Archive for the ‘Blog Entries’ Category

Whether your stay in Oakland last weeks, months or years, we hope your time across the bay from your evil twin, Matthew Thomas Cain, will come with much success… except for June 26-28.  May you go hitless and lose those 3 games by many, many runs.

A Tampa Bay World Series win would have been a remarkable story.  Now we have an entire off-season to sit and wait, hoping that the forces of good will be able to triumph over evil next year.  One thing is clear.  Next year’s World Series needs a better officiating crew.  I understand that umpiring is a thankless job and I have great admiration for anyone that is able to perform day after day knowing that the only recognition you are going to receive is when you screw something up.  So when it comes to the World Series, you would hope that an umpire would never be the center of attention.  Unfortunately, that was certainly not the case this year, as there were several blown calls that had a big impact on the game.  I’m not sitting here arguing that the calls cost the Rays the series.  There were calls blown on both sides.  I’m just saying that it would be nice to be able to focus on the game and not the missed balk or the missed (blatently obvious) tag on Jimmy Rollins ass or the inconsistent strike zones.  Can’t have that in the World Series.  Everyone makes mistakes.  I probably make anywhere from 2 to 100 errors per Rockiescast episode, but I’m not a professional getting paid big money to do a job.  I’m just a jerk with a microphone that thinks other people might want to hear what I have to say about baseball, beards, and tacos.  If I ever make it to the World Series of Podcasts, I promise I will do a better job than the umpires during this World Series.  I’m afraid I can’t say the same for Ted.  That guy sucks.

Really dodged a bullet there.  Special thanks to Matt Garza for keeping the Sox out and allowing me to watch the World Series without wanting to punch myself in the face.  Go Rays!!!

One New England team down, one to go.  Big Monday night match-up for the Broncos tonight at New England.  Be sure to check out our friends Rhys and Drew over at www.broncoscast.com today for a preview of the game and again later this week for a recap and their thoughts on when the game got completely out of reach for the Pats.  My guess is it’ll be when the Broncos take a 30-point lead on Jay Cutler’s 4th touchdown pass.  You heard it here first!

I still expect Tampa Bay to beat the Sox, but last night was a downer.  Is anyone else completely sickened by the idea of a potential Boston/Philadelphia World Series?

Ridiculous.  Absolutely ridiculous.  I was watching Sportscenter on Wednesday.  I guess that makes this whole thing my own fault considering what garbage it has become in recent years, but I at least can save some face based on the fact that my roommate was the one who turned it on.  Sure I should have left the room, but my couch is comfortable and I’m lazy.  So Sportscenter appears on my television and it happens.  A question, an astonishingly stupid question, was raised for discussion.  ”Which Joe had the better year as a manager: Torre or Maddon?”  What I expected to follow was the obvious answer, the ONLY answer, that is acceptable to that question.  ”That’s a stupid question and you clearly don’t know a damn thing about baseball!”  What actually followed was people pretending that there’s actually a comparison between the two.  Please allow me to break it down for you. I’ll start with what I can only imagine is the ESPN reasoning behind the discussion. I’ll follow that up with sound logic and reasoning.

The ESPN Approach:

Joe Torre - Torre was very successful in New York. He was always in the playoffs and won a the World Series a few times. Now his new team is in the playoffs. He must be a top manager in the league.

Joe Maddon - We don’t know much about Joe Maddon. We never got to watch his team because our channel only shows the Yankees and the Red Sox, but he made the playoffs so he must be a good manager, like Joe Torre.

Reality:

Joe Torre - I must start by saying that I do not dislike Joe Torre. I have nothing against him personally. I hate the Yankees, yet I never had a problem with Torre. Even when he was leading the evil empire to total domination I never disliked Joe Torre. He’s a very likeable guy, but just an average manager. How can you say he had a great year managing the Dodgers? Is it really that amazing that he was able to take a team that went 82-80 last year and improve them to 84-78 this year? An improvement by 2 in the win column is hardly a remarkable achievement, especially considering the poor level of play by the rest of the teams in the division. Even in a terrible division this season, the Dodgers needed to acquire one of the best hitters in baseball (and Casey Blake and Greg Maddux) in order to take the NL West. I doubt there is a rational person out there (that knows anything about baseball) that would argue against the fact that without Manny Ramirez, the Dodgers are a .500 team at absolute best. Without ManRam, the Dodgers finish with a worse record than they did last year! Great job, Joe!

Joe Maddon - The Tampa Bay DevilRays owned baseball’s worst record just last season. The 66-96 Devil Rays finished 30 games out of first place, behind the Red Sox. They did not acquire any great players this off-season or prior to the trade deadline. What they’ve got is a manager named Joe Maddon. So what can be expected from baseball’s worst team that failed to make any big personnel moves and has to play 22% of their games against the Red Sox and Yankees? Winning 80 games and finishing in 3rd place would be a remarkable improvement. So what do you call the AL East title and a 97-65 record? I’d say that’s downright silly.

Joe vs. Joe - Joe Torre’s team improved by 2 wins over last season. Joe Maddon’s improved by 31. Torre’s team needed to acquire Manny Ramirez, Greg Maddux, and Casey Blake during the season in order to take their weak division from the Diamondbacks. Maddon’s team acquired Chad Bradford to help keep them at the top of one of the best divisions in the league and ahead of the Red Sox. Joe Torre’s team finished with a record that was 13 games worse than Joe Maddon’s team despite the fact that Torre’s 4 highest paid players combine to make more than Maddon’s entire team. That is not even including the additions of Manny Ramirez and Greg Maddux, who are now 1 and 3 respectively on the team’s payroll and combined to make $30 mil this season (almost 70% of the DRays payroll).

I could go on, but I’m getting angry that I ever had to make these points because the “professionals” at ESPN thought it would be cute to compare two guys with the same name. I’d be willing to bet that if you asked Joe Torre the same question, he’d probably laugh thinking that you are just being nice and flattering him. He knows Joe Maddon had a better year than he did. That is in no way a knock on Torre. If you ask any manager in baseball, they’ll probably tell you that Joe Maddon had a better year than they did. Terry Francona will tell you Joe Maddon had a better year than Francona did. Charlie Manuel will tell you that Maddon had a better year than Manuel did. Willie Randolph will tell you that Maddon had a better half year than he did, but only because he didn’t have Guillermo Mota this season. Even Joe Maddon would tell you that Joe Maddon had a better year than Joe Maddon did. Figure that one out.

So to everyone at ESPN, particularly those involved with Sportscenter… C’mon guys. You’ve gone from being a good sports channel with a great show to the channel I try to avoid because when it’s on, my entire house suddenly smells like it’s filled with steaming piles of dog crap. I don’t know how you get the odor through my television, but c’mon guys!

Mike Wilbon is still cool.

On a recent journey to the Northeast, friend of the ‘cast Lauren from Denver stopped by the Baseball Hall of Fame.  There, she made a startling discovery: it turns out Bucky Harris adopted the Rockiescast mantra of “Confidence.” in 1924.  We can only assume that Harris secretly perfected the science of time travel, visited the future, learned of our mantra, and instituted it when he returned to his own time.  Of course, we have no proof to back up this assumption, but I think Occam’s Razor supports our conclusion.  The Boy Wonder pulled a fast one on all of us.  And all he needed was confidence…and a time machine.

When your season has been over for months, September baseball must get pretty boring. The Padres did a nice job on Wednesday afternoon of livening things up when they paraded their rookies around Coors Field in Hooters uniforms. For their troubles, each Padres rookie will receive a fat child-support check from Larry Wayne Jones.

Our playoff hopes are essentially gone.  We’ve dropped to 4th in the NL West.  Last season’s euphoria has officially been replaced with this season’s disappointment.  So why watch the Padres series at all?  I’ll give you 3 big reasons.

1. Dexter Fowler - Dex is very likely to play a big part in the future of the organization, if not next year than the following year.  He can hit, he can run and he can cover plenty of ground in the spacious Coors outfield.  We’ve already seen his first major league assist, gunning a runner down at third the other night.  I’d expect him to make at least one start against the Padres.  The opposing pitching may not be too good, but at least it’s an opportunity for Fowler to display his multiple talents on the big stage.

2. Greg Reynolds - Due to injuries and poor performance from our starts earlier in the year, we got a premature glance at what the #2 overall pick in the 2006 draft has to offer.  His stuff is good and he showed that he has potentail to be a successful starter in the bigs.  He’s already had his taste of the majors and has had the opportunity to make some adjustments and fine-tune his game down in Colorado Springs.  The nerves should be eased this time around and it’ll be interesting to see how he handles the no-pressure situation the Rockies now find themselves in.

3. Todd Helton - Todd is back!  Well, not quite.  Until he is hitting the ball and getting on base at an abnormally high percentage, Todd’s not really back.  I want to see Todd Helton, not some guy with the name Helton on his jersey that strikes out in his pinch hit at-bats.  Not that I’m mad at Todd for his performance.  Recovery from a back injury can be a long, slow process.  I’m just hoping that he’ll show signs of his old self by the end of this season.  If not, I’d at least like to see an indication that he’ll be ready to produce next season the way we all know he is capable of.

Billingsley vs Francis - While the Rockies may no longer be a realistic postseason contender, there are still a few things I would like to see as we close out this season.  One of those is consistent, strong performances by Jeff Francis.  I will feel much better about next year knowing that his early season struggles this year were mainly do to shoulder issues and that it is something we don’t really need to worry about anymore.  A good game against the likely NL West Champion Dodgers would go a long way to prove that point.  Billingsley is certainly no pushover and is going to be a very good pitcher for many years to come, but my money is on Francis in this one.  With essentially nothing left to lose, look for the Rockies to play as if a weight has been lifted off of their collective shoulders as they have fun out there trying to play spoiler. Rockies win.

Kershaw vs DLR - When the DLR is under control, he has some pretty nasty stuff and can put his team in a position to win.  When young Clayton Kershaw is locating his pitches, he can make hitters look silly.  It’s more likely that the DLR is on target than Kershaw at this point, but my gut is telling me Kershaw will take this one. Dodgers win.

Maddux vs Cook - Old Man Flabby finds himself in the familiar situation of trying to help his team get into the playoffs.  I expect this to bring out the best of what he’s got left.  He’ll be tough, but only for about 6 innings before Joe Torre has to go to the bullpen.  Oddly enough, the Cookie Monster is going up against a guy that looks like he can eat many more cookies than he can.  Cook hasn’t faced the Dodgers since June 4th, quite a long time for a division rival.  He dominated that game, but he was dominating most games at that point.  He hasn’t looked quite the same recently as he did back then.  I think he’ll pitch well enough to keep the Rockies in the game, but for the first time this season I think I have to go against Cook on this one.  I hate to do it and I hope I’m wrong, but I’m feeling the Dodgers in this one.

The Braves NL East dynasty is over.  If their recent failures to capture the division title aren’t enough proof, take a look at their 62-81 record.  It’s been a long time since anyone has been able to say this, but the Atlanta Braves are a bad baseball team… on a good day.  The timing of this series couldn’t be better, as the Rockies need to win three games.  They sit 6.5 games back in the division and need to pass both the Diamondbacks and the Dodgers to claim the division title.  Forget pitching match-ups.  PLEASE forget this last series.  Forget everything.  Just win.  That goes for you too, Padres and Giants.