The Fault in Our Wild Cards

The way this year's National League wild card pairing came about showed a glaring flaw in the system.

First, a disclaimer. I have followed the Pirates since I was 6 years old. But my feelings about what transpired would be the same if Pittsburgh received the benefit of the system.

Going into the final day of the regular season, the Bucs trailed St. Louis by one game in the NL Central. Pittsburgh already had earned the first wild card, and the Giants had clinched the second.

Thus, the Pirates still had a mathematical chance to catch the Cardinals for the division title. It would take a lot -- Pittsburgh win at Cincinnati, St. Louis loss at last-place Arizona and another Pirates victory in a tie-breaker game.

Still, it was worth it for manager Clint Hurdle to go for it Sunday. With Gerrit Cole pitching then, instead of being saved for the wild card game, the Bucs would have a chance to get into the tiebreaker. At worst, they'd still be playing the wild card contest with a couple of starters unavailable. Best case, the Pirates would skip past the one-game playoff and have a couple of days for those starters to recover before going into the Division Series against the Dodgers.

Meanwhile -- well, not even meanwhile, but hours later -- the Giants would have nothing to play for. Whatever happened Sunday, they'd be heading to play in Pittsburgh Wednesday.

San Francisco's pitchers would be well rested. Even better rested than might be expected, because they saved battle-tested 18-game-winner Madison Bumgarner and are having him start against the Pirates.

Instead of Bumgarner, Sunday's starter was a wet-behind-the-ears rookie, I think Charlton Heston. The Pirates already had lost by that time. Manager Bruce Bochy said if the Pirates had won, Tim Lincecum would have started the regular-season finale. You can believe the skipper if you like.

If I had been in the position Bochy was in, I might have started Sophia Loren. He was rightly taking advantage of the situation was in.

My point was that he shouldn't have been put in that situation.

It makes little sense to have a team lose, on the field, the right to host the wild card game, but then have that advantage blunted if not eliminated because the opponent earning the home field has a chance at something bigger.

It's a problem, but I have a couple of solutions.

1. Mandate that every game on the last day of the season start at the same time -- let's say 4 p.m. Eastern, 1 p.m. Pacific. That way, a team in the race wouldn't receive the advantage of knowing how other games ended before they even throw a pitch. This move would eliminate the minor advantage created by the earth's rotation.

Another advantage would be that in years with tight races, MLB could take that take a lot of that TV time slot away from the NFL, and the baseball rights could be marketed to any number of networks.

2. More important: If you're going to have two wild cards in each league, Don't have them play only one game!

They could play a best-of-three series during roughly the same amount of time the division champions have off before they begin the Division Series. The regular season ended Sunday. One league isn't starting its Division Series until Thursday. That's 1-2-3 days off, during which the league could play a 1-2-3-game wild card series.

That would soften the blow of one team's having to use an ace in the regular-season game while the team proven to be slightly inferior could line up its rotation however it wants. It would no longer be one sudden-death game.

If tiebreaker games are needed, they could still be played on the Monday after the season ends. That league could push its wild card series and one Division Series back a day.

But, you say, the wild cards might have to fly coast-to-coast overnight for the third game (or second, depending on whether the series format was 1-2 or 2-1). So what? That's tough. The division champs earned their time off, and it should be more difficult for the wild cards to win.

3. The third choice would be to go back to one wild card, but we'll never see that happen.

A's keep getting better

In recent years, didn't ESPN have a lot more than Friday's two telecasts on their Fourth of July schedule?
No matter. I still got to watch parts of ESP's pair, plus two others -- Cubs-Nationals and Rangers-Mets. While out running errands, I also had a chance to hear a couple of innings of Phillies-Pirates on the car's satellite radio.
Cubs RHP Jason Hammel looked very good in beating Washington. Who knew then that by the end of the day he'd be Athletics RHP Jason Hammel?
Bigger news than victories by the Yankees over the Twins, or the Pirates over the Phillies, or the Mets over the Rangers, was Oakland's trade that picked up Hammel and RHP Jeff Samardzija for the low current price of RHP Dan Straily, prospects SS Addison Russell and OF Billy McKinney and a player to be named.
The Athletics already were the best team in the American League. By turning not enough able-bodied starters into what could be a surplus, they also have a chance to trade to improve themselves in other areas such as the outfield and middle infield.
The Cubs? Well, they'll muddle through another season. In the off-season, they'll hope their minor league prospects aren't overhyped in the way virtually all of the prospects have been in their recent history. And that at least two prospects from the Athletics organization haven't been oversold.
A couple of today's starters left their game early because of injury. Mets LHP Jonathan Niese went out in the first inning because of a back injury that is being considered minor. Pirates RHP Gerrit Cole left because of a strained latissimus muscle that could be more problematic.
Cole pitched five scoreless innings for the win over Philadelphia. That shouldn't be a surprise. I found out from the Phils' broadcast that it was the 25th time in their first 86 games that they've been held scoreless for at least the first five innings.
Another interesting tidbit from the Yankees-Twins game: Minnesota C Kurt Suzuki, a patient hitter, went more than 140 plate appearances last season without swinging at a first pitch. He apparently learned that patience while with the Athletics.

Twins on the rise?

Some observations from Thursday's games.
I watched the Twins and Rangers, a 5-4 Texas victory, and came away impressed with Minnesota's improvement.
The Twinkies have had some players on a shuttle between the Twin Cities and Triple-A Rochester, and it's seeming less likely that OF Oswaldo Arcia, SS Eduardo Escobar and SS/OF Danny Santana will need their return ticket back East.
Arcia swings a mean bat. He hit a career-high 24 homers last season between the Twins and Red Wings, but his offensive strength seems to be more in driving balls to the right-center field gap. He showed nascent power in his last full minor league season in 2012 by belting 26 doubles. Rangers outfielders seemed to spend a lot of time during the series in Minnesota running back toward the scoreboard in center for balls Arcia hit.
Escobar has slumped a bit lately, but he seems to be continuing his personal trend of improvement his second time at a level. In those situations, his batting average has gone up from the .230 range to .290-.300-plus. In any event, he's a big offensive step up from Pedro Florimon, but with less speed.
Santana is listed as a shortstop too, but he had a three-hit game as the center fielder in place of heralded, and disappointing, prospect Aaron Hicks. There seems likely to be a place for Santana as long as he hits.
As a team, Minnesota will need more pitching to be a serious contender.
On the Texas side, rookie RHP Nick Martinez started, and struggled. He left in the fifth inning of a 4-4 game. He has done far more for the Rangers than they would have expected from a guy they didn't even invite to major league spring training. What he showed Thursday was that he needs his curve to be effective. Against the Twins, it alternated from not breaking the way it usually has in his brief major league career to sitting in the middle of the plate so OF/DH Josh Willingham could hit it out of the park.  Martinez has some upside, just don't expect his future to be high in a major league rotation.
While I'm on the subject of pitchers, I'm going to continue my usual distaste for the DH rule. One of the arguments for it is "I don't like to watch pitchers making outs." OK, then let's get DHs for Brad Miller and Will Venable too.
I do like to watch pitchers contributing with their bat and their glove.
Martinez helped defuse a rally by fielding C Josmil Pinto's weak ground ball in front of the plate with the bases loaded, and shoveling the ball to C Robinson Chirinos for a force out. That wouldn't seem so big, except that Texas lost a game in the series when RHP Joakim Soria couldn't field a similar grounder.
Extending the DH rule to the National League would deprive some good-hitting pitchers of having a chance to help themselves with their offense. Cy Young winner LHP Clayton Kershaw would be one of those. Also, Reds RHP Mike Leake, who has the most hits of any pitcher over a 4- or 5-year span. OK, so Brewers RHP Yovani Gallardo was a pinch hitter and not the pitcher when his 10th-inning double Tuesday when his double drove in the winning run, but you get the idea.
Pirates RHP Gerrit Cole didn't have a hit Thursday, so his average dropped to .250. What he did was follow two singles by SS Clint Barmes with sacrifice bunts, setting up two run-scoring singles by electric RF Josh Harrison in a 6-3 victory over the Dodgers. Cole's second bunt was in the seventh inning, and because he can handle a bat the Pirates ace was able to stay in the game for the bottom of the inning in his team-high fifth win.