November 22, 2009
Order Now The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2010 is now in development and will ship in mid November! This year's book will feature articles by THT's staff as well as Bill James, Tom Tango and Craig Wright. If you use this link to purchase the Annual, you will be in the first group to receive it and you'll be supporting THT. 
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THT Daily: 2,000 hitsby Dave StudemanSeptember 07, 2009 Major League News for September 7Player 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 NewsPlayer Headlines are courtesy of RotoworldMets manager Jerry Manuel said Sunday that Gary Sheffield (back) is "pretty close to being out" for the rest of the season. Sheffield hasn't played since leaving last Tuesday's game with lower back spasms. "He's getting treatment, not quite responding well enough for him to get that bat going like he likes to get it going," Manuel said Sunday. "So I really don't foresee him in these next - how many of these games do we got left?" It'll all be over soon, Jerry. Chris Young hit three solo homers and walked twice Sunday against the Rockies. This is why we're simply never giving up on the kid. Of course, the three homers are impressive enough, but it's also telling that he had a chance to go for the fourth in the ninth inning and ended up taking a walk. Young entered with a .191 average for the season, but the power hasn't gone anywhere and he has worked 49 walks in 343 at-bats. The Diamondbacks need to keep playing him regularly and see what happens. Ichiro Suzuki doubled Sunday to become the second quickest major leaguer to reach 2,000 hits. It took him 1,402 games. Al Simmons did it in 1,390. With five more hits, Ichiro will get to 200 for the ninth straight season. Another streak is in serious jeopardy, though. Ichiro is still 24 runs scored away from getting to 100 for a ninth straight year. Prince Fielder hit a walkoff homer off Merkin Valdez in the 12th inning Sunday in the Brewers' 2-1 win over the Giants. After losing the first two games of the series 3-2, the Brewers managed to salvage one game, even with their offense continuing to struggle. It hasn't helped that Ken Macha has essentially set them up to fail with decisions like batting Jason Kendall seventh ahead of Jody Gerut. Following several ugly failures from his teammates, Fielder took matters into his own hands and delivered his 37th homer of the season to win it. He also collected his 30th double in the contest. He leads the majors with 123 RBI. Wade Davis was denied a victory after yielding just one run in seven innings and striking out nine Tigers in his major league debut Sunday. Davis left with a two-run lead, but manager Joe Maddon opted to keep trying different relievers until he found one who could blow it. Lance Cormier pitched a scoreless eighth and then struck out Carlos Guillen to start the ninth, but he was pulled after 17 pitches. Grant Balfour took over, walked Miguel Cabrera and was pulled. J.P. Howell came in, walked pinch-hitter Marcus Thames and was pulled. That left Russ Springer, and it was finally mission accomplished. He allowed a single, a grand slam and a triple before being removed, and the Rays ended up losing 5-3. Davis will surely stick in the rotation after this, and he needs to be owned in every AL-only league. Yesterday’s ResultsFor the full scoop regarding yesterday's games, read "And That Happened" at Shysterball.American League BAL 7 TEX 0 (Recap and Boxscore) DET 5 TB 3 (Recap and Boxscore) TOR 14 NYA 8 (Recap and Boxscore) BOS 6 CHA 1 (Recap and Boxscore) CLE 3 MIN 1 (Recap and Boxscore) LAA 7 KC 2 (Recap and Boxscore) OAK 5 SEA 2 (Recap and Boxscore) National League CIN 4 ATL 2 (Recap and Boxscore) NYN 4 CHN 2 (Recap and Boxscore) WAS 5 FLA 4 (Recap and Boxscore) HOU 4 PHI 3 (Recap and Boxscore) MIL 2 SF 1 (Recap and Boxscore) PIT 6 STL 5 (Recap and Boxscore) COL 13 ARI 5 (Recap and Boxscore) SD 4 LAN 3 (Recap and Boxscore)Check out Fangraphs' scoreboard to see all the games in action. Today’s GamesRays (72-64) @ Yankees (87-50), 1:05pm StandingsThe 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 NYA 87 50 .635 0.0 81 6 Top Minor League GamesThe 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 SF A+ Conor Gillaspie... 6 4 2 0 1 0 1 4 RBI STL A+ Charles Cutler.... 3 3 1 0 1 1 0 TOR A Yohermyn Chavez... 6 5 2 0 0 0 1 3 LD HOU AAA C. Johnson........ 7 4 2 0 0 0 1 CIN AA Yonder Alonso..... 3 3 2 0 0 1 0 HOU A+ Jonathan Gaston... 5 3 1 0 1 0 0 3 R NYY A+ Austin Romine..... 4 3 1 0 1 0 1 BOS AA Yamaico Navarro... 2 2 0 0 1 2 0 LA A Kyle Russell...... 4 2 1 0 0 1 2 3 SB SD AA Cedric Hunter..... 4 3 1 1 0 0 0 NYM AA Ruben Tejada...... 4 2 1 0 1 0 1 CLE AA Carlos Santana.... 4 2 1 0 1 0 0 ORG LVL PLAYER IP H R ER SO BB HR Notes TB A- Alexander Colome.. 6 1 1 0 9 1 0 PIT A+ Jeffrey Locke..... 7 4 0 0 6 0 0 BAL AA Steven Johnson.... 7 5 1 1 6 0 0 CIN A+ Matthew Fairel.... 8 5 0 0 6 2 0 TEX A Wilmer Font....... 5 3 2 0 6 0 0 KC A+ M. Montgomery..... 6 4 1 1 6 1 0 PHI A Trevor May........ 5 3 0 0 7 2 0 SEA AAA Brandon Morrow.... 4 3 2 1 6 0 0 ATL A Randall Delgado... 6 5 1 1 5 0 0 12 GB CHC A C. Archer......... 5 4 1 1 6 1 0 10 GB LA A Ethan Martin...... 3 3 2 1 6 0 0 TB A+ Jacob McGee....... 3 2 0 0 4 0 0
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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BOS 79 57 .581 7.5 78 1 
TB 72 64 .529 14.5 75 -3 
TOR 61 75 .449 25.5 69 -8 
BAL 56 81 .409 31.0 60 -4 
American League Central
DET 75 61 .551 0.0 70 5 
MIN 68 68 .500 7.0 69 -1 
CHA 68 70 .493 8.0 69 -1 
CLE 60 76 .441 15.0 65 -5 
KC 51 85 .375 24.0 52 -1 
American League West
LAA 81 54 .600 0.0 76 5 
TEX 76 60 .559 5.5 74 2 
SEA 72 66 .522 10.5 63 9 
OAK 61 76 .445 21.0 65 -4 
National League East Pwins Diff
PHI 77 57 .575 0.0 76 1 
FLA 72 65 .526 6.5 68 4 
ATL 70 67 .511 8.5 75 -5 
NYN 62 75 .453 16.5 62 0 
WAS 47 90 .343 31.5 56 -9 
National League Central
STL 81 57 .587 0.0 78 3 
CHN 68 67 .504 11.5 69 -1 
HOU 66 70 .485 14.0 59 7 
MIL 66 70 .485 14.0 65 1 
CIN 63 73 .463 17.0 59 4 
PIT 54 81 .400 25.5 58 -4 
National League West
LAN 81 57 .587 0.0 83 -2 
COL 77 60 .562 3.5 77 0 
SF 75 62 .547 5.5 73 2 
ARI 61 77 .442 20.0 65 -4 
SD 61 77 .442 20.0 55 6 
Wildcard Standings
American League
BOS 79 57 .581 0.0
TEX 76 60 .559 3.0
TB 72 64 .529 7.0
SEA 72 66 .522 8.0
MIN 68 68 .500 11.0
National League
COL 77 60 .562 0.0
SF 75 62 .547 2.0
FLA 72 65 .526 5.0
ATL 70 67 .511 7.0
CHN 68 67 .504 8.0
Looking it up, I see that Al Simmons was 30 when he got that 2,000th U.S. MLB hit, and Ichiro, of course, is 35. At 35, Bucketfoot Al had 117 hits for the season, improved in 1938, but never had as many as 100 hits in a year after age 36. Ichiro’s durability and endurance are remarkable.
Simmons’s dropoff caused him to end with 2927 hits. Two more parallels: his lifetime batting average and OBP are within a point or two of Ichiro’s.