Mets "savior" makes impressive debut

Updated: June 12, 2003, 8:21 AM ET

New York at Texas: Did fans at the Ballpark in Arlington witness the dawn of history last night? With Alex Rodriguez, the greatest shortstop in the game present, the Mets introduced their shortstop phenom Jose Reyes to the Major Leagues. He doubled and singled in four at bats while hitting out of the nine-hole. The cool thing is they got him an appearance while he was still a teenager. He turns 20 today. According to Rafael Hermoso in today's New York Times, Reyes' stay is supposed to be temporary until Rey Sanchez returns from his injury.

St. Louis at Boston: What's the biggest waste of energy in baseball? How about a triple that directly precedes a home run? Think about it: you bust your tail for 270 feet only to discover that you could have walked most of that distance as soon as the very next batter. In the bottom of the seventh last night, Nomar Garciaparra smacked a ball off the Green Monster which got between Cardinal outfielders Orlando Palmeiro and Jim Edmonds on the rebound and rolled back toward the infield. He hauled it all the way to third. Manny Ramirez followed immediately with a homer. Is that an inadvertent ineconomy of total base usage or what?

Los Angeles at Detroit: Is this what baseball in the Deadball Era looked like? With baseball's stingiest pitching staff visiting its most anemic offensive team in the toughest hitters' park in the American League, something was about to give and it wasn't going to be the scoreboard. The Dodgers and Tigers battled for 12 innings for a combined batting average of .138, slugging average of .150 (there was only one extra base hit -- a double by Fred McGriff) and On Base Percentage of .231. So, was this truly Deadball-style baseball? There were more strikeouts than in, say 1908 (which was either the zenith or the nadir of the Era, depending on your attitude toward low-scoring games). There was only one error and there were over three per game back then. On the similar side, there were seven stolen base attempts and four bunts, three of which were attempted sacrifices. (Alex Sanchez made outs trying to sacrifice twice).

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