All-Star Shellacking

The All-Star Game is looking to be another borefest this year, with the National League coming up far short in its attempts to win its first game since 1996.

To be sure, the senior circuit has better pitching, with Roger Clemens sporting an ERA under 2, and Dontrelle Willis at 2.04. But rest assured that if Clemens starts, Mike Piazza will again be telling the AL hitters what to expect, as revenge for the 2000 beaning. Nobody aside from Piazza himself will ever convince me that he didn’t do that last year, and that he won’t do it again.

The starting lineups, on the other hand, are another story completely. Only three NL starters are hitting above .300; only two AL starters are hitting BELOW .300, and they have 42 homers between them. There are six players on the AL bench that arguably are having better years than the NL starters: Ivan Rodriguez is hitting 30 points higher than Mike Piazza, Alfonso Soriano has five more homers than Jeff Kent, Michael Young is besting David Eckstein in pretty much every offensive category, Melvin Mora has more than double Scott Rolen’s RBI total , nearly triple his homers, and is hitting 50 points higher than Rolen. Garrett Anderson, Gary Sheffield, and Ichiro Suzuki are all having better years than Carlos Beltran and his .262 average. Even Jim Edmonds (.283) would have a hard time displacing one of those three.

The AL pitching isn’t so terrible either. Mark Buehrle, Roy Halladay, and Kenny “KO” Rogers all have ERAs under three, and Mariano Rivera has been his usual unhittable self.

With a matchup this seemingly lackluster, some genius at major league baseball decided that this year’s marketing campaign would compare baseball to the fast-paced action of pinball. Why? Because that’s sure to bring in the younger audience that baseball so desperately seeks? Because those Spiderman logos on the bases were so successful?

Get real. Pinball! Pinball was already obsolete when Bud Selig was a young’un. Most people under 30 have never seen a pinball machine. Pinball is about as up to date as the Princess phone, the Rubik’s cube, and tailfins. It’s not retro hip, it’s just old.

If baseball were paying attention to what’s going on, they’d compare Brian Roberts’ base-stealing ability with Grand Theft Auto. It would show video of Gary Sheffield getting into fights with fans. It would show J.D. Drew getting injured on a pitch he swung at.

Baseball is not about fireworks. The best games are the ones in which strategy, guts, and risk-taking win the game, not a bunch of bombs. Perhaps that’s too much to expect from a general public that prefers the mindless collisions of football or the tiresome repetitive scoring of basketball.

But pinball! Come on! Whoever made that decision must have been on steroids.

Independence Day

There’s a reason for celebrating: The Dodgers have gained their independence (at least temporarily) from J.D. Drew. The light-hitting man taking up space in the Dodgers’ three-hole is fulfilling everyone’s expectations by landing himself on the disabled list again. The guy has never played more than 145 games in a season, and isn’t going to break that streak this year.

Here again are two sets of statistics. One belongs to Shawn Green, the other to J.D. Drew. Can you tell which is which?
G: 82 AB: 300 H: 84 K: 53 HR: 14 RBI: 49 OBP: .349 AVG: 280
G: 72 AB: 252 H: 72 K: 50 HR: 15 RBI: 36 OBP: .412 AVG: .287

I’ll give you a hint: the one with 36 pathetic RBIs is J.D. Drew! Thirty six!! The season’s half over and he has 36 RBIs. Translate that to a full season and he’ll have a whopping total of 72. No, check that. Since he’s going to miss the next 4-6 weeks nursing a broken wrist he sustained ON A PITCH HE SWUNG AT Drew will be lucky to break the 50 RBI mark this year.

Thirty six RBIs is less than three a week. Drew’s 15 home runs account for nearly half of his RBI totals, meaning he has driven in only 21 teammates.

It’s no surprise he has so few RBIs. He comes up in key RBI situations and fails to drive in runners. He seems constantly to be looking for a walk (his 51 bases on balls leads the team, followed by Hee Seop Choi’s 48, which is again more than the number of hits he has) rather than drive the ball with runners on base.

Last night, he came up with runners on first and second twice. The first time, he grounded out. The second time, he flied out. A walk might actually have helped, but he saves those for occasions when there are two outs.

Perhaps one of the reasons Jeff Kent has so many RBIs (59) is that he follows Drew in the order, meaning that there are still a lot of runners on base even after Drew hits. On most teams, the cleanup hitter’s RBIs suffer from the 3-hitter having already cleared the bases. Not so with the Dodgers. The same guys that were on base when Drew comes up are still there when Kent follows him in the order. (Even Kent failed to get the job done last night, striking out and grounding into a double play following Drew’s poor performance, but he has been a deserving all-star all year).

The Dodgers will not struggle as much as anybody thinks with Drew out of the order because he hasn’t been producing as much as somebody getting $55 million should. Darren Dreifort has been almost as deserving of his $55 million.

Jayson Werth, with less than a year of major league experience, now becomes the old grizzled veteran in an outfield that will now have to start some combination of Jason Repko, Jason Grabowski, Mike Edwards, and Cody Ross. Edwards is the only one of that group hitting above the Mendoza line, but he didn’t exactly endear himself to manager Jim Tracy, getting thrown out at third in a 6-1 game.

Say this for the Dodgers, however: they are definitely a team of young hungry players.