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Originally Published: August 25, 2003

Baker's Dozen: The week in preview

Breaking down this week's matchups (and mis-matchups).

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By Jim Baker
ESPN Insider
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1. The Best Matchup of the Week
New York at Boston: Friday through Sunday.

Are there really rumors floating around that pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre's job is on the line? If so, how can that be? Because the middle relievers have been a bit funky? Because Mariano Rivera has blown a few saves? Because Jeff Weaver has not worked out?

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The Yankees pitching staff is mounting an historic strikeout-to-walk ratio.

How has the team arrived at this incredible 3:1 ratio? Are they having typical seasons or are they going above and beyond what they have done in the past in this regard? Here are the seven Yankee pitchers who have hurled the most innings this year along with the career ranking of their 2003 K:BB ratio:

Mike Mussina: Best ever in 13-year career. 50 percent better than career average.

Roger Clemens: Fifth-best in 20-year career. 25 percent better than career average.

Andy Pettitte: Second-best in nine-year career. 67 percent better than career average.

David Wells: Third-best in 17-year career. 67 percent better than career average.

Jeff Weaver: Worst of seven-year career. 15 percent worse than career average.

Mariano Rivera: Second-best of nine-year career. 110 percent better than career average.

Chris Hammond: Best ever in 11-year career. 225 percent better than career average.

So, you've got two career bests, one second, one third, one fifth and one guy falling down on the job. Does that not count for anything in Mel's favor?

2. The Wild-Card Field Cruncher Matchup of the Week
Philadelphia at Montreal: Monday through Wednesday.

It's Aug. 25 and you're only four games back of where you need to be. What is more, you've got a three-game series starting tonight against the team that lives in the house you want to own. How realistic you're your chances of getting there?

Well, if you're the Montreal Expos, you've got a little problem and that is the presence of five or six teams (the Cards and Astros are tied) between you and this week's first opponent, the Phillies. Of course, these are six teams which have not yet showed they can fight their way out of the barely-over-.500 territory to this point. So, what if the Expos sweep the Phillies and play .650 the rest of the way, what then? Can they count on no less than six teams failing to rise to the occasion and win 90 games? That's a lot for the trailing team in an eight-team race to hope for, no matter how well they play the rest of the way.

3. The They're At It Again Matchup of the Week
Chi. Cubs at St. Louis: Tuesday through Thursday.

	Alou

The Cubs have only had three men play 100 games or more this season: Sammy Sosa, Alex Gonzalez and Moises Alou who is, surprisingly, leading the team in games played. (By way of comparison, the Cardinals have had seven do so.) The only team with fewer is fellow wild-card pursuer Arizona with two: Luis Gonzalez and Steve Finley. Perhaps those voting on the Manager of the Year Award should take into consideration who got to plug in the same lineup every night and who was forced to improvise.

What are the Astros, the third party in the National League Central race, supposed to do while these two traditional rivals are banging away at each other?

Pull for the Cubs to sweep the Cardinals further out of the race?

Pull for the Cardinals to sweep the Cubs further out of the race?

Pull for one of them to win one game of three so that they both mark time.

Stand back and let it all be while taking care of your own bidness.

Of course, unless you buy into energy waves and all that tommyrot, what they wish for is irrelevant, so the last item is their only course of action.

4. The Hype/No Hype Matchup of the Week
Baltimore at Oakland: Tuesday through Thursday.

I hereby nominate the Baltimore Orioles for the Least Ink of 2003 Award. Think about it: have the Orioles made any headlines this year? Nope. No controversies. No miracle run for the pennant or plunge in the standings. Sometimes a player will have a breakout year and generate a lot of coverage in that way. The closest thing to that this year would have been Melvin Mora, but his season fell by the wayside due to injuries. This happens sometimes. It's not the end of the world. Besides, so much publicity can be of the unwanted variety, sometimes it's best to be off the radar.

On the other end of the spectrum are the Oakland A's who were the focus of a best-selling book this year, that being Moneyball by Michael Lewis. I wouldn't say the A's got the most ink this year, but that book sure got them a lot of mileage and put them near the top.

5. The Still In It Matchup of the Week
Montreal at Florida: Friday through Monday.

	Zeile

When the Expos signed Todd Zeile after he was released by the Yankees, it got me to thinking that the transaction wire needs to tell it more like it is. When a player is let go, why should it simply say "for purposes of giving him his unconditional release?" Come on, let's cut right to the chase! How about some of these?

... for purposes of letting him know we are not amused by his attitude.

... for purposes of throwing our hands up in the air and saying to his next team, "he's your problem now."

... for purposes of letting it be known it was like this when we got here.

... for purposes of making room for a younger and cheaper -- but not necessarily better -- player.

... for purposes of keeping the owner happy owing to his displeasure over the player's interest in his daughter.

... for purposes of asking rhetorically "what the hell were we thinking in the first place with this guy?"

6. The Time to Right the Cart Matchup of the Week
Tampa Bay at Seattle: Tuesday through Thursday.

The wild-card is a tricky beast. How so? Consider this: while it may have appeared that Seattle was merely losing ground to Oakland in the divisional race during a rough weekend in Boston, what may have been going on was a weakening of its posture in the wild-card race. If Oakland passes the Mariners by then the enemy turns out to be the one that just vanquished them, then their showing at Fenway will surely be remembered as a low-point in their history.

They can go some way toward damage control with a productive week against the Devil Rays and Orioles. The Rays "Flirtation With .400" (copyright 2003 Piniellaco Enterprises) has hit a snag and promises to get no easier with visits here and to Oakland this week.

7. The Biggest Mismatch of the Week
Chicago at Detroit: Friday through Sunday.

Or is it? Yes, it meets my fascistically strict guidelines for qualifying for this category, but the truth is, the Tigers have owned the Sox this year. Well, owned in the relative sense. They have won seven of 16 contests against Chicago so far this year and for a team winning a quarter of its games, that qualifies as owning. Of course, a lot of those games were played before many of the White Sox began to play up to career expectations.

Favorite patsies of the infamously down and out:

One would think a division that gets a running start by having so many games scheduled against one of the worst teams ever would look a little more muscular in the standings, wouldn't you? After all, in 1916, the presence of the worst team since 1900, the A's, allowed the entire rest of the league to play at .500 (save for Washington who finished at one game under owing to a rainout against Philadelphia). Not so here, however.

Let's take the Tigers out of the equation and see how the American League Central race looks:

		W-L	GB
Chicago		60-55	-
Kansas City	57-60	4 
Minnesota	56-62	5.5

That opens things up a bit. If the White Sox cannot handle the Tigers this week and go on to lose the division by a few games or less, they will have to look back at their play against Detroit as an opportunity lost.

8. The Two Ships Passing in the Middle of the Season Matchup of the Week
Anaheim at Kansas City: Tuesday through Thursday.

When is a pennant race not really a pennant race? How about when two of the three teams involved have allowed more runs than they've scored? Well, all things are relative, I suppose, so we're going to have to let that go.

In 2002 they were separated by 37 games in the standings. Now, the Royals could win their division and the Angels are passing quietly into history. Have they really gone in opposite directions and passed each other along the way? Well, not to the extent that it would seem to the naked eye. While the Angels are four games behind the Royals in the standings, their record is worse than their runs scored/allowed projects it to be and the Royals is much better. So, in that regard, the Angels are still seven games better. They can use that to buck themselves up on their trip to Kauffman Stadium this week.

No doubt the Royals are hoping the addition of Brian Anderson goes better than the flier they took on former Angel Kevin Appier, whose season appears to be done according to today's Kansas City Star. Appier illustrates nicely why we look to the arts for the closure and resolution in our lives. If Appier's life were in a book, his triumphant return to Kansas City following his gilded exile from Anaheim would have been the beginning of a great and glorious final chapter. Now, his season ends in the isolation of a doctor's office.

Speaking of transactions involving pitchers, isn't it incumbent on Houston general manager Gerry Hunsicker to fulfill Dan Miceli's destiny and make him the first player ever to play for five teams in a single season? Dave Martinez (2000) and Dave Kingman (1977) both played for four teams previously, so let's break that logjam and get Miceli out of Houston before the trading deadline. He's been with Colorado (NL West), New York (AL East), Cleveland (AL Central) and Houston (NL Central), so my suggestion would be that he be traded to a club in either the NL East or AL West. Here's an even better idea: why not get him to a team in each before the season is over?

9. The Triple Cripple Matchup of the Week
Chicago at New York:Tuesday through Thursday.

The Yankees are projecting to 15 team triples in 2003 and the White Sox to 19, the two lowest figures in the American League. While triples are not a prerequisite for success, they are the gateway to adventure on the baseball landscape and, as such, they are a vanishing breed.

As I'm sure you're aware, teams used to hit many more triples than they did home runs. This was back when a loaf of bread was a nickel and televisions were five for a dollar. As the home run came to the fore, team triple totals began to take the occasional dip. The 1942 Boston Braves were the first team to hit under 20. It was another 16 years before anybody else did it, that being the '58 Orioles. The next team was the '67 Yankees who set a new team low with 17. Since then, the Yankees have become the champions of triple eschewing. Hitting under 20 has become much more common for teams and the Yankees lead the way. Of the 34 teams that have triples totaling in the teens, eight of them have been Yankee squads. As of this moment, the Yankees only have three players on their roster who have even hit a triple this year: Alfonso Soriano, Derek Jeter and Bernie Williams.

Here are the ten lowest team triple figures in history:

1998 Orioles, 11
2002 Yankees, 12
1988 Yankees, 12
1998 A's, 13
1986 Orioles, 13
1999 Mets, 14
1999 Blue Jays, 14
1986 Dodgers, 14
2003 Yankees, 15 (projected)
1992 Tigers, 16

Most of the teams in this group fall into the mid-range category of 73 to 85 wins. The '99 Mets and the last two Yankee teams are the best. You would think a team would hit more than a dozen or so triples just by accident, wouldn't you?

10. The Worst Matchup of the Week

Detroit at Cleveland: Tuesday through Thursday.

Here's what the Tigers' record will have to be the rest of the way to avoid being worst team of 20th and 21st Centuries: 7-26. That will nose out the 1916 A's.

To avoid being second-worst team of 20th & 21st Centuries: 9-24. That will nose out the 1935 Braves.

To finish better than the '62 Mets: 9-24. That will best the '62 Mets and the 1904 Washington Nats, putting them at fifth-worst all-time.

Barring a .500 finish, the Tigers will be the third team since World War II to finish below .300. I'll be honest with you, I didn't think it could happen anymore but they have managed to assemble an unassuming lineup with a young, inexperienced pitching staff and there it is. They don't lose in much the same way the '62 Mets did and they are certainly not generating any folklore, but they are getting their L's in.

The Tigers have trashed more baserunners on stolen-base attempts than any other team in the league. This brings up an interesting debate: when you have very few baserunners to begin with, is it better to treat them as special and not risk their mortality or is it wise to try to make something happen since, chances are, the likelihood of them being driven in by conventional means are slim?

Informing this debate should be the following information: are the players in question capable of stealing bases with any degree of success? Only Craig Monroe (4-for-5) and Eric Munson (3-for-3) are over the approximate 70 percent break even point at which the risk of stealing starts making sense. Team leader Alex Sanchez (30-for-45) is close.

11. The Careful Thieves Matchup of the Week
Oakland at Tampa Bay: Friday through Sunday.

The team at the opposite end of the spectrum from the Tigers -- the one that has lost the fewest men to foiled steals -- is also the team that has tried the second-fewest times: the A's. They have the second-best percentage in the American League right behind Tampa Bay, a team with three times the attempts. (Over 10 percent of all stolen-base attempts this year have been made by players calling a Florida team home.) Apart from Detroit and Toronto, there is not a wide variance in team stolen-base success. The range is 60 to 78 percent.

Until Saturday and Sunday when they scored 11 and 17 runs, respectively, Oakland had been fairly repressed in the scoring department -- not demonstrably better than Tampa Bay, really.

13. The Mystery Matchup of the Week
? vs. ?

The biggest tourist attraction in this team's town is near the ballpark while the biggest one in its opponent's area is built on the site of their old ballpark.

Clue from Aug. 4: These two clubs helped usher in a new era by playing the first game ever of its kind.

It was 64 years ago this week that baseball had its first television broadcast and it featured the Dodgers and Reds. Another correct answer would have been Twins and Orioles who played in the first postseason game of the non-tiebreaker variety, non-World Series variety in 1969.

Jim Baker writes Monday through Friday for ESPN Insider.