THT Daily: Central
by Matthew CarruthJune 26, 2008
Major League News for June 26
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 RotoworldTommy Hanson pitched a no-hitter and fanned 14 for Double-A Mississippi on Wednesday.
Hanson was flat-out awesome in the Carolina League at the start of the year, amassing a 0.90 ERA in seven starts, but he entered Wednesday's outing with a 5.27 ERA in eight starts for Mississippi. This one illustrates that his fast start with no fluke. Hanson is well established now as one of the NL's top pitching prospects.
Eric Stults shut out the White Sox on Wednesday night to pick up his second win in two starts this season.
He allowed just four hits, striking out three and walking one, leaving his ERA at 0.60 after two starts. Stults only has a roster spot for as long as Brad Penny and Hiroki Kuroda are sidelined, but has certainly made a case for sticking with the team when they return. If still in the rotation, he has a couple of nice match-ups against the Astros and Giants coming up.
Shawn Chacon, who was suspended indefinitely by the Astros, said he threw Ed Wade to the floor Wednesday after being asked to attend a meeting with the general manager and manager Cecil Cooper.
Chacon said he was told sternly by Wade that he was going to have the meeting, something he didn't want to do. "He started yelling and cussing," Chacon said of Wade. "I'm sitting there and I said to him very calmly, "Ed, you need to stop yelling (at) me. Then I stood up and said 'you better stop yelling at me.' I stood up. He continued and was basically yelling and stuff and was like, "You need to (expletive) look in the mirror.' So at that point I lost my cool and I grabbed him by the neck and threw him to the ground. I jumped on top of him because at that point I wanted to beat his (butt). Words were exchanged." Chacon was pulled away from Wade by a teammate before he could do any damage, which may end up saving his career. It's still hard to imagine another team being eager to give him a chance this year.
According to MLB.com, the Nationals offered shortstop Cristian Guzman a two-year extension on Wednesday.
Well, he's given the Nationals six pretty good months during his current four-year deal. The team should be able to count on getting three more if it locks him up for an additional two years. The unfortunate truth is that there's absolutely no one to replace him in the minors, and the top two free-agent shortstops -- Rafael Furcal and Orlando Cabrera -- figure to get overpaid by other teams. The Nats could do worse than bringing Guzman back for another $8 million or so. Unfortunately, he'll probably want a raise to $5 million-$6 million per season.
The Astros said they have suspended right-hander Shawn Chacon indefinitely.
Chacon issued a trade demand on Wednesday after being moved to the pen, and the Astros have seemingly responded by telling him if he doesn't want to pitch for them, then he's not going to pitch anywhere. Chacon was 2-3 with a 5.04 ERA before being replace in the rotation.
Felix Hernandez is unlikely to start Sunday after leaving Monday's game with a sprained left ankle.
"We're not counting on Felix for Sunday," interim manager Jim Riggleman said. "We are going to be realistic and are making some plans around him not pitching on Sunday." The Mariners hope to have Erik Bedard (back) pitch Sunday, though a decision on that will wait until after his throwing session Wednesday. If Bedard isn't ready, then R.A. Dickey will start Sunday.
Tigers placed catcher Brandon Inge on the 15-day disabled list, retroactive to June 23, with a pulled oblique muscle.
Inge had been trying to play through it, but it just wasn't working. Ivan Rodriguez will get the vast majority of the playing time behind the plate until Inge returns, giving his value a boost.
Yesterday’s Results
American League BOS 5 ARI 0 (Recap and Boxscore) CIN 6 TOR 5 (Recap and Boxscore) SF 4 CLE 1 (Recap and Boxscore) DET 8 STL 7 (Recap and Boxscore) KC 4 COL 2 (Recap and Boxscore) PHI 4 OAK 0 (Recap and Boxscore) National League ATL 4 MIL 2 (Recap and Boxscore) TB 15 FLA 3 (Recap and Boxscore) NYN 8 SEA 2 (Recap and Boxscore) WAS 5 LAA 4 (Recap and Boxscore) CHN 7 BAL 4 (Recap and Boxscore) TEX 3 HOU 2 (Recap and Boxscore) NYA 10 PIT 0 (Recap and Boxscore) LAN 5 CHA 0 (Recap and Boxscore) MIN 9 SD 3 (Recap and Boxscore)
Today’s Games
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 49 32 .605 0.0 48 1TB 46 31 .597 1.0 43 3
NYA 42 36 .538 5.5 41 1
BAL 39 37 .513 7.5 37 2
TOR 37 42 .468 11.0 42 -5
American League Central CHA 42 35 .545 0.0 47 -5
MIN 42 36 .538 0.5 40 2
DET 37 40 .481 5.0 38 -1
KC 36 43 .456 7.0 35 1
CLE 35 43 .449 7.5 40 -5
American League West LAA 48 31 .608 0.0 41 7
OAK 42 35 .545 5.0 45 -3
TEX 40 39 .506 8.0 39 1
SEA 28 50 .359 19.5 32 -4
National League East Pwins Diff PHI 43 36 .544 0.0 48 -5
FLA 40 37 .519 2.0 37 3
NYN 38 39 .494 4.0 38 0
ATL 39 41 .488 4.5 44 -5
WAS 31 49 .388 12.5 29 2
National League Central CHN 49 29 .628 0.0 50 -1
STL 45 34 .570 4.5 42 3
MIL 43 35 .551 6.0 39 4
PIT 37 41 .474 12.0 35 2
HOU 36 42 .462 13.0 35 1
CIN 36 43 .456 13.5 34 2
National League West ARI 40 39 .506 0.0 40 0
LAN 36 41 .468 3.0 38 -2
SF 34 44 .436 5.5 35 -1
COL 32 47 .405 8.0 33 -1
SD 32 47 .405 8.0 31 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 BOS AAA George Kottaras... 4 2 0 0 2 1 0 PIT AAA Steven Pearce..... 4 3 0 0 2 0 0 3 R NYY AA Colin Curtis...... 4 4 2 0 0 1 0 CIN AAA Adam Rosales...... 5 3 1 0 1 0 0 MIN AAA Denard Span....... 5 3 2 0 0 0 0 MIN AAA Trevor Plouffe.... 5 2 1 0 1 0 0 TB A+ Desmond Jennings.. 5 3 1 1 0 0 0 MIL AA Michael Brantley.. 4 2 1 0 0 1 0 CLE AA Joshua Rodriguez.. 5 2 2 0 0 0 1 STL A+ Daniel Descalso... 3 2 1 0 0 2 1 MIL A+ Brent Brewer...... 4 2 0 1 0 0 1 2 SB TEX A Ian Gac........... 4 3 0 0 1 0 1 4 RBI ORG LVL PLAYER IP H R ER SO BB HR Notes ATL AA Thomas Hanson..... 9 0 0 0 14 3 0 TB A- Nick Barnese...... 7 3 0 0 9 0 0 MIL A+ Joshua Butler..... 6 6 2 2 8 0 1 BAL A Zachary Britton... 6 4 2 2 9 1 2 COL A Jhoulys Chacin.... 7 4 1 0 5 2 0 NYM AA Bobby Parnell..... 7 5 1 1 6 3 0 12 GB BOS AAA Clay Buchholz..... 7 5 1 1 7 2 1 NYY A Jairo Heredia..... 5 5 4 4 7 3 0 PIT A Duke Welker....... 6 5 0 0 4 1 0 13 GB PHI A+ Joe Savery........ 6 8 3 3 4 0 0 13 GB TOR AA Brett Cecil....... 5 5 0 0 4 1 0 10 GB CHC AA James Russell..... 7 6 3 3 5 0 2
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.