Floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee, not a bad way to go through life….
1. Mariners Paddle Along with Healthy Cano
Robinson Cano, or, as Derek Jeter always teased him, Robinson Canoe, always did have two things: a great smile and a beautiful swing.
Except, uh, last year, when both disappeared. And Canoe, er, Cano, was left up a creek without a paddle.
And so, too, were the Seattle Mariners.
“He makes a difference,” says Seattle slugger Nelson Cruz, who knows.
Though the Mariners were swept in Texas over the weekend to drop three games back in the AL West and are going through a tough time right now with ace Felix Hernandez on the disabled list, Seattle nevertheless looks like it has staying power in the division this year.
And that’s because Cano again is able to turn on inside fastballs, which helps the Mariners to turn on their division rivals. Before going 0-for-4 Monday, he had reached base in 34 consecutive games. He also ranked second in the majors (behind Boston’s David Ortiz) with 48 RBI.
“Man, it feels good,” Cano says. “It feels really, really good.”
This time last summer, Cano had just been diagnosed with strained abdominal muscles. He kept it quiet, even though the injury stripped him of much of his power because he was all upper body in the batter’s box. He had to cheat on pitches: start his swing early when he guessed fastball, because no way was his bat quick enough to get around on even mediocre fastballs.
As it turned out, he had a double hernia. He headed straight for surgery when the season ended.
He doesn’t remember it happening on one play in particular.
He just woke up one morning and there was pain.
“It’s a big difference now,” says Cano, who is back to elite form with 16 homers, 48 RBI and a slash line of .284/.343/.560. “Last year, I had to figure out how to play with it.
“Now, I can look at each pitch” and, if it is a fat one, he can let it rip with the bat.
So much for the whispers that his skills had deteriorated, that he no longer was close to the same player he was with the Yankees.
“People always talk,” Cano says. “People are always going to talk. You have to not pay attention. I’m human, I’m not going to be perfect all the time.
“Coming from New York, I definitely heard all kinds of stuff there, and it was like, whatever. I see it happen with a lot of players. I see A-Rod getting booed.”
Mariners hitting coach, and legendary designated hitter Edgar Martinez, says Cano’s health is the biggest difference this summer.
“It’s tough to play like that,” Martinez says. “He played through it for a long time last year. That can be pretty hard.
“This game demands that you move and run.”
Martinez continues to work extensively with Cano early in the afternoons, before batting practice, particularly with a batting tee. Cano’s go-to drill is swinging through the ball on the tee with one hand, primarily his bottom (right) hand, and drilling the baseball to the middle of the field.
That Cano now can push off of his back leg, using it to help power his swing, is no small thing, either. Last year, the abdominal strain/double hernia did not allow him to use his legs—especially his back leg.
As a result, he was forced to rely too much on his front hip, which kept him off balance too frequently.
The biggest difference this year?
“I’m having fun, not just because I’m healthy, but because we’re winning,” he says. “That’s why it’s a different story. The way we’re playing as a team makes it fun.”
And the biggest difference between last year and this for the Mariners?
“Oooh, I’d say everything,” Cano says. “We’ve got a lot of new players. The coaches have been real good, guys like Manny Acta (third-base coach), Casey Candaele (first-base coach), Stot (Mel Stottlemyre Jr., pitching coach) and Mike Hampton (bullpen coach).
“It started in spring training, everyone getting to know each other. We had 60 guys, and 40 new ones.”
Indeed, new general manager Jerry Dipoto kept the turnstiles spinning over the winter, taking a wrecking ball to Seattle’s roster. Most important, he rebuilt a bullpen that now ranks third among American League relief corps with a 2.89 ERA. Last year, the Mariners ranked 12th among AL bullpens with a 4.15 ERA.
Put all of that together with Cano, and the seas are wide open for the Mariners.
2. Padres Owner Channels His Inner Ray Kroc
With only Minnesota, Cincinnati and Atlanta producing worse records than his San Diego Padres in the season’s first two months, owner Ron Fowler had seen enough last week.
So in an appearance on the team’s flagship radio station, Mighty 1090, Fowler called his team “miserable failures,” noted that the club’s performance in 2016 has been “embarrassing” and even name-checked the late, former owner of the Padres, Ray Kroc.
“The performance by our team [in last Tuesday’s 16-4 loss at Seattle], I can understand how Kroc would have grabbed the microphone,” Fowler said. “It’s that frustrating.”
Kroc famously stormed into the press box in the middle of the eighth inning on Opening Day 1974, seized the public-address microphone and announced to a stunned crowd in old San Diego Stadium, “Ladies and gentleman, I suffer with you.”
He continued, eventually sputtering: “I have never seen such stupid ballplaying in my life.”
As he spoke, a streaker ran onto the field (hey, it was 1974).
The day after Fowler’s diatribe, the Padres blew a 12-2 lead over Seattle and lost, 16-13, the largest blown-lead loss in club history.
Two days later, the Padres shipped disappointing starter James Shields to the Chicago White Sox, with the Sox agreeing to pay $27 million. San Diego is responsible for roughly $31 million (Shields is owed roughly $58 million through 2018, unless he uses his opt-out clause after this season).
The Padres also, according to Bleacher Report sources, have indicated to rival teams that they would like to move Matt Kemp (owed roughly $100 million through 2019), Melvin Upton Jr. (owed roughly $27 million through 2017) and Derek Norris (arbitration-eligible again this winter), among others.
Recent events have left the Padres players shell-shocked. When B/R asked Kemp point-blank whether he wants to stay in San Diego or move on, he said he wants to play for a winner and does not want to go through a rebuilding process.
“It would be tough,” Kemp said of going through a rebuilding process. “I want to win. I’m used to winning.”
Of course, despite his 14 home runs, there is little interest in him, B/R sources say. The Padres are hoping an American League team with a need for a DH eventually turns up. Lord knows, watching Kemp’s defense deteriorate at an alarming rate over the past two seasons, the club is going to be hard-pressed to find an NL taker for him.
The good news for San Diego baseball fans is that, after the end of the John Moores era as owner and following the brief term of Jeff Moorad, both of whom left the franchise broken and battered, the new ownership group cares passionately about putting a winner on the field.
The bad news is the shortcut it tried last year backfired, and now the Friars appear to have miles to go (and many prayers to say) before fielding a winner.
Lourdes, anyone?
3. Chicago’s South-Side Addition
It’s easy to see why the White Sox moved so quickly to acquire James Shields.
Robin Ventura’s team started 23-10 this season, but then lost 18 of its next 24 games through the weekend, when the Sox acquired Shields.
To that point, the Sox had spent 47 days in first place. But now, into this week, they were tied for third, 3.5 games behind Cleveland in the AL Central.
Chris Sale is a Cy Young candidate, Jose Quintana is solid and Carlos Rodon has star potential, but Mat Latos quickly went south (that wasn’t hard to predict) and Chicago needed a boost.
How much Shields has left is the question: He has thrown 200 or more innings for nine consecutive seasons, and his ERA before getting blasted in Seattle last week was 3.06. He actually was not among San Diego’s chief problems.
One thing to watch: Shields led the NL in home runs allowed last season. And Chicago’s U.S. Cellular Field is a launching pad in the summer.
4. A Byrd in Hand Is the Finger to Some
So Marlon Byrd gets popped for performance-enhancing drugs for a second time, receiving a 162-game suspension and his own personal flaming place in steroids infamy.
Good riddance to another cheater. A couple of thoughts…
No, the fact that Byrd, Dee Gordon and a couple of others have been caught this spring does not indicate a raging steroid problem in baseball. Quite the opposite: MLB‘s drug-testing program is widely recognized as the toughest testing program among any of the major four North American professional sports. The fact that guys are getting caught shows that the system is working as intended.
Now, however, does that mean that the game is 100 percent clean? Absolutely not. Not with the millions of dollars these guys are making. Because of the money, there is so much incentive to cheat, and you will always have guys looking to take shortcuts.
The best news now is how players such as Justin Verlander, Jeremy Guthrie and others continue to blast peers who cheat. You cannot overstate the importance of the cooperation of the players union as it relates to how stringent testing is. The old, obstructionist days of a union led by Donald Fehr and Gene Orza are long gone. The late (and great) Michael Weiner led the union into the light, and now union boss Tony Clark is continuing that cause (along with many enlightened players).
Kudos to Guthrie for his reaction on Twitter in the aftermath of Byrd getting busted (the first one emotional, the second thoughtful, both necessary):
5. A Gentle Reminder
As talk about the new slide rule at second base continues this season, remember, this is how they used to play (the baserunner is Kansas City’s Hal McRae, the infielder is the Yankees’ Willie Randolph and the situation is the 1977 American League Championship Series):
6. Weekly Power Rankings
1. Muhammad Ali: The Greatest, and if you think that means just in the boxing ring, you’re wrong. He was far ahead of his time as a humanitarian and Civil Rights leader, too. “Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth,” he once said. We’ll miss you, Champ.
2. Corey Seager: Five homers against Atlanta over the weekend, and the Braves say, “Uncle.” Which, in Atlanta, translates to: “How the heck do we get good young players like that?!?!”
3. MLB Draft: Commences Thursday, and don’t the Philadelphia Phillies wish there was a clear Bryce Harper or Stephen Strasburg.
4. Cleveland Indians: In sweeping Kansas City to seize first place in the AL Central, the Indians are doing their part to try to divert attention in town from the poor Cavaliers, who so far are just so much pulled pork to the Golden State Warriors.
5. Carl Crawford: Onetime All-Star designated for assignment by the Dodgers. Hey, they don’t have time to nursemaid him along; they’re too busy spending all their time doing that with Yasiel Puig.
7. Power at Short:
8. The Red Sox Mean Business
Inconsistent starter Joe Kelly was optioned to Triple-A Pawtucket.
Inconsistent starter Clay Buchholz was dispatched to the bullpen.
The Red Sox are sending out an SOS in every direction imaginable where their rotation is concerned. It’s all hands on deck.
The way David Ortiz, Jackie Bradley Jr., Mookie Betts and others are hitting and reaching base, the Sox have the offense to win.
But outside of David Price and Steven Wright, the rotation remains a work in progress. Now in a friendly part of their schedule with a handful of off days, the Sox are going with a four-man rotation as manager John Farrell and pitching coach Carl Willis work overtime to find a solution.
As Nick Cafardo, national columnist at the Boston Globe, points out, the Sox tied the Cubs at 18-10 for the second-best record in the majors in the month of May (San Francisco was first at 21-8).
The Cubs hit .259 with 30 homers and 139 runs scored. The Red Sox hit .305 with 46 homers and 182 runs scored.
The Cubs’ team ERA in the month was 2.81. The Red Sox: 4.11.
Gives you some idea of what Boston could do with even marginally better starting pitching.
9. Clayton Kershaw Paints His Masterpiece
Yeah, just tell these guys about it, too:
9a. Rock ‘n’ Roll Lyric of the Week
Farewell, Muhammad Ali. You rocked our world….
“I was shadowboxing earlier in the day
“I figured I was ready for Cassius Clay”
— Bob Dylan, “I Shall Be Free No. 10”
Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report. Follow Scott on Twitter and talk baseball.
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