Nolan Ryan Philosophy

It's hot in Texas.  The summer weather wears on the players, as Arlington hosts Rangers games regularly over 100 degrees in the summer.  The 'cool summer nights' are only about 80 degrees, which is no breeze.  The position players get to stand around and wait for something to happen, but the pitchers exert the most energy of anyone on the field on every play.  They sweat like dogs, but can't relax because a loss of intensity and focus will result in the hitters watching meatballs in one of the best hitters park in the league.  The obsession of the 2000s in the starting pitching world was one varying statistic: pitch counts.  Pitch counts have come to develop theories for pretty much everything from injury to sophomore slumps.  Nolan Ryan, however, isn't buying into any of that.  He walked and struck out many hitters resulting in high pitch counts early in his starts, but he didn't think that he was done just because he had thrown a lot of pitches.  This concept is called, "back to the future on the mound."  Ryan didn't try to make every at-bat perfect, he just scrambled to get outs as fast as possible.  In his words, he "had to develop stamina because my intent was to pitch a lot of innings."  Mike Maddux, brother of pitching great Greg Maddux and former major league pitcher himself, endorses the idea and has implemented it the last two seasons when Ryan first made headlines with this statement.  "The ceiling is off," said Maddux. "This is a mental thing we have to overcome. We have to change the attitude of the starters to want to go deep and believe they can."  He also thinks a pitch count is not what tells a pitcher he is finished, saying instead that "the hitters will let you know that."  The Ryan theory has pitching doing well, and the dramatic turnaround can be seen in the stats.  Not pitch count stats, but ERA.  The Texas Rangers have long been notorious for a high powered long ball offense with no pitching, a problem that plagued them eternally.  The offense finally paid off earning three meaningless trips to the playoffs in the late 1990s, but they had yet to overcome their issues pitching in the 2000s.

In 2008, led by staff ace Vicente Padilla's 4.74 ERA, the Rangers finished last in baseball with a 5.37 team ERA.  Closer C.J. Wilson had a 6.02 ERA and led the team with 24 saves, while five others also recorded saves.  While Josh Hamilton had an MVP caliber season, the Rangers were unable to hold any lead given and struggled to a 79-83 finish.  In 2009, the Rangers stayed in contention most of the season only to be beaten out by the Angels.  The pitching, however, finished with an MLB rank of 18th, a big improvement over that 30th in 2008 and 24th in 2007.  In 2010, the Rangers won the division and now head to the World Series having ranked 10th in ERA.  The transformation is complete.  For the first time in franchise history they will play for it all having allowing the sixth-fewest runs in the regular season since moving to Texas 39 years ago, and the 687 runs they did allow was the fewest since 1983.  So with pitching as a strength of the Rangers, finally, watch them in this series because we are watching history in the making.

1st Half In Review

For the Chicago Cubs, the first half of the 2010 baseball season has been about as disappointing as a half for any team this season.  Coming into the season with high hopes of regaining form of spectacular play in the regular season of 2008 with new ownership and a new attitude, it became clear early on that the 2010 Cubs would struggle to score runs.  This was quite evident in the entire first half and the 7-0 shutout loss to Vicente Padilla and the Dodgers summed it up frustratingly.

After exciting runs for and in the playoffs in 2003 and 2004, the Cubs changed from being perennial cellar dwellers to a high profile team that looked to win every year no matter what.  The 2008 season was the high point for the Cubs on the field, a team that did so many things right fell to Los Angeles in the playoffs and joined past playoff futility.  The Cubs didn't perform to expectations at all in 2009, and many changes to the bullpen and the controversial signing of Milton Bradley while losing team pieces like Mark DeRosa and Jason Marquis were cited as the problems with the team.  However, as the Cubs have yet again struggled in 2010, they may go back to being baseball's 'Lovable Losers'.

Report Card:

Offense: D+
Defense: C+
Starting Pitching: A-
Bullpen: B
Coaching: B-

Overall Grade: C

The biggest struggle so far has to be scoring runs.  The Cubs have been just terrible scoring runs, ranking 13th in the NL in runs.  The Padres, yes, the Padres who play in enormous Petco Park and have Adrian Gonzalez for their only real home run threat have scored more.  The Cubs are 11th in walks, a category that was praised in 2008 when the Cubs' patience lead to a more efficient offense.  They are also 11th in OBP and BA.  They are tied for the least stolen bases in the NL with 34.  Looking up and down the roster, this is not a team made for smallball.  It is a team to get runners on and get them around using big doubles or homers.  So far, neither the runners nor the bop from the big boppers has arrived.  The defense, long a troubled category for the Cubs, is nothing special thing year except maybe the all out play of Marlon Byrd and the over/under on how many errors Starlin Castro can make in a week.  The pitching has become a real bright spot from the most unlikely places like Carlos Silva, Tom Gorzelanny, and Sean Marshall.  Lou Piniella has literally done all he can and now he just has to wait but you just have to question his ability to get through to the players.

The Cubs are stuffed with huge contracts and are severely overpaying more than a few on the roster.  From now until the Trade Deadline, look for the Cubs to try to unload at least one of these contracts whether they are in contention or not.  I think the first one to go will be Ted Lilly.  Lilly has become a fan favorite at Wrigley Field because of his old school yet effective pitching style.  And okay, his crazy adventures on the basepaths.  Ted has drawn interest from the Mets who would be able to take his salary and are looking for another arm to beef up for the stretch run.  While I don't think the Cubs will be able to get rid of all the big contracts they want to if the Cubs are bad, I wouldn't be surprised if Derrek Lee and/or Kosuke Fukudome go.  Fukudome has a ridiculous $14 million contract when a player with his stats doesn't even deserve a quarter of that.  Lee has been a fixture at first base for many years now on the North Side and had a comeback campaign in 2009 but hasn't recaptured the magic into this year, disappointing fans once again after his MVP-caliber season in 2005.

I think the Cubs will make a run.  Aramis Ramirez is back and healthy as he proved on the West Coast trip before the break.  He will be key in this run and it won't be anything crazy like the White Sox but the Cubs will play good ball on this homestand here and continue it on the road.  The starters can be relied upon for great starts and the bullpen can survive long enough not that they have everything figured out, including the playing time for impressive rookie Andrew Cashner.  The young kids that the Cubs are fielding in the minors and even the majors now like Castro and Cashner should provide reason to be excited.  Attendance at Wrigley Field has taken a surprising downturn but I think it will get higher with the continued weather of summer and a better home record by the Cubs.  With their blowout win Thursday night, I think they're headed in the right direction.

Final Prediction: 80-82