Baseball Insider: Clemens great, but Gibson was scary

[CincyRedsFan30]

Clemens great, but Gibson was scary

By Hal McCoy

Dayton Daily News

CINCINNATI | The subject was Houston pitcher Roger Clemens and his incredibly shrinking 1.53 ERA. Chicago Cubs manager Dusty Baker wonders, "How does he do it?"

The rules and umpires won't permit pitchers to throw at batters, so the batters dig in. That wasn't the case when St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Bob Gibson posted a 1.12 ERA in 1968.

Baker said only two men ever intimidated him, his father and Gibson. Baker remembers taking a 17-game hitting streak into a game against Gibson — this was when Baker was with the Atlanta Braves and was a teammate of Hank Aaron.

"Hank told me, 'Don't dig in against Bob Gibson, he'll knock you down,'" Baker said. "Don't stare at him. He doesn't like it. If you happen to hit a home run, don't run too slow and don't run too fast. If you want to celebrate, do it in the tunnel behind the dugout.

"If he hits you, don't charge the mound," Aaron added. "He's a Golden Glove boxer."

Baker listened and said, "Damn, what about my 17-game hitting streak?" No problem. Mr. Gibson ended it.

Well-guarded secret

Atlanta rookie right fielder Jeff Francoeur has 10 homers in only 32 major-league games, is hitting .370, has 29 RBIs, no walks and he already has nine outfield assists, including two in one game on the same runner, Arizona's Luis Gonzalez.

After he was wiped out at home the second time, Gonzalez looked at Atlanta pitcher Mike Hampton and said, "You've got to be kidding me."

Said Atlanta pitcher Tim Hudson, "He's like Roy Hobbs in The Natural. I'm waiting for him to come out of the bullpen and start striking guys out. Or go to the plate batting left-handed and starting hitting homers."

Francoeur says his buddies are laughing at major-league pitchers because his buddies know how to get him out.

"I know how I'd get me out," he said. "My buddies know how they would. They call me and leave messages saying, 'Why are they pitching that way to you?'"

Other teams who can't figure it out have private investigators hunting for Francoeur's buddies.

Vampires in St. Louis?

For Jeff Suppan, they can't tear down Busch Stadium fast enough and move into the new Busch III. Last season, the St. Louis pitcher was 10-1 on the road, but 6-8 at home. Since June 13 this year he is 5-0 on the road and 1-2 at home.

If that isn't enough for manager Tony La Russa to think about, the difference in Mark Mulder is, well, day and night. He is 13-1 this year under the lights and 1-5 in 10 starts under the sun.

La Russa is checking the yellow pages for "Exorcist."

Two plus two

Both play shortstop and both wear No. 2. One is hitting .303 with 14 homers, 50 RBIs and a .445 slugging percentage. His salary is $19.5 million this year.

The other is hitting .306 with 19 homers, 61 RBIs and a .553 slugging average. His salary is $316,700.

The big-bucks guy is New York's Derek Jeter and the short-dollars guy is Cleveland's Jhonny Peralta.

Don't tell George Steinbrenner.

The wild Marlins

The Florida Marlins entered Saturday a half-game behind Houston in the National League wild-card argument, and if the truth be known, the Marlins probably prefer the wild-card over winning the division.

They've won two wild cards in their history (1997, 2003) and won the World Series both times.

They are masters of their own cause. Beginning Sept. 2, they play 20 straight games against the other four teams in the wild-card Top Five — Philadelphia, Houston, Washington and New York.

Never loses seven

The Kansas City Royals, baseball's version of The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight, has four different seven-game losing streaks this year.

So what?

Well, in Bobby Cox's current 15-year stint as Atlanta's manager, the Braves have never lost seven straight. Cox's Blue Jays teams from 1982-85 never had a seven-game losing streak, either. You have to go back to his first stint with the Braves, 25 years ago in 1980 to find one Royals-esque skid.

Nineteen equals zero

This one is nearly impossible to do, but the Colorado Rockies did it in their own Coors Field & Pinball Machine Emporium.

They had 19 baserunners in a game against Washington. Not only did the Rockies lose, they were shut out.

The big save

Todd Williams pitched briefly for the Cincinnati Reds in 1998. So what?

Well, he pitches for Baltimore now, and on Wednesday recorded his first major-league save.

He was entitled to the fist-pump and chest-bump with catcher Sal Fasano. His first big-league save came after 222 minor-league saves.

Two to go

So far only two major-league organizations have a clean record since baseball's new drug-testing policy — Pittsburgh and Houston have not had a major-league player or minor-league player test positive.

There were three, but Milwaukee's perfect mark was wiped out when pitcher Nick Slack of Class A Brevard County tested positive and, uh, was cut no slack.

[Saber]

"Clemens great, but Gibson had a 6 inch higher mound"