Post by John on Jun 16, 2006 13:18:05 GMT -4
Dodgers youngsters are something to see
By Scott Miller
CBS SportsLine.com Senior Writer
By the time a guy has played in the majors for 16 seasons, trotted out for more than 1,300 big-league games, earned an All-Star Game MVP, tasted two World Series, flown a few hundred team charters, dipped into more than a thousand clubhouse spreads and listened to more cheering crowds than Katie Holmes, when yet another rookie breaks in with the gusto of a blood-red sunrise, you'd expect a nice ... big ... yawn.
Instead....
"Have you seen him yet?" Dodgers catcher Sandy Alomar Jr. asks, as if outfielder Matt Kemp is some exotic piece of art inside an exclusive museum.
Which is the growing question these days from dugout to dugout:
Have you seen him yet?
"Manny Ramirez with better defense," Alomar says.
"Looks like Dave Parker," a veteran major league scout says.
And, like Kemp himself, they're just getting started.
Kemp is the centerpiece of a Dodgers rookie class that has burst onto the scene over the past month with an authority that is reminiscent of the way Jeff Francoeur, Brian McCann, Ryan Langerhans and the rest arrived to propel Atlanta to the NL East title last summer.
Seven rookies currently are in key roles for the Dodgers, suddenly turning what could have been a disastrous run of veteran injuries into a future that now looks brighter than any light in Hollywood:
* Kemp, 21, who was recruited by the University of Oklahoma as a basketball player and picked by the Dodgers in the sixth round of the 2003 draft.
* Catcher Russell Martin, 23, a 17th-round pick in 2002 who is from Quebec and attended closer Eric Gagne's high school. Recalled on May 5 when catcher Dioner Navarro injured a wrist, Martin appears ready to play Lou Gehrig to Navarro's Wally Pipp. The Dodgers have ascended into a first-place tie with Arizona in the NL West with Martin catching -- they were 24-10 with him in the lineup through midweek -- and the chances of Navarro getting his job back now appear roughly the equivalent of the Dodgers joining the American League and employing Tommy Lasorda as their DH.
* Outfielder Andre Ethier, 23, who was obtained from Oakland last winter in the Milton Bradley trade. Recalled May 2 when Ricky Ledee was disabled, Ethier's presence in the clubhouse -- as opposed to that of Bradley -- is like opening your window and airing out your room after forgetting a couple of ham sandwiches under your bed for a few months. Oh, and Ethier through midweek was second among all NL rookies with a .516 slugging percentage, a .312 batting average and a .381 on-base percentage.
* Infielder Willy Aybar, 23, who was signed by the Dodgers as a non-drafted free agent in January 2000 and currently leads all NL rookies with a .398 on-base percentage.
* Pitcher Jonathan Broxton, 21, a second-round pick in the 2002 draft converted from starter to reliever last June. A right-hander who pitches beyond his age -- he has walked only 11 hitters while whiffing 28 in 21 1/3 innings -- opponents are hitting only .200 against him this season.
* Pitcher Chad Billingsley, 21, a first-round pick in the 2003 draft who was rated by Baseball America as the Dodgers' top pitching prospect coming into the season. He was recalled from Triple-A Las Vegas on Wednesday and made his eagerly anticipated major-league debut on Thursday afternoon in San Diego.
* Reliever Takashi Saito, 36, signed as a free agent from Japan over the winter and currently helping to patch up a bullpen thrown off kilter by the continued disabling injuries to closer Eric Gagne.
It's all enough to make opposing NL West managers as wary as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs.
"Everybody was well aware of the kids they had in their system," San Diego skipper Bruce Bochy says. "They've brought them up and are showing everybody that they were right.
"They've all stepped up and done great."
Scouts are likening Kemp -- 6-feet-2, 230 pounds -- to a right-handed version of Parker because he's big, swings bigger, can run and has an absolute cannon for an arm. He arrived from Double-A Jacksonville on May 28, has smashed seven homers already and is making adjustments each day with the ease of a mechanic.
"He has unbelievable bat speed, he's tall, he's got long arms," Alomar says. "His first game (against Washington on May 28), he came in and struck out three times in a row on high sliders and we're going, 'Oh my God, he has no clue.'
"Then he started laying off of them. I think he was just nervous."
Perhaps Kemp's most impressive moment came June 6, when the Mets' Pedro Martinez threw him an up-and-in fastball and Kemp belted it over the Dodger Stadium fence to left-center. He went with the pitch, a nasty one, and made it look easy.
As for Martin, a right-handed hitter who at midweek ranked fourth among NL rookies with a .304 average, seventh with 25 RBI and third in both on-base percentage (.378) and slugging percentage (.509), he's proving adept both with the bat and in handling a veteran pitching staff.
"He asks questions, we talk," Alomar says. "We're not holding his hand. He's doing great on his own. He's on top of everything."
Martin, Broxton and Billingsley played together on Double-A Jacksonville's Southern League championship team last season -- Baseball America chose the Bulls as its minor league team of the year. Kemp spent the season at Class A Vero Beach before starring in the Arizona Fall League.
"If you have even three rookies on one team doing what they're doing, it's ridiculous," Alomar says.
But roughly a quarter of the team as rookies?
"In Cleveland, we had a bunch of young guys, unbelievable players," says Alomar, hearkening back to the dominant Indians teams of the 1990s and mentioning in particular Ramirez, Jim Thome, Brian Giles, Richie Sexson, Sean Casey and Jeromy Burnitz. "But they all came along at different times -- not at the same time, in the same lineup.
"Here, they're all in the same lineup, and they're all producing. It's like they've been here for years. It's like we're learning from them. It wasn't this easy when we came up."
It takes manager Grady Little back to the days when he was managing in Atlanta's system in the 1980s and early 1990s and helped develop a core group of youngsters who would go to successful careers with the Braves and elsewhere.
"There are a lot of similarities between this group and the group of guys who came up with the Braves -- Chipper Jones, Ryan Klesko, Javy Lopez, even utility guys like Eddie Perez and Mike Mordecai, who played 10 years in the bigs," Little says. "You knew that these guys had a chance to play baseball for a long time in the major leagues.
"Back then, it was no different from now. It's purely a case of the organization doing a good job of scouting, signing and developing kids."
While many organizations complained this spring that the World Baseball Classic disrupted camp too much, it appears to have turned into a boon for Los Angeles. With veterans off and scattered playing for the various WBC teams, Kemp, Martin, Ethier and others got extensive playing time in Grapefruit League games.
The development has continued right into the season, and Little, despite the overblown rhetoric in New England following the disastrous Game 7 against the Yankees in the 2003 ALCS, is the perfect man to oversee it. For that, first-year general manager Ned Colletti gets credit for looking beyond the surface of the Boston debacle, bypassing the old-boys network and hiring a man with whom he previously had no working relationship.
Case in point: Ethier, a lefty who reminds Dodgers Hall of Fame broadcaster Jaime Jarrin of Mark Grace because of the way he sprays line drives to all fields, hasn't played much against left-handed pitchers -- not because he can't hit them, but mostly because Little is doing what he can to spread around the playing time.
"We're awfully proud to have this guy," Little says. "He's played all around the outfield for us, and like Kemp, we're comfortable putting him in any position. He's a good athlete who can handle the bat."
Little pulled Ethier aside a few weeks ago and emphasized to him that it was nothing personal when he wasn't in the lineup against lefties, and that it was not that the club didn't believe in him.
How did he take it?
"Like a gentleman," Little says. "Another thing these kids have in common is character. They're respectful. Yes sir, no sir.
"That only happens when the parents do a good job of raising them. It doesn't just happen. You can tell they've been taught well."
Now?
"Now it's our job to keep them grounded as best we can," Little says.
The Dodgers have an illustrious history with rookies, from their four consecutive Rookies of the Year between 1979 and 1982 -- Rick Sutcliffe, Steve Howe, Fernando Valenzuela and Steve Sax -- to their five in a row between 1992 and 1996 -- Eric Karros, Mike Piazza, Raul Mondesi, Hideo Nomo and Todd Hollandsworth.
But never have they had so many arrive at once.
Jokes Little: "We could be the first team in major league history where, when Sept. 1 comes, we recall all of our veterans off of injury rehabilitation and the disabled list for our September call-ups."
The scouting report
Forget, for a minute, the fact that Kemp is a five-tool player and the numbers and accolades and radar gun readings.
The Dodgers rookie patrol is large enough that they've got to run the clubhouse, right?
"It ain't like that," Kemp says, chuckling. "We know our role. We're just here to try and learn from all of these veterans."
OK, OK.
But where all of these Dodgers rookies are concerned, let's get right to the dope -- who's the funniest?
"The way his body looks -- Jonathan Broxton," Little says. "But I get a big kick out of all of them. Kemp, Russell Martin ... all I know is, Broxton (6-3, 288) wears the biggest pants -- and he throws harder, too. He'll probably argue that he can hit with all those other guys, too."
The quietest?
"Broxton," Martin says. "For him to talk, you've got to know him pretty well."
The smartest?
"I know Andre Ethier went to college (Arizona State) for a couple of years," Martin says. "So he tells us he's the smartest."
The cheapest?
"The veteran pitchers this spring were asking Chad Billingsley when was the last time he took his catcher out to dinner," Martin says. "He said two or three times last year (in Jacksonville). I said I can't ever remember him taking me out to dinner. Chad was like, 'C'mon Russ.' I told him I was just playing."
Baseball Etiquette 101 vs. the Highlight Reels
So there was veteran outfielder Mike Cameron at the plate Tuesday night in the seventh inning with his San Diego Padres leading 9-1, facing Dodgers lefty Odalis Perez and needing only a single to become the first Padre ever to hit for the cycle.
Perez ran the count to 3-and-0.
And then, facing the age-old question -- go for the individual glory and swing, or follow baseball's unwritten rules and refrain from doing something that might make a blowout worse -- Cameron looked at the next pitch for ball four.
And so, after 5,933 games and 201,114 at-bats in franchise history, the Padres still have never had a player hit for the cycle (or pitch a no-hitter, but that's another subject for another day).
The Florida Marlins (2,100 games) and Tampa Bay (1,358 games) are the only other of the 30 major league clubs who have never had a player hit for the cycle.
Perhaps it's something about warm-weather locales that discourages the achievement. Maybe hitters need more grit and grime, or the occasional bitter cold day, to do it.
Anyway, at least Cameron emerged in one piece.
His philosophy: "You can't swing 3-and-0 when you're up by eight runs or whatever. It's a good way to get yourself hurt the next day."
Little said he wouldn't have had a problem with it if Cameron did opt to swing on 3-and-0.
"The cycle was big news for everyone," Little says. "The crowd was on its feet.
"I thought he should have hit the 2-and-0 pitch. It was close enough. After that, he's a professional. He's trying to play the game the right way."
Had he accomplished the cycle, the veteran outfielder would have made more history than simply becoming the first Padre to do so.
In 2002, when he was with Seattle, Cameron hit four home runs in a game against the Chicago White Sox. Only three players in baseball history have hit four homers in a game and hit for the cycle: Chuck Klein, Lou Gehrig and Gil Hodges.
A Cardinals home companion
It isn't September yet, but with Albert Pujols shelved until roughly the All-Star break, the season could turn for Cincinnati and Houston right now.
The Reds and Astros have an opening -- the Cardinals have lost 10 of their past 17 (they're 4-5 since Pujols was disabled) and clearly are not the same team in the absence of the 2005 NL MVP -- and the results have been mixed.
Since Pujols left a game against the Cubs on June 3 with an oblique strain, Cincinnati has gone 6-5 and Houston has gone 7-3.
The Reds won five consecutive games to start Pujols' stint on the disabled list, immediately climbing into a neck-and-neck race with St. Louis for the NL Central lead.
But Jerry Narron's club then lost five in a row, a streak that finally ended Wednesday. The Reds remain an unbalanced club that can score at will on some nights but is woefully short on pitching. General manager Wayne Krivsky is doing what he can to add depth, most recently signing veteran Joe Mays to help in the bullpen after the right-hander became part of the problem, rather than part of the solution, in Kansas City (0-4, 10.27 ERA).
Recalled from Triple-A Louisville on June 6, Mays through midweek had retired all nine batters he had faced in two appearances for the Reds.
In a very brief time, the Reds have seen flashes of the heavy sinker that helped propel Mays to a 17-13 record in Minnesota in 2001, and his velocity has been up.
Houston, meanwhile, is rolling out the red carpet in preparation for the return next week of Roger Clemens. He will join the Astros rotation Thursday against Minnesota following one more minor league tuneup Friday night and that, combined with a couple of other factors, could make the Astros a force again in the division race.
Roy Oswalt was sharp in his first start since May 29. And Andy Pettitte has been very good in each of his past two outings. Thanks in no small part to the back-to-back efforts of Pettitte and Oswalt on Tuesday and Wednesday, the Astros now have won three consecutive games and have pulled to within five games of the first-place Cardinals.
The Reds and Astros, however, get no break with the return of interleague play. St. Louis in two weeks plays host to its in-state rival, the lowly Kansas City Royals, for the final three games of the six they play.
Cincinnati, meanwhile, gets Cleveland, and the Astros might have the worst draw of the three, having to play Texas.
Heaven help them
Expected to contend for another division title this summer, the Los Angeles Angels instead have spent most of the past week -- and more time than expected over the past month -- in the AL West basement.
They knew going into the season that they might need another bat or two, and that weakness is being revealed on a daily basis. The Angels rank 13th in the AL in slugging percentage, 12th in on-base percentage and homers and 10th in runs scored.
But while manager Mike Scioscia acknowledges those faults, what really burns him is his team's uncharacteristically poor defense.
Not only do the Angels rank last in the AL with a .979 fielding percentage, they had surrendered 44 unearned runs through midweek -- most in the majors. Next is Atlanta with 35, followed by the Yankees (34) and Kansas City (32).
"The thing that's probably surprised me the most is our team defense and the amount of unearned runs we've given up," Scioscia says. "It's cost us ballgames."
Batting around
Oakland lefty/guitarist Barry Zito lists his current five favorite CDs:
1. Wes Montgomery, The Ultimate Wes Montgomery. "He was very influential with the jazz guitar and the progress of the instrument."
2. Joe Pass, Joe Pass Live in Hamburg. "He was a jazz guy, too. This guy basically made the guitar a solo instrumental instrument."
3. Diana Krall, Live in Paris. "One of the cleanest front to back albums I've heard. Great musician. All standards."
4. Paul Simon, There Goes Rhymin' Simon. "I just think that's one of his coolest albums. It's got a really jazzy flavor. It's indicative of his great songwriting skills."
5. Fiona Apple, Extraordinary Machine. "She's one of my favorite songwriter/musicians. This album took seven or eight years, but it was worth the wait."
By Scott Miller
CBS SportsLine.com Senior Writer
By the time a guy has played in the majors for 16 seasons, trotted out for more than 1,300 big-league games, earned an All-Star Game MVP, tasted two World Series, flown a few hundred team charters, dipped into more than a thousand clubhouse spreads and listened to more cheering crowds than Katie Holmes, when yet another rookie breaks in with the gusto of a blood-red sunrise, you'd expect a nice ... big ... yawn.
Instead....
"Have you seen him yet?" Dodgers catcher Sandy Alomar Jr. asks, as if outfielder Matt Kemp is some exotic piece of art inside an exclusive museum.
Which is the growing question these days from dugout to dugout:
Have you seen him yet?
"Manny Ramirez with better defense," Alomar says.
"Looks like Dave Parker," a veteran major league scout says.
And, like Kemp himself, they're just getting started.
Kemp is the centerpiece of a Dodgers rookie class that has burst onto the scene over the past month with an authority that is reminiscent of the way Jeff Francoeur, Brian McCann, Ryan Langerhans and the rest arrived to propel Atlanta to the NL East title last summer.
Seven rookies currently are in key roles for the Dodgers, suddenly turning what could have been a disastrous run of veteran injuries into a future that now looks brighter than any light in Hollywood:
* Kemp, 21, who was recruited by the University of Oklahoma as a basketball player and picked by the Dodgers in the sixth round of the 2003 draft.
* Catcher Russell Martin, 23, a 17th-round pick in 2002 who is from Quebec and attended closer Eric Gagne's high school. Recalled on May 5 when catcher Dioner Navarro injured a wrist, Martin appears ready to play Lou Gehrig to Navarro's Wally Pipp. The Dodgers have ascended into a first-place tie with Arizona in the NL West with Martin catching -- they were 24-10 with him in the lineup through midweek -- and the chances of Navarro getting his job back now appear roughly the equivalent of the Dodgers joining the American League and employing Tommy Lasorda as their DH.
* Outfielder Andre Ethier, 23, who was obtained from Oakland last winter in the Milton Bradley trade. Recalled May 2 when Ricky Ledee was disabled, Ethier's presence in the clubhouse -- as opposed to that of Bradley -- is like opening your window and airing out your room after forgetting a couple of ham sandwiches under your bed for a few months. Oh, and Ethier through midweek was second among all NL rookies with a .516 slugging percentage, a .312 batting average and a .381 on-base percentage.
* Infielder Willy Aybar, 23, who was signed by the Dodgers as a non-drafted free agent in January 2000 and currently leads all NL rookies with a .398 on-base percentage.
* Pitcher Jonathan Broxton, 21, a second-round pick in the 2002 draft converted from starter to reliever last June. A right-hander who pitches beyond his age -- he has walked only 11 hitters while whiffing 28 in 21 1/3 innings -- opponents are hitting only .200 against him this season.
* Pitcher Chad Billingsley, 21, a first-round pick in the 2003 draft who was rated by Baseball America as the Dodgers' top pitching prospect coming into the season. He was recalled from Triple-A Las Vegas on Wednesday and made his eagerly anticipated major-league debut on Thursday afternoon in San Diego.
* Reliever Takashi Saito, 36, signed as a free agent from Japan over the winter and currently helping to patch up a bullpen thrown off kilter by the continued disabling injuries to closer Eric Gagne.
It's all enough to make opposing NL West managers as wary as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs.
"Everybody was well aware of the kids they had in their system," San Diego skipper Bruce Bochy says. "They've brought them up and are showing everybody that they were right.
"They've all stepped up and done great."
Scouts are likening Kemp -- 6-feet-2, 230 pounds -- to a right-handed version of Parker because he's big, swings bigger, can run and has an absolute cannon for an arm. He arrived from Double-A Jacksonville on May 28, has smashed seven homers already and is making adjustments each day with the ease of a mechanic.
"He has unbelievable bat speed, he's tall, he's got long arms," Alomar says. "His first game (against Washington on May 28), he came in and struck out three times in a row on high sliders and we're going, 'Oh my God, he has no clue.'
"Then he started laying off of them. I think he was just nervous."
Perhaps Kemp's most impressive moment came June 6, when the Mets' Pedro Martinez threw him an up-and-in fastball and Kemp belted it over the Dodger Stadium fence to left-center. He went with the pitch, a nasty one, and made it look easy.
As for Martin, a right-handed hitter who at midweek ranked fourth among NL rookies with a .304 average, seventh with 25 RBI and third in both on-base percentage (.378) and slugging percentage (.509), he's proving adept both with the bat and in handling a veteran pitching staff.
"He asks questions, we talk," Alomar says. "We're not holding his hand. He's doing great on his own. He's on top of everything."
Martin, Broxton and Billingsley played together on Double-A Jacksonville's Southern League championship team last season -- Baseball America chose the Bulls as its minor league team of the year. Kemp spent the season at Class A Vero Beach before starring in the Arizona Fall League.
"If you have even three rookies on one team doing what they're doing, it's ridiculous," Alomar says.
But roughly a quarter of the team as rookies?
"In Cleveland, we had a bunch of young guys, unbelievable players," says Alomar, hearkening back to the dominant Indians teams of the 1990s and mentioning in particular Ramirez, Jim Thome, Brian Giles, Richie Sexson, Sean Casey and Jeromy Burnitz. "But they all came along at different times -- not at the same time, in the same lineup.
"Here, they're all in the same lineup, and they're all producing. It's like they've been here for years. It's like we're learning from them. It wasn't this easy when we came up."
It takes manager Grady Little back to the days when he was managing in Atlanta's system in the 1980s and early 1990s and helped develop a core group of youngsters who would go to successful careers with the Braves and elsewhere.
"There are a lot of similarities between this group and the group of guys who came up with the Braves -- Chipper Jones, Ryan Klesko, Javy Lopez, even utility guys like Eddie Perez and Mike Mordecai, who played 10 years in the bigs," Little says. "You knew that these guys had a chance to play baseball for a long time in the major leagues.
"Back then, it was no different from now. It's purely a case of the organization doing a good job of scouting, signing and developing kids."
While many organizations complained this spring that the World Baseball Classic disrupted camp too much, it appears to have turned into a boon for Los Angeles. With veterans off and scattered playing for the various WBC teams, Kemp, Martin, Ethier and others got extensive playing time in Grapefruit League games.
The development has continued right into the season, and Little, despite the overblown rhetoric in New England following the disastrous Game 7 against the Yankees in the 2003 ALCS, is the perfect man to oversee it. For that, first-year general manager Ned Colletti gets credit for looking beyond the surface of the Boston debacle, bypassing the old-boys network and hiring a man with whom he previously had no working relationship.
Case in point: Ethier, a lefty who reminds Dodgers Hall of Fame broadcaster Jaime Jarrin of Mark Grace because of the way he sprays line drives to all fields, hasn't played much against left-handed pitchers -- not because he can't hit them, but mostly because Little is doing what he can to spread around the playing time.
"We're awfully proud to have this guy," Little says. "He's played all around the outfield for us, and like Kemp, we're comfortable putting him in any position. He's a good athlete who can handle the bat."
Little pulled Ethier aside a few weeks ago and emphasized to him that it was nothing personal when he wasn't in the lineup against lefties, and that it was not that the club didn't believe in him.
How did he take it?
"Like a gentleman," Little says. "Another thing these kids have in common is character. They're respectful. Yes sir, no sir.
"That only happens when the parents do a good job of raising them. It doesn't just happen. You can tell they've been taught well."
Now?
"Now it's our job to keep them grounded as best we can," Little says.
The Dodgers have an illustrious history with rookies, from their four consecutive Rookies of the Year between 1979 and 1982 -- Rick Sutcliffe, Steve Howe, Fernando Valenzuela and Steve Sax -- to their five in a row between 1992 and 1996 -- Eric Karros, Mike Piazza, Raul Mondesi, Hideo Nomo and Todd Hollandsworth.
But never have they had so many arrive at once.
Jokes Little: "We could be the first team in major league history where, when Sept. 1 comes, we recall all of our veterans off of injury rehabilitation and the disabled list for our September call-ups."
The scouting report
Forget, for a minute, the fact that Kemp is a five-tool player and the numbers and accolades and radar gun readings.
The Dodgers rookie patrol is large enough that they've got to run the clubhouse, right?
"It ain't like that," Kemp says, chuckling. "We know our role. We're just here to try and learn from all of these veterans."
OK, OK.
But where all of these Dodgers rookies are concerned, let's get right to the dope -- who's the funniest?
"The way his body looks -- Jonathan Broxton," Little says. "But I get a big kick out of all of them. Kemp, Russell Martin ... all I know is, Broxton (6-3, 288) wears the biggest pants -- and he throws harder, too. He'll probably argue that he can hit with all those other guys, too."
The quietest?
"Broxton," Martin says. "For him to talk, you've got to know him pretty well."
The smartest?
"I know Andre Ethier went to college (Arizona State) for a couple of years," Martin says. "So he tells us he's the smartest."
The cheapest?
"The veteran pitchers this spring were asking Chad Billingsley when was the last time he took his catcher out to dinner," Martin says. "He said two or three times last year (in Jacksonville). I said I can't ever remember him taking me out to dinner. Chad was like, 'C'mon Russ.' I told him I was just playing."
Baseball Etiquette 101 vs. the Highlight Reels
So there was veteran outfielder Mike Cameron at the plate Tuesday night in the seventh inning with his San Diego Padres leading 9-1, facing Dodgers lefty Odalis Perez and needing only a single to become the first Padre ever to hit for the cycle.
Perez ran the count to 3-and-0.
And then, facing the age-old question -- go for the individual glory and swing, or follow baseball's unwritten rules and refrain from doing something that might make a blowout worse -- Cameron looked at the next pitch for ball four.
And so, after 5,933 games and 201,114 at-bats in franchise history, the Padres still have never had a player hit for the cycle (or pitch a no-hitter, but that's another subject for another day).
The Florida Marlins (2,100 games) and Tampa Bay (1,358 games) are the only other of the 30 major league clubs who have never had a player hit for the cycle.
Perhaps it's something about warm-weather locales that discourages the achievement. Maybe hitters need more grit and grime, or the occasional bitter cold day, to do it.
Anyway, at least Cameron emerged in one piece.
His philosophy: "You can't swing 3-and-0 when you're up by eight runs or whatever. It's a good way to get yourself hurt the next day."
Little said he wouldn't have had a problem with it if Cameron did opt to swing on 3-and-0.
"The cycle was big news for everyone," Little says. "The crowd was on its feet.
"I thought he should have hit the 2-and-0 pitch. It was close enough. After that, he's a professional. He's trying to play the game the right way."
Had he accomplished the cycle, the veteran outfielder would have made more history than simply becoming the first Padre to do so.
In 2002, when he was with Seattle, Cameron hit four home runs in a game against the Chicago White Sox. Only three players in baseball history have hit four homers in a game and hit for the cycle: Chuck Klein, Lou Gehrig and Gil Hodges.
A Cardinals home companion
It isn't September yet, but with Albert Pujols shelved until roughly the All-Star break, the season could turn for Cincinnati and Houston right now.
The Reds and Astros have an opening -- the Cardinals have lost 10 of their past 17 (they're 4-5 since Pujols was disabled) and clearly are not the same team in the absence of the 2005 NL MVP -- and the results have been mixed.
Since Pujols left a game against the Cubs on June 3 with an oblique strain, Cincinnati has gone 6-5 and Houston has gone 7-3.
The Reds won five consecutive games to start Pujols' stint on the disabled list, immediately climbing into a neck-and-neck race with St. Louis for the NL Central lead.
But Jerry Narron's club then lost five in a row, a streak that finally ended Wednesday. The Reds remain an unbalanced club that can score at will on some nights but is woefully short on pitching. General manager Wayne Krivsky is doing what he can to add depth, most recently signing veteran Joe Mays to help in the bullpen after the right-hander became part of the problem, rather than part of the solution, in Kansas City (0-4, 10.27 ERA).
Recalled from Triple-A Louisville on June 6, Mays through midweek had retired all nine batters he had faced in two appearances for the Reds.
In a very brief time, the Reds have seen flashes of the heavy sinker that helped propel Mays to a 17-13 record in Minnesota in 2001, and his velocity has been up.
Houston, meanwhile, is rolling out the red carpet in preparation for the return next week of Roger Clemens. He will join the Astros rotation Thursday against Minnesota following one more minor league tuneup Friday night and that, combined with a couple of other factors, could make the Astros a force again in the division race.
Roy Oswalt was sharp in his first start since May 29. And Andy Pettitte has been very good in each of his past two outings. Thanks in no small part to the back-to-back efforts of Pettitte and Oswalt on Tuesday and Wednesday, the Astros now have won three consecutive games and have pulled to within five games of the first-place Cardinals.
The Reds and Astros, however, get no break with the return of interleague play. St. Louis in two weeks plays host to its in-state rival, the lowly Kansas City Royals, for the final three games of the six they play.
Cincinnati, meanwhile, gets Cleveland, and the Astros might have the worst draw of the three, having to play Texas.
Heaven help them
Expected to contend for another division title this summer, the Los Angeles Angels instead have spent most of the past week -- and more time than expected over the past month -- in the AL West basement.
They knew going into the season that they might need another bat or two, and that weakness is being revealed on a daily basis. The Angels rank 13th in the AL in slugging percentage, 12th in on-base percentage and homers and 10th in runs scored.
But while manager Mike Scioscia acknowledges those faults, what really burns him is his team's uncharacteristically poor defense.
Not only do the Angels rank last in the AL with a .979 fielding percentage, they had surrendered 44 unearned runs through midweek -- most in the majors. Next is Atlanta with 35, followed by the Yankees (34) and Kansas City (32).
"The thing that's probably surprised me the most is our team defense and the amount of unearned runs we've given up," Scioscia says. "It's cost us ballgames."
Batting around
Oakland lefty/guitarist Barry Zito lists his current five favorite CDs:
1. Wes Montgomery, The Ultimate Wes Montgomery. "He was very influential with the jazz guitar and the progress of the instrument."
2. Joe Pass, Joe Pass Live in Hamburg. "He was a jazz guy, too. This guy basically made the guitar a solo instrumental instrument."
3. Diana Krall, Live in Paris. "One of the cleanest front to back albums I've heard. Great musician. All standards."
4. Paul Simon, There Goes Rhymin' Simon. "I just think that's one of his coolest albums. It's got a really jazzy flavor. It's indicative of his great songwriting skills."
5. Fiona Apple, Extraordinary Machine. "She's one of my favorite songwriter/musicians. This album took seven or eight years, but it was worth the wait."