SB Nation - Gaby Hernandez

One Pitch: James Shields Takes The Loss Vs. Felix Hernandez in 1-0 Duel

Tommy Rancel — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 02:15:09 -0000

More photos » by Elaine Thompson - AP

Tampa Bay Rays starting pitcher James Shields follows through on a throw against the Seattle Mariners. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

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I hate wasting good starting pitching. I really hate wasting great starting pitching, and that's exactly what the Rays did tonight. Coming into this game James Shields said his arm was feeling much better after battling a "dead arm" for the first few weeks; he wasn't lying. While Shields does have a seven inning shutout victory against the Orioles, you could argue that tonight was the best James Shields we've seen in 2009.

Now, I could sit here and complain about the lack of offense, but that would be an injustice to Mr. Shields. Unlike previous starts where Shields worked off a four seam fastball around 50% of the time, he only used the fastball 31% tonight and did a masterful job of mixing in his changeup (22%) and a fantastic curveball (24%) which he actually threw more than his change.

Shields had magnificent break on his curveball. Overall, he has a swinging strike percentage of 11.7% on the night with over half of those swings and misses coming off the curveball. He threw 67% of his 102 pitches for strikes. Up until tonight, the curve has been the fourth pitch for him, but after the results from tonight we may see an increase in the amount of breaking balls for Shields.

Velocity wise he was around 91 mph on the fastball and even reached 93 at one point. For comparison, in his last start Shields averaged 89 mph on the fastball and maxed out at 91. This is a very good sign and hopefully the "dead arm" phase is over with and we can continue to get this type of effort from Shields. With his velocity up around 91-92, the separation in speed on his secondary pitches makes them much more effective. Tonight, Shields had about an eight mile different from four seam to changeup and a 15 mile difference on his curveball.

Unfortunately for Big Game James, it just wasn't his night. The Rays like the Mariners could only put four hits on the board and while the Mariners committed three errors in the field, the Rays could not capitalize off of Felix Hernandez. Hernandez ended up being just one pitch better than Shields and dominated the Rays lineup for seven innings of his own. On the night, Shields would be the loser even though his box score line reads like this:

Tampa Bay	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	ERA
Shields (L, 2-2)	7.1	4	1	1	1	4	1	3.67

And one mistake.

Series Preview: 4/21-4/23 Tampa Bay Rays @ Seattle Mariners

R.J. Anderson — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 15:00:15 -0000

4/21: Andy Sonnanstine vs. Jarrod Washburn (10:10 SS)
4/22: Jeff Niemann vs. Chris Jakubauskas (10:10 FS-F)
4/23: James Shields vs. Felix Hernandez (6:40 SS)

The first thing you need to know about Seattle is that their defense is ridiculous this year. Franklin Gutierrez, Endy Chavez, and Ichiro form a superb defensive outfield, and as such, the Mariner pitchers are having a good start to the season. Combine their defense with the ballpark -- unkind to right-handed power -- and it could become a trying series offensively. The good news is, the Rays pitching should get a break from the onslaught of difficult offenses.

Washburn has a .203 BABIP and a strand rate nearing 95%. He's only missing marginally more bats and his flyball/line drive rates have remained steady. Throw in nearly zero difference in stuff and pitch usage - although he has used his fastball more and slider less - and it's difficult seeing Washburn being anything but the benefactor of the improved glovework. Washburn is a soft tossing lefty without an out pitch and with the tendency to allow homeruns. That means expect a career performance.

Jakubauskas is filling in for the injured Ryan Rowland-Smith. His minor league numbers are nice, although there's been some debate as to whether Jakubauskas can succeed with his stuff. Fastball in the low-90s, curveball and change; a rather rudimentary arsenal.

Finally, Felix. He throws in the mid-90s but can pump it up when needed. Look for a fastball heavy attack, with some sliders, curves, and changes tossed in for good measure. Felix doesn't walk a lot of batters nor does he give up many homeruns anymore, and if this improvement in strikeout rate is legitimate, then you're looking at a legitimate Cy Young contender. If you don't think you'll make it home by 6:40 Thursday night, take off early, Shields and Hernandez should be delightful.

C Rob Johnson
1B Russell Branyan/Mike Sweeney
2B Jose Lopez
3B Adrian Beltre
SS Yuniesky Betancourt
LF Endy Chavez
CF Franklin Gutierrez
RF Ichiro Suzuki
DH Ken Griffey Jr.

You may remember Johnson from the Al Reyes rumors a while back, he's filling in for the injured Kenji Johjima and exiled Jeff Clement - who you may recall from the Edwin Jackson rumors. Branyan was mildly entertaining in his 2006 stint with the Rays as the all-or-nothing slugger. Beltre is Longoria's biggest hurdle to becoming the best third baseman defensively in the A.L. Betancourt is the rather large shell of his former self - the defensive wunderkind who frustrated the heck out of the Rays.

8-3, Stuff

Jeff — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 07:49:50 -0000

No time for extended notes, so here's some very quick food for thought:

Felix: 104 pitches, 69 strikes, 8 swinging strikes, 18 balls in play, 9 grounders, 69 fastballs, 12 sliders, 8 changeups, 15 curves. Nothing enchanting, but not a bad start against a pretty good lineup. What's weird is that he kept up his recent trend of throwing his change in the 88-90 range. It's beginning to look more like a two-seamer than an offspeed pitch. I'd love to know what's going on here.

Brandon Morrow threw three pitches at 99+ and only once missed the strike zone. It looks like he's about ready to go.

Yuni's defense cost us at least one run tonight, and he's swinging at more pitches out of the zone than ever before. He's damn lucky this team is winning. Even so, at this rate, it's only a matter of time. People notice. Important people.

Average game length of 2:39 so far has made for a better viewing experience, even when losing. The infrequent losing has also made for a better viewing experience.

Beltre makes fun of Griffey's running style after playing with him for less than two months, and yet Yuni continues to go unmocked. The wonders of this season never cease. By the way, regardless of the cause and significance of the team's positive attitude so far, it has unquestionably been a lot of fun to watch. Felix falling over laughing after Lopez's face plant a few years ago was one of the highlights of the season. We need more of that.

What, Seattle AGAIN?: Cubs vs. Mariners at Peoria, Thursday 3/19, 3:05 CT

Al — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 18:00:10 -0000

For the third time in the last ten days, the Cubs will face the Mariners (and on Sunday, they'll make it four times in 13 days). That's a lot of contact with one team in a short period of time during spring training, especially now when teams sometimes only see each other once or twice in the spring.

Derrek Lee hasn't played for the Cubs in a few days (sore quad), but he may play for the USA this weekend in the semifinals. Kevin Youkilis is out with an ankle sprain and Jim Hendry says he won't stand in D-Lee's way if he is asked to go to Los Angeles.

As discussed in this FanShot, I'd be all in favor of this. Maybe playing in a game that means something would get his bat going. Plus, that would give the Cubs a couple of opportunities to play Corey Koskie at 1B to see if he can handle it. The more versatile Koskie can be, the better his chances of making the team.

No surprises: the Cubs won City Council approval for the third concert this July, and also still have the right to block views from the Lakeview Baseball Club if they don't pay their contractually-obligated 17%:

The rooftop club says it first wants compensation for partially blocked views caused by a JumboTron at the Jan. 1 Winter Classic staged at Wrigley.

The Cubs sued the rooftop club this month over the withheld payment, and the group countersued, seeking to prevent the team from blocking its views on Opening Day.

"We hope it doesn't come to that," said Cubs spokesman Mike Lufrano. "We'd like to resolve it, but at the same time, it isn't fair for them not to pay what every other rooftop owner has agreed to pay."

One more note: Former Cubs coach and manager Whitey Lockman passed away Tuesday at the age of 82.

This afternoon, Aaron Heilman, still in competition for the #5 starter slot, will face Seattle's Gaby Hernandez. Other Cubs scheduled to throw today are Neal Cotts, Chad Fox, Mike Stanton and Randy Wells. You may see Geovany Soto back in the lineup today, too. The Mariners will have a split squad -- they play the Padres tonight in their other game -- so who knows what regulars may or may not appear in this game. There is no radio or TV coverage today, but here is today's MLB.com Mediacenter.

MLB.com Gameday

Discuss amongst yourselves.

Guess-Hitting Hack Homers, Cubs Lose To Giants Anyway, 8-6

Al — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 00:04:09 -0000

You'll recognize the "nickname" in the headline as one that a certain member of this website has bestowed on Alfonso Soriano. The "hack" hacked his third homer of the spring and also singled, but a massive blowup by reliever Jose Ascanio, who allowed five Giants runs in the ninth, turned what appeared to be an easy 5-3 win into an 8-6 loss, even though the Cubs scored a run in the last of the ninth.

Nick Noonan, a Giants farmhand who won't turn 20 until May and who spent last year at Augusta in the South Atlantic League, hit a grand slam off Ascanio, whose ticket to Iowa was likely punched today, though he probably had little chance of making the roster anyway. This makes that cut that much easier for Lou and Jim. Chad Gaudin and Luis Vizcaino weren't that good, either, but at least Vizcaino struck out the side in his inning.

A HoHoKam Park record crowd of 13,024 (was there someone here talking about attendance problems? That's a huge crowd for a Wednesday) brought the total spring attendance so far to 120,130, or 10,010 per game, with seven home dates remaining, almost all of which should be sold out or close, especially if the weather remains as spectacularly nice as it was today (I understand it's supposed to cool off over the weekend, then warm up again next week).

Tim Lincecum, who started for the Giants, must have been working on something today, because the Cubs hit him pretty hard and he was also wild, walking four (while striking out six) in 3.2 innings of work. Meanwhile, Ryan Dempster was outstanding, allowing only four singles and a walk in his five innings of work, striking out four. He should be right on target for his first start in the season's second game in Houston. Mike Fontenot had two more hits, raising his average to .391, and Joey Gathright also had two hits, and one of them hit Giants 3B Pablo Sandoval in the face; Sandoval had to leave the game.

Tomorrow, Aaron Heilman faces the Mariners' Gaby Hernandez at Peoria. Heilman was a Mariner for 47 days, between December 12 and January 28. Wonder if he and Garrett Olson will swap frequent-flier mile stories from this past offseason?

Finally, this photo has nothing to do with the Cubs, but I thought it was hilarious, so I wanted to post it here anyway. Today, Manny Ramirez helped some Australian cricketers tape a promotional spot for DirecTV's cricket coverage at the Arizona Cricket Club in Gilbert. No, I am not making this up. The mind boggles:

photo via d.yimg.com

Doubleheader Day: Cubs vs. Mariners at Mesa and Cubs vs. Angels at Tempe, Friday 3/13, 3:05 CT

Al — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 17:00:25 -0000

There are two games today, both available via the MLB.com Mediacenter, both via the radio flagship of the Cubs' opponents. So which one will you choose to listen to, and which one will you follow on Gameday?

Decisions, decisions.

Lou had a long talk with Kosuke Fukudome about last year and this year, and about being benched at the end of last year, Dome said:

"It didn't feel good at all," he said. "But I understand what my condition was at the end of the season, so it was [justified]. I would like to start speaking up a little bit more to make sure my thoughts are being translated."

This goes back to some earlier stories and comments that have been made that seemed to indicate that either Dome was shy to speak up because of the cultural differences, or that what he was saying wasn't being translated properly, or both. We do know that there's a new translator this year, so maybe that will help in terms of communication.

Other news of note: Sam Zell was apparently being shaken down for money by former Gov. Rod Blagojevich only two weeks before Rod was arrested. I mention this because it was apparently in connection with the proposed deal to sell Wrigley Field to the state (a deal which, I presume, is now dead):

In another campaign document dated Dec. 3, 2008, Tribune Co. sports consultant Mark Ganis is listed among 143 names of potential donors for tentative or scheduled fund-raising events. Next to Ganis' name are the notations "New York Event" and "Rod went to dinner on 9/19. Rob needs to follow up."

The Tribune Co., parent of the Chicago Tribune, hired Ganis to help structure a sale of Wrigley. His name also appeared on the September call list next to a notation that read: "Patti and Rod dinner."

Non-Cub news: Jonathan Papelbon speaks out on Manny Ramirez:

"He was on a different train! And you saw what happened with that. We got rid of him, and we moved on without him," Papelbon was quoted in the April issue of Esquire. The story was posted on the magazine's Web site Thursday.

"So Manny was tough for us," Papelbon added. "You have somebody like him, you know at any point in the ballgame, he can dictate the outcome of the game. And for him not to be on the same page as the rest of the team was a killer, man! It just takes one guy to bring an entire team down, and that's exactly what was happening."

"Once we saw that, we weren't afraid to get rid of him. It's like cancer. That's what he was. Cancer. He had to go. It sucked, but that was the only scenario that was going to work. That was it for us. And after, you could feel it in the air in the clubhouse. We got Jason Bay - Johnny Ballgame, plays the game right, plays through broken knees, runs out every ground ball - and it was like a breath of fresh air, man! Awesome! No question."

I assume that some or all of this is exactly the way the Red Sox felt. But the other side of this story is that Manny helped his new team make the playoffs. "Cancer" or no, there's no question that when Manny Ramirez puts his head the right way, he's a major force in helping his teams win.

This afternoon, Sean Marshall will face Seattle's Gaby Hernandez. Other relievers who will throw at Mesa include Jose Ascanio, Kevin Hart, Mike Stanton, Luis Vizcaino and Jason Waddell (who Lou seems to like quite a bit).

At Tempe, Chad Gaudin will pitch against LA's Dustin Moseley. Cub relievers in the road game will be Mitch Atkins, Justin Berg, Esmailin Caridad, Chad Fox, Ken Kadokura and Jeff Stevens.

I imagine we'll see Carlos Marmol throw tomorrow in the home game against the Angels.

MLB.com Gameday for the Cubs/Mariners game

MLB.com Gameday for the Cubs/Angels game

Discuss amongst yourselves.

The All-Shoulda-Been-Olympians Team

Jay — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 22:50:06 -0000

So I've been thinking it over for the last hour, and it comes down to this.

Grady Sizemore's team isn't going anywhere — the Indians are long-shots to finish as high as third place in their own division and will fare no better in the Wild Card race. And Grady Sizemore himself isn't going anywhere — his youth, talent and long contract all made it extraordinarily unlikely he'd be traded by the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline, and beyond unthinkable after that date.

That being the case, is there really any good reason that Grady Sizemore wasn't competing in the Olympics?

LINEUP ROTATION BENCH BULLPEN

2B Brian Roberts Jake Peavy
IF Ian Kinsler Trevor Hoffman

CF Grady Sizemore Cliff Lee
IF Brandon Phillips Brandon Morrow

RF Josh Hamilton Tim Lincecum
OF Nick Markakis Mike Adams

1B Lance Berkman Justin Duchscherer
OF Nate McLouth Jeremy Affeldt

DH Raul Ibañez C Kurt Suzuki Brad Ziegler

3B Ty Wigginton

LF Brian Giles

C Kelly Shoppach

SS Michael Young

IOC President Jacques Rogge came right out and said it today; without major leaguers, there would be no point in bringing baseball back to the Olympics:

"We have Federer, Nadal in tennis, LeBron James in basketball. We have the best cyclists. Ronaldinho is here in football. We want these guys at the Games. We're not saying it should be an entire Major League team, but we want the top athletes here at the Olympics."

This raises the important question, "Who is Ronaldinho?" And also other questions, like:

Do we really need to hold back from the Olympics every last one of the 1,200 players on the 40-man rosters of all thirty major league teams?
Would it really be so bad if some players who aren't competing for the playoffs took a little break to compete in the Olympics, August 13-23?
If there are sixty All-Stars every year, couldn't we put together a hell of a 23-man roster for Team USA, even while excluding players still competing for playoff spots?
By the time the Olympics start in mid-August, don't we already know which players are still competing for playoff spots, and which ones clearly aren't?

Yes, there are logistical issues, contractual issues, lots of little details to work out. There's the messy matter of officially declaring a team's season lost before it's officially eliminated. There are incentive clauses in player contracts that would be affected, downstream roster and service time and options affected, and eligibility for batting and pitching titles. There are all the issues that already make the WBC messy.

I submit to you that these things could all be worked out without too much trouble. I submit to you that the players would want it. I submit to you that the owners wouldn't lose any significant amount of money, and they all stand to gain immensely by expanding the international marketing of their sport, their Major League, and their players. I submit to you that in a lost season, Indians fans would rather see Grady Sizemore trouncing the Netherlands in the Olympics for two weeks, even if it means that he'll play in only 140 Indians games that season.

So let's set some reasonable ground rules.

Team selections take place on August 1, after the non-waiver trade deadline, and players report sometime August 5-10. All eight Olympic qualifying countries would be allowed to substitute major leaguers on their rosters, of course.
Any team within 10 games of a playoff spot can exempt any or all of their players.
Any team can exempt any player who's been on the DL this season.
Any team can exempt one additional player just because they want to.
Any player can exempt himself, of course.
As an incentive to the teams to send players, any player sent to the Olympics can be traded without passing through waivers, within 24 hours of that player's final Olympic game.

Take a look at the standings as of the morning of August 1, and you'll find that fully twelve teams out of 30 were more than 10 games out of a playoff spot, and three others were also genuinely hopeless.

AL: Orioles, Royals, Indians, Rangers, A's, Mariners.

NL: Nationals, Reds, Astros, Pirates, Giants, Padres.

Also hopeless: Blue Jays, Braves, Rockies. (They can exempt their whole rosters, but we might just sweet-talk them out of Halladay and Holliday.)

Of course by August, Sabathia had already gone to the Brewers, and Bay to the Red Sox, and so on, but literally dozens of great players remained on non-contending teams. The Indians would have exempted Carmona due to his injuries and taken Paul Byrd as their one general exemption, since they would have expected to move him in a waiver deal, and other clubs would have made similar exemptions. Could we still have built an impressive Team USA out of those teams' healthy players? Hell, yes.

We'd need four starters for seven games in the preliminary round, and then two for the medal round. (You'd probably start your #1 guy in Games 1 and 5 and the Gold Medal game, but you'd probalby hold back your #2 guy to Game 4, so he could start the winner-take-all semifinal on full rest. The other games aren't as crucial.) Of course we'd need nine starting everyday players (including a DH), and I imagine we'd go with five bench players and five relievers — with absolutely no roster substitutions, better at least consider a third catcher.

Here's a quick-and-dirty take on what the Team USA roster might have looked like under these rules.

Rotation: Jake Peavy, Cliff Lee, Tim Lincecum, Justin Duchscherer.

Wow, that wasn't even hard — we get the top three ERAs in the majors plus the reigning NL Cy Young, and that's assuming we can't get Halladay! If one or more of them get exempted, we can look at Guthrie, Greinke, Cain and Maholm — the Giants can't exempt both Lincecum and Cain — and we can still try to get the Blue Jays to send Halladay and/or Marcum. Other countries potentially get Volquez (Dominican), Felix (Venezuela) and Jair-Jurr (Netherlands).

Infield: Lance Berkman, Brian Roberts, Michael Young, Ty Wigginton.

What I really think is that in this situation, the hopeless Braves would do the right thing and send Chipper Jones to the Olympics, especially having already signaled a surrender in trading Teixeira. Without cheating by that assumption, however, we get Wigginton — and we could easily plug in Kinsler if we wanted to have an all-don't-mess-with infield.

Outfield & DH: Josh Hamilton, Grady Sizemore, Brian Giles, Raul Ibañez.

People ... Josh Hamilton is going to the Olympics. Josh Hamilton is going to the Olympics! Doesn't that one simple sentence make it abundantly clear that this totally would have worked? Granted, the pickings are a bit slim after Hamilton and Sizemore, but remember, we're going to try to talk the Rockies out of Holliday and Hawpe, too. Ibañez narrowly gets the call start at DH over Markakis, who would be more valuable coming off the bench.

Catchers: Kelly Shoppach, Kurt Suzuki.

Again, sticking strictly to the exemption rules leaves us without star power here, but Shoppach has slugged like crazy since assuming the starting job and was always a plus defender. Lots of good "maybes" for the roster here, as Ianetta and McCann play for teams on the fringe of a race and Doumit has been injured somewhat. Even if I got Doumit, I'd probably feel like I needed to carry three catchers in that case, where on the other hand, you're pretty safe carrying just two with the other guys. Suzuki was born in Hawaii, by the way.

Bench: Ian Kinsler, Brandon Phillips, Nick Markakis, Nate McLouth.

Kinsler, Phillips and Markakis are incredibly good options here, while McLouth is really just a placeholder; if we could get Chipper or Holliday or Hawpe, then he's out. You don't really need a backup center fielder, of course, with both Hamilton and Sizemore starting. Alex Gordon would be another good option here.

Bullpen: Trevor Hoffman, Brad Ziegler, Brandon Morrow, Jeremy Affeldt, Mike Adams.

Okay, I'm guilty of playing a lot of hot-hand here, but it's relievers, what else are you gonna do? Affeldt is your emergency starter. You'd rather take use a few major league starters as Olympic relievers, of course, as in the All-Star Game, but it might be harder to get the teams' cooperation for that. Kind of a Cinderella story for MIke Adams, by the way, and everyone knows about Ziegler.

For those keeping score, that's four Team USA members from the Padres; three each from the Athletics, Rangers and Indians; two each from the Astros, Mariners, Orioles, and Pirates; and one Giant. Out of the twelve teams named above who were ten-plus games out of the postseason as of August 1, the roster above draws from all but the Nationals and Royals, and many of those choices were borderline or arbitrary. Keep in mind, too, that this is only Team USA — no doubt a dozen or more players would have been sent to represent the Netherlands, South Korea, Canada and Japan, and if major leaguers had participated in qualifying rounds — e.g., Tejada and Mora playing for Venezuela and the Dominican — as much as half the field of eight teams might have been different.

I won't claim that this specific coulda-been Team USA roster is scientific or even particularly well chosen — based on talent alone, there probably should be a couple minor leaguers on there — but it's certainly a viable roster, and it doesn't use one player who spent August contributing to a playoff push. More to the point, it's got real star power — Hamilton and SIzemore are Sports Illustrated coverboys, and Team USA would be looking to start the leading AL Cy Young candidate in the semifinals and the reigning NL Cy Young winner in the Gold Medal Game. Team USA's closer would be the all-time leader in Saves, a slam-dunk Hall of Famer.

This is to say nothing of the biggest star MLB would be contributing — Ichiro, playing for Team Japan. I suspect this contingent of genuine major league talent, including quite a few legit stars, would satisfy the IOC, whose chief made a point of saying that they don't need every top player.

If that is indeed the case, the only question remaining is, who wouldn't want this?

LINEUP	ROTATION	BENCH	BULLPEN
2B Brian Roberts	Jake Peavy	IF Ian Kinsler	Trevor Hoffman
CF Grady Sizemore	Cliff Lee	IF Brandon Phillips	Brandon Morrow
RF Josh Hamilton	Tim Lincecum	OF Nick Markakis	Mike Adams
1B Lance Berkman	Justin Duchscherer	OF Nate McLouth	Jeremy Affeldt
DH Raul Ibañez		C Kurt Suzuki	Brad Ziegler
3B Ty Wigginton
LF Brian Giles
C Kelly Shoppach
SS Michael Young