Rest of Baseball 2010

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

Phreak just got retweeted by Jayson Stark and has now been published to a bigger audience than MDS ever has.

[QB Eagles]

The Twins are beating the Royals 19-0... in a game started by Greinke.

Damn and I thought the Phils did a job on Jimenez.

[QB Eagles]

The Twins are beating the Royals 19-0... in a game started by Greinke.

Damn and I thought the Phils did a job on Jimenez.

I spoke too soon, the Royals are kicking off a 9th inning comeback against some reliever pitching in his third career game. 19-1.

[LBIggle]

so now the rays and the rockies got their first no-hitters in their history this year.. 

[ice grillin you]

and the mets havent

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

Reigning NL ROY tears meniscus giving Wes Helms a pie to the face

I love feel-good stories.

[smeags]

wow

[PhillyGirl]

 They're bringing in an ambulance for Rox closer Huston Street, hit apparently in the midsection by an Ian Stewart line drive during BP

[PhillyPhreak54]

Rox

lol..that may be the worst ever.

[PhillyGirl]

that was supposed to be a quote, sorry....

And I know 3 Rockies fans and that's what they call them.

[Don Ho]

Rox has a whole other meaning in these parts:

[Rome]

-10  points to Ho for not posting a photo of a surfer chick wearing a Roxy bikini.

[ice grillin you]

yet another reason joe pos is the best.....what a great entry

Meche-ing with Sasquatch
Posted: July 27th, 2010 | Filed under: Baseball | 23 Comments »

It's unbecoming to just re-run an old blog post ... but really I cannot add much to this. You may have heard (but probably not) that Kansas City Royals starter Gil Meche will have shoulder surgery and is out for the season.

Meche had been rumored to be involved in potentially the most tragic baseball trade in the history of the world, a trade that might have involved Ollie Perez, Jeff Francoeur, Jose Guillen and Kyle Farnsworth. You should have to get a special dispensation from the Pope before making a trade involving all those guys.

Now, obviously, that won't happen. Meche is gone for the year and while approaching 32 with another year at $12 million left on his $55 million contract ... well, there's no telling where this will go. He has not been himself since the middle of last year. You usually cannot pinpoint disasters to one specific moment in time, but in this case you can pretty much pinpoint Meche's moment to the time he threw 132 pitches in a shutout against Arizona. Right after that game, Meche's arm began to feel dead. He insisted — INSISTED — that the 132 pitches had nothing to do with the deadness of his arm. But, he had two dreadful starts, then took a couple of extra days off to deal with it. Tendinitis? Muscle fatigue? He then returned to pitch against Minnesota in a game where everyone said he would be watched closely and kept on a conservative pitch count.

What followed was epic. Well, here's the material stuff from the blog post I wrote on July 2nd, one day after that start. The post was called "Stupid Is ..."

* * *

All of which takes us back to Wednesday. Gil Meche was pitching, and you may or may not know that Meche has been battling with a balky back and a dead arm this year. Even so, he has made 17 starts — he leads the American League in starts — because he has become what baseball people like to call a warrior.

Unfortunately, the warrior had been terrible his previous two outings — terrible, in fact, ever since (then Royals manager) Trey Hillman left him in to throw 132 pitches in a shutout against Arizona. I want to make clear here that this is NOT about pitch counts. Bill James and I wrote some about pitch counts already, and we both said that we are skeptical about the way teams use pitch counts now and we're open to Nolan Ryan's plan to extend pitchers. You could argue — pretty persuasively, I imagine — that having a pitcher who has been dealing with a stiff back throw 132 pitch might not be the wisest move ever. But hey, Meche is a grown-up, he insisted on staying in there, he finished the job, I would not second guess it.

BUT then that familiar pattern emerged one more time. Meche struggled badly his next start. And he struggled badly again his next time out. His velocity was down. He felt lousy on the mound. The Royals said he had a bit of "dead arm," which I'm pretty sure is not a modern medical term. To be blunt, that sounds like something John McGraw would have said. You had to wonder if the Royals planned to treat the "dead arm" with leeches and by drowning a witch.

But OK, hey, dead arm, and Meche (who also downplayed things — guy's a WARRIOR) said that maybe there was a little "built up tendinitis" and some "fatigue." He decided to take a couple of days off — not even pick up a baseball. Sounded like a wise thing to do. At first, there was some doubt if he would even make his Wednesday start, and frankly I have NO IDEA why the Royals would even let him make his Wednesday start. Skip a start, make sure he's OK, I mean it's not like the Royals are in the heat of a pennant race here.

But OK, Meche said he felt good after his two days off. And as Hillman said: "He'll know with his experience." Meche said he wanted to go Wednesday ... OK, let him go. "No reservations," Trey Hillman said. Pitching coach Bob McClure, a sensible soul, was a bit more cautious.

"I would say we'll probably monitor how many pitches we're going to let him throw," McClure said.

Well, sure. Of course. I mean, you wouldn't let a guy with a dead arm and bad back throw a lot of pitches. That's OBVIOUS, no? Meche went out and, good to see, his stuff looked pretty good. He was throwing in the low-to-mid 90s again. His curveball looked pretty sharp. He did walk five guys in five innings, and he did labor, and he did throw 99 pitches in those five innings which I think is probably a few more than you would want him to throw. But hey, he only allowed one earned run and the Royals were in the game and Meche seemed to be back on track ... Mission accomplished.

Only then ... Gil Meche walked out the mound to start the sixth inning.

I wanted to rub my eyes, you know, the way they do in the movies when they see a ghost or really beautiful woman. I looked back at my computer — yep, he'd thrown 99 pitches. I retraced my steps: Yes, Meche did say he had a dead arm, yes there was some stiff back issues, yes everyone said the Royals were going to be cautious, yes, check ... and then I looked back on the screen and there was Meche, or at least some guy with Meche's name on his jersey, on the mound. What? Gil Meche has two-and-a-half years left on his $55 million contract. Gil Meche was the Royals opening day starter. Gil Meche is absolutely one of the critical players if the Royals are EVER going to dig out of this hole ...

It couldn't be. Nobody would send Gil Meche out there. Nobody would do that. Nobody would do that. Nobody would do ...

On the second pitch of the inning (101st pitch overall) Carlos Gomez cracked a vicious double down the left-field line. Well, in a way, that was good. Carlos Gomez does not hit many vicious doubles ... surely now Hillman would come and take Meche out and end this preposterous ...

No. Meche stayed out there. He struck out Nick Punto. He got Denard Span to fly out on the first pitch of an at-bat (yay Denard!). So Meche had 105 pitches and might get out of this without it being a total disaster.

No sir. Matt Tolbert then worked Meche for an eight-pitch at-bat which led to a walk. Meche was now up to 113 pitches with two of the best lefty hitters in the American League — Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau — coming up. Well, yes, that was a disaster, but at least now Meche would get taken out of the game and ...

No. Meche stayed in to face Joe Mauer. It leads to one of the great questions of philosophy: At what point does idiotic become criminal? Jamie Quirk, who was color commentator on television, talked about how Meche wanted to stay out there. Well OF COURSE Meche wanted to stay out there, but that's why you have a MANAGER, someone who MANAGES to walk out to the mound and say, "Great effort Gil, but you know, I had to be insane to let you pitch the sixth inning in the first place, I have to get you out of here now."

But Meche stayed out there. He got ahead of Mauer 0-2, then threw a ball, then Mauer singled, scoring a run. Meche was up to 117 pitches now. Hillman finally went to the mound. We had driven past the lunacy exit about four miles back ... we were now in lawsuit territory. Could there be any explanation — ANY explanation — for pitching your wounded Opening Day starter 117 pitches?

Wait for it.

No, wait for it.

Hillman walked back to the dugout and left Meche in the game to face Morneau.

I don't know. Maybe at some point, when you're SO FAR down the wrong road, you just go: "What the hell, might as well keep going and hope we run into something good." Maybe it would have been more damaging to have Meche throw 117 pitches and then pull him before the inning was done. I don't know. I really don't know. We are in such la-la land here, there can be no logical questions ... these are like "How would you wash a unicorn?" questions. I do know that Meche threw four more pitches and did get Morneau to fly out to right.

And the final tally: Gil Meche, who four days earlier was not sure he was going to start, who three days earlier was going to be watched closely, who one day earlier was talking about how he hoped he had his velocity back ... threw 121 pitches. The explanation afterward seemed to be that Meche wanted to ... and his stuff was good. Or something.

* * *

Postscript: Since that day, Gil Meche is 2-6, 7.18 ERA, 51 walks, 49 strikeouts, 17 home runs and one season-ending shoulder surgery. Trey Hillman has been fired. And the Royals ... well, there's just not a whole lot to add, is there?

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

Anyone else bother to mention that Strasburg is "doubtful" to make his next scheduled start, which I believe happens to be against the Phillies?

That is good news - although a Hamels/Strasburg matchup would have been good TV.

[rjs246]

I'm gonna be at that game and Strasburg's absence can suck it.