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Phillies not standing pat on Burrell
Posted: Tuesday May 16, 2000 01:49 PM
To send a question to Tom Verducci's Mailbag, click here. The Phillies raised some eyebrows around baseball when they did not call up phenom Pat Burrell to play first base after Rico Brogna fractured his arm. Philadelphia decided the timing wasn't right because Burrell had been playing left field at Class AAA Scranton-Wilkes/Barre, not first base, and had been off to a slow start at the plate. Still, the Phillies are so eager to get Burrell to the big leagues that the minute they learned of the severity of Brogna's injury they switched Burrell to first base in time for the second game of a doubleheader. Burrell's bat has started to perk up, putting him on track to join the Phillies shortly.
Woeful OWhat is wrong with Mike Mussina? The Baltimore ace is 1-5 for the first time in his career. Stalled contract talks with the Orioles may be a distraction. But look what's happened to Mussina ever since he labored to close out his only victory back on April 29. Mussina threw 40 pitches in the ninth inning and 138 overall that day. Since then, he's 0-3 with a 6.87 ERA while serving up seven home runs in 18 1/3 innings. The longball has been Mussina's biggest problem. He's allowed 14 home runs, or just two fewer than he did all of last season.
Chicago hopeOn the flip side, White Sox righthander James Baldwin, who led the league in losses in 1997, suddenly is unbeatable. GM Ron Schueler said it's because Baldwin has become much more aggressive going after hitters, especially with his fastball. Says Schueler, "He's learned to trust his stuff." Meanwhile, look for prized rookie Kip Wells to re-join Baldwin in the rotation very soon. The Sox sent him down for two reasons: they didn't need a fifth starter because of off days, and also because Wells needed fine-tuning with his mechanics. The righthander was hit in the shoulder with a line drive during spring training. The White Sox believe he then developed a slight flinching motion in his follow through, which may have caused his uncharacteristic wildness when he was up with Chicago earlier this year.
Leadoff lowsThe Rangers finally are convinced that Royce Clayton is simply not cut out to be a leadoff hitter. Over the previous five seasons Clayton hit .243 batting leadoff and .276 in other spots. Still, Texas manager Johnny Oates gave Clayton another shot at hitting first this season. That experiment is over. Clayton was hitting .202 in the top spot this year -- with an awful .237 on-base percentage -- when Oates finally put him back in the bottom third of the order, where he had been hitting .385.
Looking for No. 1Kazuhiro Sasaki is another player who recently had his job description rewritten. And for that he can thank his mediocre fastball. Sasaki lost his closer's role with Seattle mostly because hitters have been laying off his forkball in order to sit on his fastball. After Sasaki gave up game-winning home runs to David Segui and Matt Stairs -- both on fastballs -- manager Lou Piniella said he will use a committee system to protect leads.
The highs of LoweDerek Lowe still dreams of winning 20 games as a starter someday, but right now his nasty sinker makes him as automatic as any closer in the game, especially in clutch situations. Through this past weekend, the Boston righthander had yet to allow a hit that scored a runner.The two runs he did allow came on solo homers. With runners on, Lowe has held batters to just four hits in 32 at-bats, and a .181 average in those spots since the start of last season. Sports Illustrated senior writer Tom Verducci covers baseball for the magazine and writes a column for CNNSI.com every Tuesday. Click here to send a question to his mailbag. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.
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