There are many reasons for the streak but that is an amazing stat. 17 years of not winning half your games in a season. Forget not winning a title or not making the playoffs during that time. That is just a depressing thought.

Chris Carpenter tosses a one hit shut out against the Brewers.

Im beginning to feel that anything less then a World Championship this year will be a disappointment.

I wish I was listening to Bob Uecker to see if he flashbacked his role as Harry Doyle in Major League:

"One hit? That's all we got? One goddamn hit?"

Monte: "You can't say goddamn over the air!"

Ueck: "Don't worry nobody is listening anyway."

Uhm...
Why are my Astros so hot right now?
I'm kinda confused by us sweeping the Phillies... (in dramatic fashion, I might add...)

Astros always finish the season hot. No matter how good or bad. You can count that.

And good for beating the Phillies. Cards would love home filed for the playoffs.

Interesting scoring decision over the weekend in KC. Thought I would get SI's take (at least).

Figgy hit a hard bouncer to Betancourt (I think it was Betancourt) in the 8th inning of the Greinke-Lackey duel, and the bouncer ate Betancourt up. Very hard play to make. The scorer ruled it an error. Figgins would come around to score--and Greinke's one run allowed was thusly unearned. The Angels thought it was bad enough of a scoring call to actually appeal to the league office. My understanding is that the league allowed the scorer's decision to stand (although I don't know that they were affirming the scoring decision, so much as not enough to overturn).

So Greinke's ERA drops to 2.22. A little hometown cooking perhaps to try to get Greinke an edge in the "race" to have the best ERA in baseball?

P.S. Kazmir Angels start #2 is Tuesday night--and he goes against King Felix again. He must think that's the only guy he gets to face.

Chris Carpenter is just amazing right now. Glad to see him doing this well after all those injury problems.

I might be with you there.

Was listening on MLB Audio so couldn't see it. I think it was Bloomquist, actually. Any clips anywhere? Considering how rarely they give errors out to the Royals- they're only 4th from the bottom despite being worst by most other metrics- I find it unlikely, but possible.

SI

Any thoughts on the Gold Glove race? The Nationals Journal (Wash Post Blog) makes a case for Ryan Zimmerman today.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/nat...tionalsjournal

Zimmerman will win the gold glove because he is the best combination of hitting and defense, which is all that really matters unless you're Ozzie Smith or Omar Vizquel.

LaRoche has had some really bad spots(i can think of 4 errors that came in 2 games) from time to time, but for the majority of the season he's been excellent. I doubt he wins a gold glove, but he should be at least in the consideration.

You sure? It seems that David Wright will win over him until the Nationals actually get some wins. The awards never seem to go to guys on a losing team. I mean, of course I want it to go to Zimm, but I will be surprised if it does. His 15 errors (12 of them throwing errors) certainly don't help.

This year he should. The Mets are not exactly a winning team and his power numbers are not much better the Adam Everett of all players. That said I do realize playing in NY will put him on guys lists too lazy to research other candidates but in the end Zim should still win, and if he doesn't, he deserved to.

I'm glad to hear someone outside of DC thinks so. :)

This is the same problem Greinke is going to have, of course. He plays for the Royals. If he was in LA, NY or Boston everyone (ESPN) would be fawning all over him.

No one cares about gold gloves.

/ducks

Nyjer should get a gold glove somewhere, but I think the majority of his games were in LF. However the voters gave the CF GG to McLouth last year, so they aren't the smartest.

I doubt McCutch wins this year, but I'm sure he'll be a GG'er a few times in his career.

Umm ... 2008 Gold Glove winners included
3B Adrian Beltre - Seattle (61-101)
SS Michael Young - Texas (79-83)
OF Grady Sizemore - Cleveland (81-81)
OF Ichiro Suzuki - Seattle (61-101)
1B Adrian Gonzalez - San Diego (63-99)
2B Brandon Phillips - Cincinnati (74-88)
OF Nate McLouth - Pittsburgh (67-95)

That's 7 of 18 GG winners from last year on team's that weren't over .500, so it's not as though it isn't at least possible. While there were only 3 sub-500 winners in 2007 there were 6 in '06 and and 8 in '05.

That's fully 1/3rd of the winners over the past 4 years coming from teams that were at or below .500, a pretty long way from "never".

Mark Grudzelanek got one for the Royals a couple of years ago (and he deserved it)

SI

It is ok, he actually contradicted himself in his own statement. He said Zimmerman wouldn't win it because players on losing teams don't win it.. Then said Wright would, but the problem is Wright is also on a losing team :)

Apparently I am completely wrong. That's good to see. :)

Out of curiousity I did some investigation to see why I had that impresison. I really started paying attention to things in 2005 when Washington got a team. In particulary, I have watched 3B because that is where the "Face of the Franchise" is. Since 2000 every NL 3B that has won has been on a winning team, except for Scott Rolen in 2000.

2008 David Wright NYM 92-70
2007 David Wright NYM 89-73
2006 Scott Rolen STL 83-78
2005 Mike Lowell FLA 83-79
2004 Scott Rolen STL 105-57
2003 Scott Rolen STL 85-77
2002 Scott Rolen PHI/STL (80-81/97-65)
2001 Scott Rolen PHI 86-76
2000 Scott Rolen PHI 65-97

I also looked at the E, DP and Fielding % of the previous winners and Zimmerman definitely in line with those numbers.

I am not someone who has been a huge baseball guy my whole life -- it was always a void because I had no home team. Now that I do I am much more knowledgable, but as you can see, there are still a lot of gaps in my knowledge/memory.

Touche. :) I'm used to Wright being on a winning team. As a bottom dwelling team fan I don't really keep up with other teams' records as much as I should -- I didn't realize that Mets had fallen so far.

double dola: A losing NY/LA/BOS team is excluded from my mental .500 limitation. :) (Which has already been proven to be incorrect anyway)

Hmmm so I heard Bumgarner is starting tonight for Lincecum. Timmy gas a sore back or something. At least that's what I thought I heard as I passed by the radio.

Please get Brad Lidge out.
Please get Brad Lidge out.
Please get Brad Lidge out.
Please get Brad Lidge out.
Please get Brad Lidge out.
Please get Brad Lidge out.
Please get Brad Lidge out.
Please get Brad Lidge out.
Please get Brad Lidge out.
Please get Brad Lidge out.
Please get Brad Lidge out.
Please get Brad Lidge out.
Please get Brad Lidge out.
Please get Brad Lidge out.
Please get Brad Lidge out.
Please get Brad Lidge out.
Please get Brad Lidge out.

Thank you Charlie.

And the Brad Lidge era is over in Philadelphia. Thanks for the memories!

It's almost Bumgarner time!!!

Stick a fork in him, he's done. I had a little hope for him when he had a couple decent outings in a row but these last couple he has gone right back to what he was doing the rest of the season. His head is seriously f'd up right about now. I think we may be seeing Myers taking the job.

Madson looked good tonight but the previous experiment with him at closer did not go well.

The O's got their 82nd loss tonight, which now marks 12 consecutive losing seasons.

Damnit.

I dare the Phillies to score more than 4 runs without having a home run...I just dare them!

I'm beginning to think that Dusty Baker has somehow taken over Ken Macha's body. Corey Patterson has led off two days in a row for the Brewers and rewarded Macha by going 0-7 with 4 strikeouts and 1 GIDP.

Seriously.

Chicks dig the long ball.

Only 6 more and they can beat out the Pirates. :D

Hanson goes 8 innings, no runs allowed, strikes out 7, doesn't walk anyone, and the Braves lose 2-1. I'm so fucking sick of this shit.

Soriano hasn't been worth a fuck in nearly two weeks now.

5 runs allowed in last 8 games,not sure why he was even out there tonight after his lucky escape last night.

Well actually I do know, Gonzalez hasn't been any more reliable, Moylan's arm has to be about to fall off & O'Flaherty has been shelled in 2 of his last 5 appearances too. There's just no options out there at this point. There's only 12 pitchers in the NL with 65 appearances or more & the Braves have 4 of them, kind of goes hand in hand with our next to last SV%.

You appear to be operating under the (possibly mistaken) assumption that the Pirates will have a winning record next year. Or the year after that. Or anytime in the next 6 years. By the time Baltimore gets there, Pittsburgh may have rai--well, LOWERED the bar.

Has the Madson era begun?

Yup. Methinks we'll try to trade Lidge for some spare parts and baseballs this upcoming off-season.

Although, this presents a dilemma as Myers is a free agent after this season. Can't really trade Lidge unless we get Myers back and I doubt that is in the Phils plans.

Yeah, I realized that later on. The O's will never catch the Pirates in futility.

I dunno, now that the Pirates finally have a front office that doesn't delude itself into thinking that they are just a few pieces short of putting a winner on the field, they are finally making progress building an organization from the bottom up. Like they should've done, well, once Barry Bonds left.

Unusually active Royals news day today:

Who will be the 700th player in Royals*History? - Royals Review
Lenny DiNardo will be the 700th player in Royals history when he starts the game today

Greg Schaum has found out from a viable source that 6 or 7 teams have told people close to Luke... - Royals Review
Apparently Luke Hochevar has been tipping his pitches since his rookie year. The Royals just found out... from a writer... who heard from another organization's scout. *sigh*

Facebook! Yes, this actually*happened. - Royals Review
And, yes, two Royals prospects who were traded away- Cortes who was caught drunk and urinating and disorderly and Gutierrez who had a minor arrest (suspected to be weed) and got in a spat this year where Boras wanted him to rehab at the Boras facility instead of with the Royals- got in some digs at the Royals on, yes, Facebook. I hate the internet.

SI

At least you aren't a Pirates fan.

Why, are the Pirates a bad team?

Pirates? Didn't they get contracted? :confused:

You know, if Hochevar was playing for the Red Sox, this would have been caught much sooner. ;)

When he went to the National League?

SI

Red Sox get 20 IP with 2 ER given up by their starters in a 24-hour sweep of the collapsing Rays, highlighted by Jon Lester's 8 shutout IP. Lester since May - 10-2, 2.02 ERA, 129.1 IP, 142 K/36 BB. He deserves to get some 2nd/3rd place Cy Young votes.

1st round playoff preview vs. LAA starts Tuesday.

Lester is good for sure, but right now my top 3 AL Cy Young votes would be:

1. Greinke
2. Felix
3. Verlander

As good as Greinke has been, Felix is making a strong push - 15 wins now, and his ERA keeps dropping (2.52 now).

How's this for a fun trip, huh? Scheduled visits to the despised Red Sox, and the hotly pursuing Rangers, and for fun, a quick one day stop over in the Bronx to makeup a spring rainout. La-ti-da! :D

It will be interesting to see how things stand in a week.