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THT Daily: The wrong league

by Dave Studeman
June 22, 2009

Major League News for June 22

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
According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Albert Pujols "called his shot" Sunday before blasting a fourth-inning grand slam over the left field wall.
As the Post-Dispatch's Joe Strauss reports, "After opening the third inning with a fly out, Pujols returned to the Cardinals clubhouse to review video. There he predicted to assistant hitting coach Mike Aldrete that his next at-bat would ricochet off the yet-to-open Royals Hall of Fame behind the visitors bullpen in left field." "He didn't say he might hit the Hall of Fame. He said he would hit the Hall of Fame," Aldrete recalled. The ball traveled 423 feet and broke a 4-4 tie.

The Yankees don't seem all that concerned with CC Sabathia's latest ailment, termed "biceps tightness."
There are no further tests scheduled for the big man. That could change, but it's pretty clear the Yankees are treating this as minor. "I'm not really concerned that much," said Sabathia, who is listed as day-to-day. Let's hope he doesn't miss a start.

Albert Pujols homered twice while driving in six runs as the Cardinals stomped the Royals 12-5 on Sunday.
Pujols also singled and doubled between his five trips to the plate but scored only on the two homers. Today's big day furthered Pujols' major league lead with 26 homers, and he also now sits atop the RBI leader board with 68. He's on pace for an insane .329-60-157 season.

Nick Green hit a walk-off solo homer in the bottom of the ninth inning to beat the Braves on Sunday.
Technically it was a homer, but the opposite field "blast" was just inside the Pesky Pole and probably only traveled about 320 feet. The homer was Green's fourth of the season and gave Jonathan Papelbon the win in relief.

After homering as a pinch-hitter Saturday, Ryan Howard returned to the hospital because of his fever.
Howard is expected to miss Sunday's game, ending his major league-high consecutive-game streak at 343. Matt Stairs is hitting cleanup in his place.

Red Sox placed RHP Daisuke Matsuzaka on the 15-day disabled list, retroactive to June 20, with shoulder weakness.
An MRI showed no structural damage, so the Red Sox will just go with weakness. That Dice-K agreed to go on the DL is all that matters. He's better off making starts in the minors than he is pitching as a mop-up man out of the bullpen. John Smoltz will replace him in the rotation.

Yesterday’s Results

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

American League
BOS     6  ATL     5    (Recap and Boxscore)
DET     3  MIL     2    (Recap and Boxscore)
STL    12  KC      5    (Recap and Boxscore)
HOU     4  MIN     1    (Recap and Boxscore)
LAN     5  LAA     3    (Recap and Boxscore)
SEA     3  ARI     2    (Recap and Boxscore)

National League
FLA     6  NYA     5    (Recap and Boxscore)
TB     10  NYN     6    (Recap and Boxscore)
BAL     2  PHI     1    (Recap and Boxscore)
TOR     9  WAS     4    (Recap and Boxscore)
CHN     6  CLE     2    (Recap and Boxscore)
CHA     4  CIN     1    (Recap and Boxscore)
COL     5  PIT     4    (Recap and Boxscore)
SD      4  OAK     1    (Recap and Boxscore)
SF      3  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) Todd Wellemeyer (6-6) vs. (R) Tim Redding (0-2)
 Chicago Cubs at Atlanta Braves, 7:10 PM
  (R) Ryan Dempster (4-4) vs. (R) Javier Vazquez (4-6)
 
 Inter-League
 ------------
 San Francisco Giants at Oakland Athletics, 10:05 PM
  (L) Jonathan Sanchez (2-7) vs. (R) Trevor Cahill (4-5)
 Colorado Rockies at LA Angels of Anaheim, 10:05 PM
  (R) Aaron Cook (6-3) vs. (R) Matt Palmer (6-0)

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     42  27 .609    0.0   41     1    
NYA     38  31 .551    4.0   38     0    
TOR     38  33 .535    5.0   40    -2    
TB      37  34 .521    6.0   43    -6    
BAL     32  37 .464   10.0   30     2    
American League Central     
DET     38  31 .551    0.0   38     0    
MIN     35  36 .493    4.0   37    -2    
CHA     33  36 .478    5.0   32     1    
KC      29  39 .426    8.5   29     0    
CLE     29  42 .408   10.0   34    -5    
American League West        
TEX     37  31 .544    0.0   36     1    
LAA     36  31 .537    0.5   34     2    
SEA     35  34 .507    2.5   32     3    
OAK     30  38 .441    7.0   31    -1    


National League East        Pwins  Diff
PHI     36  31 .537    0.0   35     1    
NYN     34  33 .507    2.0   33     1    
FLA     35  36 .493    3.0   32     3    
ATL     32  36 .471    4.5   32     0    
WAS     20  47 .299   16.0   26    -6    
National League Central     
STL     39  31 .557    0.0   39     0    
MIL     37  32 .536    1.5   36     1    
CHN     34  31 .523    2.5   34     0    
CIN     34  34 .500    4.0   33     1    
HOU     32  35 .478    5.5   30     2    
PIT     31  38 .449    7.5   34    -3    
National League West        
LAN     46  24 .657    0.0   44     2    
SF      37  31 .544    8.0   35     2    
COL     36  33 .522    9.5   37    -1    
SD      30  38 .441   15.0   26     4    
ARI     29  41 .414   17.0   31    -2

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
SD  AAA Matt Antonelli.... 4  3  2  1  0  1  0  
KC  AAA Kila Kaaihue...... 4  2  0  0  2  1  1  
DET AAA Scott Sizemore.... 6  3  0  1  1  0  0  
MIL AA  Taylor Green...... 3  2  0  0  1  2  0  
LAA AAA Howie Kendrick.... 4  4  1  0  0  0  0  
WAN A   Derek Norris...... 3  2  0  0  1  1  1  
LA  A   Kyle Russell...... 5  2  2  0  0  0  2  
PHI AA  Michael Taylor.... 5  3  0  0  1  0  1  
WAN AAA Justin Maxwell.... 3  2  0  0  1  1  1  
FLA AAA John Raynor....... 4  1  0  0  1  1  0  
ARI A   Rossmel Perez..... 3  2  1  0  0  1  0  
NYM A   Wilmer Flores..... 4  3  1  0  0  0  0  

ORG LVL PLAYER            IP  H  R ER SO BB HR  Notes
HOU A   Jordan Lyles...... 6  2  0  0 11  2  0  
TB  A   Nick Barnese...... 7  1  0  0  6  0  0  
BOS A   Stephen Fife...... 5  4  1  1  7  0  0  
BOS A+  Casey Kelly....... 6  1  0  0  5  2  0  
TEX AAA Neftali Feliz..... 5  7  1  1  7  1  0  
COL AA  Jhoulys Chacin.... 7  5  1  1  4  1  0  
COL AAA Franklin Morales.. 6  4  1  1  4  1  0  
LAA AAA Trevor Bell....... 7  3  2  0  4  1  1  
OAK AAA James Simmons..... 6  6  2  2  3  0  0  
CLE AA  Scott Lewis....... 4  1  0  0  4  2  0  
NYM A   Jeurys Familia.... 7  5  1  1  2  1  0  
HOU A+  C. Hicks.......... 5  5  5  5  5  3  0

First Inning's Major and Minor League Daily Reports:

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