Mike Wellman's Archives
'P' Stands for Pitching?
The first hint that it was not a normal night at Principal Park came when the national anthem was whistled.
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Playing Out Strings
The team, the economy and the schedule all stunk. This looked to be the year when the Cubs’ winning streak at the turnstiles would snap.
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Thanks for the Memories...
There are more than a couple hundred players enshrined at Cooperstown and they are paid homage by something like 350,000 annual visitors to baseball’s Hall of Fame. At Wrigley Field a mere three Cubs have been immortalized in statuary and only half a dozen’s numbers flutter atop the foul poles. This Mecca draws in excess of three million pilgrims per season. Maybe Ron Santo was on to something when he listed the corner of Clark & Addison in Chicago as the address of his personal HOF.
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BJ Bookends Not So Subtle Hints
The street that runs behind the right-center field wall of Principal Park in Des Moines is no Sheffield Avenue. Ballhawks do not roost there nor are there rooftops from which knotholers eavesdrop on the ballgames. Beyond it runs the Des Moines River which has been known occasionally to swell up and invade the playing field.
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Burt's No-Hooter; the Class of '72
On April 16, 1972 I was about six weeks shy of high school graduation. It was a Sunday and that afternoon I was hanging out at Pete’s West End Super Service, a gas station down the street from a buddy’s house.
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Fruit Basket Upset!
Ideally there would be 32 teams divided equally between the four American time zones. We ain’t got that so here’s an alternative to shoot down on Day One of the Great Void…
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The Range of Scales & Other Things
And we thought his range was limited! Sayonara, Bobby, and thanks for the memories.
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Too Often to the Wells
Before yesterday the last time I saw Randy Wells start a big league game he failed to retire a batter, though he may have broken a sweat. By that low standard his outing versus the earnest young Royals of Kansas City was, I suppose, an improvement. After the first five hitters he faced hit safely and the sixth was walked, Wells' remarkable streak of futility with yours truly in attendance had reached the depth of a dozen consecutive batsmen. Might he again retire having retired no one?
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Coming Soon to a Ballpark Near You
When I see Robert DeNiro in a movie these days I can hardly believe it's the same guy I saw in Taxi Driver and Raging Bull. That's sort of how it was watching Alfonso Soriano go through the motions of his injury rehab assignment in Des Moines today. As if there's any rehabbing this guy.
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Mighty Casey Has Struck Out 7 & Walked but 2
Welington Castillo was penciled in at DH today for the I-Cubs but he got his catching in before the game by lunging about to stop all the ceremonial first pitches from pint-sized birthday boys and lame-armed luminaries. The only one that got past him was flung by a mascot creature from some non-profit.org.
From atop the left-field wall beckoned the giant glove that homers sometimes land in, wiggling against its moorings in the breeze that slightly relieved the generally welcome heat of summer. The thing's almost as big as the one sported by Tony Campana.
Well, Well, Wells...What Have We Here?
What are we to make of Randy Wells' rehab start this afternoon at a very blustery Principal Park in Des Moines? He was flashing mixed signals.
The booming home run he gave up in the top of the first on which Iowa cf Lou Montanez did not budge was understandable. The batter who struck it was hitting .377 and the wind was blowing out so briskly that the flag pole the ball flew beyond was wobbling visibly.
Wells was workmanlike in the first two frames, requiring 15 pitches in each of them. In the 3rd he seemed to find a groove when he threw only six pitches, all of them strikes.
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Where the Old Rubber Hits the Road
Things are really humming down at the old retread factory!
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Well, uh, Wellemeyer may be a while...
According to the Cubs' media guide, Todd Wellemeyer was the NL Pitcher-of-the-Month in May of 2008 for the St. Louis Cardinals. This afternoon in Des Moines he wasn't up to being the Iowa Cubs' pitcher-of-the-day as he labored through three & two thirds innings of a reclamation project that may or may not wind up with him back in the big leagues.
Wellemeyer offered about six dozen pitches, about half of them strikes. A greater portion than that looked and clocked like breaking balls despite that his spotted fastball was ringing up in the low 90's.
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A Split is Like Goosing Your Brother
The Cubs and Padres split. The Cardinals and Nationals split. The I-Cubs and Isotopes split. Look, up in the standings - it's a Dairy Queen! It's a gymnastics meet! It's a doubleheader...
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Paid Attendance Vs. Paid Attention
It’s not supposed to be like this.
First your Opening Day/Night gets rained out. Then the following day/night is cold and windy, but dry, so you go through the ceremonial motions with no one there to watch and clap. Player introductions with some guys just staying in the dugout and others shivering and huddling together along the baselines like penguins. A video tribute to Bob Feller on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the only Opening Day no-no in big league history to go along with the Bob Feller bandanas handed out at the turnstiles that folks are using as windbreaks on their cheeks, looking like stagecoach robbers. The silly hat-head contest atop the home dugout that’s supposed to be decided by the applause-o-meter except it’s out-of-order; no power. Saturday night there were probably more people in the skyboxes than the stands. Then the game had barely started when Tony Campana, who looks about as batboyish as his predecessor, Sam Fuld, used to before he donned a cape and became ManRam’s replacement, lofted a blooper to left-center leading off the bottom of the first. Memphis’ left and center fielders, Andrew Brown and Shane Robinson, respectively, collided in pursuit of it - no skid marks; full-tilt. Poor bastards; 15-20 minutes later they were both scraped off the turf and ambulanced to the hospital with concussions [Robinson also sustained some facial fractures] and the players and fans re-thawed and resumed. Eventually the I-Cubs prevailed, long after I’d taken my media guides and gone home.
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Recent comments
Dolorous Jon Lester (view)
I think if you had ranked players by how much the team could ill afford to have them miss significant time, Steele would be right at the top of the list.
crunch (view)
steele MRI on friday. counsell expects an IL stint.
no current plans for his rotation replacement.
hellfrozeover (view)
I would say also in the bright side column is Busch looked pretty good overall at the plate. Alzolay…man, that hurts but most of the time he’s not giving up a homer to that guy. To me the worst was almonte hanging that pitch to Garcia. He hung another one to the next hitter too and got away with it on an 0-1.
crunch (view)
amaya blocked like 6-8 of smyly's pitches in the dirt very cleanly...not even an exaggeration, smyly threw a ton of pitches bouncing in tonight.
neris looking like his old self was a relief (no pun), too.
TarzanJoeWallis (view)
In looking for bright spots the defense was outstanding tonight. The “stars” are going to need to shine quite a bit brighter than they did tonight offensively though for this to be a successful season.
Eric S (view)
Good baseball game. Hopefully Steele is pitching again in April (but I’m not counting on it).
crunch (view)
boo.
crunch (view)
smyly to face the 2/3/4 hitters with a man on 2nd in extras.
this doesn't seem like a 8 million dollar managerial decision.
crunch (view)
i 100% agree with you, but i dunno how jed wants to run things. the default is delay. i would choose brown.
like hellfrozeover says, could be smyly since he's technically fresh and stretched.
anyway, on a pure talent basis....brown is the best option.
Childersb3 (view)
Use pitchers when you believe they're good. Don't plan their clock.
I'm sorry. I'm simply anti-clock/contract management. Play guys when they show real MLB potential talent.
If Brown hadn't been hurt with the Lat Strain he would've gotten the call, and not Wick.
Give him a chance.
But Wesneski probably gets it