MLB 2014 season thread

I saw him play about a half-dozen times in Single A. I remember him sucking, living on speed by beating out a lot of grounders against weak-armed infielders and running on the first pitch against weak-armed catchers. Once he moved up a step and those players went away, he hasn't done much of anything.

He was 36 for 56. A 64 percent rate in Triple A isn't going to translate well to the majors. He has never been a good base-stealer by percentage, at any level of the minors. And the .271 average in a notorious hitters' park isn't much either; the Grizzlies' team BA this year was .270. The last two years in Triple A he has had a combined 69 walks and 254 strikeouts.

It's no great catastrophe that he didn't pan out. He was the 24th pick and was never much a part of the big-picture plan anyway. And this is at least a role -- he can pinch-run and play some left or center field (Ishikawa is now the starting LF and he is pretty raw out there, so they'll be subbing him out in the late innings). He'll have a role like the two Royals guys. But this is probably the apex of what the Giants are going to get out of Brown's career.

 

The concept of Travis Ishikawa starting in a postseason baseball game frightens me.

 

Tigers 6, O's 3 (8)

 

... and the Tiggers have hit the bullpen. Think it'll stay 6-3?

 

Agree with that. And not just that he is starting, but that it's in left field, where he had made two career starts before the wild-card game.

If it works, that alone would be enough to get Bochy into the Hall.

 

Ah, that Tigers bullpen.

 

goddamn Tiger bullpen

 

They're not allowed to run on the field anymore.

 

When the crowd gave Chamberlain the ovation when he took the mound was a pretty great moment.

 

With good reason. The videos below of the Chambliss home run in 1976 ALCS and the end of the 1979 World Series show what happens when drunken fans were allowed to run on the field.

Chambliss had to fight his way through the crowd like he was in the mosh pit at Lollapalooza. And Pirates catcher Steve Nicosia absolutely beats the HELL out of a fan who tried to steal his equipment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AS6HGwoRrkY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apdjJPEvdqY

 

I was at the clincher for the A.L. West in 1983 when the White Sox won it. Fans were all over the field within seconds of the winning run scoring. It's one of the clearest memories of my childhood. That had to be one of the last years when it was permitted. Still happens in college, obviously.

 

Delmon Young becomes baseball's most significant anti-Semite since Dino Laurenzi Jr.