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Commentary by Jeff Mayfield
Major
league report: Midterm grades
Part
1
 [JULY 20, 2000]
A
few months ago this LDN reporter made some bold predictions about
this year’s major league baseball season, and amazingly some of
them have actually come true! This proves once again, conclusively,
that if you make enough predictions you might actually stumble on a
correct one every once in a while. Needless to say, it has been an
exciting campaign so far. The St. Louis Cardinals are in first place
by seven games over the Cincinnati Reds, and the Chicago White Sox
have a double-digit lead over the Cleveland Indians in their
respective Central Divisions. The Chicago Cubs managed to keep Sammy
Sosa on board and hope to turn things around during the second half
of the year. This week the LDN gives you a mid-season look at how
the season has shaped up so far and what you might expect in the
second half.
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In
our early season baseball report, we here at the LDN suggested that
the only way the Cubs and the Cardinals would be able to compete was
if their pitching came through for them. Charles Dickens’ classic
"A Tale of Two Cities" starts with the familiar, "It
was the best of times…it was the worst of times"…and there
may not be a better way than that to sum up the fortunes of these
two teams. For the Cubs, it has been the worst of times, as Kerry
Wood has still not quite recaptured the form he displayed two years
ago and the staff just hasn’t come together as Don Baylor hoped
that it would. The bullpen has also been an adventure with even
closer Rick Aguilera getting pounded in some outings. Overall, the
LDN gives the Cubbies a C- for their work up until now. That letter
was skewed upwards, since – outside of the Reds – the rest of
the division has struggled right along with them.
For
the Cardinals, it’s been the best of times, and it’s certainly
been a breath of fresh air this season. It’s a no-brainer to see
why they have earned an A- from the LDN. For most of the last three
seasons I would rather have seen them go into the crowd and pick
somebody in the stands to pitch rather than send to the hill some of
the pitching imposters they forced the fans to endure. No wonder Joe
Torre struggled when he managed the Cards. If your job depended on
some of the pitchers we signed to contracts during that time, it’s
hard telling what you would be doing today!
(To
top of second column)
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This
year, Cardinal starters have been nothing short of phenomenal! At
the All-Star break, all but about five of the team’s victories had
been picked up by the starters. Not only do they have three or four
guys with 10 or more wins, but they also have put together a number
of quality starts. If you recall, the LDN was one of the first
publications to say that the Birds had signed the right starters and
that things would be better! The LDN even backed Pat Hentgen while
he was struggling and while the trade rumors were swirling. Now
everybody wants to get on the LDN bandwagon. I guess there’s still
a little room…
It’s
a good thing that the starting rotation has been so spectacular,
because the bullpen has been shaky at best. Apparently some of the
imposters’ contracts are not up, and some of these would-be major
leaguers have just gotten shelled. When I played college baseball,
current Rochester resident David Upchurch used to have a saying when
our less-than-stellar hurlers would take the mound: "Man the
walls!"…And that’s exactly what it has been for St. Louis
at times from their bullpen. You don’t want to see guys coming in
pouring gas on the fire. Now that Matt Morris and Alan Benes are
healthy, perhaps the Redbirds are in the process of turning it
around. The one real bright spot out of the pen has been Dave Veres,
who now has something like 17 saves. He has been exceptionally
solid, and I hate to say it, but once again the LDN applauded
picking up Daryl Kile during the winter, and we were very high on
getting the throw-in Veres in the deal. In fact, we stated that if
he became a dominant closer that the Cards would contend for a
divisional title…We rest our case.
There
have also been some exciting developments outside of the pitching
corps. We’ll have more on that tomorrow.
[Jeff
Mayfield]
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