The Hardball Times

THT Daily: Will the Mets hang in there?

by Matthew Carruth
September 18, 2007

Major League News for September 18

Today’s Links
Player News
Yesterday’s Results
Today’s Games
Standings

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

THT Links

Congratulations David! - David Pinto will be joining the team at SportingNews.com in October. David runs one of the best baseball blogs out there, and it's always great to see a blogger get mainstream recognition.

There's still baseball - Baseball America previews this season's Hawaii Winter League, which features new stadiums, players from MLB and Nippon Professional Baseball and some recent top draft picks. Here are the rosters.

How to count pitches - Tangotiger chimes in with how he would do pitch counts. A nice reminder that there's always more granular data that can be collected about players.

Barbarians at the gate - Lawsuits are flying around the proposed private equity takeover of Topps.

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 Rotoworld

Frank Thomas hit career homers No. 510, 511 and 512 to drive in five of the Jays' six runs Monday in a win over the Red Sox. Thomas' first two homers came off Tim Wakefield. The second just barely managed to catch the pole as it was beginning to hook foul. He went deep for a third time in the eighth off Kyle Davies. Thomas overtook Mel Ott and moved into a tie with Ernie Banks and Eddie Mathews for 19th place on the all-time homer list tonight. It was his second career three-homer game. The other came Sept. 15, 1996. Wakefield was the victim all three times that night.

Chad Tracy, who came off the DL on Sunday to act as a pinch-hitter, will undergo season-ending surgery. If he had done this 10 days ago, he'd be on the 60-day DL and Enrique Gonzalez would still be Diamondbacks property. Tracy is believed to have loose fragments in the knee. If that's the only problem, he'll be ready in plenty of time for spring training.

Carl Crawford probably won't play at all against the Angels after straining his left groin Sunday. "I’m just still not sure yet, because right now I don’t even like walking on it," he said. "I think I might try to ride the bike or something tomorrow, but as of right now it’s uncomfortable for me to walk." Jonny Gomes figures to start at least the next three games in left field.

Yesterday’s Results

American League
NYA     8  BAL     5    (Recap and Boxscore)
TOR     6  BOS     1    (Recap and Boxscore)
CLE     6  DET     5    (Recap and Boxscore)
CHA    11  KC      3    (Recap and Boxscore)
MIN     5  TEX     4    (Recap and Boxscore)
LAA    10  TB      7    (Recap and Boxscore)
SEA     4  OAK     0    (Recap and Boxscore)

National League
ATL    11  FLA     6    (Recap and Boxscore)
WAS    12  NYN     4    (Recap and Boxscore)
CHN     7  CIN     6    (Recap and Boxscore)
MIL     6  HOU     0    (Recap and Boxscore)
PHI    13  STL    11    (Recap and Boxscore)
SF      8  ARI     5    (Recap and Boxscore)
SD      3  PIT     0    (Recap and Boxscore)

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
 ---------------
 Los Angeles Dodgers at Colorado Rockies, 3:05 PM
  (R) Chad Billingsley (11-4) vs. (L) Jeff Francis (15-8)
 New York Mets at Washington Nationals, 7:05 PM
  (R) John Maine (14-9) vs. (R) Joel Hanrahan (4-3)
 Florida Marlins at Atlanta Braves, 7:35 PM
  (L) Chris Seddon (0-0) vs. (L) Jo-Jo Reyes (0-2)
 Cincinnati Reds at Chicago Cubs, 8:05 PM
  (R) Aaron Harang (15-4) vs. (R) Carlos Zambrano (16-12)
 Milwaukee Brewers at Houston Astros, 8:05 PM
  (R) Ben Sheets (12-5) vs. (R) Felipe Paulino (0-0)
 Philadelphia Phillies at St. Louis Cardinals, 8:10 PM
  (L) Cole Hamels (14-5) vs. (R) Todd Wellemeyer (3-2)
 Los Angeles Dodgers at Colorado Rockies, 8:35 PM
  (L) David Wells (8-8) vs. (L) Mark Redman (1-4)
 San Francisco Giants at Arizona Diamondbacks, 9:40 PM
  (L) Jonathan Sanchez (1-4) vs. (R) Micah Owings (6-8)
 Pittsburgh Pirates at San Diego Padres, 10:05 PM
  (L) Tom Gorzelanny (14-7) vs. (R) Greg Maddux (12-10)
 
 American League
 ---------------
 Detroit Tigers at Cleveland Indians, 7:05 PM
  (R) Justin Verlander (17-5) vs. (R) Jake Westbrook (5-9)
 Baltimore Orioles at New York Yankees, 7:05 PM
  (R) Jon Leicester (2-1) vs. (R) Mike Mussina (9-10)
 Boston Red Sox at Toronto Blue Jays, 7:07 PM
  (L) Jon Lester (4-0) vs. (R) AJ Burnett (8-7)
 Texas Rangers at Minnesota Twins, 8:10 PM
  (R) Kevin Millwood (9-12) vs. (R) Carlos Silva (11-14)
 Chicago White Sox at Kansas City Royals, 8:10 PM
  (R) Gavin Floyd (1-3) vs. (R) Gil Meche (8-12)
 Tampa Bay Devil Rays at LA Angels of Anaheim, 10:05 PM
  (R) Jason Hammel (2-4) vs. (R) John Lackey (16-9)
 Seattle Mariners at Oakland Athletics, 10:05 PM
  (R) Jeff Weaver (6-12) vs. (R) Chad Gaudin (11-11)

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     90  61 .596    0.0   95    -5    
NYA     86  64 .573    3.5   90    -4    
TOR     75  75 .500   14.5   79    -4    
BAL     64  85 .430   25.0   66    -2    
TB      63  88 .417   27.0   63     0    
American League Central     
CLE     88  62 .587    0.0   84     4    
DET     83  68 .550    5.5   82     1    
MIN     73  77 .487   15.0   75    -2    
CHA     65  85 .433   23.0   60     5    
KC      64  85 .430   23.5   69    -5    
American League West        
LAA     88  62 .587    0.0   85     3    
SEA     79  70 .530    8.5   72     7    
OAK     74  78 .487   15.0   76    -2    
TEX     70  80 .467   18.0   72    -2    


National League East        Pwins  Diff
NYN     83  66 .557    0.0   80     3    
PHI     81  69 .540    2.5   80     1    
ATL     77  73 .513    6.5   82    -5    
WAS     67  83 .447   16.5   64     3    
FLA     65  85 .433   18.5   66    -1    
National League Central     
CHN     79  72 .523    0.0   81    -2    
MIL     77  72 .517    1.0   75     2    
STL     70  79 .470    8.0   66     4    
CIN     68  82 .453   10.5   69    -1    
PIT     66  84 .440   12.5   67    -1    
HOU     65  85 .433   13.5   65     0    
National League West        
ARI     84  67 .556    0.0   73    11    
SD      82  67 .550    1.0   82     0    
LAN     79  70 .530    4.0   78     1    
COL     77  72 .517    6.0   81    -4    
SF      67  83 .447   16.5   72    -5    


Wildcard Standings
American League             
NYA     86  64 .573    0.0
DET     83  68 .550    3.5
SEA     79  70 .530    6.5
TOR     75  75 .500   11.0
MIN     73  77 .487   13.0
National League             
SD      82  67 .550    0.0
PHI     81  69 .540    1.5
LAN     79  70 .530    3.0
MIL     77  72 .517    5.0
COL     77  72 .517    5.0

Access THT’s stats here…


Matthew Carruth is an editor for The Hardball Times. He welcomes any and all sorts of communication at his email.

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