Baseball headlines from newspapers around the Nation:
  

FORMER MLB PITCHER ROB DIBBLE TELLS ACTOR MICHAEL DOUGLAS TO "MAN UP" OVER RECENT CANCER DIAGNOSIS
Dibble Also Demands Toys Be Removed From Local Children’s Hospital Ward

NEW TEXAS RANGERS OWNER NOLAN RYAN SAYS MINOR LEAGUE STARTERS WILL BE ON STRICT PITCHING COUNTS
“Once They Throw 200 Pitches in a Game, They’re Out”, Stated the Former Big League Fireballer

PITTSBURGH PIRATES PURCHASED BY JAPANESE INTERNATIONAL BANKING GROUP
Team to be Renamed “Hello Kitty Pirates”, Manager(s) Required to Commit Suicide After Each Loss

WASHINGTON NATIONALS OUTFIELDER NYJER MORGAN THREATENS TO BREAK EVEN MORE RULES
Morgan Stated He Will Initially Focus on the Golden Rule, Then “Bitch Slap All Seven of Those Ten Commandments”

SPORTS DIGEST: PITTSBURGH PIRATES MANAGER JOHN RUSSELL ABRUPTLY RESIGNS
Bucs’ Skipper Plans to Immediately Start a Family, Then Announce His Intention to Spend More Time With Them

There is a 2010 echo in Joshua Prager’s brilliant book “The Echoing Green”, which details the amazing history of the New York Giants' 1951 season and Manager Leo Durocher’s outrageous decision to steal the opposition's pitching signs. No, the San Francisco Giants have not set up a Wollensak telescope in the center field wall at AT&T Park to relay the visiting catchers’ signs to Giants hitters. At least, not yet.

The resonance 2010 shares with 1951 are the odds both Giant teams faced at about mid-season. On July 5, 1951, Durocher’s New York Giants were 7 games behind the first place Brooklyn Dodgers in the race for the National League pennant, with a 42-35 record; on July 5, 2010, Bruce Bochy’s San Francisco Giants were 7 games behind the San Diego Padres, in 4th place with a 42-40 record.

After July 5th in their respective seasons, the two Giants teams took very different paths to turn their fortunes around. On July 20, 1951, the NY Giants installed an elaborate system at the Polo Grounds to steal the visiting catchers' signs to their pitchers with a telescope and electronic buzzer system; by the end of July 2010, the SF Giants had picked up a number of players discarded by other teams to beef up their inadequate offense and injury-riddled bullpen.

One team made it to the World Series, and one team is still riding an inside out rollercoaster and fighting for all it’s worth to make the National League playoffs.

Going into a three game home set last weekend against National League West shoe scrapers the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Giants were expected, expected, to take all three games. Instead, they were outscored 24-12 and only managed to salvage a win in Sunday’s finale. Monday was the start of a three game home series with the Colorado Rockies, who appeared to be doing that Rockies late season surging thing they’ve been doing the last several years.

Game one against the Rockies on Monday August 30, 2010, will likely go down in San Francisco Giants history as the most brutal loss of 2010. The base-on-balls-addicted Jonathan Sanchez threw a beautiful game, going into the top of the 9th inning with a 1-0 lead after giving up only two walks. Champagne was being unpacked and plans for a parade down Market Street were being worked out when Manager Bochy took Sanchez out of the game with a runner on first and no outs. Closer Brian Wilson came in and the next Colorado batter hit a triple, with an errant relay throw going into a camera well, and it was 2-1 Rockies. At the end of the 9th inning, it was also 2-1 Rockies.

In what has already become a legendary replay, newly minted Giants right fielder Cody Ross heard Carlos Gonzalez’s bat split apart when it met a Wilson 96 MPH fastball, and instinctively took two steps in to catch what he knew would be a limp fly ball just over the infield. But Gonzalez managed to put good wood on the pitch before it turned into split wood, and the ball sailed over Ross’ head and went to the wall. Pitcher Brian Wilson did not get himself into position to back the play up, so after a desperate throw by relay man Freddie Sanchez to get Gonzalez at third hit the runner in the back, it rolled into the dugout.

Throughout the Bay Area, grown men shook their heads in disbelief and uncharacteristically ordered a third glass of chardonnay, small children threw their teddy bears against the wall and wailed, and stay-at-home moms made the decision to flirt with the UPS man to try and bring some meaning to their lives. Thank you Cody Ross and Brian Wilson.

Oh by the way, the Giants took the next two games from the Rockies, including Tim Lincecum’s gem on Wednesday September 1st: 8 innings pitched, 1 run, 1 walk, 9 strikeouts. Thanks to San Diego doing what I said they would not do (lose six or eight in a row), the relentless San Francisco Giants are now 74-60, in second place a mere three games behind the Padres, and a really mere 1½ games behind the Phillies in the Wild Card.

What about the rest of September? In the words of the great Yogi Berra, attending a recent dog show at Madison Square Garden, “Bring it on bitches…”.

Were there enough pop culture cross references to catch your eye? Good, now let’s tear off a thick slice of double bubble, sit down on a raw pine plank, and talk some Tim Lincecum.

In the past month, dozens of baseball broadcasters have been struggling to explain why the two-time Cy Young award winner can no longer automatically be called an “ace”. Hundreds of sports writers are trying to figure out what happened to Tim Lincecum’s fast ball. Thousands of sports talk radio callers have offered loud theories to explain why Lincecum is 11-8 with a 3.72 ERA.

And one baseball player on the San Francisco Giants Baseball team is struggling with an elusive demon that has robbed him of his confidence and his ability to throw a baseball ninety-six miles per hour.

What, do I have some dramatic insightful theory, some magical answer, the truth behind the lies behind the truth? Well, actually, yes I do. But first, let’s take a clinical look at Tim Lincecum’s 2010 month by month and cumulative pitching records to date:

April 2010: 4-0  1.27        4-0  1.27

May 2010: 1-2  4.95         5-2  3.14

June 2010: 3-1  3.09       8-3  3.13

July 2010:  3-1  3.02       11-4  3.10

August 2010: 0-4  8.38  11-8  3.72

As Andy Williams put it so succinctly during his 1973 Christmas Special, do you see what I see? Despite legions of professional and amateur observers who claim that “Tim hasn’t been right ever since Spring Training”, as of July 30th he was 11-4 with a 3.10 ERA. Those are definitely the numbers of a two time Cy Young Award winning pitcher.

In fact, this is what the first four months of Lincecum’s season would have projected out to for the entire 2010 season compared to his 2009 record:

2010:  17-6  3.10  228 SO (proj.)
2009:  15-7  2.48  261 SO

Sure, the ERA is higher, but still outstanding; and, two more wins and one less loss compared to his 2009 Cy Young season. And, to date, Lincecum is 3rd in the National League with 173 strikeouts.

But then there’s the ugly 0-4 August, and we’re back to “what’s going on with Tim?”

During a June 16, 2010, inter-league game with the Baltimore Orioles, Miguel Tejada scorched a liner up the middle that hit off the back of Lincecum’s right shoulder, i.e., his pitching arm. He stayed in the game, and got the win, but something changed that day. Lincecum was not injured and did not miss a start, but in watching his subsequent starts I noticed he would increasingly flinch after throwing his pitches— at first only when a batter connected with a pitch, but more and more it happened whenever any batter took a swing, and now it’s virtually every time he throws a pitch.

I think it took a number of starts for the subtle physical and mental stresses of that line drive to begin to seriously erode Lincecum’s pitching mechanics, but it appears the cumulative effects all came together in the month of August.

If these observations are correct, how long will it last, and what can Lincecum do? I have no freaking idea— the professional coaches who know their craft, and the player who knows his mind and body, are the only ones who can work that out.

We know that Major League and Minor League careers have been derailed, and even ended, when a batter is hit by a pitch, or a pitcher is hit with a line drive. That's why it takes courage to stand in a Major League batter's box and stare down a 92 mile per hour fastball scorching to the plate in .45 seconds, or to have even less reaction time on the pitching mound when a 98 mile an hour line drive is headed directly back at you.

And those hard facts call for one further observation: if there was ever a player in the game who has the determination and courage to work through this and come out the other side as good as ever, it’s Giants ace Tim Lincecum.

Godot is free to catch the next flight out of San Diego, and we'll wait for something else; the San Diego Padres will not be going on an eight game losing streak and finally cough up their season-long lead in the National League West.

It’s not the Padres amazing 73-47 record, best in the National League and third best in the Majors (after the Yankees and Tampa), that will keep them upright and moving forward. And it’s not that the calendar has somehow reached August 20th, and the Pads have a mere 41 games left to play.

No, what will keep San Diego from slipping on the long-awaited 2010 banana peel are the remaining teams they play to finish up the season, and the location at which those games will be played. These two intriguing items will almost guarantee the Pads a first place finish (if there is such a thing in life).

Of their remaining forty-one games, the Padres play 13 (almost a third) against sub-.475 teams (Cubs, Arizona, and Milwaukee). Another 12 are against middling .500 teams (Dodgers and Colorado), and only 10 are against winning teams (St. Louis, Philadelphia, and Cincinnati).

Oh, and seven of San Diego's remaining games are against the San Francisco Giants— a winning team for sure, but against whom the Padres have a 9-2 record so far this season. Even a 4-3 split of those games produces a damaging 13-5 win/loss record against San Francisco this year.

Add one more delicious ingredient to the NL pennant stew: between now and the playoffs, the Padres will play 22 games at PETCO Park and 19 games away-- a serious plus for a team that has won 62% of their 2010 home games.

The 2010 reality check for the San Francisco Giants is that they have been tested at various critical times this season, and would likely get about a C+ on those various tests at the local community college. The recent Philadelphia series was typical: the Giants scored a mere ten runs in three games in the best hitters' ballpark in the National League. Their starting pitching and bullpen were scorched for 19 runs, as they squandered a chance to put distance between themselves and the Phillies in the NL Wild Card race.

Here's the deal. If all the Giants have left in their ammo pouch is claiming the Marlins' Cody Ross on waivers to block another team from getting him, we are in a world of more bovine excretion material than anyone ever imagined.

October 3, 1951 is a date that defines the irrepressible reach of Major League baseball into the American soul and psyche. In the history of professional sports, no date, no event, no moment matches it or can ever match it.

In the 1950s, American baseball was dominated by New York City's three Major League teams: the American League Yankees and the National League Giants and Dodgers. On August 11, 1951, the Brooklyn Dodgers led the New York Giants by 13 1/2 games in the race for the National League Pennant. Amazingly, on August 12th the Giants proceded to unexpectedly rip off 16 straight wins and finished the regular season going 37-7.

Which was just enough to tie the Dodgers and force a three game playoff for the National League pennant and a trip to the World Series to face the Yankees.

After splitting the first two games, October 3, 1951 arrived for the deciding game at the Giants' home park, the Polo Grounds. When the 9th inning started, the Dodgers were leading the Giants 4-1. The Giants scored one run, but with two runners on base, one out, and outfielder Bobby Thompson at the plate, it appeared Giants Manager Leo Durocher was just about out of miracles. After a first pitch strike, Thompson sent the second pitch on a low line drive that seemed to clear the left field stands in slow motion, and the Giants won 5-4.

Up in the radio booth, Hall of Fame broadcaster Russ Hodges matched the moment with a call for the ages, his famous "The Giants win the pennant, the Giants win the pennant" chant. Russ finished his frantic call by yelling into his microphone, "I don't believe it. I do not believe it!", over and over again.

Forty-six years later, novelist Don DeLillo described Bobby Thompson's celebrated "shot heard 'round the world" in exquisite detail in his book Underworld. "This is the people's history," DeLillo wrote, "and it has flesh and breath that quicken to the force of this old safe game of ours. "

On Monday night, August 16, 2010, eighty-six year old Bobby Thompson died at his home in Savannah, Georgia. If souls are what we keep inside, Bobby Thompson's soul soared unerringly toward uptown Manhattan last night, and found the left field stands at a place where a miracle once happened.

Follow-up (see main article on list in right margin):

MLB teams have until 9:00PM Monday August 16, 2010 to sign their picks from the 2010 first year player draft. We should see a flurry of signings today.

August 16, 2010-- Jim Callis of Baseball America reports the Giants signed their number two overall pick, outfielder Jarrett Parker of Virginia, for $700,000. In 2009, Parker batted .355 with 16 home runs for the Virginia Cavaliers, and is considered a potential five tool player. Plays center field and has blinding speed on the bases and in the field. Power potential makes him a possible first baseman.  

August 16, 2010-- Yahoo Sports reports the Giants signed first round pick Gary Brown out of Cal State Fullerton for a reported $1.3 million. Brown has tremendous potential as a fast tracked lead-off hitter and centerfielder.

June 19, 2010-- SF Chronicle sports writer Henry Schulman reported the Giants signed third round pick Carter Jurica and fourth round pick Seth Rosin.

The San Francisco Giants report they have come to terms with 33 players from this year's draft, including all of their first 14 selections, and 18 of their top 20 picks.

The San Francisco Giants made two important trades this week, just prior to a critical three game home series this weekend with the first place San Diego Padres. By obtaining infielder Mike Fontenot from the Cubs and outfielder Jose Guillen from Kansas City, the Giants address three critical needs in preparation for their drive to the 2010 playoffs: a power bat in the outfield, a shortstop/infielder with range who can also hit, and a much needed power upgrade at first base.

Mike Fontenot brings range and athleticism to a Giants infield currently dominated by older and less agile players. In his six years with the Cubs, Fontenot played 247 games at second base, 63 games at third, and 8 games at shortstop. He will likely spend time at shortstop with Edgar Renteria injured again, but we may also see Fontenot eventually grab a lot of game time at second base if Freddie Sanchez continues slumping.

Fontenot, 30, was picked 19th in the first round of the 2001 amateur draft by Baltimore, who traded him to the Cubs in 2005 for Sammy Sosa.

Mike Fontenot was batting .282 with 20 RBIs and a .330 OBP with the Cubs. The Giants gave up Single A centerfielder Evan Crawford of the Augusta (GA) Greenjackets, who was hitting .255 with 64 runs, and a 24-9 stolen base record. Since the Giants’ first two picks in the 2010 first year player draft were highly touted outfielders with speed (Gary Brown and Jarrett Parker), Crawford was expendable.

On Friday, the team announced that veteran slugger Jose Guillen had been picked up from Kansas City for a player to be named later. SF Chronicle beat writer Henry Schulman reported the Giants will play $250,000 of Guillen’s $12 million 2010 salary; Guillen, 34, was in the last year of a three year $36 million deal with KC and was the team’s every day DH. This season, he's batting .255 with 62 RBIs, 16 home runs and a .743 OPS (to compare, Pablo Sandoval has a .726 OPS).

Jose Guillen has a much-discussed reputation as a disruptive force in the clubhouse, possibly explaining why he has played for an amazing ten MLB teams in 13 years. His best year was 2004, for the LA Angels, when he drove in 104 RBIs and hit 27 home runs. Guillen will join the Giants Saturday August 14th.

There is no question that San Francisco got Guillen to be an every day starter, and he will be the team’s permanent right fielder. More importantly, the Giants not only added potential offensive power in the outfield, Guillen’s acquisition allows Aubrey Huff to move to first base every day, which provides a significant offensive upgrade at first. For the first time in many years, the San Francisco Giants have a power hitting first baseman.

If the team keeps Travis Ishikawa, he will revert to being a pinch hitter (a role at which he has had some success this year), and a late inning defensive replacement (although Huff has done a great defensive job at first and his bat and glove will not be automatically pulled out of any game).

The Giants front office has finally put the team in a position to win games offensively. A line-up featuring Andres Torres, Buster Posey, Aubrey Huff, Jose Guillen, Pat Burrell, and Pablo Sandoval has the potential to do serious damage to National League pitching the last 46 games of the season.

The Giants team that compiled a 1-7 record against the Padres earlier this year is gone. When the San Diego Padres bring their National League-leading 67-46 record to AT&T Park this weekend, the revamped Giants have a chance to go face-to-face with the big dog on the block, and make a definitive statement about whether or not they belong in the National League playoffs.

The day after Bruce Bochy used pitcher Matt Cain off the bench as a pinch hitter for starter Jonathan Sanchez in the 5th inning of a 4-1 ballgame in Atlanta, the Giants have designated pitcher Todd Wellemeyer for assignment and called up infielder Emmanuel Burriss.

This culminates a several week period when the team inexplicably carried 13 pitchers and 12 position players, with one or more of those positions players injured at times and unable to play. Amazingly, the Giants did not put any injured position players on the disabled list so they could call up game-ready replacement players from Fresno.

This kind of terrible player management by the Giants front office has caused Manager Bruce Bochy a number of awkward moments, including having starting pitchers take at bats when they should have been pulled, and holding back using legitimate pinch hitters mid-game to save them for possible use late in games.

Why the team went with 13 pitchers for so long is unknown; more importantly, why the team went with less than 12 available position players at various times during the past several weeks is unfathomable. While it may have saved the cost of a few airline flights, and you can argue that it’s disruptive to bring someone up for only several days, it appeared to be the opposite way to manage a big league ball club in the middle of a pennant race with a month and a half to go.

Burriss was an outstanding shortstop with great range who the Giants converted to second base several years ago; in a scenario that appeared confusing at the time, the Giants also converted minor league second baseman Nick Noonan to shortstop. Burriss was hit by reoccurring injuries last year, and hasn’t played since June 2009.

Instead of going with Burriss at shortstop at the start of the 2009 season, the Giants front office decided to sign free agent Edgar Renteria for $19 million over two years. Renteria has been a disappointment in the field, and has contributed little to the team’s offense the past two years. Renteria is currently batting .274 with a .363 slugging percentage.

Wellemeyer, despite losing the 5th starter job earlier this year and being inconsistent in the bullpen, was brought back to the team following a stint on the DL. He lasted four days, which culminated in a tough outing against Atlanta last Sunday.

Wellemeyer is 3-5 with a 5.68 ERA and a 1.57 WHIP. Other teams have ten days to work out a deal with the Giants for Wellemeyer, or he will be released. At that point, any team can sign him, with the Giants on the hook for the remainder of his $1 million 2009 salary.

The San Francisco Giants have 50 games left to play in the 2010 season, and mid-August is when the win-loss numbers start to rise up like the dead in a George Romero film to hunt you down. Now is the time to talk about the endgame of this season's games.

As Yogi Berra, the Zen master of circular thought, might have put it, “You can see a long way off what’s right in front of your face.”

The Giants are 63-49, playing at a .563 clip, two games out of first. If the Giants play out their fifty game string at the same rate, 28-22, they end up at 91-71.  Keep in mind, only nine other teams in baseball are playing at .563 or above, putting the Giants in the top third of all MLB winning teams. But I don’t think anyone believes that 91 wins is a lock to take the NL West or the NL Wild Card.

On the other hand, a great number of thoughtful Americans will sign off on 95 wins to take the West or the Wild Card. To make 95 wins, the Giants would have to play the final 50 games at a .640 rate, 32-18, ending up with a 95-67 record. This would be the mountain the team is looking to climb the next month and a half, and it's a significant challenge. Can this 2010 Giants team pull it off? Absolutely, but it will not be easy to watch.

Take it one step further. Just to get win number 96, the Giants have to play 4% better, a .680 win rate (I am going with the whole number, rather than squeaking in at .671 and getting 33.55 wins).

Going down a dark road, if the Giants play .500 ball the rest of the way, they will end up at 88-74-- the same final record they put up in 2009. In that life-numbing scenario, the team also likely finishes in third place and General Manager Brian Sabean gets replaced. (And, no, it wouldn't be worth it.)
 
What about the San Diego Padres? Their record is currently 64-46, a .582 clip, with 52 games left to play. If the Padres finish off the season playing at their current win-loss rate (30-22), they will end up 94-68. If the Pads collapse and play .500 ball the rest of the way (26-26), they end up 90-72.

To take advantage of a complete Padres collapse, and just tie them at 90 wins, the Giants would have to play .545 baseball (27-23) to finish at 90-72.
 
The task for the Colorado Rockies now becomes even tougher. Winners of seven of their last ten games, the Rockies stand at 58-53. To make 90 wins, they would have go 32-19 (.594) in their remaining 51 games. And the Rockies would also need San Francisco and San Diego to stumble badly at the same time; possible, but just about as unlikely as serving Coors at an actual banquet.

When the dog-days of August give way to the crunch days of September, each game and each series for the Giants becomes a test of survival and their sheer will to win. The ideal result will be a playoff berth and a shot at the World Series; but the numbers won’t dictate that, the players will.

The San Francisco Giants announced they have designated relief pitcher Denny Bautista for assignment. The assignment was not initially mentioned, but it will involve Bautista packing his bags and securing transportation out of the San Francisco area.

The cover story is that Bautista is being moved off the team to make room for pitcher Todd Wellemeyer, who just finished a rehab stint after being on the disabled list. In reality, Bautista was on the verge of being declared a Federal hazardous superfund site for a dangerous inability to properly aim his 95 MPH+ fastballs.

When the news of Bautista’s designation was released, medical insurance rates for all National League players immediately dropped 8%.

Bautista’s line was not horrific: 2-0, 3.74 ERA, 44 strikeouts in 32.2 innings, with 27 walks and a 1.54 WHIP. It’s just that he couldn’t seem to harness his location, and balls were sailing over opposing batters’ heads and behind their arching bodies. The final straws were likely Bautista’s four pitch walk of Dodger reliever Hong-Chih Kuo on July 31st, and  his wild game against the Rockies on August 4th during which he hit Colorado third baseman Melvin Mora on the side of the left knee.

Wellemeyer, following his rocky tenure as the Giants’ fifth starter at the start of the season, will likely be a two or three inning reliever in games where the Giants are leading by a lot, or are behind by a lot.

Bautista, 27, has pitched for six Major League teams during his career (Baltimore, Kansas City, Colorado, Detroit, Pittsburgh, and San Francisco). The Giants have ten days to work out a deal for him, after which he will be released and they will be responsible for the remainder of his salary. There's little question Bautista will be picked up by another team looking to harness his impressive fastball.