Beaneball

The highlights from the box scores for the games of 4/18 are these.

• Cleveland was all over Baltimore, 15-1. Jason Johnson threw seven innings one one-run ball despite striking out just two while Grady Sizemore hit his first homer of the year. Brian Roberts had four of the Orioles' seven hits in the game and also stole two bases.
• Boston beat the Devil Rays 7-4. Tampa scored two each in the seventh and eighth, but the Red Sox added three in the bottom half of each inning. Matt Clement had a solid start, allowing three runs in seven innings, but saw the win vultured by Mike Timlin. Jon Papelbon closed things for his seventh save of the young season, walking two and giving up a hit, but also striking out two. Manny Ramirez hit his firsth double of the year, Wily Mo Pena walked twice, and Travis Lee grabbed himself three free passes. My essay on Ty Wigginton could have waited until this post, since he hit his sixth homer of the year in this game.
• Toronto sent the Yankees back below .500 with a 10-5 win. Randy Johnson gave up seven runs in just 3 1/3 innings while striking out just two and Gustavo Chacin just hung on long enough to pick up his third win of the year despite giving up five runs in six innings. Troy Glaus hit a couple of homers for Toronto and Alex Rios hit his fifth bomb of the season as well.
• Chicago beat the Royals again, this time 4-1, behind a 6 1/3 inning, one-run start from Jon Garland. Scott Podsednik stole a couple of bases, and none of Royal starter Jeremy Affeldt's three runs was earned. Angel Berroa made his fourth error of the year.
• The Angels beat the Twins 8-2. Carlos Silva actually pitched 8 2/3 innings for the Twins and was charged with all eight runs. It's not every day you see a line like that. Kelvim Escobar struck out ten Twins in 6 2/3 innings, and Chone Figgins and Orland Cabrera combined to go 6-10 with a double and a homer out of the #1-2 spots.
• Texas beat Seattle 7-4, sending Felix Hernandez home still in search of his first win of the year despite striking out nine Rangers in five innings. The problem was the two two-run homers he gave up in the early innings. John Koronka survived a four-walk day to pick up his second win of the year for the Rangers. Ichiro! stole his sixth base of the year, and Adrian Beltre added his fifth pilfery.
• The Nationals walked all over the Phillies, 10-3, capped by a ninth-inning grand slam by Ryan Church, who's wreaking havoc after being called up from AAA. Pat Burrell added his sixth homer of the year for the Phillies.
• Pittsburgh beat St. Louis 12-4 despite Albert Pujols's tenth homer of the year. That's absolutely preposterous. Ten? It's April 19th, Al! Ease up, buddy! Jeff Suppan spoiled the party by giving up eight runs in just two innings. Craig Wilson doubled thrice, and Jason Bay singled, doubled, and walked three times for the Pirates.
• Florida beat the Reds 12-6 despite a four-inning, six-run, five-walk start from Jason Vargas. Hanley Ramirez hit the first two homers of his major-league career, including one leading off the game. Congratulations, Hanley! Ryan Freel walked three times and stole his seventh and eighth bases of the year for the Reds.
• The Braves cooled the Mets a little with a 7-1 win. Kyle Davies threw the complete game for Atlanta, the first such of his young career. Andruw Jones and Adam LaRoche combined for a 6-9 line with three homers and a double. They went back-to-back against Victor Zambrano in the third inning. Jones is up to seven bombs on the year, following up on his coming-out party last year.
• The Astros took a 9-2 lead over the Brewers after three innings, then held on to win 13-12 as Milwaukee scored ten runs over the last three innings. Despite the wildness, the Astros never actually trailed after the second inning, so Roy Oswalt picked up his third win of the year and Doug Davis, who gave up all nine runs in 2 2/3 innings, took the loss. Morgan Ensberg had two bombs for Houston and Carlos Lee his his seventh and eighth for the Brewers, the second coming against Brad Lidge. Prince Fielder had three hits, including his second homer of the year, for Milwaukee. Ensberg and Fielder also made errors in the game: it was Ensberg's fifth of the year, Fielder's first.
• Colorado continues to play bizarro, beating San Diego 3-2 in eleven innings at home. Mike Piazza had two doubles for the Padres, and Todd Helton hit his ninth two-bagger of the year for the Rockies.
• Arizona beat San Francisco 7-4 as the teams combined for eight runs in the sixth inning. Russ Ortiz lasted just 2 1/3 innings for the D'Backs, but didn't allow a run, so I smell injury. There were five double plays in the game, four turned by Arizona, and three caught-stealings. Barry Bonds walked twice and hit his third double of the year. Jeff DaVanon, who's off to a good start, added three more singles for the Diamondbacks.
• The Dodgers edged the Cubs 2-1 with a run in the bottom of the ninth against Will Ohman. Bill Mueller didn't record an official at-bat, walking four times (once intentional). Derrek Lee stole his fourth bag of the year for the Cubs, and Juan Pierre swiped his fifth.

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in Baseball at 21:39 | |

The highlights from the box scores for the games of 4/17 are these.

• Boston beat Seattle again, this time 7-6 on a walkoff homer by Mark Loretta, of all people. David Ortiz hit two homers, giving him six for the year, earlier in the game. Kevin Youkilis had two singles and a walk in the leadoff hole. Lenny DiNardo, who I didn't even know was a starter, threw five innings for Boston.
• Cleveland walloped Detroit 10-2 on the strength of a six-run third inning. The 5-8 hitters for the Indians went 10-17 with two walks and three doubles, and the number nine hitter, Casey Blake, contributed a homer. Chris Shelton did hit his ninth homer of the season for Detroit and also walked once, but the Tigers managed just three other hits and two other walks. Alexis Gomez, who looks like a randomly generated AAA player from one of my PlayStation games, DH'd for the Tigers, and for some reason, was batting fifth, ahead of Shelton. That's a travesty, especially since Carlos Guillen also hits behind Shelton. There is absolutely no reason why a guy whose best minor-league slugging percentage was .466, and that season was four years ago, should be hitting in front of the major-league home run leader. None. Fire Jim Leyland!
• The Orioles became my latest favorite team by beating the Angels 4-2. Baltimore scored two runs in each of the first two innings and just held on from there. Daniel Cabrera gave up just an unearned run in seven innings, striking out six and Chris Ray finished things for his fifth save of the year. Jeff Weaver pitched fine, and only two of the four runs were earned, as the other two were helped across by Orlando Cabrera's fourth error of the year. Garrett Anderson had three hits for Anaheim, and for some reason, Maicer Itzuris was DHing. Really? What happened to Juan Rivera?
• Chicago shut out the Royals 9-0 and Kansas City managed just one hit and one walk against Jose Contreras and two relievers. John Buck compounded the problem by getting caught stealing. Paul Konerko did add his fifth homer of the year, and Joe Mays was bad, giving up eight runs (six earned) in 5 1/3 innings.
• The Cardinals scored two in the top of the first on Albert Pujols's ninth homer of the year (the man just never stops), then held on for a 2-1 win over the Pirates. Jasons Marquis and Isringhausen pitched for St. Louis, with the latter getting his fourth save of the year and the former improving his record to 3-0. Pujols also added his second double of the year.
• The Mets picked up their tenth win of the year behind Pedro Martinez's third. Andruw Jones blasted a solo homer against The Great Curled One, but Martinez struck out eight en route to a 6 2/3-inning, three-run performance. Xavier Nady had three hits, including his fourth homer, and Carlos Delgado added his fifth bomb of the year. Pete Orr was hitting leadoff for the Braves, which is odd because Marcus Giles was in the lineup.
• Cincinnati beat the Marlins 9-1 behind a good seven-inning, no-run game from Brandon Claussen, who picked up his first win of the year. Scuffy Moehler lost his third for the Marlins, giving up eight runs in five innings. One of those was unearned, helped by Hanley Ramirez's fourth error of the year. Ramirez continued to hit, though, with two singles and a walk in the game. Adam Dunn hit his eighth homer of the year and walked twice. The Reds, in fact, had six doubles and two homers, but just four singles. That's a lot of solid contact.
• Houston beat the Brewers 8-7 with five runs in the bottom of the seventh. Matt Wise gave up all five runs for Milwaukee, and accordingly took the loss. Brad Lidge picked up his fourth save, and there were five homers in the game, including Carlos Lee's sixth of the season. Preston Wilson tried mightily, but he struck out five times in the game, leaving eight men on base. That takes real effort.
• San Diego beat Colorado as Chris Young limited the Rockies to two runs in seven innings in Denver. Young also added a double off of Jeff Francis, his second two-bagger of the year. That's impressive for a guy with a strike zone the size of a Sunset Cliffs breaker. Young's having a year that Texas might prefer to the (non-)season that Adam Eaton is suffering through right now. Congratulations to Josh Barfield on his first major-league homer. Does it count if it comes in Colorado?
• San Francisco won a wild one, 10-9, by scoring three times over the last two innings against Luis Vizcaino and Jose Valverde. Barry Bonds walked a couple of times, and Tim Worrell picked up his sixth save of the year. Otherwise, it was a pretty routine slugfest.
• Chicago beat the Dodgers 4-1 behind a vintage Greg Maddux start: eight innings, three hits, one run, no walks, six strikeouts, 87 pitches. He even added an RBI single, since, donchaknow, chicks dig the long ball.

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in Baseball at 21:38 | |

The highlights from the box scores on April 16th are these.

• A couple of power-house offensive teams, the Indians and Tigers, played to a 1-0 standstill, the only run coming on (of course) a Chris Shelton homer, his eighth of the year. Mike Maroth threw seven shutout innings for Detroit, lowering his ERA to 0.93 for the year. Aaron Boone had two of the Indians' four hits.
• The Devil Rays moved over .500 with a 9-5 win over the Royals, powered by Johnny Gomes and Ty Wigginton, who each hit their fifth homers of the year. This is remarkable for Wigginton, because it pretty much looked like his career was over. After a poor year with the stick in full-time play with the Mets in 2003, he was traded (well down the ladder) to Pittsburgh midway through 2004. He was slugging .487 when he was traded, but managed just a .341 SLG thereafter. Finally, he got just 170 PA's last year with the Pirates, though he did slug .465. If you're not getting 200 PA's in a year for the Pirates and you sign with the Devil Rays, you're basically one step from a professional surfing career. Instead he's had a great 50-PA start to the year, cementing the kind of season that looks good even if he goes into the tank from here on out (such is the power of the hot start - it's hard to notice the declining slugging percentage). Steve Stemle gave up six runs in 2 1/3 innings of relief for the Royals, raising his ERA to 15.00. At least by throwing 54 pitches, he made himself unavailable for a day or two. That's helpful.
• Anaheim even its record with a 9-3 win over the Orioles. Vlad Guerrero hit a couple of homers and stole a base for the Angels. Chone Figgins also homered and stole a base. The Angels actually gave up their DH in the game. Tim Salmon started at that spot, then was pinch-run for by Juan Rivera. Rivera later moved to right field while starter John Lackey was still in the game, putting Lackey in Guerrero's #3 spot. Francisco Rodriguez and Brendan Donnelly followed Lackey in the three-hole, but nobody got an at-bat. It's odd to see that Rodriguez started the ninth with the Angels up 9-2. It's odder that after giving up one run, he was pulled in favor of Donnelly. Both the giving up of the DH and the removal of Rodriguez smell like injury. The recap says that Salmon did indeed leave with an injury, but that only explains Rivera coming in for him, not why Rivera later moved to right. Rodriguez also hurt himself, leaving with a hamstring cramp. The Salmon injury isn't huge for the Angels. Juan Rivera would probably hit just as well in that spot (though obviously it costs them a valuable pinch-hitter). The Rodriguez injury is more problematic, but the Angels have to be happy that if he's going to be leaving games in pain, it's due to his legs, not his right arm.
• The Red Sox beat the Mariners 3-2 behind Josh Beckett's third win of the year. Beckett allowed two runs (one earned) in seven innings. Kevin Youkilis was back where he belongs, in the leadoff spot, though he went 0-3 with a walk. Jason Varitek actually stole a base for the Sox. Adrian Beltre contributed two errors for the Mariners.
• The White Sox beat the Blue Jays 6-4 in a 4 1/2 inning game. Toronto scored four runs in the top of the fifth, but their rally was stopped, so Chicago didn't have to bat in the bottom half. Josh Towers gave up five runs in two innings to take his third loss of the year for Toronto. Scott Podsednik finally stole his first base of the year, and Jim Thome contributed his seventh homer.
• The Yankees beat the Twins 9-3, evening both teams' records at 6-6. The Yankees hit four homers, including two by Jason Giambi, lost one runner to a caught-stealing (Robinson Cano, who also homered), grounded into two double plays (both by Derek Jeter), and had two errors (including one by first-base caddy Andy Phillips, who went 0-0 with a walk). The MVP, though, was Chien-Ming Wang who allowed two runs (one earned) in seven innings while walking none and striking out eight. A ground-ball pitcher with strikeouts is one almost destined for success in this league. Wang was an adequate strikeout pitcher in the minors, winding up with 7.05 per nine in his five years on the farm.
• San Diego beat Atlanta 4-3 by getting to the Brave bullpen. John Thomson threw six innings of shutout, one-hit ball, walking none and striking out six. He left with a 3-0 lead, but saw Kenny Ray cough it up in the seventh without even recording an out. Mike Remlinger gave up the go-ahead run in the eighth, and Trevor Hoffman finished things for the Padres in the ninth. Woody Williams struck out nine Braves in his six innings for the Padres.
• The Nats beat the Marlins 7-5 by scoring three in the top of the ninth against Matt Herges. Ryan Church hit two bombs for Washington, including a two-run shot in the ninth, and also stole his first base of the year. Chris Aguila has been starting in right for the Marlins, and he'll continue to do so for a little while longer, as the Fish had to put Jeremy Hermida on the DL with a hip problem. That's unfortunate for me because it removes a player I like to look for in the box scores. Aguila's a 27-year old out of a Reno high school. He was a mediocre minor-league hitter until breaking out in Portland (AA) with a .294/.369/.420 mark. The lack of power was worrisome, but it'd come: he hit .320/.384/.499 in Carolina (also AA) the next year, then .312/.380/.494 in Albuquerque (AAA) in 2004. He split 2005 between Florida and New Mexico, hitting .355/.412/.630 in about 160 PA's in AAA. His numbers are obviously very batting-average driven, but a .180 ISO isn't too bad, even if his walk rate doesn't stun anyone.
• The Mets won again, beating the Brewers 9-3. It was a good game until New York scored five in the bottom of the eighth to put things away. Jorge De La Rosa was the main culprit, giving up a three-run homer to Carlos Delgado. That was the only hit he gave up, but that's enough when you walk three, and then turn things over to Jared Fernandez, who was all too willing to let an inherited runner score. Jose Reyes stole his fifth base of the year and Prince Fielder, who walked three times in the game, likely the first of many three-walk games in his career, embarassed Aaron Heilman and Paul Lo Duca with his first major-league steal. Ben Sheets, true to form, struck out six and walked no Mets. Brian Bannister, auditioning to get sent back to AAA, walked five in his five innings. Each allowed six hits, and Sheets actually allowed one fewer extra-base hit, but somehow Sheets gave up four runs while Bannister allowed just one. Peripherals aren't everything within a single game, I guess.
• The Cubs beat the Pirates 7-3 with a couple of big innings, a three-run first and a four-run sixth. Each inning was helped along by a two-run homer, the first by Todd Walker, the second by Aramis Ramirez. Juan Pierre stole his fourth base of the year, and Craig Wilson, continuing to put the Pirates to shame for picking up Sean Casey, hit his sixth homer.
• The Cardinals edged Cincinnati 8-7 on a two-run homer by Albert Pujols in the bottom of the ninth. It was Pujols's third homer of the game, his eighth of the season, and his 14th and 15th RBI (in the Cardinals' twelfth game). Jason Marquis (a pitcher, as you'll recall) had the pinch-single in the ninth to set up Pujols's blast. Adam Dunn hit his seventh homer of the year for the Reds, and even Quinton McCracken contributed with a pinch-hit homer in the eighth. That three-run eighth inning for the Reds put them up 7-6.
• The Astros beat the Diamondbacks with a seven-run sixth inning, powered by a Morgan Ensberg three-run homer. El Duque struck out eight in 5 2/3 innings for Arizona, but also walked four, and took his second loss of the year. The Astros needed seven pitchers to nail down the Snakes. Brad Ausmus made himself useful with a three-walk day.
• The Dodgers got shut out by the Giants, 2-0. Brad Hennessey and three relievers did the job for San Francisco despite walking a combined five while striking out just three. They managed to give up just three hits, though, which is what you call defensive efficiency. Tim Worrell (I may have called him Todd in an earlier post) earned his fifth save of the year. Rafael Furcal and JD Drew each walked a couple of times for Los Angeles.

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in Baseball at 21:36 | |