Dirt, Pine Tar, Who Gives a ...

I won't finish the Happy Gilmore quote in the title, but I think you can probably get the general idea. This Kenny Rogers thing is ridiculous. Let me just say the following things and be done with it:

- There are rules in place which allow opposing managers to request that a player be inspected. Tony LaRussa did not make that request. Whether it went down this way because he's "old school" or because he "likes Jim Leyland" or because he didn't think it was pine tar or because he was sleepwalking on too many ambiens, the point is that he didn't do it. End of story.

- Rogers threw seven more shutout innings after the brown stuff was removed from his hand. Whether he washed it off or wiped it off or was told to do it or saw it on his own, I mean, who cares? And it's not like the pine tar - if that is what it was - helped him. He threw better in every inning after he took it off than he did in the first.

- Even if he did "cheat" and use pine tar, are we that naive to think this is rare? Or that it makes a big difference? Pitchers use pine tar all the time, usually in cold weather when rosin becomes worthless. In fact, MLB should just make a rule that if the temperature drops below 45 degrees, rosin is swapped out for pine tar. Contrary to what Dave Duncan would have you believe, pine tar is not like a scuffed ball or a spit ball - it doesn't move and dance all over the place. It is for grip. Big deal.

- Enough with the "worst thing about this is that it puts Rogers under suspicion" angle. I love how people are so desperate for a fresh angle that they've now resorted to sob stories about how the presumed cheater never got a chance to show he was innocent and therefore, will be under a "cloud of suspicion." Give me a break. This is a guy that beats down photographers and screams "flip it, flip it!" at the top of his lungs every time there is a ground ball. He's a nut.

I think that is all. I just want this to go away. Blah.

The Wild Card Era Sucks

An 83-win team is going to the World Series.

Let that one sink in a minute.

This is the 12th year since the eight-team playoff system was implemented and never has such a crappy team reached the World Series. The Yankees won only 87 regular season games on their way to a title in 2000 and last year's Houston Astros won just 89 games, but every other team that has played in the World Series in that time won at least 90 games.

There has been some concern about what the wild card does to baseball in the past, especially when wild card entries won it all in three straight years from 2002-2004. However, those teams won an average of 96 games, so they were legit. The bigger problem is the general dilution that occurs when you have three divisions and four playoff teams in each league.

Back before the wild card was created, the Cardinals would have finished 13 games behind the Mets in the old NL East and wouldn't have had a sniff of the postseason. Yet this team was able to lose nine of its final 12 games, finish with a .516 winning percentage, and then get a clean slate. They played a pitiful Padres offense in the NLDS and then barely got by a ravaged Mets team in seven games in the NLCS. Granted, the Cards had some big moments, got great efforts from Jeff Suppan, and should be proud of the way they battled. But am I the only person who thinks this rings just a little bit hollow? This is a team that was dead in the water a few weeks ago and now they are in the World Series. The craziest part is that they still aren't very good.

Obviously, the sad state of the National League is partly to blame for this. Even one complete team would have taken care of this problem. Even taking that into account though, this just feels cheap.

An 83-win team. In the World Series.

It's going to take some time to get used to that.

Oliver Perez: All or Nothing

When announcers hype up a playoff baseball game, they often pit the two starting pitchers against each other, often accompanied by a phrase that goes something like "it all comes down to these two pitchers." I've always found this interesting. Sure, the starting pitchers are important, but they aren't boxing each other. They are't even guarding each other. Other than a few at bats each, they won't even directly impact each other's performance in the game. Not only that, but the outcome will be decided by hitters, fielders, and relief pitchers. To boil it down to the starting pitchers is insane.

Except for tonight.

That is because when it comes to Oliver Perez, it really does "all come down to" him. When he's on (which has been extremely rare the past few years), he is almost unhittable. When he's off ... hide the women and children.

Just last month after he was acquired by the Mets, Perez faced Atlanta twice. The first time the Braves couldn't touch him as he threw a complet game shutout, allowing only five hits and one walk while striking out six. The second time around Atlanta mauled him to the tune of seven hits, three walks, and six runs in just over five innings.

This all or nothing pattern was also evident against the Cardinals this year as well. In a win he allowed only five hits in nearly seven innings, then in his next outing, gave up 10 hits and seven runs in five innings against the same team. A few weeks later he gave up only two runs in seven innings against the Cards.

The man is Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde. That is why even though the Mets will have Darren Oliver, Steve Traschel, and all of their relief pitchers ready at a moment's notice, this game will likely be decided by which Oliver Perez steps to the mound. If he has good command of his pitches and starts off strong, the bullpen might not be needed until it is time to lock down a lead late in the game. But if Bad Oliver shows up (that makes me think of dude Marissa dated during season two of The O.C.), all the relief pitchers in the world might not help.

The whole thing has to be scaring the crap out of Mets fans, I can tell you that much.

The New Backe

Mets' rookie pitcher John Maine wasn't screaming out on the mound and he wasn't pumping his fist while sprinting into the dugout between innings, but aside from that, he did a pretty good Brandon Backe impersonation on Wednesday night.

If you ask Cardinals fans which Houston pitcher caused them the most grief during the 2004 and 2005 NLCS rounds, they would probably have to say Backe. Oswalt pitched some gems, but it was the bulldog number four starter that always seemed to serve up a magical performance when the Astros needed it most.

And there is something psychologically damaging to an offense when they get beat by a young starter, by a guy that isn't supposed to be able to shut them down. The Cardinals had just knocked around Tom Glavine on Tuesday and were sitting on a 3-2 lead with the probable repeat winner of the NL Cy Young on the mound in Chris Carpenter. And while Carpenter gave up a leadoff home run to Jose Reyes and allowed another run to cross the plate on a Shawn Green single, I think we can agree that he did his part, allowing only two runs in six innings. If you had told St. Louis that Carpenter would do that, they would have felt great. After all, they were only facing John Maine. A rookie pitcher on a short leash.

Yet history repeated itself as Maine did what Backe did several times over the last two years ... he picked up his offense, his Hall of Fame pitcher (Glavine in the Clemens role), and his whole organization and put them on his back. At times it was pure grit at other times it was with pure dominance, but the one constant is that he kept coming up big time and time again.

If the Mets find a way to win tonight and advance to the World Series, John Maine will always have a special place in the hearts of Mets fans. If you don't believe me, find a 'Stros fan and ask them how they feel about Brandon Backe.

Non-Save Situation

I don't have time to dig around and do any research on this, but tonight just seemed to strengthen the argument that managers shouldn't bring closers into non-save situations whenever they can avoid it. I know that Willie Randolph was running out of options since starter John Maine left early in the game, but I have to think Ramon Hernandez might have been better suited to enter the ninth in a tie game. Closers are so conditioned after a season of protecting leads that you have to believe coming into a tie game screws with their head a bit. I'm not saying that excuses Wagner piping a 3-2 fastball to Tagucci or any of the other mistakes that followed, but it is food for thought.

Eerie Stuff

The Cardinals just wrestled control of the NLCS away from the Mets tonight and they did in familiar fashion ... with a lazy Scott Spezio fly ball drifting, drifting, drifting toward the right field fence.

In the 2002 World Series, the Giants were six outs from a title with Felix "The Cat" Rodriguez on the mound and things were looking good. Next thing you knew, Scott Spezio had hit a lazy fly ball that got into the jet stream and just kept going. That ball wound up being a home run and effectively won the World Series for the Angels.

This time around, Shawn "Dr. Strangeglove" Green managed to get some leather on the ball and keep it in play, but it still went for a triple that tied the game 6-6. About an hour later, Billy Wagner was imploding and the rest is history.

Whatever happens from here on out, I won't be able to shake the feeling that I've seen all of this before.

(Oh and by the way, is it just me, or is Spiezio's pink soul patch the absolute dumbest thing you've ever seen? He should be arrested for that.)

Strange Tigers

Detroit is one unorthodox team. In most games, you can find their biggest power threats hitting either second or seventh (Craig Monroe), fourth (Magglio Ordonez), ninth (Brandon Inge), and not at all (Marcus Thames). In case you aren't doing the math, that means only one of those lineup decisions makes any traditional sense.

Their best defensive player, Brandon Inge, is a third basemen that played catcher until last year.

They have two of the most dominant relief pitchers in the American League in Fernando Rodney and Joel Zumaya, yet their most hittable pitcher - Todd Jones (highest batting average allowed on Detroit's playoff roster) - is the closer.

However, the strangest thing of all is the fact that their extra bats are middle infielders. When Paul Casey went down with an injury in Game One, they moved shortstop Carlos Guillen over to first base. I honestly can't imagine another team doing that, unless you want to count Nomar shifting over for the Dodgers (but that had more to do with Nomar and his limited range). Usually teams have an extra outfielder or first baseman laying around - an all hit, no field kind of guy. In fact, a quick glance at other top AL teams shows that the DH is almost always a former (or just poor-fielding) first baseman/outfielder: Frank Thomas (A's), Jim Thome (White Sox), Ortiz (Red Sox), Rondell White (Twins), and Garrett Anderson (Angels). Had the starting first baseman gone down for any of those teams, you can imagine a pretty easy fix, and one that doesn't involve a middle infielder.

But the Tigers didn't stop with moving Guillen over. With three middle infielders already on the field for today's game (Ramon Santiago at shortstop, Placido Polanco at second, and Guillen at first), Jim Leyland decided to get one more out there by making Omar Infante his DH over the likes of Marcus Thames (26 home runs during the regular season) and Alexis Gomez (a home run in Game Two). That gave Detroit a lineup chalk full of four middle infielders.

Of course, Infante reached twice and stole a base as the Tigers won 3-0 to take a 3-0 series lead.

Jim Leyland must be some sort of wizard.

Joel Zumaya: Force of Nature

In my previous post in which I took a guess at the playoff results, I compared the 2006 Detroit Tigers to the 2002 Anaheim Angels because of their lineup. Like that Angels team that won it all, the Tigers lack huge power threats in the middle and don't feature many patient hitters, but they have a host of aggressive players that will put the ball in play and put pressure on the defense.

Now it seems that there is another appropriate comparison to be made: the presense of a virtuoso rookie setup man. Like Frankie Rodriguez in 2002, Tigers' rookie Joel Zumaya is biding his time as a setup man on his way to bigger and better things in the coming years. And like K-Rod, he appears capable of becoming the X-Factor in this series against New York and for as long as the Tigers are still playing.

Unlike Rodriguez, who came out of nowhere, Zumaya has been around all year and his skills shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. Armed with a fastball that has been clocked at 103 miles per hour, Zumaya went 6-3 during his rookie campaign with an ERA of 1.94, 97 strikeouts in just over 83 innings, and a ridiculous .187 opponents average against. He's certainly not a mystery to AL foes.

However, I'm not sure anyone was prepared for Zumaya to come out and absolutely dominate the Yankees the way he did earlier today. Pitching into rather fierce shadows and coming in on the heels of fellow rookie Justin Verlander (who can also push the fastball up near 100) and reliever Jamie Walker, Zumaya made the vaunted Yankees lineup look like little leaguers. Despite the fact that Verlander had been throwing extremely hard all game, Zumaya seemed to have another gear to his heater as he blew away A-Rod (although that wasn't terribly hard to do today) and retired all five batters he faced with ease.

His stuff was electric, he carried himself with poise and confidence, and he projected an aura of being completely unhittable. It was something you don't see very often from a rookie relief pitcher, that is for sure. In fact, if not for K-Rod, I'm not sure there would even be a precedent.

Now we just need to see if Joel Zumaya and his Detroit Tigers can follow in Fransisco Rodriguez's footsteps.

A Penny For Grady's Thoughts

It didn't take Grady Little long to do something bizarre in postseason play. The last time we saw this stoic man on the big stage he was staring off into space while Pedro Martinez labored against the Yankees in Game Seven of the 2004 ALCS. We all know how that worked out, which is to say, not well. So not well, in fact, that Little was bounced out of town, which is pretty rare for a manager that just took his team to the American League Championship Series. That said, not a soul was surprised when Grady was shown the door - that is how egregious the Pedro Decision was.

Well, now Grady is back. And while yesterday's game was only the opener of the NLDS, it was also Little's first chance to get back in the saddle astride the beast we call "Playoff Baseball." And he pretty much screwed it up as badly as one can.

In the 7th inning, the Dodgers (already down on the "bad decision" scorecard after somehow getting two runners tagged out at home plate on the same play) clawed back into the contest behind a huge two-run double from Nomar Garciaparra. So with new life in a 4-4 game, what did Little do? He inexplicably put Game Four starter Brad Penny into the game.

What?

I know that tying the score in the top of the seventh probably gave rise to some "it's a new ballgame!" cheers in the dugout, but did Little get confused and think that they were literally starting another game? With stud rookie Jonathan Broxton (who eventually came in after Penny) at his disposal, Little somehow decided it was a good idea to bring in Penny instead, despite the fact that his 16-game winner has made all of two relief appearances in his 197-game career. Brilliant.

To the surprise of absolutely no one, Penny had a hard time getting loose fast enough, walked two of the first three hitters, and then gave up two runs that put the game out of reach. The result was a 6-5 win and a 1-0 series lead for the Mets.

Not only did the decision to put a starter into the game for middle relief duty cost the Dodgers the game, it also gave New York a good look at Penny, which will afford them an advantage in a potential Game Four. It also had the possible side effects of A) throwing Penny off his usual rhythm and B) damaging the confidence of not only Penny but every guy in the L.A. bullpen that was bypassed. It was akin to Little issuing a public indictment of his relievers right there on the field.

The only thing more surprising than this development is the fact that no one seems to be talking about it. I mean, this was a move that flew in the face of all logic, smacked of desperation (something you might do in a Game Seven when you are out of pitchers), and cost the Dodgers the game and, in all likelihood, the series. This isn't a big deal? Throw in the fact that it was one of the first managerial decisions Little has made in a playoff game since The Pedro Incident and I have to believe this is a big story.

Thoughts? Feel free to throw out some chatter in the comments section, or weigh in on any and everything Mets-Dodgers.