Archive for 2008

Last week, Red Sox lefty Jon Lester and Angels righty John Lackey met in Anaheim for the first game of a much anticipated division series. On one hand, the Red Sox won the World Series last season, had beaten the Angels in the playoffs about nine straight times, and despite winning the wild card, were considered by many to be the superior time. On the other hand, the Angels won the most games in the junior circuit, and actually went 8-1 against the Red Sox in the regular season, with the Halos winning eight in a row.

In game one, the Red Sox would not start Josh Beckett, one of the, if not the best playoff pitchers we have ever seen, and instead go with Jon Lester. Lester, a star in the making, had a breakout season this year, amassing 210.1 innings of 3.21 ERA/3.64 FIP pitching. He had a WHIP of 1.27 and a nice K/BB of 2.30. A hard thrower, Lester threw his 93 mph fastball close to 60% of the time this year, relying on a cutter and a curveball to make up the rest of his deliveries. His season was so good, and perhaps even unexpectedly good, that he has actually been able to shake the reputation as being primarily a cancer survivor, and instead become known as an extremely good pitcher.

The Angels decided to send their ace, John Lackey, to face Lester. Despite missing time earlier in the season, Lackey made 24 starts this year, in which he posted a 3.75 ERA, 1.23 WHIP, and 3.25 K/BB. If there was one blemish, it was that his FIP suggested his ERA should be closer to the 4.53 mark. The Red Sox took game one from the Angels, with Lester giving up one unearned run over six hits in seven innings. He issued just one free pass and fanned seven hitters. Lackey lasted 6.2 innings, giving up four hits and two runs, while walking three and striking out five.

While Lackey has been a good pitcher for quite some time now, he is still remembered for being a rookie pitching in game seven of the 2002 World Series against the Giants. That post-season, he appeared in five games, three of which were starts, posting a 2.42 ERA and 2.25 FIP in 22.1 innings. Since that time, he has made five playoff starts, in which he has produced a 4.34 ERA and 4.90 FIP in 29 innings. His achilles heel has been walks.

In 2002, he issued six walks and struck out 17 hitters. Since then, 15 walks to go with his 21 strikeouts. A team like the Red Sox cannot be given extra baserunners in the form of walks, so if the Angels have any chance of winning this game, not only will they need to break through against Lester, but they will need Lackey to limit his free passes. Otherwise, the Red Sox will more than likely take advantage of these miscues and move onto the ALCS tonight.

The Graduate: Daniel Murphy | Born: April 1985 | 3B/OF

This former 13th round pick (2006) spent 2007 in High-A ball and ended 2008 as an important part of a team racing towards the playoffs. Thanks in part to his versatility, and hot bat, Daniel Murphy appeared in 29 games for the Mets and hit .313/.397/.473 in 131 at-bats. His left-handed bat, mix of speed and power, and ability to play third base, first base and the outfield should ensure him a spot on the Mets’ bench in 2009.

The Riser: Wilmer Flores | Born: August 1991 | Shortstop

The Mets knew they had something special when Wilmer Flores was signed as an amateur free agent out of Venezuela, but they didn’t expect him to be this good this fast. Flores, who did not turn 17 until August, displayed amazing power for his age with an ISO of .180 in Rookie Ball, which earned him a late-season promotion to the New York Penn League (A league dominated by college draft picks). The only real knock on Flores is his lack of patience (4.7 BB%).

The Tumbler: Nick Carr | Born: April 1987 | Right-Handed Pitcher

The good news is that not many Mets prospects took a step back in 2008. Nick Carr, though, had a disappointing season as a 21-year-old in High-A ball. He allowed 103 hits and 50 walks in 94.2 innings, along with 80 strikeouts. He learned the importance of changing speeds and must continue to work on his change-up if he wants to remain a starter.

The ’08 Draft Pick: Brad Holt | Born: August 1986 | Right-Handed Pitcher

Brad Holt’s selection in the supplemental first round of the 2008 draft did not draw a lot of attention, but his subsequent pro debut season certainly did. Holt allowed just 43 hits in 71.1 innings, along with rates of 4.11 BB/9 and 11.94 K/9, in Short Season ball. Obviously the walks need to come down, but he has likely earned a promotion to High-A ball in 2009 and is on the fast track to New York.

The ’09 Sleeper: Jefry Marte | Born: June 1991 | Third Baseman

Jefry Marte was not as heralded a signing as Flores, but he still received half a million dollars last year as a 16-year-old. The third baseman was considered raw in many areas, but that did not show in the Rookie League this season when he hit .325/.398/.532 with a .208 ISO in 154 at-bats. His walk rate of 7.8% is OK, especially given his age and lack of experience. He could be in full-season ball next season as a 17-year-old.

Next Up: The Los Angeles Angels

In Game 3 of the division series, the oft-frustrating Dave Bush shut down the powerful Phillies offense to bring the Brewers-Phillies series to 2-1. Yesterday, another unlikely “hero” emerged in the form of Joe Blanton, who managed to walk nobody and fan seven hitters, allowing just one run over 6+ innings. The Phillies won the series, their first playoff series win since 1993, and advanced to the NLCS to take on the Dodgers. The Torre Gang swept the Cubs in their division series, thanks to solid pitching and timely hitting with two outs. This sets up quite the interesting matchup given that the two teams played each other eight times after Manny Ramirez was acquired, with the home team sweeping a four-game set each time.

The Dodgers did not have Rafael Furcal in either series, but since both offenses are impressive, this will likely come down to which starting pitchers can truly perform well enough to not only shut down the opposing offense but also limit the bullpen usage. Not that either bullpen is bad, but I am sure fans have more confidence in their starters facing tough hitters in crucial situations than, say, Ryan Madson or Cory Wade, regardless of how effective each has been. Let’s take a look at the potential rotations for both teams, using their regular season statistics:

Phillies
Cole Hamels: 3.09 ERA, 3.72 FIP, 1.08 WHIP, 76.0% LOB, 3.70 K/BB, 2.83 WPA/LI
Brett Myers: 4.55 ERA, 4.52 FIP, 1.38 WHIP, 72.6% LOB, 2.51 K/BB, -0.40 WPA/LI
Jamie Moyer: 3.71 ERA, 4.32 FIP, 1.33 WHIP, 76.6% LOB, 1.98 K/BB, 1.01 WPA/LI
Joe Blanton: 4.20 ERA, 5.03 FIP, 1.37 WHIP, 74.4% LOB, 1.58 K/BB, -0.07 WPA/LI

Blanton’s stats are strictly in a Phillies uniform. Brett Myers is a much better pitcherthan his ERA, FIP, and WPA/LI would indicate, and since returning to the majors at the end of July, has been fantastic in all but two starts. Unfortunately for the Phillies, those starts were his final two of the regular season. Fortunately, however, he rebounded quite nicely and tossed a gem against the Brewers in the division series. Moyer was not very accurate in Game 3, and was squeezed a bit by the home plate umpire, so he is the wild card of the Phillies rotation.

If he is getting calls and pitching in and out like he did during the regular season, he will be very tough. If, however, he struggles with control and is not getting calls, there honestly is no point in keeping him in the game. 82-mph fastballs might be tough when the ump is generous with the strike zone, but as he has to adjust to a tighter zone, they become very hittable. Quick sidenote: all four of these guys have 10-letters in their names.

Dodgers
Derek Lowe: 3.24 ERA, 3.26 FIP, 1.13 WHIP, 70.8% LOB, 3.27 K/BB, 2.61 WPA/LI
Chad Billingsley: 3.14 ERA, 3.35 FIP, 1.34 WHIP, 78% LOB, 2.51 K/BB, 0.91 WPA/LI
Hiroki Kuroda: 3.73 ERA, 3.59 FIP, 1.22 WHIP, 68.5% LOB, 2.76 K/BB, 0.62 WPA/LI
Clayton Kershaw: 4.26 ERA, 4.08 FIP, 1.50 WHIP, 75.7% LOB, 1.92 K/BB, -0.61 WPA/LI

Derek Lowe had an outstanding season and is going to land a hefty contract this off-season. His ability to strike batters out, keep balls in play on the ground, and limit his walks deemed him over two and a half wins better than an average pitcher this year. If you are unsure just how good that is, look at Cole Hamels‘ season, a 2.83 WPA/LI, and it should become clear how good Lowe’s season really turned out. Lowe is always tough on the Phillies lineup, primarily due to their reliance on the longball for runs. They will need to steal bases and be more patient with him, rather than attempt to launch everything in orbit.

Billingsley is very interesting because his season is pretty much what fans in Philadelphia hoped for from Brett Myers. Both are power-pitchers with nasty breaking pitches. They also both had nearly identical K/BB ratios and WHIPs this season. Whether or not it speaks volumes to Lowe’s effectiveness against the team or Billingsley’s repertoire—if there is anything the Phillies offense does well it is hit 93+ mph fastballs—and lack of experience, the word around Philadelphia is that Billingsley should be a much easier game than Lowe. I would highly doubt either game will be easy, but Myers-Billingsley is very intriguing because both pitchers essentially rely on the same ingredients to concoct their outs-recipe.

Kuroda won’t win the rookie of the year award but he should merit some love in that regard. Despite a well below average strand rate of 68.5%, Hiroki produced just a 3.73 ERA. His controllable skills were even better, earning him a 3.59 FIP. The fourth spot in their rotation will likely go to Clayton Kershaw, as he is a lefty while the other three are righties. Torre seems enamored with using Greg Maddux out of the bullpen, but I would not be surprised if Maddux gets the call at some point in this series.

This has all the makings of a very fun series, with top-notch pitching, impressive starting rotations, and both finesse and flames out of the bullpen. I firmly believe that if the Dodgers had Rafael Furcal and Manny Ramirez all season long, they would have won more games than the Cubs, or at least been within striking distance. They are not the team they were in May, and are much more potent now, with a scarier 1-8 than the Phillies. If Myers is on, then both Game 1 and Game 2 will essentially see ace vs. ace. I can honestly see this going all seven games, but either team will need to fire on all cylinders to take the series, and neither can get satisfied after taking a lead.

A continuation of the series of retrospectives looking back at the regular season and how teams fared. They will be presented, from first to last, in order of their run differential as given by the BaseRuns formula and adjusted for strength of schedule, which I feel is the best measurement of a team’s actual talent level.

Number Five New York Yankees

If you’ve been paying attention this week, you will have hopefully picked up that incredibly this is the fourth team from the AL East already listed within the top five teams. The Yanks check in with 91.1 projected wins by BaseRuns thanks to a much more balanced team than Toronto above them and more akin to the first three teams we saw. The Yankees posted the 7th best offense and 11th best defense in the league.

The offense rested on Alex Rodriguez and a surprising rejuvenation from Johnny Damon. Rodriguez gets too little credit for being probably the best overall hitter in the American League this season and as always when you have a team full of stars, the supporting cast was solid as well. Possibly free agents Bobby Abreu and Jason Giambi both contributed excellent offensive seasons as well.

What did New York in on offense though was their players up the middle. Jorge Posas was hurt early on and Jose Molina was a poor substitute. Robinson Cano had a horrid April which was bad enough to drag his whole season line down the tubes. Derek Jeter had a big off year, recovering some in September after their playoff hopes were already dashed (though you won’t be hearing any words about Jeter only getting hits in meaningless situations) and center field was a nightmare as well.

On the pitching side, the rotation was a mess of injuries and ineffectiveness. On the plus side was the surprising Mike Mussina who succeeded despite a microscopic swinging strike rate, but he might retire. Joining him was Joba Chamberlain, but there are concerns about whether he will be able to stick in the rotation health-wise. Andy Pettitte was also solid enough as well.

On the negative side were injuries to Chien-Ming Wang and Phil Hughes and dismal performances from Sidney Ponson (why?) and Carl Pavano. In the bullpen, amazingly this was one of Mariano Rivera’s best seasons to date and further shows that nobody has any idea when he’s going to show signs of age or when or even if, batters will ever figure out his cutter.

How do the Yanks look for 2009? Well, they should be busy during the winter as usual and that takes a lot of the edge off but right now they have serious question marks up and down their rotation and a rapidly aging offensive core.

Let’s face it: Khalil Greene stunk this year. He entered 2008 as a .253/.306/.446 true talent hitter, projected to hit 35 doubles and launch 20 home runs. These numbers may not be remarkable, but they look Ruthian compared to his .213/.260/.339 line in 105 games this season. You won’t find him on the leaderboards here but if you adjust the qualifier to those with 400+ plate appearances, Greene can be found second from the bottom—to just Michael Bourn—with his .599 OPS, and fifth from the bottom amongst senior circuit hitters in WPA/LI, with a -1.56. In about two-thirds of the season, Greene was one and a half win worse than an average hitter.

His strikeout rate, which was projected to be around 21% this year was actually 25.7%. His BABIP, which had ranged from .277 to .287 over the last three years, dropped to .262, which is not monumental given that he seemed like 15-25 points below .300 was his true talent level, but still a cause for his poor production. Khalil’s Marcel projection for Isolated Power was .192 and he finished sixty-six points below, at .126.

His fielding also took a hit. After recording a +13 in 2006 and a +7 last year, Greene lost range to his right, at which he had been quite good the last few years, and his ability to range left worsened as well, ultimately resulting in a -4. His frustration at poor production came to its boiling point on July 30, against the Diamondbacks.

After recording his one-hundredth strikeout of the season, Greene punched a storage cabinet at Petco Park, breaking a bone in his left hand. He missed the rest of the season, meaning there would be no opportunity to regress or improve. For reference, via WPA/LI, in the national league, only Jeff Franceour, Michael Bourn, Jeff Keppinger, and Cesar Izturis had worse seasons. As the title of this post suggests, however, there is more to this story. Because Greene’s injury was self-inflicted and not the byproduct of an on field incident, Sandy Alderson and the Padres are looking to get their hands on about 1.47 of the 4.5 million dollars Greene was set to make this year.

I’m curious to hear your thoughts on this. I understand baseball is a business and yadda yadda, but the team was not going anywhere this year, at least by July 30, and so Greene’s frustration-induced-injury didn’t necessarily prevent them from making the playoffs. If you’re in Alderson’s shoes, do you look to recollect some of the money too?

If you are a Chicago White Sox fan – or even a Tampa Bay Rays fan – you may be asking yourself: “Where the heck did Dewayne Wise come from?” The hot-hitting, 30-year-old outfielder has been around baseball for a very long time. He was originally drafted out of South Carolina at the age of 19 by the Cincinnati Reds with the 158th pick (fifth round) of the 1997 amateur draft.

Wise then bounced around the low minors for three seasons without doing anything overly spectacular. However, impressed with his speed, athleticism and raw power potential, the Toronto Blue Jays selected Wise in the Rule 5 draft and he spent the 2000 season in the big leagues (with the exception of a 15-game rehab stint in Double-A). He appeared in just 28 games and hit .136/.208/.136 as a 22-year-old.

He then spent the next three seasons in the Blue Jays system and appeared in 42 more big league games but showed nothing with the bat and hit below .200. Wise moved on to the Atlanta organization and took advantage of some injuries with the big league club and appeared in 72 MLB games but hit just .228/.272/.444 with six homers and six stolen bases.

Over the next three seasons, Wise spent a year with the Tigers’ Triple-A affiliate and two years with the Reds organization, where he managed to appear in another 36 MLB games, but again hit below .200 during that time. The White Sox then took a flyer on Wise for the 2008 season and caught lightening in a bottle. He hit .319/.402/.565 in 191 Triple-A at-bats with nine homers and 15 stolen bases.

Wise was then called up to the big league club where he hit .248/.293/.450 in 129 at-bats. He impressed the White Sox brass enough to be included on the post-season roster after he hit some big homers to help the club achieve a post-season berth. In his first post-season start against Tampa Bay earlier this week, Wise went 1-for-3 with a three-run homer against Rays’ ace James Shields.

After battling in obscurity for 11 seasons, Wise deserves to bask in the spotlight. However, the same questions that have plagued Wise throughout his career remain. It’s unlikely that he’s finally broken out at the age of 30. He is still displaying a low walk rate (5.8% with a career rate of 4.7%) and a high strikeout rate (24.8% with a career rate of 18.6%). His 2008 BABIP is also .050 higher than his career rate. Wise’s numbers are more indicative of a fourth outfielder, than a starting left-fielder in the Major League playoffs.

Enjoy The Show while you can, Dewayne.

First off, this post will not discuss anything involving CC Sabathia’s statistics in the playoffs this or last year. Unlike mainstream media outlets, I do not care about the sample size of five games started–1 in 2001, 3 last year, and 1 this year–and I am not automatically going to jump on the his-arm-was-tired-from-so-many-games-on-3-days-rest bandwagon. Is it possible? Sure, but I’m not fully convinced and am not going to make a leap just to sound like I have a concrete opinion on the matter. If I don’t, I’m not going to lie. Instead, what I want to discuss from yesterday’s Phillies-Brewers game is Brett Myers… and I don’t even mean his pitching.

No, I want to discuss Brett Myers‘ plate appearances against Sabathia yesterday, since they resulted in about 1/5 of Sabathia’s total pitches thrown. First, some context!

In the bottom of the second, with the Brewers leading 1-0, CC retired Pat Burrell before Jayson Werth hit a double to left-center. Pedro Feliz then stepped up to bat, and I, along with several other sports bar patrons all spoke of how Sabathia should just throw slider after slider to Feliz, since he really struggles with anything other than fastballs. Hmm, sounds like another Pedro–5 points to whomever guesses which one! Sure enough, CC hung a changeup and Feliz doubled in Werth to tie the game 1-1. Carlos Ruiz then grounded out, advancing Feliz to third base, but making the second out, meaning that it was very unlikely the Phillies would take the lead. After all, Brett Myers, one of the worst hitting pitchers in baseball, was up, with two outs, against one of the best pitchers of the last five years.

What ensued was a shocking nine pitch plate appearance in which Myers not only fouled pitches off, but managed to lay off of some extremely close ones. Sabathia looked visibly frustrated and eventually walked Myers. He then walked Jimmy Rollins before Shane Victorino hit the grand slam. While Victorino will get most of the credit for the Phillies win, I would definitely adjust the WPA of this game to give more credit to Myers, since his plate appearance had an extremely unlikely result and allowed the inning to extend, which in turn allowed Victorino to hit the grand slam.

The Phillies led 5-1 and Myers was cruising. In the fourth inning, Sabathia and Myers met again, this time for an epic 10-pitch at bat in which Myers eventually flew out to centerfield. Once again, he laid off and fouled off pitchess. And it wasn’t as if CC just threw fastballs: each time he pretty much reached back and gave Myers everything in his repertoire. If the Brewers win the next two games, it will set up a likely Sabathia-Hamels matchup in Philadelphia, where CC can look for some redemption. He was wild yesterday, and frustrated at his supposed inability to retire one of the worst hitting pitchers in the game, but this is not CC Sabathia. Brett Myers may get credited with a pitching win and a solid line on the mound, but his time at the plate really helped change this game as well.

Good news! Win Probability and Run Expectancy stats have all been park adjusted for 2008. It looks like the run environment during the season was set a little too high, so you’ll notice batter stats are slightly higher, while pitcher stats are a bit lower. Other than that, not much changed. Manny Ramirez is still #1 in WPA for batters and Cliff Lee is still #1 for pitchers.

A continuation of the series of retrospectives looking back at the regular season and how teams fared. They will be presented, from first to last, in order of their run differential as given by the BaseRuns formula and adjusted for strength of schedule, which I feel is the best measurement of a team’s actual talent level.

Number Four: Toronto Blue Jays

This is probably a surprising result to many considering the Blue Jays finished fourth in their own division, much less in all of baseball, but anyone paying attention to adjusted standings throughout the season will have seen this coming as the Blue Jays posted a 93-69 pythag record. Their BaseRuns record wasn’t quite that impressive, docking them an additional 30 runs allowed, but still good enough to qualify them above 26 other teams.

It is here that I have to take a moment to bring up a modification to the rankings. I mentioned in the Rays review that the Rays’ strength of schedule (SoS) was the toughest in the league. Well it occurred to me that if I was using BaseRuns to try and correct for luck on the field, I might as well use SoS to try and correct for luck in scheduling as well. To that extent, I modified each team’s BaseRuns winning percentage by adding their SoS to their BaseRuns pythag and then subtracting 0.5. The rest of the rankings will proceed using this methodology and there’s already one change. Because of Tampa’s toughest schedule and the Cubs relatively mild one, the Rays overcome the Cubs for second in the league. So for those keeping score at home, here’s the adjusted win totals of the first four teams:

1. Boston 101.5
2. Tampa 96.1
3. Chicago (N) 95.8
4. Toronto 91.8

Now then, we can get on with the focus on the Blue Jays. The staple so far had been balanced teams, but the Blue Jays break that mold by having probably the most dominant run prevention corps in the league. They rank 2nd overall, but by just eight runs allowed to a National League team.

A.J. Burnett and Roy Halladay (who probably deserves the AL Cy Young over Cliff Lee) anchored the staff but the avoidance of any black holes in the rotation helped equally in creating such a strong staff. Unfortunately, much of that is up in the air for 2009 with Burnett having an option to leave, and Dustin McGowan and Shaun Marcum suffering through arm surgery. On the relief side, a big kudos goes to Scott Downs and his crazy groundball rates that helped limit home runs and his solid enough strikeout and walk rates making him one of the better relievers in the league this season.

Offensively, there wasn’t much to celebrate. Vernon Wells was one of the few bright spots, recovering from his disastrous 2007 year to post a very solid season much more in line with his previous efforts. The Blue Jays dumped Frank Thomas, who went on to be good in Oakland (before getting hurt), for Matt Stairs, who went on to be mediocre and then was traded to Philadelphia. Alexis Rios cemented himself as a capable hitter with his third consecutive productive year. Travis Snider had a good first 80 plate appearances, hopefully providing Toronto with some hope for a future that looks tough behind Boston, New York and Tampa.

While I planned on just watching the Phillies-Brewers game yesterday, all three games ended up being absorbed by my eyes. The stress of watching the Phillies almost give the game back to the Brewers subsided when I got the chance to watch the Cubs-Dodgers game, one in which I vested no personal interest. Then, when I could not fall asleep, I found myself really into a pitcher’s duel between Jon Lester and John Lackey, a very fun Red Sox-Angels game. There were a few things I noticed in these games, both good and bad, that merited some discussion. We’ll start with the Phillies-Brewers game.

Two things stood out for me in this game. First, the Phillies offense was really stifled by Mitch Stetter and Carlos Villanueva. They had trouble hitting Yovani Gallardo, as well, and only scored three runs due to fielding blunders by the Brewers and Gallardo’s early wildness. Managing four hits against Gallardo/Stetter/Villanueva/Parra/Mota does not instill massive confidence in myself heading into a Game Two against CC Sabathia. Secondly, why oh why did Cole Hamels come out of the game?

I am not going to rail on Charlie Manuel for making this decision because Brad Lidge had a terrific year, but Hamels had thrown just 101 pitches, after needing just 18 total to get through the 7th and 8th innings. It may have been the fourth time through the order, but this just felt like a move Manuel made because it was “the right thing to do” or the proper and traditional way to manage. The Phillies did hang on to win the game, but Lidge made it very interesting and because he needed so many pitches to escape the ninth inning, his availability tonight, if needbe, is questionable. As my brother pointed out at Phanatic Phollow Up, there were many more cons than pros to removing Hamels.

Next up, Cubs-Dodgers. I know the announcers mentioned this, but boy did that Wrigley Field crowd sound dead. Yes, Ryan Dempster had the best season of his career this year, but wasn’t the point of acquiring Rich Harden to be your ace? As MGL pointed out at The Book Blog, a healthy Harden is much better than Dempster, but Lou was likely swayed by Dempster’s success at home this year. Dempster didn’t seem to have “it” working last night, but the walks through the first four innings were interspersed and not all at one juncture, so the total kind of crept up. In that fifth inning, though, with Marshall warming up and Dempster clearly not possessing his best stuff, perhaps it would have been prudent to have the lefty face James Loney. Hindsight is 20/20 but it just seemed like Lou had too much unmerited faith in Dempster yesterday.

Also, Cubs fans get stereotyped as fairweather and ignorant from time to time, but for them to applaud Greg Maddux as he made his way to the mound to the ninth inning, while they trailed 7-2, was really nice to see. I felt the same way earlier in the season, when Maddux was with the Padres, and he faced Cole Hamels at Citizens Bank Park. Maddux had pitched quite well and when he left, the Phillies crowd gave him a standing ovation. Fanbases may be stereotyped, and the stereotypes may be there for good reason, but this was just very nice to see.

Lastly, the play everyone will talk about in the Angels-Red Sox game is Vladimir Guerrero‘s attempt at an extra base on Torii Hunter‘s bloop over Kevin Youkilis’s head. My immediate reaction to that play was – “Wow, Youk got that ball so quickly!” It is very easy to see the play develop and question why Guerrero, a slower runner, would even make that attempt, but if that same play occurs ten times, I would wager Youkilis gets the ball that quickly once. That is the type of play where the ball kicks around, or the first- and second-baseman struggle to recover, allowing a first and third situation. Guerrero saw the ball go over his head, figured this would happen, and went for third. I cannot fault him at all. It wasn’t as if Mark Teixeira was on deck. First and third for Howie Kendrick is much more appealing than first and second.

Overall, a pretty exciting first day of playoff baseball with two road teams taking game one. For Thursday, we have James Shields vs. Javier Vazquez at 2:30, Brett Myers vs. CC Sabathia at 6 PM, and Chad Billingsley vs. Carlos Zambrano at 9:30 PM.