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 Post subject: Marco Scutaro, meet Bucky Dent
PostPosted: Sun Apr 15, 2007 6:20 pm 
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Not only did Mariano Rivera give up a game-losing three-run homer to the A's today, but gave it up to a player extremely unlikely to provide such heroics in utilityman Marco Scutaro.

In his seventh major-league season, Scutaro has 25 home runs. His career slugging percentage is .386, and the American League slugging percentage during Scutaro's career is .431.

When Russell Earl Dent hit his earth-shattering shot off Bob Stanley in the one-game 1978 playoff against the Red Sox, he had been in the majors for six seasons and hit 23 home runs in his career to that point.

In 1978, Dent slugged .317. The AL average that year was .381.

I hereby propose a constitutional amendment that forcibly renames Marco as "Bucky" Scutaro.

(Okay, I admit it. I just like piling on the Yankees when they're down.)


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PostPosted: Sun Apr 15, 2007 6:59 pm 
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Oh, and by the way, Derek Jeter leads the majors so far with six errors.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sun Apr 15, 2007 10:48 pm 
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From a Newsday story:

Quote:
In his 13 seasons with the Yankees, Rivera has allowed only six walk-off home runs. When Derek Jeter estimated that he could count the walk-offs on Rivera on one hand, he was pretty close.


Next time, ask Antonio Alfonseca.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Apr 16, 2007 10:14 am 
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Wabberjocky wrote:
From a Newsday story:

Quote:
In his 13 seasons with the Yankees, Rivera has allowed only six walk-off home runs. When Derek Jeter estimated that he could count the walk-offs on Rivera on one hand, he was pretty close.


Next time, ask Antonio Alfonseca.


Thanks. You made me spit coffee on my keyboard.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Apr 16, 2007 12:45 pm 
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El Pulpo offers you his protection.


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 Post subject: Re: Marco Scutaro, meet Bucky Dent
PostPosted: Mon Apr 16, 2007 11:29 pm 
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Wabberjocky wrote:
Not only did Mariano Rivera give up a game-losing three-run homer to the A's today, but gave it up to a player extremely unlikely to provide such heroics in utilityman Marco Scutaro.

In his seventh major-league season, Scutaro has 25 home runs. His career slugging percentage is .386, and the American League slugging percentage during Scutaro's career is .431.

When Russell Earl Dent hit his earth-shattering shot off Bob Stanley in the one-game 1978 playoff against the Red Sox, he had been in the majors for six seasons and hit 23 home runs in his career to that point.

In 1978, Dent slugged .317. The AL average that year was .381.

I hereby propose a constitutional amendment that forcibly renames Marco as "Bucky" Scutaro.

(Okay, I admit it. I just like piling on the Yankees when they're down.)


Ummm...ol' Russell Earl had a slightly bigger platform from which to launch his beatfied blast. And whereas one day Marco Scutaro is going to be able to tell his grandkids that he managed to hit a homer against the great Rivera, Mr. Dent takes no great relish in having hit his off the decidedly mediocre Mike Torrez. Russell Earl's shot helped deliver a division championship (Reggie Jackson's homer later in that game actually sealed the deal); Scutaro's dinger (literally) decided one April game.

That said, it was vexing. My thought as I watched Rivera do a reverse Carlton Fisk and then pump his arm dejectedly as he walked off the mound was, "Well, you don't see that too often."

Not sure where Newsday's staff gets six walkoffs for Rivera; the Times today and ESPN last night listed four walkoff home runs in Rivera's career, all since 2002. The Times cites the Elias Sports Bureau as its source, and the graphic is apparently not available at the Times' Web site: July 14, 2002, at Cleveland, a Bill Selby grand slam; Indians 10, Yankees 7; July 24, 2004, at Boston, a Bill Mueller two-run homer; Red Sox 11, Yankees 10; July 20, 2006, at Toronto, a Vernon Wells solo homer; Blue Jays 5, Yankees 4; and yesterday's debacle. I vividly remembered the Mueller shot, a blast to the right-field bleachers, Big Papi territory, but had forgotten about the Wells shot.

And, yes, Derek does have to start catching the ball, though to be fair, yesterday's error was a tough error. That ball almost hit him in the face.

Mike Francesa deservedly asked last night what would have happened to A-Rod in the New York press if he had made six errors and Jeter had made only one (A-Rod's total). The answer was that A-Rod would have already demanded a trade to the Cubs for the roasting he would have taken from fans and media.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 12:15 am 
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Points taken, Wordy. My point, really, was to show how rare it is for a light-hitting infielder to jack a monster shot off a premium pitcher. (And yeah, it was Torrez, not Stanley ... my bad. I got it mixed up with all the other game-losing shots Stanley gave up over the years. At least I didn't credit Stanley with destroying Dickie Thon's face.)

My all-time light-hitter freak-moment has to be the game in which Freddie Patek (41 dingers in 14 seasons) hit three in one game — while he was a 35-year-old on the last legs of his career.

And then there's Scott Podsednik hitting his first home all year to end Game 1 of the 2005 World Series.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 8:43 am 
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Wabberjocky wrote:
Points taken, Wordy. My point, really, was to show how rare it is for a light-hitting infielder to jack a monster shot off a premium pitcher. (And yeah, it was Torrez, not Stanley ... my bad. I got it mixed up with all the other game-losing shots Stanley gave up over the years. At least I didn't credit Stanley with destroying Dickie Thon's face.)

My all-time light-hitter freak-moment has to be the game in which Freddie Patek (41 dingers in 14 seasons) hit three in one game — while he was a 35-year-old on the last legs of his career.

And then there's Scott Podsednik hitting his first home all year to end Game 1 of the 2005 World Series.


Actually, I hadn't even noticed that you had subbed Bob Stanley for Mike Torrez, Wabber. You could have been excused for that, though, as you say, given Stanley's track record.

Freddie Patek. Will always remember him as a picture of solitude on the bench, head in hands, sobbing after a playoff loss to the Yankees. Shades of Wade Boggs after the 1986 World Series.

Podsednik's feat was truly freakish yet very timely.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 2:50 pm 
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Quote:
Freddie Patek. Will always remember him as a picture of solitude on the bench, head in hands, sobbing after a playoff loss to the Yankees. Shades of Wade Boggs after the 1986 World Series.


My favorite crying-in-baseball moment was in 1995, when the Miracle Mariners finally petered out in the ALCS against the Indians. There was 30-year-old veteran Joey Cora, alone in the dugout, sobbing his eyes out ... and then 19-year-old Alex Rodriguez sat down alongside him and put an arm around him.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 3:06 pm 
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Wabberjocky wrote:
Quote:
Freddie Patek. Will always remember him as a picture of solitude on the bench, head in hands, sobbing after a playoff loss to the Yankees. Shades of Wade Boggs after the 1986 World Series.


My favorite crying-in-baseball moment was in 1995, when the Miracle Mariners finally petered out in the ALCS against the Indians. There was 30-year-old veteran Joey Cora, alone in the dugout, sobbing his eyes out ... and then 19-year-old Alex Rodriguez sat down alongside him and put an arm around him.


Interesting; hadn't seen that.

My memories of that classic 1995 ALDS are of a 3-2 curveball from David Cone to Doug Strange, of all people, and a jubilant Ken Griffey Jr. being mobbed at the plate as he scored the winning run in the fifth game.

Too bad Buck Showalter didn't know what he had in a young Mariano Rivera. He could have been on the mound instead of Jack McDowell when the curtain fell.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 4:23 pm 
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Yeah, that series is famous for its stars who were still a year from coming of age. Alex had just joined the Mariners in September. He hit horribly, played sparingly and had virtually nothing to do with that magic carpet ride.

Also famous for its Mariner players who became Yankees — Jim Mecir, Tino Martinez, Luis Sojo, Jeff Nelson ... oh, yeah, and Randy Johnson and Alex.

And ex-Yankees Mike Blowers and Jay Buhner, of course.

In retrospect, it was as if the Yankees had gone up against the old Kansas City A's in the 1959 ALCS. The Yankees had long used the A's as a major-league farm team, shipping out underperformers, bringing them back when they played well, and taking the A's best homegrown players. Bill James, in one of his Baseball Abstracts in the mid-1980s, did a great piece on this.
It ended with a funny imagined scene in which James imagined Billy Martin, Dick Howser and Dick Williams — all exiled Yankees in the late '50s — sitting on the Kansas City bench at the tag end of another crap season and saying: "You know, there's a lot of guys here who can play if somebody would just show them how to do it."[/i]


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