Last night, Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga was on the brink of the 3rd perfect game this season, but his bid was derailed by one Jim Joyce. A perfect game is one of the rarest feats in baseball, and this season there have already been two (Oakland's Dallas Braden against Tampa on May 9 and Philadelphia's Roy Halladay against Florida on May 29). Last night, with two out in the bottom of the 9th, one batter away from the perfecto, Galarraga pitched to Jason Donald and made the out at 1st, but umpire Jim Joyce called Donald safe, spoiling the perfect game. Video replays clearly showed Galarraga had Donald out at 1st.
There has been a lot of debate as to whether or not instant replay should be used in baseball. Currently, it is only selectively used on home run calls but it should be expanded to safe/out calls on the basepaths. With expanded instant replay, calls like the one last night will happen less and umpires like Joyce won't have to deal with the public backlash like he and his wife have today (he's behind home plate in today's Tigers-Indians game).
The baseball playoffs are just about set. Here are the American League seedings if the playoffs started today:
1) NY Yankees vs. 4) either Detroit Tigers or Minnesota Twins 2) LA Angels vs. 3) Boston Red Sox
Yankees have home-field throughout the playoffs including the World Series, assuming they go that far. Angels have home-field against the Red Sox. The Tigers are only two games up on the Twins with 3 games remaining, so it'll come down to the final weekend in that division.
Here are the National League seedings if the playoffs started today:
1) LA Dodgers vs. 4) St. Louis Cardinals 2) Philadelphia Phillies vs. 3) Colorado Rockies
The Dodgers have lost 4 straight, have not clinched the NL West division, and are only two games up on Colorado. They play each other in LA beginning tomorrow, and all the Dodgers need to do is win one game to clinch the division. The Rockies have to sweep in order to clinch the division. Home-field is still up for grabs between LA and Philly.
Photo courtesy of fellow Blogger blog "Blithe & Blonde."
What looked like a great weekend of baseball turned out to be a so-so one. In the American League, the Yankees took 2 out of 3 from the Red Sox, who are still barely on top of the AL Wild Card standings. Tampa Bay has climbed back into the AL Wild Card race by nearly sweeping the Rangers.
As for the National League, the Chicago Cubs have just about kissed their playoff hopes goodbye, after nearly getting swept by the LA Dodgers. A seven game deficit is hard to make up when you have four other teams ahead of you. Another lost year for Cubs fans.
Elsewhere in the NL, the Atlanta Braves and Florida Marlins were at a stalemate heading into the weekend, and things are still pretty much knotted up. As for the San Francisco Giants-Colorado Rockies series, the Rockies have given themselves more cushion and may very well start to pull away with the NL Wild Card (the series finale is tonight). They're also 3.5 games back of the Dodgers for the NL West division race and are 7-3 in their last 10 games. After the Giants finale tonight, the Rox host the Dodgers for 3 games, then travel to San Fran for another weekend series against the Giants. In other words, the NL West division and/or NL Wild Card could be close to decided by next Monday.
The six division leaders are pretty much set, except for two. The AL Central is a two-horse race between the Detroit Tigers and Chicago White Sox, with Chicago 2.5 games back as of this morning. The other is the aforementioned NL West race between LA, Colorado, and San Francisco.
Image courtesy of Masslive.com. Kevin Youkilis, left, of the Boston Red Sox is about to throw Detroit Tigers pitcher Rick Porcello to the ground after getting beaned by a pitch Tuesday night.
Last week, Milwaukee Brewers first baseman Prince Fielder was hit, or "beaned", by Los Angeles Dodgers relief pitcher Guillermo Mota. Fielder didn't take exception at the time of the hit, but tried to enter the Dodgers locker room after the game and let off a profanity-laced tirade (video below along with a follow-up interview with LA sports anchor Jim Hill):
Both videos courtesy of KCAL 9 / KCBS 2 via YouTube.
What Fielder did was stupid on multiple levels. No one tries to enter the opposing teams' locker room to pick a fight. That would be the baseball equivalent to a schoolyard bully saying, "Meet me at 3:00 on the playground." Nothing good can come of it. In the second video, Fielder totally dodges Hill's questioning and makes it sound like it was no big deal and nothing happened. He also used canned answers that didn't seem very relevant to the interview. This doesn't help Fielder's image and if he does another interview like this, he'll need a better PR agent. As I wrote in a post last year, retaliatory and brushback pitches are part of baseball. Last year, a manager admitted he orders pitchers to hit opposing batters as a form of retaliation.
Fast forward to Tuesday night, Fenway Park. After a game on Monday that had lots of players getting beaned, the Boston Red Sox Kevin Youkilis finally had enough after another beaning.
I generally like Youkilis, he's a well rounded baseball player with lots of talent. For whatever reason, he is the batter that opposing pitchers usually choose to hit in regards to retaliatory pitches (he has more hit by pitches than any other Red Sox batter this year.) On one hand, had Porcello not tried to hit Victor Martinez, the batter before Youkilis, the brawl may have been avoided. On the other hand, I do not condone charging the mound, much less throwing your helmet. Youkilis will surely be suspended multiple games, which does not help the Red Sox in their current state of affairs.
What's most disturbing is hearing the fans at Fenway cheer on the brawl. I don't go to baseball games to see a brawl. For that, there's wrestling, boxing, and hockey. Beaning is becoming a problem in baseball, especially if managers are ordering hits. While the "eye for an eye" principle is understandable, it doesn't justify drilling someone with a 90+ mph fastball.
UPDATE (8/13/09): MLB.com claimed a copyright violation to the YouTube video of Youkilis charging the mound I linked to. The best place to view the footage at this point is here. Also, MLB announced that both Youk and Porcello received 5-game suspensions for the brawl.
Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga. Photo courtesy customauthenticjerseys.com.
