Surprise, surprise

Let's acknowledge 10 eye-openers as we enter the dog days

Sensing a little sameness about this baseball season? Barry Bonds and Albert Pujols can hit, Eric Gagne and John Smoltz are nearly unhittable, the Giants find ways to win close games, the Braves are in first place, the AL East is aligned in exactly the same order for a sixth straight year, one team among the Yankees, Red Sox, Mariners and Athletics will be eliminated from the game of playoff musical chairs, and Ken Griffey Jr. and David Segui are hurt.

Face it, we like surprises with our baseball, and this season they haven't been easy to come by. As we head into the dog days of August -- the last third of the season is upon us -- it's time to identify the 10 biggest surprises of a season that largely has come off according to form.

Don't forget, there's still plenty of time for comebacks and tailspins. Just remember the 2002 Orioles. They were a nice little surprise in the AL East, getting to 63-63 and third place as late as August 23. Suddenly, they came upon a trap door, going 4-32 the rest of the way to fall into obscurity. Here are the top 10 surprises heading into the final third of the season.

1. Kansas City Royals. No team that lost 100 games in one season made the playoffs in the next, but Kansas City is making a run at just that kind of turnaround. The Royals' hold on first place in the AL Central is, in many ways, illogical -- though the uninspired play of the Twins and White Sox is a good place to start explaining what has gone on. Otherwise, the Royals' pitching staff is ranked 24th out of 30 teams, the offense has scored only six more runs than its opponents, and Mike Sweeney, the club's best hitter, is on the disabled list. The Royals are by no means a lock to maintain their hot play down the stretch. Their chances depend mostly on how well their young pitchers and weary bullpen hold up. Veteran pickups Curtis Leskanic and Graeme Lloyd should help.

2. Detroit Tigers. Sure, like The Postman, you knew Detroit would be bad before you saw it. But this bad? The Tigers have been outscored by almost 200 runs, 536-341. They're on pace to be the first AL team of the DH era to finish with an on-base percentage worse than .300 (.294 through Monday). Their ace, Mike Maroth, needs only five losses in the final two months of the season to become the first 20-game loser in almost a quarter of a century. Ah, but the real mark of this surprise is the race for the '62 Mets' modern record of 120 losses. Detroit began this week on pace to lose 118. The Tigers need only 15 more wins over the remanining nine weeks to avoid the record. Sounds easy, right? Nothing comes easy for this outfit.

3. Esteban Loaiza, White Sox. Chicago took little risk picking up a career 69-73 pitcher whom nobody else in baseball wanted. At 31, after coming to camp on a non-roster invitation, Loaiza is having a career year, already getting his career-best 12th win, having started the All-Star Game against former Pirates teammate Jason Schmidt, and leading the AL in ERA. Can he keep it up? Maybe not at this elite level. Loaiza, who never has thrown 200 innings in a season, is on pace for 222. He is also 11-20 in his career after Aug. 31.

4. Brandon Webb, Diamondbacks. Webb barely registered on the Arizona's minor league radar screen until the second half of last season, when he found the magic in what may be the best sinker in baseball. He didn't make the big club out of spring training, but injuries to Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling opened the door for him to become the ace of the staff. Webb (7-3, 2.43, and the best road ERA in the NL) is, according to one teammate, "just a simple, good ol' country boy who doesn't even know pitching is supposed to be hard in the major leagues." He's likely to continue to make it look easy, surpassing another surprise, Marlins left-hander Dontrelle Willis as the frontrunner for the Rookie of the Year Award.

5. Atlanta Braves. The best record in baseball? Who could have expected that after Tom Glavine left via free agency, Kevin Millwood gets traded, not to mention that Greg Maddux is getting banged around and the pitching staff ranks ninth in the NL? Ah, but Smoltz has been terrific and, most important, the offense is on pace to hit almost 250 homers and score 925 runs. Still, that's a dangerous formula to rely on in the postseason. Smoltz has been a nonfactor in the playoffs since he became a closer because the Braves have not usually been in a position to use him. And it's unlikely Atlanta can pound its way through the postseason when it faces better pitching.

6. Jack McKeon, Marlins. Florida has clawed back into the wild-card race under the devil-may-care leadership of a man who was George Brett's first big league manager. McKeon's so old he was a big league manager before the GM of the Red Sox (29-year-old Theo Epstein) was born. The skipper's attitude -- he's not trying to make friends, he's trying to win games -- has been the right touch for what's been an underachieving, soft team.

7. Roy Halladay, Blue Jays. He was a 19-game winner last season, but Halladay's 15-0 run since starting the year 0-2 has to be included among the surprises of 2003. The right-hander is 25-5 since the 2002 All-Star break and 39-12 since he went all the way down to Class A ball in 2001. Halladay's only one win away from the AL single-season record for consecutive victories (of 16 set by Roger Clemens in 2001) and four away from the major league single-season record that was set 115 years ago (by Tim Keefe) and matched 91 years ago (by Rube Marquard).

8. The Red Sox offense. Boston may go down as the best slugging team in history, blowing away the records for extra-base hits (by the 1996 Mariners) and slugging percentage (by the 1927 Yankees). Epstein has been so solid at picking up complementary pieces, such as Bill Mueller, Kevin Millar, Damian Jackson, Todd Walker and David Ortiz, that he was also able to obtain a closer, Byung-Hyun Kim, without compromising the offense. However, questions about pitching and defense remain.

9. Jose Guillen, Reds. He began the week with the third best batting average in baseball and the fifth best OPS. Playing for his fifth organization at age 27 -- three of those teams released him -- Guillen could be the next Luis Gonzalez or, if his three-month run for a losing team proves to be an anomaly, the next Karim Garcia.

10. Tom Glavine, Mets, and Greg Maddux, Braves. Together again. Are they the QuesTec poster boys or are they hitting a career wall at age 37? Glavine hasn't had a losing season since 1990, Maddux since 1987, yet the possibility of going sub-.500 is real for both. Glavine never did have a honeymoon period in his ill-conceived marriage with the Mets. Maddux is among the leaders in most hits and runs allowed in the NL. Both have lots of good baseball left in them, though their days of pure greatness are becoming increasingly rare.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Tom Verducci covers baseball for the magazine and is a regular contributor to SI.com. Click here to send a question to his Mailbag.

 

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