THT Daily: ARod and Vlad
by Matthew CarruthJune 04, 2007
Major League News for June 4
Today’s LinksPlayer 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/
THT Links
Meltdown - The Double-A Mississippi Braves manager saw three of his players ejected Friday allegedly doctoring balls. Manager Phil Wellman, coming out to argue, was also ejected and then threw this tantrum.
Sickel's Mock Draft - John Sickels ran his annual five-round mock draft yesterday with real fans picking for each team.
Why Kata? - Adam Morris ponders why Rangers manager Ron Washington ever plays Matt Kata. Adam has a very good point; Kata is not hitting and is a terrible terrible fielder (the extra terrible was for emphasis).
Trade Retro: Mark Mulder - Mike Pindelski looks back at the Mark Mulder to St. Louis trade, weighing reactions at the time against the reality two years later.
Trade Retro: Milton Bradley - Meanwhile, True Blue LA runs a look back at the Milton Bradley and Antonio Perez for Andre Ethier trade between Oakland and Los Angeles.
Jose No More - Jose Mesa has been outright released by the Tigers. Hooray for really obvious means of team improvement.
THT Links represents the best efforts of our editors in scouring the various tubes of the interweb for both relevant and irrelevant news items. If you have happened upon a story that we have overlooked or wish to give feedback of any sort, please notify us at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Player News
Player Headlines are courtesy of RotoworldLyle Overbay has a fractured hand after getting hit by a John Danks pitch Sunday and will miss 4-6 weeks. A big loss for a Toronto team with very little depth. The Jays could use Matt Stairs as their primary first baseman, with Adam Lind again getting most of the playing time in left field. Against lefthanders, it's possible that Troy Glaus will move across the infield, opening up third base for John McDonald.
Alex Rodriguez had an RBI single and a go-ahead homer off Jonathan Papelbon in the top of the ninth to lead the Yankees past the Red Sox on Sunday night. The single was just a little chopper to third that Mike Lowell wasn't able to turn into an out. The homer came on an 0-2 pitch from Papelbon that wasn't a bad pitch at all. Rodriguez was able to take the low-and-away fastball and deposit it into the Red Sox bullpen. He's back in the major league lead with 20 homers, four of which have come in 12 games versus the Red Sox.
The White Sox demoted struggling relievers Mike MacDougal and David Aardsma to Triple-A. Meanwhile, the Chicago Tribune suggests that Nick Masset could be headed to the minors as well. Bret Prinz and Ryan Bukvich are replacing them in the bullpen. The White Sox are said to be trying to trade MacDougal, who has a 7.13 ERA.
According to the Chicago Sun-Times, the White Sox and Yankees have discussed a trade that would swap Jermaine Dye for Bobby Abreu. The newspaper quotes "one White Sox source close to the situation" as saying that the deal "has started to take on some life." ''You're paid to work for a team for whatever period of time, give 100 percent to that club, and if you get dealt away, give 100 percent to the next club," Dye said.
The Reds are expected to call up Homer Bailey to make his major league debut Saturday against the Indians. The club didn't officially announce it, but the choice has already been made, both the Enquirer and the Post believe. Bailey will be facing one of the game's best offenses, so the smart play would be to keep him reserved for his first start up. He should be worth using in NL-only leagues after that, and mixed leaguers will want to keep a close eye on him.
The Dodgers believe Takashi Saito is day-to-day with a left hamstring injury sustained in the ninth inning Sunday. "He's mature enough to let us know as soon as something like that happens," manager Grady Little said. "I don't know how serious it is, but we feel like he informed us in time (to prevent a severe injury). We'll look at it tomorrow and see how it is, but it's a plus he told us that quickly." Jonathan Broxton still might be the better bet for saves this week.
Dan Wheeler struggled for the second outing in a row today, giving up three runs and taking a loss against the Cardinals. Wheeler entered in the ninth inning of a tie game and retired all three batters he faced. He came back out for the 10th and was stung by a So Taguchi solo homer with one out and an Albert Pujols two-run blast with two outs. Wheeler gave up three runs in his last outing as well, although the Astros were already down two runs when he entered that game. Since Brad Lidge has been dominant since moving to setup duties, Wheeler may not be able to afford another poor outing. If it does happen and the Astros are looking for reasons to insert Lidge back into ninth inning duties, they'll have their opportunity.
MLB suspended Cubs manager Lou Piniella indefinitely and fined him an undisclosed amount for his actions in Saturday's game. Among other things, Piniella repeatedly kicked dirt on third base umpire Mark Wegner. What made it even worse is that he didn't even truly believe that Wegner made the wrong call on the play. It was a calculated move designed to fire up his team. We'd take no issue with a month-long suspension. It has to be extremely humiliating to just stand there in full view of 35,000 people when another guy is kicking dirt on you. In any other situation, Piniella would have gotten himself punched in the face and woken up in a hospital bed the next day.
Yesterday’s Results
American League NYA 6 BOS 5 (Recap and Boxscore) TB 5 KC 1 (Recap and Boxscore) TOR 4 CHA 3 (Recap and Boxscore) DET 9 CLE 2 (Recap and Boxscore) LAA 4 BAL 3 (Recap and Boxscore) OAK 4 MIN 2 (Recap and Boxscore) SEA 11 TEX 6 (Recap and Boxscore) National League ARI 4 NYN 1 (Recap and Boxscore) PHI 9 SF 8 (Recap and Boxscore) SD 7 WAS 3 (Recap and Boxscore) CHN 10 ATL 1 (Recap and Boxscore) STL 8 HOU 6 (Recap and Boxscore) MIL 3 FLA 0 (Recap and Boxscore) LAN 5 PIT 4 (Recap and Boxscore) COL 10 CIN 9 (Recap and Boxscore)
Today’s Games
National League --------------- San Francisco Giants at Philadelphia Phillies, 1:05 PM (L) Barry Zito (5-5) vs. (R) Jon Lieber (2-3) Florida Marlins at Atlanta Braves, 7:05 PM (R) Wes Obermueller (1-3) vs. (R) Tim Hudson (6-3) Los Angeles Dodgers at Pittsburgh Pirates, 7:05 PM (R) Derek Lowe (5-5) vs. (L) Paul Maholm (2-7) Chicago Cubs at Milwaukee Brewers, 8:05 PM (R) Jason Marquis (5-2) vs. (R) Dave Bush (3-5) American League --------------- Kansas City Royals at Tampa Bay Devil Rays, 3:10 PM (R) Gil Meche (3-4) vs. (R) James Shields (4-0) New York Yankees at Chicago White Sox, 7:08 PM (R) Matt DeSalvo (1-2) vs. (R) Jon Garland (3-3) Baltimore Orioles at Seattle Mariners, 10:05 PM (L) Erik Bedard (4-3) vs. (R) Felix Hernandez (3-3) Minnesota Twins at LA Angels of Anaheim, 10:05 PM (R) Boof Bonser (4-1) vs. (R) Jered Weaver (4-3) Boston Red Sox at Oakland Athletics, 10:05 PM (R) Julian Tavarez (3-4) vs. (R) Danny Haren (6-2)
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 BOS 37 18 .673 0.0 35 2TOR 27 29 .482 10.5 28 -1
BAL 27 30 .474 11.0 29 -2
NYA 24 30 .444 12.5 29 -5
TB 23 31 .426 13.5 20 3
American League Central CLE 34 21 .618 0.0 31 3
DET 32 24 .571 2.5 32 0
MIN 28 27 .509 6.0 29 -1
CHA 25 27 .481 7.5 22 3
KC 21 36 .368 14.0 21 0
American League West LAA 36 22 .621 0.0 33 3
SEA 28 25 .528 5.5 27 1
OAK 28 27 .509 6.5 31 -3
TEX 20 37 .351 15.5 24 -4
National League East Pwins Diff NYN 35 20 .636 0.0 34 1
ATL 32 24 .571 3.5 29 3
PHI 28 28 .500 7.5 28 0
FLA 27 30 .474 9.0 28 -1
WAS 23 34 .404 13.0 21 2
National League Central MIL 32 25 .561 0.0 30 2
STL 24 30 .444 6.5 21 3
PIT 24 32 .429 7.5 24 0
CHN 23 31 .426 7.5 29 -6
HOU 23 33 .411 8.5 24 -1
CIN 22 36 .379 10.5 25 -3
National League West LAN 33 23 .589 0.0 31 2
SD 33 23 .589 0.0 35 -2
ARI 34 24 .586 0.0 31 3
COL 27 30 .474 6.5 24 3
SF 26 29 .473 6.5 30 -4
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, with a focus on each team’s top prospects.ORG LVL PLAYER AB H 2B 3B HR BB SO Notes STL AA Colby Rasmus...... 2 2 2 0 0 2 0 SEA AAA Adam Jones........ 4 2 1 0 0 0 1 ARI AA Justin Upton...... 3 3 0 0 0 1 0 LA AAA Matt Kemp......... 5 4 1 0 0 0 0 SD AA Chase Headley..... 4 3 1 1 1 0 0 3 R BOS A Jonathan Egan..... 4 3 1 0 1 1 1 3 R HOU AA Drew Sutton....... 5 3 3 0 0 0 0 3 R TB AA Reid Brignac...... 3 1 0 0 1 1 0 SEA AAA Bryan LaHair...... 4 2 0 0 2 0 1 LA AA Chin Lung Hu...... 4 3 2 0 0 1 0 3 R MIL A+ Lorenzo Cain...... 6 3 1 0 0 0 2 2 SB TEX AAA Jason Botts....... 3 2 0 1 0 2 0 4 R ORG LVL PLAYER IP H R ER SO BB HR Notes DET AA Andrew Miller..... 8 7 0 0 7 1 0 15 GB HOU AAA Matt Albers....... 9 8 2 1 10 2 0 CIN A+ Johnny Cueto...... 6 3 0 0 10 1 0 BOS AA Michael Bowden.... 6 4 2 2 6 0 0 KC AA Luke Hochevar..... 6 4 1 1 2 2 0 TEX AA Eric Hurley....... 6 4 2 2 6 3 1 LA A Clayton Kershaw... 5 3 1 0 6 3 0 ATL AA Matt Harrison..... 5 4 1 1 3 0 0 HOU AA Jimmy Barthmaier.. 5 5 1 1 5 2 0 9 GB ARI AAA Yusmeiro Petit.... 6 7 1 1 7 3 0 ARI A+ Matthew Torra..... 5 8 2 2 6 1 0 SEA AA Andrew Baldwin.... 7 7 3 2 3 1 0
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Matthew Carruth is an editor for The Hardball Times. He welcomes any and all sorts of communication at his email.