Baseball odds and ends

A few baseball tidbits catch my eye this morning.

• An arbitrator has cut Kenny Rogers' suspension to 13 games, which happens to be how many Texas has played from the suspension starting to the arbitration hearing. There's no word on what would have happened had the hearing taken place after 7 games, or 9 games.
  
  "I strongly disagree with arbitrator Das' decision today. It sends the wrong message to every one of our constituents: the fans, the media, and our players. There is a standard of behavior that is expected of our players, which was breached in this case. The arbitrator's decision diminishes that standard and is contrary to the terms of the collective bargaining agreement. In my opinion, the decision is seriously ill-conceived."
  - Bud Selig
  
  I couldn't agree more. Rogers was way, way out of line, and a 20-game suspension was not only reasonable, it was downright conservative. Remember that we're talking about a starting pitcher here, a pitcher who has now, as a result of his assault, in uniform, on the field, missed all of 3 starts...
  
  Update: David Pinto has some more extensive thoughts on the Rogers situation - I agree...



• There were (at least) two teams who failed to hold on to 7-2 leads last night. One was a pretty good team, the Boston Red Sox, who won anyway. The other was a bad team, the Kansas City Royals, who didn't.
  
  The Red Sox took a 7-2 lead into the 7th, then brought newly acquired Mike Remlinger in to the game. 4 batters later (double, single, walk, error) it was 7-3 with the bases loaded. A couple of ground balls, a couple more hits tied the score, but Mike Myers got out of the inning, Mike Timlin and Curt Schilling combined for 3 scoreless innings, and the Red Sox scored in the 10th to win it, 8-7.
  
  The Royals took a 7-2 lead into the 9th at home against the Cleveland Indians. Here we go to the play-by-play (courtesy Sportsline):
  Mike McDougal pitching:
  Casey Blake: Foul, Blake doubled hard to left.
  Grady Sizemore: Strike looking, Ball, Sizemore doubled to deep left, Blake scored.
  Coco Crisp: Ball, Strike looking, Crisp singled to center, Sizemore scored.
  Jhonny Peralta: Foul, Ball, Foul, Peralta struck out looking.
  Travis Hafner: Ball, Hafner doubled to deep right, Crisp to third.
  Victor J. Martinez: Foul, Ball, Foul, Martinez singled to left center, Crisp scored, Hafner to third
  Ramon Vazquez ran for Victor J. Martinez.
  Ron Belliard: Ball, Belliard safe at first on shortstop Berroa's fielding error, Hafner scored, Vazquez out at second
  Jeff Liefer hit for Ben Broussard.
  Jeff Liefer: Foul, Strike looking, Foul, Ball, Liefer safe at first on left fielder Ambres' fielding error, Belliard scored, Liefer to second.
  Aaron Boone: Boone doubled to left, Liefer scored.
  Jimmy Gobble relieved Mike M. MacDougal.
  Casey Blake: Ball, Ball, Ball, Blake intentionally walked.
  Grady Sizemore: Sizemore singled to right, Boone and Blake scored, Sizemore to second on right fielder Brown's fielding error.
  Coco Crisp: Ball, Ball, Strike looking, Ball, Foul, Foul, Crisp walked.
  Jhonny Peralta: Strike swinging, Foul, Foul, Ball, Peralta homered hard to left center, Sizemore and Crisp scored.
  Travis Hafner: Ball, Ball, Strike swinging, Strike looking, Hafner struck out swinging.
  
  The big play in that inning was on the Liefer at-bat. With two outs, and the Royals still holding on to a 7-6 lead, Liefer hit a fly ball that left-fielder Chip Ambres tracked down on the warning track. And dropped. Rather than ending the game, the play resulted in the game being tied. The Indians went on to score 6 more, bringing their total for the 9th to 11, and winning the game 13-7.



• Last night's Texas starting pitcher, Joaquin Benoit, holds the Major League record for the longest "save," having pitched 7 innings in a game against Baltimore in 2002. When that was mentioned on the Red Sox radio broadcast, I had to stop and think about it for a minute. Eventually you get to the point where you wonder "how is that possible?" In order to qualify for a save, he can't be the winning pitcher, so someone else had to get the win, and it couldn't be the starter, as a starter has to go 5 innings to qualify for a win. Obviously, it can't be an extra-inning game, because the Rangers had to have held the lead for the entire 7 innings. So Benoit, to get a 7-inning save, had to come into a game with no outs in the 3rd, as (at least) the 3rd Ranger pitcher, with a reliever having pitched well enough to get the win. "How," I thought again, "is that possible?"
  
  God Bless Retrosheet. Here's the box score from Texas at Baltimore, September 3, 2002. And what happened is this - after Alex Rodriguez was hit by a pitch in the top of the first, Rangers' starter Aaron Myette threw two pitches behind Melvin Mora, the first Oriole batter, and was ejected by home plate umpire Mark Hirschbeck. Todd Van Poppel came in and threw two more balls to Mora, walked the next batter as well, then struck out the next 3 batters, and 2 of the 3 that he faced in the 2nd. Meanwhile, the Rangers scored 3 in the 2nd and 1 in the 3rd, so when Benoit came in to start the 3rd, he had a 4-run lead, and Van Poppel was the pitcher of record, having been the pitcher when Texas took the lead for good. And Benoit's 7 innings of 1-run relief got him in to the record books, with a record that is unlikely to be broken...