Thursday's AL Beat

Normally I just ramble on about whatever baseball topics catch my fancy. I’m not really changing that up today, I’m merely going to throw one topic out there that I’ll have to follow to somewhat focus my ramblings – I’m only going to discuss happenings in the American League.

The Blue Jays used eight pitchers in a nine inning game for the first time in team history on Thursday as they emerged victorious 8-7 over the Phillies. If you quickly glance at the scorecard you’ll see that recent called up Jeremy Accardo picked up the save. Huh? With Scott Downs on the DL with a sprained big toe the thought was that the team would turn to Jason Frasor to shut the door in the ninth, so why did Accardo pick up the save? Frasor did enter the game late, but it was in the bottom of the eighth inning. Frasor then proceeded to blow the save though he allowed only one hit while recording an out. The club then turned to B.J. Ryan to start the ninth inning, and he picked up a walk and a strikeout before he too was removed for Accardo who recorded two outs to pick up his first save of the season in his first big league appearance of the year. Despite all this craziness if I had to grab Blue Jays’ reliever at this point I would line them up as Frasor, Ryan and Accardo as I think today was the exception and not the rule. Oh yeah, I also should mention that despite the blown save, Frasor picked up his fifth victory of the year once again proving just how ineffective it is to judge a pitcher by his record (he is now 5-0). Frasor now has more victories than Javier Vazquez who has only four victories despite posting a 3.41 ERA, 1.01 WHIP and 112 Ks in 92.1 innings this season for the Braves.

Gavin Floyd was screwed on Thursday as the White Sox’ bullpen betrayed him. Floyd left the game with a 5-1 lead after seven innings before a collection of arms conspired to help the cross town Cubs to emerge with a 6-5 victory. In the outing Floyd only struck out two batters but he allowed just seven base runners in his seven innings to lower his ERA to 4.65 and his WHIP to 1.36. Those numbers still don’t match his totals from last season (3.84 and 1.26), but given his poor start to the year they are rather remarkable. Floyd has now hurled 6-straight “quality starts” for the Sox even though he has only two victories to show for it despite a 1.62 ERA in that time. I don’t think he will be able to get his numbers down to the point that they will rival what he did last season, but as of now he is pitching better than the likes of Zack Greinke and Johan Santana, and that is certainly saying something.

Magglio Ordonez has been benched by Jim Leyland in Detroit for his continued struggles at the dish. Mags is hitting .273 with only two home runs and 22 RBI putting him on pace to roughly hit six bombs with 60 RBI this season. For a guy who has averaged 24 home runs and 115 RBI the past three seasons, that is a shocking fall. His BB/K rate is still strong at 0.76, the same as his career numbers, and his BABIP mark is also right on his career mark of .320 at .315. So why the struggles? (1) He isn’t hitting the ball hard with a 15.2 LD-rate, and that is a precipitous fall from his career 20 percent mark. (2) His swing has been bereft of power as his current Isolated Power mark of .069 is roughly one third his career .202 mark. For those of you who read Isolated Power and think it’s a foreign language, the measure basically outlines a player’ ability to produce extra base hits. If you want to read more about it, click on the following link to Isolated Power, A Review. The bottom line is that it appears, even when he makes contact, that he is hitting with a wiffle ball bat.

John Smoltz got the thumbs up after his strong minor league start on Wednesday night in which he permitted a single run in four innings of work at Triple-A Pawtucket (without a doubt one of the best names in minor league baseball). As a result of his diligent work coming back from his shoulder surgery, Smoltz will finally be seen on a major league diamond for the first time this season on June 25th against the Nationals. For now the team plans to go with a 6-man rotation, but we’ll see how long that lasts. For more on Smoltz, give One Up, One Down a read.

By Ray Flowers

Who Wants a Playmate?

Everyone wants to date the playmate or drive the Ferrari, but since most of the time playmates aren’t exactly rocket scientists, and Ferrari’s cost roughly the GDP of the state of Alaska. Sometimes it is just a safer move to date the girl next door while driving a Prius. Why do I bring this up? Let me draw a comparison between two hurlers that were ranked fairly closely heading into the 2009 season. Be honest, which one would you prefer to have rostered for opening day?

The Playmate: Joba Chamberlain
Heading into the season, everyone was all over the kid from New York who had the heat, and the results of a hurler who could challenge for the AL Cy Young as early as this season once the Yanks decided to place him in the starting rotation. Looking at his work in his first two seasons, there was every reason to believe that Joba was on the cusp of something special.

6-3, 2.17 ERA, 1.16 WHIP, 11.00 K/9, 3.38 K/BB over 124.1 innings.

Of course, Joba had never thrown 160-innings in a season in his life, and he had dealt with some shoulder issues at the end of 2008 and in camp early this season. Still, that right arm simply oozed with serious potential. Was the potential for a massively dominating season, on a Yankee club that always racks up the victory, enough to sway you in his direction?

The Girl Next Door: Javier Vazquez
Moving back to the NL to pitch for the Braves, most pundits predicted an increase in production from what Vazquez did for the White Sox in 2008 (12-16, 4.67 ERA, 1.32 WHIP, 214 K). After all, he would be facing weaker lineups and pitching in a home ballpark that is much fairer to pitchers than the yard in Chicago. Still, for all those pluses, Vazquez had always been a tease. Blessed with tremendous stuff, he always seemed to have that one bad stretch in a game that cost him a chance at victory (his career record of 131-133 is obvious proof of that). In addition, It’s not like his ERA has ever been strong (4.30 for his career). Still, despite all of that, there was one thing about the “tortoise” that we should mention – he was consistently good even if he never reached the level of greatness.

From 2000-08, a span of nine years, Vazquez was the only pitcher in baseball who tossed at least 195 innings each year while winning 10 games and accruing 150 strikeouts each season.

Again, it’s not like you are going to do cartwheels down the street if one of your hurlers were to produce those numbers, but at the same time, knowing you can bank on that type of consistency from a pitcher, who we all know have more ups and downs that a roller coaster, should count for something.

So, were you seduced by the power of the dark side, or did you play it safe and take the boring route?

Here are each hurler’s efforts so far this season.

The Playmate – Chamberlain
2-1, 3.97 ERA, 46 K, 1.57 WHIP in 45.1 IP

The Girl Next Door – Vazquez
4-4, 3.97 ERA, 78 K, 1.57 WHIP in 64 IP

I have always been a slow and steady guy, and the truth is as much as I would love to date a playmate, I know that the smart money if I want to have an authentic relationship would be to date the girl next door. So wouldn’t you know it, after all of these years taking the slow and steady approach, I finally went all in and chose Chamberlain over Vazquez this season. Just goes to show you that more often than not your first inclination is probably the right one, so trust your gut, lest you end up dating a broken down playmate who has little to offer once her outer beauty fades.

By Ray Flowers