THT Daily: Pinch hit hero
by Dave StudemanJune 24, 2009
Major League News for June 24
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 RotoworldMariners placed outfielder Endy Chavez on the 60-day disabled list with torn anterior cruciate ligament.
Chavez is expected to miss the rest of the '09 season and possibly part of 2010. He suffered the injury last weekend when he collided with infielder Yuniesky Betancourt and will undergo surgery by the end of the week.
Troy Tulowitzki homered twice and drove in three runs in a loss to the Angels on Tuesday night.
With seven homers and 14 RBI, Tulo has been simply fantastic this month. It's hard to consider him a buy-low option anymore when he's leading the shortstop position (unless you want to count Ben Zobrist) in homers with 12. His batting average is all the way up to .266.
Tim Lincecum held the Athletics to a single run on Tuesday night, pitching a complete game against them for the second time this season.
Lincecum scattered seven hits in his seventh win of the year. The lone run scored on a Jason Giambi homer in the second inning. He walked two while fanning 12, moving ahead of Javier Vazquez for the National League lead in strikeouts with 124. Lincecum has won seven of his last eight decisions. His ERA is now a season-low 2.57.
Zack Greinke hurled eight innings of one-run ball against the Astros on Tuesday for his first victory since May 26.
You can exhale now. Greinke faced some trouble in the first inning, but escaped by giving up just one run. He battled from there, scattering eight hits in all while striking out five and walking none. He's now second in the American League with nine wins and continues to lead the pack with a 1.90 ERA and a 1.02 WHIP.
Grady Sizemore was 2-for-5 with a two-RBI triple in a win over the Pirates on Tuesday night.
Welcome back, Mr. Sizemore. He had a single in the first and a two-run triple as part of a four-run third inning off starter Ian Snell. His status should be monitored day-to-day right now, but owners should feel pretty confident activating him.
Joel Pineiro threw a two-hit complete game shutout against the Mets on Tuesday night.
Pineiro may have struck out just one, but he induced an incredible 22 outs on the ground in the 3-0 victory. With the win, he improved to 3-0 with a 2.91 ERA in five career starts against the Mets -- this, of course, includes his shutout of the Mets in September of 2007. Pineiro is now 6-8 with a 3.40 ERA on the year. He'll face the Twins next.
Joey Votto singled in his return to the lineup on Tuesday night.
Votto was 1-for-4 with two strikeouts in the loss to the Blue Jays. He has been on the disabled list since May 30 due to severe depression.
The Diamondbacks are still trying to determine if Brandon Webb (shoulder) will pitch again this season.
Webb underwent a second MRI Tuesday, but the results haven't been released. "The priorities have shifted to making sure we know everything about his health, everything about what is causing his pain," manager A.J. Hinch said. "His health is priority No. 1. [Webb] pitching in 2009 is a distant second until we know about him physically." When pressed on Webb's chances of pitching this season, Hinch replied: "It's hard to say."
Padres activated Scott Hairston (strained biceps) from the 15-day disabled list.
To make room for Hairston, the team will place Brian Giles on the 15-day DL with a right knee contusion. Interestingly, Hairston is starting in center field Tuesday night, which pushes Tony Gwynn Jr. to right. Gwynn and Hairston will both be everyday players with Giles out of the picture until the All-Star break.
Yesterday’s Results
For the full scoop regarding yesterday's games, read "And That Happened" at Shysterball.American League PHI 10 TB 1 (Recap and Boxscore) TOR 7 CIN 5 (Recap and Boxscore) LAN 5 CHA 2 (Recap and Boxscore) DET 5 CHN 4 (Recap and Boxscore) LAA 4 COL 3 (Recap and Boxscore) SF 4 OAK 1 (Recap and Boxscore) SD 9 SEA 7 (Recap and Boxscore) National League ATL 4 NYA 0 (Recap and Boxscore) FLA 7 BAL 6 (Recap and Boxscore) STL 3 NYN 0 (Recap and Boxscore) BOS 11 WAS 3 (Recap and Boxscore) KC 2 HOU 1 (Recap and Boxscore) MIN 7 MIL 3 (Recap and Boxscore) CLE 5 PIT 4 (Recap and Boxscore) ARI 8 TEX 2 (Recap and Boxscore)Check out Fangraphs' scoreboard to see all the games in action.
Today’s Games
National League --------------- St. Louis Cardinals at New York Mets, 7:10 PM (R) Brad Thompson (2-2) vs. (R) Fernando Nieve (2-0) Inter-League ------------ Chicago Cubs at Detroit Tigers, 7:05 PM (R) Rich Harden (4-3) vs. (R) Rick Porcello (8-4) Cleveland Indians at Pittsburgh Pirates, 7:05 PM (R) Carl Pavano (6-5) vs. (L) Zach Duke (7-5) Boston Red Sox at Washington Nationals, 7:05 PM (L) Jon Lester (5-6) vs. (R) Craig Stammen (1-2) Cincinnati Reds at Toronto Blue Jays, 7:07 PM (R) Bronson Arroyo (8-5) vs. (R) Scott Richmond (5-4) Philadelphia Phillies at Tampa Bay Rays, 7:08 PM (R) Joe Blanton (4-3) vs. (R) Matt Garza (4-5) New York Yankees at Atlanta Braves, 7:10 PM (R) Joba Chamberlain (3-2) vs. (R) Kenshin Kawakami (4-6) Baltimore Orioles at Florida Marlins, 7:10 PM (R) Jason Berken (1-3) vs. (R) Ricky Nolasco (3-6) Minnesota Twins at Milwaukee Brewers, 8:05 PM (R) Nick Blackburn (6-2) vs. (R) Braden Looper (5-4) Kansas City Royals at Houston Astros, 8:05 PM (R) Luke Hochevar (2-3) vs. (R) Roy Oswalt (3-4) Los Angeles Dodgers at Chicago White Sox, 8:11 PM (L) Randy Wolf (3-2) vs. (R) Gavin Floyd (4-5) Texas Rangers at Arizona Diamondbacks, 9:40 PM (R) Vicente Padilla (5-3) vs. (R) Dan Haren (6-4) San Francisco Giants at Oakland Athletics, 10:05 PM (L) Randy Johnson (6-5) vs. (L) Gio Gonzalez (0-0) Colorado Rockies at LA Angels of Anaheim, 10:05 PM (R) Jason Marquis (9-4) vs. (L) Joe Saunders (7-4) San Diego Padres at Seattle Mariners, 10:10 PM (R) Josh Geer (1-2) vs. (R) Brandon Morrow (0-3)
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 BOS 43 27 .614 0.0 42 1NYA 38 32 .543 5.0 38 0
TOR 39 33 .542 5.0 40 -1
TB 37 35 .514 7.0 42 -5
BAL 32 38 .457 11.0 30 2
American League Central DET 39 31 .557 0.0 38 1
MIN 36 36 .500 4.0 38 -2
CHA 33 37 .471 6.0 32 1
KC 30 39 .435 8.5 29 1
CLE 30 42 .417 10.0 34 -4
American League West LAA 37 32 .536 0.0 34 3
TEX 37 32 .536 0.0 36 1
SEA 35 35 .500 2.5 33 2
OAK 31 39 .443 6.5 32 -1
National League East Pwins Diff PHI 37 31 .544 0.0 37 0
NYN 35 34 .507 2.5 34 1
FLA 36 36 .500 3.0 33 3
ATL 34 36 .486 4.0 34 0
WAS 20 48 .294 17.0 26 -6
National League Central STL 40 32 .556 0.0 40 0
MIL 37 33 .529 2.0 36 1
CHN 34 33 .507 3.5 34 0
CIN 34 35 .493 4.5 33 1
HOU 32 36 .471 6.0 31 1
PIT 31 39 .443 8.0 35 -4
National League West LAN 47 24 .662 0.0 45 2
SF 38 32 .543 8.5 36 2
COL 37 34 .521 10.0 39 -2
SD 31 38 .449 15.0 27 4
ARI 30 41 .423 17.0 33 -3
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+ Eric Fryer........ 2 2 1 0 0 2 0 2 SB SEA AAA Jeff Clement...... 5 3 1 0 1 0 1 4 R BOS AA Josh Reddick...... 4 2 1 0 1 0 2 PHI AA Michael Taylor.... 5 3 0 0 1 0 1 CLE AA Nicholas Weglarz.. 4 2 1 0 1 0 0 4 RBI CIN AA Todd Frazier...... 4 3 1 0 0 1 0 DET AA Garth Iorg........ 4 3 1 0 0 0 0 CHW AA Tyler Flowers..... 4 2 2 0 0 0 0 TB AAA Reid Brignac...... 6 3 1 0 0 1 0 DET AAA Wilkin Ramirez.... 5 2 0 0 0 1 1 3 SB COL AA Darin Holcomb..... 4 3 1 0 0 0 0 3 R COL AA Michael McKenry... 5 3 1 0 0 0 1 ORG LVL PLAYER IP H R ER SO BB HR Notes COL AA Esmil Rogers...... 8 8 1 1 7 0 0 CHC A+ Andrew Cashner.... 4 1 0 0 4 0 0 MIN AAA Anthony Swarzak... 7 6 3 3 4 1 0 NYY AA Ivan Nova......... 6 1 0 0 3 2 0 BAL AAA C. Tillman........ 6 7 2 2 3 0 0 12 GB CIN AAA Matthew Maloney... 8 7 3 3 3 0 1 15 GB TEX AA Kasey Kiker....... 7 7 1 0 3 1 0 STL AA Lance Lynn........ 5 8 2 2 4 0 0 CIN AA Travis Wood....... 6 4 0 0 3 2 0 MIN AA Anthony Slama..... 2 1 0 0 2 1 0 4 OF SEA AA Joshua Fields..... 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 DET AAA Ryan Perry........ 2 0 0 0 1 1 0
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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.