Oh my God. It’s Friday! Finally! To give you a sense of where things stand at UmpBump HQ, en route to the office this morning I took a sharp left turn with my cup o’ Joe not properly secured in the cup holder (evidently). Now I have no coffee to drink, and altogether too much coffee soaked into my pants. Never have I needed some TGIF action so badly, and I trust you, loyal readers, feel the same. And here at UmpBump, “action” = “links.”

Rumors and Rants presents the ten worst contracts in baseball today. Guess who Number 1 is?

We didn’t talk about the John Bale story (pitcher on DL frustrated with how rehab is going, punches door with pitching hand, breaks hand) here on UmpBump because we were satisfied with the level of snark at Can’t Stop the Bleeding. Obviously, he didn’t have the Crash Davis tutorial on not hitting doors with your pitching hand. (I can’t keep giving you these free lessons!)

Rob Parker of the Detroit News says “like him or not, the Tigers need Bonds.” I disagree, given that the Tigers are actually third in the AL in runs scored and in the top five in every important offensive category. The problem for Detroit is that they’ve allowed the most runs of any AL Team—yes, even more than the Rangers. I fail to see how signing Barry Bonds is going to change that. But I guess we have to have thirty different versions of the article, “Team X needs to sign Barry Bonds,” no matter how silly some of those are.

Speaking of Bonds, he helped start this recent trend of using maple bats, which can be dangerous when they shatter (see photo). I’m an ash bat purist, so I was glad to see Jeff Passan’s article calling for the end of maple bats at Yahoo! Sports. (Hat tip to ShysterBall.)

Brawl! Since bench-clearing brawls are officially one of the reasons baseball is awesome, Babes Love Baseball has the video (in slo mo!) of Richie Sexson going after Kason Gabbard for throwing a high pitch. When I saw Sexson fling the helmet at Gabbard, and Gabbard promptly curl up in the fetal position on the pitcher’s mound, I knew I was watching an instant classic. The rest of the brawl is just gravy.

Ladies… has the goods on Carlos Gomez in the wake of his hitting-for-the-cycle performance. How you doin’?

Bill Plaschke tries to clarify whether Vin Scully is retiring or not. I came away with a new determination to watch all the Dodgers games this year on MLB.TV, just in case.

And Pinstripe Alley and River Ave Blues would both like to know why all the fuss about Joba’s fist pump. Seriously, a fist-pump controversy? That seems a bit much, even to this Boston fan. Try getting yourselves a shortstop on pace for 45 errors on the season, then tell me about controversy. I would love to hear the ululating in New York if Julio Lugo played for the Yankees. (Mostly because that would mean Julio Lugo was playing for the Yankees.)

And to wrap it up, Soxaholix presents: Youkalicious!

Know something I should be reading? Let me know!

After 19 years in the big leagues, 40 year-old Billy Chapel has trudged to the mound for over 4,000 innings. But tonight, he’s pitching against time, he’s pitching against the future, against age, against ending. Tonight, he will make the fateful walk to the loneliest spot in the world, the pitching mound at Yankee Stadium, to push the sun back into the sky and give us one more day of summer.

One of my all-time favorite baseball movie quotes, Vin Scully says this while playing himself in otherwise terrible Kevin Costner film For Love of the Game (the original script was so bad, that Scully reportedly rewrote all his lines himself). I can’t think of a more appropriate quotation about today’s matchup between the Indians and the Yankees in game three of the ALDS at Yankee Stadium, with Roger Clemens pitching and the Yankees down 2-0. To rephrase:

After 24 years in the big leagues, 45 year-old Roger Clemens has trudged to the mound for nearly 5,000 innings. But tonight, he’s pitching against time, he’s pitching against the future, against age, against ending. Tonight, he will make the fateful walk to the loneliest spot in the world, the pitching mound at Yankee Stadium, to push the sun back into the sky and give us one more day of summer.

Or winter, I suppose, if you are a Red Sox fan.

But the point is, that Roger really is pitching against time, both for his own career and against the countdown clock of the current Yankee dynasty, which is rapidly approaching the midnight hour.

Roger Clemens is indeed old. He is not the same pitcher who tossed decisive victories for the Yankees in the 1999 and 2001 World Series, and nearly saved them from the Diamonbacks in 2001. He’s not even the same pitcher who bowed before the youthful Marlins in 2003 and the go-go White Sox in 2005.

He has already “retired” three times. He sits out half the season these days. His fastball, for years a blazing 98 mph, and even in recent years always just managing to cling to the good side of 90, has finally fallen into the mid-80s danger zone. For the first time in recent memory, nagging old-age-type injuries started taking their toll on his famously well-conditioned frame, knocking him out of action for two extended stints this season despite his extra time off. Back pitching in the American League East, where weaknesses have nowhere to hide, his ERA soared into the 5’s before settling in the mid-4’s

But he is all the Yankees have left.

He is that guy left behind to hold the bridge against the barbarian hordes while the others escape. He is the EMT, frantically giving CPR to a victim he knows won’t make it. He is that Dutch boy with his finger in the dike, only much older, more arthritic, and with three grown sons all named Kibbles, or Kaliper or some other ridiculous name starting with’K’.

But the point is, he’s one of those guys who, if they do their job right, something gets to survive for a few more minutes. If Clemens can somehow win this game, the current Yankee dynasty gets to live for one more day.

So yeah, pushing the sun back up into the sky and making day last a bit longer before night is just about right.

Because next year, the Yankees as we have known them for all these years will be gone.

Bernie Williams has already faded out of the picture. Andy Pettite, A-Rod, and Bobby Abreu all have opt-out clauses. Working-class heroes Mariano Rivera and Jorge Posada will be free agents. Mike Mussina is pitching on fumes and Clemens has nothing left to offer. Joe Torre is done. And Brian Cashman seems determined to start a youth movement.

A few of those guys might be re-signed, but certainly not all of them, and if they all went, who would be left? Depending how committed Cashman is to the youth, we could end up watching Derek Jeter, Hideki Matsui, and a bunch of 24-year-olds.

Quick, who is the only player on the Los Angeles Dodgers remaining on the major league roster from the team that went to the playoffs just two years ago in 2004?

If you said Olmedo “The Killer Tomato” Saenz, you get a big gold star, because you’re probably the only person in the universe who knew that of the top of your head.

Now this is rather surprising really. Olmedo Saenz is certainly an interesting name, but it is by no means a household name. But more importantly, the man looks nothing like a ballplayer. The epitome of why the word “rotund” was invented, Saenz is a extremely round, not particularly tall, gray-haired hispanic man with short stubby arms and short stubby legs.  He has no speed to speak of and has no place in a major league defense, bringing an iron glove and extremely limited range with him to the field on the rare occasions he is asked to “patrol” first or third base.

But there is a reason why, when Paul DePodesta and Ned Colletti consecutively set about blowing up the entire roster and remaking it in their own images, Saenz always survived the cut.  And last night he showed us why once again, coming up with his fifth walk-off hit in four seasons with the Blue Crew–a game winning, pinch hit single up the middle with two outs in the bottom of the ninth to lift the Dodgers to a 2-1 victory over the Diamondbacks.

You see, the man can flat out hit.

It’s well known that hitting as a pinch hitter or a rarely used bench player has a negative effect on one’s batting numbers, but coming off the bench primarily as a pinch hitter and in an occasional spot start to give a regular a rest, Saenz has OPS’d .805, .927, and .871 in 2005, 2006, and so far in 2007.  In 2005, he hit 15 home runs off the bench, and last season he hit 11 dingers, including 3 pinch-hit home runs.

Those are some pretty amazing numbers, given his role on the team.  Finding a player who can consistently produce quality at-bats off the bench is one of the most difficult holes to fill on a roster, and Saenz is arguable the best in the game at that role right now.  No wonder neither DePodesta or Colletti could find a way to justify letting Saenz go, despite the fact that he is essentially a one-tool player.

But what a tool it is.  With his short, stubby arms there is literally no fastball he can’t get around on.  He has a bit more trouble hitting breaking stuff, but his batting eye is strong enough that he usually can lay off them. 

It’s really fun listening to Vin Scully’s calls when Saenz comes up. Among my favorites:  “If there’s one thing you can say about Olmedo Saenz, it’s that he never met a fastball he didn’t like.”  “Trying to sneak a fastball past Saenz is like trying to sneak a lamb chop past a wolf.” “Oh man, another hit for Saenz!  With all the scounting reports these days, and the computers, and the statistics, you have to wonder why anyone would ever throw Olmedo Saenz a fastball!”

Throw in one of the more amusing baseball nicknames around these days (usually “The Killer Tomato,” although sometimes just “Tomato” or “Killer”), his penchant for dramatic, walk-off pinch hits, and his status as the longest tenured Dodger, and it’s no wonder that he is a huge fan favorite at Chavez Ravine.