Earlier this week, young pitching phenom Stephen Strasburg made his long-awaited and hyped-to-the-max big league debut with the Washington Nationals. He went 7 innings and threw 94 pitches, and he is now officially The Greatest Pitcher In The History Of The World! Seriously, he was very, very impressive, showing command of 4 or 5 pitches, whiffing 14, and picking up the win. On the other hand, the Nats were playing the woeful Pirates and Delmon Young took him deep. So let's not install his bust in Cooperstown just yet. Baseball has many examples of young flamethrowers who make a big splash, then slowly sink rather than swim. Mark Prior, Rich Harden, Kerry Wood, Todd VanPoppel, Wayne Simpson, and David Clyde come to mind. Buster hopes Strasburg is a swimmer.
The week before, as everyone now knows, Detroit pitcher Armando Galarraga was denied a perfect game (no hits, runs, or errors, 27 up, 27 down)by a blown call from 1st base umpire Jim Joyce. With 2 outs in the 9th, Indians batter Jason Donald hit a grounder to the right side which was fielded by the Tigers 1st baseman, who threw to Galaragga covering. It was a very close bang-bang play, but Joyce made his "safe" call without hesitation. Joyce is an experienced, respected ump who happened, in this case, to be wrong. It would have/should have been an historic, highly improbable 3rd perfect game of the season, all in just 3 weeks. But no. Galarraga just smiled, went back to the mound and promptly got the 3rd out, game over. Joyce took some grief from the Tigers, but quickly watched the replay and immediately acknowledged his error. He went into the Detroit clubhouse and tearfully apologized to Galarraga face to face.
Both men have subsequently been hailed for the calm and classy way they handled the situation, and rightly so. They are the proverbial "good examples". And many are wondering why baseball doesn't avail itself of today's technology and make fuller use of video replay to get the calls right. Not a bad idea.
Buster has a thought for this particular case. The Commissioner of Baseball could exercise his powers "in the best interests of the game" and simply overturn Joyce's call. Just nullify it, call Donald out (which he was), pretend the 28th batter didn't happen, and officially give Galarraga his perfect game. I mean, why the hell not? Who or what could it possibly hurt? Nothing would really change and you'd make it right. But Commissioner Bud "The Dud" Selig, who never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity, says he won't do it, can't do it, blah blah blah. Can't articulate his reasoning, but just isn't gonna do it. Whatever, dude.
Of our two Ohio teams, I'm really enjoying the Reds so far and catch them on TV whenever I can. They're on top of their division with a good mix of veterans and young guys. Rookie pitcher Mike Leake has been great, and call-up Sam LeCure ain't bad. When do we get to see Aroldis Chapman?
The Indians, on the other hand, are going retro, back to the bad old days of my youth -- completely out of it by the 4th of July. In my pre-season post, I predicted the Tribe would win 75 games, tops. I'd like to revise that downward to 65 wins, tops. That means 100 losses is a distinct possiblity. Good God!
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