Author: lleonardbw

by Amaury Pi Gonzalez

ANAHEIM–Basically when you look at the National League West that is a weak division. You have the San Francisco Giants and the Los Angeles Dodgers. In the Central and Eastern division of the N.L. the Giants and Dodgers are stronger. There is talk that the wild card is going to come from the Central or the East in other words for the Giants to advance their going to have to win that division.

The Dodgers who have more talent and the Dodgers should win that division but the Giants are still there. One day one team is first place and the next team is taking turns with first place. This is going to be a battle that’s going to be decided head to head. When the Dodgers come to Dodgers Stadium and they go to AT&T Park it’s going to be decided that way.

The Dodgers have the best pitcher in baseball Clayton Kernshaw and Zack Grienke is having a great year. The Giants are a bit disorganized they were having trouble at second base, you don’t know what third baseman Pablo Sandoval is going to do, pitcher Tim Lincecum throws a no hitter than his next turn he blew it and he blew it in Miami on Sunday with a loss 3-2.

Lincecum can not pitch in hot weather and he even admits it and everytime he pitches in Miami he loses and he’s still human. The Giants present a little more difficult analysis than the A’s. The A’s are in the playoffs unless they suffer a collapse, the team is in first place and the Angels are only a game and half behind Oakland.

The A’s will definitely make it into the playoffs and they might win the division and then they might not. The A.L. West right now is the toughest division and the Seattle Mariners who are nine games out from Oakland. Oakland is first, Los Angeles Angels are second, Mariners are nine games out.

If the M’s were the Dodgers they would be right there and the M’s are nine games out in the A.L. West what does that tell you? The A.L. West is the toughest division in baseball and the three teams here are going to the playoffs. Whoever wins it will be second and third in the wild card.

The Angels are playing terrific ball, they really are. They have not lost two games in a row since June 15th and 16th. The Angels have played two extra inning games last Friday they went 16 innings and we were on the air for six hours and the Angels won 3-2. Saturday the Angels played 12 innings another four hour special and the Mariners who have the best pitching won 3-2.

The American League West can very well go right down to the end of the season.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the Spanish TV voice for Angels baseball and does News and Commentary for http://www.sportsradioservice.com

by Michael Duca

OAKLAND–Former Athletic Mark McGwire missed out on the 1989 A’s reunion as he was coaching the hitting of the Los Angeles Dodgers who lost 3-2 to McGwire’s other former team the St.Louis Cardinals. McGwire’s former A’s Bash Brother Jose Canseco was at the Coliseum on Friday night and said he regretted writing his books about steriods which told of McGwire and other players who were involved in steroid use. The book helped indict some of the players who were at the Congressional hearings.

Canseco has a engaging and charming personality that he might be able to get away with it and he’s like Jim Bouton the former Yankees pitcher who wrote the book Ball Four who talked about his years with the Yankees, Pilots, Braves and Astros. Canseco committed the cardinal sin he told the truth. The book was a marketing fantasy and people were paying a lot of money which is taken away from the everyday world and put into a place where they have modern day gladiators going into this sort of combat and coming out with sort of a victory.

If you go back to the curtain you’ll see that the wizard has worts and thists and if your the wizard that’s real unpopular. So I don’t know how successful Canseco is going to be at getting accepted into the fold. It took Bouton a long, long time. Jose shouldn’t regret writing the book the book told the truth, and there might have been some issues of choice or style that he could have been made in the book that he might regret but the writing of the itself was the tipping point in getting baseball to a place where it decided that it had a real problem.

A’s Josh Donalson launching some gamers: I have had the privledge of being down on the field right behind the backstop when the A’s Josh Donaldson hit his prior game winning shot back in the month of May and it was pretty majestic and your first thought was are they going to be able to rule this fair as it was about ready to go over the foul pole. Major Leauge Baseball has a system that can measure the flight of the ball and in a couple of years they will have the ability to tell how far a ball is hit and how far it took someone to get it.

This technology has the ability to measure some of these balls and Donaldson has hit some balls that have gone 100 feet high that’s just astonishing, Giants broadcaster Mike Krukow’s phrase is it’s trying to leave earth and if you could get a baseball 150 feet up in the air that is almost like being able to start a cloud burst and shows that Donaldson has the ability to hit one deep.

Giants update: The Miami Marlins have two players who must have some the longest names in baseball maybe standing next to the A’s pitcher Jeff Samrdzija, the equipment manager of the Marlins would have to put some work in stitching the names of the Marlins Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Adeiny Hechavarria who are two key players in the Marlins line up. They certainly will take up the equipment manager’s vowel supply.

Hechavarria is going to help the Marlins and he’s a good enough shortstop who is good enough to be the answer to Hanley Ramirez. The Marlins are looking for great things from Hechavarria. In the meantime great things have stopped happening for the Marlins for this series with the Giants, as Buster Posey is hiting the ball well, he awoke from his three week slumber with a grand slam on Sunday against the Diamondbacks at AT&T.

Buster’s shot ended a 2-2 deadlock that ended the first half of the season at the 90th game of the season. Posey picked up right off where he left off and had three big hits on Friday night in Miami and scored two runs and had a couple of RBIs. If Posey heats up look out. His platooning at first base is something that manager Bruce Bochy is doing to keep him rested a game or two but Posey doesn’t want to do anything else but catch.

Michael Duca does A’s and Giants commentary weekly for http://www.sportsradioservice.com

by Amaury Pi Gonzalez

OAKLAND–There is only one division in baseball with two teams playing over .600 ball. The American League West, Oakland Athletics and Los Angeles Angels. As the pre-All Star Game part of the season just ended, the Athletics lost two out of three in Seattle to the Mariners but still have the best record in baseball with 59-36.

The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, swept a four-game series against the Rangers in Texas and are in second place with 57-37 just 1 1/2 games behind the A’s, the Angels have won ten of their last 11 games and have the best record at home in baseball with 32-15 at The Big A, at Anaheim. The Seattle Mariners with 51-44 occupy third place playing .537 ball.

To put this division into perspective, the Mariners with this record could be one game difference between the first place Dodgers and the second place Giants in the other Western Division. And the Mariners are in third place eight full games behind the Athletics.The American League West could easily post three teams in the postseason, the division winner and two wild cards. The Athletics still have 10 games against the Angels; 6 at Oakland and four in Anaheim. The Athletics have six against the Mariners, three at home and three in Seattle. This triangulation could be as exciting race as any in baseball post All-Star Game.

Nobody finished the first half, hotter than the Los Angeles Angels, who lead all Major Leagues with 478 runs scored. Easy to see why, with Mike Trout hitting second with an over .300 average 22 home runs and 73 runs batted in,considered the best player in the game, a healthy Albert Pujols hitting third with 20 home runs and 63 runs batted in, and a healthy Josh Hamilton, who was hurt great part of the first half now producing at an over .300 clip at the plate.

There are few (if any team in baseball) with a more scary middle of the order lineup: Trout-Pujols-Hamilton. The Angles offense has another key element, in Gold Glove winner shorstop Erick Aybar, with 50 runs batted in, enjoying his best season to date. Mike Scioscia’s team (longest tenure manager in baseball today) also shines with a double play combination of Aybar at shortstop and Howie Kendrick at second base; one of the best. They have been together for nine years. The only longer combination of shortstop and second base today in baseball is that of the Philadelphia Phillies. Jimmy Rollins at shortstop and Chase Utley at second base have been playing for ten seasons on that team.

The Angels bullpen has healed, specially after they traded closer Ernesto Frieri to the Pittsburgh Pirates, for their closer Jason Grilli. Frieri was not doing his lob, Now Joe Smith, who began the season as the set up man to Frieri, is the closer and since July 1st has retired 26 of 27 batters in relief, walking just one and allowing no hits in 10 consecutive games. He has now 15 games saved. Jerry Dipoto the General Manager says they are still trying to improve their bullpen. If the Angels bullpen continues to be good, they could overtake the A’s and take over first place.

The Mariners still have one of the most formidable number one and two starters in baseball, with Félix(El Rey)Hernández and Hisashi Iwakuma, a solid bullpen, but their hitting is not there with the A’s or Angels. In a way the Mariners remind me a lof of the San Francisco Giants, they going to go as far as their pitching, aside from Robinson Canó, the Mariners has been sputtering the whole first half of the season, but they could be a very interesting team, specially if they pick up that right handed batter they are looking for, and still might get.

The Oakland Athletics have been the class again of this division. Yoenis Céspedes played in 85 of the 89 games in the first half, and is hitting ,.249 with 14 home runs and 56 runs batted in, while leading the world in assists from left field and runners thrown at the plate. He is under-performing. I believe Céspedes is a ,.280 to .300 hitter and should have at least 20 home runs and 65 to 70 runs batted in.

Josh Donaldson average has gone down, but still has the numbers, Derek Norris has been one of the greatest revelations on this team, Bob Melvin has been a master using his three catchers. Second base has been the achilles heel for this team, now with Alberto Callaspo out in the DL for the next two weeks, they could improve this position with a trade. Aside from that, I would not make any more changes on this team.The second half should be a barn burner in the best division in baseball.

Amaury Pi-González is the play by play voice in Spanish for the Oakland A’s on the radio, and the LA Angels/Fox Deportes voice on television in Los Angeles and does News and Commentary on http://www.sportsradioservice.com

by Michael Duca

SAN FRANCISCO–Giants starter Tim Lincecum has been there before with success and he certainly has found that strength again and since pitching his no-hitter he looks to be in Cy Young Award form again. Lincecum is in a very good stretch there is no other way to put it. He’s not walking people, he’s mixing up his pitches, he’s spotting his fastballs, he has got a wicked curve ball that breaks on the hitters.

Lincecum has got through any previous rough patch and that he’s a version of former Braves star pitcher Greg Maddox. He’s developed that level of pitching and Maddox didn’t have that in the beginning of his career and Timmy is a fastball pitcher and a power pitcher since the beginning of his career.

Strangley enough Giant starter Tim Hudson is a mini me Greg Maddox he shows up and through eight turns through the rotation Lincecum is reborn. Maybe it’s a coincidence maybe not. On Lincecum’s recent success is this a matter of the guys are playing hard behind him or is the line up getting runs for him or is it a matter of Major League hitters being bad for five straight days?

It used to be if there was one guy in the rotation it’s was always Matt Cain which led to the phrase “getting Cained” now that only Cain get’s cained the last time starter Ryan Voglesong had a run scored behind him the United States was undefeated in the World Cup. I’m serious and these things happen in a cycle and it’s true and Vogey is starving for a win and he has six wins in 27 games.

Oakland A’s update: The Seattle Mariners are now six and half games out of first place in the American Leaague West and it’s funny we talk about Seattle being six to seven and half games out and we talk about the Angels who are a game and half back as though coming right down the A’s throat. If the Giants are a game out they’d be dead in the water and they are a game out.

We’ll see where this race goes I like Seattle’s chances and they’ve been up there and I also like the agressiveness of A’s general manager Billy Beane who said, “it is easier to find position players than it is to find established solid pitchers.” You have to realize the A’s are a game in half in first place with baseball’s best record and have lost 40 percent of their starting rotation in spring training.

It is amazing that the A’s have been able to compensate for that and Beane was able to shore up the rotation. The shock was he was able to with newly acquired pitchers Jeff Samardzija and Josh Hamels to shore all of the rotation and fill up two spots. Beane might have had the foresight to see the Mariners and Angels making a move on the A’s in the standings.

The M’s and Halos have snuck up on Oakland and the M’s could cut the A’s lead over them to five games and the Angels could tie the A’s for first place. Those organizations are sharp enough to know what’s going on. The A’s have compiled the best record in baseball with a lot of timely hitting up and down the line up and with a lot of good fortune after they lost pitchers A.J.Griffin and Jarrod Parker during the season and replaced them with Drew Pomeranz who broke his hand and then there’s left hander Brad Mills who got picked up for a bargain basement deal.

Michael Duca does commentary on the A’s and Giants for http://www.sportsradioservice.com

by Amaury Pi Gonzalez

LOS ANGELES–Don Mattingly,. the manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers will have his job on the line, after the All Star Break. There is no doubt, no team in the National League West has more talent that the Los Angeles Dodgers. The San Francisco Giants collapse during the month of June (losing a 9 1/2 game lead over the Dodgers in 21 days) are up to some changes on their roster, but even before the collapse, most people inside the baseball world predicted they were the team to beat.

Many went as far as picking the Dodgers to win the 2014 World Series. I was not among those, but my pre-season predictions were the Dodgers would finish first and the Giants second in the West, with the possibility (for Giants) to make it as a wild card team. It was easy to predict, the Giants biggest two signings were a good pitcher that was injured, in Tim Hudson, and a slugger that can be extremely inconsistent in Mike Morse. I know, I know, in the Bay Area to predict the Giants anything but for first place is forbidden under the Giants world of propagandists.

If there is a case for a team missing a leadoff hitter, that would be the Giants, who without Angel Pagan have played under .500 ball. On the other hand, the Giants have not played good baseball, and to lay such a bad streak on one single player magnifies the weaknesses on this team. The Giants might have to start the second half without Angel, so in the Giants case (and although Marco Scutaro is returning) the best option for the Giants would be to trade for Phillies outfielder Ben Revere,(Philadelphia) he is fast, and could provide some needed help as a lead off for this team. Marco Scutaro is coming back, but how good would he be? Therefore, the best option for this team would be super-utility and basically second baseman Ben Zobrist from Tampa Bay. Tampa Bay is selling and it would not be cheap to get Zobrist. David Price is out of equation for the Giants. unless they are ready to break this team and rob a bank.

The Oakland Athletics (who will bring their 1989 World Championship team to Oakland for a reunion on July 19th) are already reminiscing their beating of the Giants in that historic earthquake ’89 World Series,after taking three out of four games this week against their cross bay rivals. While the Giants where going down in flames, the Dodgers were rising up and up to pass them in the standings. Yet, the Dodgers have not opened a commanding lead on the Giants. But the Giants better show some urgency here; I do not think the Dodgers are going to do in this in the second half what they did last year after bringing up Yasiel Puig, winning 42 of 50 games, but they could take over this division in a hurry if the Giants do not wake up.

The Giants payroll is tight to a bunch of star players, like catcher Buster Posey, pitcher Matt Cain, pitcher Tim Lincecum (among others) and I do not believe they are going to be making a blockbuster trade soon, before the deadline July 31, but they have to tune up this team quickly, or the engine could blow up.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the Spanish TV voice for Angels baseball and does News and Commentary each week for http://www.sportsradioservice.com