Your official The Dugout Guide to This Year in the National League East:
Luis Gonzalez is forty years old and will spend his 2008 season with the Florida Marlins, a team whose combined age does not equal forty. I think the oldest player on that team is Billy Marlin, and I think he was supposed to be "born" when he debuted. 
They say that one man's dead arm is another man's excuse to fly his family from Holland ... or something like that. The bottom line for the Marlins is that another member of their starting rotation is down, and a guy with a career 5-12 minor league record in four seasons is getting the call.So while Nolasco's arm recovers, yet another young pitcher from the Marlins gets a chance to show his stuff. Rick Vanden Hurk may not have the record, but he's got talent ... and he has family in far away places.Nolasco went 11-11 with a 4.82 ERA as a rookie for Florida last year. He said his fastball was in the mid-80s Friday, instead of his normal low 90s, and "red flags" went up. "Stuff wasn't the same," he said. "It didn't feel good. I could definitely tell there was some discomfort there."
An MRI exam Monday came back negative. "Just got to do what's safe," Nolasco said. "Just get some rest, let it heal completely and go from there."
The Marlins are dropping like flies with Nolasco and Josh Johnson out of the rotation with injuries. But the Fish must have an endless supply of young pitching talent since they felt they could afford to trade Yusmeiro Petit to Arizona for Jorge Julio. So whatever Vanden Hurk does in the majors shouldn't surprise anyone. A good outing by Vanden Hurk would not only make the Marlins happy, but it would make the trip from Holland well worth it.Vanden Hurk said his family plans to fly in from Holland to watch his big league debut, including his father, who taught him the game. The 6-foot-5 Vanden Hurk signed as a non-drafted free agent in 2002. "I'm going pretty crazy right now," the right-hander said. "Getting the call up, it means a lot. Getting the first big start, that's pretty exciting."
Can we really be at a crossroads after one week of the season? Well here we are ... Philadelphia and Florida: the corner of Slump St. and Closer Ave. Will it be the road less traveled, or the path of least resistance? Or will the Phillies and Marlins just be lost without a GPS?"It's a concern. You can't say that it's not," said third baseman Wes Helms, a newcomer. "It is only six games, but if you go 1-5 in the middle of the season, you don't look at it as much as when you are 1-5 at the beginning. We want to correct this quick. We don't want to get so far down that we have to climb and climb."As for the Marlins, their lineup is hitting their groove, and their starting pitching has been solid. But Jorge Julio is a mess. After a scoreless inning in a meaningless situation, Julio has blown a save, given up two runs in another ninth inning, and was pulled during a save situation after giving up two hits and a walk in five batters, as Lee Gardner had to come in and get his first career major league save. Julio's ERA is a healthy 16.88
Manager Fredi Gonzalez said Julio will remain the closer, although he'll likely be given Monday off. "We've got to show confidence with Julio," Gonzalez said. "He's our guy, and we need him. We've got to get him right, and I think he can do it."Is it me or do those words sound like the words of a man who is privately worried about his closer?
Dontrelle Willis likes Ryan Howard. Hey, who doesn't like Ryan Howard? But he doesn't like Ryan Howard enough to let him hit bombs into the upper tank. Willis retired Howard three times, and Howard was retired twice more by Marlins relievers in an 8-5 Marlins victory."That guy's dangerous," Willis said. "All he needs is that one, and here it comes. He's a friend of mine, and I'm rooting for him, but not against us, because he's a guy who can single-handedly carry a team into the postseason. I just pray he keeps struggling against us."Howard is hitting .158 on the season, and after only five games, the "slump" word is starting to attach itself to last season's N.L. MVP.
Howard, the NL Most Valuable Player in 2006, has three singles this season and no extra-base hits. He drove in 149 runs to lead the league last year. "He's probably pressing a little bit and feels he has to live up to something," Marlins first baseman Mike Jacobs said. "I hope he's out of here before he starts turning it on."As for Willis, he had nine strikeouts in his six innings of work, and Josh Willingham was a single away from the cycle along with four RBI's. The only noise by the Phillies came on Jimmy Rollins' inside the park HR, and two runs in the ninth off of Marlins closer Jorge Julio before Howard made the final out.
The Florida Marlins drew their largest crowd in two seasons on Friday night for their '07 home opener (perhaps in large part due to the Marlins cheerleader outfits ... an improvement from three years ago when they wore Dolphins cheerleader outfits with a small Marlin patch sewn on), but disappointed the crowd of 40,397 in a listless 8-2 loss to the formerly struggling Philadelphia Phillies, who now have their first win of the season."This will probably be the largest crowd we have all year," second baseman Dan Uggla said. "We wanted to play better for them."What would have constituted playing better? Perhaps Miguel Olivo (the catcher) not running through a stop sign and going for an inside-the-park home run in the second inning would have helped. Or perhaps better defense ... errors by Miguel Cabrera and Mike Jacobs led to four unearned Phillies runs (Sergio Mitre deserved a better fate). Hanley Ramirez had a home run for Florida, but also left six men on base.
"I knew we were going to win sooner or later," Moyer said.Pat Burrell benefitted most from getting out of Philly, which makes sense because he's the one that gets booed the loudest. Burrell had four RBI's including a three run homer off Ricky Nolasco.
This month, baseball celebrates the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the major league color barrier. Many players will don the number 42 in honor of Robinson, including a whole team. For Dontrelle Willis, there are other ways to honor the legend of Robinson that would probably be higher on his list, and more beneficial.Willis would be a perfect candidate to have a high profile job in baseball. His own charisma has ensured him that people will eventually forget about events like his drunken driving adventure back in February.When asked how the sport can increase its presence among African-Americans, Willis quickly said: "Promote more African-Americans in baseball. "Beat it in people's heads. I think that's what our world is kind of built around. You could do more promoting the players in the game. They have guys like Minnesota's Torii Hunter -- guys who have been here and been doing it for a long time, and have been successful. And they have great charisma."
Don't expect the Nationals to lose 125 games if they get 16 more cracks at Jorge Julio (shown here as a Met after getting bombed by the Nationals in the tenth inning one year ago tomorrow ... there's some symmetry for you)."It was kind of fun to see the players go out there. You know, we just snapped a two-game losing streak, and they're celebrating like we clinched the (NL) East. That tells me a lot about their character," said Acta, who received bottles of bubbly from the Nationals and from his former employer, New York Mets general manager Omar Minaya.If Julio was a drinking man, he might be having something a little harder right now. But then again, he's not worried.
"Sometimes, when you throw good pitches, and they get a base hit from a blooper or something, you say, 'Oh, wow. Bad luck today.' You go in the next day, ready to go," Julio said.Here's my theory on closers: They blow leads. There's no use hoping otherwise, and there's no way around it. The best you can hope for from a closer is that they have the intestinal fortitude to get through it, face the music, and forget about it the next day (his quote tells me that he can at least make it past the first two steps ... for now). But I can't help but think that there isn't a Marlins fan alive that isn't at least a little worried about Jorge Julio. The Marlins gave up a good prospect in Yusmeiro Petit to get him because they didn't trust Henry Owens or Matt Lindstrom. If one blown save turns into blown saves at the rate of Brad Lidge, they've given up a good prospect for nothing. As they say in the business, stay tuned.
It's no secret that the Marlins are a little tight with their cash. And it's also no secret that Miguel Cabrera has gotten off to quite a start this season and he's a rising, young star. He's averaged 31 home runs, 114 RBIs and batted .318 in his first three full seasons. So it begs the question, what happens after this season? It'll be interesting to see if the cash-poor Marlins will pay Cabrera close to $12 million next year, which is what he could make in arbitration next year. It might be especially tough if there's no new stadium deal in South Florida by then.Yes, it will be interesting indeed. I mean, they've already offered him top billing for a first-year-eligible arbitration player, so what's stopping them from dolling out more for him after this season assuming he keeps up at his current pace? Well, a lack of funds could be one deterrent.Cabrera started his year off right by beating Florida for $7.4 million in arbitration (topping Pujols' previous record of $7 million for a first-year-eligible player), up from the $472,000 he made in 2006. Of course, Pujols will be his measuring stick for future salaries.
I really think Pacman Jones has given "making it rain" a bad rap. I mean, it's not always thugged-out troublemakers who like to throw fistfuls of dollar bills at strippers -- sometimes all-around good guys like Marlins ace Dontrelle Willis like to join the fun. From the Palm Beach Post:For at least two nights a week in March, bar staff tells Page Two, star pitcher Dontrelle Willis, described as the ringleader, second baseman Dan Uggla and others were known to swing by the Riviera Beach joint and shower the gals with dollar bills until 3 a.m.I'm sure Willis' PR people are loving the fact the Post used the word "ringleader," but if they're throwing around that much dough I have to imagine he was bankrolling these trips -- Uggla made close to the big-league minimum last year, and the Marlins rank second-to-last in payroll in the entire majors. (But Randy Messenger is hot? That confused me, too.) Before you question the intentions of these young men, realize that they were apparently taking part in a community outreach program to support single moms:
"There'd be, like, $3,000 in singles on the table," said waitress Nicole Spelling. "When they liked someone, a bunch of them would just go up and throw dollar bills in the air by the handful. There'd be so much money on the stage that the girls had to get champagne buckets to pick it up. And (pitcher) Randy Messenger is, like, so hot."
Spelling, 24, of WPB, was on the receiving end of the boys-of-summer's generosity ... . One night last week, the single mom kept hearing from her 2-year-old son's baby sitter that the little tyke was running a 102-degree fever and vomiting.Awww. What a guy!
"I was going crazy because I couldn't leave. There weren't enough waitresses and, frankly, I needed the money just to pay my bills," she said. "Next thing I know, Dontrelle hands me $1,000 from them all and tells me to go home to my kid. They got permission from management for me."
