THT Daily: Jay Bruce
by Matthew CarruthJune 01, 2008
Major League News for June 1
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 RotoworldJohn Smoltz (shoulder) threw a scoreless inning for Single-A Rome and expects to be activated by the Braves early next week.
"Monday is still the plan," Smoltz said. "The good thing is I didn't exactly feel great coming into today, and I threw the ball much better, so those are encouraging signs for me because you're never always going to feel good."
X-rays were negative on David Ortiz's left wrist, and the Red Sox are calling him day-to-day with a sprain.
"I feel that pop right away when I swung. I think I maybe sprained something right there and it's a little sore. Hopefully, it'll go away soon," said Ortiz, who added that he doesn't expect to play Sunday.
Manny Ramirez hit his 500th career homer off Chad Bradford in Boston's 6-3 win in Baltimore on Saturday.
But he's still 16 doubles away from 500. Ramirez became the 24th player in major league history to get to 500 homers. That he did it off Bradford was a true surprise. Bradford hadn't allowed a homer to a right-handed hitter since May 14, 2006. The Red Sox also got back-to-back homers from Dustin Pedroia and David Ortiz in tonight's victory. Ramirez's homer broke a 3-3 tie in the seventh inning.
Brandon Webb tossed his eighth career shutout Saturday against the Nationals.
Webb allowed six hits, walked none and struck out eight in a dominant outing. He had lost two starts in a row, but this still makes him 2008's first 10-game winner. He's fourth in the National League with a 2.69 ERA.
Conor Jackson underwent an MRI Saturday on his right quadriceps.
Jackson strained his quad while trying to avoid an inside pitch Friday night. "We were thinking last night and earlier today that maybe [he'll be out] a couple days, but we'll see what the MRI has to say," manager Bob Melvin said. "Our feeling still is that this will just be something that will keep him out for a couple of days."
Jay Bruce's first career homer was a walkoff shot off Manny Acosta in the top of the 10th to give the Reds an 8-7 win over the Braves on Saturday.
Bruce had two singles, a walk and two runs scored earlier in the contest. He's struck out just once and walked five times as a major leaguer after posting a K/BB ratio of nearly 4:1 in Triple-A. Some will say it just goes to show how stupid it was of the Reds to wait so long to call it up. Bruce, though, isn't yet a finished product, and he's not going to keep dominating major league pitching as a 21-year-old. The Reds handled him appropriately.
Yesterday’s Results
American League BOS 6 BAL 3 (Recap and Boxscore) TB 2 CHA 0 (Recap and Boxscore) KC 4 CLE 2 (Recap and Boxscore) NYA 7 MIN 6 (Recap and Boxscore) LAA 3 TOR 2 (Recap and Boxscore) SEA 5 DET 0 (Recap and Boxscore) TEX 8 OAK 4 (Recap and Boxscore) National League NYN 3 LAN 2 (Recap and Boxscore) FLA 7 PHI 3 (Recap and Boxscore) CHN 5 COL 4 (Recap and Boxscore) CIN 8 ATL 7 (Recap and Boxscore) MIL 4 HOU 1 (Recap and Boxscore) PIT 14 STL 4 (Recap and Boxscore) ARI 4 WAS 0 (Recap and Boxscore) SD 5 SF 1 (Recap and Boxscore)
Today’s Games
National League --------------- Cincinnati Reds at Philadelphia Phillies, 7:05 PM (R) Bronson Arroyo (4-4) vs. (R) Kyle Kendrick (4-2) Florida Marlins at Atlanta Braves, 7:10 PM (L) Scott Olsen (4-2) vs. (L) Jo-Jo Reyes (2-3) Arizona Diamondbacks at Milwaukee Brewers, 8:05 PM (L) Doug Davis (2-2) vs. (R) Jeff Suppan (3-4) Pittsburgh Pirates at St. Louis Cardinals, 8:15 PM (L) Tom Gorzelanny (4-5) vs. (R) Adam Wainwright (5-2) Chicago Cubs at San Diego Padres, 10:05 PM (R) Carlos Zambrano (7-1) vs. (L) Shawn Estes (1-1) Colorado Rockies at Los Angeles Dodgers, 10:10 PM (R) Greg Reynolds (0-2) vs. (R) Derek Lowe (2-5) New York Mets at San Francisco Giants, 10:15 PM (L) Oliver Perez (4-3) vs. (L) Jonathan Sanchez (3-3) American League --------------- New York Yankees at Minnesota Twins, 7:05 PM (L) Andy Pettitte (5-5) vs. (R) Livan Hernandez (6-2) Boston Red Sox at Baltimore Orioles, 7:05 PM (R) Tim Wakefield (3-4) vs. (R) Jeremy Guthrie (2-6) Cleveland Indians at Texas Rangers, 8:05 PM (L) Aaron Laffey (3-3) vs. (R) Vicente Padilla (7-2) Detroit Tigers at Oakland Athletics, 10:05 PM (L) Kenny Rogers (4-4) vs. (R) Rich Harden (3-0) LA Angels of Anaheim at Seattle Mariners, 10:10 PM (R) Ervin Santana (7-2) vs. (L) Erik Bedard (4-3)
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 TB 34 22 .607 0.0 31 3BOS 34 24 .586 1.0 33 1
TOR 31 27 .534 4.0 32 -1
NYA 28 27 .509 5.5 27 1
BAL 26 28 .481 7.0 26 0
American League Central CHA 30 25 .545 0.0 32 -2
MIN 28 27 .509 2.0 26 2
CLE 25 30 .455 5.0 29 -4
DET 23 32 .418 7.0 26 -3
KC 22 34 .393 8.5 22 0
American League West LAA 33 24 .579 0.0 29 4
OAK 29 27 .518 3.5 31 -2
TEX 29 28 .509 4.0 28 1
SEA 21 35 .375 11.5 22 -1
National League East Pwins Diff FLA 31 23 .574 0.0 28 3
PHI 32 25 .561 0.5 34 -2
ATL 29 27 .518 3.0 34 -5
NYN 27 27 .500 4.0 27 0
WAS 24 33 .421 8.5 23 1
National League Central CHN 35 21 .625 0.0 37 -2
STL 33 24 .579 2.5 31 2
HOU 30 27 .526 5.5 28 2
MIL 28 28 .500 7.0 26 2
CIN 27 29 .482 8.0 26 1
PIT 26 29 .473 8.5 25 1
National League West ARI 31 25 .554 0.0 33 -2
LAN 27 28 .491 3.5 29 -2
SF 23 33 .411 8.0 23 0
SD 23 34 .404 8.5 22 1
COL 20 36 .357 11.0 21 -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 Brandon Moss...... 5 4 0 0 3 0 1 4 R COL AAA Joseph Koshansky.. 4 3 2 0 1 0 0 CIN AA Chris Valaika..... 4 2 1 0 1 1 1 KC A+ Joseph Dickerson.. 5 4 0 2 0 0 1 5 RBI ! SEA AAA Jeff Clement...... 5 2 1 0 1 0 1 FLA AA Gaby Sanchez...... 4 2 2 0 0 0 1 MIL AA Alcides Escobar... 3 2 0 0 1 1 0 PHI AA Lou Marson........ 5 3 2 0 0 0 1 STL A+ Arnoldi Cruz...... 4 3 1 0 0 1 0 FLA A Matt Dominguez.... 3 2 1 0 1 0 0 SEA AAA Tim Hulett........ 3 2 1 0 0 2 0 STL AAA Colby Rasmus...... 4 3 1 0 0 1 0 ORG LVL PLAYER IP H R ER SO BB HR Notes MIL A+ Zach Braddock..... 6 2 1 1 11 2 0 SF A+ Tim Alderson...... 7 3 1 1 8 0 0 CLE AA David Huff........ 7 4 1 1 7 0 0 MIN AAA F. Liriano........ 6 3 1 1 7 1 0 WAN AA Shairon Martis.... 6 7 4 4 8 1 0 CHC AA Donald Veal....... 8 3 1 0 6 3 0 NYM AA Jonathon Niese.... 6 2 0 0 5 1 0 OAK A+ Brett Anderson.... 4 4 0 0 6 0 0 NYY AAA David Robertson... 2 2 0 0 6 0 0 SD AA Steve Garrison.... 6 6 3 3 5 1 0 TOR AAA David Purcey...... 7 7 3 3 6 1 1 14 GB STL AAA P.J. Walters...... 6 3 2 2 5 3 0
Matthew Carruth is an editor for The Hardball Times. He welcomes any and all sorts of communication at his email.