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THT Daily: Crazy 8’s

by Matthew Carruth
May 21, 2007

Major League News for May 21
Today’s Links
Player News
Yesterday’s Results
Today’s Games
Standings
Game of the Day
Top Minor League Performances

You can always find the most recent THT Daily at http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/content/thtdaily/

THT Links

The Yanks Need Fixing - The Yankees are teetering on the edge of falling irreparably behind Boston. What can they do to right the ship?

No Repeat For You - St. Louis is right along with New York in falling out of their division race. And given their completely punch-less offense, prospects look grim.

Mariners Face Crunchtime - The Mariners are not in as bad a shape games back wise as the Cards or Yanks, but what they lack in distance from the division leader, they more than make up for in crummy talent. This is not a team that can mount a considerable comeback, they need to right the ship now.

Well, at Least it's Fashionable - What kind of tank are the Rockies? Apparently not the one they were hoping for.

Worst Bullpens To Date - Say hello to the bottom ten bullpens in baseball so far in 2007, as measured by WXRL.

Elephant in the Room - The Athletics are staying in the race due to incredible starting pitching, and pretty much that alone as their offense does little and their bullpen, especially sans Huston Street, is also mediocre. How much of the starting pitching's success comes from offensive black hole Jason Kendall?

Scott Baker, Overlooked Commodity? - Aaron Gleeman continues to believe in Scott Baker as a quality major league pitcher, while also acknowledging his flaws. Perhaps the best solution for the Twins though is to give Baker a few starts, hope he performs as he did yesterday then flip him for a RH power hitting OF and call up Kevin Slowey or Matt Garza.

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 .

Player News
Player Headlines are courtesy of Rotoworld

Ramon Vazquez enjoyed a perfect day at the plate Sunday as Texas played long ball to roll over the Astros 14-1. Vazquez was 3-for-3 with two walks, smacking his first double of the year and his second homer in three games since being recalled to help fill in for the injured Hank Blalock. The way Vazquez is crushing the ball -- .750 BA with five RBI already -- he's making his claim on the bulk of the action at third, certainly whenever a righty is on the mound for the opposition. The Rangers went homer happy today, with a half dozen in total, including a pair each from Mark Teixeira and Victor Diaz and one from Kenny Lofton.

Jason Giambi's admission to USA Today that he once used steroids could lead to the Yankees taking another shot at voiding his contract. Probably not, but it makes for a good story anyway. The commissioner's office is investigating Giambi's comments and will summon him to a meeting to discuss them. He was quoted as saying that he "was wrong for doing that stuff," in reference to having used steroids, and said that "what we should have done a long time ago was stand up - players, owners, everybody - and said: 'We made a mistake.'"

Yesterday’s Results
Inter-League
BOS     6  ATL     3    (Recap and Boxscore) Youkilis: 3-3, HR; Diaz: 4-5
FLA     4  TB      3    (Recap and Boxscore) Shields: 7 IP, 1 R; FLA: 3 R in 8th
CLE     5  CIN     3    (Recap and Boxscore) Byrd: 7 IP, 3 R; Peralta: 2-4, HR
DET     6  STL     3    (Recap and Boxscore) Verlander: 8 IP, 2 R
LAA     4  LAN     1    (Recap and Boxscore) Escobar: 8 IP, 0 R
SF      4  OAK     1    (Recap and Boxscore) Winn: 3-5, HR; Morris: 9 IP, 1 R
SD      2  SEA     1    (Recap and Boxscore) Gonzalez: 2 2B; Germano: 6 IP, 1 R
NYA     6  NYN     2    (Recap and Boxscore) Clippard: 6 IP, 1 R; Jeter: 2-4, HR
PHI     5  TOR     3    (Recap and Boxscore) Eaton: 6 IP, 0 R
WAS     4  BAL     3    (Recap and Boxscore) Bedard: 7 IP, 1 R, 12 K, 3 BB; WAS: 3 R in 8th
CHA    10  CHN     6    (Recap and Boxscore) Pierzynski: GS HR; Masset: 5.2 IP, 2 R
TEX    14  HOU     1    (Recap and Boxscore) Teixeira, Diaz: 4 H, 2 H; McCarthy: 6 IP, 1 R
MIL     6  MIN     5    (Recap and Boxscore) Jenkins: 3-4, HR, 5 RBI; MIL pen: 5 IP, 1 H, 0 R
KC     10  COL     5    (Recap and Boxscore) See below

National League
ARI     5  PIT     2    (Recap and Boxscore) Johnson: 5.2 IP, 2 R, 10 K, 0 BB

Today’s Games
 National League
 ---------------
 Washington Nationals at Cincinnati Reds, 7:10 PM
  (R) Levale Speigner (1-0) vs. (R) Bronson Arroyo (2-4)
 Colorado Rockies at Arizona Diamondbacks, 9:40 PM
  (R) Aaron Cook (3-1) vs. (R) Brandon Webb (3-3)
 Milwaukee Brewers at Los Angeles Dodgers, 10:10 PM
  (R) Jeff Suppan (5-4) vs. (R) Brett Tomko (1-4)
 Houston Astros at San Francisco Giants, 10:15 PM
  (R) Chris Sampson (4-3) vs. (L) Noah Lowry (4-4)
 
 American League
 ---------------
 Boston Red Sox at New York Yankees, 7:05 PM
  (R) Tim Wakefield (4-4) vs. (R) Chien-Ming Wang (2-3)
 Seattle Mariners at Cleveland Indians, 7:05 PM
  (R) Cha Seung Baek (1-1) vs. (L) CC Sabathia (6-1)
 Minnesota Twins at Texas Rangers, 8:05 PM
  (R) Carlos Silva (2-4) vs. (R) Vicente Padilla (1-6)
 Oakland Athletics at Chicago White Sox, 8:11 PM
  (R) Joe Blanton (4-1) vs. (L) John Danks (2-4)

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        Pwins  Diff
BOS     30  13 .698    0.0   29     1    sparkline graph
BAL     20  24 .455   10.5   21    -1    sparkline graph
NYA     19  23 .452   10.5   24    -5    sparkline graph
TOR     19  24 .442   11.0   21    -2    sparkline graph
TB      18  25 .419   12.0   16     2    sparkline graph
American League Central     
CLE     26  15 .634    0.0   24     2    sparkline graph
DET     27  16 .628    0.0   25     2    sparkline graph
CHA     21  19 .525    4.5   18     3    sparkline graph
MIN     20  23 .465    7.0   22    -2    sparkline graph
KC      17  28 .378   11.0   18    -1    sparkline graph
American League West        
LAA     27  18 .600    0.0   27     0    sparkline graph
OAK     22  21 .512    4.0   26    -4    sparkline graph
SEA     19  20 .487    5.0   17     2    sparkline graph
TEX     17  27 .386    9.5   19    -2    sparkline graph


National League East        Pwins  Diff
NYN     28  15 .651    0.0   27     1    sparkline graph
ATL     26  18 .591    2.5   24     2    sparkline graph
PHI     22  22 .500    6.5   23    -1    sparkline graph
FLA     21  23 .477    7.5   21     0    sparkline graph
WAS     16  28 .364   12.5   15     1    sparkline graph
National League Central     
MIL     27  17 .614    0.0   24     3    sparkline graph
HOU     21  22 .488    5.5   21     0    sparkline graph
CHN     20  22 .476    6.0   24    -4    sparkline graph
PIT     19  24 .442    7.5   18     1    sparkline graph
STL     16  25 .390    9.5   14     2    sparkline graph
CIN     17  27 .386   10.0   21    -4    sparkline graph
National League West        
LAN     25  19 .568    0.0   24     1    sparkline graph
SD      24  20 .545    1.0   26    -2    sparkline graph
ARI     24  21 .533    1.5   21     3    sparkline graph
SF      21  22 .488    3.5   22    -1    sparkline graph
COL     18  26 .409    7.0   16     2    sparkline graph

Game of the Day
It was crazy in Colorado, where the Royals scored five runs in the 12th to pull away from the Rockies, 10-5. The Royals were winning, 4-3 with no one on and two out in the bottom of the 9th when closer Joakim Soria allowed a single, HBP and Matt Holliday single to let the Rockies tie the game. Both teams scored a run in the 11th (on a David Dejesus triple and another Holliday single, abetted by an error) to keep the fans in suspense. In the 12th, the Royals racked up five runs against Ramon Ramirez to take the game. The key hit was a Ryan Shealy single.

The following graph tracks the game's Win Probability, courtesy of Fan Graphs. You can also view live WPA graphs at Fangraphs during any ballgame all season long.

image

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
LAA AAA Brandon Wood...... 2  2  1  0  0  2  0  
CIN A+  Jay Bruce......... 4  3  1  0  0  0  0  
CIN AAA Joey Votto........ 5  3  1  0  1  0  1  
BAL A   Brandon Snyder.... 5  3  1  0  1  1  2  5 RBI !
WAN A   Justin Maxwell.... 5  3  2  0  1  0  0  
KC  AAA Billy Butler...... 4  1  1  0  0  0  0  
CHC AAA Felix Pie......... 5  3  0  1  0  0  1  
SD  A+  Kyle Blanks....... 6  3  1  0  1  0  1  
OAK A+  Justin Sellers.... 5  3  1  0  1  1  0  
PIT AA  Neil Walker....... 5  3  0  0  1  0  0  
TB  AA  John Jaso......... 2  1  0  0  1  2  1  
TB  AAA Joel Guzman....... 4  2  0  0  1  0  0  

ORG LVL PLAYER            IP  H  R ER SO BB HR  Notes
TEX AA  Edinson Volquez... 7  4  0  0  5  1  0  14 GB
TB  A+  Jacob McGee....... 6  3  2  2  8  3  0  
NYY A+  Ian Kennedy....... 7  5  0  0  9  2  0  
PHI AAA J.D. Durbin....... 8  5  1  1  6  1  0  
CLE AAA Sean Smith........ 5  6  1  1  7  1  0  
DET AA  E. De La Cruz..... 8  5  1  1  6  1  0  15 GB
MIN A+  Oswaldo Sosa...... 6  1  0  0  9  3  0  
FLA A+  Aaron Thompson.... 7  8  2  1  7  2  0  18 GB
MIN AAA Kevin Slowey...... 7  9  3  3  6  2  1  
PHI AA  Matthew Maloney... 6  7  5  5  7  2  0  
MIL A+  William Inman..... 5  7  1  1  7  3  0  
STL AA  Jaime Garcia...... 7  2  1  1  4  3  1  

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Matthew Carruth is an editor for The Hardball Times. He welcomes any and all sorts of communication at his email.



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