So since I first wrote that piece, here are the updates.

Good:
• Home and away feeds are now available (since 2008 season) when possible. Big upgrade.
• Games now in HD (point goes to Fox Sports affiliates for upgrading, not DIRECTV or Major League Baseball for doing anything.
• Mix channel now comes with HD package (at least – may come with regular package). You used to have to pay extra for this. Great channel.

Bad:
• Still ridiculous home markets. Here in Las Vegas, I am still blacked out from Diamondbacks, Padres, Angels, Dodgers, Giants and A’s games quite often.

Think about how ridiculous that is. I live in a market that has no MLB team. The closest team is several hundred miles away. Only the occasional game from any of these teams is on the local cable (still not on satellite). Yet I am still subjected to the caveman style maps that baseball drew up way too long ago to determine where “local markets” are.

I can’t emphasize this enough: Until the blackout rules are changed and the local markets redrawn, baseball on television will be a failing equation. Yes, I get to watch almost every game that I want to. For that, I thank the powers of technology. But missing just one game because of these absolutely insane rules is beyond explanation.

So in summary, yes Extra Innings is improving, but they still haven’t cured the cancer at the root of it. Basically, they have taken a sick body and given it a makeover and new shoes, but failed to address the disease.

Just add DIRECTV to the list of things that make Bud Selig a terrible commissioner (if you have any room left on that piece of paper).

Quick summary: Texas beat Boston College 3-2 in 25 innings Saturday/Sunday, setting a new NCAA record for the longest game played.

The real story: Texas reliever Austin Wood threw 13 innings of relief ball, including 12 1/3 innings of no-hit ball, while throwing 169 pitches. That’s right, 169 pitches of pure domination, and this isn’t the top story?

BC reliever Mike Belfiore went 9 2/3 innings in the same game and was relegated to the eighth paragraph.

And amazingly, neither pitcher’s arm has fallen off yet. When these two are still healthy in a week, this should be a lesson to the big league coaches who think that if a professional athlete throws more than 100 pitches in a game that his career will end. Blah, blah, protect your investment, blah — it can be done.

I’m not saying that pitchers should routinely be throwing 169 pitches a game, I’m saying that when a guy goes eight scoreless and is at 110 pitches, you don’t have to lift him for a much, much shittier pitcher who you have arbitrarily labeled your “closer.”

Yes, a 25-inning game is the headline, but every single column written about this game should have been about Wood’s amazing performance. And the ridiculousness that is pitch counts.

Well done, sir, Nolan Ryan would be proud (and everyone in baseball history prior to 1980).

According to sources, Ramirez tested positive for HCG — human chorionic gonadotropin — a woman’s fertility drug used by athletes to restart the body’s testosterone production after a steroid cycle. While the drug only amounts to circumstantial proof of steroid use, it was enough to suspend Ramirez under the collective bargaining agreement’s “just cause” provision, meaning that he could be “penalized for use, sale or distribution of banned substances, even where the agreement doesn’t specify a particular penalty, such as for a positive test.”

Ramirez withdrew his appeal almost immediately, instead choosing to serve his suspension right away.

In a statement, Ramirez blamed himself for the suspension, saying that the illegal substance in his system was given to him by his personal doctor for a legitimate health issue. Given the quality of MLB’s health care, it is highly suspect that a player would take a drug like this on a personal doctor’s recommendation and not seek the medical advice of his team’s doctor.

Manny’s statement, via the LA Times:

“Recently I saw a physician for a personal health issue. He gave me a medication, not a steroid, which he thought was okay to give me. Unfortunately, the medication was banned under our drug policy. Under the policy that mistake is now my responsibility. I have been advised not to say anything more for now. I do want to say one other thing; I’ve taken and passed about 15 drug tests over the past five seasons.

“I want to apologize to Mr. McCourt, Mrs. McCourt, Mr. Torre, my teammates, the Dodger organization, and to the Dodger fans. LA is a special place to me and I know everybody is disappointed. So am I. I’m sorry about this whole situation.”

While other stars have been named in steroid scandals, notably Roger Clemens, Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds, and Jason Giambi (among many others), Ramirez instantly becomes the highest profile player to have actually been suspended by the league for a violation of the drug policy.

Ramirez will be eligible to return to the first-place Dodgers on July 3. During his suspension, Ramirez will forfeit about $7.7 million of his $25 million salary.

Exhibit A: Matt Lindstrom, Florida Marlins.

After being extremely decent at best in his first two years in the show, Lindstrom won the closer’s job in Florida this season. Coming into tonight, he had three saves and one blown save, with decent numbers overall.

Jump to tonight’s game against the Phillies. With a 3-0 lead to work with, Lindstrom proceeded to go ground out, double, walk, single, walk, strike out, walk, grand slam.

At what point, with the bases loaded and two runs in with a one run lead, was it a good idea to leave this hump in to face Shane Victorino. Lindstrom couldn’t throw a strike with a fastball if his life depended on it, yet God forbid you take him out. He’s the closer, after all, and it’s just taboo to remove a closer from the game while you are still winning.

You want to know why the Marlins have zero chance to win the NL East in 2009? Matt Lindstrom + Fredi Gonzalez = failure. You may not see it in the numbers yet, but trust me when I tell you that this combination will cost them more games than any other. They have great starting pitching, and an unbelievable infield, but they have a hump for a closer and a manager that will let him continue to be a hump, despite all of the evidence saying that he should not be on the field.

Gonzalez clearly went to the New York Mets school of bullpen management, and for that reason, he will most likely continue to fuck up situations like this one against the Phillies.

It never ceases to amaze me that every team in the league thinks that it has a “closer.” Every year, there are about five good closers in baseball. The other 25 teams have guys who hold that title, but are just not good at closing games. Why piss away wins by putting in a guy with an arbitrary title, rather than put the best pitcher for a particular situation on that day in.

There are few things as poorly run in sports as baseball bullpens. When a guy takes a 3-0 lead and walks in a run to make it 3-2, leaving him in to face the next guy is admitting defeat. You wouldn’t leave any other pitcher in the bullpen in the game in that situation, so why do you do it with a closer.

You get what you deserve and the Marlins deserved to lose this game with their ninth inning management. Simple as this: When a guy has walked three people, given up a double and allowed two runs to score — YOU TAKE HIM OUT OF THE GAME! There is no discussion here. He clearly was not going to get Victorino out, so why leave him in. They had a lefty warmed up in the bullpen, but apparently, until the save is officially blown, it is illegal to remove a closer.

I am not a Marlins fan, but it pisses me off to no end to see some of the ridiculous “managing” that gets pulled in Major League Baseball games.

Matt Lindstrom’s line: 0.2 IP, 4 H, 7 R, 7 ER, 3 BB, 1 K, 2 HR.

Good thing he’s the “closer”, and an even better thing that you chose to stick with him after walking in a run. Clearly he was going to “save” the game for you. Good job, coach.

After the game, Gonzalez wouldn’t stop talking about what a great situation that it was for Lindstrom to close out that game (despite having proven that he was about to lose the game), what with all the juices flowing and the crowd getting into it. He said that Lindstrom has to learn to close out games to be a great closer, and the situation was perfect for him to learn from.

Here’s an idea — use the best possible pitcher for the current situation. You don’t have to have a “closer” that must learn to be a great closer. The object of the game is to win. Pissing away a 3-0 lead is not a learning experience — it is failure. If you want to teach your closer to be a good closer, you don’t let him fail. It’s as simple as that. The reason that most closer’s don’t have any staying power is that they are often mentally weak. This game could have ruined Lindstrom’s season. We don’t know yet, but when you take a guy that can’t throw strikes, let him walk in a run and fall down 2-0 with the tying run on third, you know what is going to happen — he’s got to throw a meatball to get a strike and any good hitter is going to hit it hard. That’s what happened. It’s not a good learning experience — it’s a terrible one.

It never ceases to amaze me the low level of baseball managing in today’s game. It’s really pathetic, actually.

Speaking of shitty managing — let’s jump over to the New York Mets game on the same day. First inning — leadoff double by Jose Reyes and Luis Castillo comes up to bat. First inning, guy on second, nobody out — what do you do? If you’re the Mets, you sacrifice bunt. That’s right, before even one out is recorded in the game, you try to sac bunt your leadoff guy to third. I’m sorry, but in 100 percent of baseball situations, a sac bunt after a leadoff double in the first inning is the wrong decision.

Honestly, do these guys know anything about baseball, or are they only versed in the politics of coaching (ie. how to make all decisions that will best put you in a situation you don’t have to take blame for)? The Mets are a talented team, but their inability to put a quality coach on the bench is embarrassing. Another team that will get what it deserves, and guess what — in both instances, the Phillies pick up the pieces and are likely to win the division.

Schuster has whiffed 60 hitters in the four game stretch, meaning that just 24 of 84 batters he’s outs he’s recorded even put the ball in play. That, my friends, is pure dominance.

In the latest game, Schuster threw 104 pitches while allowing four baserunners — a walk, a dropped third strike, a hit by pitch and an error.

But here’s the quote that got me:

“I’ll tell you what, he’s got command of every single pitch,” Wilcox said. “His curveball, his slider, his change-up, he was just spotting it nicely. He was keeping their hitters off balance.”

I played some decent level baseball into my 20’s and even then, I don’t recall facing too many cats who had four solid pitches. In high school, we were surprised to face anyone with anything more than fastball, changeup and breaking ball. There aren’t a lot of high school pitchers with dominant sliders, much less as just one of four great pitches.

Schuster is signed on to play at Florida next year, but is considering going straight to the pros still.

Schuster goes for number five on Tuesday. The national record for consecutive high school no-hitters is six.

Move over Stephen Strasburg, there’s a new stud amateur baseball pitcher for us to drool over.

This is the problem that could be facing the New York Yankees, as their “replica” of the old Yankee Stadium is playing nothing like it. Through three games, it seems that every ball hit in the air to right field goes over the wall — especially if you hit it wearing a Cleveland Indians uniform.

But while some have suggested that it is the slightly shorter fences in right, and some have suggested that perhaps baseball is juicing the balls again, there is a third argument that is quite intriguing, that the Yankees accidentally created a wind tunnel to right field by angling the seats the way they did. Perhaps it’s all three.

Sure the season is young, but this is a pretty alarming issue for the Bombers. Just how bad is it?

From ESPN’s Buster Olney:

There have been five games played in new Yankee Stadium, including two exhibitions against the Chicago Cubs, and so far there have been 25 homers — including 17 in the first three games in the Yankees’ first home series against the Indians.

That’s an average of five home runs per game and, at this pace, there would be about 400 homers hit in the park this year — or an increase of about 250 percent. In the last year of old Yankee Stadium, in 2008, there were a total of 160 homers.

So if the walls are just a little bit shorter in certain parts of the field, why is the ball going out at such a high rate?

According to Greg Rybarczyk of the Web site Hit Tracker, the balls being juiced is a legitimate possibility.

“So, very early this season (actually on the second full day of games), I had already noticed that balls were seemingly flying farther than they usually do, so I checked my numbers, and noticed that the standard distances of all the home runs around MLB were a lot longer than those hit in 2008. Since then, I’ve continues tracking this, and what was little more than a feeling and some numbers off a very small sample size have become a lot more compelling: the first 350 home runs this year are flying, on average, about 6 feet farther than last year.”

While I wouldn’t put anything past the folks at MLB when it comes to increasing interest and attention paid to the game, I’m not buying that juiced balls would have this big of an impact at Yankee Stadium, but be barely noticeable elsewhere.

The argument that makes the most sense to me is the one from the good people at accuweather.com, via CNBC.com, who think that the angles of the seats in the new stadium are basically creating a wind situation that sends everything up and out to right field.

Their argument:

“The old Yankee Stadium had more stacked tiers and a large upper deck, acting like a solid wall in effect, which would cause the wind to swirl more and be less concentrated. The new Yankee Stadium’s tiers are less stacked, making a less sharp slope from the top of the stadium to the field. This shape could enable winds to blow across the field with less restriction. In addition, the slope of the seating would also lead to a ‘downslope’ effect in the field which, depending on the wind direction, would tend to cause air to lift up in the right field. Fly balls going into right field during a gusty west wind would be given more of a lift, thus carrying the ball further out to right field.”

Accuweather also said that the only times that this would be an issue would be if the wind was blowing from a westerly direction and blowing at over 10 mph, particularly in the spring and mid to late fall.

No matter what the cause, the Yankees have a big problem on their hands. They still have another 77 games to play at this stadium this year, and probably another 80 years of games after that. They can’t make any changes for this season, but you can bet that things will be different in 2009.

Perhaps it will be as simple as an addition somewhere to the facility that helps redirect or block the wind, or maybe it will be as drastic as having to remove seats to move the fences back.

Either way, the first four games at the new Yankee Stadium could not have gone much worse for the Yanks.

The best set of pipes in a broadcast booth passed away, as Harry Kalas died today. The legendary announcer for the Philadelphia Phillies was found passed out in the broadcast booth in Washington at 12:30 local time, and was pronounced dead less than an hour later at the hospital. He was 73.

Kalas had missed most of spring training after undergoing an undisclosed surgery, but the team had called that procedure minor. The cause of death is currently unknown.

Having been the voice of the Phillies since 1971, Kalas was in his 43rd year of broadcasting Major League Baseball. He’ll forever be known for his trademark voice, as well as his trademark “Outta’ here!” home run call.

Kalas’ death comes just days after the tragic death of Angels 22-year old pitcher Nick Adenhart.

The Hall of Fame announcer for the Philadelphia Phillies also lent his trademark voice to NFL Films and Campbell’s Chunky soup, among many other things.

I’ve had the honor to meet Mr. Kalas on two occasions, once as a kid and he couldn’t have been nicer, and once as a professional colleague, and he again couldn’t have been nicer. Baseball lost a great man and one of the best voices in the world today.

Usually, nothing about the Philadelphia Phillies winning makes me happy, but right now, nothing makes me happier than knowing that Kalas’ final season as a Phillies broadcaster was the year the Phillies won the World Series.

See also our previews for:
AL East
AL Central
AL West
NL East
NL Central
NL West
Postseason

Now, on to the superlatives:

American League

Awards

MVP: CC Sabathia
Cy Young: CC Sabathia
Rookie of the Year: Matt Weiters, C, Baltimore

League Leaders

HR Leader: David Ortiz
Batting Title: Placido Polanco
RBI Leader: Josh Hamilton
Wins Leader: CC Sabathia
ERA Leader: Francisco Liriano

National League

Awards

MVP: Manny Ramirez
Cy Young: Johan Santana
Rookie of the Year: Colby Rasmus, OF, St. Louis

League Leaders

HR Leader: Ryan Howard
Batting Title: Albert Pujols
RBI Leader: Ryan Howard
Wins Leader: Brandon Webb
ERA Leader: Johan Santana

Click division title for full preview.

AL East
Boston Red Sox, 98-64
New York Yankees, 96-66
Tampa Bay Rays, 95-67
Baltimore Orioles, 77-85
Toronto Blue Jays, 73-89

AL Central
Minnesota Twins, 88-74
Cleveland Indians, 81-81
Detroit Tigers, 77-85
Chicago White Sox, 76-86
Kansas City Royals, 71-91

AL West
Los Anaheim Angels, 87-75
Oakland A’s, 83-79
Seattle Mariners, 74-88
Texas Rangers, 68-94

NL East
New York Mets, 90-72
Philadelphia Phillies, 88-74
Atlanta Braves, 81-81
Florida Marlins, 81-81
Washington Nationals, 70-92

NL Central
Chicago Cubs, 96-66
St. Louis Cardinals, 84-78
Milwaukee Brewers, 81-81
Cincinnati Reds, 78-84
Houston Astros, 69-93
Pittsburgh Pirates, 61-101

NL West
Los Angeles Dodgers, 90-72
Arizona Diamondbacks, 88-74
San Francisco Giants, 77-85
Colorado Rockies, 74-88
San Diego Padres, 69-93

Playoffs

AL Wild Card: New York Yankees
NL Wild Card: Diamondbacks vs. Phillies playoff, Phillies win

AL Playoffs: Red Sox over Angels, Twins over Yankees
NL Playoffs: Cubs over Phillies, Dodgers over Mets

ALCS: Red Sox over Twins
NLCS: Cubs over Dodgers

World Series: Red Sox over Cubs

Oakland is always ready with the next great free agent pitcher, but this year we won’t know who it is for a few months. But eventually, one of their young arms will show he is a stud and the A’s could find themselves in the hunt for the division in the second half of the year.

Seattle packs a wicked 1-2 punch on the mound, but lacks the depth and bats to really put a winning season together, while Texas has all the hitting a team could ask for, but no sign of a pulse in their starting rotation. Hint: When Kris Benson is your number three starter before the season starts, you could be in trouble.

Previews in order of 2008 finish.

Los Anaheim Angels

This offseason, the Angels picked up Bobby Abreu to play left field, joining Torii Hunter in center and Vladimir Guerrero in right to give them one of the best hitting outfields in the game. Otherwise, not a whole lot of changes were made to the position players for this year. With any luck, Mike Napoli can stay healthy and get more than 227 at-bats, and if he does, this team will take a solid step forward from last year’s already solid offense.

Pitching is what got the Angels to 100 wins last year. But 2008 will start with two of their top starters on the shelf with injuries. John Lackey and Ervin Santana will probably each miss the first month of the season, leaving only Jered Weaver and Joe Saunders as your experienced pitchers on the staff. This will be a young crew until the big boys can get back, so don’t be surprised to see the Angels off to a slow start this year. Having one bad-to-average month for the Angels could make this division a whole lot tighter than it was in 2008.

You also can’t ignore that they lost one of the best closers in baseball coming off of an amazing season. Never underestimate the power of a worse bullpen. No K-Rod could hurt more than they anticipated.

Texas Rangers

Simple equation: lots of runs + no pitching = no playoffs. Don’t expect a change in that formula this year. The only thing that stays consistent with this team is that you can make money playing the ‘over’ in all of their games. The Rangers led the league in both runs scored and runs allowed last year, each by a comfortable margin. In the hitter’s ballpark that they play in and with the below-average pitchers that they employ, that’s not going to change.

The Rangers return Vincente Padilla and Kevin Millwood as their 1-2 jab at the top of the rotation, with their 4.74 and 5.07 ERAs, respectfully. Kris Benson is their number three starter. Let me repeat that: Kris Benson is their number three starter. Here’s an average pitcher with shoulder problems and hasn’t thrown in a big league game since 2006, and he won the number three starters job. That’s all you need to know about the depth and quality of the Rangers starting pitching.

The lineup is as good as it gets — at least for where they play. Josh Hamilton, Ian Kinsler and Michael Young anchor a lineup that will certainly miss Milton Bradley. But as they’ve shown in the past, this team can produce runs even when you take a great player out of the lineup. Big things are expected from 23-year old Chris Davis, so don’t be surprised to hear his name a lot this year.

The Rangers will probably stick to the same formula this year: hit well, pitch bad, no October. But as always, they’ll be fun to watch get there.

Oakland A’a

Your new-look Oakland A’s have revamped their lineup this year, adding some scary bats to the lineup. They added Matt Holliday, one of baseball’s most dynamic young hitters and they brought back Jason Giambi, who can still get on base and hit the long ball. They have a giant question mark in the healthy (for now) Eric Chavez, and the human strikeout machine, Jack Cust, who will still be able to hit for power.

Pitching has been one of the strengths of the A’s in the past, and this year isn’t supposed to be any different. Justin Duchscherer was set to be the ace of the staff, but surgery a week before the season starts has ruled him out for the first month of the season and perhaps much longer. That means that 25-year old Dana Eveland is your new ace. The entire staff is 25 or younger, so we really don’t know what to expect here. The A’s have had tremendous success with young pitchers in the past, so I’ll give Billy Beane and Co. the benefit of the doubt. Who am I to say that one of the young pitchers in this rotation is not the next Zito, Harden, Haren, Hudson or Mulder. There’s a track record with this team that I will not question or criticize. Somewhere in this rotation is a great young pitcher, we’ll just have to wait to find out who.

If Oakland gets Duchscherer back by May, and Giambi and Holliday provide what they are expected to, this team could take a solid step forward. With back-to-back seasons of playing sub-.500 ball, don’t be surprised to see the A’s back over .500 and in the hunt for the division this year. In the past, they’ve made tremendous gains after the All-Star break. If they can keep the wheels on until the middle of the season, there’s a chance they come flying late.

Seattle Mariners

The big question for me about the Mariners is just what are you getting from the top half of the starting rotation. Felix Hernandez and Eric Bedard, on paper, could be the best 1-2 punch in the game. But they are not. After an amazing 2007, Bedard played injured for part of 2008 and ended up with just 15 starts. Hernandez is just 23 and only getting better, but we keep waiting for that one breakout season. Unless these two can make 28+ starts each and both have an ERA under 3.50, this could be a long season for the M’s.

Seattle won just 61 games last year, in part because they had the third worst run differential in the game, getting outscored by 140 runs. That’s a sign that you have a lot of fixing to do. But for the most part, the Mariners are running it back with the same team. They added Endy Chavez, but I wouldn’t wish that on a softball team. Chavez does add to their already loaded defensive situation in the outfield, but he is a .270 hitter with absolutely no power. This team could struggle to score runs again. Ichiro is always dependable to put up solid numbers, but he’ll start the season on the DL. By the time he returns, the Mariners’ hopes for reaching the playoffs might already be over. Ken Griffey, Jr. returns to Seattle to be the DH, and can’t hurt, but at this point, I’d be surprised to see him end up being the missing piece of the puzzle.

There is hope to improve from the 61 wins they had a year ago, since I think a healthy Bedard alone can improve that number. The playoffs is very much a longshot, but getting to the 75-80 win mark is a realistic goal. Finishing the season over .500 would be a great year.

Prediction

I think this division is going to be ugly all around. The Angels will likely win the division by default, since they have room to come down and others have to rise up. I don’t know that those two things have passed each other yet, so they will likely remain on top. The A’s, with some great pitching from their young guys could make this a race at the end of the year, but I’d be very surprised to see Seattle or Texas make a run at this division this year.

Los Anaheim Angels, 87-75
Oakland A’s, 83-79
Seattle Mariners, 74-88
Texas Rangers, 68-94