This Week in Baseball 9/1 - 9/7

[Bruiser Chong 0]

+ close game =

[KingPK 0]

Seriously, Dustin Pedroia is just fucking insane at the plate right now. Batting over .600 over the past week and he has 5 RBI tonight. He's a darkhorse MVP candidate especially with Youkilis out.

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

Scary thought, under the old divisional alignment, the Astros would have led the NL West at this point.

[Bruiser Chong 0]

In the most shocking development of the season, Derrek Lee hits into a doubleplay on a shitty second pitch when a flyball would've scored the go-ahead run in the eighth. This after the Cubs had drawn three straight walks to load the bases.

[devo 0]

Mets stole one today. Niese's start was even worse than his line indicates and it was really only a couple errors and a bunch of stranded baserunners on Milwaukee's part that kept New York alive.

 

Bullpen was excellent, but since they had to pitch seven innings here's hoping Good Ollie is the one that shows up tomorrow.

[Smartly Pretty 0]

The Brewers radio announce team is excellent. Maybe the best team I've heard this year.

[Cheech Tremendous 0]

Seriously, Dustin Pedroia is just fucking insane at the plate right now. Batting over .600 over the past week and he has 5 RBI tonight. He's a darkhorse MVP candidate especially with Youkilis out.

If he continues to hit like this (or something close to it... no one could keep this up) he won't be a dark horse, he'll win the thing. Not only are his numbers really good, but he looks like a balding 10-year-old. Sportswriters eat that shit up.

[Bruiser Chong 0]

Aramis Ramirez has made three errors over the last three innings. And the Cubs stranded multiple runners with less than two outs for the third straight inning. Hideous game and the Cubs aren't doing anything to make those games with Milwaukee virtually meaningless.

[Bruiser Chong 0]

I'll never outright compare Lou to Dusty, but he does have a tendency to overvalue shitty players. Bob Howry shouldn't be pitching unless it's in mop-up duty, especially with expanded rosters. And Daryl Ward, who aside from that homer in Florida hasn't done shit off the bench, shouldn't be pinch-hitting as the tying run against Valverde. Blah. I guess the Cubs are afraid to get that 86th win and pass last year's total or something.

[jimmy no nose 0]

It's nice to see Aramis fielding like he was back in Pittsburgh. I think he put up something like a .935 fielding percentage for his Pirate career. I just wish he would've stuck around to make his 100th error. He was so close.

[Bruiser Chong 0]

Zambrano's arm is "not feeling good" and there's a chance he's going to get shut down. Super.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

Boy, the Brewers have not been showing up against their potential playoff rivals, for sure. Getting swept by the Mets at home is inexcusable.

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

If nothing else, the Phillies are encroaching on the wild card as well. 3.5 back now. And the Phillies have the Brewers at home for four games next weekend.

 

Highlighting the most important series of the season.

 

Sept 5-7: Philadelphia @ NY Mets; Arizona @ LA Dodgers

Sept. 8-10: Tampa Bay @ Boston

Sept 11-14: Milwaukee @ Philadelphia

Sept 15-17: Boston @ Tampa Bay

Sept 19-21: Arizona @ Colorado

Sept 23-25: Chicago WS @ Minnesota

Sept 26-28: Colorado @ Arizona

[Cheech Tremendous 0]

Dustin Pedroia is hitting .611/.650/1.278 with 7 rbis and 6 runs scored since being moved to the clean-up spot. He's also now 5th in VORP, and should surpass Aubrey Huff and Milton Bradley any day now. The little half-pint is slugging over .500 on the season!

[jimmy no nose 0]

CC Sabbathia officially didn't pitch a no hitter on Sunday. I kind of wish they ruled that he did just to see if anyone would care at this point.

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

Eric Bruntlett (.224/.304/.300) is the starting right fielder tonight. I figure Stairs is benched against the lefty starter and the Phillies at least want defense with a non-strikeout pitcher (Joe Blanton) on the mound. That eliminates Mike Cervenak and Andy Tracy. Why not play Golson, who despite the K's at least has pop and is a good defensive outfielder, see what he can do?

[Bruiser Chong 0]

It's hard to get upset when you're all about ensured a playoff spot. But god damn the Cubs suck right now. And Lou's unfounded love of Casey fucking McGehee is going to induce a stroke for me. The guy doesn't belong up here and if his minor numbers are an indication, that's ALWAYS going to be the case. Yet Lou has flipped the pinch-hitting duties to him in critical spots the last two nights.

[jimmy no nose 0]

The Rays are once again having a ton of trouble with the Yankees and the Red Sox are now in line to pull within 3 games of the AL East lead.

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

Phillies down 9-5 to the Nationals in the 8th. If this holds, that's two out of three dropped to the worst team in the league. Three back of the Mets, if the Phillies don't take two this weekend it puts them in a serious bind. And no, I don't think we can count on the Mets blowing a seven game lead again.

[Bruiser Chong 0]

- The Cubs just got swept at home against the Astros

- They were shut out twice in the series

- Randy Wolf threw one of the shutouts

- David Newhan stole home

 

That about says it all. Get this shit out of your system, Cubs. It doesn't help the Astros have played like the fucking 1998 Yankees since July.

[CanadianGuitarist 0]

CC Sabbathia officially didn't pitch a no hitter on Sunday. I kind of wish they ruled that he did just to see if anyone would care at this point.

I was thinking the same thing; I'd be interested in knowing how history looked at him basically falling into a no-hitter. I can't think of anything in sport that would have been in the same vein.

[Bruiser Chong 0]

Carlos Zambrano's season is apparently in jeopardy. A source says the Cubs are bracing themselves for the possibility that they're going to be without him for the rest of the year. His absence in September isn't the kiss of death, but forget about it if he can't pitch in the playoffs.

[jimmy no nose 0]

Since it's September it's about time that managers start monitoring some of their Innings Pitched numbers. I would start by looking at Edinson Volquez. Dusty Baker made it pretty clear in yesterday's game that he wants him to pick up 20 wins this year and left Volquez in about 40 pitches longer than he should have and he's now at 170 IP. Since he ended up not picking up a W yesterday he'll probably need 4 in 4 starts which would require at least 20 innings of work, and most probably more. Last year was easily his career high with 174 innings, 144 in the minors. Letting him push 200 in the majors this year would probably be a huge mistake. I know it can also be attributed to other things like the league being more used to him, but if you look at his monthly splits as the season goes on hits are up, ERA is up, and strikeouts are down aside from last night. I'd almost understand if they were actually playing for something, but when you're the Cincinnati Reds you should probably be thinking about shutting him down.

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

I'm sorry, but I don't see how simply resting a guy will improve his chances of not getting hurt (well, besides the obvious risk of sudden injury). Six starts left at most, if he goes seven in all of them that's an extra 42 innings, giving him something in the neighborhood of 210 innings. That is NOT an extreme workload. Twenty pitchers have completed 210+ innings at the age of 24, quite a few of them turned out to be very durable.

[jimmy no nose 0]

It could just be coincidence, but there are a ton of examples of guys who it's happened to. It's not so much just pitching 200 innings, just having a significant jump in innings pitched. The biggest example would be Francisco Liriano who missed all of 2007 to TJ surgery, but then there's guys like Tom Gorzelanny this year who just saw their ERAs explode and had lingering arm issues throughout the season although he didn't miss significant time. Ian Kennedy hasn't had too big a drop off, at least at the minor league level, but he has had some arm issues and spent time on the DL. Fausto Carmona and Yovani Gallardo also missed significant time this year, but those were most likely unrelated leg injuries.

[Cheech Tremendous 0]

I'm sorry, but I don't see how simply resting a guy will improve his chances of not getting hurt (well, besides the obvious risk of sudden injury). Six starts left at most, if he goes seven in all of them that's an extra 42 innings, giving him something in the neighborhood of 210 innings. That is NOT an extreme workload. Twenty pitchers have completed 210+ innings at the age of 24, quite a few of them turned out to be very durable.

 

Isn't the general rule of thumb that you don't want to increase workloads by more than 20 innings a year when a pitcher is still in the "injury nexus"? It's not so much that pitching 200 innings can screw up a young guy, but what can hurt them is wearing out an arm that's not conditioned for that sort of grind.

 

I know that BP has done study after study showing that a young pitcher can suffer irreparable damage by increasing innings too quickly, especially when they come at the major league level.

 

EDIT: On the other hand, sometimes this shit gets taken too far out of hand. I just heard that Cashman wants Joba to pitch out of the bullpen AGAIN next year so as to limit his innings. As a Red Sox fan I love that they are going to keep their best pitcher in a role that minimizes his effectiveness, but as an observer of baseball it boggles my mind.

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

It could just be coincidence, but there are a ton of examples of guys who it's happened to. It's not so much just pitching 200 innings, just having a significant jump in innings pitched. The biggest example would be Francisco Liriano who missed all of 2007 to TJ surgery, but then there's guys like Tom Gorzelanny this year who just saw their ERAs explode and had lingering arm issues throughout the season although he didn't miss significant time. Ian Kennedy hasn't had too big a drop off, at least at the minor league level, but he has had some arm issues and spent time on the DL. Fausto Carmona and Yovani Gallardo also missed significant time this year, but those were most likely unrelated leg injuries.

There has always been some level of pitching attrition. How much of that is workload and not is hard to say. Are they sudden injuries or is it wear and tear over time? And guys who are relief pitchers who throw less than 100 innings a year also run into the same problems. I think most experts would say you can increase a pitcher's innings by some increment. If they are throwing an extreme amount more, that's a problem. In this case, we're talking an increase of 30-40 more innings, I doubt that's extreme.

 

All I advocate here is that there is little harm in letting Volquez take his regular turn through the season.

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

Isn't the general rule of thumb that you don't want to increase workloads by more than 20 innings a year when a pitcher is still in the "injury nexus"? It's not so much that pitching 200 innings can screw up a young guy, but what can hurt them is wearing out an arm that's not conditioned for that sort of grind.

 

Here's Edinson Volquez over the last three years.

 

2005: 140

2006: 154.1

2007: 178.2

2008: 170+

 

Turns out Volquez actually has 4-5 starts left. So under the standard you mention, 200 innings pitched would be acceptable.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

I think the Brewers decided that since the Cubs have been losing, they had better lose too, just to make their final series against them all the more exciting.

 

On the surprising side, Yovani Gallardo threw a simulated game the other day and could actually return to the team in mid-September. That would be a nice boost, to either the rotation or bullpen, depending on how they decide to use him.

[Bruiser Chong 0]

Carlos Quentin has a broken wrist.