Starters and What to Watch For, 6-29-13 MLB Preview

I hope you guys managed to figure out who was starting all the games in the MLB the past two days without me.  Somehow, I know most of you struggled to figure out who would be the best matchups for each day, but honesly, I have company coming this weekend, so I had to spend a lot of time deep cleaning the apartment.  Also, I find it hard to sit down and type when my wife is home, and she took the last two days off work, so I was busy.  Is that okay with you?  It better be...

Here's today's starters.

As you can see, a full slate on a Saturday, per usual.  The trick is looking at these wonderful matchups and figuring out which ones are the ones to watch.  I've spotted a few, but I've not gone through all the trouble to figure out which ones are the most interesting besides the obvious choices...

So, the Safety Squeeze Pitching Matchup of the Day ™ ™is...

Cliff Lee and Hyun-Jin Ryu...wow way to branch out, Blogger.  Yeah, just take two guys who were already featured here this past week and rehash that shit.  Well, let me tell you, it's the best matchup.  The Dodgers got housed at home last night by these Phillies, but today is a new day.  The only reason that Dodger Stadium didn't empty out faster than **insert pop culture reference about substance abuse here** is because there was a fireworks show after the game.  Or, as Vin Scully would have had you believe if you were listening to his broadcast last night, to witness one more at bat of Yasiel Puig.  Ha, no Vin, you're the best, but they wanted to see the fireworks they already paid for.  Should be a good one.  

Another matchup that caught my eye is Chris Archer and the Rays against the Tigers and Justin Verlander.  Verlander's stats aren't that far out of line from what he's done throughout his career except his BABIP.  I expect Verlander to turn that around, as BABIP is a determination of luck, and his BABIP is elevated.  Once that BABIP evens out, expect Verlander to appear to be the guy he used to be, which he technically already is.  He's just been unlucky. Plus, it's not like the Tigers have the greatest defense.  I imagine a lot of the line drives that are being hit off him would be caught if the defense behind him was better.  

Okay, that's all.  Go watch the Tigers Rays game then the Phillies Dodgers game late, and you'll be a happy baseball fan of you make these choices.  

Baseball Needs More Day Games

Baseball needs more day games.  I mean it.  More more more day games.  Of course, this is a pretty selfish request.  As a subscriber of MLB.tv, I have the privilege of watching whatever baseball game I want (except for the Braves and Reds whom are blacked out in my area) whenever I want.  When I want it is in the early afternoon.  As a stay at home dad, when the wife is away at work until 4:30 pm, I get to stay home and watch baseball...er the kids.  I watch the kids...and baseball.  I think there should be a baseball game on every day.  After all, baseball is supposed to be a lazy afternoon pastime anyway, right?  So I end up with a lot of Cubs games, which would be fine if they were a better team.  I mean, this week they certainly looked like quite the contender for the pennant, but let's be serious for a minute, they were playing the White Sox, after all.  It's not like they were beating up on any first place teams... Oh, except the first place Arizona Diamondbacks.  But let's not get carried away with that.  Watching the Cubs all the time is okay...but you know, I'd like a little variety.  A little bit of everyone every day would be really nice.

I usually look forward to Wednesdays, because that's when a lot of series' wrap up with day games so the teams can hit the road early for their next town/series.  I win there. A whole bunch of day games. Saturdays and Sunday's provide excellent day game action.  I can watch them.  I'm not in charge of any kids when those games happen but...I'm at work.  Don't tell my employer but I watch a lot of baseball while on the job.  Sorry, boss, I have an addiction to feed.  So that's good.  Day games on the weekend are good.

This little story comes about because I've become a baseball consuming monster.  I did this last May/June as well.  The big difference is that this season I've been watching baseball regularly since the day the season began.  Last year, it was only at about this time of the year that I started paying any attention to the season at all (thanks Stanley Cup Playoffs).  So I've gotten the same increase in baseball consumption as last year, but this time it's on top of my previous obsession.  This means I'm staring at clocks waiting for games to start.  This means that on days where there is no day games, I get sad and lost and lonely.  Thankfully, as I write this all down, there are games set to begin in about 15 minutes.  Indians - Rays, yo!  And they just finished up playing each other at like, two this morning because of rain delays.  Love it.  I just love it.  So lets watch some baseball, and preferably when the sun is high in the sky.  

Baseball Will Crush Your Soul With Pain and Agony

If you have followed baseball the past couple seasons, you should know that no lead in the standings is safe.  One team may seam nearly assured of upcoming post season action, and have it slip away in just a few short weeks, or days, even. Let's take a look at some of the recent collapses around the end of the season.

Exhibit A:  The 2007 New York Mets

This is one of the most LOL-worthy collapses in baseball history.  The Mets held a seven-game lead in the NL east on September 12th, and proceeded to lose 12 of their last 17 games and miss the playoffs altogether.  They lost five out of six against the horrible Nationals, and then, just when they had a chance to stave off this unreal collapse, all they had to do was beat the last place Florida Marlins on the last day of the season...and got smoked 6-1. The Phillies won the division, and the Mets went home.





Exhibit B: The 2009 Detroit Tigers

Oof.  Painful, this one was.  The Tigers were atop the Central for the better part of the season, and when it came down to the final weekend of the season, they held a three-game lead on September 30th.  By October 6th, just six days later, their season was Chinese food.  They were cooked cat.  They were delicious, I heard.  But at least out of the disaster that the collapse, we got Game 163, one of the best baseball games of all time.  Ups and downs, drama, extra innings, heroes left and right.  Good times.  And then the Twins got squashed by the Yankees, the eventual champs, but you know, that's not important here.  What's important is that even on the last weekend of the season, anything can and will happen.

Exhibit C: The 2011 Atlanta Braves and Boston Red Sox

And this one stings the worst of them all.  I can poke fun these other teams failures, but when it happens to my own team, my beloved Braves, it's no goddamn laughing matter, goddamn it.

Yup.  10 1/2 game lead on August 26th.  Still at 8 1/2 on September 6th, yet only went 9-18 in September. The final blow came on a blown save against the Phillies on that historic last day of the regular season.  I remember now why I hate the Phillies.  I tried as hard as I could to block this whole thing from my memory, but now that I'm writing about it, the wounds are still open, even if I've covered them with bandages for the time being.  I barely watched the rest of the post season because I was so jaded.  The Cardinals beat the Astros that day, and won the National League wild card.  The Braves went home.  UUUUGGGHHHH...however the spotlight on the Braves failure was dimmed a bit because it was being shared by another historic collapse.  Red.  Sox.  Nation.

As far as the Red Sox go, that might have been even worse than the Braves, actually.  They blew a nine-game lead over the Rays with 25 left to play.  That's huge.  Huge huge huge.  Also, on that last day of the season, the one I called historic in the above paragraph, the Red Sox were playing the nearly 100-loss team in the Baltimore Orioles, and all they had to do was win, and lost on a walk-off single.  Meanwhile, in Tampa, the Rays were playing the Yankees.  The Yankees took a 7-0 lead into the 8th inning, for cryin' out loud.  The Rays mounted a miraculous comeback of the ages, culminating in Dan Johnson's game-tying one-strike away from season over, home run.  Then Evan Longoria hit a solo shot in the 12th, just minutes after that Baltimore dagger to the heart of Red Sox Nation. The Rays were in and the Sox were out.  Unbelievable.  Hell, I'm mostly writing this as a way for me to remember what happened on that day.  All this stuff in the AL east, coupled with the Braves v.s. Phillies, and the Cardinals needing a win to keep their hopes of the post season alive, it's just incredible that this all happened at once.  And out of all of that, the least dramatic of the dramatic stuff was the Cardinals, and they ended up winning the whole thing...and they barely made the playoffs.  Insanity.

So if this season finishes anything close to what we got last season, we're in for quite a ride.  I can only hope it goes the right way this year, and these Braves don't screw it up this time.  But even if they do, the wounds will eventually heal, and I'll have a great blog post to write, won't I?