Astros moving to AL renews debate over the designated hitter - Detroit Free Press
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Miami Marlins right-hander Carlos Zambrano had a sly grin on his face after crossing home plate Sunday.
Zambrano had just crushed a Joe Blanton pitch 418 feet into the stands, silencing the Phillies faithful.
"As a pitcher in the National League, you have to be able to bunt, run, hit. I take that seriously," Zambrano said afterward. "I'm proud of what I do."
Zambrano has experience swinging the bat, having spent all 12 of his seasons in the National League. But on Thursday, the Royals pitchers were taking their hacks as the team traveled to Pittsburgh.
Friday night's game required some lineup shuffling.
The Royals moved Billy Butler from the designated hitter spot to first base, switched Eric Hosmer from first to rightfield and slid Jeff Francoeur from right to center. Jarrod Dyson took a seat on the bench.
You may not be thrilled with Dyson's .266 average, but it looked pretty good Friday night when Luke Hochevar stepped to the plate looking for his first big-league hit (0-for-11 lifetime). And who knows how much Francoeur learned from his previous three innings of centerfield experience?
"We are built to have a DH in there, and we are not built to have our pitchers involved in the offense part of the game," said Royals manager Ned Yost. "That is a little bit of a disadvantage, because National League (pitchers) are. They're bunting all the time. They're hitting all the time. They're running the bases."
Not surprisingly, Yost has had Royals pitchers taking batting practice, and they've worked on laying down bunts and running the bases.
But is this fair to the Royals or the rest of the American League teams? It's bound to be a future point of discussion because when the Houston Astros move to the American League next year, there will be interleague games throughout the season.
Former Mariners second baseman Harold Reynolds, now an analyst on the MLB Network, thinks interleague games give NL teams an edge. He talked earlier this year about the Red Sox in particular.
"(Designated hitter) David Ortiz is allergic to his leather," Reynolds said. "Now he's got to go ahead and try to find some way to bring that glove back out there with him. Then you put Adrian Gonzalez (in the outfield), so you're putting two players in positions they are not expected to play in."
Reynolds makes a persuasive point.
However, there are those in the National League who see the designated hitter helping American League teams in the long run.
After watching the Tigers sign former Brewer Prince Fielder after Albert Pujols left the Cardinals for the Angels last winter, Milwaukee general manager Doug Melvin noted the length of those deals.
Fielder, 28, got a nine-year contract and Pujols, 32, signed for 10 years.
"What's happening is that National League teams just can't compete on the length of contracts for guys like that," Melvin told reporters. "The Cardinals and our team were both willing to give those guys six years.
"But when the length of those deals got to nine and 10 years, we just couldn't compete ... not when AL clubs have the DH to protect themselves on the back end of contracts that long."
Another valid point.
Perhaps a designated hitter can shed some light on this matter. Particularly one who likes playing the field, like the Royals' Butler.
Turns out, Butler doesn't feel strongly one way or another.
"I play in a league that has a DH," Butler said. "I'd play first base on a team if there wasn't a DH. The DH is just like playing first base in the NL. You've got to have somebody playing there and somebody playing the outfield. Obviously, you're going to see the way our team is going to be shaped if we didn't have a DH when we're in Pittsburgh.
"We're going to put the best team on the field that is going to win a ballgame. That's the way it is. It doesn't matter if there's a DH or not."
Ultimately, to DH or not DH may be a moot point anyway. Four years ago, commissioner Bud Selig visited Kauffman Stadium and chatted on air with Denny Matthews.
That day, Selig said he had no intention of changing things, because he likes the leagues having a different approach to the game.
Butler agreed. His goals is always the same, whether the DH is abolished, expanded to both leagues or remains as is.
"You've got to go out there and win a ballgame each day," Butler said. "That's the bottom line."
Downing is Young at heart - Football
Published: 08 Jun 2012 - 23:46:59
Ashley Young could be as good as Wayne Rooney as England's deep-lying striker, according to Stewart Downing.
Young looks set to start the European Championship playing off Danny Welbeck, with Rooney suspended for his country's first two games. Rooney has long been considered England's talisman but Young has threatened to wrest that mantle from his Manchester United team-mate in the last 18 months with six goals in his last 10 internationals.
Liverpool winger Downing, who played with Young at Aston Villa, said: "He's tricky and finds himself in good areas and can nick a goal. He can find a pass, score a goal and maybe now we have another player to play in that role as well as Rooney."
He added: "You can see with the run of games he's had and scoring a few goals that his confidence has grown.
"He's a terrific player, a good lad and I personally like playing with him because we seem to be on the same wavelength.
"I think he's come into his own a bit and has the confidence he can do well in this team."
Downing, who is being tipped to start alongside Young in England's Euro 2012 opener against France on Monday, revealed he himself preferred to play in a deep-lying role.
He said: "When I first went to Aston Villa, he was on the left, I was on the right and you saw his ability to get good crosses into the box.
"I prefer to play in the hole, if I'm honest, and at Aston Villa when he went into the hole and I went out wide, I think we linked up quite well. Me, him and Darren Bent."
Related England News
Oakland A's fall to Arizona Diamondbacks on Ryan Roberts' walk-off, three-run homer - San Jose Mercury News
PHOENIX -- The A's certainly did enough good things to win Friday night.
Instead, they were served more ninth-inning heartache when closer Brian Fuentes surrendered a walk-off, three-run home run to Ryan Roberts that gave the Arizona Diamondbacks a 9-8 victory at Chase Field.
It was the second walk-off job allowed by Fuentes (2-2) in a span of 11 days. Surely this latest episode will have A's manager Bob Melvin rethinking his closer situation once again.
Fuentes replaced the struggling Grant Balfour in mid-May, but now the veteran left-hander has allowed seven runs over his past four games (31/3 innings).
"I don't make a decision like that two minutes after a game," Melvin said.
Until Roberts' homer, Seth Smith was shaping up as the A's hero.
Filling in as the cleanup hitter for the injured Yoenis Cespedes, Smith went 3 for 4 with a two-run homer. He also came up big in left field, robbing Aaron Hill of a home run.
Brandon Inge also went 3 for 4 with an RBI, and he collected two hits in the same inning for the second time in five days. The A's busted out for six runs in the second inning to take a 6-0 lead and chase Diamondbacks right-hander Daniel Hudson.
It all went for naught in the opener of a six-game interleague road trip.
Fuentes got the first two outs of the ninth but walked Chris Young, a cardinal sin with a two-run lead. Then Hill singled, and Roberts lined a 2-1 pitch over the wall in
left-center field."I was struggling to keep the ball in the strike zone," Fuentes said. "I lost my tempo and fell behind quite a bit."
In the bottom of the second, the 6-foot-3 Smith went back to the fence on Hill's deep drive to left and leapt high to snag the ball.
Melvin said he didn't think Smith could jump that high.
"I played basketball, but that was 10 years and 30 pounds ago," said Smith, who also played quarterback at Ole Miss.
A's lefty Tommy Milone, who went five innings and was in line for the victory, chipped in with the bat in the second. He blooped a two-run single into left field that accounted for the first hit by an A's pitcher since Ben Sheets singled in St. Louis on June 19, 2010. That was a span of 26 hitless at-bats.
The pitchers will forever be linked as the central pieces of a five-player trade in December between the A's and Diamondbacks. But neither played up the individual matchup.
Cahill also tried to downplay facing his former team for the first time in a regular-season game.
"I looked at the lineup, there's not too many guys I know," Cahill said of the A's lineup Friday.
Just four players in the A's starting lineup played alongside Cahill last season with Oakland.
Cahill, traded to Arizona along with reliever Craig Breslow, is 3-5 with a 3.45 ERA in 11 starts.
Parker -- who came over to Oakland with reliever Ryan Cook and outfielder Collin Cowgill -- is 2-2 with a 2.40 ERA, which is lowest among major league rookies with at least 40 innings pitched.
Parker's first time facing Arizona came in spring training -- he walked seven in 32/3 innings and was optioned to Triple-A Sacramento after the game.
"I've come a long way from then," Parker said. "Where I was then and where I'm at now is completely different."
"I think we'll know (Saturday) when we get him on the field," said Melvin, who held out hope that Cespedes might be available to pinch-hit during the series.
Cespedes left Thursday's game against Texas after hurting his left hamstring running the bases in the first inning. He didn't join the A's for batting practice Friday.
Melvin was asked by an Arizona reporter to describe Cespedes' all-around tools, and he came up with an interesting player comparison: Bo Jackson.
For more on the A's, go to Joe Stiglich's blog at ibabuzz.com/athletics and follow him at Twitter.com/joestiglich.
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