TDA Bullpen - Our Writers' Blog

Tuesday, July 27, 2004

Plunk!

Twins 3B Corey Koskie just tied a major league record tonight by absorbing three HBP against the White Sox. The first two times he managed to steal second, but the third time there was already a runner at second, so no chance to get a dual hat trick for Koskie.

The Twins and White Sox are two-thirds of the way through a big series in Comiskey. The Twins, having played three more games than the White Sox to date, came into the series in the somewhat unusual position of being ahead in the standings in percentage terms, but a game behind the Sox in the loss column. Minnesota will leave Chicago no worse than tied in the loss column with their pair of victories.

The big news in the first game was of course Torii Hunter leveling Sox catcher Jamie Burke on a sacrifice fly in the 8th to put the Twins up 5-1 in an eventual 6-2 final. I kind of like the fact that Sox manager Ozzie Guillen had Hunter's back on this one, saying something to the effect that if one of his guys did something like that there'd be high-fives all around. We'll see if Hunter has woken up a sleeping giant with his wrecking ball tactics. At the very least, when Hunter scored on another sac fly in tonight's game, catcher Ben Davis gave Hunter a wide berth at home.

He's So Dreamy...

Johan Santana went in tonight's game for the Twins. He's starting to get some national attention, as he got a special Dave Campbell breakdown on Sportscenter tonight. I hope the guy yelling at Santana in his start right before the break was watching, because for the most part Campbell's breakdown consisted of highlighting the dazzling array of offspeed stuff Santana has at his command, though there were a couple of 93 mph fastballs mixed in there as well.

As longtime readers will know, I've been gushing about Santana since my very first post here, and that I latched on to his assuming the AL strikeout lead as soon as he hit 100 K's.

I'm going to be a little more specific about the prediction I made about Santana in my July 18th entry. In keeping with the fabulous stuff he has now (Santana has allowed no more than three hits in every start he made in July), and the fact that he's never thrown more than about 170 innings, it says here that he'll go at least 18 outs into a game without giving up a hit some time in August, but if he doesn't do it next month, he won't do it in September.

Got Lonely Up Here

Switching to the NL Central for a moment, all of a sudden there are only two teams on the happy side of .500, the Cards (64-36), and the Cubs (54-46). The Astros have gotten back to even at 50-50, and the "interlopers" are now all below .500, though the worst record among the Reds, Pirates, and Brewers is Milwaukee's 48-51. The Cubs are still in the thick of the Wild Card race, but Houston has some interesting decisions in front of them. They're 6 games behind WC leader San Diego in the loss column, and the Giants, Cubs, and Phillies are all at least 2 (Giants and Cubs are 4) games ahead of Houston in the loss column. It'll be interesting to see whether the Astros think they have enough to make a run or not. I'm thinking not, as the back end of their rotation is suspect and their bullpen is still in a state of flux. They have the bats, though Bagwell and Kent haven't done much lately, but I don't think they have the pitching to contend even for the Wild Card, not at this point.

To close out, I feel I should mention that Greg Maddux just won his 299th game, and took down Ben Sheets for the second time in less than two weeks. Maddux is the first Cub pitcher to 10 victories, and who would have guessed that that would have been the case in May? This is one of the reasons why the Cubs still have post-season prospects -- Maddux can match up with another team's ace and give you a decent chance to win, and the Cubs still have a handful of aces and kings to match against the other teams' deuces and treys. If only the Cubs can get Mark Prior to crack triple digits in the pitch count for one of his starts now...

posted by Tom Renbarger 8:50 PM