THT Daily: Here come the Brewers
by THT StaffJuly 24, 2008
Player News
Yesterday’s Results
Today’s Games
Standings
Game of the Day
Yesterday’s Home Runs
Top Minor League Performances
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 |
| Mike Mussina pitched eight shutout innings last night, and Craig still couldn't remember his name. (Icon/SMI) |
C.C. Sabathia pitched a three-hit shutout for Milwaukee against the Cardinals on Wednesday night. Sabathia has made four starts for the Brewers, and three have been complete games. He's allowed just five runs in 33 innings for Milwaukee, and the team has won every one of his starts. He's posted a 31/8 K/BB ratio in the meantime. Not bad for this year's poster boy for "don't panic in April."
Carlos Quentin belted two homers - the second a game-winner - as the White Sox came from behind to defeat the Rangers on Wednesday. "The Carlos Quentin" hit a solo shot in the fifth, and his three-run blast in the bottom of the ninth proved to be the game-winner for Chicago. Quentin leads the league with 26 home runs, and now has 76 RBI. His acquisition is looking like a genius move by Chicago GM Ken Williams. Alexei Ramirez, another "under the radar" addition by Williams, scooped a ball to first on the run to make an out that should be one of the season's better highlights.
Chipper Jones doesn't believe he'll need to go on the DL after suffering a strained left hamstring in Wednesday's game. However, it does look like he'll miss some time. "It’s sore right now," he said. "Hopefully it feels a lot better and I’ll be able to get in there in a couple of days. As of right now it doesn’t look good." Omar Infante and Martin Prado will fill in if Chipper can't play this weekend against the Phillies.
Yesterday’s Results
Game recaps provided by Craig Calcaterra of Shysterball.Yankees 5, Twins 1: At the Reds game on Tuesday night, there was a trivia question on the board that went "name the four post-1900 pitchers whose last name started with the letter M and who notched 250+ wins." I got Maddux and Mathewson quickly, and after a few seconds I got Morris, but I'll be damned if I couldn't come up with Mussina before they flashed the answer on the board. Which is crazy, actually, considering that (a) he's active; (b) his team is on national TV all the damn time; and (c) he's having something of a renaissance a year after being left for dead, both by me and many others. Moose is 13-6 with a 3.26 ERA. He's got 263 career wins now, and for some reason he still seems to fly under the radar.
Brewers 3, Cardinals 0: CC Sabathia is doing his 1998 Randy Johnson impression, shutting out the cards on three hits over 106 pitches and lowering his post-trade ERA to 1.36. He's simply a beast. My dream matchup this year would be the Sunday, September 28th battle between the Cubs and Brewers with the teams tied for first place and Sabathia facing Zambrano for all of the marbles. Goosebumps, baby! Oh wait, it's almost certain that the loser of such a matchup would win the Wild Card anyway, and depending on how the first round pairings worked out, one team may decide to simply rest everyone, making it one of the most anticlimactic games of the year. DAMN YOU WILD CARD!!
Mets 6, Phillies 3: This is why I tend not to join in those freakout-fests along with everyone else following a game like Tuesday night's loss. The beautiful thing about baseball is that there are so many damn games that hardly a single one is important in and of itself. Big loss? Big deal! They suited up again 24 hours later, the Mets won, and all of the sound an fury in the press and the blogosphere on Wednesday is rendered moot. Query why everyone gets to worked up about thing like that in the first place. Those kinds of reactions should be limited to football where everyone sits around for a week with nothing to do except obsess about the last game. Football sucks, by the way.
Reds 9, Padres 5: I dunno, Greg. 350 is a nice round number. Maybe that's enough. Maybe you don't need these morons in the sand shirts to bring you down any longer. Maybe your career has been too spectacular for you to be expected to have to sit and sweat out another Cla Meredith outing, only to be forced to tell reporters that you don't want to throttle him and his bullpen buddies who keep leaving you with no-decisions. There's golf to be played. Pull a Schmidt and leave mid-season. It just ain't worth it.
Rays 4, A's 3: The A's walked one time in the game. Someone needs to talk to the hitters in this organization about the importance of the base on balls.
Tigers 7, Royals 1: I think that even the Royals fans were hoping that Detroit would put up a ten-spot in the eighth so that they'd get to see Tony Pena again.
White Sox 10, Rangers 8: It wasn't Everyday Eddie's day as Guardado -- with some help from his friends -- coughs up a four run lead late to give the pale hose the win.
Braves 9, Marlins 4: Atlanta beats the Marlins, but loses Chipper to a strained hammy and Hudson to elbow tightness. That sound you hear is Frank Wren finally realizing that it's over, reaching for his cell phone, and calling anyone who might be interested in Teixeira.
Rockies 5, Dodgers 3: Great Brian Fuentes quote regarding all of the trade rumors:
It's kind of like closing -- you've got to block out the external factors, the score, crowd, who's batting. When I'm out there, I don't think about those things. And when I'm not at the park, I'm not thinking about baseball.If that's literally true -- if he's not thinking about the score or the batter on the mound and he doesn't think about baseball when he's not at the park -- doesn't that mean that he's never thinking about baseball?
Red Sox 6, Mariners 3: A day after Theo noted that, with respect to the bullpen, he was content to dance with the one what brung him, Boston's bullpen goes out puts up 6.2 innings of scoreless baseball. Slow and steady wins the race.
Pirates 8, Astros 7: That's no way to start that pennant run, Houston. Hmm, maybe they just need to trade for a few more veteran pitchers to really give a boost to that stretch run drive.
Cubs 10, Diamondbacks 6: Micah Owings came into a 4-3 game in the 8th inning, and left it 6-3 with the bases loaded. One Reed Johnson grand slam later and it was 10-3. Ladies and gentlemen, your first place Arizona Diamondbacks!
Giants 6, Nationals 4: Bengie Molina: "The beauty of the Western Division is that even though we've played so bad the last couple of weeks, we're still in it. Anything can happen. I've seen it before." Is it gonna happen? Nah. I just can't see it. But it would be perhaps the most awesomest thing ever if the Giants made a serious run at Arizona and L.A.. I think if that happened there would be serious talks about relegating the entire division to AAA in favor of the top five PCL teams or something.
Blue Jays 1, Orioles 1 [SUSPENDED]: I got suspended once. It happened after my buddy Brian Bailey and I thought it would be funny to sign up the VanDevender Jr. High School library up for a subscription to Playboy. I have no idea how we got busted. We only told like ten or twelve other 7th grade boys about it, and I'm sure none of them would have narced us out. I mean, we swore them to secrecy and everything.
Angels 14, Indians 11: Cleveland made the two point conversion but muffed the onside kick, so Phil Dawson never got the chance to tie it up and send it to sudden death. A shame, really.
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 --------------- Philadelphia Phillies at New York Mets, 12:10 PM (L) Jamie Moyer (9-6) vs. (L) Oliver Perez (6-6) Washington Nationals at San Francisco Giants, 3:45 PM (R) Tim Redding (7-4) vs. (R) Matt Cain (5-8) San Diego Padres at Pittsburgh Pirates, 7:05 PM (R) Clay Hensley (1-0) vs. (R) Yoslan Herrera (0-1) Florida Marlins at Chicago Cubs, 8:05 PM (L) Scott Olsen (6-4) vs. (R) Carlos Zambrano (10-4) Milwaukee Brewers at St. Louis Cardinals, 8:15 PM (R) Ben Sheets (10-3) vs. (R) Todd Wellemeyer (8-4) American League --------------- Toronto Blue Jays at Baltimore Orioles, 12:35 PM (R) Roy Halladay (11-7) vs. (R) Daniel Cabrera (6-5) Tampa Bay Rays at Kansas City Royals, 8:10 PM (R) Matt Garza (8-5) vs. (R) Gil Meche (7-9)
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 58 41 .586 0.0 54 4BOS 59 43 .578 0.5 61 -2
NYA 55 45 .550 3.5 55 0
TOR 49 51 .490 9.5 52 -3
BAL 48 51 .485 10.0 49 -1
American League Central CHA 56 43 .566 0.0 58 -2
MIN 55 45 .550 1.5 52 3
DET 51 49 .510 5.5 53 -2
KC 45 56 .446 12.0 43 2
CLE 44 55 .444 12.0 51 -7
American League West LAA 61 39 .610 0.0 53 8
OAK 52 48 .520 9.0 57 -5
TEX 52 49 .515 9.5 47 5
SEA 38 62 .380 23.0 42 -4
National League East Pwins Diff PHI 54 46 .540 0.0 58 -4
FLA 53 47 .530 1.0 48 5
NYN 53 47 .530 1.0 53 0
ATL 47 53 .470 7.0 53 -6
WAS 38 62 .380 16.0 39 -1
National League Central CHN 58 42 .580 0.0 60 -2
MIL 57 43 .570 1.0 53 4
STL 57 45 .559 2.0 54 3
CIN 49 53 .480 10.0 46 3
HOU 46 54 .460 12.0 44 2
PIT 46 54 .460 12.0 43 3
National League West ARI 50 50 .500 0.0 51 -1
LAN 49 51 .490 1.0 51 -2
COL 44 58 .431 7.0 45 -1
SF 41 58 .414 8.5 42 -1
SD 38 63 .376 12.5 40 -2
Game of the Day
TEXAS (8) VS CHI WHITE SOX (10) - FINAL
TEXAS ab r h rbi bb so lob avg
I Kinsler 2b 5 0 2 1 0 1 1 .325
M Young ss 5 1 2 2 0 2 2 .294
J Hamilton cf 4 0 0 0 1 3 2 .305
M Bradley dh 3 2 1 0 0 0 0 .309
a-F Catalanotto ph 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 .280
M Byrd rf 5 1 1 0 0 0 1 .245
H Blalock 3b 4 1 1 1 0 1 1 .278
J Saltalamacchia c 4 0 1 2 0 2 1 .223
C Davis 1b 4 1 2 0 0 2 2 .278
D Murphy lf 2 2 1 1 2 1 0 .273
Totals 37 8 11 7 3 12 11
a-flied out to center for M Bradley in the 9th.
BATTING: 2B - I Kinsler (35, C Richard); C Davis (4, C Richard); M Bradley (23,
D Carrasco). HR - M Young (8, 1st inning off C Richard 0 on, 1 Out). SF - H
Blalock. RBI - M Young 2 (54), I Kinsler (60), D Murphy (61), H Blalock (10), J
Saltalamacchia 2 (22). 2-out RBI - I Kinsler, D Murphy, M Young, J
Saltalamacchia 2. Runners left in scoring position, 2 out - M Byrd 1, J
Hamilton 2, H Blalock 1, M Young 2, C Davis 1. Team LOB - 7.
BASERUNNING: SB - H Blalock (1, 2nd base off C Richard/T Hall), D Murphy (7,
2nd base off C Richard/T Hall), I Kinsler (25, 3rd base off C Richard/T Hall),
M Young (7, 2nd base off C Richard/T Hall). CS - C Davis (1, 2nd base by D
Carrasco/T Hall).
FIELDING: E - J Saltalamacchia (7, throw). DP: 1 (H Blalock-I Kinsler-C
Davis).
CHI WHITE SOX ab r h rbi bb so lob avg
O Cabrera ss 3 2 2 1 1 0 3 .265
N Swisher cf-1b 3 1 0 0 2 2 3 .235
C Quentin lf 4 3 2 4 0 0 1 .279
J Dye rf 4 0 1 1 1 2 2 .314
J Thome dh 4 1 1 3 1 2 2 .258
P Konerko 1b 4 1 1 0 0 2 1 .218
B Anderson cf 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .230
A Ramirez 2b 4 1 1 1 0 0 0 .307
T Hall c 3 0 0 0 1 2 1 .278
J Uribe 3b 2 1 1 0 2 1 0 .229
Totals 31 10 9 10 8 11 13
BATTING: 2B - J Dye (23, J Wright); P Konerko (11, E Guardado); J Uribe (11, E
Guardado). HR - J Thome (19, 1st inning off K Millwood 2 on, 2 Out), C Quentin
2 (26, 5th inning off W Madrigal 0 on, 1 Out, 8th inning off C Wilson 2 on, 2
Out). SF - O Cabrera. RBI - J Thome 3 (56), C Quentin 4 (76), J Dye (60), A
Ramirez (35), O Cabrera (42). 2-out RBI - J Thome 3, J Dye, C Quentin 3.
Runners left in scoring position, 2 out - J Thome 1, O Cabrera 1, N Swisher 1.
GIDP - C Quentin. Team LOB - 7.
BASERUNNING: SB - O Cabrera (16, 2nd base off K Millwood/J Saltalamacchia), J
Uribe (1, 2nd base off K Millwood/J Saltalamacchia).
FIELDING: E - J Uribe (3, throw); A Ramirez (8, catch); T Hall (2, dropped
foul ball); D Carrasco (1, throw).
----------------------------------------------------
TEXAS - 120 210 200 -- 8
CHI WHITE SOX - 300 010 15x -- 10
----------------------------------------------------
TEXAS ip h r er bb so hr era
K Millwood 1 2/3 2 3 3 2 3 1 5.40
J Rupe 2 1/3 0 0 0 2 2 0 4.31
W Madrigal 2 1 1 1 1 5 1 7.20
J Wright 1 2 1 1 1 0 0 4.50
E Guardado (L, 1-2; H, 21) 2/3 3 4 4 1 0 0 3.65
C Wilson (B, 3) 1/3 1 1 1 1 1 1 5.06
CHI WHITE SOX ip h r er bb so hr era
C Richard 4 7 5 4 1 7 1 9.00
D Carrasco 2 2 1 1 1 2 0 1.74
B Logan 1 2 2 2 0 1 0 4.25
O Dotel (W, 4-4) 1 0 0 0 0 2 0 3.00
B Jenks (S, 19) 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 1.83
WP - E Guardado. HBP - C Quentin (by K Millwood); M Bradley (by B Logan).
Pitches-strikes: K Millwood 38-19; J Rupe 42-26; W Madrigal 34-23; J Wright
21-12; E Guardado 25-13; C Wilson 11-5; C Richard 85-50; D Carrasco 30-17; B
Logan 19-15; O Dotel 8-8; B Jenks 15-9. Ground balls-fly balls: K Millwood 0-2;
J Rupe 3-2; W Madrigal 1-0; J Wright 3-0; E Guardado 0-2; C Wilson 0-0; C
Richard 2-3; D Carrasco 1-2; B Logan 2-0; O Dotel 0-1; B Jenks 1-2. Batters
faced: K Millwood 10; J Rupe 9; W Madrigal 8; J Wright 5; E Guardado 6; C
Wilson 3; C Richard 21; D Carrasco 8; B Logan 6; O Dotel 3; B Jenks 4.
UMPIRES: HP--Rob Drake. 1B--Brian Knight. 2B--Hunter Wendelstedt. 3B--Mike
Winters.
EJECTIONS: CHI WHITE SOX's Guillen by Drake (7th).
T--3:05. Att--35,353.
Weather: 76 degrees, sunny. Wind: 14 mph, out to
right.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.
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 Jason Bay PIT Brian Moehler HOU 0 0 21 0 Emil Brown OAK James Shields TB 405 404 8 PL Ryan Bruan MIL Jason Isringhausen STL 380 374 1 PL Tony Clark ARI Ted Lilly CHC 0 0 2 0 Adam Dunn CIN Joe Thatcher SD 398 377 29 PL Edwin Encarnacion CIN Cla Meredith SD 373 360 19 PL Jesus Flores WAS Kevin Correia SF 0 0 6 0 Ryan Garko CLE John Lackey LAA 393 380 8 JE/L Jody Gerut SD Bronson Arroyo CIN 423 392 5 ND Jonny Gomes TB Greg Smith OAK 0 0 8 0 Carlos Gonzalez OAK James Shields TB 400 399 3 ND Luis Gonzalez FLA Buddy Carlyle ATL 0 0 6 0 J.J. Hardy MIL Braden Looper STL 368 363 14 JE Raul Ibanez SEA Clay Buchholz BOS 0 0 14 0 Geoff Jenkins PHI John Maine NYM 420 417 9 ND Reed Johnson CHC Leo Rosales ARI 0 0 4 0 Kevin Kouzmanoff SD Bronson Arroyo CIN 408 390 13 JE/L Derrek Lee CHC Doug Davis ARI 0 0 16 0 Jeff Mathis LAA Tom Mastny CLE 435 415 8 PL Kazuo Matsui HOU Ian Snell PIT 0 0 2 0 Carlos Quentin CWS Warner Madrigal TEX 408 387 25 JE/L Carlos Quentin CWS C.J. Wilson TEX 417 407 24 PL Jose Reyes NYM Ryan Madson PHI 380 377 11 PL Grady Sizemore CLE Darren O'Day LAA 377 358 25 PL Chris Snyder ARI Bob Howry CHC 0 0 8 0 Jim Thome CWS Kevin Millwood TEX 418 403 19 PL Javier Valentin CIN Greg Maddux SD 404 385 1 PL Shane Victorino PHI John Maine NYM 409 406 7 PL Jose Vidro SEA Clay Buchholz BOS 0 0 6 0 Michael Young TEX Clayton Richard CWS 383 368 8 PL Ben Zobrist TB Greg Smith OAK 375 374 5 JE
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, with a focus on each team’s top prospects.ORG LVL PLAYER AB H 2B 3B HR BB SO Notes CHW AA Brandon Allen..... 3 3 1 1 1 0 0 MIN AAA Jason Pridie...... 5 3 0 0 2 0 1 STL A+ Daryl Jones....... 4 4 0 0 1 1 0 4 RBI TEX AAA Nelson Cruz....... 5 2 0 0 2 0 1 STL AA Jose Martinez..... 4 3 1 0 1 0 0 OAK A+ Matthew Sulentic.. 4 3 2 0 0 1 0 CHC A- Kyler Burke....... 5 4 2 0 0 0 1 FLA AAA Dallas McPherson.. 5 4 0 0 1 0 0 OAK A+ Matthew Spencer... 4 3 2 0 0 0 0 SD A+ Kellen Kulbacki... 5 4 0 0 1 0 1 3 R KC A Mike Moustakas.... 4 3 2 0 0 0 0 ATL AA Kala Kaaihue...... 4 2 2 0 0 0 1 ORG LVL PLAYER IP H R ER SO BB HR Notes COL A Bruce Billings.... 9 0 0 0 8 1 0 BAL A+ Jake Arrieta...... 7 3 0 0 8 3 0 OAK AA Brett Anderson.... 7 6 3 2 8 2 0 NYY A+ Ryan Pope......... 7 4 3 3 7 2 0 MIN A David Bromberg.... 7 4 2 0 6 2 0 PHI AA Carlos Carrasco... 6 3 3 3 7 1 1 TOR A Marc Rzepczynski.. 6 4 4 3 7 3 0 SD AA Steve Garrison.... 6 3 1 0 5 2 0 WAN AAA Tyler Clippard.... 7 4 2 2 4 2 0 CLE A+ K. De La Cruz..... 5 5 3 3 6 2 0 SF A Daryl Maday....... 7 6 2 2 5 0 1 TOR AA Ricky Romero...... 8 5 1 1 3 2 0 19 GB
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