Wednesday September 17, 2003
As I type this, I’m watching Jesse Ventura make Bill Maher look like an idiot!! It’s great!
BIGGER SERIES: GAME 1 à Twins 5, White Sox 2
Last week’s four game series in Chicago with the White Sox was a big series. But, this three game series now is even more important.
That was yet another example of a well-played baseball game. Brad Radke set the tone for the whole game. In the first inning, the first two Sox batters got on, but Radke got Frank Thomas to ground into a double play, followed by a pop up to get out of it unscathed! That was a sign of things to come for Radke. He gave up 8 hits in 7 innings, but walked no one! He pitched himself out of a few situations.
The Twins were able to score a run in the bottom of the first inning off Esteban Loaiza. Actually, Loaiza gave the Twins that run (with 3 walks!) and was really fortunate that the Twins could only score the one run (on a Corey Koskie sacrifice fly). In the second inning, Loaiza struggled again. With the bases loaded, he got Denny Hocking to ground out to 2B, but it did score a run. Then Cristian Guzman scored from 3B on a wild pitch. Through 2 innings, Loaiza had thrown 50 pitches. The third didn’t get any better and he went just one out into the third inning before Scott Schoenweis came into the game, and allowed an RBI single to Mike Ryan scoring Torii Hunter.
Schoenweis actually pitched really well for the White Sox. He went 3 2/3 innings of shutout ball, giving up just the single to Ryan, and striking out five Twins batters. Kelly Wunsch struck out 3 in his 1 inning of relief work, but Torii Hunter’s RBI single scoring Lew Ford (who was pinch running for Jacque Jones) came in that inning too. Scott Sullivan looked good in his inning.
But the story of the game was Radke. It’s very impressive to shut down the White Sox offense once, but to do it in back-to-back starts, just five days apart is truly impressive! His changeup is the pitch that appears to work well keeping the Sox batters off balance! In doing so, he doesn’t get a lot of strikeouts (just 3 last night), but the Sox hitters weren’t able to drive the ball either. Radke was able to get a couple of big double-play balls to help too. LaTroy Hawkins came in, pitched the 8th and 9th innings and finished off the White Sox (with the exception of a high changeup that Carl Everett deposited well into the upper deck in right field!).
As we’ve said all year though, starting pitching is the key, and with Radke, Santana and Lohse, the Twins have three starters that are pitching well right now, the most important point of the season. With Eric Milton back in the rotation, that should only help. And, Rogers, although not particularly great all year, has been solid. He’s able to keep the Twins in games. Hopefully tonight he’ll be able to do just that! I guess we’ll see. The game, for those of you outside the Minnesota area will air on ESPN2! (I’m sure it’ll be blacked out in Minnesota and will appear on Fox Sports Net!)
The Twins got the big one. Game 1 of every series is most important, but the Twins really now need to focus on getting another win in the next two games. This is where Tom Kelly’s old cliché/saying comes to be so true… Take one game at a time. Yes, we can go into this White Sox series knowing we want to win 2 out of 3. But, last night, the goal had to be to win that game, and they did. The goal going into tonight should be to win. If they win, they will already have 2 out of 3 of the series, BUT, going into Thursday’s game, the goal should absolutely be to win that game, and put the division essentially out of reach.. “One game at a time” should be the motto for the Twins the rest of the year!
So, the Twins beat the White Sox 5-2. The Kansas City Royals got 5 hits from Angel Berroa, 3 hits and 2 RBI from Raul Ibanez, 2 hits and 4 RBI (including a 3-run homer) from Joe Randa, and 2 hits and 3 RBI from Rondell White (on a 3-run homer), in a 12-8 win over the Cleveland Indians. So, here are the AL Central Division standings heading into Wednesday’s games:
|
|
W |
L |
GB |
|
Twins |
82 |
69 |
- |
|
White Sox |
80 |
70 |
1.5 |
|
Royals |
78 |
72 |
3.5 |
I would encourage everyone to check out ChiSox Daily, especially during this key series. Michael Labuda does an excellent job every day (And, he’s not as “long-winded” as I am!). I think it’s interesting to get the perspective of the “other” side.
Last week, I showed you the NFL Thoughts of a frequent reader of this site in New Jersey named Leslie. He’s a big Twins fan, but also knows his football. Here are his thoughts on the Week 2 games:
Good gritty win by the Vikings Sunday evening. I thought the Vikes defense did a great job stopping Chicago's momentum in the fourth quarter twice. I thought that was the big difference. It was good to see lot of decentralization on offense instead of throwing it to Moss. Chicago played the Vikes tough, but it was good to see the Vikings hold on.
Here's my Week 2 Takes:
1) How about Carolina! Good for them for beating the defending champs. It was nice to see someone wipe that smirk of Gruden's face and it was nice to see the Bucs players shut up for once. It was nice to see Gramatica's FG get blocked by the Panthers special teams. Great job by them. John Fox has his team in the right direction.
2) Keep watching the Bills, Chiefs, and Seahawks. They will be in the playoffs this year and I expect them to make some noise.
3) Jets are done. Yeah they came back with a bad start two years in a row, but the law of averages tends to catch up with them. The Jets defense look very old if you saw the highlights of the Jets/Miami game.
4) I feel bad for Dick Jauron and Dave McGinnis. They will likely be fired even though they really have nothing to work with.
5) The Chargers are a soft team. Their defense stinks and David Boston has been a disgrace by not playing hurt. Nice of Boston to go steal money from the Chargers. It's no wonder why the Cards did not even bother bringing him back.
6) Marvin Lewis is going to get lot of wins this year. It's fun watching the Bengals this year unlike years past. I could see improvements already.
7) I wonder if Browns fans are calling for Tim Couch to start.
8) Look out for the Redskins! I think they are the odds on favorites to win the NFC East. Spurrier got the players he need for his system.
9) Cowboys are interesting because of Parcells. It's amazing what a great coach can do to a franchise. They are going to be fun to watch this year win or lose like last night against the Giants.
10) I am not sold on the Colts just yet. They got lot to prove like the Vikings.
MAILBAG -
Last Friday, I ran our Discussion Question of the Week segment. The Question last week had to do with the MVP award. What criteria you believe should be included, etc.? I included the thoughts of five or six readers in the column, and have received plenty of feedback since then. Here’s an example from Justin in Fargo:
I think that all MVP discussions or thought should begin with contending teams. What I do to select an MVP is to go through the contending teams and get a list of the best contenders. I will use last year as an an example. Last year the top candidates on contenders were: Alfonso Soriano, Jason Giambi, Torii Hunter, Garrett Anderson, and Miguel Tejada. After that list is compiled, I ask myself who else in the league can replace those players and have the team achieve the same success? If the answer is nobody, then I have found the MVP of the league. In the case of every one of these players, there is an adequate replacement. Bret Boone for Alfonso Soriano. Jim Thome for Jason Giambi. Bernie Williams for Torii Hunter. There are several players who could have replace Garrett Anderson and had the Angels achieve the same record last year. Do you honestly think that if Alex Rodriguez played shortstop for the Oakland A's last year, that they would have won fewer games? Would the Texas Rangers have won more games if Miguel Tejada had been their shortstop? I think that the answer to both of those questions is no. I think that the fact that the answer to that question is no means to me that the AL MVP last year should have been Alex Rodriguez. I am not saying that the player with the best stats need to win the MVP every year. In 1988, Kirk Gibson won the NL MVP. I haven't researched it, but I would be surprised if he was the best player in the league that year. I still would have voted for him for MVP because I think that there wasn't anybody else in the National League that year who could have replaced him and not cost the Dodgers any games in the standings. All of that said, I will now select my choices for the MVP's this year. In the National League it is Barry Bonds. In the American League it is Alex Rodriguez. A lot would have to happen in the National League to change my selection from Barry Bonds to Albert Pujols or Gary Sheffield. It is not too late to persuade me from selecting Bill Mueller or Frank Thomas as the American League MVP. If one of them gets hot and carries their team to the post-season, they could change my mind.
I replied to Justin, to create a little controversy as much as anything:
I'm not saying I totally disagree with your thoughts and they are well thought out. My question is, this year, why is Alex Rodriguez still "that guy"? Why not Carlos Delgado, whose numbers are pretty much equivalent to A-Rods, and his team isn't terrible?
Here’s how Justin replied:
I take the words "Most Valuable" to mean: Most difficult to replace. If the Toronto Blue Jays replaced Carlos Delgado with Jason Giambi, they would still have a very similar record. I don't think that you can find another player in the American League without a comparable player. The closest player to Rodriguez is Nomar Garciaparra, and I don't think that he would help the Rangers as much. I do think that ARod was on the Red Sox instead of Nomar, that they would have a better chance of beating the Yankees. Obviously there is no way to prove this, and that's what makes this so fun to argue about. It is much easier to compare player who play the same position than players who play different positions. The fact that Delgado and Rodriguez have similar numbers tells me that if ARod first base for the Blue Jays instead of Delgado, that the Blue Jays would be a very similar team. The problem is, that if the Blue Jays used ARod as a first baseman, he would be LESS valuable than he is now because they would be wasting his value as a good defensive shortstop. Yet he would still be as valuable as Delgado. I think that a first baseman has to outhit a shortstop by a pretty good margin to make up for the difference in their defensive contribution. I don't know what the exact margin is, but in this case I would guess that Delgado would have to outhit ARod by about 10-15% and he isn't doing that. Those are just my thoughts on the issue. It is a lot easier to find a first baseman or corner outfielder who can hit the snot out of the ball than it is to find a middle infielder who can do the same offensively.
Excellent response. Again, I love the whole MVP argument. I find it quite interesting hearing so many people have so many different opinions. And, as I said on Friday, I think that’s what makes the whole MVP debate so great, and why I love that they don’t define the word valuable. I hope SABRmetric statistics never become the ultimate means of evaluating “value.” I think that “intangibles” are very important in baseball, and should be considered valuable, even if they can’t be measured by statistics.
Check out Aaron’s Baseball Blog entry from yesterday. Aaron wrote a great posting on Mariners rookie pitcher Rafael Soriano, showing how similar his career to this point is to Johan Santana’s at that point. Well worth reading, but after that, he wrote about how some people are considering Shannon Stewart the Twins MVP candidate. Aaron definitely thinks he shouldn’t be. So, he and I had a couple of e-mails back and forth also about this. It’s definitely hard to argue the value of “intangibles” against a person who is so knowledgeable on the statistics!!!
Also, Rob Neyer wrote a great article for ESPN.com on Alex Rodriguez being the favorite for this year’s AL MVP award. Be sure to read that too. It’s (as always with Mr. Neyer’s columns) very well organized and easy to buy into. I just don’t know that I’m convinced yet! I realize that there isn’t a clear-cut choice for AL MVP, but it’s hard for me to find A-Rod valuable when, as I’ve said before, he hasn’t had a meaningful at bat since Memorial Day! That said, I will not disagree that he is the best player in the American League. If there were an award for Most Outstanding Player, he would probably get my vote!
Well, that’s it for today! If you have any thoughts on baseball, football, sports in general, or heck, life in general, be sure to send me an e-mail and I’ll get back to you!
Tonight’s another important Twins/White Sox matchup. Be sure to watch it, then stop by the site again tomorrow for my thoughts!! Have a great Wednesday!