Brotherly Love? Not so Much

“I can’t wait for it to end,” Cole Hamels said after the a Game 3 loss to the Yankees in the World Series. “It’s been mentally draining. At year’s end, you just can’t wait for a fresh start.” Those comments obviously were certainly pretty shocking, and they certainly didn’t endear Mr. Hamels with his teammates. In fact, Brett Myers, never one to avoid a melee (he was reportedly seen physically abusing his wife a few years back in Boston though charges were eventually dropped), confronted Hamels before Game 5 when an altercation ensued after Myers was heard to say “What are you doing here? I thought you quit.”

I thought these guys played for the City of Brotherly Love?

(A subsequent report says that the confrontation was “fake” and that the two hurlers remain close friends)

As a result, Hamels has lots of explaining to do (I just had an I Love Lucy flashback). He tried to start the process with the following statement. “Sometimes I might not say the best things or the smartest things, but I’ve learned and am learning. I wasn’t able to sleep the past couple of nights because of it.” Neither was I Cole, but it wasn’t because I sounded like a buffoon, it was because of this new pillow I got that seems to be just a tad too poffy to allow me to really get into the groove to get my sleep on. But I digress.

I don’t know what’s been going on in Hamels head, but clearly his performance this season has suffered – substantially. After winning 29 games the past two seasons with and ERA of 3.22, Hamels struggled along in the regular season to a 10-11 mark with a 4.32 ERA. Even worse than those regular season struggles though has been his continued misadventures in these playoffs. Hamels is 1-2 with a 7.58 ERA through four starts this post-season, this after a playoff run last season that saw him take home the NLCS (2-0, 1.93 ERA, 1.14 WHIP) and World Series (1-0, 2.77 ERA, 1.00 WHIP) MVP awards.

Clearly Hamels hasn’t been at his best, and for a guy who has probably dominated nearly every batter he faced over the first 20 years of his life, one can imagine it has been rather difficult for him to find a way to deal with the struggles this year. Still, that’s no excuse for being an idiot when talking to the press. I’ve written it before, and here it is again; if you are a pro athlete never let your guard down, and do your best to give “yes” and “no” answers if at all possible. The more elucidation you offer, the more willing you are to simply “be real” with the press, the more likely you are to emerge looking like a moron. Keep your mouth shut and stick to doing what you do best – playing your sport.

WORLD SERIES NOTES

Chase Utley has tied Reggie Jackson’s record of five home runs in a single World Series.

A.J. Burnett’s failures in Game 2 (six earned runs in two innings), besides being his worst start as a Yankee, was also the first time that the Yankees’ starter hadn’t gone at least six innings in the playoffs. In five playoff appearances, Burnett is 1-1 with a 5.27 ERA and a 1.39 WHIP.

Ryan Howard has struck out 12 times in the Series to tie Willie Wilson’s mark from the 1980 Series.

Andy Pettitte will start Game 6 on short rest. In five previous post-season appearances on short rest Pettitte is 3-1 with a 2.88 ERA. Overall in his playoff career Pettitte has made 39 starts going 17-9 with a 3.88 ERA and a 1.33 WHIP over 243.1 innings.

Only six of the 43 teams that have been down three games to one in the Series have come back to win, the last being the 1985 KC Royals which I mentioned yesterday. The Phillies need two more wins to be the seventh.

By Ray Flowers

A Wonderful Wednesday

In today’s The Day in Baseball entry, I’ll highlight the plight of an all-time great, alert you to a guy who has been crazy hot of late, and point out a decision, about four months in coming, that might actually, finally, end up coming to fruition.

Did you catch Marlon Byrd’s act over the past two days? In case you didn’t, let me review it for you. Byrd played in three games, went deep twice, knocked in seven runners and produced nine hits. Yeah, he is pretty much en fuego right now.

If you missed it, Adam Jones’ season is over as he was transferred to the 60-day DL with a sprained ankle. It shouldn’t require surgery, or be a long term issue, but the team realized that he would likely need something like three weeks to recover, and that would basically take them to the end of the year (plus, putting him on the 60-day DL allows the club to add another player to the roster). As a result of the injury Jones falls just short of his first 20 homer season, he finishes with 19 long balls, though a .277-19-70-83-10 season certainly isn’t anything to be upset about in his second full season.

I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see Tim Lincecum return to the hill this weekend. He was in the dugout on Tuesday after being forced to miss the start because of a sore lower back, and he was caught smiling and moving around fairly well. As for the Giants offense, there is no word when it might be back in action. In nine games in September the G-men have recorded more than three runs just twice. Pathetic.

Could it finally be happening? Could The World’s Biggest Idiot, aka Phillies’ manager Charlie Manuel, finally be conceding that he is destroying the moral of his club by continuing to throw Brad Lidge out there in the ninth inning? “…I want to be loyal to him and things like that, but at the same time, like I told him last night, winning the game is the first priority.” Ryan Madson owners can rejoice. It looks like you might get a handful of saves out of the man you have held on to for months waiting for the Phillies to do the right thing. Of course, Brett Myers could end up swooping in to pick up a few saves chances as well, so perhaps Madson owners shouldn’t be too excited after all.

Albert Pujols hit two bombs today and is just three homers short of his first 50 season. Just spit balling here, but is it possible that 20 years from now we will be talking about Pujols as the greatest “steroid free” home run hitter of all-time? Let’s play a little game of what if. (1) Pujols is just 29 years old. (2) In nine seasons he has never hit fewer than 32 home runs in a season. (3) He has averaged 40 home runs a season over his nine year career. (4) If Pujols plays another 10 years while averaging 35 homers a season he will end up with something along the lines of 720 home runs. That would still leave him behind Hank Aaron and his 755 home runs. Just goes to show you how amazingly consistent that Mr. Aaron was in his career.

Huston Street continues to make progress with that sore biceps muscle, but the latest word out of Colorado is that he still isn’t likely to return to action this week as previously hoped. In his place, the Rockies will continue to go with Franklin Morales who has converted 5-straight save chances in his last five appearances during which time he has allowed only five base runners and not a single run. Overall Morales has a 2.60 ERA, a.1.13 WHIP and 36 Ks in 34.2 ABs, and that’s pretty darn good no matter where you are pitching.

Trivia Question: How many straight seasons has Braden Looper won at least 11 games? The answer is three – each of his seasons as a starter. Do you know how many NL hurlers have won at least 11 games each of the past three seasons if we include this season? Try seven (including Lopper): Jamie Moyer, Derek Lowe, Adam Wainwright, Ted Lilly, Jason Marquis and Chad Billingsley.

By Ray Flowers

Give Me a Break

Most of the time I offer straight analysis. I figure data is data and I can analyze that and let it lead me to whatever conclusion is warranted. For those of you who read my work, I hope you not only see that directive in my work, but that you also enjoy the fact that I try to objectively analyze the situations I review. On the flip side, those who know me personally know me to be quick with the tongue, biting with my criticism, and far from shy about voicing a minority view point (thanks Mom and Dad for that for that inner confidence). In what follows I will present my normal analysis of a couple of players, and to that I will add a couple of personal diatribes. I’ll leave you to figure out which is which – I’m sure it’s pretty obvious.

Astros manager Cecil Cooper will not be receiving a vote of confidence from the front office after his club has lost seven games in a row. “I’ve been a GM now for 10 years…” GM Ed Wade said. “I don’t get into votes of confidence. I don’t think there’s any value to it.” Way to go Ed, I totally agree with you. Cooper should just do his job and the results will speak for themselves. Talk about being pampered with kid gloves. I don’t know about you, but if I continually spelled words wrong, missed my deadlines and offered poor analysis, you think I would be allowed to keep my job? A vote of confidence? What are you, six years old? Do your flipping job – if you need a pat on the back telling you that you did a good job I hear there is an opening in Mrs. Johnson’s kindergarten class. Maybe you can get a smiling face if you do really well too. Goodness gracious. I guess the millions of dollars everyone involved with sports makes isn’t enough. No, I’m not at all bitter, why do you ask?

Tom Glavine, yes he is still pitching, tossed five scoreless innings on Thursday in Triple-A. He wasn’t throwing very hard, most of his fastball were between 83 and 86 mph in the outing, but the zeros are zeros regardless of the speed of the pitch. Pretty amazing that a guy who can barely throw harder than I can continues to get batters out. Do I ever wish I was left-handed.

Brett Myers may be forced to go under the knife to repair his injured right hip which apparently involved some fraying, and possible tearing, of his labrum in his hip. Myers continues to confound with his astronomical HR/9 mark of 2.40. Myers has actually struggled all across the board this season with a 4.66 ERA, a 6.50 K/9 and a 2.30 K/BB mark, all of which would be five year worst’s. An injury seems as good a reason as anything else to explain his struggles.

Chris Ray has been demoted to Triple-A to find out why the heck he has been so ineffective this season. I went into the issue in a bit of depth earlier today, so I wont rehash those facts here, you can read about it by simply clicking on the link to my BABIP Piece. Guess the Orioles didn’t read what I had to say before they made the decision to demote him. Ray will be back at some point, and I still wouldn’t be at all surprised to see George Sherrill traded as we get closer to the deadline. Therefore, I would still recommend holding on to Ray in all AL-only leagues, and he should be kept on your watch list in deep mixed leagues as well despite the demotion.

Carlos Zambrano was suspended for six games by MLB on Thursday for his tirade the other day. He will miss one start as a result. It’s amazing that a guy who is 27 years old, he will be 28 on next Monday if you believe that birth certificate number (I don’t), continues to have such a fantastic lack of self control akin to Sean Avery in the NHL. That act of Zambrano’s will grow really old, really quickly, if his production continues to dwindle as it has early on this season as he has a 4.22 ERA and a 1.45 WHIP in his eight starts despite a solid 8.45 K/9 mark that would be a three year high. Shameful lack of control really no matter if he’s an All-Star or not. Make sure your kid doesn’t idolize this rotund buffoon.

By Ray Flowers