A weird night in baseball: It wasn’t only Gavin ‘n’ Ozzie
Posted on May 7th, 2008 – 8:54 AMBy Howard
Hard to fathom that Gavin Floyd could take a no-hitter into the ninth inning last night against the Twins, who had pretty well owned his butt every time they’d met in the past. It was even stranger considering the thimble-sized strike zone of home plate umpire Dana Demuth, who must have had some interesting conversations with AJ (and maybe even Mauer) over the course of the night. I’m glad that Scott Ullger went out of his way after the game to point out that Twins batters gave Floyd a bit extra help by chasing, but you had the sense that starting with the middle innings, the pitcher was pretty much on his game.
I know that Bert sometimes gets carried away with stuff, but he was a righteous pit bull when he went after Ozzie Guillen for lifting Floyd in the ninth following Mauer’s double. I mean, the White Sox had a six-run lead and Floyd deserved a shot at finishing. That’s what Gardy did last season with Scott Baker took his perfect game into the ninth against Kansas City and lost it on Mike Sweeney’s single. Ozzie should have given his young pitcher center stage.
Of course, Ozzie is Ozzie. Or, as Sun-Times columnist Jay Mariotti wrote after the game: “Ozzie Guillen didn’t deserve to be bailed out by a classy, polite kid with hair combed across his forehead, low on his brow. It isn’t news, of course, that Guillen is the clown doofus of sports, a disgrace to a city, a franchise, intelligent humanity and those of us who must chronicle his arrested-adolescent b.s. to the point of ad nauseum.”
Mariotti’s attack was brought on by Ozzie’s F-bombin’ outburst in Toronto the other day when he went after the fans and media for not showing his team enough respect from week to week. You’ve probably seen it on ESPN… or FSN… or WGN… or any network south of the Family Channel. So the details needn’t be repeated here. And, of course, there’s the clubhouse episode involving blow-up dolls and baseball bats and stuff that you can read about in Mariotti’s column.
Overstatement begets overstatement, huh?
Whatever the case, Floyd’s near no-hitter pretty much got drowned out last night by the wall of noise that seems to routinely emanate from the White Sox clubhouse and front office. If you don’t believe me, check out the web sites of the two Chicago dailies here and here. One-hitter? What one-hitter?
That being said, you know it’s a weird night when the savior of the Yankees, Joba Chamberlain, gives up a three-run homer to Dave Dellucci to let Cleveland rally to a 5-3 victory. Afterward, in the Yankees clubhouse, a New York Post columnist went for wisdom to — of all people — the great sage of relief pitching Latroy Hawkins, who said: “I thought the guys he should have been throwing breaking balls to he wasn’t.”
And then, across the country in Seattle, there was our guy Sidney Ponson giving up one run in seven innings. Of course, his Rangers got him a 10-0 lead after 2 1/2 innings so it shouldn’t have been a surprise that he got the win. The surprise for Twins historians is that the final wasn’t 10-7 instead of 10-1 and that, three starts into this incarnation of his career, Ponson is 2-0 with a 1.33 ERA. He would likely be 3-0, save for the fielding silliness that erupted around him a week ago Saturday in his 2008 debut start against the Twins.
Well, on a go-figure night, at least one thing made perfect sense. How ’bout them Tigers?
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15 Responses to "A weird night in baseball: It wasn’t only Gavin ‘n’ Ozzie"
Man, if I ever found myself on the same side of an argument as Jay Mariotti, I’d sit down and think long and hard before sharing those thoughts with anyone else.
Mariotti is fun to listen to. He’ll hate a guy until he starts winning.
…Sorta like some o’ the folk around here. 
I may be the only one who has no problem with Ozzie taking out Floyd. They guy had a no-hitter in the 9th. Bert says he would have got an ovation had he finished the game. Sure he would have, but I have no problem with Ozzie letting him walk off to a larger ovation. As much as Bert likes it, the Complete game is vastly overrated.
Good point seth and if i’m not mistaken he got an ovation anyways. I wonder what Bert would have said if he gave up a 2 run homer to Morneau? Ozzie just wanted to secure a much needed win.
Howard,
Did you really think that Floyd had his best stuff last night? Other than maybe the 7th and definitely the 8th I thought Floyd’s stuff was slightly above average. The Twins must have had early reservations somewhere because, as Ulger pointed out, they were swinging at almost everything last night. When the Ump has that small of a strike zone why would you chase pitches off the plate?
For a near no-hitter that was one of the weaker pitching performances I have seen. His stuff was nasty in the 8th but other than that it was pretty blah to me.
jama,
Haven’t seen him enough to know what his best stuff is. Based on previous performances against the Twins, I would have been hard pressed to define any kind of “best stuff” from Floyd. I thought he was sharp from the 5th inning on, in that he played into the Twins’ weakness for chasing and made the best of an incredibly tight strike zone. Maybe the best way to put it is that he pitched very wisely, much like when Blackburn shut down Cleveland a few weeks back.
Peder,
That’s harsh … and very funny!
Howard,
the ‘thimble-sized strike zone’ was only for Blackburn. Floyd got several called strikes that were wide. The plate umpire seemed to be more willing to call wide strikes than low strikes, which is practically a death sentence for a sinker ball pitcher.
Floyd has the slider working well and was throwing it indiscriminately to both lefties and righties yesterday. His fastball was hittable but the Twins did not wait for it. I was hoping that the batters would make adjustments, but they didn’t. This is going to happen for this team.
The one thing that bothered me yesterday was Crain’s performance. I was hoping that he is back and can be a trusted reliever, but his fastball is way too straight and way too high in the zone. He is lucky he was pitching to the White Sox. If he repeats, with the Red Sox this weekend, it will not be a pretty picture.
Just a loss like any other, but still on 1st place, 1 game ahead of the second place team with witch are the next 2 games. Not a bad place to be.
Another observation: This team feels to me more and more like the ‘87 team as far as home and road records go. And the root cause seems to be very similar. The ‘87 team had a team ERA of 3.92 home 5.48 away and this one, 2.92 home 5.76 away (and no other teams since ‘87 had that much difference in the home-away splits both in wins and team ERA)
How about some of the strikes that were called against Harris? Do you think that ump wanted to see a no-hitter in the 9th?
Maybe the best way to put it is that he pitched very wisely, much like when Blackburn shut down Cleveland a few weeks back.
That’s what I’m thinking too. It’s like, everybody gets on the Twins hitting…but at the same time, when’s the last time anybody here gave the opposing pitcher credit?
It seems that when the Twins pitchers do well, it’s always the pitcher being awesome and not the opposing offense struggling.
But then oddly enough, when the Twins offense does poorly, it’s always the offense struggling and never the opposing pitching being awesome.
I think fans sometimes forget that other teams have good hitters/pitchers, as well as young guys who are just as capable of having strong/poor performances.
I mean, do you think there was much handwringing in Anahiem when Blackburn held them to 1 run? Or how about when Livan shutdown the Tigers last Friday?
T: I think it is the trend with the Twins’ hitters, for, oh, say, 5 years plus that has most people ripping the Twins when they really get shut down. Their O just isn’t good in general.
As for Anaheim, they don’t have a history of being bad, lately, in terms of runs scored, so why would 1 performance lead to hand wringing?
That said, anytime a pitcher pitches a 1 hitter, it is mostly about the pitcher, not the hitters.
Mariotti hates his mom.
I am sure the feeling is mutual Block
Last night Dick offhandedly asked Bert about Ozzie’s use of profanity, which in this case was not a question about profanity in general but rather a very specific profanity. Shocking as it might seem given his own personal history, Bert tepidly defended Ozzie.
The problem is, Ozzie doesn’t mind being a clown doofus.
And how about the clown-doofus enablers that gave him a contract extension.
Hope the Twins wake up again tonight. Mauer should have had an error on his dropped ball when the runner scored on the Gomez error.
That would make it 3 errors for the Twins last night.
Kleiner,
Great effin’ point. It’s kinda like talking about waterboarding and asking… Nope, not going there.
