First quarter

Second quarter

Halftime

The rest of the game

• Al Horford had a great night to open the year, going for 24/16, but the opposing center was Roy Hibbert, so I think we have to knock about 30% off those numbers.
• Elton Brand? Eight points, six boards. Andre Iguodala? Eight points, five boards, six assists. If not for Marreese Speights improbably going 10/11 off the bench, Orlando would have won by way more than 14.
• LeBron missed six of his fourteen free throws. I've had an argument all summer with a friend who swears LeBron's free-throw shooting woes are behind him. I'm not convinced.
• Andrea Bargnani went off for 26 points against the Cavs' assortment of bigs, although you'd like to see him grab more than five rebounds. I guess Chris Bosh was hogging them all, as he had 16.
• Charlotte scored 59 points, including 10 in the third quarter. They were under 20 in each quarter. DJ Augustin had a -30 plus/minus off the bench. Gerald Wallace was at -33. Stephen Graham, who I've never heard of, was the starting small forward for Charlotte.
• The Knicks lost, but Danilo "Big Cock" Gallinari shot 7-14 overall and 7-13 from three. That's an awesome shooting line from a guy who's 6'10". I feel like Gallinari is showing us what would have happened if Mike D. had been let loose with Dirk Nowitzki.
• The Heat, beating the Knicks, had three guys over 20 points, including Jermaine O'Neal, who has apparently decided he's not dead after all. The "why" is debatable. Beach life warmed him up? Or contract year?
• New Jersey got edged by Minnesota, but Brook Lopez had 27/15 with five blocks. That's, let's say, very solid numbers.
• Minnesota got exactly three assists from their revamped point guard rotation: Johnny Flynn had two and Ramon Sessions had one.
• The Spurs didn't need anyone to go over 20 en route to 113 points against New Orleans. DeJuan Blair had 14 points in 23 minutes off the bench. Oh, those San Antonio second-round picks.
• Omri Casspi, the first Israeli in the league, had fifteen points off the bench for Sacramento, but Oklahoma City has a lot of talent: Jeff Green (24/8), Kevin Durant (25/11, vintage Texas numbers), Nenad Krstic (20/7), and Russell Westbrook (14/7/13) just overwhelmed the Kings. Green, who's technically the power forward, hit four of his five three-point attempts. That team could really be trouble, although their bench looks pretty barren.
• I love the Memphis starting-five: Z-Bo, Rudy Gay, Marc Gasol, O.J. Mayo, and eventually Allen Iverson, although last night it was Mike Conley. And you've got Hasheem Thabeet and Hamed Haddadi on the bench, don't forget. This could be tons of (disasteriffic) fun. Last night? Lost to Detroit by 22. Marc Gasol could have been confused for his brother, though: 21/15 with three blocks and just nine field goals attempted. The big difference? No assists. But when you've got Z-Bo and Gay and Mayo on the floor with you, would you pass the rock once you got it? Hell, no. You're not getting it back if you give it up.
• The Utah-Denver box score (Denver won by 9) is relatively unremarkable (Carmelo scored 30 and Ty Lawson had an inefficient 17 in his debut), so I'll just note that I like Andrei Kirilenko's new, much more adult hair-style.
• Trevor Ariza is taking his role as the Ron Artest replacement very seriously: he led the Rockets to a narrow win over Golden State by taking the most shots on the team (21), launching nine threes (he did hit four of them), and turning the ball over six times.
• Jason Richardson supposedly got a DNP-CD last night against the Clippers, while Leandro Barbosa started alongside Steve Nash. That can't be right. And, no, Google says it isn't, it's a team suspension for a reckless driving arrest.
jasonw@beaneball.org (Jason Wojciechowski)http://beaneball.org/980.html980 Fire Joe Morgan never really picked on the low-hanging fruit of unread blogs and tiny-town newspapers. I, however, have no such scruples. (Also, I happen to live in the tiny town from whence the blog post herein ridiculed originated.) For your pleasure, then, here is "Why baseball is in trouble", by the esteemed Hoosier Jack, sportswriter and blogger for the Victoria Advocate.

Anybody know off the top of their heads who are the hottest teams in baseball right now as the regular season winds down?

The answer might surprise you. It's the Cincinnati Reds, Oakland Athletics, Atlanta Braves and Minnesota Twins.

Didn't know, did ya? Probably because if you're like most people, you don't care anymore because the thundering roar of football season has drowned out the meow of the baseball regular season.

No, the answer surprises you because two of those four teams aren't in the playoff race. Although I will admit that football's thundering roar really hit hard last Wednesday, when ... oh, right, nothing happened.

Or, even if you're like me, and you DO care, you were forced to lose interest long ago because your team has been, for all intents and purposes, eliminated for months.

You were forced to lose interest? Really? The A's have been bad a number of times since I've been a fan, and Bud Selig has never once come over to my house and changed the channel to football because Oakland was no longer in the playoff race. Nobody forced you. You just don't care about baseball.

It didn't used to be this way. As I was growing up, even with football season rolling in, fans had a vested interest in baseball. The strikes happened and there have been slow comebacks, but it's not like it used to be.

You were born in 1984. You have not seen "strikes", plural. You have seen one strike. Singular.

More importantly, since when the fuck do you only have to be 25 to use the "back in the day" argument? You can't lament the old days when the old days were the mid-to-late '90s. And it wasn't better ten years ago! Football has been the country's biggest sport for a good long while now.

And unless baseball changes and adapts, it never will, or it might get worse.

It never will what? It never will change and adapt? It never will be like it used to be? Ok, here are the options:

1. "Unless baseball changes and adapts, it never will change or adapt, or it might get worse." Nobody would actually write that, so that can't be.

2. "Unless baseball changes and adapts, it will never be like it used to be, or it might get worse." This one at least makes some sense, plus it has the virtue of being exactly what you expect from a curmudgeonly, ancient, 25-year-old sports columnist: baseball needs to change back to what it was!

For one thing, there are too many teams, and far too little parity. A lot of that can be attributed to the financial organization of the sport. The owners allow large markets like New York, Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles to dominate the free agent market with lavish contracts that get greedier by the year. While small-market owners cut costs in every way possible without regard for fans or the success of the team.

Too many teams! I thought the comparison here was to the thundering herd of mighty oxen that is the NFL. Which has 32 teams. Which is two more than are in MLB.

The lack of parity in baseball is, I agree, astounding. This year alone, the large-market Cardinals are triumphing over the small-market Cubs and Astros, the Tigers, still flush from their auto-industry bailout cash, are triumphing over the downtrodden White Sox, and the Rockies, from Denver, the media capital of the free world, lead the wild card over those plucky Mets.

That's without even mentioning that only 10 different teams won the NLCS from 1998 to 2008. Or that only seven teams won the ALCS from 2001 to 2008. This clear domination by a couple of elite teams is just driving fans in all the other markets batty.

Finally: I'm not sure "greedy" means what you think it does.

I look at about a third of the league and see a raft of teams that have not been any kind of factor for at least a decade, some for longer.

Well, that's easily verifiable, no? A third of the league. So let's find ten teams that haven't been a factor in a decade. Let's start with the teams that aren't factors this year: the Jays, Orioles, White Sox, Indians, Royals, Mariners, A's, Marlins (uncharitably), Mets, Nationals, Brewers, Reds, Astros, Pirates, Giants (similar lack of charity), Padres, and Diamondbacks.

The White Sox are out because they've been in the playoffs three times since 2000, and of course won the World Series in 2005. The Indians have been in the playoffs twice in the decade and came within a game of the World Series in 2007. The Mariners went to the ALCS in 2000 and 2001 (when they won a whopping 116 games) and won 93 games in 2002 and 2003. The A's have been in the playoffs five times since 2000, and lost four consecutive Game 5's from 2000 to 2003. In 2004 and 2005, they won 91 and 88 games but missed the playoffs. The Marlins won the World Series in 2003. The Mets went to the World Series in 2000, came within a game of getting there in 2006, and went down to the wire in 2007 and 2008. The Brewers made the playoffs last year. Houston has been in the playoffs three times, and the World Series once. The Padres went to the playoffs in 2005 and 2006, and then won more games in 2007 than they did in either of those two years. Arizona has been to the playoffs three times, and of course won the World Series in 2001. The Giants have been in the playoffs three times, and lost a World Series Game 7 in 2002.

I'll grant Hoosier Jack the Jays even though they've had three 86-plus win seasons this decade because they just haven't been that close to the playoffs. The Orioles are very clearly in the non-factor group, although for entirely different reasons than Hoosier Jack wishes they were: they spent tons of money for a number of years; they just happened to do it really badly. The Royals won 83 games in 2003! Ok, fine, that's a third team for the list. The Natspos were pretty good back in '93-'94. The Reds just suck. The Pirates suck worse.

So with all those teams crossed off the "List of Putridity", we're left with six teams, and that's being generous as to the Blue Jays. Six teams is not ten teams. (This wasn't even an attempt at funny. Sorry. Here.)

Even in basketball, the draft can turn the worst teams into contenders quickly, and the number of inept franchises in these sports is fewer than in baseball.

Really? Here's my list of NBA ineptitude: Indiana, Milwaukee, Charlotte, Washington, Minnesota, the Clippers, Sacramento, and Memphis. That's eight. That's more than six.

Also, the fact that drafting someone like LeBron James, Tim Duncan, or Dwight Howard leads to a near-immediate turnaround is one of my least favorite things about basketball. All it takes is one bad year timed right and suddenly you have a world-changing player on your team. You won't win championships without putting a good team around that superstar (hello, Cleveland!), but in baseball and football, you actually have to build a team to win. The A's weren't good because they drafted Jason Giambi, they were good because they drafted Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder, Barry Zito, Eric Chavez, and Giambi, and signed Miguel Tejada out of the Dominican Republic. Nobody tanks in baseball because there's no point to it. That one player at the top of the draft is not going to be a game-changer all by himself.

And how about this time of year? Fans are forced to go through this month to two-month lull leading up to the playoffs while football has captured their attention? Even the fans of contenders have to be bored by the time the playoffs come around.

Right, tell that to the Yankees fans who read on the back page of the Post today that the Yankees clinched their division, while the Giants and Jets, both winners, were relegated to the inside pages. And as a 49ers fan, I can tell you that November and December is a two-month lull leading up to the playoffs in football as well. I'm usually more focused on the Lakers by that point. And Sacramento Kings fans are rooting for their AAA Rivercats every April.

So what to do? Fewer teams might be a good start. I could see the league being a lot stronger financially with about 20 teams. You might complain, but if the system won't allow some teams to be competitive, why have them at all?

Nothing you have written so far has established that the league is not strong financially. Everything you have written so far, including this paragraph, indicates that you have never actually read anything about the economics of baseball, including the legal (and thus economic) difficulties of contraction.

Fewer games? Definitely. If they do keep this number of teams, why not do what football did? Create four divisions and allow two wildcard teams. It's almost guaranteed to help parity and fan interest. And the game can do without the final two months of the regular season. Expand the playoffs so the season can wrap up in a reasonable time.

Ok, except for the Blue Jays, I don't think any of the teams listed above would have benefit from expanding the playoffs. The other five teams on the Horrible List have been fourth- and fifth- and sixth-place teams, even in bad divisions. It would have been the same measly 24 teams having a shot at the playoffs year after year.

Also, adding two playoff teams would not take up the two months you just chopped off the season. That's a lot of ticket sales and TV revenue flushed down the toilet to address this mythical boredom.

Finally, have you seen the NBA playoffs? They drag on and on and on. TNT's slogan for their NBA playoff coverage is "40 games in 40 nights", which, first, doesn't make any sense, and, second, is a biblical allusion to a flood that happened because it rained for a really intolerably long time. That's right, even TNT tacitly admits that the NBA playoffs are way too long, that we are flooded with playoff basketball, deluged with meaningless 4-2 series wins by a number five seed over a number four seed and even more meaningless sweeps by one seeds over eight seeds.

What DO you think?

You emphasized the wrong word.jasonw@beaneball.org (Jason Wojciechowski)http://beaneball.org/979.html979 A's fans who've actually been paying attention probably know the following facts, but I didn't.

First, the A's run differential is -5. Second, the A's record is 71-79. Third, the Tigers' run differential is -1. Fourth, the Tigers' record is 80-70. Fifth, Seattle's record is 79-72. Sixth, Seattle's run differential is -55.

Not that any of this makes Twins fans feel better, as Minnesota languishes three games back of Detroit despite being 28 runs better in differential. Or Blue Jays fans, for that matter, as they sit with a fourth-place team and a 67-83 record despite a +7 differential.

For the Blue Jays, it gets even worse: their run differential says they're a .500 team, but once you throw in strength of schedule considerations, they should be about 78-72. Now, that's not a playoff team, but it's also not a team 15 games below .500.

As for the Tigers, they've not only outperformed their differential, but they've also allowed 16 fewer runs than you'd expect given how their opponents have hit. When you throw in the strength of schedule, they're a 72-77 team.

All numbers come, of course, from Baseball Prospectus's Adjusted Standings Report. (By the time you click on that, the numbers may have changed, since you'll be taken to the most updated version of the page. I'm looking at the numbers generated on the morning of 9/22/09.)jasonw@beaneball.org (Jason Wojciechowski)http://beaneball.org/978.html978 Did you know that Cliff Pennington has a .361 on-base percentage? I had no idea. Will the A's have a guy with a plus bat at the position next year for the first time since Miguel Tejada in 2003? (I'm throwing out Bobby Crosby's second year, when he hit very well, but played only half the year due to injuries.)jasonw@beaneball.org (Jason Wojciechowski)http://beaneball.org/977.html977 Tampa Bay finally decides to pull the plug on Scott Kazmir and trades him across the country to the Angels. Kazmir has struggled mightily and been injured and has always had difficulty harnessing his stuff anyway. So what do the Rays get back from the Angels? Not some random A-ball live arm who'll be selling insurance in two years, but a legitimate slugging second baseman who has already destroyed AAA twice and is still just 24 years old. That's plain old unfair. It had become clear that Sean Rodriguez was never going to get a clear shot in Anaheim. Howie Kendrick couldn't do a damn thing this year, so Rodriguez got 29 whopping plate appearances. He didn't hit for average (.200), but he did hit for power (.220 ISO), and he even walked a few times (three), consistent with his minor league profile (51 walks in 435 PAs, .317 ISO).

Yes, Salt Lake is a bandbox, but here's a guy with obvious power (you can't take that much air out of a .300+ ISO) who's definitely a second baseman and who's maybe even a shortstop (he's actually got more SS games in his minor league career, but the trend is toward second). Anaheim really couldn't use that?

Mostly I'm just frustrated because I'd always hoped Rodriguez would end up playing short on the A's. Oh well.jasonw@beaneball.org (Jason Wojciechowski)http://beaneball.org/976.html976 The Texas Rangers' vaunted DVD trio of John Danks, Edison Volquez, and Thomas Diamond is officially no more. Danks and Volquez were of course traded in deals that may or may not be considered successes. Diamond, though, was still struggling along in the minor leagues for the Rangers until yesterday, when they designated him for assignment. Obviously, this is just a roster move, not the literal end of his career, but it's a roster move that speaks pretty loudly for a 26-year-old who's never reached the majors, who missed 2007 entirely, and whose walk rate was an astounding 6.2 per nine last year and is even higher, at 7.1, this year.jasonw@beaneball.org (Jason Wojciechowski)http://beaneball.org/975.html975 The A's called up Eric Patterson yesterday, sending down Tommy Everidge to do it. Everidge will presumably help Sacramento on its annual run to the title and then be up in mid-September. For now, though, the A's will take a look at Daric Barton at first base. This, along with calling up Eric Patterson to see what he can do, strikes me as long overdue. Everidge is a fun guy to root for, for sure, but his upside is benchy. That said, the A's still ran with their Hairston-Davis-Sweeney outfield yesterday, along with Adam Kennedy at third base. At least two of those guys have no real future: Sweeney is a fourth outfielder and Adam Kennedy is 33 years old. Why not let Patterson play? I know it's a lot easier to sit on this side of a computer monitor and tell Bob Geren and Billy Beane to bench Kennedy, a guy who for a while was your only offense, but that's why you get paid the big bucks, right? To make the hard decisions? Anyway, Daric Barton had a single and a walk in four trips yesterday, although he did make an error.jasonw@beaneball.org (Jason Wojciechowski)http://beaneball.org/974.html974 Trevor Cahill and the fantastic duo of Mike Wuertz and Andrew Bailey shut out the Angels on three hits and two walks. Both walks came in the first, but Cahill got out of the jam by picking off Chone Figgins at second base, a grievous error by Figgins when Cahill was clearly struggling. Ryan Sweeney missed a cycle by a double.

J.A. Happ pitched one of those visiting team losing complete games. Unfortunately, he lost 3-2 by giving up two runs in the bottom of the eighth on a Garrett Jones homer. Andrew McCutchen also hit a homer and is batting 290/361/486 in a half-season of work. His UZR, for what it's worth in this small sample, is also excellent, clocking in at five runs above average in center field. He looks, in short, to be every bit the franchise cornerstone he's supposed to be, a Carlos Beltran for the '10s (right down to the base-stealing, 15/18 on the year).

Cleveland beat Baltimore on Andy Marte's top-of-the-ninth two-run homer. Marte was playing first base and batting ninth, and he's hitting 275/338/420 for the year. That's not good, but it's not horrible, either. It is better than such noted starting third basemen in the league as Jack Hannahan, Adam Kennedy, Melvin Mora, and likely a few others that I didn't bother to look up. Of course, Marte's line comes in just 20 games, but if he's a third baseman defensively, then he may well have revived his career.

The Mets had an awesome box-score against the Marlins: each of the one through seven hitters had exactly two hits, and the number eight man, Anderson Hernandez, had three. It added up to a 10-run night for the New Yorkers, overcoming a two-homer night from leadoff man Chris Coghlan.

Kyle McClellan gave up the tying run for the Cardinals against the Astros in the eighth inning, and then followed that by giving up a go-ahead homer in the ninth. Why exactly was a guy like Kyle McClellan pitching the ninth inning of a tie game? Especially after he gave up a run in the previous inning?

Mark Reynolds hit his 39th homer of the season, helping Arizona to an 11-0 drubbing of the Giants. If Reynolds just stops now, he'll have increased his homer total by 11 for the second straight season (17 to 28 to 39) and put himself on pace for 50 next year. "Imprison Mark Reynolds" has to be the rallying cry of the weird-stats contingent, right?

Nyjer Morgan had a sweet day for my fantasy team, making no outs, scoring a run, and stealing two bases. Unfortunately, he broke his hand stealing third and is done for the year. Sadly, I don't own Ryan Zimmerman, Adam Dunn, or Derek Lee, each of whom homered.jasonw@beaneball.org (Jason Wojciechowski)http://beaneball.org/973.html973 Rotoworld says that Trevor Hoffman has been put on waivers and someone claimed him. However: "A deal is unlikely as he wants to remain in Milwaukee and GM Doug Melvin has indicated any waiver deal is highly unlikely." So, um, why'd they put him on waivers?jasonw@beaneball.org (Jason Wojciechowski)http://beaneball.org/972.html972 In an attempt to keep things moving here, since I've been AWOL for almost a month ...

On the news side of things, my buddy Migs will be happy to hear that Lance Broadway has been called up to the Mets to replace Oliver Perez, gone for the year with more knee trouble. Not that Broadway is such an awesome pitcher, but, come on, the name!

The Red Sox released Brad Penny as Tim Wakefield came back from the DL. Penny is certainly not the pitcher he was in 2007, but the ERA jump from 3.03 to 5.61 (with a 6.27 mark last year) masks the fact that he was never that good in 2007 (4.38 xFIP -- Penny was very lucky on his HR/FB that year) and hasn't been that bad in 2009 (4.96 xFIP). This isn't really a John Smoltz situation where he could latch on and help a contender, but he probably could take the ball serviceably for a young team out of contention looking to go to a 6- or 7-man rotation to keep the innings counts on their young starters down. The Orioles and A's come to mind.

Today features a couple of afternoon games with standings implications: the Rangers visit the Yankees at 1:00 eastern and the Dodgers play the Rockies at 3:00. The Yankees can help both themselves and the Red Sox with a win, while the Dodgers' lead has shrunk to margins not imaginable earlier this season. It stands at three games right now, and that's only because L.A. beat the Rockies last night.

Neither game features a scintillating pitching matchup. It's really very close to September, so the best of a bad lot is probably Clayton Richard for the Padres twirling against Javy Vazquez for the Braves. (Maybe that one just jumps out at me for fantasy reasons. I own both guys, albeit in different leagues.)jasonw@beaneball.org (Jason Wojciechowski)http://beaneball.org/971.html971 The A's get back a shortstop prospect who's apparently not a long-term shortstop, Tyler Ladendorf. He's 21 this year and started the season at Rookie ball before being promoted to A-ball, where he hasn't hit at all in his first fifteen games.

Forget the analytics for a moment, though, because I got surprisingly attached to Orlando Cabrera in his short time as an Athletic. No, he wasn't much of a hitter, recent hot singles streak aside, because he doesn't walk and he doesn't hit for power, but he was pretty fun to watch. I love the way he'd rather get nothing on his throw but make the throw quickly rather than set his feet, I love the way he insists on jumping over the runner on ever 4-6-3 double play, and I love the way he dances around on the bases, sometimes breaking for second before the pitcher has even lifted his leg to start the pitch. He looks like he's still having fun playing the game, but he also takes his performance seriously (recalling the quotes earlier in the year when he thought his defensive play was horrible).

I'm sure I'll forget him in a few weeks, but for now, I'm a little sad to see him go.