6-4-2 — an Angels/Dodgers double play blog

Great Minds With But A Similar Thought

Do past experiences color reactions in the present? You bet, and in parallel:

• Matt Welch, following Rick Monday's bagging on Adam Dunn for striking out too much: why, he was a whiffer himself!

  ...while I was listening to the bag-eyed ghoul go on and on about Dunn's allegedly disastrous ponchados in that sing-songy wannabe Scully voice, I began remembering the professional ball of my youth, and ... well, didn't Rick Monday actually strike out all the damned time, too?

  Did he ever. Monday, whose career high in RBI was 77, is 34th all-time in career strikeouts, with 1,513. He struck out so damned much that he finished in the league top 10 three different seasons in which he didn't even have 400 at-bats. On Dunn's last day in L.A., when Monday was going off on him, the Cincinatti slugger had 106 strikeouts in 336 at-bats. Monday, in 1978, had 100 in just 342.

• And of a sudden, Jon discovers Jim Tracy's Achilles Heel as a player, RISP:

  Jim Tracy's career statistics with runners in scoring position: .267 on-base percentage, .104 slugging percentage. He was 5 for 48 with 10 RBI, 11 walks and 20 strikeouts. So you can understand why he might be sensitive.

  With the bases empty, Tracy had a .393 on-base percentage and .520 slugging percentage.

  Hee Seop Choi hits all right - he hits too close to home.

The End Of KMOX And The Coming Mandatory XM Purchase

Sean observes the end of the 50-year agreement between KMOX and the Cardinals. The KMOX story he links to notes that the station replacing KMOX, KTRS, is not a 50,000 watt station on a clear channel heard clear into Illinois. The Cards will address this by simulcasting from WSMI, a 50,000 watt station in Litchfield, Illinois, but it occurred to me that they might be better served by decreasing the footprint of their "free" service and force people to pay for XM. I would have to imagine that's a better model -- essentially satellite TV for the radio. As with some of the more notably fan-hostile moves going on across baseball (e.g., the proposed Yankee Stadium's decreased capacity relative to the current one, driving already ridiculously high ticket prices even further up), one wonders how long it will take baseball's overlords to figure it out. I'm already sorry I mentioned it.

Riding With The King

King Felix, that is, Felix Hernandez, who made his major league debut, going five innings, striking out four, and surrendering a lone earned run in a 3-1 loss to Detroit. Was he good? Oh, yes:

Undefined ratios are thought to be unspeakable for pitchers. The kind of outing that can send a pitcher straight down to the minors, no questions asked. Or, in the case of Felix Hernandez, they can be a sign of mound dominance.

...

Yesterday, Hernandez kept [his percentage of flyball outs] at zero. His groundball-to-flyball ratio? Undefined, with ten ground ball outs and not one ball in the air. In fact, not once yesterday did Felix allow a flyball, even one that dropped for a hit. After an antsy beginning, Hernandez calmed, and dominated the Tigers the rest of the way. An avid box score reader seeing four strikeouts won't see that, but those of us that saw weak grounder after weak grounder being caused by Felix's arsenal (a 94-97 FB and two great breaking pitches) watched it happen.

... avoiding injury is pretty important too. Hernandez was delegated to the bullpen in Tacoma for five outings this year following a battle with shoulder soreness, an injury King Felix appears to be past. Still, my worries led me to Will Carroll, who said of the 19 year old's delivery, "I have some concerns about his delivery. He seems unbalanced, doesn't use his legs well, and ends by falling to third. He has an incredible arm and sometimes, you just leave things as is and hope it doesn't backfire. I'd be reluctant to change much."

Let's just hope nothing changes, from the delivery, to the stuff, to the outcome. Instead, in the words of Dave Cameron, "All Hail the King. Long Live the King."

Bonds: Ha-Ha, Only Kidding About That "Done For The Year" Thing

F you, Barry.

Abysmal

The Rockies won their first consecutive road games of the year by beating the Giants Wednesday, 3-2. Gad.

That's Mister Personality To You, Bub

Via BTF, it seems Jay Jaffe's mancrush is at his usual fun-'n-games again:

Gary Sheffield has news for Yankee fans: Derek Jeter ain't the leader of this pack. "I know who the leader is on the team," Sheffield said in an explosive New York magazine interview set to hit newsstands Monday.

"I ain't going to say who it is, but I know who it is. I know who the team feeds off. I know who the opposing team comes in knowing they have to defend to stop the Yankees."

Sheffield, who has a reputation for being prickly and outspoken, doesn't stop there.

The 17-year veteran blasts the media for hyping team captain Jeter and third baseman Alex Rodriguez over every other player on the team - and says the Yankees lack family values, chemistry and trust. "Why shouldn't I tell the truth?" Sheffield told writer Stephen Rodrick. "I ain't trying to get no Pepsi commercial."

Sheffield never mentions Jeter and A-Rod by name, but he told New York the media portrays the two superstars "in a positive light and everyone else is garbage."

He says other players look at the Yankees as a first-class organization, but he believes the team lacks respect for family.

"It's not a family-oriented team. In L.A., wives can fly on the plane; with the Yankees they can't," the former Dodger said. "With other teams, the wives always have functions to bring them together. Not here."

Aw, my heart breaks, Gary. Maybe they'll give you one of those little bags of peanuts as a consolation.