Curveballs for Jobu 4/14/11

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

Today's honorary bat boy is Rusty Greer.



Yankees 6, Orioles 4. Alan James Burnett moved to 3-0 with a solid outing against the now-tied for first place Orioles. Burnett gave up a pair of two-run home runs in the seventh, but it overshadowed an overall-solid performance: 6 1/3 IP, 5 K. Alex Rodriguez hit a 3-run shot in the first and Jorge Posada hit a solo in the fifth, the fourth tater of the season for each. Baltimore starter Chris Tillman smelled like Steve Balboni's tube socks after a doubleheader (1 2/3 IP, 9 H, 6 ER).

Marlins 5, Braves 1. Josh Johnson, not to be confused with Jack Johnson, or Joe Johnson, or Jake Jackson, or Jesper Jensen, had a no-hitter broken up with one out in the eighth by Freddie Freeman, who blooped a double to left field. It's the second time the Marlins' ace has had a no-no broken up. On opening day he blanked the Mets for six innings until recent Sombreroist Willie Harris doubled. It wouldn't have mattered anyway because in the new rule book, no-hitters against the Mets are actually recorded as four-hitters. Johnson still tossed 7 1/3, one-hit innings and struck out nine Wednesday, and Chris Coghlan had three hits and a pair of RBIs. The welcome home that was scheduled next week at the Miami airport for Johnson was canceled due to lack of care, and poster board.

Brewers 6, Pirates 0. John Bowker: DNP

Tigers 3, Rangers 2. Detroit did it again, beating Texas in its last at bat for the second consecutive day. This time it was Brandon Inge, who took the first pitch he saw from 67-year old Darren Oliver and ripped a solo shot in the bottom of the ninth.

Royals 10, Twins 5. It's only April 14, but KC is three games better than the two-time defending Central champions. Minny starter Francisco Liriano did a little bit of everything Wednesday and everything was terrible as he allowed seven earned runs and eight hits in five innings. In the Royals' six-run fourth, Liriano gave up six consecutive hits, including back-to-back hits to Jeff Francoeur and Wilson Betemit, which is a $75 fine in the Netherlands.

Padres 3, Reds 2. Brad Hawpe: 0-for-0, walk.

Phillies 3, Nationals 2. Roy Halladay (CG, 6 H, 2 ER, 9 K) is just better than all of us. It's time we excepted it and moved on to documenting the career of Dave Lapoint for a future biography, which I may or not be doing.

Devilrays at Redsox ppd urine puddles in concourse behind home plate


Other games, but down here....

Athletics 7, Whitesox 4 (10)
Bluejays 8, Mariners 3
Rockies 5, Mets 4
Angels 4, Indians 3 (12)

Jeter Accepts 2-year, $11 million Contract From Yankees

Only kidding. But, I figured it was time to return to Offbase with some complete nonsense. Feels like August all over again.

No, today's topic is expanded playoffs and how stupid of an idea it is. Not Major League 3 Back to the Minors-stupid, just Teen Wolf Too-stupid.

It looks like there's a good chance a 10-team playoff field, with an extra wild card entry and an added best-of-3 series, will be recommended during this month's winter meetings, as the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's Rick Hummel reported today. Let me be the 7,000th to say this idea smells like Steve Balboni's tube socks after a doubleheader. Here's what MLB is proposing:

1. Let's make a really long post-season even longer, with even more off days!
2. You know how a five-game Division Series is too short because it has the potential to just reward a team playing pretty well in October, rather than a really good team that played well for six months? Well, we're going to add an extra round of playoffs, and make it a best-of-3! Are you ready for Tigers-Bluejays and Astros-Padres?!


(Sea Captain's voice) I...don't know what I'm doing

I understand baseball is a business and this extra round of playoffs is about money-TV, advertising, concessions/ticket sales-and that a general manager can maybe hang on to his job another year if he can go to the owner and say "we made the playoffs." Sure, he made the playoffs with 76 wins and got swept in two (!) games in a wild card elimination series, but did you see that SECOND WILD CARD TEAM - 2012 banner out behind the left field wall?! It's blue for 'second wild card team'!

Hummel also argues that even with a 10-team field, MLB would still have the lowest number of any of the four professional sports. Twelve teams qualify in the NFL, while an absurd 16 teams qualify for the post-season in both the NBA and NHL. While the NFL model seems to be working just fine, basketball and hockey allowing more than half of the teams into the playoffs is ridiculous. Raptors-Bucks? That's what we're headed towards in baseball.

Either way, the Mets are already mathematically eliminated.