Statimagician

What’s the rarest feat to accomplish in baseball? Going 6 for 6? Pitching a perfect game? Well the rarest happened last night and hadn’t happened since 1921, two players hitting a cycle on the same day. Stephen Drew hit the third cycle in Arizona Diamondbacks history and Adrian Beltre couldn’t have picked a better time to hit his first triple of the season as he hit the fourth cycle in Seattle Mariners history.

There was a cycle earlier in the week by Cristian Guzman. That’s the third cycle this week!

CC Sabathia has been absolutely amazing since coming to the Brewers from the Indians, check out this stat line; 9-0, 1.43 ERA, .99 WHIP, 85 K’s in 11 starts with the Brewers. Truly amazing, and to top it all off he just needed to make history, with a no-hitter perhaps? He was robbed of one last night. By who you ask? An innocent scorekeeper.

CC Sabathia had already made a spectacular play earlier in the game to show his athleticism. A bare handed grab of a searing line drive by Freddy Sanchez and then doubled off Jack Wilson at first.

In the fifth inning however, Andy Laroche had a little swinging bunt a little to the left of the pitchers mound, CC Sabathia ran over grabbed the ball, bobbled it, then dropped it. The play was immediately ruled a hit, that was the only hit of the game for the Pirates.

After the game Brewers manager Ned Yost said it was a joke that the hit was ruled a hit and that it was clearly an error. To me it looked like an error, I mean Sabathia had already shown his ability to make great plays earlier, he bobbled the ball and didn’t make the play, that’s an error. If the shortstop had done that it would have been an error.

Milwaukee is appealing the call to the MLB. I think it should be reversed but it may cause a bigger issue if done so. Other teams will say they just reversed the call to give him a no-hitter and it will cause a whole big raucous, but if major league baseball is willing to use instant replay then they should look at the tapes and repeal the call. Even if that play was ruled an error you never know how Sabathia would have handled the pressure.

The year the Tampa Bay Rays dropped the Devil from their name, they clinch their first winning season in 11 years of existance. The Rays won their 82nd game on Friday 14-3 over the Baltimore Orioles.

The Rays went from having the worst record in the MLB to first place in the AL East, ya the division with Boston and New York in it.

Some people, at the beginning of the season could have looked at the Rays roster and they would have seen a young team with potential and good pitching. They wouldn’t have put the Rays in last place but very few would have them with a winning record and even fewer would have them leading the AL East (at the beginning of the season I had the Rays in 3rd place with an 80-82 record).

Only time will tell if the Rays will consistently contend in the East and be the third heavy weight in that division making the AL East the best division in the MLB.

As soon as Cristian Guzman stepped into the on-deck circle in the eighth inning, his Nationals teammates started to call for a triple.

He gladly obliged, sending a pitch from Joe Beimel past center fielder Matt Kemp and to the wall—and Guzman wasn’t about to stop running.

He slid into third base to complete just the second cycle by a Washington player, highlighting an 11-2 romp over the struggling Los Angeles Dodgers on Thursday night.

Brad Wilkerson had the first Nationals cycle when the club first moved from Montreal in 2005.

Guzman started his night with a solo home run in the first inning, a shot that started a five-run burst for the Nationals. He tried to stretch a single into a double in the second and was thrown out, but added the double while driving in a run in the sixth.

What seemed to be a baserunning blunder turned out to work in Guzman’s favor, and it certainly didn’t enter into his mind as he dug for the final leg of the cycle.

Guzman’s cycle was the second cycle in 2008.

Cristian Guzman legs it out for a triple to complete the second cycle in Nationals history

It’s no secret home runs are down this year. Entering the week only 10 players had broken through the 30 homerun plateau, and the leaders, Ryan Howard and Carlos Quentin, have 36. From 1996-2001 a player entered the All-Star Break with at least 30 homers 12 times. Ten years ago, four players did it. But just because home runs are down doesn’t mean there aren’t eye-opening home run numbers.

1. Cincinnati’s Adam Dunn has earned a reputation as an all-or-nothing hitter, and he has taken that rep to new heights this season. He has 118 K’s and is on pace to bash 40 or more homers for the fifth consecutive season. Homers have accounted for 37% of his hits.
2. Entering the week the Giants had only one hitter, Aaron Rowand (10), with a double-digit homer total. The fact the team has the fewest homers in the majors isn’t shocking given the absence of Barry Bonds. But Rowand hit 27 last season for the Phillies, and Bengie Molina (19) and Randy Winn (14) both were more productive in 2007 for San Francisco.
3. Adrian Gonzalez has hit 24 percent of the Padres’ homers this season. What’s more surprising: that Gonzalez should set a career high in homers while playing in a pitcher-friendly park for a last-place team or that he is getting any pitches to hit?
4. When he was traded to the Dodgers, Manny Ramirez had 20 homers. Los Angeles’ other four regular outfielders (Matt Kemp, Andre Ethier, Juan Pierre, and Andruw Jones) had combined for 25 at the time Ramirez arrived. The Dodgers are one of six teams-the A’s, Nationals, Twins, Blue Jays, and Giants are the others-that have hit fewer homers than the Phillies’ trio of Ryan Howard, Chase Utley and Pat Burrell, who have 87 combined.
5. Carlos Quentin-perhaps the best pickup of last offseason-has more than doubled his caareer homer total from before this season. He hit 14 combined in 2006 and 2007 and has 36 this year. Consequently, the White Sox are the only team that boasts two outfielders (Quentin, Jermaine Dye)with 25-plus homers.

Is it just me or has this baseball season seemed kind of boring to you? The Rays story has lost its luster, there wasn’t a 1000 run offense that most people thought the Tigers would have this year; instead of a four team race in the NL West there has been a two team race of .500 teams. Except for Francisco Rodriguez’s chase for the single season saves record, there haven’t been milestone chases all year like last year and in ‘06.

It’s been a little boring from a fantasy players standpoint too, no huge seasons from anybody like A-Rod last year. There have been some big surprises like Carlos Quentin, Josh Hamilton, and Cliff Lee but it just hasn’t been the same.

I hope when late September and the playoffs come there will be more excitement then there has been in the regular season.