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What East Coast Bias?

History and Milestones

The Blue Jays' Jose Bautista hit his 48th home run of the season to break a club record held by George Bell (1987), as Toronto won a slugfest, 11-9, over the Red Sox at Fenway Park on Friday night.

Bautista wasn't the only one to make history on the field; Boston pitcher Tim Wakefield set yet another Red Sox record when he made an appearance in the seventh inning.

According to the Associated Press, Wakefield became the oldest player to appear for the Boston franchise in 102 years. The knuckleball pitcher, at 44 years and 46 days old, surpassed Hall of Famer Carl Yastrzemski (44 years and 41 days). Deacon McGuire, who made his last appearance for the Red Sox on August 24, 1908, was 44 years and 280 days old.

Wakefield isn't going to surpass McGuire until next season, assuming the Red Sox decide to re-sign him. But loyalty and history aside, there's no reason to continue bringing him back year after year. The knuckleballer is 4-10 with a 5.17 ERA. He is certainly not an innings-eater (with only 134 IP this season).

If the Red Sox want to be serious about making the postseason next year, it's time to cut ties with Wakefield and give that roster spot to another pitcher. A younger one.

Bautista of the Blue Jays isn't exactly young (he will turn 30 in October), but he sure has established himself as one of the best power hitters in baseball. From April to August 2009, Bautista was a horrible utility player: .225, 3 HRs, 19 RBIs, in 227 at-bats. He then hit 10 home runs after September 1st to finish the year with 13 dingers.

Including his final month in '09, Bautista has now hit 58 home runs in the last 6+ months.

Is he going to have another monster year in 2011? There are some skeptics in baseball circles. Keith Law of ESPN, for one, doesn't appear to think Bautista can duplicate his 2010 success and should have traded him earlier this year, feeling his trade value will never be higher. Law cited the name Davey Johnson on an interview on FAN 590 over a month ago, saying some players will have a fluke year and then come back to earth the following season. (Johnson, whose previous high in HRs was 18, slugged 43 for the '73 Braves as a 30-year-old, and then hit only 27 home runs total the rest of his career.)

I am leaning toward Keith Law, thinking Bautista will not be able to have another 40-homer season. I think the Blue Jays should have dealt him to a contending team before the trade deadline.

As for Wakefield? Time to get rid of him, if you are the Red Sox.

Enough of the King-Felix-for-Cy-Young talk already

Felix Hernandez of the Mariners was hammered for seven runs--four earned--and six hits in 6.1 innings, as Seattle fell 7-4 to the LA Angels. The loss for King Felix dropped him to 11-11 on the season despite his 2.39 ERA.

With about four starts left, even if he were to go 4-0 the rest of the way, he'd still end up with 15 wins. (The Angels pitcher who beat the M's on Saturday, by the way, was Ervin Santana, who is 16-9 with an ERA of 4.00.) There's been talk by some in the media, some of his teammates, many in the Seattle media, and quite a few bloggers that Hernandez deserves to win the AL Cy Young because he has the best ERA in the AL and the most strikeouts in the big leagues.

But come on. He's a .500 pitcher. Tim Lincecum won the NL Cy Young with only 15 wins last year, but other than that, the lowest win total for a starting pitcher to win the Cy Young is 16--a feat shared by five pitchers: Zack Greinke (2009 AL), Brandon Webb (2006 NL), David Cone (1994 AL), Greg Maddux (1994 NL), and Rick Sutcliffe (1984 NL).

For Maddux and Cone, the 1994 players' strike hurt their chances to win any more games because the season ended on August 12th. For Sutcliffe, he was traded from Cleveland to the Cubs and was dominant in his 3 1/2-month stay in the NL. In 2006, Webb was tied with several other pitchers for the league lead in wins in a year where nobody really stood out.

Last season, Greinke (16-8, 2.16, 242 K's) and Lincecum (15-7, 2.48 ERA, 261 K's) won the AL and NL awards, respectively, despite lower win totals as there seems to be a shift from traditional thinking by the voters that big win totals are more important than overall numbers. Adam Wainwright and Chris Carpenter of the Cardinals, for example, would have won the NL award back in the day. (Ironically, Hernandez was runner-up to Greinke last year even though he had 19 wins.)

But the thing is, Hernandez is 11-11. If the Mariners try to get him to pitch deep into ballgames the last four starts of the year to try and give him a shot to win each game and get into the Cy Young discussion, they're only going to hurt his arm for the long term.

18 wins? So what?

Roy Halladay won his 18th game for the Phillies on Friday night, as Philadelphia beat the Mets 8-4 at Citi Field to stay one game ahead of the Braves in the NL East.

It wasn't exactly his best outing--but then again, he did pitch a perfect game earlier this year, so nothing can top that--but it was good enough for a Phillies team that gave him all that run support. Four runs, eight hits, in 7.2 innings isn't exactly Cy Young numbers, but he'll probably win it anyway because there's no clear-cut favorite thanks to the collapses of Tim Lincecum, Chris Carpenter, Josh Johnson, Ubaldo Jimenez, and Adam Wainwright. (Please don't add Atlanta's Tim Hudson to the Cy Young discussion; he lost to the PIRATES in his last start.)

And in his last start before beating the Mets, Halladay gave up four runs against the Brewers, trailed when he departed, but still got the win when the Phils scored in the next inning and Doc was the pitcher of record.

Amazingly, he also became the first Philadelphia pitcher since John Denny in 1983 to win 18 games in a single season, which is hard to believe since every team except for the Rockies and Rays have had at least one 18-game winner in that span. (Jimenez became the first Colorado pitcher to ever win 18, and he just did it last week for the Rockies.)

Hey, Doc might win 20 games this year. He might win the Cy Young. But to me, it's been a disappointing year. Yes, he's 18-10 with a 2.44 ERA. He has 201 strikeouts. He leads the majors with 228.2 innings.

But remember before the season started when all the Fan 590 people were saying Roy Halladay was going to win 25 games? They were all saying Halladay was far and away the best pitcher in baseball, and after going from the tough AL East to the 'easier' National League, with inferior competition and no DH, this guy was supposed to dominate? Win 25-27 games? Wasn't he supposed to make the Phils run away with the division? Wasn't he supposed to be far superior than Cliff Lee?

Well, check the standings. As of tonight, the Phillies have just a one-game lead. Yes, he had a perfect game earlier in the year, but that was against the Marlins. And whenever he's faced the AL in interleague play, he's been brutal: 1-3 with a 5.06 ERA in four starts, getting bombed by the Yankees and Red Sox. (His only win against AL teams was versus the Blue Jays, when he tossed seven shutout innings against them.)

If he's THAT good, why does he have 10 losses? Why isn't he giving the Phillies a 10-game lead? Why isn't he approaching 30 wins?

All I can say is, he can win 20 this year, and it'll be a disappointing year. Heck, they might not even make the playoffs if the Braves, Giants, and Padres all get on hot streaks... We shall see.

Colby isn't exactly Kobe

On Thursday in Atlanta, Colby Rasmus went 4-for-4 with two home runs as the Cardinals dumped the Braves 11-4. His four hits and four RBIs matched his career highs in both categories, and the Cards got a much-needed victory to move to within five games of the Central-leading Cincinnati Reds.

But who is this Colby Rasmus? Is he supposed to be a big star? The first-round pick of the Cardinals in 2005 (28th overall), the centerfielder is in only his second year in the big leagues, and has 21 homers and 59 RBIs in 2010 while batting .276.

In his two seasons so far, he has 37 home runs and 111 RBIs in 269 games.

So, why was he the big story last weekend on sports pages--front-page material, in fact--when it was reported that he supposedly wanted to get out of St. Louis? Since when was Rasmus a big star?

Perhaps he wants to play more and isn't happy with manager Tony LaRussa. But seriously, this guy isn't that great of a hitter and he was getting that much attention on the weekend? Going into last Saturday, Rasmus had been hitting .202 with three homers in 99 at-bats in the second half!

Longevity does not equal greatness

The NFL season starts on Thursday with the Brett Favre-led Minnesota Vikings facing the defending Super Bowl champion New Orleans Saints in a rematch of last year's NFC Championship Game.

While the Vikings went through most of the summer wondering if Favre would return for yet another season, was there really ever any doubt he was going to come back after yet another off-season of 'Will he or won't he?' speculation?

Yes, Favre has his consecutive-games streak going and he's the all-time leader in touchdown passes and other categories, but let's not forget his INT's that cost the Packers several playoff games (including a 6-pick classic in St. Louis and the OT-loss in his final game with Green Bay), cost the Jets a playoff spot after an 8-3 beginning, and last year's NFC title game against the Saints with the Vikings vying for a game-winning field goal in the dying moments of the fourth quarter.

I've talked about Favre so much that I'm not going to bother getting into his horrendous postseason performances. Instead, I'm going to focus on another old-timer whose longevity--not his greatness--is allowing him to continue picking up milestone numbers.

That's none other than Red Sox pitcher Tim Wakefield.

He was giving a rare start on Wednesday night, and he beat the Tampa Bay Rays 11-5 despite a shaky performance.

In the 44-year-old knuckleball pitcher's case, he became the oldest pitcher to be credited with a victory for the Red Sox, breaking Dennis Eckersley's record. (Eck was 43 when he got his final win for Boston in 1998.)

He now has 179 career wins for Boston, 13 behind the Red Sox club record of 192 shared by Roger Clemens and Cy Young.

Wakefield, in his 16th season with Boston, wants the Red Sox wins record. "Hopefully I get an opportunity to try and do that," he told reporters. "I know how important that is to me" (Source: 44-year-old Wakefield Oldest to Win for Red Sox, Yahoo! Sports).

Well, well, well. Here we have another athlete who is hanging around for the wrong reason. The Red Sox are in third place in the AL East, nine games behind first-place New York and 6.5 games back of the wild-card leading Rays. Boston isn't going to the playoffs this season.

Whose fault is it? Yes, you can blame injuries. You can blame Josh Beckett's ineffectiveness. You can blame Dice-K.

But look at Wakefield's numbers a bit closer:
4 wins, 10 losses, and an ugly ERA of 5.26. In his 18 starts, the Red Sox are 6-12, and his ERA is 5.56. When he has appeared in a game, they are 7-22. In the first two months of the season, he was 1-4 with a 6.02 ERA in 12 games (eight starts). In his 10 losses, his ERA is 8.34 in 10 games (nine starts). At Fenway, his record is 2-6 with a 5.91 ERA.

On August 13th, the Red Sox blew a huge 8-2 lead, and the game went into extra innings. He was brought into the game to start the 11th, threw one pitch, which Nelson Cruz hit over the fence in deep left, and the Red Sox lost.

If Wakefield even pitched decent at all this season, perhaps Boston wouldn't be 6.5 games back in the wild card race. And he's hanging around so he can get that record. Nice.

Wakefield's pitching line vs Tampa Bay:
5 IP, 6 H, 5 R, 4 ER, 2 BB, 4 SO.
W, 4-10; season ERA: 5.26.

Boxscore:
T.B. 130 100 000 - 5 8 1
BOS 022 031 30x - 11 17 1

Make up your mind, Jays fans...

I had a chance to talk to a Toronto Star journalist (he's an acquaintance of mine) two weeks ago about the Toronto Blue Jays, and everything he said is consistent with what I've been hearing about the fans in that city. Or more specifically, what other Torontonians are feeling about the Blue Jays, based on what I've been hearing on the Fan 590.

According to him, he's personally feeling excitement this year toward the Blue Jays for the first time since 1992-93. He senses it's the same for many people in Toronto about the Jays. Reason? He feels, just like many many others, the young pitching staff of Morrow, Romero, Marcum, et al, has a chance to do something special, and in general, the team is moving in the right direction. And oh yeah, the Jays are going to finish above .500 this season... if they don't have a bad September.

Huh? Seriously? To me, that makes NO sense at all. Sure, the Blue Jays, as of this moment, are 71-66, good for fourth in the AL East. But don't tell me there was no excitement in, say, 2006, when the Blue Jays finished second, ahead of the Boston Red Sox, with an 87-75 record? Heck, the Jays finished above .500 for three straight seasons from 2006 to 2008, and even made a surprising run early in the 2009 season. But people haven't really been excited about the club until this year?

How about 2003, when the Blue Jays were in a pennant race? Or 2000, when David Wells, with his 20-win season, led the club to within 2.5 games out (in the wild card race) going into the final week of the season? 1998, when manager Jim Fregosi led them to wild card contention in September? Even on the Fan 590, for example, there's always talk that the Blue Jays haven't played a meaningful game in September since 1993. (Wells famously trashed Toronto fans in his 2003 autobiography saying they don't know much about baseball and only know how to boo and criticize the team.)

As the Toronto Star journalist says, people weren't really interested in the Blue Jays because there was still a hangover from the 1994 players' strike. This year though, there is a sense the team is making the right moves to get better.

Hogwash, I say. Let's look at a few things that just show how fans are totally off base with this team.

With Adam Lind and Aaron Hill having subpar seasons (both struggling with batting averages in the low .200s), people are still saying they're having fluke years and will bounce back. Both have been signed to long-term contracts and are expected to lead the Jays in future seasons.

It sounds like people are saying that with Lind and Hill rebounding next year, they'll be a better club. Hey, if Lind and Hill are hitting well this year, they say, this team would be in a pennant race, perhaps.

Uhm? What about last year, when both Alex Rios and Vernon Wells were struggling with the bats? ALL the fans wanted Rios and Wells OUT of town. When both were placed on waivers, everyone wanted the Jays to just give them away. The White Sox ended up claiming Rios, but nobody wanted Wells because of his hefty price tag (he has a huge contract). So how come everyone thought both Rios and Wells were bums and needed to get out of town--and always booed them every chance they got--while this year Lind and Hill have been getting free passes? Heck, everyone's always on Lyle Overbay's case about his low batting average, but from what people are saying on the Fan, Lind and Hill should be able to bounce back and there's nothing to worry about with those two.

Then there's the love affair with Jose Bautista. Sure, he's been a great story so far in 2010. Sure, he's leading the majors with 43 homers now and is second in the big leagues with 103 RBIs (trailing Miguel Cabrera's 110). Everyone points to his hot September-October last year, when he hit 10 home runs to lead the majors, saying it's no fluke. Everyone applauded General Manager Alex Anthopoulos for not trading him at the deadline, thinking Bautista is going to be a key piece to the puzzle for the Blue Jays for years to come. Again, he's been great this year and has been a wonderful story. But let's face it: Going into July, he was hitting only .228; as late as the last week of August, he was batting in the .250s. The most number of home runs he's hit in the big leagues, before this year, was 16. He's had a terrific year in 2010, and it's been well documented that Dwayne Murphy, the Jays' hitting coach, along with manager Cito Gaston, has worked with Bautista's swing and it has paid dividends. I'm still not convinced though. He's had one monster season this year, but there's really no guarantee he can do it again.

Ricky Romero got a long-term contract from the Blue Jays this year. He was signed to a five-year, $30.1-million contract extension through the 2015 season. Romero was a rookie in 2009, posting a 13-9 record with a 4.30 ERA in 29 starts. The lefty faded from Rookie of the Year contention by going 3-5 with a 5.53 ERA in his final 12 starts. And he's worth a long-term contract, in the eyes of Anthopoulos? No one in Toronto is really criticizing this move, the way they all trashed J.P. Ricciardi for giving the long-term contracts to Rios and Wells, and for signing free agents Frank Thomas and B.J. Ryan to huge contracts so they would play for the Blue Jays.

That's double standards, if you think about it. It's been said by fans on the Fan 590 that people think Anthopoulos is going to be a great GM for the Blue Jays because he's Canadian, so he knows how to connect with Canadian baseball fans and how to make the club a winner. Seriously? Give me a break.

I think Ricciardi is right--and he's said this on record on the Fan before--in suggesting that free agents don't want to play in Toronto... unless they get way more money than they would get from other clubs. So it's hard to fault him for the Thomas or Ryan signings. He's also suggested that it's extremely difficult to compete in the AL East, with the free-spending ways of the Red Sox and Yankees. Yet a lot of Toronto fans seem to think the Jays couldn't make the postseason during Ricciardi's run because he's incompetent and a jerk as a GM.

Well, let's see how Anthopoulos will fare in the AL East. Personally, I don't think he'll do much better than Ricciardi, especially with the Blue Jays stuck in the same division as the Sox and Yanks. But then again, a certain host on the Fan insists that Anthopoulos's style--scouting, among other things--is just like Pat Gillick's. Gillick, of course, won two World Series championships with the Blue Jays as General Manager back in the early 1990s, when the fans were packing SkyDome/Rogers Centre. We'll see how Anthopoulos does, but I have a feeling he's not going to sniff anything remotely close to a championship in Toronto.