baseball – Page 9 – Hank Kalet

Spinning wheels

Consider the power of the New York Yankees.

The team scores 45 runs in three wins in two days and manages to pick up a half game in the standings — leaving them a full half game farther back than they were before the weekend started.

That’s a remarkable feat, when you get right down to it — and as good an example as any as to why they team’s chances of catching the Red Sox remain pretty slim.

Yes, the team has shaved some games off the lead, but it has no margin for error. And if the Sox play decent ball the rest of the way — say winning 34 and losing 30 — then the Yankees will have to find a way to play 42-23 ball. That would be well above anything they’ve done so far this season. And that assumes the Sox play well below their .602 pace. If the Sox win 39 of their final 64 — a little better than .600 — the Yanks would have to go 47-18.

You get the picture.

While I do think the Yanks are a better team than they’ve shown so far, they remain an old team with mediocre arms and awful set-up relievers. If it weren’t for the sublime efforts of A-Rod, Jeter and Posada, it is difficult to even conceive of where this team might be in the standings.

I wouldn’t write them off, but I find the arrogant optimism exhibited by some Yankee fans I know to be misplaced and downright obnoxious (optimism is OK, but someone needs to remind them that this is not 1978 and Bucky Dent is not on the roster).

When the season ends, figure on Detroit to knock off Boston and California to torture Cleveland, with the Angels winning the ALCS in seven. (As for the National League, I still think the Mets are the team to beat — Mets over L.A. and Padres over Milwaukee (though don’t write off the Cubs), with the Mets and Padres going the distance.

Heart says Mets over Angels in a battle of first-wave expansion teams, but my head says that the Angels are going to go all the way. There, I said it and it hurts man.

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A view from the seats

I took this photo with my cell phone — I was actually closer last night than it might seem.

Nothing like a pitcher’s duel — especially when the good guys win. Wish the Mets were hitting more, but Glavine looked sharper than sharp tossing a two-hitter. And clutch hits from Green and Milledge and stellar D from the infield — all in all, a wonderful night to be at Shea.

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In walked Bud

I’m no fan of Barry Bonds, but he is closing in on the biggest record in his sport and it is petty of the commissioner to be so coy about his intentions.

For those of you who have not been following, Commissioner Bud Selig has refused to say if he plans to be in attendance when the record is broken.

“I understand that I am the commissioner of baseball, and this is the most hallowed record in American sports,” Selig said. “I understand [the writers] have a job to do, and I’d be asking the same questions if I were you. But it’s something I’m going to handle my own way. I’ll do what I believe is in the best interests of baseball.”

Kevin Kernan in the New York Post explains why Selig needs to be there.

I also think Hank Aaron, the current record holder and one of the classiest and guttiest guys to ever play the game, should be there. But that’s his call, as Kernan said. He doesn’t officially represent baseball.

(Read this superb column on Aaron and America’s new culture of cheating by Derrick Z. Jackson in The Boston Globe.)

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Random thoughts on the Mets

The Mets remain the team to beat in the NL East, but have inexplicably played like a team waiting to be beaten.

They’ve stopped coming up big in the clutch most nights

The bullpen has been inconsistent

The Carloses have not been the Carloses

There have been an assortment of injuries — some expected, like Moises Alou’s — that have not helped, though they cannot be used as an excuse

The question with the Mets is can they turn it back on and create some distance between themselves and the Phillies (a team that too often finds ways to beat itself) and the Braves (a team that is running on fumes, but still dangerous). I think they can, but they have to reverse the first-half trend and get real production from Delgado and Beltran, consistency from Aaron Heilman and Guillermo Mota, find another pitcher who is ready to contribute and hope that Lastings Milledge is ready.

Yes. Lastings Milledge. I believe that, had he not gone down with the ankle injury shortly after being optioned to New Orleans, he would have been called to the big club and plugged the gap in the outfield.

I still think this team is going to win between 92 and 95 games, which should be enough to win the division. What happens in the playoffs, however, may depend on whether Pedro can be Pedro when he gets back.

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The Yankees just aren’t very good

Perhaps, Allen Barra is the only one who has figured out what plagues the Yankees this year. In short, they are not a very good ball club — aging on the mound where 40 percent of the rotation appears beyond its prime, another pitcher just doesn’t belong and another has no luck; barren at first and at DH; overrated and aging in the outfield; and managed by a man who has been asked to run a team that bears no resemblance to the kind of teams he does well with. In short, the Yankees need to blow things up and start over.

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