Posts tagged ToriiHunter at FanHouse - AOL Sports Blog

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I don't know what's more amazing: a) that this fan was in the right spot at the right time to catch a Torii Hunter batting practice home run; b) that his non-glove hand was steady enough to catch the whole thing on film; c) that he maintained the presence of mind to call "head's up!" and save that impressed Angels player from getting conked on the head ... or d) that this is the same fan who made a nearly identical video catching an Andre Ethier double back in May?

I remember when I was a kid I went to a White Sox game against the Yankees with my dad. It was a special game in history, because it happened to be the day that Andy Hawkins threw a no-hittter against the White Sox. Oh, and he also lost the game 4-0.

I was only nine years old at the time, so I didn't quite understand the significance of what I'd just seen, I just knew that the White Sox had one, and that it was a good thing. The idea of how Hawkins must have felt after the Yankees committed three errors in that 8th inning to lose the game never crossed my mind. Looking back on it now, though, I'll bet he was pretty pissed off.

Wouldn't you be? At the very least you have to figure Jered Weaver probably is.

Weaver held the Dodgers without a hit through six innings before being removed for a pinch-hitter and turning things over to Arredondo, who retired the Dodgers in order in the seventh and eighth innings. The game did not qualify as an official no-hitter because the Dodgers did not bat in their half of the ninth inning.

The Dodgers scored in the fifth on a pair of errors, a stolen base and a sacrifice fly. Weaver committed the first error when he couldn't cleanly field leadoff hitter Matt Kemp's dribbler up the first base line.

Kemp would go on to steal second base and move up to third after Jeff Mathis saw a cute girl in the stands and wanted to impress her* by playing catch with Torii Hunter in center field (*this is my interpretation, anyway). Kemp would then score on a sac fly by Blake DeWitt, and the Dodgers would win 1-0.

All of which means that in his next start, Jered will give up 15 hits in 7 innings of work, yet the Angels will win the game 13-7. Baseball just has a way of balancing this stuff out, so it's important that Jered not let this bother him going into his next start. Things could be worse, after all, he could be Jeff Weaver.

It seems that no matter how many times we see it, baseball fans just never learn. Every spring baseball fans and experts alike say that this is the year that the Minnesota Twins are going to finish below .500 and at the bottom of the AL Central. Then summer comes along a few months later, and there they are. Sitting on top, or near the top of the division while the rest of us scratch their heads.

Though it happens every season, it still catches us all by surprise, but this season has been the most baffling of all. There is just no way that the Twins should be sitting at 40-36, only a game and a half behind the first place White Sox. The obvious reasons for this are that the team said goodbye to both Johan Santana and Torii Hunter during the offseason, and that Francisco Liriano has spent his time on the disabled list.

Still, it's not exactly a new phenomenon that teams carry on and continue playing well after saying goodbye to their stars. The Athletics have been doing it for years along with the Twins, so we know it can be done. The difference between these Twins, though, and the Twins and Athletics teams of the past is how they're doing it.

The guys who were supposed to replace what was lost have been horrible so far, yet they're still winning.

Now that the exciting action of MLB's amateur draft has completed it's first round, it's time to take a look at our country's next millionaires. Here's a quick glance at the first round selections by the teams of the AL West.

Texas Rangers (11) Justin Smoak, 1B, South Carolina: After trading Mark Teixeira to the Braves last season, the Rangers were left with an opening in the power-hitting first baseman that can hit from both sides of the plate department, and it looks like they filled the position with Justin Smoak. This kid can really Smoak (I know...boooo) the ball all over the field, and was projected in a lot of mock drafts as being a top ten, possibly top five, pick. Instead he went 11th to the Rangers, and though Rangers fans will probably compare him more to Teixeira, or even Chipper Jones, since he's a switch-hitter he's more of an Adrian Gonzalez type. Whether that means the Rangers will trade him to the Padres and he'll be their only position player worth a damn in a few years, I don't know.

Oakland Athletics (12) Jemile Weeks, 2B, Miami (Fla.): Brewers fans are already familiar with Jemile's older brother, Rickie, and now Oakland fans will get a chance to meet the second member of the Weeks family to get drafted. A lot of people who know more about this stuff than I do are saying that this pick was a bit of a stretch by the Athletics, since Weeks can only play one position, and will have to make a change in his approach at the plate to succeed in the Majors. That said, the kid has wheels, and he's a better defender than his brother. Plus, Billy Beane has had a lot of success in this draft thing, so if he thinks the kid is good enough, I'll just have to take his word for it.

Like many White Sox fans this past offseason, I wasn't very happy with the moves the White Sox did/didn't make. They missed out on Torii Hunter. They missed out on Miguel Cabrera. They missed out on Aaron Rowand, Kosuke Fukudome, and just about anybody else who they thought they were going to get.

It was during this time that I would often make the joke with my friends or other Sox fans, "But we got Carlos Quentin! Get your World Series tickets now!" Yes, I spent a lot of time this winter making jokes at Carlos Quentin's expense, but now over a quarter of the way through the season, the only one laughing is Quentin.

He's been carrying the White Sox. Just ask his manager.

"Oh, he has carried this ballclub,'' manager Ozzie Guillen said. ''A kid without that much experience in the big leagues batting third and having the kind of two months he has had, I never thought that was going to happen. I didn't expect this kid to be carrying the ballclub. We needed help, and he gave us help.

''We hit the lottery with him.''

After hitting his eleventh home run of the season on Sunday afternoon, Quentin is now hitting .301/.415/.589 and trails only the juggernaut that is Josh Hamilton for the AL lead in RBI's with 37. Those are better numbers than any of the other players the Sox had targeted.

And to think, he wasn't even supposed to be on the team.

When Torii Hunter recounted instances of fans at Fenway Park yelling racial slurs at him last month, response was varied. There was the time-tested belief that Boston is generally a racist city, accusations that Hunter wasn't telling the truth and, via David Ortiz among others, a thought that it was more about being on the opposing team than true hatred.

Now we're hearing from Jim Rice. As a black former Red Sox outfielder, Rice is in a good position to enlighten us about the goings-on in that part of Fenway. He took to his blog to respond to Hunter's claims. He said he never heard anything negative in Boston nor on the road, interesting because one would imagine the times he played in being more racially charged than recent years. He went on from there.


What exactly does a centerfielder have to do to incite racial slurs?

Since I am officially responsible for covering two divisions and nine teams here at FanHouse, I have to spend a lot of my time watching baseball. It's a hard life, I assure you, but these are the sacrifices I'm willing to make for you, the reader.

One of the players I've been particularly interested in following this season is Twins centerfielder Carlos Gomez. I went over these reasons in the spring during our Under the Gun feature, where I profiled Gomez as the one member of the Twins who's under a lot of pressure this season. One, because he came over from the Mets in the Johan Santana trade, and two, because he's also faced with the task of replacing the team's most popular player since Kirby Puckett in Torii Hunter.

So far, I'm having a blast watching Gomez play. He's not exactly tearing it up at the plate in his first month, as he finished April hitting only .265/.275/.373, and he's struck out 25 times in only 102 at bats. Still, he's been a joy to watch while on the base paths and in the field. Well, that is unless you're his manager Ron Gardenhire. Then some of the things he does probably drive you crazy.

"It's kind of crazy, really. It's high school," Gardenhire said of Gomez's antics. "I don't even know if it's college (level). But he's so enthusiastic and such a talent ... "

Reds announcer Marty Brennaman caused a stir when he called fans of the Cubs the most obnoxious in baseball for throwing balls on the field during a game at Wrigley Field last week. It's not the first time someone has complained about the behavior of fans in the ballpark and was followed by the latest fracas between Red Sox and Yankee fans and a brawl-filled weekend series between rooters of the Phillies and Mets.

All of that kind of pales in comparison to abject racism spouted from the stands at the players on the field, though. Torii Hunter spoke to the Riverside Press-Enterprise before the start of a series at Fenway Park this week and related how he'd treated during earlier trips to Boston.

"My first five or six (years), I was 'That N-word.' Some people would chant that out, some people would throw beer or whatever . . . batteries."

The Boston Herald picked up on the story today and spoke with David Ortiz, Hunter's former teammate with the Twins.

"He told me those complaints before, but what can I do about it?" said Ortiz. "You know how it is. When you play for the other team, you're going to hear some (stuff) like that - wherever you're at. He's aware of that.

"(But) he heard some stuff that I'm surprised at. One of the security guys told me it was true. They were screaming that kind of stuff at him. That's not right."

Torii Hunter just signed his big free agent payoff, that last big contract he'll probably ever get, and a big'un it was: Hunter signed for $90 million over five years, enough money to sprinkle diamonds in his doo-doo for the rest of his life. Nice.

So Hunter is taking last night's car accident -- when someone rear-ended his recently purchased Bentley -- in appropriate stride:

One of the biggest fears for a player that's playing in his first season with a new team after signing a big contract is winning over the new home fans. There's enough pressure on your shoulders as it is to perform with such a large price tag attached to you, but getting off to a slow start does nothing but make it even worse.

I don't think Torii Hunter needs to worry about it too much after the performance he gave in front of Angels fans on Monday. Not only did Hunter give the Angels a 2-1 lead in the 8th inning with a solo home run, he also saved the day in the 9th. After K-Rod gave up three runs to the Indians to blow his first save of the season, Torii came to the rescue with a walk-off grand slam in the 9th.

"All those fans who left, they're like, 'Man, I missed it!' " Hunter said. "That was awesome. That celebration was nice. That's how chemistry is started. These are my new teammates . . . when I came in, they doused me with beer."

Did you drink any of it? I mean, that seems like a waste of precious alcohol to me. Wasn't there any Gatorade around?

Anyway, after tearing the cover off the ball all spring, Hunter has brought his hot bat along with him into the regular season, already leading the American League with 4 home runs. He's also hitting .333 and has now driven in 8 runs.

Needless to say, if Torii keeps hitting like this throughout the season, he'll become just as popular in Los Angeles as he was in Minnesota.