The Hardball Times

THT Daily: Blown away

by THT Staff
September 15, 2008

Player News
Yesterday’s Results
Today’s Games
Standings
Game of the Day
Yesterday’s Home Runs

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

Player News

Player Headlines are courtesy of Rotoworld

In his first start in 12 days, Carlos Zambrano threw his first career no-hitter Sunday against the Astros, striking out 10 in the process. If only this game had been played in Houston rather than Milwaukee... well, Astros fans might have gotten to see some history. Zambrano walked just one and hit a batter. He ended up throwing 110 pitches, which is probably at least 10 more than the Cubs would have wanted him throwing given his recent shoulder issues. Still, it was a very efficient performance for a double-digit strikeout game. The no-hitter is the Cubs’ first since Milt Pappas had one against the Padres in 1972.

Brett Myers pitched a two-hitter in a 6-1 win as the Phillies completed a doubleheader sweep of the Brewers on Sunday. The Brewers scored a combined 10 runs in a four-game sweep that leaves both them and the Phillies with identical 83-67 records. The Phillies are now one game back of the Mets in the NL East, though it's two in the loss column. The Phillies and Brewers share the wild-card lead, with Houston two games back. Myers moved to 7-2 with a 1.80 ERA in 11 starts since returning from the minors.

Yesterday’s Results

Game recaps provided by Craig Calcaterra of Shysterball.

Remnants of Ike came through Ohio yesterday, knocking out the power at Chez Shyster just before 4pm and leaving us all 19th century until just before 2AM. With no power, one cannot watch baseball, follow box scores online, or even blog. One can drink, however, and that's exactly what Mrs. Shyster and I did before retiring early.

I wake up this morning to see that Carlos Zambrano threw a no-hitter in the Astros' "home game" against the Cubs. Mixed kind of day for Brewers' fans, I suppose. One the one hand the victory helps them fend off Houston for the wild card, but seeing a dominant performance by a team that has increasingly become their primary nemesis in their own backyard on a day when the Brewers themselves lost has to kind of suck.

And what about those Brewers? Dropping yet another game, Ryan Braun minced no words: "This series was a complete and total disaster. It couldn't have gone any worse. We couldn't have played any worse. They couldn't have played any better." I'd like to thank Mr. Braun for picking up the And That Happened Slack in light of the power outage. But really Ryan, ease up. You'll get emails from Milwaukee fans telling you that you're being too hard on them. Trust me, I know.

Around the rest of relevant-game baseball, the Los Angeles Dodgers finally received their Greg Maddux user manual from San Diego yesterday and starting using him the way the Padres did: He provided them with seven innings of shutout baseball and they provided him with no run support, losing the game 1-0. Doesn't matter in the grand scheme, however, because the Dbacks lost too, this time on a Corey Patterson home run in the 10th. Let that one sink in for a minute. Arizona remains 4.5 back, and really ought to be ashamed of themselves.

In the AL Central, the White Sox swept a doubleheader while the Twins dropped their game to Baltimore, leaving Chicago a game and a half up.

With the Philllies beyotch-slapping of the Brewers and the Mets' 9th inning collapse (microcosm of 2007 anyone?) to Atlanta, the Mets are now only one game away from joining the wild wild card race.

A weekend that saw the Rays lose two and the Red Sox win two now has the AL East race back to a one game margin. Carl Pavano got hurt, if you can believe it, though he plans to make his next start. Oh, and Roy Halladay lost again. Why I keep paying attention to that I have no idea, but on some cosmic level I feel like I should have Cliff Lee's back. Maybe he saved me from an Indian attack in a past life once or something.

The AL West, she does not matter anymore, but if you care about such things, the Angels lead is now 19.5 games. Oh, and as of Saturday night, K-Rod is the single-season saves leader.

This conversational stuff was fun and everything, but now that our power has been restored, we will be returning to our usual format tomorrow morning.

You can download a compact version of yesterday's boxscores from Heater Magazine.

First Inning's Major and Minor League Daily Reports:
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Today’s Games

National League
 ---------------
 Chicago Cubs at Houston Astros, 2:05 PM
  (R) Jason Marquis (10-8) vs. (R) Brian Moehler (11-6)
 Los Angeles Dodgers at Pittsburgh Pirates, 7:05 PM
  (R) Hiroki Kuroda (8-10) vs. (R) Ross Ohlendorf (0-1)
 New York Mets at Washington Nationals, 7:10 PM
  (R) Pedro Martinez (5-4) vs. (L) John Lannan (8-13)
 San Diego Padres at Colorado Rockies, 8:35 PM
  (L) Wade LeBlanc (0-1) vs. (R) Ubaldo Jimenez (10-12)
 San Francisco Giants at Arizona Diamondbacks, 9:40 PM
  (R) Brad Hennessey (1-1) vs. (L) Doug Davis (6-8)
 
 American League
 ---------------
 Minnesota Twins at Cleveland Indians, 7:05 PM
  (R) Kevin Slowey (12-9) vs. (L) Scott Lewis (1-0)
 Chicago White Sox at New York Yankees, 7:05 PM
  (L) Mark Buehrle (13-11) vs. (R) Alfredo Aceves (1-0)
 Boston Red Sox at Tampa Bay Rays, 7:10 PM
  (R) Daisuke Matsuzaka (16-2) vs. (L) Scott Kazmir (11-6)
 Detroit Tigers at Texas Rangers, 8:05 PM
  (L) Dontrelle Willis (0-1) vs. (R) Brandon McCarthy (1-1)
 Seattle Mariners at Kansas City Royals, 8:10 PM
  (R) Carlos Silva (4-14) vs. (R) Kyle Davies (6-7)

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      88  59 .599    0.0   83     5    sparkline graph
BOS     88  61 .591    1.0   90    -2    sparkline graph
TOR     80  70 .533    9.5   85    -5    sparkline graph
NYA     79  70 .530   10.0   78     1    sparkline graph
BAL     66  82 .446   22.5   69    -3    sparkline graph
American League Central     
CHA     83  65 .561    0.0   83     0    sparkline graph
MIN     82  67 .550    1.5   84    -2    sparkline graph
CLE     72  77 .483   11.5   77    -5    sparkline graph
DET     70  78 .473   13.0   72    -2    sparkline graph
KC      65  84 .436   18.5   62     3    sparkline graph
American League West        
LAA     92  57 .617    0.0   82    10    sparkline graph
TEX     73  77 .487   19.5   69     4    sparkline graph
OAK     69  80 .463   23.0   70    -1    sparkline graph
SEA     57  91 .385   34.5   62    -5    sparkline graph


National League East        Pwins  Diff
NYN     83  65 .561    0.0   83     0    sparkline graph
PHI     83  67 .553    1.0   86    -3    sparkline graph
FLA     77  72 .517    6.5   72     5    sparkline graph
ATL     67  83 .447   17.0   73    -6    sparkline graph
WAS     56  93 .376   27.5   58    -2    sparkline graph
National League Central     
CHN     89  58 .605    0.0   92    -3    sparkline graph
MIL     83  67 .553    7.5   80     3    sparkline graph
HOU     80  68 .541    9.5   73     7    sparkline graph
STL     78  71 .523   12.0   78     0    sparkline graph
CIN     68  81 .456   22.0   65     3    sparkline graph
PIT     63  86 .423   27.0   61     2    sparkline graph
National League West        
LAN     77  72 .517    0.0   79    -2    sparkline graph
ARI     72  76 .486    4.5   75    -3    sparkline graph
SF      68  81 .456    9.0   64     4    sparkline graph
COL     68  82 .453    9.5   67     1    sparkline graph
SD      57  93 .380   20.5   62    -5    sparkline graph


Wildcard Standings
American League             
BOS     88  61 .591    0.0
MIN     82  67 .550    6.0
TOR     80  70 .533    8.5
NYA     79  70 .530    9.0
TEX     73  77 .487   15.5
National League             
PHI     83  67 .553    0.0
MIL     83  67 .553    0.0
HOU     80  68 .541    2.0
STL     78  71 .523    4.5
FLA     77  72 .517    5.5

Game of the Day

Braves 7, Mets 4 - FINAL

ATLANTA                ab  r  h rbi bb so lob   avg
J Anderson cf           5  1  1  0   0  3   0  .281
M Prado 2b              1  2  1  0   3  0   0  .330
 M Gonzalez p           0  0  0  0   0  0   0  .000
C Jones 3b              5  1  3  1   0  0   1  .365
B McCann c              3  0  1  0   1  0   3  .298
 G Blanco pr-rf-lf      1  0  1  1   0  0   0  .257
O Infante lf-ss         4  0  1  1   1  2   4  .302
J Francoeur rf          4  0  0  0   0  1   6  .233
 C Miller c             0  0  0  1   0  0   2  .086
C Kotchman 1b           5  1  1  0   0  1   2  .219
B Lillibridge ss        3  0  0  0   0  1   0  .175
 vb-K Johnson ph-2b     1  1  1  0   0  0   0  .284
J Campillo p            2  0  0  0   0  2   0  .190
 J Bennett p            0  0  0  0   0  0   0  .222
 W Ohman p              0  0  0  0   0  0   0  .000
 va-Y Escobar ph        1  0  0  0   0  0   0  .288
 J Tavarez p            0  0  0  0   0  0   0  .000
 J Julio p              0  0  0  0   0  0   0  .000
 vc-G Norton ph         1  1  1  3   0  0   0  .244
 B Jones rf             0  0  0  0   0  0   0  .265

Totals                 36  7 11  7   5 10  18   ###

NY METS                ab  r  h rbi bb so lob   avg
J Reyes ss              4  0  1  0   1  0   1  .299
D Murphy lf             4  1  1  0   0  1   1  .360
 E Chavez lf            1  0  0  0   0  0   2  .271
D Wright 3b             5  2  4  3   0  1   1  .301
C Delgado 1b            5  0  3  0   0  1   2  .267
C Beltran cf            3  0  0  0   2  0   3  .283
R Church rf             4  0  1  0   0  3   5  .293
 hb-F Tatis ph          1  0  0  0   0  1   2  .300
L Castillo 2b           5  0  1  0   0  1   3  .251
B Schneider c           4  0  1  0   0  1   1  .256
O Perez p               2  1  1  0   0  0   0  .118
 S Schoeneweis p        0  0  0  0   0  0   0  .000
 J Smith p              0  0  0  0   0  0   0  .000
 ha-M Anderson ph       1  0  0  0   0  0   0  .215
 L Ayala p              0  0  0  0   0  0   0  .000
 P Feliciano p          0  0  0  0   0  0   0  .000
 B Stokes p             0  0  0  0   0  0   0  .667

Totals                 39  4 13  3   3  9  21   ###

----------------------------------------------------
    ATLANTA         - 101 000 005   --   7 11 2
    NY METS         - 102 100 000   --   4 13 0
----------------------------------------------------

va-grounded to third for W Ohman in the 7th;  ha-flied out to right for J Smith 
in the 8th;  vb-singled to left for B Lillibridge in the 9th;  vc-homered to 
right for J Julio in the 9th;  hb-struck out swinging for R Church in the 
9th.

BATTING: 2B - C Jones (23, O Perez); G Blanco (14, P Feliciano); C Delgado (28, 
J Campillo). HR - D Wright 2 (31, 1st inning off J Campillo 0 on, 2 Out, 3rd 
inning off J Campillo 1 on, 0 Out), G Norton (7, 9th inning off L Ayala 2 on, 0 
Out). S - M Prado , O Perez. SF - C Miller. RBI - O Infante (37), C Jones (72), 
G Norton 3 (30), G Blanco (38), C Miller (4), D Wright 3 (114). 2-out RBI - O 
Infante, D Wright. Runners left in scoring position, 2 out - C Kotchman 1, J 
Francoeur 3, B McCann 1, E Chavez 2, R Church 3, L Castillo 1, J Reyes 1. GIDP 
- C Beltran. Team LOB - ATLANTA 9, NY METS 12. BASERUNNING: SB - L Castillo 
(16, 2nd base off J Julio/C Miller), J Reyes (50, 2nd base off J Julio/C 
Miller). FIELDING: E - J Campillo (4, catch); B Lillibridge (3, throw). DP:  (B 
Lillibridge-C Kotchman). 

ATLANTA                      ip       h   r  er  bb  so  hr    era
J Campillo                    3 2/3   8   4   3   1   2   2   3.79
J Bennett                     1 1/3   1   0   0   0   2   0   4.01
W Ohman                       1       0   0   0   0   1   0   3.49
J Tavarez                     1       1   0   0   1   2   0   4.38
J Julio (W, 2-0)              1       1   0   0   1   1   0   1.42
M Gonzalez (S, 11)            1       2   0   0   0   1   0   3.99

NY METS                      ip       h   r  er  bb  so  hr    era
O Perez                       7       4   2   2   3   8   0   4.09
S Schoeneweis (H, 14)           1/3   2   0   0   0   0   0   3.08
J Smith (H, 17)                 2/3   0   0   0   0   2   0   3.55
L Ayala (L, 2-9; B, 6)        0       3   3   3   0   0   1   5.48
P Feliciano                     1/3   2   2   2   2   0   0   4.09
B Stokes                        2/3   0   0   0   0   0   0   3.08

L Ayala pitched to 3 batters in the 9th.

IBB - O Infante (by P Feliciano), C Beltran (by J Tavarez), J Reyes (by J 
Julio). BALK - J Tavarez. Pitches-strikes: J Campillo 87-54; J Bennett 13-9; W 
Ohman 15-9; J Tavarez 28-18; J Julio 22-11; M Gonzalez 20-12; O Perez 111-69; S 
Schoeneweis 6-6; J Smith 9-7; L Ayala 11-7; P Feliciano 19-8; B Stokes 7-5. 
Ground balls-fly balls: J Campillo 7-2; J Bennett 2-0; W Ohman 0-2; J Tavarez 
1-0; J Julio 1-1; M Gonzalez 1-1; O Perez 3-10; S Schoeneweis 0-1; J Smith 0-0; 
L Ayala 0-0; P Feliciano 1-0; B Stokes 0-2. Batters faced: J Campillo 20; J 
Bennett 4; W Ohman 3; J Tavarez 6; J Julio 5; M Gonzalez 5; O Perez 28; S 
Schoeneweis 3; J Smith 2; L Ayala 3; P Feliciano 5; B Stokes 2. IRS - B Stokes. 
UMPIRES: HP--Gary Cederstrom. 1B--Fieldin Culbreth. 2B--Jim Reynolds. 3B--Tim 
Timmons.   T--3:29. Att--56,041. Weather: 86 degrees, partly cloudy. Wind: 12 
mph, right to left.

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

Yesterday’s Home Runs

The following stats are provided by Hit Tracker, which logs the projected “true” distance of each home run (if it were to land uninterrupted at field level) and its "standard" distance, which is corrected for weather conditions. Each homer is also categorized into one of three types: Just Enough (JE) for homers that cleared the fence by ten feet or less, Plenty (PL) for those that were sure home runs but not “blasts,” and No Doubt (ND) for true “blasts”—homers that cleared the fence by at least 20 feet and landed at least 50 feet beyond the fence.
Hitter                Team    Pitcher              Team   True   Stnd.  # Type
Brian Anderson        CWS     Kenny Rogers         DET     426    407   8  PL
Jose Bautista         TOR     Jon Lester           BOS     393    358  14  JE/L
Jay Bruce             CIN     Max Scherzer         ARI     377    371  18  PL
Pat Burrell           PHI     Jeff Suppan          MIL     421    411  31  ND
Mike Cameron          MIL     Joe Blanton          PHI     408    397  25  ND
Aaron Cunningham      OAK     Warner Madrigal      TEX       0      0   1  0
Ray Durham            MIL     Joe Blanton          PHI     394    385   6  JE/L
Prince Fielder        MIL     Brett Myers          PHI     381    373  30  JE/L
Jason Giambi          NYY     Edwin Jackson        TB      407    405  30  ND
Curtis Granderson     DET     Boone Logan          CWS     401    387  20  PL
Mike Hessman          DET     Scott Linebrink      CWS       0      0   4  0
Ryan Howard           PHI     Dave Bush            MIL     358    349  44  PL/L
Derek Jeter           NYY     David Price          TB      393    384  11  PL
Ryan Langerhans       WAS     Doug Waechter        FLA     411    420   3  PL
Nick Markakis         BAL     Philip Humber        MIN     384    381  20  PL
Nick Markakis         BAL     Nick Blackburn       MIN     372    366  19  JE/L
Nate McLouth          PIT     Randy Flores         STL     404    420  26  ND
Lou Montanez          BAL     Nick Blackburn       MIN     369    363   1  PL/L
Greg Norton           ATL     Luis Ayala           NYM     422    422   7  ND
Magglio Ordonez       DET     Bobby Jenks          CWS     424    420  21  PL
Corey Patterson       CIN     Jon Rauch            ARI     369    363   9  PL
Fernando Perez        TB      Carl Pavano          NYY     385    381   1  PL
Alexei Ramirez        CWS     Justin Verlander     DET     362    358  17  JE
Alex Rodriguez        NYY     Edwin Jackson        TB      435    426  34  ND
Oscar Salazar         BAL     Nick Blackburn       MIN       0      0   5  0
Oscar Salazar         BAL     Nick Blackburn       MIN     400    393   4  PL
Ryan Shealy           KC      Jeremy Sowers        CLE     417    408   4  PL
Ryan Shealy           KC      Tom Mastny           CLE     419    408   3  ND
Alfonso Soriano       CHC     Randy Wolf           HOU       0      0  28  0
Mark Teixeira         LAA     Felix Hernandez      SEA     430    419  30  PL
Marcus Thames         DET     Octavio Dotel        CWS     436    420  25  ND
Jim Thome             CWS     Kenny Rogers         DET     425    413  30  PL
Justin Upton          ARI     Johnny Cueto         CIN     441    433  12  PL
Shane Victorino       PHI     Brian Shouse         MIL     389    380  12  PL
Dewayne Wise          CWS     Kyle Farnsworth      DET     384    376   3  PL
David Wright          NYM     Jorge Campillo       ATL     386    373  31  PL
David Wright          NYM     Jorge Campillo       ATL     444    407  30  ND

Access THT’s stats here…
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