And That Happened

Red Sox 6, Braves 5: First time I got to watch the Braves on TBS in like forever, and they just stink up the joint. All of that bad defense combined with weather imported from Scotland made this game about the only bad thing that happened to me on Father’s Day. If it wasn’t for home plate umpire Bill Hohn’s AMAZING mustache, this game would have been a total loss for me.

Cardinals 12, Royals 5: Albert Pujols (4-5, 2 HR, 2B, 6 RBI) can’t be bargained with. He can’t be reasoned with, He doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And he absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.

Padres 4, A’s 1: According to the game story, the fathers of Brian Giles, Edgar and Adrian Gonzalez, Luke Gregorson, Kevin Kouzmanoff, Cla Meredith, Edward Mujica, Joe Thatcher, Tony Gwynn and Kevin Correia threw out the first pitch to their respective sons before the game in honor of Father’s Day. Then, in the true spirit of baseball fathers everywhere, they all got drunk and paced behind the backstop while angrily yelling at the coach to put their boys in.

Marlins 6, Yankees 5: Sabathia left the game early with tightness in his left bicep. He says it’s not serious, and given that (a) it was 95 degrees and humid; and (b) Sabathia sweats barbecue sauce, you have to figure it was some kind of heat-induced cramping or something. According to the game story Alex Rodriguez — playing in his hometown of Miami — said he reserved about 100 tickets for family and friends. I’m dubious. I read a book last month that said he had no friends, and they couldn’t have printed such a thing if it weren’t true, right? In other news, the Yankees dropped four of six to the Nats and Marlins in the past week, though I suppose if Girardi’s protest succeeds there’s a chance to improve that to three of six (note: protests never, ever succeed).

Rockies 5, Pirates 4: The Rockies begin to rip off another winning streak, winning this one behind Clint Barmes (2-3, 2B, HR, 2 RBI). All of this winning has them doing things like taking one of their more marketable commodities off the market. I still say it’s ultimately in vain — Colorado will be watching the playoffs on TBS and FOX just like you and me — but in the meantime, mazel tov for the Rockies fans.

White Sox 4, Reds 1: Mark Buehrle just went out and acted all Mark Buehrle-y: seven strong innings, very little b.s. He looked good, but nowhere near as good as the Sox looked on Saturday night in those blue roadies.

Tigers 3, Brewers 2: Justin Verlander likes pitching against Milwaukee. The first time he faced them he threw a no-hitter. The second time — yesterday — he struck out eight and gave up two runs in seven and two-thirds.

Rays 10, Mets 6: Upton, Crawford and Longoria went 11 for 16 with seven RBIs, and the Rays have now won eight of eleven. The Mets, on the other hand, are in a one-step-forward-two-steps-back kind of rut, having dropped an awful lot of series lately.

Blue Jays 9, Nationals 4: Someone finally douses the red-hot Nats. Well, relatively speaking anyway. It was Ricky Romero stepping up for Toronto, giving up two over seven innings on a day when the bullpen needed a rest following a couple of extra innings games.

Orioles 2, Phillies 1: Man, has Cole Hamels pitched in some bad luck lately. Last time out he got the no-decision after giving up only two runs in six innings, and yesterday it was two runs in eight innings with ten strikeouts. The Phillies lineup — minus Ryan Howard, who didn’t play for the first time in 343 games because he has some nasty sinus infection — just couldn’t do a thing against Jeremy Guthrie, mustering only four hits on the day. Hamels after the game: “I think the key is we’re in first place. We’re fortunate everyone in the NL East is playing really bad.” Man, the Nats can’t any props even when things are going good for them.

Cubs 6, Indians 2: You know, if Jeremy Sowers could figure out a way to fix that little hitch in his delivery, the only thing keeping him from stardom would be his complete and utter inability to get anyone out.

Astros 4, Twins 1: Despite his teammates’ best efforts to kill him — Darin Erstad lined a ball off Rodriguez’s left side during batting practice on Saturday — Wandy Rodriguez was pretty spectacular yesterday (7 IP, 2H, 1 ER). “We need to keep playing good baseball. That’s the biggest key for us,” manager Cecil Cooper said after the game. Astute observations like that are why Cooper makes the big bucks.

Mariners 3, Diamondbacks 2: The game ended when, with two outs and the score tied, first basemen Tony Clark simply dropped a routine throw from the third baseman, turning what would have been out number three into the game-losing error. I’ve been watching baseball for over 30 years, and I can’t recall ever seeing a game end like that.

Dodgers 5, Angels 3: I can’t tell if Clayton Kershaw is trying to grow mutton chops or if he simply has the most pathetic mustache in the history of baseball. He’s certainly no Bill Hohn, that’s for sure. He can pitch, however, shutting out the Angels over seven innings. Juan Pierre keeps up the good work two, hitting a couple of RBI doubles. At first I thought that Pierre’s 50 games in the sun would allow him to rest contently, knowing that he proved a lot of naysayers wrong about his ability to start on a winning team. Now I’m wondering if he’ll overplay his hand and demand all kinds of playing time based on his track record once Manny returns.

Giants 3, Rangers 2: Barry Zito had a no-hitter going until he gave up a two-run homer to Andruw Jones in the seventh, but an RBI single by Randy Winn in the bottom of the inning preserved the win for Zito and the Giants. Watching Zito face Jones in 2009 has to be a lot like watching Flair face Steamboat in 1995. Something that you would have once paid a lot to see, but now you just hope no one gets too terribly injured.

A Hardball Times Update
Goodbye for now.

13 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Chris
14 years ago

“Man, the Nats can’t any props even when things are going good for them.”

——Neither can the O’s. One of your longest synopses of the day doesn’t even include that the O’s swept the Phillies thanks to some timely-ass hitting and are riding a five gamer.

Craig Calcaterra
14 years ago

Chris: didn’t you get the memo? I hate the Orioles and I’m continually unfair to them.  That’s my thing.

Jason B
14 years ago

Any psychiatrists in the house?  O’s fans around these parts need group therapy, pronto.  I saw one of them come storming across the golf course this week – muttering that he was just trying to get home for his daughter’s birthday.  Nearly brained him with my drive, I did.

lar
14 years ago

Re: Zito and his near no-hitter.

My brother asked me about those this weekend. He was curious if the 9 near no-nos (ie, a no-hitter into the 7th inning or beyond) and 4 full no-nos that Sandy Koufax threw were some kind of record, so I looked into it. Turns out that Koufax’s 6 (not 9) near no-nos plus his 4 full no-nos puts him third on the list, behind Randy Johnson and Nolan Ryan.

But Ryan’s record is beyond amazing. He’s basically the Wayne Gretzky of no-hitters (and near no-hitters). In his career, Ryan had 7 no-hitters and, get this, 24 near no-nos. That’s pretty insane.

There’s more <a href=“http://www.wezen-ball.com/2009/06/losing-no-hitter.html”>here<&gt;, including some pretty impressive info about Dave Stieb.

(Sorry for the blog-whoring, but it seemed pretty appropriate.)

lar
14 years ago

(crap! should’ve fixed that. sorry)

Re: Zito and his near no-hitter.

My brother asked me about those this weekend. He was curious if the 9 near no-nos (ie, a no-hitter into the 7th inning or beyond) and 4 full no-nos that Sandy Koufax threw were some kind of record, so I looked into it. Turns out that Koufax’s 6 (not 9) near no-nos plus his 4 full no-nos puts him third on the list, behind Randy Johnson and Nolan Ryan.

But Ryan’s record is beyond amazing. He’s basically the Wayne Gretzky of no-hitters (and near no-hitters). In his career, Ryan had 7 no-hitters and, get this, 24 near no-nos. That’s pretty insane.

There’s more here, including some pretty impressive info about Dave Stieb.

(Sorry for the blog-whoring, but it seemed pretty appropriate.)

Craig Calcaterra
14 years ago

Lar—whores with good reputations are always welcome in these parts.

lar
14 years ago

Thanks, Craig. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. Maybe they can make a movie about me. Something like “Milk Money” but, you know, not a piece of garbage.

Steve
14 years ago

Nice wrestling reference – more please!

APBA Guy
14 years ago

Milk Money-I love it.

In contrast to the fine play of my once hoemtown team, the O’s, the Beloved A’s continued to play down to expectations as their 9 game tour of Toughest Parks to Homer In concluded with a sparking 3-6.

Will He or Won’t He Coors Creature Matt Holliday basically did nothing on the road trip, but he wasn’t alone.

The A’s did showcase how good the Gigantes are playing right now by getting swept there, and they have a chance to do the same again starting tonight as they host the Giants at the Mausoleum. Usually a team that comes from a palace like AT&T to the Mausoleum suffers from a vertigo like disorientation, especially at the first and repeated sightings of the Mausoleum’s indigenous population of large rodents, but let’s not dwell on that.

The Giants are getting some great pitching right now, and shockingly timely hitting. Matt Cain actually looks like the ace everyone has predicted, and let’s not forget, he’s younger than Lincecum.

Can they keep it up? I’m skeptical. How soon before Rowand or Sandoval get hurt? With no depth, they can’t afford that. And we all think that Zito and Cain will regress to their more recent mean, at least to a degree in Cain’s case.

But still, Bochy is doing a lot right with these guys. He thoroughly outmanaged Geren a week ago, bunting for base hits to upset Vin Mazzaro, whereas the A’s kept taking huge hacks at Lincecum and never testing the poor defense of Pablo Sandoval at 3rd.

I’ve said it before, the A’s management wants to lose this year. It’s just nice to be able to see a team located 20 miles away that wants to win.

Chris Simonds
14 years ago

Craig,
re: Bill Hohn’s mustache. I think he needs to shave it off. Apparently it blocks his sight lines as he looks down trying to call balls and strikes. At least he blew calls equally to both teams, though the missed strike to JD Drew was the crucial mistake. Not that I’m complaining (I’m a Sox fan) just saying, in the interests of fairness and better baseball….
grin

Rob²
14 years ago

I’m sure other will chime in in this, but just 10 days ago the Yankees-Mets game ended with Luis Castillos error on an A-Rod pop-up with two outs in the ninth.

Craig Calcaterra
14 years ago

Oh, I’ve seen plenty of games end on errors, Rob. Just not on a first basemen dropping a simple putout attempt.

ecp
14 years ago

The only protest I ever heard of succeeding was the Pine Tar Game. (Isn’t it funny that we actually capitalize that, like an official event?)  If you thought the first part was hilarious, it really became insane when they had to come back and finish it and Billy Martin took the proceedings so “seriously.”  Hmm…the Yankees were involved in that one too.