Another week of baseball is in the books and here are the five most exciting games of the past seven days. date game stars 06-08 Diamondbacks @ Pirates *** box score 06-10 Reds @ Giants ** box score 06-06 Nationals @ Giants ** box score 06-06 Blue Jays @ Royals ** box score 06-11 Rays […]

Fifty years ago today, the Cleveland Indians swept a doubleheader from the Kansas City A’s, winning 7-3 and 4-3, respectively. In and of itself, that wasn’t terribly significant. After all, the A’s were awful, and Cleveland had swept a pair of doubleheaders against them the year before. But this one had a lasting importance for […]

Let’s get straight to the voting results. Indians victories Percentage Fewer than 72 1.4% 72-79 23.6% 80-86 48.6% 87-92 23.6% More than 92 1.4% One cool thing about the results is their perfect symmetry. The exact same (tiny) number of votes came in for the two extremes, and an equal number were cast for the […]

Cubs 4, Phillies 3: Ryan Madson had been gold in save situations, but came up pyrite last night: Geovany Soto hit a game-tying homer off him in the ninth. Then in the 11th, Tyler Colvin scored from second when Placido Polanco threw away what would have been the third out of the inning. Colvin actually thought he had a homer […]

My last two posts here have been dedicated to the location of pitches to different regions of the strike zone. Today, I’d like to see where some pitchers (minimum 150 pitches) are locating in 2011 (refer back to last week’s post for some league averages). First, a common spot for put-away breaking balls: Low and […]

Yesterday, sad news broke in the baseball world: Former Tigers outfielder Jim Northrup died at age 71 of Alzheimer’s disease. Though he was no one’s idea of a Hall of Famer and never an All-Star, he did have a rather impressive career. He played a key role for the 1968 world champion Tigers, and helped […]

The 1986 season looked like it might be a historic one for Wade Boggs. He entered the year widely considered the best pure hitter in the game. He’d won batting titles in two of the previous three years—and this was back when batting average was still the undisputed king of how the public gauged a […]

Jose Pagan died on Tuesday at the age of 76, a victim of Alzheimer‘s disease. As someone who has long cherished the 1971 Pirates, it always hits me hard when I hear that a member of that team has left us. First, there was Roberto Clemente and that awful plane crash on New Year‘s Eve, […]

Red Sox 11, Yankees 6: The Bosox once again jump all over the Yankees, this time giving A.J. Burnett his worst night of the year. Notably, no Red Sox players were plunked in this one — And David Ortiz hit another homer — so I’m sure the tabloids that were calling for retribution for the […]

Sometimes, when a star player goes down with an injury, a rookie or otherwise obscure substitute steps in and saves the day. Wally Pipp’s headache provided Lou Gehrig’s opportunity. When one door closes, so they say, another opens. Sometimes. But not always. And apparently not, at least so far, in San Francisco as the 2011 […]