|
|
| |
|
| |||||||||||||||||
Wild Pitches By Jayson Stark ESPN.com | |||||||||||||||||
| Box score line of the week The Cubs' Kevin Tapani started his evening Tuesday as the proud owner of a 0.96 ERA. Then Coors Field entered his life. The result was this: 3 1/3 IP, 11 H, 10 R, 10 ER, 3 BB, 1 K, 3 HR, 3 doubles and an ERA that almost quintupled (to 4.91) in 3 1/3 innings. Stat of the day Of the four pitchers who have allowed 10 runs in a game this year, three of them have been visitors to scenic Coors Lite. Quote of the day From Cubs manager -- and former Coors combat veteran -- Don Baylor: "This place hasn't changed." Schizzo box score line of the week It's hard to say if Curt Schilling was unhittable (12 strikeouts) or really hittable (13 hits) Wednesday, in a fascinating little start against the Marlins. But here was his line: 7 IP, 13 H, 7 R, 7 ER, 0 BB, 12 K, 3 HR. Schilling allowed runs in four straight innings (second through fifth) for the first time since June 28, 1997. But in bigger news, he became only the second pitcher in the last 10 years to join the Dozen-Dozen Club (at least 12 strikeouts and at least 12 hits in the same start). The other, according to the Elias Sports Bureau's: Todd Stottlemyre (12 H, 12 K in 8 1/3 IP on Sept. 20, 1995). Like Schilling, Stottlemyre also gave up all those hits and won. "I guess that nifty 13-hitter will work," said manager Bob Brenly. Minor-league box score line of the week Remember Bobby Munoz, the one-time Yankee, Phillie and Oriole? He's still toiling away, at age 31, in Ottawa, for the Triple-A outpost of the Expos. His line Wednesday vs. Rochester: O IP, 6 H, 9 R, 9 ER, 3 BB, 0 K. In Munoz's last three starts, according to Howe Sportsdata, he's allowed 19 runs (17 earned) in 8 2/3 innings. Oof. Girder of the week It isn't often you get to use the words, "girder," and "baseball," in the same sentence. But Jeff Bagwell made that possible this week, when he hit a ball so high down the third-base line of Enron Field that it actually hit one of those rooftop girders -- in fair territory -- for the first time anyone could recall. Eventually, it was ruled a foul ball. But Astros broadcast-witticist Jim Deshaies thinks that might be because no one was exactly sure what happened. "I don't think anybody in the park saw the play from start to finish," Deshaies told Wild Pitches. "It went way up. Then you didn't see it. Then, 'hey, here it is.' And then, aw, foul ball. It was up there a long time, though. We know that." The girder ground rules (and it sums up the beauty of Enron that they even have girder ground rules) is that if a ball hits a fair girder, it's in play. But if it hits a foul girder, it's a foul ball. The ultimate ruling in Bagwell's case was that the ball struck a fair girder, then ricocheted off a girder in foul territory, thus making it foul. Or something like that. But Deshaies thinks we need way more creative rules than that. "When I was a kid, we used to play games where if you hit certain objects, it was an automatic double or an automatic homer," he said. "That's what I think we need -- more kid rules. To me, it should just have been a home run. If you hit a girder, it's a home run. I mean, at Enron, which is harder -- to hit a girder or to hit one into the Crawford box (where fans can just about play shallower than the left fielder)? It's a no-brainer. It's the girder." Forceout of the week It was the seventh inning Monday in San Diego. Dave Magadan hit a rocket up the middle that looked like a rally-building single. Nope. Out of nowhere came Phillies second baseman Marlon Anderson to sprawl, knock it down and then make an impossible, web-gemmish, blind, backhanded, over-the-shoulder shovel pass right to shortstop Jimmy Rollins, for a hard-to-believe force at second. Asked by Wild Pitches to describe that throw, Phillies quote machine Doug Glanville said: "It kind of reminded me of when the bride throws the no-look pass of flowers to the all the single women. I guess Jimmy Rollins is the next to get married." PNC-ing eye homer of the week Last Sunday, Jason Kendall hit the first walkoff home run in the history of Pittsburgh's awesome new PNC Park -- a 10th-inning shot that beat the Cubs, 4-3. But score an assist to Bill Viccari of Ellwood City, Pa., who was sitting in the front row in left field and bumped Cubs left fielder Rondell White to make sure he didn't catch this heroic blow. "This was a win by design," the Pirates' vice president of Ballpark Development, Steve Greenberg, told the Beaver County Times' John Perrotto. "The design of our ballpark." Pregnant pause of the week What did the Tigers need Thursday to stop their seven-game losing streak? Not a big home run. Not a clutch late-inning hit. They needed Mrs. Chris Holt to get the results of her pregnancy test. Holt and his wife Lisa found out before the game they were expecting their second child. Holt then went right out and pitched a complete game to beat the Orioles. It was a lot of trouble to go to for a win. But these were desperate times. "Hopefully," Holt told Booth Newspapers beat man Danny Knobler, "I don't have to have 15 kids." Dawn patrol of the week After their six-hour, 17-inning marathon with the Yankees, the Blue Jays didn't arrive in Kansas City last Friday until 5 a.m. That was bad, right? Wrong. Raul Mondesi and Carlos Delgado hit back-to-back homers in the first inning. Then Mondesi and Delgado went back-to-back again in the seventh (making them the 10th teammates since 1966 to go back-to-back twice in the same game). Then, two innings later, to finish off a 12-4 blowout, Delgado hit a third home run. Which made Mondesi and Delgado only the third sets of teammates to hit back-to-backers twice on the way to a three-homer game. The others, according to home-run triviologist David Vincent: Charlie Keller (with Joe DiMaggio) on July 28, 1940, and Bill Terry (with Mel Ott) on Aug. 13, 1932. So just imagine what these guys would have done if they'd gotten some sleep. "I've changed curfew," manager Buck Martinez announced afterward. "It's now 5 a.m." Slammer of the week The good news for Barry Larkin last Friday is that his 6,734-at-bat streak of never hitting a grand slam finally came to an end. The bad news was, the weather forecast was so ominous that night, he'd told his wife, Lisa, she shouldn't bother coming to the game. "I'm not going to hear the end of that one for a while," Larkin said. Lucky 13 of the week Remember when we all thought hitters were supposed to peak in their late 20s? Don't tell Luis Gonzalez. In his six full big-league seasons in his 20s, Gonzalez averaged 12 homers a year (and never hit more than 15). Now, at age 33, he hits 13 homers just in April. "The amazing thing is, he has more home runs that he has any other hit," Mark Grace told Valley Tribune beat man Ed Price -- correctly, by the way. (Gonzalez has 13 homers, 11 singles, 3 doubles, 0 triples.). "Every time he's making contact, it's out of the ballpark." Coolerweight champ of the week Last year, it was the dugout coolers at Coors Field that got knocked out three times. This year's first victim: the Aqua Fina cooler in the visitors' dugout of Milwaukee's new hitter-friendly Miller Park. After allowing a homer to Devon White and three other hits in an inning of relief Thursday at Miller, Mets coolerweight slugger Turk Wendell headed straight for the coolers. He body-slammed both of them. Then he grabbed a bat and pounded them a while. But being the polite, tidy guy he is, Wendell then picked them up and put them back where he found them. "It felt good for two or three seconds," Wendell said. "When I was done, I said, 'God, I'm such an idiot.' " Space shuttle of the week There are conflicting reports on whether Eric Chavez's astounding home run in Chicago on Thursday was or wasn't the longest ever hit at the new Comiskey Park. But there's no conflict about the fact that this missile -- which actually cleared the right-field seats and came down in the concourse, close to 500 feet away -- went a real long way. How longgggg was it? "I can't even see that far anymore," said A's manager Art Howe. Strikeout of the week The Padres and Dodgers played one of the weirdest games of the year last Sunday, complete with runner's-interference calls, a fan-interference call that wasn't made, a fluke game-tying homer in the ninth by Jeff Reboulet off Trevor Hoffman, and other assorted thrills. But maybe the weirdest moment of all came when Padres reliever Jay Witasick was pitching his way out of a bases-loaded, no-out mess in the 10th. In the midst of striking out three in a row to escape this jam, Witasick whiffed Tom Goodwin -- with a pitch that actually plunked Goodwin in the leg. "That's my first one where I hit a guy and he strikes out," Witasick said afterward. "I saw the ball hit him, and I was like, 'Oh my God. I just hit him, but he swung.' I didn't know that was legal." Bronx tourist of the week After the long-awaited Yankee Stadium debut of Ichiro Suzuki on Tuesday, Ichiro was asked how he would describe the omnipresent fans of New York. Ichiro mulled the topic for a moment, then replied: "They're very polite." Oh sure. Compared to the Japanese press corps, maybe. Jayson Stark is a Senior Writer at ESPN.com. Wild Pitches appears each Friday. |
| ||||||||||||||||
