Here is the latest Top 10 from CBS's Major League Baseball power rankings, because we needed a new thread for Eric's excellent #greencollar coverage.
1. Atlanta Braves (15-5)
2. Texas Rangers (13-7)
3. San Francisco Giants (13-8)
4. St. Louis Cardinals (12-8)
5. Boston Red Sox (13-7)
6. Cincinnati Reds (12-9)
7. Oakland A's (13-8)
8. Baltimore Orioles (12-8)
9. New York Yankees (11-8)
10. Colorado Rockies (13-7)
Meanwhile, Natstown has plunged all the way to 14th, as their record has fallen to 10-10.
Thanks, Go Heath. A's and Red Sox play the rubber game of their series in Boston at 3:05 p.m. Central today.
ReplyDeleteHere are the American League rankings, as far as I can tell so far:
ReplyDelete1. Tampa Bay
2. Detroit
3. Boston
4. Oakland
5. Seattle
6. California
7. Houston
And the wheels are officially off in Natstown. Strasburg, who is 1-3 on the season, gives up 3 runs in the top of the first, with help from a botched tag at second base and an error on a throw from third to second.
ReplyDeleteGiven that the Nats have scored exactly 2 runs in their last 27 innings, and that Ole Stras is likely to give up a few more before this day is over, I think the Cards can safely break out the brooms. This will be Washington's sixth consecutive loss at home.
I am very much afraid that for the Nats, last year was more like a fluke, and not the beginning of a dynasty. I fear that they saved Strasburg for playoff appearances that will never happen.
Plus, the Nats' next eight games are against Cincinnati and Atlanta. Given that they are 1-5 against those two teams this year, and that they are already trail Atlanta by five games, they could be way out of it by the time those two series are finished.
ReplyDeleteGeorge won the Presidents' race today, which makes me happy. I don't think Taft has won yet -- but, of course, Teddy didn't win for years.
ReplyDeleteEver since they rigged it to let Teddy win it has been all downhill for the team. Obviously at this point they have jinxed the team for the next 100 years.
DeleteI agree that it was a mistake to let Teddy win.
DeleteI also think the decision to bench Strasburg last year set up a huge jinx that should be almost impossible to overcome. If any team in western Kentucky, in any sport, announced that they were going to lower their chances of winning the title this year in the hopes that they could win multiple championships in future years, every fan would immediately recognize that as the sort of jinx that could last for decades.
Come on, Coco!
ReplyDeleteCOME ON, COCO!
DeleteDang. Coco.
DeleteA's leave bases loaded in the top of the sixth, as leadoff-hitter Coco Crisp flies out. Oakland trails at Boston, 6-3 ...
Delete6-4 ... Josh Donaldson singles in a run with two out in the top of the seventh, and now he just stole second ... Brandon Moss batting ...
DeleteMoss strikes out ... 6-4, seventh-inning stretch ...
Delete6-5 ... Chris Young leads off the top of the eighth with his second homer of the day!
DeleteMiddle of eighth ... 6-5 ...
DeleteHeck. Final: A's 5 at Red Sox 6.
DeleteI'm watching the A's and the O's, in a rematch of the ALCS from 1971, 1973, and 1974. There are over 31,000 folks at the Oakland-Alameda County Stadium (or whatever it's called these days), many of them brought out no doubt by a special reunion of the A's 1973 World's Champions. They are giving out Reggie Jackson bobbleheads today, and the A's radio team assures us that the pre-game ceremony was outstanding.
ReplyDeleteThe A's are losing 4-2, but they are rocking the gold jerseys from the 1970's, and that makes me very happy.
And now Reggie Jackson is talking to the A's radio guys. Reggie was the last guy introduced this afternoon.
ReplyDeleteReggie says he was "hell-bent for leather" in 1973 because he didn't get to play in the 1972 World Series.
ReplyDeleteReggie says he remembers getting eliminated by the Orioles in 1971, and sitting on the stadium steps for over an hour after the last game.
ReplyDeleteReggie remembers that the A's didn't even celebrate winning the ALCS in 1973 and 1974, because they were focused on winning the World Series.
ReplyDeleteReggie says that the current A's are really all about pitching.
ReplyDeleteReggie says that in the 1973 World Series, the A's were down 3-2 to the Mets, with the last two games in Oakland. He says that was a nerve-wracking time, but that the team stayed calm. "We felt like we were the best team on the field."
ReplyDeleteReggie says he didn't care all that much about the A's move from Kansas City to Oakland -- he was just a young guy trying to stick in the league.
ReplyDeleteReggie says that at the time, his home run in Game 7 of the 1973 World Series was the biggest moment of his career.
ReplyDeleteAt that's all from Reggie, who couldn't have been nicer and more gracious.
ReplyDeleteOakland's stadium is thought of, when it's ever thought of these days, as a dump. But few American stadiums have seen more important games in both football and baseball.
ReplyDeleteOf course, I felt the same way about Riverfront Stadium and Three Rivers Park. And those stadiums were obliterated without mercy.
I suppose that if, by some miracle, the A's and Raiders were still playing in this stadium in another 25 years, the stadium might be regarded as a landmark. Psychologically, the difference between a 50-year-old stadium and a 75-year-old stadium appears to be profound.
Wow! This was great, Go Heath! Thanks for the #GreenCollar love. In the '70s and for a few years in the '80s, Reggie Jackson felt to kid me like he was surely the best baseball player of his era and one of the half-dozen greats of all time.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, the now A's--after trailing 5-0 in the sixth inning--rallied at home against Baltimore yesterday, tying the game on a ninth-inning, two-run homer from activated-from-the-DL-that-day Yoenis Cespedes and then winning it on a head-first, sliding run in the 10th by Eric Sogard. It was a horrible series for Oakland, which lost the first three games, but, of course, that's a pretty freaking fantastic win.
ReplyDeleteThe A's, which have lost eight of their last 10, are 14-12 and 2.5 games behind Texas for second place in the American League West.
A series with the Angels opens in Oakland tonight.
ReplyDelete#GREENFREAKINGCOLLAR!
ReplyDeleteDown 7-2 to the Angels, the A's score four in the eighth to pull within a run. Then my main man, Yoenis Cespedes--just as he did Sunday night against Baltimore--ties the game in the ninth, this time on an RBI single. California retakes the lead in the 15th (!), but Oakland scrambles together a run in the bottom half (!!) to keep things rolling. In the 19th inning (!!!), our old friend Brandon Moss hits his second home run of the game, and Oakland prevails, 10-8.
"Joe Rudi, in 1972, was the last A's player to end a game with a home run in the 19th inning," notes Rick Eymer for the Associated Press.
Meanwhile, the Nats sent Stephen Strasburg to the mound in Atlanta -- but they lost 3-2 anyway, as Natstown could only make 2 runs from 10 hits.
ReplyDeleteGoing back to last season, this was Atlanta's 8th consecutive win over Natstown.
Oh, and Strasburg is now reporting tightness in his forearm.
ReplyDeleteTheir season has the feel of the Angels last year or the Phillies a few years back when there were big expectations but it took them too long to get going.
DeleteI think that's right. They overachieved last year, and this year they're coming back to earth.
Delete#GreenCollar.
ReplyDeleteSo, Yoenis Céspedes, my main man from Campechuela, who returned from the DL two games ago and since then has twice drove in the tying runs in the ninth inning of games Oakland ultimately won, last night ...
ReplyDelete-- doubled in a run in the fourth inning with the A's trailing the Angels, 1-0, and eventually came home on a wild pitch to give Oakland a 2-1 lead;
-- tripled in two runs in the fifth after Oakland had fallen back behind, 3-2, and
-- sacrificed in the eighth to produce the final, winning margin for the A's, 10-6.
"Céspedes is the son of Estela Milanés, a softball pitcher who appeared in the 2000 Summer Olympics for Cuba," says Wikipedia. Yoenis was a giant star in Cuban basesball, and, after he defected in 2011, he signed a huge contract with the A's last February. " Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus called Céspedes 'arguably the best all-around player to come out of Cuba in a generation.'"
The Nats were drilled by Atlanta last night, 8-1, and I no longer think they have a chance to win the NL East.
ReplyDeleteAh, young Go Heath ... keep the faith. I know this might be tough for you to fathom, but I've been watching baseball for more than four decades, and the Nationals definitely still have a chance to win their division.
ReplyDelete