MLB 2004 Season

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The 2004 Major League Baseball season has been called a lot of different things, but one of the things it hasn’t been called is normal. Other than the Yankee’s being in first place in the American League East and the Braves being in contention for their 13th straight National League East crown the league is standing on its head. There are five teams that have gone from hanging around in the cellar of their respective division and have climbed into the light of contention. The two leading Cy Young award candidates are 37 and 41. A 40 year old pitched a perfect game. A-Rod was a few million dollars from being traded to the Red Sox and was then dealt to the Evil Empire baseball likes to call the New York Yankees. An oft-injured former superstar picked himself out of the pile of castaways and hit his 500th home run and a pitcher ended his streak of 84 straight save opportunities converted. It has been a crazy, different, mad, fanatical, unusual, abnormally atypical season and it’s only the All-Star break.

There are a handful of teams that are in playoff contention that would’ve been normally laughed at for talking about the playoffs at any time during the season especially around the time of the All-Star game. The biggest turnaround of the season comes down to four teams the Tigers, Rays, Rangers and Padres. The Rangers and Padres were both in last place in AL and NL West division and are now both in a dogfight for first. The Rangers lost the best player in baseball and now are one of the best teams in the league. The Tigers and Rays are both thriving this year when they’ve been the poster children for futility in the major leagues. The Rays are making a serious run at the post season and looked primed to push the Red Sox out of the AL East race. Despite all this the biggest surprise in all of baseball has to be the Seattle Mariners. With basically the same team, they’ve gone from finishing two wins away from the playoffs last year to trailing the Rangers and A’s by 14 games before the All-Star break.

The MLB must have discovered the fountain of youth because there are pitchers who are “over the hill” and are the best in the game right now. Roger Clemens and Kenny Rogers are getting serious Cy Young award run and they have a combined age of 80. Clemens wanted to retire at the end of last year and now he’s dominating National League hitting. When Clemens, at the age of 41, changed leagues for the first time in his career no one told him he is not supposed to go in and make that league look dumb. There is usually a learning curve or a showcase of the pitchers deteriorating skills are put out for the world to see. Kenny Rogers has just been winning. He had one less win then he did all year at the beginning of July for the Rangers who are contending once again. 40 year old Randy Johnson pitched a perfect game this season in Atlanta against the Braves. Johnson is trying to do his best impression of a fine wine that gets better with age. Johnson who’d only thrown one no-hitter during his Cooperstown bound career pulled a perfect game out of the tail of it. Johnson was untouchable striking out 13 on only 117 pitches.

Some superstars fall off of the face of the earth never to be heard from again. This isn’t the storyline that Ken Griffey Jr. is going to follow. Since moving to Cincinnati he had only a single productive season and that was the sole season that he didn’t spend substantial time on the DL. This year Griffey is contributing to the team. He started off the season with 481 home runs and was looking to reach the 500 home run milestone this year. He got it done on Fathers Day with his Dad and his kids in the stands against the Cardinals in St. Louis. Griffey took a Matt Morris pitch into the right field seats to become the only the 20th player in major league history to reach the milestone.

Eric Gagne was the man who started the trend in which a starter would be converted to a closer. John Smoltz has also followed suit and is thriving as a closer in Atlanta. To say that Gagne has good stuff would be an injustice. When describing his stuff words like sick, nasty, knee-buckling and cartoonish should come to mind. Gagne had run off a record 84 straight save opportunities. The streak has caused some debate among baseball purists who feel the “cheap save” should not count as a save starting next season. During the streak Gagne picked up 32 “cheap saves.” This isn’t meant to discredit Gagne in any way, because he is hands down the premiere closer in all of baseball no matter how cheap, expensive, or moderately priced the save might be.

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