the year. Stats-Pack 1-8-0 – Leafs record in the pa

TSN Baseball Insider Steve Phillips answers several questions each week. This weeks topics include the Blue Jays struggles at Yankee Stadium, what the Tampa Bay Rays should do with David Price, remembering Tony Gwynn and his pick for the best team in baseball. 1) What is it about the Blue Jays and Yankee Stadium that dont go together (15 straight losses through Wednesday)? You would think an offensive team would do well in a hitters park. In your experience, what was the toughest park to play in and why? There isnt anything wrong with the Blue Jays. They just cant seem to beat the Yankees. The Yankees have the Jays number. Baseball is such a mental game. What you think or feel impacts how you play. When one team dominates another like this it gets in the mind of the losing team. It also empowers the winning team. As each subsequent game unfolds, the losing team feels that a loss is inevitable. When something goes wrong in the game it feels like that will be the reason the team loses on that day. In contrast the winning team has a feeling of inevitability as well. They just know someone will make a play or get a big hit to win the game. The Jays have a defeatist attitude against the Yankees. Im sure they start out each game telling themselves that this will be the day they end the losing streak. But at some point a lost scoring opportunity, an error, a bloop base hit, etc causes the voices of doubt start to scream in their psyche. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. I lived this nightmare when I was Mets general manager. We could not beat the Atlanta Braves, especially at Turner Field in Atlanta. It didnt matter what we did, we lost. We could get good starting pitching but their starters pitched better. We could score a bunch of runs but they would find a way to outscore us. We lost every way imaginable. We lost some games with bad first innings and some with bad ninth innings. We lost on home runs, errors, wild pitches and squeeze bunts. We would rally and look like we were coming back and then hit in to a double play to end the game. We even walked in a game-winning run in the NLCS in 1999. What makes matters worse is when the team that has your number is in your division. With the unbalanced schedule we played division rivals nineteen times each. We always finished second to the Braves mainly because we couldnt beat them head-to-head. I told Braves GM John Schuerholz and manager Bobby Cox that if I ever had to pick them out of a police line-up I would have to have them turn around because I chased them for six years and only saw their backside and never saw their faces. In fact I am convinced that the only reason we advanced to the World Series in 2000 against the Yankees was because the Braves lost in the NLDS that year to the Cardinals. Our struggles ran from one season into another season. Not even an off-season flushed out the demons. In fact, several years after I was general manager I returned to Turner Field as a baseball analyst to broadcast a game. I remember walking in the visiting clubhouse and the awful feelings of past losses at Turner Field flooded me. It was still in my head. Every team has that other team. Unfortunately for the Jays that team is the Yankees. 2) There are a lot of suggestions that the Rays should be trading David Price now. Would you do it, and what would be your expected return in a deal for Price? What team has assets that fit that wish list? The Rays must trade David Price. Small market teams have to do all they can to maximize their assets. Price is the Rays most substantial asset. They cant afford to keep him and they cant afford not to trade him. In order to continuously reinvent themselves, small market teams have to recycle their roster. It seems highly unlikely that the Rays would trade David Price withinthe AL East. It is already a very difficult division so why make it that much tougher. Certainly the Jays, Orioles, Yankees and Red Sox would all have interest in Price. But so do the Tigers, Athletics, Angels, Braves, Cardinals, Reds Giants, and Dodgers. The Rays have had success being an organization built around deep pitching and just enough offense. Unfortunately for them, this year they dont have anywhere close to enough offence. The challenge for small market teams is finding the right balance between their pitching and offence. The timing between the two is critical since they cant spend significant dollars in the free agent market to fill deficiencies. The Rays want to compete again as soon as possible so finding young major league talent instead of a bevy prospects is preferred. The team that can make the best deal with the Rays is the St. Louis Cardinals. The Rays should ask for 1B Matt Adams and RHS Michael Wacha. This would replace Prices role in the rotation and give them a big power bat for the middle of their lineup. I would expect the Cardinals to say no to including Wacha in the deal. So the Rays should then ask for RHS Shelby Miller and RHP Carlos Martinez in the deal with Adams. The Cardinals would have a rotation that would include Adam Wainwright, Wacha, Price, Lance Lynn and Jaime Garcia. Alan Craig can play first base in the absence of Adams and Oscar Tavares can play right field. The Rays would get a quality young starter in Miller, a potential impact starter/closer in Martinez and a big bat for their lineup. It will be very interesting to see where Price goes and what the deal will be. One thing for certain he will not finish the season with the Rays. 3) We lost one of the great hitters and great personalities in baseball last week. What is your fondest memory of Tony Gwynn and where does he rank among the hitters you saw play? Tony Gwynn is one of the best pure hitters that baseball has ever known. He was a student and a teacher of the game. Gwynn is one of the rare players who played for one team his entire career. He is known as Mr. Padre. He never had a contract dispute. He didnt play for the money. He could have taken advantage of the free agent market and squeezed every last dollar out of his ability. But he wasnt about money. He played for the love of the game. Interestingly Gwynn got more attention in his death than he did as a Hall of Famer. People in some ways diminished his accomplishments because he was a singles hitter. The most home runs he ever hit in a season were seventeen. He could have hit more but he chose to stay within himself and do what he did best. He punched the ball the other way. He was a contact hitter. He hit for average. Gwynn had a .338 career batting average. He led the league in hitting eight times. He was a 15-time All Star and a five-time Gold Glover. His .393 batting average in the strike-shortened 1994 season, was the closest that anyone has gotten to .400 since Ted Williams did it in 1941. The hole between the shortstop and third baseman became know as the "5.5" hole because of Gwynn. He had an uncanny knack of being able to hit any pitch anywhere in the zone through that hole. I remember an afternoon when I was GM for the Mets that I was sitting in my office and heard the crack of the bat coming from the field at 1pm. We had a 7pm game that night so I wondered who could possibly be hitting that early. I went out on the concourse and saw Tony Gwyn taking early batting practice with one of the Padres coaches. I couldnt believe it. The game was six hours away. Then after regular batting practice I saw Gwynn walking with a bucket of balls down to the batting age under the stadium. He was going to practice some more. The best pure hitter of his era was also the hardest worker. That told me all I needed to know. The other remarkable thing about Gwynn was his smile. He was the least Hall of Fame acting Hall of Famer I have ever met. He was genuine, sincere, compassionate, kind and friendly. He greeted fans and opponents and ground crew workers in exactly the same way. He wasnt too big for anyone and no one was too small for him. Baseball lost the best pure hitter of this era and one of the best ever in the game. But the bigger loss was that of the man that was Tony Gwynn. 4) Baseball is such a great sport. Everyday gives you some different feeling about your team and its chances. It is made for sports talk radio. Or maybe it made sports talk radio. Either way our team can excite us one day and disappoint us the next. One week we feel like we are going all the way and the next week our team is a bunch of bums. The season is a marathon-long roller coaster ride. It can be exhilarating or exhausting depending upon the end result. Statistics allow us to continuously grade the progress of our team and how it is performing. The numbers can be made to tell just about any story and often times suit our bias. I love the weekly power rankings that come out and show which team is ranked ahead of its competition. Each week the teams are moved up and down based upon how they performed over a seven-day time frame. Seven days in a baseball season is only a snapshot of a team and who they are. There is a saying in baseball that no team is as good as they are when playing its best or as bad as they are when they play their worst. Yet each week we come up with an ordering of the teams according to some arbitrary evaluation. This year is no different. So far in one ranking the Giants, Cardinals, As, Brewers and Tigers have all been atop the rankings at one point or another this season. This is bizarre to me because there is one team that is the best and no one else is even close. The best team in baseball by far is the Oakland As. Why? The As have outscored the opposition by 134 runs. The next closest team is the San Francisco Giants who are a +47. Isnt the idea to outscore your opponent? The As have scored the most runs in baseball. "Well isnt pitching more important?" you ask. The As have given up the least number of runs as well. Back when Billy Beane co-wrote "Moneyball" everyone focused on the need for hitters to have a good OBP. Yet, Beanes teams back then had much better pitching than they did offence. They didnt win because their hitters had a great plan at the plate, they won because their pitchers didnt give up OBP. This As team is a true "Moneyball" team through and through. They are baseballs best offensive team while also having the best pitching. Beane has been criticized because his teams never won anything. That means championships. His clubs won a ton of games and got more bang for the buck than anyone else but that doesnt seem to matter. This is their year. Here are my power rankings: Its the Oakland As and then everybody else. Cheap Authentic Jerseys 2020 . They have watched it from afar. And now they have seen it for themselves. Cheap NFL Jerseys 2020 . Wiggins, a 6-foot-8, 200-pound forward who plays his first exhibition game on Wednesday against Pitt State, was the top prospect in the class of 2013. http://www.wholesalejerseysreview.com/ .com) - Al Horford collected 19 points and 16 rebounds and the Atlanta Hawks held off a furious rally to beat the Detroit Pistons 106-103 on Friday night in a game between two of the NBAs hottest teams. Cheap Jerseys 2020 .com) - NFL owners have unanimously approved the sale of the Buffalo Bills. Wholesale Jerseys Review . Napoli hit two home runs, Jonny Gomes and prized rookie Xander Bogaerts also connected, and the Red Sox kept up their dizzying scoring spree at Yankee Stadium by bashing New York 13-9 Saturday for a fifth straight win.PHILADELPHIA – Like the rest of his teammates, Carl Gunnarsson was doing what he could to remain positive after yet another loss, the seventh straight for the sinking Leafs, but it wasnt easy. The 27-year-old wants to believe that a turnaround is still possible, that his team can salvage the season, dig out from a deepening slide and claim a second straight playoff berth. But as time ticks down and the results continue to linger in the wrong direction, that belief is tested. "Its a struggle," he said in a near-empty visitors dressing room at Wells Fargo Center. "Ill tell you that. We thought we had something going here tonight." Whatever fight they mustered in a 4-2 loss to the Flyers didt matter by the time the night was through. It was just another empty loss, another opportunity to regain ground for not. "Overall, I didnt think that we had that bad of a night," said coach Randy Carlyle afterward, but we were on the wrong side of the score and thats what counts the most." Never more evident than at this late stage in the season, the difference between winning and losing remained painfully thin. And for the Leafs it was just enough for defeat. Two power-play goals against, a few too many odd-man rushes, a bad break or two and a key mistake at the wrong time. Claude Giroux was the benefactor of one such mistake that sealed defeat for the visitors. The Flyers captain picked off former teammate James van Riemsdyks neutral ice pass attempt - the puck ricocheted off the skate of Scott Hartnell - and zipped a bullet beyond the glove of Jonathan Bernier. "Right now every big scoring chance they get, I think it feels like its going in," said Bernier afterward. "When its not going your way, thats usually what happens." "I thought we played pretty good," he continued. "A few mistakes that end up being goals. From the last game, obviously, I think we played a lot better." But like their harrowing loss to the St. Louis Blues on Tuesday, one that saw them manhandled for half the game by the top team in the West, Fridays defeat in Philly counted all the same. It was just another loss at a critical point in the season. "We worked hard," Carlyle said. "Did we work smart enough in some areas? No." Any chance the Leafs have at resuscitation starts Saturday night in a massive showdown with the Detroit Red Wings. A victory reignites whatever belief and hope still lingers. They may have no hope of catching either the Montreal Canadiens or Tampa Bay Lightning, but sitting on near-equal ground with the Columbus Blue Jackets, Red Wings and Washington Capitals - all have 80 points, but with games in hand - a wild card position is still in play. "Obviously, this one, its going to be a tough one to swallow," Bernier said. "But, at the same time, we cant feel sorry for ourselves. [Saturday] is a big game and we all know that." Five Points 1. Carlyles Approach Carlyle has tried to push a few different buttons in midst of his teams recent slide. "Some days, it is a little bit more harsh. Some days, its a pat in the back. Some days its a hug," Carlyle said on Friday morning. "Whatever it is, whatever you feel is necessary. Nobody in life feels like coming to work and being ground into the dirt everyday and thats part of the process. Youve got to pick and choose when to apply pressure and when not to." As to his preferred approach of late, Carlyle said, "Its been more reality of the situation. Just showing and trying to get an understanding that were not that far away. But there are some areas that need to be addressed. Thats as simple as I can put it. Our compete level has to go up. We havent won enough one-on-one battles. Weve given up too many odd-man rushes and breakaways. Weve got to play better on the defensive side of the game." 2. Penalty Kill The Flyers scored twice on the power play, marking the 12th time this season that the Leaf penalty kill has given up two goals in a game this season. Vincent Lecavalier fired a laser for the first of two, a five-on-three goal that was not without some controversy. Jay McClement, taking the draw as Torontos lone forward, was thrown out of the face-off ciircle, charged with knocking the puck from the hand of linesman Michel Cormier.dddddddddddd Dion Phaneuf promptly stepped in and lost the first (and likely last) face-off of his career, Lecavalier blowing the one-timer by Bernier just three seconds later. "Thats not something that you want to happen," McClement said of the face-off incident. "I dont think [Cormier] wanted to do it either. But he explained to me that its black and white when I knocked it out of his hand." Scott Hartnell would add the second power-play marker, redirecting a Kimmo Timonen point shot just beyond the grasp of Bernier. The Toronto penalty kill remains third-worst in the NHL this season. 3. Bollands Comeback Dave Bolland scored for the third time this season in Philadelphia and the first time since his left ankle was sliced by the skate of Zack Kassian on November 2. The 27-year-old hasnt played more than 13 minutes since he returned from the injury and he was kept right in that region against the Flyers. "I just see that in some of the situations, hes struggled with the mobility," Carlyle said of Bolland before the 4-2 loss. "Its not sore, [but] it just doesnt have the strength there. Wre going to try to find a way to get him some more minutes. We know what kind of player he is." 4. The 18-Wheeler Luke Schenn was there in 2012 when the Leafs collapsed and knows all too well how quickly the pressure rises in Toronto. "Lose a couple in a row and everything magnifies that much more," he said. "You lose three in a row and people tend to get on you a little bit. All the fans and the media think that everythings falling apart. Thats just the way it is over there. "Its obviously a tough market to play in when things arent going the way you want them to, but its a great market when things are going well. Theres always adversity in Toronto. Its never going to change. Im sure those guys are going to get through it." Reflecting back to the infamous 18-wheeler skid two years earlier, Schenn couldnt put his finger on just what wrong. "There is no exact reason why. Its probably a combination of different things. Id have to go back and look. Obviously, youre probably getting off to some tough starts in games. Special teams probably werent as good as they need to be. At the end of the day - when I was there - it probably just came down to being outcompeted some nights. Obviously, you lose a couple in a row, confidence isnt always there. Thats just the way it goes. Youve got to find ways to get out of it." 5. Gardiner Offence Just ahead of a clash with the Flyers three weeks ago, Jake Gardiner revealed his disappointment with the offence hed put together to that point. "I dont think my point production has been that great this year,"he said. "Id like to improve on that." The 23-year-old scored a goal the next night in a 4-3 overtime win, rounding up nine points in the past 11 games, including a helper on Bollands seventh goal this season. "Ive tried to jump in the play a lot more and be an offensive threat from the blue line," he explained of his recent surge prior to the game. Gardiner has 26 points on the year. Stats-Pack 1-8-0 – Leafs record in the past nine games. 9 – Points in the last 11 games for Jake Gardiner. 3 – Goals by Dave Bolland in Philadelphia this season. 24:31 – Ice-time for James van Riemsdyk opposite his former team Friday, tied for the team-lead. 15 – Consecutive games without a point for David Clarkson, who has just 10 this season. 8 – Number of times the Leafs have allowed the first goal in the past nine games.4 – Seconds elapsed in the second period before van Riemsdyk scored the first Leafs goal. It was the fastest goal to start a period for the team this season. Special Teams Capsule PP: 0-4Season: 20.6% (4th) PK: 2-4Season: 78.1% (28th) Quote of the Night "Overall, I didnt think that we had that bad of a night, but we were on the wrong side of the score and thats what counts the most." -Randy Carlyle, following a seventh straight loss in Philadelphia. Up Next The Leafs return home to host to the Red Wings on Saturday night. ' ' '