An ugly beginning for Lidle; the O's took a 3-0 lead on three first-inning singles, a walk and a fielder's choice.

Riley froze Reed Johnson with a sharp 0-2 curve ball that looked high and away but snapped in for strike three. He doesn't want to be hanging that when they are looking for it...

Another encouraging sign: Riley throws the fastball hard, but it mostly stayed up. He walked Bordick, and Wells smoked a long line drive that almost went over Raines' head in deep center. He fanned Delgado to get out of the inning unscathed, but he's hittable.

I'm hopeful that after this start, Lidle is banished to the bullpen for the rest of the year. There is no point to keep running him out there. I would rather see Hendrickson again.

Phelps hits #20.

Projecting his numbers as though he'd played the whole season, he looks like a 30HR, 90RBI* guy with a .350 OBP. Not bad at all for his first full season. Come 2005, he's gonna look pretty good batting fifth behind Wells and one of the New Haven three.

* No matter how much I know that they're not very useful numbers, I don't think I'll ever get it out of my head that there is such a thing as a "x HR, y RBI" hitter. To this day I still need to see those numbers before I really 'feel' a player, above and beyond knowing his actual value.

Nice throw by Delgado to complete the rare 5-3-6 double play. Surhoff foolishly took off from second on Hinske's throw, challenging Carlos to throw a strike, and he did, to the alertly covering Bordick.

3-1 Baltimore, mid-fourth.

Why I hate John Cerutti:

The jays nailed Surhoff trying to go from first to third last inning, which caused Cerutti to bring out old adage "don't make the third out at third base". And then repeated himself _four_ times.

Instead of repeating yourself four times, why not use some of that valuable oxygen to actually explain why that statement is true? Isn't that what a colour guy is supposed to do???

Having no idea, I used google to look it up:

You don't make the third out at third base because it takes a base hit to score a run from third with two outs, and the runner would probably score on that same hit even if he'd stayed at second. Therefore, the risk of making the third out at third, when you would have been in scoring position at second, isn't worth the extra ninety feet. And you don't make the first out at third because your team can give up an out on a sacrifice to advance you from second to third, at much less risk than taking the extra base.

There. Where do I apply for the colour-guy job for 2004 telecasts?

Matt Riley:

His fastball, though not in the high 90's anymore, has a ton of late movement. If Baltimore can sign/develop a few decent hitters (hello Vladimir) they are going to make the AL East very tough next year.

Hijack , Hijack , The New Haven Register is reporting that New Haven Ravens outfielder Alexis Rios will be named the most valuable player of the Eastern League and Marty Pevey will be honored as manager of the year, the Register has learned.

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=10162344&BRD=1281&PAG=461&dept_id=426669&rfi=6

My hat is off to the whole New Haven Team and Coaching staff for a great Season.

You don't make the third out at third base because it takes a base hit to score a run from third with two outs ...

Who wrote this? Just because you find it on Google ...

Let's see, just off the top of my head, ways to score from third base without a base hit include ...

- Wild pitch
- Passed ball
- Error or errors
- Balk
- Dropped third strike
- Multiple walks
- Steal of home

That doesn't completely undermine the "don't make the third out at third base" reasoning, but whoever wrote THAT explanation just wasn't thinking.

Mick: I don't think Jacko was really endorsing the maxim, merely showing how easy it was to explain it (which Cerutti seemed unable to do).

Nor was I criticizing Jacko ... just whoever wrote that particular explanation of it on Google.

Mick, if you've played baseball the rule is if you make the first or last out at thirdbase you can sit the next inning, and probably not get up til the game's over. The reward isn't worth the risk. Regardless of the other ways to get home, it's all banking on your opponent's mistakes, which are great to capitalize on but bad strategy to rely on.

No worries Mick, I try not to take anything I see on this message board as a personal attack :)

However, I do take issue with a few of your "why it's worth taking a chance getting to 3rd with 2 outs" reasons:

- Wild pitch
- Passed ball

These are fine.

- Balk
- Steal of home

These happen infrequently when compared to hits -- is it worth taking the chance of being thrown out on the off chance that these events might happen?

- Multiple walks

The guy who stays on second will score just as easily here.

- Error or errors

Same thing applies again, the guy on 2B can score on a serious error, or on multiple small errors. I don't see a clear advantage of being on 3B here.

- Dropped third strike

I haven't _ever_ seen or heard of someone scoring from 3B on this play.

I think the original comment I dug up sums things up neatly. When there's 2 outs, you don't dramatically increase your chances of scoring by getting yourself to 3B, so it's not worth taking stupid chances to get yourself there.

BTW, I don't dispute that getting people to 3B, in general, is a good thing. I was kind of annoyed today that, in today's game with runners on 1st and 2nd in the eighth inning and nobody out, Tosca didn't bunt the runners over to 2nd and 3rd.

According to Gammons when the Jays traded Quantrill the Dodgers offered either Gagne or Propopec. Does anyone have any recollection of this? IIRC, the Dodgers refused to trade Gagne and the Blue Jays settled for Prokopec. Does anyone remember this? Has my chronic glue sniffing affected my memory of this event? Of course, we don't really know what occurred in the trade negotiations but the rumours at the time contradict what Gammons is now stating.

Christian - I've heard the same thing about Gagne/Prokepec that Gammons wrote today prior to today.

---

Good for Rios. He seemed to be the obvious MVP choice in the Eastern League to me.

Coming into this year he looked to be an average prospect, and now he's probably a top 10 prospect in all of baseball. It's amazing how prospects can come out of nowhere. Same thing with Quiroz this year.

C'mon folks, pay attention.

I didn't say it was "worth taking a chance" on getting to third base with two outs.

I pointed out that whatever page the Google search turned up included the quote "You don't make the third out at third base because it takes a base hit to score a run from third with two outs."

That's wrong. In less than 10 seconds of thinking, I came up with seven ways it was possible to score from third base with two outs without the benefit of a hit.

I was criticizing whoever the author was of the anonymous Googled quote for being blatantly sloppy and inaccurate, not criticizing baseball's conventional wisdom. I know trying to get to third base with two outs is a bad idea unless it's a slam dunk lock. I know that. Honest.

This is a very, very minor example of the kind of stuff oh, say, newspaper columnists and beat writers have to put up with. Often, as we have seen this week, the criticism may be deserved. Often, there is a misinterpretation or misrepresentation.

Third out at third base bad. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Y'all kinda lost interest in the game. Riley got the win in semi-impressive fashion. Yippee. Look out for the Os in 2005.

Look out for the Os in 2005.

There's a small core of competent, youngish hitters now on the O's (Matos, Bigbie, Roberts, Gibbons) which makes you think that if these guys can develop better than their "curve" would predict, they can certainly be an above-.500 team if they turn some of their fifth-starter types into third-starter types.

I don't see it happening. Of course, it would help a lot if they did manage to sign Vladimir Guerrero...

There's a small core of competent, youngish hitters now on the O's (Matos, Bigbie, Roberts, Gibbons) which makes you think that if these guys can develop better than their "curve" would predict, they can certainly be an above-.500 team if they turn some of their fifth-starter types into third-starter types.


Gibbons' home run yesterday was pretty sweet eh? Too bad the Jays let him go in the Rule 5 draft.

The O's pitching certainly looks like it's coming around.

The recent development of Dubose and Riley has been encouraging, as well as the reemergence of Pat Hentgen. Erik Bedard appears to be recovering well from his TJ surgery, and John Maine (2002, 6th round) was outstanding this year.

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