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THT Daily: Five in a row

by Dave Studeman
May 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 Rotoworld
Ichiro 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     0    sparkline graph
BOS     21  15 .583    2.0   20     1    sparkline graph
NYA     18  17 .514    4.5   16     2    sparkline graph
TB      17  20 .459    6.5   20    -3    sparkline graph
BAL     15  21 .417    8.0   15     0    sparkline graph
American League Central     
DET     18  16 .529    0.0   19    -1    sparkline graph
KC      19  17 .528    0.0   20    -1    sparkline graph
MIN     18  18 .500    1.0   17     1    sparkline graph
CHA     15  19 .441    3.0   14     1    sparkline graph
CLE     14  23 .378    5.5   17    -3    sparkline graph
American League West        
TEX     21  14 .600    0.0   20     1    sparkline graph
LAA     18  16 .529    2.5   17     1    sparkline graph
SEA     17  19 .472    4.5   15     2    sparkline graph
OAK     13  19 .406    6.5   15    -2    sparkline graph


National League East        Pwins  Diff
NYN     20  15 .571    0.0   20     0    sparkline graph
PHI     17  16 .515    2.0   17     0    sparkline graph
ATL     18  17 .514    2.0   18     0    sparkline graph
FLA     17  19 .472    3.5   16     1    sparkline graph
WAS     11  22 .333    8.0   14    -3    sparkline graph
National League Central     
STL     21  14 .600    0.0   20     1    sparkline graph
MIL     21  14 .600    0.0   20     1    sparkline graph
CHN     20  14 .588    0.5   18     2    sparkline graph
CIN     20  15 .571    1.0   18     2    sparkline graph
HOU     16  18 .471    4.5   16     0    sparkline graph
PIT     14  21 .400    7.0   17    -3    sparkline graph
National League West        
LAN     25  12 .676    0.0   25     0    sparkline graph
SF      18  17 .514    6.0   16     2    sparkline graph
COL     14  20 .412    9.5   18    -4    sparkline graph
SD      14  22 .389   10.5   13     1    sparkline graph
ARI     13  23 .361   11.5   14    -1    sparkline graph


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


First Inning's Major and Minor League Daily Reports:


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.




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