Big League Stew - MLB - Yahoo! Sports: Video: Minor league manager climbs outfield fence in protest of call

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Video: Minor league manager climbs outfield fence in protest of call Jun 13th 2011, 19:50 There are clever and entertaining ways to get your point across, like this bicyclist did after getting a ticket for riding outside of the bike lane in New York City. There's also what Norfolk Tides manager Gary Allenson did in a game against the Durham Bulls while protesting a changed home run call on Sunday night. While it may not have been clever or successful, it was definitely as entertaining of an ejection as you'll ever see. Let's pick up the action as Allenson strides toward center: So what literally drove Allenson up the wall? After an initial call that Tyler Henson's blast to center field was a home run, the umpires overruled it and deemed it a ground rule double. Their reasoning was that the ball had only cleared the wall and not — as the park's ground rules require — the weird yellow grating on top of it. One of the game's umpires even took a walk out to the wall and found a ball that proved it had landed in the gap between the two barriers. The ball was dry, said the umpire, an important fact since the game had been delayed by rain earlier. But despite what your eyes tell you, Allenson was not on the fence about the whole thing. He believed that the ball had cleared both walls and was convinced that the umpire had found a ball that had landed in the gap during batting practice (though the announcers note that no batting practice had been held on Sunday). From IndyWeek.com: "My point with the umpire, when they changed it to being a ground-rule double, was: How do you know that's the ball [that Henson hit]?" Allenson said. "... That's why I climbed the wall: maybe I could find a ball out there, too. Maybe there are five balls out there. Maybe I'll find a ball that's a little wet and I'll rub it up and it'll be dry." Alas, Allenson's Easter egg hunt proved fruitless and he was forced to hit the showers without presenting any evidence to the umpires first. He can take solace, however, in the fact that his outfield wall climb is going to be on manager tirade reels from here until the end of time. Bis BLS H/N: @JimmyTraina Follow Yahoo! Sports on Facebook and be the first to know about the most interesting stories of the day. Other popular Yahoo! Sports stories: • LeBron picture with six toes causes a stir • Sad news for Tom Brady's mentor • Video: Greatest soccer goal of the season?

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Big League Stew - MLB - Yahoo! Sports: That’s enough, Miguel! Tejada turns double play for inning’s fourth out

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That’s enough, Miguel! Tejada turns double play for inning’s fourth out Jun 13th 2011, 17:09 The plight of an outfielder who has lost track of outs and throws an in-play ball into the stands as a souvenir is a familiar and funny goof to baseball fans. But what San Francisco Giants third baseman Miguel Tejada did during his team's 4-2 victory over the Cincinnati Reds on Sunday night is a little rarer. With two outs in the third, Tejada gobbled up a grounder from Brandon Phillips, ran over and stepped on third for a force out before firing over to first for what he thought was an inning-ending 5-3 double play. Tejada, of course, could have saved his arm because the inning ended the instant he touched third. C'mon Miguel! Hasn't anyone ever told you there's no such thing at 110 percent? Watch it here My favorite part of the highlight is first baseman Aubrey Huff looking confused after catching the ball, but going back to tag the base anyway, just in case he was the one who was mistaken. Better safe than sorry, apparently. Tejada hasn't been quoted on his superfluous throw, so we don't know exactly what was going through his mind. But with rumors swirling that he's going to be cut by the Giants — at least before his bat heated up a little and Freddy Sanchez hurt himself— perhaps he thought it best to increase his defensive value any way possible. Unfortunately, that out can't be applied to any future metric. Sorry, dude.

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Big League Stew - MLB - Yahoo! Sports: Best realignment possibility? Astros and Rangers sharing a division

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Best realignment possibility? Astros and Rangers sharing a division Jun 13th 2011, 15:06 ESPN's Buster Olney stirred things up a bit over the weekend, reporting that Major League Baseball is considering a realignment that would leave each league with an even 15 teams and completely wipe out the divisions. The top five teams would make the postseason and, with an odd number of teams in each league, interleague play would be a constant on the schedule. The Houston Astros would be the one team calling the figurative moving vans as it's presumed they'd be plucked from the six-team NL Central and placed into the now-skimpy AL West (which currently only hosts four teams). Buster's source puts the chances of this plan becoming a reality at "50-50," so there's obviously a lot more that needs to happen. But until we see which way Bud Selig and his committee pals go, there's going to be a lot of speculation and debate over the idea. Initial positive reaction: Evening out the leagues is a great and necessary idea, though MLB's schedule-makers are probably already waking up in a cold sweat over the mere thought of reconfiguring the standard road trip. And as Fox Sports' Jon Paul Morosi writes, the Astros are the only logical candidate to switch stripes, even if their fans and players say they prefer to stay in the NL. (The one point where I sympathize with their gripe is the time zone conundrum: Those games in Oakland, Anaheim and Seattle will start awful late, though fans of the Texas Rangers have been doing it for years.) Initial negative reaction: Hate, hate, HATE the idea of nuking the divisions. While Rob Neyer thinks we'll soldier on just fine with a "first division" of five teams, I will submit that there's nothing quite like saying you're on your way to watch a first-place team. Why would baseball eliminate six races for first and opt for two races for fifth instead? No matter what you think about the value of a division title, we can all agree that no one is going to raise a flag saying they finished fifth one year. At any rate, combine both of those takes above and we're left with my ideal situation and a very underrated dynamic that would be created by placing both Texas teams in the AL West. Think about this for a second: By pairing the Astros and Rangers, baseball will finally create a great regional rivalry in that gaping hole between St. Louis and the West Coast. The two teams are located about 250 miles apart from each other and handcuffing them together would give the Lone Star State — long considered an outpost by the rest of the league — an increased relevance and focus. Dedicated baseball fans in Texas often don't get enough credit, but a close race between the teams would give them a bigger spotlight, plus an opportunity to needle opposing fans in the flesh. That's just something that doesn't happen right now with both teams being the geographical anomaly in their current divisions. What do you think of baseball's rumored realignment?

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Big League Stew - MLB - Yahoo! Sports: Photo: Todd Coffey’s throwback uniform warns of coming flood

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Photo: Todd Coffey’s throwback uniform warns of coming flood Jun 13th 2011, 10:29 Washington Nationals right-hander Todd Coffey might have felt like a kid whose parents sent him to school on the first day wearing jeans that weren't long enough. The Nationals, who joined with the San Diego Padres in wearing throwbacks Saturday night, donned uniforms like the ones worn by the Washington Senators in 1936. And the team tailor messed up, because Coffey's pants obviously hung a few inches short of the length he usually wears — down to the shoe tops. "Where's the flood?" the bullies on the school bus would have bullied. It's true that Coffey's pants were in something of a no-man's land, only for pants. And it's possible Coffey didn't care. He's an affable sort who shakes off game-delaying nose bleeds and — despite being a plus-sized man listed at 6-foot-4 and 240 (?) pounds — loves to sprint in from the bullpen, jiggling all the way. But even the most carefree soul wouldn't have liked the commentary coming from Padres broadcaster Mark Grant: "His britches aren't even ... they're kind of like Capri pants. They're too short to hike up and really stay up above the calf and not long enough, really, to cover down to the shoe." Ouch! Capri pants? (Well, others might have been saying the same thing.) Though he came up short in the wardrobe department, Coffey persevered as a professional does and retired both batters he faced in the Nats' 2-1 victory. Regardless, the important thing is this: The next time the Nats wear throwbacks, they ought to give Coffey enough pant leg material to work with. Follow Dave on Twitter — @AnswerDave — and engage the Stew on Facebook

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Big League Stew - MLB - Yahoo! Sports: The Juice: Prince Fielder hits home run, Brewers hit first place

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The Juice: Prince Fielder hits home run, Brewers hit first place Jun 13th 2011, 08:38 Nine innings, nine items to get you going. Ladies and gentleman of the Stew, take a sip of morning Juice. 1. Majestic: There aren't too many players who hit home runs with a natural flair like Prince Fielder, whose two-run shot gave the Milwaukee Brewers a lead in the sixth inning Sunday. And Fielder played it cool after the Brewers edged the St. Louis Cardinals 4-3 to complete a three-game sweep at Miller Park. No sense stirring up a hornet's nest, even though the Brewers took over first place in the NL Central for the first time since July 2009. "I don't know about a statement," Fielder said. [...] "It's just good right now. We're playing good baseball. Like I said we haven't been in first place for about a year or two now." 2. Bat Sox: The Red Sox offense can't help but score runs in Toronto. After a 14-1 thumping of Kyle Drabek and the Blue Jays on Sunday, Boston had amassed 30 runs over  the past two games at Rogers Centre. At least the Jays didn't have to use Mike McCoy, a position player, to pitch this time. 3. Almost ... there: The New York Yankees pounded out 18 hits — two by Derek Jeter, who is seven from 3,000 hits for his career — in a 9-1 victory against the Cleveland Indians. The Tribe went 0 for 17 with runners on base and were 0 for 12 with them in scoring position. Cleveland has dropped three straight in the Bronx and nine of 10 overall. As a result, they almost don't have first place in the AL Central to hold onto anymore. Orlando Cabrera picked up his 2,000th career hit, if you'd like to celebrate that. 4. Bulldozer: Nice recovery by Roy Oswalt, who gave up three early runs but stuck around long enough for Ryan Howard to put the Phillies ahead with a two-run single in the seventh, the deciding moment in a 4-3 victory against the Cubs. 5. Jedi mind tricks: Perhaps in the future when our memories are cloudy, this will be the performance people will associate with the no-hitter Minnesota's Francisco Liriano threw back in May. He was that good in a 6-1 victory against the Rangers. 6. Take it easy, Dude: Don't ever complain about a pitcher not running hard after they hit a ball. Apparently they're not supposed to. In Arizona's 5-1 victory against the Marlins, pitcher Daniel Hudson sprinted to first base to avoid being thrown out by Florida outfielder Mike Stanton. Hudson made it, but there were consequences: "I told him, 'Hey, you don't have to run that hard,' " Arizona manager Kirk Gibson said. "Then he ran hard on a double-play ball, so I think after that he was pretty much toast." 7. The force is strong with this one: Tommy Hanson dropped 14 strikeouts in seven innings on the Houston Astros in a 4-1 victory for the Atlanta Braves, who kept pace with Philly in the NL East. Also encouraging: Dan Uggla (hugging the heck out of Chipper Jones in the photo) hit a home run for the first time in 21 games. He was 5 for 11 in the series after coming in 7 for 76. Yes, 76. 8. Grinders, to the last: The Giants managed a split with the Reds after rallying for a 4-2 victory. Moribund slugger Aubrey Huff had three hits (really!) and Nate Schierholtz had the go-ahead sacrifice fly. He's always doing stuff like that. 9. In case of emergency... : Matt Stairs started a ninth-inning rally against Padres closer Heath Bell with a pinch-hit single, then Danny Espinosa broke up a scoreless tie with a sacrifice fly that nearly went over the fence at Petco. The Nationals won 2-0. "That's the first time I hit a curveball in about six or seven years," Stairs said. Follow Dave on Twitter — @AnswerDave — and engage the Stew on Facebook

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Big League Stew - MLB - Yahoo! Sports: Pause for effect: Twins’ Liriano loses no-hitter after long wait

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Pause for effect: Twins’ Liriano loses no-hitter after long wait Jun 13th 2011, 05:52 Minnesota Twins left-hander Francisco Liriano dazzled and dominated the Texas Rangers for seven innings Sunday, his only baserunner having reached on an error. He needed only six more outs to complete a personal masterpiece — and his second no-hitter this season. And then came "The Wait." The Twins, who have one of the worst offenses in the major leagues (only four teams have scored fewer runs) picked the bottom of the seventh to wake up their bats, building on a one-run lead by scoring five times. And they took forever to do it. Between the offensive outburst and a slow pitching change prompted by an injury, the half-inning lasted 29 minutes. (Each half-inning in the game averaged about eight minutes, reports Jordan Schelling of MLB.com.) So, Liriano could do nothing but try and sit tight. And think. He wasn't as sharp when he returned to the mound nearly a half-hour later. Adrian Beltre lined a 3-1 pitch to center for a single to lead off the eighth, ending Liriano's bid for a second no-no. "It didn't bother me physically, but I started thinking too much about that no-hitter," Liriano said [...]. "I tried to overthrow that inning and was trying to be too perfect. And I then [gave up] a hit when I got behind in the count." Two batters later, the shutout was over, too. Liriano limited the damage there and the Twins went on to win 6-1. But history had been unraveled in the half-inning before. Danny Valencia, did you really have to knock Rangers left-hander Matt Harrison out of the game by hitting a line drive off his arm? And Michael Cuddyer — you're a thoughtful person — was it really necessary to hit a three-run homer? Think about how much time it takes to round the bases. What about a quick pop out? Save it for Scott Baker and Carl Pavano, boys. Did any of you Twinkies think about your pitcher's no-hitter as you were taking all day to score those runs?  "[Heck] no. No, you score as many runs as you can, especially against a team like that," Cuddyer said. "First and foremost you want to win. Obviously everyone wanted to see a no-hitter, everybody wanted to have that happen, but bottom line is, you want to win the game." Cuddyer (slapping hands with Ben Revere in the photo) is right, of course. But you can't tell me most Twins fans weren't thinking likewise about Liriano wasting away on the bench as his teammates awoke from their offensive slumber. The Twins manager sure considered it. "It's almost like a rain delay there when you're at 70-something pitches and you have to sit out for 30 minutes," said Twins manager Ron Gardenhire. "We kept telling him he had to get up and move around. And not only did he have 70 pitches, he had a no-hitter, too. "So we told him to move around, because it was a long inning. So we were worried when he went out there. His first few warmup pitches weren't pretty. And his first few pitches were rushed out there." Here's why it's too bad: Liriano, you might recall, received criticism for how he pitched during his no-hitter against the White Sox on May 3. Let's just say the first no-no of the major league season wasn't aesthetically pleasing. Liriano came into that game with a 9.13 ERA and was perhaps on the verge of losing his spot in the rotation. He walked six, throwing 66 of 123 pitches for strikes, and struck out two batters. It was a no-hitter in name only. Against the Rangers, Liriano was the force the Twins have been hoping for. Needing only 64 pitches to retire the first 18 batters, he was executing his "no-hitter stuff" to perfection. "I felt better today. Way better," Liriano said, comparing this to his no-hitter. And then, like they have all season, the Twins offense let him down. In a way. So, while he didn't get no-no No. 2, Liriano did show that he obviously is worthy of being on the list of guys who have no-hitters. And, if the Twins can't get back into the AL Central race, he increased his trade value by a factor of 10. Follow Dave on Twitter — @AnswerDave — and engage the Stew on Facebook

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Big League Stew - MLB - Yahoo! Sports: Utilityman Mike McCoy baffles Red Sox in relief appearance

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Utilityman Mike McCoy baffles Red Sox in relief appearance Jun 12th 2011, 13:15 It's the year of the utility relief pitcher. We've already seen Philadelphia Phillies part-timer Wilson Valdez notch a surprisingly impressive win in relief in a 19-inning marathon victory over the Cincinnati Reds on May 25. And on Saturday afternoon, it was Toronto Blue Jays utilityman Mike McCoy — who actually started at second base for an injured Aaron Hill  — taking the mound against the Boston Red Sox in an effort to help manager John Farrell conserve his bullpen in a game they lost 16-4. The result for McCoy? A 12-pitch inning in which he set down Carl Crawford, Marco Scutaro and J.D. Drew in order. It was only the second 1-2-3 inning for Toronto pitching all day, but it wasn't just that McCoy pitched a perfectly clean frame, it was the dominating manner in which he accomplished it. He actually had major league hitters looking completely lost at the plate. Check out these Fangraphs GIFs of McCoy getting a swing-and-miss on 25 percent of his pitches, which is three times more often than your average pitcher. Alright, so it's a small sample size, but the third whiff was so filthy it almost put J.D. Drew back on the disabled list. So what was McCoy's secret to success in his big league pitching debut? From MLB.com: "Throwing softer is usually more effective," said McCoy, who added he once threw 3 2/3 innings in a Minor League game in 2009 after his team ran out of pitchers. "Big league hitters are used to seeing 90 mph and I'm throwing 72-73; they usually get themselves out on that." As the Fangraphs piece mentioned, McCoy's offerings weren't just fooling professional baseball hitters, they were fooling modern technology. Nine of McCoy's pitches were classified as knuckleballs — not actually because they were knuckleballs, but because, as Dan Brooks tells us, they were thrown so slowly that Pitch F/x — like most parents — just didn't understand. With the information we're gathering here, millions of men of who gave up pitching baseballs in their teens are ready to make a comeback. Matter of fact, I think I'm heading down to the park for a little bit of long toss later this afternoon. McCoy's fine work also earned him a standing ovation when he was announced as the pitcher and hit for himself in the bottom of the ninth. A fun moment and a nice way to end a rough afternoon for the home team.

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