Maddux Sports Blog

I can’t put my finger on why, but I have especially enjoyed the start of this baseball season. I usually enjoy it, but this year has been especially good. As I have been watching, though, something has jumped out at me – some players really piss me off. I like some teams more than others, but I don’t really have a huge problem with most teams. I can’t say the same about some players, though. Here are five who really get my blood boiling:

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It is the eve of baseball spring training game action, so I thought it would be a good time to look at some future odds. I don’t generally like tying my money up for months with a reasonably low expectation of return, but I can’t help myself when it comes to making a few future wagers each year. Baseball just lends itself so well to this kind of exploration. Before we get into the teams that look interesting I have to admit one thing – I think the Yankees are going to win the World Series. I hate everything about them, and (more…)

Starting today we are into the last series of the baseball season. We haven’t been talking baseball much recently, but with the playoffs around the corner we will be ding much more, and this is a good pace to start. The last series is only meaningful for a couple of teams – those trying to make it into the playoffs. The rest are either counting the seconds until their season ends, or trying hard not to get anyone hurt before the playoffs start. Teams that have clinched also spend the series trying to get their rotation into the order they want it to be in for the playoffs. For fans this weekend doesn’t mean much in most of the series either. It’s hard to care, and this is just a chance to catch our breath before the long playoffs.

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I said I wasn’t going to do it, but in the end I found myself watching a fair bit of the All-Star game. I even enjoyed it. The league almost got itself into a big pickle, though, with the way it ended. Or almost didn’t end. After they took steps to avoid a recurrence of the ridiculous tie of 2002 it almost happened again anyway. Because of that, and just to make the game more interesting in general, here are a few changes I would recommend that they make to the game. I don’t think that it needs a major overhaul, but since it is an exhibition game anyway these tweaks could make the game more interesting.

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White Sox pitcher Gavin Floyd just can’t buy a break. The guy has come very close to a no-hitter twice in a month, and both times he has come up short. Tonight he had an out in the ninth against the Twins  before Joe Mauer found a massive gap in left center field for a double. Against the Tigers on April 12 he had an out in the eighth before giving up his first hit to Edgar Renteria. Those two games are closer to a no-hitter than most guys will come in their lives. Floyd is handling his near-misses with a sense of humor, but that’s the kind of thing you’ll see when you close your eyes for the rest of your life iunless you finally do get one.

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I’ve been sidetracked by the draft for a few days, but it is time now to get back to thinking about baseball. Here are a few of the things that caught my attention as I was getting caught back up:”

• Barry Zito makes $126 million and now he is heading to the bullpen. That’s ugly but not surprising – he’s o-6 after all. Still, this is a massive fall from grace for a guy who was supposed to be one of the elite arms in the league. A lot of bettors are probably pretty happy to see him go, too – he’s been an underdog in every game he has played, and at some juicy prices, so a lot of people have probably been sucked in by thinking that his next game could finally be the one in which he turns it around. When he’s in the bullpen that temptation is eliminated.
• James Shields had a ridiculously good game against the Red Sox – a two hit complete game shutout with seven strikeouts and just one walk. It was no fluke, though – this guy can pitch. He was 12-8 last year for a team that only won 66 games, and his strikeout to walk ratio was better than 5-to-1. This year he has allowed just 11 runs in six games, and he hasn’t allowed more than three in a game. His ERA dropped a full point from his first year in 2006 to last year, and it has dropped more than 1.3 points so far this year. Best yet he’s only 26, so the best is still ahead of him.
• Since we’re on the topic of pitchers, I owe a mea culpa to Chien Ming Wang. At the start of last year I was positive that this guy was a half-weight masquerading as a top-of-the rotation starter. He’d gone 19-6 the previous year, but I had no faith in his ability to recreate it. He didn’t – he went 19-7 instead. Now he has started out 5-0 on a team that is otherwise struggling, He has had one disastrous start – eight earned runs in four innings against the Red Sox – but in that one his team managed to bail him out and win 15-9 to leave him without a loss. I still can’t say that I’m in love with his stuff or that he’s a guy I like to watch pitch, but I really have no choice but to admit that this guy is an elite starter. Now if only the Yankees had another one to join him.

I know that I spend more time talking about the AL Central than anything else in baseball, but it is just so darned fascinating that you can’t look away – it’s like simultaneous car crashes. I was just about to sit down and right a comment of some sort about how the Tigers were finally showing some signs of life – they had won three straight after all, and their offense was hitting on all cylinders. I was also going to throw in a comment about how troubled Cleveland was – they were supposed to be neck and neck with Detroit, and they were, but it wasn’t supposed to be at 5-10. I had been busy all day, and I hadn’t checked out the scores all day, so I took a quick look before making my comments. So much for that article. After Detroit blew away the Indians 13-2 yesterday, they are now trailing Cleveland 11-1 in the 8th.

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I’m sitting here watching the Diamondbacks pound the life out of the Giants. That’s not much of an accomplishment, of course – I could take all the guys that live on my block and probably play the Giants tight. What is pretty clear, though, is that the D-Backs are a pretty fine team. I’m not exactly going out on a limb to say that – the win they are pretty much guaranteed to get this afternoon will move them to 10-4, which is the best record in the league (tied with the surprising Cardinals if they beat Milwaukee tonight). Unlike some of the teams that have jumped out to fast starts (that means you, Baltimore), Arizona has the look of a team that will be there until the end. This doesn’t come as a huge surprise – they are the third choice in the National League behind the Cubs and the Mets to win the World Series in the futures market.

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When the Mets acquired Johan Santana from the Twins in exchange for mostly underwhelming talent it was seen as a steal – a major coup. The conventional wisdom was that he was the most dominant pitcher in the American League, so he would dominate in the weaker National League. He’s only three games into his new career, so it is far too soon to draw any conclusions yet, but if he plans to be dominant then he is easing into it. He’s just 1-2 after a loss on Saturday against Milwaukee, and as such he has burnt a fair bit of bettor money up so far. That’s not going according to plan, but is it time to panic yet? Of course not. Here are six reasons why:

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The AL Central has been fascinating so far this year, and I’m not just talking about how bad the Tigers have been. The Royals are a team that I was relatively optimistic about. I’m not crazy enough to love the team – by relatively optimistic I mean better than they have been in four years, but that only means that they need a win total that starts with a seven. Even though, I liked them, though, I certainly didn’t see them jumping out to a 6-2 start and a perch at the top of their division. They swept the Tigers to start the season, faltered lightly against Minnesota, and now they have a chance to sweep the Yankees tonight. That is two presumed playoff teams that have fallen to the Royals. It’s unexpected, but can it be sustainable? How are they doing it, and can they keep doing it?

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