A bad day on the job
I would hazard to guess that yesterday was the worst day in the Nationals’ Matthew LeCroy’s professional baseball career. LeCroy, starting at catcher for the Nationals against the Houston Astros, looked like he learned how to catch from the Bizarro world Tom Emanski videos. The Astros ran wild on LeCroy, stealing seven bases (SEVEN bases) in less than seven innings. Nationals’ manager Frank Robinson had to pull LeCroy in favor of emergency catcher Robert Fick after LeCroy committed his second throwing error of the game. LeCroy’s performance was so bad that talking about it literally made Frank Robinson cry during his post game interview. That’s right, Frank Robinson, the oldest of old school baseball guys, tough as nails, cried when talking about LeCroy. Now admittedly he seemed to be crying about veteran players who are willing to do anything to help the team but I mean still. Frank Robinson tried to fight Angels manager Mike Scioscia last year and yet Matthew LeCroy manages to bring the man to tears. Perhaps Robinson is the Modern Man, able to be both macho and sensitve.
To be honest, the blame here falls quite squarely on the Nationals management. There is no intelligent reason why LeCroy should be catching games at the Major League level. LeCroy is a first baseman/DH-type who maybe, maybe could be stuck behind the plate in an emergency. I mean the man is listed at 6-2, 230 lbs. Now I’ve seen LeCroy in person and I can honestly say the listed weight seems about, oh say 20 pounds to light. And not 20 pounds of muscle either. I think the term “Rollie Pollie†might have been coined with LeCroy in mind. No self-respecting team should enter any game planning on having LeCroy start at catcher. Only the Nationals seem to not understand this. Before signing with the Nats in the off-season LeCroy had spent his entire career with the Twins. In 2005 LeCroy played one, count it, one inning behind the plate. Now LeCroy did come up in the Twins system as a catcher and in fact in 2004 he played in 26 games behind the plate and had 22 starts behind the dish in 2003. 2005 is when the Twins realized that LeCroy just wasn’t cut out to be a catcher at this level. Clearly the Nats never got the memo, because for some insane reason LeCroy has already started at catcher 8 times this year. Eight starts and 12 total appearances at catcher in the Nats’ first 48 games. To be fair, LeCroy was a standup guy about the whole thing, saying about his mid-inning removal, “My daddy treated me the same way. I’d like to be better. But if I was, I’d be a lot richer”. Yes you would be Matt. This needs to stop and one can only hope yesterday’s debacle will be the last time we see Mr. LeCroy playing catcher for a long time. Honestly, I just can’t bear to see Frank Robinson cry again. Thom Boswell, obviously touched by Robinson’s tears, pens a somewhat sad in its eagerness love letter to the Nats and Robinson in today’s WaPo. Oh, the Nationals won by the way, 8-5.
Pistons even the series
Sigh. It is Eastern Conference Finals, so it’s a big sports story I guess. But as I’ve said, I just can’t get into this series. The Pistons came back after their Game 1 defeat to even the series at 1-1 heading into Game 3 in Miami. The final seconds of the game were a little exciting as the Heat threatened to tie the game but the Pistons held on as Chauncey Billups hit two clutch free throws. Final score, 92-88. On the bright side, tonight comes Suns/Mavs Game 2, 8:30 PM ET on TNT. (Link)
Last night’s National League games
Ryan Howard hit his 15th home run of the season, his MLB-leading 10th in May, to power the Phillies past the Mets 5-3. (Link)
Last night’s American League games
The Rangers rallied from a 7-0 deficit to beat the A’s 8-7. The Rangers scored their last four runs on four solo shots with the last being Phil Nevin’s game-winning shot in the 9th. (Link)
Josh Beckett is sick this year as he improves to 7-1 after the Red Sox beat the Devil Rays 4-1. If he avoids his annual blister attack this could be the career year everyone’s been expecting from Beckett. As a fantasy owner who has Beckett on one of his teams I certainly hope so. (Link)
Rodrigo Lopez has the right attitude. After completely stinking up the join this year Lopez headed into yesterday’s start against the Mariners thinking “Now, it was like, what’s the worst that’s going to happen?â€. Ah the power of positive thinking. Lopez pitched his best game of the year by far, allowing only two hits in 7 1/3 innings of shutout ball as the Orioles won 2-0. (Link)
If Bud Selig offered the Royals the option of not playing their remaining games and instead declaring that they would agree to “lose†every remaining series as long as the Royals could get one win in each series I would think Kansas City would have to jump at the offer, right? Detroit comes back from an early 6-0 deficit to send the Royals to their 13th loss in a row. (Link)
Odds and Ends
The Phoenix Suns’ Raja Bell will miss at least Game 2 of the Suns/Mavs series with a calf injury. This is a pretty big blow for the Suns as Bell is not only their best defensive player but has also been one of their better offensive players during the playoffs. (Link)
Ian Thomsen writes on SI.com that changes in the Charlotte Bobcats front office might mean Michael Jordan is thinking of returning to the NBA (in a front office/owner role, not as a player thank god). (Link)
Its been quite a week
Well thats all for the Sports Note folks. We don’t write on the weekends. See you again Monday (maybe Tuesday given the holiday) with a recap of everything that happened over the break.
May 26th, 2006 at 7:10 pm
site blog shows you are getting hits. Good work!
May 26th, 2006 at 7:18 pm
Funny thing is, if they steal, say, four bases on LeCroy, all people would be talking about is what a crappy catcher LeCroy is. At seven steals, people started feeling sorry for him. That’s hilarious.
June 2nd, 2006 at 3:12 pm
Keep updating!! Its good