As of 10am, Aug 9th, 2007, only 2 mlb teams are being out-scored by their opponents by 100 runs or more.  One, of course, is Tampa Bay.  The other?  The other has a better winning percentage than 10 other mlb teams and is only 4 games out of the division lead in the loss column.  I'm afraid it's us.  

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This is another one of those incredible series of baseball anomalies that happened this past month.

Ø      In a one month period, between the morning of June 22 & the morning of July 21, one major league baseball team played in 6 series (16 total games because 1 series was still in progress) against the top 6 teams in all of baseball (ranked according to overall record the morning of July 21):

1. Detroit  2. Boston  3. Cleveland  4. LA-Anaheim  5. Seattle  6. Milwakee (tied w/ NYM)

Ø      The only series that was played on THIS team's home field was with Seattle .  So of the 16 games played against the top 6 teams, 13 were on the road.

Ø      Even more impressive was the position of each opponent when entering their respective series against THIS team (overall MLB record rank and last 10 games record):

LAA - #1(t) ; 8-2
BOS - #1     ; 5-5
DET - #1     ; 7-3
CLE - #4     ; 6-4
MIL - #5(t) ; 8-2
SEA - #7(t) ; 8-2

Ø      THIS teams' record in those 16 games against the 6 best teams with 84% of the games on the road?  

10 wins, 6 losses.

Ø      THIS team out-scored the 6 best teams in baseball by 21 runs, had single game outbursts of 9, 10, 12, and 17 runs, and recorded a shut out on the road against the team tied with the best record in baseball at the time.

Ø      Four of THIS teams' top eight salaried players, including the top salaried player, were on the DL during part or all of these series.

Do you want to really top off this incredible stretch of baseball anomaly?  Do you want to know what team could have pulled off such a feat?  Only the baseball gods could have created this (with a wink, of course)...

...THIS team is none other than the Kansas City Royals.

Other related interesting occurrences -

Only 2 regularly starting position players during this stretch have `07 salaries over $1 Million - David DeJesus and Emil Brown.  Five of the other position players with the most playing time during this stretch have a combined salary of $2,039,000 - Alex Gordon, Tony Pena Jr., Mark Teahen, Esteban German, & John Buck.  Joey Gathright, the other instrumental position player during this stretch, was sent back to minors late in the streak so that the Royals could showcase Reggie Sanders for a potential trade.

In a 3 game stretch between July 17 & 20, the Royals outscored the top 2 teams in baseball, Boston and Detroit, on the road, no less, by a 25-9 margin.  

At least the Buerhrle talk brings up the discussion of the developing concern for the situation we are in...

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I am frantically trying to locate the secret that they know about Encarnacion (my brother-in-law had it somewhere from the past 2 years)...but let's review the secrets to our brain-trusts' success.  

Everyone knows that they find something in pitchers that they think they can work on and bring out.  The story of those successes are well-documented...and I am one of those that believes they will get at least #3 rotation results from Ponson. But how about those players at the plate and in the field that have had their secrets uncovered by the Cardinals.  Sure, some of it is the great StL atmosphere and mystique...like Big Mac and Larry Walker getting inspired by the best fans in the world and playing at a different level.  Let's don't kid ourselves, playing for our organization and fans makes a world of difference if you've been in Colorado recently.

Remember last year when we were worried about the downgrade from Renteria/Womack to Eck and Grudz.? Remember the talk of how Eck would hurt us with his lack of range and arm if we didn't move him to 2nd Base?  I know we have gone through different hitting and fielding coaches, but WaltTonyDunc have been the constant to see things they could improve in castaways and projects to make a difference.  Eck and Grudz both were asked to work on their conditioning...Grudz to stay healthy (his secret to success) and Eck to improve his range, footwork, and release.  Oquendo worked with him everyday (no wonder he was known as the SECRET weapon).  If the Cards had originally signed Grudz for more years we would still have him but we helped him have a good enough year to price him out of our plans (if he were 3 yrs younger...sigh).  Conversely, those who wouldn't work on certain things were sent along to someone else (kerry rob, lankford, and Marquis' stubbornness has him on the trading block).

When you combine this with my earlier diary entry about competition and flexibility you have the whole picture.  We have a whole group of guys competing for just a few spots and you work with them to bring out their secrets.  At least a couple of them will step up and make a difference...I'm betting one of them is JuanCarn.  

I haven't found the particular article yet but my bro-in-law is a big fantasy baseball guy and while researching in the last 2 years he found something about the Marlins getting JuanCarn back from the Dodgers because one of their coaches saw something he could do to fix some of his problems.  If you look at his stats since coming back from the Dodgers they were getting better.  The Marlins were just dumping salary and going way younger so they didn't keep him.  I'll bet you anything that Walt, Tony, and/or one of the other coaches knows the secret of what he has been working on to improve himself.  If they are offering him a multi-year deal I guarantee you they know something that causes them to believe he will improve his numbers.  I'd be tickled if he just ends up with an above avg. glove and an OPS somewhere in the .800's.  Plus, he's never hit in a line-up this good before so that should help him as well.

I know I had an entry about entering into the Manny/Orioles triangle with Marquis and Edmonds, but it sounds as if Walt is only going to concentrate on JuanCarn and Spivey for a while and see if anything else shakes out later.

...they need to do something immediate with the loss of Damon in Center and Manny wanting out.  They are heavy in starting pitching (schilling, beckett, wakefield, clement, arroyo, papelbon) and they will go hard after Clemens to save some face.  How about a three way deal with Bosox getting Edmonds and Tejada, Baltimore getting Marquis, Aroyyo and prospect, and we get Manny, Graffanino and a prospect.

With Manny protecting our other big bats we could either go with So in CF or continue to look at Coco, Jeremy Reed, or lesser FA's.  Graff is expendable because of the Loretta signing.

There is a balance/competition factor in everything the Jockety/LaRussa/Duncan braintrust do...  

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