SportsDystopia

It wasn’t supposed to go like this, according to the experts.  The American League has been the real senior circuit these last few years, they said.  The Phillies have been sitting home for a week rusting while Tampa Bay was showing it’s mettle in closing out the Red Sox, they said.  ESPN’s baseball writers nearly unanimously picked the Rays to win the series before it began, and most of them predicted it to only last 4 or 5 games.

Well, after last night’s 10-2 stomp, the Phillies lead the World Series 3 games to 1.

If there’s one way in which sportswriters are like politicians, it’s that they never admit a mistake.  Ever.  It’s endlessly galling to watch themes and trends develop through the last weeks of the season and through October, then to see the so-called experts ignore these trends when making their predictions.

Case in point: Cole Hamels.  The Phillies’ ace had looked sharp in 12 of his previous 13 starts, and entering the World Series had been the postseason’s most reliable pitcher with a 3-0 record and 1.23 ERA.    After he shut down Tampa Bay in the opener, Hamels improved to 4-0, and had clearly been the best pitcher in baseball over the whole of two months. But he still hadn’t earned the respect of the connoisseurs of the conventional wisdom over at the worldwide leader in sports.  Jayson Stark was only impressed enough to call him “arguably the best starting pitcher on either team in this world series”.  At least Stark can be given credit for picking Philly to win the series.

Hamels will start game 5 tonight, and he’s the reason the Rays have little chance of getting back into this series.  Scott Kazmir will take the hill for Tampa, and is hoping to improve on his game 1 loss to Hamels.

When handicapping the series, I felt that the Phillies had 3 clear advantages over Tampa Bay that were more or less ignored by the ESPN team when they made their Rays predictions.  First, I felt Cole Hamels at this point was not “arguably” the best pitcher in the series, but the best pitcher in baseball and as close to a guarantee to win any game he started as you were going to get.  Second, in spite of the way the Rays’ bats had gotten hot in games 3, 4 and 5 of the LCS, they’re not typically a big scoring team.  They’ve usually needed to manufacture runs with speed, baserunning, and timely hitting.  The Phillies lineup is nearly as fast, deeper and more powerful (in spite of the jaw-dropping run BJ Upton has been on).  Third, I felt that in Ryan Madsen and Brad Lidge, the Phils had the obvious edge on the back end of the bullpen.

Any of the other storylines were superfluous to what was going to happen on the field.  The Rays’ momentum and emotional high didn’t matter, because they were playing a new team.  And I sincerely believed that Hamels on the mound in game 1 cancelled out any supposed rust factor that could have threatened the Phillies.

He’s on one of those great postseason pitching runs, where watching brings a palpable sense that the man on the mound will not be beaten, under any circumstances.  I get the same feeling watching Hamels that I did watching Josh Beckett in his runs with Boston and Florida, the same feeling that improbably came from Jose Contreras in 2005, and that Randy Mullet and Curt Sock gave in 2001.

(I’m going to refer to Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling that way from now on, I think the names ‘Randy Mullet and Curt Sock’ sound like they could be on the roster for the next Bases Loaded video game.  I always enjoyed the way the Nintendo game used random nouns for players’ last names like PASTE, BAY, or AGUA.  It was rightfully overlooked for RBI Baseball, but did feature several ahead of their time joys, like the unique TV pitching view, irritable players who would charge the mound when plunked to incite a bench clearing brawl, and a talking umpire named Yuk who’s dispassionate “…strike…” and disgusted “BALL!” calls made pitching against the computer a grueling battle of willpower.)

In any case, look for Hamels to get his 5th win tonight and become a hero for the rest of his life in Philadelphia, which hasn’t hoisted a trophy since 83′, the days of Dr. J and Moses Malone.  You think getting a free taco ’s nice?  Hamels is about to get 50 years of free cheesesteaks, any time he wants one.

Philadelphia took a 2-1 lead in the World Series Saturday night in improbable fashion, winning a bizzare game 5-4 in the bottom of the 9th at nearly 2 AM eastern time.  The first pitch didn’t come until after 10 PM, after it rained all evening in Philly.  And the game began according to script for the Phillies, who by the end of 6 innings had taken a 4-1 lead thanks to solo home runs by Carlos Ruiz, Chase Utley and Ryan Howard.  Utley also drove in the game’s first run, in the 1st with an RBI groundout to score Jimmy Rollins.  The Phillies weren’t conquering their woes with runners in scoring position (they’re now 2 for 33 in the three games), but for the 2nd time in the series, it didn’t seem to matter.

The 7th inning put a very different spin on things.  Jamie Moyer was still on the mound for the Phils, and looked as full of confidence and energy as a 45 year old ever has in the game of baseball.  When leadoff batter Carl Crawford dropped a beautiful drag bunt, Moyer made a move that Ryan Howard described as “ninja-esque”, lunging for the ball, scooping it with his glove, and flipping it to Howard all in a single motion.  Howard barehanded the ball before Crawford reached the base, but umpire Tom Hallion called Crawford safe.

Both the Phillies and their fans reacted uncomfortably, and Tampa Bay pushed two more runs across with groundouts (something they’ve made a habit out of this series) to pull within 4-3.  The following inning, BJ Upton scored a run by himself in the old Jackie Robinson fashion: he reached on an infield single, stole 2nd, then stole 3rd and took home when the catcher Ruiz’s throw went wild.  The game was tied 4-4, and when Philly went down ugly in the bottom of the 8th (Jason Werth walked then stole 2nd, Utley struck out, Werth was picked off 2nd, Howard struck out to end it) the entire series looked like it had shifted the Rays’ way.

But JC Romero pitched a 1-2-3 top of the 9th inning, setting up one of the strangest finishes in World Series history.

Eric Bruntlett was hit in the thigh by JP Howell to open the inning.  He advanced to 2nd on a wild pitch by Grant Balfour, but Dioner Navarro fielded the ball bouncing off the backstop and tried to gun Bruntlett down.  The ball sailed into center field, and Bruntlett advanced to 3rd.  Shane Victorino and Greg Dobbs were both intentionally walked to load the bases, and Tampa Bay brought Ben Zobrist in from the outfield for a seldom seen 5-man infield.  “It looked like they were about to blitz.” Howard quipped after the game.

The tactic seemed ready to produce a home-first double play when cement-shoed catcher Carlos Ruiz strode to the plate.  He bounced a slow chopper to 3rd baseman Evan Longoria, who rushed a throw home that flew over Navarro to the backstop.  Bruntlett scored, and the game was over.

It was another bizzare loss by Tampa Bay this October.  They bounced back from their last one behind Matt Garza’s confidence in game 7 of the ALCS.  Their best chance to get back in the series comes behind Andy Sonnanstine, who’ll start game 4 Sunday night for the Rays.  Sonnanstine has been the least-hyped of the Rays’ excellent group of young pitchers, but he’s also been the most unshakably collected this year, and has had two very sharp outings against good lineups already in the playoffs.

The Phillies starter will be Joe Blanton, who looked shaky in his last outing, which came nearly 2 weeks ago against the Dodgers.  The Phillies need him to put that rest to use and not to rust if they hope to put the Rays on the ropes with Cole Hamels waiting in game 5.

The World Series shifts to Philadelphia on Saturday night for game 3, where the Phillies hope to continue to stifle the Rays bats and reverse their situational hitting woes from the first two games, where the Phils went 1 for 28 with runners in scoring position.  On the mound for Philly will be 45 year-old Jamie Moyer, who looked his age against the Dodgers in game 3 of the NLCS.  Moyer has waited a lifetime for this opportunity, and is likely to be well prepared.

His opponent on the mound will be Matt Garza, who was less than a year old when Moyer was drafted in 1984.  Garza is fresh off one of the most impressive pitching outings of recent postseason memory, his 7 strong innings in game 7 against Boston gave the Rays the confidence to conquer the ghosts that threatened to haunt them the entire offseason.  Garza has proven he can handle the pressure, but he has been considerably better at home than on the road this year, and the Phillies have been threatening an offensive breakout.

Rain is in the forecast for Saturday, so it’s possible the game could be delayed or postponed.  Either way, look for game 3 to be the first of the series to feature crooked numbers by the offenses.  If the game comes down to the bullpens, it’s become clear that Philadelphia has the late-inning advantage.

After Cole Hamels had pitched the Philadelphia Phillies to a 3-2 victory in the World Series opener on Wednesday night, ESPN’s Jayson Stark was impressed enough to call Hamels “arguably the best starting pitcher on either team in this world series”.  He went on to note that Hamels just became the 10th pitcher ever to win 4 games in the same postseason, and that if he wins again this series, he’ll be the only starter ever to win 5.  So, Jayson…what’s left to argue?

Well, when you’ve spent the lead-up to the World Series claiming the Phillies were hopelessly overmatched and would be too rusty to put up much of a showing in game 1, like ESPN’s commentators did, admitting that Hamels has been an absolute ace this whole postseason would be too close to admitting they were wrong in picking Tampa Bay to take the opener and the series.

I predicted a Phillies victory, because there really is nothing left to argue about Cole Hamels.  Oh, sure, rust was going to be a factor.  You don’t take a week off from playoff baseball and not feel some type of hang-over when you get back on the field, especially against a World-Series caliber team.  And The Phillies showed that rust, going 0 for 13 with runners in scoring position.  Their offense came on a 2-run homer in the 1st by Chase Utley, and in the 4th when a groundout scored Shane Victorino.  But Cole Hamels was their starting pitcher, and this October, he’s made a leap into the category of dominance inhabited by the likes of CC Sabathia and Johan Santana.  Neither of those teams are still playing.  The Phils are.  And a big part of that reason is Hamels.  The experts should have seen his game 1 performance coming, because they’d already seen it 3 times previously this October.

While Scott Kazmir certainly didn’t pitch a bad game, he was haunted by a ghost that’s been familiar to him this season, the ghost of control problems.  They came out early, when in the 1st he walked Jason Werth, and was promptly made to pay for it by Utley.

The starters for game 2 tonight will be Brett Myers for the Philies, who has had his own control problems this postseason.  In spite of a 2-0 mark so far, he has a 5.25 ERA and has walked 7 in 12 innings.  The Rays will counter with James Shields, 1-2 with a 3.72 ERA in 3 playoff starts.

The World Series begins Wednesday night in Tampa Bay at Tropicana Field.  The 10-year old Rays have quickly risen to the status of heavy favorites over the Philadelphia Phillies, a team with history as heavy as any in the league.  Philadelphia’s game 1 starter, Cole Hamels, has been as sharp as anyone in these playoffs.  His opponent, Scott Kazmir, turned in a sharp outing his last time out, but has experienced control problems at times this postseason.

I’m picking against the odds when I say I believe the Philies will win this series.  They played very clean, timely baseball against both the Brewers and the Dodgers, and rust factor or not, they’re the only team not to display any glaring weaknesses thus far.  Though it was indeed impressive that the Rays refused to allow their game 5 collapse haunt them, the series showed a bullpen that wasn’t as airtight as advertised.  The offense lived large off the home run, but if Hamels comes out dealing in game 1, the Rays could have trouble getting on the board.  Joe Maddon was reluctant to play small-ball against Daisuke Matsuzaka in the ALCS opener, and it cost Tampa.

The pitching matchups have also been announced.  In game 2, Brett Myers will face Scott Shields, game 3 will feature Jamie Moyer for the Phillies (and he has looked utterly hittable in his 2 outings this postseason) against Matt Garza, the ALCS MVP.  Game 4 will see Joe Blanton face the Rays’ Andy Sonnanstine, who has looked very confident in his 2 starts, winning the clincher against the White Sox, then game 4 over the Red Sox.

The Rays clearly have the deeper rotation, but the bullpen is definitely facing questions.  If Scott Kazmir isn’t able to go deep in Wednesday’s opener, we’ll get some of those answers.

The World Series is set to begin Wednesday night in Tropicana Field.  It has been said that the matchup between the Philadephia Phillies and Tampa Bay Rays will lay a ratings egg, for the stated reason that the lack of the Manny Ramirez vs. The Red Sox cash cow gives Fox a matchup that’s much tougher to sell.

But Tampa Bay just played in the highest rated baseball game ever on cable TV, and the confident way in which Matt Garza handled the Red Sox after Dustin Pedroia’s home run in the top of the 1st inning has brought the team alot of fans, and they are likely to be favored over Philadelphia.  Philadelphia is the 4th largest media market in the nation, and with a devoted and championship starved fan base, the ratings for the series will exceed expectations.

The Phillies face the ever present rust factor, with a full week off after their dominating 5 game win over the Dodgers in the NLCS. Cole Hamels is the best pitcher in the series, and will start game 1 on the road for Philadelphia.  Of ESPN’s baseball writers, only Peter Gammons picks the Phils to win the series.

I think I agree with him.  Both teams are similarly balanced offensively, but at this point, the Phillies bullpen is less taxed and less vulnerable than the Rays’.  And Hamels has been the ace of the playoffs so far, 3-0 with a 1.23 ERA.  The Rays’ Scott Kazmir had a strong start in game 5 before the bullpen melted down, but has had problems with control at times, and Joe Maddon usually watches his pitch counts pretty closely.

The Phillies will win game 1.

On Sunday night, the Tampa Bay Rays refused to be haunted by all the daunting history that wanted to rear it’s ugly head in game 7 of the ALCS.  When the likely AL MVP Dustin Pedroia homered in the top of the 1st inning, it looked like the game would be a repeat of the 2004 ALCS, when Johnny Damon homered against the Yankees to lead off game 7.  It also looked like a coming repeat of Saturday night’s game 6, when the Rays played nervous ball after their historic blown lead in game 5.

But Rays starter Matt Garza would not allow another hit until the 7th, and by that time, his teammates had begun to reflect Garza’s confidence, and broken the spell of the Red Sox. By then, Tampa Bay had taken a 2-1 lead, which they would extend to 3-1 in the bottom of the inning on a solo home run by Willy Aybar.  But their bullpen looked vulnerable, until September call-up David Price entered with 2 outs in the 8th. His 4 out save was the exclamation point on fine performance by a young team everyone doubted until the very last out.

The Red Sox finally looked too old, Jason Bay was not ready to fill the empty shoes of Manny Ramirez, and no one was able to match Pedroia’s performance on the night.

The 3-1 victory for Tampa means the World Series will start on Wednesday night at Tropicana Field.  Cole Hamels will start for the Phillies, and he has been nearly unhittable this postseason.  The Rays starter is likely to be Scott Kazmir.

In a previous article I discussed my view that the immediate financial future of the Cubs, especially their ability to change the on-field structure of the team for the better, is in a precarious position, because of the way their payroll was designed for the team’s open window for a title run to come in the 2007 and 2008 seasons.  The title didn’t come, of course, but now the Tribune Company is preparing to extend the contract of the architect of that design, General Manager Jim Hendry.

The writing for this move appeared on the wall after Cubs Chairman Crane Kenney gave Hendry a vigorous public vote of confidence last week, then earlier this week denied the Seattle Mariners permission to talk to Hendry in their search for a new GM.  The new multi-year deal for Hendry is expected to be announced at the Cubs organizational meetings in Arizona this coming week.

The question is, why?  Why give Hendry a multi-year extension when his current contract already contains a club option for 2009?  Well, there’s an answer, but it’s not one that Cubs fans are going to like to hear.  We’ll get to that in a minute.

It’s no secret that the Cubs will be sold sometime soon, either this offseason or next year.  Given that new owners in sports almost universally like to bring in their own front-office personnel, it makes no sense to extend Hendry now, if there’s a strong chance that a new owner won’t want to keep him around.

And as I’ve said before, Hendry was the designer of the Cubs contracts of recent years, a number of questionable deals that are all highly back-loaded, excepting Derek Lee’s, which runs at a clean $13 million per season through 2010.  The team’s payroll was a club record 118 million dollars this season, but that number is a mirage that hides the true nature of the team’s situation.  Alfonso Soriano, Aramis Ramirez, Carlos Zambrano, Kosuke Fukudome, Ted Lilly, and Jason Marquis are all getting big raises for next year.

The players named above, including Lee, accounted for 74.375 million of the 2008 payroll.  In 2009, those 7 account for 95.775 million.  Now take into account that the team has exercised Rich Harden’s option for ‘09, and has both Mark DeRosa and Jeff Samardzija signed through at least next year, and you’re already up to 111 million dollars in ‘09 for just 10 players.

Oh, and by the way, the club doesn’t have a single other player signed past 2008.  Not one.

Given that Jim Hendry was the architect of this whole hideous mess, it would’ve been appropriate for the club to give him his option year, and see if he could still bring back a competitive team next year, see if he could work deals with the young stars of the club like Geovany Soto, Carlos Marmol and Ryan Theriot to keep them in Cubs uniforms for relatively low prices.  A multi-year extension just doesn’t make any kind of baseball sense.

Which brings us to the answer you’ve been waiting for, and it should be no surprise to anyone who’s familiar with the way the organization opperates.  The Tribune Company just really doesn’t care what does or doesn’t happen with the team on the field, because they’re selling a product, not a baseball team, and given the economic state of the nation, they expect that product to remain in their hands for awhile longer.  Jim Hendry is a good company man, and the company intends to reward him, whether or not his decisions have been good for the baseball team they happen to own.

Since there was no baseball on tonight, no World Series preview to be written, and no part of me that felt like chiming in on the “will they or won’t they collapse?” debate swirling around the Rays at the moment, I decided to do something a little different.  The Denny Green tirade I included in yesterday’s game 5 recap got me hungry for some more classic coaching meltdowns, so I decided to track down a few more of the better ones.

We’ll start off with a Jim Mora classic that’s a favorite of mine, and I’m sure it’s one of yours as well.  Mora resigned as head coach of the Saints following the loss to the Carolina Panthers that sparked this one, back in 1996.

Thanks, coach.

Our next meltdown might be the only one on this list in which physical injury actually resulted.  It’s from Hal McRae of the Kansas City Royals back in 1993.

“Now…put that in your f***in’ pipe and smoke it!”  Russell Crowe and Naomi Campbell would both later draw inspiration from the ‘phone as projectile’ method of assault displayed here.

Up next is Jim Boeheim of Syracuse getting uncomfortably close to the microphone and inventing the word “unanamous”.  He’s at least relatively calm, but not calm enough to remember the word he’s looking for is “anonymous”.

This next one isn’t exactly a coaching meltdown, but I’ll never get tired of seeing Jim Rome get tossed by Jim Everett.  He deserved it.

To close out the list we have 3 minutes of high comedy.  Inspired by an article brought to Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy by a mother.  Of children.  He’s a man.  He’s 40.

That article had to have been written by a person that doesn’t have a child.  Gundy’s rant also inspired some fantastic spoofs by Chicago sports radio personalities Boers & Bernstein, in the form of Mike Gundy book reviews.  They did one for Moby Dick and another for Harry Potter .

Well, that’s all the ranting this post can take.  I hope you enjoyed the stroll down coaching tirade memory lane.

Thursday night’s game 5 of the ALCS had followed the script from games 3 and 4.  The Rays had jumped all over Daisuke Matsuzaka from the opening bell, as BJ Upton gave Tampa Bay a 2 run lead in the 1st inning with his 6th home run of the postseason.   By the time the bottom of the 7th rolled around, the Rays had built a 7-0 lead, and had outscored Boston by the unseemly sum of 29-5 across 25 innings of baseball at Fenway Park.

And following a Jed Lowrie double to lead off the bottom half of the inning, Jason Varitek and Mark Kotsay both flied out.  The Rays were a mere 7 outs from quenching the dry mouths of their fans, who had thirsted for a championship through 9 joyless years of heartache.

Actually, I’m still not convinced that there ARE any Rays fans out there.  Or if there are, they didn’t start attending baseball games or wearing team paraphenalia until about two weeks ago.  I think most of the nervous looking people in Rays jerseys that were shown on TV on Thursday night are just Yankee fans with enough disposable income to both attend a playoff game at Fenway just to try to thumb the eye of Boston fans AND to shell out $150 on sports apparel that means nothing to them.  Just last year, ESPN’s Bill Simmons posted a photo diary of his trip to Tropicana Field, for a game in which the Boston fans outnumbered the supporters of the home team by at least a 4-1 ratio.

Anyways, with 7 outs to go, the Red Sox finally sprang to life.  Coco Crisp hit a single to put runners on the corners, and Dustin Pedroia followed with an RBI single.  David Ortiz would follow with a 3 run home run, trimming the lead to 7-4.  In the bottom of the 8th, Dan Wheeler walked the leadoff batter, Jason Bay, and JD Drew promptly followed with a homer, cutting the deficit to 1 and sending the Fenway faithful into a frenzy.  Then, with 2 outs, Mark Kotsay doubled, and Coco Crisp followed with a single to tie the game, though he was thrown out at 2nd base when he tried to advance on the play.

In the bottom of the 9th, with the score still tied, the bases empty and 2 outs, Kevin Youklis hit a grounder to 3rd that should’ve sent the game to extra innings, but Evan Longoria’s throw bounced in front of and then away from Carlos Pena, and Youklis wound up on 2nd.  After an intentional walk to Jason Bay, JD Drew promptly singled to finish off the comeback.

I didn’t get a chance to see Joe Maddon’s post-game press conference, but if you substituted the words “Red Sox” for “Bears”, something like this might have been appropriate…

When all was said and done, the Rays vaunted bullpen had allowed 6 runs with 2 outs in the final 3 innings, and head back to Tampa Bay with a sudden and huge question mark hanging over their heads.  How could a World Series contender allow a game that was in the bankto slip away in such spectacular fashion?

I enjoyed the trip down memory lane with Denny Green, so let’s take a few more.  You have to go all the way back to 1929 to find the last time a team allowed a postseason lead of at least 7 runs to evaporate.  Fittingly, the Cubs were involved, as they allowed an 8-0 lead to turn into a 10-8 loss to the then Philadelphia Athletics.  (If you still think it’s tougher now than ever being a Cubs fan, just consider that from 1910 to 1945 the team played in 7 World Series and lost every single one.)

More worrisome for Tampa Bay is recent history, namely that just last year the Red Sox also rallied from a 3-1 series deficit in the ALCS, against Cleveland.  There was no point at which the Indians were just 7 outs away from spraying champaigne, however, so this game has to rank as a considerably larger gut-punch for the team than anything we’ve seen in the MLB playoffs in recent memory, aside from of course, the 2003 Cubs.

Joe Maddon is an excellent and capable manager, and its possible that he and his team will not allow this game to corrupt their confidence.  That’s not even taking into consideration that the next two games are in Tampa Bay, where the Rays have been one of the major league’s best home teams this season.  They will get to see Josh Beckett in game 6 on Saturday, who has looked anything but right this postseason.

But when your team is suddenly drawing unfavorable comparisons with the 2007 Indians, and the 2003 and 1929 Cubs, suffice to say, it’s a VERY bad sign.  Afterall, none of those teams went on to win the title.