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| Monday, September 2 Baker's Dozen: The week in preview By Jim Baker ESPN Insider |
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1: Best Matchup of the Week This is getting good! And to think, we almost lost this. Imagine having a pretty good record to begin with and then winning 20 games in a row and still only having a lead of two games. The Angels are to the A's what so many mutated fiends have been to so many misbehaving teens in so many horror movies: that which would not die. The Angels are just about a lock to have their best season ever. All they need to do is go 7-14 the rest of the way and they will pass their all-time win total -- 93 -- posted in 1982. It probably doesn't surprise anyone to know that the Angels have the worst best record of all the older expansion teams:
Class of '61
Class of '62
Class of '69
Class of '77
Class of '93
Class of '98 Forty-one years might seem like a long time to post a best record, but don't forget, the Yankees just posted theirs four years ago, in the 98th year of the franchise. (At least in terms of wins; the 1927 team had a better winning percentage.) The only other team on this list that has a chance to best their all-time best record is Arizona, currently projecting to 98 or 99 wins, just shy of 1999's 100 mark.
2: The Second-Best Matchup of the Week Do people in Seattle now understand why the pundits were predicting a 20-game drop-off for their team from 2001? Winning 116 games is like doing live television: everything has to go right at the same time. Winning more or as many (or even somewhere in the neighborhood) is like trying to catch lightning in a bottle in two consecutive thunder storms -- it's nigh on impossible to do. During Sunday night's A's-Twins game on ESPN, Jon Miller pointed out that Anaheim would be in the strange position of having to root for Oakland during this series. It's crazy but it's true. If Oakland were to sweep the Mariners they would be moving closer to guaranteeing Anaheim a playoff spot and a guaranteed spot is better than a shot at the division, isn't it? Put another way, would you rather be in a two-team race with a reduced chance of coming in first but a lock on the playoffs or a three-team race where you had a better shot at winning the division but no guarantee of making the playoffs?
3: The Bet You Wish You Didn't Have a Day Job Matchup of
the Week Am I shilling for my employer? You're damn right I am! But you have to love a mid-week day game being broadcast on national television. There is something wretchedly decadent about that. I'm not encouraging truancy or slackerism, but this is going to be a good one with a playoff berth at stake. For aesthetic reasons, it would be best if the Dodgers and Giants split the first two or the Giants took both. That way, they'll still be only one game apart when they meet. It's not that I'm rooting against the Dodgers, it's just that my standard policy is to pull for races between teams in whom I have no rooting interest to stay close.
4: The Lamb to Slaughter Matchup of the Week It's going to be close, but, if he keeps playing every day and doing what he's done to get him this far, Hernandez can become the first man in major-league history to strike out 200 times in a season. The last time Hernandez faced Johnson was back on April 5. He singled and struck out twice against the Big Unit and added a strikeout later against Byung-Hung Kim. The next day he faced Curt Schilling three times and whiffed all three at-bats. Looks like no Schilling this time. Hernandez should be glad he's not in the same division as Arizona, otherwise, he'd have to face the Johnson/Schilling combo seven to 10 times instead of just two to four.
5: The Worst Matchup of the Week If somebody had told me three years ago that Raul Ibanez would some day drive in 100 runs, I would have looked at 'em all funny-like. It's not that the pedigree was completely missing (he drove in 108 at Riverside in 1995 and 84 in 111 games at Tacoma two years later), it's that he didn't seem to have enough going to stay in the majors long enough to ever get the chance. I remember seeing him play in Seattle in 1999 and wondering what he was doing on a major-league roster. Baseball Prospectus wrote of him in 2000, "…unless he becomes more selective at the plate and hits for more power, he won't be in the majors long enough to draw a full pension." That is, unless he ended up on a team that was hurting for warm bodies with a modicum of talent, which is what happened when he went to the Royals. It's not that 100 RBI is a sign of greatness in the year 2002, but you've got to be happy for the guy.
6: The End Will Not Be Pretty Matchup of the Week The Expos have 20 games left and not a single one is against a contender. Eleven of those games come at home. What then, is the over/under on home attendance for the rest of the 2002 season? It used to be that the National League listed only turnstile count but these days they seem to be using the same estimating techniques employed by political groups when reporting how many people attended their rallies. (The group announces half a million and the park service, on whose land the rally takes place, estimates the number at about half that.) So, gauging how many people actually attend these games will be tough for those bent on wagering how many more fans the Expos will draw. The announced crowd at the last home game was 2,134 whereas most assessed it to be closer to a thousand. So, given the inexact nature of the accounting, can we even begin to turn this into a gambling opportunity?
Extreme Lowball: 15,000
Lowball: 25,000
Middle ground: 50,000
Ambitious: 100,000
7: The Relentless March Toward the Inevitable Conclusion
Matchup of the Week And, speaking of low attendances, if we've learned nothing else in 2002, it's this: after 10 years, the rest of America finally knows what color the seats are in Camden Yards.
8: The Biggest Mismatchup of the Week
Who has a worse lot in life: the Devil Rays fan or the Red Sox rooter? The former has endured five years of watching the home team fail to win as many as 70 games even once. The latter has begun some percentage of the last 84 seasons with the hope that this might be the year. They compete and they fade. They have promise but never deliver. Which is worse? Here's a poll. I would ask that those in Red Sox Nation refrain from voting more than once each. Same for those in the Devil Rays Universe; use some restraint – both of you!
9: The Ain't Comebacks a Bitch? Matchup of the Week Last week, Torres pitched 8 1/3 innings of shutout ball against the Braves, the team with the best record in baseball. He gave up just four hits and walked one -- a remarkable performance for a man who hadn't appeared in a major-league game in five years and who had been out of baseball altogether. (Not to mention the fact that he wasn't all that effective when he was pitching, posting a career record of 11-25 with an ERA almost a run and a half above league average.) Now that the fantastic opening act is behind him, he has to maintain the comeback to keep his new career going at the age of 30. This is the tricky part because comebacks are very, very hard to maintain. Remember the swing music revival? Yeah, I bet you were jitterbugging just last night. That revival was five years ago, too. Everybody is rooting for the guy. His story is not quite as dramatic as that of Jim Morris of "The Rookie" fame, but we all like to think there are second acts to life.
10: The Schedule Maker's Best Laid Plans Gone Astray
Matchup of the Week Well, their intentions were good and the Braves held up their end of the bargain. Atlanta, with its lead of 20˝ games, has a decent shot at breaking the National League record for largest margin of victory in the division era, held by the 1986 Mets at 21˝ games. The best since 1969:
30: 1995, Cleveland over Kansas City (An achievement
made all the more stunning by the 144-game schedule. Had they kept playing at the winning
percentages they had, the margin
would have grown to 33.) Pre-division play margins:
27˝: 1902, Pittsburgh over Brooklyn The 1902 Pirates excepted, the margins are getting larger for two reasons: the seasons are longer and it is much easier to run away with a smaller cell than a larger one. At least, that's my theory anyway.
11: The Keystone State Matchup of the Week A long time ago, people really used to care about this sort of regional stuff. I am holding in my hand the 1950 Radio Edition of the Sporting News Baseball Guide (featuring a dark-haired and bemused-looking Harry Caray on the cover) as presented by Griesedieck (say that when you've had a few of their product) Bros. Beer. It's got a St. Louis bent to it, so, inside, there is a listing of all the Browns-Cardinals exhibition games played over the years. This sounds amazing in this day and age, but they used to play upwards of 12 times a year. That was then, though, so don't expect Governor Mark Schweiker to show up at Sunday's game and present a golden keystone-shaped trophy to the winner of the season series.
12: The Yet Another in a Continuing Series of Must-Win
Showdowns for the Astros Matchup of the Week With two teams in front of them, the wild card is probably not in the ... er ... cards for the Astros. With only one team ahead of them in the division race, though, the approach is a bit easier and they are a little closer as play starts this week (5˝ back). To have a realistic shot, they need to pare two games off the Cardinals' lead by the end of the week. Any slippage at this point will be fatal. Here's a novel idea: once a team is mathematically eliminated from contention, all of their tickets should be discounted. Impractical? Yes. Unfair to season-ticket holders? Yes. An interesting way to keep people coming to the ballpark after their team's ship has sailed? You be the judge.
13: The Exception to the Rule Matchup of the Week
Check out ESPN Insider Jim Baker's 'Baker's Dozen' column appears on Mondays during the baseball season. He also writes Monday through Friday for ESPN Insider. He can be reached at jimbakerespn@yahoo.com. |
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for more on Barry Bonds' amazing season.
