Lee Lowenfish

If you are a pure baseball fan, the pitchers’ battles that punctuated each Wild Card game last week were your cup of tea. Nothing like an elimination game to focus the minds of players and fans alike.

If you are emotional fans of the Mets and the Orioles, the losses were harder to take.
They must now face winter in the early fall. Nobody can criticize the effort of either losing Wild Card team, but when bats grow silent and runs are not scored, there is no way to win, especially in the post-season when pitching and defense matter more than ever.

The Mets lost a classic pitcher's duel with Noah Syndergaard going seven shutout innings but playoff whiz Madison Bumgarner pitching a complete-game shutout. Journeyman third baseman Conor Gillapsie's 3-run 9th inning HR off Mets usually effective closer Jeurys Familia was the deciding blow.

Gillapsie's moment in the sun was touching for Giants fans because he came up in the San Francisco organization but made his major league debut with the White Sox where he performed for two years. He then bounced around for a while until he returned to the team that first signed him. You see in baseball, you can go home again.

The O's 11-inning 5-2 loss to the Blue Jays was one that will be harder to forget. Manager Buck Showalter is being crucified for not using his perfect closer Zach Britton - 47 for 47 in the regular season - in the game. Buck might have made matters easier for himself if he just said to the press, “I wasn’t gonna use him until we had a lead.”

That’s how it works in regular season but the playoffs are different. There’s no tomorrow, to coin a phrase. As it turned out, the excellent relievers in front of Britton did do a marvelous job - two of them, hard-throwing converted shortstop Mychal Givens and soft-tossing sidearmer Darren O’Day, each got one pitch double plays.

However, going to starter Ubaldo Jimenez with one out none on in bottom of 11th inning was the disastrous choice. Within five pitches, Jimenez gave up two singles and the game-winning three-run bomb to Edwin Encarnacion. It was the top of the order and the big boppers were coming up for Toronto. That was where Britton should have been used.

I know it is so easy to second-guess, and the bottom line is the Orioles didn’t get a hit after the sixth inning. We had seen the offense disappear so often in second half of season. The illusion that the playoffs would be different faded quickly.

I sure hope the O’s make a strong effort to re-sign Mark Trumbo who produced Baltimore’s only two-runs in the wild card game with a homer that unlike his usual mammoth shots just sneaked over the left field fence.

I wanted the O’s to offer Britton a two-year deal before the season and buy out one of his arbitration years. Alas, owner Peter Angelos and gm Dan Duquette don’t do business that way. So now Britton’s one-year salary will probably escalate into the 8 digit category.

By contrast, the Colorado Rockies saw the promise in second baseman D. J. LeMahieu and offered him a $6 million-plus two-year contract before the start of 2016. Mahieu wound up winning the National League batting title.

My praise for the budding star is tempered by the poor decision by Rockies management to bench Mathieu for four of the last five games of the regular season so he could win the title over the injured Nats second baseman Daniel Murphy.

It was not Mathieu’s choice to sit but evidently management dictated it with the support of field manager Walt Weiss. It did not help save Weiss’s job as the New York metropolitan area native from Suffern was not rehired after four years on the job.

I find the contrast quite striking between Mathieu’s sitting and Ted Williams’ insistence on going for a genuine .400 average on the last day of the 1941 season. Williams could have sit out and protected a .3996 average that would be increased to .400.

The proud Williams insisted on playing and went 6 for 8 in a doubleheader against the Philadelphia A’s. He wound up with a .406 average, a revered number in baseball history that is not likely to be surpassed.

Without the Orioles, the post-season doesn’t provide me with a real outlet for my baseball passion. I do watch many of the games because as I’ve said many times on his blog, the only reason to play baseball is to keep winter away.

Before the games of Monday October 10, Toronto, riding a high ever since avoiding Zach Britton in the wild card game, is already in the AL division series after sweeping the Rangers. In hindsight, Texas’s poor run differential of only 8 runs over their regular season opponents doomed them.

Cleveland surprised Boston by routing Boston aces Rick Porcello and David Price, but they still have to contend with the Bosox in Fenway. If it comes to a game five in Cleveland, the Tribe should feel confident that their defending Cy Young award winner Corey Kluber can come through again with the kind of dominant performance he delivered in game 2.

In the National League, the Cubs convincingly dispatched the Giants in the first two games. Facing elimination, the Giants will throw the amazing playoff whiz Madison Bumgarner on Monday October 10 in an attempt to stay alive.

The Washington Nationals and Los Angeles Dodgers are playing the only series that looks like it could go the distance. A fan who loves baseball’s redemptive quality has to love Jose Lobaton’s game-changing 3-run HR on Sunday.

Only playing because his friend and Venezuelan countryman Wilson Ramos tore up his knee at the end of the regular season, Lobaton bounced into a bases loaded 1-2-3 DP in his prior AB. He was ready for a better showing next time around.

Redemption was the rule again when Blue Jays second baseman Devon Travis started Toronto's winning rally against the Orioles. He had bounced into two double plays earlier in that game.

Because they are franchises that have long suffered, I’d like to see a Cubs-Indians World Series with the Cubs finally winning after an 108-year drought. Their loyal scout for 35-years Billy Blitzer - who brought Shawon Dunston and Jamie Moyer and others into their fold - deserves his ring. But I do want to see some memorable gut-wrenching baseball before winter comes prematurely to all of us ardent addicted fans.

That’s all for now - always remember: Take it easy but take it!
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As the weekend of June 10 begins, the O’s are a season-high 13 games
over .500. Despite the pundits’ dismissal of their chances, they are acting like they could contend for a long part of the season.

My goal for every season is not necessarily for the Orioles to win it all, but for the team to be "Playing meaningful games in September" - the title of my first piece on the Orioles glory years 1960-1983 in Nine Magazine's vol. 22, #2.

My second more autobiographical essay will be out late this summer, "How A New Yorker Fell In Love with Earl Weaver's Orioles" in the Dan Nathan-edited volume, BALTIMORE SPORTS (U. of Arkansas Press).

While I'm plugging my activities, I'll be co-teaching a Baseball and American Culture at the Chautauqua Institution in western NY State in the first week of August. More information at ciweb.org

Admittedly the O's all-righthanded starting rotation doesn’t overwhelm anybody. But raw rookie Tyler Wilson and greatly inexperienced Kevin Gausman and Michael Wright have kept the Birds in games for the most part. The potent offense, however strikeout prone, leads the league in come-from-behind wins and Zach Britton has been a lockdown closer.

Kudos to manager Buck Showalter for not overworking a deep bullpen so far. And to Korean import-left fielder Byun-Soo Kim for patiently waiting for his chance after a slow adjustment to American MLB. He is now stroking the ball all over the field while hitting close to .400. His fielding is coming around, too.

Ah the wonders of a baseball season that because of the nature of the game nobody can predict (despite what the seemingly endless number of brainiacs tell you).
If anyone told you that the Orioles would be in first place in mid-June despite losing underrated shortstop JJ Hardy since early May with a foot injury and key setup man Darren O’Day with a hamstring strain for at least 15 days, they’d be lying.

Still a long long way to go in a 162-game regular season, but the Birds are showing that they are a confident bunch right now despite the questionable starting pitching.

They will also soon be without Manny Machado for up to four games. On Tuesday June 7 in Baltimore, he raced to the mound and punched Royals hot-tempered pitcher Yordano Ventura after being hit in the back by a high-90s fast ball.

Ventura received a 9-game suspension which means at most he loses only two starts. Machado stands to lose twice as many games.

Each had been suspended in prior years. Because of the DH in the American League, Ventura never has to face in the batter's box the wrath of the other team's pitchers.
Both players need to grow up and it says here that the penalties for further incidents should be much greater.

Back to the nicer side of baseball, I heard Jim Palmer speak earlier this month at the wonderful space known as the Bergino Baseball Clubhouse between the West and East Greenwich Villages just a little southwest of Union Square. His new book NINE INNINGS TO SUCCESS (Triumph) is a useful combination of incisive memoir and self-help advice.

As anyone who listens to his commentary on Oriole TV broadcasts, Palmer is a straight-shooter who doesn't sugarcoat his opinions. He has proudly been an Oriole his whole career and he gives homage to the great teachers in the organization.

From Cal Ripken Sr., he learned, "There are no shortcuts to success." From his revered major league pitching coach George Bamberger (later a Brewers and Mets manager),
he learned the importance of mastering the low-and-outside overhand fastball.

Readers will be fascinated by Palmer's measured and largely positive portrait of manager Earl Weaver. They were often antagonists - at times compared to Civil War Generals slovenly Ulysses Grant and perfectionist Robert E. Lee. But in this volume Palmer mainly remembers the late Weaver fondly for his obvious commitment to winning and getting the best out of every player on the roster.

One last tip for the lovers of baseball on the grassroots level.
On Monday June 13, Yankee Stadium will host the PSAL high school baseball championships.
The 4p Double A title game will feature Bayside HS, with leading hitter Daniel Alfonzo
(son of former Met star Edgardo), vs Eleanor Roosevelt HS.
The 7p game of the Triple AAA division matches Tottenville vs. Midwood.

Later in June a PSAL all-star will fly to Chicago to engage in a series of games against the Windy City scholastic all-stars. This competition has only recently been revived. It has a long history that dates way back to the early 20th century when Commerce High's Lou Gehrig slugged a mammoth home run in the Second City.

As a supporter of all northeastern area baseball, I'm also pulling this weekend of June 10 for Boston College tackling the University of Miami-Florida in a best-of-three series.
The winner goes to Omaha to join seven other teams for the College World Series from June 18-29.

That's all for now - always remember: Take it easy but take it!  Read More