Friday Baseball Quick Hits
Day one of the post-Manny world was rocky for his Dodgers. The good news was that they scored nine runs. The bad news was that that was only against the lowly Nationals, and it wasn’t enough runs to win. There’s not much in that game that can be blamed on the loss of Manny directly, and we didn’t learn that much, but losing to the Nats is never a good thing.
Manny’s explanation of what happened only made him look stupid in my eyes. Either he’s totally lying or he’s an idiot.
I was really surprised to see that the Diamondbacks fired manager Bob Melvin already after just 29 games. They have gotten off to a terrible start, but I’m not convinced that Melvin can be blamed. Injuries have ravaged the team, and a lot of managers would struggle without their ace and their star shortstop. Obviously we can’t have a real sense of what was going on behind the scenes or what kind of ship that Melvin was running, but in my mind I was willing to give him a pass for a while. If Melvin got the boot then you have to wonder how many other managers are on the hot seat. Houston and the Yankees are on the top of the list for me. You can tell that George Steinbrenner isn’t at his best health anymore because back in the glory days Joe Girardi would have been fired six times over by now.
Speaking of the Yankees, I can’t decide what will be the more interesting aspect of the game tonight – the return of A-Rod, or seeing if CC Sabathia can break out of his funk (1-3, 4.85 ERA). So far neither guy has come anywhere close to earning his money this year. It’s only Baltimore, so neither guy has any excuse for a bad day.
The Mets are finally looking like a decent team. They have won four in a row, and are finally looking like the team they are supposed to be. It will be interesting to see if it lasts. They got very luck because the Phillies didn’t exactly explode out of the gate either, so this little winning streak has them right back at the top of the division. I picked them to win the division (and more), and despite their early woes and the disappointing mess at the bottom of their rotation I still feel good about that selection. That same feeling about the other New York team is a bit scarier.
Cliff Lee is pitching tonight against the Tigers. My initial sense when looking at his record was that he was a disaster, and that he had fallen incredibly far off of his magical season last year. When you look just a little closer, though, you see that it is the team that is the disaster, not him. In his last three games he has posted an ERA of just 1.96. He’s gone 23 innings in the three games, he has 14 strikeouts against just two walks, and he has allowed only one home run. Yet, in that time he is 0-2 and the team is 0-3. On a team even remotely competent he would be 3-0 over the same stretch. Lousy luck.
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- Eight Quick Hits For Thursday 1. There
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Tags: Alex Rodriguez, Arizona Diamondbacks, Bob Melvin, C.C. Sabathia, Cleveland Indians, Cliff Lee, L.A. Dodgers, Manny Ramirez, New York Mets, New York Yankees, Philadelphia Phillies
