Just spent a weekend in Tampa and caught the Rays/Marlins game on 6/14 (Saturday), which was Latin night.

Never been to a Rays game before and I'd been prepared to hear about it as a horrid stadium, no fans, etc, etc.

First things first was traffic. Just not a very smart way to go about things. It could have been done far smarter had there been more bodies on the route. But it wasn't too, too horrid.

Secondly, it was Latin Night, so there was a concert afterwards, and I dunno how much that impacted things, but there was a very nice crowd. They said it was 31,000 reported and that sounds about right. Now, I'm used to a Braves audience that is, let's face it, lackadaisical. Sometimes it seems they could care less. Tampa's crowd was PHENOMINAL. They were loud, raucous, smart, and really put up some noise. It was the most fun I had a ballpark in quite some time.

Before, I got ahead of myself, the inside of the ballpark... wasn't that bad actually. Our seats were all the way down, left field side, by the poll, and had GREAT sightlines. In fact it seemed that most of the seats had really good sightlines. The stadium had a TON of food options. 3 big food courts, lots of different options for beer. I felt a bit spoiled after going to Turner Field all this time.

And the game was a good one (for the Rays) as well. 4-1 Tampa. I've been looking for an AL team to follow, and I think I've found one.

Let's just say if I had to choose between going to a Rays game and going to a Braves game (putting aside any anti-Braves feeling I have as a Mets fan, and any expense), I'd take a Rays game anytime... well, at least when they were winning (and perhaps when it was Latin night ;)).

Oh, and they were also passing out flyers of the proposed new stadium on the St. Pete waterway and :eek:, it looks like a beaut. When done (if done), it'll be the prettiest stadium in the majors, easy. It's right on the bay, has an interesting dome, which allows any seat to have a view of the bay even when its closed, and right in the middle of downtown St. Pete.

Seattle fires Bavasi today. Dawgfan has to happy to finally see it happen. The guy completely misread the team's ability this year and gave up Adam Jones and Chris Tillman to get a frontline starter that still leaves them with the worst record in baseball.

Hopefully the new GM will see what guys like Clement and Balentien can do rather than continuing to give Vidro more ABs than anyone could possibly think he deserves.

BP is reporting that Rick Peterson has been fired. I'm really not happy seeing him go. Mets fans will probably never foget his statement about being able to fix Victor Zambrano in 15 minutes, but he's still one of the better pitching coaches in the leauge and shouldn't have trouble finding work.

Minaya also reportedly travelled with the team for the Anaheim series and most are expecting Willie to fired sometime in the next couple days.

Looks like they jumped the gun on that one.

This whole situation is a fucking disaster and just shows how shitty the Mets are run. Either fire Willie or keep him...what's this whole day at a time shit? So if they beat Texas 2 of 3, he can have his job...but if they lose 2 of 3, he should be fired? If they win tonight, he stays...but if he loses, he's gone.

He's either the right guy or the wrong guy...make your decision already.

Hank Steinbrenner throws a nutty about the Wang injury...

"My only message is simple. The National League needs to join the 21st century," Steinbrenner said in Tampa, Fla. "They need to grow up and join the 21st century.

"Am I [mad] about it? Yes," Steinbrenner added. "I've got my pitchers running the bases, and one of them gets hurt. He's going to be out. I don't like that, and it's about time they address it. That was a rule from the 1800s."

In other words, fuck the rules, my guy got hurt doing something and I want it banned.

Marcus Thames last 6 hits have been HR. He is 2-2 with 2 HR off Lincecum tonight. Lincecum came in only allowing 3 this year.

I would think teams would line up around the block to hire Peterson.

SI

It's a fluke.

Rumors going around that the Giants will look to pick up Peterson. Apparently he worked with Zito back when Zito was good. Not sure how true it is, as Rags (Righetti) is entrenched firmly as the pitching coach here, and I'm pretty sure Peterson wouldn't want anything less than the full pitching coach title.

Willie Randolph was fired...according to Fox Radio

I hate agreeing with Mike Greenberg but my goodness. Could the Mets have handled this situation ANY worse?

See about 4 posts up.

I think it exposes the silliness of interleague play.

There is definitely something wrong with Hank if he is busting a nut over Wang.

Who the hell is "they"? It is not like the National League president can just change the rules for the National League.

Never mind I got my answer and my new favorite line from another article.


:D

Hank probably fails to realize that the NL doesn't have a President anymore and that Bud makes the rules.

The way the Mets fired Willie was Bush league. Don't necessarily disagree with it, but it was bush league.

Jerry Manuel won't be any better either.

I am all for the firing of Willie if they felt that is the right thing to do. Like you said the way it was handled was foolish. In the end, I think this may help Willie get another job sooner rather than later.

That's the big issue. Do this last October, two months ago, a month ago and the story is that the Mets fired the manager of a severely underachieving team. Do it in this way, at this point, and it's the Mets who are the bad guys (which they deserve).

Willie was fired because of Minaya's mistakes and because the Mets allowed the story to get out of control.

Minaya thought he could just keep pulling minimum salary veterans out of his hat and they'd continue to give more than adequate production. I've seen Willie's ability to motivate the players questioned, but a lot of the early struggles were bad luck (the player's BABIP in april and the first half of may was proof) and Reyes, Beltran, and even Delgado have been hitting for the past month or so.

Minaya put him in a situation where he had to rely heavily on Alou, Pedro, and Delgado this season and he had nothing behind them. There was no excuse to go into this season with Endy Chavez (.220/.271/.276 in 132 PAs) , Damion Easley (.250/.289/.330 in 117 PAs) , and Marlon Anderson (.188/.211/.290 in 71 PAs) as your key bench players and no extra starter when you know Pedro is going have at least 1 extended DL stint. His solution? Bring up Fernando Tatis and Trot Nixon. Its like he's using Baseball Prospectus 2000 as a reference for his deals.

To top that off when rumors started about Willie's job instead of actually addressing the issue Minaya calls a press conference to say Willie is the team's manager and he hopes it stays that way for the next several years, but then when asked at that very press conference if his job was safe for the remainder of the season he wouldn't answer the question.

Willie isn't a great manager, but he's not a bad one. He does an adequate job, at the very least, and has improved his handling of the bullpen and how he fills out a lineup card in his time as the Mets manager. The fact that this cost Rick Peterson his job as well kills me. Its indefensible and all of it falls back on Minaya.

Peterson AND Leo Mazzone both available right now. Amazing. I'm sure neither is as great as their reputations suggest, but still.

Bring back Bobby V and sign back Peterson.

And Fire Minaya.

Can he really be that far behind?


So they do the press release firing Randolph and announce a press conference with Minaya and Manual at 5pm et to explain things. But before that, the owner basically says, "Hey don't blame us, we wanted to keep him but that mean ole Omar wanted him gone." Nice.

Wow, love Rick Peterson's comments after being fired:


"I just want to say that I came here five years ago, and Fred and Jeff gave me a wonderful opportunity. I left Oakland to come here to be with my kids on the East Coast, and it’s been wonderful. I appreciated the opportunity, and they welcomed me into their home.

"Homes go through renovations, and sometimes you have to make changes when things don’t go that well, and I’m part of that change. I totally understand that -– I grew up in the baseball business. I’m the hardwood floor that’s getting ripped out, and they’re going to bring in the Tuscany tile. It’ll be great.

"My heart and soul is with every pitcher that I dealt with here. They’ll always be in my heart and soul –- it’s that kind of relationship. I’m sad for that, but I’m also happy for them. There’s a lot of guys on the right track, and I hope they stay on the right track. And there’s a lot of guys that are off-track that I hope Danny Warthen can get them back on track. This is a team that has underachieved, and I think it will get back on track.

"I wear this bracelet because I’m … very in tune with Eastern philosophy and universal law. [The bracelet rings signify] faith, compassion, equanimity and love. … The Eastern language writes in symbols, and the symbol for crisis they also use for opportunity. I’ve been given a great opportunity here, and as I walk out that door, I seek my next opportunity. I walk out in peace, and I wish everybody else here the best. … Hopefully, the Tuscany tile will do a lot better than a hardwood floor."

No big surprise. McLaren has been fired.

Good job Rays!! A sweep of the Cubbies punctuated by a Carl Crawford Grand Slam tonight.

A sweep of the Cards is a very nice treat in the middle of an otherwise depressing season for the Royals.

SI

It's pretty ridiculous how much better the AL teams perform in these interleague series. The Royals always seem to improve drastically when this time of the year comes around.

It's amazing how that 12 game losing streak just killed the Royals. Had the Royals even gone 4-8 instead of 0-12 during that stretch, they'd be in 3rd place and only 3 games under .500. :(

Mazzone is every bit as good as his reputation suggests. Look at these averages...

Change of ERA from previous pitching coach to Mazzone: -0.64
Change of ERA from Mazzone to next pitching coach: +0.78

He's not good because of Greg Maddux, John Smoltz, and Tom Glavine (although he has to get some credit for the lack of injuries these guys had over the years), but moreso for guys like Kevin Millwood, Terry Mullholland, and Denny Neagle.

Curt Schilling's career probably over

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3453569

Is he a HOF candidate? His numbers certainly don't add up well against pitchers from the 70's and 80s that didn't get in, but it's a different era. And with the World Series Rings, the personality, I think he gets close. The only guy with more career strikeouts who didn't get in is Blyleven, and Schilling certainly had a more high-profile career.

Those stats can probably go out the window after this year. The Orioles have pitched much better this year under Rick Kranitz than they did last year under Mazzone. Granted many of the faces, especially in the bullpen, are different, every starter in the current rotation (who were all with Baltimore all last year) has an ERA lower than what it was last year.

STARTER--2007 ERA--2008 ERA
Guthrie--3.70--3.51
Cabrera--5.55--4.45
Burres--5.95--5.24
Olson--7.79--4.80
Liz--6.93--4.32

Not to discredit Mazzone, because he's certainly a fine pitching coach, but I think he's a little overrated and is probably not a great fit for certain teams. It seems he tries to fit every pitcher he works with into his philosophy (low & away, low & away, low & away) instead of working with their strengths.

Cito Gaston! Wow!

Wow - didn't see that coming.

I bet Dark Cloud is fired up. (I think he pushed for this at one point).

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/8...0813162&ATT=49
I am freakin' ecstatic about this.

Not only that, but a new (old!) hitting coach as well. If the offense can even perform at league average they could still make a decent push.

Yup. I have. I'm beyond thrilled. I know this season is pretty much toast and I'd love to see JP gone too, but I'll take getting rid of Gibbons and getting Cito back any day.

Even if this season isn't salvageable, I feel like Rogers is tired of seeing JP waste his money like a drunken sailor with no real ROI and so, I feel like this off-season heads are gonna roll.

AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME!!!!!
:) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

Definitely an interesting move. It's only a GOOD move if the other shoe drops...and drops on to JP. Seriously, how does that guy still have his job?

The Cubs A. Ramirez, after hitting his game-winner against the less popular White Sox:


Love it.

And Blyleven should be in.

Wow, Cito Gaston? Was Whitey Herzog not interested?

Is it beginning to show signs of a sinking ship with the Phillies?

I don't follow them enough to know. I will say this, as an Angels fan. Not too much shame being swept by them. Good teams do that. We got swept by the Rays last month, and I didn't have even a moment's doubt about the Angels, because I knew we lost to a good team and we faced both Kazmir and Shields.

Also, we have Vlad--he is apparently the all time Philly killer. Now if you get swept by the M's with their issues, then you got problems.

Incredible. Texeira hits three home runs today and the Braves are only 4 games back. I can't believe they're still in this.

Was at the Royals game today- it was their annual salute to the Negro Leagues. One of my favorite games each year, tho it has lost a little the last 2 years without Buck O'Neill. :( Former Negro Leagues players sign autographs and are honored before the game. Also, the Royals and the opposition wear throwback jerseys for a Negro Leagues team in the city- KC is almost always the Monarchs.

As for the game itself, the Giants jumped on Hiram and he was gone by the second. So, down 6-1 and 10-3 with Lincecum on the mound, things looked a bit bleak. But the Royals started chipping away and 3:59 later, the Royals had won 11-10. I was quite impressed as most of the crowd stayed the entire game on a pretty warm day. They (we) really got into the game when Trey all but got tossed, yelling at Bill Welke for one of his more assinine calls of the day but his strike zone was awful- inconsistent and small. Fun stuff, even if I got cooked a little (had sunscreen on, too).

SI

Yesterday's game was a perfect example of the adverse effect that an umpire's strike zone can have on a game. Davies threw two pitches in the very first at-bat that were strikes but were called balls. Davies rolled his eyes on the second missed call and took a walk around the mound. After that, you knew what was coming. Davies starting throwing meatballs and got hammered early. It later cost the Giants when they had to start throwing right down the middle and the Royals hammered the ball and came back to win it.

Good to see you stuck it out until the end. Royals are on fire right now.

I've left one game early in my life so it's a pretty safe bet I'll be sticking around until the end :)

(and the one I did leave early, it was nearly 6 hours into the game due to some rain delays and I wasn't driving so I didn't have a choice)

SI

Bronson Arroyo just single handedly ruined my fantasy baseball week.

Can't believe the tear that the Royals are on right now. 9 out of 10 now. For those that haven't seen the highlights, the home plate umpire was hit in the head by a bat in the 2nd inning. Blood everywhere, but thankfully it doesn't appear to be serious. They really need to get rid of the maple bats, regardless of the bargaining agreement.

Should be an extremely interesting game today against the Rockies. Ramirez threw a pitch behind the back of his former Rockies catcher in the 9th inning last night. Just to make sure Torrealba (sp?) didn't think it was an accident, he threw another one just behind his back. They both ended up glaring at each other pretty heavy. Expect fireworks in the series finale.