Baseball Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous baseball thoughts and observations.

Today would have been Mickey Cochrane's 105th birthday. Cochrane was both one of the 5 best ballplayers to ever come out of Massachusetts and one of the 5 best catchers of all-time (Bill James has him ahead of Carlton Fisk). Not bad for a kid from Bridgewater... I thought OBP was Billy Beane's thing? Travis Buck is supposedly Oakland's leadoff hitter but Buck has yet to get a hit or a walk this season... Just when you thought the Eric Gagne trade to Boston couldn't get more aggravating. Last night Kason Gabbard went 7 scoreless innings to earn the win and outfielder David Murphy had a two hits (including a double), two runs scored and a stolen base in last night's 11-6 victory over the Angels. Gabbard and Murphy were traded for Gagne late last season... Last night Matt Stairs hit his 242nd HR. I like Matt Stairs if just for the simple fact that he doesn't look like an athlete. He looks like he should be tearing it up in a local beer league not the major leagues but there he is in his 16th season in the bigs. Stairs is also 2nd on the list of HR hit by a Canadian born player (Larry Walker tops the list)... Ian Kennedy gave up 6 earned runs in less than 3 innings yesterday and the Yankees were pounded by the Rays. I'm pretty sure that Clay Buchholtz can top Kennedy's start when Clay pitches for the Red Sox today. LaTroy Hawkins also managed to give up 6 earned runs last night but he did it in less than one inning. My guess is that Girardi may be better off only using Hawkins on the road until Hawkins gets his ERA under double digits... Matt Holliday probably has a large number of people second guessing their decision to take him with their first pick in their fantasy baseball drafts. Holliday has just one single so far this season but now's the time I remind you that the season is just a week old and to just wait. Holliday will put up the numbers (at least I hope so since I too took him with a first round pick)...