being taken out, ESPN had put a graphic on screen showing both pitchers' brilliant lines and I realized this could be a great chance for the rare double-complete game. Alas.
As it turns out, that pitching change in the top of the ninth, which led to the Thomas home run, did make the difference in the game. The Twins score in the bottom of the ninth, but just once. That has to be one of the most underrated ways to lose a game in terms of frustration. Giving up a late regrettable insurance run only to get just enough runs back so that the bad insurance run makes the difference and you would have tied or won it otherwise. Hang in there, Twins fans.
The mighty Metrodome has not fared well in the new millennium. Remember when the Twins couldn't lose there if you paid them Black Sox scandal money (yes, I know it was 1919 ... adjust for inflation where necessary)? So now what has this Twins team done in the dome in postseason? 2002 against the A's, split Games 3 and 4, then split Games 1 and 2 against the Angels in the LCS. 2003 against the Yankees, they got beat-down wickedly in both games by a combined score of 11-2. 2004 against the Yankees, lost a blowout and inexplicably blew a 5-1 lead in a game Santana was pitching by taking him out after five innings for no reason. And of course, they lose today. That leaves them with a 2-7 postseason mark in the dome since their glory days.
Of course, many will mark the dome as being a clear home-field advantage because nobody can possibly see a white ball in a white roof on fly balls, right? Well, this phenomenon is exposed about once a game, tops. Once a game, someone loses a ball in the roof and looks like an idiot. It looks great on a blooper reel, but rarely does it make the difference in the game.
Tuesday, it almost made the difference in the game as the A's lost a deep fly ball in the lights in the ninth inning. Might have helped if Thomas hadn't hit that damn insurance homer that might not have happened had Santana stayed in the game. Yes, a two-homer game off Santana is something I have to see to believe.
I have to give credit to Nick Punto for making a great catch late in this game. Not just a great catch, but one with props and style points. Punto looked like he was going to dive into the third base/foul stands for the ball, but then he stopped and thought, "wait a minute: Jeter already did that, Jermaine Dye already did that, I have to do something different, something creative," so he leapt up, reached out, and caught the ball while getting his spikes caught in the netting of a pitchback near the bullpen. You can't make this stuff up. So anyways, this got him a perfect 50 from the NBA dunk contest panel. Okay, so maybe you can make some of this stuff up.
Everyone hates all games played in domes. Why? Is it unnatural? Yes. Is it unholy and not the way God intended? How should I know? But where else will you see the things you see in these wacky games? Doubles off the hefty bag in right, pop flies hitting catwalks and speakers, outfielders losing balls in white backgrounds, high bounces on artificial turf, an excuse to amplify raucous crowd noise in one giant indoor echo, and overall, just an alternate look to the game. Considering that artificial turf is disappearing from the game, and domes are mostly being replaced by actual ballparks or at least those retractable roof compromises, you don't see much of these kinds of wacky Nintendoball games anymore. I say enjoy them while they're still around, unholiness and all.
The Cardinals must have entered the postseason in one of the worst slides of all time. Yet you watch one of their games and can't help but realize this is still the same core of players who made the LCS last year and the World Series the year before. They still have Pujols, Scott Rolen, Jim Edmonds (now returned), David Eckstein, and Chris Carpenter starting for them. That's hard to say they don't have a fighting chance regardless of their recent pass.
Early in Cards/Padres Game 1, Pujols pops it up behind home plate. Here comes Piazza throwing off the mask and trying to catch a foul pop behind home plate. "Now's your chance, Mike," I think to myself, "to show everyone you're not really that bad of a catcher defensively, to show everyone you're not too old to play this game. Just settle under and squeeze like most catchers do ... never mind." Piazza not only missed the pop fly, he ran into the backstop screen while the ball drops two inches next to him, so he looks even worse. And then Pujols hits a monster blast ... and Piazza looks even worse again. Maybe the Mets did the smart thing after all.
Here's a perfect example of how a pennant race can disguise the truth. The Cardinals' slide made you forget that their team really isn't that bad, while the Padres' hot streak to win the west made you forget that their team really isn't that good. Funny how that works. Look at their lineup. Dave Roberts, Piazza, who else? Carpenter pitched like an ace, Jake Peavy pitched like he wanted the old bald guy with the robe in the Padres' secondary logo to make contact.
Another brilliant thing about baseball in the 21st century that came up plenty of times today. Managerial interviews during crucial playoff games. This just blows my mind. Let's make a manager talk about key moves and moments of a game as its unfolding, risk not making crucial moves during an inning because he is obligated to speak to the press, and get second-guessed about the bad move he made last inning. He has to step out of character and speak formally when he really shouldn't have to (isn't it bad enough to only have to deal with the media after the game is over?).
But the worst repercussion is what happened in Game 3 of the 2004 World Series. Tony LaRussa was interviewed right after pitcher Jason Marquis forgot that it was okay to score from third on a routine grounder to the right side and got picked off first base by David Ortiz. Completely demoralizing event. And the disoriented skipper had to talk about it only minutes later. I'd be pretty pissed, too. Yet for some reason, LaRussa is still doing these silly interviews. Get the manager's take after the game, guys.
Has anyone fallen from grace farther and quicker than the Mets? No Pedro Martinez, now quite possibly no El Duque, and they don't know who will pitch. The rumblings about this seem strange. When it was reported that the Yankees' Randy Johnson had been speculated to be out, it was still ruled possible he could still be healthy to go. El Duque is a Cuban warrior, made to pitch in awful conditions before coming here. He strains a calf during sprinting/stretching exercises (oh, the irony) and nothing has been confirmed on an MRI and everyone is already writing him off? If he is out, it may be a death blow to the Mets, or it may not. At this point, no one has any idea how good or how old El Duque is anymore. If these injuries keep up, though, at some point you're going to run out of capable starters.
Anyone notice how quickly ESPN games go compared to how slowly FOX games go? ESPN has about an eight minute pre-game segment, and makes no demands in terms of commercial breaks, and very little post-game. Games seem to fly by because the game is all you're watching. Bells-and-whistles FOX has to have a big 21 minute pre-game show so they can run ads, ads and more ads. Then stretch the between innings time for more ads. The pre-game-post-game segments at the studio really mean nothing anymore.
If anything in baseball is a sure thing (and it usually isn't), the Yankees should beat the Tigers violently and relentlessly over the head with a jagged caveman's club for three straight games. Or so I keep telling myself. My faith in this is confirmed by the Yankees' five-run third inning of Yanks/Tigers Game 1. All five runs scored with nobody out.
Said faith is shaken by the spirited Tigers' comeback. This is supposed to be just a bad team coming in. They are a team that could not beat the Royals at home one out of three with a division title on the line. 'Nuff said. Detroit scores three in the fifth, and trade off a run each to make it 7-4. Suddenly, Tim McCarver is referring to the Yankee bullpen as their "soft underbelly" once again (I'm almost certain he used that exact term at some time during last year's Angels series). All this after Joe Torre decided the Yankee bullpen was so good that Mariano Rivera only needed to pitch the ninth inning from now on. Come on, Joe ... this is the playoffs now, remember?
How do you determine, define, or plan out a "good" bullpen, anyway? Aside from your closer, middle relievers are a strange (but common) requirement. First of all, no little kids dream that when they grow up, they could be a middle reliever and hold a lead for 2/3 of an inning before being taken out for somebody because he throws with a different arm than you. Any pitcher who's worth his salt from day one will be made either a starter or a closer right away. Therefore, in order to become a middle-reliever, you have to be maligned by some organization in the first place. And yet a team needs to collect a bunch of "solid, consistent" middle relievers in order to win championships?
This whole process just seems maddening and almost purely luck/chance/timing-driven.
Take the champion 1996 Yankees, for example. They had a dreadful middle relief core of Graeme Lloyd, Brian Boehringer, David Weathers, and Jeff Nelson. None of those pitchers had what you'd call a good year in '96 — in fact, Lloyd was downright awful. Then the playoffs started and magically, randomly even, these four guys are getting people out as if Wade Boggs had put a gun to their heads (and I wouldn't put it past him). Add Rivera (then just a rookie phenom) and Wetteland (heart-attack type closer who had had a shaky season the year before) and voila, you have one of the greatest bullpens of all-time. Maddening, I tell you!
Anyways, Scott Proctor, Mike Myers, Ron Villone, Kyle Farnsworth, and Brian Brunei could be a strength of the Yankees or a weakness, just as relievers Tom Gordon/Tanyon Sturtze/Paul Quantrill of the '04-'05 Yankees at times were seen as both a strength and in the final tally, a weakness.
Jeter bails out the sagging bullpen with a big clutch home run to make it 8-4. If A-Rod had hit this home run in the same situation, he'd be criticized because he only hit it with the Yankees already three runs ahead and never in big spots. (I'm not saying Jeter isn't clutch, and I'm not saying that A-Rod is, either.) When Jeter hit this, though, the crowd went nuts as if it was a walk-off shot. In his defense, he just went 5-for-5 in a playoff game. Very tough feat by any standard, although by my watch, that was easy to overlook in favor of the more obvious (at that time) storyline of the Yankees' incredible shrinking lead.
Predictably, the Yanks hang on to win. That jagged caveman's club worked like a charm in the hands of the Yankee lineup.
Wednesday, it's on to Queens just a few miles away to see if the Mets' pitching staff can piece together any semblance of a start against Team Destiny or if the Dodgers will just start doing that whole consecutive home runs thing again until the home-plate umpire begs them to stop. If not, then maybe at least we can hope to see the first truly memorable game of the '06 playoffs, because none of Tuesday's games reached that level.
If and when that does happen, maybe then I'll have a good reason to send you readers a more conventional, more formalized column. You know, one with an actual point to it. Until then, fellow baseball fans, farewell.
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