MLB Daily: David Price Shelled; Dodgers-Giants 9th Inning Controversy
By Mike Cardillo
Welcome to MLB Daily, where sometimes you eat the bar and sometimes it eats you.
Break up the Mets: The Mets rallied to beat the Braves Wednesday and are now are a baseball-best 12-3, winners of 10 straight. We probably shouldn’t put much stock into the Mets’ five-game lead on the Nationals — everyone’s World Series favorites — considering that Anthony Rendon hasn’t played yet for Washington and 15 games remains a small sample size (nine percent of the full season.)
That said, in 2014, the Mets never won more than four straight games. The Mets, given their history, could crash and burn rather quickly, but an early lead probably can’t hurt. There are 147 games left for Terry Collins’ club. If the Mets go 73-74 the rest of the way, that’s still a 85-77 record by the end of September. Last year, both National League Wild Cards got into the playoffs at 88 wins, so the Mets still have work to do, but an October with the Amazins’ isn’t that far-fetched.
Price is wrong: In a macro sense, baseball is the most predictable sport we have, but as always anything can happen in nine innings. David Price came into Wednesday night’s start vs. the Yankees averaging 104 pitches over 7 1/3 innings in his first three starts. Then in the first vs. New York he threw 51, allowing six runs in the process. Yes it was snowing, briefly, and a balmy 39 degrees, but it was still an atypical start for the southpaw who was pulled in the third. The outing bumped his season ERA from 0.40 to 3.28. The Yankees won 13-4. Said Price, via the Freep, “I just didn’t have it.”
Lifetime, Price is 10-7 vs. the Yankees with a 4.41 ERA, well above his 3.21 career mark. Guess that wouldn’t be an issue if he signs in the Bronx this winter as a free agent.
Nightly controversy: The ninth inning of the Giants-Dodgers game at AT&T Park provided us with our daily dose of controversy when Gregor Blanco made contact with third base coach Roberto Kelly after a single by Brandon Belt. Dodgers’ skipper Don Mattingly came out to argue that Kelly helped Blanco back to the base, which is against the rules.
The Giants would win on Joe Panik’s sac-fly.
Craig Calcaterra over at Hardball Talk has some deeper thoughts on this one. To me, it was a bang-bang play, except instead of dealing with a runner at a base, it was a runner running into a coach making a fluke occurrence. Granted the umpires weren’t exactly paying close attention, either. Watching for the play and reading rule 7.09(g): “In the judgment of the umpire, the base coach at third base, or first base, by touching or holding the runner, physically assists him in returning to or leaving third base or first base” … it doesn’t seem, to me, like Kelly helped him back to the base beyond the initial bounce.
If Blanco inadvertently ran into Kelly and didn’t have any physical reaction, the laws of physics would need to be rewritten.
Also, the baseball rule book is very long — but thrilling, thrilling reading.
Senior moment: Torii Hunter tried to steal home on Jeremy Guthrie. It didn’t work out too well, but the Twins beat the Royals 3-0 anyway.
Stat pack: Here’s the list of qualified pitchers with ERAs under 1.00 through Thursday: Shane Greene 0.39, Nick Martinez 0.45; Max Scherzer 0.83; Anthony DeScalfini 0.86; Chris Heston 0.87; Dallas Keuchel 0.90; Jacob deGrom 0.93; Trevor Bauer 0.95. … Other than Scherzer, it’s not many well-known hurlers in the mix, so far.
Daily Puig: Yasiel Puig’s been a bit banged up to start the season, so we haven’t seen any plays like this recently.
This & That: David Ortiz hit home run 469 of his career vs. the Rays Wednesday night, moving past Chipper Jones for 32nd all-time. As the saying goes, if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all, which certainly applies to Ortiz. … Ty posted on Juan Lagares’ great catch last night, but check it out if you haven’t. … Kolten Wong made a couple of incredible jump-throws last night. They’re worth watching because you rarely see the jump throw made by a second baseman. … Jeff Samardzija held Cleveland scoreless for six innings to get his first win as a member of the White Sox. He’s now given up one run and 14 hits over his last 14 innings. … Joe Nathan will undergo Tommy John surgery after injuring himself in a rehab start on Wednesday. His lone appearance for the Tigers in 2015 was registering the final out of David Price’s opening day start vs. the Twins.
