Pitchers are dominating in the major leagues this season, and they’re having an effect on the record book as well.
The Jays’ Brandon Morrow joined a growing list of one-hit and no-hit hurlers who have surfaced this season at near record pace.
Already, there are five no-hitters in baseball this year, two shy of the record reached in 1990 and ’91. Ubaldo Jimenez, Matt Garza and Edwin Jackson have each tossed a no-no. The other two, by ex-Jay Roy Halladay and Oakland’s Dallas Braden, were perfect games. There would have been a record three perfect games this season had it not been for an umpire’s blown call in Detroit earlier this season that robbed Armando Gallaraga of perfection.
Morrow’s 17-strikeout masterpiece marked the fourth time this season a pitcher has taken a no-hitter into the ninth (two of those — Morrow’s and Gallaraga’s in Detroit — were lost with two out in the ninth).
Four no-hitters lost in the ninth is not a record — baseball saw eight of them broken in the ninth in 1988 — but the number of strikeouts being tallied these days certainly suggests pitchers are on their game and hitters are still catching up.
Consider the number of combined (both teams) strikeouts per game in the sport at the moment. As of Monday, teams were combining for 13.9 strikeouts.
That number puts the sport on pace for an all-time record in combined strikeouts per game. And if that isn’t enough to suggest pitching is dominating the game, that number has been going up steadily since 2005.
“We as hitters live on mistakes by pitchers, but if (pitchers) are making well executed pitches like they seem to be, then it’s tough to deal with,” Jays centre fielder Vernon Wells said.
“If guys are hitting their spots, then it’s going to be tougher for hitters, no question.”
Wells, like several other stars in the game, agreed the game is seeing an influx of excellent young pitchers who can handle major league hitting from their very first start.
Take Morrow, for instance. Drafted in the first round, fifth overall, by Seattle in 2006, he made his first start in the majors Sept. 5, 2008 and pitched 7.2 innings of no-hit ball against the Yankees.
Afterwards, he bounced between the pen and the starting rotation, and the Mariners — despite his 98 m.p.h. stuff — felt he wouldn’t reach the consistency needed to survive as a big league starter.
Prior to Sunday’s performance, Morrow was 9-9 as a starter with a 4.46 ERA in 37 outings.
Turn the page to his arrival with the Jays this season and Morrow, 9-6 in Toronto, has not allowed a hit through five innings in five of those 37 career starts. Cliff Lee, considered the best pitcher in the American League at the moment, has only four such starts in nine major league seasons.
Baseball experts note several factors in pitching superiority, including the emergence of young pitchers like Morrow who master control over three or four pitches early in their careers. There’s also a renaissance in the sport on defence (Seattle, for instance, won 24 more games in 2009 than 2008 because, in part, they gave up 114 fewer runs); and the crackdown on performance-enhancing drugs to deter power hitters.
Pitchers are also equipped with far more statistical knowledge than their predecessors.
“I can see that . . . we as players kind of listen in on pre-series meetings, and both catchers get together with the starter and try and attack everyone’s weaknesses as hitters,” said Wells.
Indeed, computerized hitting reports and video now centre on as many as 16 hitting zones that can be attacked or exploited.
“The game has really come along in the video department . . . everyone does video now, pitchers and hitters, everyone’s looking for an advantage,” Wells said.
Ultimately, as Wells added, good pitching will beat good hitting every time. And it’s showing itself in the record book.
As if the Argonauts didn’t have enough to worry about, what with a struggling rookie quarterback running a bottom-of-the-league offence.
Heading into Friday night’s game at Commonwealth Stadium, there’s every chance Toronto’s CFL team won’t get its fourth victory of the season unless it wins a night’s worth of battles, not only against the Edmonton Eskimos but also against one or more of the forces of nature that rule these parts.
Andre Talbot is happy to educate his former teammates on the scope of the earthly wrath that could be unleashed come kickoff. Talbot, the Toronto-bred receiver, spent nine years as an Argo before he was dealt here in the off-season.
And five games into his career as an Eskimo, he has already witnessed a lightning delay (which halted last week’s Edmonton win over the B.C. Lions for about 40 minutes) and a series of sunny-day showers (“They just swoop in from nowhere,” marvels Talbot).
And don’t get him started about this summer’s crop of Alberta mosquitos, which appear to be giving Winnipeg’s infamous bloodsuckers a run as the CFL’s wickedest vein-tapping menace.
Who says the hermetically sealed Rogers Centre is bad place for football?
“(The mosquitos) are brutal. It’s unbelievable. I’ve never seen such a swarming,” Talbot said. “Last week on the field, guys were just covered in them.”
Insects aside, Edmonton isn’t known for its ability to mount a swarm.
The 1-4 Eskimos are, in the words of coach Richie Hall, “a fragile team.” And their run defence, in particular, ranks last in the league.
So even if Toronto’s anemic passing game doesn’t escape its half-decade-old rut anytime soon, there’s some reason to believe the Argos could find some salvation on the ground on Friday night.
Cory Boyd, the Toronto running back who put up three 100-yard-plus performances in the season’s first four games, is coming off a subpar effort in a blowout loss to Montreal.
On Thursday, not long after the Argos arrived here after a morning flight, Boyd offered a suggestion for returning to his big-gaining ways.
“I guess we’ve got to feed me a little more, get the running game going early in the game,” said Boyd. “I guess that’s how it always starts and we just go downhill from there.”
If that wasn’t exactly an optimistic take on Toronto’s prospects, it fit the tone of the moment. The Eskimos, five days removed from the firing of general manager Danny Maciocia, weren’t exactly crowing in the wake of their only win of the year.
“You talk about (the Argos) being fragile offensively. We have a fragile football team ... It took us five games into the season before we won our first game,” said Hall, who outlined the Edmonton game plan all the same.
“We want to try and make a team one dimensional, and that means taking away the run. They’ve got a great running back there. He runs hard . . . We’ve given up some yards running. We’ve given up some chunks of yards.”
Boyd, for his part, certainly wasn’t sounding overconfident — disingenuous would be a better word for his press briefing.
First, Boyd, who turns 25 on Friday, claimed he has “never really celebrated a birthday before.”
And even if that sounded plausible, he then claimed to be unaware he is currently leading the CFL in rushing yards.
Boyd, mind you, was standing on the turf at Commonwealth Stadium on Thursday when he spoke to the media, where the mosquitos were enjoying a midday buffet that included sportswriter flank (in plentiful supply) and running back calf.
“Even as I’m speaking, I’m getting (eaten) up in the back of my legs,” he said.
So forgive him if he sounded distracted. Boyd, not long after he preached on the evils of the post-touchdown celebration, also acknowledged that, should the Argos conquer the Eskimos and Mother Nature on Friday night, he just might find time to ring in his personal new year.
“Hopefully, we’ll have a win so I can go out with the fellows, enjoy our time, and just have a little champagne or wine,” said Boyd. “Hopefully, some of the opposing team can come and we can all just make it a family affair.”
If Boyd spends Friday night drinking with the opposing team, he’ll be making like a certain six-legged swiller of vital fluid.
Said Kenneth Pettaway, the Eskimos defensive end: “If I had some advice for the Argos, I’d say: ‘Bring lots of bug spray.’ ”
NEW YORK—The Blue Jays didn’t blast music in the locker room the way they do after a win, but post-game moping that usually follows a getaway day loss was absent.
The Blue Jays remained remarkably loose for a team that had just lost three times in a single day.
First they lost the game, 5-1 to the Yankees and squandering a chance to sweep the World Series champs on the road.
They also lost the Alex Rodriguez lottery when, after 12 games of waiting and mounting hype, the Yankees third baseman took Shaun Marcum deep for the 600th home run of his career.
Finally, they lost catcher John Buck, who took a Rodriguez foul tip of his right thumb in the fifth inning.
The foul ball’s impact didn’t break bones — and Buck considers himself lucky for that — but it split Buck’s skin, a gash requiring three stitches to close and a few days to heal.
Immediately after the game the Jays placed Buck on the 15-day disabled list, but he hopes to start throwing again well inside that time frame.
“They were able to sew (the skin) right to my thumbnail, so hopefully that will make it heal quicker,” Buck said, his thumb wrapped in bandage. “I can move it and everything. It feels fine. . . . The doctor said as soon as I feel like I can start throwing I can play catch.”
Jose Molina replaced Buck midway through Wednesday’s game but afterward the club announced they will promote highly-rated catching prospect J.P. Arencibia from Triple-A Las Vegas. Arencibia has been touted as the club’s catcher of the future since the Jays drafted him in 2007 and has played well enough in Las Vegas to make Buck pre-deadline trade bait even though the incumbent starting catcher made his first all-star team.
Through Tuesday the 24-year-old Arencibia had played 95 games for Las Vegas, batting .303 with 32 doubles and 31 home runs, most in the minor leagues. His power numbers are even more impressing considering that he hit only eight homers in the first two months of the season.
Arencibia’s arrival will provide a glimpse into the Jays’ future, but halfway through their season series with the powerhouse Yankees the present looks more pleasant than most observers would have predicted.
Instead of limping in the final two months the Jays remain four games over .500. Wednesday’s loss comes after two straight wins at Yankee Stadium and clearly represents a lost opportunity.
But the Jays still lead the season series 5-4, and starting the toughest month on their schedule with a series win over the Yankees tempers the disappointment.
“You always like to win that last one on the way home,” said manager Cito Gaston, “but we’ll take two out of three anytime we can.”
A group of California engineers rigged a polystyrene beer cooler up to a helium balloon to film the Earth from 80,000 feet – and the crash that followed.
Sophisticated cameras and electronics were perched in the basket to capture the journey that started just after dawn one recent morning on the California coast near Davenport.
“You see the best shadows early in the morning,” one of the engineers, Kevin Macko, 28, told the Star on Thursday.
At 80,000 feet – more than 24 kilometres up – the ever-expanding balloon popped and the apparatus took a half-hour to float back to the ground, landing without even cracking the cooler, he said.
Since the June flight, the team’s second, Discovery Channel Canada has contacted them about filming the next effort.
What will the goal behind that event be?
“To keep getting higher until we fail,” said Macko.
(Maple Leafs Featured Columnist) on August 2, 2010
The Toronto Maple Leafs appear to be almost set for next season. With 21 players signed and a little over two million left under the cap there is almost certainly a trade in the works with someone.
While the odds on favorite to be dealt is still long time Toronto Maple Leafs defenseman Tomas Kaberle, I wouldn't take that to the bank just yet.
Although there are newer members of the team, don't think for a second that Brian Burke would hesitate in dealing Versteeg, Armstrong, or anyone else for that matter if the deal is right.
Brian Burke has all but said his mission here in Toronto is to build a dynasty.
The Toronto Maple Leafs haven't seen a dynasty team since, oddly enough, the last time they won the Stanley cup.
It was 1967 and the Leafs had just completed a run that saw them win their fourth cup in six years, drawing to a close the team's second and final real dynasty.
There have been teams that have been pretty good for several years, but they obviously haven't won a cup and therefore cannot fall into the same category.
Dynasty is not a word that is thrown around much anymore. There hasn't been a real hockey dynasty since Wayne Gretzky and the Edmonton Oilers dominated the better part of the 1980's winning five Stanley Cups in just eight years.
In a salary cap era, it may seem as though the likelihood of a dynasty type team is remote, but it can't be impossible can it?
It appears that Brian Burke and the Toronto Maple Leafs may be headed not perhaps in the right direction.
With certainly more of a youth movement than I've seen in the organization in my 40 plus years, and at least the appearance of some depth in the minors, if, and this is a giant if, Burke and his talent laden front office can continue ever so slowly but surely in the same direction, I dare say the possibility is there.
A bold statement I know, but even I can dream can't I?
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