Category: MLB General

mlb-general

Categories
MLB General

The Full Count: Verlander rolls along


1. This Rookie’s not fading: It’s a fact that most rookies, even the best ones, fade down the stretch. But Justin Verlander of the Tigers isn’t following that trend. In September he has two starts and a 0.60 ERA after last night’s gem against the Twins. Verlander threw 7 innings, allowing just one run and striking out 5. He earned a victory to improve to 16-7 as the Tigers rolled on against the Twins. Verlander was helped by the Tigers’ offense, which scored 7 runs and hit 4 homers. Detroit ended a 1-4 stretch with the victory and leads the Twins by 5 games.

2. The Contenders: The Phillies and Marlins started what will be an interesting four-game series over the weekend. Yesterday the Phils took Game 1 by a score of 14-8 in a game that featured great offense by both teams. For the winning Phils, Ryan Howard hit his 54th homerun of the season, his fifth jack in five days. Chase Utley had two hits and three RBIs, and backup catcher Chris Coste even got in on the action with four runs driven in. The Marlins were impressive too on offense, as Miguel Cabrera went crazy with four hits, a homer, and three runs. But their stud rookie pitcher Josh Johnson saw his ERA rise over 3.0 for the first time since May 4. He had been leading all pitchers in that category for a while, but not after the 4 innings pitched, 5 earned runs effort he had last night. The Marlins fell back to .500 a day after their no-hitter. But each team is still very much alive in the Wild Card standings.

3. The Steamroller: The Mets are literally steamrolling their way through the relatively easy National League. Yesterday they cruised by the Dodgers 7-0, as Tom Glavine pitched well enough to earn his first victory since August 5. Since June 23, Glavine is remarkably just 2-4, with an increased ERA as well. Two wins in two-and-a-half months are very bad luck for a pitcher on the NL’s best offense, which showed off as well in the win. Jose Reyes hit what was surprisingly his first career inside-the-park homerun. David Wright went 2-2, drove in a run, and scored. And Carlos Beltran hit his team-leading 113th RBI. Brad Penny of the Dodgers got smoked for all seven runs and exited with a loss.

4. No Hafner, no problem: The Cleveland Indians lacked big-time DH Travis Hafner last night, who hasn’t played since the 1st with an unknown injury. But that was no big deal for their offense, even against the defending World Champs. Cleveland easily outclassed the White Sox yesterday, winning 9-1. Victor Martinez and Grady Sizemore each homered for the Tribe, who pumped out 17 hits on the night. The loser for the White Sox was Mark Buehrle, who has been plagued by inconsistent play recently. He left after 4 innings, allowing 5 runs and 10 hits on the day. The loss dropped him to 12-12, including a 3-6 mark since the break. The Indians have now outscored their opponents by 81 runs this season, a remarkable figure considering their 67-72 record.

5. The Quiet Pursuit of an All-time Record: An MLB player is about to break a major record, yet even baseball fans haven’t been hearing about his chase. He is Padres closer Trevor Hoffman, who has been one of the league’s most underrated players for a while and is closing in on the saves record. Hoffman leads the National League with 37 saves this season, and has closed out more than half of the Padres’ 73 wins. He hasn’t even allowed a run since July 28. More importantly, Hoffman is just 5 away from Lee Smith’s mark of 478 saves. He’s on pace for six more saves this season, meaning that he should break the record.Why this isn’t a bigger story is beyond us. Mariano Rivera gets all the publicity, but Hoffman has been just as good for just as long in the regular season. The only thing he doesn’t have is the playoff experience. Still, he’ll retire the all time saves leader, and that should be enough to get anyone into the Hall of Fame.

Categories
MLB General

The Full Count: Marlins’ Sanchez throws no hitter


1. The Drought is Over: Believe it or not, you just waited through baseball’s longest no-hitter drought of all time. Believe it or not, it was an unknown rookie on baseball’s most overachieving squad that captured the no-no. Anibal Sanchez threw the Marlins’ fourth no-no in team history, the first since 2001 by a rookie. He was the first to do so since Randy Johnson in May 2004, an 841-day span. Sanchez did it against the Diamondbacks, as the Marlins won 2-0. Here’s his line: 9 innings, no hits, no runs, four walks, and six strikeouts. Sanchez also allowed a baserunner to reach via error, and he needed a few defensive gems to accomplish the no-hitter. Perhaps the biggest one of those came in the 7th innings with two outs, when shortstop Hanley Ramirez fielded a tough grounder to his left, spun, and threw a bullet to first for a close out. The stadium in Miami was one of the least likely atmospheres to witness a historic feat, considering the paid attendance was only 12,000 and about half that actually were in the stands at any given point. On the year, the 22-year-old Sanchez is 7-2 with a 2.89 ERA. Since the start of August, he is 3-1 with seven straight quality starts. Sanchez, a native Venezuelan, is one of many rookies on the Marlins roster and wasn’t even among their numerous candidates for Rookie of the Year before yesterday. Well, he is now.

2. The Deadly Duo: Chicago couldn’t afford a sweep at the hands of the Red Sox. They needed to at least stay close to the Twins. And they did just that with an 8-1 victory yesterday. Their best two offensive players, Jim Thome and Jermaine Dye, came up big in the win. Dye hit his 40th homer of the year, a two-run shot. Thome went 4-4 with his 39th shot of the year. The duo, which has been pacing the White Sox’s dynamic offense all year, struck again against Boston. Pitching-wise, Jose Contreras broke out of a month-long slump in which he had gone 0-3. He finally won his 12th game of the season with an 8 inning, nine strikeout performance. The White Sox took advantage of a Twins loss to move to just .5 games back of them for the Wild Card. Each team is closing in on the slumping Tigers.

3. Daily Double: The New York Mets played a home doubleheader against the Braves yesterday, and they sure took advantage of it. The Mets won the first game 4-1, behind a recent call-up’s starting pitching. Dave Williams, who has been back and forth to and from Norfolk all season, pitched a gem to move the Mets on in game 1. In game 2, the Mets won by a more convincing margin. Despite resting David Wright and Carlos Delgado, New York moved on behind Jose Reyes and Shawn Green homeruns. At 86-52, they have the best record in the majors.

4. Watch out!: Don’t look now Oakland Athletics, but the LA Angels are coming for you. The team has won five games in a row, gaining 3 games on the A’s in the process. The Angels easily beat the Orioles last night by a margin of 8-4. Vlad Guerrero hit two RBIs to bring his season total to 109–best in the division. Rookie prodigy Howie Kendrick hit his 3rd homerun and 23rd RBI of the year. And young starter Ervin Santana won his 14th game of the year, though he allowed 4 runs in 7 innings. The Angels are still 5.5 back of the A’s, but with the way they are playing that gap could be diminished very soon.

5. Gaining firepower: The major’s best offense is about to get even better. The Yankees, who won 8-3 last night behind two homers and six RBIs from Jorge Posada, lead the MLB in runs scored and OPS. Now they will return Hideki Matsui, who put up 100 or more RBIs from 2003-05. Matsui had his first rehab start yesterday for the AA Trenton Thunder. He went 1-3 with an RBI. Though no specific return date is listed for Matsui, when he does come back it will likely be at the designated hitter spot. That could provide a huge boost for the Yanks as they make their run at their first World Series title since 2000.

Categories
MLB General

The Full Count: Shutouts galore



2H, 1BB and 12K in 8 innings

1. Shut down and shut out: There were an inordinate amount of shutouts last night in the big leagues. Pitching prevailed as seven teams put up straight zeroes on the day. Let’s start with the American League, where three teams got blanked. The AL Wild Card race was affected, as the Twins won 8-0 while the White Sox lost 1-0. For the Twins, Johan Santana won his 17th game to take the lead in each of the pitching Triple Crown categories. The Sox lost to the Red Sox in David Ortiz’s return. Ortiz went 0-3 but the Red Sox escaped thanks to Kason Gabbard’s nice start. Elsewhere, the team that has allowed the most runs this season shut out the team that has scored the most. That’s right, it was Royals over Yankees, 5-0. For KC, Todd Wellemeyer went for a very long save, going 3.1 innings and striking out five. The Yankees still lead the Red Sox by 8 games while the Twins have opened up a 1.5 game lead on the White Sox.

2. Shutouts, NL Edition: There were way too many shutouts last night to contain in just one article. The Cards took on the Nats, winning 2-0 behind Albert Pujols’ 5th homer in 3 days. That gives him 44 on the season, more than last year when he won the MVP. Milwaukee crushed LA with a Doug Davis complete game. Davis allowed just four hits while striking out eight on the day. Claudio Vargas helped the D-Backs earn a shutout win of their own as he outdeuled the Marlins’ Dontrelle Willis. And finally, Bronson Arroyo of the Reds surged back after his recent inconsistency, going for a complete-game blanking of the Giants while his ERA dropped to 3.33. According to Elias Says, this was only the seventh time in major league history that there were seven or more shutouts in a single day.

3. What’s going on?: The Tigers lost again last night. The team that has held the best record in the majors for so long finally finds itself and its starting pitching in a slump. Detroit has only won 4 of their last 13 games and just 9 of their last 27. While the Tigers still hold the best record in the major leagues and Kenny Rogers is on fire, many are now questioning whether this team really is “for real.” Jeremy Bonderman blew a three-run lead last night and has not looked like himself for the past month and a half. Bonderman has a 5.05 ERA and a .280 opponents’ batting average since the break, and he along with Nate Robertson and Zach Miner declined in August. But the Tigers have plenty of time to solve their problems before the postseason begins–if they can hold on to their playoff spot.

4. Now they’re the worst: Could things get any worse for Cubs fans? How does a loss to the Pirates sound? That’s what happened last night, as Pittsburgh won their second game of a four-game series. The Pirates’ Jason Bay had one of his best games of the season, with 2 homers and 4 RBIs. He is just shy of his career highs in both categories, set last year. The Cubs declined to the notorious title of “worst team in the National League.” Basically, considering how relatively bad the NL is, they’re the worst team in the majors. The 55-83 Cubbies have gone 1-9 their last ten to cement this dishonor.

5. Hell does not freeze over: And the Cincinnati Reds’ Key Griffey is hurt again. For Griffey, who last played a full season in 2000, this shouldn’t be news. But he is a major contributor to a contending team, so this could be important. Girffey’s current malady is a dislocated toe that leaves him out indefinitely. The 36-year old has no guess as to when he might be back. Source: http://cbs.sportsline.com/mlb/story/9640364/rss

Categories
MLB General

The Full Count: No No-No in Ninth


1. Close but not quite: No pitcher has recorded a no-hitter in more than two years, since Randy Johnson was perfect in May 2004. But a very unlikely pitcher came very close to the feat yesterday. It was the Nationals’ Ramon Ortiz, who took a no-no into the ninth inning against the Cardinals. But it was broken up by an Aaron Miles leadoff single, and then by an Albert Pujols homerun (43). So perfection dodged yet another pitcher yesterday, and in the end this is just an insignificant last place over first place win for the Nats.

2. Back and forth: At one point in the season the Minnesota Twins weren’t even near the playoff picture. But now the Twins and the White Sox are trading around the Wild Card lead almost daily. Now the lead is in the hands on the Twins, who defeated the Devil Rays 2-1 yesterday. It was their 13th straight win against Tampa. Chicago is now right behind after a narrow 3-2 loss to the Red Sox, who witnessed the return of many key players yesterday. With Manny Ramirez, Trot Nixon, and Jason Varitek back in the lineup, the Sox defeated the Sox in extras. Chicago did see another great start by Jon Garland, who is 8-1 with a 2.83 ERA since the All Star break. Minnesota and Chicago won’t play each other again until the last series of the season, at the Metrodome.

3. Barry’s back: Barry Bonds had yet to catch his usual form this year, which could be his last as a Giant. But now he is in the groove like he was from 2001-2004, and he is hitting homeruns like there’s no tomorrow. Bonds went deep for the third straight game yesterday, helping the Giants to a 5-4 win in Cincy. In his last six games Bonds has 5 homers, 7 RBIs, and is slugging a preposterous 1.412. He’s only 25 back of Aaron now with 730 career homeruns. When will he catch him? Sometime next summer, if he plays.

4. Pitching=success: The Los Angeles Angels have remained in the playoff hunt, and it’s not because of their offense. It’s their pitching staff that’s carried them this season, like yesterday when they defeated the Orioles 1-0. Jered Weaver returned to form after two straight losses with 7 shutout innings. Then Francisco Rodriguez, also known as K-Rod, shut the door for his 39th save of the season. That ties him with Bobby Jenks for the major-league lead, and Rodriguez remains the most underrated closer in baseball. At age 24 he has 98 career saves and a 2.32 career ERA, including a 1.82 mark this year. The Angels are now 6.5 back of the A’s in the AL West even though they have won 3 straight. Their staff will need to carry them if they want to make the postseason again.

5. To return or not to return: The Twins, already leading the WC as mentioned before, could get a boost by the middle of the month. Francisco Liriano threw 78 pitches in a bullpen session yesterday, and said that he felt great. He will throw in batting practice on Wednesday and could return before mid-September. With their other injured starter, Brad Radke, there is more questions. Radke, who hasn’t thrown since August 25, has a stress fracture in his right shoulder. The doctors have told him not to pitch for a few weeks as he recovers, though no specific return date has been announced.

Categories
MLB General

MLB Cost Index for Sept 4 2006

[The MLB Cost Index is a calculation of the amount each team pays for a win and the efficiency of the payroll that the GM has put together.]

With only about 25 games to go, it’s time we revisited the MLB Cost Index. The biggest bargains this year? The Marlins, A’s, Twins and Reds. The A’s are all but assured of a division title and the Twins are within spitting distance of the Wildcard. While the Reds and Marlins will probably not make the postseason, at least they are giving their fans something to root for down the stretch. Not bad for a $15M payroll like the Marlins. Meanwhile, the Red Sox Angels, Braves, Cubs and Mariners are toast with nothing to show for it except a $100M average payorll.

** all $ are in millions.

Rank (Pv) Team 2006 Payroll GP Wins YTD Payroll Cost/Win
1 (1) Marlins $15.0 136 68 $12.59 $0.19
2 (3) Devil Rays $41.1 137 55 $29.95 $0.54
3 (2) Rockies $35.4 136 63 $34.53 $0.55
4 (4) Pirates $40.2 137 54 $34.03 $0.63
5 (6) A’s $63.8 136 79 $52.32 $0.66
6 (5) Twins $62.3 135 78 $53.18 $0.68
7 (12) Indians $59.5 135 65 $47.33 $0.73
8 (7) Reds $59.2 137 68 $50.31 $0.74
9 (9) Brewers $56.8 137 62 $48.03 $0.77
10 (8) D’backs $82.3 136 64 $49.72 $0.78
11 (15) Royals $65.5 138 51 $40.29 $0.79
12 (11) Rangers $56.8 138 70 $55.77 $0.80
13 (10) Tigers $69.7 137 84 $69.60 $0.83
14 (13) Padres $71.9 136 70 $58.53 $0.84
15 (14) Blue Jays $47.3 136 71 $60.37 $0.85
16 (16) Nationals $63.3 136 59 $53.11 $0.90
17 (18) Orioles $88.4 136 61 $60.94 $1.00
18 (19) Mets $72.6 135 84 $84.08 $1.00
19 (17) Cardinals $100.9 135 73 $73.70 $1.01
20 (21) Phillies $102.9 137 69 $74.65 $1.08
21 (20) White Sox $88.3 136 79 $86.36 $1.09
22 (23) Giants $88.3 137 68 $76.84 $1.13
23 (25) Dodgers $90.9 136 73 $83.26 $1.14
24 (22) Mariners $92.6 136 64 $74.15 $1.16
25 (24) Astros $99.2 137 67 $78.27 $1.17
26 (26) Braves $92.5 136 65 $77.62 $1.19
27 (27) Angels $103.6 137 72 $87.63 $1.22
28 (28) Red Sox $120.1 137 73 $101.57 $1.39
29 (29) Cubs $94.8 136 55 $79.62 $1.45
30 (30) Yankees $198.7 135 81 $165.55 $2.04

Categories
MLB General

MLB Power Rankings Roundup for Sep 1 2006

The Power Rankings are all over the place this week but it looks like most agree the two teams from NYC are the best in the land. Meanwhile, the A’s and Twins are moving on up the charts while the Red Sox free fall in the Power Rankings as well.

Here are your MLB Power Rankings by top sites this week.

Rank Sportscolumn ESPN FoxSports Sportsline USA Today TSN.ca
1 Mets Mets Tigers Mets Tigers Yankees
2 Yankees Yankees Mets Yankees Yankees Angels
3 Tigers A’s Yankees Twins Mets Mets
4 White Sox Twins White Sox A’s Twins Twins
5 Twins White Sox Twins Tigers White Sox Dodgers
6 A’s Tigers A’s White Sox A’s Tigers
7 Cardinals Dodgers Rangers Dodgers Red Sox White Sox
8 Angels Angels Red Sox Cardinals Angels A’s
9 Dodgers Cardinals Angels Angels Dodgers Giants
10 Red Sox Padres Dodgers Phillies Cardinals Blue Jays
11-30 more more more more more more

Categories
MLB General

The Full Count: Special August Wrap-up Edition



Often compared to Willie Stargell

1. He’s good. Real good: The Phillies lost to the Nationals last night, but that wasn’t the most important thing going on in that game. It was Ryan Howard’s continued dominance at the plate. Howard jacked his 49th homerun of the year, breaking Mike Schmidt’s single-season franchise record with a month left in the season. Howard has now hit an RBI in 9 straight games and homered in 6 of those games. His August will go down as the best month of the season by any player, as Howard hit 14 homeruns and 41 RBIs for the month. He also hit .348 and slugged .750 on the month and put up a stratospheric 1.214 OPS. The most incredible part of all this? Howard’s just 26 years old and playing in his first full season.

2. Santana strikes again: Who do you call when you need a win? Call on Johan Santana. The pitcher had a great start against the Kansas City Royals, who were actually on the brink of sweeping the Twins. He struck out 11 and pitched seven innings for his league-leading 16th win of the season. Johan just completed a truly special month of August. He went 4-0 with a 2.32 ERA and 47 strikeouts, first of any pitcher in the month. The win improved him to 7-0 after the break this year and 37-3 after the break since 2003. The Twins won 3-1 and are a half-game out of the Wild Card.

3. Where did this come from?: Putting it lightly, Astros pitcher Andy Pettitte sucked the first half of the season. He posted a 5+ ERA each of the first three months and allowed opponents above a .300 batting average. But now, Pettitte is starting to produce like a machine. In August he put up a 2.43 ERA and 44 strikeouts, both very comparable to Santana’s numbers above. Though he just went 3-2 and still has a .500 record on the season, Pettitte is looking more like himself from last year, when he went 17-9 with a 2.39 ERA. Last night he pitched seven innings while only allowing 5 hits and 1 earned run to the Brewers. With Pettitte in addition to Roger Clemens and the recently resigned Roy Oswalt on the pitching staff, the Astros are looking good as they head into September.

4. New York, New York: Both teams from the Big Apple had particularly good months. The Mets finished the month with a loss yesterday but overall posted an outstanding 19-8 record. They gained the best record in baseball, 82-50, in the process. The Mets are 15.5 games ahead of the second-place Phillies in the division, still the only double-digit lead of any team, and they would be 11 games up on the Cardinals if they were in the same division. That’s quite an accomplishment considering the Cards have finished with the best record in the NL for two straight years and are in second this year. And how `bout them Yanks? For them it’s been a great month for them and a bad month for their rival, you-know-who. NYY was tied with the BoSox on August 1, but after their success and Boston’s struggles have opened up an 8 game lead. By the way, that is the second-largest lead in all of baseball. So if you don’t think another Subway Series is a reality this season, you better reconsider.

5. Back to the Bay: After lasting two years with the Boston Red Sox, David Wells is moving on in his career once again. Wells is going back to the San Diego Padres, his hometown team who he played with in 2004. Wells was sent to Cali in a trade for a minor league catcher. Padres GM Kevin Towers thinks Wells is the difference for this team as they look to keep a lead in the Wild Card race.

Categories
MLB General

The Full Count: Yanks and Tigers battle it out



Man Sal Fasano is fat

1. Two top teams, two close games: The Yankees and Tigers, the AL’s top two teams, played a doubleheader yesterday after being rained out Tuesday. The results, not surprisingly, were two interesting games. The Yanks took Game 1 by a count of 2-0 behind the fantastic play of Chien-Ming Wang. Wang pitched seven-plus innings, allowing no runs and getting his 16th win of the year. That ties him with Roy Halladay for the highest win total in the majors. In Game 2, the tides turned and the Tigers won 5-3. Craig Monroe hit a three-run homer in the 9th off of Scott Proctor to win the game. The teams will play a game tonight that will decide the series. Jeremy Bonderman of the Tigers and Randy Johnson of the Yankees will take the mound.

2. Seventh-inning express: The Cardinals were looking to break up the Marlins’ 9-game winning streak when the two teams played last night. While starter Jason Marquis and the Cards got down 5-1 early, they battled back by scoring in 4 consecutive innings. A four-run 4th that included a Marquis RBI settled the score at 5-5. St. Louis tacked on three more runs before blowing the Fish out of the water in the 7th inning. They scored 5 runs, including an RBI apiece for their 3-4-5. The final on this one was 13-6, with Marquis getting the win in as crude a fashion as possible. The game marked St. Louis’ 70th win of the season, and they lead the Reds by 4.5 games.

3. No support: Roger Clemens must just have bad luck. Once again, his Astros failed to give him anything resembling run support. Clemens pitched 7 innings, shutting out the opposing Brewers and striking out 9. However, the `Stros offense didn’t give him a run, so he was left stuck with a no-decision and a 2.29 ERA. But thankfully for Astros fans, this wasn’t another 1-0 loss–it was a 1-0 win! They won on a ninth-inning groundout by Aubrey Huff that scored Mike Lamb. The Astros have now won 5 games in a row and are 3 games out of the Wild Card.

4. Plenty of support: Jon Garland has not had any problem with run support this season. He has a 16-4 record, giving him the second-highest winning percentage in the majors, despite a pedestrian 4.47 ERA. He ranks fourth in the AL in run support, and the ChiSox’s leading offense helped him out yesterday too. Garland threw 8 innings but allowed 4 runs to the D-Rays. The Sox scored three runs in the 8th inning to make the final score 5-4. Jermaine Dye continued his streak of madness by going 3-5, while Jim Thome contributed in his return with an RBI. Tampa’s Delmon Young went 2-3 with 2 RBIs in his second major league start, numbers identical to his first start. The Sox keep on rolling with 3 straight wins and are now just 4.5 back of the Tigers.

5. Plenty of injuries, not enough time: Here’s what you’ve been waiting for: your semi-regular Full Count injury update! We’ll start off with Carl Pavano in this edition. Most people have forgotten Pavano existed, as he has been sidelined ever since the middle of last year. Apparently he had been concealing from the Yankees that he had a car crash, breaking his ribs in the process. The team told him not to pitch for two weeks. But there’s even worse news for Mark Mulder, the Cardinals pitcher who has struggled to stay unhurt the entire season. He has severe shoulder problems and will likely miss the rest of the season. The Twins have good and bad news about two of their pitchers. Francisco Liriano threw off a mound for the first time since hitting the DL on August 8. It’s still undetermined when he’ll start. The Twins’ Brad Radke, meanwhile, will miss his next start and has not pitched since the 25th. That’s all for this edition of the Full Count semi-regular injury update. Hope you enjoyed it.

Categories
MLB General

The Full Count: Padres overtake the Reds



Ryan Franklin gives it up

1. Knocked off: It’s almost hard to remember a time when the Cincinnati Reds were not leading the Wild Card. They’ve had control of the lead ever since the All Star break and despite numerous competitors have not let go. Until now. The Reds lost their 5th game in a row, a stinging 16-inning defeat to the Los Angeles Dodgers. The game was tied at 6 for ten innings until pinch-hitter Ramon Martinez hit an improbable walk-off homerun, only his second jack of the year. The Dodgers, who have won 4 straight, find themselves three games up on their NL West competitors. The Reds are 3.5 back in their division and now a half-game back in the Wild Card.

2. New teams on the block: So which contenders overthrew the Reds to take the Wild Card lead? Well, the outright leaders are now the
San Diego Padres, who beat the Diamondbacks 8-3 yesterday behind the strong pitching of Chris Young. Young, who was a legit All Star contender after a few great performances before the break, had posted a 5.21 ERA afterwards. But he rebounded to his capable form, striking out 11 batters while allowing just 1 run last night. His 10th win of the season, along with Mike Piazza’s 19th dinger on the year, helped send SD to the WC lead. Also, Philadelphia is now a half-game back after another win. Ryan Howard hit his MLB-leading 48th homerun and 125th RBI of the season in the win. And don’t overlook the Florida Marlins as contenders as well. They have won 9 in a row after defeating the Cardinals yesterday.

3. Complete games galore: Of yesterday’s six AL games, three featured a complete game by a pitcher. C.C. Sabathia of the Cleveland Indians tossed his majors-leading 5th complete game of the year. He struck out 6 and allowed just 4 hits as the Indians beat the Blue Jays 5-2. Now let’s go to our favorite All Star: Mark Redman! He tossed a shutout for the Kansas City Royals against the Twins, allowing just 5 hits on the night. He improved to a glorious (by Royal standards) 8-8 on the season. And now for the last CG, throw by Kevin Millwood of the Rangers. He allowed 4 runs to the Orioles but received plenty of run support in a Rangers win.

4. Taking it back: So much for the Twins leading the Wild Card. The Chicago White Sox took advantage of their loss by winning against the D-Rays 12-9. Freddy Garcia allowed 5 runs but still won as he got all the run support a pitcher could ask for. Jermaine Dye continued his recent streak with a homerun (39) and 4 RBIs. Joe Crede improved his average to over .300, going 4-5 with two knocked in. The losing Devil Rays also had something to smile about. In his major league debut, Delmon Young hit a two-run homer. Young is well-known for his infamous bat-throwing incident with a minor league umpire earlier this year, but he has served that suspension and was called up yesterday. The ChiSox lead the Wild Card by a half-game.

5. Tripped up: The Braves showcased their offense yesterday in a 13-8 blowout against the Giants. Andruw Jones, Chipper Jones, and Adam LaRoche all went deep for the Braves, but it will be one of Andruw’s two shots that is most memorable. Jones tripped and fell on his way to first during his homerun trot, causing an array of laughter in the
Braves’ dugout. (Here is video of the incident.) For the Giants, Barry Bonds had one of his better games of the year. Bonds went deep twice, giving him 19 homers on the season and 727 for his career. He also made a homerun-saving catch in the loss.

Categories
MLB General

August 30 in Sports History: Ty Cobb makes his MLB debut


In 1905: In his MLB debut, Ty Cobb of the Detroit Tigers hit a double off Jack Chesboro of the New York Highlanders for the first of his record 4,191 career hits. Cobb played for the Tigers until 1926, and finished his career with a .366 batting average. Although later findings would reduce his hit total to 4,189, the record stood until 1985, when Pete Rose broke it.

In 1967 What is it with the Yankees and Red Sox playing two ridiculously long games within 24 hours? While most fans are familiar with the recent never-ending doubleheader and the 2004 ALCS marathons in Games 4 and 5 at Fenway Park, a 1967 twin bill in Yankee Stadium tied a Major League record for most innings played in a doubleheader (played by guess who? New York and Boston in 1905). After a 2-1 Red Sox win in game one, the teams played 20 innings in the nightcap, won by the Yankees 4-3. The two-game total was 8 hours, 15 minutes.

In 1998: Many people forget just how dominant Roger Clemens was during the 1997 and 1998 seasons while pitching for the Toronto Blue Jays. Clemens dominated the Twins, 6-0 for his third straight shutout and ran his scoreless innings streak to 29. He was a combined 41-13 with a 2.35 ERA and 549 strikeouts in his brief stint with the Blue Jays and won two Cy Young Awards.