Wednesday morning briefing

1) John Smoltz reached a career milestone Tuesday night that only adds on to his Hall Of Fame career. Smoltz became the 16th pitcher in histroy to record 3,000 career strikeouts. The gritty veteran struck out ten in six innings of work, but the Atlanta Braves dropped the ballgame 6-0 to the Washington Nationals.

Smoltz has been around the block and then some in his career with Atlanta. The man has pitched in the regular season and dominated, garnering Cy Young award honors. He has made countless postseason appearances and dominated in the World Series. He has been one of the game's best starting pitchers and one of the elite closers that we have ever seen. His 210 wins and 154 wins stand alone, and I don't doubt that he would have reached the 300 win plateau by now if it wasn't for the time he had to spend in the bullpen.

There will be more great pitchers to come along in future generations and there will be other power pitchers who reach 3,000 strikeouts. But I do not think we will see a guy like John Smoltz for a long time-- if ever. Smoltz has some power and finesse in him. He had the devastating fastball in the prime of his career, yet he has the savvy to throw great offspeed pitches, and his command is impeccable. Great night for Atlanta and great night for baseball.


2) Ben Sheets is skipping his scheduled start on Thursday due to soreness in his right arm. Sheets came out of the gates on fire last season only to be doused by arm troubles, effectively giving the Milwaukee Brewers a slim chance at playoff contention. For the sake of Sheets and the Brewers, this will be no more than a couple week thing. Sometimes guys will hit a wall when they throw a lot of innings early in the season simply because their arms are not quite in game shape.

But if this turns out to be anything serious and sidelines Sheets for a considerable amount of time, there really is no hope for the Brewers to keep up with the Cubs in the NL Central. Last year, the Brew Crew had a shot. But this year, there are multiple factors that will tell us why that won't happen.

The Brewers starting rotation is already hurting with Yovani Gallardo and Manny Parra battling some aches and pains. If there is ever a time where Milwaukee needs Sheets to be a horse, this is it. There is nobody at the back end of the bullpen to save games in Milwaukee in 2008. Francisco Cordero departed for big bucks in Cincinnati, Eric Gagne has been blowing saves on a record pace, and Derrick Turnbow has been utterly inconsistent for the last year. There are no answers there.

If that isn't enough, it is unlikely that the Brewers are going to score runs at the same pace that they did last year. Ryan Braun is coming off a gigantic season in which he won the Rookie of the Year award, and I suspect that he will fall off a little bit. Not because he can't be that type of hitter, but mainly because pitchers are going to make adjustments and Braun is going to have his first taste of big league adversity. Prince Fielder should start eating meat again, I think. Maybe those sausages and bratwursts in Milwaukee led to his 50 plus homeruns last season, but since the slugger has gone vegetarian, his power has gone down as well. All of this coupled with the fact that the Cubs are improved leads me to believe that this division will not be as close as expected.


3) C.C. Sabathia can finally breathe as he showed some of his old form last night, striking out 11 in six innings of work. Apparently there was nothing wrong with Sabathia physically, as he showed a 94-mph fastball and a sharp, low-80s slider. As talent evaluators try to figure out what was the cause for the horrible start for the reigning Cy Young award winner, the answer may lie beneath a myriad of reasons.

Sabathia noted that he looked at some extensive video of his mechanics and made a couple minor tweaks to get back on track. That undoubtedly is part of it, but it is not the whole story. The problem is that everything is connected and there is a trickle-down affect when the mechanics get out of wack. If Sabathia was off just a little bit to open the season, that could be cause for a bad outing or two out of the gate. After a couple of bad starts, the pressure mounts as people are crying for the solution to C.C.'s left arm, and the natural thing is to try harder and harder, which is really the opposite thing to do.

With this dominating outing, Sabathia can step back and start pitching like he is capable of again. After the Indians' slow start, they can only hope that their big guy is back to being his 2007 self, firing bullets past American League hitters.


4) There are reports cycling through the baseball grapevine that the Detroit Tigers are switching Miguel Cabrera and Carlos Guillen on defense. These reports have been confirmed by manager Jim Leyland, noting that the organization believes this is an obvious, and simple, way to improve their ballclub. My question is, why?

Miguel Cabrera has actually played a pretty decent third base this season. He has not cost them any games a the position, and who is to say that he will not be more of a liability over at first base, a position which he has never played in his career? I don't really get this move all that much. Guillen, a former shortstop, will certainly be able to hold his own over at third base, so I guess the Tigers are banking on the fact that Cabrera will be able to pick up errant throws over at first base like Guillen could. If not, then this really doesn't make sense.

Hopefully, for the Tigers, this does not upset Cabrera too much since he is more important to their ballclub than Carlos Guillen is. Guillen is probably happy moving back to an infield position that allows him to play a little more creatively and use his athleticism to make more plays. But if this move pisses off Cabrera, it will be interesting to see what happens to his offensive output. We will find out.


5) Is win the only thing Brandon Webb knows how to do? It sure seems like it these days. The Arizona ace improved to 5-0 on Tuesday night, striking out seven in six innings of work. Webb was not as sharp as he usually is with his sinker, curveball, and changeup, as he allowed three runs to the offensively-challenged San Francisco Giants. But Webb helped himself out with a twp-run double at the plate.

Of course, there is that offense in Pheonix that I suppose has something to do with Webb's early season success. The young Diamonbacks-- led by Justin Upton, Mark Reynolds, and Chris Young-- are circling the bases in a fury. Not only do they provide exposions at the plate, but they have shown an ability to execute the game and win close decisions. You know this lineup is explosive when they score five runs and I really feel like it was an off-night for them. I mean, five runs is more than the New York Yankees are averaging per game so far this year. But, honestly, the offense grinded out the runs even though they were clicking on all cylinders like they have been.

When there is someone as hot as Webb is, there must be someone just as cold, and when I thought it really couldn't get any worse for Barry Zito, his fortune keeps heading south. Zito is 0-5 on the season, a season in which I thought he would be better than last year because how could he not be? I figured a fresh mind and a clean slate would be more than enough to shave a little bit off of the ERA and keep the Giants in some ballgames, but apparently I was off base. You know it is bad when the opposing pitcher is knocking you around the park like what happened on Tuesday.