The Hardball Times

THT Daily: Meet the other league

by Dave Studeman
May 23, 2009

Major League News for May 23


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
Michael Cuddyer hit for the cycle against the Brewers on Friday night.
He hit a three-run home run in the first inning, a double in the third, a single in the fourth and then triple on a broken-bat liner to complete the cycle in the sixth. Cuddyer is the 10th Twin to hit for the cycle. He joins teammate Jason Kubel, who hit for the cycle on April 17. Cuddyer matched a career-high with five RBI and has now homered in a career-best three consecutive games.

Despite three errors behind him, Johan Santana moved to 6-3 by holding the Red Sox to three runs -- two of them earned -- over seven innings in a 5-3 victory on Friday night.
A gutsy performance by Santana. With the three errors, he threw far more pitches (118) than he would have otherwise, but he routinely buckled down and got big outs when he needed to. Tonight he gave up six hits, including a home run to Jason Varitek, with eight strikeouts and one walk. His ERA moved to 1.50 in the win.

In his first start back from the disabled list, Daisuke Matsuzaka gave up four runs over five innings in a 5-3 loss to the Mets on Friday night.
Matsuzaka struck out the first two batters he faced, but he was missing up a lot and got hurt by it. Julio Lugo didn't help him out very much, either, with a lazy turn on a potential double play that eventually netted two more runs. All told, he gave up five hits, including a solo home run to Gary Sheffield, while walking two and striking out four. He fell to 0-2 with the loss and gets the Twins next time out.

Chien-Ming Wang yielded two runs over three innings of relief in a 7-3 loss to the Phillies on Friday night.
And he didn't look good. He gave up six hits over the three frames, including an absolute blast to Raul Ibanez, while walking one and striking out two. He labored, throwing 51 pitches, 29 of them for strikes over the three innings. But hey, at least his ERA went down to 25.00.

Manager Ozzie Guillen will be leaving the team Friday to be with his ailing father-in-law in Venezuela.
Guillen will leave after Friday's game against the Pirates and be back some time on Sunday. Bench coach Joey Cora will manage the Sox during his absence.

Cubs placed RHP Rich Harden on the 15-day disabled list, retroactive to May 18, with a mid-back strain.
Harden tweaked his back last Sunday and aggravated it during a few days later. He won't be eligible to return until June 2. Carlos Zambrano was, ironically, activated from the 15-day DL Friday, and will take his place in the rotation.

Chien-Ming Wang was reportedly called back to New York Thursday night after Joba Chamberlain departed with a bruised knee.
Wang will be activated from the disabled list before Friday's game and will be available out of the bullpen as a long reliever. The plan for him to make another start at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre has obviously been aborted.


Yesterday’s Results

For the full scoop regarding yesterday's games, read "And That Happened" at Shysterball.
American League
NYN     5  BOS     3    (Recap and Boxscore)
PHI     7  NYA     3    (Recap and Boxscore)
CHA     2  PIT     0    (Recap and Boxscore)
DET     4  COL     3    (Recap and Boxscore)
MIN    11  MIL     3    (Recap and Boxscore)
ARI     2  OAK     1    (Recap and Boxscore)
SEA     2  SF      1    (Recap and Boxscore)

National League
ATL     1  TOR     0    (Recap and Boxscore)
TB     15  FLA     2    (Recap and Boxscore)
BAL     4  WAS     2    (Recap and Boxscore)
CIN     3  CLE     1    (Recap and Boxscore)
TEX     6  HOU     5    (Recap and Boxscore)
STL     5  KC      0    (Recap and Boxscore)
LAA     3  LAN     1    (Recap and Boxscore)
SD      4  CHN     0    (Recap and Boxscore)
Check out Fangraphs' scoreboard to see all the games in action.



Today’s Games

National League
 ---------------
 Chicago Cubs at San Diego Padres, 10:05 PM
  (R) Randy Wells (0-0) vs. (R) Josh Geer (0-1)
 
 Inter-League
 ------------
 Kansas City Royals at St. Louis Cardinals, 1:10 PM
  (R) Luke Hochevar (0-1) vs. (R) Kyle Lohse (3-3)
 Philadelphia Phillies at New York Yankees, 4:10 PM
  (L) J.A. Happ (2-0) vs. (L) Andy Pettitte (4-1)
 Texas Rangers at Houston Astros, 4:10 PM
  (R) Scott Feldman (2-0) vs. (R) Brian Moehler (1-2)
 Baltimore Orioles at Washington Nationals, 7:05 PM
  (R) Koji Uehara (2-3) vs. (L) Ross Detwiler (0-0)
 Pittsburgh Pirates at Chicago White Sox, 7:05 PM
  (R) Ross Ohlendorf (5-3) vs. (L) Clayton Richard (0-0)
 Colorado Rockies at Detroit Tigers, 7:05 PM
  (R) Jason Marquis (5-3) vs. (R) Armando Galarraga (3-3)
 Milwaukee Brewers at Minnesota Twins, 7:10 PM
  (R) Braden Looper (4-2) vs. (R) Anthony Swarzak (0-0)
 Tampa Bay Rays at Florida Marlins, 7:10 PM
  (R) Jeff Niemann (4-3) vs. (L) David Davidson (0-0)
 New York Mets at Boston Red Sox, 7:10 PM
  (R) Mike Pelfrey (4-1) vs. (R) Josh Beckett (4-2)
 Toronto Blue Jays at Atlanta Braves, 7:10 PM
  (R) Casey Janssen (0-0) vs. (R) Derek Lowe (5-2)
 Cleveland Indians at Cincinnati Reds, 7:10 PM
  (L) David Huff (0-1) vs. (R) Homer Bailey (0-0)
 Arizona Diamondbacks at Oakland Athletics, 9:05 PM
  (R) Dan Haren (3-4) vs. (R) Edgar G. Gonzalez (0-0)
 LA Angels of Anaheim at Los Angeles Dodgers, 10:10 PM
  (R) John Lackey (1-0) vs. (L) Randy Wolf (2-1)
 San Francisco Giants at Seattle Mariners, 10:10 PM
  (R) Matt Cain (4-1) vs. (L) Garrett Olson (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
TOR     27  18 .600    0.0   27     0    sparkline graph
BOS     25  17 .595    0.5   23     2    sparkline graph
NYA     24  18 .571    1.5   21     3    sparkline graph
TB      22  22 .500    4.5   25    -3    sparkline graph
BAL     17  25 .405    8.5   17     0    sparkline graph
American League Central     
DET     24  16 .600    0.0   24     0    sparkline graph
KC      21  21 .500    4.0   22    -1    sparkline graph
MIN     20  23 .465    5.5   22    -2    sparkline graph
CHA     18  23 .439    6.5   16     2    sparkline graph
CLE     16  27 .372    9.5   20    -4    sparkline graph
American League West        
TEX     24  17 .585    0.0   23     1    sparkline graph
LAA     22  19 .537    2.0   21     1    sparkline graph
SEA     20  23 .465    5.0   18     2    sparkline graph
OAK     15  24 .385    8.0   17    -2    sparkline graph


National League East        Pwins  Diff
PHI     23  17 .575    0.0   22     1    sparkline graph
NYN     22  19 .537    1.5   23    -1    sparkline graph
ATL     21  20 .512    2.5   20     1    sparkline graph
FLA     19  24 .442    5.5   18     1    sparkline graph
WAS     12  29 .293   11.5   16    -4    sparkline graph
National League Central     
MIL     26  16 .619    0.0   24     2    sparkline graph
STL     25  17 .595    1.0   23     2    sparkline graph
CIN     22  19 .537    3.5   21     1    sparkline graph
CHN     21  19 .525    4.0   21     0    sparkline graph
PIT     19  23 .452    7.0   22    -3    sparkline graph
HOU     18  22 .450    7.0   18     0    sparkline graph
National League West        
LAN     29  14 .674    0.0   29     0    sparkline graph
SD      20  22 .476    8.5   17     3    sparkline graph
SF      19  22 .463    9.0   18     1    sparkline graph
ARI     18  24 .429   10.5   18     0    sparkline graph
COL     16  25 .390   12.0   20    -4    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
OAK AA  Corey Brown....... 5  4  2  1  1  0  0  6 RBI !
COL A   Delta Cleary...... 4  3  1  0  1  0  0  
PIT A+  Pedro Alvarez..... 5  3  1  0  1  0  0  
LA  AA  Andrew Lambo...... 4  3  1  0  1  0  0  
BOS A   Tim Federowicz.... 6  4  1  0  0  0  0  
SD  A   Jaff Decker....... 2  1  0  0  1  3  0  
LAA AAA Brandon Wood...... 4  2  1  0  1  0  1  
COL AA  Michael McKenry... 4  2  1  0  1  0  1  
STL AAA Bryan Anderson.... 5  2  0  1  1  0  3  
OAK AA  Adrian Cardenas... 5  4  1  0  0  1  0  5 R
OAK AA  Chris Carter...... 6  2  2  0  0  1  1  3 R
CLE A+  L. Chisenhall..... 3  2  0  0  1  1  1  

ORG LVL PLAYER            IP  H  R ER SO BB HR  Notes
BAL AAA David Hernandez... 7  3  3  0 14  0  0  
OAK A+  Ben Hornbeck...... 6  1  0  0 12  1  0  
OAK AAA Vincent Mazzaro... 8  1  0  0  6  1  0  
COL AA  Esmil Rogers...... 7  3  1  1  8  1  0  
CIN AA  Zachary Stewart... 7  5  0  0  8  2  0  
CLE AA  Chuck Lofgren..... 6  4  1  0  8  2  0  
BAL AA  Jake Arrieta...... 6  6  3  3  9  1  1  
BOS AA  Junichi Tazawa.... 6  3  0  0  5  2  0  
ATL A   Craig Kimbrel..... 2  0  0  0  6  1  0  
MIL A+  Evan Anundsen..... 5  4  0  0  5  1  0  
NYY A+  Jeremy Bleich..... 6  5  1  1  4  1  0  12 GB
SF  A+  Scott Barnes...... 7  7  3  3  4  1  0


First Inning's Major and Minor League Daily Reports:


Dave was called a "national treasure" by Rob Neyer. Seriously. Comments about this article can be sent to him through the miracle of e-mail.

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