MLB FanHouse

Daily Jolt: Halos Make Call to Arms

Andrew Johnson — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 06:00:00 EST

The Daily Jolt is a dose of baseball reality every weekday morning.

Jered Weaver gave the Angels a much-needed respite Tuesday night. Weaver, along with left-hander Joe Saunders, is one of the last men standing in a Los Angeles rotation ravaged by injuries and, of course, the tragic death of Nick Adenhart.

He pitched seven innings and allowed three runs as the Angels beat the Tigers, providing a quality start and taking some of the pressure off of a bullpen which entered the night with a major league-worst 8.31 ERA.

Unfortunately, it was only one night, and Los Angeles has many ahead.

John Lackey, Kelvim Escobar, Ervin Santana and Dustin Moseley are still on the disabled list. Even if you count Shane Loux -- who at 29 has nine career starts -- the Angels still have two empty rotation slots at the moment, which explains why general manager Tony Reagins is suddenly looking outside the organization for pitching help, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.

Reagins admitted he has contacted the player representatives for free agents Pedro Martinez, Mark Mulder and Paul Byrd. So let's play one of America's favorite parlor games -- armchair GM -- and try and figure out who the Halos should sign.

Pedro Martinez

Pros: Martinez has far and away the best track record of the three pitchers the Angels are looking at. He pitched for the Dominican Republic in the World Baseball Classic in March and seemed to be throwing free and easy. Even over his last three injury-plagued seasons with the Mets, he maintained an excellent strikeout rate, whiffing 8.5 batters per nine innings.

Cons: He just hasn't been able to stay healthy, averaging 16 starts and 89 innings pitched the last three seasons, far from the type of innings-eater the Angels need given the state of their rotation. His stuff clearly isn't what it was back in his prime and a switch back to the tougher American League could be tough on Martinez. He is also likely to be the most expensive of the three options.

Mark Mulder

Pros: He's left-handed, and once upon a time (aka 2001) he won 21 games and finished second in Cy Young voting.

Cons: Mulder has battled shoulder problems since 2006, making just 21 starts and pitching just 106 innings with a 7.73 ERA. The odds seem long that he'll ever be an effective pitcher again, and even if he is he hasn't thrown for any scouts yet, meaning he won't be able to help right away or even soon. The Angels' problems are in the present and they figure to diminish over time as the list of hurlers on the DL shrinks.

Paul Byrd

Pros: Though hardly the pitcher the other two were at their respective heights, Byrd has been durable and consistent over the last few seasons, going 48-40 with a 4.43 ERA since 2005 and averaging 188 innings per year during that span. Byrd has no known physical issues and has experience pitching in Anaheim -- he spent all of 2005 there.

Cons: The ceiling is low. The Angels wouldn't be getting anything more than a league-average pitcher. Byrd also expressed a desire this winter to pitch only half of the season in 2009, so Los Angeles might have to wait until he's ready or pay a premium to lure him back to the pitcher's mound earlier than he planned.

If it doesn't seem obvious by now, the Angels should probably steer well clear of Mulder, unless they want to take a very risky flyer on a pitcher who could provide rotation depth way down the road.

That leaves Martinez and Byrd, and while the heart says Pedro -- he is one of the most entertaining pitchers of this generation -- the head so clearly says Byrd.

His baseline performance sits below Martinez's, but he provides league-average innings, and plenty of them, something we can't say about Pedro at this stage in his career. The Angels need a warm body more than anything else, and in the soft AL West they don't need to gamble on a higher-ceiling, higher-risk option because the division isn't going to run away from them before Lackey, Santana and their other injured arms return.

Daily Jolt: Halos Make Call to Arms originally appeared on MLB FanHouse on Wed, 22 Apr 2009 06:00:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Daily Jolt: Patriots Day, Orioles Just What Red Sox Needed to Right Ship

Andrew Johnson — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 06:00:00 EST

Filed under: Red Sox, Daily Jolt

The Daily Jolt is a dose of baseball reality every weekday morning.

There's something about Patriots Day that seems to bring out the best in the Red Sox. Or maybe it's the Baltimore Orioles. Either way, it only took a long weekend at Fenway Park to put to rest many of the fears that began to bubble up after Boston's 3-6 start to the season.

It didn't look like it would be that way after the top of the second inning in the series opener Friday night.

Brad Penny had just given up seven runs and the Red Sox appeared headed for another loss and a 3-7 start. From that point on, Boston posted 30 runs against Baltimore's hapless pitching and got quality starts from Josh Beckett and Jon Lester in succession before Justin Masterson 5 1/3-inning, one-run gem Monday morning in a four-game sweep of the Orioles.

The Sox have won six straight Patriots Day games, a run that stretches all the way back to 2004, a fateful year in the team's history, of course.

They have been nearly as dominant against the O's lately. Boston has feasted on Baltimore since 2006, going 43-15 in the last three (and change) seasons, its best winning percentage against any American League team over that span.

It's not all that surprising to see Boston's pitchers put together a stretch of dominant starts like that. More and more the strength of the Red Sox has become the wave of arms it can throw at opponents.

But there had to be very real concern about the offense. Seemingly every scouting report on David Ortiz this spring has questioned his bat speed. Mike Lowell is coming off a serious hip injury. Jason Varitek is coming off the worst season of his career. With Jed Lowrie and Julio Lugo on the shelf, production at shortstop could be sparse. And thrust into an everyday role, it's unclear how center fielder Jacoby Ellsbury will perform.

At least for a weekend, those worries were alleviated:

o. Ellsbury had three multi-hit games in the four-game set, including a 3-for-6 performance Monday that raised his average from .194 to .268.

o. Ortiz boosted his average by 20 points over the weekend and doubled up his then extra-base hit total on the season in Monday afternoon's game with a double and a triple.

o. Varitek hit his third home run of the year Monday, boosting his season line to .250/.341/.583 (AVG/OBP/SLG). That type of production is much closer to what we're accustomed to from the Boston captain.

o. Reigning AL MVP Dustin Pedroia boosted his average by 102 points in the four-game set, thanks mostly to a three-hit game Friday and a four-hit game Monday.

Of course, a good offensive series against one of the weaker pitching staffs in the major leagues doesn't mean the lineup has righted itself, nor does it mean it is guaranteed to be one of the best run-scoring outfits in baseball again.

But the Red Sox don't have to be one of the very best offenses in the game to return to the playoffs, they just have to be above average. Beckett, Lester, Daisuke Matsuzaka, John Smoltz and the rest of baseball's deepest pitching staff afford them that luxury.

Daily Jolt: Patriots Day, Orioles Just What Red Sox Needed to Right Ship originally appeared on MLB FanHouse on Tue, 21 Apr 2009 06:00:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Daily Jolt: Can Tigers Roar Again?

Andrew Johnson — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 06:00:00 EST

Filed under: Tigers, Daily Jolt

The Daily Jolt is a dose of baseball reality every weekday morning.

The Tigers came into 2009 with a shot at redemption. Two weeks into the season, they at least seem to have the shape of a chance to accomplish that. Expectations were sky high for Detroit last year after a pair of trades brought All-Stars Miguel Cabrera, Dontrelle Willis and Edgar Renteria to the Motor City.

Those additions had some talking heads hailing the Tigers as a modern day Murderer's Row and dreaming of a 1,000-run season, but the funny thing about scooping up All-Stars is that they aren't always playing at that level when they arrive in their new team's clubhouse.

Two years removed from a trip to the World Series, Detroit wound up finishing in dead last in the AL Central in 2008, its fate sealed by injuries and, most of all, a paper-thin pitching staff.

So general manager Dave Dombrowski went back to work this winter. He traded for catcher Gerald Laird, freeing up Brandon Inge to return to third base. He signed defensive wizard Adam Everett to platoon at shortstop with Ramon Santiago. He jettisoned Gary Sheffield toward the end of spring training. He also nabbed Edwin Jackson in a trade with the Rays over the winter. Most curiously, he showed enormous faith in 20-year-old pitcher Rick Porcello, making him the team's fifth starter after 125 innings in the minor leagues.

Paying special attention to pitching and defense has become a bit of a fad in the wake of the Rays' World Series run last year, and Dombrowski's moves seem to reflect that trend.

Cabrera and Renteria composed the left side of Detroit's infield at the beginning of last season. You don't have to be a scout or a professional talent evaluator to know that Inge, Everett and Santiago will probably turn a whole lot more balls in play into outs. The Tigers have to hope that shift in emphasis will turn a defense that ranked 24th in the majors in defensive efficiency (the rate of balls in play turned into outs) according to Baseball Prospectus into one of the best in baseball.

As for the pitching, the Tigers have moved away from the soft-tossers and injury-prone hurlers that made 2008 such an adventure.

Neither Jackson nor Porcello have shown a consistent ability to miss bats yet, but Jackson has performed well in two starts so far for Detroit, and Porcello is bubbling over with talent.

He shut down the Mariners -- another AL club looking for redemption -- over seven innings Sunday afternoon, recording his first major league win and securing a victory in the weekend series for the Tigers. He only recorded three strikeouts, but 14 of the 21 outs he got came either via the whiff or a groundball, and he could have gone further, throwing 56 of 86 pitches for strikes.

The Tigers rode talented but unproven arms -- names we know well now like Justin Verlander and Joel Zumaya -- and a superb defense all the way to the Fall Classic in 2006. Three years later they seem to be returning to that formula.

Of course, they still have prolific offensive stars like Cabrera and Curtis Granderson too.

All those things might not be enough to get them back to the playoffs this year, but, at least early on, it seems like it will be enough to avert the constant calamities that seemed to plague them during all of last year. In a division that is completely wide open, it could take them very far.

Daily Jolt: Can Tigers Roar Again? originally appeared on MLB FanHouse on Mon, 20 Apr 2009 06:00:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Daily Jolt: Pulse of White Sox in Pitching

Andrew Johnson — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 06:00:00 EST

Filed under: White Sox, AL Central, Daily Jolt

The Daily Jolt is a dose of baseball reality every weekday morning.

The White Sox are in the same place they ended 2008, tied atop a heap of clubs in the AL Central that all have designs on contention in 2009. John Danks' gem Thursday night against the Rays hurtled Chicago into a deadlock with the Tigers and Royals at 5-4.

Just 24, the left-hander is 1-0 on the season with a 0.75 ERA and has 13 strikeouts in 12 innings this season.

The Central division seems almost impossible to figure out at this stage, and indeed it could take until August or even September for the wheat to separate from the chaff.

But if the White Sox end up as the former once again, Danks and the rest of their steady rotation will be a huge reason why.

Chicago spent much of the offseason getting rid of assets. Gone is shortstop Orlando Cabrera, who was a stalwart in the middle of the infield for the Sox last year, missing only two regular seasons. Gone too are Nick Swisher and Joe Crede, both elite performers at various stages in their respective careers.

At first blush, it might seem like the White Sox lost quite a bit of production from a team that won 89 games a year ago. Swisher had the worst offensive season of his career, though. Crede failed to log triple digits in games played. Alexei Ramirez is sliding over to short and with the arrival of Gordon Beckham expected at some point in '09, the middle infield shouldn't be significantly weaker. Then there's Carlos Quentin, who was running away in the AL MVP race until he broke his wrist in September and missed the rest of the regular season.

Yes, the offense should be fine.

And, oh, that rotation.

Mark Buehrle is as consistent a pitching force as there is, having pitched eight consecutive 200-inning seasons, all but one of which was above league average in ERA. Pitching coach Don Cooper seems to have unlocked the potential that made Gavin Floyd the fourth overall selection in the 2001 draft.

And Danks? He looks like a legitimate ace. He throws hard. He is left-handed. He misses bats. Ever since he started throwing a cut fastball last season, he has found another gear.

The White Sox have plenty of starting pitching, and that makes them an anomaly in the AL Central, where Carl Pavano is a No. 3 starter (Indians), Sidney Ponson and Horacio Ramirez make up 2/5ths of a rotation (Royals) and Zach Miner is being counted on for significant innings (Tigers).

Sure, it's hard to know what to expect from Bartolo Colon and Jose Contreras with both coming off of injuries, but Clayton Richard and Aaron Poreda are more than serviceable as backup options.

The White Sox might not repeat as division champions. There is upside everywhere else in the Central. The Tigers have a superlative lineup. The Indians have maybe the best player in the league in Grady Sizemore. The Royals could get big things out of Billy Butler and Zack Greinke. And the Twins, with a healthy Joe Mauer, have very few gaping holes.

But Chicago has the fewest question marks in the one place where you most want stability -- the rotation. That bodes well for its chances.

Daily Jolt: Pulse of White Sox in Pitching originally appeared on MLB FanHouse on Fri, 17 Apr 2009 06:00:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Daily Jolt: Kershaw Looks Special

Andrew Johnson — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 06:00:00 EST

Filed under: Dodgers, Daily Jolt

The Daily Jolt is a dose of baseball reallity every weekday morning.

James Loney drove in the winning run, or more accurately walked it in. The pricey free agents -- Orlando Hudson and Manny Ramirez -- were the heroes sparking the game-winning rally in the ninth inning with consecutive no-out hits. But it was Clayton Kershaw who sent the loudest message Wednesday night.

The Dodgers pulled out a 5-4 win over the hated Giants, securing the series victory ahead of Thursday night's finale in dramatic fashion by scoring in the bottom of the eighth and ninth after Hong-Chih Kuo and Ronald Belisario coughed up the lead on Aaron Rowand's three-run homer.

Those dramatics made for interesting theater, but as is so often the case with early-season games, it obscured the real story: a dazzling performance by Kershaw.

The 21-year-old lefthander allowed one hit, a Bengie Molina home run in the second inning, over seven innings, and struck out a whopping 13 Giants on the night.

All the usual caveats apply. San Francisco has one of the weaker lineups around. It's only two starts. And on and on. But given his pedigree, the Dodgers have to feel awfully good about young Kershaw.

The southpaw has been a highly regarded prospect almost from the moment Los Angeles plucked him from a Dallas-area high school as the seventh overall pick in the 2006 draft. He took his share of knocks last year, posting a 5-5 record and a perfectly league average (and park-adjusted) ERA+. That was to be expected. After all, what pitcher doesn't navigate some choppy waters when they first arrive in the big leagues.

There are grander expectations on Kershaw's shoulders, though. The kind of expectations that come with a left arm that can command a lively fastball in the low-to-mid 90-mph range and contort perfectly to snap off a 1-to-7 curveball that legendary Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully anointed "Public Enemy No. 1" during spring training last year.

No, being a .500 pitcher long-term won't be good enough for Kershaw, but with a 1.50 ERA and 19 strikeouts in 12 innings already this year, it doesn't look like Los Angeles will have to endure many more fits and starts before the promising lefty blossoms fully.

Few will realize it with much of Chavez Ravine still under the enchanting spell of the dreadlocked one, Manny Ramirez, but the potential emergence of Kershaw could be huge for the Dodgers.

The other NL West contenders have dynamic 1-2 punches at the top of their respective rotations. The Giants have Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain (or Randy Johnson, take your pick). The Diamondbacks have Brandon Webb and Dan Haren. The Dodgers came into this season with Chad Billingsley -- recovering from a fractured leg suffered over the winter and a couple of lousy performances in the NLCS -- and a whole bunch of question marks after that with Derek Lowe off to Atlanta.

Billingsley is already 2-0 on the year and struck out 11 in a win over the Giants Monday night. Kershaw became the youngest Dodger to strike out 13 hitters in a game since the team moved to Los Angeles and the second youngest to whiff that many in franchise history Wednesday.

He also seems to have arrived, giving the Dodgers a legitimate answer to the pitching talents atop the rotations of their chief division rivals.

Billingsley-Kershaw? That duo might not have the name recognition of Lincecum-Cain or Webb-Haren yet, but if they're just as good on the mound, it'll hardly matter to the Dodgers.

Daily Jolt: Kershaw Looks Special originally appeared on MLB FanHouse on Thu, 16 Apr 2009 06:00:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Daily Jolt: St. Louis Holds Its Breath

Andrew Johnson — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 06:00:00 EST

Filed under: Cardinals, Daily Jolt

The Daily Jolt is a dose of baseball reality every weekday morning.

On any other day, the work of the Cardinals' bullpen would be cause for concern. St. Louis relievers were torched for seven runs over seven innings in a 7-6 extra-inning loss to the Diamondbacks Tuesday night.

Josh Kinney blew a one-run lead in the eighth inning, then after the Cardinals rallied to tie the game in the ninth, Brad Thompson lost it in the 10th. No amount of mixing and matching by Tony La Russa could save St. Louis, and with Jason Motte -- the club's designated closer out of spring training -- sporting a 15.43 ERA, there's a genuine closer controversy brewing in the second week of the season.

But any worries about the Cardinals' leaky bullpen have been replaced for the moment by bated breath, or maybe even downright panic over the status of Chris Carpenter.

The 2005 NL Cy Young winner set up Tuesday night's relief meltdown when he came out after just three innings with a strain in his left rib cage.

Carpenter is a true ace when he is healthy. The right-hander dominated from 2004-06, his first three years in St. Louis. He was outstanding in spring training this year. He carried a no-hitter into the seventh inning in his regular season debut, and when he came out of the game Tuesday night, his ERA was still a perfect 0.00.

For 10 whole innings in 2009, the Cardinals had their ace back. And they had plenty of reason to believe they could go very far this season with the Brewers and Astros looking significantly worse than they were last season and the Reds and Pirates having much to prove.

Now St. Louis and its fans must wait -- and hope.

With a healthy Carpenter alongside Adam Wainwright and Kyle Lohse in the rotation (and with the best hitter in baseball, Albert Pujols, in the middle of their order), the Cardinals have the type of talent that could keep them in the hunt with Cubs in the NL Central and, failing that, in the mix for the NL wild card all season long.

Without him, they have plenty of questions and very few concrete answers.

Could they still contend for a playoff spot? Probably. Would they be one of the more fringe teams in the race? Almost certainly.

All of which brings us back to the man in question -- Carpenter.

On its surface, a strained rib cage seems like nothing to worry about long-term. Carpenter has had multiple surgeries on his arm over the years, rising from the ashes after Toronto released him in 2002 because of a torn labrum to capture pitching's highest honor three years later, but this injury has nothing to do with his golden wing. Indeed, Carpenter told reporters he first felt the strain during an at-bat in the fourth inning.

But seemingly minor injuries are never that minor with an ace pitcher, particularly one with Carpenter's medical history.

The injury could have resulted from some mechanical flaw, or if he rushes back too quickly, they could alter his mechanics going forward. Change one minor thing with a pitcher's motion -- whatever the reason may be -- and you could be risking a drop in effectiveness, or worse, a more serious injury.

Until the Cardinals and their fans find out just how bad (or good) the news is, there is only nervous anticipation, probably for the worst.

Can you blame them?

This is hardly the first time they've watched their ace walk off a mound gingerly.

Daily Jolt: St. Louis Holds Its Breath originally appeared on MLB FanHouse on Wed, 15 Apr 2009 06:00:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Daily Jolt: Nats Looking for Answers

Andrew Johnson — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 06:00:00 EST

Filed under: Nationals, Daily Jolt

The Daily Jolt is a dose of baseball reality every weekday morning.

WASHINGTON -- When is it time to start worrying?

That's the question Nationals fans have to be asking themselves after watching their team fall to the world champion Phillies 9-8 in Washington's home opener. The Nats are now 0-7 and have lost 11 straight games dating back to last season, a season in which they lost more games than anybody else in the majors (102) in a brand new ballpark paid for by the taxpayers of Washington D.C.

"I think we could call the first week a down," Stan Kasten, the team's president, says coyly. "We are confident we've made great progress with the team on the field."

Great progress? Well, here's hoping. The Nationals, after all, did lose 102 games. They would almost have to try to be worse than they were in 2008.

Washington's home opener looked a lot like its first road trip. There was plenty of offense. (The Nats are averaging a respectable 4.8 runs per game this year.) Cristian Guzman had five hits. Elijah Dukes, Adam Dunn and Ryan Zimmerman all homered.

Zimmerman, a player manager Manny Acta calls "everything" to the Nationals as a franchise, went deep against all-world Phillies closer Brad Lidge, who hasn't blown a save since 2007.

But the pitching and defense undid it all. Starter Daniel Cabrera only got through the fifth inning, then, after a scoreless sixth, reliever Saul Rivera did his best impression of a gascan, hitting two batters before surrendering a long home run to Ryan Howard and then a second to Raul Ibanez. Anderson Hernandez, just activated from the disabled list, added to the misery with two errors, Dunn committed one of his own, and he and Milledge continued to make even semi-routine line drives and fly balls in the outfield resemble Family Circus.

"It's a long-term building project that I think is nearing the point where we can really be pleased with it," Kasten says. "We're not there yet, but we're on our way."

So what is taking so long?

The Nationals were dealt a tough hand to be sure after years in the stewardship of Major League Baseball. But this is the start of the team's fifth year in Washington, the start of its third full season under the Lerner family ownership group and the start of its second season in Nationals Park.

In other words, enough time has passed that Nats fans have the right to start expecting more.

The problem isn't that it is taking time to build a winner, it's that there aren't many signs that one is "on its way" in the first place. The Nationals have what appears to be a decent lineup, but they also have the very definition of a patchwork pitching rotation and little depth anywhere at all levels of the organization.

Much of the goodwill that came with the Nationals' arrival has been squandered.

"We get the attendance we deserve," Kasten says. "Until we get the product to where we want it to be, we're not gonna be selling out every night."

Or any night at this rate. Washington welcomed the Nats with open arms. It even built a stadium for the team.

But they have slipped from 81 wins in their first season to 71 in 2006 all the way down to 59 last year. In the process, the farm system has failed to develop any real stars except maybe Zimmerman (the jury's still out on that one), it has offered little reason to think that will change in the near future and the only general manager had to step down in March amid a scouting scandal.

"If we give [the fans] a reason to support us, they will be out here in droves," Kasten says.

That much is obvious. Just what the reason will be isn't.

Daily Jolt: Nats Looking for Answers originally appeared on MLB FanHouse on Tue, 14 Apr 2009 06:00:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Daily Jolt: Marlins Making Serious Noise

Andrew Johnson — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 06:00:00 EST

Filed under: Marlins, Daily Jolt

The Daily Jolt is a dose of baseball reality every weekday morning.

This is why you can believe in the Marlins. It is not because Emilio Bonifacio has hit like Babe Ruth in the first week of the season. Nor is it because Hanley Ramirez might secretly be the game's best player, though those things help. It is because they have pitching.

Waves and waves and waves of it.

Florida is 5-1 after the first week of the season, tied for first in the National League East with the Braves, and its starting rotation has given it plenty of reason to think it can stay near the top of the division much longer.

On Sunday afternoon it was Josh Johnson feeding the good vibes in Miami. Johan Santana and the Mets -- a team many tapped to win the division heading into 2009 -- did everything they could to take two out of three from the Marlins over the weekend. Santana struck out 13 over seven innings, becoming just the sixth pitcher to register that many whiffs and throw less than 99 pitches in a start since pitch counts have been tracked (according to baseball-reference.com).

But Santana's counterpart stared him down for all seven innings he was out there, then went two more to best him. Johnson rung up seven Mets, surrendered just five hits, walked one and kept his fastball velocity crackling in the mid-90s most of the afternoon.

It is not solely about Johnson, who dropped his ERA to 0.57 and looks for all the world like he could be a Cy Young contender this year after losing more than 11 months to Tommy John surgery in 2007 and 2008.

It is also about Anibal Sanchez, who no-hit the Diamondbacks almost three years ago, but just turned 25 and, like Johnson, is finally healthy again after struggling with arm injuries of his own. He struck out five over five scoreless innings in his 2009 debut. It is about Chris Volstad too. He is 6-foot-7, he runs his fastball into the mid-90s and he fanned seven over five innings in his first start of the year. And it is about Ricky Nolasco, who has started slowly, but quietly emerged down the stretch in 2008 as an ace.

Florida's starting pitchers are mostly anonymous, but they are all tall and they all throw hard, not unlike the last crop of young arms the Marlins drafted and nurtured and ultimately rode to a World Series title in 2003. You know the names well by now: Josh Beckett, A.J. Burnett, Brad Penny, Dontrelle Willis, Carl Pavano (OK, you know his mostly as a punchline).

That doesn't mean this group is headed to the same place. It would be silly after six games to anoint them NL East champions anyway, but the Marlins' division is very strong on top of that.

The Phillies are coming off a world championship. The Mets have a star-studded lineup, Santana and a rebuilt bullpen with not one, but two All-Star closers in Francisco Rodriguez and J.J. Putz. And the Braves have been just as good in the early going as the Marlins. Even the Nationals, who are 0-6, should be somewhat improved over the long haul.

At a fraction of the price, the pitching is what provides the Marlins with very real hope that they can hang with that group for the entire season and provides Ramirez and Dan Uggla with the chance to showcase their considerable offensive talents.

Hope is a good thing. Now if we could just get all the folks in South Florida to take notice.

Daily Jolt: Marlins Making Serious Noise originally appeared on MLB FanHouse on Mon, 13 Apr 2009 06:00:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Daily Jolt: No 'Panic' in Winless Yankees

Andrew Johnson — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 06:00:00 EST

Filed under: Yankees, Daily Jolt

The Daily Jolt is a dose of baseball reality every weekday morning.

BALTIMORE -- The big, bad New York Yankees are a big, bad 0-2, and you can bet your next Subway fare there's going to be hell to pay Thursday morning in the Big Apple.

The damage after two games against an Orioles team no one sees touching 80 wins in 2009:

o. Yankee starting pitchers CC Sabathia and Chien-Ming Wang have surrendered 13 earned runs in eight innings of working. They've combined to walk 13 and -- most sobering of all -- have yet to record a strikeout.

o. Prized $180 million first baseman Mark Teixeira is 1-for-9. He's been booed mercilessly by the snubbed Baltimore fans in all nine at-bats, and Tuesday night he popped out to the left side of the infield three straight times then struck out feebly against Danys Baez before finally slamming an RBI double in the ninth inning of a 7-5 loss to the Orioles.

"That stuff's going to change," said center fielder Johnny Damon in reference to the downright lousy performances of Sabathia and Wang.

He might as well have been talking about Teixeira and the rest of his teammates too.

The New York tabloids are going to rake the Yankees over the coals because that's what they do, but Damon's confidence is well placed. He and the Yankees have nothing to worry about, and the point when they do if they continue to play like this is at least several weeks away. Yes, even in the cutthroat American League East.

"It's human nature to want to start out well," said manager Joe Girardi. "Sometimes it just doesn't happen that way."

"It's only two games. It's not like we're 30 games in, 20 games in, that would constitute a bad start."

Indeed it would.

There is a difference -- a big one -- between a team like the Yankees starting 0-2 and a team like Nationals doing the same, even though they've played in a similar fashion (poorly). That difference is in the track records of the two teams. Sabathia and Wang have a combined 171 career wins. The entire Washington rotation has 81. Teixeira is traditionally a slow starter, and, at 28, there's no reason to expect him not to be the best first baseman in the American League come season's end.

The 1998 Yankees started 1-4 and wound up winning 114 games. More recently, the 2005 Yankees started 11-19 and the 2007 Yankees started 21-29. Both teams wound up playing meaningful baseball in October.

To a certain segment of Yankee fans (and New York writers), though, perspective and context mean very little. And to the credit of the players themselves, they're not running and hiding.

"I don't see any panic here," said Damon, coolly surveying the clubhouse.

Said Teixeira when asked if the series finale against the Orioles Thursday afternoon was a must-win game: "It's very important [to not get swept here],"

But you'll notice he never agreed it was a do-or-die proposition.

"I expect a lot out of myself. I expect to get a hit every time up, so when you don't get one for eight at-bats in a row, it's frustrating," said the first baseman. "One thing I also do realize is that this is a long season, and you can't get too frustrated and start doing things you're not used to."

Teixeira didn't seem too frustrated in the ninth inning, when he flipped over to the right side of the plate for the first time this season and laced a double into right-center field that made things very uncomfortable for Baltimore closer George Sherrill.

The Yankees scored three runs in the final frame -- all with two outs -- before finally succumbing to the Orioles.

"When you lose, you don't really have any momentum," said Teixeira of the rally. "What it does tell us is we can score runs, we've just got to do it a little earlier. We can't wait until the ninth inning."

That will come soon enough.

"Our first two starts have not been great," said Girardi. "But I expect there will be a lot of better days ahead."

Daily Jolt: No 'Panic' in Winless Yankees originally appeared on MLB FanHouse on Thu, 09 Apr 2009 06:00:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Daily Jolt: Nats Still Look Like Disaster

Andrew Johnson — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 06:00:00 EST

Filed under: Nationals, Daily Jolt

The Daily Jolt is a dose of baseball reality every weekday morning.

General manager Jim Bowden is long gone, but the mess that he helped create in the nation's capital is still festering. It's bad enough two whole days into the season that by the time the Nationals return to Washington next Monday for their home opener any glimmer of optimism might have already gone dark.

Who said hope springs eternal anyway?

The defense has been ugly. Third baseman Ryan Zimmerman -- a guy once compared favorably to seven-time Gold Glove winner Scott Rolen -- has made two throwing errors already. Lastings Milledge continues to take circuitous routs to fly balls. His constant zig-zagging in center field helped Emilio Bonifacio score an inside-the-park home run on Opening Day and nearly a second on Tuesday (it wound up a triple), again raising concerns that he'll have to move to a corner where his bat may not play.

Predictably, the Nationals' pitching has been brutal. John Lannan and Scott Olsen, serviceable back-end lefties in most rotations, have allowed a combined 14 runs -- all of them earned -- in the team's first two games.

The bullpen hasn't been too much better. In fact, until free-agent addition Joe Beimel came on to pitch a scoreless seventh inning Tuesday night, only one Washington pitcher that had actually appeared in a game this season had an ERA of 0.00. (And we're only on Game 2!). The Nats have allowed runs in seven of 16 defensive innings this year and have surrendered six home runs and 13 extra-base hits.

Of course, there won't be many people surprised if there are a lot of two-game stretches that look like that on the pitching side for Washington.

What was supposed to change in 2009 was the offense.

Zimmerman is healthy after an injury-plagued 2008. Nick Johnson is too. Josh Willingham was acquired in the same trade that brought Olsen to D.C., home-run-hitting machine Adam Dunn was signed in free agency and Milledge and Elijah Dukes have another year of experience under their belt.

All of those positives were supposed to make a team that finished 14th in the National League in runs and hits and 15th in home runs last year at least viable offensively, if not above average.

But so far? Not so good.

The Nationals have struck out 19 times as a team and walked just once in their first two games (at least the walk belongs to Milledge, the newly installed leadoff man). There's no blaming this on Dunn, who has only whiffed once. Perhaps a little blame can be pinned on the opposing starting pitchers -- Ricky Nolasco and Josh Johnson -- both of whom feature power arsenals. But one measly walk? The Marlins were 14th in the National League last year in walks per nine innings.

Admittedly there is a huge danger in reading too much into two games when there are still 160 left to play. If statisticians have taught us anything over the years, it is to beware the small sample size. After all, Washington started 3-0 last season, and look how that turned out.

But the problems the Nationals have run into the last few days have, in many cases, been systemic -- the type that won't just go away in the next six months and can't simply be cast off as part of an unusually unlucky start.

Milledge misplayed those balls because he still doesn't appear to be an adequate center fielder. Even if Stephen Strasburg were to sign the day Washington drafts him in June and immediately enter the rotation firing 100 mph fastballs for seven innings every five nights, the Nationals would still be two starters short in their rotation. Zimmerman, Johnson, Willingham, Dunn, Milledge and Dukes could all play up to their potential/break out in '09 and there still wouldn't be a spot for each one of them every day in the lineup thanks to Bowden's apparently pathological need to stockpile corner outfielders.

The official start of summer is still over two months away. Unofficially, we know it's probably going to be a very long one at Nationals Park.

Daily Jolt: Nats Still Look Like Disaster originally appeared on MLB FanHouse on Wed, 08 Apr 2009 06:00:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Opening Day Still Teflon

Andrew Johnson — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 06:00:00 EST

Filed under: Daily Jolt

The Daily Jolt is a dose of baseball reality every weekday morning.

It's official. It is utterly impossible to spoil Opening Day even when it's miles from perfect.

Super Bowl Sunday and the first two days of the NCAA Tournament might be the first events on the sports calendar in line for national-holiday status, but the beginning of the baseball season is right there.

Major League Baseball and the elements conspired to try and ruin the 2009 festivities.

More Coverage: Opening Day Not Kind to Cy Winners

Bud Selig and the schedule makers continue to insist on playing the first game of the season on Sunday night, presumably because there is plenty of money in it. For fans, it is the equivalent of a tiny appetizer when all you want is the five-course dinner. The weather wreaked its own havoc, forcing the White Sox to postpone their opener against the Royals in Chicago and the Red Sox to delay their ALCS rematch with the Rays at Fenway Park a day. There were gray skies and frigid conditions in Cincinnati, St. Louis and Baltimore too.

But there were the fans in Camden Yards reminding us how vibrant the Baltimore fanbase can be, reclaiming their own stadium, booing Mark Teixeira viciously and cheering the Orioles as they knocked around $161 million man CC Sabathia.

There was Ken Griffey Jr. making like he had never left the Emerald City even though it had been almost a decade since he had donned a Mariners uniform for a regular season game, taking Twins left-hander Francisco Liriano deep in the top of the fifth inning. (It was his eighth big fly on Opening Day, tying him with Frank Robinson for the most all-time.)

There was Johan Santana baffling the Reds into the sixth inning then getting the kind of bullpen support he deserved so much more of last season.

There was Adam Dunn hitting a towering blast in his first game as a National and Hanley Ramirez responding with an even more thunderous grand slam of his own.

There was Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Elvis Andrus making Matt Snyder look like a genius, at least for a day.

There was Jack Wilson, of all people, propelling the Pirates to a dramatic comeback victory over the Cardinals and simultaneously creating a closer controversy in St. Louis.

And there were the bizarre and unexpected performances that make baseball so bewildering and wonderful to follow on a daily basis. Things like:

o. Arizona teammates Felipe Lopez and Tony Clark homering from both sides of the plate in the same game, a feat by itself rarer than a no-hitter, and something that has occurred only one other time in major league history.

o. Orioles shortstop Cesar Izturis hitting his 13th career home run to start his ninth major league season and nail down Baltimore's win over the mighty Yankees.

o. Marlins third baseman Emilio Bonifacio hitting the first inside-the-park home run on Opening Day since 1968 as part of a four-hit, three-steal performance at the top of Florida's order.

o. The supposedly revamped Oakland Athletics lineup failing to get a runner past second base against the Angels' Joe Saunders, a pitcher many have pegged to take a big step back from his 2008 performance.

o. Young left fielder Daniel Murphy, amid a cast of stars in the Mets lineup, driving in both New York runs in a 2-1 win over Cincinnati, one of which came when he homered to snap a 105 at-bat stretch without a big fly.

The best thing about it all isn't that we finally have a sign that winter is over or that hope springs eternal.

It's that there is still so much of this ahead. The game has always been the greatest healing mechanism, whether it is repairing the damage of a player strike, the stain of steroids or just the gnawing void left by baseball's long absence in the winter months,

Tim Lincecum and Josh Beckett are waiting for us on Tuesday and October still seems a long way off.

There's no rush to get there.

Opening Day Still Teflon originally appeared on MLB FanHouse on Tue, 07 Apr 2009 06:00:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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