Pitchers and catchers report to training camp today! We’re less than two months away from opening day! Baseball is almost back!
Living in the Bay Area, it’s impossible not to be excited about the rest of this NBA season. Will the Warriors break the Bulls’ record of 72 wins and go undefeated at home? Will the Warriors repeat as NBA champions?
It’s also impossible not to be excited about the upcoming San Francisco Giants season. For starters, it’s an even year, which means they should be planning another parade down Market Street again, right? The Giants also had a pretty impressive offseason, signing Johnny Cueto, Jeff Samardzija, and Denard Span.
The parallels between the two franchises are numerous. Both are the only two Bay Area franchises to win a title in the past 20 years. Both are lead by a strong ownership group and front office, as the core of both championship teams have been built through the draft.
And both teams are lead by the most humble, egoless stars in the game: Stephen Curry and Madison Bumgarner, who are arguably the two most underpaid players in their respective sports.
The San Francisco Giants have gone 6 years without a postseason appearance. Yes, the post-Barry Bonds era has been really tough for the men in orange and black. But for the first time since 2003, the Giants have the National League West title right in their grasp.
At the beginning of September, the Giants were 4 games behind the San Diego Padres. A Padres slump combined with a strong Giants performance resulted in the Giants up by 1/2 game over the Padres with only 9 games left in the season.
It’s going to be a dog fight until the very end of the season, and its highly probable that the NL West will be decided on the very last day of the season. As it stands, the Giants have a 1/2 game lead over the Padres and a 3.5 game lead over the Colorado Rockies.
The last 9 games of the season are going to be extremely important. The Giants close with 3-game series against the Colorado, Arizona, and San Diego (who have a combined winning percentage of .501). San Diego closes with Cincinnati, Chicago Cubs, and San Francisco (.525 winning %) and Colorado closes with San Francisco, Los Angeles Dodgers, and St Louis (.521 winning %). Every game matters. However, Giants should take comfort in knowing that 1) the Padres have a 3 game series against a strong team in the Cincinnati Reds and 2) Ubaldo Jimenez, the likely CY Young winner for Colorado, wont be pitching against the Giants this weekend.
The Giants pitching. Wow. I always knew that this pitching staff of Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, Barry Zito, Jonathan Sanchez, Madison Bumgarner, and Todd Wellemeyer was amazing. Until I did some research, I didnt know how dominant this pitching staff was.
Today for the first time, I watched a baseball game that wasnt the World Series and didnt involve either the A’s or the Giants. Yes. I watched a baseball game between the Pittsburgh Pirates and Washington Nationals, arguably two of the worst teams this decade.
Why? Two words. Stephen Strasburg.
Strasburg has been the most hyped baseball prospect since Alex Rodriguez in 1993. During his junior year at San Diego State, he compiled a 13-1 record, a 1.32 ERA, 59 hits, 16 earned runs, 19 walks, and 195 strikeouts in only 109 inning pitched. Absolutely INSANE numbers. He was then drafted #1 in 2009 by the Washington Nationals. In the minor leagues this year, he finished his minor league stint with an overall record of 7–2, an ERA of 1.30, 65 strikeouts and 13 walks in 55⅓ innings, and a WHIP of 0.80. Again. Absolutely INSANE numbers.
Tonight, he made his major league debut pitching against the Pittsburgh Pirates. It was a sold out crowd, and the entire nation was buzzing with excitement over his debut. Any boy he didn’t disappoint. 7 innings pitched, 4 hits, 2 earned runs, 14 STRIKEOUTS, and NO WALKS. In his first game, he set the franchise record with most strikeouts in a game.
His feat is so amazing that there are only 5 other pitchers since 1900 to throw at least 14 strikeouts and 0 walks: Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, Javier Vazquez, Mike Mussina, Brad Penny. That’s some pretty fine company to have!
Strasburg is the real deal, and he brings a sense of hope to a franchise that has struggled tremendously this decade.
However, this was the 2nd piece of really good news for the club this week. Yesterday in the 2010 draft, the Nationals again had the #1 draft pick, and they drafted a kid named Bryce Harper, who supposedly is one of the best power hitters in recent memory. If both he and Strasburg live up their hype, the Nationals will have such a solid foundation to build a team around and become competitive once again.
Elsewhere around Washington
The excitement in Washington isnt only around their baseball team.
Washington Redskins (football) – This offseason, they fired Jim Zorn, their coach for the past two years, and brought in Mike Shanahan, the former Denver Broncos coach who won 2 Superbowls with the team. Shanahan has to be one of the top 5 coaches in the league right now, and will definitely turn around the team. Not only that, they brought in Donovan McNabb from the Eagles to be their new starting QB, replacing Jason Campbell. Yes McNabb is getting older and he’s past his prime, but he’s still a big upgrade over Campbell. Also, McNabb gives the team at least 2-3 seasons of playing, which is more than enough time to develop their younger quarterbacks, Rex Grossman and Colt Brennan. If these two dont work out, they could also look to draft a QB in the next couple drafts.
Washington Wizards (basketball) – Recently, the Wizards have suffered, mainly stemming from Gilbert Arenas and his injuries/legal troubles. The Wizards used to be a force in the Eastern Conference, but now have struggled to make the playoffs these past two seasons. However, their fortunes changed in April’s draft lottery. Since they had the 5th worst record in the NBA last year, they had a 10% chance of getting the 1st pick (the Nets with the worst record had a 25% chance). However, the Wizards beat the odds and were awarded the #1 pick in the draft, where they’ll mostly likely draft John Wall from Kentucky. He’s the type of player that will be a cornerstone for the team and who you could definitely build around.
The perfect game. One of sport’s greatest achievements. It’s a complete game. It’s a shutout. It’s a no-hitter. It’s a game when you dont walk anyone. No one reaches bases. 27 batters. 27 outs. perfection.
It’s only happened 18 times since 1900. Some of the greatest pitchers of all time have thrown a perfect game: Cy Young, Addie Joss, Sandy Koufax, Catfish Hunter, and Randy Johnson.
However, there is a whole list of “greatest pitchers” who have never thrown a perfect game: Walter Johnson, Roger Clemens, Nolan Ryan, Greg Maddux, and Phil Niekro…just to name a few.
If you throw a perfect game, you enter baseball immortality. You can retire the next day and never pitch again, and you will be forever remembered for that one single game.
Tonight, Armando Galaragga was one batter away from a perfect game. On the very last out of the game, Jason Donald hit a short grounder to the first baseman, who then proceeded to throw it back to Galaragga for the out at first. However, the 1st base umpire, Jim Joyce, incorrectly said that Donald was safe. As you can see from the picture below, Donald was clearly out.
And with that mistake, Galaragga “allowed a hit” and lost his perfect game. What a way to ruin a kid’s dream. After the game, Jim Joyce was clearly distraught over the fact that he made such a bad call. He clearly knew that he stole something away from Galaragga, and nothing that he could do would bring it back. After the game, he went into the Detroit locker room and apologized to Galaragga for his mistake. A very classy move. It’s not going to fix anything, but at least he manned up and admitted his mistakes.
Obviously, many fans are outrageous over this mistake. A lot of people have called for the commissioner, Bud Selig, to overturn the decision of the game, and retroactively grant Galaragga an official perfect game. This is a bad idea, and fortunately, will not happen. Referees are part of the game, and have a big impact on the game. Unfortunately, refs are human and are prone to making mistakes. Obviously they strive for perfection, but they will not be able to achieve it.
This is where instant replay comes in. Instant replay is the perfect way to help refs/umpires know if they made the correct call. Football allows for a “coaches challenge” where a coach can challenge any non-penalty play on the field: touchdowns, incomplete passes, interceptions, etc. Hockey uses it the most extensively out of all 4 majors sports. Any goal that is questionable is sent to the video goal judge to be reviewed, even without the coaches request. The NBA uses video replay on instances to see whether or not a shot beat the buzzer. Tennis uses a instant replay as well, where a player can challenge a judge’s decision on whether the ball hit the line or not on a shot.
Baseball has some form of video replay, but only on disputed home run instances, to see whether or not a ball is a homerun, or foul ball, or not. However, baseball needs to keep up with the times and expand their instant replay to include cases like this: if a batter is safe at the base or not. I can also see video replay covering disputed instances where the ball might be fair or not.
Now, obviously a coach can’t call for an instant replay on every single play, since that will be long and annoying (and we already dont want baseball games to drag on any longer). That’s where you take a page out of football and tennis’s playbook and only give the coach only one challenge a game. It’s a situation that will be pleasing and beneficial to everyone. If instant replay had been used today, Galaragga would have gotten his perfect game, and Joyce would have been redeemed. Everyone makes mistakes. Instant replay would have correctly caught these mistakes.
Its unfortunate that Galaragga couldnt secure his place in history. But I dont believe we should go back and change history and give it to him. What’s happened has happened. What this should be is a catalyst for change in the future. Bud Selig and the rest of the owners need to really look into expanding instant replay in the sport.
Galaragga will always be remembered as the “guy who almost had the perfect game but had it stolen from him”. Hopefully he’ll also be remembered as the person who changed the rules of the game for the better. Maybe 20 years down the road, some young pitcher will be in a similar situation where the umpire made an incorrect call, but instant replay bailed him out.
Hopefully he’ll have Armando Galaragga (and Jim Joyce) to thank,
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