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.

Front office talk

Everybody talks about how the Cincinnati Reds have torn their team apart with trades, but nobody says the same thing about the Pittsburgh Pirates for some reason. The Pirates, in case you don't remember, have traded away Brian Giles, Kenny Lofton, Aramis Ramirez, Jeff Suppan, Scott Sauerbeck and Mike Williams. They also tried to trade Jason Kendall.

However, despite all of the players they have gotten rid of in order to rebuild their ballclub, the Pirates still have a player who certainly could have helped a number of teams in playoff battles.

Matt Stairs went 2-for-4 with his 17th home run of the season last night, and is now hitting .297/.385/.574 (.960) in 102 games (249 at-bats). Stairs has obviously not played enough to qualify for the batting title, but if he had, that .960 OPS would put him 11th in the entire major leagues.

The main reason Stairs hasn't played enough to qualify for the batting title is that he doesn't hit lefties very well and simply shouldn't be playing against them. To their credit, the Pirates have not used him against lefties very much. Stairs has just 24 at-bats against southpaws this year, in which time he has hit .208/.296/.458 (.754). That's not a very big sample, but from 2000-2002, Stairs hit .192/.279/.333 (.612) in 156 at-bats against lefties.

However, Stairs can certainly hit right-handers. In 225 at-bats this season, Stairs is hitting .307/.395/.587 (.982) against righties. That is a lot higher than what he did from 2000-2002, when he hit .246/.356/.463 (.819), but Stairs clearly still has the ability to hit well against righties.

The Pirates were not (and are not) going to do anything this season with or without Stairs and, at age 35, he is obviously not in their plans for the future. Why the didn't trade him for whatever they could get (even if it's just a marginal prospect) is beyond me.

You cannot possibly tell me that there was no team even remotely interested in a player who can bash right-handed pitching and only costs $900,000. Heck, just looking at last night's box scores, I can point out a team that definitely could use Stairs.

Maybe they didn't know it before, but after managing just four hits, two walks and no runs against Jorge Sosa, the Mariners must realize that they are at least one bat short of having a good offense.

The area in which the Mariners are especially deficient is hitting right-handed pitching. Want to guess how many Seattle players -- counting everybody, no matter how few at-bats they've had -- have an OPS against right-handed pitchers higher than Stairs' .982?

The answer is just one. Jamie Moyer is 1-for-2, which works out to hitting .500/.500/.500 (1.000), against righties this year.

Only Bret Boone, who is hitting .309/.367/.578 (.945) against righties, has an OPS above .860 among all the Mariners with at least 10 at-bats against right-handers this season.

I know Stairs isn't as good in the outfield as Randy Winn, but Winn is hitting just .267/.322/.366 (.688) against right-handers this season. I'll do the math for you and point out that Stairs' OPS against righties is 294 points higher than that.

I know Pat Gillick hates making trades (although he did get lucky with Rey Sanchez. I don't know how a player hits .207/.240/.236 in 174 at-bats with one team and then .348/.390/.384 in 112 at-bats with another team), but he should have traded for Stairs. It probably wouldn't have cost him much, and it could have really helped the Mariners. Even if Seattle didn't use him against righties every day, Stairs would have given them a potent pinch-hitter against a right-hander.

I don't know which team is to blame for Stairs not being traded -- Seattle for not offering anything or Pittsburgh for not accepting the offer -- so I'll blame both of them. It may not seem like a big deal, but it really could have helped both teams. The Pirates would have gotten a player they might be able to use down the road and the Mariners would have gotten a player who might have helped get them into the playoffs.

At any rate, I'm glad the trade didn't happen for two reasons. One, it gave me something to write about today. Two, the Mariners are now half a game behind the Red Sox in the wild card race, and they do not scare me at all.

While I'm bashing teams for moves they didn't make, I thought I'd check in on an earlier trade and bash a team for a move it did make. When the Red Sox traded Shea Hillenbrand to the Diamondbacks for Byung-Hyun Kim, there were two distinct camps.

Sabremetrically inclined baseball fans thought it was an absolute steal for the Red Sox, and other fans wondered why Boston would get rid of a cheap, young, .300-hitting third baseman.

Well, after hitting .303/.335/.443 (778) in 185 at-bats for the Red Sox, Hillenbrand has hit .261/.291/.474 (.764) with the Diamondbacks. That is pretty bad, especially that OBP, but it's not a complete and utter black hole for a third baseman.

There's a bit of a problem, though. If you look at his player page on ESPN.com closely, you'll notice that Hillenbrand is no longer listed as a third baseman. He's listed as a first baseman. After playing 29 games at third and 28 games at first with Boston, Hillenbrand has played 25 games at third and 41 games first for Arizona.

Hillenbrand's "production" this season has been simply awful for a first baseman. In Arizona's organization alone, I'm sure there are two or three players who could provide adequate defense at first base and hit better than Hillenbrand has. There is simply no good reason to ever use Hillenbrand as a first baseman.

Arizona got rid of a good, young pitcher for a bad, not-quite-as-young hitter. It was and still is an awful deal.

Now, Kim hasn't been as lights out as Red Sox fans had hoped he would be, but he does have a 3.55 ERA, 1.18 WHIP, 62 strikeouts (7.86 K/9IP) and 17 walks (2.15 BB/9IP) in 71 innings. And he's 3.5 years younger than Hillenbrand.

The biggest reason trading Hillenbrand has been good for the Red Sox, however, is that they haven't been able to use him at first base like they were doing occassionally when he was on the team. It also doesn't hurt that they haven't been able to use him at third base. With Hillenbrand in Arizona, the Red Sox have three players who have been able to play pretty much every day, instead of one of them having to sit to make room for an unproductive hitter.

In case you're not aware, those three players are David Ortiz, Bill Mueller and Kevin Millar. Ortiz is hitting .293/.375/.602 (.977) with 35 doubles, 25 home runs and 84 RBI in 107 games. Mueller is hitting .319/.394/.543 (.936) with 41 doubles, 17 home runs, 73 runs and 74 RBI in 126 games. Millar is hitting .279/.355/.482 (.837) with 27 doubles, 22 home runs, 78 runs and 85 RBI in 128 games.

The Red Sox are currently scoring 6.05 runs per game (841 runs in 139 games) which puts them on pace for 980 runs. They still have a shot at scoring 1,000 runs, which they almost certainly would not have if they had kept Hillenbrand. More important, they still have a (good) shot at making the playoffs, which they also might not have had they kept Hillenbrand.

While I'm doling out congratulations to Boston's front office, I want to congratulate Kansas City's front office and ownership for not trading Carlos Beltran, who makes $6 million this year and will make a lot more next year.

After going 3-for-3 with a walk and three steals yesterday, Beltran is now hitting .306/.394/.514 (.907) with eight triples, 21 homers, 82 runs, 86 RBI and 33 steals in 36 attempts (91.7-percent success rate). In addition to being one of the best offensive centerfielders in baseball at the moment, he may also be the best base-stealer in baseball history.

In his career, Beltran has stolen 142 bases and been thrown out 19 times. Among all players with at least 200 stolen-base attempts (a group which does not yet include Beltran), I believe Tim Raines has the record with an 84.7-percent success rate (808 steals, 146 times caught stealing). Beltran's success rate for his career is currently at 88.2-percent, which is simply amazing.

The Royals may not win the AL Central (they are currently in third place, 1.5 games back) and they may not even finish with a winning record (they are currently 71-67), but they have certainly revived fan interest in their team. Last night, the Royals drew 20,385 fans to the ballpark, which isn't bad for a Thursday. So far this season, the Royals have drawn more than 20,000 fans to their home ballpark 37 times. In all of last season, the Royals had more than 20,000 fans at a home game just 21 times.

That is a tremendous improvement, and Beltran is a big part of the reason for it. The Royals may still trade Beltran in the offseason, but waiting until the offseason and allowing the team to try and make the playoffs will engender some good will with the fans.

Finally, I have some football-related stuff to talk about.

First, as I mentioned the other day, I am writing a weekly fantasy football column for the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. Here is the link to my first-ever column in a major daily newspaper:

Fantasy football: You're not the only owner looking for RB

I'm not technically a columnist because I don't get my headshot in the paper and the column doesn't get put in the "columnists" section on the website, but I get to use the first person and give my opinion, so that's all that really matters.

Also, Seth Stohs, who writes the blog Seth Speaks, which I have added to my list of links to the right, asked me if I would make picks for every NFL game this year, which he would post on his web site. I happily agreed, so myself and eight other people will be trying to correctly pick as many games as possible. Here's the link to see how we all picked this week.

Not only am I interested in beating everybody else Seth asked, I also want to see how I stack up against ESPN's expert football game pickers. I'll let you guys know how I do each week.

I'm a columnist now!

Well, sort of.

I'm still only employed part-time in the sports department at the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, but I have just been given the opportunity to write a fantasy football column for the next 17 weeks.

Obviously, this is, if not the highlight of my writing career, well up there. I'm hoping that this encourages them to hire me full-time and also that they let me write a fantasy baseball column next year.

For now, however, I'm just concentrating on putting together a good fantasy football column, which will appear in the paper every Friday. I will post a link to the column here when it comes out each week.

For this week, the good news means that I will be taking yet another day off from blogging so that I can research what I want to write about tomorrow. I will be back with at least one post tomorrow.

I love this game!

Baseball is certainly not a game for those with weak hearts. If you do not like being disappointed many dozens of times over the course of a summer, then you should definitely not try to become a die-hard fan of any baseball team. Unlike football, where even the worst teams only have to deal with losing 15 times a year, the best baseball teams must take the emotional blow of a loss about 60 times.

I've often talked about how difficult it is to be a Red Sox fan outside of New England, because I do not get to watch nearly as many games on TV. This year, however, it may be a good thing.

Boston is a good team this year and it is a fun and exciting team. It is also a very draining team. Almost every win feels like it could have been lost 10 different ways and almost every loss feels like it should have been won 10 different ways.

The emotions are a little easier to control, however, when you are not watching or listening to every single pitch. This weekend, however, I have been watching and listening.

Living in New York, I get the YES Network as part of my cable package. So, I happily watched as the Red Sox pounded the Yankees on Friday night. Then I watched and listened to most of an agonizing loss on Saturday afternoon before finally watching every pitch of another excruciating loss on Sunday.

And today, Boston's makeup game with the Phillies was on ESPN2, so I was able to watch this thriller as well.

The bottom of the first inning had just ended when I turned on the game and saw that the Red Sox were already trailing 2-0. I would later learn that the Red Sox had not scored in the first inning despite drawing two walks, but the first part of the game I really saw was Boston going down rather meekly in the second.

Still, I've seen enough of the Boston offense to know that a two-run deficit would not be all that difficult to overcome, so all I wanted was for Jeff Suppan to settle down and hold the Phillies down a bit.

Then, Tomas Perez singled to lead off the bottom of the second. Luckily, Philadelphia starting pitcher Brett Myers was up next, and he sacrificed Perez over to second. After Todd Walker made a nice play on a Marlon Byrd line drive, I felt confident that the score would not change before the bottom of the third.

I didn't count on Suppan hanging a breaking ball to Jimmy Rollins, who deposited it over the right-field wall. Rollins is now hitting .267/.318/.386 (.705) with seven homers, 41 walks and 94 strikeouts. If you let him hit a home run off you, it simply means that you were not concentrating hard enough on making good pitches.

So, the game went into the third inning with the Red Sox trailing 4-0 rather than 2-0. Before I had a chance to become despondent, however, Boston's metronomic offense clicked on.

Johnny Damon led off with a walk and then stole second (by the way, Damon has a .399 OBP since the All-Star break). Walker followed with a nice nine-pitch at-bat that ended with him slapping a high 3-2 pitch into right field for a single that moved Damon to third.

Nomar Garciaparra, whose double play was mainly responsible for Boston not scoring in the first inning, was then robbed of at least a single on a nifty bare-handed grab and strong one-hop throw across the diamond by Perez. Damon did score on the play to put the Red Sox on the board though.

David Ortiz then knocked the second pitch of his at-bat into left for a single to move Walker to third, Kevin Millar took his third pitch into left field to score Walker and move Ortiz to second and then Trot Nixon slammed a 3-2 pitch into right field for an RBI double to make it 4-3 Philadelphia.

AL batting leader Bill Mueller followed with a groundout to tie the game at 4-4 and Suppan struck out after the Phillies intentionally walked Jason Varitek.

So, the Red Sox had a fresh start and Suppan was able to carry it through to the fourth inning by working around a walk and a single in the third.

In the top of thr fourth, Damon singled to get on base leading off an inning for the third time in four innings. After Walker and Garciaparra made outs, Ortiz and Millar walked to load the bases, bringing up Nixon with his first opportunity to break the game open for the Red Sox.

Nixon obliged, lining the ball into right field where Bobby Abreu made an awful throw back into the infield.

Damon scored easily and Ortiz was waved around by third base coach Mike Cubbage. At least initially. Ortiz is very slow and Cubbage eventually realized that the play at the plate might be close so he threw up the stop sign. But Ortiz wasn't watching Cubbage at that point, he was looking at the throw coming in and he ran right through the stop sign and on toward home plate, where Mike Lieberthal made an outstanding play by grabbing the bad toss in to him and diving to the front of home plate to tag out Ortiz and end the inning with the Red Sox leading 5-4.

ESPN's commentators for the game -- Gary Thorn, David Justice and Jeff Brantley -- criticized Ortiz for not sliding, but I don't agree. You see, Ortiz is a very large man and he doesn't slide particularly well or gracefully. Coming non-stop from second base, he had built up a lot of speed and trying to slide would certainly have slowed him down. Plus, Ortiz may very well have been safe. Lieberthal's glove and Ortiz's foot arrived at the front of home plate around the same time, but the replays seemed to show that they did not find each other there.

Either way, Boston went into the bottom of the fifth with just a one-run lead instead of what could have been a much more comfortable margin for error, and there would be a lot more error.

Suppan got the first out quickly in the fourth, but then walked Byrd on four pitches. Rollins followed with a chopper to Garciaparra, who would have had to make a perfect throw to get him. Instead, he threw a little wide of first base and Ortiz could not handle it, allowing Byrd and Rollins to move up a base each. And so, when Abreu followed quickly with a single, the Phillies had the lead back at 6-5. After Lieberthal grounded into a double play to end the inning, both offenses -- and both manager's brains -- disappeared for awhile.

Carlos Silva started the fifth inning in relief of Myers, who had been pinch-hit for in the fourth after allowing five runs on seven hits and seven walks in four innings. Silva gave up a single to Mueller and then struck out Varitek.

That brought up Suppan, and I thought that it was an easy call to pinch-hit for him. There was a runner on base and Suppan had given up six runs in four innings. It looked like he would pitch himself out of the game in the fifth inning anyway, so why not take him out to give your offense a boost?

Well, Grady Little thought differently than I did, and Suppan sacrificed Mueller over to second. With two lefties coming up and a runner on second, Larry Bowa decided to go to his lefty specialist IN THE FIFTH INNING. So, Dan Plesac came in and promptly walked Damon and Walker. That forced Bowa to go to Mike Williams to face Garciaparra, who flied out to left center to leave the bases loaded for the second time in his last four at-bats.

Suppan, however, rewarded Little's faith by facing just three hitters to retire the Phillies in the bottom of the fifth, although he did give up a single to Jim Thome.

Williams followed with an easy top of the sixth, allowing just a walk to Nixon, and Suppan then got the first 1-2-3 inning of the game to send things into the seventh inning with Philadelphia still leading 6-5.

Rheal Cormier came on in the seventh and got Philly's first 1-2-3, including Gabe Kapler who pinch-hit for Suppan, ending his night at six runs allowed (five earned) on 10 hits and three walks in six innings.

Scott Sauerbeck relieved Suppan in the bottom of the seventh and immediately tried to sabotage Boston's comeback chances by loading the bases with no outs on a single and two walks.

With the game pretty much on the line, Little turned to Mike Timlin. Timlin struck out Pat Burrell, got Chase Utley to ground to Ortiz who threw home to keep Philadelphia just a run ahed and then got Perez to ground out to end the inning without a single run scoring for the Phillies.

With that impressive performance by their pitcher, Boston's offense must have felt it was time to step up and contribute to the cause.

David McCarty (who is hitting .467/.500/.800 (1.300) in his brief time with Boston) pinch-hit for Walker and drew a lead-off walk. As those of you who follow the Red Sox know, Little is infatuated with pinch-runners, so Damian Jackson went to first base and McCarty went to the dugout. This is a fine move to make, because McCarty wasn't going to play second base (Walker's position) anyway, so he would have had to come out eventually.

Anyway, Garciaparra followed with a groundball deep into the hole at shortstop, which Rollins showed great range just to get to, but could not do anything with. With runners on first and second, Ortiz came up and pounded the second pitch he saw from the left-handed Cormier, off the 8 in the 408 sign on the center field wall.

Both Jackson and Garciaparra scored on the play and Ortiz went to third on the throw home. Ortiz was hitting .217/.261/.446 (.707) against lefties this season, but that coolness must have been outweighed by his recent hotness. In his last 11 games, Ortiz is hitting .436/.532/1.027 (1.559) with seven home runs, 13 runs and 17 RBI.

With no outs and Ortiz on third, Little decided that the situation called for another pinch-runner. So, Lou Merloni went out to third and Ortiz went to the dugout. Now, this move might have helped the Red Sox score a run, as Merloni is more able to score on a sacrifice fly than Ortiz is. However, the move also emptied Boston's bench and pretty much ensured that, if things got interesting, Jackson (.602 OPS) and Merloni (.732 OPS) would have to bat in the ninth.

Anyway, with a runner on third and nobody out, Millar hit a ground ball that Merloni couldn't score on, Nixon was hit on the wrist but able to stay in the game, Mueller struck out and Varitek grounded out.

Now, it was about 4:15 at this point. I had to work at 5 and I had yet to shower. So, with the Red Sox back in the lead, I thought it would be a good time to hop in the shower. When I got out, the game was tied and Philadelphia had just loaded the bases.

Apparently, Ricky Ledee had pinch-hit for Cormier and tied the game on a solo home run. Then, Byrd walked and moved up on a sac bunt, Abreu was intentionally walked and Lieberthal was hit by a pitch.

With Thome coming up, Little turned to lefty Alan Embree. Thome greated Embree with a two-run single, after which point catcher Doug Mirabelli replaced Embree and Byung-Hyun Kim replaced Varitek.

Kim got Burrell to ground into a double play, so Philadelphia went to the ninth inning with a two-run lead for closer Jose Mesa.

After throwing a mini temper tantrum, I sat down on the couch and watched Mirabelli draw a lead-off walk and Damon line out, bringing up Jackson.

I have been somewhat remiss so far in that I have not mentioned that Manny Ramirez, who missed the entire Yankees series, was at the ballpark but not starting. The ESPN crew showed him very frequently and guessed that he would be available for pinch-hitting duties. When Jackson strode to the plate to hit for himself, it appeared that Ramirez was not available.

No matter, as Jackson knocked a single into right field. Mesa's first pitch to Garciaparra was wild and the runners moved up to second and third. After another ball, the Phillies decided to intentionally walk Garciaparra to load the bases for Merloni.

Ramirez still stayed in the dugout and Merloni came up to hit for himself. On a 2-2 pitch, Merloni hit a chopper that third basemen Perez couldn't handle, allowing Mirabelli to score and bring Boston within a run.

This presented me with a problem.

As I mentioned, I had to work at 5. At the time of Merloni's hit, it was about 4:45. However, Bowa decided he had seen enough of Mesa and went to the bullpen. I decided that I would be way too late to work if I stayed through the pitching change and for the rest of the ninth inning.

Fortunately, my friend Rob called me on my cell phone and agreed to tell me what was going on as I drove into work. So Rob, who was a Yankees fan, unhappily told me that the Red Sox were going to win because Bowa was bringing in Turk Wendell. Wendell's 3.27 ERA coming into the game wasn't bad at all, but maybe Rob just doesn't like him. One stat that wasn't good for Wendell was 25 walks and just 22 strikeouts in 55 innings.

Sure enough, Rob gloomily recounted each of Wendell's six pitches to Millar, the last of which was a 3-2 slider that was waaaaaay outside, forcing in the tying run.

That brought up Nixon, who was 2-for-3 with a walk and a hit-by-pitch. Nixon has been destroying right-handed pitchers this season (hitting .333/.426/.627 against them) and Wendell is a righty. As Rob said, "Wow, he hit that a long way."

Of course, Rob didn't say whether Nixon hit it a long way fair or a long way foul, so I had to ask him. He grudginly admitted that it was a grand slam.

After Mueller singled, Kim lined into a double play and then pitched a scoreless ninth and the Red Sox won 13-9.

Over at Baseball Musings, David Pinto said this was some of the poorest baseball he has seen all season. He said there was poor hitting, poor fielding, poor pitching and poor managing and the only reason the fans got their money's worth was that they got a Mike Schmidt bobblehead doll.

I'm not going to argue about the poor managing part, but this was a great baseball game (and not just because the Red Sox won). Sure, it was fundamentally perfect, but it was a tension-filled, drama packed, meaningful, day-time baseball game in front of a packed house.

Sure, there was bad pitching -- the team's combined for 22 runs after all. But there was also good pitching. Williams gave Philadelphia 1.1 scoreless innings and Kim gave Boston 1.2 scoreless innings. And although Timlin's final numbers were ugly, he was impressive when he came in with the bases loaded and nobody out and shut down the Phillies.

Sure, there was bad fielding -- Boston made two errors and Philadelphia made one. But there was also good fielding. Perez had a "Web Gem" on the play that robbed Garciaparra, and Walker, Millar, Lieberthal and Utley all made nice plays in the field.

Sure, there was bad hitting -- the team's combined to leave 23 men on base and hit into five double plays. But there was also good hitting. Ledee had a double and a home run in two at-bats, Thome (two singles, two walks), Damon (single, three walks) and Ortiz (single, double, two walks) all reached base four times and Rollins went 3-for-4 with a home run. And, of course, Nixon went 3-for-4 with a walk, a HBP, a double and a grand slam for a grand total of six RBI.

So, the Red Sox played another crazy, crazy game and came out on top in this one. That means all is well in Red Sox Nation.

At least until the next game.

It's a race again

I'm not talking about any of the very exciting playoff races going on. I'm talking, rather, about the NL MVP competition between Barry Bonds and Albert Pujols.

Now, according to much of the national media, this race was never over. I've seen plenty of columns arguing for either one, even as Bonds pulled further and further away as an offensive machine this season. And I know what you're thinking -- Bonds hasn't stopped pulling away.

You're right.

Bonds is currently hitting .343/.526/.766 (1.292) with 40 homers, 93 runs, 80 RBI, 120 walks and seven steals in seven attempts. He also has a .423 EqA. That, obviously, is just not natural offensive production and is certainly MVP-caliber.

Pujols, in comparison, is hitting .368/.439/.687 (1.126) with 44 doubles, 37 homers, 117 runs, 114 RBI, 58 walks and three steals in four attempts. He has an EqA of .368. He's having an incredible season, but his offensive production isn't really in the same league as Bonds'. Pujols' high runs and RBI numbers are due largely to the fact that he hits in a much better lineup than Bonds does.

So, if Pujols is obviously not having as good a season offensively as Bonds, and their defense is probably a wash, then why am I saying that the race is back on?

Because I haven't yet discussed perhaps the most important number in this argument. That number would be 24, which is how many more games Pujols has played than Bonds.

Pujols has played 131 of his team's 136 games, while Bonds has played 107 of his team's 135 games. It doesn't really matter, but St. Louis has gone 2-3 in the games Pujols has missed and San Francisco has gone 14-14 in the game's Bonds has missed.

The statistic that perhaps illustrates the point most clearly is EqR. EqA basically takes a player's entire offensive contribution and transforms it into one number. EqR takes that number and modifies it by the amount the player has played. Pujols has 126.5 EqR this season, Bonds has 125.3.

So, you can see that, when playing time is taken into account, there is a useful statistic that shows Pujols to be the better offensive contributor.

I feel terrible for Bonds' loss and I certainly hope that his current medical ailment is not at all serious, but if the season ended today, I would have to give my NL MVP vote to Pujols (if I had one). And looking forward, I'd say Bonds is likely to miss more of the rest of the season than Pujols. So, unless Bonds gets his OPS up near 1.350, I think Pujols will deserve this year's NL MVP award.

Me making this argument is kind of strange, because I always get upset at people for giving the MVP award to somebody with lesser stats instead of giving it to a deserving Barry Bonds. This year, Bonds is again very deserving (and it would seem very strange to ignore a 1.292 OPS), but Pujols is also deserving and has put in much more time.

It's kind of like the argument facing people who vote for the Cy Young award when Pedro Martinez has one of his exceptional, but shortened seasons. Can you give the Cy Young award to a pitcher who is unbelievable for 28-29 starts when there is another pitcher who has been exceptional (apparently, unbelievable is one step above exceptional on my list of adjectives) for 35-36 starts?

I don't think you can. And I don't think you can give the NL MVP award to Bonds right now. Despite the ridiculousness of his offensive value.