San Jose filed suit against Major League Baseball for refusing to act for four years on the city’s efforts to move the A’s from Oakland to the South Bay. The legal action takes aim both at the Giants’ claim to the area and MLB’s monopoly of the professional sport:

“For years, MLB has unlawfully conspired to control the location and relocation of major league men’s professional baseball clubs under the guise of an ‘antitrust exemption’ applied to the business of baseball,” said the 44-page complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in San Jose. The suit, which accuses MLB of a “blatant conspiracy,” is being handled at no cost to the city by the Burlingame law firm of Joseph W. Cotchett, which has handled some of the largest antitrust cases in the nation and represented the NFL in similar litigation.

MLB had no comment on the lawsuit Tuesday.

A’s owner Lew Wolff said he had “no details” about the lawsuit. He said that “nothing’s changed” as far as his team’s quest for a San Jose ballpark but added: “I’m not in favor of legal action or legal threats to solve business issues.” …

The Giants’ territorial rights to the San Jose area originated in the early 1990s. The Giants were considering Santa Clara County for a new stadium to replace frigid, windy Candlestick Park, where they had played since 1960, two years after moving from New York to San Francisco.

Previous A’s owners had allowed the territorial reshuffling to accommodate the Giants’ move south, farther away from Oakland. After two failed attempts to secure voter approval for taxes to build a new South Bay ballpark, the Giants privately financed AT&T Park in San Francisco, the team’s home since 2000.

But the territorial division remained, giving the counties of Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz and Monterey to the Giants, Alameda and Contra Costa to the A’s. The two teams disputed the intent of that split in dueling news releases a year ago. The A’s argued it was only “subject to relocating” the Giants to Santa Clara County, which the teams had shared when the A’s came from Kansas City in 1968. The Giants countered that MLB owners including the A’s repeatedly reaffirmed the territorial split, which the Giants relied upon in financing their ballpark.

More here.

Here’s the quote that has Mets fans and players angry:

“Kirk Nieuwenhuis, just up from Triple-A, takes Carlos Marmol deep. Nieuwenuis with a three-run, walk-off home run. The Mets with four in the bottom of the ninth to win it, 4-3, and a team fourteen games under .500 celebrates as if it just won the seventh game of the World Series. Another indication of the ongoing decline of western civilization.”

Lighten up, Bob. 

What’s that rather pungent odor coming from the East Bay?

A sewage problem at the Coliseum forced the Oakland Athletics and Seattle Mariners to use the same locker room after Sunday’s game.

The pipes backed up on the lower levels of the stadium during Oakland’s 10–2 victory, creating a stink and pools of water in the clubhouses used by both teams and the umpires.

The A’s and Mariners moved to a higher floor and cleaned up postgame in the locker room occupied by the Oakland Raiders during NFL games.

Coliseum officials said the six-day homestand, which drew 171,756 fans, overtaxed the plumbing system at the 47-year-old stadium.

Club officials claim that drainage management is an ongoing issue at O.Co.

“There is a blockage somewhere on the clubhouse level,” A’s vice president of stadium operations David Rinetti said. According to Rinetti, the team deals with this issue on a regular basis because of the age of the building, “but never to this extent.”

“Make sure everybody finds out about this sewage thing,” Oakland starter A. J. Griffin told an Associated Press reporter. “We need to get a new stadium.”

More here, here, and here.

Good morning.

Here are several links from the past week that will make your Monday a bit more bearable:

•  Free Miguel Olivo! The twelve-year veteran backstop walked out on his Miami teammates after the organization refused to release him. According to Clark Spencer of the Miami Herald:

Olivo’s playing time dried up after Jeff Mathis returned from the disabled list on May 14, leaving the Marlins with three catchers on the roster. With Mathis and Rob Brantly sharing the catching duties, Olivo had started just once — as a designated hitter — since May 12.

Olivo said he has asked to be released three separate times, but his requests were always refused.

“They say we need you for pinch-hitting,” Olivo said. “I said I’ve never been a pinch-hitter in my life. That’s not my game.”

• River Avenue Blues’ Matt Warden interviews YES announcer and former outfielder Ken Singleton and peppers him with numerous questions, including whether he would have enjoyed playing for the Steinbrenner Yankees, what enabled him to be such a patient hitter, and when he learned to switch-hit. 
• In a piece on the Tigers’ bullpen, Ben Horrow of Beyond the Boxscore distinguishes between the quality of the relievers currently on the club and how they are used in the later innings.
• Horrow’s colleague, Max Weinstein, demonstrates that the Cardinals, who were hitting an astonishingly high .341 with runners in scoring position a few days ago, are likely to see that number regress over time.

• Chirs McShane of Amazin’ Avenue says that the above win-probability chart from yesterday’s ninth-inning, comeback win by the Mets is pretty sweet.
• The Washington Post ’s Barry Svrluga tells us all we need to know about what goes on during batting practice, including:

The game’s starting outfielders spend time at their positions, getting reads on balls off the bat. Relief pitchers and other players who aren’t in the starting lineup are assigned here as well. They chat, jog, strech and stand around while shagging balls from the bater and a coach hitting in short center. They return them to a helmeted bat boy in short center, who periodically refills the pitcher’s basket. On the first day of a road trip, coaches will hit extra flies to the corners so fielders get accustomed to the quirks of the park.

• For those who want to know about “The Economics of Bobbleheads,” “son of ptbarnum” of Athletics Nation has the shaky details.

• Thankfully, Alex Cobb suffered only a minor concussion from this batted ball on Saturday and was released from the hospital yesterday. He was immediately placed on the seven-day concussion list.

That’s it. Have a walk-off week!

Assuming this report from the Daily Telegraph (Australia) is accurate, here’s more evidence that timing is everything:

US Major League Baseball is coming to Sydney, with the opening series of next season — between the LA Dodgers and Arizona Diamondbacks — to be played at the Sydney Cricket Ground next March.

In a $13 million coup for the state government, the opening series of the MLB will be held at the SCG on Saturday March 22 and Sunday March 23 — the first time a competitive US baseball fixture will be held in Australia and only the sixth time one has been staged outside America. . . . 

Ironically — or perhaps fortuitously for sports fans who like to see a bit of biff — the Dodgers and Diamondbacks had a huge brawl in their game yesterday, with the entire squads of both teams running across the field to fight each other.

A similar spectacle can’t be predicted next year but the Dodgers and Diamondbacks will be in Sydney for six days, when they will play the two games and open the doors to their training sessions.

Hey, do you know what would increase interest for any skeptical Aussies? Ten-cent drafts of Foster’s. C’mon, what on Earth could go wrong?

More here and here.

Here’s seven-plus minutes of Vin Scully calling last night’s bench-clearing brawl in Dodger Stadium.

I particularly enjoyed this line, uttered at 0:59: “There’s no sense calling off names. They’re all there.”

The Dodgers scored three runs in the eighth inning to win this gladiator festival, 5–3.

The no. 1 pick of the Pirates in 2011, Gerrit Cole, made a triumphant debut this evening, giving up only two runs in six and a third innings against the Giants and opposing pitcher Tim Lincecum.

The 22-year old power pitcher struck out the first batter he faced on three pitches, but interestingly only K’d one other batter in the Bucs’ 8-2 victory.

To be sure, Cole will have to string together a few more starts like tonight’s to be considered a viable contender for Rookie of the Year honors and justify what some shmoe on this blog predicted a few months back.

Good morning.

Here are several links from the past week that will make your Monday a bit more bearable:

• The Astros’ fan base has had little to cheer about of late, but Thursday the club used the No. 1 pick in MLB’s 2013 amateur draft to select Stanford University senior Mark Appel. (All of the picks from the first and second rounds may be found here, courtesy of Baseball Nation’s Marc Normadin.) Nick J. Faleris of Baseball Prospectus summarizes the right-hander’s abilities thus:

Appel has always graded out well, but this spring he has dramatically improved his aggression in the zone—a hole in his game that often limited the utility of his stuff in the past.  This spring, the senior standout has taken his game to the next level, dropping one-half of a pitch off of his average pitches-per-batter and working ahead much more consistently.  The results speak for themselves, as Appel has improved his strikeout rate, lowered his walk rate, and decreased his batting average against.  To the extent Appel has run into issues with his stuff on a game-by-game basis, he has reacted admirably, rotating his pitch selection to find the most effective weapon and battling. 

• Meanwhile, David Schoenfield of ESPN’s SweetSpot asks, “Should the draft be abolished or changed?”
• Daniel Nava is coming into his own, notes Paul Swydan of Fangraphs, and the Red Sox deserve credit for being patient with the 30-year-old outfielder.
• High Heat Stats’ David Hruska profiles Alex Cobb and his success, noting that the righthander sports a new “harder, spiked-grip curve,” which he picked up from watching former teammate James Shields.
• When rehashing the Nationals brass’ controversial decision to shut down Stephen Strasburg toward the end of last season, Tom Tango reminds his blog’s readers that they should not confuse process with outcome.
• On a related note, the Washington Post’s Thomas Boswell argues that the Nats possess an “ultra-macho team culture of playing with ‘minor’ injuries,” which is backfiring on the underperforming club.
  
  

• Yasiel Puig continues to amaze. Here he is on Thursday evening clocking a grand slam in only his fourth MLB game.
• In response to Puig’s sparkling debut, Jay Jaffe of Sports Illustrated lists a number of players who made a splash in their maiden appearances, including Jason Jennings of the Rockies on August 23, 2001:

Jennings gets to stand as the lone pitcher on this list because not only did he throw a five-hit shutout against the Mets, he collected three hits in five trips to the plate himself, including an RBI single off Grant Roberts in the seventh and a homer off Donnie Wall in the ninth. That made him the just the ninth pitcher since 1916 to homer in his debut, and the first to do so while spinning a shutout. Jennings actually only pitched seven games and 39 1/3 innings that year, and so retained his rookie eligibility into the following season, when his 16-8 record with a 4.52 ERA and .306/.348/.371 showing with the bat was enough to win NL Rookie of the Year honors.

• According to Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic via NBC’s Hardball Talk, Brandon McCarthy, who was struck in the head with a batted ball last season, suffered a seizure last week. Thankfully, a subsequent CT scan showed no new head trauma.

That’s it. Have a walk-off week!

Watch last night’s throw from Yasiel Puig that nailed baserunner Chris Denorfia on his way back to first base, thereby sealing a 2-1 victory for the Dodgers. At the plate, Puig, a Cuban defector signed this past offseason, had two hits in his MLB debut.

Writing in Fangraphs before the game, Marc Hulet summed up his thoughts about Puig’s potential impact thusly: “One thing is for certain, it will be an entertaining show.”

Indeed.

Good morning.

Here are several links from the past week that will make your Monday a bit more bearable:

• Watch the Yankee and Red Sox benches react to a thunder clap that’s a bit too close for comfort. Boston won last night’s rain-shortened game, 3–0.
• According to ESPN1500’s (Twin Cities) Brandon Warne, the Twins organization appears to have moved away from the “pitch to contact” philosophy and appear to be embracing power pitchers instead.
• Baseball Nation’s Rob Neyer chronicles the Royals’ hitting-coach follies, which include the surprise hiring of Hall of Famer George Brett.
• Meanwhile, Rany Jazayerli at his Rany on the Royals blog expresses his disgust at the front office:

Dayton Moore doesn’t [have a wonning season since taking over as general manger]. And he’s had seven [years]. And this winter, he traded one of the most significant prospect packages this century in order to jump-start the rebuilding process and win in 2013. And the Royals are 22-29. A year after they went 71-91, two years after they went 70-92, they’re on pace to go . . . 70–92.

 

So I think it’s time we acknowledge the elephant in the room, and stop worrying about who the hitting coach is. Yes, Jack Maloof deserved to get fired – if not for his performance, than for his ridiculous comments to Jeff Flanagan in this column, comments that I said on Twitter ought to end his career, and – shockingly – actually did end his career. (Although in retrospect, given how fast the move was made, I wonder if Maloof already knew he was being let go and decided to go out with a bang.)

• Beyond the Boxscore’s Lance Rinker asks if Eric Wedge was right to blame sabermetrics for Dustin Ackley’s demotion to the minors.
• Rinker’s colleague, Matt Hunter, breaks down Chris Davis’s amazing first two months of the season.
• Matt Meyers of ESPN’s Sweet Spot discusses Stephen Strasburg’s strained right oblique and reminds us that “pitcher injuries are incredibly unpredictable:”

While the Nationals had the best interests of Strasburg and the organization in mind when they shut him down last season, they had no way of knowing if they could prevent an injury. He could end up on the disabled list because of the injury he suffered tonight – and that could cost them a playoff spot.

(Another perfect example of this phenomenon is Orioles prospect Dylan Bundy. The O’s could not have been more careful with him last year, limiting him to outings of fewer than five innings for most of the season. Yet he’s suffered arm soreness this year and has yet to pitch an inning.)

• Joe Pepitone’s 1973 Topps baseball card offers the Hardball Times’ Bruce Markusen an opportunity to recap the Brooklyn native’s career, noting, among other things, that the first player to bring a blow dryer into the clubhouse also donned a hairpiece. 

• May was very kind to Domonic Brown. Above is a .gif showing all twelve of the young slugger’s dingers of the month, courtesy of Crashburn Alley’s Bill Baer.

That’s it. Have a walk-off week!

Good morning.

Here are several links from the past week that will make your Monday a bit more bearable:

• Once upon a time, Jim Johnson could do no wrong when he took the mound in a save situation. Recently, Johnson has been plain awful. Bill Chuck of Baseball Analytics wrote last Tuesday that Johnson’s lack of control is the primary reason for his recent spate of poor performances. (He blew another save opportunity on Sunday.)
• Cole Hamels is undoubtedly the recipient of anemic run support but Crashburn Alley’s Bill Baer notes that the southpaw is having a subpar year regardless.
• The staff of Baseball Nation ask, “What is the worst conversation in baseball?” Here’s Grant Brisbee’s No. 1 peeve:

The DH debate is stale. I don’t think anyone will debate that. Yet for some reason, whenever a DH/no-DH argument comes up on the Internet, it becomes a holy war.

Here’s what the debate boils down to:

If your grandfather took a job in the St. Louis area in 1932, moving his whole family across the country: You don’t like the DH.

If your grandfather moved to Dallas in 1932 because he could crash on Cousin Ralphie’s floor for a while: You like the DH.

That is, you’re probably a fan of an American League or National League team because of events out of your control. Where you were born. Where you grew up. Who your parents rooted for. And because of that, you’re going to like or dislike the DH, and no one will ever, ever, ever, ever change your mind.

But by all means, argue about it on the Internet. You’ll convince people to change their minds, I’m sure.”

• Astros skipper Bo Porter informed Brian T. Smith of the Houston Chronicle that batting average is the “most overrated statistic in baseball.”
• Jonah Keri of Grantland profiles David Ortiz, who entered Monday evening’s game with an uber-impressive .433 weighted on-base average in 142 plate appearances. Keri notes, among other things, that Big Papi, at 37, is having incredible success against fastballs at or above 93 miles per hour.
• Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci covers the “10 early-season trends to watch,” which is headlined by the paucity of offensive production in the bigs:

When you go to a baseball game today you will see fewer hits on average than at any time since 1972 — and yet the game is taking more than 20 minutes longer to play. That’s more than 20 minutes of added dead time without the ball put in play.

• Utilizing wOBA differential, Dave Cameron of Fangraphs argues that the 2013 Cubs are considerably better than their won–loss record (20–30) indicates.
• According to ESPN Sweet Spot’s Mark Simon, the Diamondbacks have the best defensive team on the diamond, leading the majors in defensive runs saved.

• First-base umpire Jeff Nelson said that, in all of his years of umpiring, he had never seen anything like the above play in a game between the Rangers and Mariners game . In acknowledging the blown call, Nelson explained how he missed the pitcher jumping in front to take the throw: “When you umpire that play, your focus goes to the bag, and you watch the foot touch the bag and listen for the ball hitting the mitt.”

That’s it. Have a walk-off week!

Are hot streaks only random statistical variations? On Twitter last Sunday evening, Keith Law of ESPN and Brandon McCarthy of the Diamondbacks debated the “locked in” issue, which was well documented here.

Subsequently, Tom Tango, an analytics adviser for the Cubs and co-author of The Book, engaged former Astros third baseman Morgan Ensberg on his Tangotiger blog, and an interesting exchange ensued. Here’s an extended excerpt:

From Apr 15 to Apr 23, 2006, you hit 8 HR in 8 games, on 37 plate appearances. Your BA/OBP/SLG was: .452/.541/1.290

From Apr 24 to May 3, 2006, you hit 0 HR in 8 games, on 37 plate appearances. Your BA/OBP/SLG was: .129/.270/.226

I’d love for you to post this. I can (and have) been talking about this for years, but we need a Nixon-goes-to-China person to make the non-believers believe.

Tom
 

I think we may be thinking the same thing, just at different times.

If the question is, “Does the 4th ab of a guy who “appears” to be Locked-In have a higher chance of getting a hit”?. . . . then it is up to historical chance. However, the problem is that you are looking at a single outcome, a hit.

The guy may have lost the feeling on the last before his last ab.

Am I confused with the question?

Morgan
 

We are looking at all outcomes (walks, singles, doubles, HR, etc). And THOSE outcomes match their seasonal record.

By the time he comes up the 4th time, then what he was feeling in the two hours prior to that is now IRRELEVANT. It was completely transient. There was no carryover effect.

This is the point we’re trying to make. You may FEEL locked-in (and you somehow only acknowledge this feeling only after-the-fact). But that doesn’t mean it’ll carry over.

Even if I grant that your feeling (acknowledged after-the-fact, and may have existed in real-time as it happened), that feeling is now gone. It’s fleeting.

To put it plainly, if you have Ryan Braun with 3 HR in 3 PA and you have Miguel Cabrera with 3 SO in 3 PA, then what we will expect to happen on the 4th PA is EXACTLY what their historical record would suggest: equal greatness. We do not expect Braun to suddenly be like Barry Bonds, and we do not expect Cabrera to now be John MacDonald.

And your example of yourself is perfect: you were locked-in for 8 games, but you only acknowledge this after the event occurs. And even if you felt the same way on game #9, outcomes didn’t follow you. And it didn’t follow you for the next 8 games.  And that’s because these feelings are so transient that it becomes irrelevant in terms of it being actionable.

Tom

Yes. I agree. But I think everyone would agree with that. 

Morgan

I think I have to be clearer in my belief. Locked-in is being in the zone. It is real. But unpredictable in future events.

Morgan
 

More here, including a lively back-and-forth in the comments section.

Here’s the awful lowdown on the Minute Maid Park snow-cone vendor who elected to take his product into the loo:

NBC 2 in Houston aired a fan’s cell phone video of a Minute Maid Park vendor bringing his tray of snow cones into a bathroom stall, setting them gently on the floor, and straight up taking a crap.

Thankfully, the Aramark employee was promptly canned, although it is unknown whether he got to wash his hands before exiting the ballpark.

More here.

Good morning.

Here are several links from the past week that will make your Monday a bit more bearable:

• Expanded replay may come as soon as next season, according to Joe Torre, MLB’s executive vice president.
• Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe suggests that Dustin Pedroia may have supplanted Robinson Cano as the premier second baseman in the bigs.
• Has another Yankee, Ichiro Suzuki, reached the end of the road? Derek Albin of the Pinstriped Bible believes so:

Ichiro’s contact and batted ball stats further the notion that his BABIP hasn’t been subject to bad luck. Keeping in mind that contact rate and line drive rate stabilize at 100 and 150 plate appearances respectively, there are legitimate reasons to be concerned about Ichiro going forward. Remember, he’s had 145 plate appearances, so we can rely on his contact rate and just about trust his line drive rate thus far. Compared to last season, Ichiro is putting the bat on the ball 5.4% less often, while 3.6% below his lifetime percentage*. His line drive rate, while not officially stable yet but pretty close, stands 9.2% less than last year and 5% worse than his stateside career*. These discrepancies tell a clear story of a guy not being able to put good wood on the ball, a classic indication of age overcoming a once great hitter.

• According to the Hardball Times’ Brad Johnson, the Phillies brain trust should be prepared to “retool but not reboot.”
• After examining PitchF/X and Retrosheet data, Max Marchi of Baseball Prospectus presents the “career laurel as the cumulative king of [pitch] framing for the past quarter century” to Brad Ausmus, now a special assistant with the Padres. Ausmus also get kudos for having the single greatest season behind the plate (2000).
• Cliff Corcoran of Sports Illustrated’s The Strike Zone explains why the Diamondbacks–Marlins game on Saturday night was so unusual:

Gerardo Parra hit the very first pitch of the game from the Marlins’ Tom Koehler, a 94 mph fastball that was up and over the inside half of the plate, into the Marlins’ bullpen for a leadoff home run. Another 234 pitches were thrown in the game by both teams over sixty-one plate appearances, but Parra’s home run was the only run-scoring play of the game.

According to Elias, the last time that happened — the only run of a game was scored on the first pitch — was nearly 50 years ago. It was September 2, 1963, when Reds’ rookie second baseman Pete Rose homered off the Mets’ Jay Hook to start the second game of a double-header at the Polo Grounds. Hook and the Reds’ Jim Maloney then proceeded to match zeroes for nine innings as the Reds won 1-0.

• ESPN New York’s Adam Rubin reveals why Mets pitching prospect Zack Wheeler’s “Super 2″ status is keeping him from being promoted to the big-league club until later next month.
• Jason Grilli may be 36 years old but his strikeout rate is double what it was five years ago and more than five times what it was in 2005. Jeff Sullivan of Fangraphs gives most of the credit to the closer’s slider, which since 2009, “has three and a half more inches of horizontal movement, and four and a half more inches of sink.”

• Watch Grilli’s teammate, Pedro Alvarez, deposit this pitch out of PNC Park and into the Allegheny River. According to Mark Townend of Big League Stew, Alvarez’s home run ball traveled 448 feet on the fly.

That’s it. Have a walk-off week!

Last night in Chavez Ravine, Bryce Harper smacked his face into the outfield fence at Chavez Ravine in a both excruciatingly painful and bizarre incident:

Reportedly, the Nats phenom needed eleven stitches to seal a cut in his chin but did not suffer a concussion. He is presently listed as day-to-day.

More here.

P.S. Pete Reiser was unavailable for comment.

Good morning.

Here are several links from the past week that will make your Monday a bit more bearable:

After scrutinizing future Hall of Famer Warren Spahn’s 1954–57 seasons, Joe Posnanski asks Bill James why, despite pitching 1,081 innings over those four years, the Milwaukee Braves southpaw threw a mere 2 2/3 innings against the Brooklyn Doddgers.
Grantland’s Jonah Keri looks at another southpaw, Clayton Kershaw, and the moment when a 19-year-old’s breaking ball got the normally unflappable Vin Scully to lapse into hyperbole.
A third lefty, Scott Kazmir, is profiled by Beyond the Boxscore’s Lee Trocinski, who observes what the 29-year-old is doing right in his comeback with the Indians and what he could do better.
Matt Snyder of CBS Sports’ Eye on Baseball explains why an umpire-crew chief was suspended for screwing up a rules interpretation about a pitching change but another umpire was not, even though he blew an obvious home-run ball:

While it was obviously an egregious error, [Angel] Hernandez’s mistake was technically a judgment call – just like when Jim Joyce botched Armando Galarraga’s perfect game, just like the famous Don Denkinger call, just like Ron Kulpa’s botched call in Game 3 of the 2011 World Series and thousands of others.

Though Hernandez’s mistake was awful and pretty much everyone with a working set of eyes knows it, it was still under the umbrella of judgment calls. And Major League Baseball cannot — as much as we might emotionally want it to — get into the business of suspending umpires for making poor judgment calls. That’s a slippery slope from which the league would never recover. . . .

As an umpire, you cannot just pick and choose which rules to enforce.

That is why [Fieldin] Culbreth was suspended. His crew neglected to enforce a rule that is set in stone.

Citing the Jordany Valdespin incident over the weekend, Dustin Parkes of The Score explains on his Twitter feed why unwritten rules remain unwritten: “The Jordany Valdespin kerfuffle reminds us unwritten rules go unwritten because if they were written out, they’d seem really f***ing stupid.”
Three-true-outcome fans have never been happier: According to Andy of High Heat Stats, fewer balls are being put into play than ever before. 
Baseball Nation’s Rob Neyer takes Boston Globe columnist Dave Shaughnessy to task for the latter’s PED-related comments about David Ortiz.

Alex Cobb (above) struck out 13 batters in 4 2/3 innings, the first time in the live-vall era that a pitcher has struck out that many batters without completing five innings. Meanwhile, rookie Shelby Miller (27) and veteran Adam Wainwright (13) combined over two games to retire 40 consecutive batters, tying a MLB record. 

That’s it. Have a walk-off week!

After watching this clip, from the ninth inning of this evening’s A’s–Indians game — Oakland ended up losing, 4–3 — I think it’s safe to say that second-base umpire Angel Hernandez won’t be getting Christmas cards from A’s manager Bob Melvin or other members of the organization.

More here and here.

Blue Jays southpaw J. A. Happ has been discharged from a St. Petersburg hospital after being hit in the head with a batted ball last night:

Bayfront Medical Center said in a statement that Happ was discharged after being upgraded from fair to good condition on Wednesday. Happ was taken there after being struck on the left side of the head by a ball off the bat of Desmond Jennings during Tuesday night’s game against the Tampa Bay Rays.

The Blue Jays said Happ was responsive and feeling better after sustaining a head bruise and cut to his the left ear.

The beaning again raises the issue about how to better protect pitchers:

It was the latest injury to a pitcher struck by a batted ball in the last few years, and baseball has discussed ways to protect hurlers who ply their craft against the world’s strongest hitters — only 60 feet, 6 inches from home plate.

General managers discussed the issue during their meetings in November and MLB presented several ideas at the winter meetings weeks later.

MLB staff have said a cap liner with Kevlar, the material used in body armor for the military, law enforcement and NFL players, is among the ideas under consideration.

The liners, weighing perhaps 5 ounces or less, would go under a pitcher’s cap and help protect against line drives that often travel over 100 mph.

Diamondbacks pitcher Brandon McCarthy, who was hospitalized after getting struck with a line drive last September, sounds a cautionary note:

Most everything that’s come out wouldn’t have protected me, and it wouldn’t have protected [Happ] if he got hit directly in the ear. You’re at a point now where you’re looking at batting helmets. You’d have to have something that protected the ear and then the face and beyond. So it’s kind of a slippery slope. Someone will have to come up with something really good and really sound. Otherwise, I don’t know how you answer that question.

More here.

Good morning.

Here are several links from the past week that will make your Monday a bit more bearable:

• Baseball Nation’s Rob Neyer reveals his all-April team, which may include a face or two that will stink up the joint by Memorial Day:

SS - Jean Segura
Yes, yes . . .  He was an excellent prospect; that’s why the Brewers got him from the Angels last summer. As a rookie, though, Segura didn’t take real well to the National League, batting .264 without a single home run in 44 games. This season, though? He’s batting .364 with nine extra-base hits (including three homers!) in 24 games. Meanwhile, the 9-17 Angels can merely wonder what might have been…

LF - Nate McLouth
Nate McLouth is a testament to . . . something. Six years ago, McLouth came out of Nowhere to have a pretty good season with the Pirates, and a year later came out of Semi-Nowhere to lead the National League with 48 doubles and win a Gold Glove in center field. The next year, the Pirates traded McLouth to the Braves and he went back to being Nate McLouth, Journeyman Outfielder. Which he’s been ever since. Except this year, he’s the Orioles’ every-day left fielder and he’s batting .346 with a lot more walks than strikeouts.

Pitcher – Kevin Correia
So, so much fun. Correia is the thrilling apogee of the Minnesota Twins’ pitch-to-contact philosophy: Don’t strike anybody out, and the wins will come. Which is actually a really terrible philosophy. Except that Correia, who’s got only 15 strikeouts in 36 innings in this Age of the Strikeout, is also 3–1 with a 2.23 ERA. Granted, it’s not nearly as shocking as Jonathan Sanchez washing out with the Pirates. Still, I’ll bet you didn’t see this one coming.

• Paul Swydan of Fangraphs explores the use of the sacrifice bunt in the first inning and concludes that the oft-ridiculed tactic is still being employed too frequently.
• Writing in USA Today, Graham Womack of High Heat Stats highlights the Marlins’ offensive woes as a means of introducing weighted runs created plus (wRC+) to those readers unfamiliar with the statistic.
• Inspired by his five-year old son’s introduction to organized baseball, Beyond the Boxscore’s Adam Darowski discusses “The Sabermetrics of Little League.”
• Christina Kahrl of ESPN’s SweetSpot says that Jeremy Guthrie, who has been a key component in the Royals’ early-season success, also fits in well with Kansas City’s win-now philosophy:

From disappointing high expectations as a top prospect in Cleveland, to being stuck as an innings-eater in Oriole irrelevance, to the brief horrors of a mile-high exile as a Rockie, Guthrie has paid his dues and deserves a good turn. That he’s given the Royals more than one in kind is one of those happy developments. With the additions of James Shields and Ervin Santana to the rotation, Kansas City general manager Dayton Moore can reasonably brag that he’s managed to cobble together a better-than-average rotation in short order despite limited supply and limited cash. Thanks to their rotation, the Royals are in that gaggle of teams fighting for bragging rights to be second in the American League to the Detroit Tigers in quality-start percentage so far — just a tick or two below 60 percent — even as they fight to keep up with the heavily favored Motor City Kitties in the AL Central.

• Kahrl’s colleague, David Schoenfield, believes it is time for the Padres to ink the face of the franchise, Chase Headley, to a long-term extension.
• Zach Links of MLB Trade Rumors interviews Michael Pfaff, president and general manager of the Long Island Ducks, a team in the independent Atlantic League. Pfaff recently signed three former MLBers — Ramon Castro, Vladimir Guerrero, and Dontrelle Willis — to play for the club this summer. 

Has the Ducks’ reputation gotten to the point where the club doesn’t have to recruit and big names just sort of gravitate to the team?

Its a lot different than it was ten years ago.  There’s no question  In 2013, agents, players, and managers that are with or work with major league organizations know about the Atlantic League at this point.  We’ve had more than 600 players signed to major league deals.  

Let’s look at it from the perspective of a major league organization.  If you’re running player development for a big league club, and you have a player that makes, say, 10K a month, and you want to give a younger guy an opportunity to see if he can perform at that level, you would have to keep that guy at 10K a month in Triple-A or spring training or extending spring to give your young guy a shot.  Now, if he goes to an Atlantic League club, we really only have major league clubs to purchase our contract to repay the integrity of our contact.  It’s not to profit from it, its not a big revenue source for us, we make our money from ticket sales and such.  

If you’re a major league organization, and you go and you spend 4K to purchase that player, two months into the season, you would have paid that player 20K to have him.  Not only did you give your younger payer an opportunity to prove himself, you’ve got 16K to spend elsewhere..Economically, we’ve benefited major league organizations, they see that using the Atlantic League as a place where they can pluck talent from.

• Writing in the Hardball Times, Alex Connors asserts that the return of John Farrell to Fenway Park — he was the pitching coach from 2007 through 2010 and is back as manager this season — is having a positive effect on the Red Sox pitching staff.

• Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci wonders what was the substance that glistened on Clay Buchholz’s left forearm while on the mound against the Jays last Wednesday evening.

That’s it. Have a walk-off week!

Rick Camp, 59, died last week, presumably of natural causes.

A pitcher, Camp, spent his entire nine-year big-league career with the Braves. He was in the starting rotation on manager Joe Torre’s 1982 team that won its division. Three years later, however, Camp was a bullpen arm, Torre had been fired, and the franchise was entering a period of malaise that would last through the end of the decade. On the Fourth of July, Atlanta’s record was 34–41 and only San Francisco was behind it in the NL West standings.

Not yet a junior in high school, I experienced the summer of 1985 as another prolonged break from classes and the last one that did not involve holding a job. I recall watching the Macy’s Fourth of July fireworks display from my parents’ apartment building in Brooklyn Heights and then hanging out with friends in the neighborhood. On returning home after midnight, I turned on the TV and was surprised to find that the Mets–Braves game was still ongoing and about to go into extra innings. (The game had started an hour late due to rain.)

Here’s pretty much what my mind remembers from the game that might end up becoming the most memorable regular-season game I will watch in my lifetime:

• Keith Hernandez hit for the cycle but also got robbed of a base hit when the second-base umpire did not see center fielder Dale Murphy, who had dived for the sinking line drive, drop the ball.
• Eventual Cy Young Award winner Dwight Gooden had started the game but lasted only two and one-half innings, presumably because of an in-game rain delay.
• Eventual Hall of Fame closer Bruce Sutter blew a save.
• Howard Johnson hit a home run with a man on in the top of the 13th inning; Terry Harper evened the score with a two-out, two-run blast off the left-field foul pole in the bottom half.
• Manager Eddie Haas summoned Camp, who by now was used almost exclusively as a reliever, to pitch the 17th inning
• The second batter he faced, Darryl Strawberry, was ejected after arguing a strike-three call. Skipper Davey Johnson was tossed as well.*
• After the Mets had taken a one-run lead in the top of the 18th inning, southpaw reliever Tom Gorman, who was in his sixth inning of relief, retired the first two batters. Since there were no more available position players left on the bench, Camp, a career .060 hitter, had to hit for himself. He fouled off the first pitch, then took strike two. The third pitch — I think Gorman threw him a slider — was unbelievably deposited over the left-field wall, tying the game once more.
• After the batted ball cleared the outfield fence, exasperated left fielder Danny Heep took both hands and placed them on top of his head. In contrast, Camp appeared to have the biggest sh*t-a** grin on his face as he rounded the bases.
• The Mets shook off Camp’s offensive heroics and battered him for five runs in the top of the 19th.
• Unbelievably, the Braves rallied in the bottom half off Ron Darling, usually a starter, and cut the lead to three. With two on and two out, up stepped . . . Camp.
• This time, Camp came up empty. At 3:55 a.m., he struck out to end the game.
• As the players staggered toward their respective clubhouses, the few thousand fans who remained were treated to the planned fireworks show.
• By the time Mets broadcasters Ralph Kiner and Tim McCarver** said good night — or, more likely, good morning — I was passed out in the living-room recliner.

* According to Chris Jaffe of the Hardball Times, “When asked about it after the game, [home-plate umpire Terry] Tata responded with the words later engraved at the Tomb of the Unknown Umpire: ‘At three o’clock in the morning, there are no bad calls.’”

** Camp’s home-run shot on the Atlanta telecast was called by none other than current Yankees radio play-by-play man John Sterling, who called Braves games for Turner Sports from 1982 to 1987. (Thankfully, he had not yet come up with the “It is high, it is far” shtick.)

Camp finished the season with the Braves but was released before the 1986 season. He became a Georgia lobbyist and, years later, served two years in a federal prison after being convicted on an embezzlement charge.

Nonetheless, he remained popular in and around Atlanta and was always given a warm welcome when he showed up to Braves old-timers’ games.

Rest in peace. And thanks so much for the memories.