EVIL~! alkeiper

From one extreme to the other apparently. Mike Schmidt was on Stephen A. Smith's show yesterday in part defending Barry Bonds. It is apparent many athletes are defending their friends and it is influencing their judgement. Just witness Rob Dibble when he gets on his high horse. But I have yet to see a massive outbreak of death among athletes taking steroids. Most of the victims, such as Ken Caminiti, had their hands in drugs far beyond performance enhancers. Philadelphia had a "paint the town red" week to promote the opening of the baseball season. Given our 1-6 start, that should never happen again.

Note to Charlie Manuel... This is what a mop-up man looks like... The reason he's a mop-up man is because he sucks. He's proven his sucktitude over multiple MLB seasons. You use him to eat innings. You do NOT put him into the 8th inning of a ball game. That's a situation for a "set up" man. Here are several examples of better set-up men than Franklin...

How to win a Gavin Floyd start. Step 1: Score 5 runs in the first inning. Step 2: Pray.

There's some impressive early season lines on that club. Michael Bourn has reached base eight times and stolen eight bases. Scott Mathieson has allowed nine of sixteen baserunners to score.

I'm attending my first games of the season this weekend, Friday and Sunday with the Red Barons facing the Norfolk Tide. John Maine battles Eude Brito in the home opener. Sunday features LIMA TIME~! against Allen Davis. Davis has given up 14 runs in two starts so far this season.

Holy !#%& the Phillies won!

4-0 Phillies thanks to some bad defense from the Braves. Harry Kalas got himself a foul ball as well.

For Cubs fans, milb.com is showing free, live video of the Iowa Cubs' game against the Nashville Sounds. 8pm ET.

That's really a worthless statistic. Jeter's a front of the order hitter and he's not a tremendous home run hitter. That their basis of comparisons have just two and three more just shows that such an event is an oddity more than any exhibition of skill. It's like measuring hitters based on ground rule doubles or something.

Mike Hampton hit two home runs in a single game for the Colorado Rockies against the Houston Astros on June 5, 2001. In a game at Coors Field on May 18, 2002, both Kevin Millwood and opposing pitcher Denny Stark hit home runs. Also to add more information, Wes Ferrell owns the career record with 36 home runs as a pitcher. Ferrell also owns the single season record with nine home runs in 1931. Jim Tobin is the only modern pitcher to hit three home runs in a game, doing so for the 1942 Boston Braves. One more note, pitcher Rick Wise hit two home runs while no-hitting the Reds in June of 1971.

Free Justin Huber!

The Royals are probably better. The difference is that the Marlins have several players like Eric Reed and Dan Uggla, who are top candidates to crash and burn, leaving their team with a gaping hole. The Royals at least have mediocracy to fall back on. David DeJesus is a nice player too, for what it's worth. The Phillies' 1-6 start is frustrating. The problem is their league worst .160 batting average with RISP. There's not much you can do besides wait it out, but it is highly frustrating in the meantime.

These days, MLB.com and other sites provide highlights and key plays on demand, making it easier to catch the essentials without sifting through the crap. Dozens of blogs provide higher quality analysis. And more frequently, I've been turning to the local cable sport channels for sports news. They are usually low key and informative.

Just to wrap up week one. I don't know if I'll keep this up. Player of the Week: Chris Shelton, Det .583 BA, 5 HRs, 9 RBIs. Pitcher of the Week: Brad Penny, LA 12 IP, 1 BB, 14 Ks, 1.50 ERA, 2 wins.

Bonds was a free agent. Schmidt was traded for Armando Rios and Ryan Vogelsong. Awful trade, but in fairness there was little indication that Schmidt would blossom into an all-star.

Marshall walked Pujols and made one bad pitch to Scott Rolen. Otherwise he's been decent.

Watching ESPN, Joe Morgan and co. repeated the same story about the Cubs scoring a large percentage of their runs via the home run. Last year the Cubs finished ninth in runs scored, despite finishing second in batting average, slugging percentage and home runs. They were 13th in stolen bases yes. They were also sixteenth (last) in walks.

The Giants/Braves gamecast says Marcus Giles also left the game with an injury. Can anyone elaborate?

Bobby Abreu hit a walk-off home run in game one. Of course, he probably didn't hustle around the bases or something.

Don't judge Zito based on his early season performances. Over his career he's got a 5.05 ERA in April, and 3.27 the rest of the way. He's a slow starter.

Other sports certainly.

I thought this might be a new and interesting topic. This isn't about guys who are in a Hall of Fame undeservably. It's about players who would seemingly have no chance at a HOF career at some point, and yet made it. Hopefully, you'll get the idea. Hoyt Wilhelm: Wilhelm made his major league debut at the age of 29 for the New York Giants. Wilhelm went on to pitch 1,070 games and save 227 games. Both at the time were Major League records. Wilhelm's adjusted ERA+ of 146 is bested only by Lefty Grove and Pedro Martinez. Dazzy Vance: As a 30 year old career minor leaguer, Vance owned a career MLB record of 0-4. After an arm injury necessitated surgery, Vance returned to the Majors and won 197 games, leading the league in strikeouts seven straight years. Casey Stengel: Stengel played 14 seasons in the majors as a largely average player, then began a managerial career. Stengel collected a .453 winning percentage over three seasons with the Brooklyn Dodgers followed by a .432 winning percentage over six seasons with the Boston Braves. Hired to manage the Yankees six years later, he won ten of the next twelve AL pennants.

It shouldn't be a surprise that Fasano hit one out. He's got power to spare, it's just his batting average that lacks.

For god sakes. Even Grady Little thinks Floyd should be taken out. Get off your ass Charlie. And may I also add that we keep three lefties in the bullpen so we can bring in a righty against J.D. Drew with the bases loaded. We really should just forfeit this game and save our pitchers, because Manuel is obviously not trying to win it.

Gavin makes me nervous every time out. He had as awful a year in AAA as any pitcher I've ever seen, and I got to see 6-7 of those starts live. And the AAA stat line usually doesn't show that he also hit 19 batters.