THT Daily: City of Angels

by Dave Studeman
May 25, 2009

Major League News for May 25

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
Mike Cameron hit his 250th career home run Sunday against the Twins.
With the blast, he became the 20th player in major league history to reach 250 homers and 250 steals. He has a great chance to get to 300 in both categories, which would put him in a club with Barry Bonds, Willie Mays, Andre Dawson, Bobby Bonds, Reggie Sanders and Steve Finley. He currently has 291 steals.

Brandon Phillips said X-rays found a hairline fracture in the tip of his right thumb.
The injury resulted from a groundball off his hand on Saturday. Phillips will sit out for now, but he thinks he'll be able to play through the injury for the most part. "I told them I don't want to go on the DL," Phillips said. "I feel like I can play with it." The Reds have Jerry Hairston Jr. at second base today.

Francisco Rodriguez hoped to do some throwing Sunday after receiving medication for his back spasms.
"As soon as the medicine started kicking in, I started feeling a lot better. And by this morning I was doing a lot of things that I wasn't capable of last night,," Rodriguez said. "... The pain went away and I'm feeling pretty good. Man, that was really painful. I've never experienced anything like this before. I was a little struggling to walk yesterday, but I got some medicine in me and I feel pretty good now." Anyone who rushed to pick up J.J. Putz should be less enthused now.

Yesterday’s Results

For the full scoop regarding yesterday's games, read "And That Happened" at Shysterball.

American League
BOS    12  NYN     5    (Recap and Boxscore)
PHI     4  NYA     3    (Recap and Boxscore)
PIT     4  CHA     3    (Recap and Boxscore)
COL     3  DET     1    (Recap and Boxscore)
MIN     6  MIL     3    (Recap and Boxscore)
OAK     6  ARI     2    (Recap and Boxscore)
SEA     5  SF      4    (Recap and Boxscore)

National League
ATL    10  TOR     2    (Recap and Boxscore)
FLA     5  TB      4    (Recap and Boxscore)
WAS     8  BAL     5    (Recap and Boxscore)
CIN     4  CLE     3    (Recap and Boxscore)
TEX     5  HOU     0    (Recap and Boxscore)
KC      3  STL     2    (Recap and Boxscore)
LAA    10  LAN     7    (Recap and Boxscore)
SD      7  CHN     2    (Recap and Boxscore)

Check out Fangraphs' scoreboard to see all the games in action.

Today’s Games

National League
 ---------------
 Houston Astros at Cincinnati Reds, 1:10 PM
  (L) Wandy Rodriguez (5-2) vs. (R) Aaron Harang (4-4)
 St. Louis Cardinals at Milwaukee Brewers, 2:05 PM
  (R) Chris Carpenter (2-0) vs. (R) Yovani Gallardo (4-2)
 Los Angeles Dodgers at Colorado Rockies, 3:10 PM
  (L) Eric Stults (4-1) vs. (L) Jorge De La Rosa (0-4)
 San Diego Padres at Arizona Diamondbacks, 3:40 PM
  (R) Chad Gaudin (1-3) vs. (L) Doug Davis (2-6)
 Atlanta Braves at San Francisco Giants, 4:05 PM
  (R) Javier Vazquez (4-3) vs. (L) Jonathan Sanchez (1-4)
 Florida Marlins at Philadelphia Phillies, 7:05 PM
  (R) Chris Volstad (3-3) vs. (L) Jamie Moyer (3-4)
 Washington Nationals at New York Mets, 7:10 PM
  (L) John Lannan (2-3) vs. (R) John Maine (3-3)
 Pittsburgh Pirates at Chicago Cubs, 8:05 PM
  (L) Paul Maholm (3-1) vs. (R) Ryan Dempster (3-3)
 
 American League
 ---------------
 Toronto Blue Jays at Baltimore Orioles, 1:35 PM
  (L) Brian Tallet (2-2) vs. (R) Jeremy Guthrie (3-4)
 New York Yankees at Texas Rangers, 2:05 PM
  (R) Phil Hughes (2-2) vs. (L) Matt Harrison (4-3)
 Boston Red Sox at Minnesota Twins, 2:10 PM
  (R) Brad Penny (4-1) vs. (L) Francisco Liriano (2-5)
 Detroit Tigers at Kansas City Royals, 2:10 PM
  (R) Justin Verlander (4-2) vs. (R) Gil Meche (2-4)
 Seattle Mariners at Oakland Athletics, 4:05 PM
  (R) Chris Jakubauskas (3-4) vs. (L) Brett Anderson (1-4)
 Tampa Bay Rays at Cleveland Indians, 6:05 PM
  (L) David Price (0-0) vs. (R) Fausto Carmona (2-4)
 Chicago White Sox at LA Angels of Anaheim, 9:05 PM
  (L) John Danks (3-3) vs. (R) Ervin Santana (0-1)

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     26  18 .591    0.0   25     1    
TOR     27  20 .574    0.5   27     0    
NYA     25  19 .568    1.0   22     3    
TB      23  23 .500    4.0   27    -4    
BAL     18  26 .409    8.0   17     1    
American League Central     
DET     24  18 .571    0.0   25    -1    
KC      22  22 .500    3.0   22     0    
MIN     22  23 .489    3.5   23    -1    
CHA     19  24 .442    5.5   17     2    
CLE     17  28 .378    8.5   21    -4    
American League West        
TEX     26  17 .605    0.0   25     1    
LAA     23  20 .535    3.0   22     1    
SEA     21  24 .467    6.0   19     2    
OAK     16  25 .390    9.0   18    -2    


National League East        Pwins  Diff
PHI     24  18 .571    0.0   23     1    
ATL     23  20 .535    1.5   22     1    
NYN     23  20 .535    1.5   23     0    
FLA     20  25 .444    5.5   19     1    
WAS     13  30 .302   11.5   18    -5    
National League Central     
STL     26  18 .591    0.0   25     1    
MIL     26  18 .591    0.0   24     2    
CIN     23  20 .535    2.5   22     1    
CHN     21  21 .500    4.0   21     0    
PIT     20  24 .455    6.0   23    -3    
HOU     18  24 .429    7.0   19    -1    
National League West        
LAN     30  15 .667    0.0   29     1    
SD      22  22 .500    7.5   18     4    
SF      20  23 .465    9.0   20     0    
ARI     19  25 .432   10.5   19     0    
COL     18  25 .419   11.0   22    -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.

ORG LVL PLAYER            AB  H 2B 3B HR BB SO  Notes
NYY A+  Austin Romine..... 5  3  2  0  1  0  1  5 RBI !
SF  A+  Roger Kieschnick.. 4  2  1  0  1  0  0  
DET AA  Ryan Strieby...... 5  2  1  0  1  0  1  
OAK AA  Adrian Cardenas... 4  3  0  0  1  1  0  
NYY A+  Jesus Montero..... 4  2  2  0  0  0  0  
BOS A+  Luis Exposito..... 4  2  2  0  0  0  2  
COL AAA Eric Young........ 4  2  1  0  0  1  1  
NYY AAA Austin Jackson.... 5  4  1  0  0  0  0  
CHC A   Josh Vitters...... 4  2  0  0  1  0  0  
HOU A   Jay Austin........ 5  3  1  0  0  0  1  
SD  A+  Logan Forsythe.... 4  1  0  0  1  1  0  
HOU A+  Jason Castro...... 4  2  1  0  0  1  1  

ORG LVL PLAYER            IP  H  R ER SO BB HR  Notes
MIL A   Wily Peralta...... 6  3  0  0 10  0  0  
NYY A   Hector Noesi...... 9  7  3  1  8  2  0  
LAA A   William Smith..... 8  5  0  0  6  0  0  
NYM A+  Bradley Holt...... 6  4  1  1 10  1  1  
CHC AA  Jay Jackson....... 6  3  1  1  8  3  0  
COL A   C. Friedrich...... 6  7  4  4  8  1  0  
SEA A   Brett Lorin....... 6  3  1  1  7  1  1  
COL AA  Jhoulys Chacin.... 6  4  1  1  7  3  0  
PHI AAA Carlos Carrasco... 7  6  3  2  8  2  1  
HOU A   Jordan Lyles...... 6  4  1  1  4  1  0  
ATL AAA Charlie Morton.... 7  4  1  1  4  0  1  
ATL A+  Jeffrey Locke..... 7  7  4  3  4  2  0  12 GB

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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