THT Daily: Five in a row
by Dave StudemanMay 16, 2009
Major League News for May 16
Player News
Yesterday’s Results
Today’s Games
Standings
Top Minor League Performances
You can always find the most recent THT Daily at http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/content/thtdaily/
Player News
Player Headlines are courtesy of RotoworldIchiro Suzuki was 3-for-4 with two home runs in a win over the Red Sox on Friday.
The Mariners trailed 4-0 before Ichiro got them on the board with a solo shot in the fifth inning and then followed that up with a go-ahead homer in the sixth. It's the first multi-homer game by Ichiro since July 30, 2005.
Adrian Gonzalez homered in a win over the Reds on Friday night.
Gonzalez has now homered in five consecutive games, one game short of the club record set by Graig Nettles in 1984. His 15 home runs lead the majors.
B.J. Upton was 3-for-5 with a walk-off home run on Friday night.
The Rays trailed the Indians 7-0 at one point, but they stormed back with eight unanswered to secure the win. The eight-run comeback was a club record. Upton picked an opportune time to hit his first home run of the season, driving one off of the newly-inked Luis Vizcaino for the walk-off win. He now has two three-hit games in his last three contests. He scored twice and stole two bases in the win.
David Ortiz will not play again until Tuesday at the earliest, according to manager Terry Francona.
The Sox are hoping the mental break will help Ortiz out of his season-long slump. He will sit out the entire Mariners series, which is somewhat strange seeing as Seattle is the coldest team in baseball with just one win in their past 10 games. Big Papi owns a .208/.318/.300 line through 130 at-bats with 30 strikeouts and just 15 RBIs. More importantly, his power numbers are just plain awful with zero home runs and a .618 OPS. If there's anytime to buy low, it's now, if you believe he'll come out of it.
Brandon Morrow has been removed as the Mariners closer, according to manager Don Wakamatsu.
This comes after Morrow blew two consecutive saves. David Aardsma will lead a closer-by-committee for the time-being. Aardsma may be worth a flier in AL-only leagues, but the situation in Seattle is precarious at the moment.
Joey Votto will return to the lineup Friday after battling the flu and its aftereffects.
Votto missed Wednesday's game after trying to return too soon to the lineup on Tuesday. He admitted that he is still not 100%, but is good enough to play. Activate the slugger immediately.
Nationals placed C Jesus Flores on the 15-day disabled list, retroactive to May 10.
This is a shame, as Flores looked to be breaking out in 2009. Hopefully, the retroactive assignment means Flores will be back sooner than later. In the meantime, that means more at-bats for Wil Nieves, which is good for the Nieves family, but bad for the Nationals.
Yesterday’s Results
For the full scoop regarding yesterday's games, read "And That Happened" at Shysterball.American League NYA 5 MIN 4 (Recap and Boxscore) TB 8 CLE 7 (Recap and Boxscore) TOR 8 CHA 3 (Recap and Boxscore) DET 14 OAK 1 (Recap and Boxscore) KC 8 BAL 1 (Recap and Boxscore) SEA 5 BOS 4 (Recap and Boxscore) TEX 10 LAA 8 (Recap and Boxscore) National League ATL 4 ARI 3 (Recap and Boxscore) LAN 6 FLA 4 (Recap and Boxscore) PHI 10 WAS 6 (Recap and Boxscore) COL 3 PIT 1 (Recap and Boxscore) SD 5 CIN 3 (Recap and Boxscore) NYN 8 SF 6 (Recap and Boxscore)Check out Fangraphs' scoreboard to see all the games in action.
Today’s Games
National League --------------- Houston Astros at Chicago Cubs, 1:05 PM (R) Roy Oswalt (1-2) vs. (R) Randy Wells (0-0) Philadelphia Phillies at Washington Nationals, 1:05 PM (R) Brett Myers (2-2) vs. (L) Scott Olsen (1-3) Milwaukee Brewers at St. Louis Cardinals, 1:10 PM (R) Jeff Suppan (2-3) vs. (R) Adam Wainwright (3-1) New York Mets at San Francisco Giants, 4:10 PM (L) Johan Santana (4-2) vs. (L) Randy Johnson (3-3) Los Angeles Dodgers at Florida Marlins, 6:10 PM (L) Eric Milton (0-0) vs. (L) Andrew Miller (0-1) Philadelphia Phillies at Washington Nationals, 7:05 PM (L) J.A. Happ (1-0) vs. (R) Daniel Cabrera (0-4) Colorado Rockies at Pittsburgh Pirates, 7:05 PM (R) Aaron Cook (2-1) vs. (R) Ian Snell (1-5) Arizona Diamondbacks at Atlanta Braves, 7:10 PM (R) Max Scherzer (0-3) vs. (R) Kenshin Kawakami (2-4) Cincinnati Reds at San Diego Padres, 10:05 PM (R) Edinson Volquez (4-2) vs. (R) Josh Geer (0-1) American League --------------- Minnesota Twins at New York Yankees, 1:05 PM (R) Nick Blackburn (2-2) vs. (R) Joba Chamberlain (2-1) Chicago White Sox at Toronto Blue Jays, 1:07 PM (R) Bartolo Colon (2-3) vs. (R) Robert Ray (0-1) Cleveland Indians at Tampa Bay Rays, 4:10 PM (R) Carl Pavano (3-3) vs. (R) Matt Garza (3-2) LA Angels of Anaheim at Texas Rangers, 4:10 PM (R) John Lackey (0-0) vs. (R) Vicente Padilla (2-2) Oakland Athletics at Detroit Tigers, 7:05 PM (L) Dallas Braden (3-4) vs. (R) Rick Porcello (3-3) Baltimore Orioles at Kansas City Royals, 7:10 PM (L) Rich Hill (0-0) vs. (R) Kyle Davies (2-1) Boston Red Sox at Seattle Mariners, 10:10 PM (R) Josh Beckett (3-2) vs. (L) Garrett Olson (0-0)
Standings
The graphics next to each team are called "sparklines.” They depict each team’s performance over the last month. Each "up" bar is a victory and a "down" bar is a loss. There are horizontal lines for home games and red bars represent games decided by two runs or less. "PWins" is short for Projected Wins, based on each team’s Run Differential, and is often a better measure of a team’s true strength. Other team graphs and stats can be found on our Team Page.American League East Pwins Diff TOR 24 14 .632 0.0 24 0BOS 21 15 .583 2.0 20 1
NYA 18 17 .514 4.5 16 2
TB 17 20 .459 6.5 20 -3
BAL 15 21 .417 8.0 15 0
American League Central DET 18 16 .529 0.0 19 -1
KC 19 17 .528 0.0 20 -1
MIN 18 18 .500 1.0 17 1
CHA 15 19 .441 3.0 14 1
CLE 14 23 .378 5.5 17 -3
American League West TEX 21 14 .600 0.0 20 1
LAA 18 16 .529 2.5 17 1
SEA 17 19 .472 4.5 15 2
OAK 13 19 .406 6.5 15 -2
National League East Pwins Diff NYN 20 15 .571 0.0 20 0
PHI 17 16 .515 2.0 17 0
ATL 18 17 .514 2.0 18 0
FLA 17 19 .472 3.5 16 1
WAS 11 22 .333 8.0 14 -3
National League Central STL 21 14 .600 0.0 20 1
MIL 21 14 .600 0.0 20 1
CHN 20 14 .588 0.5 18 2
CIN 20 15 .571 1.0 18 2
HOU 16 18 .471 4.5 16 0
PIT 14 21 .400 7.0 17 -3
National League West LAN 25 12 .676 0.0 25 0
SF 18 17 .514 6.0 16 2
COL 14 20 .412 9.5 18 -4
SD 14 22 .389 10.5 13 1
ARI 13 23 .361 11.5 14 -1
Top Minor League Games
The following list, provided by First Inning, includes the top minor league batting (based on Runs Created) and pitching (based on Game Score) performances from yesterday.ORG LVL PLAYER AB H 2B 3B HR BB SO Notes SD A Jaff Decker....... 4 3 1 0 1 1 0 WAN A+ Michael Burgess... 4 4 0 0 1 1 0 3 R WAN A Derek Norris...... 5 3 2 0 0 0 0 3 R BAL A+ Brandon Waring.... 5 2 0 0 2 0 2 SD A+ Logan Forsythe.... 4 2 1 0 1 1 0 SEA A+ Joseph Dunigan.... 4 2 1 0 1 1 0 LAA AA Peter Bourjos..... 5 4 0 0 1 0 0 NYY A+ Austin Romine..... 3 2 1 0 1 0 0 NYM AA Joshua Thole...... 3 2 2 0 0 1 1 TOR AAA J. Arencibia...... 4 2 1 0 1 0 1 4 RBI OAK AAA Eric Patterson.... 5 5 0 0 0 0 0 2 SB LA A A. Delmonico...... 2 1 1 0 0 3 0 ORG LVL PLAYER IP H R ER SO BB HR Notes PIT AA Brad Lincoln...... 7 5 1 1 7 1 0 CLE AA Chuck Lofgren..... 7 6 2 2 4 0 0 NYY A+ Ryan Zink......... 6 8 2 2 7 1 0 OAK AAA James Simmons..... 7 3 1 1 3 1 0 TOR AA Marc Rzepczynski.. 5 5 2 1 6 2 0 11 GB CHW AA Aaron Poreda...... 6 6 3 3 6 3 0 KC A+ Daniel Duffy...... 5 4 1 1 3 1 0 NYY AA Z. McAllister..... 7 6 2 1 2 1 0 15 GB DET A Mauricio Robles... 6 6 2 2 5 1 1 TEX A Martin Perez...... 5 4 2 2 5 1 1 NYY AAA Mark Melancon..... 2 1 0 0 3 0 0 ARI AA Daniel Schlereth.. 2 0 0 0 3 1 0
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Dave was called a "national treasure" by Rob Neyer. Seriously. Comments about this article can be sent to him through the miracle of e-mail.