Reds win again!

And again today! They practically have their division wrapped up now.

J.R. wrote:And again today! They practically have their division wrapped up now.

I wait for ladies with weight challenges who can carry a tune before calling an absolute.

That said, I see no Jenny Craig reps around, and there might be a karaoke machine there in the background somewhere......

Pillar, Sano honored by Midwest League

Postseason All-Star team includes Lindor, Portillo, Seitzer
Blue Jays prospect Kevin Pillar and Twins slugger Miguel Sano were among those honored on the Midwest League's 2012 Postseason All-Star Team on Wednesday.

Pillar, 23, was named the league's Most Valuable Player after batting .322 with five homers, 57 RBIs, 35 steals and a .390 on-base-percentage in 86 games for Class A Lansing. The Jays' 32nd-round pick in 2011 was promoted to Class A Advanced Dunedin but made his mark in the Midwest, earning Player of the Week status on May 14 and a spot on the Midseason All-Star team.

Sano, the Twins' top prospect, was named the circuit's Prospect of the Year after he hit .260 with 27 homers, 98 RBIs and eight steals in his first 126 games. The 19-year-old leads the league in homers, RBIs and ranks third in slugging percentage for Beloit.

How things change.

In most of the years when I was living in the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Area the games with Boston at Oakland were dominated by west coast transplanted Boston fans that turned out in the stands and dominated the crowd noise.

Tonight, with the A's in the race and Boston nowhere in sight, I have yet to hear a Boston Fan cheer as I monitor the 4-0 Oakland lead.

Aug 31, 8:46 PM EDT

Uecker statue dedicated at Miller Park

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MILWAUKEE (AP) -- A statue of popular Brewers broadcaster Bob Uecker was dedicated outside Miller Park on Friday, and those in attendance recalled it was all made possible because of some spilled mashed potatoes and gravy.

Uecker, affectionately dubbed "Mr. Baseball" by Johnny Carson in the 1970s, joined Hall of Famers Hank Aaron, Robin Yount and Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig as the fourth person to have a statue outside the main gates.

The 7-foot bronze statue features a smiling Uecker with his hands in his pockets.

"This is a good place to be," said the 77-year-old Uecker, who grew up in Milwaukee. "There are a lot of places that are warmer in the winter, but this place has been home to me for a long time."

More than half of the current Brewers players and the entire coaching staff turned out for the festivities before Milwaukee took on Pittsburgh. Former Milwaukee Braves teammate Joe Torre and former Brewers star Rollie Fingers attended the 90-minute ceremony, along with members of the television show "Mr. Belvedere," which starred Uecker from 1980 to 1985.

Carson's bandleader, Doc Severinsen, played with his 14-piece big band and Aaron's wife, Billye, sang an impromptu version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." Yount was in Italy for a family wedding, but sent a playful video tribute.

A career .200 hitter in 297 major league games over six seasons as a catcher in the 1960s, Uecker was hired by his friend, Selig, in 1970 to be a scout for the first-year Milwaukee Brewers.

Uecker was sent to scout the now-defunct Northern League, but his first reports angered general manager Frank Lane, Selig recalled.

"He comes whirling into my office," Selig recounted of Lane. "He said, `What the heck is going on with your friend?'"

Uecker was filling out the reports while eating in North Dakota and spilled his food on the papers, but turned them in anyway.

"He couldn't read the scouting reports because it had mashed potatoes and gravy all over it," Selig said.

That was about the end of Uecker's tenure as a scout.

The next year Selig had Uecker work as a radio broadcaster for the team. He has remained in that role ever since 1971.

"He's been the voice and face of this franchise, think about this, for more than four decades," Selig said.

Selig, Aaron, broadcaster Bob Costas and television executive Dick Ebersol gave short speeches.

Costas joked that the nearby Aaron statue was "begging" to be moved away from the one of Uecker, who hit only 14 home runs in his career.

Aaron talked about a time on the Braves when both he and Uecker were struggling.

"I was in a semi-slump and you were always in a slump," Aaron told his friend.

Also in attendance were former Braves teammates Johnny Logan and Felix Mantilla and former Brewers Gorman Thomas, Jim Gantner and Ken Sanders.

Tribe Fan in SC/Cali wrote:How things change.

In most of the years when I was living in the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Area the games with Boston at Oakland were dominated by west coast transplanted Boston fans that turned out in the stands and dominated the crowd noise.

Tonight, with the A's in the race and Boston nowhere in sight, I have yet to hear a Boston Fan cheer as I monitor the 4-0 Oakland lead.

It's a rout now! 12-2, bottom of 7th

Not the way most of us think of Bob Uecker:

Make it 18-2, Oakland, on a Reddick granny!

I think Milwaukee is trying for a compromise between "the player" Uecker, and "the broadcaster" Uecker.


Us Tribe Fans of course firmly embrace the "Harry Doyle" Uecker.

Here's an article about thought and accomplishment we can all put in the bank will never be written with regard to Mark Shapiro or Chris Antonetti. Real organizations have some guys in the Top Two spots that played competitive baseball beyond the age of 15, or maybe high school, if anyone can find proof Mark Shapiro really played baseball at his prep private high school....which I can't.

From Moneyball to Billy Ball! GM Billy Beane has Oakland A's on verge of playoffs two years ahead of schedule


Since the start of the season — heck, since nearly halfway through the season — Beane has changed catchers, first basemen, second basemen, shortstops and third basemen, all of this following a dizzying offseason.


Jarrod Parker

Right now, you’d have to say it’s a toss-up as to which is the most surprising and confounding team in baseball - Buck Showalter’s Baltimore Orioles and their minus-39 run differential or Bob Melvin’s Oakland Athletics and their major-league low $55 million payroll. For improbable as it might seem to all the pundits who had them consigned to last place back in spring training, the Birds and the A’s are your Labor Day leaders in the clubhouse for the two American League wild cards.

When it comes to the A’s, no one is probably more (pleasantly) surprised at their success than GM Billy Beane, their architect who has seemingly been putting this team together on the fly. Since the start of the season — heck, since nearly halfway through the season — Beane has changed catchers, first basemen, second basemen, shortstops and third basemen, all of this following a dizzying offseason in which he signed Cuban refugee center fielder Yoenis Cespedes for $36 million and traded his two best pitchers, Gio Gonzalez and Trevor Cahill, and his closer, Andrew Bailey, for a total of 10 players, mostly prospects, in an effort to replenish his farm system. All of this was to purportedly set himself up for a championship run two years down the road when, hopefully, the A’s would be getting ready to move into a new ballpark in San Jose. Well, San Jose may never happen, but Beane’s timetable for a postseason-caliber team has apparently accelerated.

“It’s been very gratifying,” Beane said by phone from Oakland Friday. “Especially since, in the spring, everyone wanted to drag me through town with tar and feathers, and I’ve had to micro-manage the roster all year, like putting a quilt together.”


Two of the players Beane got back from the Arizona Diamondbacks for Cahill — righthander Jarrod Parker (9-7, 3.72) and late-inning reliever Ryan Cook (6-2, 2.40 ERA, 13 saves) — have already paid huge dividends, while right fielder Josh Reddick, the primary player in the Bailey trade with the Red Sox, leads the A’s with 28 homers and 73 RBI. For the first couple of months of the season, the A’s got scarcely any production out of three different first basemen, Brandon Allen, Kila Ka’aihue and Daric Barton, prompting Beane to cobble together a makeshift platoon of Chris Carter, who had hit more than 170 homers in six years in the minors but was largely viewed as a DH type, and journeyman outfielder Brandon Moss. Together, they’ve contributed 27 homers with 65 RBI in barely a third of a season.

“We had to get more power out of first base,” Beane said. “Carter is here more for his bat than his glove although he’s held his own defensively over there while, with Moss, I looked on his scouting report and noticed he’d played shortstop in high school. So we sent him down to (Triple A) Sacramento and told them to give him a crash course at first base.”

In early August, with Oakland a surprising 10 games over .500 and in second place, Beane shocked his constituency by trading popular catcher Kurt Suzuki, the A’s longest-tenured player, to the Washington Nationals in what was essentially a salary dump (Suzuki, who was hitting .218, is owed $6.45 million in 2013 and $8.5 million in 2014.) That served to open up the catcher’s spot for rookie Derek Norris, one of four players Beane acquired from Washington in the Gonzalez deal. It was a risky move, given the fact the A’s success this season can be largely attributed to their pitching, which is second in the AL in ERA and shutouts, but since the Suzuki trade the A’s are 16-6. Then, last week, Beane made another deal with Arizona in which he obtained shortstop Stephen Drew, a onetime No. 1 draft pick whose career has been sabotaged by injuries. If nothing else, Beane reasoned, Drew could benefit from a change of scenery and allowed Melvin to move .204-hitting Cliff Pennington to second base.

What is curious — at least on the surface — is that A’s currently rank 26th in the majors in on-base percentage — the primary tenet of “Moneyball”. Before you think Beane has abandoned the formula that made him Brad Pitt famous, however, you have to look a little further.

“Our actual walk rate is very good,” Beane said, noting that the A’s are fourth in the majors in taking free passes.

“We will take a walk. We just don’t hit very well.”

At least for average (.234), although their 146 homers as of Friday were tied for ninth-most in the majors, and Cespedes has more than lived up to all his hype with a team-high .302 average. 16 homers and 63 RBI.

“In our marketplace, we had to make the kinds of trades we made last winter in which we traded three of our best players in order to get more players,” Beane said. “At the same time, small market teams have to develop their own starting pitching internally, and we’ve always focused on that.”

Despite losing their No. 2 winner, Bartolo Colon, in a steroids bust, the A’s are flush with quality starting pitching in staff ace Brandon McCarthy (7-5, 3.12), Parker, lefty Tommy Milone (11-9, 3.73), another product of the Gonzalez trade, lefty Brett Anderson (2-0, 0.64 in two starts since coming off the disabled list), rookie righthander A.J. Griffin, and another rookie, recently-recalled righty Dan Straily, who led the minors in strikeouts before his first call-up. It is why Beane is not concerned about the inevitability of losing McCarthy as a free agent this winter.

“We have a lot of depth in our rotation, maybe more than any other club in our league,” Beane said, “so we’re in good position (if McCarthy leaves).

Of course, nothing is more satisfying to Beane than the A’s second-place position in the AL West — five games ahead of Arte Moreno’s $154 million L.A. Angels of Anaheim. Who’da ever thunk it?

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseb ... z25Np9AJX6

A Joez Favorite

You could just substitute Acta's name for Valentine and the article would ring true.

Dead manager walking

BRIAN MacPHERSON Providence Journal
Journal Sports Writer
bmacpherson@providencejournal.com
Published: 02 September 2012 09:03 PM


OAKLAND, Calif. — Bobby Valentine has a contract for this season and next. Valentine still is showing up for work every day, albeit not always at the time one would expect.

Valentine just doesn’t seem to want his job much anymore.

Asked how difficult the six-game losing streak has been on Sunday evening, a despondent Valentine just muttered, “What difference does it make?”

As disappointment has given way to embarrassment in what’s trending toward the worst season the Red Sox have experienced in almost a half-century, the manager looks more and more like he’s ready to get out and move on, to accept the pink slip he’ll undoubtedly receive once the season ends — if not sooner.

Not much could sum it up better than the scene of Valentine standing on the periphery of the Alfredo Aceves-Dustin Pedroia argument in the dugout on Saturday night, chomping on gum, hands in his pockets, watching while pitching coach Randy Niemann and third-base coach Jerry Royster took charge. Once Aceves and Pedroia had been separated, Valentine made a comment or two, but both Aceves and Pedroia seemed to dismiss whatever Valentine was trying to tell them — and Aceves even jawed back until Royster once again stepped in.

What has happened to the Red Sox can’t all be pinned on Valentine. Most of it has little to do with the manager. The collective 5.08 ERA the starting pitchers have compiled, for example, has little to do with the manager. Nor do the more than two dozen players — including Jacoby Ellsbury, David Ortiz and Dustin Pedroia — who have spent time on the disabled list.

It’s tough to argue, however, that Valentine has done much to put the Red Sox in a better position to win. Indeed, it seems as though he’s antagonized just about everyone at some point or another this season — and that any authority he might have had has completely evaporated.

Communication with half his coaching staff has been non-existent. Communication with most of the players in his clubhouse has been close to non-existent, too. When Jose Iglesias and Ryan Lavarnway were called up, there was no indication Valentine had spoken either to Mike Aviles or Jarrod Saltalamacchia about how their respective roles might change.

(It then took Valentine four days to get Iglesias on the field after his call-up — after which he said, “There’s really no reason to have Iglesias here if he doesn’t get some action.”)

Aceves was never told outright he no longer was the closer. Valentine instead began hinting in cryptic fashion he might have the former closer stretched out to start. When asked if the impetus for that plan had been a request from Aceves himself, Valentine offered an answer that was completely indecipherable.

“Boy, there’s been a lot of conversations,” he said. “I’m not sure that one’s been had in my office. It might have taken place and hasn’t filtered back to me yet, or it might have been presented and not been presented as something he has requested personally.”

Decision after decision is perplexing.

Once Iglesias started playing, it seemed to make sense to move Aviles over to third base once in a while to keep him in the lineup. Valentine declined to do so. He instead played Mauro Gomez — a first baseman by trade who’s woefully out of his element at third — at third base on Sunday.

Eyebrows were raised Friday afternoon when Valentine walked into the visitors’ clubhouse at O.co Coliseum at 4:19 p.m., less than three hours before the first pitch. He’d had to pick up his son at the airport, he said.

Eyebrows were raised again Saturday night when Valentine wrote Scott Podsednik into the No. 3 hole in his lineup. Podsednik is a perfectly serviceable major-league player in the right role, but the fact that he’s barely hit more career home runs (42) than triples (41) is an indication he’s not a No. 3 hitter.

The reaction from Valentine when asked about the decision made as little sense as the decision itself.

“Just a mistake,” he deadpanned in such a way that it was hard to tell if he was joking. “Is that what it says on the lineup? What the (expletive). Switch it up. Who knows? Maybe it will look good. I haven’t seen it.”

Eyebrows now have to be raised every time Aceves gets up in the Boston bullpen. He didn’t pitch Sunday, but he threw an astounding 143 pitches in the five games the Red Sox played before that. That’s an incredible workload for any pitcher, but it’s especially incredible for a pitcher who already seemed to be showing signs of wearing down after having pitched almost 200 innings in well over 100 appearances in the last two seasons.

Maybe Valentine is just trying to win games any way he can to try to get his team back into contention.

More likely, however, is that Valentine is trying to do what so many football coaches do every Saturday and Sunday: He’s punting down 14 points in the fourth quarter. In other words, he’s trying to keep the score close — not in games, in this case, but in the team’s record.

By playing Podsednik and Cody Ross in every game rather than Ryan Kalish, for example, he might be trying to avoid the catastrophic end toward which Boston appears to be hurtling, trying to avoid the embarrassment of being the first Red Sox manager to lose 90 games since 1965.

But there’s no difference between losing 85 games or 90 games, and if a player like Kalish is going to be a building block on the roster, this is the time to find out.

Instead, even as the losses keep piling up, Valentine just keeps making empty statements about winning with no substance behind them.

When asked about his expectations for September, he said, “I think we’re going to win a lot of games this last month.”

Given the way things have gone, a follow-up question was obligatory: Why do you think that?

“Why shouldn’t I think that?” he shot back. “Because I’m the manager of the team and we get paid to play and win, and I believe that we’re going to win.”

That’s a ringing endorsement.

Why do I think we’re going to win? Because I’m contractually obligated to think we’re going to win! Go get ‘em, fellas!”

It’s about as ringing an endorsement, actually, as Red Sox chairman Tom Werner gave Valentine in an interview with The Boston Globe several days ago.

“I don’t really want to get into that,” Werner told the Globe. “I don’t want to talk too much about him. But he’s had a challenging year. I think, as we’ve said before, he’s doing a good job.”

The lukewarm-at-best comment stood in stark contrast to what Werner said when asked about general manager Ben Cherington.

“He was extremely impressive in his press conference (to announce last week’s blockbuster trade),” said Werner. “But it’s not just that he’s articulate. Ben is methodical. He’s thoughtful. He’s a good manager. He’s a good leader. We give him high marks in how he’s dealt with the challenges this season, and he’s going to be with us for a long time.”

The same can’t be said for Valentine.

Yes, Valentine has a contract for next season, and, yes, by putting Valentine out of his misery, the Red Sox would in effect be eating the money on that contract.

Fortunately, they just cleared $260 million in future payroll. They can probably afford to do what they need to do with Valentine.

Valentine got in trouble at the beginning of the season when he criticized Youkilis, and has never recovered.

Scutaro sends Giants past D'backs in 10th

9:48 a.m. CDT, September 4, 2012

San Francisco, CA — After finishing 19 straight save opportunities, J.J. Putz blew his second straight on Monday, and the San Francisco Giants went on to win the opener of a three-game set against the Arizona Diamondbacks, 9-8.

Marco Scutaro had three hits, including a game-winning single on a 2-2 cutter down the third-base line in the 10th inning against Bryan Shaw (1-5).


"He's one of those guys that comes to play every day," Giants manager Bruce Bochy said of Scutaro. "He knows how to play the game and I think he's made players around him better."

Sergio Romo (4-2) pitched a scoreless 10th inning to keep the game tied and earned the win.

The Diamondbacks erased a four-run deficit with two runs in the fifth and five runs in the sixth inning. But the Giants rallied for two runs in the eighth inning and Putz blew his second save in as many days in the ninth to send Arizona to its ninth loss in its last 11 games.

The Diamondbacks are now 11 1/2 games behind the Giants in the NL West.

The Giants rallied in the eighth inning with two outs to close within a run. Hector Sanchez and Brandon Crawford delivered back-to-back doubles and pinch- hitter Brandon Belt plated Crawford with a base hit to make the score 8-7.

San Francisco tied the game in the ninth after Scutaro whacked a leadoff double off the base of the left-field fence. Scutaro advanced to third when Pablo Sandoval grounded out and scored when Buster Posey ripped a double down the third-base line.

Brandon Crawford legged out an infield single to start the 10th inning. He advanced to second on a sacrifice and third on a ground out before Scutaro ripped a single down the third-base line to win the game.

San Francisco built an early four-run lead against Patrick Corbin in the first after Scutaro and Sandoval delivered one-out singles. Posey crushed a double off the base of the right-field wall to score Scutaro and Hunter Pence whacked a triple into the right-field gap to score two more. Hector Sanchez capped the rally with a base hit to score Pence.

Corbin recovered to hold the Giants to four runs on seven hits in five innings while striking out six.

Arizona started its comeback in the fifth when Miguel Montero singled and Chris Johnson hammered a 1-2 cutter into the left-field seats to cut San Francisco's lead to 4-2.

The Diamondbacks chased Barry Zito from the game when Justin Upton and Jason Kubel singled to start the sixth inning.

Barry Zito gave up four runs and seven hits with six strikeouts in five-plus innings.

Paul Goldschmidt greeted Guillermo Mota with a ground-rule double to bring Arizona within a run. After Montero struck out, Johnson lofted a long fly ball to left field to score Kubel, move Goldschmidt to third and tie the game.

After Cody Ransom worked a walk to put runners on the corners, Arizona began building a lead. Willie Bloomquist grounded a single through the left side to plate Goldschmidt. Chris Young and Aaron Hill followed with two more singles to expand Arizona's lead to three.

Pablo Sandoval rolled a single to right field to score Angel Pagan, who reached on a fielder's choice in the seventh, but the Diamondbacks quickly responded with a run in the eighth when Upton singled home Ryan Wheeler to make the score 8-5.

"We were in the hole early and we just kept fighting back and we got a pretty good lead and we just kept fighting towards the end," said Kubel. "It really does (stink) that we lost but we kept going."

Scutaro is hitting .322, with 28 RBIs, 18 runs scored, in 36 games since being traded to the Giants on 7/27.