Article:Baseball Notebook: John Marzano Dies at 45

John Marzano Dies at 45

John Marzano died after reportedly falling down a flight of stairs on Saturday. Marzano played for the Red Sox for six years from 1987-1992. He spent the next two years in the minor leagues before surfacing in 1995 with the Rangers. Marzano played with the Mariners his last three years in the major leagues.

Marzano was currently working as a host for MLB.com. He was a graduate of Temple University and was a catcher on the 1984 Olympic baseball team.

He was the prototype of a backup catcher having never played more than 52 games in a season and never hit more than 5 home runs in a season. In 794 career at bats he hit 11 home runs in his 10 year career and drove in 72 runs and hit .241.

He was chosen as the first pick by the Red Sox in the 1984 amateur draft and was the 16th overall pick. The last year of his career he made only $300,000 which was far short of the minimum rookie salary of today which is $390,000.

Marzano may not have had great statistics but will be remembered by those who knew him as fun loving man who loved baseball.

Around the Bases

Frank Thomas is no longer with the Blue Jays after being released yesterday. He was told by manager John Gibbons that he would be benched and the team knowing the displeasure of Thomas at being benched gave him his release. Now he can try to work out a deal with an AL club that would use him as a DH.

The best fit to me would be for him to play for the A's since the team has only 7 home runs in their first 20 games. With Jack Cust hitting .157 with one home run and and 6 RBI's the A's need help in the power department and Thomas could be the one to help provide that power.

Thomas who will be 40 next month played in 155 games last season for the Blue Jays so is still capable of playing regularly and contributing. ESPN.com is projecting him to hit 30 home runs and drive in 110 runs this season. It will be interesting to see what teams express an interest in signing Thomas.

Jeremy Bonderman leads the Tigers in best ERA among their starters with a 4.37 mark but the next is Kenny Rogers with a 6.33 ERA. Justin Verlander, Dontrell Willis and Nate Robertson have ERAs over 7.00.

Among the hitters Gary Sheffield hitting .192 with one home run and 2 RBI's and Placido Polanco hitting .148 with no homers and 4 RBI's have been the biggest disappointments. Placido is a lifetime .303 hitter. Even though the hitters have not been hitting I think the pitchers deserve more of the blame for the slow start by the Tigers. It is difficult for any offense to score enough runs to win when four of the starters are giving up over 6 runs a game.

Alex Rodriguez who strained his right quad yesterday has batted 23 more times than Derek Jeter but Jeter leads the Yankees in RBI's with 11 with Rodriguez tied with Bobby Abreu with 10.... After last Thursday David Ortiz was hitting .111 with one homer and 4 RBI's. After finishing the three games series this last weekend he is hitting .160 with 2 homers and 12 RBI's. When he drives in 8 runs in 3 games we know that David Ortiz is back.

After starting the season with a 2-0 record and a 0.64 ERA Edwin Jackson has lost his last two starts and his ERA now stands at 4.63. He gave up one run in his first 14 innings pitched this season but since then he has given up 11 runs in 9 innings. His next start Saturday against the Red Sox will be a test as to how well he handles the pressure in that game....Jim Thome is 19th on the alltime home run list when he hit No.512 which ties him with Eddie Mathews and Ernie Banks. He needs 10 homers to pass Ted Williams and Willie McCovey who each have 521.

Ichiro Suzuki hitting .259 is sixth on the Mariners in batting average. ESPN.com is projecting him to have 178 hits this season which would be the first time he has not had 200 hits after reaching that mark his first seven seasons. He is hitting 73 points below his lifetime .332 average....Dana Eveland is 2-1 and has an ERA of 1.90 for the A's after his over the Royals yesterday. A's have three starters with ERA of under 2.00 but two of them are on disabled list. Justin Duchscherer has a 1.80 ERA while Rich Harden ERA stands at 0.82. Eveland is the only active starter of the three starters with a 1.90 mark. Harden who seldom has a short stay on the DL has not pitched since April 2nd.

Eric Gagne blew his third save of the season as he allowed the Reds to score three times in the bottom of the tenth inning after the Brewers had taken a 3-1 lead in the top of the tenth. From 2002 to 2004 with the Dodgers he had only 6 blown saves but has had 3 this season in only 7 innings of pitching. It is alarming that he has given up 4 home runs in 7 innings not what you would expect from a closer. His 8.22 ERA is 357th among major league pitchers.

Chipper Jones like A-Rod injured his right quad muscle yesterday but shouldn't miss many games. Jones who is hitting .458 is leading the majors in batting average and is 67 points ahead of second place Rafael Furcal who is hitting .391. The Braves who swept the Dodgers now host the Nationals Tim Hudson and John Smoltz in a two game series with Tim Hudson and John Smoltz being the starters. On Tuesday Smoltz will need 4 strikeouts to reach 3000 strikeouts making him the 16th pitcher to reach the mark. It will be another accomplishment to go in his resume for Hall of Fame consideration. He was a reliever for four seasons which has left him with 210 wins so even though he has little chance of winning 300 games he stands a good chance of being voted into the Hall of Fame.

Chase Utley homered twice last night to give him the major league lead with 8 homers and Derrek Lee is second with 7 homers. Six players are tied with 6 home runs....Manny Ramirez leads in RBI's with 20. On this date last season Ramirez had 8 RBI's and was hitting .193 while this year he is hitting .338....Not many fans would have predicted that John Bowker would be tied for the lead in home runs for the Giants with 3 or that he would be second on the team in RBI's with 9. Bowker is also leading the team in batting average with a 364 mark and is also leading in on base percentage with .400 mark and leads in slugging with a .864 slugging percentage. The Giants started the season 1-6 but have been 7-5 since then.

Pirates closed the gap to 5-3 after trailing 5-0 to the Cubs but then the Pirates bullpen entered the picture and it was all downhill after that. In two innings Franquelis Osoria and Damaso Marte combined to allow 8 runs and 9 hits to put the game out of reach....The chances of Randy Johnson winning the 16 games he needs to reach the 300 wins plateau are looking slimmer after he failed to win either of his first two starts. He almost certainly will have to return to pitch in 2009 to reach 300 wins. He will be 45 in September but I think he will return in 2009 if he is a few wins short of 300. He probably could get in with less than 300 wins because of his overwhelming strikeout total and the fact that he has some Cy Young awards in his trophy case.

Chase Utley is making a strong case in the early going to win the NL MVP. He is leading the Phillies in almost every offensive category with Pat Burrell leading in slugging percentage. Now if only the Phillies can get Ryan Howard to turn it up a notch they could have a great shot at winning the NL East.

Brandon Webb 4-0 will try for his 5th win against the Giants on Tuesday while taking the mound for the Giants will be Barry Zito. Zito is still seeking his first win of the season and is 0-4.

Looking at the Standings

Red Sox and Braves have the current longest winning streaks in the majors with 4 consecutive wins each. The Pirates have a five game losing streak which is the longest current losing streak. Pirates starters are 3-8 this season with Zach Duke, Matt Morris and Paul Maholm still looking for their first win. Nate McLouth and Xavier Nady are having a good offensive season so far but Jason Bay has only 5 RBI's in 17 games while McLouth and Nady have 16 and 15 respectively. The Pirates have been outscored 48-12 in their current five game losing streak.

In the last ten games Red Sox are a major league leading 8-2 while the Nationals and Rangers are 2-8 in their last 10 games for the major league worst record.

Red Sox and Diamondbacks are both 7-2 at home to lead in home wins. The White Sox are the best road team with a 7-4 record. Rangers and Tigers have the worst home record with both teams being 2-6 at home. Dodgers are the worst road team with a 2-7 record.