THT Daily: Breaktime
by Matthew CarruthJuly 08, 2007
Major League News for July 8
Player News
Yesterday’s Results
Today’s Games
Standings
Top Minor League Performances
Stats
You can always find the most recent THT Daily at http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/content/thtdaily/
Player News
Player news items are provided by RotoworldErik Bedard struck out 15 in a two-hit shutout of the Rangers on Saturday.
So much for the dead arm. Bedard blew right through the Texas lineup three times tonight, facing the minimum 27 batters. He gave up singles to Desi Relaford and Sammy Sosa, only to erase both runners on double plays. The 15 strikeouts tied a the Orioles' franchise record and bested his previous high by three. He currently leads the majors with 149 strikeouts.
Prince Fielder hit his 28th and 29th homers Saturday in the loss to the Nationals.
Ryan Braun and Fielder went back-to-back in the first inning. In the ninth, Johnny Estrada delivered a solo shot off Chad Cordero. Still, the Brewers came up short, as they couldn't score except for on the homers. Damian Miller went 4-for-4, but that hardly mattered in the 5-4 game. Fielder is now tied with Alex Rodriguez for the major league lead in homers.
Mike Sweeney will miss at least six weeks following right knee surgery Thursday.
"They had to do a little more than they anticipated," manager Buddy Bell said. "He had a couple of chunks of cartilage that was underneath the surface. It was a little more than they thought, so it's going to be six weeks at least." Sadly, the injury is good news for the Royals. Billy Butler is going to be the regular DH, perhaps for the rest of the season.
Rich Harden admitted to feeling off in his outing Saturday against the Mariners, leaving his status for his next start in question.
Hopefully this will be no more of a problem then when he compained of some soreness in his second relief appearance back from DL. "You're always concerned when somebody is questionable for his next start," manager Bob Geren said. "It's a concern for sure." Clearly, Harden just can't be counted on at this point. There's always hope, though.
A counteroffer from Mark Buehrle's camp that didn't include a blanket no-trade clause was rejected by the White Sox, and the left-hander now expects to be traded.
"Mark loves playing for the White Sox," said agent Jeff Barry. "He has the utmost respect for everybody in the organization. In an effort to bridge the contractual impasse, Mark offered a sensible alternative to the full no-trade clause. Those alternatives were rejected, and Mark hopes for resolution before the second half." A source told ESPN.com that the counteroffer included a 2012 option worth $17 million that would kick in automatically in the event of a trade. It sounds like Buehrle's demands were again very reasonable. He'll do quite a bit better than what the White Sox are offering when he becomes a free agent this winter.
Alex Rodriguez said after Saturday's game that he plans to play in Tuesday's All-Star Game.
"I'm going to play," he said. "I think 3.9 million votes (from fans), you feel like you have a responsibility to go out there and play. I'm feeling pretty good." The Yankees would prefer he rest. Manager Joe Torre suggested a compromise of having him play three innings, though the Red Sox probably would prefer that their own banged up third baseman didn't play six innings.
Felix Hernandez threw eight innings and combined with George Sherrill on a two-hit shutout of the A's on Saturday.
Hernandez, who had at least five strikeouts in every start this year except the one on April 18 in which he hurt his elbow, fanned just two today. Still, he threw 116 pitches anyway, preventing him from going for his third career shutout. The performance dragged his ERA back under 4.00 for the first time since May. He heads into the break 5-4 with a 3.72 ERA.
Yesterday’s Results
American League LAA 2 NYA 1 (Recap and Boxscore) CLE 9 TOR 4 (Recap and Boxscore) CHA 3 MIN 1 (Recap and Boxscore) DET 3 BOS 2 (Recap and Boxscore) KC 8 TB 7 (Recap and Boxscore) SEA 4 OAK 0 (Recap and Boxscore) BAL 3 TEX 0 (Recap and Boxscore) National League WAS 5 MIL 4 (Recap and Boxscore) CIN 5 ARI 4 (Recap and Boxscore) NYN 5 HOU 3 (Recap and Boxscore) CHN 7 PIT 1 (Recap and Boxscore) SF 7 STL 6 (Recap and Boxscore) COL 6 PHI 3 (Recap and Boxscore) FLA 7 LAN 2 (Recap and Boxscore) SD 8 ATL 5 (Recap and Boxscore)
Today’s Games
National League --------------- Arizona Diamondbacks at Cincinnati Reds, 1:15 PM (R) Yusmeiro Petit (1-1) vs. (R) Aaron Harang (9-2) Chicago Cubs at Pittsburgh Pirates, 1:35 PM (R) Carlos Zambrano (10-6) vs. (L) Shane Youman (1-0) Milwaukee Brewers at Washington Nationals, 1:35 PM (L) Chris Capuano (5-5) vs. (R) Tim Redding (0-1) New York Mets at Houston Astros, 2:05 PM (L) Dave Williams (0-0) vs. (R) Roy Oswalt (7-5) San Francisco Giants at St. Louis Cardinals, 2:15 PM (L) Barry Zito (6-8) vs. (R) Todd Wellemeyer (2-1) Philadelphia Phillies at Colorado Rockies, 3:05 PM (R) Adam Eaton (7-5) vs. (R) Aaron Cook (5-5) Florida Marlins at Los Angeles Dodgers, 4:10 PM (L) Scott Olsen (6-6) vs. (L) Mark Hendrickson (2-4) Atlanta Braves at San Diego Padres, 8:05 PM (R) Kyle Davies (3-7) vs. (R) Greg Maddux (7-5) American League --------------- LA Angels of Anaheim at New York Yankees, 1:05 PM (R) Ervin Santana (5-9) vs. (R) Chien-Ming Wang (8-4) Boston Red Sox at Detroit Tigers, 1:05 PM (R) Daisuke Matsuzaka (10-5) vs. (L) Nate Robertson (4-6) Cleveland Indians at Toronto Blue Jays, 1:07 PM (R) Paul Byrd (7-3) vs. (R) Josh Towers (4-5) Minnesota Twins at Chicago White Sox, 2:05 PM (R) Carlos Silva (6-9) vs. (R) Javier Vazquez (5-5) Tampa Bay Devil Rays at Kansas City Royals, 2:10 PM (L) Scott Kazmir (5-5) vs. (L) Jorge De La Rosa (6-9) Baltimore Orioles at Texas Rangers, 3:05 PM (R) Daniel Cabrera (6-9) vs. (R) Kevin Millwood (5-7) Seattle Mariners at Oakland Athletics, 4:05 PM (L) Ryan Feierabend (1-3) vs. (R) Joe Blanton (8-4)
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 Boston Red Sox 53 33 .616 --Toronto Blue Jays 42 44 .488 11
New York Yankees 41 43 .488 11
Baltimore Orioles 38 48 .442 15
Tampa Bay Devil Ray 34 52 .395 19
American League Central Detroit Tigers 51 34 .600 --
Cleveland Indians 52 35 .598 --
Minnesota Twins 45 42 .517 7
Chicago White Sox 38 47 .447 13
Kansas City Royals 37 50 .425 15
American League West Los Angeles Angels 53 34 .609 --
Seattle Mariners 48 36 .571 3.5
Oakland Athletics 44 43 .506 9
Texas Rangers 37 50 .425 16
National League East New York Mets 48 38 .558 --
Atlanta Braves 46 42 .523 3
Philadelphia Philli 43 44 .494 5.5
Florida Marlins 42 46 .477 7
Washington National 35 52 .402 13.5
National League Central Milwaukee Brewers 49 38 .563 --
Chicago Cubs 44 42 .512 4.5
St. Louis Cardinals 39 45 .464 8.5
Pittsburgh Pirates 39 48 .448 10
Houston Astros 38 50 .432 11.5
Cincinnati Reds 35 52 .402 14
National League West San Diego Padres 49 37 .570 --
Los Angeles Dodgers 48 40 .545 2
Arizona Diamondback 47 42 .528 3.5
Colorado Rockies 44 43 .506 5.5
San Francisco Giant 38 47 .447 10.5
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 TOR A Travis Snider..... 5 5 1 1 1 0 0 3 R CLE AA Trevor Crowe...... 5 2 0 0 2 0 0 NYY A+ Jose Tabata....... 5 3 0 0 1 0 1 ARI AAA Chris Carter...... 3 2 1 0 1 1 0 LAA AAA Brandon Wood...... 2 1 0 0 0 2 0 3 R LA A+ Blake Dewitt...... 4 3 2 0 0 0 0 COL AAA Joseph Koshansky.. 4 2 1 0 0 1 0 TB AA Reid Brignac...... 5 3 1 0 0 0 0 DET AAA Brent Clevlen..... 5 3 1 0 1 0 1 FLA A+ Kris Harvey....... 4 3 2 0 1 0 0 3 R BOS AAA Brandon Moss...... 3 2 2 0 0 1 0 OAK A J. Mitchell....... 2 1 0 0 0 2 1 ORG LVL PLAYER IP H R ER SO BB HR Notes LAA AA Nick Adenhart..... 6 2 0 0 5 0 0 CLE AAA Jeremy Sowers..... 7 7 5 5 6 1 0 12 GB STL AA Jaime Garcia...... 7 5 0 0 7 0 0 TEX AA Edinson Volquez... 6 5 3 3 7 0 1 BOS A+ Michael Rozier.... 7 5 1 1 8 0 0 STL AAA Mike Parisi....... 7 4 3 3 12 3 1 PHI A+ Joshua Outman..... 6 0 0 0 6 2 0 NYY A+ Kevin Whelan...... 5 1 0 0 5 1 0 SF A Adam Cowart....... 6 9 2 2 7 1 0 BOS AA Michael Bowden.... 4 4 3 3 5 2 0 PHI AAA Fabio Castro...... 3 1 0 0 2 0 0 MIN A Alex Burnett...... 5 6 2 2 4 1 0 10 GB
THT Stats
Access all of THT’s stats here…
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Matthew Carruth is an editor for The Hardball Times. He welcomes any and all sorts of communication at his email.