Injuries, especially to a pitching staff, make teams scramble to plug the holes. The Red Sox, four games in back of the Rays when the evening started and licking many wounds in their starting rotation, are not immune to this fact. So it was that the wonderfully-named Charlie Zink found his way atop the hill in Fenway for his first major league start tonight against the Texas Rangers. It was a performance he won’t soon forget.

Zink toiled in the minors for six years after being signed as an undrafted minor leaguer in 2002. The 28-year old knuckleballer looked good this year going 13 - 4 with a 2.89 ERA for the Sox Triple-A affiliate in Pawtucket, RI. The kid came recommended by none other than Sox great Luis Tiant so on Monday the Red Sox, having put knuckleballer Tim Wakefiled on the DL, ignored Zink’s pedigree (did I mention he graduated from the baseball powerhouse Savannah College of Art and Design?) and plopped him in the midst of a pennant race. But how bad could it be; the kid already had his own Wiki page.

The game began in a way which, if it were written for Hollywood, would have been laughable: the Sox posted 10 runs in the first inning including not one, but two, three-run homers by David Ortiz. The Sox offensive barrage offered up a new definition of the term “breathing room” for the uninitiated Mr. Zink. Now, it was up to him.

Having been untouched in the first Zink got rattled a bit in the second, giving up two runs but — given the pad — it was forgettable. You could almost hear Ortiz in the dugout approaching Zink afterward: “Forgehedaboudit man.” In the third and fourth Zink was on a roll: three up and three down in both innings. The kid might have something here.

But, in the fifth, the knuckler betrayed him. The first seven batters he faced went: double, ground out, single, single, double, double, double and then, he was done. Texas scored eight that inning to tie the game and the improbable appearance of the no-longer a kid from Carmichael, CA had ended. His final line for the night: 4.1 innings, 11 hits, 8 runs (all earned), one walk and one strike out. His ERA was 16.62.

Overall, a poor outing — one which might very well be his last in the majors — but for a few innings Charlie Zink lived a dream; Fenway Park in a pennant race with a 10-run lead and 38,000 people cheering his name.

Down On Half Street: Let us now dispense forever with the tiresome: “Houston you have a problem” signs and simply note that while the cynics say that it was only a matter of time before the Nats’ bats were loosed against the likes of the lowly Astros, it was damned good to see. From where I sat, the first Belliard home run looked like it was going foul, so the explosion of fandom was all that much sweeter.

It was good to see Kentucky’s bat come to life and you have to feel good for Tim Redding, who finally notched a win after throwing his standard very good game for six innings. But while we’re focused on the bats and Timmy, let’s note that reliever Steven Shell looks like the (proverbial) real deal. Note to Jim Bowden: perhaps you should trade Shell to another team for some prospects! Oh wait, Shell is a prospect. Hey, I have an idea, let’s keep him.

Me Droogs: In an unprecedented show of friendship, the three writers of this blog met for an evening of baseball. We actually sat together during the Nats loss to the Tracy’s — an 11 inning 7-5 affair that the Nats should have won, and would have won, were it not for (in my humble opinion) a late game non-interference call by umpire Angel Hernandez. Every umpire misses a call, but Hernandez’s missed calls are famous — as are his temper tantrums. In 2001 he threw football player Steve McMichael out of Wrigley Field after McMichael (who sang “Take Me Out to the Ballgame), had the temerity of questioning his competence. In another incident, Hernandez threw Dodger first base coach Mariano Duncan’s hat into the stands after Duncan threw it to the ground in arguing a call.

No kidding.

In any event, it was great to see the Droogs who, in the midst of the Thursday night loss, received news that Ryan Langerhans was being called up from Columbus and would soon be rejoining the club. We were thrilled. 

Buyer’s Remorse: The first assessment is in on who got the better of the Rich Harden to Chicago for Sean Gallagher, Matt Murton, Eric Patterson and Double-A catcher Josh Donaldson trade– and the nod goes to Billy Beane and the A’s. The common notion is that Gallagher was the key to the trade for Oakland, with early reports suggesting that outfielder Matt Murton would head to Sacramento, Oakland’s triple-A affiliate. But Murton has always been underestimated and it’s no secret that Lou Piniella never really took to him. So when Murton arrived in Oakland, they told him he would start in left field. A very smart decision. I always thought Murton would look good in a Nats uniform: he has a career .294 batting average, a .362 OBP and .448 slugging.

Yesterday, both Gallagher and Murton shined in the Connie Mack’s 9-2 drubbing of the Angels and over at Thunder Matt’s Saloon (named for the now-departed), fans of the Baby Bears were suffering buyer’s remorse. They weren’t the only ones: the Trib’s Fred Mitchell noted that 44 years ago the Cubs made a transaction that sent future Hall of Famer Lou Brock to St. Louis – a trade against which ”all other major Cubs transactions are measured.”  And just who did the Cubs get for Brock? This guy:

The Nation: Everything seems to be clicking in Boston, where Dustin Pedroia’s bat has come to life. The second sacker (and starting All Star) is hitting .311 and sending the Bosox faithful into paragons of ecstacy. There’s no question about it. He’s simply the best baseball player who ever lived. (And he will be …  until, that is, the day that the Evil Empire signs him for $140 million.) I know — let’s talk about Duston Pedroia on Baseball Tonight!

The Bosox are now the class of the AL, and godonlyknows just how good they can be when the get a little from the bullpen. Even so, I can’t help noting that “Red Sox Nation” has been notably silent on the one transaction they once trumpeted — the signing of this guy to a “no lose” minor league deal:

We here at the Dogz have recently learned that Bartolo is either on the DL or that he is the unknown in that song about “the man who never returned.” My bet? He is lost forever ‘neath the streets of Boston.

The Belinski’s breeze into town and they’re probably the best team in baseball right now: better than than slugs (who just swept three from the Pale Hose, but got schooled by the Rays), better than the Bosox (who replayed the ‘67 Series with the Redbirds and did just alright), and certainly better than the D-backs, Marlins or A’s. The only other team that might come close are the Phillies (a team to be feared, in my estimation), but the Angels took them in three at Citizen’s Bank Park, 7-1, 6-2 and 3-2. The scores make it look closer than it really was. The Philadelphia press says the Phils are “skidding” — but that’s not true: the Belinskis are a buzz-saw.  

This is the franchise the Nats want to become: profitable, popular (they rank second in the AL in attendance!), successful — and winners. It wasn’t easy. After years of being up-and-down, the Halos set into a tradition of signing players developed by others: Reggie Jackson, Rod Carew and Don Sutton (to name just three). They were all great players to be sure, but not rooted in an Angel’s tradition. Because there wasn’t one. The result was that the Halos came close — but never quite got there. Sure they were good some years, even really good. But those good years were usually followed by a collapse. Or by just plain bad luck. 

Every team has their year of tragedy, with Bucky Dent homers and black cats. The Angels had theirs in 1986, when ace closer Donnie Moore came in in the ninth inning to close-out the Red Sox in the deciding play-off game. The Belinski’s were up three games to one. And they were one strike away from a World Series appearance against the New York Mets. With two out and two on in the ninth inning, Bosox Centerfielder Dave Henderson stroked one into the centerfield seats in Anaheim Stadium to give the Bosox a 6 to 5 lead. While the Angels later tied the game, a shocked and unsteady Donnie Moore gave up the winning run in the 11th. The series went back to Boston and the Red Sox (and Billy Buckner) went on to meet their date-with-destiny against the Mets.

Al Michaels made the call: “The pitch, deep to left, and Downing goes back. And it’s gone. Unbelievable. You’re looking at one for the ages here. Astonishing. Anaheim Stadium was one strike away from turning into Fantasyland. And now the Red Sox lead 6-5. The Red Sox get four runs in the ninth on a pair of homers by Don Baylor and Dave Henderson.”

The up-and-down history of the Angels changed in 1997, when they were bought by Disney. The mouses renovated Angel’s Stadium and infused the franchise with some badly needed cash. The Halos won it all in 2002, five years after being bought by Disney, four years after Angels Stadium was renovated and renamed, and three years after the corporate people running the franchise hired Mike Scioscia — the best move they ever made. 

But the biggest difference was that the Angels abandoned their bad habit of signing free agents developed by others and started plugging money into their own farm system — a tradition that has continued under new owner Arte Moreno, who bought the franchise in 2005. The result is that they now have the best starting five in baseball, three of whom are home grown: John Lackey (drafted second in 1999), Ervin Santana (signed as a free agent in 2000), and Joe Saunders (a 1st round pick in 2002). The Halos gave up a good shortstop to get Jon Garland, but the trade has been a draw — at worst. Francisco Rodriguez, meanwhile, owns a 1.80 ERA and has nine saves. Not bad. Anderson, Matthews, Guerrero, and Hunter man the outfield and DH and they’re all boppers. Guerrero has lost a step (it is said), and I can understand why people might be upset: over the last ten games he’s only hitting .410.

The Nats are due to face Lackey, Garland and Santana. Ugh.

Say Hey. A Read Writes: “Mark, you’re an idiot. You had a post arguing about whether Ted Williams or Stan Musial was the second-best player in baseball. What the hell is wrong with you? Haven’t you ever heard of Willie Mays? You have lost all credibility with me. No one can ever take you or your blog seriously again.”

Okay, well … yeah, you have a point. You have a really good point. And it’s not like I think you’re wrong. Willie Mays was the second best player who ever played the game. I saw him play and he was breathtaking. There is no question about that. And he is listed second on everyone’s list, right behind The Babe. But you have to remember my blind spot. He played for the Giants. I mean … the Giants. As Carl Furillo used to say: “We couldn’t even stand the sight of their uniforms.”

When a hitter is going good, they say he’s “seeing the ball well” — and they say the opposite when he’s not. Thusly: Don Sutton has been saying lately that Austin Kearns is just “not seeing the ball well,” the ostensible reason for his .194 average, two home runs and 11 runs batted in. “Seeing the ball well” is a slippery term, it seems to me, but it beats the hell out of any other explanation: that a hitter is “not in his groove” or that (for some reason) he’s jinxed — “they’re just not falling in.”

Kearns had two solid hits Thursday night against the Bucs, nominal evidence that he is finally hitting his way out of his latest “funk” (another one of those slippery terms), one of them a single in the eighth that scored the game-winning run. You could see the relief in Kearns’ face when he jogged out to right for the top of the ninth. But to say that Kearns is “not seeing the ball well” is a bit of an understatement: true only if you can claim he hasn’t seen the ball well since he arrived from Cincinnati in July of 2006.Back then, some in the Nats’ front office hailed Kearns as the second coming of Vlad Guerrero, who slipped away from the Expos, back in 2003. Guerrero was then (and still may be) the best hitter in baseball (well, if you don’t count this guy). But if Kearns was ever going to be Guerrero then, it seemed to me, it was highly unlikely that the Reds would part with him, no matter how desperate they were for pitching. For us Nats fans, it would be just fine if “country” (there is a growing coterie of Kearns partisans out in right field who call him this) would regularly hit .289 with 25 or so home runs — rather than struggling to breach the Mendoza line. By the way: Vlad “sees the ball well.”

The closest I ever came to really understanding what people mean when they say that a player “sees the ball well” came in the middle of the 1982 season. The summer of 1982 was fascinating. There was a good race in the American League, with the then-California Angels being led by third baseman Doug DeCinces, their newest acquisition. DeCinces had come over during the winter in a trade with Baltimore for Dan “Disco Dan” Ford — one of the greatest trades in Angels’ history. The Halos had a murderer’s row of hitters: Boone, Carew, Grich, Lynn, Jackson and Baylor. DeCinces was the throw-in, the on-base guy from Baltimore with the okay-glove who had never quite lived up to the billing he had received after being drafted in the third round of the 1970 draft. He was the highly touted replacement for the legendary Brooks Robinson.

Of course, DeCinces could never really replace Robinson and while the Baltimore fans understood that, Baltimore’s announcers were forever mentioning that DeCinces’ glove could never equal Robinson’s. “Robinson would have had that one,” they would say. And so DeCinces was shipped west. (The guy who replaced DeCinces was an anonymous character from Havre de Grace, Maryland by the name of Cal Ripken.) Anyway …. for a time in the summer of 1982, long about mid-July to mid-August if I recall, Doug DeCinces suddenly became the best hitter in baseball. People noticed. I remember tuning in to the Game of the Week just to see him, and checking the papers every day to see what he had done. Other players talked about what he was doing in hushed tones and the likes of Baylor and Jackson and Carew would stand and watch him during batting practice. He hit fricking everything. Even Reggie was in awe. 

For a time there wasn’t anything DeCinces couldn’t hit, and a player who had wracked up a fairly average home run total of 4, 11, 11, 19, 28, 16, 16 and 13 home runs over the course of his eight-year career was suddenly putting them out with incredible regularity. He hit thirty that year, most of them in the hottest weeks of California’s deep summer. I remember someone (Vin Scully I think) interviewed him after one of his more prodigious shots in Anaheim. What was his secret? And DeCinces shrugged: he said he was just seeing the ball well. And Scully asked what that meant. And DeCinces answer was priceless: “When it comes up there,” he said, “it looks like a watermelon.”

But nothing lasts forever. By September, DeCinces had cooled off, Milwaukee triumphed in the playoffs (California was the better team), and St. Louis beat the Brewers in seven games in one of the most exciting World Series ever played. DeCinces played for four more years before heading to Japan and then was out of baseball. But for a time, in the summer of 1982, Doug DeCinces “saw the ball” better than any baseball player at the time. We might wish the same for Austin Kearns.

Pale Hose’d: The White Sox have stuck Josh Fields at Triple-A — and he’s playing like a major leaguer. I remember when Joe Crede went down with an injury last year I thought “oh, oh,” and then Fields knocked the hell out of the ball. Okay, so he didn’t knock the hell out of the ball, but he proved he belonged in the majors. So when Crede came back this year, what did the Pale Hose do? … they demoted Fields. He’s at Charlotte, where he’s hitting .292 with three home runs. Listen, if the White Sox don’t want him …

The Very Junior Circuit: If you sit here in the National League on the East Coast you focus on … well, you focus on the National League on the East Coast. For us, a team like the Texas Rangers hardly seems to exist. So in reading through the Hardball Times this week I learned that the Rangers have the fourth best minor league system in baseball. I believe it, but so … ? This team is lost … maybe Nolan, the new Ranger president (who, presumably, knows something about this game), can help.

GnatsNation: Tyler Clippard and Collin Balester continue to tear up Triple-A, while Mat and Sean continue to get torn up in the majors … Paul LoDuca is still out, but it seems not to have made a difference. Wil Nieves’ walk-off home run on Friday night sailed into the bullpen, giving him one more homer than the former Met … So now, after the Nat’s win, a sweep is out of the question … I hate to say it, but the one-time great hope for the Cubs in centerfield might be done (see below). Dubois is hitting .174 at Columbus; even Langerhans is doing better. Oleanders and Morning Glories has a good dit in on the Mets — which I missed and Just A Nat’s Fan has a good piece (”We All Scream for Ice Cream”) on what it’s like to cheer for the Anacostia Boys when your heart is still on the North Side. I hear ya …

When I was a kid I spent an inordinate amount of time each Spring assessing the relative worth of each team and its players and making predictions for the coming summer. It was easier then: there were only eight teams in each league — and only one league really mattered. Even so, my predictions were uncannily the same, year after year. This team always finished first. Now that I’m older (and here, by the way, is what I look like) …

… anyway, now that I’m older I’m more mature in my picks. That is to say, no matter what, I always pick these guys last. Why? Because after I assess VORP values and OBPs, and walks per inning, I come down to the same thing: I hate ‘em. And I mean, I really hate em. But it’s a mature hate: if it weren’t for this showboat I’d probably think the Arizona Assholes (and so, they will always be) are just alright.

Which is to say (as I told me droogs last week when we had our first organizational meeting — er, well, as I forgot to tell them), we should all take some time to make our predictions and then (because it’s really fun) see how we do at the end of the year. But we’ve decided to add a wrinkle. This year in addition to me and me droogs making predictions, we’re going to add another wholly fictional picker (we’ll call him Ernie, after this guy) who will make predictions at random — from a hat. And we’ll see who’s better: the three of us brilliant analysts, or Joe Shit the Ragman.

So I’ll start with the junior circuit, because it’s the junior circuit: it’s not really baseball over there (they have the DH), one of its franchises is call the Texas Rangers (I mean, who really gives a damn) and it doesn’t have your Washington Nationals as one of its premier teams. Now, you can follow along at home and make your own predictions, and because we have a comment box here, you can write in to tell me just how full of beans I am. Oh, and in case you think there’s no accountability here, you should know that there’s a column beside each team that gives the reason “why” the prediction was made as is — ooooohhhhhh.

So, as a bow to Igor hisself, here’s my annual Rite of Spring, for the American League:

American League West

American League Central

American League East

My sage comments?

This is pretty simple: the premier league in baseball is no more. After Boston, the Angels, Indians and Tigers, the rest of the league is either in a free-fall (like the White Sox) rebuilding (like the Royals), or still two pitchers away from contending (like Tampa Bay). The Mariners may squeeze into the top tier, but not by much — and they’re an injury (to this guy) from last place. That said, the Cleveland Indians are still the class of the league, if they can get over their PTSD from last year’s playoff collapse to the Red Sox. I just don’t see how anyone gets pass “C.C.” and Carmona — and then there’s Westbrook and a strong bullpen. I know, I know: Manny and Dave and Jacoby and that unbelievable line-up. Yeah, you’re right. You’re absolutely right. The Red Sox are a fricking hitting machine. But they’d better be, because their rotation is a mess. It’s Beckett and Dice-K and a prayer — and Beckett’s not healthy. And even with Dice-K it’s a prayer.

So, knowing this — why didn’t the Indians improve over the winter. Here’s my answer: they didn’t need to. If it weren’t for Vlad, the best player in the junior circuit might be Grady Sizemore, who could hit 40 home runs, easy. And Travis Hafner is no Jacoby Ellsbury: he’s better. A lot better. Hell, Travis hit 24 dingers last year and everyone was disappointed in his “off year.” Yeah? Trade him to the Nats. We’ll give ya Ryan Langerhans and a player to be named.

What about the Tigers? Well, what about them? Dontrelle can’t hit the strike zone, Ordonez has seen his best years, Bonderman is jittery, and Leland is a walk-with-the-bases-loaded away from a stroke. I love Polanco, the great untold story of the team, but he’s not a Jimmy Rollins and once you get past him and Granderson and a 280 pound (headed to about 340) very rich Miguel Cabrera you have a second place team. Even with Verlander. Hmmm. Still (granted) who wouldn’t want to have a second place team with the likes of these guys? As for the Yanks: these are not your Granddaddy’s Yanks, hell they’re not even your daddy’s Yanks. So that’s it: Vlad is the MVP, Gil Meche wins the Cy Young, and this time the Indians go to the Series — after sweeping the Red Sox.