Short Hops: Glavine goes boom

GLAVINE GOES BOOM
Tom Glavine’s win over the Nationals on August 17 brought to mind Boom-Boom Beck. Funny you should ask. Glavine was the first pitcher since Walter (as his mother called him) to win a game on the 20th anniversary of his major league debut. But while Tommy finished the night with 301 wins, Beck somehow scattered his total of 38 over three decades. The history lesson: He was 19 when he pitched one game for the 1924 St. Louis Browns. For the next 22 years, Triple-B would spend much of his time in Triple-A, bouncing up and down for numerous organizations, not even pitching at all in The Show during nine of those. During that period, the right-hander had only two winning seasons. Though his big-league record is situated at 38-69, Beck stood as the very definition of mediocrity by retiring at age 46 with a professional ledger of 236-236. 

ISN’T HE “SPECIAL?”
We’re accepting wagers on which pitcher is going to take a bat to someone’s head first: Scott Olson or Brett Myers. Baseball’s two foremost dropouts from anger management classes have been in rare form this year. We’ve reported on both — from Olson’s numerous dust-ups with teammates and the police to Myers’ history of domestic violence and volatile, arrogant behavior. Myers claimed pole position on August 25 when, after blowing a lead to the Padres in Philadelphia, he absolved himself of allowing two ninth-inning homers by calling them “just pop-ups.” Pressed by a Philadelphia Inquirer reporter for clarification, Myers lost it. “You’re not even a beat reporter, you’re a fill-in. You don’t know anything about baseball,” said the closer, who proceeded to call the reporter “retarded.” Asked if he could spell `retarded,’ (touche) the former amateur boxer stood up and had to be restrained by Pat Burrell. The emotional pump had been primed the day before when San Diego’s Milton Bradley bowed to a heckling crowd after hitting his second three-run homer of the game, and Phillies catcher Carlos Ruiz put second baseman Marcus Giles on the DL with an over-zealous slide. Twenty-four hours didn’t diffuse those incidents. Mad Milton got into a woofing match with fans before the next game and had to be directed back to his dugout by an umpire, and Ruiz got drilled with a pitch.

BAD LUCK...
Tim Hudson’s string of unbeaten starts when provided three or more runs of support ended at 76 on August 25, when he was undone by a flukey five-run inning against the Cardinals. His non-meltdown meltdown included a bunt single, a high-hopper up the middle, two broken-bat singles, another grounder that the shortstop could have caught and a sacrifice fly. Bobby Cox — who’s played in or managed more than 4,000 games — called it “the worst luck I’ve ever seen in one inning of any pitcher.” Hudson, who did not allow any other runs in the game, owns an ERA of  1.93 since the All-Star break when that aberration is removed from his stats.

...AND GOOD
You may remember the Pythagorean Theorem from junior high. Or not. If you’re a baseball stats junkie, you at least know that Bill James used it to compare runs scored and allowed to project an “expected” win-loss record. Works pretty well to give you an idea what team may be over- or under-performing. But rarely have we seen a discrepancy such as that exhibited by this year’s Arizona Diamondbacks. Through August 29, the Snakes were leading the NL West with a record of 74-60. That’s astonishing, considering they’d allowed 600 runs and scored only 562. James’ Pythagorean application says, with that run differential, they should be 63-71. Arizona’s done it with proficiency in close games (29-16 in one-runners) and — frankly — a lot of luck. Something to think about if you’re in Vegas in October.

HIT AND RUN
Short Hops’ recurring installment of slapdash observation and imprudent opinion:

Scott Baker’s 14 hits allowed to the Mariners on August 21 were most by a pitcher allowing three or fewer runs since Ramon Martinez on August 11, 1993.

Defensive play of the year: Jose Reyes dives to his left to stab a hot shot, shovels the ball with his glove hand on a hop to the third base side of second, where Luis Castillo digs it out and — falling to reach it — fires to first to complete a double play. Happened in the Mets win over the Nationals on August 17.

A sign of the times: Jeff Kent and Jason Giambi caught Joe DiMaggio on the all-time home run list on the same night.

Before Aaron Harang, the last Reds pitcher to get off to a start of 14 wins in his first 17 decisions was Tom Seaver. Big difference, though. Terrific did it for the 1981 division winners. Cincy has won 22 of Harang’s 28 starts (.786), but has lost 66 of their other 105 (.371).

The Yankees might want to re-examine their Asian scouting, at least from a pitching standpoint. Until Kei Igawa came along this year, only one pitcher in their history allowed as many as 15 home runs in a season of less than 75 innings: Hideki Irabu.

Scott Kazmir is 10-8. Last year, he was 10-8. The year before that, he was 10-9.

Hurts So Good: Arizona's Mark Reynolds was hit by the first pitch he saw in the sixth inning on August 21, “depriving” him of a chance to set the major league record of 10 consecutive strikeouts by a non-pitcher.

QUOTABLES

“I don’t run fast enough to have leg problems.” — Travis “Pronk” Hafner, asked about his sore knee and hamstring.

“I haven’t been pitching all that great.” — Matt Chico, who had a 6.25 ERA in Washington’s rotation since the All-Star break, learning he’d been shipped to the minors.

“Twelve hours of my life I wasted and I’m not going to get it back.” — White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen’s assessment of a doubleheader lost to the Red Sox, 11-3 and 10-1.

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