Wha' Happen?

There were two pitchers starting on the West Coast last night who would have made their teams feel very confident about their chances of winning last year. I'm not talking about Jamie Moyer, who was very good last year and won his 20th game last night, or Barry Zito, who won the AL Cy Young award last year and has been good-but-not-great this year. Rather, I'm talking about Jarrod Washburn and Odalis Perez, both of whom were excellent last year and both of whom got roughed up last night.

Washburn lasted just three innings last night, allowing three runs on five hits and three walks with no strikeouts. For the season, he's now 10-14 with a 4.43 ERA, 1.25 WHIP, 118 strikeouts and 54 walks in 207.1 innings.

Last year, he went 18-6 with a 3.15 ERA, 1.17 WHIP, 139 strikeouts and 59 walks in 206 innings.

What's changed this year? Well, his strikeout rate has dropped from 6.70 K/9IP to 5.12 K/9IP, but his walk rate has also dropped slightly from 2.58 BB/9IP to 2.34 BB/9IP.

The biggest difference between last season and this season, however, is the long ball. Last year, Washburn allowed 19 home runs (0.83 HR/9IP), but this year he has allowed 34 homers (1.48 HR/9IP). Basically, he's allowing home runs 78-percent more frequently than he did last year. I'm not exactly sure why Washburn is allowing so many more home runs this year, because he's actually getting more ground balls. Last year, he had a GB/FB ratio of 0.60 (193/321) and this year he has a GB/FB ratio of 0.68 (219/324).

Washburn is also allowing more hits this year (.99 H/IP this year, .89 H/IP last year) which means more of his home runs are coming with runners on base. Last year, Washburn allowed 14 homers with the bases empty and five (26.3-percent) with runners on. This year, he's allowed 20 homers with the bases empty and 14 (41.1-percent) with runners on.

Add an increase from three hit batters to 11 hit batters and you have everything that has caused Washburn's ERA to rise. The stuff that Washburn doesn't have much control over (i.e. everything besides homers, strikeouts, walks and hit batters) has been exactly the same. He allowed a .259 batting average on balls in play last year and he's allowed a .259 batting average on balls in play this year.

Perez had an even shorter outing last night, allowing four runs on five hits and a walk with one strikeout in just one inning. For the season, he's now 12-12 with a 4.52 ERA, 1.28 WHIP, 141 strikeouts and 46 walks in 185.1 innings.

Last year, he went 15-10 with a 3.00 ERA, 0.99 WHIP, 155 strikeouts and 38 walks in 222.1 innings.

Unlike Washburn, Perez has increased his strikeouts from 6.27 K/9IP to 6.85 K/9IP and increased his walks from 1.54 BB/9IP to 2.23 BB/9IP. Like Washburn, he's giving up a lot more homers (1.36 HR/9IP this year, 0.85 HR/9IP last year) and a lot more hits (1.03 H/IP this year, 0.82 H/IP last year). That's about a 60-percent increase in homers and a 25-percent increase in hits.

The main difference between Washburn and Perez is that Perez may be getting a bit unlucky (or he was a bit lucky last year). Last year, Perez allowed a .247 batting average on balls put in play. This year, that average is up to .294.

Even if you think that the pitcher has a great deal of control over how many hits he allows once the ball is in play, you can't tell me that Perez's "stuff" has gotten so much worse that hitters are able to make that many more batted balls avoid the fielders. Unless LA's defense has declined significantly, Perez's luck has changed significantly.

Two other pitchers threw at least 140 innings both this year and last year for the Dodgers, which means we can look at their batting averages allowed on balls in play to get some idea of whether or not LA's defense has declined significantly. Hideo Nomo allowed a .270 average on balls in play last year and has allowed a .252 average on balls in play this year. Kaz Ishii allowed a .279 average on balls in play last year and has allowed a .284 average on balls in play this year.

So, Nomo's batting average allowed on balls in play improved significantly and Ishii's declined slightly. From looking at these two pitchers, I don't think we can conclude that the LA defense has gotten significantly worse. It's possible that it has, but that would mean that Nomo has gotten extremely lucky to allow fewer hits on balls in play than he did last year when the defense is worse than it was last year.

Ultimately, I think we need to conclude that Perez's luck has changed. The question is whether he was a good pitcher with no luck last year and a good pitcher with bad luck this year or or bad pitcher with good luck last year and a bad pitcher with no luck this year.

Most likely, he's a decent pitcher who had some good luck last year and has had some bad luck this year. And it doesn't help that he's combining his bad luck with an increase in home runs.

If I had to pick one of these two pitchers who I expected to return to their form of a year ago, I would pick Perez. But I don't necessarily think either of them will.

Analyzing Gammons

If you look at my list of links to the right, you'll see that Peter Gammons is not among the columnists I link to under the "favorite columnists" section. Two or three years ago, Gammons was one of my favorite columnists, but his terrible grammar combined with observations and opinions that are often very strange have led me to avoid him recently. However, last night I did read his most recent column about how Felipe Alou finally gets to go to the playoffs after being screwed by the 1994 strike. Like most of his columns, this one has a "News and notes" section at the end.

Today, I'd like to take the chance to comment on some of his little items in the "News and notes" section of this column.

After he talks briefly about why Alex Rodriguez will probably win his first MVP Award this year, he says "A-Rod lost out for the wrong reasons in '97. But I'm not sure Rodriguez deserves it any more than Garret Anderson."

Huh? I've seen Anderson's name mentioned several places as an MVP candidate, and I cannot understand it at all. Anderson is a fine player and I certainly wouldn't mind having him on my team, since he's the second-best left fielder in the AL (although there are six left fielders better than him in the NL). However, he never has been and never will be an MVP caliber player.

Anderson is putting the finishing touches on his best season, hitting .317/.347/.549 (.895) while playing every day. Rodriguez, meanwhile, is putting the finishing touches on his fifth-best season, hitting .299/.396/.606 (1.002) while playing every day. Did I mention that Rodriguez is a shortstop and Anderson is a corner outfielder?

Last year, I believe Gammons also thought that Anderson was more deserving of the MVP Award than Rodriguez, but you could at least chalk that up to the misguided notion that an MVP has to come from a winning team (more on that later). This year, Rodriguez's Rangers are in last place again, but Anderson's Angels are only three games ahead in third place. If Rodriguez and Anderson had switched teams before this season, the Angels would have made a run at a winning season and the Rangers would have made a run at 100 losses.

If you hear anybody mention Anderson's name in a discussion of potential AL MVPs for this season, do me a favor and smack them. If they ask why you did that, smack them harder. Don't let people get away with stupidity.

In his very next item, Gammons says that "Lou Piniella is pushing Rocco Baldelli for rookie of the year over Jody Gerut and Hideki Matsui".

I have no problem with Gammons telling us that Piniella thinks Baldelli should be the AL Rookie of the Year. It's a pretty meaningless report, because we all know that Piniella is going to promote his own player, but I have no problem with it. What I do have a problem with is that Gammons, when he mentions the players Baldelli would have to beat out, doesn't list the player who probably has been the best rookie in the AL this season. That would be Angel Berroa.

Berroa is hitting .292/.341/.457 (.798) in 150 games, which is comparable to or better than Baldelli's .289/.326/.419 (.746) in 149 games, Gerut's .281/.337/.500 (.837) in 121 games and Matsui's .287/.350/.438 (.788) in 155 games. The big difference of course, is that Berroa plays shorstop and the other three play in the outfield.

I'll go more in depth when I pick my top five for every award after the season, but anything that even mentions the AL Rookie of the Year award has to include Berroa's name. He's not the biggest star or the best prospect, but he's definitely a candidate for the award, if not the favorite.

Gammons later talks about how Tom Gordon has come back from his arm injury to have an impressive season and, as he often does when he wants to make his point stronger, he quotes a player. This time, Sandy Alomar Jr. says, among other things, that Gordon is "as good as anyone in the league."

This is another case of somebody who is too close to the situation saying something that just isn't true. It shouldn't surprise us that Gordon's catcher wants to pump Gordon up, but why would Gammons report it? The fact is that Gordon, who really is having a very nice season, isn't even the best reliever on his own team, nevermind being as good as anybody in the league.

Gordon has a 3.14 ERA and a 1.19 WHIP with 87 strikeouts and 30 walks in 71.2 innings. Teammate Damaso Marte has a 1.56 ERA and 1.00 WHIP with 86 strikeouts and 28 walks in 75 innings. It's fine to say that Gordon is back to being a great pitcher, but don't exaggerate it by saying he's just as good as any reliever in the league.

Other AL relievers who have been better this season than Gordon include: Keith Foulke (2.04 ERA, 0.87 WHIP, 86 strikeouts, 20 walks, 83.2 IP); Mariano Rivera (1.73 ERA, 1.00 WHIP, 58 strikeouts, 10 walks, 67.2 IP); LaTroy Hawkins (1.89 ERA, 1.09 WHIP, 74 strikeouts, 14 walks, 76.1 IP); Eddie Guardado (2.86 ERA, 0.97 WHIP, 55 strikeouts, 14 walks, 63 IP); Rafael Soriano (1.66 ERA, 0.76 WHIP, 62 strikeouts, 10 walks, 48.2 IP); Brendan Donnelly (1.63 ERA, 1.07 WHIP, 78 strikeouts, 23 walks, 72 IP) and Shigetoshi Hasegawa (1.38 ERA, 1.10 WHIP, 31 strikeouts, 18 walks, 71.2 IP). And I may be forgetting one or two guys.

Later, Gammons reports that Brad Ausmus might sign with the Padres next year, and he reports it as though it's a bad thing for the Astros.

"As much as Brad Ausmus respects and likes his Astros teammates, don't be surprised if he signs as a free agent with the Padres because of his children and school."

Look, I know everybody loves Ausmus' defense and leadership, but he's hitting .230/.305/.295 (.600) this season and he'll turn 35 early in next season, so his offense isn't getting any better. I don't care how many other intangibles or immeasurables you bring to the ballpark, if you have an OPS of .600, you're hurting your team. If the Astros are smart, they'll make Ausmus' decision easier for him by not even trying to resign him.

I was planning on mentioning how I think the Cubs are risking their future for a shot at the playoffs this year, and Gammons column gives me a perfect opportunity to do just that.

"If you don't think what the Cubs have achieved is remarkable, going from 95 losses to contention, consider that they are the fourth team since the mid-60's to do so -- along with the '91 Orioles, '77 Brewers and '68 Washington Senators. The flip side is that if you're a fan of a team losing 95 games, don't get too excited about next year just because the Cubs turned it around. Remember, they had Mark Prior, Carlos Zambrano, Kerry Wood and Matt Clement."

The flip side of the Cubs situation is that you might not want to get too excited about their future, because there could very well be some arm problems over the horizon. I hope I'm wrong, but the Cubs are asking an awful lot of three of their four young hurlers.

Prior has started 28 games and averaged 112.1 pitches per game. In and of itself, that's a lot, but his workload has increased dramatically as the NL Central race has gotten further along. In his last nine games, Prior has averaged 119.4 pitches. And in his last five, it's an unbelievable 125 pitches per game, including two games of 131 pitches and one game with 129 pitches.

This season, Prior has thrown at least 120 pitches eight times and at least 110 pitches another 11 times.

Zambrano hasn't been worked nearly as hard, but it's still more than I'd like to see a 22-year-old throw. In 31 starts, he's averaging 107 pitches per game. In his last 11 starts, he's averaging 113.1 pitches. He's thrown at least 120 pitches five times and at least 109 pitches another 11 times.

Wood, who has already had major arm problems, is averaging 110.4 pitches per start in 31 starts. In his last five starts, however, he's averaging 121.2 pitches, with four of those five starts breaking the 120-pitch mark.

Wood has thrown at least 120 pitches 12 times (including an inexcusable 141-pitch outing) and at least 110 pitches seven more times.

Nobody really knows exactly how to use pitch counts to prevent injuries, but we should have learned from the situation with A.J. Burnett that it's better to err on the side of caution. The Cubs are gambling with the arms of three young pitchers at the same time, and the odds are that at least one of the three will go bust.

Finally, Gammons talks about Doug Mientkiewicz and says that "He is a great defensive first baseman and superb situational hitter, though his RBI totals may not be those of the prototypical first baseman. Also his .396 on-base percentage and 72/54 walk/strikeout ratio are remarkable for someone who was hurt much of the season."

Mientkiewicz certainly is a great defensive first baseman (according to Baseball Graphs, he has more defensive win shares than any other first baseman in the majors), but there is no need to trivialize his offensive value by making something up about him being a superb situational hitter. He is hitting .302/.395/.454 (.849) this year, which makes him the fourth-best offensive first baseman in the AL.

Now, let's try and figure out exactly which situations Mientkiewicz is superb in. With runners on base, Mientkiewicz is hitting .313/.399/.458 (.857). That's better than what he's doing overall, but not by a lot. And with runners in scoring position, he's hitting just .292/.390/.400 (.790). And it gets even worse with runners in scoring position and two outs, as he's hitting .271/.386/.322 (.708) in those situations.

So, it must be something else. Ah, here we go. In "close and late" situations -- which are defined as "results in the 7th inning or later with the batting team either ahead by one run, tied or with the potential tying run at least on deck" -- Mientkiewicz is hitting .397/.494/.603 (1.097). That's damn good. He must have some unnatural ability to just get better when the game is on the line.

Gammons said he's a superb situational hitter and we've just found a situation in which Mientkiewicz is hitting superbly this year, so we could just call it a day and say Gammons is right, but let's be scientific just for the heck of it.

From 2000-2002, Mientkiewicz hit .287/.377/.431 (.808). In close and late situations over those three years, he hit .286/.384/.422 (.806). Hmm, that's pretty much the same as his overall numbers. That's strange. Maybe he just developed his unnatural ability to hit better with the game on the line this year. Or maybe its just the randomness of small sample sizes.

Mientkiewicz is a good hitter because he gets on base nearly 40-percent of the time. To try and give him credit for other things is just an insult to our intelligence and an insult to his abilities. Give him credit for being the excellent player that he is, don't make up stuff to give him extra credit.

That's about all I have to say about Gammons' latest piece of work, and when I went to sleep last night, I was only going to talk about Gammons' column. Then I got up this morning and read Jayson Stark's column on why A-Rod is not this year's AL MVP.

You should read the whole thing, but Stark basically says that an MVP can't be from a team in last place because if you took him away the team would still be in last place. He also concedes Rob Neyer's point that this should work both ways. If a team would make the playoffs without a certain player, then that player can't be MVP either. The Red Sox have a lot of players without whom they would have missed the playoffs (not that I'm counting my chickens before the Mariners finish laying their egg), but Stark seems to be saying that since all those Red Sox hitters are similarly valuable, you can't pick one.

So, in Stark's little dream universe, the top three MVP candidates are Eric Chavez, Miguel Tejada and Shannon Stewart. And no, I'm not kidding. Read his column if you don't believe me.

I can deal with it when the best player in the league doesn't win the MVP award, but I can't deal with it when the guy who wins the MVP award isn't even the best player at his position.

Chavez is probably the second-best third baseman in the AL, but Bill Mueller is the best this season. If Tejada isn't the fourth-best shortstop in the AL this year, then he's at least no better than third ahead of Derek Jeter. And Stewart probably isn't even among the top five left fielders in the AL this year.

I honestly don't know what Stark is thinking, but I hope the AL MVP voters aren't thinking along the same lines. If Rodriguez doesn't win the award, as he should, then the award should go to somebody else who had a tremendous amount of value to his team. It should not go to somebody just because their team made the playoffs and they're one of the best hitters on the team. Once again, I'll go into the AL MVP award in more depth when I present my top five choices for each award after the season, but I'll give you a preview. Chavez, Tejada and Stewart aren't in my top 10, let alone top five.

Football stuff

As many of you know, I'm currently writing a weekly fantasy football column for the newspaper I work at. Here's the link to this week's column:

Fantasy football: Sagging numbers plague top tight ends

As always, please let me know if you read the column. Also, many of you know that I'm picking the outcome of every football game this year as part of a friendly competition over at Seth Speaks. Here's the link to everybody's picks for Week 3.

Last week, I tied for the best record by going 12-4. Overall this season, I'm in second place with a 22-10 record.

Enjoy your weekend everybody. I definitely won't be posting tomorrow, because I will be attending the Syracuse vs. Central Florida football game at the Carrier Dome. Should be a lot of scoring going on, as both teams are in the top 30 in the nation on offense and both are in the bottom seven in the nation on defense.

Low scoring series

Did anybody notice just how few runs were scored in the just-completed Arizona/Los Angeles series? The Diamondbacks won the first two games by scores of 3-2 and 2-0 before the Dodgers avoided the sweep by winning 2-0 last night. For those of you who don't like to add, that's nine runs scored total by two teams in a three game series.

Arizona outhit the Dodgers 19-16 and outwalked them 12-7, but could only score one more run (5-4) over the three games. Arizona struck out 21 times and grounded into four double plays while Los Angeles struck out 20 times and was the victim of two double plays (one of which was of the strike-em-out, throw-em-out variety).

By far the strangest statistic of the series is that the two teams, despite scoring a grand total of just nine runs, combined for four home runs.

There were only 10 extra-base hits in the series (seven by Arizona and three by LA), but each team hit two homers, all of which were solo shots.

Arizona scored three runs in the first game on the strength of four non-home run extra-base hits. Junior Spivey hit two doubles and drove in two runs. Steve Finley hit a double and was the man to cross the plate on both of Spivey's doubles. Alex Cintron tripled and scored the other run on a Shea Hillenbrand groundout.

LA got half of its two runs in the first game on Jeromy Burnitz's 29th home run of the season. Alex Cora doubled and scored the other run on a Dave Roberts single.

There were only two extra-base hits total in the second game, and both of them were Luis Gonzalez home runs.

In the third game, Robin Ventura gave the Dodgers all the runs they would need with a second-inning home run. Roberts added an insurance run in the eighth when he walked, stole second and scored on Hillenbrand's error.

The amazing thing is that the starting pitchers didn't even have great strikeout and walk rates. The six starting pitchers combined to allow six runs on 28 hits and 11 walks with 29 strikeouts in 41 innings. That works out to a 1.32 ERA, 0.95 WHIP, 6.37 K/9IP and 2.41 BB/9IP.

Kaz Ishii was the only starter who did not pitch at least seven innings. He allowed two runs on five hits and three walks with four strikeouts in five innings in the first game.

Brandon Webb was the best starter in the series. He pitched eight shutout innings in the second game, allowing two hits and three walks with five strikeouts for a game score of 80.

The other four starters were very similar, as the all went seven innings. Wilson Alvarez had a game score of 72 after allowing no runs on four hits and a walk with four strikeouts. Miguel Batista had a game score of 68 thanks to just one run on four hits and a walk with four strikeouts. Curt Schilling allowed a run on eight hits and a walk with eight strikeouts for a game score of 64. Edwin Jackson allowed two runs on five hits and two walks with four strikeouts for a game score of 61.

The bullpens were almost as good as the starters. Eight relievers combined to allow three runs (two earned) on seven hits and eight walks with 12 strikeouts in 12 innings. That works out to a 1.50 ERA, 1.25 WHIP, 9.00 K/9IP and 6.00 BB/9IP.

Everybody knows about LA's offensive woes, but Arizona may actually be a worse offensive team. Sure, Arizona has scored 4.33 runs per game this year and the Dodgers have only scored 3.58 runs per game, but LA plays in a pitcher's park and Arizona plays in a hitter's park.

On the road, the Dodgers have scored 3.85 runs per game while the Diamondbacks have managed just 3.72 runs per game. At home, Arizona almost looks like a decent offensive team with 4.92 runs per game while the Dodgers are killed by their stadium, scoring just 3.33 runs per home game.

In fact, Arizona is the second-worst scoring road team in all of baseball. Only the Expos, with 3.42 runs per road game, have been less potent with the bats away from home. Even the lowly Detroit Tigers have managed to score one more run on the road than Arizona in the same number of games.

If you're a fan of low-scoring games, you should definitely try to organize a tournament between the Dodgers, Expos, Tigers and Diamondbacks to take place at PacBell Park.

Day off

I hate to do this with so many people coming over from Aaron's Baseball Blog, but I have to take today off from blogging. I have to go put in a long (read: 12 hour) day at the office, which will inlcude me finishing up a special project, writing my fantasy football column and then working my normal five-hour part-time shift.

I promise that I'll be back with at least one post tomorrow. Thanks for stopping by.

Roy Hobbs indeed

Over at Aaron's Baseball Blog, Aaron Gleeman casually referred to Michael Ryan as Michael "Roy Hobbs" Ryan. I wonder if Aaron truly appreciates the magical nature of the production the Twins have been getting from Ryan recently.

After yesterday's game, Ryan is hitting .389/.425/.750 (1.175) with four doubles and three home runs in 36 at-bats (19 games). Now, 36 at-bats isn't going to make or break any team's season, but when those 36 at-bats are as good as Ryan's 36 at-bats have been, it certainly helps.

Even though it's a small sample size and I know he probably won't even finish this season with numbers anywhere near this good, I can't understand how Ryan has an OPS of 1.175. You see, I feel at least somewhat more qualified to discuss Ryan than other players (although I discuss those other players anyway), because I live in Rochester, NY and Ryan played most of this season in Rochester, NY.

What's more, I saw and/or listened to at least 15 of the 115 games he played here. I'm also good friends with the beat writer who covers the Rochester team on a daily basis. In a word, Ryan was awful.

In those 115 games, Ryan received 408 at-bats and hit a paltry .225 with a .289 OBP and a .404 SLG for a .693 OPS. And this was from a 26-year-old outfielder who was spending his third full season at the AAA level.

Ryan collected 92 hits in 408 at-bats, and the only thing that prevented him from being truly terrible is the fact that he does have some pop and some patience. He hit 20 doubles, four triples, 15 home runs and drew 38 walks (while striking out 89 times).

If he ever was thought of as a top prospect, Ryan certainly cannot be thought of as a prospect at all right now. He was drafted in the fifth round by the Twins in 1996 and played 43 games that summer for the GCL (Gulf Coast League) Twins, hitting .197/.260/.275 (.534).

The next year, he played for Elizabethton of the Rookie-level Appalachian League and hit .300/.404/.386 (.790) in 62 games. Then, he played two full seasons for Fort Meyers of the Class A Florida State League.

In 1998, Ryan hit .318/.382/.471 (.853) in 113 games. I don't know why they sent him back to Fort Meyers after such a nice season there, but he regressed in 1999, hitting .274/.356/.393 (.749) in 131 games.

In 2000, Ryan played most of the season for New Britain of the Class AA Eastern League, where he hit .277/.323/.426 (.749) in 122 games. After that, he played the majority of the next two seasons with Edmonton of the Class AAA Pacific Coast League.

In 2001, Ryan hit .288/.353/.486 (.839) in 135 games. Then last year, he hit .261/.330/.522 (.852) in 131 games before getting a cup of coffee with the Twins, where he collected just one hit in 11 at-bats (for a line of .091/.091/.091).

Now, .839 and .852 aren't bad OPS's, but they're not great and they're especially not great in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League. And that .852 in particular is not an especially great OPS coming from a 25-year-old outfielder who is spending his second full season in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League.

At any rate, the only reason Ryan changed teams after two years with Edmonton is that the Twins decided to change their AAA affiliation. After their partnership with Edmonton in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League ended, the Twins formed a partnership with the Rochester Red Wings in the pitcher-friendly International League.

And so Ryan toiled through probably his worst season as a professional baseball player, only to get called up to the major leagues on August 12th and make a meaningful contribution to a team fighting for a playoff spot.

Heck, I'm not sure the story of Roy Hobbs was even that unbelievable.

While we're on the subject of me living in the city where the Rochester Red Wings play, I may be a very lucky baseball fan next summer.

You see, the Twins currently boast two of the best hitting prospects in all of Major League Baseball. First baseman Justin Morneau saw some time in Minnesota this year and spend the rest of the year slamming 25 home runs in 91 minor-league games. His final line of .268/.344/.498 (.842) in 71 games at Rochester isn't great because he slumped a bit after he was returned from Minnesota, where he had gotten rusty from sitting on the bench.

The other top prospect is catcher Joe Mauer, who was just named the 2003 Minor League Player of the Year after terrorizing pitchers at Class A and AA.

Depending on what the Twins do with A.J. Pierzynski and Doug Mientkiewicz, among others, there is a good chance that both Morneau and Mauer will start next season with the Rochester Red Wings.

If they do, I will be heading out to see as many Red Wings games as possible, because Morneau and Mauer could very well become the cornerstones of some very good Minnesota Twins teams. And I want to see them play while I've got the chance.

A follow-up

You may or may not remember that I wrote about Carlos Lee last Wednesday. In that post, I said, among other things:

"If you ask him, or certain media types, however, they would probably say he is having a breakout season. And that's unfortunate, because it means that he's unlikely to go back to drawing a lot of walks. And that means that his offensive value will have nothing to fall back on the next time he gets unlucky and loses 10-15 hits because of any of a number of things that can happen when you put the ball in play."

Well, in Tuesday's Chicago Sun Times, Doug Padilla wrote a story praising Lee for his breakout season (thanks to Mike Labuda of ChiSox Daily for emailing me the link). Here is part of what Padilla writes:

"Lee is on pace to have Thomas- or Magglio Ordonez-like numbers, with a chance to finish near 35 homers and 115 RBI, not counting what he might be able to do beyond Game 162 if the Sox qualify for the postseason."

First of all, it is patently ridiculous to say that Carlos Lee is as valuable to the White Sox as either Frank Thomas or Magglio Ordonez.

Coming into Tuesday's game, Lee had a .286 EqA while Ordonez was at .314 and Thomas was at .313. Lee also had 89.6 EqR, which was well behind Ordonez's 105.6 EqR and Thomas' 102.1 EqR. If you look at RARP (Runs Above Replacement Position), Lee is again a distant third on the White Sox. He is 25.3 RARP while Ordonez is at 48.2 and Thomas is at 25.3.

So, enough about Lee being as valuable, or even nearly as valuable, to the White Sox offense as Ordonez and Thomas. It's just not true.

It seems that Padilla's main reason for thinking that Lee is in the midst of a breakout season is -- surprise, surprise -- that Lee has set career highs with 30 homers and 104 RBI.

Aside from being largely unimportant, those numbers are also misleading. First of all, Lee is not hitting home runs any more frequently than he did last season. Last year, Lee hit 26 home runs in 492 at-bats, which works out to a homer every 18.9 at-bats. This year, coming into Tuesday, Lee had 30 homers in 572 at-bats, which works out to a home run every 19.1 at-bats.

What about Lee's power in general? Is he hitting for more power in this, his "breakout" season, than he did last year? Well, no. Not exactly.

Sure, Lee's .512 SLG this season is better than his .484 SLG of last year, but a lot of that is due to the fact that Lee is batting .294 this year after hitting just .264 last year. Lee's Isolated Power (IsoP, which is simply SLG minus batting average) is .218 this year compared to .220 last year.

Secondary Average (SecA) looks at a player's extra bases gained without looking at batting average, which is the most incosistent stat in baseball. The formula for SecA is (TB-H+BB+SB-CS)/AB.

Lee's SecA this year is .306. His SecA last year was .366.

Quite simply, the only thing Lee has really improved this season, aside from his RBI total, is his singles rate. This year, Lee has gotten a single every 5.5 at-bats. Last year, he got a single every 6.5 at-bats.

Getting a single is the most luck-dependent positive result possible for a hitter. Drawing a walk means that you exhibited patience at the plate. Hitting a double or a triple generally means you hit the ball hard. Hitting a home run means you hit the ball really hard.

Getting a single, however, could mean that you hit the ball hard, or it could mean that you hit the ball softly but not at anybody, or it could mean that you hit the ball so pathetically that it stays in the infield and nobody can get to it quickly enough to make a play.

Every year, there are many, many singles that were hit poorly enough that they should have been outs and many, many outs that were hit well enough that they should have been singles. Generally, the luck will balance out and a hitter will get approximately as many singles in his career as he should get.

A smart team will realize this and understand that a player who is hitting .294 after hitting .269 and .264 the previous two seasons is probably not really a .294 hitter. And if Lee isn't hitting .294, then he's really not going to be an asset at all unless he goes back to walking a lot like he did last year or he really exhibits a meaningful power spike.

So, that should take care of the notion that this is a breakout season for Lee simply because he's reached the magical 30-homer level. Now, to take care of the 100-RBI mark.

Yes, Lee has 104 RBI after averaging 85.3 RBI per season the last three years. What's the reason for this? All signs, or at least most of them, point to luck.

From 2000-2002, when he was averaging 85.3 RBI per year, Lee was hitting .268/.335/.467 (.802) with the bases empty. With runners on base, however, Lee hit .291/.350/.492 (.842) and he hit .279/.346/.495 (.841) with runners in scoring position.

So, Lee was a slightly better hitter with runners on base than he was with the sacks empty. This year, however, Lee is a much better hitter with runners on base and he's been ridiculously good with runners in scoring position.

With the bases empty, Lee is hitting .285/.332/.466 (.798) this year. With runners on base, Lee is hitting .305/.343/.573 (.916) this year. And with runners in scoring position, Lee is hitting .353/.387/.683 (1.070) this year.

Lee should get some credit for hitting well when it matters most this year, but it's not something he's likely to continue. Not only are RBI more of a team-dependent stat than a player-dependent stat, but Lee's RBI totals would very likely be worse even if he played next year with the exact same offense around him and had the exact same overall offensive numbers himself.

You might think that Lee is being helped by batting second with Thomas and Ordonez behind him, but that's not that big a factor. He is hitting better in the two-hole than he's hitting overall, but he has 221 at-bats batting second and 336 at-bats batting either fifth or sixth. So, I don't think you can really draw any conclusions in either direction from his spot in the lineup.

When you look at all of the numbers involved, you can't help but reach the conclusion that Lee has been, at best, just as good this year as he was last year. It's possible that he's been worse this season than he was last year, and this certainly hasn't been a breakout season.

What's more, his offensive achievements this season seem to be dependent upon a large amount of luck, while his offensive achievements last season were almost entirely dependent upon himself. Hopefully for the White Sox, their front office understands this better than their players, their manager and their beat writers.

Bad comparison

A couple of notable free swingers from the Dominican Republic had nice games last night. Vlad Guerrero hit his 25th home run of the season in just his 101st game and Alfonso Soriano hit two home runs to join the 30-30 club for the second year in a row with 31 homers and 33 steals.

Soriano is a good hitter and he's an impressive physical specimen. He's such a rare type of hitter that there are no really good comparisons for him. When most people try to come up with a comparison for him, however, they think of Guerrero. And people have often said that they think Soriano could become as good a hitter as Guerrero is.

Quite simply, that's a horrible comparison and it was never realistic to think that Soriano could hit like Guerrero.

Soriano's first extended playing time in the majors came at age 23 in 2001. He played 158 games and hit .268/.304/.432 (.736) with 34 doubles, 18 homers, 29 walks, 125 strikeouts and 43 steals in 57 attempts (75.4-percent success rate).

Guerrero's first extended playing time in the majors came at age 21 in 1997. He played 90 games and hit .302/.350/.483 (.833) with 22 doubles, 11 home runs, 19 walks, 39 strikeouts and three steals in seven attempts.

Just by looking at each player's first season, you can see two major differences between them. First, Soriano is a very good basestealer and Guerrero is not. Second, Guerrero has an uncanny ability to make contact with almost any pitch and Soriano does not.

Both trends have continued for each player.

In his three-year career, Soriano has 119 steals in 155 attempts for a 76.8-percent success rate. In his career, Guerrero has 122 steals in 192 attempts for a 63.5-percent success rate. Both players have put up gaudy stolen base totals before -- Soriano has at least 30 steals in each full season he's played and Guerrero had 77 steals over his last two seasons -- but Soriano is a good basestealer and Guerrero is a bad basestealer.

The other thing you'll note is that Soriano has struck out at least 120 times in each of his three full seasons. After 125 strikeouts as a rookie, he fanned 157 times last year and has 120 strikeouts so far this season. Guerrero, meanwhile, has never struck out even 100 times. He struck out 95 times in 1998, which was his first real full season, and then had strikeout totals of 62, 74, 88 and 70 each of the last four seasons while playing almost every game. This year, he has 48 strikeouts in 101 games, which would project to 77 in 162 games.

After Soriano's lackluster rookie season, he captured everybody's attention by nearly joining the 40-40 club last season. He finished with 39 homers and 41 steals in 156 games and he managed to keep his batting average right at .300 while posting a .332 OBP (thanks to just 23 walks) and a .547 SLG for an .879 OPS.

A lot of people plugged Soriano for the AL MVP award last year, but he wasn't nearly as deserving of the award as Alex Rodriguez, Jim Thome, Jason Giambi and Manny Ramirez (although he was more deserving than the guy who did win the award).

This year, his third full season, Soriano is hitting .287/.335/.502 (.837) with 33 doubles, 31 homers, 35 walks, 120 strikeouts and 33 steals. It is a very good season for a second baseman, but he is not one of the best offensive players in baseball.

In Guerrero's second and third seasons in the majors, he hit .324/.371/.589 (.960) and .316/.378/.600 (.978). He averaged 37 doubles and 40 home runs those two years. He walked 42 times the second year and 55 times the third while striking out 95 times in year two and 62 times in year three.

Really, aside from the basestealing, everything about Guerrero is better than Soriano.

While Soriano struggled to hit .300 last year and hit well under .300 his other two seasons, Guerrero has never hit below .300 and hit .345 in his fourth season.

Soriano's .335 OBP this season is the best of his career. The .350 OBP Guerrero posted as a rookie was the only time in his career that he got on base less than 37-percent of the time. This year is Guerrero's third with an OBP above .400.

Soriano had a .547 SLG last year and has a .502 SLG this year. Those SLG's would rank seventh and eighth in Guerrero's career, behind his six full seasons and ahead of his 90-game, .483 SLG rookie season. Guerrero's worst SLG in a full season was his .566 mark in 2001.

Baically, there are two reasons why Soriano is a very nice offensive asset. First, he plays almost every game. After missing 10 games combined the last two years, he would miss just seven games this year if he plays in the rest of the Yankees games.

Second, he plays second base, although some of that value is counteracted by the fact that he does not play second base well.

If you put Soriano in left field, as it has occasionally been suggested will eventually happen, he would not be nearly as good an offensive asset. Although, he may still be seen as a great player because he hits home runs and steals bases, and the media loves guys who can do those things, especially if said player can do both things together.

When all is said and done, Soriano's going to have been a much better fantasy player than he ever will be in the real game. Guerrero, meanwhile, has a chance to go down as one of the greatest hitters to grace the baseball diamond.

Interesting trio

An interesting group of young pitchers started for their respective teams yesterday. If I were to ask you to say one thing about Carlos Zambrano, Matt Riley and Cliff Lee, you might say the following:

Zambrano is an up-and-coming major-league pitcher, Lee is an impressive prospect and Riley is a former top prospect. While those would pretty much be accurate, it's interesting to note the ages of the three pitchers.

Zambrano is the youngest at 22 years old, Riley just turned 24 years old and Lee just turned 25 years old. Of the three, Riley is probably the pitcher most people know the least about.

Drafted by the Orioles in the third round of the 1997 draft, Riley didn't pitch professionally until 1998, when he had a 1.19 ERA, 136 strikeouts (14.75 K/9IP) and 44 walks (4.77 BB/9IP) in 83 innings for Delmarva in the Class A South Atlantic League. He obviously wasn't a real polished pitcher, but he had great stuff.

It was that stuff that allowed him to move up in the Orioles system quickly, maybe too quickly.

In 1999, Riley started the year at Frederick in the Class A Carolina League and posted a 2.61 ERA with 58 strikeouts (10.10 K/9IP) and 14 walks (2.44 BB/9IP) in 51.2 innings. After that, he moved up to Bowie of the Class AA Eastern League and had a 3.02 ERA with 131 strikeouts (9.38 K/9IP) and 42 walks (3.01 BB/9IP) in 125.2 innings.

Having already pitched 177.1 innings that year at the tender age of 20, the Orioles decided to call him up to pitch 11 more innings in the major leagues. Riley struggled, allowing nine runs on 17 hits and 13 walks with just six strikeouts.

The next year, injuries struck. Riley pitched just seven innings in 2000 (for Rochester of the Class AAA International League) and did not pitch at all in 2001. If that didn't take away his prospect status completely, the fact that he was also thought of as immature and having an attittude problem did.

Last year, Riley finally returned and he still had his control problems, but he no longer had the amazing strikeout rate to go with it. In 109.1 innings at Bowie, Riley posted a 6.34 ERA with 105 strikeouts (8.64 K/9IP) and 48 walks (3.95 BB/9IP).

Having fallen completely off the map, Riley finally started to make progress towards a real big-league career this season. He started this season at Bowie again and had a 3.11 ERA with 73 strikeouts (9.08 K/9IP) and 23 walks (2.86 BB/9IP) in 72.1 innings when he was promoted to Ottawa of the Class AAA International League. There he posted a 3.58 ERA with 77 strikeouts (9.85 K/9IP) and 28 walks (3.58 BB/9IP) in 70.1 innings.

With the IL season and playoffs complete, Riley made his first major-league appearance in about four years yesterday. He finally picked up his first big-league win, allowing two run on four hits and three walks with four strikeouts in five innings against the Toronto Blue Jays.

Riley obviously still needs to improve his control, but he's still young, he still has good stuff and he's still left-handed. All of which means that he can definitely be a part of Baltimore's starting rotation next season. He's not a top prospect anymore, but that doesn't mean he can't still become a good pitcher.

Then there's Lee, who was already 22 years old when he pitched professionally for the first time. Lee was drafted by the Montreal Expos in fourth round of the 2000 draft and went straight to Cape Fear of the Class A South Atlantic League, where he posted a 5.24 ERA with 63 strikeouts (12.69 K/9IP) and 36 walks (7.25 BB/9IP) in 44.2 innings.

Having gotten a taste of pro ball, Lee was much better the following season at Jupiter of the Class A Florida State League. He had a 2.79 ERA with 129 strikeouts (10.59 K/9IP) and 46 walks (3.78 BB/9IP) in 109.2 innings.

Then last year, Lee had a crazy season. He started the season at Harrisburg of the Class AA Eastern League and was pitching very well with a 3.23 ERA, 105 strikeouts (10.95 K/9IP) and 23 walks (2.40 BB/9IP) in 86.1 innings when the Expos traded him to Cleveland as part of the package for Bartolo Colon.

The Indians stuck him in Akron of the Easterrn League for 16.2 innings before promoting him to Buffalo of the Class AAA International League. In 43 innings at Buffalo, Lee had a 3.77 ERA with 30 strikeouts (6.28 K/9IP) and 22 walks (4.60 BB/9IP). After the IL season ended, the Indians gave hmi his first shot at the major leagues. Lee made two starts and allowed just two runs on six hits and eight walks with six strikeouts in 10.2 innings.

Despite the fact that his numbers from last season didn't really suggest that he was ready, Lee was rumored to be in contention for a spot in Cleveland's rotation this spring. Then, right as the season was about to start, an abdominal injury landed him on the 60-day disabled list.

When he returned, Lee went back to Akron for 12 innings before pitching most of the season at Buffalo. In 63.1 innings there, he posted a 3.27 ERA with 61 strikeouts (8.67 K/9IP) and 31 walks (4.41 BB/9IP).

Lee did pick up his first major-league win at the end of June, when he allowed two unearned runs on three hits and three walks with five strikeouts in six innings against Kansas City. Lee did not make another appearance in the majors until mid-August, however, when he returned to Cleveland's rotation, presumably for good.

When he did return, Lee made three nice starts in a row, allowing nine runs (eight earned) on 19 hits and three walks with 19 strikeouts in 21 innings. After that, however, Lee had some problems, allowing six runs (just two earned) on four hits and three walks with two strikeouts in three innings to the Detroit Tigers and then allowing two runs on four hits and four walks with four strikeouts in 5.1 innings against the Chicago White Sox.

Yesterday, Lee was back in control, allowing Minnesota to score three runs on five hits and a walk with seven strikeouts in seven innings. With that performance, Lee has a 3.19 ERA with 37 strikeouts and 14 walks in 42.1 innings in the major leagues this season.

Like Riley, he's a left-hander with good stuff and questionable control. He should be a full-time member of Cleveland's rotation starting next season.

Finally, pretty much everybody knows about Zambrano. At just 22 years of age, he has a 2.77 ERA (sixth-best in the NL), 160 strikeouts (10th-most in the NL; 7.05 K/9IP) and 86 walks (eighth-most in the NL; 3.79 BB/9IP) in 204.1 innings (sixth-most in the NL).

Since the All-Star break, Zambrano has a 1.61 ERA with 66 strikeouts (7.10 K/9IP) and 29 walks (3.12 BB/9IP) in 83.2 innings. He's pitched three complete games in that time while going 7-2.

Clearly, Zambrano appears to have the best future of these three young pitchers. The big question is whether or not he'll get a chance to see that future.

While pitching his third complete game of the season yesterday, Zambrano threw 129 pitches. That was the fifth time this season that Zambrano has thrown more than 120 pitches.

For the season, he averages 106.8 pitches per start, but he has been abused much more in recent games, which isn't really surprising considering that the Cubs are in a playoff race.

In his last 10 starts, Zambrano has averaged 115.2 pitches and he's thrown more than 115 pitches seven times. In his last four starts, he's averaged 119.5 pitches.

I know every game is critical to Chicago's chances of making the playoffs, but Dusty Baker and the Cubs need to be careful with Zambrano. If the only way they can make the playoffs is to work him as hard as they have been recently, then I'd rather they didn't make the playoffs. Playing in October isn't worth the risk that Zambrano won't be able to play at all for an extended period of time.

It will be interesting to see which one of these young, hard-throwers with less-than-stellar control will end up having the best career. We need only look at another of yesterday's pitchers to remember that you can't always tell what will happen to a pitcher with great stuff and not-so-great command.

Yesterday, Randy Johnson pitched a complete-game, one-hit, one-walk, 12-strikeout shutout. His game score yesterday was 96, which may be the best of this season (Kevin Millwood had a 94 game score when he threw his no-hitter).

When Johnson was 22 years old, he had just started pitching professionally after being drafted by Montreal in the second round of the 1985 draft. He had a 5.93 ERA with 21 strikeouts and 24 walks in 27.1 innings for Jamestown of the short-season New York-Penn League that year.

When he was 24 years old, Johnson pitched the whole season for Jacksonville of the Class AA Southern League. He had a 3.73 ERA with 163 strikeouts (10.48 K/9IP) and 128 walks (8.23 BB/9IP) in 140 innings.

At age 25, Johnson started the season with Indianapolis of the Class AAA American Association, where he posted a 3.26 ERA with 111 strikeouts (8.81 K/9IP) and 72 walks (5.72 BB/9IP) in 113.1 innings. He also got his first shot in the majors that year, posting a 2.42 ERA with 25 strikeouts and seven walks in 26 innings with the Expos.

I'm sure nobody envisioned Johnson turning into one of the greatest left-handed pitchers of all-time back then, just like nobody knows exactly what will become of the three young pitchers who caught my interest yesterday.

Wilson showing his stuff

Every year, it seems, several fantasy baseball columnists get very excited about Craig Wilson. There are two reasons for this. First, Wilson's a pretty good hitter. Second, Wilson qualifies as a catcher in most fantasy leagues.

The problem is that the Pirates haven't always been as excited about Wilson as everybody else. In his first two seasons in the big leagues, Wilson put up some very solid offensive numbers, but only played in 219 games and only got 526 at-bats (2.4 AB/G).

On the surface, this season looks like more of the same. Wilson has played in only 100 out of 145 games and he only has 250 at-bats (2.5 AB/G). That is mostly because the Pirates ignored him a lot at the beginning of the season and he struggled somewhat when they did use him.

By the end of May, Wilson had sat on the bench for 23 games and was hitting just .208/.326/.375 (.701). Wilson saw more playing time in June (he didn't play in just six games) and hit .325/.400/.450 (.850).

Still, for the season he had just three home runs and eight doubles. He doubled that home run total in July, when he again sat out six games and hit .228/.313/.474 (.786).

Then, in August, Wilson saw the bench a lot again, sitting out for 10 games. When he did play, however, he made a lot of noise. He hit five home runs in 42 at-bats and hit .333/.472/.786 (1.257) for the month.

Now, Wilson has played in 13 consecutive games and he's been on fire the past week. In Pittsburgh's last seven games, Wilson is hitting .423/.500/1.000 (1.500) with five home runs. For the season, he's hitting .268/.368/.528 (896) with 16 home runs.

Wilson's recent performance shouldn't really be that big of a surprise because, as I said before, he's always been a good hitter.

After being drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays in the second round in 1995, Wilson hit .283/.367/.484 (.851) with seven homers in 49 games in rookie ball. The Blue Jays included Wilson as a player to be named later in a trade that winter, and the following season he hit .261/.316/.402 (.718) with 11 home runs in 131 games for Class A Hagerstown. That would be the worst performance of his career.

The next year, he moved to Class A Lynchburg, where he hit .264/.350/.476 (.826) with 19 homers in 117 games. He started at Lynchburg again in 1998, but moved up to Class AA Carolina after hitting .269/.348/.507 (.855) with 12 homers in 61 games. In 45 games with Carolina, he hit .331/.399/.507 (.906) with five home runs.

In 1999, Wilson played for Class AA Altoona, where he hit .268/.367/.508 (.875) with 20 homers in 111 games. The next year, he moved up to Class AAA Nashville and set the league on fire, hitting .283/.383/.604 (.987) with 33 homers in 124 games.

In 2001, Wilson got his first shot at the major leagues, and he hit .310/.390/.589 (.979) with 13 homers in 81 games. Last year, Wilson hit .264/.355/.443 (.798) with 16 homers in 131 games.

After his performance this season, Wilson has a nice major league hitting line of .276/.366/.501 (.867) with 45 home runs in 318 games. The fact that he's cheap and can play catcher, first base and the corner outfield positions makes him even more valuable.

Now, you might look at his splits and say that he shouldn't get much playing time against righties, but that's not really true. Sure, Wilson is hitting .337/.465/.750 (1.215) with 10 homers in 92 at-bats against lefties this year and just .228/.305/.399 (.704) with six homers in 158 at-bats against righties, but those are small sample sizes.

Before this year, Wilson had hit .331/.401/.529 (.930) with nine homers in 157 at-bats against lefties and .255/.350/.469 (.819) with 20 homers in 369 at-bats against righties. So, he's definitely a better hitter against lefties, but I don't think he's so bad against righties that he shouldn't ever be in the lineup against them.

As far as I'm concerned, the Pirates should make Wilson a full-time player next year and see what he can do. They're not going to the playoffs next year anyway, so if he struggles it doesn't really hurt. If he shows that he can play every day, however, it could really help the Pirates down the road.

Football stuff

As some of you may remember, I am now writing a weekly fantasy football column for the Rochester (NY) Democrat and Chronicle. Here's the link to this week's column:

Fantasy football: Keep your RBs

I wanted to ask you to e-mail me if you read the column. I'd love to know what you think of it, and I also am curious to find out how many people go read my column from my blog.

Also, you may have noticed that I added a section to the column on the right labeled "My Football Picks." If you remember, Seth Stohs asked me to make football picks every week this season for him to post on his web site along with the picks of eight other people.

Well, I've decided to list how I do in that league on this blog. Every Tuesday, I will list how I did the previous week and update my overall record, along with my rank among the nine "experts" in both areas.

Last week, I went 10-6, which was tied for the fourth-best. I am also in another picks league (one that has money involved) and I went 12-4 in that one. Sometime between when I turned my picks in to Seth last Wednesday and when I turned my picks in to the guy who runs the other league I'm in on Friday, I changed my mind about the Dallas/Atlanta game and the San Diego/Kansas City game. My second intuition ended up being right in both cases, so I was two games better in the other league (I guess if you're going to do better in one than the other, though, it's nice to do better in the one that has money involved).

Anyway, everybody's picks for Week 2 have been posted over at Seth's Football Picks Page.

Finally, I wanted to once again thank everybody who has stopped by to read this blog. I had 448 visitors yesterday, which is far and away the most this site has ever had in one day. It's only September 12th, and I've already had almost as many visitors this month as all of last month. I really appreciate all of the interest.

Around the league

Nothing really big jumps out at me today, so I'm just going to note one thing that occurred to me for each game while I was looking through the box scores.

FLA/NYM - I know it's remarkable that he came back from a serious injury to pitch at age 42 and I know Mets fans love him, but John Franco has been very lucky to post a 2.73 ERA in 29.2 innings this season. Franco has a 1.48 WHIP and has allowed batters to hit .274 off of him. His 12 walks (3.64 BB/9IP) isn't terrible, but it is when combined with only 12 strikeouts. He's also allowed five homers in under 30 innings (1.52 HR/9IP).

BOS/BAL - Everybody knows that Pedro Martinez, who pitched eight shutout innings with nine strikeouts against the Orioles yesterday, is a tremendous pitcher, but I don't think everybody understands just how good he's been. Since the beginning of the 1997 season, Martinez is 116-36 with a 2.22 ERA, 0.94 WHIP, 1742 strikeouts (11.29 K/9IP), 312 walks (2.02 BB/9IP) and 93 homers allowed (0.60 HR/9IP) in 1389 innings. That is simply amazing.

DET/NYY - Other people have already written about this, but I'm stunned by the fact that Jason Giambi has a .402 OBP since the All-Star break despite hitting just .205 over that stretch. Giambi is in an awful hitting slump in the second half, but he's drawn 42 walks and been hit by 10 pitches since the break to continue to be an asset to the Yankees offense.

PHI/ATL - The Braves need to rest John Smoltz so that he's healthy for the playoffs? Not a problem. Just have Will Cunnane come in and post a 1.26 ERA, 0.77 WHIP, 13 strikeouts and four walks in 14.1 innings while saving three games. This is the same Will Cunnane whose best ERA in a season, by a full run, was his 4.23 mark with the Padres in 2000.

CHC/MTL - After this season, it would serve the Cubs right if Hee Seop Choi never turns into a good player. Even after being jerked around so much that his batting average has fallen to .220, Choi still has a .353 OBP. If the Cubs had just stuck him in their lineup (against righties at the very least) and left him there, he might have solved their well-documented offensive woes. Hopefully, they haven't damaged his confidence so much that he can't recover.

PIT/CIN - The people who showed up in Cincinnati yesterday were treated to a surprising pitcher's duel. Oliver Perez, making his third start for the Pirates, allowed two runs on three hits and a walk with 10 strikeouts in seven innings. In his last two starts, Perez has allowed three runs on nine hits and four walks with 16 strikeouts in 14 innings. On the other side, Todd Van Poppel was making his first start for the Reds and allowed one run on six hits and no walks with nine strikeouts in six innings.

TOR/TB - Eric Hinske has made a nice recovery from his early-season sophomore slump. Hinske was hitting .232/.322/.387 (.709) when he went on the disabled list in late May. Since coming back, he has hit .257/.347/.502 (.849), which is very similar to the .279/.365/.481 (.846) numbers he posted as a rookie.

MIN/CWS - Johan Santana pitched a nice game yesterday to pull the Twins within a game of the White Sox heading into the final game of their series against each other. Today, Mark Prior is pitching for the Cubs. I know the Twins and their fans are very high on Joe Mauer (who they took with the number one pick in 2002 instead of Prior), but wouldn't it be nice to have Prior going today against Esteban Loaiza with first place on the line?

Although, if the Twins did have Prior, there would probably be two differences. First, the Twins would probably have at least a little bit of a lead in the AL Central. Second, Santana would probably not be in the rotation, because the Twins just don't seem to understand how to best allocate their resources.

CLE/KC - When the Royals traded for Rondell White, I thought it was a too little, too late move. Well, White has been somewhat injured and hasn't played that much for KC, but he's been good when he has played. White is hitting .368/.417/.526 (.943) in just 19 at-bats in the AL this year. If he can play the rest of this season and keep hitting this well (I know, he probably can't do either), then the Royals still have a shot.

HOU/MIL - I've meant to mention this several different times, but Richard Hidalgo is having an amazing season. Sure, he only has 24 homers and 77 RBI, but he's hitting .308/.385/.562 (.947). Also, keep in mind that he was shot this offseason and he was coming off posting an .811 OPS in 2001 and a .734 OPS last year.

COL/STL - We've officially got ourselves a Triple Crown race folks. After hitting two home runs yesterday, Albert Pujols is first in the NL in batting average at .367 (Todd Helton is second at .351), first in the NL in homers with 41 (Barry Bonds is second with 40) and he's second in the NL in RBI with 121 (Preston Wilson is first with 129).

I don't know when the last time somebody led the league in two categories while sitting in second in the third category this late in the season was, but Pujols has a definite shot at winning the Triple Crown, which isn't all that meaningful but sure is a lot of fun.

LA/ARI - Matt Mantei has quietly turned in a solid season as Arizona's closer. He missed some time with injury, but he's saved 22 games while posting a 2.63 ERA, 1.06 WHIP 61 strikeouts (11.44 K/9IP), 17 walks (3.19 BB/9IP) and four homers allowed (0.75 HR/9IP) in 48 innings.

ANA/OAK - Before this season, one of the biggest storylines was whether Oakland's new closer (Keith Foulke) would do better than Oakland's old closer (Billy Koch).

Well, Foulke now has 40 saves with a 2.16 ERA, 0.87 WHIP, 83 strikeouts (9.46 K/9IP), 18 walks (2.05 BB/9IP) and nine homers allowed (1.03 HR/9IP) in 79 innings. Meanwhile, Koch has 11 saves with a 5.55 ERA, 1.58 WHIP, 36 strikeouts (6.66 K/9IP), 24 walks (4.44 BB/9IP) and 10 homers allowed (1.85 HR/9IP) in 48.2 innings.

Now Foulke says he's willing to sign for $6 million/year to stay with the A's. It will be interesting to see if Billy Beane resigns him or lets him go for draft picks.

TEX/SEA - As far as the Mariners and their playoff hopes are concerned, Joel Pineiro picked a great time to break out of his slump.

Back at the end of July, Pineiro was 13-5 with a 3.03 ERA and seemed poised to toss his hat into the Cy Young Award ring. Since then, however, he had gone 0-5 with a 7.88 ERA, 1.84 WHIP, 24 strikeouts, 11 walks and seven homers allowed in 32 innings. Last night, however, he pitched a complete game, allowing just one run on four hits and a walk with 10 strikeouts.

SF/SD - Last night's game was a perfect illustration of why this has been such a tough season for the Padres. Phil Nevin hit his 10th home run of the season after coming back from his dislocated shoulder and Trevor Hoffman pitched his third scoreless inning in his third appearance since returning from his injury. With everybody healthy next season, it will be exciting to see what the Padres can do in the first year in their new park.

A strange career path

For some reason, I've had an unusual amount of interest in Carlos Lee for a few years. I guess I thought he would become a really good hitter and I kept watching him closely to see if there were any signs that he was about to break out. Well, last year there was a sign, but he is still not breaking out. At least not in a way that really helps the Chicago White Sox.

In Lee's rookie season at age 23, he hit .293/.312/.463 (.775) with 16 home runs and 13 walks in 127 games. So, he obviously had some nice potential, but he also had a lot of work to do.

In each of his next two seasons (during which he played 152 and 150 games, respectively), he hit 24 home runs and drew 38 walks. He was a free swinger with some nice power and, as can happen to players who don't draw many walks, those two seasons were very different despite identical home run and walk totals.

Lee had 22 more hits in 2000 than he did in 2001, so he was much more valuable on offense that year. In 2000, he hit .301/.345/.484 (.829) and in 2002 he hit .269/.321/.468 (.789).

Then, as I said, Lee had a breakthrough last year. He learned how to draw a walk. After taking 76 free passes combined over the previous two seasons (302 games), Lee drew 75 walks last year in 140 games. He went from drawing a walk every 16.1 plate appearances to drawing a walk every 7.7 plate appearances.

Unfortunately for Lee and the White Sox, his improved plate discipline didn't help his hitting as much as you might have thought it would. He hit 26 home runs and his batting average fell, slightly, yet again. Lee hit .264/.359/.484 (.843) with a career-low 80 RBI.

Still, there's no doubt that last year was his most productive season. Hitters, however, are not sabremetricians for the most part. They still like batting average, runs, RBI and most of them don't care about OBP.

And I guess you can't really blame them. After all, there's no award for the person who wins the OBP title as there is for the player who wins the batting title. And MVPs are generally chosen for their high RBI totals instead of their high OPS's.

So, while I don't have any actual evidence, I suspect that Lee saw that his more patient approach had resulted in the worst batting average and RBI marks of his career without a significant increase in home runs and decided to go back to being a free swinger.

This year, Lee is hitting .292 with 28 home runs and 100 RBI, but he's drawn just 35 walks. As a result, he's hitting .292/.336/.505 (.841). So, even if OBP weren't much more important than SLG, Lee would be having a slightly worse year than he did last year.

If you ask him, or certain media types, however, they would probably say he is having a breakout season. And that's unfortunate, because it means that he's unlikely to go back to drawing a lot of walks. And that means that his offensive value will have nothing to fall back on the next time he gets unlucky and loses 10-15 hits because of any of a number of things that can happen when you put the ball in play.

To more clearly illustrate how walks have affected Lee's offensive value, here are his EqA's from 1999 to this season with his walk totals that year in parentheses.

.261 (13), .278 (38), .272 (38), .291 (75), .280 (35).

If you have Lee on your fantasy baseball team, you have to be thrilled with what he's doing this season. If you're a member of Chicago's front office or a fan of the team, however, you should be disappointed that a hitter with a lot of talent is regressing after taking such an important step last season.

Dubious distinction

I was at work yesterday while Mike Mussina was winning his 16th game of the season against the Toronto Blue Jays when a co-worker asked me a question.

His question: Is Mussina the best pitcher who has never won 20 games in a season?

To answer that, we should first say how good Mussina has been.

After yesterday's performance, he now has a career record of 198-109 with a 3.52 ERA, 1.16 WHIP, 2114 strikeouts (7.18 K/9IP), 592 walks (2.01 BB/9IP) and 277 homers allowed (0.94 HR/9IP) in 2651.1 innings. For his career, the average batter facing him has hit .247/.288/.390 (.678).

Mussina has won 19 games twice and 18 games three other times (and he has a shot at reaching 18 or 19 wins again this season).

So, Mussina has obviously been a very good pitcher. In fact, his career ERA+ of 129 (before this season) is tied for 37th among all pitchers who have pitched enough (1,000 innings and 100 decisions) to be listed on the leaderboards at Baseball-Reference.com.

Now to answer the question.

The answer to the question I wrote at the top of this post might not be yes. There is one pitcher who could currently be considered a better pitcher and who never won 20 games.

According to Baseball-Reference, there are nine pitchers with a better career ERA+ than Mussina who have never won 20 games in a season. None of those pitchers, however, were primarily starters. Five of them (Dan Quisenberry, John Franco, Bruce Sutter, Lee Smith and Kent Tekulve) never made a single start and two others (Doug Jones and Jesse Orosco) made just four career starts. Of those seven pitchers, only Tekulve (1436.1 innings) pitched more than 1300 innings in his career. One of the other two pitchers was John Hiller, who made 43 career starts but pitched just 1242 innings.

Since none of them came close to pitching as many innings as Mussina has, I'd have a lot of trouble calling any of them a better pitcher than Mussina.

That leaves just Hoyt Wilhelm.

Wilhelm made 52 starts in his career and pitched 2254.1 innings. He finished with a 146 career ERA+.

In 21 seasons, he went 143-122 with 227 saves and a 2.52 ERA, 1.12 WHIP, 1610 strikeouts (6.43 K/9IP), 778 walks (3.11 BB/9IP) and 150 homers allowed (0.60 HR/9IP). He won 15 games twice (once strictly as a reliever and once when he made 27 starts in 1959) and 11 or 12 games three other times.

He pitched about 400 fewer innings than Mussina has, but his ERA+ is much better and he probably pitched more "crucial" innings than Mussina has.

Quite frankly, however, I don't care whether or not Hoyt Wilhelm is a better pitcher than Mike Mussina because, while it would answer the question, it wouldn't answer the interesting question.

It's not interesting to learn that Wilhelm never won 20 games in a season because you wouldn't have expected him to ever win 20 games in a season. So, let's modify the question so that it's interesting.

Is Mike Mussina the best pitcher who has primarily been a starter in his career to not win 20 games in a season?

The answer to that question is yes.

Of all the pitchers with a career ERA+ of at least 125 who have made at least 100 starts in their career, only two have never won 20 games in a season. One is Mussina and the other is Max Lanier.

Lanier pitched from 1938-1953, mostly with the Cardinals, and went 108-82 with a 3.01 ERA (125 ERA+), 821 strikeouts, 611 walks and 65 home runs allowed in 1619.1 innings. You'll notice that I didn't make as many calculations for Lanier as for Mussina and Wilhelm. That's because you don't need as many calculations to see that Lanier wasn't nearly as good a pitcher as Mussina has been.

Especially if you consider that Lanier's best seasons (including his career-high 17 wins in 1944) came while many of the best baseball players were serving in World War II.

If you look at all the pitchers who have an ERA+ better than 120, the list of players with at least 100 starts who never won 20 games in a season has four additions -- Kevin Appier, Jimmy Key, Dave Stieb and Johnny Rigney. Rigney only played for eight years, making 132 starts and pitching 1186.1 innings, so he can be eliminated from the discussion immediately.

Appier, who won 18 games with the Royals in 1993, is muddling through a pretty bad season, but he's had a pretty nice career. He had a 124 career ERA+ coming into this season, and he's now 169-136 with a 3.72 ERA, 1.29 WHIP, 1992 strikeouts (6.92 K/9IP), 930 walks (3.23 BB/9IP) and 232 homers allowed (0.81 HR/9IP) in 2591.1 innings.

As you can probably tell, he's not as good a pitcher as Mussina. He's pitched fewer innings with a higher ERA, higher WHIP, lower K/9IP and higher BB/9IP. The only thing he's done better than Mussina is keep batters from hitting home runs.

Key, like Mussina, may have been robbed of a shot at a 20-win season by the last strike. Key had 17 wins for the Yankees when the season was canceled in 1994 and he probably would have gotten 10 or so more starts that season. Mussina, on the other hand, won 19 games for the Orioles in 1995. If the season hadn't started late, Mussina probably would have made three or four more starts that season.

Anyway, back to Key, whose career high in wins was 18 in 1993. Key went 186-117 with a 3.51 ERA (122 ERA+), 1.23 WHIP, 1538 strikeouts (5.34 K/9IP), 668 walks (2.32 BB/9IP) and 254 homers allowed (0.88 HR/9IP) in 2591.2 innings. Like Appier, Key is clearly not as good as Mussina.

Key pitched fewer innings and, although his ERA was about the same as Mussina's is, Key retired before the offenses really started going crazy (hence his worse ERA+). Key also didn't strike out nearly as many batters as Mussina and walked more. Key was slightly better at preventing home runs.

Stieb won 18 games twice and 17 games three times. For his career, he was 176-137 with a 3.44 ERA (122 ERA+), 1.25 WHIP, 1669 strikeouts (5.19 K/9IP), 1034 walks (3.21 BB/9IP) and 225 homers allowed (0.70 HR/9IP).

This might be a lot closer if Stieb had retired after the 1991 season, but instead he pitched 169 bad innings after that. Had he retired, he still would have pitched more innings (2726.1) than Mussina has so far, and his ERA+ would be at least somewhat closer to Mussina's.

Instead, Stieb has a better ERA, but worse ERA+ (thanks to the recent offensive increase) and had many fewer strikeouts and many more walks. He did allow home runs much less frequently, but that can probably be partly attributed to the seasons in which he pitched as well.

So, it seems pretty clear to me that Mussina is, in fact, the best starting pitcher (however you want to qualify that) who has never won 20 games in a season.

Fortunately for him, he has at least a few more years to try and pass that mantle on to somebody else. If not, maybe he'll eventually become the only major-league starting pitcher in the Hall of Fame who never won 20 games in a season.

Right now, the only Hall-of-Famers without at least one 20-win season are relievers Wilhelm and Rollie Fingers and Negro Leaguer Hilton Smith.

Patient Pudge is good as ever

If you look at Ivan Rodriguez and his .867 OPS, you might think he's having a worse season than the last two seasons, when he had OPS's of .895 and .888. And you'd probably also think he's having a worse season than his AL MVP 1999 season, when he had a .914 OPS.

Well, if you thought all those things, you would be wrong.

Not only is Rodriguez just as good a hitter as he used to be, he is also a much different hitter. Before this season, Rodriguez drew a walk every 20.0 plate appearances on average. This season, Rodriguez is drawing a walk every 10.1 plate appearances on average.

During his last two seasons in Texas, Rodriguez played 219 games and drew 48 walks. This year, he has played 127 games and drawn 50 walks.

Rodriguez is hitting .305, which is exactly what his career average is, but his lowest average since he hit .300 in 1996. Because of all those walks, however, Rodriguez currently sports a career-best .379 OBP.

Rodriguez's best previous OBP was .375 in 2000, when he hit .347 but played just 91 games. Aside from this season and that injury-shortened season, Rodriguez has never had an OBP above .360 and has a career OBP of .345 despite regularly hitting above .300.

With a .379 OBP and a .488 SLG, Rodriguez has a .301 EqA this season. Last year, Rodriguez hit .314/.353/.542 and also had a .301 EqA. In 2001, Rodriguez hit .308/.347/.541 and had a .299 EqA.

In fact, if Rodriguez keeps his EqA above .300, it will be the first time in his career that he will finish a season with at least 110 games played and an EqA of at least .300.

When Rodriguez won the MVP award in 1999, he had an EqA of .297. Sure, he hit .332 with 35 home runs and 113 RBI and he stole 25 bases, but he also drew just 24 walks (for a .356 OBP) and was thrown out stealing 12 times (for a 67.6-percent success rate) and grounded into 32 double plays.

I was very upset that Pedro Martinez did not win the award despite posting a 2.07 ERA, 0.92 WHIP, 313 strikeouts (13.2 K/9IP) and 37 walks (1.56 BB/9IP) in 213.1 innings. I was more upset, however, that Rodriguez was the player who did win the award.

Sure, he did all the flashy things (hit for a high average, hit home runs, steal bases, throw out basestealers), but he didn't do nearly as much to help his team win as people seemed to think he did.

This year, however, Rodriguez really is doing a lot to help the Marlins stay in the wild card race. He's getting on base, he's still hitting for decent power, he's playing as much as you can reasonably expect a catcher to play and he's taking more pitches than he ever has.

It seems obvious, but one thing that goes hand in hand with drawing more walks is taking more pitches. The more pitches you see, the more you know what the pitcher's stuff looks like and the more pitches he has to throw. The more pitches the pitcher has to throw, the sooner he has to come out of the ball game.

So, when you take pitches, you help your team in a variety of ways. First, you increase the chances of drawing a walk, which means you're not making an out. Second, you increase your chances of getting a hit, which also means you're not making an out. Third, you increase your teammates chances of getting hits, which means they're not making outs. Fourth, you increase the chances of getting into the opponent's bullpen early, and bullpen's are generally easier to score against.

Rodriguez is seeing 3.69 pitches per plate appearance this season. His career average is 3.38 pitches per plate appearance and his career high was 3.48 pitches per plate appearance (set last year).

So, in his first season in the National League, Rodriguez has turned into a completely different hitter. And it's a good thing for the Marlins that he has.

Not a good day

Today (Sunday) was probably the most excited I've been for sports since February, 3 2002 (that's the day they played Super Bowl XXXVI, in case you didn't know). Well, as you may have noticed, it didn't go as I had hoped it would.

The day started off with the Buffalo Bills marching right down the field to take a quick 7-0 lead on the New England Patriots. The Pats then went three-and-out on their first possession, but they were able to force Buffalo to punt after the Bills had marched back down most of the field.

Unfortunately, the Patriots committed a penalty on said punt, giving the Bills a first down and allowing them to march back into the end zone for a 14-0 lead. NE went three-and-out again, but this time forced Buffalo to go three-and-out and did not commit a penalty on the punt.

Unfortunately (unfortunately was my word for the day), the Patriots didn't even get a chance to go three-and-out this time. On second down, Tom Brady threw an awful pass that Sam Adams picked off and rumbled into the end zone with.

So, just like that, the Bills wre up 21-0 on the Patriots, who looked like they didn't even know what sport they were supposed to be playing. Things clicked a little bit on the next drive, as the Patriots drove to Buffalo's 39-yard line before trying to take a shot at the end zone.

David Patten beat everybody to the end zone and would have had an easy touchdown, except that Brady underthrew the ball. Patten had to slow down, which allowed Lawyer Milloy (yes, the guy who was still on the Patriots last week) to catch up and tip the ball. After Milloy tipped the ball, Nate Clements made a tremendous adjustment to catch the ball, and then he got both feet down in the back of the end zone for an interception.

The Patriots were able to keep the Bills from scoring yet again before half time and went into the locker room trailing 21-0. They got the ball to start the second half and were able to pick up a couple first downs before punting.

Then, on Buffalo's second play of the second half, Travis Henry fumbled and the Patriots recovered, giving New England excellent field position at Buffalo's 26-yard line and a chance to get right back into the game.

The Patriots needed just three plays to get to Buffalo's 3-yard line, and it looked like the game's momentum was shifting. Unfortunately (there's that word again), the Patriots then decided to take out Kevin Faulk (who finished the game with 62 yards on 10 carries) and put in Antowain Smith (who finished the game with seven yards on six carries). The Patriots handed the ball to Smith twice, and twice he did nothing with it.

On third down, the Patriots brought Faulk back in, but a penalty moved them back to the 8-yard line. Luckily, Brady was able to find Patten in the corner of the end zone for a touchdown.

Or so I thought.

Patten caught the ball, got one foot down and was pushed out of bounds. This is all that is required of a receiver for a completion, except for one change that was enacted last year -- you must complete the act of making a reception (in english, you have to hold onto the ball after you hit the ground). Patten hit the ground, and the ball escaped his grasp, thus nullifying a touchdown that would have made it 21-7.

No matter, the Patriots decided to go for it again on fourth down and Brady fired a perfect strike into the hands of Deion Branch in the back of the end zone. Branch dropped the ball and the Bills gained possession.

Well, I thought to myself, at least the Bills are backed way up. Buffalo did open up a little bit of space before calling in Brian Moorman to punt from their own 26-yard line.

Moorman proceeded to boom a punt 71 yards to pin the Patriots near their goal line. Thus backed up, New England picked up one first down before Brady threw his third interception of the game. Shortly thereafter, the Bills scored to go up 28-0. On the next drive, Brady threw his fourth interception. Shortly thereafter, the Bills kicked a field goal to go up 31-0.

Now, one thing that had been keeping me from being completely and utterly unhappy during this debacle of a football game was that the Red Sox and Yankees were locked in a scoreless tie, meaning the Sox still had a shot at sweeping the New Yorkers in Yankee Stadium.

Then, in the seventh inning, Jeff Suppan gave up just his second hit of the game. That hit happened to be a two-run home run off the bat of Bernie Williams. Boston recovered a run in the top of the eighth, but gave it away again in the bottom of the eighth and only mildly threatened to score in the top of the ninth.

So, after starting the day with visions of the Patriots kicking the Bills up and down the field while the Red Sox swept the Yankees out of their own house, I was a very disappointed man about three and a half hours later.

Then, shortly after the Patriots loss was complete, I got the news that the Miami Dolphins had lost to the Houston Texans. Now, being a Patriots fan I really don't like the Dolphins and I almost always root against them. Today, however, I was rooting for them because I picked them in my suicide pool. Since they lost, I'm out of the pool (along with 38 of the other 69 people entered) after one week.

Also, I lost the first game of the season in both of my fantasy leagues this week. Adding insult to injury is the fact that my opponent in both leagues was a female (please don't take any offense if you happen to be a female, I know plenty of females who are big sports fans). In this case, one opponent was my girlfriend, who is not that big a sports fan, and the other one was one of my co-workers, who got stuck with a bad team because the draft was on the night of the big blackout and she hadn't pre-ranked her players.

The only thing keeping this day from being a complete disaster is that I did pretty well in the picks league that I can win money in. I've got three games wrong so far (I picked the Patriots, the Dolphins and the Raiders) and I think I'll have a shot at winning the week if the Eagles win tomorrow night.

Now, it's time to go to sleep and hope tomorrow turns out better than today.

Thanks for stopping by, I'll most likely make a baseball-related post sometime Monday (hopefully in the morning).

PS - I'm absolutely amazed by all the readers I've been getting recently. I had 475 visitors the past two days -- easily my two best days yet -- AND IT WAS THE WEEKEND! I really do appreciate all of the traffic and I hope you'll continue to stop by. Also, don't hesitate to let me know what you think of my blog.

Very cool

From 6 p.m. to 1 a.m. last night, about 200 people visited this site. Now, back when I was writing every day, I was getting 120-140 visitors a day. Since I had cut back due to working a lot, I was down to about 50-60 visitors per day.

So, I was obviously very curious as to why I was suddenly such a popular blogger. Well, I just found out. My blog is currently listed on Blogger's Blogs of Note.

I am very excited about this and would like to thank whoever decided to list my blog there. I would also like to thank everybody who has stopped by since my blog has been posted there. I hope you liked my post from Friday, because that's about what my blogging used to be like (and I hope will be like again for the foreseeable future) before I got really busy.

Now, as you probably realize, today was a very good day to be a sports fan.

The first thing I did when I got up this morning was watch College Game Day on ESPN (the astute among you will realize that this means I didn't get up until 10:30 this morning). College Football is probably my third favorite "sports league" behind MLB and the NFL (I would say NBA, college basketball, PGA, ATP/WTA and NHL follow in approximately that order) and I liked College Game Day with Chris Fowler, Lee Corso and Kirk Herbstreet last year.

All three of them know their stuff pretty well, and Fowler kept Corso from wandering too far afield with his tangents. Today, however, I noticed that they've added Rocket Ismail to the mix. From what I saw today, Ismail brings excitedness and a lot of yelling when he gets excited. Combined with Corso's occasional excitedness, it was mayhem.

There was actually a point this morning where Fowler had to yell, "Football, people, football. Let's get back to football." It was very funny. Anyway, after an hour and a half of watching College Game Day while doing more fantasy football research, I turned on the U.S. Open.

I was hoping that Andre Agassi and Andy Roddick would meet in the finals, but after just a few games it became apparent that Agassi would have a tough time with Juan Carlos Ferrero. Indeed, Ferrero took the first two sets before it was time for Game Two of the Red Sox/Yankees series to start.

Agassi would win the third set before losing the fourth set to get eliminated from the championship. Of course, while I was watching tennis, I was also watching three college football games. On ESPN, Michigan was playing Houston and that game quickly turned into a blowout, so I didn't watch too much of it.

By the time I turned on the Penn State/Boston College game on ABC, BC was already up 14-0. A few plays later, the Eagles picked off a screen pass and returned it to the 1-yard line, before scoring to go up 21-0. So, I didn't watch too much more of that game either.

The third game, however, was a dandy. On the YES Network, defending champion Ohio State was playing San Diego State University, and the Buckeyes were trailing 7-3 with the Aztecs driving. SDSU had a first-and-goal on Ohio State's 5-yard line when quarterback Matt Dlugolecki made a horrible pass and Will Allen picked it off and went the distance with it. So, instead of taking a 14-3 lead, SDSU fell behind 10-7 and I figured that was the end of that upset opportunity.

However, SDSU held surprisingly tough, trading field goals with the Buckeyes until the score was 16-13. SDSU got the ball back with 4:13 left on its own 35-yard line. The Aztecs were able to go to Ohio State's 46-yard line before running into fourth-and-10 with 2:53 left to play.

Now, 2:53 is a lot of time and SDSU had been playing tremendous defense, so I thought they would try to pin the Buckeyes deep and force a three-and-out. Instead, they went for it, Dlugolecki's pass was incomplete and that was that.

Somewhere in the middle of that, I watched the Red Sox pound the Yankees for the second day in a row, which was very satisfying to me (for those of you who don't know, I'm a fan of the Red Sox, Patriots, Celtics, Bruins and Notre Dame). Aside from the fact that Boston is helping its chances of making the playoffs tremendously, the thing I love most is all the panic going on in New York.

George Steinbrenner sounds like he's about to fire the whole team and people are starting to doubt whether or not the Yankees will make the playoffs. ESPN.com currently has a poll on its baseball page asking which team out of Oakland, Boston, Seattle and New York will miss the playoffs.

Last week, there was a similar poll and the Red Sox were the most popular pick by quite a bit. Today, 14,261 people have voted so far and 52.9-percent of them think the Mariners will miss the playoffs, 25.6-percent think it will be the Yankees, 15-percent say the Red Sox and 6.3-percent say the Athletics.

Tomorrow promises to be one of the most anxious days for me as a sports fan in awhile. At the same time, the Patriots will kick off their season against the Buffalo Bills and the Red Sox will try to sweep the Yankees. And BOTH games will be on TV for me to watch. If both teams win, I will be a very, very happy person tomorrow night.

I mentioned before that I'm a fan of the Fighting Irish, but with so much other stuff going on, I forgot that they would be on TV at 2:30. By the time I turned the game on, the first half was over and the Irish were losing 19-3.

My parent were in town this weekend, and we were going to eat dinner with my girlfiend and her parents tonigh, so I had to leave my apartment at 5 p.m.

When I left, Notre Dame was trailing 19-6 and Andy Roddick (who I also wanted to win) had already lost the first set. When I got home, I found out that Notre Dame had rallied back to win 29-26 in overtime and Roddick had rallied back to reach the U.S. Open final.

Also, I got home just in time to see the fabulous finish to the Miami/Florida game. When I turned the game on, Florida was winning 33-25. Apparently, they had fallen behind 10-3 before scoring 30 unanswered points, but they then gave up 15 unanswered points.

They would give up 13 more points to give Miami a 38-33 lead before true freshman Chris Leak tried to lead the Gators to an amazing win. Leak drove Florida all the way down to Miami's 19-yard line before throwing his first college interception.

Other amazing stuff from today:

South Carolina trounced No. 15 Virginia 31-7

Bowling Green edged No. 20 Purdue 27-26

Georgia Tech topped No. 19 Auburn 17-3, meaning that an Auburn team many people were picking to challenge for a national title is now 0-2 and has scored just three points this year.

Roy Halladay pitched a 10-inning shutout, allowing just three hits. In his last two starts, Halladay has gone 19 innings, allowing one run on seven hits. He has 19 wins, a 3.42 ERA and 234 innings pitched. Simply amazing.

Finally, Oakland and Seattle lost to Tampa Bay and Baltimore, respectively.

As I said, it was a great day to be a sports fan, especially if you were rooting for the same teams I was. And tomorrow could be even better.

I love this time of year.