Big League Stew

C'mon people! Almost four hours and no one's coming up with Colon, Scioscia or Sid Fernandez?

OK, so I admit that using Fernandez, who spent as much time in Philadelphia as it would take to complete a tour of Independence Hall, was a little devious.

But when you're going against a formidable opponent like Meech, sometimes you gotta be sneaky.

More bellies next week, folks.

Find the original post here.

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For being locked in a battle to the death for the eyes of you, the Internet reader, we Yahooligans don't take very many shots against the ESPN.commers in a friendly (or is it?) rivalry sort of way.

So here's a chin-seeking jab just to see what it feels like: I really enjoyed Jim Caple's piece on Japanese pitching sensation Yu Darvish ... when Jeff Passan wrote it  two months ago.

(Whew! Wow! For a minute there, it felt like I was working at the Chicago Sun-Times and hurling rocks at the Tribune Tower. Exhilarating! I feel so alive!)

Elsewhere in the baseball blogosphere ...

• Let me reiterate: Jim Edmonds putting on a Cubs jersey will not make me like him any more. I've never liked him or his needless theatrics in St. Louis' center field. I never will. Plus he's so washed up that the freakin' Padres cut him. Why is Jim Hendry bringing him in again? Were things not already going well? I'm far from the only person who feels this way. [View From The Bleachers]

• I love those facts that you just can't quite believe. That Brad Ausmus has been a Major League catcher for 17 seasons is one of them. Brad Ausmus? That long? Really? [The Astros Dugout] Read More >>

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Have at it, amateur Internet copywriters. How should the caption to Yadier Molina's ejection read?

Following the jump, I take Mash's advice and crown a winner from Monday's C-a-C: Read More >>

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Using the best technology available to us today, The SlumpBot .200 identifies five players each week (this time it spits out a bonus sixth slumper) who are having a bit of trouble and then offers solutions for performance recovery. It is powered by BLS contributor Nick Friedell does its work every Tuesday.

Justin Verlander, Tigers

Data: 1-6, 6.43 ERA

Malfunction: Has lost his last three starts in a row, and six of his last seven. The right-hander has given up at least four earned runs in every one of his starts, except for his lone win on April 22nd against the Rangers, in which he gave up just 1.

Diagnosis: Verlander insists that physically, he is fine. The tall right-hander believes that his mechanics need to be fixed. "I know what I need to work on. My front side is flying (open). When that happens, everything kind of flattens out on me. I've had a tendency to do that my whole career." (Free Press)

Reboot Directions: Verlander is scheduled to take the mound tonight in Kansas City. He has owned the Royals in his career, going 6-0 against them, with a 2.65 ERA, in nine career starts. He already faced them once this season, earning a no decision, after going six innings and giving up four runs. Look for him to bounce back tonight and help the Tigers crawl out of the AL Central basement.Read More >>

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Tiger Woods redefined the way golfers should look. NFL teams want their head coaches to look more like Mike Tomlin and less like Andy Reid. Heck, even poker players believe that being in better shape will increase one's odds at the table. Yes, the sports gut is a dying breed. 

Luckily, we have baseball as one of the lone celebrants of the majesty that is a well-formed belly. Painstakingly created by irregular schedules, postgame spreads filled with temptation and lots of time just sitting on a bench, baseball bellies are a mark of distinction, a trophy for lifetime service.

Combine those stomachs with ill-fitting baseball uniforms and it makes for a great weekly quiz here on the Stew. The third edition, as always, is listed in increasing order of difficulty, so feel free to post your guesses below. While I made an effort to finally get some American Leaguers in there, the last belly is posted with no clues, as a direct challenge to last week's winner, my man Meech, who says he'd know a Philly cheesesteak basket, past or present, anywhere.

UPDATE: Click here for answers.

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In the wake of Asdrubal Cabrera's unassisted triple play last night, Nick Kapur from UmpBump asks a good question: Why have there been so many triple plays lately?

Consider the following ...

• There have been 14 unassisted triple plays in baseball's history.

• Six of them happened between 1920 and 1927.

• There were no triple plays between 1876-1909 and 1927-1968.

• Ron Hansen (who was coincidentally at Monday's game, working as a scout) turned an UA triple play for the Washington Senators in 1968, but another drought of 24 years followed.

• Since 1992, six unassisted triple play have occurred, starting wth Mickey Morandini in '92 and going through John Valentin ('94), Randy Velarde ('00), Rafael Furcal ('03), Troy Tulowitzki ('07) before ending with Cabrera's in '08. In 16 years, the total of UA triple plays almost doubled itself.

Nick has a number of theories for the increase, ranging from line-drive percentages to more teams equaling more innings and opportunities to the fact that the two triple-play packed periods also coincided with the "Lively Ball Era" (1920s) and the "Juiced Ball Era" (1990-???)

In all likelihood, it's probably a combination of all of the above and even more.

Anyone else out there have other theories for the explosion?

UPDATE: This is interesting and I really have no idea what it means (if anything), but I just noticed that since 1968, teams that turn the unassisted triple play are 2-5.

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For a battle between the third- and last-place teams in the NL East, these Nats-Mets meetings are sure getting interesting.

Earlier in the season, Willie Randolph got a bit jealous when his players showered attention toward former Mets coach Manny Acta and catcher Paul Lo Duca.

Then, last night, Mets pitcher Nelson Figueroa goes out and pitches like he's throwing underhanded and then starts the best postgame sniping of the season when ex-Met Lastings Milledge and the Nationals have the audacity to show some enthusiasm:

Nelson Figueroa

"They were cheerleading in the dugout like softball girls (right). I'm a professional like anybody else, so I take a huge offense to that. If that's what a last-place team needs to do to fire themselves up, so be it. I think they need to show a little more class and professionalism. They won tonight, but in the long run, they're still what they are ... For the manager and coaching staff to let that kind of stuff carry on, it's truly unprofessional. That's why they are who they are."

Lastings Milledge 

"I always do that. You gotta have fun out here ... and I can do it here and nobody is going to give me crap. We have fun out there and that's the way it should be."

Felipe Lopez

“If (Figueroa is) worried about the dugout, he should be worried about the catcher. We won because we got in his head.”

The debate over how much celebrating is too much celebrating will always be present as long as they keep drawing white lines toward first and third. It surfaces in discussions over Manny's home run trots,  Joba Chamberlain's fist pumps on the mound and every other time emotion is shown.

Where do you draw the line? How far is too far?

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This and every weekday a.m., let's rise and shine together with the most recent and decent major league happenings. Today's Major League Roll Call starts in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, where a match up between usually stingy aces, Seattle's Erik Bedard and Texas' Vicente Padilla, produced a knock-down, drag-out offensive brawl of the figurative sense. No buzzing the Richie Sexson tower, no throwing the Richie Sexson helmet, no milling around the field looking for someone to punch, as happened the last time these foes (who don't like each other) met. This time, it's just a good, old-fashioned AL slugfest, baby ...

AL Game of the Day: Rangers 13, Mariners 12 (10 inn.)

Lefty loosey: Inheriting a 5-0 lead before even taking the mound, Bedard blew it all by the third, like he went to Vegas and kept hitting on 19.

Sit, Richie, sit: The Sexsonator continues to be glued to the bench as he sits out a five-game suspension that means he'll miss the entire series. Too bad, with Kason Gabbard toeing the rubber against Felix Hernandez later today in a rematch of pitchers from the brawl game five days ago. This game did have some jawing — Seattle's Ryan Rowland-Smith and Ramon Vazquez barked at each other after Rowland-Smith pumped his fist after striking out Vazquez, who gets by with one last name.Read More >>

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Like many other Cubs fans, my first Internet stop this morning was cubs.com to see if the pink bat that Daryle Ward used for his two-run game-winning pinch-hit double was up for auction. While I figured I probably wouldn't have enough money to afford the final winning price, I thought it might be fun to place a bid for blogging purposes. 

As I would soon read, Ward is leaning toward keeping the bat because it has personal meaning. But even if he was parting with it, I wouldn't have found it listed on mlb.com ... just as I wouldn't have found the pink bats that Carlos Beltran, Ryan Church and Ryan Braun, among others, used to have big games on Sunday.

If you visit MLB.com right now, you'll find just seven pink bats up for bid, with the signatures ranging from Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter to Robin Roberts of 'Good Morning America.' That's all fine and well, but where are the bats that were actually used? Read More >>

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