Home MLB'Weekly' Hit Ground Ball 2007 – Week 26

2007 – Week 26

by Matt Smith

The final week of the regular season brings the final edition of “’Weekly’ hit ground ball” for 2007. The story of the week has been the daily shifting fortunes of teams embroiled in the hunt for October, so it seems fitting to chart “the week that was” in chronological fashion.


Sunday 23 – The week starts with the Angels and the Indians clinching their respective divisions with plenty of time to spare. Both teams were able to celebrate their pennant wins in their final home games of the regular season. It’s certainly been a strange year in Cleveland, with the opening home series against the Mariners snowed out resulting in the Indians playing three home games in Milwaukee (against the Angels, funnily enough). It’s also the last time a pennant will be raised at “Jacobs Field” as the Tribe are hoping to sell the naming rights of the stadium this winter. No doubt it will be something classy with a strong connection to baseball traditions. Or maybe not. Changes are also afoot in Washington as the Nationals said goodbye to RFK Stadium with a victory over the Phillies. They will begin 2008 in their brand new (insert terrible corporate name here) stadium, much to the dismay of the Nat’s pitching staff.

In the NL post-season race, mild-mannered Milton Bradley blew his top in spectacular, but costly, fashion. Bradley had to be held back by manager Bud Black after the umpire Mike Winters allegedly taunted the infamously combustible outfielder. Milton wouldn’t let go of the argument, Black wouldn’t let go of Bradley and it ended with him crumpled in a heap on the floor having twisted his knee. Reports later stated that Bradley has torn the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee, an injury that could keep him out of action for nine months. With Mike Cameron also suffering a potentially season-ending injury in the game (a 7-1 loss to the Dodgers), it was a bad day for the Friars to say the least.

Monday 24 – The calm before the storm? Just seven games were played today, affording a few teams a well-earned rest before a final charge to the finishing line. Three teams in the play-off race had a chance to steal a march on their rivals, but only the Brewers took advantage, defeating the Cardinals 13-5 in the first game of an immensely important series. The Padres lost to the Giants, with Barry Zito finally getting into double digits in the win column. Year one of San Francisco’s $126 million seven-year investment in the lefty hasn’t been a great success. Zito still gets a $4.5 million raise in 2008 though, which should cushion the blow for him at least. As for the NL East, the Nationals are enjoying playing the spoiler. A day after winning friends in Queens by beating the Phillies, they turn around and beat up the Mets 13-4. The Nationals giveth and the Nationals taketh away.

Tuesday 25 – The Rockies won again (stop me if you’ve heard this one before). That’s nine in the row and even the NL West pennant is not beyond the realms of possibility now. The Brewers can afford to ignore Colorado though, their fight is a straight two-way dust up with the Cubs. Tuesday couldn’t have gone much better for the Brew Crew as the Cubs losy to the lowly Marlins, while the Brewers made it two in a row against St Louis. During the game, Prince Fielder went deep twice to become the youngest player ever to hit fifty homers in a season. You can’t help but admire the way the Brewers franchise has turned itself around via some astute drafting over the past ten years. Their home-grown infield of Fielder, Weeks, Hardy and Braun is something any team in the Majors would be proud of.

The Devil Rays are trying to follow the Brewers’ lead, but competing against the Yankees and the Red Sox makes life difficult (the Blue Jays and the Orioles aren’t shy of spending money either). Still, it does give you plenty of chances to annoy the big boys and they certainly annoyed the Yankees today. The Bronx Bombers entered the game needing one win to seal their play-off spot and looked odds on to make it when A-Rod hit a grand slam in the third inning. The Rays had other ideas and tabled six runs in the sixth inning, four of which came on Jorge Velandia’s grand slam (not bad for your first career MLB homer). Tampa Bay won via a walk-off single by Dioner Navarro in the tenth inning, putting the Yankees’ celebrations on hold for another day at least.

Wednesday 26 – Even though the Yankees got revenge on the Devil Rays and booked their play-off spot with a 12-4 victory, it was the NL West teams who stole the show today. The Rockies won again (stop me if you’ve heard this one before), defeating the Dodgers (ditto) to make it ten wins on the spin. With San Diego beating the Giants as well, it’s the D-Backs who are now starting to feel the heat. They went down 5-1 to the Pirates and saw their lead in the standings shrink to just one game. Brandon Webb is scheduled to start tomorrow and a Cy Young calibre start will be needed from him to get them back on track.

Meanwhile, the Giants were able to hit the headlines, but only due to Barry Bonds rather than a bit of team success (symbolic of the last couple of seasons really). Bonds made his final appearance in a Giants uniform at AT&T Park during their defeat to San Diego. While he may be one of the biggest stars ever to play the game, Bonds’ Giants bow has been fairly low-key. The result from Marc Ecko’s 756 homer ball poll was announced as well and surprisingly (to me at least) the ball will remain intact. Over ten million votes were reportedly cast, with forty-seven per cent voting for the ball to be branded with an asterisk and then given to the Hall of Fame (only nineteen per cent wanted the ball to be blown into space, with the other thirty-four per cent voting to send it to Cooperstown untouched).

Thursday 27 – The Rockies won again (stop me if you’ve heard this one before). Something tells me the Dodgers will be glad to see the back of them: that’s eleven straight wins for Colorado with seven coming against LA. Winning is contagious, but so is losing and the disease is spreading in the NL Central. The Marlins completed their sweep of the Cubs, yet the Brewers once again failed to take advantage. This time, you’ve really got to pin the blame on the Brewers themselves. Presented with such a golden opportunity, Milwaukee committed five errors (three from Ryan Braun) to hand victory to the Padres, who gladly accepted the present. With the prospect of rain in Pittsburgh, Arizona decided not to risk wasting Brandon Webb’s start and sent Micah Owings to the mound (and the plate) instead. Part one of the gamble paid off brilliantly as Owings pitched well and then continued his astounding form with the bat as the D-Backs beat the Pirates 8-0. The young right-hander pitched 6.1 innings giving up no runs on four hits, while going 4 for 4 at the plate (including three doubles) with three RBIs. If Webb wins tomorrow, the D-Backs will probably be celebrating a return to the play-offs.

A bit of history was made in Philadelphia as Ryan Howard struck out for the 196th time, setting a new season record. He hit a homer during his previous at-bat though and helped the Phillies to a 6-4 victory over the Braves, killing Atlanta’s play-off hopes in the process. Panic has well and truly set in at Shea as the Mets’ AL East lead has completely vanished: the Phillies and the Mets are tied at the top of the East. This would be one of the biggest collapses in recent history and the New York press are only too aware of it.

Friday 28 – The Rockies w.., oh no they didn’t! The unforgiving NL landscape basically meant that Colorado couldn’t really afford to lose a single game the rest of the way and as each victory came it somehow made the decisive loss more certain to arrive. The Rockies’ fate remains uncertain as they still have a shot at the wild card, but today was the day on which several other teams’ future was decided. The story of the day was starting pitching. The D-Backs’ gamble paid off brilliantly as Brandon Webb followed Micah Owing’s win on Thursday with a victory against those Rockies. Arizona still don’t know whether they will enter the play-offs as NL West champions or the wild card winners, but they will be there and that’s what matters the most. Just ask Milwaukee. The Cubs sent Carlos Zambrano to the mound against the down-and-out Reds, while the Brewers started their three-game series against the play-off chasing Padres with Chris Capuano on the hill. Factor in the differences in opposition and combine it with the fact that Milwaukee had lost all of Capuano’s previous twenty-one starts and something suggested that judgement day had arrived. Cubs won 6-0 to take the Central division crown; Brewers fell 6-3 and are left pondering where it all went wrong.

As for going wrong, the Mets’ disastrous descent shows no sign of abating. They lost to Byung-Hyun Kim and the Marlins as Cole Hamels guided his Phillies to a 6-0 victory over the Nationals. At least the Mets don’t have to watch their cross-town rivals celebrating yet another division pennant, as Dice-K pitched the Red Sox to their first AL East title since 1995. Boston will face the Angels in the first round of the play-offs, while Cleveland face the Yankees.

Saturday 29 – Heading in to the Saturday games, two play-off spots were still up for grabs. Sunday will start the same. San Diego were the main story of the day. An early game against the deflated Brewers gave them an ideal opportunity to book their place in the post-season with a win and to keep the NL West division title alive as well. An extra innings loss turned their potential dream day into a nightmare though. It handed the division to Arizona before they even took the field, which was bad enough for the Padres. But of course the D-Backs’ are finishing their season with a series against the Rockies, the Padres’ main rival for the wild card. With nothing to play for, Arizona lost to the Rockies who get straight back on to the winning road and must fancy their chances of following it up tomorrow. The equation is still simple for San Diego: win and they’re in. Simple in theory, but perhaps not in practice.

The Padres don’t just have the Rockies to contend with either as both the Phillies and the Mets will enter the final day one game behind in the wild card race and battling for their division crown. After all their hard work to reach the NL East summit, the Phillies immediately threw away the advantage by losing to the Nationals, while the Mets fought back in the division race and crushed the Marlins 13-0. John Maine has no doubt prompted a host of “Maine man” headlines, but we can forgive the media on this occasion. Just when the Mets needed a big performance, Maine pitched brilliantly, flirting with a no-hitter and striking out fourteen during seven scoreless innings.

Away from the play-off race, it was a memorable night for Craig Biggio as he donned the tools of ignorance for two innings in his second-from-last MLB game. Great for Biggio and a nice diversion for Astros fans, but more than anything it rams home the harsh truth that 2007 has been a terrible year for the Astros and that they can afford to mess about at the season’s end. Still, if anyone deserves a good send-off then it’s Biggio and with Cecil Cooper being officially confirmed as the full-time manager for the next two years, maybe the end of one era will help to launch the start of a successful new one.

Sunday 30 – A fascinating final day, best summed up by the fact that it hasn’t turned out to be the final day for two teams. The Padres decided against starting Jake Peavy on three-days’ rest and subsequently lost to Milwaukee, opening the door for the Rockies. True to form, Colorado barged straight through and forced a Monday night sudden death play-off game. They will have to face Peavy though and it doesn’t get any tougher than that. Mind you, the Mets would gladly swap positions with the Rockies. God knows what the ramifications of their historic collapse will be, capped off by Tom Glavine’s disastrous start (pulled in the first inning having given up seven runs while retiring only one batter). The Mets lost twelve of their final seventeen games, but the Phillies still had to win thirteen games over the same span to take the division by one game. Jimmy Rollins said they were the team to beat before the season started and he’s been proved right in the end. More importantly, Rollins backed up his words with a 162-game MVP winning performance (subject to them awarding it to the “right”person – which doesn’t always happen).

Any advice for the post-season participants? Well, firstly I would suggest pitching around Alfonso Soriano (if that’s possible – he generally swings at anything). He hit yet another lead-off home run today, his seventh of the month, and has been in stunning form in September. Secondly, take a look at last year’s World Series teams. The Tigers finished eight games behind the Indians in the AL Central and the Cardinals were so far out of contention that they could afford to let Troy Percival pitch the opening frame of their final-day game against the Pirates. Make the very most of your chance this October, as you don’t know what tomorrow may bring.

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