Batter's Box Interactive Magazine

It's 2006 again for our subject in today's POTD.

Jeff Weaver picked up the victory in relief against his former club as the Dodgers beat the Cardinals 5-3 in Game 1 last night. Congrats to anyone who stayed up for that nearly four month, er, hour long game! He relieved Randy Wolf with two out in the fourth inning and retired Ryan Ludwick on a ground out with the bases loaded. That came after Ludwick's line drive down the left field line landed just foul by a few inches. Weaver came up with the biggest out of the game that allowed the Dodgers to hang on to a 3-2 lead. He pitched a shutout fifth inning by allowing just a hit and struck out a batter in the process before turning it over to the rest of the deep Dodgers pen. Weaver hopes to continue haunting the team he helped win the World Series in '06.

I had seen this movie before during a trip to Cincinnati in the last weekend of August. Weaver relieved struggling knuckleball Charlie Haeger as the Dodgers blew an early 4-0 lead. During his 3 1/3 innings of relief, he escaped not one, but two bases loaded situations against the Reds and earned the win as the Dodgers eventually ran away with a 11-4 triumph at Great American Ballpark.

The Dodgers, Yankees and Phillies were your Game 1 winners last night. The Phillies and Rockies play again this afternoon at Citizens Bank Ballpark as lefty Cole Hamels goes against the Rockies Aaron Cook at 2:37 p.m. ET. The Dodgers and Cards go at it again at 6:07 ET at Dodgers Stadium with lefty Clayton Kershaw up against Adam Wainwright. The Red Sox and Angels finally get underway in Anaheim tonight with lefty Jon Lester facing John Lackey in a battle of the johns. We'll see which "john" gets flushed first or who gets crapped on, perhaps? There's your toilet humour for the day!

Enjoy!

Posted by #2JBrumfield on Thursday, October 08 2009 @ 02:12 PM EDT.

Be Weave It! | 7 comments | Create New Account

The following comments are owned by whomever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.

92-93 - Thursday, October 08 2009 @ 05:21 PM EDT (#207260) #

"(It would later be learned that the Blue Jays had made a play for Martinez with the idea of hanging on to Halladay and making a run in 2010.)"

- Rob Bradford of WEEI, http://www.weei.com/sports/boston/red-sox/rob-bradford/2009/10/08/how-victor-martinez-landed-red-sox

I continue to hold out hope that Beeston wasn't lying all along and intends to bump payroll in 2010, but just didn't trust JP with the spending of that money.

Mick Doherty - Thursday, October 08 2009 @ 05:42 PM EDT (#207262) #

Ten or 12 years ago, back in his early Tiger days, I thought this Weaver kid had Cys (multiple) in his future and a possible road to Cooperstown laid out before him. Just another in my long line of "Frank Pastore is the greatest pitcher since Tom Seaver" world-without-end predictions, I guess ...

Mylegacy - Thursday, October 08 2009 @ 09:01 PM EDT (#207267) #

92-93 ... Beesten didn't trust JP to spend the money but he trusts the kid AA? Somehow, I don't think so.

Also, IF JP had got Martinez - wow - would JP still be here? I think he would. I wonder how close we were.

VBF - Thursday, October 08 2009 @ 11:26 PM EDT (#207272) #

92-93 ... Beesten didn't trust JP to spend the money but he trusts the kid AA?

Yes. Exactly. Why is trust and age a linear relationship? I'd trust a 6 year old with 12 million dollars more than I'd trust Bill Bavasi with it.

Ricciardi had an overall poor record of contracts (at least in the eyes of the majority), and Anthopolous has no record of contracts. On top of this, interviews with Law, Beeston, and Will Hill have all confirmed that Beeston thinks the absolute world of Anthopoulos. If you're going to give him the job, you're prepared to give him whatever money is there, otherwise why bother.

whiterasta80 - Friday, October 09 2009 @ 10:14 AM EDT (#207283) #

Encouraging that we made a play for Martinez. But history will dictate that the best deals JP ever negotiated were the ones he refused to "force through".

Rios/Lincecum or Cain
Lilly/Ryan Howard
Quantrill/Eric Gagne (this may have been just a bad choice with Prokapec)
Victor Martinez this year

I know there are more but those are the ones that come to mind now. Sometimes you have to step up and add to a deal when a guy is on the fence (McGowan probably would have got Lincecum done, Russ Adams would have got Howard done...). JP never wanted to give enough when the chips were down- even when his evaluations on a player were correct.

That's what I'm hoping for most out of AA, that if it comes time to pull the trigger that he's willing to add a Brett Cecil to Travis Snider if it means getting Prince Fielder (just an example, not saying its realistic).

Gerry - Friday, October 09 2009 @ 01:10 PM EDT (#207299) #

Buster Olney on ESPN answers mail today and there is a Blue Jay related question:

Q: As a long-suffering Blue Jays fan, is there any thought of realignment or expansion of wild cards in the near future? Tampa Bay struck lightning last year and took a step back this year, and it's hard to imagine them keeping their core together. The Blue Jays face a similar predicament. That's not to suggest that the Jays have the same core of talent that Tampa has, so maybe you can make a run every 5-10 years, but providing a consistent competitive team year in and year out is not realistic in the AL East. -- Mark (Toronto)

A: Your sentiments are echoed constantly among executives in Major League Baseball. I have not specifically heard that realignment is being seriously discussed, but ideas and theories about how to level the playing field for the Rays, Orioles and Jays are constantly tossed around -- and I'd be stunned if there aren't some kind of changes made in the next labor agreement, with those teams at least partly in mind.

----------------------

That is an encouraging answer.

Geoff - Friday, October 09 2009 @ 04:08 PM EDT (#207322) #

My hope will always be that baseball cuts its schedule to 150 games and does four rounds of best-of-seven playoffs. Realign back to two leagues of two divisions, East and West -- and the top four of each division get in. Beautiful.

I expect sometime in my lifetime baseball will find a way to increase playoff teams from eight to sixteen, but anybody's guess how they do it. It was impressive to see them go from four to eight. I also expect it could be another twenty years before they seriously consider another change.

Unless of course economic forces demand more action sooner. Let's haul in the entertainment dollars by making changes vs. let's preserve the sanctity of tradition.

Be Weave It! | 7 comments | Create New Account

The following comments are owned by whomever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.