Keep track of the available arms with the bullpen usage chart. At the end of the post you will find the link to the PDF containing all the match-ups of Sept. 10. The charts show the number of pitches thrown by each team’s pitchers each of the last seven days. How to read them: Above […]

The pitch comes flying across home plate and the clean thud against his glove is heard by the umpire behind him. His body doesn’t flinch as his glove closes around the ball, steady and sure. A strike is called because both the ball and the umpire were framed. This is the head of Mike Matheny, […]

On Tuesday, we discussed one prospect from each National League organization who did enough this season to elevate his prospect status. Today, we’ll examine the American League… Baltimore Orioles: The Orioles system is rather bare these days, but for the right reasons. The graduation of Matt Wieters, Brian Matusz, Jake Arrieta, Josh Bell, and Chris […]

Happy Friday. Here’s an attempt to look at the major league standings in a different way. Features include teams plotted vertically by win percentage and team payroll depicted by circle size. Within each division I’ve selected one team whose payroll is closest to league average (depicted with a solid black line).

Giants 7, Padres 3: Round one goes to the Giants, who pull to within one game of the lead. And they did it in an unexpected way for this team in this park: the long ball. Huff, Posey, Burrell and Uribe all went yard. Matt Cain — who has had some serious issues vs. the […]

On Sept. 7, Trevor Hoffman closed out the St. Louis Cardinals for his 600th career save. Some feel the achievement makes Hoffman a lock for the Hall of Fame and sets a mark for career saves that will fall only when the greatest closer of all time, Mariano Rivera, makes an appearance sometime in early […]

Padres 4, Dodgers 0: Cory Luebke allows only three hits in six innings to the undead Dodgers. San Diego pushes its lead over San Francisco to two games because . . . Diamondbacks 3, Giants 1:   . . . Daniel Hudson allowed only five hits. The Padres and Giants open up a huge four-game series […]

Keep track of the available arms with the bullpen usage chart. At the end of the post you will find the link to the PDF containing all the match-ups of Sept. 8. The charts show the number of pitches thrown by each team’s pitchers each of the last seven days. How to read them: Above […]

Phillies 8, Marlins 7: First place. Homers from Howard, Ibanez and Victorino and a go-ahead single from Placido Polanco in the eighth put the Phillies in the catbird seat for the first time since May 30th. Pirates 5, Braves 0: The Pirates have allowed more runs than any team in baseball this year, yet the […]

Fifty years ago today, the Braves signed a future Hall of Famer to his first professional contract: Joe Torre. Man, he’s been around a while, hasn’t he? Given what a good player he was, I’m surprised he didn’t sign his first pro contract until he was 20 years old. That’s doubly surprising given that his […]