You had to be an All-Star lip-reader to tell exactly what Angels pitcher John Lackey said to enflame Athletics hitter Jason Kendall, who rushed the mound, then tackled Lackey to touch off a benches-clearing dance-off around the mound and get both players ejected from a game Tuesday.
We can only be reasonably sure it wasn't this major league variation on the Little League taunt: Catcher's got a rubber arm.
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Run at your own risk
Oakland's Jason Kendall has thrown out 64.7% of base stealers this season, which leads all major league catchers who have played at least 18 games. The top and bottom 5 (through Friday's games):
TOP 5
NO.PLAYER, TEAMSB CS % CS
1.J. Kendall, Oak.61164.7
2.R. Hernandez, Bal.111150.0
J. Varitek, Bos.5550.0
4.B. McCann, Atl.10844.4
5.J. Mauer, Min.8642.9
BOTTOM 5
NO.PLAYER, TEAMSB CS % CS
1.V. Martinez, Cle.26 3 10.3
2.M. Piazza, S.D.22 3 12.0
3.M. Matheny, S.F.17 4 19.1
4.B. Ausmus, Hou.12 3 20.0
K. Johjima, Sea.12 3 20.0
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Not anymore.
Little more than an hour before attacking Lackey, a sedate and proud Kendall was talking about no longer being the worst catcher in the game at throwing out baserunners.
The night before, Kendall had proved just how much he has improved by becoming the first catcher to throw out Angels speedster Chone Figgins after eight stolen bases. That made Kendall the major league leader at thwarting attempted steals at 8-of-14, whereupon he proceeded to throw out the next three tries as well.
No kidding.
Kendall!
Not to belittle the man, but a year ago Jason Kendall was the poster boy for what you don't look for in a catcher. Especially one making more than $11 million per year for a franchise that's forever pleading poverty.
He didn't do much hitting (.271) for a guy who batted .306 for the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1996-2004, and he was ridiculously shy on power, hitting no home runs in 2005 after hitting just three the previous year. Kendall's .321 slugging percentage was the lowest in the majors by 20 points.
As he continues to play this weekend after appealing the four-game suspension for the dust-up with Lackey, Kendall again sports a woeful batting average (.225), and he's still maintaining one of the game's longest homerless stretches, dating to July 27, 2004. But he's suddenly a force, positively Pudge-like, behind the plate.
Kendall embarrassed himself in 2005, allowing opponents to run amok. Runners attempted 123 steals on Kendall, and 101 were safe, meaning he threw out less than 18 percent. Against the A's, a walk was as good as a two-base hit, if not a triple.
At this point, you would expect to start hearing the excuses, the standard defense of catchers who give up more thefts than a blind convenience-store clerk. The one about how you can't pin it all on the catcher, how it's just as much the fault of pitchers who don't pay enough attention to runners and aren't quick enough to the plate, eschewing the slide-step.
Kendall had a built-in beauty of an excuse, too. He catches for the A's, who don't seem to give two hoots what baserunners do against them, just so long as they don't score as many runs as the A's do that night.
Sometimes, though, it isn't the pitcher or the philosophy. It's the catcher, pure and simple.
“Catching's like hitting,” Kendall said. “You get into slumps. You get into bad habits. You don't wait for the ball. You hurry your throws. You try too hard to do the same thing the same way every time, to make every throw is perfect. Your footwork gets messed up. That was me. Mostly, I had to slow my feet down. I was trying to be too quick.”
Quickness has been Kendall's trademark from the instant he set foot in the majors. He was the anomaly, the catcher who batted leadoff and drove other catchers crazy before the memorably gruesome blowup of his ankle.
Quick, too, has been Kendall's turnaround. Not night and day. More like winter and spring.
“I just went home after last season and spent some time with my old man,” Kendall said, “who's also the best catching coach in the world.”
Fred Kendall, one of the best catchers in Padres history, is the bullpen coach of the Kansas City Royals. So he, like his son, knows misery. Jason, whose childhood summers were spent in the concourses of The Murph, only made matters worse for K.C. last week.
“Esteban German's our fastest player,” the elder Kendall said, “and Jason caught him trying to steal.”
This is a particularly wretched period for catchers and what used to be the trademark of the position, the way the best ones could single-handedly shut down opponents' running games.
The Indians have been giving away second base the way pitchers hand over first base to Albert Pujols and Barry Bonds. Cleveland was 0-for-27 – and Victor Martinez 0-for-26 – before he finally got Pablo Ozuna of the White Sox at second.
Obviously, Mike Piazza wasn't brought to San Diego for his right arm. Entering the weekend, the Padres had given up more stolen bases (28) than any team, while throwing out five. Yet they're not even the worst in the division. Opponents were successful on 26 of 27 steal attempts against the Dodgers. The Giants' Gold Glove catcher, Mike Matheny, has tossed out only four of 21.
The best in the game? That would be Kendall, whose .647 percentage well exceeds even Ivan Rodriguez in his prime. Of course, after a while, runners simply stopped leading off at all against Pudge.
“Used to be, the NL was the running league and the AL was the nonrunning league,” A's outfielder Mark Kotsay said. “Now it's more a team-by-team thing. The Angels run. The Royals run. A few others run in both leagues. Some don't run at all.
“I know they're not running as much on Jason. Not the way he's throwing.”
Chris Jenkins: (619) 293-1267;
chris.jenkins@uniontrib.com
