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.

Chris Valaika's Golden Sombrero

A golden sombrero is awarded to a player who manages to strike out four times in a single game (real golden sombrero not included). It's quite the feat unless you're Ryan Howard or Mark Reynolds. Unfortunately, cycles and no-hitters are all the rage nowadays. Not for me, though. I will pour over the box scores to bring you the finest at swinging and missing.

Oh, I had to look Chris Valaika up. We here at Off Base have a both coasts bias. We often overlook what's going on in your precious midwest. So I'll occasionally miss a prospect from Cincinnati or Milwaukee or Pittsburgh. Basically anyone from the NL Central. But we're bringing in an intern to help us out with the divisions we don't care about.

Valaika, a 25-year-old second baseman, was called up a week ago and wasted no time collecting his first Golden Sombrero. The Sombrero almost got past me because it was slightly overshadowed by Aroldis Chapman's debut and 103.9 MPH fastball. Aroldis couldn't have gotten to the bigs at a better time after baseball recently lost that pitching prospect for the Nationals. I already forgot his name. I want to say Sam Steinberg. Anyway, Chapman will be all the talk until he has surgery when his elbow explodes.

I guess we might as well take a look at Valaika's poor night at the dish before Chapman completely hijacks this post...

Bottom 3rd: Valaika struck out swinging against Yovani Gallardo. He actually singled in the first so the night was "Mark Reynolds terrible."

Bottom 5th: Valaika struck out looking against Gallardo. Gallardo gave up 8 runs in 5 innings but it was better than his last start. I assume he wasn't robbed at gunpoint again last night.

Bottom 6th: Valaika struck out swinging against Gallardo.

Top 8th: Chapman strikes out Jonathan Lucroy by ridiculousness. Lucroy might as well have been swinging a spoon against the last pitch.

Bottom 8th: Valaika struck out swinging against Todd Coffey.

Sweet Lou's Last Run

Cubs manager Lou Piniella has announced he will retire after this season, presumably after a Chicago loss in late-September. Piniella, who started his managerial career in 1986 with the Yankees, has been around forever. The only seasons he wasn't a manager were 1989 and 2006, and he's been in the dugout with five different teams.



Piniella guided the 1990 Cincinnati Reds to a World Series sweep over the A's, but since hasn't had a ton of post-season success. He had several great regular-season teams in his 10 years with Seattle. In the strike-shortened 1995 season, the Mariners won the AL West in a one-game playoff over the Angels and reached the ALCS before losing to Cleveland. The 1997 West champions were beaten in four games by Baltimore in the ALDS, and the 2001 team won a record-tying 116 games before losing to the Yankees in the championship series.



After a forgettable three seasons in Tampa Bay (200-285, combined 96 1/2 games out of first), Piniella was 46 games over .500 in his first three seasons with the Cubs (2007-2009), which included an NL-best 97 wins in 2008. But like 2007, when Arizona swept a first-round series (yes, the Diamondbacks were in the post-season as recently as 2007), Piniella's club was swept in the first round in 2008 by the Dodgers.

Here's a list of some players Piniella managed:

Don Mattingly, Rickey Henderson, Ron Guidry, Tommy John, Dave Winfield, Ken Griffey Jr., Randy Johnson, Edgar Martinez, Alex Rodriguez, Goose Gossage, Ichiro Suzuki, Fred McGriff

And here's another list of players Piniella managed:

Wayne Tolleson, Mike Pagliarulo, Bobby Meachum, Steve Trout, Lee Guetterman, Luis Quinones, Rob Dibble, Troy Afenir, Mackey Sasser, Wally Backman, Erik Plantenburg, George Glinatsis, Salomon Torres, Alvaro Espinoza, Ryan Radmanovich, Brett Hinchliffe, Desi Relaford, Terry Shumpert, John Rocker, Hideo Nomo, Rocky Cherry, Carmen Pignatiello, Esmailin Caridad

Shot Of The Night

Shot Of The Night is Off Base Percentage's toast to a player who had an exceptionally good or bad night. There's always a reason to drink.

Tonight's shot of the night is a Red Snapper: 1 oz Crown Royal Canadian whisky, 1 oz amaretto liqueur, 2 oz cranberry juice. I do enjoy the occasional Red Snapper or anything with Crown in it. There was an amazing pitching duel and then whatever the opposite of that is. Lets do some toasting. The honorees are Travis Wood and Roy Halladay.

Travis Wood gets the top billing tonight taking a perfect game into the 9th inning. I got to the party I was attending and put the game on just in time for Chooch to spoil both the perfect game and the no-hitter with a double. They don't call me Jinxy McGee for nothing. But the rookie Red pitcher was fantastic nonetheless in his third start. He went 9 innings and gave up just the one hit and zero runs. He also had 8 strikeouts to go with no walks to earn a no decision because he was pitching against...

Roy Halladay is never one to be outdone. Halladay went ahead and threw his usual 9 shutout innings to also earn a no decision. Halladay gave up 5 hits and 1 walk while striking out 9. I'm not sure if anybody has noticed but Halladay's WAR (4.6) is higher than CY Young favorites Josh Johnson (4.4) and Ubaldo Jiminez (3.6).

Dishonorable Mention: Scott Kazmir

I'd have to check but I'm guessing this is the worst starting pitching line of the season. Kazmir went 5 miserable innings serving up 11 hits, 3 walks, 3 home runs and 13 earned runs. I'm convinced Scioscia left him out there in hopes Kazmir would spontaneously combust. I don't see anyway that the Angels can keep running Kazmir out there every 5 days. However it happened, he's done. It's painful to watch. I've seen pitching machines at batting cages have more success getting people out than Kazmir this year. Sure, maybe it was against me and perhaps I have some poor eye-hand but still...

Shot Of The Night

Shot Of The Night is Off Base Percentage's toast to a player who had an exceptionally good or bad night. There's always a reason to drink.

Tonight we're bringing back the Big Red: 1/2 oz Irish cream, 1/2 oz Goldschlager® cinnamon schnapps for the shot of the night, even though it's disgusting. And it's in honor of Joey Votto.

I detailed Joey Votto's All Star snub earlier and the kid backed me up today. Votto went 3-4 with 2 homers and 2 RBI to raise his slash line to .318/.418/.599. If you don't believe that he should be the starting first baseman for the NL, we can't be friends.

Omar Infante: 0-4, 2 strikeouts.

Honorable Mention: Roy Halladay
Halladay threw another complete game. His bullpen management is fantastic. Halladay gave up 1 run on 5 hits while striking out 7 and lowering his ERA to 2.33. Oh, he also only threw 93 pitches. I'm not sure he's human.

Drew Stubbs Hit Three Home Runs Today

And his teammates hit four others in a 14-3 win over....the Chicago Cubs! Hit you with a bit of an RBI Baseball-wobbly pitch there didn't I? When you heard...

* Team hits seven home runs
* Wins 14-3

...you thought, "well it certainly wasn't against the Cubs".



Anyway, Stubbs had a .233/.308/.380 slash line and an 83 OPS+ until he went deep twice against Ted Lilly and against Andrew Cashner in the ninth. Lilly was so good in a nine-run Cincy seventh that Lou Pinella, who will be managing somewhere else in two weeks, or worse, Baltimore, had to leave the left-hander in to allow long balls to Brandon Phillips and Jonny Gomes and complete the magical 6 2/3 IP, 9 ER line.

Getting back to Pinella: it's just a matter of time for Sweet Lou. The Cubs are a disgrace, having won 11 times since May 29, and someone has to take the fall. It's certainly not going to be Aramis Ramirez (.177/.242/.297) or Derrek Lee (.230/.329/.372) or Ryan Theriot (.277/.317/.303) or Carlos Zambrano (78 ERA+/loonytunes). I'll give him through the all star break.

Shot Of The Night

Shot Of The Night is Off Base Percentage's toast to a player who had an exceptionally good or bad night. There's always a reason to drink.

Tonight's shot of the night is a Big Red: 1/2 oz Irish cream, 1/2 oz Goldschlager® cinnamon schnapps. And it's in honor of Scott Rolen.

There were plenty of people who crushed the Rolen trade, myself included. All Rolen has done this year is post his second highest OPS at .937 while cranking out home runs left and right. Nice to be back in the NL, eh? Rolen blasted his 17th homer of the season to lead the Reds to a 43-34 record, good for a half of a game lead in the NL Central. I was kind of hoping The Big Red would be 1/3 Everclear, 1/3 Big Red Gum, 1/3 Joe Morgan nonsense.

Honorable Mention: Johnny Cueto
I realize I'm double dipping here but it's really hard to find multiple players to fit the same shot. Cueto improved his record to 8-2 while pitching 8 innings and only giving up 1 run. He also walked 2 and struck out none. I thought he was a strikeout pitcher but what do I know? I bet the over on 135 strikeouts for Strasburg's first 5 starts.

UPDATE: MLB.com just shot me an email to remind me that Scott Rolen's home run was the 300th of his career. MLB.com is my cousin Steve's nickname.