Short hops, quick pops and backhand stops:
• In the midst of an awful season so far, the Boston Red Sox have one significant thing going for them: They excised Hanley Ramirez from their organization five years ago.
Now he's the Marlins' problem, a ridiculous premise on its face given his off-the-charts talent that one executive this week described thusly: "He's a fabulous player, one of the five greatest in all of baseball, probably."
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| Hanley Ramirez has hurt himself by the way he handled his benching. (US Presswire) |
He says he was hurt, and that's why he dogged it all the way down the left field line Monday night, "chasing" a ball that he kicked as two Diamondbacks raced around the bases to score. I've got some 749 other big leaguers who will tell you this: If you're well enough to be on the field, you're well enough to give a far better effort than this.
A day after Marlins manager Fredi Gonzalez yanked him from the game (and 29 other managers and countless other players applauded), Ramirez unleashed his inner punk, among other things using the lame old "He never played the game so he doesn't know" rationalization.
In that regard, I'm not a butcher -- but I can identify a rancid piece of meat.
In a game in which very little is ever as clear-cut as it appears, this is: What Ramirez did this week on multiple levels -- on the field, then in the clubhouse lashing out at both his manager and teammates -- is indefensible.
"We've got a lot of guys dogging it after ground balls," Ramirez told reporters. "They don't apologize."
"If the other 24 guys played like that, they'd be sitting on the bench," one 10-year major-league veteran told me this week as I poked around to see whether I could find anybody to defend Ramirez which, predictably, pretty much was an impossible task.
This is a story that is not going away anytime soon, even if Gonzalez re-inserted Ramirez in the lineup Wednesday night in St. Louis. It may take the immature Ramirez, 25, months to understand how much damage he did to himself. His every move going forward will be scrutinized and measured against the backdrop of his six-year, $70 million deal.
He owes his manager and his teammates an Everglades-sized apology. Then, he owes his manager and teammates full hustle the rest of the way.
Gonzalez was the leader he needed to be when he took away playing time this week. Two Hall of Fame Marlins executives, Andre Dawson and Tony Perez, gave Ramirez a stern lecture Tuesday, according to Joe Capozzi of the Palm Beach Post -- another spot-on move by the Marlins.
Now, it's up to the 24 other Marlins in the clubhouse to step up, back their manager and help keep the guy in line. And if Ramirez pulls anything even close to this again, well, then at that point it will be pretty clear.
They should crush him.
• If there is any doubt in the mind of Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria that he's got the right man for the job -- and his actions over the past several months have indicated doubt -- it should all dissolve now. Not saying that it will, because Loria is a strange dude. But Gonzalez was dead-on perfect in what he did, from removing Ramirez from Monday's game to benching him Tuesday, and the manager made the Marlins organization look good and professional when it easily could have gone far the other way.
• The NL East, what a division: Philadelphia has spent the first seven weeks giving each of the other alleged contenders an opening, but nobody took it:
In shortstop Jimmy Rollins' long absence (he returned to the lineup this week to make only his eighth start), the Phillies went from one game back in the NL East to a five-game lead.
In set-up man Ryan Madson's absence (out since April 30 with a broken toe), the Phillies went from trailing by 1 1/2 games to leading by four.
• While the Marlins' best player was loafing when it should have been pedal-to-the-metal time -- Florida had just swept the Mets in four games and was gaining momentum -- the Mets were deteriorating back to the second-class franchise they are thanks to chief operating officer Jeff Wilpon's very public meeting in Atlanta with general manager Omar Minaya, manager Jerry Manuel, members of the coaching staff and assistant GM John Ricco.
Wilpon could not have been more indiscreet. The 90-minute meeting was held in the visiting manager's office at Turner Field, which is surrounded by glass, and while it's one thing to express a sense of urgency to your team, it's quite another to conduct a public carnival that moves the manager closer to the dunking booth. Manuel's reaction to reporters afterward: "I've got a uniform on, don't I?"
For those wondering about the Mets' tone-deaf decade of missteps, there is one common thread throughout: Jeff Wilpon.
• Then there's disappointing, run-starved Atlanta, where it hasn't exactly been heads-up, either. The last Saturday of April in Citi Field, shortstop Yunel Escobar inexplicably failed to tag up at third on a fly ball to the outfield as the Braves dropped a 3-1 clunker to the Mets, after which manager Bobby Cox -- who's always got his players' backs -- blasted Escobar. Catcher David Ross described the Braves as being "dumbfounded" at Escobar's mental error that day, and Chipper Jones said, "We're our own worst enemy." Especially at the plate, where the Braves rank ninth in the NL in runs scored and 13th in slugging percentage.
The way things are going in the NL East, maybe if the Phillies lose Ryan Howard or Chase Utley to injury, they'll extend their lead even more.
• Washington Nationals under Manny Acta at the time of his firing last summer: 25-61. The Nationals under Jim Riggleman over 75 games last season and 40 more in 2010: 56-62. Admirable improvement. And that's before Stephen Strasburg.
• More than one player and coach with whom I spoke this week regarding Hanley Ramirez used the word "entitlement." Said one executive of Ramirez: "He's not a dumb guy. He's smart. Things come easy to him. I don't know if he's bored. Barry Bonds looked that way sometimes."
• Mets ace Johan Santana in nine career starts against the Braves: 1-5, 2.25 ERA.
• In whacking slumping Milwaukee closer Trevor Hoffman on Tuesday, the Reds won for the major-league leading 10th time in their final at-bat this season. Each of the Reds' first six wins this year came in their final at-bat, which, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, puts them with the 1970 Giants as the only two clubs to turn that trick.
• Hoffman, at six saves short of 600, is 1-3 with a 13.15 ERA and has converted only five of 10 save opportunities. In 13 innings pitched over 14 appearances, he's allowed 21 hits and seven walks.
• Mark DeRosa, signed last winter to help beef up the Giants' offense, is very discouraged about the sore wrist that's landed him on the disabled list. It's the same wrist that was surgically repaired over the winter. He swung in the batting cage Tuesday and hopes to come off the DL next week.
• The subject was sunglasses, and Padres second baseman David Eckstein wears only the old-school flip-down sunglasses. Why? Depth perception. When fielding a ground ball, the sunglass frame and the small gap between the bottom of the frame and the cheek cause the ground to look closer than it is and Eckstein does not want to take any chances.
• Ozzie Guillen Tweet of the Week: "Nice day in Kansas. Lol."
