Another perfect game?

Wow.

Wow.

Words can’t describe what just occurred in the ninth inning at Comerica Park. Austin Jackson makes the catch of the year for the first out in the ninth to keep Armando Galarraga’s perfect game in tact. Then for the final out—what should have been the final out—first base umpire Jim Joyce blows the call and says Jason Donald is safe at first base. There were multiple things to break down on this final play.

I’m not quite sure where Miguel Cabrera was going to run over and field the grounder that would have been an easy out for the second baseman. Instead of staying on first and allowing Carlos Guillen to get ground the ball, Cabrera ran over, scoop up the ball and fired to Galarraga covering first base. And they still had Donald by a step. Unbelievable. Jackson’s catch won’t be talk about as much as it should be, but making that catch in that pressure situation is unreal. Very Willie Mays style too.

No matter who you were rooting for in this one, you have to feel horrible for Galarraga. He pitched an incredible game that will not go down in the books as a perfect game even though it was one.

I even feel bad for Jim Joyce. You know he will see the replay and feel the worst of anyone. There’s nothing he can do now. That’s the human element of baseball. He made the call and will have to live with it. He’s going to be known as the guy that screwed up the perfect game.

I honestly can’t find any other words besides wow.

 

Perfection again!

Roy Halladay is perfect. No one needed a reminder of how great Halladay is, but he proved it once again by firing the second perfect game of 2010 on a Saturday night against the Marlins in Florida. Doc struck out 11 batters on 115 pitches to keep all 27 Marlins from reaching base in the Phillies 1-0 win for the 18th perfect game in major league history.

Dallas Braden’s perfect game on May 9 made the young pitcher a household name, but Halladay’s gem tonight will go down as his standout performance in his soon-to-be Hall of Fame career.

It’s official now—pitching is indeed back as I wrote about three days ago. Does anyone need more evidence that pitching has taken over in 2010? We’ve only seen perfect games in consecutive years three times in MLB history, and now tonight’s perfecto is the second one in the same month! Going back to Mark Buehrle’s perfect game last year, there’s been three in two seasons. Truly unbelievable. Oh yeah and there also was a regular no-hitter tossed this season by Ubaldo Jimenez.

I have no idea what to expect next in 2010, but this is definitely thrilling to watch.

 

Weekly Recap

A day after Dallas Braden’s perfect game and the baseball world is still buzzing. I wanted to address something I briefly mentioned in my post yesterday about how many perfect games MLB has seen. For some reason Major League Baseball wants to call yesterday’s perfect game the 19th in its history, but I don’t agree with that. It should be considered the 17th perfect game all-time because the extra two that they are counting occurred in 1880. This was prior to the modern era which began in 1903 when the National League and American League agreed to play by the same rules. The two pre-modern era perfect games were with pitchers throwing underhand and on a mound only 45 from home plate. Plus, that National League wasn’t even established in 1880, instead it was the American Association. Therefore, the first perfect game is Cy Young’s dominance over the Philadelphia Athletics in 1904. I just wanted to clear that up before we move on—as you can tell, it fires me up a bit. Let’s head into the weekly recap:

A-Rod speaks on Braden’s performance
Obviously Braden’s perfect game was the highlight of the week, possibly year but it’s going to get overshadowed by his little feud with A-Rod. Well, that NY-Boston media wasted no time getting his response before the Yankees Sunday night game. Pretty good line for A-Rod too bringing it back to the team they are chasing in the division:

“I’ve learned in my career that it’s always better to be recognized for some of the great things you do on the field,” Rodriguez said. “Good for him. He threw a perfect game, and even better he beat the Rays.”

Then A-Rod went out and pulled even with Frank Robinson for seventh all-time with his 586th home run. Not bad. Yeah that July 5-7 series in Oakland should be fairly interesting if Braden is due to pitch that series.

Will Zack Greinke ever get a win in 2010?
Speaking of strong pitching performances Zack Greinke, last year’s AL Cy Young winner, is 0-4 despite a 2.51 ERA. I believe he’s the third former Cy Young winner to lose his first four decisions the following year. Greinke has four quality starts in seven outings this year, including seven shutout innings against Seattle late last month, but zero wins. Even more ironic in this bizarre game of baseball is Greinke’s teammate Luke Hochevar is 3-1 despite his over 5.00 ERA. Obviously Greinke’s too good to let the Royals offense stop him from getting some wins this year, but while wins aren’t the main stat sought after for the award, he could have a hard time getting out of this hole to claim back-to-back Cy Young awards.

Holy smokes, Jamie Moyer is old
Jamie Moyer’s incredible two-hit shutout of the Braves Friday night sets a record for being the oldest player to throw a shutout at the fragile age of 47. He passed Hall of Fame pitcher Phil Niekro who did it in 1985 at age 46. I’m pretty sure there’s nobody else that’s going to catch Moyer on this record anytime soon. Tim Wakefield is only 43 years old, and his awful start has many believing he could be done soon. Another side note from this story was the Braves and how cold their hitting can be. This was the same team that not only was shutout by grandpa, but in just a month they were also no-hit by Ubaldo Jimenez, almost no-hit by the Nationals Scott Olsen and then disrespected Olsen. Atlanta has some major problems.

Will Ferrell pitched in a Triple-A game…really.
I don’t have much to say about this other than I think it was one of those ideas that sounded better than what it actually ended up being.

Ozzie Guillen’s job in danger?
Thanks to the White Sox’s lackluster 13-19 start to the season, there have been some rumblings about Ozzie Guillen possibly being fired. While I don’t believe that is a possibility due to his extremely weird relationship with GM Kenny Williams, I think they should go away from the norm and fire horrendous announcer Hawk Harrelson to turn things around. Because I long for the day to say, “Haaaawk, HE GONE! Your employment with the White Sox is OV-A!”