THT Daily: Swooning?
Player News
Yesterday’s Results
Today’s Games
Standings
Game of the Day
Yesterday’s Home Runs
Top Minor League Performances
You can always find the most recent THT Daily at http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/content/thtdaily/ and an archive at http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/thtdaily_index/
On this day at THT: Two years ago, Steve Treder examined the June blockbusters deals of the 1950’s and 1960’s. Including one swap of Brock for Broglio.
Player News
Player Headlines are courtesy of Rotoworld
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| The Rangers swarm Michael Young after he drove in the winning run against the Braves. (Icon/SMI) |
Mariners fired manager John McLaren; named Jim Riggleman manager. If they were this close to making the move, why didn’t they just fire McLaren and Bill Bavasi at the same time? The Mariners were 65-88 under McLaren, but most of the blame for that has to go to Bavasi. McLaren’s lineups left a lot to be desired, and judging by his typical postgame quotes, he learned next to nothing in his year on the job, but it also seemed like his hands were tied by the front office too often. Riggleman, who is expected to have the job for the rest of the season, has a career .448 winning percentage in 1,085 games with the Cubs and Padres. The Mariners’ next GM will likely have the honor of picking a new manager next year.
FOXSports.com’s Ken Rosenthal reports that the Rays have signed top pick Tim Beckham. Sources tell Rosenthal that he got a $6.15 signing bonus. It was thought that the ability to sign Beckham factored into the team’s decision to draft him top overall, and the two sides reached a deal two months faster than last year’s top pick did. Beckham could reach the majors in 2-3 years.
Yesterday’s Results
Game recaps courtesy of Craig Calcaterra.
Twins 9, Nationals 3: For complicated reasons that involve a well-worn yet really superficial Scholastic biography of Harmon Killebrew that I owned as a child, I am probably the only person under the age of 65 who still thinks of the Twins as some upstart offshoot of the Senators, and for that reason I viewed this as something of a natural rivalry series.
Rangers 5, Braves 4: I got into a baseball conversation with someone at the office yesterday. This person doesn’t know me very well, so a lot of it involved me explaining how I came to be a Braves fan. I’ve had this conversation a hundred times before, and almost every time it has ended with the other person saying something along the lines of “well, at least it’s been a lot of fun to root for Atlanta over the past few years!” Yesterday, for the first time in my adult life the conversation ended with “man, it’s gotta be hard to root for those guys, huh?” I obviously could not disagree with him when he said this, but I almost felt like a deep dark family secret had gotten out. Sure, there have been several times over the past three years where people in the know have accurately pointed out the challenges facing the Braves, but this truly is the first time that some casual, almost non-fan has identified the Braves as something other than a class organization and perpetual contender. The brand has been diluted; the public perception changed.
As for this game, Chipper went 0-4, the Braves use seven pitchers — a couple of which I had never heard of — to give up five runs and just like that, the quest for .400 seems to be as over as the Braves’ season is.
Yankees 2, Padres 1: Joba still needs to work on the efficiency thing — 100 pitches in 5.2 ain’t gonna cut it all season, and at this rate he’s never going to get a win as a starter — but New York will take the nine strikeouts and one earned run. The Yankees have won seven straight to pull within five games of Boston and 2.5 of Tampa Bay. During that run, A-Rod is 12-25 with four homers and nine RBI. Last week I opined that there really isn’t a favorite for the MVP in the American League right now. If the Yankees surge continues, how can it be anyone but A-Rod?
Dodgers 7, Reds 4: You know, of all of the things Reds fans thought they had to worry about before the season started, Aaron Harang was not one of them. After yet another flaming stink pickle of a performance (5 IP, 10 H, 5 ER) one has to wonder if he’s healthy, because big strikeout throwin’ hosses like him don’t tend to lose it like he has this year without a medical reason.
Brewers 8, Blue Jays 7: The next time Dave Bush goes out to the bars with his Brewer buddies, he has carte blanche to drunkenly tell the ladies that his teammates all have wives or herpes or something because they almost ruined everything for him last night. Bush had a no hitter into the eighth inning, and still left the game with a 8-1 lead, only to watch his bullpen give up six in the ninth to make it way more interesting than it needed to be. Oh, and to all of you old ladies in Wisconsin picking up broken knickknacks from your parlor floor: that wasn’t an earthquake. Prince Fielder just hit another inside the park home run.
Royals 4, Cardinals 1: Five straight wins. Break up the Royals! After a couple of pretty bad starts Zach Greinke has returned to the form he flashed in April, and has now given up a single run in his last 14 innings.
White Sox 13, Pirates 8: How do two teams combine for 21 runs, 25 hits and still complete the game in under three hours? This one was 2:55. And only about 16 minutes of it involved decent pitching.
Rays 8, Cubs 3: Chicago is swept for the first time this year, and they lost Zambrano for at least a start during the sweeping. I’m no Cubs fan, but I have sort of picked them as my favorite to win the pennant, so I have been following them a bit closer than I normally would this year. Last night I even went so far as to wade into the game threads over at the estimable Bleed Cubbie Blue. Just to lurk, mind you. The takeaway: Cubs fans are a little scary. Great fans, mind you. Knowledgeable as all get-out. But scary in the lets-analyze-a-groundout-from-15-directions kind of way. I have had some people ask me why I don’t link to more team-specific blogs. Nothing personal or particular to BCB, but I think that live-or-die on every pitch dynamic has something to do with it. I’m pretty obsessed, but I just can’t get that passionate or involved in the moment-by-moment like those guys do.
Orioles 7, Astros 5: The Astros have lost 17 of 20. Now that McLaren is gone, is Cooper next?
Diamondbacks 2, A’s 1: The A’s outscored the Dbacks 17-14 in this series, but dropped two of three. Bow before the great Pythagoras!
Rockies 6, Indians 3: The Rockies sweep Cleveland. Someone must have forgotten to tell Colorado that they were in the National League.
You can download a compact version of yesterday’s boxscores from Heater Magazine.
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Today’s Games
National League --------------- New York Mets at Colorado Rockies, 9:05 PM (R) John Maine (6-5) vs. (R) Aaron Cook (10-3) Inter-League ------------ Chicago White Sox at Chicago Cubs, 2:20 PM (L) John Danks (4-4) vs. (L) Ted Lilly (7-5) St. Louis Cardinals at Boston Red Sox, 7:05 PM (R) Kyle Lohse (8-2) vs. (R) Tim Wakefield (4-4) LA Angels of Anaheim at Philadelphia Phillies, 7:05 PM (R) Ervin Santana (8-3) vs. (R) Adam Eaton (2-4) Toronto Blue Jays at Pittsburgh Pirates, 7:05 PM (R) Roy Halladay (8-6) vs. (L) Zach Duke (4-4) Cincinnati Reds at New York Yankees, 7:05 PM (R) Edinson Volquez (9-2) vs. (R) Mike Mussina (10-4) Houston Astros at Tampa Bay Rays, 7:10 PM (R) Roy Oswalt (5-7) vs. (R) Matt Garza (5-3) Texas Rangers at Washington Nationals, 7:35 PM (R) Kevin Millwood (5-3) vs. (R) Tim Redding (6-3) Seattle Mariners at Atlanta Braves, 7:35 PM (L) Erik Bedard (4-4) vs. (R) Jorge Campillo (2-1) Baltimore Orioles at Milwaukee Brewers, 8:05 PM (R) Radhames Liz (1-0) vs. (R) Jeff Suppan (4-4) Arizona Diamondbacks at Minnesota Twins, 8:10 PM (L) Randy Johnson (4-4) vs. (R) Scott Baker (2-2) San Francisco Giants at Kansas City Royals, 8:10 PM (R) Matt Cain (3-5) vs. (R) Luke Hochevar (4-5) Florida Marlins at Oakland Athletics, 10:05 PM (L) Mark Hendrickson (7-5) vs. (R) Rich Harden (4-0) Detroit Tigers at San Diego Padres, 10:05 PM (R) Eddie Bonine (1-0) vs. (R) Greg Maddux (3-5) Cleveland Indians at Los Angeles Dodgers, 10:40 PM (L) Cliff Lee (10-1) vs. (L) Clayton Kershaw (0-1)
Standings
The graphics next to each team are called “sparklines.” They depict each team’s performance over the last month. Each “up” bar is a victory and a “down” bar is a loss. There are horizontal lines for home games and red bars represent games decided by two runs or less. “PWins” is short for Projected Wins, based on each team’s Run Differential, and is often a better measure of a team’s true strength. Other team graphs and stats can be found on our Team Page.
American League East Pwins Diff BOS 46 29 .613 0.0 45 1TB 43 29 .597 1.5 39 4
NYA 40 33 .548 5.0 39 1
BAL 37 34 .521 7.0 35 2
TOR 35 39 .473 10.5 38 -3
American League Central CHA 41 31 .569 0.0 45 -4
MIN 37 36 .507 4.5 35 2
DET 34 38 .472 7.0 36 -2
CLE 33 40 .452 8.5 37 -4
KC 31 42 .425 10.5 31 0
American League West LAA 43 30 .589 0.0 37 6
OAK 39 33 .542 3.5 42 -3
TEX 37 37 .500 6.5 35 2
SEA 25 47 .347 17.5 28 -3
National League East Pwins Diff PHI 42 32 .568 0.0 46 -4
FLA 39 33 .542 2.0 37 2
NYN 35 36 .493 5.5 36 -1
ATL 36 38 .486 6.0 42 -6
WAS 29 45 .392 13.0 27 2
National League Central CHN 45 28 .616 0.0 46 -1
STL 42 32 .568 3.5 39 3
MIL 39 33 .542 5.5 36 3
PIT 34 39 .466 11.0 32 2
HOU 33 40 .452 12.0 33 0
CIN 33 41 .446 12.5 32 1
National League West ARI 39 34 .534 0.0 39 0
LAN 34 38 .472 4.5 37 -3
COL 31 42 .425 8.0 31 0
SF 31 42 .425 8.0 31 0
SD 31 43 .419 8.5 30 1
Game of the Day
Rays 8, Cubs 3 - FINAL
CHICAGO CUBS ab r h rbi bb so lob avg
K Fukudome cf 4 0 1 1 1 2 0 .295
R Theriot ss 4 0 1 1 0 1 0 .308
D Lee 1b 4 0 3 0 0 1 2 .289
A Ramirez 3b 4 0 0 0 0 1 5 .290
G Soto dh 4 0 0 0 0 1 1 .282
M Hoffpauir lf 4 1 2 0 0 2 0 .400
M DeRosa rf 3 1 0 0 1 3 1 .292
H Blanco c 4 0 1 0 0 1 2 .296
M Fontenot 2b 4 1 1 1 0 1 2 .237
Totals 35 3 9 3 2 13 13 ###
TAMPA BAY ab r h rbi bb so lob avg
A Iwamura 2b 3 1 1 1 1 1 0 .271
C Crawford lf 5 1 3 4 0 0 3 .272
B Upton cf 5 1 1 0 0 0 3 .291
E Hinske 1b 4 2 1 1 1 1 2 .251
E Longoria ss 3 0 1 1 0 0 0 .250
C Floyd dh 4 0 1 0 0 1 1 .264
W Aybar 3b 3 1 1 0 1 0 1 .263
D Navarro c 3 1 1 0 1 0 2 .326
G Gross rf 3 1 0 0 0 0 2 .236
Totals 33 8 10 7 4 3 14 ###
----------------------------------------------------
CHICAGO CUBS - 000 000 300 -- 3 9 2
TAMPA BAY - 010 000 70x -- 8 10 1
----------------------------------------------------
BATTING: 2B - M Hoffpauir (6, J Shields); M Fontenot (8, J Shields); E Hinske
(12, S Eyre); C Floyd (4, S Eyre). 3B - B Upton (2, S Eyre). HR - C Crawford
(5, 7th inning off S Eyre 3 on, 0 Out). SF - E Longoria. RBI - M Fontenot (13),
K Fukudome (31), R Theriot (22), A Iwamura (19), C Crawford 4 (37), E Hinske
(37), E Longoria (35). Runners left in scoring position, 2 out - A Ramirez 2, M
Fontenot 1, E Hinske 1, C Crawford 2, D Navarro 2. GIDP - W Aybar. Team LOB -
CHICAGO CUBS 7, TAMPA BAY 8. BASERUNNING: SB - E Hinske (7, 3rd base off S
Eyre/H Blanco). CS - K Fukudome (3, 2nd base by J Shields/D Navarro), C
Crawford (5, 2nd base by S Gallagher/H Blanco). FIELDING: E - D Lee (7, ground
ball); A Ramirez (7, ground ball); B Upton (4, bobble). DP: (D Lee-R Theriot-D
Lee).
CHICAGO CUBS ip h r er bb so hr era
S Gallagher 6 4 1 0 2 3 0 3.96
C Marmol (L, 1-2) 0 0 4 4 2 0 0 2.93
S Eyre (B, 1) 1/3 4 3 3 0 0 1 3.37
J Lieber 1 2/3 2 0 0 0 0 0 3.06
TAMPA BAY ip h r er bb so hr era
J Shields 6 1/3 7 3 3 2 9 0 3.94
T Miller 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 4.26
G Balfour (W, 2-0) 1 2/3 1 0 0 0 3 0 1.74
G Glover 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 3.91
T Miller pitched to 1 batter in the 7th.
C Marmol pitched to 4 batters in the 7th.
HBP - G Gross (by C Marmol); A Iwamura (by C Marmol). Pitches-strikes: S
Gallagher 112-64; C Marmol 20-7; S Eyre 15-9; J Lieber 23-13; J Shields 102-68;
T Miller 6-3; G Balfour 25-16; G Glover 13-8. Ground balls-fly balls: S
Gallagher 11-4; C Marmol 0-0; S Eyre 0-1; J Lieber 2-3; J Shields 2-7; T Miller
0-0; G Balfour 0-2; G Glover 0-2. Batters faced: S Gallagher 24; C Marmol 4; S
Eyre 5; J Lieber 7; J Shields 27; T Miller 1; G Balfour 6; G Glover 3. IRS - S
Eyre 3, G Balfour, T Miller. UMPIRES: HP--Laz Diaz. 1B--Mike Estabrook.
2B--Paul Schrieber. 3B--Kerwin Danley. T--2:59. Att--34,441. Weather:
INDOORS
The following graph tracks the game’s Win Probability, courtesy of Fan Graphs. You can also view live WPA graphs at Fangraphs during any ballgame all season long.
Yesterday’s Home Runs
The following stats are provided by Hit Tracker, which logs the projected “true” distance of each home run (if it were to land uninterrupted at field level) and its “standard” distance, which is corrected for weather conditions. Each homer is also categorized into one of three types: Just Enough (JE) for homers that cleared the fence by ten feet or less, Plenty (PL) for those that were sure home runs but not “blasts,” and No Doubt (ND) for true “blasts”—homers that cleared the fence by at least 20 feet and landed at least 50 feet beyond the fence.
Hitter Team Pitcher Team True Stnd. # Type Rick Ankiel STL Zack Greinke KC 409 384 11 PL/L Brandon Boggs TEX Jeff Ridgway ATL 380 369 3 PL Russell Branyan MIL A.J. Burnett TOR 435 426 10 ND Orlando Cabrera CWS Phil Dumatrait PIT 384 384 6 JE Jermaine Dye CWS Phil Dumatrait PIT 400 404 14 PL Jermaine Dye CWS John Grabow PIT 383 382 13 JE Prince Fielder MIL A.J. Burnett TOR 254 251 13 JE/L Joe Inglett TOR David Riske MIL 394 377 1 PL/L Matt Kemp LAD Aaron Harang CIN 414 405 6 PL Lyle Overbay TOR Tim Dillard MIL 411 392 6 JE/L Freddy Sanchez PIT Gavin Floyd CWS 359 357 4 JE Mark Teahen KC Chris Perez STL 386 352 6 PL/L Justin Upton ARI Keith Foulke OAK 422 410 9 PL Dmitri Young WAS Glen Perkins MIN 412 406 3 ND
Top Minor League Games
The following list, provided by First Inning, includes the top minor league batting (based on Runs Created) and pitching (based on Game Score) performances from yesterday, with a focus on each team’s top prospects.
ORG LVL PLAYER AB H 2B 3B HR BB SO Notes OAK A+ Chris Carter...... 5 3 0 1 2 1 0 3 R STL AA Jonathan Jay...... 4 2 0 1 1 2 0 3 R NYM A+ Ruben Tejada...... 5 4 0 0 1 1 0 3 R CIN A Brandon Waring.... 4 3 0 0 1 3 1 BOS A- Ryan Dent......... 4 3 0 0 2 0 1 STL AAA Nick Stavinoha.... 4 2 1 0 1 1 0 TEX AAA Nelson Cruz....... 3 3 1 0 0 1 0 2 SB TB AA Rhyne Hughes...... 3 2 1 0 1 1 0 4 RBI TEX AA M. Ramirez........ 5 4 2 0 0 0 0 BOS AA Mark Wagner....... 4 2 0 0 2 0 0 4 RBI FLA A Michael Stanton... 4 3 1 0 1 0 0 LA A Andrew Lambo...... 6 3 2 0 0 1 1 3 R ORG LVL PLAYER IP H R ER SO BB HR Notes WAN A Colton Willems.... 9 6 1 0 5 1 0 ATL A Chad Rodgers...... 6 3 2 2 6 1 0 MIN A M. McCardell...... 6 4 1 0 6 1 0 MIL A+ Zach Braddock..... 6 5 2 2 6 1 0 CIN AA Travis Wood....... 5 4 2 2 5 0 0 KC AA Blake Wood........ 7 6 2 2 7 1 1 CHC AAA Sean Marshall..... 8 4 1 1 4 1 1 TB AA James Houser...... 5 3 2 2 7 4 0 SF A+ Benjamin Snyder... 6 7 3 0 5 1 0 STL A Blake King........ 2 0 0 0 4 0 0 MIN AAA Brian Duensing.... 7 6 2 2 5 3 0 WAN AA J. Zimmermann..... 5 2 1 1 3 1 0
Access THT’s stats here…