THT Daily: Four More
by Matthew CarruthApril 23, 2007
Major League News for April 23
Today's LinksPlayer News
Yesterday’s Results
Today’s Games
Standings
Top Minor League Performances
Stats
Today's Links
Are Economics Driving Blacks Away from Baseball? - C.W. Nevius of the SF Chronicle examines if the economic changes in youth baseball are the root cause of the declining black presence in baseball. Seems plausible, but how about the rising percentage of Latino players who come from worse economic backgrounds?Of Interest to Some of You - A detailed economic look at fandom of baseball in Korea and the U.S. And I really mean detailed.
Sisco Slams Royals - He does it somewhat passively, but Andrew Sisco definitely insults the Royals, calling his trade to the White Sox a "rescue mission."
A Cool Quarter-Bill - Mike Pindelski looks at some people who might be able to land baseball's next $250+ million contract. With all due respect to the economic craziness in baseball, I don't think any pitcher is going to get one in the near future. GMs are dumb, but I don't think anyone is dumb enough to risk that much for that long on a pitcher. Miguel Cabrera though, that one might be even money.
Home Field Advantage: Part 1 - Daniel McIlroy at the Batter's Box takes a look at homefield advantage throughout the ages.
Home Field Advantage: Part 2 - Part 2 of above.
THT Links represents the best efforts of our editors in scouring the various tubes of the interweb for both relevant and irrelevant news items. If you have happened upon a story that we have overlooked or wish to give feedback of any sort, please notify us at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Player News
Player Headlines are courtesy of RotoworldSurprised to learn that he's being passed over to replace Rich Harden (shoulder) as Oakland's starter Tuesday, Brad Halsey called the A's "a mom-and-pop organization."
The A's will apparently turn to Dallas Braden instead, with Halsey suggesting that his arm soreness is the reason. "I kept going in and saying, 'My arm is bothering me, it's not right,' and they said, 'Oh, it's just biceps tendinitis, you'll be fine,''' Halsey said. "Then they send you down and screw you. I'm grinding it out, trying to be a team guy, and I get [screwed]. It's all just a business decision, because if I came up and pitched Tuesday and then had an MRI and had to go on the DL, they'd have to pay me major-league DL money."
Mike Lowell hit one of Boston's four straight solo homers in the third and later added a three-run shot in the sixth as the Red Sox won 7-6 on Sunday night to complete their first home sweep of the Yankees since 1990.
Chase Wright pitched scoreless ball for two innings and got two quick outs to begin the third, but he then gave up consecutive home runs to Manny Ramirez, J.D. Drew, Lowell and Jason Varitek, none of them cheap. It was Lowell's second homer that barely got over the Green Monster, giving him his first two-homer game since 2004. It was the fifth time in major league history that a team hit four straight homers. Drew also had one for the Dodgers the last time it happened, Sept. 18, 2006 against the Padres.
Rich Harden (shoulder) will not make his scheduled start Tuesday against Baltimore.
Even though he was able to get through a throwing session Sunday. "We're not going to put him on the disabled list," manager Bob Geren said. "He had a really good day throwing and we feel like he'll be ready sooner rather than later." Brad Halsey could be called up to start in Harden's place.
Matt Cain threw a three-hitter in the Giants' 2-1 win over the Diamondbacks on Saturday.
It was a one-hitter until the ninth. Manager Bruce Bochy was probably right to send him back out for the ninth, as he was under 100 pitches and Armando Benitez had worked three straight days, but it almost backfired when the first two batters reached against him. Fortunately, Orlando Hudson hit into a double play, and after a walk to Chad Tracy, Cain was able to retire Tony Clark to end it. It's the third career complete game for Cain, who has allowed just 11 hits in 29 innings this season. If the Giants can keep him healthy, a top-three Cy Young finish is a possibility.
The Rangers are listing Eric Gagne as day-to-day because of a strained hip.
Maybe he's day-to-day, but we wouldn't be surprised to see him returned to the disabled list. Akinori Otsuka will fill the closer's role for as long as Gagne is out.
Albert Pujols went 3-for-6 and hit a three-run homer off Ryan Dempster in the top of the 10th to give the Cardinals a 12-9 win over the Cubs on Sunday.
The exciting game featured the Cardinals taking a two-run lead on Scott Rolen's triple in the top of the ninth, giving it back when Jason Isringhausen suffered his first blown save and then going back on top against a closer who hadn't given up a run this year. Pujols is up to five homers and 12 RBI in 18 games. It still qualifies as a slow start for him, but he's going to be just fine.
Milton Bradley left Sunday's game in the sixth inning after aggravating his left hamstring injury.
Bradley was hurt beating out an infield single. He convinced the trainer to let him stay in and run the bases, but he didn't return to center field in the bottom of the inning. Todd Walker replaced him, sending Nick Swisher from first base to center field. Maybe Bradley needs a DL stint to get him back to 100 percent.
Dan Uggla crushed a pair of home runs and added an RBI single to help the Marlins pummel Washington 12-6 on Sunday.
Uggla's sluggish start is officially over. He scored three and drove in six, three of which came on a 466-foot home run that put the game out of reach at 7-0 in the fourth. Facing the Nats was just the tonic Uggla needed to get his act together. He's lifted his BA up to a more palatable .260 and has avoided striking out in each of the last two games, something he was struggling with in the early going.
Yesterday’s Results
American League BAL 7 TOR 3 (Recap and Boxscore) BOS 7 NYA 6 (Recap and Boxscore) CLE 6 TB 4 (Recap and Boxscore) DET 6 CHA 5 (Recap and Boxscore) KC 3 MIN 1 (Recap and Boxscore) LAA 6 SEA 1 (Recap and Boxscore) TEX 4 OAK 3 (Recap and Boxscore) National League FLA 12 WAS 6 (Recap and Boxscore) ATL 9 NYN 6 (Recap and Boxscore) STL 12 CHN 9 (Recap and Boxscore) PHI 9 CIN 3 (Recap and Boxscore) MIL 4 HOU 3 (Recap and Boxscore) COL 4 SD 2 (Recap and Boxscore) PIT 7 LAN 5 (Recap and Boxscore) SF 2 ARI 1 (Recap and Boxscore)
Today’s Games
National League --------------- Houston Astros at Philadelphia Phillies, 7:05 PM (R) Chris Sampson (2-0) vs. (R) Adam Eaton (1-1) Atlanta Braves at Florida Marlins, 7:05 PM (R) Kyle Davies (0-0) vs. (L) Dontrelle Willis (3-1) Colorado Rockies at New York Mets, 7:10 PM (R) Taylor Buchholz (1-0) vs. (R) John Maine (2-0) Milwaukee Brewers at Chicago Cubs, 8:05 PM (R) Claudio Vargas (1-0) vs. (R) Carlos Zambrano (1-2) American League --------------- Oakland Athletics at Baltimore Orioles, 7:05 PM (R) Danny Haren (1-2) vs. (L) Erik Bedard (3-1) Toronto Blue Jays at Boston Red Sox, 7:05 PM (R) Tomo Ohka (0-2) vs. (R) Tim Wakefield (2-1) New York Yankees at Tampa Bay Devil Rays, 7:10 PM (L) Kei Igawa (1-0) vs. (L) Casey Fossum (1-1) Seattle Mariners at Texas Rangers, 8:05 PM (R) Cha Seung Baek (0-0) vs. (R) Kevin Millwood (2-2) Chicago White Sox at Kansas City Royals, 8:10 PM (L) Mark Buehrle (1-0) vs. (R) Gil Meche (1-1) Cleveland Indians at Minnesota Twins, 8:10 PM (L) Jeremy Sowers (0-1) vs. (R) Carlos Silva (1-1) Detroit Tigers at LA Angels of Anaheim, 10:05 PM (L) Mike Maroth (2-0) vs. (R) Jered Weaver (0-1)
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 12 5 .706 0.0 12 0BAL 11 7 .611 1.5 10 1
NYA 8 9 .471 4.0 11 -3
TOR 8 10 .444 4.5 9 -1
TB 7 11 .389 5.5 7 0
American League Central MIN 11 7 .611 0.0 10 1
DET 10 8 .556 1.0 10 0
CLE 8 7 .533 1.5 7 1
CHA 9 8 .529 1.5 8 1
KC 6 12 .333 5.0 7 -1
American League West LAA 9 9 .500 0.0 8 1
OAK 9 9 .500 0.0 10 -1
TEX 8 10 .444 1.0 8 0
SEA 5 9 .357 2.0 5 0
National League East Pwins Diff ATL 12 6 .667 0.0 10 2
NYN 11 6 .647 0.5 13 -2
FLA 8 10 .444 4.0 9 -1
PHI 6 11 .353 5.5 8 -2
WAS 6 13 .316 6.5 5 1
National League Central MIL 11 7 .611 0.0 9 2
HOU 9 8 .529 1.5 9 0
CIN 9 10 .474 2.5 8 1
STL 8 10 .444 3.0 8 0
PIT 7 10 .412 3.5 7 0
CHN 7 11 .389 4.0 10 -3
National League West LAN 13 6 .684 0.0 13 0
SD 11 8 .579 2.0 11 0
SF 9 8 .529 3.0 8 1
ARI 10 10 .500 3.5 10 0
COL 8 11 .421 5.0 8 0
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 POS AB H 2B 3B HR BB SO Notes
ATL AA Van Pope 3B 3 3 0 0 1 0 0
DET AAA Mike Hessman 3B 7 4 1 0 2 0 1 3 runs scored
FLA A Logan Morrison 1B 4 3 0 0 2 1 0 4 runs scored
PIT A Jamie Romak RF 4 4 2 0 0 0 0
SD A Jeremy Hunt 1B 5 4 0 0 1 0 0 .577 OBP during past week
SD AA Tim Brown 1B 5 3 0 0 2 0 0 3 runs scored
TEX AAA Freddy Guzman CF 3 3 1 1 0 2 0 3 runs scored
ORG LVL PLAYER IP H R ER SO BB HR Notes
ATL AA Jo-Jo Reyes 7.0 4 1 1 5 0 1
BOS A Dustin Richardson 5.0 2 0 0 8 1 0
CHC AA Mark Holliman 8.0 8 0 0 6 0 0 0 ER allowed over last 21 IP
CIN A Daryl Thompson 6.0 3 0 0 6 0 0 0.53 ERA over past month
LA A Josh Wall 7.0 3 0 0 6 0 0
MIL AAA Tim Dillard 7.0 2 0 0 3 2 0
MIL AA Manny Parra 7.0 5 1 1 7 1 0
SF A Benjamin Snyder 6.0 2 0 0 3 2 0
STL AA Jaime Garcia 6.0 2 1 1 7 1 1 Stats
Access all of THT’s stats here…{embed="content/2005stable"}
Matthew Carruth is an editor for The Hardball Times. He welcomes any and all sorts of communication at his email.
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