When Bobby
said he wouldn’t make the prediction I was a bit surprised, expecting him to
have two teams in the chamber that he fires off every time someone asks him. What
has happened in baseball since Sunday though has brought clarity to his comments,
for me. We are two weeks into a six month, 162-game marathon, and there are
already monumental injuries to big time contenders. These injuries have the
potential to derail those almighty predictions from the resident MLB experts patrolling
the internet.
Bobby could
have blindly told me it would be an all-LA World Series. He could have told me
the Jays would cash in on all of those new additions and return to The Fall
Classic for the first time since Joe Carter “touched ‘em all”. Now I can see
why he didn’t. Three serious injuries will cripple our early season favorites,
opening the door for the rest of the league.
Let’s take a
look at the three fallen giants:
Zack Greinke
The most nonsensical
of the injuries, this situation represents “old baseball” meeting “new baseball”.
Charging the mound is one of those old-time, unwritten baseball sideshows. With
the amount of money invested in players, on both sides of the diamond, this is way
too risky to indulge. The solution to this problem is to get an arm out of the
bullpen and throw a 95 mph fastball right into the ass of your Dodger of
choice.
Here’s the
situation. Full count, 6th inning, Dodgers have a one-run lead. Greinke
goes up and in and plunks Carlos Quentin. The two did have a history, with
Greinke hitting Quentin on two other occasions when they were AL Central foes. What
appeared to ignite Quentin’s rage was the comment barked from Greinke immediately
following the pitch. Since we don’t know
what was said, here are two possibilities:
“My therapist will tell me why I keep
throwing at you…”
“You wouldn’t have won the MVP in ‘08 anyway…”
The bottom
line is that it happened, and now the Dodgers are without their #2 starter, the
Robin to Kershaw’s Batman, for the next 8 weeks. The NL West has been decided
by 3 games or fewer in 6 of the past 9 seasons, making this a hotly contested
division. Fortunately for the Dodgers they have proven veterans in Chris
Capuano and Ted Lilly who can fill the holes, but clearly neither of them have
the skill set of Greinke.
Jose Reyes
“Sunny days wouldn’t be special if it wasn’t for
rain.”
That was a
tweet from Jose Reyes after last night’s game that saw him suffer a gruesome
ankle sprain. Word has just been released that Reyes will miss the full three
months, as originally feared. This is absolutely the worst –case scenario for
Reyes and the new-look Jays. Jose Reyes’ game IS his legs, and having him miss
significant time spells big trouble for Toronto. Even after his return, playing
on turf will be unforgiving.
The Jays are
left with a big hole at the top of their lineup, and a bigger hold in the
middle of their infield. The early concerns have surrounded the ineffectiveness
of R.A. Dickey and Josh Johnson, and although a 4-6 record through 10 isn’t the
end of the world, we will get a quick look at the makeup of this team by how
they respond in Reyes’ absence.
Jered Weaver
Boy, can
things possibly go any worse for the Angels? After losing both a game and Jered
Weaver on Sunday, the Halos have dropped every game this week and are 2-8
through ten games. There were serious, legitimate concerns in the preseason about
whether this team can pitch; giving up 5.8 runs per game through their first 10,
and losing their ace puts a cherry on top. The bats will really need to wake up
over the next 4-6 weeks while Weaver heals, or the Angels may fall into a
similar hole that they did last year, a hole they could never dig out of.
This is
baseball. This is why preseason picks are all in fun. This is why Bobby V.
prefers to look back and analyze, instead of looking forward and predicting.
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