Denard Span agrees to terms with Giants; outfield market starts to move

Denard Span

Now that Alex Gordon has re-signed with the Kansas City Royals, maybe we'll see some of the other free-agent outfielders come off the board this weekend. There was more movement Thursday, as the San Francisco Giants agreed to terms on a three-year, $31 million deal with veteran outfielder Denard Span.

Hip surgery limited Span to 61 games last year, but he did hit .302 with a league-leading 184 hits for the Washington Nationals in 2014. If healthy, he's a good fit in San Francisco. He'll bat leadoff and play center field, and the Giants can move the oft-injured Angel Pagan over to left field -- and allow Gregor Blanco to slide into the fourth outfielder role, which is where he belongs. With Hunter Pence in right field, San Francisco appears to be in good shape in the outfield.

Other teams, including the White Sox, Baltimore, Detroit, Texas and L.A. Angels, still could use some outfield help, and there remain plenty of useful players on the market.

Yoenis Cespedes and Justin Upton are the most attractive options for teams seeking an outfielder, but even with Span off the board, there are a few other decent second-tier guys available, including Dexter Fowler, Gerardo Parra and Austin Jackson.

According to a tweet from USA Today's Bob Nightengale, the Sox have not changed their stance on free-agent outfielders: They aren't willing to go beyond three years on a contract length for any of these guys. We have no way of knowing whether that's true, or just posturing, but it would be my speculation that the Sox aren't going to land Cespedes or Upton if they are unwilling to give at least a fourth year.

Alex Gordon agrees to four-year deal with Kansas City Royals

The defending champion Kansas City Royals moved Wednesday to retain a piece of their title-winning core, signing left fielder Alex Gordon to a four-year deal worth $72 million.

Gordon, 32, has spent his entire career with the Kansas City organization after being drafted No. 2 overall in 2005. Since his breakout campaign in 2011, he's posted a .281/.359/.450 slash line, won four Gold Gloves and been credited with 94 defensive runs saved -- second most among major league outfielders (Jason Heyward) during that time.

The White Sox reportedly were interested in Gordon, but according to a tweet from Ken Rosenthal, the South Siders were not willing to give Gordon a fourth year on a contract.

It's unclear at this point whether Gordon was the Sox's "Plan A" in the outfield, or if he was a "Plan B" option. The team has been linked to free agent outfielder Yoenis Cespedes. It remains to be seen whether the Sox would be willing to give Cespedes, who is two years younger than Gordon, a four- or five-year deal.

As for the Royals, this move solidifies their status as favorites to defend their World Series title in 2016. Kansas City had four key free agents going into this offseason -- Gordon, Johnny Cueto, Ben Zobrist and Ryan Madson. The Royals retained only one of the four, but they kept the most important one in Gordon.

Kansas City has already replaced Madson with the earlier signing of Joakim Soria, and while Cueto and Zobrist are key losses, people have to remember those guys were nothing more than midseason acquisitions in 2015. The Royals were in first place and had the best record in the league long before they traded for Cueto and Zobrist. Those two were never core members of the team. Gordon was and is a key piece to their puzzle.

With Gordon making $18 million a year, it will be harder for the Royals to keep long-term other key players such as Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas, Lorenzo Cain and Wade Davis, all four of whom will hit free agency after the 2017 season.

But that's a problem for two years from now. With this move, the Royals are acting to keep their core together for as long as possible, and there is every reason to believe they will continue to be in the championship discussion for the next two years.

That's an issue for the White Sox and the rest of the AL Central.

Twittersphere full of rumors linking White Sox to Yoenis Cespedes

It wasn't a surprise when FOXSports.com senior baseball writer Ken Rosenthal tweeted Tuesday that the White Sox remain active in trying to sign a free-agent outfielder to fortify the middle of their batting order. Yoenis Cespedes and Alex Gordon were named as possible acquisitions.

No new information there, really. That was more confirmation of what we already suspect.

But then there was this tweet from national baseball reporter Jesse Sanchez, which has the Sox and the Baltimore Orioles as the front-runners for Cespedes. The Los Angeles Angels, San Francisco Giants and Texas Rangers also are in the mix.

An article published Tuesday on Yahoo! Sports has the Sox listed as the No. 2 team (behind the Giants) most in need of signing Cespedes.

There's been so much discussion surrounding Cespedes this week that it feels like he could be making a decision within the next few days. As it stands right now, the Sox's payroll is in the $115 million range for 2016 with the additions of Todd Frazier, Brett Lawrie, Alex Avila and Dioner Navarro this offseason.

Will they be willing to stretch a little farther to close a deal with Cespedes?

Marco Estrada saves the Blue Jays in ALCS Game 5

Marco Estrada was waived by the Washington Nationals in 2010. As a member of the Milwaukee Brewers in 2014, he gave up more home runs (29) than any starting pitcher in the National League. After being traded to the Toronto Blue Jays last offseason, he started 2015 as a relief pitcher.

So, of course, Estrada has been Toronto's best starting pitcher during these playoffs. He turned in the start of his life Wednesday, going 7.2 innings and allowing just one run on three hits as the Blue Jays beat the Kansas City Royals, 7-1, in Game 5 of the American League Championship Series.

Estrada featured precise fastball command and a changeup that had Kansas City hitters off balance all afternoon. He faced just one batter over the minimum through 7.2 innings, before Salvador Perez finally got to him with a solo home run to the opposite field. Alex Gordon followed the home run with a single that ended Estrada's day, but the 32-year-old journeyman had done his job.

With the win, the Blue Jays cut Kansas City's series lead to 3-2. Game 6 is Friday night in Kansas City.

This is the second time this postseason Estrada has come up big in an elimination game. He pitched Game 3 of the ALDS, an outing where he allowed just one run over 6.1 innings in a win over the Texas Rangers. He is now 2-1 with a 2.33 ERA in three postseason starts.

The best news for the Blue Jays: Estrada got deep enough into the game to where they only had to use two relievers: Aaron Sanchez and Roberto Osuna. Toronto ace David Price warmed up during the game, but did not pitch.

That is key, because now Price is available to start Game 6. His mound opponent will be Kansas City's Yordano Ventura, in a rematch of Game 2, which was won by the Royals.

Kansas City is in terrific shape in this series. The Royals play well at home, and they've got two chances to win one game to advance to their second consecutive World Series. But, thanks to Estrada's performance on Wednesday, the Royals still have a little work ahead of them.

What if Alex Gordon had tried to score in the bottom of the ninth in World Series Game 7?

Let's start with this: Kansas City Royals third base coach Mike Jirschele made the right call when he threw up the stop sign and held Alex Gordon at third base with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning Wednesday night in Game 7 of the World Series.

Let's also give credit to the San Francisco Giants, who secured their third World Series title in five years with a 3-2 victory over the Royals at Kauffman Stadium. In particular, we give props to San Francisco left-hander Madison Bumgarner, who fired five innings of two-hit shutout relief to earn his third victory of the Series. He is not only a worthy World Series MVP, he deserves credit for one of the best postseason performances of all-time. Who would have thought he could come back on just two days rest and pitch five dominant innings like that? Not me. That's a helluva job by him.

But, I want to focus on the play that created all the drama in the bottom of the ninth inning. Leading 3-2, Bumgarner easily retired the first two hitters, and Gordon was at the plate representing Kansas City's final hope. He ended up hitting a sinking liner toward left-center field.

Giants center fielder Gregor Blanco got caught in between. He seemed unsure whether to dive and attempt a game-ending catch, or pull up, play the ball on a bounce and concede a single. He did neither. He pulled up and tried to play it on a hop, but the ball skipped past him and rolled all the way to the wall. San Francisco left fielder Juan Perez was backing up the play, and he bobbled the ball, as well.

By the time Perez's throw back toward the infield reached Giants shortstop Brandon Crawford, Gordon - carrying the tying run with him - was cruising toward third base.

Jirschele faced a split-second decision with everything hanging in the balance. Were Gordon's odds of scoring on that play better than the odds of the next hitter (catcher Salvador Perez) getting a game-tying base hit off Baumgarner? The Kansas City coach's answer to that question was "no," and I agree with him.

Crawford has a strong, accurate arm. He already had the ball as Gordon reached third base, and if he had to, he could have relayed it to San Francisco catcher Buster Posey in about two seconds. Gordon has decent speed, but not he's not a burner, and there's no way he would have been able to outrun the ball in that situation. A good relay throw, and he's a dead duck and Jirschele doesn't sleep for a month.

So, Gordon was held at third. Perez popped out to third baseman Pablo Sandoval to end the game, and now the second-guessing has begun.

Even though I agree with the decision to hold Gordon based on logic, there's a big part of me that wishes he would have been sent. On that play, the San Francisco fielders were handling the ball as if it had grease all over it. Could Crawford have executed a good relay throw under that type of pressure, with the outcome of the World Series on the line? We'll never know for sure.

Moreover, would Posey have caught the ball and tagged Gordon out without being called for blocking the plate?

It's an interesting thought: Gordon, Posey and the ball all converging on one spot in front of home plate, with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning in Game 7 of the World Series in a one-run game, with that silly home plate collision rule that nobody understands in effect. Can you imagine the World Series coming down to a replay review of a play at the plate? That would have been outgoing commissioner Bud Selig's worst nightmare.

Man, what if Gordon had tried to score? It might have created a play that would have been talked about for decades.

Royals win ALCS Game 1 with more home runs

The Kansas City Royals on Friday became the first team in history to win four extra-inning games in the same postseason with an 8-6, 10-inning victory over the Baltimore Orioles in Game 1 of the American League Championship Series.

The Royals won only five extra-inning games the entire regular season, but now they've won four of them in about a week on their way to a 5-0 record thus far in the playoffs.

The most surprising part of this development is Kansas City is doing it with home run power. The Royals had the fewest home runs of any team in the league, 95, while their opponent in this series led the AL with 211. You would think the Orioles would be the team hitting home runs to win games, but you'd be wrong.

On Friday, Alex Gordon's solo home run off Darren O'Day broke a 5-5 tie in the top of the 10th inning. Later, Mike Moustakas hit a two-run shot off Brian Matusz, his first home run off a left-handed pitcher in two and a half months, to make it 8-5. Baltimore scored one run in the bottom of the 10th, but could not recover from the three-run deficit.

The Royals also won two of their games in the ALDS on extra-inning home runs, one by Moustakas and one by Eric Hosmer.

Why the sudden power surge? Who knows, but the Royals have shown remarkable resiliency for a team with no postseason experience. James Shields, the Kansas City ace, was not effective in Friday night's game, letting an early 5-1 lead slip away. It didn't matter. The Royals kept their composure and found a way to win, just as they have since the playoffs began.

As an aside, one of the most annoying things about this postseason has been listening to commentators repeatedly referring to Shields as "Big Game James." Now, Shields has been a solid pitcher in the American League for several years, but let's remember he's 3-4 with a 5.19 ERA in nine career postseason starts. Some announcers seemed to have deluded themselves into believing "Big Game James" is lights out in the playoffs. Don't let the nickname fool you. He is not.

The Royals bullpen, however, has been lights out, and Friday was no exception. Kelvin Herrera and Wade Davis each fired two shutout innings. Neither man gave up a hit. Davis struck out four of the six men he faced.

Perhaps the key to the whole game was the shutdown inning Davis posted in the bottom of the ninth. In the top half of the inning, Baltimore closer Zach Britton walked the bases loaded with nobody out. But, Hosmer and Billy Butler failed to produce any runs, with Butler grounding into a double play against O'Day to end the threat.

The momentum seemed to swing to the Orioles side at that point, but Davis would have none of it. He fired a clean inning and got the Royals right back to the plate quickly, and then Kansas City scored three runs to take the lead.

Closer Greg Holland was a little shaky in the 10th, giving up a two-out run, but the insurance runs Moustakas provided with his two-run homer proved to be the difference.

Game 2 is Saturday afternoon, and it's a big one for the Orioles. With the way the Royals have been playing, I don't think Baltimore wants to head to Kansas City down 0-2 in this best-of-seven series.

Don't wanna get picked off here in this situation: Jarrod Dyson edition

As we've noted in blogs past, the first base coach's main job is to tell baserunners that they "don't wanna get picked off here in this situation."

It seems like a ridiculous statement on its face. Nobody wants to get picked off in any situation, and you wouldn't think major league players would need to be reminded of that. Nevertheless, you still occasionally see pickoffs happen at inexplicable times.

Take Jarrod Dyson, for example. The Kansas City outfielder's baserunning gaffe in the ninth inning on Monday took the Royals right out of a potential rally and allowed the White Sox to escape Kauffman Stadium with a 7-6 victory.

In that ninth inning, the Royals had runners at first and second base with one out. Dyson was at second base representing the tying run. Noted Sox killer Billy Butler, who was 3 for 4 to that point in the game and possesses 84 RBIs in 120 career games against Chicago, was at the plate. The on-deck hitter was Alex Gordon, who was coming off a four-hit game on Sunday. Rookie reliever Jake Petricka, who previously had no career saves (and only one career save in the minor leagues), was on the mound in place of the injured Matt Lindstrom for the Sox.

The whole situation was set up nicely for the Royals to at least tie the game, if not win it. Instead, Dyson strayed too far off second base. Petricka whirled around and caught Dyson in a rundown, where he was tagged for the second out of the inning.

The trail runner, Alcides Escobar, did reach second base on the play, so Butler still had a chance for a game-tying RBI. But I'll bet the rookie Petricka felt a little more comfortable with two outs, knowing he was just one pitch away from recording the third out and earning the save. He retired Butler on a routine grounder to second baseman Gordon Beckham, and the Sox escaped with the win.

What Dyson was thinking I'll never know. Stealing third in that situation isn't necessarily a bad play with one out. If Dyson had stolen, with his speed he could have scored the tying run on a fly ball of medium depth. However, when representing the tying run in the last inning you better make sure the pitcher is delivering to the plate before straying too far off base.

A dumb play like that is the exact reason base coaches make seemingly asinine comments reminding runners of the situation. The White Sox and their fans are greatful for Dyson's stupidity.

Hey, Dyson, you don't wanna get picked off there in that situation.