THT Daily: Ninth inning comebacks from The Hardball Times

THT Daily: Ninth inning comebacks

by Dave Studeman
June 28, 2009

Major League News for June 28

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
Cardinals acquired utilityman Mark DeRosa for RHP Chris Perez and a player to be named later.
The Cardinals scored a nice one here. While getting back at the division rival Cubs by adding a Chicago fan-favorite, the Birds also scooped up a versatile position player that can slide in at third base or play the outfield. On top of his jack-of-all-trades defensive abilities, the 34-year-old was batting a solid .270/.342/.457 with 13 home runs and 50 RBI in 278 at-bats for the Indians. He'll be in St. Louis Sunday.

Homer Bailey allowed three earned runs on three hits and seven walks Saturday in his return to the Reds' starting rotation.
A better offense would have really hammered him. Bailey is up to his same old tricks, putting up great numbers at the Triple-A level only to have them nullified once he reaches the bigs. We wouldn't trust him -- or at least not until he does something positive at the major league level.

A.J. Burnett fanned 10 over seven innings and combined with two relievers on a one-hit shutout of the Mets on Saturday.
Alex Cora's sixth-inning single broke up the no-hit bid. Burnett walked three and threw 108 pitches in his seven innings. Brian Bruney and David Robertson went on to finish up the 5-0 game. Burnett also pitched seven scoreless innings against the Mets on June 14. He's awfully inconsistent, but he's on a nice run now and it could last for a while.

Gordon Beckham hit a walk-off RBI single in the bottom of the ninth inning Saturday as the White Sox took down the Cubs 8-7.
Beckham struggled out of the gate upon his promoted in early June, and is still having trouble putting it all together. He finished 2-for-5 with a run scored Saturday on top of the ninth inning heroics, but it's becoming clear that he might not be a fantasy asset until 2010 or 2011.

Adrian Beltre has decided to undergo surgery next week to remove the bone chips from his right shoulder.
The exact date hasn't been decided, but he'll be out up to eight weeks once he goes under the knife. Beltre has been trying to play through the discomfort. "It would be different if I was helping the team, but I'm not," he said Saturday. The procedure, and its required rehab time, make the third baseman virtually untradeable.

Tim Wakefield hurled six shutout innings Saturday as the Red Sox captured a 1-0 victory against the Braves.
Wakefield continued his dominance on Saturday afternoon in Atlanta, surrendering only three hits and one walk. He fanned just a single batter, but fantasy owners already know what to expect from Wakefield in the strikeout department. The veteran is now 10-3 on the season with a 4.18 ERA and a 1.36 WHIP.

Albert Pujols was 2-for-2 with a pair of two-run homers in a win over the Twins on Saturday afternoon.
He also walked twice in the 5-3 win. Pujols now has 29 multi-homer games in his career, including six this season. El Hombre leads the majors with 28 bombs and 74 RBI.

J.A. Happ threw his first career complete game shutout against the Blue Jays on Saturday afternoon.
Happ needed exactly 100 pitches to do it. He gave up just five hits -- four of them singles -- while striking out four and not issuing a walk. The rookie southpaw now has a perfect 5-0 record to go along with a 3.00 ERA and 1.23 WHIP. The complete game effort broke a three game losing streak for the Phillies. Happ will face the division-rival Mets in his next start.

Yesterday’s Results

For the full scoop regarding yesterday's games, read "And That Happened" at Shysterball.

American League
BAL     6  WAS     3    (Recap and Boxscore)
TB      3  FLA     2    (Recap and Boxscore)
PHI    10  TOR     0    (Recap and Boxscore)
CHA     8  CHN     7    (Recap and Boxscore)
CIN     7  CLE     3    (Recap and Boxscore)
COL    11  OAK     9    (Recap and Boxscore)
SD      7  TEX     3    (Recap and Boxscore)

National League
BOS     1  ATL     0    (Recap and Boxscore)
NYA     5  NYN     0    (Recap and Boxscore)
HOU     8  DET     1    (Recap and Boxscore)
MIL     7  SF      6    (Recap and Boxscore)
PIT     6  KC      2    (Recap and Boxscore)
STL     5  MIN     3    (Recap and Boxscore)
LAA     2  ARI     1    (Recap and Boxscore)
SEA     5  LAN     1    (Recap and Boxscore)

Check out Fangraphs' scoreboard to see all the games in action.

Today’s Games

National League
 ---------------
 San Francisco Giants at Milwaukee Brewers, 2:05 PM
  (L) Jonathan Sanchez (2-8) vs. (R) Jeff Suppan (5-5)
 
 Inter-League
 ------------
 Cincinnati Reds at Cleveland Indians, 1:05 PM
  (R) Micah Owings (4-8) vs. (L) David Huff (3-2)
 Philadelphia Phillies at Toronto Blue Jays, 1:07 PM
  (L) Jamie Moyer (5-6) vs. (L) Brian Tallet (5-4)
 Washington Nationals at Baltimore Orioles, 1:35 PM
  (L) John Lannan (4-5) vs. (R) David Hernandez (1-1)
 Kansas City Royals at Pittsburgh Pirates, 1:35 PM
  (R) Zack Greinke (9-3) vs. (R) Charlie Morton (0-0)
 Boston Red Sox at Atlanta Braves, 1:35 PM
  (R) Brad Penny (6-2) vs. (R) Tommy Hanson (3-0)
 Florida Marlins at Tampa Bay Rays, 1:38 PM
  (L) Andrew Miller (2-3) vs. (L) David Price (1-2)
 Detroit Tigers at Houston Astros, 2:05 PM
  (R) Edwin Jackson (6-4) vs. (R) Russ Ortiz (3-3)
 Chicago Cubs at Chicago White Sox, 2:05 PM
  (R) Carlos Zambrano (4-2) vs. (L) John Danks (5-6)
 Minnesota Twins at St. Louis Cardinals, 2:15 PM
  (L) Francisco Liriano (3-8) vs. (R) Joel Pineiro (6-8)
 Colorado Rockies at Oakland Athletics, 4:05 PM
  (R) Aaron Cook (7-3) vs. (R) Vin Mazzaro (2-2)
 LA Angels of Anaheim at Arizona Diamondbacks, 4:10 PM
  (R) Matt Palmer (6-1) vs. (R) Max Scherzer (5-4)
 Seattle Mariners at Los Angeles Dodgers, 4:10 PM
  (L) Garrett Olson (2-2) vs. (R) Hiroki Kuroda (2-3)
 New York Yankees at New York Mets, 8:05 PM
  (R) Chien-Ming Wang (0-6) vs. (R) Livan Hernandez (5-2)
 San Diego Padres at Texas Rangers, 8:05 PM
  (R) Chad Gaudin (3-6) vs. (L) Matt Harrison (4-5)

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     46  28 .622    0.0   44     2    
NYA     42  32 .568    4.0   42     0    
TB      41  35 .539    6.0   46    -5    
TOR     41  35 .539    6.0   42    -1    
BAL     34  40 .459   12.0   32     2    
American League Central     
DET     41  33 .554    0.0   40     1    
MIN     38  38 .500    4.0   40    -2    
CHA     36  38 .486    5.0   35     1    
KC      31  42 .425    9.5   30     1    
CLE     31  45 .408   11.0   36    -5    
American League West        
LAA     40  32 .556    0.0   37     3    
TEX     40  33 .548    0.5   38     2    
SEA     38  36 .514    3.0   35     3    
OAK     31  42 .425    9.5   32    -1    


National League East        Pwins  Diff
PHI     38  34 .528    0.0   38     0    
NYN     37  36 .507    1.5   36     1    
FLA     38  38 .500    2.0   36     2    
ATL     34  40 .459    5.0   35    -1    
WAS     21  51 .292   17.0   27    -6    
National League Central     
MIL     40  34 .541    0.0   38     2    
STL     41  35 .539    0.0   41     0    
CIN     36  37 .493    3.5   35     1    
CHN     35  36 .493    3.5   36    -1    
HOU     35  37 .486    4.0   33     2    
PIT     35  39 .473    5.0   38    -3    
National League West        
LAN     48  27 .640    0.0   46     2    
SF      39  34 .534    8.0   37     2    
COL     39  35 .527    8.5   40    -1    
SD      32  41 .438   15.0   28     4    
ARI     30  45 .400   18.0   33    -3

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
SF  A+  Roger Kieschnick.. 4  3  1  0  2  1  0  6 RBI !
SEA A+  Alex Liddi........ 4  3  0  0  2  1  0  5 RBI !
STL AAA Brett Wallace..... 4  3  1  0  1  0  0  
LAA AAA Howie Kendrick.... 5  3  0  1  1  0  0  3 R
CHC A   Josh Vitters...... 6  3  0  0  1  0  2  
TB  AAA Matthew Joyce..... 5  2  2  0  0  0  1  
HOU AAA Justin Towles..... 4  3  2  0  0  0  1  3 R
OAK AAA Aaron Cunningham.. 3  2  0  0  1  2  0  3 R
SEA AAA Jeff Clement...... 4  2  1  0  1  0  2  
LA  A   A. Delmonico...... 6  2  2  0  0  0  2  
MIL A   Brett Lawrie...... 6  2  2  0  0  0  1  
CHC A+  Brandon Guyer..... 5  2  1  1  0  0  1  

ORG LVL PLAYER            IP  H  R ER SO BB HR  Notes
PIT AAA Tom Gorzelanny.... 5  4  2  0 12  2  0  
LA  A+  Steven Johnson.... 7  3  0  0  7  1  0  
BOS A+  Casey Kelly....... 7  1  0  0  4  0  0  12 GB
MIL A   Cody Scarpetta.... 5  4  0  0  6  0  0  
HOU A+  C. Hicks.......... 7  4  1  1  5  1  0  
TB  AA  J. Hellickson..... 5  4  2  2  6  1  0  
DET A+  Mauricio Robles... 6  6  4  4 10  1  2  
BOS AAA Clay Buchholz..... 6  4  2  1  6  2  0  
TB  A   Matthew Moore..... 5  4  0  0  7  2  0  
LAA AAA Trevor Bell....... 7  4  1  1  4  1  0  
CIN A   Matthew Fairel.... 6  4  2  2  6  2  1  
BAL AA  Brian Matusz...... 5  3  1  1  5  3  0  9 GB

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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