Beaneball

Last post of the day, as we get to the games of Saturday, 4/15.

• Travis Hafner won the individual battle with Chris Shelton by going 2-4 with a double and his seventh homer of the year while Shelton went 0-4 with a double play. Fausto Carmona made his major-league debut for the Indians, going six innings and allowing just one run, getting the win in the process. Carmona's a 6'4" Dominican righty who spent a half season at AAA Buffalo last year. His numbers kind of strike you as the opposite of the Dominican pitcher stereotype: his strikeout rate is underwhelming (5.64), but his walk rate is very good (1.61), and his homer rate excellent (0.65). Even low-walk, low-homer righties need to strike people out sometimes, so the worry will be whether Carmona's strikeout rate will stay steady in the majors or whether it will drop to truly unacceptable levels. For comparison, Oakland's own version of Carmona, Joe Blanton, struck out 8.33 men per nine innings in his minor-league career with very similar walk and homer numbers.
• The Mariners and Red Sox had another pitchers' duel as Joel Pineiro, JJ Putz, and Eddie Guardado combined to shut out Boston. Tim Wakefield threw a complete game on the other side, with one of his three runs allowed coming unearned as a result of a passed ball by Josh Bard (who had two such on the night - he's clearly still working on that whole knuckleball thing). Wily Mo got another start in right for the Sox and came through with his third double of the year. He may outhit Bronson Arroyo yet. Adam Stern hit leadoff for the Sox instead of Kevin Youkilis, and Boston paid the price: both players went 0-4, and Stern struck out three times. Don't mess with success.
• Mark Buehrle survived a two-run homer by Toronto's Alex Rios to lead Chicago to a 4-2 win. Paul Konerko provided all the offense with a couple of two-run homers of his own, his third and fourth of the year.
• Baltimore beat the Angels again, but Anaheimians have to be grateful that Bartolo Colon came out better: seven innings, three runs, one earned. Erik Bedard was just better, going eight innings with just two runs, which earned him his third win of the year. Tim Salmon, whose subscription of AARP Magazine hasn't been cancelled yet, managed a triple, his first since 2003.
• Minnesota beat the Yankees 6-5 by scoring two runs on a Justin Morneau single in the ninth. Because of the inning and the score, I don't have to mention who was pitching for New York. Jaret Wright was uninspiring for the Yankees, needing 81 pitches to get through three innings in which he gave up eight hits and four runs. Johan Santana continues to underwhelm in the early going, giving up four runs in 6 1/3 innings himself. Johnny Damon hit his seventh double of the year, and Rondell White was charged with seven men left on base. White is still batting under .100 for the year.
• Tampa Bay beat Kansas City again as Royals starter Mike Wood managed just four innings. He only gave up two runs on three hits, but he walked five and threw 78 pitches. I guess there's a reason Oakland was willing to trade him.
• The Brewers beat the Mets, finally sending New York to its second loss of the year. Tomo Ohka had a nice game, allowing two runs in seven innings, and Matt Wise threw the final two innings uneventfully. Prince Fielder had three singles, Carlos Lee hit his fifth homer, Rickie Weeks made his fourth error, and Jose Reyes stole his fourth base.
• St. Louis took revenge on Cincinnati's pitching, scoring nine runs en route to an easy win. Edwin Encarnacion made his sixth error of the year for the Reds, which is going to start annoying people pretty soon. On the other hand, if Adam Dunn keeps blasting homers (he hit his sixth of the year in this game), people may not notice. Albert Pujols hit his fifth homer of the year for the Cardinals, and Scott Spiezio added a pinch-hit bomb.
• Washington beat Florida 2-1 and they can thank John Patterson for that. Patterson went eight innings, gave up the only Marlin run on a Chris Aguila double, and struck out thirteen, including Miguel Cabrera three times. That pitching performance came in handy when the Nats ran themselves into four outs: Marlon Byrd, Damian Jackson, and Alfonso Soriano all got caught stealing, and Brendan Harris was thrown out at home by Josh Willingham.
• John Smoltz shut out San Diego, giving up four hits and two walks while striking out four. Jake Peavy had a very nice day himself, also giving up four hits and two walks while striking out double the hitters Smoltz did, but he also gave up a homer to Adam LaRoche and an RBI single to Jeff Francoeur. That's a tough loss for Peavy, but when you've got Smoltz going up against the kind of offense that carries Vinny Castilla, you've got to expect it to happen sometimes.
• The Pirates beat the Cubs 2-1 behind a strong Zach Duke start, allowing one run in seven innings. Jerome Williams started for the Cubs and allowed only one earned run himself, but a Ronny Cedeno error allowed another run to score, so Williams took his first loss of the year. Beaneball Fave Craig Wilson tripled, walked, and stole a base in the game.
• Colorado pushed Jon Lieber around for seven runs in 6 1/3 innings, sending him to his third loss of the year already. Matt Holliday doubled, tripled, and homered in the game for the Rockies, giving him five RBI. Pat Burrell hit his fifth homer of the year for Philadelphia.
• Wandy Rodriguez gave up just two hits (no runs) to Arizona in seven innings, and Chad Qualls and Mike Gallo finished things off for the Astros, neither pitcher allowing a hit. Every D'Back pitcher, in contrast, gave up at least one run. Eric Byrnes, happily enough, had half of Arizona's hits.
• The Dodgers got back to .500 by beating the Giants 3-1. Jason Schmidt gave up just three hits, but seven walks in six innings will bite you in the ass almost every time. Omar Vizquel stole his fourth base of the year for the Giants.

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in Baseball at 18:57 | |

Following up, here are the games from Friday, 4/14.

• Baltimore beat the Angels in exciting fashion: the Orioles took the lead in the bottom of the eighth on a Melvin Mora single; Jeff Mathis, starting at catcher for the Angels, tied things back up in the top of the ninth; and then Ramon Hernandez, showing the rook how it's done, smacked the game-winning bomb off of Scot Shields in the bottom half. The game featured eleven runs, not an inordinate amount, but it took the teams eight homers to get there. Each starter (Rodrigo Lopez, Magic Santana) gave up three bombs. It's a good thing they were hitting all those homers, because the teams combined for just one walk, by Casey Kotchmann, Anaheim's first baseman.
• Boston managed just two runs against Jaime Moyer and two Mariner bullpenners despite ten hits and four walks. Fortunately for Boston, Curt Schilling and Jon Papelbon shut down the anemic Mariner offense, allowing just one run on four hits and no walks. Moyer actually struck out eight in his six innings, but Schilling, who struck out seven himself, was too good. Kevin Youkilis, still leading off for Boston, walked twice. Two of Boston's three starting outfielders were Adam Stern and Wily Mo Pena, which tells you two things: Coco Crisp is hurt, which you knew; and the Red Sox might not let Trot Nixon bat against a single lefty this year (though, amusingly, in his five plate appearances against portsiders so far, he's got three hits, including a homer, and a walk; against righties, he's 3-17 with a homer and five walks).
• Detroit got back on track, beating Cleveland behind Kenny Rogers's eight-inning, one-run outing. Brandon Inge supplied a couple of homers for the Tigers, while Chris Shelton (who, if you'll recall, is a slugging first baseman) hit his third triple of the year. Shelton, whose middle name is apparently Bob, never managed more than two triples in any minor league season, then broke out for three in 388 at-bats last year. He's on pace for about 48 this year, to go with his 60 doubles and 112 homers. I think it's fair to say three things:
  1. That'd be a historic season.
  2. It's not going to happen.
  3. The Pirates really miss him.
• Kansas City won its snail race with Tampa Bay as they induced the Devil Rays to score seven late runs. Elmer Dessens gave up three unearned runs for the Royals with the help of a Doug Mientkiewicz error. Scott Kazmir walked four in six innings (too many), but was outdone by Scott Elarton, who walked six in 6 1/3 innings (way too many). Travis Harper threw three perfect innings for the Rays to earn his first win of the year. And don't be surprised if it's his last.
• Minnesota beat the Yanks behind Scott Baker's strong outing: seven innings, three hits, one walk, one run. His four strikeouts were adequate, but he walked a fine line: fourteen of his sixteen outs on balls in play came in the air. When you're facing a team full of Alex Rodriguez, Jason Giambi, and Gary Sheffield, those fly balls won't always fall for outs. (As I write this during Sunday's Twins-Yanks game, Giambi just hit a two-run homer off of Brad Radke to straightaway center.) Baker, who was born six days before me, threw 53 innings for the Twins last season, so he's not quite a rookie this year. He was drafted by the Twins out of Oklahoma State. Luke Scott is his only OK State teammate to have made the majors before him, and he had a two-year head start.
• The White Sox found themselves in another slugfest, losing 13-7 to Toronto. The teams combined for 31 hits, seven walks (six by Chicago), and one hit batsman (Joe Crede, who was 4-4 on the day). The Sox went into the ninth down 13-5, but tried to mount a comeback with back-to-back solo homers by Paul Konerko and Jermaine Dye. Clearly, it was too little, too late. Greg Zaun hit three doubles for Toronto and Vernon Wells hit his fifth homer of the season.
• The Cubs sent Pittsburgh to their ninth loss of the year. Sean Marshall "earned" his first major-league win, giving up four runs in five innings, but getting eight runs of support. Craig Wilson hit his fifth homer of the year filling in for Sean Casey, who stuck around only long enough to get one at-bat. Apparently, Casey has a broken back, but he'll return in 6-8 weeks, which sounds funny. Six to eight weeks sounds like recovery from a broken arm or something, not a broken back. Either way, though, not to be callous to Casey, but the Pirates will be better off if he gets Pipped by Wilson.
• The Mets won yet another game, moving to 8-1 behind Tom Glavine's six-inning, one-run (none earned) performance. He struck out eleven Brewers in the game. I was surprised to find that he also struck out eleven batters in a September 29th performance against the Rockies last year, a two-hit shutout. Glavine had a couple of months last year when he barely broke eleven strikeouts.
• The Braves beat San Diego, though Tim Hudson was mediocre, with four runs in 5 2/3 innings. Oscar Villareal was the pitcher of record when the Braves took the lead, so he picked up his fourth win of the year, which is pretty remarkable, considering the Braves only have five wins overall. Jeff Francoeur handed Villareal that win with his third homer of the year (and of his last two games).
• The Marlins got themselves into a situation where Joe Borowski could get his first save of the year, beating the Nats 5-3. Baby Fish highlights include Josh Willingham's third homer of the year and Hanley Ramirez's third steal. Miguel Olivo, formerly of the cannon arm, allowed three steals to the Nats, including one by Nick Johnson.
• A Reds-Cardinals game isn't one you'd expect to end 1-0, and when you see that Chris Carpenter started for St. Louis, you wouldn't figure Cincinnati would the game. But both things are what happened on Friday. Aaron Harang picked up his second win of the year with seven innings of four-hit ball. Harang also knocked in the only run of the game with a single in the fifth. Adam Dunn and Jim Edmonds each struck out three times and Felipe Lopez flashed the "speed" part of his power-speed combo by stealing his fourth base of the year.
• Philadelphia scored ten runs in the first six innings in Colorado, so the Rockies' four-run ninth just narrowed the final margin of victory to two runs. Chase Utley had another two-homer day to power the Philly offense. Garret Atkins hit his seventh double of the year, which is a lot of two-baggers.
• Arizona shut down Houston 5-1 behind eight strong innings by Brandon Webb. The D'Backs gave out no free passes and Conor Jackson hit his second homer of the year.
• Brad Penny threw six nice innings for the Dodgers, giving up just one run, but the Giants scored one in the top of the ninth to win the game 2-1. Jamey Wright, of all people, threw eight innings of one-hit ball for the Giants and Todd Worrell tossed the ninth for his fourth save of the year. Jeff Kent homered for the only Dodger run, and Jason Repko stole his fourth base of the year. Rafael Furcal also added his third steal, and avoided making an error as well.

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in Baseball at 17:21 | |

For the reasons already explained, I'm a little behind on the rest of the league's games. Luckily, it's Sunday. These are the games from Thursday, April 13.

• Even the White Sox will have games where they give up nine runs on 21 hits, especially when they're facing a team like the Tigers, who have enough offensive power to bat Carlos Guillen, a guy who's practically a lock for a .360 OBP, seventh. The best cure for that kind of game is to score thirteen runs on seventeen hits yourself. The great thing, from a fan's standpoint, about a game like this is that no lead feels safe: the Sox went up 10-3 going to the bottom of the fifth only to see the Tigers score four in the bottom half to make it a three-run game. Other gems from the box score: Chris Shelton hit his seventh homer of the year; Omar Infante hit his first two doubles; Jim Thome had his sixth homer; and Alex Cintron, starting at shortstop for Chicago, hit two triples off of Jason Grilli. Just two players went hitless in the game, both for Chicago: Scott Podsednik lowered his batting average to .059 with an 0-4 performance; and Brian Anderson, Chicago's rookie centerfielder, also went 0-4. Each player did walk once apiece, though.
• The Yankees beat the Royals again behind a strong, if short, outing from Randy Johnson: five innings, one run, five strikeouts. The score was just 4-2 going to the bottom of the eighth, but Jimmy Gobble allowed five Yankee runs, two on a Jason Giambi homer and the other three on Johnny Damon's first Yankee homer. Alex Rodriguez added his first double of the year, which is kind of surprising: this was the Yankees' ninth game of the year, after all. Andy Phillips made another first-base appearance for the Yankees without getting an at-bat. Bubba Crosby's doing even better, though: he's played in five games this year and managed just two at-bats. Tony Graffanino was the starting DH for Kansas City, which says a lot about the team.
• Toronto beat Boston 8-6 behind a strong Ted Lilly start: seven innings, one run, ten strikeouts. Matt Clement had the kind of game it seems like he's had a thousand of since joining the Red Sox: four innings, seven runs, four walks, one strikeout. When you have two starting lines like that, you're not supposed to have a close game, but BJ Ryan had to get the last out of the game anyway because Brian Tallet and Jason Frasor gave up five runs in the eighth and ninth. Further evidence of Keith Foulke's downfall is that he started the eighth for the Red Sox despite the score being 8-1 at that point.
• Seattle beat Cleveland 9-5 despite being outhit 12-9. The walks tell the story, though, as the M's took nine free passes in the game. Ichiro! had a neat game: 1-4 with a walk, his fourth steal of the year, and an assist, throwing out Jason Michaels at third base. He was also caught stealing once (though because the box score doesn't list a catcher, it appears that he was really picked off). Adrian Beltre continued his unlikely speed renaissance with his fourth steal of the year.
• Baltimore beat Tampa Bay 6-5 by scoring five runs over the last two innings. Shawn Camp and Dan Miceli were responsible for the runs, with Melvin Mora providing the decisive blow, a two-run homer that gave the Orioles the lead. Ramon Hernandez added three hits for Baltimore, including his fourth double of the year, raising his batting average to .533. Bruce Chen had an unusual day starting for Baltimore: 7 2/3 innings, five hits, five runs, four homers.
• The Dodgers walloped Pittsburgh 13-5. Cody Ross led the charge for L.A., smacking a grand slam and a three-run bomb. He also managed to strand one man in scoring position. Rafael Furcal, in what has to be a worrisome trend, made his fourth error of the year.
• The Mets won again, beating Washington 13-4, with the offense spread out all over the place: Carlos Beltran, David Wright, Cliff Floyd (all in the first inning), and Carlos Delgado all homered, and no Met had more than three RBI.
• Florida beat San Diego 9-2 as Jason Vargas allowed just two hits (but five walks) in his six innings. Dewon Brazelton gave up eight runs in his four innings for San Diego, as walk trouble bit him as well (four of them). The top four of the Padres' order went 0-15 with one walk, compared to a 6-12 performance, with six walks, from the corresponding Marlins. Hanley Ramirez continues to rake, going 2-3 with two walks and his fifth double of the year and Josh Willingham popped a couple of doubles himself.
• Milwaukee beat St. Louis on a Carlos Lee homer in the top of the eleventh. Jason Isringhausen, who's likely no longer the premier closer Cardinal fans would like him to be, gave up the bomb and thus took the loss, his second of the year. Derrick Turnbow picked up his fifth save of the early-going.
• The Reds have started off surprisingly well, improving to 6-3 with a win over the Cubs. Eric Milton pitched well enough to win (three runs in 6 2/3 innings), but the win was powered by the offense, which mustered eight runs, seven of which came on three homers: Adam Dunn's fifth, Felipe Lopez's third, and Austin Kearns's third. Milton also helped his own cause with a triple. Derrek Lee walked three times in the game, while the rest of the Chicago infield (Neifi!, Jerry Hairston, and Ronny Cedeno) combined to go 1-12 with seven strikeouts.
• The Giants won game one of their double-header with the Astros behind a nice three-run performance (in 7 2/3 innings) from Matt Morris. Brandon Backe started for the Astros and lasted just two innings, despite giving up only a Moises Alou solo homer. That's as clear a "removed for injury" pitching line as I've seen in some time.
• The Phillies beat Atlanta 7-6 despite a three-run eighth for the Braves against Ryan Franklin. Jeff Francoeur hit his first two homers of the year and also added a single. His corner-outfield mate Ryan Langerhans doubled and tripled for the Braves, but Atlanta couldn't overcome the Phillies' three-homer first inning against Kyle Davies. Davies wound up allowing two homers to Chase Utley, which were his first two hit this year as well.
• Roy Oswalt and Fernando Nieve combined on a shutout to give the Astros a split in their doubleheader. Lance Berkman hit his fifth and sixth homers of the year to power the offense. Matt Cain struck out eight Astros in just five innings, which is obviously a very nice rate. Cain's a former first round pick out of high school who made his pro debut at 17 in the Arizona Fall League. He's just 21 this year, having done High-A and AA ball in just one year, and having pitched impressively all the way up the chain: 10.12 K/9, 0.91 HR/9. His minor league walk rate is a tiny bit high at 3.73, and he did give up 22 homers in 145 2/3 innings in Fresno last year, but there doesn't seem to be any real reason why he shouldn't have a very nice major-league career.
• Colorado beat Arizona in a pretty generic game. Box score highlights are that Craig Counsell and Chad Tracy combined for six of the Diamondbacks' eight hits; and Todd Helton walked four times. Brad Hawpe also hit his fourth homer of the year.

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in Baseball at 16:10 | |

I'm two days behind on the A's, mostly because I was laid up in bed all day yesterday with either a flu or mild food poisoning. I don't think I'll ever eat sweet and sour chicken again, at least not from a takeout chinese place. The A's got a bad start to their Texas series, losing to Kevin Millwood. It was the fourth straight loss for Oakland, and dropped them under .500 for the first time since Opening Day. Barry Zito was uninspiring again, giving up five runs in seven innings, though he only allowed six hits and two walks (and one HBP). Zito's wildness got to him in the second inning, as he hit Phil Nevin and walked Hank Blalock before getting two strikeouts. Then he walked one more before D'Angelo Jimenez came through with the key single to score two runs. The three-run Texas fourth inning was just a plain old rally: double, RBI single, double, sac fly, and then a run scores on a wild pitch. Huston Street gave up his first run of the year, but it didn't matter: the A's were already down three at that point, and, as I recall, the chance of winning is something like 99.7%. Speaking of garbage time, Milton Bradley hit his first Oakland homer in the bottom half, taking Antonio Alfonseca deep. That homer, along with Frank Thomas's earlier shot (the 450th of his career), foreshadowed the events of the next day, when the A's rode consecutive homers (on consecutive pitches!) from Eric Chavez, Thomas, and Bradley to a one-run victory over Vicente Padilla. All five of the A's runs, in fact, came on homers, since Oakland's other two came on a two-run shot by Nick Swisher, his fourth of the year. The homers were all the more powerful for coming the half inning after Rich Harden had coughed up a 2-1 Oakland lead on a three-run Phil Nevin homer. Harden only allowed three hits, but he walked five Rangers, including the two men he put on immediately in front of Nevin's homer. Even worse, he had started the inning with two of his eight strikeouts. Up until those two walks, Harden was on his way to another great outing: 5 2/3 innings, two hits, three walks, six strikeouts, and two double plays. Justin Duchscherer and Joe Kennedy pitched the eighth, with Kennedy putting out Duchscherer's two-baserunner fire, and Huston Street threw a perfect ninth for his third save of the year. Duchscherer and Kennedy have combined for 10 2/3 innings this year in which they've allowed no runs while recording twelve strikeouts and just two walks. That's obviously an excellent start to the year for the setup team, and yet another datapoint to the assertion that bullpens are made, not born.

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in Oakland A's at 14:00 | |