Tuesday, June 06, 2006 |
Pickoff Moves
Today's Birthdays
Angel Moreno CAL b. 1955, played 1981-1982
Merv Rettenmund CAL b. 1943, played 1978-1980. Rettenmund played in six postseasons with three different teams. He was principally a pinch-hitting specialist in Cincinnati and California; with the Angels, he actually didn't do too badly in 1979, going 0-2 but getting a pair of walks. He retired after five plate appearances in 1980, and became a coach with the Angels.
Fresco Thompson BRO b. 1902, played 1931-1932, d. 1968-11-20
Max Venable CAL b. 1957, played 1989-1991
Jeff Williams LAN b. 1972, played 1999-2002
This Is A Test: Mets 4, Dodgers 1
If this has been an actual emergency... At some point the Dodgers had to meet an actual contending club from another division, and I figured the Mets would be as good a test of the Dodgers' mettle as anything. But from Jose Reyes' solo shot onward, this game belonged to the New York team, Dodger bats mostly failing to drive in any runs against a neophyte pitcher who yesterday earned his first win. It wasn't a hideous loss for Brett Tomko, though, as he managed to keep the Dodgers mostly in the game; just the slow racking up of zeros on the Dodgers' half of the boxscore that, save for Willy Aybar's solo homer, began to take on the symptoms of an inevitable loss.By the way, thanks for the tickets, Jay -- they were great seats. I'll get those pictures up later, but I'm not happy with too many of them; at least I figured out what went wrong, sort of, with the last batch at Angel Stadium. As one of my coworkers says about his Canon Rebel, my camera is smarter than I am.
The Blame Game: Devil Rays 4, Angels 0
According to the Rev, the blame for yesterday's loss rests squarely on the young shoulders of Mike Napoli, but I get the impression that's a huge oversimplification. Jeff Weaver walked a trio of baserunners, and with a speedy team like the Rays, that's not a good thing. It's not that he pitched badly so much as everything else kind of fell apart, principally the defense, which seems this year to be remarkably porous. Besides, if you're going to blame Napoli and his silver sombrero for the loss, why aren't you prepared to do the same for Kendry Morales and his 0-4 performance that stranded an equal number of baserunners (4) as Napoli? Just a bad game leaving a bad smell. They play another one today, I'm told.Roster Notes
- The Royals are working out a pre-draft deal with Luke Hochevar. Here's the amazing thing, though: in that same article, the Rockies think Long Beach State third baseman Evan Longoria would make a nice second baseman. Huh?
- Ned Colletti says he'll be involved in the planning for but not the details of the draft.
- I guess I missed this, but Joel Guzman was pulled from a May 28 game for failing to hustle; the cause was Matt Kemp's promotion to Los Angeles over him.
- Speaking of today's Rule 4 Draft: Trade draft picks and/or draftees? Sure, why not?
- More on the draft: Jim Callis ($$) projects the Dodgers will take prep lefty Kyle Drabek; Drabek supposedly comes with off-field and makeup concerns, which means he likes to race Ferraris into telephone poles, or he's gay. Or who knows. Callis also likes the Dodgers to pick up Juco righty Bryan Morris with the 26th overall pick, and Tennesee righty Sean Watson with the 31st. Callis figures the Angels will go with another pitching talent, high school righty Colton Willems.
Update: Callis in his draft-day blog says the Dodgers are now focusing on juco righty Bryan Morris instead of Drabek.
- John Sickels also has NL West mock drafts and AL West mock drafts up; it appears that his Angels "scouting director" left the draft early, and in any case selected prepster 3B Chris Marrero with the team's first pick. A head-scratcher.
- And finally, here's the link for MLB.com's draft-day coverage. I doubt I'll follow it much after the first round, since this is expected to be such a lousy year.
: 6/06/2006 06:08:00 PMNewer› ‹Older
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