Baseball's Twists and Turns
Baseball is like dominoes: One twist or turn can influence many other things. That's because baseball is such a long season, with teams playing just about every day for six months. Quality starts, for instance, can have an enormous impact on the effectiveness of bullpens.
Look no further than the AL East. The Red Sox have been getting quality outings from Curt Schilling, Josh Beckett, newcomer Daisuke Matsuzaka and Tim Wakfield. Last week Matsuzaka had the flu and could only go five innings, but despite being violently ill, he made his start and pitched reasonably well. A start earlier, Schilling had a bad game against the Yankees, but still made it through six innings.
Shaky starts like that have been rare, but even going 5-6 innings lightens the load on the relief staff, giving a manager so much more flexibility and a bullpen plenty of rest. Take a No. 4 or 5 starter like Wakefield and look at how many innings he.5?s gone in each start this season: 6, 7, 7, 6, 5, 7, 7, 7, 5, and 7 innings.
That is outstanding reliability. More to the point, it takes strain off the bullpen. Now look at the ERAs of the Sox bullpen with Hideki Okajima (1.09 ERA), Jonathan Papelbon (1.47), Kyle Snyder (1.65), J.C. Romero (2.35), Javier Lopez (3.72) and Brendan Donnelly (3.94). Their numbers are outstanding but the fact is they are much better because they are not overworked thanks to the starters. That's why Boston is 17-7 under the total on the road.
Contrast that situation with the Yankees. General manager Brian Cashman wanted to get a younger team and got it, by trading veterans like Randy Johnson and Gary Sheffield. But it was also Cashman's decision to sign Japanese import Kei Igawa, who also been awful (7.63 ERA) and he was the one who signed Carl Pavano to a 4-year deal, a complete waste of $40-million dollars.
Cashman changed the strength and conditioning regimen of his players by hiring a strength person who never had worked with a baseball team. The results have been a disaster, with hamstring injuries to Chien Ming Wang and Mike Mussina. As a result, the starters haven't been able to go deep, they've had to bring up Triple AAA kids too often, and the bullpen is vastly overworked. That's why the Yankees are longing for a rotation to Roger Clemens, Pettitte, Wang, Mike Mussina and Phillip Hughes to at least eat some innings and rest the pen.
There were a couple of sweeps over the weekend that opened a lot of eyes. The most talked about was the Angels sweeping the Yankees at New York, showcasing the rising, pitching-rich first-place Angels against the NY sinking ship. The other took place in Detroit where a first-place Indians/Tigers showdown was a slam-dunk for the Indians, who swept Detroit in their own park, 7-4, 6-3 and 5-3. For the series, the Indians hit seven homers, accounting for 13 of the Tribe's 18 runs.
The Indians are for real, tops in the AL in runs, on base percentage and second in walks. They've also been the hottest team in baseball since mid-May. The emergence of sinker-ball specialist Fausto Carmona (6-1, 2.89 ERA) with C.C Sabathia gives Cleveland a dynamite one-two punch atop the rotation that should take them far. Carmona reminds many of Scott Erickson, who came up with Minnesota in 1991 with a devastating hard sinker that no one could touch, until he developed arm trouble. The Indians are a sizzling 17-4 at home!
The race between the Tigers and Indians also puts pressure on the Yankees to get going: The Wild Card may come out of the AL Central. They'd better hope the soon-to-be 45-year old Clemens throws better than he did at Triple AAA last week, topping out at 91 MPH, walking 3 batters and running out of gas in the fifth inning. That won't be much value at $18-million per start!
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