Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Vacation soon!

Before I get on my baseball tangent, just wanted to make mention that I am heading to Cincinnati, Ohio on Thursday to visit a friend of mine who recently moved and is now residing near the horrific Cincinnati Reds. I am staying out there until Sunday and so far our travel itinerary consists of seeing the Louisville Slugger Museum on Friday and taking a tour of the Great American Ballpark on Saturday. Is anyone else familiar with this area? Any suggestions on where to go?
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In regard to baseball, tough loss tonight for the Yankees. I hate when I am right, but I had this feeling that Brett Tomko would get his revenge and pitch well against the Yankees. I will admit that I didn't think he would pitch this well against the team. His line tonight was 5IP, 5H, and 0ER's. Who knew he was this good of a pitcher. Or lucky of a pitcher? I have to say that the Yankees made the A's bullpen look really good tonight. Tough break, but tomorrow is a new day.

As for the Jays, tough season for them. Things really haven't gone their way so instead of looking at the negative, lets look at the positives:
  • Amazing year so far for Aaron Hill. He is hitting .288 with 28 HR's and 80 RBI's. What a bounce back from the concussion he had in 2008. He has transformed into an amazing player and I hope he keeps this up for the rest of the year and into the 2010 season.
  • Also just as impressive is Adam Lind. Lind is hitting .295 for the season with 24 HR's and 74 RBI's. These two guys have really been two of the most consistent guys for the Jays offense and it has been fun watching them play.
  • Marco Scutaro has also put together a good season for himself. In 114 games, he is hitting .300 with 11 HR's and 51 RBI's. I didn't realize he was doing this well until I looked up the stats for myself. What do you Jays fans think about him?
  • Halladay is Halladay of course. He has 13 wins for the season, which is remarkable considering the fact that he was injured for a month or so and that the Jays offense has been streaky and at times doesn't give him a great deal of run support. He is averaging over 7.5 innings per start, which included the game he pitched in which he was injured and had to be taken out of the game in the 3rd inning.
  • Ricky Romero has also looked good for the Jays this year. He is 10-5 for the season with an ERA of 3.70. He is having quite a rookie year and is a fun lefty to watch pitch. Anyone surprised by this or could you tell he was going to be good?
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  • Adrian Beltre wasn't wearing a cup? I thought that was a common practice that guys followed when playing any type of sports. At least a sport involving some sort of ball. Sounds painful and I bet he was regretting the decision he made in not wearing one. Maybe they are uncomfortable or something.
  • Matt Holliday is still on a tear. Check these stats out.
  • The great debate is out. Who should be the AL MVP for the season? Joe Mauer or Mark Teixiera? Should it matter if the player is on a winning team or not. Here are Mauer's stats and here are Teixeria's stats. Tyler Kepner of the Times wrote a compelling article about this topic. I am still on the fence as to who should be the MVP. Each side has legitimate points.
  • How great of a pitcher is Tim Lincecum? So far this season he is 12-3 with an ERA of 2.19. He has struck out 205 while only walking 43. The Giants have some talented young arms in their starting rotation.

11 comments:

Kyle said...

Have a great time on your vacation!

Bad game for the Yankees, but they can't win them all. I also had a feeling they were going to lose. It seemed like an auto win and thus I felt that for some weird reason they'd come out flat and lose.

I also think we need Gardner soon. Melky has been slumping since the all star break.

Should be an interesting offseason for the Jays. Do they keep Halladay or trade him. I'd think that they keep him and hope their pitchers are healthy in 2010. Deal him before the deadline if the team isn't good.

Not smart of Beltre. Sounds like a really painful injury.

Holliday is incredible and all of a sudden Pujols is heating up. Carpenter and Wainwright are a solid 1-2 and the Cards are pulling away in the NL Central.

As for the AL MVP, I like Joe Mauer. A catcher hitting .380? That's ridiculous and he's on pace for 34 homers and 110 rbis despite missing a month. Plus he's got a .446 OBP. This might be the greatest offensive season ever by a catcher.

A case can be made for Tex, but I just think that Mauer wins it if he keeps at this pace. If he slows down, Tex could win it.

Lincecum appears to be the favorite for the Cy Young. He's unbelievable, but don't overlook Chris Carpenter. He's got a very impressive 13-3 with a 2.27 era 0.97 WHIP and only 20 walks in 138.2 IP.

Keep up the amazing job with the blog and have an awesome time in Cincinnati!

Navin Vaswani (@eyebleaf) said...

Wells and Rios were the future; that's changed. The future is now Aaron Hill and Adam Lind.

Scutaro's future is a tough one. Do you re-sign him, after a career year, or let him walk, and get two draft picks? He'll be a type-A free agent. He's been everything and more for the Jays this year - a superb leadoff hitter, and sublime defence over at short.

Enjoy the Natti.

Bruno Van rottweiler said...

Scutaro is well liked by Jays fans. Problem is that he will command much more money as he is a type A free agent. If they want to compete in 2010 they need an SS and quite frankly Scut is the man for the job. But I have a bad feeling that Boston will gobble him up.

Thing about Romero is that Ricky was chosen over Tulowiski and this was a great controversy for years in TO...until now. Now, Fans are happy that they got such a good pitcher.

Holliday(your boy) is busting it up big time. I think he should stay with the Cards. He's doing such a great job in the NL and that is such a great team with great tradition he should think of staying put. I can see Boras telling him how the Os or Nats want to pay him 100 mill for 5 years and no one else can touch that...Screw that!

The Yankee game? I watched that one and they looked like they were lost. The YES pregame made an issue about Tomko and his revenge issues. He won that round....

The Commish! said...

Have a great time in Cincinnati Christina! If you could get me a Arroyo steroid, I would appreciate it!

Rotterberg Pets Association said...

Mommy:

Who will take care of us when you are gone?

Cookie, Rascal and MSASP.

woof! meow!

Al Leiter's Bullpen Catcher said...

Thanks for the Carpenter stats. He def is up there with Lincecum, Ky

Eye- Knowing the Jays, they will dump Scutaro. THey are going to be left with a lot of young guys and then Vernon Wells. Thats a contract they are never going to get rid of. Any chance he can actually get better? he is still young

Bruno: Your right about Holliday, he should stay where hes at with the Crds. But money speaks, so we will see what happens in the off season. Good point about Romero too. That was a good draft that year. Tulo has turned out to be a pretty good player also.

Commish: You want an Arroyo steroid? How do I get that?

The Commish! said...

Fine, bring me back a new Louisville slugger then Christina!!!!!

Al Leiter's Bullpen Catcher said...

dont be nasty, lol, i just wasnt sure what you mean by that!

Bruno Van Rottweiller said...

Wells might have been a juicer, hence his diminished returns the last few years. Bleaf thinks differently but wells and Rios were Frick and frack in terms of loserdom. We got rid of one loser and we are stuck with another one for a seeming eternity....unless he has a great year THEN they would trade him. But if they trade him they would have to pay half of his salary.I can't believe so much money will be tied up in Ryan,Encarnacion and wells next year. E5 looks like a total hole @ the plate.

The Commish! said...

Christina,

Let us know when you land safely in Cincy!

BTW I am going to the Long Island Ducks vs. York Revolution game Saturday. I'm excited to see Pete Rose's son on York.

The Commish! said...

Welcome back Christina!