The Hardball Times

THT Daily: Homerun Club

by Matthew Carruth
August 05, 2007

Major League News for August 5

Player News
Yesterday’s Results
Today’s Games
Standings
Top Minor League Performances
Stats

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

Player News
Player news items are provided by Rotoworld
After on-and-off negotiations all season, Carlos Zambrano said he's ready to sign a five-year extension to stay with the Cubs.
"I'm ready to sign," Zambrano said. "My hand is ready to sign that contract. Just bring it to me. I want to stay here and be a Cubbie for a long time." He added he'd be willing to do the deal before the end of the season. He's hoping for around $18 million per season.

Barry Bonds will sit out Sunday's series finale in San Diego, and will get his next chance to make history on Monday at home against Washington.
Clay Hensley, who served a minor league suspension for steroids, became the 445th pitcher to surrender a home run to Bonds Saturday night for No. 755. Hank held the HR record for the past thirty-three years, three months and 27 days.

Manager Jim Leyland said he hopes Kenny Rogers will start August 10, but he said at this point, "it's all speculation."
With his uncertain status, it's a gamble starting the Gambler in week 19. Rogers went 3-0 with a 1.04 ERA in his first three starts, but went just 0-2 with a 9.98 ERA in his past three trips to the hill before landing on the shelf.

Barry Bonds broke an extended slump with his 755th career home run Saturday, tying Hank Aaron for the MLB career mark.
Leading off the second, Bonds hit a no doubter to left field off Clay Hensley, standing in the batter's box to admire his historic long ball while the fans rose as one. He should get at least three more at-bats tonight to try to break the record, assuming the Giants don't pull him early as they have many times in recent games.

Alex Rodriguez hit a three-run homer in the bottom of the first inning Saturday to finally reach the 500-homer plateau for his career.
After struggling through an 0-for-19 skid since launching his 499th homer on July 25, A-Rod had shown signs of life the past couple of games, going 3-for-8. His blast, coming off new Royal starter Kyle Davies, makes Rodriguez the youngest player in major league history to achieve 500 home runs. With this milestone blast -- his 36th of the season -- out of the way, expect Rodriguez to return to the form that made him arguably the best fantasy player in the game over the first half of the season.

Braves placed SS Edgar Renteria on the 15-day disabled list with a sprained ankle.
Renteria left Thursday's game in the eighth inning, with Chipper Jones sliding over to shortstop, but the Braves will go with Yunel Escobar as his full-time replacement. Losing Renteria now is a huge blow to the Braves' playoff chances, as he was hitting .336 with an 879 OPS in 105 games.

Yesterday’s Results
American League
NYA    16  KC      8    (Recap and Boxscore)
TB      9  BAL     2    (Recap and Boxscore)
TOR     9  TEX     5    (Recap and Boxscore)
CHA     7  DET     5    (Recap and Boxscore)
MIN     3  CLE     2    (Recap and Boxscore)
OAK     2  LAA     1    (Recap and Boxscore)
BOS     4  SEA     3    (Recap and Boxscore)

National League
ATL     6  COL     4    (Recap and Boxscore)
FLA     6  HOU     5    (Recap and Boxscore)
WAS    12  STL     1    (Recap and Boxscore)
CHN     6  NYN     2    (Recap and Boxscore)
MIL     6  PHI     5    (Recap and Boxscore)
CIN     9  PIT     8    (Recap and Boxscore)
ARI     8  LAN     7    (Recap and Boxscore)
SD      3  SF      2    (Recap and Boxscore)


Today’s Games
National League
 ---------------
 Colorado Rockies at Atlanta Braves, 1:05 PM
  (R) Aaron Cook (8-6) vs. (L) Chuck James (9-8)
 Houston Astros at Florida Marlins, 1:05 PM
  (R) Matt Albers (2-4) vs. (L) Scott Olsen (8-9)
 Cincinnati Reds at Pittsburgh Pirates, 1:35 PM
  (R) Bronson Arroyo (4-12) vs. (L) Tom Gorzelanny (9-6)
 St. Louis Cardinals at Washington Nationals, 1:35 PM
  (R) Adam Wainwright (10-8) vs. (L) Matt Chico (5-6)
 Philadelphia Phillies at Milwaukee Brewers, 2:05 PM
  (R) Adam Eaton (9-7) vs. (R) Jeff Suppan (8-9)
 San Francisco Giants at San Diego Padres, 4:05 PM
  (L) Noah Lowry (12-7) vs. (R) Justin Germano (6-6)
 Arizona Diamondbacks at Los Angeles Dodgers, 4:10 PM
  (R) Brandon Webb (10-8) vs. (R) Brad Penny (13-2)
 New York Mets at Chicago Cubs, 8:05 PM
  (L) Tom Glavine (9-6) vs. (R) Jason Marquis (8-6)
 
 American League
 ---------------
 Chicago White Sox at Detroit Tigers, 1:05 PM
  (R) Gavin Floyd (0-1) vs. (R) Jordan Tata (1-0)
 Kansas City Royals at New York Yankees, 1:05 PM
  (R) Gil Meche (7-8) vs. (R) Mike Mussina (6-7)
 Texas Rangers at Toronto Blue Jays, 1:07 PM
  (R) Brandon McCarthy (5-7) vs. (R) Dustin McGowan (7-5)
 Baltimore Orioles at Tampa Bay Devil Rays, 1:40 PM
  (L) Erik Bedard (11-4) vs. (R) Andrew Sonnanstine (1-6)
 Cleveland Indians at Minnesota Twins, 2:10 PM
  (R) Fausto Carmona (13-5) vs. (R) Scott Baker (5-4)
 LA Angels of Anaheim at Oakland Athletics, 4:05 PM
  (R) John Lackey (13-6) vs. (R) Danny Haren (13-3)
 Boston Red Sox at Seattle Mariners, 4:05 PM
  (R) Josh Beckett (13-5) vs. (R) Miguel Batista (11-7)
 


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
BOS     67  43 .609    0.0   68    -1    sparkline graph
NYA     60  50 .545    7.0   68    -8    sparkline graph
TOR     55  54 .505   11.5   58    -3    sparkline graph
BAL     51  58 .468   15.5   55    -4    sparkline graph
TB      42  67 .385   24.5   40     2    sparkline graph
American League Central     
CLE     62  48 .564    0.0   60     2    sparkline graph
DET     61  48 .560    0.5   62    -1    sparkline graph
MIN     56  53 .514    5.5   56     0    sparkline graph
CHA     51  59 .464   11.0   46     5    sparkline graph
KC      48  61 .440   13.5   51    -3    sparkline graph
American League West        
LAA     63  46 .578    0.0   61     2    sparkline graph
SEA     60  48 .556    2.5   54     6    sparkline graph
OAK     53  58 .477   11.0   56    -3    sparkline graph
TEX     48  62 .436   15.5   49    -1    sparkline graph


National League East        Pwins  Diff
NYN     62  48 .564    0.0   60     2    sparkline graph
ATL     58  53 .523    4.5   59    -1    sparkline graph
PHI     57  53 .518    5.0   59    -2    sparkline graph
FLA     51  60 .459   11.5   52    -1    sparkline graph
WAS     50  60 .455   12.0   46     4    sparkline graph
National League Central     
MIL     60  51 .541    0.0   58     2    sparkline graph
CHN     58  51 .532    1.0   61    -3    sparkline graph
STL     50  57 .467    8.0   44     6    sparkline graph
HOU     48  62 .436   11.5   48     0    sparkline graph
CIN     47  64 .423   13.0   50    -3    sparkline graph
PIT     44  64 .407   14.5   44     0    sparkline graph
National League West        
ARI     62  50 .554    0.0   53     9    sparkline graph
SD      59  50 .541    1.5   60    -1    sparkline graph
LAN     58  52 .527    3.0   58     0    sparkline graph
COL     56  53 .514    4.5   56     0    sparkline graph
SF      47  61 .435   13.0   53    -6    sparkline graph


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
CIN AAA Jay Bruce......... 4  2  1  0  0  1  1  
ARI AA  Carlos Gonzalez... 4  3  1  0  0  0  1  
BOS AA  Chad Spann........ 5  4  1  0  2  1  0  7 RBI !
PIT AA  Andrew McCutchen.. 5  3  0  0  1  0  1  
OAK A-  Matthew Sulentic.. 5  2  0  0  1  0  3  
FLA A+  Gaby Sanchez...... 5  2  0  1  1  0  0  
CLE AA  Trevor Crowe...... 4  2  0  0  0  1  1  2 SB
WAN A+  Justin Maxwell.... 4  2  0  0  1  1  1  2 SB
TEX AA  C. Davis.......... 3  2  1  0  1  1  0  
OAK A   J. Mitchell....... 5  2  0  0  0  1  1  
DET A+  Cameron Maybin.... 4  1  0  0  1  0  0  
CHC A+  Brian Dopirak..... 4  2  1  0  1  0  2  

ORG LVL PLAYER            IP  H  R ER SO BB HR  Notes
PIT AA  Todd Redmond...... 6  5  2  2  7  1  0  
COL A+  Brandon Hynick.... 7  7  1  1  7  0  0  
TB  A   J. Hellickson..... 5  4  1  1  5  1  0  
NYY AAA Joba Chamberlain.. 2  1  0  0  5  0  0  
CHW AAA Lance Broadway.... 7  5  2  2  7  3  1  
ATL A   Jamie Richmond.... 8  6  1  1  5  0  1  
CLE AA  Scott Lewis....... 7  6  2  2  6  0  2  
SEA AAA Ryan Feierabend... 9  8  2  2  2  0  0  
MIN AA  Anthony Swarzak... 5  4  1  1  5  1  1  
TEX AAA Ezequiel Astacio.. 3  1  0  0  4  1  0  
BAL A-  Zachary Britton... 5  7  3  3  3  0  0  14 GB
NYM AA  Kevin Mulvey...... 7  7  4  2  2  0  1  12 GB


THT Stats

Access all of THT’s stats here…
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Matthew Carruth is an editor for The Hardball Times. He welcomes any and all sorts of communication at his email.

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