The Weekend Take

By TheNaturalMevs on April 26, 2010

Each Monday we’ll provide you with some things we saw or thought of over the weekend around the game of baseball. For daily and nightly commentary around the big leagues, follow Diamond Hoggers on twitter.

-Did anyone see Jose Molina throw out four runners yesterday in Tampa Bay? He got Carl Crawford twice and B.J. Upton once. Absolutely on the money on every throw. That is big league right there. He was grinning, that’s how locked in he wa

-You have to feel for Dusty Baker when you read columns like this one by Paul Daugherty. Look, the roster isn’t overly stocked with talent. This is probably going to be Dusty’s last year managing if things continue on the same path. He clearly loves his boys, and they like him. But it’s aside from the point. Sometimes, there’s just not enough of a fit to keep a marriage going. That might be the case here although I’m certainly hoping for the unexpected and the Reds to stay within striking distance as long as possible. Unfortunately, if the run differential (currently -29) within a month from now they’ll be a lot more then 3 games under .500 and 3 1/2 back in the central. They don’t play smart and attentive baseball, and Drew Stubbs this weekend lost my vote to stay in Cincinnati. He needs more time in AAA until he can behave like a big leaguer out there.

-The Braves aren’t hitting (shut out last night again in 5 innings on ESPN) and the big bat available at the deadline is going to be Adrian Gonzalez. Is there a fit? If Gonzalez continues to hit and the Padres continue to win, this will only be chatter and never come to fruition. He’s homered in four straight games and the Padres have won 8 of 9 ballgames. They’ll drop off, they have to. They don’t have the firepower to remain in a race. But AD Gonzalez is a monster offensively whether he plays half his games in Petco or not.

-How about Mike Pelfrey? He threw five more scoreless innings last night to run his streak of scoreless innings pitched to 24. Pelfrey didn’t have his best stuff and it wasn’t the best of conditions to be playing ball in, but he got the best of phenom Jason Heyward twice with a couple of runners on and generally danced out of trouble all night long. Everything seems to be falling into place for the former 1st round draft pick, and as we tweeted over the weekend we see him as a Mets All-Star this year. He has arrived, even if he’s still only owned in about half of fantasy leagues at the time of this post.

-The Washington Nationals aren’t bad at all. They’re probably a perennial third place team for now and the forseeable future, but guys like Pudge Rodriguez and Matt Capps have been pleasant surprises for them. Yesterday they beat the Dodgers 1-0 on the strength of an Adam Dunn RBI groundout. Dunn also found his stroke earlier in the weekend when he clubbed a pair of homers in the same game.

-I’ll end it with a quote from Jay Bruce in a Baseball Prospectus post. “I really believe we have the talent to be in the race this year,” says right fielder Jay Bruce. “The biggest thing with our team is that we don’t have a lot of guys who have won before. The few veteran guys who have won are doing their best to teach us, but it’s hard to know how to win until you’ve done it. That’s what we’re struggling with right now. We’re trying to figure it out.” Draw your own conclusions.