Baseball

Detroit Tigers fans are justifiably too excited for words about the Tigers' prospects for the 2012 season.

The Tigers added Prince Fielder to an already-strong core comprised of superstars Justin Verlander and Miguel Cabrera. RF Brennan Boesch is back, and will play right field every day. Up and down the lineup are dangerous, powerful hitters like the aforementioned Boesch, as well as SS Jhonny Peralta, C Alex Avila, LF Delmon Young and even 2B Ryan Raburn- hitters who should do well to complement the explosiveness of Cabrera and Fielder.

Continue reading "This Year's Detroit TIgers Will Not Repeat 2008"

Second baseman Brandon Inge has been placed on the 15-day disabled list, retroactive to March 30th. That means he'll be eligible to play on April 14th against the Chicago White Sox in Chicago. 

Continue reading "Detroit TIgers Place Inge On 15-Day ..."

There were a lot of reasons for the collapse of the Ron Prince era, but the biggest might have been his lack of quality assistant coaches.  Tim McCarty, who was Ron Prince’s offensive line and assistant head coach, announced Thursday that he would return to Division II school Eastern Central University in Oklahoma. McCarty coached at ECU in 2004 and 2005, compiling a 9-11 record. McCarty is not taking a job as an offensive line coach at some other BCS school. He is not even taking an assistant job for a Division I-AA team. He’s heading back to Division II.

Continue reading "Kansas State assistants furthered Prince's demise"

It's no surprise that each year the Rangers' main weakness is pitching.  Thus far, with one month to go, the Rangers are 14th out of 14 teams in the AL in ERA, and quality starts.  Traditionally, they have no problems with their offense.  Currently they are first in team average, first in runs scored, first in extra base hits, and second in homeruns.  So, why can't the Rangers manage to get quality pitchers?  The answer may not be as easy as fans think.

Continue reading "Making the Pitch"

To compete, a baseball team needs pitching and defense. An old adage maybe, but it exists for a reason. A team that continuously gives up runs ends up yanking their starters early in games and taxes their bullpen, lessening their effectiveness over time and thereby compounding the problem over the season. Ironically, trying to keep games close hurts the team in the long run. But with one of the best fielding percentages and team ERA’s in the league, the Toronto Blue Jays are competing.

Continue reading "Why the Jays won't compete: the importance ..."

Just picture it: it’s the top of the ninth inning and the Toronto Blue Jays are holding a slim 2-1 lead over the New York Yankees. Up to bat is Derek Jeter with Bobby Abreu and Alex Rodriguez on deck. Cito Gaston, in order to shut the door on the game and the series gets on the phone and brings in the big gun, Pedro Luis Lazo, winner of two Olympic Gold medals with Cuba and current closer of the Blue Jays. And even if he gives up a run its okay, because leading off the bottom of the ninth for the Jays is Alexei Bell, who hit 30 HR with 100 RBI with Santiago del Cuba last year.

Continue reading "Part Time Jays: How to add a little ..."

I call it "Baseball Heroin," as it's all too easy to sit for hours flipping between games, immobile, helpless to the draw of constant, and constantly changing, baseball.

This year has the added bonus of being able to watch either the home or away feed for a game, so I can tailor my watching to the team I like, or switch between the two to get a different perspective on a game. This somewhat ameliorates some of the problems DirecTV has been having this year with feeds--I'm one of the many, many people who woke up at 3AM on Opening Day in Japan . . . only to find that DirecTV's satellite problems were blacking out the broadcast. A handful of games later on in the season experienced this same problem, but these problems have been by and large small ones.

Continue reading "Saturday: The Black Hole of Baseball"

Bring back day games for the World Series. Baseball's being lost to other sports, in part because kids don't watch the games (live or in person) the way they could when the games were in the daytime. Sure, ratings are higher at night, but how much does this affect ad revenue, really? And even if it does, sometimes you've gotta sacrifice the present for the future, instead of the other way around.

Continue reading "How I'd Change Baseball"