Cleveland bullies dodge a gift win, and White Sox Guillen balks at nothing to harangue the ump who ran him and Mark Buehrle.
Ozzie Guillen can expect a visit from the Fine Fairy after unloading a postgame rant on umpire Joe West, who ejected him in the White Sox's 5-4 win over Cleveland Wednesday. West later ran Chicago starter Mark Buehrle out of the game after Buehrle's reaction to his second balk call.
Cleveland, Ohio -- Maybe the Indians should put some old comic books in the visitors clubhouse whenever the White Sox come calling. You know the kind, the ones with the "Charles-Atlas-can-make-you-a-he-man" ads on the inside back flap.
At least that might help allay some of the concerns expressed by Chicago Tribune writer Mark Gonzales in the wake of this recent series, even though the Pale Hose took two of three from the Tribe.
The White Sox can hold their own against bullies this season.
It's the weaklings that have kicked sand in their faces and made their performance more maddening.
"Chalk it up to the 2010 White Sox, I guess," said A.J. Pierzynski, one of several Sox players who weren't aware that the Sox were 14-14 against teams with records of .500 or better but 6-12 against teams with losing records.
Reliever Scott Linebrink said he and teammate John Danks discussed the dangers of playing young sub-.500 teams.
"Teams like these sometimes are the most dangerous," Linebrink said. "They've got nothing to lose. They're not playing for anything, and you can tell they're playing relaxed, swinging the bats -- I think the Indians, Orioles. Some teams already are packing it in. They've got some good young players and making the most of their opportunities, and that's a dangerous combination."
Starting Blocks has a confession: We're just a day away from a long weekend, so we've got nothing to lose. Just like the Tribe, we're relaxed, with nothing to play for.
Uh, except our job. Hel-LO!
WordYou knew it was going to be fun reading what manager Ozzie Guillen would be telling the Chicago papers after he and starting pitcher Mark Buehrle were ejected by umpire over a pair of admittedly questionable balks.
He didn't disappoint. The down side is that "balk" is about the only four-letter word in his diatribe Starting Blocks can use on a site that can be accessed by children. Accordingly, we'll substitute where necessary in the excerpt from Chicago Sun-Times writer Joe Cowley's account of Guillen's post-game rant.
After Buehrle's first balk, Guillen went out there to protect his pitcher and was tossed. An inning later, Buehrle – who has one of the more lethal pick-off moves in the game – was called for another balk by (umpire Joe) West, and after the lefty dropped his glove in disbelief of the call, he was tossed. Not before giving West a piece of his mind, and having to be restrained by coach Joey Cora and catcher A.J. Pierzynski.
The explanations from all parties afterwards?
Guillen on why West tossed him: "Because he's a (bleeping bleep), that's what he is. I just went out to ask him . . . I wasn't asking about the balk because you're not allowed, anytime you go out there to ask about balk or whatever. The thing I went out to ask him about was why he was embarrassing Buehrle. I'm not going out to argue about the balk because the rule, but I went out to ask him why he's embarrassing Buehrle and he give me one of this [dismissing him with his hands]. When you're a professional and you have to respect the managers, the way we're supposed to respect the umpires, they are supposed to respect back. . . . Sometimes he thinks (bleeping) people pay to watch him (bleeping) umpire. He's the type of guy that wants to control the game, it's good for the game, and to me one of the best umpires in the game, no doubt. But in the meanwhile, those years are on his shoulders and kind of heavy and showing people who he is. I deserve respect and the players here deserve respect here, too. When you tell the manager to get the (bleep) off the field, I don't think that's a good way to handle situations. No matter what you say, what you do, how long you talk here, Major League Baseball doesn't do (bleep) for anything. I'll be waiting for my fine, get 'em the next day."
Buehrle's side: "I did the same move the toss right before that and [West] didn't call a balk on it. I think he's too worried about promoting his CD ("Blue Cowboy"). and I think he likes seeing his name in the papers a little bit too much instead of worrying about the rules. I'd like to find out what he called a balk on me. Your knee can cross over the rubber. I know your foot can't and I didn't do that. I watched the replays trying to see what it was called a balk and I have still yet to see what I did."
And West on Guillen claiming the umpire was embarrassing Buehrle: "He didn't say that to me. I don't know what he's talking about. Ozzie came out because Buehrle was making gestures on the mound that could have got him kicked out so he was protecting Buehrle, that's all he was doing. I don't have a problem with that. . . . [Buehrle] threw his glove. There wasn't that much to it, was there?"
Guess (bleeping) not.
See yaGiven the Indians' history in the last few years, here's what Lewie Pollis does for bleacherreport.com: He writes a weekly account of which Tribe player is most likely to be dangled as trade bait.
This week's installment: pitcher Mitch Talbot, he of the 6-3 record and 3.73 ERA. Talbot is young – 26 right now – and as a rookie, working under an attractive (i.e. cheap) contract to any interested team, Pollis opined. And someone will be interested, just for those numbers. But it's not all sweetness and light. To Pollis, Talbot is as expendable as a PT boat.
(Consider that a Memorial Day weekend reference to the great John Wayne/Robert Montgomery war movie about PT boats, "They Were Expendable," which was aired by Turner Classic Movies last night and probably will show up three or four more times on various networks before the holiday is over.)
He isn't nearly as good as he looks.
His walk rate is ugly--3.6 BB/9--but his strikeout rate--also 3.6 K/9--is even worse.
You read that right. Talbot is just as likely to walk an opposing hitter as he is to strike him out. . . . So how does someone with a 5.23 FIP post an ERA a run-and-a-half lower? The answer lies in his Batting Average on Balls in Play.
If you've never heard of BABIP (also known as "hit rate,") it's exactly what it sounds like: the measure of how often opposing batters reach base when the ball is hit somewhere within the confines of the baseball diamond. It's calculated the same way as a pitcher's batting average-against, but doesn't include at-bats ending in strikeouts, walks, or home runs.
The league average hit rate is right around .300. . . . Talbot's current BABIP is .235. In other words, opposing hitters have been roughly 21 percent less likely to have their batted balls land for hits against Talbot than against other pitchers.
Now, I think there's merit to the argument that some pitchers have low hit rates because they are good at inducing weak contact. But no one is this good.
This kind of luck isn't unprecedented, but it's been eight years since any pitcher was able to sustain this kind of luck over a full season. In 2002, Braves southpaw Damian Moss overcame his poor peripherals (5.6 K/9, 4.5 BB/9) and found success (12-6, 3.42 ERA) thanks to a .234 BABIP.
Moss isn't someone you'd be proud to be compared to. In 2003, when his hit rate increased to a still-lucky .292 (so much for having the skill to induce weak contact), his ERA ballooned to a nauseating 5.16.
By May 2004 -- just 19 months after his superficial statistics made him look like an ace -- he was out of the majors for good.
Geez, until then, Starting Blocks thought Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke was the most pessimistic man on earth.
A little perspectiveScott Raab is a Cleveland-born writer. Grew up here and graduated from Cleveland State University. He writes for Esquire magazine, and has published his first book, "Real Hollywood Stories: Inside the Minds of 22 Celebrities, with one A-List Writer."
He's also a die-hard Tribe fan with a memory he'd just as soon purge. It involves a once-promising Indians first-baseman named Tony Horton, who hit 27 home runs for the Tribe in 1969 and wanted, but didn't get, a raise in 1970.
Raab, who will be 58 this year, spent most of his teenaged fan wrath on Horton. But Horton missed the pinnacle of Raab's heckling career. He was in a hospital bed, trying to recover from slitting his wrists after being pulled from the nightcap of a twi-night doubleheader in August 1970.
His essay, published on deadspin.com, is part of a collection called "Top of the Order: 25 Writers Pick Their Favorite Baseball Player of All Time."
From The Plain DealerOne of the worst parts of being a devoted fan of any crappy team, in any sport, is the sense that you're truly only rooting for the laundry, that the players in the uniform bearing the name of your town don't care half as much as you do. Nor should they. They may be men playing a boy's game, but they're also men at work at a job defined by its naked difficulty. Their every act is literally numbered, and those numbers -- and, in a fan's eyes, the players themselves -- are public property. Ultimately, though, they owe us nothing beyond their best effort.
And us? I don't know that fans owe players much of anything. Then again, I'm from Cleveland: I've been suffering all my life. I always figured that since I bought my tickets with my mother's hard-earned money, I was entitled to do pretty much whatever I wanted at the games. And though I realize now how wrong I was, that's merely an intellectual construct that still gets swept away by the flood of feeling that defines my fandom. If you put me, Jose Mesa, and John Elway in a room with a loaded gun, I'm the only one who's walking out alive.
But I do know what I owe Tony Horton, who always gave the Indians his best and paid way too high a price:
I'm sorry, pal.
Dennis Manoloff covered Wednesday's 5-4 loss to the White Sox, and talked to manager Manny Acta afterwards. If baseball were to give out Homer Simpson D'oh! Awards, Acta would qualify for this one:
"It's disappointing because the game plan for every team, every day, is to get the other starter out and get to the guys in the middle," Acta said. "They're in the middle for a reason. You need to attack those guys. Buehrle was out of the game early and we couldn't take advantage. It came back to bite us."
D-man covered Jason Donald's continued emergence as shortstop for the Tribe in the Indians Insider column.
And finally, Bill Livingston talked to beloved former Indians shortstop Omar Vizquel to put his career in Cleveland in baseball into perspective.