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THT Daily: Konerkos wild

by Dave Studeman
July 08, 2009

Major League News for July 8


Player News
Yesterday’s Results
Today’s Games
Standings

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
Raul Ibanez (groin) finished 1-for-2 with a walk in his first rehab game with Triple-A Lehigh Valley on Tuesday evening.
Ibanez is now 1-for-4 with two walks on his rehab assignment and has played 12 innings in the outfield. He'll take the day off Wednesday, play another game with Lehigh Valley on Thursday and return to the Phillies Friday. At least, that's the plan.

White Sox acquired RHP Tony Pena from the Diamondbacks for first baseman Brandon Allen.
Pena, 27, had a 4.24 ERA, a 1.53 WHIP and a 26/11 K/BB ratio in 34 innings out of Arizona's bullpen. He'll fit in well with the White Sox, but they paid a pretty hefty price to nab him. Brandon Allen, a born slugger, could have eventually taken over at first base for Paul Konerko.

Vladimir Guerrero is day-to-day with a strained muscle behind his left knee.
Guerrero may need a day or two off, and he'll probably go back to DHing for a while after he returns. Gary Matthews Jr. could start in his place on Wednesday.

Luke Scott homered and drove in a career-high seven runs in a win over the Mariners on Tuesday night.
Scott was 3-for-5 in the game. He plated two with an RBI single in the first, two more with an RBI triple in the sixth and then added a three-run homer in the seventh. The last Oriole to drive in seven runs in a game was Ramon Hernandez in 2006. Scott is batting .305/.386/.595 with 17 homers and 50 RBI in just 220 at-bats this season. For those with a calculator handy, that projects to 38 homers and 112 RBI in 492 at-bats.

Josh Johnson fell to 7-2 on the year, allowing three runs over seven innings in a 3-0 loss to the Giants on Tuesday night.
The loss was Johnson's first since May 19. On the bright side, he pitched better than his last start -- a 3 1/3 inning dud against the Nationals -- scattering five hits against five strikeouts and one walk. Johnson looks to have hit a minor bump in the road, winless over his last three starts, but his ERA is still a sparkling 2.82, good enough for fourth-best in the National League.

Paul Konerko connected for a career-high three home runs and seven RBI in a win over the Indians on Tuesday night.
Konerko's sixth-inning grand slam gave the White Sox a 5-3 lead. He became the 12th player in White Sox history to hit three home runs in a game. The last to do it was Jose Valentin in 2003. After a down 2008, Konerko is batting .301/.354/.527 with 16 homers and 57 RBI this season.

Grady Sizemore hit a pair of home runs in a loss to the White Sox on Tuesday night.
Sizemore has three homers and 15 RBI since returning from the disabled list on June 23. He is off to a nice start in July, with three multi-hit games in his last four. He is batting .235/.323/.462 with 13 bombs and 47 RBI in 251 at-bats this season.

Shaun Marcum is hoping to return to the Blue Jays by early August.
Marcum has made a remarkable comeback from September Tommy John surgery. He allowed just two hits in three innings Monday in a 37-pitch rehab outing for Single-A Dunedin. "He looked very sharp," said assistant GM Alex Anthopoulos. "All the reports are that he looked good and felt good. His next outing, he's scheduled to go four innings. He's excited. Tentatively, we have him scheduled to be back up in Toronto the first week of August."

Bartolo Colon, slated to start Thursday at Charlotte, is not with the Triple-A club and hasn't contacted the White Sox to inform them of his whereabouts.
In other words, the big man is missing. "Efforts to contact his agent have been successful," said GM Kenny Williams. "Their efforts to contact their client have not been so successful. ... If he doesn't show up Thursday in Charlotte, somebody will take the mound. This train is going to keep rolling." Colon has been on the disabled list since early June with swelling in his left knee and will obviously need to show up for his rehab assignment if he hopes to make his way back to Chicago.


Yesterday’s Results

For the full scoop regarding yesterday's games, read "And That Happened" at Shysterball.
American League
BOS     5  OAK     2    (Recap and Boxscore)
TB      3  TOR     1    (Recap and Boxscore)
CHA    10  CLE     6    (Recap and Boxscore)
DET     8  KC      5    (Recap and Boxscore)
NYA    10  MIN     2    (Recap and Boxscore)
TEX     8  LAA     5    (Recap and Boxscore)
BAL    12  SEA     4    (Recap and Boxscore)

National League
LAN     8  NYN     0    (Recap and Boxscore)
CIN     4  PHI     3    (Recap and Boxscore)
ATL     2  CHN     1    (Recap and Boxscore)
PIT     6  HOU     3    (Recap and Boxscore)
STL     5  MIL     0    (Recap and Boxscore)
ARI     4  SD      3    (Recap and Boxscore)
COL     5  WAS     4    (Recap and Boxscore)
SF      3  FLA     0    (Recap and Boxscore)
Check out Fangraphs' scoreboard to see all the games in action.



Today’s Games

National League
 ---------------
 Pittsburgh Pirates at Houston Astros, 2:05 PM
  (R) Charlie Morton (1-1) vs. (L) Wandy Rodriguez (7-6)
 Atlanta Braves at Chicago Cubs, 2:20 PM
  (R) Kenshin Kawakami (4-6) vs. (R) Kevin Hart (0-0)
 Washington Nationals at Colorado Rockies, 3:10 PM
  (L) Ross Detwiler (0-4) vs. (L) Jorge De La Rosa (5-7)
 San Diego Padres at Arizona Diamondbacks, 3:40 PM
  (R) Chad Gaudin (4-7) vs. (R) Max Scherzer (5-6)
 Florida Marlins at San Francisco Giants, 3:45 PM
  (R) Chris Volstad (5-8) vs. (R) Ryan Sadowski (2-0)
 Cincinnati Reds at Philadelphia Phillies, 7:05 PM
  (R) Homer Bailey (1-0) vs. (R) Rodrigo Lopez (1-0)
 Los Angeles Dodgers at New York Mets, 7:10 PM
  (R) Hiroki Kuroda (3-4) vs. (L) Oliver Perez (1-2)
 St. Louis Cardinals at Milwaukee Brewers, 8:05 PM
  (R) Todd Wellemeyer (7-7) vs. (R) Jeff Suppan (5-6)
 
 American League
 ---------------
 Baltimore Orioles at Seattle Mariners, 4:40 PM
  (R) David Hernandez (2-2) vs. (L) Jason Vargas (3-3)
 Kansas City Royals at Detroit Tigers, 7:05 PM
  (R) Zack Greinke (10-4) vs. (L) Lucas French (0-0)
 Toronto Blue Jays at Tampa Bay Rays, 7:08 PM
  (L) Brian Tallet (5-6) vs. (L) Scott Kazmir (4-5)
 Oakland Athletics at Boston Red Sox, 7:10 PM
  (R) Trevor Cahill (5-7) vs. (R) Tim Wakefield (10-3)
 New York Yankees at Minnesota Twins, 8:10 PM
  (R) A.J. Burnett (7-4) vs. (L) Glen Perkins (4-4)
 Cleveland Indians at Chicago White Sox, 8:11 PM
  (L) Aaron Laffey (3-1) vs. (R) Jose Contreras (3-7)
 Texas Rangers at LA Angels of Anaheim, 10:05 PM
  (R) Vicente Padilla (6-4) vs. (R) Ervin Santana (1-4)


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     50  33 .602    0.0   49     1    sparkline graph
NYA     49  34 .590    1.0   48     1    sparkline graph
TB      45  39 .536    5.5   49    -4    sparkline graph
TOR     43  42 .506    8.0   46    -3    sparkline graph
BAL     37  47 .440   13.5   36     1    sparkline graph
American League Central     
DET     45  38 .542    0.0   43     2    sparkline graph
CHA     43  40 .518    2.0   42     1    sparkline graph
MIN     43  41 .512    2.5   45    -2    sparkline graph
KC      36  47 .434    9.0   35     1    sparkline graph
CLE     33  51 .393   12.5   39    -6    sparkline graph
American League West        
LAA     46  36 .561    0.0   44     2    sparkline graph
TEX     46  36 .561    0.0   44     2    sparkline graph
SEA     43  40 .518    3.5   39     4    sparkline graph
OAK     35  47 .427   11.0   37    -2    sparkline graph


National League East        Pwins  Diff
PHI     43  38 .531    0.0   44    -1    sparkline graph
FLA     43  42 .506    2.0   40     3    sparkline graph
ATL     40  43 .482    4.0   40     0    sparkline graph
NYN     39  43 .476    4.5   38     1    sparkline graph
WAS     24  57 .296   19.0   31    -7    sparkline graph
National League Central     
STL     46  39 .541    0.0   45     1    sparkline graph
MIL     43  40 .518    2.0   42     1    sparkline graph
CHN     41  40 .506    3.0   41     0    sparkline graph
CIN     41  41 .500    3.5   37     4    sparkline graph
HOU     40  42 .488    4.5   38     2    sparkline graph
PIT     38  46 .452    7.5   42    -4    sparkline graph
National League West        
LAN     53  30 .639    0.0   51     2    sparkline graph
SF      46  37 .554    7.0   46     0    sparkline graph
COL     44  39 .530    9.0   45    -1    sparkline graph
SD      35  48 .422   18.0   31     4    sparkline graph
ARI     35  49 .417   18.5   38    -3    sparkline graph


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.


Gregory Foley said...

Hey Dave,


I miss the list of the best minor league performances.  It’s probably a lot of work for you to comb through all those box scores and pick out the gems, but (for me) they’re fun to read.


Best regards,
Greg Foley

Posted 07/08  at  11:39 AM
Tom said...

I agree with Greg. I love seeing all the big games by minor leaguers, especially if it’s a name I know. I love telling my friends “Hey, Buchholz struck out ANOTHER 500 batters tonight.”

Posted 07/08  at  12:38 PM
Dave Studeman said...

Thanks, guys.  I pull those performances from First Inning, which hasn’t been working the last couple of days.  Hopefully Chris will have it up and running soon.

Posted 07/08  at  01:29 PM
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