Baseball Notes - June 15th, 2006

Still looking for better name for this space. It'll happen eventually.

Guillen Goes Ballistic...at Himself?

The book of "unwritten rules" in baseball is pretty thick, but the most obvious one is "Always listen to your manager", no matter who stupid the order is.

Last night in Texas, White Sox rookie pitcher Sean Tracey threw 5 pitches to Rangers 3B Hank Blalock, whose solo HR gave the Rangers a 1-0, which was all the Rangers needed to beat the White Sox. Anyways, Tracey threw 5 pitches to Blalock. Two of which Blalock scrambled to avoid, and the last one was slowly rolled to Tadahito Iguchi for the 1st out of the inning.

Guillen slammed his water bottle down and pulled Tracey from the game and proceeded to berate Tracey, who was making 3rd appearance in the major leagues, in plain view of the team and the cameras covering the game.

Coach Oz claims he was upset at himself for not getting someone else ready to face Blalock, and Tracey refused comment before being shipped back to AAA. Clearly, Guillen told Tracey to hit Blalock in retaliation for AJ Pierzynski being hit by two pitches earlier in the game.

Guillen is 100% in the wrong for what he did last night. Not for ordering Tracey to hit Blalock, which he tried to do, but for berating the player in the dugout like that. The kid has spent less than a week at the major league level, tried to do what you told him to do, but you berate him anyways?

Classless move, Ozzie.

Hit. Lift. Drive.

Those words still echo in my brain from playing football in high school. Hit, lift and drive is how you make a perfect tackle. And what better example is there than the tackling clinic that the Red Sox bat boy delivered on one less-than-sober Twins fan?

The video for this hit can be found here, and it's worth noting that the bat boy is a Minnesota resident.

As for the actual game, it was the typical outing for Matt Clement this year as he failed to pitch beyond the 5th inning before leaving with an arm injury. No matter how painful his injury is, it's nothing compared to how Red Sox Nation feels after one of his starts.

Tonight's Marquee Matchup

As someone in the Monday-Friday, 9-5 world, nothing frustrates me more than missing the slate of games scheduled on Thursday afternoons. There always seems to be a good game going on that I can't watch.

This afternoon, you have the Indians trying to muster up some offense in the Bronx against Mike Mussina, the Mariners attempting to salvage something out of their series with the red-hot A's and the conclusion of the Mets-Phillies series in Philadelphia, that has seen the Mets put more distance between themselves and the rest of the NL East.

Tonight's highlights include the White Sox-Rangers game, which features Mark Buehrle going against John Rheinecker, a pitcher who reminds a lot of people of...Mark Buehrle. That should be enjoyable as both pitchers work quickly and throw strikes. Hopefully, Ozzie Guillen will refrain from berating someone tonight.

In Minnesota, the Red Sox and Twins meet in the rubber game of their 3-game set. Tim Wakefield hasn't received much run support when he pitches, but Minnesota does have Carlos Silva going tonight, which usually means the Metrodome maintenance crew will be installing fresh scoreboard bulbs tomorrow.