I can finally answer the most asked question of the year; “Where’s Rett Johnson?”
The answer, as of today, is San Bernardino. He left Arizona yesterday and is going to be making his season debut for Inland Empire tomorrow night. Hopefully the issues that sidelined his career are behind him and he can resume throwing the way we all know he’s capable of. Welcome back Rett.
A few thoughts I’ve been bouncing around about Bob Melvin and his future with the M’s.
The Blue Jays fired Carlos Tosca today in the midst of a very disappointing season. I only mention that because Melvin is leading the M’s through an equally disappointing season and there don’t appear to be any signs he’ll be fired before the season is up. And honestly, no matter how you feel about him as a manager in general and whether or not you think he’s done a poor job this season, would it do much good to fire him at this point? Probably not.
That said, I’m sure they’ll evaluate things this winter. I don’t really trust Bill Bavasi to evaluate much at all, but I’m sure they’ll at least make an effort. My point, though, is this — when Bob Melvin was hired, it was said he was a good fit for the M’s because he was generally hands-off and would let the veteran players on a veteran-laden team go about their business. It was what he knew from his time in Arizona under Bob Brenly, and for the most part it worked well there.
Managing the M’s is no longer the same job as it was when Melvin was hired, however. The veterans — those who aren’t already gone — are on their way out. They’ve been replaced by players who, while not young in a baseball sense are still inexperienced as far as MLB goes. The M’s currently have ten rookies on the roster and could easily break camp with a few more next spring, figuring in guys like Travis Blackley and Jeremy Reed not currently on the big league roster.
So you have to ask — is Bob Melvin still the right man for the job? Whether or not he was in the first place is irrelevant, because the job has changed. The M’s now need a manager who can mentor to, teach and be patient with younger and less experienced players. And if you’re iffy on the manager, you’d better surround him with a coaching staff who can fill in the gaps.
I honestly don’t know if Melvin is that guy. Just as when he was hired, we really don’t have all that much information to go on, do we? I hope the M’s have some sort of idea and are willing to consider the possibility that he’s not the right guy, because I think this team could get back to contending for a division title in 2006 if they play their cards right.
Matt Tuiasosopo off to a heck of a start at Everett… .700/.667/1.200 in 10 at-bats.
Readers suggest that blocking a runner’s view in this situation (runner’s looking to tag) may be an ” approved ruling” which would mean that even though it’s not in the rule, it’s an accepted interpretation of the rule. I’m not accepting this argument for two reasons:
– many approved rulings are in the rules, and noted as such. This may be a situation where case law (for lack of a better term) indeed supports this view, but it’s still not in the rules
– the ump didn’t see it anyway. He clearly wasn’t looking, Crawford clearly did see the catch, even if he had to look around someone’s shoulder, and this is a case where the penalty is so high that it should demand clear evidence that intentionally or not Crawford’s view of the catch was substantially impeded by a fielder. Which it wasn’t.
It was a terrible call and remains a terrible call.
I’m sometimes known as a bit of a rules stickler, because I am. I read the rulebook a lot. I spend a lot of time thinking about baseball’s rules. So when I say this, I want to be entirely clear:
Last night’s call was a load of crap.
The ump blew it. You can see on the replay that he wasn’t even looking at Crawford-Bloomquist-Lopez when there would have been obstruction, he was watching Ibanez. Crawford was entirely out of view and the ump only looked at third when Crawford was returning. He would have only noticed something if Bloomquist had shot Crawford. But when Crawford came back, he figured something had happened and called obstruction. I believe everything they’ve said since then — Emmel, the whole crew — has been justification for that initial mistake for Emmel.
Here’s the concept of interference and obstruction:
A fielder has a right to get to the ball. A runner who gets in the way of a fielder trying to get to a ground ball is out.
Conversely, the runner has the right to go around the bases. If you stand in front of a runner on their way to third and stop him, you must have the ball to make a play, or he gets one (or more) bases.
No runner or fielder has the right to a good view of the game. John Olerud sometimes played this game, where at first he’d hold a runner on and then lead exactly as much as the runner did, blocking the runner’s view of home, so if the catcher dropped a ball or whatnot, the runner would have to hesitate a second (for the signal from the first-base coach or Olerud to break back to first) before knowing where to run. Small, heads-up baseball… entirely legal.
Obstruction and interference don’t have to be intentional to occur. This seems to be a point of contention in some of the press coverage. If you’re running and don’t see the ball ricochet off the pitcher and you get in the way of the second baseman, that’s still interference.
Beyond the thought that obstruction did not occur, Crawford should not have been awarded home. It was a shallow fly, and Crawford didn’t get anywhere on it. Obstruction requires that the runner would have gottent to the next base had obstruction not occurred… which it didn’t, and Crawford wouldn’t have gone home anyway.
So, to sum up:
– Call of obstruction wrong
– Awarding of base wrong
M’s lose. I frequently compliment the umps who work major league games — as a whole, they’re dramatically better than the guys who were out there say ten years ago. But this makes me so angry: they not only blew a call, they then told the players and Melvin one thing, which was the on-the-spot of why they were wrong, held to it, and then issued an official statement later which expanded the justification and lied some more. I understand they’re going to get calls wrong. But this one was so huge, and thier conduct afterwards so baffling, that I think the crew ought to be suspended. If they can’t put forward an honest account of what happened and their reasoning for doing so, they shouldn’t be out there.
“He was safe!”
“He beat the throw!”
“Aliens slowed time so the throw got here earlier than you saw!”
“He bea– what?”
John Hickey’s PI game recap about this is well-written and even includes the text of the rule.
Mike Myers has been traded to Boston. The M’s aren’t getting anything of value in return (PTBNL or cash, which usually means like $25,000). Cha Seung Baek has been called up from Tacoma to take his spot on the roster.
Cuban defector Kendry Morales was granted residency in the Dominican Republic today and should be declared a free agent by major league baseball within the next few weeks. He’s listed as a 21-year-old 1B/OF with serious power. Unfortunately, when it comes to Cuba, I got nothing. I don’t know anyone who has seen him play, and I don’t have anything to offer as insight into his abilities. Sorry.
Heck of a start by Madritsch tonight.
I just finished recording my interview with Pat Dillon to air on the Aquasox pregame show tonight. We touch on the trade deadline, the Future Forty, Matt Tuiasosopo, and the future of Gil Meche. Feel free to listen live tonight at 6:40 p.m. pacific time and stick around for Tui’s debut in the Northwest League. He’s starting at DH tonight, hitting 6th, and has been driving the ball all over the park in BP.
Also, tomorrow is Jay Buhner bobblehead night, and Bone will be in attendance, so you’ve got another great reason to head up to Everett Memorial Stadium and checking out the frogs.
Dear ESPN.com,
I don’t like your new boxscore page layout. Specifically, that the links to other boxscores are now across the top rather than down the side… since they’re not real “links,” you can’t tell which ones you’ve already seen. That is all.
Thanks,
Jason
Hey, all — I know permalinks are broken and I don’t know why. In short blogger isn’t generating the archive pages even though, as I stare at the settings pages, it absolutely should be doing so… but doesn’t.
So we may be deploying the new site engine sooner than I’d thought, because this is exactly the kind of thing that made me want to move off blogger. In the meantime, I apologize for the inconvenience.