MVN - Most Valuable Network

Bullpen Implodes As White Sox Overpower Rangers, 10-8

Join me, if you will, for an annotated review of Wednesday evening’s incomprehensible rubber match between the Texas Rangers and Chicago White Sox at U.S. Cellular Field:

1:08 p.m. - Shortstop Michael Young lofts a 3-2 fastball from rookie left-hander Clayton Richard into the warm, sunny afternoon sky, willing the baseball beyond the left field fence for just his second home run since June 5th and staking rotation “ace” Kevin Millwood to an early 1-0 lead.

[Win expectancy: 55.0 percent]

1:25 p.m. - Said ace yields a lead-off single at the hands of Orlando Cabrera, fans Nick Swisher on strikes (but fails to benefit from a stolen base attempt by Cabrera, who easily swipes second base and then one more on a horrendous throw from catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia), drills Carlos Quentin in the left shoulder with a fastball, strikes out Jermaine Dye swinging, and then conclusively surrenders a mammoth three-run blast to Jim Thome.

[Win expectancy: 30.5 percent]

1:40 p.m. - Second baseman Ian Kinsler compensates for his pitcher’s previous two-out collapse, utilizing some defensive confusion to his advantage by driving home the tying runs with his own two-out double, and then smartly taking the extra base when the opportunity presents itself.

[Win expectancy: 44.8 percent]

2:21 p.m. - Four consecutive two-out hits produced by Chris Davis, David Murphy, Kinsler and Young grant right-hander Josh Rupe a 5-3 lead.

Erm, wait - where’d Millwood go? Oh, right:

“It got sore to where I couldn’t push off and I couldn’t throw any strikes when that happened,” Millwood said. “I felt it at the beginning of the second inning.”

The “it” referred to by Millwood is his problematic right groin muscle, which already necessitated one stint on the 15-day disabled list this season, and may ultimately render the point of his specific trade value to any number of teams in the hunt for a mid-summer rotation face-lift moot. He’ll be re-evaluated on Thursday, but count me among the surprised if he manages to avoid the nasty yellow shading on the BTiA Roster page.

Then again, I’ll say it once more: did anybody honestly believe that a 33-year-old with a putrid 79 ERA+, rapidly fading peripherals and at least $11 million left remaining on his contract for 2009 (the last guaranteed year on his deal) was going to bring back anything of real significance - even if packaged along with, say, catcher Gerald Laird, and offered to a top-flight contender?

Allow me to clarify that last statement: Millwood may well carry negative trade value. His inclusion in a deal at this point would scream “salary dump” more than anything else.

[Win expectancy: 68.5 percent]

3:40 p.m. - Having exchanged blows in the fifth and seventh innings, the Rangers possess a steady 8-5 lead over their hated AL Central foes after the top of the eighth inning. Despite the bullpen predicament created by Millwood’s early exit, the right-handed trio of Rupe, Warner Madrigal and Jamey Wright combines for 5.1 quality innings of two-run baseball, positioning Texas to steal the three-game series in Chicago’s own house.

[Win expectancy: 91.0 percent]

3:54 p.m. - Southpaw Eddie Guardado, pitching for the third time in four days, promptly delivers his worst outing in a Rangers uniform. Chicago plates a pair of runs off “Everyday Eddie” with the aid of three hits and a walk, and the best reliever in the Texas bullpen to date is yanked with two outs, runners on second and third base, and American League home run leader Carlos Quentin strolling to the plate.

For C.J. Wilson.

Fear and restlessness instantly permeate already tense office environments across North Texas, as die-hard Rangers fans everywhere hope against hope that the blue-gloved lefty can secure that final, mission-critical out and survive for another inning.

[Win expectancy: 80.8 percent]

3:56 p.m. - Failure.

An idle question: Could C.J. have conceivably thrown a worse pitch if he had tried? Strong velocity (in this case, 94 MPH velocity) is great and all, but there was virtually zero movement present to prevent Quentin from perfectly squaring up the Wilson-described “meatball,” and the location - well, you can get a pretty good idea of that.

[Win expectancy: 7.4 perc-oh hell, who cares anymore.]

Now, am I of the obstinate opinion that Wilson should be yanked from the closer’s role and banished to the seventh or eighth inning once and for all? Not necessarily. With Texas slowly slipping further and further out of playoff contention, it doesn’t make much sense to flip the role to Guardado, who may not be here one week from today, much less one year from today.

Truth be told, there may be only one reliever currently on the active roster that truly deserves an extended look in such a high-leverage role.

Don’t care to hazard a guess? Then I’ll make it easy for you by calling back to Wednesday morning’s column:

Flamethrowing right-hander Frank Francisco has fanned 16 batters in 14 innings pitched since June 15th, yielding just eight hits and four walks en route to a sparkling 1.29 ERA and lethargic .160/.222/.300 opponents’ batting line over that span.

Was C.J. entirely to blame for this latest horrific meltdown? Of course not. But there’s no getting around the fact that Wilson, for all his odd little idiosyncrasies and habits that ostensibly endear him to the fan base (and seemingly disenchant other individuals linked to the organization, whom shall remain unnamed), isn’t presently fulfilling his job duties, which entail (for starters) being a good pitcher.

And no, I don’t consider a save percentage sitting just south of 90 percent to be any sort of reliable indicator of his overall performance, or ironclad proof his job security shouldn’t be brought into question. Case in point, Hideki Irabu collected 16 saves in 20 tries with Texas in 2002 en route to posting a horrendous 5.74 ERA, and while his hit/walk/strikeout rates weren’t nearly as poor as you might initially think, those 11 homers allowed in 47 innings somewhat nullify our sympathies for the ultimate “bit” closer.

Baseball, as much as any other industry, is reliant on competence and performance from its employees; those who fail to meet quality standards are subject to the appropriate consequences. Ignoring his complete body of work in favor of a single, contrived statistic wouldn’t be considered an acceptable approach for any other position on the team; why, then, should it be employed with the closer?

Answer: It shouldn’t.

All that being said, the one thing I unequivocally do not want to see enacted is the dreaded “closer by committee.” Either make your decision to commit to C.J. for the rest of the season (which, admittedly, isn’t nearly as bad an idea now that the Rangers have all but fallen out of the playoff picture), or make the clean jump to Francisco, Madrigal or another hard-thrower in a similar vein.

Don’t throw together a flimsy, ramshackle solution on the fly. It benefits absolutely nobody.

• • • • •

If you blacked out about three paragraphs into the above section, these latest trade rumors should quickly revive you:

● SI.com’s Jon Heyman and FOXSports.com’s Ken Rosenthal both report (here and here, respectively) that the Yankees have expressed interest in soon-to-be-activated catcher Gerald Laird, but the latter implies that the Rangers’ asking price of young pitching (Dellin Betances? Ian Kennedy?) might prove too rich for their tastes.

And as if that weren’t enough, Ed Price of the Star-Ledger offers this secondary confirmation:

An official from an American League team, who requested anonymity because his club is not involved, said the Yankees had asked the Texas Rangers about the availability of Gerald Laird to help catch in Posada’s absence.

● According to Heyman, the Twins, Giants and Dodgers have “all shown some interest” in Hank Blalock. Don’t really understand the middle entry in that trio, but then I don’t really understand Brian Sabean either.

● Think that Nelson Cruz’s 33rd and 34th home runs on Wednesday evening (which tied Dallas McPherson for the most in professional baseball) are attracting some interest right now? With eight long balls in his last six games, Cruz’s value may never be higher.

• • • • •

Regarding St. Louis Cardinals minor league right-hander Jess Todd, whom was identified by Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Tuesday as a young commodity the Rangers might be interested in acquiring for Guardado: Baseball America’s 2008 Prospect Handbook tabbed the 22-year-old as the Cardinals’ 12th-best prospect.

Comparatively, Minor League Ball’s John Sickels labeled Todd as a top-10 talent in his pre-season Top 20 rankings, pegging the stout Kilgore, Texas native with a ninth-overall designation to go along with a solid ‘B-’ letter grade.

The only two Rangers prospects to receive that same letter grade from Sickels this past winter? Low-A Clinton’s Blake Beavan (85.2 IP, 2.52 ERA, 1.09 WHIP, 43 K), who spun five adequate innings of three-run baseball in a 4-3 victory over the Great Lakes Loons on Wednesday evening, and Double-A Frisco’s Neftali Feliz (99 IP, 2.55 ERA, 1.01 WHIP, 123 K), now the near-consensus top prospect in the organization.

Just sayin’.

Feliz was originally slated to start for the RoughRiders in Midland on Wednesday evening, but was a late scratch due to unspecified reasons. One unconfirmed report suggested the organization simply wanted to give the 20-year-old Dominican flamethrower a bit of extra rest, which would make some sense given that he had never previously thrown more than 42.1 innings in a single professional season, but we’ll stand by for official confirmation on that.

Texas has agreed to terms with their fifth- and seventh-round picks in the June 2008 MLB First-Year Player Draft, outfielder Clark Murphy and right-hander Matt Thompson. The pair had committed to UCLA and TCU, respectively.

According to the inimitable Jamey Newberg, just two of the Rangers’ top nine picks remain unsigned - not surprisingly, first-rounder Justin Smoak and second-rounder Robbie Ross. Baseball Prospectus’s Kevin Goldstein reported last Saturday that Texas was planning to go over slot to ink Ross, Murphy and Thompson, which would lend some credence to the notion that Ross might be the next domino to fall.

Pittsburgh Pirates president Frank Coonelly, formerly the chief legal counsel for Major League Baseball, astutely pointed out this week that “he believes he sees a pattern across the industry of first-rounders holding out until the [August 15th signing] deadline,” an observation which stemmed from his apparent frustration over first-round pick Pedro Alvarez’s reluctance to punctually agree to terms with the Pirates.

Don’t expect anything different to transpire with Smoak. I have zero doubt that he’ll sign, but it’ll almost certainly happen at the last possible second.

And finally, third-round pick Tim Murphy dealt four sparkling innings of two-hit relief for victorious Low-A Spokane on Wednesday evening, issuing just one free pass and fanning seven. Since agreeing to terms with Texas on a $436,000 signing bonus early last month, the 21-year-old southpaw has collected his first two professional wins, posted a stellar 2.18 ERA and 1.06 WHIP, and notched 23 strikeouts in 20.2 innings.

Really, I’m all ears - anybody have a good message for Wilson’s sponsorship page on Baseball Reference?

Quick Hits: Rookie Eric Hurley (sore arm, stiff shoulder) has reported improvement, and is still on track to make his next scheduled start in Oakland on Sunday; he’ll throw a bullpen session in Oakland on Friday…Milton Bradley (left forearm) is day-to-day after being plunked by a pitch on Wednesday…Chris Davis= has belted eight homers since his big league debut on June 26th, the second-most in the AL since that date; his 31 home runs between the minors and majors this season account for the third-highest total in professional baseball, behind the aforementioned McPherson and Cruz…ESPN has picked up the Rangers’ home game on Wednesday, August 6th versus the New York Yankees.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 24th, 2008 at 3:05 am and is filed under The Season. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.