Maddux Sports Blog

Cliff Lee became the latest big name pitcher to make his spring training debut with a new team yesterday. It was a mixed bag – mostly, but not entirely, positive. The good news is that he lasted the full three innings he was scheduled for, and he did it without obvious issues with the foot injury that he had been struggling with up to this point. It’s also pretty positive that he only allowed one run and one walk in those five innings. The problem is that he allowed five hits in the outing, and his control  wasn’t exactly pinpoint throughout. It’s too early to panic, of course, and the Mariners just have to be relieved that their new toy isn’t broken, but we’ve been spoiled by so many good outings so far this spring that I guess I just hoped for more – especially considering how optimistic I am about the Mariners this year, and about their rotation in particular.

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- Interesting story out of St. Louis today. Apparently the Cardinals watched John Smoltz pitch in the bullpen on Thursday, recognized right away that he was tipping his pitches, got him to make a small change, and he went out in his debut and was almost unhittable. You have to wonder how St. Louis could see that so quickly but Boston never noticed. It’s not like Smoltz had the time to become a whole new pitcher in the time between the two cities, and he didn’t even have time to get healthy or anything. It reminds me of horse racing – you’ll often see a horse perform badly for one trainer, get moved to another trainer, and immediately win his next race. The new trainer just sees something that the old trainer was blind to, and it makes all the difference.

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Yesterday we looked at five pitchers who were much better at the betting window than the average baseball fan probably thinks that they are, so it only makes sense that we look at the other extreme today. Here are five guys who the public are probably fond of, but who are burning up money at astounding rates.

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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.

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1. There are only six guys in the majors with the last name Cabrera, but it seems like there are about 212. Every time I turn around another one is in the news. The latest did it in an impressive way – Cleveland second baseman Asdrubal Cabrera turned just the 14th unassisted triple play in major league history in the second game of a doubleheader against Toronto. He dove to catch a line drive, touched second for out number two, and the tagged Marco Scutaro, the guy who should own a hundred pizza places based on his name alone, to enter history. Troy Tulowitzki had one last season, and the previous unassisted play was in 2000.

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• It doesn’t really mean much on the grand scheme of things from a betting perspective, but one of my favorite things in baseball happened tonight – Minnesota’s Carlos Gomez hit for the cycle. He did it in what was an epic 13-1 beatdown of the White Sox by Minnesota. The usually solid Mark Buehrle got the start for Chicago, but it didn’t go well. After five decent innings the wheels fell off in the sixth when he allowed five earned runs. That was much better than Ehren Wassermann was in relief – he allowed five earned runs and only recorded one out. This is more of the same for the White Sox recently – they have on win in their last eight. Buehrle and his boys were favored tonight, though you wouldn’t guess it by the final score.
• I like it any time the Yankees lose, but I especially liked it tonight because it was the first loss for ace Chien-Ming Wang. He allowed three runs in seven innings against Cleveland, but that was too many. Cliff Lee started for the Indians, and he was magical – seven strikeouts with no runs or walks in seven innings. Lee has been one of the truly great stories of the season so far. He’s mostly a journeyman type, though he was 18-5 in 2005. This year he is 6-0 in his six starts, and his ERA is a ridiculous 0.81. His strikeout to walk ratio is alright, too – 39/2. He’s far from the biggest name in the league, but if the Cy Young was awarded today he would be a shoo-in. The best part tonight was that he was up against Wang and the Yankees, so Lee went off as +131 underdog despite being essentially unhittable all year. That’s a nice bargain.
• There have been eight games in the second round of the NBA playoffs so far. The home team has won all eight. A monkey could make money on that. If only it were always so easy.