MLB '13 The Show Needs a Coverboy

Every sport has a signature video game. For baseball, SCE San Diego Studio's MLB The Show Series gives you everything you want in a game of simulation hardball, and each year it seems to deliver more of the things baseball fans want to see.

This year, the player who will don the cover of the game seems like a can't miss no matter how voting ends up. Matt Kemp, CC Sabathia, Andrew McCutchen, Bryce Harper, Buster Posey, Ryan Braun, Miguel Cabrera and Johnny Giavotella are the candidates. Fans can cast their ballot by heading over to MLB.com/covervote and joining in via twitter or Facebook.

Baseball is doing a great job of promoting this as the marquee game of their sport. All hands are on deck with the aforementioned Twitter, Facebook, and MLB.com outlets. Each candidate made a campaign video (here's McCutchen's) and I even heard Colin Cowherd talking about the game with CC Sabathia today on ESPN Radio during my lunch break. 

I can tell you from experience, this game is worthy of all the hype. It's one of the few things in my life that year after year continues to deliver without diminishing returns. Even a new car is only great for the first year you have it. After that, you've got trash on the floor and your friends will smoke cigarettes in it without asking.

This game delivers a feel so real, you'll smell peanuts and pine tar from the minute you throw it in your Playstation. Sorry XBOX owners, you're left out in the cold like George Jung for now. 

If you have the time on your hands, I challenge you to pick the game up and try to play a full 162-game season. It might sound like it gets boring or tedious to some, but you'll never see the same thing twice in this game. And over the course of playing a season with that many game you'll see some rare special things at about the same rate you would see them over the course of the real-life season. You'll get blown out, win an 18-inning game in which you have to insert a pitcher to play left field, make a game saving catch, hit grand slams, have a shot at records, endure slumps, rain delays; it's all in this game if you allow play it out and allow it to come to you. 

Now, head over to twitter and send a simple tweet '#MLB13HARPER' to vote for the guy I want to see on the cover. 

Follow @mlbtheshow for more details of The Show '13 cover vote race. At press time, Andrew McCutchen holds a surprising decisive lead.

Brian Sabean Is An Idiot

Nobody is happy about Scott Cousins' collision at home plate with Buster Posey which, unfortunately, ended the Giants superstar catcher's season. I'm not happy about it, Buster isn't happy about it, Cousins isn't happy about it but Giants GM Brian Sabean is being a jerk about it...

Giants general manager Brian Sabean on Thursday tore into Scott Cousins of the Florida Marlins for his devastating hit on Buster Posey, saying the Giants will have a "long memory" of the play and everyone in the organization will be happy if Cousins is through as a major-league player.

*snip*

The GM's harshest statements in the lengthy interview came when co-host Ralph Barbieri noted that Posey had no desire to hear from Cousins.

"I don't blame the kid," Sabean said of Posey. "Why not be hard-nosed? If I never hear from Cousins again, or he doesn't play another day in the big leagues, I think we'll all be happy."

Cousins wasn't much of a major leaguer to begin with but he is built like a linebacker and crushed Posey at the plate. The ensuing injury led to varying opinions ranging from it was an intention hit to rules should be changed/enforced to Posey could have had better technique. However you view the incident, the result is the same. It's a crushing blow to the Giants and one of baseball's rising stars.

But Sabean's radio rant bothered me and I'm sure some front office folk will be calling for a public apology. Cousins, by all means, seemed upset about the outcome of the play and tried reaching out to Posey. If Posey didn't/doesn't want to hear an apology, I can't fault him, he did lose his season after all, but I tend to think cooler heads will prevail. Sabean, on the other hand, flat out wished ill on a professional baseball player.

While I realize this was largely an emotional reaction, Sabean is representing a Major League franchise and should have some professional tact. That was, and will continue to be, a legal play in the eyes of Major League Baseball. Blocking the plate and charging the catcher are baseball fixtures that will take years to overcome if a change in philosophy is, and might be, warranted. It's unjust for Sabean to so harshly criticize Cousins for a play baseball taught him his whole career.

Curveballs for Jobu 5/18/11

Curveballs for Jobu is Offbasepercentage's daily trip around the ballparks.

Today's honorary bat boy is Rico Rossy.

Braves 3, Astros 1 (11).
Brian McCann had the most impressive day off since Ferris Bueller in 1986. Down 1-0 with 2 outs in the 9th, McCann came off the bench to hit the game tying home run. Then, for good measure, McCann hit the game winning home run in the 11th inning. McCann's heroics spoiled an impressive 8 shutout innings of work from Wandy Rodriguez. The one bright spot for Houston this season is that they aren't Minnesota.

Rockies 5, Giants 3.
Ubaldo Jiminez threw 116 pittches (72 strikes) over 8 innings, allowing 3 earned on 8 hits. He struck out 7 while only walking 1 batter. I haven't seen any data on his velocity but this was at least an encouraging start. And it came just a day after Troy Renck shot down my idea to phantom DL Jiminez to get some rehab starts out of him. Blog favorite Buster Posey went 2-4 and is hitting just .271/.355/.376 taking a huge dip in his slugging percentage from last year.

Reds 7, Cubs 5.
Milli Vanilli's 1989 smash hit Blame It On The Rain was the Cubs' theme for Tuesday's game. A steady rain in 50 degree weather led to 4 Cub errors and all 7 unearned Reds' runs. The Reds have won 5 straight and 8 of their last 10. What was wrong with 1989? How could the same year produce Blame It On The Rain and Young MC's instant classic Bust A Move?

Oakland 14, Angels 0.
Gio Gonzalez and the A's humiliated the Angels Tuesday night. But, as an Angels fan, I was able to take two small victories away from this one. Fernando Rodney didn't play a role in the loss. Oakland scored exactly enough to give the Angels a -1 run differential. At 22-21, the Angels are once again outperforming their Pythagorean record (however so slightly).

Indians 7, Royals 3.
Another day, another win for the Tribe. Travis Hafner went 2-4 with 2 doubles and is hitting .345/.409/.549 for the year. Pronk! Carlos Santana and Asdrubal Cabrera both went yard to help the Indians keep the best record in baseball. Kansas City messiah Eric Hosmer went 2-4 with a triple.

Twins 2, Mariners 1.
Francisco Liriano pitched 7 innings and gave up just 1 run on 3 hits. He struck out 9 while only walking Miguel Olivo. That's the good news. The bad news is Liriano pitched well against an offense featuring two major league hitters. Justin Morneau went 0-4 for a .223/.294/.323 line. I don't know if Ron Gardenhire is trying to lose 100 games but, at some point, Morneau should probably be displaced from the clean-up spot/lineup.

Other games, but down here...
Pirates, Nationals PPD.
Marlins, Mets PPD. Mets find a way to not lose or get any players injured.
Cardinals 2, Phillies 1.
Diamondbacks 6, Padres 1.
Dodgers 3, Brewers 0.
Yankees 6, Rays 2.
Blue Jays, Tigers PPD. Jose Bautista homers 0
Orioles, Red Sox PPD. Lackey joined Dice-K on the DL.
White Sox 4, Rangers 3.

Off Base NL West Preview

Offbase editors Derwood Morris and MTD haven't had much luck previewing things lately-MTD incorrectly predicted Gary Discarcina would come out of retirement to help the Angels win the 2009 World Series and Derwood thought Teen Wolf 3 would be the 2010 summer blockbuster. But here are division previews anyway.

In this post, I look at the NL West. The West is of course home to the defending strikeout kings of baseball, the Arizona Diamondbacks. And some team that won some series.

San Fransisco (2010: 92-70)
The Giants just barely got past the Padres to make the playoffs. Once they got into the postseason, Cody Ross homered them to the World Series Championship. Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain and Brian Wilson also contributed. The Giants return just about everybody except they swapped out a couple of old short stops. They'll get a full season from blog favorite and 2010 NL ROY Buster Posey. Perhaps the Giants learned their lesson by almost missing the playoffs and won't mess around this season with top prospect Brandon Belt's service time. Pablo Sandoval reportedly lost 300 pounds after cutting entire deep fried pigs out of his diet and looks to rebound from a poor 2010 season. And hopefully, we'll get more of this...



Obviously, I mean Brian Wilson and not George Lopez who I'm trying to get deported for crimes against comedy.

Colorado (83-79)
The Rox rewarded their young stars by locking up Troy Tulowitzki and Carlos Gonzalez to monster contracts. CarGo displayed some uncanny home/road splits in 2010 to the tune of .380/.425/.737 and .289/.322/.453 but those home stats still count. Tulo is a fantastic player by all accounts but hasn't displayed a knack for staying healthy. But I'm not on the hook for any of that cash so the next few years look like pretty good deals. PECOTA thinks Ubaldo Jiminez comes back down to his 2009 stats but a tad worse and I'm inclined to believe that based on my scientific whimsy.

Los Angeles (80-82)
I think the Dodgers have a better rotation than the Rockies but they did let Russell Martin walk just when it looked like he was poised to give Jeff Mathis some competition for most incompetent LA catcher at the plate. So Mathis can go ahead and get that 2011 acceptance speech ready. Matt Kemp should have a better season unless having dated Rihanna turns out to be some kind of career killer. Which is why I have rejected her many advances. You know, for the sake of the blog.

San Diego (90-72)
I hear the weather is nice. And a zoo, right? So, that's cool.

Arizona (65-97)
The Diamondbacks struck out an impressive 1,529 times last year. The Marlins were the next closest with 1,375. The D-Backs shipped off Mark Reynolds who struck out over 200 times for the past three season in an effort to make me stop watching them altogether. Good job, Arizona. You just became less interesting.

The 25 Year Old And Under Team

If I've learned anything from blogging, it's that people love lists. And get used to being poor. So I'm going to run out some lineups that fall in line with the arbitrary parameters that I have set. Today's lineup consists of players who are 25-years-old or younger by April 1st, 2011. The 2011 stats are Bill James' forecasts since Baseball Prospectus' pay wall is impossible to navigate around without any cash.

Catcher - Buster Posey 3/27/1987
2010: 18 HR, .305/.357/.505, .368 wOBA, 3.9 WAR
2011: 21 HR, .308/.370/.506, .380 wOBA

When the Giants finally shipped off Bengie Molina's 7 speed on the 20-80 scouting scale, Posey took over the catching duties in San Fran and never looked back. He was the NL ROY and finished 11th in MVP voting while becoming a blog favorite here.

Carlos Santana and Matt Wieters both turn 25 this year and have bright futures, even if Wieters is fantasy kryptonite for me. But Posey is already a star and would be the face of the franchise if it wasn't for that dirty hippy.

First Base - Ike Davis 3/22/1987
2010: 19 HR, .264/.351/.440, .345 wOBA, 3.4 WAR
2011: 23 HR, .283/.374/.488, .377 wOBA

First base was a little tough considering Brandon Belt will probably replace Davis on next year's team. Davis gets the nod here because I wanted to give Mets fans a reason to step back from that ledge for a minute before the season starts. They'll probably be mathematically eliminated from the playoffs in April.

Second Base - Gordon Beckham 9/16/1986
2009: 14 HR, .270/.347/.460, .351 wOBA, 2.2 WAR
2010: 9 HR, .252/.317/.378, .305 wOBA, 0.9 WAR
2011: 15 HR, .273/.343/.436, .338 wOBA

Which Beckham will show up in 2011? The only thing I can guarantee is that it won't be Tim. I still believe in Gordon but that was a disaster of a sophomore campaign. I also considered Sean Rodriguez but I'm still pretty bummed that he was the PTBNL in the Scott Kazmir deal.

Dustin Ackley and Jean Segura aren't that far away from bumping Beckham from his starting gig on this team though.

Short Stop - Starlin Castro 3/24/1990
2010: 3 HR, .300/.347/.408, .325 wOBA, 2.0 WAR
2011: 4 HR, .310/.359/.428, .343 wOBA

Considering Castro won't turn 21 until March, it looks like he has all of the goods to be a perennial All Star. That's the good news for Cubs fans. The bad news is they couldn't move Alfonso Soriano's chubby contract to the Angels. Yet.

Third Base - Evan Longoria 10/7/1985
2010: 22 HR, .294/.372/.507, .376 wOBA, 6.9 WAR
2011: 31 HR, .295/.379/.537, .397 wOBA

Not only is Longoria still just 25, he might already be the best player at his position in baseball. He's my way too early pick for AL MVP. Plus, he's signed to the most team friendly contract in the recent history of MLB. Add all of that together and you can see why stat super nerd Dave Cameron named Longoria the most (trade) valuable player in all the land.

Right Field - Jason Heyward 8/9/1989
2010: 18 HR, .277/.393/.456, .376 wOBA, 5.0 WAR
2011: 22 HR, .295/.411/.493, .395 wOBA

Heyward arrived with a massive cloud of hype surrounding him and didn't disappoint. Heyward finished in the top ten in OBP while playing the majority of the season as a 20-year-old rookie. The force is strong with this one. And to get on my good side, he even recorded a Platinum Sombrero on June 5th.

Remember Justin Upton? Yeah, me neither.

Center Field - Andrew McCutchen 10/10/1986
2010: 16 HR, 33 SB, .286/.365/.449, .363 wOBA, 3.3 WAR
2011: 16 HR, 33 SB, .287/.364/.445, .359 wOBA

Center field was a little tricky for me because I really like Colby Rasmus. But Tony LaRussa will find a way to play the corpse of Jim Edmonds or Jon Jay or a traffic cone in center instead of giving Rasmus the full time gig. McCutchen is also a lot of fun to watch which isn't something routinely said about the Pirates.

Left Field - Carlos Gonzalez 10/17/1985
2010: 34 HR, 26 SB, .336/.376/.598, .416 wOBA, 6.0 WAR
2011: 28 HR, 22 SB, .308/.357/.545, .390 wOBA

I slid CarGo into left because he did start 51 games there and posted his best UZR there compared to the other outfield spots. Sure his home-road splits hurt my feelings but he still had an amazing season in 2010 and crashed Albert Pujols' and Joey Votto's little Triple Crown race.

DH - Billy Butler 4/18/1986
2010: 15 HR, .318/.388/.469, .372 wOBA, 3.4 WAR
2011: 18 HR, .307/.377/.476, .373 wOBA

Butler is one of those players who seems like he should be much better than he is. He doesn't really have a position so his lack of power is disconcerting for a DH or even a first baseman. Unless you're the Angels. But he hits the gaps (6th in doubles in 2010) and has a solid OBP.

Staff Ace - Felix Hernandez 4/8/1986
2010: 2.27 ERA, 3.04 FIP, 3.26 xFIP, 6.2 WAR
2011: 3.31 ERA, 3.30 FIP

King Felix won his first Cy Young in his 6th year in the bigs as a 24-year-old. If he was on a different MLB team (not talking about you, Pittsburgh), we might be looking at the next/last pitcher who could get to 300 wins. At least voters are now looking past pitcher wins so Felix should be able to score a few more trophies. By trophies, I mean Cy Youngs just in case anybody confused the Mariners as a playoff team for the foreseeable future.

Closer - Neftali Feliz 5/2/1988
2010: 2.73 ERA, .2.96 FIP, 3.68 xFIP, 1.7 WAR
2011: 2.66 ERA, .2.97 FIP

I'm still in the "make Feliz a starter" camp but the Rangers don't reply to my emails and it seems like they're going to leave him in the closer role. He is fantastic there but they just lose too much value keeping him in the pen if he can start.

The Offensive Juggernaut Known As The Giants

The funny part about this is that I actually used the offensive juggernaut known as the Giants tag to mock their pitiful lineup throughout the regular season. Turns out the joke was on me. The Giants have now scored 20 runs in the first two games of the World Series. And to my surprise, the Giants destruction of the Rangers pitching hasn't come from the bat of blog favorite Buster Posey. The Giants offensive outburst has come from the unlikely names such as Edgar Renteria, Juan Uribe, Aubrey Huff and Freddy Sanchez. Okay, maybe not Huff so much as he was a pretty good hitter during the regular season.

Still, I don't think anyone imagined the Giants would light up Cliff Lee in Game One and then pin nine runs on the Rangers bullpen in Game Two. Of course, Ron Washington has been managing his bullpen like a Golden Corral that was going in the red because Bengie Molina bought a season pass. Washington's refusal to use his best reliever, Neftali Feliz, in high leverage situations (or at all) continues to boggle everyone's mind.

Speaking of mind boggling, has anybody been watching Matt Cain this post season? He's now started three games and pitched 21.1 scoreless innings. Another scoreless 8 inning performance in Game Six (if necessary) would break Walter Johnson's record for shutout post season innings. Note: I didn't do any real research, I'm just going off of a Jayson Stark tweet that I hope I accurately remember. I'm awesome at journalism.

The Rangers will lean on Japanese League superstar Colby Lewis to cool off the hot bats of the Giants when the series resumes Saturday in Arlington. The Rangers can plug Big Daddy Vladdy back into the lineup as their DH which should help them offensively and defensively. Vlad still crushes lefty pitching so there is still a little hope for Rangers fans if he can get a few good swings against Jonathan Sanchez.

While I never got around to publishing my World Series prediction post, I had the Giants in six. If the Rangers don't turn it around soon, I might look bad for reinserting that pick here.

BBA NL Willie Mays Award Ballot

Baseball's award season is upon us and we finally have a vote that counts for something this year. We're proud members of the Baseball Blogger Alliance and they've been kind enough to give us ballots. The only thing the BBWAA ever gave us was a slide rule that only went to 4. Today we'll be unveiling our NL Willie Mays ballot for rookie of the year.

1. Buster Posey
Did any Off Base readers not see this coming? We might have given Posey more love than his parents this season. The argument for Jason Heyward over Posey basically boils down to Heyward's extra 180 plate appearances. It's a valid point. And if Posey had caught 103 games instead of playing 30 games at first base, I doubt if it would even be an issue. Either way, Posey hit 18 home runs and .305/.357/.505 for the year. If Heyward wins, and he has a strong case, it's because freakin' Bengie Molina managed to block Posey from playing time. Literally, it's hard to get around his roundness. Posey finished the season with a 3.9 WAR and lost some UZR points when he played out of position at first base. Hey Rays, how's it working out passing on Posey for Tim Beckham? I thought so.

2. Jason Heyward
All the Braves' 20-year-old outfielder did was start the season and be their most productive player. He hit 18 homers and .277/.393/.456 while playing pretty good right field (4.6 UZR). Did I mention he's 20-years-old? He's a beast in the making and the corner stone of the youth movement in Atlanta. Heyward put up a 4.9 WAR and it's only going to get better from there. His .376 wOBA suggests that you better start penciling him in for multiple All Star Games. My Atlanta friends probably won't like me putting Heyward second but most of them are illiterate and I doubt they'll have anyone read this to them. Haha, your public school system sucks.

3. Jaime Garcia
If Garcia pitched in the American League and posted a 2.70/3.41/3.73 pitching line, he'd run away from the rest of the rookie pack. Instead he had to battle Mike Stanton and his 22 home runs for the final spot on my NL ballot. He pitched 163.1 innings of 3.2 WAR which firmly places him as a solid third behind Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright in the Cardinals' rotation.

Atlanta at San Francisco

As soon as I start a baseball blog, the Angels miss the playoffs for the first time since 2006. I hope you like your post-season previews filled with animosity and tears.

The Braves and the Giants will be the last series to get started Thursday at 8:37 CT. I spent a good chunk of my life living in Atlanta, dealing with Braves fans, both the wishy-washy kind and the dozen or so real ones. They're all annoying if you were wondering. Not quite Yankees or Red Sox fans annoying but still. I do have some pretty strong admiration for Tommy Hanson and Jason Heyward and spent many a drunken days at The Ted. That said, get ready for a heavy dose of Buster Posey love (also from Georgia).

My Completely Biased Opinion.
The Giants' rotation looks much better on paper than that of the Braves who will trot out Derek Lowe to open the series against Tim Lincecum and probably pitch him on short rest if there is a fourth game. If you've read this far, you probably know that Buster Posey is a blog favorite. I expect him to hit somewhere around .900 for the series.

Just Some of the Facts M'am.
Buster Posey hit 18 home runs and .305/.357/.505 in 443 plate appearances with the Giants in his rookie season. Posey's NL ROY competition, Jason Heyward, hit 18 home runs and .277/.393/.456 in 180 more plate appearances. Say what you will about the extra service time but, for me, Poesy>Heyward for this season. Lincecum had his worst season since his 24 rookie starts in 2007, pitching 3.43/3.15/3.21 (ERA/FIP/xFIP) while only striking out 9.79 per 9 innings. But that still trumps Lowe's 4.00/3.89/3.65 line. The Giants follow Lincecum with Matt Cain and Jonathan Sanchez to round out the best playoff rotation not based in Philadelphia. The Braves have a solid rotation too with Tommy Hanson and Tim Hudson. But if the pitching matchup in game 4 is actually Madison Bumgarner vs Brandon Beachy, Braves fans better start to worry.

Prediction.
Pitching + Posey = NLCS. There's a little more math that goes into that formula but simplified it for you. You're welcome. Giants in 4.

Cincinnati at Philadelphia

As soon as I start a baseball blog, the Angels miss the playoffs for the first time since 2006. I hope you like your post-season previews filled with animosity and tears.

The first National League playoff game will kick off around 4:07 on Wednesday. That's right, I'm still on Central time. Let's start the Chase Utley love fest...

My Completely Biased Opinion.
I've been accused of having an unhealthy obsession with Chase Utley. While his wife has sent me some pretty strongly worded cease and desist emails, I'll continue to champion his MVP worthiness. Utley has been, aside from Pujols and now maybe Votto, the best player in the National League for years. How he doesn't get more MVP love than, oh say, Ryan Howard boggles my mind. The Phillies are a force to be reckoned with in the playoffs because...

Just Some of the Facts M'am.
The Phils rotation starts with Doc Halladay and his Cy Young 2.44/3.01/2.92 (ERA/FIP/xFIP) line and Cole Hamels sporting a 3.06/3.67/3.43 line and Roy Oswalt and his 2.76/3.27/3.45 line. Oh and Oswalt is pitching a 1.74 ERA since coming over from the hapless Astros. I like Jay Bruce and Joey Votto and all of the young talent the Reds have to offer. They're simply outclassed by the Phils and Dusty Baker doesn't help the cause with his bullpen mismanagement.

Prediction.
While it's hard for me to root against Posey's Giant, the Phillies might be the most dangerous team in the post-season. The rotation can't be matched and the lineup is solid . Phils via 3 game murder.

Texas at Tampa Bay

As soon as I start a baseball blog, the Angels miss the playoffs for the first time since 2006. I hope you like your post-season previews filled with animosity and tears.

The post-season officially kicks off at 12:37 on Wednesday. That's right, I live in the Central Time Zone, adjust your clocks accordingly. The Rangers will visit Tampa Bay and deal with the dozens of fans who will cross that godforsaken bridge and enjoy that craptastic stadium. But hey, at least they altered the rules about a ball hitting the catwalk at the Trop to essentially being a do-over. Seriously, get a new stadium.

My Completely Biased Opinion.
I'll be rooting for the Rays in this series for all of the apparent reasons. I'm not afraid to admit them. The Rangers toppled the Angels from atop the AL West division and made their way onto my enemies list which also include Nazis and PETA. And secondly, Joe Maddon was the bench coach for the Angels once upon a time and he makes some pretty cool shoes. I'm pretty sure one of those is true. I do deduct a few points from the Rays for their epic draft FAIL of passing on blog favorite Buster Posey. The Rangers get a bonus point for the ballpark in Arlington resurrecting the career of Vladimir Guerrero.

Just Some of the Facts M'am.
Cliff Lee brings his 3.18/2.58/3.23 (ERA/FIP/xFIP) line to the Trop to battle David Price and Evan Longoria. Price had his breakout year as an ace posting a 2.72/3.42/3.99 line and the 19 wins will probably garner more Cy Young love than he deserves. I'll have Felix Hernandez, Lee, Francisco Liriano and probably Jered Weaver over Price on my imaginary ballot once I post it. Longoria put together another MVP caliber season hitting .294/.372/.507 while playing Gold Glove defense at third (11.0 UZR). Of course, he'll finish somewhere behind Josh Hamilton and his .359/.411/.633 line in the MVP voting.

Prediction.
I think the Rays are the better team with more pitching. The home field advantage is less of an advantage for the Rays as it is a disadvantage for the Rangers. Did you follow that? The Rangers are 39-42 away from their bandbox park while the Rays are good whether they're at home (49-32) or not (47-32). I could give you a whole lot more splits analysis but I trust you can work Baseball-Reference on your own at this point. Rays in 4.

Curveballs for Jobu

Curveballs for Jobu is Offbasepercentage's daily trip around the ballparks.

Today's honorary bay boy is Adam Hyzdu and he's here because he was a member of the last 100 loss Pirates team in 2001.

We are officially in the home stretch of the regular season and I badly need this Jobu because I spent the weekend watching football and the UFC. Well, the second half of yesterday I was pretty much just drinking and cursing Garrett Hartley. Let's take that quick spin around some of yesterday's games...

Giants 4, Rockies 2. Matt Cain took a no-hitter into the 8th and finished with a 9 IP, 3 H, 2R, 8K line. That ladies and gentleman will pretty much wrap up the 2010 season for the Rox. The Giants stay .5 game up on the Padres but if they somehow miss the playoffs, which is possible since the Pads and Giants play each other to end the season, I'm switching my playoff team for the third and final time to the Phillies. Blog favorite Buster Posey: 1-3 with a walk.

Reds 12, Padres 2. The Pads and specifically Clayton Richard couldn't help themselves yesterday. Richard got shelled over 5 innings of 5 hit, 6 run ball adding in 4 walks for good measure. Joey Votto hit his 37th home run of the season. Maybe I'll switch my playoff allegiance to the Reds, they seem like a fun team. By the end of the season, I'll be rooting for everybody but the Yankees.

Yankees 4, Red Sox 3 (10). Speaking of the Yankees, Marino Rivera blew another save but so did Papelbon. The game winner in the 10th was the dramatic walk-off walk by Juan Miranda. Edge of your seat action right there folks. Derek Jeter went 0-4 with 2 strikeouts. Jeter's .266/.336/.369 line should fetch him a fresh 4-year, $80 million contract next year. Between that and Minka Kelly, my heart is filled with murderous jealousy.

Mariners 6, Rays 2. Isn't that cute? The M's still think baseball season is going on. They're actually screwing with real teams. Matt Mangini played third base for the M's. Did you know he's the cousin of Browns coach Eric Mangini? I have no idea is that's true or not, my research staff is comprised of hobos who sleep in the public library.

White Sox 4, Angels 3. Only 7 more games until the Hot Stove league!

The One Where I Gush About Buster Posey

It's no secret that we play favorites over here at Off Base and Buster Posey is easily one of our favorites. Derwood was turned on to Posey back when he was playing high school baseball in Georgia. I can't easily explain my fascination with him except he's really good at the baseball. He's so good in fact, I'm willing to overlook that his real first name is Gerald. Shame on you Posey parents, Gerald is a 60-year-old's name. The hot hitting catcher is on his way to taking the Giants to the playoffs whether the rest of the offense likes it or not. We'll have a vote for the BBA's regular season awards and, spoiler, our top pick will be Posey. The National League is loaded with potential superstar rookies but here's why we love San Fran's catcher...

1. He plays a premium position. Go look up how many franchise clean-up hitters were catchers. Go ahead, I'll wait. Also, I'm too lazy to do that research on my own. But I assume there aren't that many and Posey certainly looks like he's heading in the right direction.

2. Posey is hitting .323/.370/.524 with 16 home runs and gets very little help from the rest of his lineup as a 23-year-old. His main competition for NL ROY is Jason Heyward who, in 177 more plate appearances, is hitting .285/.400/.472 with 2 more homers while playing right field. That's basically a month worth of more service time. More on that later. Heyward probably deserves a little extra credit though because he's putting that line together as a 20-year-old.

3. Buster was temporarily and ludicrously blocked at catcher by Bengie Molina. The Giants eventually jettisoned Molina to clear the way for Posey behind the dish. I'd love to tell you that all of his receiving skills were vastly underrated but UZR doesn't work for catchers and I'm no scout. But it doesn't seem like the Giants will have to move him off of his position and he can't be any worse than Mike Piazza was, right?

4. What say you, nerdy stats? Heyward is out WAR-ing Posey 4.6-3.9 but, again, WAR is a counting stat so Heyward's extra playing time certain gives him a boost. Then there's the defense issue. UZR rates Heyward as an average right fielder while Posey takes a little hit from UZR for the time he played first base. So far, Posey appears to doing just fine in the catching categories that Fangraphs uses for WAR. Heyward is beating out Posey in wOBA too but just barely at .384 to .378. They're BABIPs are a wash, Posey .339 and Heyward .343. They're even deadlocked with 136 OPS+.

It's really close and both are going to be superstars along with Mike Stanton who might hit 40 home runs next year. There's plenty of time left to decide the ROY and both Posey and Hewyard are still in playoff races. I'm not sure how this evolved into a ROY post but at least all I'll have to do for my official ROY post is change around a few numbers. You're welcome, future me.

Curveballs for Jobu

Curveballs for Jobu is Offbasepercentage's daily trip around the ballparks.

Today's honorary bay boy is Keith Lockhart and he's here because his middle name is Virgil and that reminds me of the good old days of the WWF.

Hey kids, I'm still in charge of Jobu which means plenty of lowlights of relief pitching and tons of NL West coverage.

Padres 3, Dodgers 1. Miguel Tejada went 3-4 including his 300th career home run. The Padres reclaimed the West lead by .5 game. Aaron Cunningham lead off for the Pads and went 0-4. Potsy: DNP.

Diamondbacks 8, Rockies 4. My beloved Rox fell 3 games back in the West. Tulo is still struggling at the dish going 0-4 with a pair of strikeouts. Todd Helton hit his 7th home run of the season. Seven. In the year 2000, Helton won the National League Slash Line Triple Crown hitting .372/.463/.698 with 42 home runs. He finished 5th in MVP voting despite leading the league in WAR. His Hall of Fame case is debatable and likely the discussion for another post but it's worth noting his career OBP is .424. Hey, Mark Reynolds only struck out twice.

Cubs 2, Giants 0. The Giants surrendered first place and blog favorite Buster Posey didn't help by striking out thrice. Fukudome homered reminding me that he still plays for a major league team.

Rangers 2, Angels 1 (12). The Rangers trimmed their magic number to 4 because the Angels refuse to score any runs for Danny Haren. Haren pitched 7 innings allowing 1 unearned run. *sigh*

Curveballs for Jobu

Curveballs for Jobu is Offbasepercentage's daily trip around the ballparks.

Today's honorary bay boy is Tony Perezchica and he's here because of his whopping 5 career RBI. But we all know RBI is kind of a BS stat.

Hey gang, Jobu is a little late today because I was trying to decide whether or not to devote the entire post to Buster Posey. While I ultimately decided against it, you're still getting a healthy does of my favorite rookie catcher in the history of baseball...

Giants 1, Cubs 0. Buster Posey. Posey won the game with his 15th home run of the season to keep the Giants .5 game up on the Padres. Posey is hitting .324/.373/.522 for the season and, spoiler alert, will get our Rookie of the Year vote when the time comes for the BBA.

Padres 6, Dodgers 0. The Fathers managed to keep close to the Giants riding a complete game shutout from Clayton Richard. I don't know how they scored 6 runs considering that not on of their 1-3 hitters has an OBP over .330. Allow me to present your Manager of the Year, Bud Black and his smoke and mirrors.

Diamondbacks 3, Rockies 1. Welcome back to the NL West edition of Jobu. My newly appointed second favorite team couldn't figure out Joe Saunders and fell back to 2.5 games out of first. Saunders struck out 7 hitters over 8 innings, the most since he struck out 8 on June 26th for the Angels. New blog favorite Troy Tulowitzki fell victim to Saunders' rare K ability once and remains homerless since Saturday.

Twins 6, Indians 4. We discussed it before but it needs to be mentioned more frequently. Jim Thome is a first ballot Hall of Famer. Thome hit his 25th home run of the season and 589th of his career, good for 8th all time. His OBP is .412 this season and .404 for his career.

Angels 2, Rangers 0. Only 8.5 out! Cool Standings has the Angels at 0.1% chance to make the playoffs. So you're saying there's a chance.

Curveballs for Jobu

Curveballs for Jobu is Offbasepercentage's daily trip around the ballparks.

Today's honorary bay boy is Jimmy Jones and he's here because he threw 251 pitches in a high school game. How'd that work out for you?

Hey kids, I took the weekend off to watch football and finally got around to trying some of that "alcohol" you kids keep talking about. Delicious. I'm now super behind on baseball and the pregaming for the Saints' Monday Night Game starts in about an hour. Let's check out some of yesterday's games real quick...

Orioles 4, Yankees 3 (11). Mariano Rivera gave up a Luke Scott homer, blowing a save and frightening more New Yorkers than that Cloverfield moth. While I've never seen that movie or know if that reference even makes sense, it apparently won't stop me from using it. Derek Jeter went 1-4 with a pair of walks, dragging his OBP kicking and screaming to .332 for the season. But the Yanks remain .5 game up in the East because...

Angels 6, Rays 3. Bobby Abreu hit a pair of home runs and even Peter Bourjos got in on the fun crushing a homer to deep left. Scott Kazmir got the win (weird) pitching 5 innings (normal) and allowing only 1 run (very weird). The Angels are just 10.5 games out of first heading into a series against the Rangers. I'm starting to have my doubts about this season.

Dodgers 7, Rockies 6. The Rox got in trouble in the 4th after Furcal was ruled safe at first on a double play ball. Then Huston Street blew his save in the 9th before the Dodgers won it on an A.J. Ellis 11th inning single. Troy Tulowitzki didn't hit a home run and I'm quite frankly worried about him. He's now homerless since Saturday. The Rox are still just 1.5 back in the West because...

Giants 9, Brewers 2.
Cardinals 4, Padres 1.
The Giants took a .5 game lead over the Padres after Jose Guillen went crazy all over some baseballs for a change. The unstable "outfielder" went 2-4 with a homer and 6RBI. Blog favorite Buster Posey went 2-2 with 3 walks. Meanwhile in St. Louis, the Padres couldn't do anything about Adam Wainwright or Colby Rasmus and lost for the 11th time in September. They're the Bizarro Rockies when September rolls around. Wainwright pitched 8 innings of 1-run ball for his 19th win of the season and Rasmus added his 23rd home run of the year.

Pirates 4, Diamondbacks 3. Because if I didn't tell you they played, how would you ever know? The Pirates actually swept the Backs in a series that was only a little more exciting than those long thermal underwear with a trap door back.

Curveballs for Jobu

Curveballs for Jobu is Offbasepercentage's daily trip around the ballparks.

Today's honorary bay boy is Tsuyoshi Shinjo and he's here because I found a picture of his bobblehead. They can't all be winners, folks.

Hey kids, I'm reporting yesterday's event live from super hot Baton Rouge. My neighbor's WiFi seems to be working so let's crank out some highlights before they shut me down...

Giants 10, Dodgers 2. San Francisco took a .5 game lead in the West riding a Jonathan Sanchez 7 inning, 1-run 12 strikeout performance to victory. Blog favorite Buster Posey went 2-5 with his 14th home run of the season. He's really good. I thought I should point that out. You're welcome. Some guy named Russell Mitchell hit his first home run of the season for the Dodgers. His batting average (.059) is sad about his OBP (.056).

Indians 3, Angels 2 (11). *hugs football season*

Cardinals 4, Padres 0. Jake Westbrook threw 8 innings of 6-hit shutout ball while walking and striking out 3. That doesn't excite you? How about David Eckstein going 1-3? Work with me people, there were only 6 games yesterday.

Mets 6, Pirates 2. Um, let's see. The Mets played someone named Lucas Duda in left field. His middle name is Christopher.

Twins 8, White Sox 5. Paul Konerko hit his 37th home run of the season. His .323/.402/.604 line isn't getting much MVP hype which is why I employ Paul Konerko dog.

Dogs wearing hats, get on board.

Diamondbacks 3, Reds 1. I wish I had more pictures of dogs wearing hats. Logan Ondrusek pitched a scoreless inning for the Reds. Chris Young struck out 3 times for the Backs. Someone bought cotton candy and after two cavities and five sticky fingers, regretted that purchase.

Mets 6, Pirates 2. What? We covered this already? I must have been taking a nap.

Curveballs for Jobu

Curveballs for Jobu is Offbasepercentage's daily trip around the ballparks.

Today's honorary bay boy is Billy McMillon and he's here to remind you he was no Mike Stanton.

Alright gang, week one of the new NFL season has just a pair of Monday Night Games to go but there is still plenty of good baseball to talk about. I realize you probably have fantasy football fever and can barely get your eyes to focuse but try to stay with me as we take a quick spin through some of yesterday's games...

Rockies 4, Diamondbacks 2. Rox ran their winning streak to 10 games and sit just 1.5 games back in the NL West. Jason Giambi provided the heroics hitting the walk-off 2-run homer coming off the bench to pinch hit. Everything is turning up Rockies in September and I don't think there is a team in the National League that would want to meet them in the playoffs. New blog favorite Troy Tulowitzki only went 1-4 which makes me a little sad.

Rangers 4, Yankees 1. Cliff Lee pitched 8 innings of 1 hit ball to complete the sweep of the ALDS preview. I didn't see it anywhere on the news but I assume there is mass hysteria and rampant punching of the panic button in the streets of New York. Yankees 3-4-5 hitters combined to go 0-10 with 3 strikeouts or 0-11 with 4 strikeouts if you want to count Lance Berkman's pinch hit failure. Neftali Feliz struck out the side for his 36th save of the season and appears to be Austin Jackson's only competition for AL ROY.

Marlins 6, Nationals 5. Mike Stanton continues to provide some entertainment for the dozens of Marlins fan that tune in once a week to watch their team. The 20-year-old rookie slugger is only hitting .251/.318/.529 but hit his 19th and 20th homers in his 320th and 321st plate appearance. That could translate into 40 home runs next season. And what we know about chicks digging the long ball, the Marlins might see a spike in attendance to the low hundreds next year.

Blue Jays 5, Rays 4. Jose Bautista failed to hit a home run and it's getting to a point where that is news. Adam Lind did hit a home run rewarding fantasy patience with his disappointing mediocrity all season. I say next season we swap the Blue Jays with Pittsburgh and see what happens. The Pirates will still get their top 5 draft pick but the Jays might win the National League Pennant.

Brewers 2, Cubs 0. Yovani Gallardo basically won this game by himself. Gallardo pitched 7 shutout innings and hit the game winning RBI double in the 4th inning. Casey McGahee hit an insurance solo shot in the 8th inning but this was all Yovani. Blake DeWitt and his .340 OBP lead off for the Cubs and went 0-4 with 2 strikeouts. Kosuke Fukudome and his .378 OBP went 1-3 with a walk in the 3-hole. Just sayin.

Giants 6, Padres 1. Blog favorite Buster Posey went 2-4 and hit his 13th homer of the season. He raised his line to .324 /.369/.509 and would get my NL ROY vote if the BBWAA would give me one but they don't think too kindly of my strongly worded emails and violent threats. Loosen up guys. The Giants and Padres are back in the old virtual tie and the NL West race has me strangely aroused. It's time for more counseling.

Cardinals 7, Braves 3. Albert Pujols swung the bat with great vengeance and furious anger going 2-5 with 2 home runs and 2 strikeouts. His 39th home run of the season should put the final nail in the Triple Crown possibility coffin.

Curveballs for Jobu

Curveballs for Jobu is Offbasepercentage's daily trip around the ballparks.

Today's honorary bay boy is Dax Jones and he's here to remind you that his only career homer was of the inside the park variety.

Hey gang, I'm back in charge of Jobu today because, quite frankly, I think Derwood packed his bindle and jumped on the train out of town. I'm going to put his crazy looking mug on some milk cartons and see if anything turns up. If you see him on the streets, proceed with caution. He's very unstable and will probably try to sell you nose hairs. Anyway, there were only 6 games yesterday but that doesn't mean I don't have plenty to talk about. Let's get to it...

Rockies 6, Reds 5. It's September which means the Rockies don't just get hot, they catch fire. The Rockies finished off the 4 game sweep of the Reds while extending their winning streak to a season best 7 games. The Rockies scored the go-ahead-run in the 8th inning with the old fashioned straight steal of home. With the squeeze on, Chris Nelson caught Rockies' pitcher Nick Masset asleep at the wheel and swiped home for his first career stolen base. The last time that happened was 4/21/06 by Dan Uggla. CarGo: 0-4, Votto: 0-4.

Cardinals 11, Braves 4. Somehow, Colby Rasmus talked Tony La Russa into letting him play and all he did was go 4-4 with 2 home runs. Those are the kind of shenanigans that will probably get Rasmus benched for three games. Let's see, some guy A. Pujols hit a home run. Nate McClouth managed to get in the game and went 2-2 skyrocketing his line to .178/.284/.269 while getting the Brandon Wood nod of approval.

Giants 7, Padres 3. John Garland threw batting practice to Aubrey Huff, Juan Uribe and blog favorite Buster Posey all of whom hit towering home runs. Kevin Corriea wasn't about to be shown up by Garland and teed up a ball for Pat Burrell. I don't know if he threw it underhand or placed it on an actual tee or if they practiced before the game but Burrell smacked that thing 421 feet of off the top of Petco. David Eckstein: 1-4. What's up, little buddy? Good to see you still have work.

Rangers 4, Blue Jays 2. Nelson Cruz went 2-4 with his 25th double of the season to raise his line to .313/.368/.567. He could have really helped my fantasy team if he hadn't made as many trips to the DL as your sister made to planned parenthood this year. Jose Bautista hit his 44th home run of the season. Thankfully, no letters were harmed by this dinger. I'd like to set the over/under on Bautista home runs at 31 for next season. Dewayne Wise led off for the Jays and went 0-4 to see his OBP fall below .300 for the season. Either Cito is just mailing it in now or doesn't understand some basic fundamentals.

Curveballs for Jobu

Curveballs for Jobu is Offbasepercentage's daily trip around the ballparks.

Today's honorary bat boy is Wendell Magee Jr. and he's here to remind you that playing left field isn't that hard. Now getting on base, that's a different issue.

Astros 4, Phillies 2 (16). You give Ryan Howard extra innings to play with and something exciting is bound to happen. Howard went 0-7 with 5 strikeouts (more on that later today) and wasn't pleased with his 5th one in the 14th inning. Howard voiced his displeasure and was asked to please leave the game. The ejection moved Raul Ibanez to first base and Roy Oswalt into left field. The ball quickly found Oswalt in the outfield but he made the routine catch. Oh yeah, then the Astros won. Back to the Phillies, Jayson Werth with the great post-game quote...

"I'm not sure what I think about the whole situation," right fielder Jayson Werth said. "I think I'll take a nap, wake up refreshed and pretend the whole thing didn't happen."

Yankees 11, Blue Jays 5. The Yankees, upset at the lack of vowels in Marc Rzepczynski's name, battered the pitcher for 6 runs off of 8 hits including 3 home runs. Then they smacked around Brian Tallet just for fun. Mark Teixeira and Jorge Posada each went 4-5 with home runs while Eduardo Nunez went 1-5 in place of the injured Alex Rodriguez. The Yankees haven't missed A-Rod's offense one bit prompting most New Yorkers to wonder if there's a way to void his contract. I'm pretty sure that centaur painting is grounds for termination.

Cubs 5, Nationals 4. Carlos Zambrano pitched 7.1 innings and gave up 1 run on 5 hits while striking out 8 for the win. Alfonso Soriano hit a 3-run home run. I don't want to alarm anyone but I believe those are signs of the Apocalypse. I'm duct taping sheets of plastic to my windows as we speak. That should keep the zombies out.

Mariners, Red Sox: DNP

Giants 16, Reds 5. Reds' rookie pitchers Travis Wood and Mike Leake combined to take a worse beating than the CEO of BP. Wood gave up 7 runs on 7 hits over 4 innings. Leake followed that up with a "anything you can do, I can eff up even worse" performance. Leake managed to surrender 6 runs on 6 hits in 1 mere inning. Blog favorite Buster Posey went 1-5 with a 3-run home run.

Curveballs for Jobu

Curveballs for Jobu is Off Base Percentage's daily trip around the ballparks.

Today's honorary bat boy is Archi Cianfrocco and he's here to remind you about the Seibu Lions.

Well kids, I'm in charge again which can only mean two things: Jobu is late and the Angels are up first.

Angels 4, Rangers 1. Jered Weaver out dueled Cliff Lee to give me just a little hope that the Angels can still make the playoffs. Weaver went 7 innings and gave up 1 unearned run while striking out 7. Then Fernando Rodney and Brian Fuentes somehow managed to get through 2 innings without giving up a run. Lee, of course, pitched all 8 innings for the Rangers but allowed 4 runs on 9 hits and 2 walks. Weird. The Angels play the Rangers in 7 of their last 14. So you're sayin there's a chance.

Giants 2, Dodgers 0. Matt Cain out dueled Clayton Kershaw. New Dodgers Scott Podsednik, Ryan Theriot and Octavio Dotel all pitched in for the Dodger loss. Blog favorite Buster Posey disappointingly went 0-3 with a walk.

Royals 5, Orioles 4. The more I look at these teams the more I think I was wrong at the beginning of the year. I thought the O's were developing into a nice young team. Now I think the Royals have the more immediate brighter future. Hosmer and Moustakas are on their way and Kila Ka'aihue just got called up. Plus they have Wilson Betemit. Crazy stuff from this game included Bruce Chen getting the win and Alex Gordan hitting a home run.

Astros 5, Brewers 2. The new look Astros starring Humberto Quintero just keep winning. The Astros finally gave up and decided to rebuild and have won 5 in a row. Former Cardinals/A's/Blue Jays prospect Brett Wallace went 1-2.