Trade and Fire Away

There were a couple of key trades late before the MLB trading deadline passed yesterday at 4 p.m. The Braves picked up Michael Bourn from Houston and the Phillies picked up another Astro in Hunter Pence.
With the Braves now 6 games behind the Phillies, they are really playing for the wild card spot in the playoffs unless the Phillies use franchise killer Aaron Heilman more out of their bullpen.
The Pirates, still in contention in the central despite getting swept by the Phils over the weekend, picked up Derrick Lee from the Orioles. Lee was once an NL terror with the Cubs but he didn’t quite pan out the way the management in Baltimore thought he would.

The Red Sox acquired pitcher Erik Bedard from Seattle and needed to as they placed pitcher Clay Buchholz on the 60-day disabled list.
The other real major deal featured the Rockies trading away their 27-year old ace of the pitching staff, Ubaldo Jimenez, to the Indians for a slew of prospects. The Indians, a team which had been an early season surprise, are now just a game over .500 in the AL Central, but are only 2.5 games behind the first-place Tigers. Jimenez, if he mimics the form that he had last year when he was 15-1 at one point in the season, gives the Injuns a counter to the Tigers ace Justin Verlander who nearly threw a no-hitter yesterday in a crazy game against the Angels.
The Orioles did pick up a replacement for Derrick Lee (Chris Davis) in a trade with the Rangers. The 25 year-old Davis has played about 250 major-league games and has a mighty powerful bat. He has hit 42 homeruns in 880 at-bats and is hitting .365 with 22 homeruns in the minors this year. But, as is the case often times with these kinds of guys, he whiffs a lot. In fact, in 2009 he struck out 150 times in just 391 at-bats. That is a pace that would make Ryan Howard and his new teammate Mark Reynolds proud.

With this following bit of history you will find a major difference from the players of today compared to the players in the “good old days.”
On this day in 1903 the Giants, losers of 11 of 13 games, get a big boost as Iron Joe McGinnity ASKS to pitch both ends of a doubleheader. He lives up to his name, winning both from Boston, 4 - 1 and 5 - 2, giving up just six hits in each game. Five Giants (some sources say eight) are nicked by pitches in the two games, while the two teams combine to plunk six (or 11).

Joe McGinnity

In the Tigers-Angels game I referenced earlier there was some heated moments as two of the AL’s best pitchers faced off against other. Verlander from Tigers was going against Jered Weaver. Both were looking for their 15^th win of the season. After tossing a homerun to the Tigers Magglio Ordonez, Weaver thought that Ordonez was admiring his homerun a little too long. I didn’t think so on the replay; the ball was just right down the line and could have been foul.
However, a homerun by Carlos Guillen of the Tigers a little later was completely different. Guillen not only stared at it but stared back at Weaver and basically showed him up on the mound.
Well, Weaver didn’t like that too much and there were some words exchanged to the point where the umpire then warned both teams that if there was any retaliation people would get tossed.
Verlander was also pitching a no-hitter at the time to frustrate Weaver even more. Weaver then blazed a fast ball right at another Tigers head and was removed from the game.
In the 8^th inning, while Verlander was still pitching his no-hitter, one of the Angels tried to bunt for a base hit.
Now there is this unwritten code between players at this point of a no-hitter. If a player gets a good solid hit to break up the no-hitter, that’s all good. While no one expects a batter to just let a pitcher make history, one of things that a batter can do to break this secret bond is to try to bunt for a hit, which this guy did (I forget his name.) Verlander made an error on the play and then stared out at the offender now standing on second base in much the same manner as Weaver did when Guillen hit his homerun. (Apples and oranges comparison between the two violations by the batters of course.)
Verlander’s no-hitter was then broken as was his shutout in that inning.
Back in the dugout Verlander could be seen shouting at the Angels bullpen and one of things I read on his lips was, “next time” as he was pointing to his own ribs. Clearly he was telling someone the next time he either faced him or did something like that he was going to get one of Verlanders 101 mph fastballs in his side.

So the next time these two teams play a double header against each other, both pitchers should just man up and pitch both games of it and throw at everyone and have a grand old, “good-old days” kind of Sunday afternoon.    

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Done.