What happened to Eric Gagne?

August 2nd 2007. Eric Gagne appeared in his first game with the Boston Red Sox. His ERA was an impressive 2.16 ERA, and he had blown just one save all year. He appeared to be resurrecting his once dominant career, following his second Tommy John surgery of his career, and coming off back surgery.

But something went wrong. Gagne was thrown right into the heat of a pennant race, pitching meaningful innings for an already deep Red Sox bullpen. And the results he would give the Red Sox were horrendous. His 6.75 ERA and 1.88 WHIP certainly didn't help the Sox. And in early 2008, he isn't helping the Brewers either.

Since that first appearance with the Red Sox(8/2/07), it appears all has gone wrong. He has been credited with 6 blown saves, while grasping only 6 saves. His 7.18 ERA is scary, and his walk rate is high(4.1 BB/9). He has allowed far too many baserunners(47 in 26 innings). Long story short, horrendous.

What's my point here? I don't really know, his blown save on 4/20 led me to look this stuff up. But I really feel this is a significant storyline. I feel that way because this is a guy who had some of the most dominant seasons as a reliever in history. In 2003, he had 55 saves. In 2003, he blew ZERO saves. In 2003, batters posted an OPS of .381 against Gagne. In 2003, Gagne's WHIP was 0.692. In 2003 Eric Gagne had a k/9 of 15. In 2003, Eric Gagne was the Cy Young of the NL.

Where did this guy go? I suppose the surgeries may have turned him into a shell of his former self.

Video of Miguel Tejada getting busted about his age.

WOW. Who does ESPN think they are. That's trashy. That interview was simply a bullshit expose. FUCK THAT.

Photo from COL @ SDG 22 inning game

22 innings, and over 600 pitches thrown... DAMN. And the game was only 2-1? That's the score in the 1st inning of the Yankees-Red Sox games!

Pitchers who can't find the strike zone.

Pitchers with struggling with their BB/9 rates, followed by their ERA's:

Fausto Carmona: 9.37 BB/9 / 2.20 ERA
CC Sabathia: 7 / 13.50
Adam Loewen: 6.89 / 6.32
Chris Young: 6.89 / 5.17
Jon Lester: 6.64 / 5.31

With the exception of Carmona, the high walk rates are killing their performances... Compared to the leagues top 5 ERA leaders, with their bb/9 followed by ERA:

Zack Greinke: 1.88 BB/9 / 0.75 ERA
Cole Hamels: 2.86 / 0.82
Brian Bannister: 2.14 / 0.86
Kyle Lohse: 2.59 / 1.04
Ben Sheets: 1.56 / 1.17

See a correlation? I do. And the amazing thing here is that the pitchers having success essentially have this in common: CONTROL. None of the leagues ERA leaders have k/9 over 8. The key to success in this league is control -- giving your opponents baserunners via walks wastes pitches and leads to runs.

Remember the panic?

Remember the panic after the super slow start for the Tigers???

Well it looks like the panic might be able to diminish a bit. Detroit has won 3 in a row and are close to escaping the division cellar. They are about to pass the now panicking Indians who are just 3-10 in their last 13 contests. Joe Borowski is out with an injury, and the offense is underperforming. These factors have led the Indians to losses in every series since the opening series when they took 2 of 3 from the White Sox.

Other teams who should begin thinking about pushing the big red panic button:

*The Nationals, who have lost 9 of their last 10 games. YIKES.

*The Reds, who have lost 5 in a row. Worst of all, Dusty Baker is their manager. Mr. OBP-Is-Bad.

Then again why panic if you are perennial losers?

Remarkable Statistics

WELL, sorry for disappearing for a while. School's busy, and the Yankees were depressing me. Well I'm back and felt I need to catch back up with everything. So here are some REMARKABLE STATISTICS!

*Albert Pujols has reached base safely 29 times in 13 games. He is the only qualified batter in the MLB with an OBP OVER .500(2 others are AT .500; Chone Figgins and Pat Burrell.) Another notable fact about pujols: He's walked 13 times, and struck out just 4 times.

*Carlos Pena is 9-47 on the season... Sounds terrible, RIGHT? Well not so much -- 6 of those hits were HR's. With 13 RBI's, he's just 2 behind league leaders Joe Crede(WTF?) and Mark Reynolds(WHO?!?)

*The New York Yankees have no player in the MLB top 40 leaders in AVG, OBP or OPS. Alex Rodriguez has the 40th highest SLG in the league. Of the many reasons to disregard certain aspects of April, this bullet point shows you why you shouldn't pay too much attention to numbers after April.

*David Ortiz continues to hope people aren't paying attention to his numbers in April: 5-48, .104/.246/.167 1 HR and just 3 RBI's. Nothing to look at here, he'll be fine. That's my guarantee.

*The leagues highest batting average belongs to... A.J. Pierzynski. He's batting .421 ... So get this. The White Sox have the leagues RBI leader and the AVG leader on the team. OMG April makes me confused.

*The Arizona Diamondbacks have hit as many homeruns as the Yankees and Tigers combined.

*The Detroit Tigers have allowed the most runs in baseball (87 in 13 games played. 6.69 RPG) The next closest teams have allowed 17 fewer runs (Marlins and Nationals at 70)

*And not to pick on them, because they deserve to enjoy last nights comeback... BUT The Tigers have allowed an eye opening 11 unearned runs in 13 games.

More later, maybe.

Sorry for lack of posts. I have been mired in a deep depression as my beloved Yankees are dealing... have a bunch of... Dammit. Every damn April.

How do you know it's April in New York? Fuck the weather -- It's a lock that the Yankees will be injured and not hitting. The Bronx IS Hurting.

Both Jorge Posada and Derek Jeter have injuries that could send them to the DL

Peter Abraham says the Yankees have 4 options:

1. Put Jeter and Posada on the disabled list, call up replacements.

2. Put Jeter or Posada on the disabled list, call up one replacement.

3. Give Jeter and Posada a few extra days, option Shelley Duncan and call up a catcher or shortstop.

4. Do nothing.

All of those options suck.

On top of that, the Yankees offense went back into its slumber as A Rod struck out 4 times against the Royals, resulting in a Yankees loss. A Rod described the Yankees early season situation "very frustrating

Maybe I'll post something later about some around the league stuff. Oh BTW, for those who care, the NHL Playoffs start tonight. LETS GO RANGERS!

There was this little part of me that wanted to know "What's wrong with the Tigers".

That little part of me quickly disappeared.

Wanna know why? Because I looked at the box score, and THIS guy was leading off.

Yes, that's Ivan Rodriguez. Look, this is appaling to me for so many reasons. First off the guy took a whopping 9 walks in over 500 plate appearances last year. His OBP has been SUB-.300 for 2 of his past 3 seasons.

I understand the team was struggling and they needed a spark, and Granderson has been hurt... But how THE FUCK can Jim Leyland justify THIS? There were only 4 hitters in baseball who were worse at reaching base than Pudge in 2007.

Go figure, the Tigers lost again last night. The Manager didn't help. I'd puke if I saw my leadoff hitter's OBP was .294 last season. UGH.

***EDIT***

Ahh, I see Jimmy L has done this before... A handful of times last year Pudge lead off. In those games, his OBP was .277

Someone please explain the rationale behind this move, I'd love to hear the reasoning.

Dustin Pedroia: What's the deal?

Look... I'm a Yankees fan. But I'd like to consider myself an intelligent one. I'm not one of those that hates all Red Sox players, or one who thinks the Yankees can do no wrong... I evaluate what I see, and judge it.

And AS a Yankees fan, I actually really like Dustin Pedroia. His approach at the plate, the way he plays with a high level of intensity... But these kinda quotes make me question his demeanor:

“I’m tired of hearing that (expletive),” Dustin Pedroia said. “Yeah, we had to go to Japan and yeah, we had a 19-day road trip, but that’s the schedule, we have to accept it, no excuses. We played like (expletive) for three games and got our (butt) kicked,how’s that?”

I mean, I understand, that's him. He's passionate and all. But those kind of words don't need to be thrown around because you got swept in April. Kids look up to you. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think these kind of quotes are just not necessary. Keep it classy Dusty.

Aces wild on baseball's first Sunday.

Regular season baseball makes a reappearance on TBS today. We can only hope the broadcasts are better than the miserable broadcasts we received during the 2007 post season. The first game of their 26-game-package of "games of the week" is the Jays vs. Red Sox. It will feature aces Roy Halladay squaring off against Josh Beckett, who is making his season debut. That kind of matchup is the perfect segue into what I'm calling Sunday Aces Wild, where I'll showcase some of today's BEST pitching matchups.

SUNDAY ACES WILD
1 ET RED SOX (Beckett) @ BLUE JAYS(Halladay) - The Red Sox look to bounce back after a pair of losses, The Jays pitching hopes to keep rolling. Nationally televised, TBS
1 ET RAYS (Shields) @ YANKEES (Wang) - The Yankees have lost 3 of 4 and are desperate to get their offense going.
1:30 ET METS (Santana) @ BRAVES (Smoltz) - Weather caused the Mets to have Thursday and Friday off. Saturday was a disaster, as they allowed 11 runs, 7 in the final 3 frames. Johan Santana is the perfect man to pitch this game.
2 ET GIANTS (Zito) @ BREWERS (Sheets) - The Brewers are rolling while the Giants are stumbling. Sheets was great his first time out, Barry Zito was miserable. The Giants need something better from Zito.
1 ET MARINERS (Hernandez) @ ORIOLES (Guthrie) - In 2007 Guthrie was fantastic. With Bedard gone, the O's need him big time. He'll square off with King Felix, who was splendid his first time out.
8 ET WHITE SOX (Buehrle) @ TIGERS (Verlander) - No one could have envisioned how desperately the Tigers would need their ace to be a stopper in game 6 of the regular season... Well they need him badly, having lost the first 5 games of the season. Buerhle looks to bounce back from this line: 1.2 IP 7 HITS 7 EARNED RUNS. Ignore the numbers, they are UGLY. Nationally televised ESPN2

I guess no one's gonna be 162-0 this season.

The first weekend of "BASEBALL 2008" features some good divisional rivalries, and some budding rivalries (Rays/Yankees anyone?). Almost every team should be finished with one go round through the rotation after today!

Baseball's try for its first undefeated team in history ended on Friday. The red hot Royals were quieted by the Twins, handing the Royals their first loss of the season. The Royals swept the Tigers to open the season.

Meanwhile, the Tigers continue to struggle. While their lineup finally awoke, the Tigers bullpen coughed up a tie game with a 3-run seventh. Jason Grilli gave up the difference making 3-run HR to A.J. Pierzynski. They eventually lost 8-5 to the Chicago White Sox. The Tigers fell to 0-4. The 5 runs they scored in this game equaled the same amount of runs they scored in their opening series. Their offense awoke without the help of GARY SHEFFIELD who is injured, and listed as day to day (Click his name for more info).

White Sox starter Jose Contreras struggled and... Damn I have to to post this, this is CLASSIC Ozzie here. Contreras was stuggling after the White Sox took the lead, so Ozzie Guillen came out to the mound and yelled at him. I guess the M in MLB stands for MILITARY.

Fridays best performance came in the Brewers 13-4 victory over the San Francisco Giants. Bill Hall hit 2 home runs and drove in 6 RBI's. The SF Giants doubled their run output for the season, scoring FOUR RUNS in just ONE GAME.

Sadly for the Yankees, they also lost by 9 runs, losing to the Rays 13-4. Ian Kennedy was bombed in his 08 debut, and didn't make it through 3 innings. Fellow rookie Shawn Riggans sent Kennedy packing with a pinch hit, bases loaded, 3 RBI double.

The Mets and the Braves were rained out

The Marlins came from behind to beat the Pirates with their second walk-off homerun of the 2008 season

The Cards beat the Nats, powered by a Rick Ankiel homerun

The Blue Jays beat the Red Sox 6-3, powered by their 4th straight quality start in their first 4 games.

Micah Owings dominated the Rockies, leading the Diamondbacks to an 8-1 victory


Enjoy the weekend!

Surprising Yankees tidbit.

Got this one sent to me by Ross from NYYStadiumInsider:

The Yankees won 2 games while scoring 3 runs or fewer in their first series of 2008. During the 2007 season, the Yankees didn't win their second game while scoring 3 or fewer runs until June 29th.

Interesting.

Close games, surprising outcomes showcase MLB opening week.

It's odd. For some reason in April, October feels like it's right around the corner, with high intensity, exciting baseball being played. All around the league there have been close games, and series with some surprising results. Baseball fans around the league should be happy.

Well not ALL baseball fans. But really, losing the opening series isn't horrible. Unless you have the most eye opening off season of any team... Like the Tigers, who opened the season getting swept by the cellar dwelling Royals. If that didn't make it bad enough, their vaunted lineup scored just 5 runs over the 3 game set. Tigers manager Jim Leyland says his team "looked like an old club."

The New York Yankees lineup hardly performed up to expectations, scoring no more than 3 runs in any of the three games. Despite minimal offensive output, the Yankees took 2 of 3 against the Blue Jays in an impressive 2008 debut from Phil Hughes. The Yankees won both of their games 3-2. Last years team won just one of their first 6 one-run games. The Blue Jays' pitching looked great, while their offense was unimpressive, outside of Alex Rios.

The Reds enjoyed an opening series to remember. They took 2 of 3 from a playoff caliber opponent, with highlights coming from a 2-runs -down, 3-run-walkoff homerun, and then a rubber game victory featuring a dominating start from a hyped rookie making his major league debut. The ultra clutch walkoff came from Edwin Encarnacion and the 10 strike out debut came from Johnny Cueto

Hard to believe the Giants scored just 4 runs all series, and had just one extra base hit. Nevermind, take that back, no it isn't. The two lowest runs per game average in league history were 2.61 and 2.93. in order to own that record, the 08 Giants will need to score fewer than 423 runs all season. It could happen. Despite the miniscule run output, the Giants actually won one game against the Dodgers.


Opening series killaz
K. Fukudome had a memorable major league debut.
D. Wright picked up where he left off in his superstar 07.
Opening series failures
I. Rodriguez had a dismal series coming off a career worst 2007. Could he be cooked?
M. Holliday had just 1 hit and no extra base hits or RBI's in the opening series. The Rockies lost 2 of 3.