Bud Selig wants tougher penalties for drug abuse. Despite the fact that the players have already conceeded to reopening the CBA, and that testing seems to be working, Selig appears to be bending to Congressional pressure. I thought baseball owners owned the politicians.

Selig is blowing a chance to extend the cooperation between players and management. This is clearly a ploy to make the players look like the bad guys if they refuse the deal. It's too bad. I thought some trust had been developed between the parties. This has a potential to drive a wedge between the two sides once again.

I do agree on the amphetamine ban, however. If Selig had just asked for that in the context of the current testing, I'd support that. But this is going too far. As I've written before, the chance of a false positive is too high to have that harsh a penalty for a first offense.

A fine defensive play by Eric Byrnes to end the top of the 5th. The ball was hit in foul territory near the third base bullpen. Byrnes lept horizontally, got good air time, and made the catch parallel to the ground. Quite impressive, but he looks like he hurt his face on the landing.

The Milwaukee Brewers have loaded the bases in the 9th with 0 outs. It's tough not to win in this situation. Russell, Branyan makes his first out of the day flying out to shallow right, failing to drive in Lee from third.

Update: Damian Miller drives the ball over the drawn in right fielder for a single and a Brewer win. The crew came back from a 5-1 deficit to take the game 6-5.

With men on 1st and 3rd and one out, the Blue Jays walk pinch hitter Jorge Posada to face Tony Womack. It's an intersting move, in that it would have been easier to double Posada than Womack. And while you have a great chance to get Womack out, or cut down the runner at the plate, you have a great hitter in Jeter coming up next.

Update: Womack hits a solid line drive single to right-center to win the game for the Yankees.

Wang goes seven, leaves with the lead, and Gordon comes in and gives up a homer to Koskie to tie the game. The Jays now have runners on 1st and 2nd with one out. It's Gordon's second blown game of the year. Why take Wang out? He threw 81 pitches. Why do you have to go to Gordon just because this is the youngster's first MLB appearance? He was pitching well, let him keep going.

Junior hits his first home run of the season to extend the Reds lead over the Brewers to 4-1. Griffey had two great Aprils in a row in 1997 and 1998 when he hit 13 and 11 home runs respecitvely. I believe the 13 set a record for April at that time.

Ken Singleton brought up something in regards to the Blue Jays facing Wang. Nobody wants to be the first batter to strike out against the pitcher. I don't know why that matters so much, but the Jays have not struck out through five. They're putting the ball in play fairly early, so Chien has only thrown 54 pitches, 38 for strikes.

The Jays have also had four hits and scored 2 runs. Only two of the hits was a solid singles; the other three were well placed, infield hits. It just goes to show how much offense you can generate by putting the bat on the ball. Singles and ground outs all move runners.

Wang has a neat windup, Hideo Nomo without the back arch. The pause at the top of his delivery seems to be throwing off the timing of the Blue Jays hitters. New York leads Toronto 3-2 in the bottom of the 5th.

Calvin Pickering didn't make much of his chance in the majors this season, but Ken Harvey is starting out strong. His three for three today moves him to 6 for 12 since his callup, and he added a grand slam this afternoon. The Royals lead the Indians six to one.

I you live or near Longmeadow, MA, St. Mary's School is raffling off Red Sox tickets. I believe it's four box seats for the May 21st game vs. the Braves. Tickets are $1 each. They're selling in front of the Big Y today and next Saturday.

Does it get any better than Bush vs. Wang? Look for some Chien music from the Taiwanese pitcher today as he makes his major league debut against the Toronto Blue Jays. Chien has excellent strikeout and home run numbers in his minor league career. He needs the Yankees offense to straighten up, however, or he may suffer the same fate as Johnson at the hands of the Blue Jays.

David Bush has not lived up to his minor league numbers so far. He's already given up five home runs in 22 innings pitched this season; in his minor league career he allowed 19 in about 300 IP.

Jamie Moyer looks to go 5-0 in April as the Mariners face the Athletics and Joe Blanton in Oakland. Through 2004, Moyer averaged 5.5 K per 9. He's upped that to 6.5 per 9 this season. Blanton is losing despite a 1.75 ERA. The A's are scoring 1 run a start for Joe this season.

And if you're looking for some offense, the Cubs at the Astros offers two pitchers with ERAs over 5.00. Kerry Wood stand at 5.79 although he's coming off five decent innings vs. the Pirates. The Astros are another good choice for lowering his ERA. Brandon Backe's ERA is at 6.17 for the opposite reason; three decent starts, then the Cardinals pounded him last time out.

Enjoy!

Casey Abell laments in this post:

"Great pitching duels" are becoming tediously common. They're playing baseball tonight like it's 1968. Seven runs a game in the eleven completed games so far, with three shutouts. The four games in progress also look like low-run snoozers.

Baseball is still managing just over nine runs a game this season, thanks to the much-maligned DH. Otherwise, offense would look really bad. But offense is down big from last year. In fact, this is shaping up as the lowest scoring season since 1992.

I have to think that baseball can't avoid setting an attendance record this year, because they said bye-bye to Montreal and its tiny "crowds." If the poor offense continues, though, I can't see any kind of huge increase in attendance.

As it turned out, the 15 games last night average 7.1 runs per game. (Actually, 7.0667.) That is low for the offensive era, but not a record. Since the start of the 1993 season, there have been 26 days with lower average runs per game (minimum 10 games played), or about 2 a year. The lowest scoring day of this era happened on 6/14/1998, when the majors averaged 1 run less a game, 6.0667. If I remember correctly, that was an exciting month of ball as Sammy Sosa set a record for homers in June, and an exciting year as Sosa and McGwire battled for Maris' record.

Offense continues to be down for the year:

Through Same Number of Days	2004	2005
Games	333	335
Runs Per Game	9.8	9.2
HR Per Game	2.2	1.9

Good. Casey makes the mistake of believing that offense is the only thing that drives attendance. What drives attendance is exciting baseball. Sometimes lots of offense if exciting, and sometimes a well pitched, well defended game is exciting. I remember a close, low scoring game 7 of the 2001 World Series being one of the best games I've seen in recent times.

People think offense drives attendance because offense was the driving factor bringing people back to the ballpark after the 1994 strike. I'd argue, however, that what was bringing people back was the uniqueness of the era. We had not seen offense like that since 1930, and it was new and exciting. But after a while, it gets old. If offense was all that drove attendance, Coors would be full every day.

What if a starting pitcher goes after Hershiser's scoreless streak this season? That would draw interest. Or someone else had an ERA in the low 1's, or threatened to win 30 games. That would draw interest. And it would draw interest because we would start talking about records and comparisons to Hall of Famers and the like. Just like in 1998, it would draw fans because something unusual was happening.

What makes baseball boring for me is the pitcher holding onto the ball. I don't care how many runs score in a contest, if the pitcher takes forever to deliver a pitch, I go to another game. Last night I turned on the White Sox-Tigers game late. Urbina was on the mound taking forever. It was 2-1 Tigers at that point, and had an exciting finish with the Tigers winning in extra innings. But the pace was so slow I just turned to the DBacks-Padres where Webb and Peavy were not afraid to pitch to batters.

Casey may like high scoring game. That's great, everyone has different tastes. But it's a mistake to peg attendance to one side of the ball. The game can be exciting in many ways, and the majority of fans appreciate all of them.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

Soxblog remembers April 29, 1986, a day it was easy to get a ticket to Fenway Park. I was at Yankee Stadium that night, in town for a business trade show. It was real easy to get tickets to the Stadium then, too. The game was delayed by rain, then went on forever as the pitchers for the Twins and Yankees could not get the ball over the plate. It had to be one of the worst games I've ever seen. In the middle of the evening, a sign flashed on the scoreboard that Clemens had struck out 20. My friend sitting next to me started to wail, because he could have had Clemens in the 20th round of his fantasy draft and didn't take him.

Both teams have come a long way.

Sabermetrics and Moneyball get a mention on the show NUMB3RS tonight.

Jason Ellison continues to impress. He went three for five and scored the first run of the game. He's made the most of his first 30 AB, accumulating 14 hits, two walks and has stolen four bases in four attempts. We'll see if he can displace one of the geriatric Giants down the road. San Francisco wins in Pittsburgh 3-2.

A great pitching duel in New York as Roy Halladay outpitched Randy Johnson to win a close one 2-0. Roy outpitched the Big Unit, allowing only three hits and one walk as he pitched the complete game shutout. Johnson allowed 10 base runners, but it was a walk followed by a Hinske homer that did in Randy.

The Yankees offense wasted a good pitching performance for the second night in a row. The great Yankees teams of the late 1990's managed to win games like these. If the offense was down, the pitching would be stellar; if the pitchers had a bad game, the offense would score a ton of runs. That doesn't seem to be happening this season.

The homers have slowed, but Brian Roberts is still belting out the hits. He's only hit 1 home run since the 19th, but including his 2 for 2 so far tonight, he has 10 hits in his last five games, and he's hitting .382 with a .461 OBA.

Miguel Cabrera hit his first home since April 12th tonight. He's been hitting well since then with his average well above .300. But tonight he's added the power, and he's raised his slugging percentage for the year to .582. The Marlins lead the Phillies 5-1 in the sixth.

Livan Hernandez hits the Nationals third solo home run of the night to give Washington a 3-1 lead over the Mets in the bottom of the fifth. It's his 6th career homer.

C.C. Sabathia is off to a great start since coming off the DL. Through five innings tonight, he's struck out 15 in 17 2/3 innings. He's averaged 7.0 throughout his career; the K increase has helped him to a 1.02 ERA so far this season.

It looks like Baseball Tonight has its own blog! Not only is something like the whole cast writing, but they're getting guests like your Jim Thomes and George Wills. This should be fun.

Bleed Cubbie Blue links to an article on Dusty Baker's lack of use of young players.

When Dusty Baker took over as manager of the Cubs, he protested the “bad rap” he got in San Francisco for not “liking” young players.

Baker even said he wished he had a whole team of young players.

The Cubs don’t have a whole team full of young players, but they have had one of the most productive farm systems in baseball.

So has Baker beaten the rap? Hardly.

Baker has a perfect opportunity to work a pair of youngsters into important everyday situations, but he just won’t pull the trigger.

As veteran left fielder Todd Hollandsworth has struggled in the early going, Baker stubbornly refuses to give rookie Jason Dubois much more than a sip at a time.

The Cubs management could make it difficult for Dusty to use veterans by not signing them.

Some insight at Athletics Nation on how Eric Chavez fixed his swing.

Six players and both manager were either fined or suspended today for the Red Sox/Devil Rays brawl of last week. The suspensions are supposed to start tonight, but I assume they'll be appealed until the teams are ready to lose a start from their pitchers.

It's going to be a good night to watch baseball in Atlanta. First, Cox and La Russa become the first 2000 win managers to face each other since 1950. Second, old friends and teammates Mark Mulder and Tim Hudson battle against each other for the first time.

Mulder is coming off an impressive 10 inning shutout of the Houston Astros. He only threw 101 pitches in that outing, and is averaging 13.2 pitches per inning this season. Mulder has greatly cut down on his home runs allowed so far this year, giving up just 1 in 29 innings. Last year, he allowed 1 every 9 innings. Hudson is second in the NL in ERA at 0.96. He has not allowed more than 1 run in any of his four starts for the Braves.

Former Cy Young award winners face off in two games tonight. Roger Clemens host Greg Maddux in a battle of the two best pitchers of the 1990's. Clemens is still pitching that way, but Maddux has lost something. He used to be very good at keeping the ball in the park but has given up 39 homers in 236 2/3 innings dating back to the start of 2004.

Roy Halladay visits New York to face the Big Unit, Randy Johnson in the other battle of CYs. It should be an interesting weekend in the Big Apple, as I believe it's the first time a Wang has followed a Johnson in any rotation. That's a duo Bobby Cox should be managing. Rumors that the Yankees are thinking of hiring Dick Pole as a pitching coach are totally unfounded.

Enjoy!

Omar Vizquel is worried that Jose Mesa's feud with him isn't over:

"I am going to wear some extra padding because I'm not going to take any chances," Vizquel said. "If he hits me, I'll be ready. He still throws hard."

The feud developed between the once close friends when Omar showed up Mesa in an intersquad game, and then when Omar said some unkind things in his autobiography.

Mesa says it's over:

He insists he has no plan of hitting Vizquel in the head, back or any other body part.

"He's a professional. I'm a professional," Mesa said. "He's going to play his game, and I'm going to pitch my game. What happened is in the past. It's over."

Yes, these are grown men.

In the mail today was Larceny and Old Leather by Eldon Ham. It looks at the mischievous legacy of major league baseball. I'll be reviewing this book soon.

Here's a clever idea. A Curt Schilling "Bobble Ankle" figure is for sale with, you guessed it, an ankle that bobbles up and down. When you buy the doll, you're also making a donation to ALS and the Shade Foundantion. It's a great way for Schilling and Sox fans to remember the 2004 World Series Championship, and help others at the same time.

Tony Gwynn has been suspended for criticizing the Mountain West Conference. The former Padres great and current coach of the Aztecs had this to say:

After a three-game series at the Colorado academy on March 24-26 was postponed by snow, the two teams were scheduled to play three straight doubleheaders at San Diego last weekend. Air Force asked the league to waive its makeup policy, and the MWC Joint Council agreed to reduce the series to four games.

The decision angered Gwynn, who told the San Diego Union-Tribune that it was "an absolute joke."

"You want to know why this conference gets no respect in baseball? It's because of stuff like this," Gwynn told the newspaper. "It's hard to get credibility when they do stuff like this. We've got people around the country laughing at what's going on in the Mountain West Conference."

Tony was a true professional when he played the game, and it sounds like he doesn't tolerate people running the game in a haphazard manner. Good for him. Maybe the people who run the conference should also sit down with Tony and figure out how to improve things.

Wade Miller had a positive rehab start last night in Pawtucket.

Miller made his third rehab start, the first against Triple-A hitters, when he took the mound for the PawSox against Scranton/Wilkes Barre. He threw five scoreless innings in the PawSox' 1-0 win, allowing five hits (two infield bleeders) and two walks while striking out three. The Sox want him to make one more rehab start, meaning he could be in Boston by the end of next week for the start of the team's next homestand against Oakland and Seattle.

The Red Sox are down two starters, so the sooner Miller gets to the big club the better.

At the end of this article on Brandon Lyon there's a nice scouting report on the closer's four pitches. Since he has two types of fastballs, he actually appears to have five pitches.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

Kevin Brown retired the last 11 batters he faced, but leaves the game trailing 3-1 after seven. Brown only walked 1 and struck out five. What hurt him this evening were the balls in play that turned into hits. However, with the offense the Yankees have, they should be able to win a game where the starter only allows 3 runs in seven innings.

The Angels are the perfect team to go against pitchers like Brown and Mussina. They just put the ball in play, and with Brown and Mussina unable to overpower them, they keep finding holes. Eight of eighteen Angels who put the ball in play today against Kevin have been rewarded with base hits through four innings, and the LAAOA lead NY 3-0.

The Angels take a 1-0 lead in the top of the third. Figgins singles, steals second, then he goes for third and Guerrero hits the ball through the spot vacated by A-Rod. A perfect hit and run on the steal of third. Brown then gives up a double to Anderson that Sheffield bobbles and Guerrero scores. No error on the play, however, which I don't understand.

Brandon Inge led off the Tigers game with his third triple of the year. I thought that was pretty good for a former catcher, but Inge has a decent number of triples in this career (16 including tonight). He hit seven last season, and the ten over 2004-2005 ranks 10th in the majors. The Tigers lead 3-0 in the bottom of the first.

The Writers is a web site with a collection of works via various writers involved in sports and sports journalism. I was happy to see one of my favorite people from my ESPN days, Marty Aronoff, writing on the site. Stop by and say hi.

A very rare blown save today by Joe Nathan. Since becoming the closer for the Twins, Nathan had converted 50 of 53 chances, including a 6 for 6 this season. Of course, it wasn't all Nathan's fault as an error by Castro made the run unearned. It's also not a loss; the Royals and the Twins have moved to the tenth. If you blow a save, it's a lot better to get the win than see the team lose.

Angel Berrora got KC going in the ninth with a double. He's somewhat perfect today, going 2 for 2 with 2 hit by pitches. I though hitting batters was supposed to intimidate them. :-)

Baseball Blogger is a new blog covering the game. Stop by and say hi.

The double header between the Marlins and Rockies in Denver has been postponed. Those of you looking forward to the Smith-Kim matchup will have to wait for another day.

The Brewers and Cardinals are being delayed by rain and the game hasn't started.

Update: Looks like the Brewers and Cardinals will be getting underway about 2:35 CDT.

Greg Zaun hit his third homer of the season as the Blue Jays come back from a 3-0 deficit to take a 5-3 lead on the Devil Rays. Currently at .581, Zaun has the highest slugging percentage on the Blue Jays with 10 of his 20 hits going for extra bases. He's a 34 year-old catcher with a career .380 slugging percentage so don't expect this to last.

Update: Check out the comment on Josh Towers. The Blue Jays win 7-4.

In the mail today, National Pastime by Stefan Szymanski and Andrew Zimbalist. It's a look at the business of Baseball in the US and soccer in the rest of the world. I'll have a review after I've read the book.

Do you know what this reminds me of?

"The problem is when you're playing a team with a manager who somehow forgot how the game is played, there's problems," Schilling said on a Boston radio station Tuesday. "This should have been over a little bit ago. Lou's trying to make his team be a bunch of tough guys, and the telling sign is when the players on that team are saying, 'This is why we lose 100 games a year, because this idiot makes us do stuff like this.' They [Rays players] said that on the field."

It reminds me of this:

Schilling said he was wrong in some of his past comments that indicated steroid use in baseball was greater than what he told the committee.

“I made a mistake,” Schilling said. “Being called on that (at the hearing) made me actually start to look at the subject matter instead of guess about it.”

So is Schilling exaggerating again? How many players said that, Curt? Who were they? Curt, at this point, doesn't have a lot of credibility when he's not under oath.

It looks like a slugfest Thursday given today's pitching matchups. Colorado offers the most baseball and likely the most fireworks as the Marlins face the Rockies in a double header. The first game should be very good as Jason Jennings host A.J. Burnett. Jennings has a pretty good ERA this season despite a lot of walks and pitching in Coors. Burnett is just shutting down lefties this season; they're hitting .200 against him with no homers and a .246 OBA.

In game two, journeyman Travis Smith will face Byung-Hyun Kim, both making their first starts of the season. This one has a 15-12 score written all over it.

And you never know when Kevin Brown will pitch his last game, so you better watch. :-) He takes his 8.25 ERA against the Angels and John Lackey this evening. Brown is not fooling anyone, having given up twenty hits in 12 innings pitched.

Enjoy!

I'll be on Sports Bloggers Live Extra today at 12:15 PM EDT. We'll be talking about Schilling, Dykstra, Clemens and the Yankees.

To follow up last night's Mike Mussina post, the NY Times reports that Mussina's velocity was down last night:

While Mussina's velocity was a few miles an hour lower than normal -the radar readings listed his fastball at around 87 m.p.h. - Torre said those figures were erroneous. He said that Mussina was throwing a cut fastball and that was the reason for the decreased velocity. But Mussina admitted that his velocity was off; he said he was "hoping for a little more" on his fastball.

Mussina has surrendered 43 hits in 29 innings. Opponents are batting .361 against him. That basically means the hitters who have faced Mussina have combined to perform like hitters who could win a batting title in most seasons.

"It's a lot," Mussina said. "It bothers me. If you're not pitching well and don't feel as crisp as you want to be, you're going to give up hits."

As I mentioned in the comments above, part of the problem may be that Mussina has become predictable. Maybe in the next start he needs to throw nothing but knuckle curves for a couple of innings to get the batters used to something else, then come back with the fastball. It will look a lot faster at that point.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

Great defense and great base running in the DBacks-Dodgers game. With one out and Drew on first, Jeff Kent popped up foul down the first base fence. Tracy went for it, but had a bad angle. Counsell called him off and made a great catch as he hit the wall and fell into the stands. Drew, seeing that he was going in, tagged and made it to second easily. Nice play to get the ball (and hold on) and nice baserunning.

Of course, one play later Drew over runs third and is thrown out after an infield single by Bradley.

Was Bonderman really good tonight, or did the Indians give up after being blown out? Bonderman threw only 90 pitches in 8 innings, allowing only two runs. Was he just in the strikezone or did the Indians stop battling him? If anyone saw the game, please leave a comment.

The Indians offense has been very disappointing this season. They're scoring less that four runs a game after 20 contests.

In case you missed the tonight's broadcast on TPSRadio, you can download the archive here.

Shea Hillenbrand has two more hits tonight and another hit by pitch. He's been hit five times but only walked once. I looked up in the Lahman database players who have been hit at least five times and drew fewer walks than hit by pitches in the same year. It's happened 42 times. Most recently was Mike Kinkade, who was hit 16 times for the Dodgers in 2003 while walking 13 times and Einar Diaz who was hit 10 times that year while walking 9 times the same year.

The more I look at Mike Mussina's stats, the more I think he's approaching the end. He just keeps getting hit. The Angels have eight hits tonight in six innings, and two home runs have made the score 5-1 Anaheim. The Moose is just not striking out enough people given the defense behind him. He's throwing a lot of pitches, which tells me the batters are willing to take pitches or battle him with lots of fouls. Mussina needs to make an adjustment. He's probably needed to make that adjustment for two years, but pitchers have a difficult time accepting the loss of their fastball. Mussina won't survive with an ERA over 5.00.

A-Rod homered again tonight, his eighth of the year. If he hits another, I believe he ties a record for consecutive games.

Mark Grudzielanek hit for the cycle today as the Cardinals won their 11th game in 12 tries. And he did it the hard way, needing the triple as his last hit. Congrats to Mark! The Cardinals were the one team I felt really confident about calling a division winner. They're playing like they're going to run away with the division again.

The White Sox picked up their second one-run loss of the season today as the Athletics broke a 1-1 tie in the bottom of the ninth when Scutaro singled in Durazo. Jermaine Dye was playing shortstop that inning. The White Sox infield was banged up, and Crede was tossed from the game when he was hit by the pitch but the ump did not award him a base. The ump said Crede leaned into the pitch; you never see that called.

Again, a lost fly ball, this time by Rowand, gave the Athletics the boost they needed to win. The White Sox have had a three weeks of very good luck; they have to expect a little of the bad now and then.

Curt Schilling joins David Wells on the DL with a bone bruise on his repaired ankle.

Schilling's injury, which happened last Saturday at Tampa Bay, affected the same ankle that was covered by a bloody sock in last year's postseason.

He said he felt a sharp pain on his first pitch to Travis Lee in the sixth inning. Lee hit an 0-2 pitch for a double, driving in the tying and winning runs in the Devil Rays' 6-5 victory. Schilling stayed in the game through the seventh.

"The way it was explained to me was that the ankle bone was just not ready to take the force I put on it the other day," Schilling said. "I knew when I threw the pitch I had done something. ... I think it was the hardest pitch I've thrown all year."

Doctors told him that if he continued pitching without rest "there was a very legitimate possibility that we could break the bone and the season would be done," said Schilling, who is 1-2 with a 7.13 ERA. Last season he was 21-6 with a 3.26 ERA.

It looks like John Halama will be moved into one of the two slots. Wade Miller is not ready to return yet.

Sounds like this is a golden opportunity for the Orioles to put more space between them and the Red Sox.

The Oakland Athletics defense did a good job of bailing out Kirk Saarloos today. Saarloos walked 5 today, but four double plays by the Oakland infield helped erase most of those runners. Street induced the last of those DPs when he entered in relief.

Freddy Garcia has also just allowed 1 run so far. He's doing it the old fashioned way, having only allowed four hits and two walks through 7 innings.

Do you think the Atlanta Braves know Tom Glavine too well? Leo Mazzone must go talk to the hitters each time they face Tom and tell them everything he knows about what Glavine does wrong. The lefty is now 1-7 vs. his former team. In those eight games he has a 9.15 ERA and has allowed 65 hits and 21 walks. I really wonder if Tom tips his pitches, but it's only something that Mazzone knows about.

Kip Wells got his walks under control today for the Pirates. He had issued eighteen free passes in 23 2/3 innings coming into today's game, but shutout the Astros for seven innings issuing only one walk. The veteran bullpen of White and Mesa pitched two perfect innings to preserve the shutout.

The Astros have now lost five in a row, being shutout in three of those games. They're hitting .202 over those five games, 33/163.

The Baltimore/Boston game has been postponed due to rain.

Jon Weisman at Dodger Thoughts makes the case for and against Hee Seop Choi.

Rather than concentrate on OPS, I look at the fact that he's drawn 112 walks in 645 AB. Even though he only has a .355 OBA, the 112 walks tells me he has a good eye for the strike zone. I'd much rather take a chance on him than a Shea Hillenbrand type, who hits but doesn't walk.

Also note, that if Choi were putting up these numbers as a catcher or second baseman, there would be no argument about his playing every day.

Andy Pettitte is not pitching well today, but he's not being hurt too badly either. He's allowed eight hits and a walk through four innings, but only two runs. Pittsburgh even has two triples and a double, but have not plated many runs. After the Bay 1-out tripled in the third, Pettitte struck out the next two batters. He's still down 2-0 after four as Kip Wells has given up just three hits.

Tom Glavine has walked two of the first three batters he's faced today. That's 15 walks he's allowed now in about 23 innings.

He then got Franco to ground the the third baseman, and Brian Jordan devesated Matsui on the takeout slide at second.

Update: Glavine gets out of the inning with another grounder to third.

If you want to see the future of the AL in action, tune in tonight to the Devil Rays at the Blue Jays. Scott Kazmir takes the hill against early season sensation Gustavo Chacin. Kaz has been susceptible to the extra-base hit this year as opponents are slugging .443 against the lefty. Only four of the 19 hits off Chacin have gone for extra bases.

If old lefties are more your style, check out the Braves and the Mets. A rejuvenated Mike Hampton brings his 1.17 ERA to Shea against former Braves pitcher Tom Glavine. Hampton's allowed a decent number of base runners this season, but opponents are only hitting .125 with runners in scoring position against him. Glavine's had control issues this season. For his career, he walks a batter about once every three innings. This season, it's worse than one every other inning.

Finally, the Diamondbacks go for their eighth straight quality start as they send Brad Halsey against the Dodgers and Jeff Weaver in a battle of former Yankees. Halsey made his career debut at Dodger Stadium last June 19 and pitched a solid 5 2/3 innings, picking up the win. Jeff Weaver has good stats at Dodger Stadium, but he only has a 5-8 record to show for it in his 18 starts there.

Enjoy!

Magglio Ordonez needs hernia surgery and will likely miss 2 to 3 months of the season.

It's not clear how much he'll be missed. The Tigers are tied with Boston in runs scored per game at 5.7, 2nd in the AL. Ordonez made almost no contribution to that. If the Tigers can stay at that level of offense, Ordonez should give them a big boost when he returns.

The weekly Baseball Musings radio show will be on TPSRadio tonight and every Wednesday at 8 PM EDT. Check out their other sports programming as well. You can listen at any one of these links:

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The Diamondbacks can take over first place if they can finish a sweep of the Dodgers tonight. They won a squeaker over night, a 3-2 victory that almost turned into another Dodger comeback:

Choi flew out to left for the second out, leaving it up to J.D. Drew to push at least the tying run, standing just 180 feet from home, across the plate. Drew took the first two pitches for balls, and with the crowd on its feet on a 3-2 count, he hit a smash up the middle.

It ricocheted off Lyon's glove and was gathered in by the sure-handed Craig Counsell, who threw over to first for the final out.

Luck works in both directions.

There were a couple of comments left over night that the White Sox/Athletics game was pretty bad. The White Sox lost it on an error by Jermaine Dye when he dropped a routine fly ball. Ray Ratto describes it as a Lucy skit.

Facing Chicago's Mark Buehrle, who had already won games that lasted 1:51 and 1:39, with Bruce Froemming and his squash-court strike zone behind the plate to help usher along Buehrle and Oakland's Tim Hudson as impersonated brilliantly by Rich Harden - it was a platinum opportunity to come out, get a stadium blanket, watch a game and still be home in time to watch "The Shield."

Now if that isn't the national pastime at its best, you just don't know how to have a good time while keeping your car running in the parking lot.

But therein lies the game's inherent beauty - the realization that on any given night, everything you know to be true about the game turns out to be utterly false, and delicious, messy fun because of it.

There were five errors, two wild pitches and a balk to go along with 27 hits and eight walks. It wasn't a night for pitching and defense.

Kendall, Chavez, Kielty, Byrnes and Swisher each had two hits to break out of slumps. Oakland is not an inherently bad offensive team. They're going through a collective slump. If they collectively come out of it, runs will be plentiful in the Coliseum.

It wasn't a good night for closers as Jason Isringhausen and Armando Benitez both sustained injuries. It's not clear at this point if either of them will be placed on the DL, but the management of both teams is preparing for the possibility.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

J.T. Snow drives in the go-ahead run for the Giants with a triple in the fifth. That give Snow a single, double and triple tonight. He needs the homer for the cycle, but he hasn't hit a dinger this year.

Update: Ramon Hernandez hits the first pitch of the top of the 6th out to right field to tie the score at 2.

Mark Buehrle is getting some defensive help tonight. The White Sox have turned a double play in each of the first three innings. Harden has allowed 1 run, which is probably enough for him to lose tonight. :-)

Update: The Oakland Athletics scoreless innings streak ends at 26. Kotsay drove in Ginter to make the score 3-1 White Sox in the bottom of the fifth.

Eric Milton gave up four home runs tonight. It's the second time in his career he's allowed four homers in a game. It happened last year on June 9th against the Chicago White Sox. He came into tonight with the most HR allowed since the start of 2004 with 49, and he's extended that lead tonight. Jamie Moyer is next on the list with 47.

Keith Foulke, on for a two-inning save, gives up a two run shot to Miguel Tejada. Tejada joins Ramirez and Rodriguez at the 25 RBI level tonight.

Jose Reyes had an at bat tonight that epitomizes what's wrong with his never walking. In the bottom of the 7th, Reyes stuck out swinging at a ball head high. It was the level of his eyes; he had no chance to hitting the pitch. At this point, there's absolutely no reason to throw the man a strike. Twenty games into the season, he has not drawn a walk or a hit by pitch.

Shea Hillenbrand has drawn one walk. But when he puts the ball in play, he gets hits. If you are not going to walk, you better be able to hit in the high .300s. With his 3 for 4 tonight, Hillenbrand is hitting .388. And while he has only 1 walk, he's gotten himself plunked 4 times for an OBA of .422. It doesn't matter how you get on, just get to first.

Alex Rodriguez will lead off the 8th inning. If he homers, he'll have hit a solo, two-run, three-run and grand slam homer.

I have a request in to David Vincent, the keeper of the SABR home run log, to see if that's ever been done before.

Update: I just spoke to Bob McConnell, who used to keep the home run log for SABR. He doesn't believe anyone has hit for the HR cycle in the major leagues. I'm waiting for David Vincent to confirm that.

Update: The Angels are out in the 8th. A-Rod coming up next.

Update: Just saw the replays of the homers. None of them were cheap. All to the deepest part of the park, left center.

Update: The Angels have brought in Woods, a lefty.

Update: A-Rod hits a hard fly ball to center for his first out of the evening. No record, but an excellent night nonetheless.

Update: David Vincent confirms that the homer cycle has never happened. Mark Whiten had 12 RBI in his four homer game, the only player to have 10 or more RBI on his 4 homers.

Nick Johnson hit his first home run of the season tonight, but then left the game with an injury to his left knee. I've no idea at this point if it's bad, but Nick just can't seem to stay healthy.

Update: It doesn't look like a serious injury. Johnson fouled a ball off this leg.

A-Rod hits his third home run of the night off Colon, this time a grand slam. That give him a two-run, three-run and grand slam tonight. Can he get the solo shot for the home run cycle?

Update: A-Rod will be coming up momentarily in the 6th inning.

Update: There are two on with Alex coming to the plate. No cycle here, just a record.

Update: This is A-Rod's third three homer game and his 38th multi-homer game. It's a personal best in RBI; he had two 7-RBI games previously.
Update: No homer, but Rodriguez singles to drive in Bernie Williams for his tenth RBI of the game. He ties Manny Ramirez for the ML lead in RBI for the moment.

Update: Giambi's walk and Posada not hitting into a double play means A-Rod will get another chance at a four-homer night in the 8th at the latest.

Albert Pujols hit his fifth double of the year tonight and is fast approaching 200 for his career (he needs six more). Given that Pujols is only 25, should we start thinking about Albert breaking the doubles record?

The record is 792 by Tris Speaker. Bill James believes a record becomes soft when the yearly leader's total is about 1/18th of the record. For the doubles record that would be 44 a season. Over the first four years of his career, Pujols is averaging 47 doubles a year.

Albert is entering the peak of his career. He's already had two seasons of 50 doubles. If he can put together 250+ doubles over the next five years, he'd enter his 30's about 350 away from the record. That's 35 doubles a year for a player starting to decline. If he lay a very good foundation over the next five seasons (maybe with a couple of 60 double seasons), he'll have a shot at Speaker.

Update: Pujols hit his 2nd double of the night. He's 3 for 4 and has driven in all four runs for the Cardinals this evening.

Alex Rodriguez adds another homer against Colon. He's now 16 for 39 vs. Bartolo with five doubles, a triple and five home runs. The five RBI tonight gives him 20 on the season and puts him up with the league leaders.

The top three RBI men in the majors are featured in tonight's Orioles-Red Sox game. Tejada leads with 23 and Roberts has 22. Manny tied Brian in the Red Sox five-run second inning, driving in two. All three have more RBI than games played this year.

Update: Manny adds three more RBI with a three run homer to take the major league lead.

Alex Rodriguez takes Bartolo Colon deep in the first inning to give the Yankees a 3-0 lead. It's A-Rod's fourth career homer off Colon in thirty eight at bats. He has 15 hits against Bartolo, 10 for extra bases.

I wanted to follow up the scoring position post from Sunday with a graph. (Click on the image for a larger view.)

As you can see, the trend line's slope is pretty close to 1, meaning that the if you want to predict a player's BA with runners in scoring position, you'll make a pretty good guess if you pick his career average.

The Braves have plated three runs so far against Pedro Martinez in the first. The Braves are doing a good job of getting the bat on the ball; they're not hitting the ball hard, but the balls are finding holes.

The Houston-Pittsburgh game has been postponed.

Jeff Kallman at The Catbird in the Nose Bleed Seats remembers the recently departed Earl Wilson. Wilson hit 35 home runs in 740 AB as a pitcher, a rate of 1 HR every 21 AB. Lots of position players wish they had that kind of rate.

Military service had kept Wilson from becoming the first black player on the Red Sox, the honour falling in due course to Pumpsie Green, and now he would be traded to the Tigers (in June) for an outfielder named Don Demeter. “And Earl Wilson hit more home runs as a pitcher for Detroit,” fumed the journalist David Margolick, still steaming after all those years, “than Demeter hit as an outfielder for the Red Sox.”

There are lots of excellent pitching matchups tonight. The best may be at Shea, where John Smoltz takes the mound for the Braves against Pedro Martinez and the Mets. Smoltz and Martinez are 1-2 in the NL in strikeouts per 9. Once difference between the pitchers this season is that Pedro has done a much better job of putting away hitters with two strikes. They're batting .064 vs. Pedro (4/64) but .222 vs. Smoltz (14/63). A .222 average might seem pretty good, but this year NL hitters are averaging .190 when they have two strikes.

Matt Clement and Rodrigo Lopez hook up again after a dazzling duo on April 21st. The Red Sox took a 1-0 victory in that game, the only run coming due to an error. Both pitchers are among the league leaders in ERA. Both are keeping the ball in the park, each having allowed just 1 home run so far. Since the Orioles and Red Sox are 1-2 in home runs hit, we'll see if that holds up tonight.

It's the battle of the Jo(h)n's in Washington as Lieber and the Phillies face Patterson and the Nationals. Both pitchers are very stingy issuing walks this season. Lieber has allowed 2 in 29 2/3 innings, third in the majors. Patterson has only allowed 4 in 21 innings, helping him to an 0.86 ERA.

There's two in the Bay area tonight as Mark Buehrle faces AL ERA leader Rich Harden in Oakland and Adam Eaton takes on Jason Schmidt in San Francisco. Buehrle pitches so fast that east coast viewers can watch the whole game and still catch all of Letterman. Harden has only allowed 1 run all season, and given the way the Athletics offense has been playing lately, he'll need to allow negative runs to win. :-)

(Aside: shouldn't the pitcher from MIT wear the number i? It would be especailly appropriate if he pinch ran.)

Adam Eaton has gotten especially good run support so far, with the Padres scoring 15 runs in his 21 2/3 innings pitched. Schmidt has been a buzz saw at home, allowing the opposition just a .169 batting average in three starts there.

Enjoy!

There's a good graphic on Baseball Tonight Extra showing that since Mark Prior's MLB debut, he's had the highest K per 9 rate of any pitcher in baseball (400 IP minimum). And the best thing is they got it from the Day By Day Database! Now, if I could just get them to include a hyperlink...

Redleg Nation interviews Cincinnati Post beat-writer and spring training blogger Marc Lancaster. I liked his take on Adam Dunn:

RN: What about Adam Dunn? He seems like the same type of regular guy.

ML: He is. In a different way, he is. He’s just a fun-loving guy who doesn’t – and I don’t want this to sound the wrong way, because I don’t think of it like this – he doesn’t take it too seriously. I mean, he works his butt off at what he does, but he’s never going to let it define him. And I think that’s a very healthy thing. You can really get caught up in stuff, as tense as the season is, and he has, I think, a really good attitude toward how to approach this game.

If you remember, in the past, when people were approaching that Major League strikeout record, they’d sit out the last six games of the season, or something. Jose Hernandez did it with Milwaukee a few years ago. And Adam was just like, “Whatever. Bring it on.”

And the truth is, there was a list of guys in baseball last year who would not have traded their entire set of numbers for Adam Dunn’s. A really short list. Pujols, Bonds, Rolen, maybe. Not a whole lot of guys who wouldn’t have taken exactly what Dunn had, strikeouts and all, considering all the other production he put up.

He’s an unbelievable talent, he really is.

John Hickey talks to Richie Sexson about the first baseman's slump. He also provides a chart showing how Richie usually turns around slow starts.

David Wells injured his foot last night against the Orioles:

The 41-year-old southpaw left the game after sustaining what initially was diagnosed as a sprained right foot while trying to field a ground ball in the fourth inning. He was taken for undisclosed tests at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where the Sox frequently send players for MRIs.

Johnny Damon summed up Boston's pitching woes:

``Our pitching staff is pretty banged up,'' said Sox center fielder Johnny Damon [stats, news], who was 3-for-3 with two walks. ``I said all along in spring training, if we can stay healthy, we'll be fine. We have Curt Schilling, who's not totally healthy. We have Wade Miller [stats, news] (rotator cuff) and now David Wells, and Matt Mantei got hurt. We just need to stay in the thick of things.''

The Diamondbacks are surging toward first place with a four game winning streak. They're 1 1/2 games out after defeating the Dodgers last night behind strong pitching by Javier Vazquez. Vazquez's performance was a microcosom of his best seasons; lots of strikeouts, few walks and scoring on homers.

The Diamondbacks starters now rank 5th in the NL in ERA, despite a high ERA by Vazquez. With Halsey and Webb pitching well, Ortiz and Estes holding their own, a return to the form Vazquez showed between 2001 and 2003 will give the Diamondbacks one of the best rotations in the division. A nice job so far by Joe G. Jr. to rebuild that staff.

Update: There's some speculation that Joe Garagiola Jr. might be headed to MLB headquarters to replace Sandy Alderson. That would be too bad for the Diamondbacks. Joe has done an excellent job in his tenure with the Diamondbacks, winning a World Championship faster than any other expansion team. Not all of his moves have been great (see Richie Sexson) but overall he's put together a very good team year-to-year. That's not easy to do.

From yesterday's Games of the Day:

The White Sox move their winning ways to the west to take on the Athletics. These staffs boast the top two team ERAs in the American League this year. Oakland sends it's weak link to the mound in Barry Zito. So far, his younger counter parts have out-pitched him. He'll face Jon Garland, who has improved in each start he's made this season, all wins. Garland gave up 3 runs in six inngings, than two runs in seven innings, then 1 run in 8 innings. He's due for a shutout tonight, and with the A's being the 2nd lowest scoring team in the AL that could easily happen.

Garland pitched a complete game shutout last night, as the White Sox stopped the Athletics 6-0. The Athletics have now gone 22 innings without scoring a run.

Garland has only struck out 11 in 30 innings. Given that his opponents have only 21 hits, he's either been very lucky or the Chicago defense is playing very well behind him.

Bill Ferris sent me this post on the correlation of winning in one-run games and winning overall. His nice graphs show the randomness of the whole thing. Notice that the correlation between overall winning percentage and winning percentage in one-run games is .57. That means, given any team, you could probably do as well guessing if they are above or below their overall percentage in one-run games.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

The Astros are shutout for the fourth time this season as Pittsburgh defeats them 2-0. Jose Mesa picks up his 7th save in 7 tries.

Mike Piazza appears to be turning into a hitter that hits for power or doesn't hit at all. He's three for three tonight with two doubles; that gives him 15 hits on the season, 9 for extra bases. He's only batting .238. It's still early, but if this trend continues, Piazza should be dropped behind Floyd and Wright in the lineup.

Oliver Perez leaves the game with men on 2nd and 3rd and two out in the 8th. White comes in and gets Bagwell to fly out to end the inning.

Perez pitched very well, allowing four hits and walking only 2 while striking out 9. He had given up 16 walks in 19 innings coming into the game. He did throw over 120 pitches, and 80 were for strikes. The Pirates have to breathe a sigh of relief after this performance. The Bucs lead 2-0 in the bottom of the 8th.

Zach Day walked six while striking out two tonight vs. the Phillies. That gives him fourteen walks and seven strikeouts this season. He's not going to stay in the majors with pitching like that.

The Houston Astros seem to be the cure to Oliver Perez's problems. He's throwing a no-hitter through five innings and has walked only two to go with seven strikeouts. He has thrown 81 pitches so far, so it's not clear how long he'll go.

Update: Bagwell breaks up the no-hitter with 2 out in the 6th.

If you have a chance, catch the double play in the top of the first of the Braves-Mets game. With men on first and third, one out, LaRoche grounded back to the pitcher. The ball hit Heilman in the leg and bounded over to the third baseman. Wright didn't have a chance to get the runner at the plate, so he threw to first to get LaRoche. Wright, however, left third base open, so Jordan (who had moved to 2nd) took off for third. Reyes ran with him, and Woodward threw a perfect strike to a moving Reyes so to get the tag play on Jordan. Appropriately, it looked like a football play.

With two stolen bases tonight, Brian Roberts is in 2nd place in the AL with 9. Although a few people have had high numbers of home runs and stolen bases in a season, I wonder if anyone ever led the league in both? Especially since Ruth changed the game around 1920.

Throws Like a Girl attended the Clemens-Mulder matchup in St. Louis and writes her impressions of the game and the Cardinals fans.

This just made me laugh out loud. :-)

Troy Percival gets his first save of the season as the Tigers defeat the Twins 6-4. Radke did not walk a batter in his 6 1/3 innings, but the bullpen walked three to take the loss. Urbina and Percival were perfect in the setup and closer role, each striking out two of the three batters faced. Chicago's lead in the AL Central goes to 4 1/2 games.

Correction: Fixed Chicago's division. They were in the AL West for most of my life.

Here's a Phillies fan who is taking the Braves sweep well.

Lisa Gray makes a very good point today. If you're sitting in the stands and watching what looks like a triple play turn into a double play, you have no idea what's going on. Her solution: mike the umps just like in the NFL. Then, if a complicated play like that happens (or even the A-Rod play in the ALCS when the umps had to confer) they can turn the mike on and explain it to the fans in the stands (and the listening and view audience). Not a bad idea.

Fishstripes uses the Marlins day off to take a look at a couple of Florida prospects.

Monroe gets a hit with runners in scoring position for the Tigers. He singles with the bases loaded to tie the game at 4 in the bottom of the 7th.

Update: The Tigers take the lead on a ground out that should have been a double play.

Justin Morneau doubles in Nick Punto and Joe Mauer, all reaching with two outs in the 7th. The Twins take the lead 4-3 going into the 7th inning stretch.

Mauer is 1 for 3 with the walk and now has a .422 OBA.

Dan Agonistes reprints an article from the 1880's that explores the proper batting stance. The author finds that there are as many stances as there are good hitters. Some of the descriptions are pretty strange and are no longer seen on major league teams.

The Tigers are hitting today, but not scoring much. They've had 10 hits, but left seven on base. Detroit has been very good this year hitting with ducks on the pond. They hit .332 with runners on base this year, and .331 with runners in scoring position. They trail only the Twins in batting with runners in scoring position. The Twins are 1 for 5 with men in scoring position as well today.

Update: The Twins load the bases with one out in the sixth, but fail to drive in a run. They're now 1 for 7 with men in scoring position. Tigers still lead 3-2 in the middle of the 6th.

Balls, Sticks and Stuff rounds up the poor performance of the Phillies so far this year.

Carlos Guillen works Brad Radke for an 11 pitch at bat and finishes it with his first home run of the season. Dimtri Young follows up after an out with a solo shot down the line, and Monroe triples after that. Radke has now allowed seven home runs this season; it's a good thing he's only walked 1. Radke gets out of the first down 3-0.

What a great pickup Carlos Guillen turned out to be. He had steadily improving offensively during his career with Seattle; at age 28 he found himself with Detroit. He's now batting .403 with a .456 OBA. Imagine Carlos and Ichiro at the top of the Mariners lineup.

Given the Michael Lewis piece yesterday, I found this comment on Alex Cintron to be very interesting:

Alex Cintron's work habits have improved over last year when he drew the ire of management, and he's no longer swinging for the fences. Instead, he has returned to being the line-drive, contact hitter that got him to the majors. He's increasing his value more than anything the team could receive in a trade.

Alex is getting on base at a .444 clip this season, vs. .301 in 2004.

The Orioles visit Boston tonight holding a one-game lead over the defending World Champion Red Sox in the AL East. It's a good pitching matchup, too as Bruce Chen faces David Wells. As of this morning, the Red Sox had four starters in the top 20 among AL ERA leaders, with Wells at #20. Chen is tied for 17th. When the two faced each other in Baltimore last week, Chen was roughed up while Wells pitch eight shutout innings, striking out five and walking only 1.

Mark Prior has yet to allow an earned run this season. He'll face Paul Wilson as the Cubs host the Reds. The offenses for the two teams have the same OBA entering today, .330 (about league average). The difference in the offenses is that the Cubs get there with more hits, having a .266 BA vs. .248 for the Reds. More hits means more baserunners get moved, so the Cubs have outscored the Reds on a per game basis 4.7 to 3.8.

The White Sox move their winning ways to the west to take on the Athletics. These staffs boast the top two team ERAs in the American League this year. Oakland sends it's weak link to the mound in Barry Zito. So far, his younger counter parts have out-pitched him. He'll face Jon Garland, who has improved in each start he's made this season, all wins. Garland gave up 3 runs in six inngings, than two runs in seven innings, then 1 run in 8 innings. He's due for a shutout tonight, and with the A's being the 2nd lowest scoring team in the AL that could easily happen.

Finally, it the battle of the former AL East pitchers in LA as Javier Vazquez and the Diamondbacks visit Derek Lowe and the Dodgers. Derek's western career has gotten off to a much better start than Javier's, but Vazquez has pitched better than his ERA or his record indicate.

Enjoy!

Correction: Corrected Javier Vazquez's team.

John Perricone uses Micheal Lewis' NY Times Magazine article as a starting point to criticize Brian Sabean's 2005 construction of the Giants.

A team that a year ago was plagued by poor relief pitching and grounding into double plays got older, and slower, replaced one single guy in the bullpen, and is now plagued by poor relief pitching and grounding into double plays.

Former speedster Marquis Grissom is tied for 2nd the ML in grounding into double plays. No wonder they lead the NL with 22 team GDPs.

As posted yesterday, MLB.com is now offering blogs for budding writers who'd like to express their opinions about the game. Joe Choti, CTO of MLB.com just called to address some of my reservations about the program. I was concerned that bloggers would not have enough disk space or bandwidth to grow into major blogs. Joe assured me that the monthly limits are flexible; MLB.com would work with successful bloggers to get them the resources they need. That's excellent news for writers who want to take advantage of MLB.com's traffic in growing their blogs.

I want to thank everyone who has visited the site since writing and maintaining Baseball Musings became a full time job. March was my best month for traffic in the three years publishing this blog, and April is on target to do even better. Your visits are the most important way of supporting Baseball Musings, since high traffic attracts advertisers.

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When do you start believing a trend is more than a trend? When do you start believing a player or a team has some intrinsic ability to accomplish a feat?

The White Sox are off to a 9-1 start in one-run games (they're 6-3 otherwise, still very, very good). But last year they also did very well in one-run games, going 28-18, 2nd in the AL behind the Oakland Athletics (33-19). That makes them 37-19 in the closest of games under the guidence of Ozzie Guillen, a .661 winning percentage.

We're very close to this not being just luck. It all depends on what you think the White Sox intrinsic winning percentage is. One can argue that in one run games the winning percentage of any team should be close to .500. In games that close, the teams are by definition evenly matched, and the contest can turn on a bad hop or a single mistake by a pitcher (see Joe Blanton last night). If teams should play .500 in one run games, then we would expect the White Sox to win between 21 and 35 games given 56 opportunities (the 95% confidence interval).

If instead, we base it on the White Sox 2004-2005 combined winning percentage, .541, we get a 95% confidence interval of 23 to 38 wins. The White Sox are in this interval, but very close to the high end.

A better way to get a team's intrinsic winning percentage over this period is to figure what their winning percentage should be based on their runs scored and runs allowed. The White Sox under Guillen have scored 951 runs and allowed 895. That works out to be a winning percentage of .530 under Bill James, Pythagorean Formula. At .530, the 95% confidence interval is 22 to 37 wins in 56 games. Guillen's right at the top.

At this point the White Sox record in one-run games sits on the fine line between luck and skill. I had my doubts about Ozzie Guillen's skill as a manager when he took the job; I have to give him lots of credit for the success so far.

In this case, we're talking about games in which only one run is scored. The LAAOA just defeated the Oakland Athletics 1-0. It's the ninth 1-0 game in the majors this season. Last year, through this point in the season, there had only been one 1-0 score.

The Athletics can't hit their way out of a bag this season, but they're backing up their pitchers with great defense. I've seen two fantastic catches in the outfield tonight and good work by the infielders on double plays. The game is scoreless after six innings.

Update: Steve Finley puts one where no defener can get it, giving the Angels a 1-0 lead in the 7th. Blanton has now given up three home runs, all solo shots.

Kelvim Escobar is showing no ill effects from his elbow injury in his return to the majors tonight. He's struck out six Athletics through three innings. He has a great career K per 9 of nearly 8.0.

The White Sox eeked out another close win today, defeating Kansas City 4-3. Chicago is now 9-1 in one-run games. The Indians (who lost by 8 today) have also played 10 one-run games and are 3-7. The difference between the two teams in the standings (6 games) is almost entirely due to their difference in these close games.

Since we have 5' 7" players on our minds today, let's notice that David Eckstein is having a great season leading off for the Cardinals. He went 3 for 5 with 2 runs and 2 RBI in the Cardinals 8-5 win over the Astros. David now has 17 hits and 9 walks in 16 games for a .408 OBA. Fifteen of those 17 hits have been for singles (with two doubles). With Eckstein on base 26 times, however, he's only scored six runs. The two and four hitters in the Cardinals lineup have not hit well. When Walker and Rolen get rolling, I expect David will be crossing the plate more often.

The Washington Nationals gave a clinic today on setting the table. Wilkerson, Johnson and Vidro, the 1,2,3 hitters, reached base 11 times and scored eight runs. Wilkerson was a triple shy of another cycle. The team formerly known as the Expos earned an 11-4 victory over the Mets.

Reading the Bill James article this morning made me wonder if there was a way to study the situational hitting issue in a different way. I have compiled a database from Retrosheet of every play from 1974 to 1992. (Those are the years Retrosheet has complete seasons.) I decided to look at the data to see if anyone hit significantly better or worse with runners in scoring position over that time.

First, I do not mean to say this is a clutch statistic. My opinion is that it is very difficult to define a clutch statistic. For every situation you name, I'll come up with a subset within it that's not clutch. As you eliminate more and more non-clutch situations, you end up with a very small sample size of real clutch situations for players. But runners in scoring position (RISP) is a nice proxy.

I decided to study the group of players during that time frame who had at least 1500 AB. At 1500 AB, we're getting a good handle on the ability of a hitter. Someone who hits .300 over 1500 AB has a 95% confidence interval of .277 to .323. In other words, it's very unlikely for a .300 hitter to hit .260 over 1500 AB.

So for each player with 1500 AB from 1974 to 1992, I record their AB, hits, RISP AB and RISP hits. I took hits/AB to represent the probability of that player getting a hit. I used that probability to calculate a 95% confidence interval for the expected number of RISP Hits given the number of RISP AB.

There were 567 players in the study. Now, my expectation would be that 95% of the playes would be within the 95% confidence interval. In other words, given 567 players, I would expect 14 hitters to be above the interval and 14 to below the interval.

Instead, the study only found 10 players to be above their hit expectation and 4 to be below.

So if 567 players studied, 553 all had hits with runners in scoring position within the 95% confidence interval! Players hit with runners in scoring position just as we'd expect them to hit.

Here's a list of the players who hit above their expected level with runners in scoring position. Pat Tabler appears to have deserved his reputation.

Players Above 95% Confidence Interval

Player	At Bats	Hits	RISP AB	RISP Hits	Low End 95% CI	High End 95% CI	BA	RISP BA
Jay Bell	2444	627	535	158	118	157	0.257	0.295
Robin Ventura	1736	470	432	137	99	135	0.271	0.317
Greg Vaughn	1538	360	417	117	81	115	0.234	0.281
Mark McGwire	3123	772	781	220	170	217	0.247	0.282
Pat Tabler	3911	1101	1096	347	280	338	0.282	0.317
Scott Fletcher	4411	1155	1058	314	249	305	0.262	0.297
Larry Parrish	6792	1789	1717	491	417	488	0.263	0.286
John Ellis	1573	409	394	124	86	120	0.260	0.315
Rennie Stennett	3532	966	800	248	194	244	0.273	0.310
Frank Duffy	1864	422	415	118	78	111	0.226	0.284

Here's the list of players who hit below expectations. Mickey Tettleton, one of my favorites, is on the list.

Players Below 95% Confidence Interval

Player	At Bats	Hits	RISP AB	RISP Hits	Low End 95% CI	High End 95% CI	BA	RISP BA
Mickey Tettleton	2873	693	707	147	148	193	0.241	0.208
Dave Anderson	2026	490	461	93	94	130	0.242	0.202
Rick Schu	1564	386	348	65	70	102	0.247	0.187
Earl Williams	1518	365	398	78	79	113	0.240	0.196

My conclusion is that there's no difference between a player's overall batting average and his batting average with runners in scoring position that can't be explained by luck. If you'd like to play with the data, here's a spreadsheet you can download. As always, I'm interested in your comments on this experiment.

I've put the table of all players in the study sorted by RISP BA in the extended entry. Notice how the good hitters tend to be good with runners in scoring position.

Update: I was not able to fit the entire table in the extended entry. You can see the rest by downloading the spreadsheet and manipulating the data.

Randy Johnson didn't need the support today, but I'm sure he was happy to have 11 runs behind him. Johnson pitched a masterful game, striking out seven over eight innings, allowing only three hits and one walk.

More interesting, however, is one Andy Phillips, called up to fill the roster spot of Ruben Sierra the other day. Andy was two for four with a double and a homer this afternoon. In his short major league career, he has four hits, 1 double and 2 home runs. He has a career minor league slugging percentage of .509; he's at the peak age for power. Neither Tino nor Giambi is producing many big hits. Why not give the 28 year old a chance to play?

Sideny Ponson just missed a shutout, but gets a complete game win as the Orioles defeat the Blue Jays 7-1 to remain atop the AL East. Sir Sidney gave up five hits and walked four. He threw 131 pitches, which is one of the higher counts I've seen this season. The Orioles pitching staff is starting to look formidable.

Michael Lewis, the author of Moneyball, has an excellent piece in today's NY Times magazine. It's about how the quest for power can corrupt players, moving them from what they do well (getting on base, hitting to the opposite field), to what they do poorly (small players trying to hit for power).

It's one of the best written articles on baseball I've read all year. It's long but it's more that worth the read. At the heart of the story is the idea that power hitting can be learned. I have a copy of a study by Sig Mejdal, a NASA biomathematician. Sig was able to discern the effects of age and experience on offensive stats. Sig's work shows that players reach peak HR age at 27. But experience (how long you've been in the majors), keeps adding to a player's ability to hit home runs, even after ten years. So maybe we shouldn't be so surprised about Roberts and Belliard. Maybe baseball should just let good hitters develop, and see if the home runs come with time.

Make sure you look at the picture of Steve Stanley. Take a good look at the size of his arms. Here's a person who's never used steroids, and look at the size of his muscles. He's a 5' 7" monster. Looks to me like you can grow a lot of muscle with a good exercise regimen.

The theme for this afternoon is "recovering pitchers day." Randy Johnson has been less than dominating for the New York Yankees despite very good strikeout and walk numbers. He has been vulnerable to the long ball this season, giving up a homer about every five innings. He'll face the rejuvenated Pedro Astacio in the Bronx this afternoon. Pedro has yet to allow a homer in 22 IP, leading to his 1.64 ERA.

Sidney Ponson wasn't horrible against the Tigers his last time out. He'll need to do better than that against the Jays today as Toronto sends Roy Halladay to the mound. Roy appears to be returning to his Cy Young form of 2003, which would be a huge boost to the Toronto rotation.

Kerry Wood gets a chance to work out his kinks vs. a low scoring team, the Pittsburgh Pirates. At 3.0 runs per game, the Pirates are the lowest scoring team in the majors. They'll send Josh Fogg. Fogg has a much better ERA than Wood despite allowing almost has many HR (5 for Wood, 4 for Fogg). A big difference between the two is that batters are hitting just .188 vs. Fogg with runners in scoring position, while they're hitting .263 vs. Wood.

Finally, Brad Penny makes his 2005 debut for the Los Angeles Dodgers today. He'll be starting in Coors, where he has a 4.00 ERA in three starts. That's not bad. Jeff Francis, who has 12 walks and 7 strikeouts in 16 2/3 innings will oppose him.

Enjoy!

There's been a lot of pixels lit over Brian Roberts' home runs, but another second baseman isn't far behind. Ronnie Belliard hit his fifth home run of the season last night, helping Cleveland to a 5-2 win over Seattle. Ronnie has shown more power than Roberts over his career, coming into 2005 averaging about eight homers a year from 1999 on. But he has a .408 career slugging percentage and is sitting at .596 this season. Also like Roberts, he hit a ton of doubles in 2004. His 48 doubles were 2nd to Roberts' 50 among AL hitters last season. Have these two middle infielders discovered a way to turn doubles into homers? That would be alchemy at it's best.

David Leonhardt in the New York Times discusses a recent article in The Baseball Research Journal by Bill James. In the article, Bill argues that a method used to evaluate if clutch hitters exist is not a viable method.

All “real” skills in baseball (or anything else) are persistent at least to some extent. Intelligence, bicycle riding, alcoholism, income-earning capacity, height, weight, cleanliness, greed, bad breath, the ownership of dogs or llamas and the tendency to vote Republican . . . all of these are persistent phenomena. Everything real is persistent to some measurable extent. Therefore, if something cannot be measured as persistent, we tend to assume that it is not real.

Bill argues that too much noise in the data makes measuring of persistence of certain statistics nearly impossible. One thing I love about Bill is that if he feels he made a mistake in doing research, he comes right out and says it, and this is one of those articles. Mind you, he's not saying that clutch ability exists; he's saying that persistence studies can't prove that it doesn't exist.

Here's his conclusion about clutch hitting:

On (1), it is my opinion that this should be regarded as an open question. While Dick Cramer is a friend of mine, and I have tremendous respect for his work, I am convinced that, even if clutch-hitting skill did exist and was extremely important, this analysis would still reach the conclusion that it did, simply because it is not possible to detect consistency in clutch hitting by the use of this method.

So there you have it. Clutch hitting is an open question. Sounds like a great research project for a budding sabermetrician!

One thing I've noticed during my research time is that when I did long term studies of players hitting overall vs. hitting in various situations, the same players tended to cluster together, only in different orders. At the end of 2003 (when I still had access to STATS, Inc. database of situational hitting from 1974 to the present), I looked at slugging percentage with runners in scoring position from 1974-2003. The top 25 in that list were the same as the top 25 for overall slugging percentage from 1974-2003, just in a different order (I believe it was based on a minimum of 5000 overall AB). A study along those lines for batting average or OBA would go a long way toward showing the existence or non existence of this ability.

MLB.com has a new affiliate, MLBlogs.com. For about $50.00 a year, you can set up and write a baseball blog, powered by a special version of Movable Type. Plus, you have MLB.com behind you, meaning you have the potential for a lot of visitors.

MLB.com has some interesting people blogging. For staters, Tommy Lasorda. (I can't hear or see the name Tommy Lasorda without thinking of Fletch.) They have a groundskeeper, a fan whose specialty is catching foul balls, and talent from MLB.com.

I was thinking this is pretty good. Maybe I should move Baseball Musings there. And then I see the mistake they made in setting up users:

Your diskspace allotment
The 50MB of storage space you have with your membership.

Your actual diskspace usage
The amount of your total storage you are using currently; this figure is updated daily.

Your bandwidth allotment
The 250MB data transfer you are allowed with your membership per month.

When your pages are visited or files are downloaded, the data is transferred and this counts as bandwidth.

Just 250MB bandwidth? BaseballMusings sent that to Australia this month. That's not much for $50 a year. I get 19 Gig a month for $11. Plus tons of diskspace. Plus multiple MySQL databases (which is why Baseball Musings can bring you the Day by Day Database).

MLB.com is thinking small. Blogs are a great way to drive traffic to their site, promote MLB properties, TV, Radio, fantasy games, etc. Bandwidth is cheap. Diskspace is cheap. Give each user 30 gigs of bandwidth and 1 gig of diskspace to start. Encourage them to blog all the time and give them plenty of room to grow. Make the big baseball bloggers want to move there.

The tools look really good. They have WYSIWYG editing. I saw some mention that you will be able to link to statistics in your entries, but I couldn't find more details. And, of course, being linked by MLB.com is huge. But instead of offering fierce competition to sites like Baseball Musings, they're limiting their bloggers to six hours of this site's readership. My suggestion to new bloggers would be to use MLB.com as a way of getting started, and as soon as you get big, get your own domain.

Update: 4/25/2005. MLB.com tells me they are going to be flexible with disk space and bandwidth. See this post.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

Roger Clemens leaves after seven shutout innings, but Mark Mulder pitches for all intents and purposes a complete game shutout. The only problem is that Qualls continued Clemens great work and put up two gooseggs himself. I haven't seen if Mulder is coming out for the 10th. He's only thrown 95 pitches.

Update: Mulder does start the 10th, giving up a single to Jason Lane.

Update: A double play helps Mulder get out of the inning only throwing six pitches.

Update: The Cardinals win it in the 10th on a Larry Walker RBI single. It's the frst extra-inning complete game shutout since Roy Halladay went 10 on 9/6/2003, and only the 2nd one since Dave Stewart did the feat on 8/1/1990!

Dontrelle Willis goes to 4-0 with a win over the Cincinnati Reds this afternoon. Take a look at the boxscore for the Marlins pitchers. They used five, and all five have great ERAs. The team came into the day with a 2.36 ERA, leading the majors by 0.8 runs.

Roger Clemens and Mark Mulder are locked in a scoreless duel through five. Each has pitched five, allowing 2 hits and striking out 4. The difference is that Clemens has walked four. The big four for St. Louis are the only ones to reach base for the team; 2 singles and 4 walks. Mid-game, Clemens' ERA is down to 0.35

Cha Ho Park pitched a very decent game today. Jim Kaat was pointing out how effective Park was changing speeds, and how he had good movement on his sinking pitches. He did walk five, but he only allowed three hits and one run in 6 1/3. The Rangers will take that from Chan Ho every time.

Jae Seo was called up to make an emergency start today as Kaz Ishii goes on the DL. Seo has gone five shutout innings so far, not allowing a run or a walk. He's also pitching efficiently, and can probably finish the game at this rate.

Jaret Wright was just removed after throwing a pitch and grabbing his arm. I'm sorry to say that an injury to Wright could only help the Yankees at this point.

Brian Roberts hits number seven. It's interesting; last year he had 50 doubles and 4 homers. This year, he's only had 1 double to go with his lucky number of homers. It's as if the balls that were going into the gap last year are now going over the fence.

David Dellucci takes Jaret Wright deep in the 2nd inning to give the Texas Rangers a 1-0 lead. It's the fourth home run Wright has allowed this season; last year he only gave up 11 dingers the entire season.

Update: Teixeira and Mench hit two-run homers with two out in the third, and Wright is getting booed. That's six homers allowed this season by Jaret, more than half of what he allowed all last year. The Rangers lead 6-0.

I think part of the fan displeasure is how the inning happened. Wright gave up two singles, then the infield turned a DP to put a runner on third with two out. They gave Wright a chance to get out of the inning. Instead, he gives up hits, homers and makes an error to give the Rangers five runs.

The Twins/Tigers game has been postponed.

ESPN is reporting that Bonds is on crutches again. Bonds explains why on his web site:

I just wanted to give you an update of what happened Thursday, 4/21. I had some fluid drained out of my right knee because there was a little bit of swelling. By draining the fluid, it alleviates the discomfort. My doctor wants me to use crutches for the next couple of days to make sure the fluid doesn't come right back. This was merely a precautionary measure. My spirits are still high about my recovery as a whole and I can't wait to get back to rehabbing next week.

It's pretty obvious that he won't be back on May 1. His original estimate of 1/2 a season seems a lot more reasonable at this point.

This could be a big postponement day as rain and snow threaten games in New York, Chicago and Detroit.

The Astros and Cardinals meet again in St. Louis, this time with Houston sending Roger Clemens to the mound against Mark Mulder. Clemens is off to a terrific start after having a rather high spring ERA. Clemens leads the majors with an 0.43 ERA and has struck out 26 in 21 innings while walking only 2. Mulder found the truth in his last start against the Pirates after two lackluster performances to start the season.

Battling Clemens for the NL ERA lead today will be Tim Hudson, who has posted an 0.82 mark so far in 2005. He'll face the Phillies and Randy Wolf. Wolf has struck out over five times the number of batters he's walked this season; given the Braves low OBA of .300 he probably won't walk many more today.

Two very good matchups out west today. Shawn Chacon is back in the rotation and made to good first starts for the Rockies, allowing 1 run in each of his first two starts. He only pitched six innings in each, but the encouraging thing is that the starts were in Coors and the BOB, two good hitters parks. He'll face Odalis Perez, who is off to a 3-0 start for the Dodgers. Perez has not allowed a home run in his first 17 2/3 innings, and opponents are only slugging .230 against him.

The Padres visit the Diamondbacks and send Jake Peavy to the mound against Brandon Webb. Webb has only allowed 1 HR this year despite three games in either the BOB or Coors. Peavy continues his spectacular pitching of 2004, coming in with 26 K and only four walks in 20 2/3 innings pitched.

Enjoy!

Calvin Pickering was sent down to the minors yesterday. The Royals gave him 27 AB, and Pickering did not make the most of his opportunity. I guess there isn't room for Sweeney, Stairs and Pickering if two of them are hitting well.

The Giants offense has hit a snag. After a torrid ten games of scoring (6.6 runs per game), they've only managed two runs a game over their last five contests. Edgardo was hitting .488 with a .560 OBA and a .756 slugging percentage through April 17. Since, the numbers are .176/.333/.176.

If you look at the Giants players over this season, Alfonzo is the only player who has combined the ability to get on base with power. With 2/3 of the lineup making a lot of outs, there's not going to be many on base for the sluggers to drive in.

Brad Halsey pitched another nice game for the DBacks last night, holding the Padres to two runs over seven innings as Arizona went on to a 5-3 win over San Diego. It's giving me hope that the Diamondbacks will have a pretty good year. Take a look at how the DBacks starters are doing so far this season. Webb and Halsey are pitching very well. They're 5-0 combined. If those two can pitch well enough to be significantly over .500, the rest of the staff just has to tread water to have a chance at the playoffs. The real interesting pitcher on the list is Javier Vazquez. Look at his strikeout and walk numbers. Those are not the statistics of a pitcher with a 7.65 ERA. Quick and dirty DIPS gives him an ERA of 3.50. If Vazquez can improve that much over the course of the season, that would give the DBacks three more than solid starters, and that should be enough to compete.

The Day by Day Database is now up to date.

Cory Sullivan, the new Rockies centerfielder, has a double and triple in his first two plate appearances. Given that they're in Colorado tonight, there's a good chance of the single and homer. The Dodgers are losing 4-0 after three.

The Reds are really working Burnett hard tonight. Through three innings he's already thrown 72 pitches. The Marlins starters have been pretty efficient this year, especially Willis, Beckett and Burnett.

I'm enjoying seeing Jose Reyes having the same BA and OBA in the boxscore everyday. It's not so much that he hasn't walked, but he hasn't been hit by a pitch or even hit a sacrifice fly. This late, to have every plate appearance end in an AB is pretty unlikely.

Kevin Brown doesn't waste anytime giving up a run. Soriano singles, steals, moves up on a wild pitch and scores on a Blalock single. Texas gets off to a 1-0 lead and makes the slugfest prediction look good.

Update: Brown ends up giving up five hits, a walk and four earned runs in the first inning, raising his ERA to 12.86.

It's raining in Chicago, and the start of the game is being delayed.

Update: 4:00 PM CDT and it's still raining.

Update: The game has been called off. I have not seen a makeup date.

I don't like the current division setup. I don't like divisions being of different sizes, and I especially don't like the haphazard scheduling.

One of the problems is that you're trying to fit a schedule into a number of games (162) that was designed for a ten team leauge (18 games vs. every team), but also works very well for a league with two six-team divisions (18 games vs. divsion rivals, 12 games vs. teams in the other division).

One nice thing about six-team divisions is that you can have stretches where all the games are in the division, and all the games are outside the division. This was how the AL and NL were before expansion to 14 teams each.

In the past, I've written about reorganizing the leagues to eliminate the wild card and recreate better schedules; this usually means going to eight divisons, which means expansion. But if I'm willing to keep the wild card, we can have nicer scheduling without expansion.

The AL and NL are historic artifacts. There are no longer separate league offices; AL teams play NL teams during the regular season. The only difference between the AL and NL right now is the designated hitter. So let's drop the leagues and form five major league divisions.

Five divisions of six teams would yield five division winners. The playoffs would be brought up to eight teams with the addition of three wild cards, the three best 2nd place finishes. Teams would play 18 games against each of their division rivals for 90 games. The remaining 72 games would be divided among 12 teams from the other four divisions, three games home and three games away. Matchups are based on the standings from the previous seasons. The teams finishing 1,2,3 play all other 1,2,3 teams. The teams finishing 4,5,6 play all the other 4,5,6 teams.

I like setting up inter-division play like this because it gives a team that's on the rise a better chance to make the playoffs. It also provides an incentive for teams to be good; if you're good, you get other good teams to visit you, which should bring in more fans.

Here's how I see the divisons shaping up under this scenario:

1. The East Coast Division
• New York Mets
• Philadelphia Phillies
• Washington Nationals
• Atlanta Braves
• Tampa Bay Devil Rays
• Florida Marlins
2. The Northeast Division
• Boston Red Sox
• New York Yankees
• Baltimore Orioles
• Pittsburgh Pirates
• Cincinnati Reds
• Cleveland Indians
3. Upper Mid-West
• Toronto Blue Jays
• Detroit Tigers
• Chicago Cubs
• Milwaukee Brewers
• Minnesota Twins
• St. Louis Cardinals
4. The Spread Out
• Chicago White Sox
• Kansas City Royals
• Houston Astros
• Texas Rangers
• Arizona Diamondbacks
• Colorado Rockies
5. West Coast
• Seattle Mariners
• San Francisco Giants
• Oakland Athletics
• Los Angeles Dodgers
• Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
• San Diego Padres

Under this arrangement, the division winners would have been:

• Braves


• Yankees


• Cardinals


• Astros


• Dodgers

and the wild cards would have gone to Boston, Anaheim and Minnesota. Same teams as actually were in the playoffs in 2004. Playoff pairings can be based on record, with all division winners getting a higher seeding than wild card entrants. You can even do the division winner can't play a wild card from the same division so you can wind up with a Red Sox-Yankees semi-final.

My guess is that you'd get a better mixing of teams than we're currently getting with interleague play. The Cubs and White Sox might not play every year, but it would be pretty close to every other year. And if you're going to get the big draws into your stadium, you have to play well.

I'd love to hear comments on this.

Following up on a post from a week ago, scoring is still down about 1/2 a run from the same time last year:

First Nineteen Days	2004	2005
Games	230	237
Runs	2273	2205
Runs/Game	9.9	9.3
Home Runs	522	469
HR/Game	2.3	2.0

The Major League save percentage is up closer to where it was last year, however. Through the first nineteen days of 2004, it was 64.2% (115/179). So far through 2005 it's 61.6 (106/172).

The marquee matchup of the day is in Atlanta where the Braves host the Phillies tonight. It pits Brett Myers, second in the NL in ERA vs. Mike Hampton, tied for third with his teammate Tim Hudson. It's a recap of Sunday's game in which Hampton and Myers matched goose eggs for eight innings. The Phillies eventually won 2-1 in ten.

Myers success has come with a jump in strikeouts and a reduction in walks. He came into this season with a respectable 6.0 Ks per 9 and a less respectable 3.4 walks per 9. So far in 2005, he's struck out 20 in 20 1/3 innings while walking only 2.

Hampton isn't using the strikeout as a weapon; he's letting batters put the ball in play and having his defense do the work. He's already induced five double plays; taking five of the 22 men to reach base off the tally make his effective opposition OBA .207. Righties are only 12 for 55 against him, with only three extra-base hits.

If you're looking for a slugfest tonight, check out the Rangers playing at Yankee Stadium. Chris Young takes his +7 ERA vs. Kevin Brown's +9 ERA. Two good lineups vs. two struggling pitchers should produce some fire works.

Enjoy!

I forgot to mention earlier this morning that the Day by Day Database is up to date.

Baseball Zealot is a new blog covering all of major league baseball. He links to a post on Dusty Baker's handling of the bullpen that is similar to my post on Wedge.

Was Watching is a new Yankees blog featuring reviews of the games. He noticed Chacin's glasses last night:

Gustavo Chacin (who's full name is Gustavo G. Adolfo Chacin, by the way) is something with those shades. I've already seen some 'net references to him and Corey (Sunglasses at Night) Hart. Personally, the first thing I thought was "The dude reads too many comics and thinks he's Scott "Cyclops" Summers of the X-men." Turns out it's just a prescription thing - like that Punky QB Jim McMahon doing the Superbowl Shuffle.

I got more of a Roy Orbison impression from the glasses.

The Cleveland Indians got off to a 5-0 lead last night and slowly frittered it away into 6-5 ten inning defeat.

But their run production shut down after the second inning.

"Washburn made some adjustments and we didn't make any adjustments back," Wedge said. "We've got to do a better job of putting a complete game together when it comes to what we're trying to do offensively. We've got a ways to go to get to that."

What struck me about strategy, however was Cleveland's bullpen use. With Millwood at 91 pitches, Wedge starts playing the righty/lefty game. He ends up using five relievers to blow the game and a sixth to lose it.

I thought he should have stayed with Betacourt longer. Betacourt has been lights out this season, and struck out the two righties he faced, including Guerrero. If you let Rafael pitch the seveth, you save Rhodes for the eighth, and maybe you have a 2-run lead going into the ninth, and when Wickman gets in trouble you have a few more arms in the bullpen.

I'm sure there were good reasons for the matchups Wedege chose. But I hate to see a pitcher pulled when he's pitching great. It just leaves you less manuverability down the road.

Rich Harden tossed seven shutout innings last night to move into the AL lead for the ERA title with a 0.44 mark. That gives Oakland three starters in the top 10. As you can see here, if Barry Zito pitched decently, the Athletics would have four solid starters. Not bad for a team that stripped two front line pitchers over the winter.

The big problem with Oakland right now is that they only have three regulars who are getting on base at all. The good news is that four of the players with low OBAs are likely to improve; Kendal, Durazo, Chavez, and Hatteberg are all capable of much better numbers. When the collective slump ends, I expect the Athletics offense to jump from it's current 3.8 runs per game, worst in the AL.

Even though Pedro hadn't thrown many pitches, the Mets took him out early with a 10-1 lead. It's a good idea, as Pedro is somewhat fragile. He threw 88 pitches in 7 innings; if he can keep that up, the Mets will be able to leave him in long in close games.

Quite the duel in Baltimore tonight, and like in Washington, the game turned on a shortstop error. Matt Clement and Keith Foulke outdueled Rodrigo Lopez and BJ Ryan as the Red Sox pick up a 1-0 victory and move into first place in the AL East. Neither stater allowed an earned run, and both went eight innings. They should be among the AL ERA leaders come tomorrow morning.

Pedro Martinez, staked to a big lead, is being very efficient in dispatching the Florida Marlins tonight. He's only thrown 57 pitches through five innings, while still striking out five. The faster he eliminates batters, the longer he can go in the game, and the more likely he'll be to earn a win.

I turned on the NY-Toronto game in the 4th to get at look at Gustavo Chacin. Of course, he picks that inning to start getting hit. The Yankees are up 3-0 after getting men on 2nd and 3rd and Jeter hitting a sacrifice fly.

Chacin has a great motion. As he goes through his windup, he bends his arm behind his back to hide the ball for a second. I could see where that would give hitters trouble.

Doug Mientkiewicz slams Al Leiter with a bases loaded homer, giving the Mets a 4-1 lead in the 2nd. Al doesn't have his control tonight, having issued three walks this inning.

Chris Carpenter spun a seven hit complete game shutout against the Cubs this afternoon. It's the 7th complete game shutout of the season. Last year, at this time, there were only 4. It's also the 18th complete game of the year; there were only 7 at this point last season (and we still have this evening to add to things).

If you are going to hit .140 as a shortstop, you better be the best defensive player at your position. Guzman was not today. He made an error that allowed two runs to score in the 9th inning, handing the Braves an unearned victory. It was the worst possible time to boot a ball. Maybe the Nationals will get lucky like the Cubs have have Cristian injure his groin.

Upate: I'm told it wasn't a booted ball, it was a throwing error. Still, the post holds. He should be making an error in that situation. I just watched the play on Tivo. He did a good job getting to the ball in the hole on a very wet infield. He rushed his throw, however. It would have been a very close play if he had taken his time and set himself, but even if he didn't get the batter, it would have been a tie game at that point.

Also, Nick Johnson tried to hold the bag and reach for the ball. If he had come off the bag, he might have stopped the throw from going by and saved a run.

The White Sox take a 4-3 win over Detroit today, running their record in one run games to 7-1. Guillen is investing a lot in one-run strategies, the team being near the top of the league in stolen base attempts and outs invested in one-run strategies (CS+SH). They've also been very good at hitting sacrifice flies. The Gene Mauch managers live on.

Jayson Bay also breaks his home run drought, hitting his first dinger of the season in the fifth for Pittsburgh. Along with Oliver Perez, he's off to a slow start after a great 2004. His solo shot was only the fourth RBI of the year for the Pirate outfielder.

It's like a slugfest without the slugging in Minnesota today. The Royals and Twins have combined for 16 hits through three innings, only three for extra bases. Neither team has drawn a walk, and the Twins lead 7-5.

Johns Smoltz and Patterson are pitching terrific games through five innings. Patterson has struck out five while giving up just one hit. Smoltz has allowed a run on two hits while striking out six. Once again, the Braves offense is letting the big righty down.

I've been wondering why Guzman is still batting 2nd for the Nationals. Now I see the reason. He's there to sacrifice Wilkerson from second so someone else can drive him in. Heaven forbid Guzman could get a hit and turn it into a big inning. The Nationals are up 1-0.

The long drought is over. Jim Thome has homered. Down 3-0 in the fourth, Pat Burrell drew a walk to bring Thome to the plate, and Jim responded with a two-run dinger. Michaels and Pratt repeated the walk/home run combination to put the Phillies ahead 4-3.

Has anyone noticed that the NL is putting up better offensive numbers than the AL this season?

2005	AL	NL
Batting Average	.261	.260
On Base Average	.326	.331
Slugging Average	.410	.416

The NL is getting on base more and hitting for more power, despite having a pitcher bat. This has to be the best reason I've ever seen for getting rid of the designated hitter.

I think a big reason for this is the AL #4 hitters aren't getting the job done. There are 9 teams with aggregate #4 hitters with OPS under .800. If you can't get a .350 OBA and a .450 slugging percentage out of your cleanup guy, you have a problem. And lots of AL teams find themselves in that situation.

Willy Mo Pena continues to pound the ball for the Cincinnati Reds. He doubled in the first run of the game with two out in the first for the Reds. He now has 13 hits, 11 for extra bases and is slugging .971.

Pena and Dunn are a potent slugging duo so far. If Griffey and Kearns can come around, they can turn Cincy into a high power offense.

Via Instapundit, it seems some bloggers are making a go of it through donations.

With enough tips, John Aravosis, a Washington writer, political consultant and creator of the Web site StopDrLaura.com, can cut back on chasing consulting dollars and spend more time blogging, he told readers last week on http://americablog.blogspot.com.

Aravosis' fund drive is getting help from a high-powered pal, Philadelphia's Duncan Black, the economist known as Atrios, at http://atrios.blogspot.com. Atrios has asked readers to help Aravosis.

On his blog, which he says averages 120,000 page views a day, Atrios said all should give to their favorite bloggers, and wealthy readers should pony up "a grand or two." He no longer solicits tips - although he doesn't turn them down - and relies instead on blog ads.

I'm glad this is working. I'm trying to work to the point where advertising will support this site. Until then, your donations are always welcome. Ten dollars today will go a long way toward making this site self sufficient. I hope you'll join the almost 200 people who gave during March.

We'll see how fast Mark Buehrle can pitch today as the White Sox visit the Tigers. Last time out he won 2-1 in 1:39. He's facing Jeremy Bonderman, who has pitched well against the Royals but was hit around by the Indians. Bonderman's last start was 2:25 in a 7-1 victory; maybe they can break 1:30 today.

The Cubs will be without Nomar Garciaparra today, and possibly for a while. His groin injury leaves Chicago without their starting middle infielders as they take on the Cardinals once again. Given the way Nomar was hitting, they can't be any worse with his replacement. :-)

Al Leiter faces his replacement, Pedro Martinez this evening in Florida. It's a rematch of their last start where Al bested Pedro over seven innings 2-1, but the Mets took home the victory vs. the bullpen. Both have nearly identical ERAs, but Pedro is allowing half the base runners.

The Yankees get a look at Gustavo Chacin in Toronto tonight. Chacin made his first start against the Bronx Bombers last September and also earned his first win that night. He's yet to pitch a bad game in the majors. New York will send Mike Mussina to the mound. Mussina continues to show poor control, having walked 8 batters in 16 2/3 innings this season.

A very good pitching matchup in Seattle as Rich Harden goes to the hill vs. Ryan Franklin. Franklin is 5th among AL ERA leaders entering today, but a good outing by Harden will move him to the top of the list (he's a couple of innings short of qualifying for the lead). It's a contrast in styles, too as Harden is a power pitcher striking out over 8 per 9, while Franklin might manage two Ks over a complete game.

Enjoy!

I've noticed a few pitchers striking out a lot of batters but still getting hammered. I'm finding little evidence, however that there is anything different vs. previous seasons. For example, here's a table showing the results when a starter goes at least five innings and strikes out at least 1 batter per inning (I'm using 1993 as my starting point because offense has been fairly consistent over that period):

Starters, Min 5 IP, 1 K per IP	1993-2004	2005
Games Started	9533	89
Record	4299-2599	35-18
Winning Percentage	.623	.660
ERA	3.40	3.36
Strikeouts per 9	10.7	10.5
Hits per 9	7.9	7.9
Home Runs per 9	0.94	0.80

What I'm seeing is that pitchers who go less than five innings with lots of strikeouts are getting hammered more than usual:

Starters, <5 IP, 1 K per IP	1993-2004	2005
Games Started	2603	11
Record	0-1632	0-8
Loss Percentage (L/GS)	.627	.727
ERA	13.56	15.22
Strikeouts per 9	11.3	12.0
Hits per 9	17.4	19.6
Home Runs per 9	2.79	3.68

So pitchers have had bad outings with lots of strikeouts for a long time. This year, the bad outings are extemely bad, but it's only 11 games. It's not a trend. Striking out a lot of batters is still a very good thing.

Jake Westbrook may be the unluckiest pitcher in the AL so far this year. He's 0-4 after being shutout by the LAAOA last night. He's only gotten two runs in support. He's pitched well enough to win in three of his four starts and now has two eight inning complete games.

Bartolo Colon pitched even better, going eight shutout innings before turning the game over to K-Rod for the save. Francisco Rodriguez is one closer who is not having any trouble. In six innings he's allowed just two hits while striking out 9.

The Mariners beat the Oakland Athletics 7-6 as Barry Zito had another poor outing. He did settle after the Boone grad slam, not allowing a run over the next five innings. Maybe that woke him up.

Adrian Beltre went 3 for 5 last night, but so far is having a disappointing season for the money he's making. He only has 3 extra base hits, and his OBA leaves a lot to be desired as well.

Javier Vazquez pitched seven shutout innings against the Giants last night to earn his first win of the season. The interesting thing is that it's the first game this season where he hasn't been striking batters out. In each of his first three starts, he struck out more than a batter an inning and was hammered. He struck out 2 last night and pitched a shutout. Has be been trying to hard to strike out batters?

Finally, the Dodgers starters continue to dominate the Padres batters. Woody Williams was just as good for the Padres last night, but the bullpen allowed the tying run in the 8th and the winning run in the tenth. Drew appears to be breaking out of his slump. He didn't have a hit until 4/10, but has been the J.D. Drew of 2004 since.

The Day by Day Database is now up to date.

Ben Sheets had a game tonight that's been all too typical this season. Sheets went six innings, struck out seven and walked only one. He threw 109 pitches, 74 for strikes. Given that information, one might assume he had a pretty dominant game. Instead, he gave up six runs, four earned, including two home runs.

We saw this with Schilling on Monday and Randy Johnson last night. Lots of strikeouts, few walks, and no domination of the opponent. I'm going to look at this tomorrow to see if it happens more often than I think.

Meanwhile, Oswalt struck out eight and walked none, and wsa perfectly dominating, pitching a complete game and using only 96 pitches to finish the four hitter.

Oliver Perez still has not found his control. He only lasted four innings tonight, throwing 92 pitches, forty four for balls. He's now walked 16 batters in 19 innings pitched. Perez was a huge strength for the Pirates last year; now he's turning into the weak link in the rotation. With 11 reaching base by a hit or a walk, he's lucky he only allowed three runs tonight.

A reader sent this article about a 16-year-old phenom named D'Arby Myers. He sounds too good to be true:

His physical skills are immense. He's 6 feet 3, 170 pounds, and the way he runs, throws, catches and hits would cause any scout to list him as a top prospect.

He also has a 4.0 grade-point average, with A's in chemistry, U.S. history and American literature. A baseball player with brains. What an unbeatable combination.

But what shows that he can make it to the top of his profession is the way he plays the game. There's never a swing in the batting cage that he doesn't enjoy. There's never a moment when he's in uniform that he doesn't feel as if he has found his life's calling.

"It's the sport I feel connected with," he said. "I played all the other sports … basketball, football, even hockey … but there's something about baseball that brings me joy inside. Since I was little, all I've wanted to do was play ball."

Is he the next teenager to make the majors?

The military is being honored in San Diego tonight, and the Padres are wearing camouflage jerseys. When the camera catches Woody Williams at the right angle, his shirt blends in with the crowd and his torso becomes difficult to see. It's impressive how well that works.

The Padres lead 1-0 in the second.

Barry Zito gets off to another bad start. Bret Boone takes him deep for a grand slam. Boone is now just three RBI short of 1000.

I just turned on the Cubs-Cardinals, and the St. Louis announcers are describing a groin injury to Garciaparra that sounds pretty bad. I have not seen a replay, but it appears he was in a great deal of pain. If this is a severe injury, it will put the starting middle infield for the Cubs out of action.

The Washington Nationals pitch their first shutout, stopping the Braves 2-0. Zach Day did the bulk of the work, going seven innings allowing 3 hits. He did walk four, however. The Braves are another team that hasn't walked much this season, so Zach must have been a little wild.

The White Sox win a blow out tonight, defeating the Tigers 9-1. Jon Garland lowers his ERA to 2.57 as he goes eight innings allowing only 1 run. The White Sox now have a 3.38 team ERA. At that level, they can afford to continue to be a low scoring team.

The White Sox even managed to draw three walks tonight, bring their season total to 22. They came into tonight's game last in the majors in walks, trailing the Devil Rays by 16! I guess they really miss the batting eye of the Big Hurt.

Nomar Garciaparra, off to a very slow start, volunteered to hit lower in the order and was dropped to sixth today by Dusty Baker.

No one is quite sure what is causing Nomar's slump. He had a great spring. My theory is the great spring was the cause. This was Nomar's first camp in Arizona. Although not a mile high, Arizona is pretty high above sea level, causing the ball to jump. Garciaparra found it easier to hit in this situation, and may have gotten into a bad habit. Someone's going to need to go back to his Boston batting tapes and see what the shortstop was doing differently.

Matsui, A-Rod and Sierra hit consecutive doubles off Ted Lilly to put the Yankees on top 2-0 in the 2nd inning.

Just a reminder, The Baseball Musings Radio Show is coming up at 8 PM EDT on TPSRadio.

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With Brian Roberts' great start, you might wonder if it's luck or a real change in his ability. One way to gage this is to look at the probability of Roberts hitting six home runs in 57 at bats. (This is similar to the calculations made for Ichiro Suzuki as he approached the hit record last year.)

Roberts came into this season with 12 home runs in 1507 AB, meaning the probability of Roberts hitting a home run in a given AB was about .007989. Not very high. First, I'm going to ask the question, what is the probability of Roberts hitting at least 6 homers in 57 at bats based on his previous career. The answer is somewhere between 6 and 7 in a million. (6.6E-6) The other question I ask is what is the 95% confidence interval? If we give Roberts lots of 57 AB chances, 95% of the time he'll hit home runs between these two numbers. The 95% confidence interval for Roberts is 0 to 2.

So even with a small sample size of 57 at bats, we're looking at very rare event. It's rare enough that I'm inclined to believe that his previous career no longer represents Roberts' ability. We can estimate a lower bound on the new probability of Roberts hitting a home run by finding the smallest probability that includes 6 HR in the 95% confidence interval. That's .04, or about five times his previous probability of hitting a homer. So if you give Roberts 500 AB with this probability, he'll hit about 20 homers this season. Time will tell how well we called this.

There's not much news about Bonds rehabilitation. But the little that's out there is not good.

The Mets travel south to Miami to face the Florida Marlins. Aaron Heilman, fresh off his one-hitter, will once again face Josh Beckett. Josh is third in the NL with a 0.45 ERA (Clemens is at 0.43, Myers at 0.44). It's difficult to pick an ace on the Florida staff right now, but Beckett certainly has a claim to the title.

The Yankees send Carl Pavano to the mound against former Yankee Ted Lilly and the Toronto Blue Jays. It will be a nice contrast between what they have and what they could have had. The Yankees starters are 3-6 with a 5.94 ERA. They Yankees starters have two problems; they're allowing a lot of home runs (1.6 per 9 innings) and balls put into play against them are going for hits. Their strikeout and walk numbers are very good, but the opposition is smaking the ball when they put it in play. Opponents have a .317 BA against the Yankees starters, and they're slugging .505. Toronto starters, on the other hand, are only allowing a .249 BA and a .410 slugging percentage.

The Pirates face the Reds this evening, and the interest here is Oliver Perez. He enters the game with a 9.60 ERA. He's walking close to a batter an inning. Paul Wilson takes the hill for Cincinnati. The Reds offense hasn't clicked yet. They have struck out more than any other team while being near the bottom in walks drawn.

The Cubs renew their rivalry with the Cardinals in St. Louis. Carlos Zambrano faces Jeff Suppan. The Cardinals are not doing a great job of getting on base. Their 37 walks are tied for the lowest in the NL. Walker, Eckstein, Pujols and Edmonds have drawn 26 of those.

Out on the West Coast, the Dodgers try to keep their winning streak going. They'll send Derek Lowe to face the Padres once again. Last time out, Lowe pitched a complete game shutout against tonight's opponent, Woody Williams. Williams has allowed 20 home runs in each of the last two seasons. He's given up four already in 2005 and opponents are slugging .559 against the former Cardinal.

Enjoy!

The Baseball Musings Radio Show will be on the air tonight and every Wednesday night on TPSRadio. The show is one hour starting at 8 PM EDT. I hope you'll tune in.

The Red Sox have given Tim Wakefield an interesting contract. It's a club option for each year in the future. He'll earn a base $4 million, and incentives can drive that higher. Basically, as long as he continues to pitch well, he'll be a Red Sox player. Being a knuckleballer, that could be another decade.

Dan Shaughnessy sums up why Tim is such a great deal here.

This really makes me go back and wonder what management in Pittsburgh was doing in the early 1990's. They alinenate Bonds so he walks, then release Wakefield instead of trying to figure out why he was having trouble. They give big money to Van Slyke when he's at the end of his career. No wonder that great team went down the tubes so quickly.

John Eisenberg of the Baltimore Sun is wondering where the fans have been the last two nights:

The weather was splendid. The Orioles were in first place, coming off that euphoric weekend sweep of the Yankees. For the first time in years, they're sending out signals that they have the potential to put together something real.

What a strange time to have a small-market moment.

But that's precisely what they had, setting a record for the smallest crowd in park history (16,301) Monday night, and then attracting just 1,708 additional fans last night.

I don't think it's the Nationals. John gets it right here:

But while conceding that the Nationals are having some impact, I still think the Orioles' seven straight losing seasons have cut the deepest into their ticket-buying public.

Too many real fans have been turned off or are waiting for the team to keep playing winning ball for longer before they come back.

Winning brings the fans out. If the Orioles keep their winning ways going for another month, we'll see big crowds again at Camden Yards.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

The White Sox win another low scoring close game, beating the Twins 3-1 tonight. I don't know how Orlando Hernandez allows 10 hits and one walk in six innings and doesn't allow a run, even with the defense turning double plays. It seemed whenever El Duque got into trouble, he induced the GDP, pop up or strikeout. It must have been nerve racking for White Sox fans to watch that game.

Chicago now has the best record in the AL and a two game lead on the Twins.

A nice return to the rotation for Matt Morris tonight. Six innings, one walk, seven strikeouts and a win. He only used 71 pitches to get through his six innings; that kind of efficiency in the future will take him deep into the games.

Yadier Molina collected two more hits and has raised his batting average to .154. He's getting in the range of good hitting pitchers now. :-)

The Mets had 15 hits tonight against the Phillies; 1 double, 1 triple and 7 home runs, a team record. The Mets only had 12 HR in their first 13 games. Victor Zambrano, the pitcher, hit the triple. It was the first triple by a Mets player this season.

Brian Roberts keeps belting the ball. His sixth HR tonight sets a new career high for the Orioles leadoff man. Three RBI take his total to 17 in 13 games.

If he keeps hitting like this, do the Orioles move him to the middle of the order? Or do they continue to take advantage of his high OBA at the top and see if he can drive in and score 100 runs at the of the order?

I've been out all evening, but the last thing I exepcted to see when I came home was Hideo Nomo outpitching Randy Johnson. With eight strikeouts and no walks, you would have expected the Big Unit to have a big night. But Eduardo Perez took him deep twice, driving in three runs. So far, the Yankees are not getting their money's worth out of Randy.

Francis and Estes didn't get rocked as I expected. Estes gave up six walks and six hits but only yielded 3 runs in five innings. Francis went deeper, allowing only four hits over 7 2/3 innings. He's in line for the win if the bullpen can hold the game. It's 3-1 Rockies in the 8th.

The starters in the Indians Royals game did not get the job done, each giving up five runs. But the bullpens have been great. The KC relievers have gone 2 2/3 allowing 1 hit, while the Indians have gone 3 1/3 striking out six.

Brazoban is brought in to get the save for the Dodgers, and walks Overbay to start the inning. Lee singles to put men on first and second with no outs. Despite having two saves, Brazoban has allowed a lot of baserunners this year.

Update: Brazoban strikes out Miller for the first out.

Update: Cirillo K's for the 2nd out.

Update: Magruder pops out, and the Dodgers win another. The offense keeps rolling.

Richie Sexson hits his fourth homer of the year in the first inning, a three run shot. All four homers he's hit this season have been with men on base. He's now 10 for 20 with men on base with 8 extra-base hits. He's only 1 for 19 with the bases empty with three walks.

Cesar Izturis gets his second big hit of the day, driving in the tying run in the 9th with a two-out single. He had earlier doubled in two in the Dodger four-run seventh. Mike Adams gives up two hits and a walk to blow the save and send the game to the bottom of the ninth.

Update: The game is going to the 10th after the Brewers fail to score off Carrara. Jim Tracy is out of position players, so if he pinch hits, he'll have to use a pitcher.

Update: He's a gamer. Milton Bradley homers with Drew at first. He sent it over the wall in straight away centerfield. An impressive homer.

Update: Drew walks to start the inning, but Magruder makes a great diving catch off Kent to save a hit.

The Athletics defense cracks first. The Rangers load the bases with one out, and Eric Chavez commits an error to open the scoring. On a hot shot to third, Chavez has the ball bounce off him back onto the infield grass. If he fields it cleanly, he steps on third and throws to first for the DP. Instead, he gets no outs and allows a run to score. The next batter also hits a grounder that the A's can only turn into a force at second. Rincon is coming into the game with the Athletics trailing the Rangers 2-0.

The Dodgers score four in the seventh to pull within one of the Brewers. Phillips and Saenz deliever rbi pinch hits to go with Grabowski's earlier one. The Dodgers pinch hitters came into the game 3 for 13, and now have doubled their season output.

Blanton and Astacio are matching shutouts through five innings, but neither has struck out a batter. They've been depending on their defenses. The Athletics have allowed 2 hits while the Rangers have given up four. Both defenses have helped with a double play.

Update: Astacio gets a K, striking out Chavez.

Elmer Dessens gave up a walk, single and fly out in the fourth when had to leave the game with an injury. Buddy Carlyle took his place and immediately gave up a three run homer to Chris Magruder. He now has loaded the bases with 2 walks and a hit batter.

The broadcast is reporting the Dessens has soreness in the back of the shoulder. Good news, however, is that Penny may be able to start Sunday.

Update: Overbay hits what at first looked like a single to center, but the ball was moving and got by a diving Bradley. He clears the bases and the Brewers end up scoring six in the fourth to take a big lead on the Dodgers.

Sandy Alderson is moving from the MLB front office to the San Diego Padres front office:

Sandy Alderson, one of Major League Baseball's top executives, has been hired as CEO of the San Diego Padres.

The hiring will be announced Tuesday, a Padres official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press on Monday night.

Alderson, who signed a five-year contract with the Padres, immediately will leave his post as executive vice president for baseball operations in the commissioner's office, a post he's held since September 1998, MLB.com reported.

Alderson is expected to be in charge of baseball operations with the Padres, who haven't been to the playoffs since 1998, when they were swept by the New York Yankees in the World Series. Dick Freeman, currently the president and CEO, will remain as president.

There's no mention of Towers in the article, so I assume he's staying on as GM. Alderson and Towers should make a very potent front office duo.

I'm wondering if someone will bring up the steroid issue at the press conference. Alderson was in charge of security for MLB, yet he had players using steroids under his nose while GM for the Athletics. I wonder if that's part of the reason he's leaving MLB.

Update: There also is a new Pope for real. Now the Cardinals can go back to concentrating on baseball. :-)

For those of you with an afternoon to spare, the Oakland-Texas game offers a nice pitching matchup. Joe Blanton faces Pedro Astacio in the Lone Star State. Blanton has pitched well so far but has nothing to show for it. He's throwing a lot of pitches and is out of the game by the 5th or 6th inning. Astacio is showing the good control he's always had, and so far in keeping the ball in the park.

If your taste runs more toward slugfests, check out Arizona at Colorado this afternoon. Shawn Estes has a 6.82 ERA at Coors for his career, while Jeff Francis sports a 7.00 ERA and he hasn't pitched in Denver yet this season! (He does have a 2.45 ERA in his 11 innings at Coors).

Sidney Ponson is coming off two bad starts and will try to turn his season around vs. the Tigers tonight. He has a 13.50 ERA and has walked more batters than he's struck out so far. Detroit is not a light hitting team by any means. They are leading the American League in runs per game this season at 6.4. Nate Robertson can use a little of that support. He's 0-1 despite a 3.75 ERA.

Brandon Claussen makes his first start of the season, and draws Mark Prior for the assignment. Prior pitched six good innings in his first start of the year against the Padres. The Cubs have not hit lefties well this season, batting just .243 with a .317 OBA vs. .275/.335 vs. righties.

Enjoy!

Curveblog uses the Day by Day Database to look at some poor starts by Cardinal hitters over the years.

Another great start by Jake Peavy. He allows 1 earned run in seven innings against the second highest scoring team in the NL.

ABBR	RPG
LAD	6.667
DET	6.385
BOS	5.769
SF	5.75
BAL	5.692

Peavy is doing everything right with a K per 9 of over 11 and a K per BB of over 6. I must say that the Giants offense has been spectacular in the absence of Barry Bonds. Durham and Vizquel have gotten on base, and Snow, Feliz and Alfonzo have provided the hits and power to drive them around.

Take a look at the ERA leaders at this time (through games of April 19, 2004) last year compared to this year. At the low end we have more pitchers under 1.00 and more pitchers over 9.00. It appears there's a wider spread so far this year. Let's measure it more precisely.

In 2004, the mean ERA is 4.36 and it has a standard deviation of 2.21. In 2005 the mean ERA is 4.32 and the standard deviation is 2.29. So ERAs are lower and the spread is wider. Stephen Gould once theorized that the disappearance of .400 hitters was do to everyone getting better, or to put it differently, the variance between hitters shrinking. As the mean batting average pretty much stayed the same (due to better pitching and defense), no one could be far enough away from the mean to hit .400.

A narrowing of the spread in ERAs would do the same thing, making it more difficult for pitchers to have extremely low ERAs. But if you widen the spread, you might get some really great pitching number from the low ERA end of the tail.

However, a two tail TTest shows a probability of .89 that the two populations are the same. I'll try to revisit this as the season progresses, especially if we continue to have extremely low ERAs among the league leaders.

The Day by Day Database is now up to date.

Update: Implemented a speed up to load the names of players much faster when you select daily logs for batters or pitchers.

The White Sox defeated the Minnesota Twins 5-4 tonight, raising their record to 9-4. Chicago, however has only out scored their opponents by three runs this season. They are now 6-1 in one run games. The pitching has been very good, the offense hasn't. But they've been in sync, with the offense doing a good enough job when the pitching has been great. How long will this good luck last?

The Braves get another great start, but once again have not scored. Tim Hudson matched Clemens strikeout for strikeout, walk for walk and pitched an extra inning (he's still in the game). But the Braves have six hits, three by Chipper Jones. Will the Braves scored first again? Will they be able to hold the lead?

Update: Hudson goes nine scoreless, and the Braves fail to score themselves. It's the second day in a row the Braves have played a nine inning scoreless game.

Update: The Braves get out of a bases loaded jam in the 10th. It's still scoreless.

The Reds defeat the Cubs 7-6. Chicago had men on 1st and 3rd in the ninth when Burnitz grounded out to win the games. The interesting thing is that with the game in Cincinnati, there were just as many cheers of "Let's go Cubs" as "Let's go Reds" in the ninth. Those Cubs fans sure get around.

It's another poor outing for Kerry Wood, allowing five runs in six innings, raising his ERA to 6.38. The strikeouts are there, but when the opposition meets the ball, they're hitting .296.

Odalis Perez still hasn't allowed a hit through six innings against the Brewers. He's also only thrown 69 pitches.

Update: Perez walks the leadoff hitter, then Spivey hits a double to deep center to drive Clark across the plate. It's 4-1 Dodgers in the 7th.

Jose Vidro takes Dontrelle Willis deep to break his scoreless inning streak. Still a terrific start to the season for the D-Train.

The Yankees may need each of those 15 runs they scored tonight to win. Jaret Wright is out after 5 1/3 innings and allowing 8 earned runs. He'll probably get the win, but his ERA now stands at 10.05 for the season.

Dontrelle still hasn't allowed a run. He's through six innings now, allowing just two hits while striking out four. He's being efficient again, throwing just 76 pitches so far, less than 13 per inning. The Marlins appear to have found the key to going deep in games.

Not to be out done by Lowe, Erickson and Weaver, Odalis Perez has a no-hitter through four tonight. The Dodgers lead the Brewers 3-0 in the fifth.

Adam Dunn knocked two home runs tonight, both solo shots. They're his first home runs since opening day, when he also launched a pair of dingers. He now has eight RBI in eleven games, but seven came in the first and current game of the season.

Mark Mulder has allowed only 1 hit over five innings tonight vs. the Pirates. I wonder if this is more the result of the Pirates being a poor team, however. Mulder doesn't have a great ball/strike ratio in the game, and he's walked 2 while striking out just one. His problem last year was a jump in walks; if he doesn't solve that, I doubt he can have a great season.

The Tigers Orioles game features two leadoff men off to outstanding starts, starts out of line with their careers. Brandon Inge has two more hits tonight to raise his OBA to .407. Inge had a huge jump last year in OBA, and may be doing it again.

Brian Roberts is 1 for 2, and is OBA goes down to .533. You know you're having a great season when a good night lowers your average.

Dontrelle Willis starts the game against the Nationals with three more scoreless inning, extending his streak to 21. Ohka is matching him so far, having thrown four shutout innings of his own.

Ohka hasn't exactly pitched well, however, giving up three walks and three hits, none for extra bases, however.

I guess the bosses pep talk worked. :-) The Yankees score thirteen runs in the bottom of the 2nd inning against Tampa Bay. The Devil Rays appear to be the cure for a slump.

Alex Rodriguez had a homer and double in the inning, driving in four. He's raised his slugging percentage to .482. Every starter in the order has a hit already.

Update: A-Rod homers again in the third, driving in two more. It's 15-2 Yankees in the top of the fourth.

Brian Borawski has started a diary of the 1935 Detroit season over at Tiger Blog. It's the year the Tigers won a very close race with the Ruthless Yankees.

Ben Volin is now blogging at Only Baseball Matters. His column is The Daily Volin. Stop by and say hi.

I'm sorry that the audio posts from AudBlog don't seem to be going through. I put up a few today, but they didn't come through.

I have to say that's the worst pitched 10 strikeout game I've ever seen. Schilling faced 29 batters and struck out 10 in five innings while allowing 10 hits. With two walks and a hit batter, 10 of 16 balls in play fell for hits. That's pretty amazing. Schilling also worked very slowly. Watching walk to the bullpen to warm up, then walk back to the dugout, he appeared to be laboring. The same on the mound. He looked like he needed time to recover between each pitch.

Of course, one of those hits was a Manny Ramirez ball that was lost in the sun. On consecutive plays, high flys to the middle of the wall in left, Manny lost the flys in the sun and they dropped, one for an error and one for a hit. Catalanato did the same thing, except he got nowhere near the ball.

David Bush did nothing to impress me. In fact, none of the pitchers did anything to impress me. They all ran the counts high and had trouble putting batters away.

We left after six inning, because the first six inning took nearly three hours to play. The pitcher took too much time, there was no crispness to the game at all.

Manny did hit two home runs. The first was down the line between the foul pole and the Coke bottles and may have ended up on the Mass Pike. The second was more interesting. It hit above the yellow line at the top of the wall and bounced back in. The umps first called it a double, but all four gathered and discussed it, and then got the call right (at least, it was clear to me that it was a home run).

It was a glorious day to be at a ball game; warm, sunny with a cool breeze. My daughter got a good dose of hard drinking Fenway fans. I don't know where they get the money to buy all those beers. :-) A slightly faster moving game would have made the day perfect.

My daughter and I are off to Fenway for the annual Patriot's day 11:00 AM start, so this will be a quick GOTD post. Schilling faces David Bush at Fenway as the Red Sox face the Blue Jays with at least 2nd place in the AL East on the line.

The Devil Rays battle the Yankees for last place in the division.

Dontrelle Willis takes his 18 shutout innings into Washington to face the hot Nationals.

The Twins and White Sox face off for first place in the AL Central.

The pitching matchup of the night is in Houston as Tim Hudson of the Braves faces Roger Clemens of the Astros.

Look for audio updates from Fenway during the day.

Enjoy!

On the celebration of the 230th anniversary of the start of the American Revolution, the Day by Day Database is up to date.

Kolb walks David Bell to start the 10th

Update: Kolb walks Lieberthal. It's not a save situation, but it is a win situation. Who do you bring in to close for your closer?

Update: Go for the sure out. Lofton bunts, and Kolb tries to get the runner at third. Kolb throws the ball into left field and the game is tied. Men on 1st and 2nd with none out for the Phillies.

Update: Rollins bunts, and Kolb fails to get the out, although no error this time. The Phillies have the bases loaded, no outs, and Polanco and the heart of the order coming up.

Update: Gryboski in to try to hold the tie.

Update: Polanco hits a hard grounder down the third base line to drive in the winning run. A nice comeback by the Phillies. Myers and Hampton pitched great. Neither bullpen was especially dominant.

Madson comes into the game for the Phillies and gives up two singles to start the 10th. Jordan went up to bunt, but ends up hitting the ball to right to move Orr to third. The Braves have their best threat of the night.

Update: Mondesi hits one deep to left to score Orr. The Braves take a 1-0 lead in the tenth.

Kolb is in for the Braves. Interesting that both managers used their closers in a non-save situation. Abreu has a one-out single, but Burrell flies out. It's up to Thome.

Update: A wild pitch moves Abreu to second. They're walking Thome. Utley will pinch hit.

Update: Utley grounds into a force play at third. On to extra innings!

Why is Billy Wagner starting the 9th inning? Myers only threw 87 pitches. Yes, he had given up consecutive hits to Estrada and Hampton, but Wagner has pitched two days in a row. Giles doubles off the right field wall with one out, then steals third. The Braves have the best threat of the night right now.

Update: Chipper Jones strikes out looking. No excuse for not swinging in that situation.

Update: Great play by David Bell on a slow roller by Andruw Jones. He cut across in front of the shortstop to get the ball and throw out the batter. If the ball had gotten to Rollins, Andrew would have beat it out. To the bottom of the ninth, still no score.

Myers ERA is now 0.44.

One of the problems in having 11 or 12 pitchers on your staff is that you have less room to manuver with your batters. So Bobby Cox pinch hits for Perez with Estrada, another catcher. When he reaches, Cox can't pinch run. So Hampton hits a two out double, and Estrada gets thrown out at the plate. It's still 0-0 in the bottom of the 8th.

Myers and Hampton continue to be evenly matched. Both are tossing two-hit shutouts through six innings. Both are being very efficient; both are averaging about 12 pitches an inning. Myers has pitched a bit better given that he hasn't walked anyone and struck out more, but no one has been able to mount a threat.

So far the Hampton/Myers matchup is living up to expectations. Brett is perfect through three and has thrown only 31 pitches. Hampton is almost as good, giving up just a single and a walk, and he erased one of those runners with a double play.

Hampton has thrown more balls than strikes, however. We'll see if he can survive doing that for the rest of the game.

I just love watching baseball games in high definition. When a ball is hit to Thome, you can see the depth of the divots around first. You can see the texture of the dirt. After watching baseball of a regular TV this afternoon, it's a real eye-popper to see the HD picture.

The San Diego Padres didn't have a prayer against the Los Angeles Dodgers starting pitching this weekend. Two complete game shutouts by Lowe and Weaver sandwiched six innings of two run ball by Scott Erickson. That's 24 innings, 2 runs, 12 hits, 5 walks and 12 strikeouts. Not a bad three days work. DePodesta is looking very smart right now in signing Lowe and Erickson.

Statements like this are why the Yankees keep winning:

"Enough is enough. I am bitterly disappointed as I'm sure all Yankee fans are by the lack of performance by our team," Steinbrenner said in a statement issued immediately after the game.

"It is unbelievable to me that the highest-paid team in baseball would start the season in such a deep funk. They are not playing like true Yankees. They have the talent to win and they are not winning. I expect Joe Torre, his complete coaching staff and the team to turn this around."

I don't see statements like this coming out of Colorado or Pittsburgh.

Of course, there's the real possibility that the Yankees can't be turned around by coaching. The team over the last few years kept making itself older; instead of picking up good, younger players like Guerrero or Beltran, they went for older all-stars like Sheffield, Brown and Johnson. Add to that their own aging stars in Williams, Posada and Rivera, and the Yankees find themselves slow in the field, slow with the bat, and in some cases slow with the fastball. It's not a good combination.

My good friend Jim Storer asked me this morning if this was the end of the Yankees. I'd say at this point it's the middle of the beginning of the end. They had a poor start last year also. If they're playing like this come the end of May, we'll be a lot closer to the end of middle of the end. :-)

Congratulations to Tony La Russa who won his 800th game as the Cardinals manager today. He fell just two shy of that mark with the Oakland Athletics.

The Nationals won another today to sweep their first series at RFK Stadium. The heart of the order did the damage again; Vidro, Guillen, Castilla and Johnson were a combined seven for fifteen with a double and a triple. They drove in five and scored three. A great way to get baseball off to a start in Washington.

I wish, however, that Robinson would get Guzman out of the second spot. It's interesting that he would not tolerate a low OBA from Chavez in the leadoff slot, but is willing to accept Guzman at number two. Guzman has a career .301 OBA, and if he continues his slow start it will soon be below .300.

I just saw an unusual play by Steve Finley. Nick Swisher hit a ball deep in the right-center power alley. Finley ran for the ball, and ended up over running it as he was near the wall and the ball fell behind him. He seemed to have a tough time tracking the ball, but it was a play he should have made. He had plenty of time to get there.

A.J. Burnett continued the complete game trend of the Marlins, going nine to beat the Mets 5-2. What I really like about the Marlins starters going the distance is that they are doing it without using a lot of pitches; 105 for Burnett this afternoon. With those low pitch counts, McKeon doesn't have to worry about abusing his pitchers.

Contrast that with La Russa today, who took Marquis out of the game after eight innings. The Cardinals took a one-run lead in the top of the 9th; Marquis had gone six inning without allowing a run and had not allowed a hit since the leadoff man in the third. He had thrown just 106 pitches. But La Russa trots out Isringhausen who walks two before he gets out of the inning and records the save. In a situation like that, why take the risk?

C.C. Sabathia is showing no ill effects of his injury. He goes 5 2/3 innings, striking out 7. He left after 94 pitches and a single by LeCroy. He was matched by Joe Mays, both allowing one run. Mays is still in the game, so he has a chance to get the win.

Kevin Brown looked effective for two batters before the Orioles put together four consecutive hits to score two runs. Melvin Mora hit his 2nd home run of the season to start the rally off for the Orioles. Three of the four hits were for extra bases, including the first extra-base hit by Palmeiro, a double.

Update: Another two-out rally in the second, ending in a grand slam by Tejada. They Yankees are down 6-0.

Here's another reason we don't know if someone who tests clean really is clean.

C.C. Sabathia steps off the DL into a Cleveland rotation that has the 2nd highest ERA in the AL. He'll try to turn the team around vs. Joe Mays and the Minnesota Twins. Cleveland is off to a poor start in their quest for the AL Central crown, going 2-6 vs. Chicago and Minnesota to start the season.

Brad Halsey tries to solve the Nationals offense for the Diamondbacks this afternoon. The Nationals have six players making contributions with their bats; Wilkerson, Johnson, Castilla, Guillen, Vidro, and Sledge. Loaiza takes the Hill for the Nationals and he hasn't allowed a home run this season.

The Blue Jays have the best ERA among AL starting pitchers this season, and they send one of their bright spots against Texas today. Josh Towers has struck out 12 and walked only 1 in 12 2/3 innings. The Rangers counter with Chris Young, who's at the opposite end of the ERA specturm. Chris has allowed 14 hits and five walks in just 7 1/3 innings this season.

The best pitching matchup of the night will be in Philadelphia as Brett Myers hosts Mike Hampton and the Braves. Myers and Hampton are ranked 4 and 6 in the NL in ERA. Myers is striking out a ton of batters, over 10 per nine. Batters are putting the ball in play and reaching base against Hampton, but he's been lucky with men in scoring position, having his opponents hit only .100 in that situation (1 for 10).

Enjoy!

Gustavo Chacin put up another great outing last night, limiting the Texas Rangers to two hits over eight innings as the young lefty runs his record to 3-0. I like this blurb on his page on FoxSports.com:

Gustavo Chacin improved to 3-0 by shutting out the Rangers for eight innings tonight. He gave up just two hits. Chacin, who spent four years in Double-A, isn't nearly this good, but the Blue Jays can hope he doesn't figure that out for a while longer. He gets the Yankees next.

The problem with the above quote is that Chacin has had success at every level of professional ball. It seems to me he spent so much time in AA because he was rushed to that level and needed time to develop. He's only 24, and it's perfectly reasonable for a pitcher to have a leap at that age. He's yet to have a bad start in the majors. He became unhittable last year, and it's carried over to this season.

He's neither a power pitcher nor an extreme ground ball pitcher. Neither Steve Carlton nor Tommy John, he fits best into the Tom Glavine bin of lefties. I'm sure the Blue Jays will be very happy with that.

Update: A reliable source tells me that Chacin developed a cutter last year, and since he's been nearly unbeatable.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

For the second game in a row, Vinny Castilla has 3/4 of a cycle. Tonight, he singled, doubled and homered, driving in four runs and raising his slugging percentage to .955. I'm sure he's fast becoming a D.C. favorite.

On the other side of the ball, John Patterson is shutting down his former team. The Diamondbacks have managed only four hits and a walk against the 6' 5" righty. Washington leads 9-0 in the eighth.

Jarrod Washburn and Rich Harden could barely be more evenly matched today. Both went eight innings, gave up four hits, no runs and 2 walks. Harden gets a slightly better game score as he strikes out 8 or Washburn's seven.

It seems proper that ten inning pitching duel should end on an unearned run. The Oakland offense is doing nothing. Kotsay is about the only person getting on base, and only Byrnes and Swisher have shown any power. This is a team that's capable of scoring many more than 37 runs in 11 games.

Manny Ramirez hits home runs in consecutive innings to drive in all six Red Sox runs. He had a two run shot over the Monster seats in the 3rd, then followed with a grand slam in the fourth. That's 18 career slams for Manny, putting him only five behind Lou Gehrig's record of 23. Manny's only 33; given his ability and the number of runners the Red Sox put on base, it's conceivable that he has a real shot at passing Gehrig.

Yadier Molina is off to a terrible start. He's 1 for 26 to begin 2005, an .038 BA. He did draw a walk today to raise his OBA to .074. Most pitchers hit better than that. The Cardinals have an excellent offense, but they need a minimum amount of hitting from the catcher spot. Offense worse than an average pitcher is not going to keep the third Molina brother in the majors.

Jeremy Bonderman had his second great outing vs. Kansas City today. He's allowed 2 runs in 15 innings vs. the Royals. Now he has to show he can handle a good offense. Cleveland roughed him up pretty good in his second start. He should face the White Sox next on the 21st.

Two complete games today on the South Side of Chicago as Mark Buehrle defeats Ryan Franklin 2-1. The most amazing thing is that the game only took 1:39! The two pitchers combined to throw only 197 pitches as well, 134 for strikes.

Buehrle has now pitched three very quick games:

1. 4/4 1:51 vs. Cleveland
2. 4/10 2:29 vs. Minnesota
3. 4/16 1:39 vs. Seattle

The White Sox should make sure he goes on getaway days. :-) I haven't seen him work this season. Is he quick pitching? Does he get the ball back from the catcher and throw, or are batters just swinging early in the count?

Torii Hunter had a double and homer today as he colleted three hits and three RBI to help Minnesota to a 6-4 win over Cleveland. Torii's not hitting very often (11 hits) but six of them have been for extra bases, giving him 12 RBI in 11 games. He's in the perfect part of the batting order for his skill set; he doesn't get on much, but he hits for power. It's the Joe Carter combination, and when you have great OBA guys in front of you, the RBIs are there for the taking.

Brian Roberts hits his fifth HR of the season to bring the Orioles back from a 6-2 deficit and give them a 7-6 lead over the Yankees. Sturtze and Gordon combine the blow the lead in the bottom of the 7th.

Roberts has now equaled his career high in home runs, set in 2003 in 112 games. Is he the new Brady Anderson? He's 27, the age when many players hit their peak.

Pedro Martinez threw three wild pitches today, and the three were directly responsible for his two runs allowed. As I listened to the game on the radio driving around this afternoon, I wondered how much having Piazza behind the plate caused them. The third one was off Piazza's body, and from the play by play description it seems a better catcher would have had it. Watching the first two on Tivo, Piazza never tries to get his body in front of the ball. He's set up outside, and when the pitch comes low and inside, all Mike does is try to backhand the ball with his glove. There's no attempt to move to block the pitch.

If this keeps up, Pedro won't have any confidence throwing pitches in the dirt. Lots of batters will swing at those, but you need the catcher to stop the ball to record the out.

Al Leiter returns to New York this afternoon to face the Mets and Pedro Martinez. Pedro, after a rough first inning of the season, has been everything the Mets wanted. Martinez has twenty one strikeouts and three walks in his two starts. Leiter's had no run support in his first two starts as the Marlins just scored 1 run in each of them.

It's a battle of lefties in Cincinnati as the Astros send Andy Pettitte to the mound to face Eric Milton. Pettitte appears to have recovered well from his surgery; he's getting ground balls again (18 grounders to 11 fly balls so far). Milton has yet to impress in Cincy. He had one start where he pitched well enough to win, and another in which he deserved the loss. Opposing hitters are batting .386 against him; the good news is he's only allowed 1 walk, so his opposition OBA is actually lower, .383. (Sac flies are in the denominator of OBA.)

The once and current ace face off against each other in Baltimore this evening. Mike Mussina returns to the stadium of his youth to face Rodrigo Lopez. Balls in play against Mussina are finding holes; opposing batters are hitting .356 against him. Couple that with five walks in 11 innings and you have a parade of baserunners surrounding the Moose. Lopez has been throwing strikes; 142 strikes, 72 balls in two starts, an excellent ratio. His ERA sits at a mere 0.64.

Finally, Gustavo Chacin starts for the Blue Jays tonight vs. the Texas Rangers and Kenny Rogers. Chacin is off to a good start in his career; through four starts he has a 2.52 ERA. He keeps people off base; the two home runs he's allowed have both been solo shots. Kenny Rogers should think about completing a game himself. He's pitched well enough to win in both his starts, but the offense didn't support him in one and the bullpen blew the other.

Enjoy!

There were three complete games last night, brining this season's total to ten. Bruce Chen threw a four hitter at the Yankees, allowing just one run and lowering his ERA to 1.80. Aaron Heilman came close to pitching the first no-hitter in Mets history, but settled for a 1-hit shutout of the Marlins. Derek Lowe, wearing a Brooklyn jersey, kept the Padres off stride as he spun a three-hit shutout. So, are complete games up this season? Not yet. (Click graph for a larger image.)

This is a pretty amazing trend. If you look at the linear regression line, we should have hit zero complete games a couple of years ago. Which raises the question; when does a trend become over done? How bad does the save percentage of a bullpen have to be to start trusting your starter longer? You see the Marlins starting to use their pitchers deep into the game (with low pitch counts, I might add). Will others start to follow?

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

Five hits so far through 2 1/2 innings in the San Diego/Los Angeles game, and two are by the pitchers, Williams and Lowe. Derek has driven in the only run of the game. A pitchers duel on both sides of the ball. :-)

Colon and Zito don't seem to be struggling tonight. Colon's only allowed 2 hits and 1 run through four innings, while Zito has a 1 hitter through five. Zito, however, is not throwing strikes; 30 of 66 pitches have been called balls. LA of A has only drawn one walk, but Zito has plunked two batters. It's 1-0 Oakland in the 5th.

Jon Garland walks Jeremy Reed after retiring the first 19 batters. He's only thrown 73 pitches so far.

Update: Beltre drives the ball up the middle to break up the no-hitter. Still a nice performance by Garland so far.

Aaron Heilman tosses a complete game one-hitter for the Mets. He walked three and hit a batter, but got two double plays to only face three over the minimum. The Mets still don't have a no-hitter; Luis Castillo had the only hit, a single in the fourth. Heilman has had an unremarkable career. Now he's part of Mets history. The Mets win 4-0.

Jon Garland has a perfect game through five innings. He's averaging 11 pitches per inning.

Update: Garland retires the side in order in the sixth on three ground balls.

David Ross is turning out to be a very good pickup for the Pirates. He has two home runs tonight, giving him 3 in 17 AB so far this season. He's always had good power, you just had to be able to stand the low batting average. He has a decent eye for the strike zone; he doesn't hit the ball that often, but when he does it goes a long way.

Jose Lima is down 5-0 in the 2nd to the Tigers. He gave up a three-run home run to Craig Monroe, his fourth HR allowed in 7 2/3 innings pitched this year. His ERA after the big first is 15.26.

The Cincinnati Reds batters are averaging nearly 9 strikeouts per game, and Roy Oswalt is taking advantage of their free swinging ways tonight. Through five innings, he's fanned 8 while walking only 1. The Astros lead 3-0 in the sixth.

It really is a mistake to start a pitcher like Hideo Nomo against the Red Sox. In two plus innings he's allowed 5 walks and 8 runs, including a grand slam to David Ortiz. The Red Sox are selective, so you need to be around the strikezone. He face 16 batters and 10 reached base. The Rays are down big early, losing 8-0 in the third.

Magglio Ordonez has a hernia and will miss four to six weeks. This won't effect his contract; a knew injury would void it.

Via Brew Grit, Ben Sheets landed a big contract extension:

The Milwaukee Brewers have signed pitching ace Ben Sheets to a new four-year contract extension worth $38.5 million.

Sheets, 26, had signed a $6 million deal for 2005 in February, but left open the option of tearing it up and negotiating a new four-year deal or merely adding a three-year extension. The two sides agreed to tear up the old deal and sign a new extension through 2008.

The ballclub made the announcement at a news conference late this afternoon at Miller Park. Sheets is set to take the mound at 7 tonight against the St. Louis Cardinals.

Good for Ben and good for the Brewers. Ben could have walked at the end of 2006. With the price of starting pitching on the way up, the Brewers have a good deal on a pitcher with Cy Young Award ability. Barring injury, there's no doubt he would have commanded a hefty salary after the 2006 season. Sheets gets security in case he's injured, the Brewers keep a great pitcher around for two more years at a reasonable price, and Sheets still gets to be a free agent when he's 30. It's a winning contract for all involved.

Age does not seem to be the problem with the fall off in offense as this graph shows. (Click on graph for a larger image.)

BA and OBA trend up until the mid-30's and are still good after that. They batters who stick around that long are the good ones. We'll see if this trend holds up as the year goes on.

Update: To clarify, this is a graph for this year only. Age is the seasonal age of players, that is, the age before July 1, 2005.

Bill Young has thoughts on opening day in Washington, having spoken with many people who have fond memories of the franchises days in Montreal as the Expos.

Maybe it took a year for the steroids to work out of the batters systems. Runs scored are significantly down from the same period last year:

First Twelve Days	2004	2005
Games	136	133
Runs	1381	1290
Runs/Game	10.2	9.7
Home Runs	302	266
HR/Game	2.2	2.0

There's been a real lack of offense from the 3-4-5 hitters in the AL. I'm not sure what's going on; maybe there haven't been too many games in hitters parks yet. Maybe it's the lack of steroids. My guess thought, is that it has more to do with age. Remember this post showing how hitters in 2004 were among the oldest in the history baseball. The lack of a youth movement may be catching up to MLB.

Three games stand out today between teams that I believe will be battling each other for division titles come September.

The first is in Cleveland where the Indians host the Minnesota Twins for the first time this season. It should be a good pitching matchup as Twins ace Johan Santana faces off against Jake Westbrook. Jake's had one good and one bad start, leaving him with a 7.20 ERA. He's better than that. Santana is also better than his 4.50.

The Indians have gotten very little offense from 2/3 of their offense, slots 4-9 in the lineup. Thirty six hits in 198 AB leads to a .182 batting average. To their credit, they've drawn 21 walks, but that doesn't make up for the derth of hits.

On the West Coast, the Angels and Athletics meet for the first time since the Angels nosed ahead of Oakland for the 2004 NL West title. Bartolo Colon faces Barry Zito in Oakland in a matchup of struggling aces. Everything is going wrong for Barry; he's walked more than he's struck out; he's given up three homers in a little over nine innings and opponents are stealing with abandon, swipeing five bases in five attempts.

Colon is giving up hits. Seventeen so far in 12 2/3 innings. Couple that with the six walks allowed and he's near two baserunners per inning. His opposition batting line looks like the start of an MVP season; .340 BA, .411 OBA, .520 Slugging.

The Dodgers and Padres meet in Los Angeles tonight. Woody Williams faces Elmer Dessens. The Dodgers staff has the fewest strikeouts in the NL; they're striking out 4.75 per 9 in 2005 vs. 6.6 last year. It's an interesting way to remake a pitching staff, putting more pressure on the defense. The Padres are leading the NL in On-Base Average and are 2nd in HR hit. That's a great combination for an offense.

Enjoy!

It's the second annual Jackie Robinson day around major league baseball. MLB.com has extensive coverage. There will be a special ceremony at Dodger Stadium tonight. All fitting tributes to a great ballplayer and a great man.

It looks like Alex Rodriguez is a hero off the field:

The New York Yankees star said Thursday he was standing in a crosswalk on Newbury Street near downtown Boston at about 3:30 p.m. Tuesday when he saw the boy starting to run across the street into the path of an onrushing truck.

Rodriguez reached out and grabbed the boy, pulling him back and preventing a serious accident.

"The kid was going to get run over. I just kind of put my arm out and stopped him," he said.

I didn't see anything about this on the Boston Globe web page nor on the Herald's. Given his popularity in Boston, I half expected to see the headline, "A-Rod Grabs Little Boy." :-)

Update: In the comments, a reader points out that it is in the Globe, just not in the sports section. The Globe article presents many more details.

Ben Kabak at Off the Facade takes a look at the Yankees finances and what could have been. He brings up the point that the Yankees may be out of compliance with the major league debt rules, and it's a constraint that hasn't been factored in properly.

I disagree. The rule, quite frankly, should not apply to the Yankees. The rule ties debt to cash flow only; that's fine for someone who just bought a franchise and has little equity. But the Yankees have more equity than they know what to do with. Ken links to this piece in the Washington post on the subject; on page 2 there is this telling quote:

One source with knowledge of the Yankees' finances, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, downplayed the rumors, saying the Yankees' total debt was close to $100 million. "That's very little debt, relative to the value of the franchise," the source said, "and they could wipe it out by writing a check. People overestimate this issue."

Debt is not a problem for this team. It will simply be a matter of moving money around to come into compliance. The Yankees should get the rule rewritten in the next CBA to take equity into account.

As to the rest of Ken's piece, I agree whole heartedly that the Yankees have done a poor job planning for the future. They are headed back into the era of the early 1990's when spending on has beens in the 1980's came back to haunt them. Maybe someone will suspend Steinbrenner again; New York always grows a dynasty when he's out of action. :-)

The Day by Day Database is up-to-date. Use it to audit your favorite players. :-)

Roy Halladay runs his record to 2-0 with a complete game five hitter vs. the Rangers. Halladay strikes out nine, giving him 18 in 22 innings pitched.

Pedro Astacio pitched very well also. He just picked the wrong night to allow 2 runs as the Blue Jays win 2-1.

The Yankees leave the bases loaded in the 9th as the Red Sox power beats the Yankees baserunners 8-5. The Yankees put 16 men on via the hit or walk to Boston's 11. But the Sox had 20 total bases to the Yankees 13 as five of the Red Sox eight hits went for extra bases. The season series is tied at three between the two division rivals.

Jacque Jones is off to a great start this season. With his 3 for 4 tonight, he's raised his average to .407, 11 for 27. Five extra base hits, including tonight's triple gives him a .778 slugging percentage. He scored 2 and drove in 2 as the Twins have a 10-3 lead over the Tigers in the 7th.

The Nationals win their first hme game defeating Arizona 5-3. Livan Hernandez tried to complete the game, but gave up a three-run homer to Chad Tracy in the ninth. Still, a nice game by Livan even though he gave up six walks.

Vinny Castilla was the hitting star, adding a homer to his triple. With the Braves and Marlins off, the Nationals move into sole possesion of first place in the NL East.

Livan Hernandez is treating his new fans to a one-hitter through six. He's giving the Diamondbacks opportunities, however, as he's walked five. Without the hits, however, the walks haven't hurt him.

I'm really starting to wonder how long Sidney Ponson is going to last with the Orioles. The Tampa Bay Devil Rays pounded him tonight; he gave up 7 hits and 4 walks in three innings. Nine earned runs in three innings raises his ERA to 13.50. Batters are hitting .390 off the Aruban heavyweight. He was luck to get a win against the Yankees. That won't be happening tonight.

Everyone in the Tampa Bay lineup has reached base by a hit or a walk, and four players have multi-hit games.

The Yankees-Red Sox game is turning out to be a great example of power vs. on-base offenses. The Yankees have put a ton of runners on base (12 in 4 innings) and have score five runs. The Red Sox have only had four runners reach in three innings, but home runs have driven them around. The Yankees lead 5-4 in the middle of the fourth.

Update: Just to put an explanation point on it, Jason Varitek hits one over the Monster seats to tie the game at five.

Update: Johnson has pitched 10 regular season games at Fenway entering today (9 starts), but never gave up three HR to the Red Sox in any of those games. He does have a career 4.42 here.

The Washington Nationals finally get to Javier Vazquez, scoring the first runs at RFK since 1971. Vinny Castilla triples in two, then scores on a sac fly to give the D.C. fans a 3-0 lead to cheer.

To follow up on this morning's post, as of 8:15 there have been four stolen bases today with no caught stealing.

Brando Backe tripled and scored to help himself to a 2-1 lead over the Mets. Backe is quite the hitter; he's now 6 for 17 for his career with a triple and a homer. He's also drawn two walks. A lot of regulars wish they had averages like that.

Randy Johnson may be losing something. Not only has he given up two two-run homers, but they were to Jay Payton and Edgar Renteria. Not exactly the heart of the Red Sox order. Boston leads 4-1.

Tim Schultz looks at the relationship of Edgardo Alfonzo's weight to his ability to hit.

The Indians scored four runs in the first inning with the help of a White Sox error. The Indians offense has been kept quiet in the early innings this season. Entering today, they had an OBA of .275 in innings 1-6 with a slugging percentage of .269! That's right, a lower slugging percentage than OBA! The team is showing little power, with only six home runs so far, but five of them have come from the 7th inning on. The Indians offense is one of the early season disappointments.

A foul line drive was hit into the stands at Fenway, and a fan made a great catch. On the close up, it turned out to be Doug Flutie! Made for a nice interview on the NESN broadcast.

Baseball is underway in Washington again. It's not on MLB Extra Innings, unfortunately. I would have liked to have seen the opening ceremonies. Nick Johnson get the first home hit for the Nationals, a single in the first.

A very bad call on the first play of the Yankees-Red Sox game. Womack hit a ball in the hole, Renteria threw to first, but the throw was down the line toward home plate. Millar swept his arm around trying to tag Tony, but Womack was already by him. The ump called Womack out. What's interesting to me is that the ump appeared to have a good angle on the play. The replay clearly showed Womack was safe.

The Mariners are doing a good job of taking pitches today. They've drawn six walks through six innings today; so far this year they've averaged two walks a game. They've also scored ten runs, their best output of the season.

The Washington Nationals take center stage as baseball returns to the nation's capitol this evening. President Bush will throw out the first pitch, a tradition started by William Howard Taft exactly 95 years ago. Livan Hernandez gets the nod for the Nationals. He'll oppose Javier Vazquez. There was one positive aspects to Vazquez's last start against the Dodgers. He did strikeout seven in 5 1/3 innings; now he just needs to get the walks under control. Livan is coming off a very good game against the Marlins in which he allowed just 1 run in seven innings.

A good piching matchup this afternoon as Jamie Moyer faces Denny Bautista. Bautista had a marvelous outing vs. the Angels, allowing only 1 run through eight innings on just 102 pitches. He also struck out 8 and walked none.

Randy Johnson invades Fenway park tonight as the Yankees and Red Sox play the rubber game of their series. Bronson Arroyo takes the hill for Boston. The Red Sox appear to have returned to their old habit of leading the league in GDP's. The Red Sox ranked 19th in the majors last season, hitting into only 123 double plays. This year, they're number one with 10.

Enjoy!

Basestealers are having a very good year so far. They have the 2nd best SB% since 1974.

Season	Games	SB	Attempts	SBPct	SB/G
1996	2267	3240	4583	70.696	1.429
2005	125	141	200	70.500	1.128
2004	2428	2589	3695	70.068	1.066
1987	2105	3585	5114	70.102	1.703
1995	2017	2932	4189	69.993	1.454

The last two season runners are stealing less but stealing better. Sabermetrics makes another inroad.

Dilbert puts steroids to good use. :-)

The standings this morning indicate that 29 of the 30 ML teams are within 2 1/2 games of first place today. This is very different from two years ago, when a number of teams got off to both fantastic and horrible starts, and the divisions had spread themselves out by this time.

And we have interesting teams in first place. The Toronto Blue Jays are on top of the AL East; the Brewers top the NL Central after beating up Pittsburgh, and the Washington Nationals are tied for first in the tight NL East.

The only club not keeping pace is Colorado. They've been outscored 60 to 36 and have their walks and strikeouts backwards. The pitchers have walked 48 and struck out 40. It's bad enough when an individual pitcher does this, but to have the whole staff in this situation is deplorable. Meanwhile, the batters have drawn 21 walks while striking out 53 times. And you can't blame Denver for the poor pitching; six of the eight games have been played on the road. It's going to be a long summer at Coors.

If you wanted to see good relief pitching, Chavez Ravine was the place to be last night. The Dodgers and Giants bullpens combined for six innings, three hits, no walks and seven strikeouts while not allowing a run. Unfortunately for the Giants, Brett Tomko had allowed home runs to Choi and Kent and the Dodgers won 4-1.

It's interesting to see Choi and Drew batting 2-3, having poor seasons so far, and yet the Dodgers are tied with the Blue Jays for most runs scored in the majors with 55. What's going to happen when Choi and Drew start to hit?

The Bush-Blanton matchup in Oakland last night turned out to be a pretty good one. Both youngsters pitched well. The strikeouts weren't there, but neither team got many hits. David Bush went seven for Toronto, allowing two runs. Blanton threw six innings, allowing 1 run. Both had strike percentages in the mid 60's; excellent control by that measure. I can't wait to see how these two develop.

The game fell to the bullpens, however, and Oakland won the battle last night. Jason Frasor, with the help of a Greg Zaun error, allowed three runs in 1/3 of an inning to give the game to the Athletics. The Oakland bullpen picked up a blown save (Huston Street), but only allowed two runs to Toronto's four.

Speaking of Houston Street, I once did some consulting in this building on the corner of Lafayette and Houston Street.

Correction: Fixed the spelling of Street's first name.

The Day by Day Database is updated through games of Wednesday, April 13, 2005.

In case you missed it live, the archive of my show on TPSRadio is now available.

The Rangers are getting just what they want out of Chan Ho Park tonight. The strikeouts are there and the walks aren't. He's fanned 6 through five innings and has only allowed 1 run on a solo homer. If the two-seamer is working, the Rangers have a new weapon in their rotation. The Rangers and Angels are tied at 1 in the bottom of the fifth.

I just finished my radio show, and there's lots of good action tonight. Clemens and Ishii are involved in a great pitcher's duel in New York; Cleveland and Chicago are tied at 4, Tampa and Baltimore and Texas and LAA are tied at 1.

The Yankees and Red Sox were tied at 2 when Schilling made a mistake to Giambi, and Jason uppercutted a sinking pitch into the right field seats for a 4-2 lead. Bernie Williams follows up with a home run over the Red Sox bullpen to extend the lead to 5-2.

Schilling pitched very well, but started running out of gas in the fifth. Still the Red Sox faithful have to be happy that Curt pitched that well vs. a team with as powerful a lineup as New York. He'll get his stamina back as the year progresses. Everything else was there.

Curt Schilling is back on the mound for the Red Sox and starts Tony Womack off with an 0-2 count.

Yes, Tony Womack. Torre, for some reason, has changed his mind from his wise spring training thinking and has moved Womack to the leadoff spot. It's not because Womack hits Schilling well; Tony's hitting .188 off Curt.

Actually, that just went down as Schilling strikes Womack out swinging.

Update: Schilling gets Jeter looking on an inside pitch that Jeter thought was a ball. It was very close, but looked like a strike to me.

Update: Sheffield pops out to end the inning. Schilling throws 18 pitches, 14 for strikes and looks as good as he's ever looked. His speed was there, his location was there, and he changed speeds and moved the ball around the strike zone effectively. Boston is breathing a big Cy of relief right now. :-)

Kevin Hench at Foxsports.com documents the biggest blown saves of the year, the closers who entered in the 9th and blew a three run lead.

Keep in mind, according to Bill James, this type of blown save should occur once every 50 opportunities. That's five times in 13 tries in 2005.

Mark Prior starts the 2005 season with two shutout innings and a base hit in his first plate appearance. He hit a hanger hard up the middle for a single. He's not come around to score to give himself a 4-0 lead in the 2nd.

The Washington Nationals complete their opening road trip on a high note, beating the Braves 11-4. They'll open at RFK tomorrow with a share of the NL East lead and possibly the top home run hitter in the NL, Jose Guillen. Jose went deep twice today to pass Pat Burrell and Troy Glaus for the NL long ball lead.

First in war, first in peace, and first in the NL East!

With men on 1st and 2nd with one out in the bottom of the ninth, David Eckstein hits a long fly ball over the head of a drawn in Adam Dunn. But the ball bounces over the fence for a ground rule double. Instead of tying the game, the Cardinals are left with runners at 2nd and 3rd.

The Reds then walk Larry Walker to load the bases for Albert Pujols. Pujols hits a shot to Randa, who tags third and throws to first for the double play and the Reds win.

Eckstein shows some power, and the park takes away an RBI and a chance at a win. If the ball stays in play, two runs score, and the game is at least going into extra innings.

Zach Greinke has yet to allow a run this season. He went six innings vs. the Mariners today allowing only four hits, three of them singles. Unlike Willis, however, Greinke threw 86 pitches and was pulled, allowing the bullpen to give up two runs to the Mariners in the 7th.

Aaron Sele has allowed just two singles and two walks as the Royals fail to support their starter. The Mariners lead 2-0.

Dontrelle Willis starts the season with consecutive shutouts. He used 114 pitches today to stop the Phillies. To show just how remarkable this is, the leaders in shutouts last year where Jason Schmidt and Dontrelle's opponent today Cory Lidle with 3. With four complete games, I wonder if the Marlins will consider reducing the number of pitchers in their bullpen?

Joe Randa is three for three today through six innings, raising his average to .481. All are singles, however, so now only six of his 13 hits are for extra bases. :-)

Randa's always been a pretty good average hitter, and not bad at getting on base. Adding power this year would bring a big boost to a Reds lineup where their power is very fragile in terms of injuries.

Nate Silver shows some research at Baseball Prospectus that pitchers with good change-ups have more control as to whether balls put into play turn into hits than other types of pitchers.

The Baseball Musings Radio Show will be on the air tonight and every Wednesday night on TPSRadio. The show is one hour starting at 8 PM EDT. I hope you'll tune in.

I like what I'm seeing in the Marlins boxscore for Dontrelle Willis. He's retired the first nine batters, striking out four and only using 32 pitches. That's 12 scoreless innings to start the year for Willis.

The Padres have pounded Kerry Wood for five runs in the first two innings. The Padres batted around in the first; after a leadoff home run by Blum, San Diego didn't get the ball out of the infield but scored three more runs. Kerry gave up a second home run in the second to make the score 5-0.

The Padres have pounded Kerry Wood for five runs in the first two innings. The Padres batted around in the first; after a leadoff home run by Blum, San Diego didn't get the ball out of the infield but scored three more runs. Kerry gave up a second home run in the second to make the score 5-0.

Nice heads up base running by Luis Castillo. He lays down a bunt to try to get a hit, and when the ball is throw down the right field line, Luis doesn't slow down at all. He heads for second with the intention of going to third. By the time Abreu gets to the ball and makes the throw, Castillo is safe. He then scores on a sacrifice fly. It's a nice example of knowing where the ball is and if you can take that extra base.

Sixteen games are on tap today, including two at beautiful Wrigley field. Mark Prior will make his 2005 debut today. According the the FoxSports schedule, it will be against Lawrence not Peavy. But game 1 featuring Peavy and Kerry Wood should be a great warm up for the premier of Prior.

Curt Schilling returns to the mound tonight to test his new ankle against the Yankees. I wonder if he'll paint a red stain on his sock? Schilling did get roughed up in his rehab start. He'll face Jaret Wright, who was roughed up in ML start against the Orioles.

The Marlins and Phillies go at it this afternoon in Florida. Dontrelle Willis and Pat Burrell make this game worth the price of admission. Burrell is 6 for 18 career vs. Willis, but has no home runs and no RBI against the lefty.

On the West Coast, the 6-2 Blue Jays try to keep the best record in the majors going for a sweep of the Athletics. David Bush faces Joe Blanton. Blanton and Bush both had minor league strikeout and walk numbers to die for. This should be a good match-up, and especially one to watch for as they mature.

Enjoy!

In a comment to this post, Robert J writes:

I don't have it in front of me, but my local paper mentioned that there were 39 blown saves in the first 99 games this year. Is this the beginning of a cycle of fewer dominant closers? Have hitters caught up to them?

If you look at games through yesterday (the 2nd Tuesday after the first Sunday night game) there were 58 saves in 94 opportunities in 2004, 43 saves in 87 opportunities in 2005. That's a save percentage of 61.7% in 2004, 49.4% in 2005. So this has been a bad year for blowing saves, although a 61.7% conversion rate isn't stellar.

Unfortunately I no longer have the data, but I believe league save rates have been in decline for some time. I remember doing studies when I was at STATS showing that the decline was coming entirely from middle relievers; that actual closers were pretty steady over time. This comes from managers not using their best pitchers in game situations, but saving them to start the ninth with a lead.

There's another trend that may have something to do with it; strikeouts are down slightly, 6.3 per 9 in 2005 vs. 6.4 during the same period in 2004. Are more batters trying to put the ball in play? Or is it that we haven't had much cold weather at the ball parks? Offense goes up with temperature, so an early advantage for pitchers may be negated by the weather.

Still, it's just 87 save opportunities. Just as anything can happen in 100 AB, this is probably just bad luck. It's a trend worth watching, however.

The Day by Day Database is up to date. In case you missed it, pitcher comparisons are now available.

Did you know there was a better player than Alex Rodriguez on Alex's high school team? Dr. Manhattan has the story.

It's interesting that the article has the tone that Butler's failure is some kind of mystery, when really it seems it's just unlucky injuries.

Jason Marquis was good on both side of the ball tonight, allowing the Reds only 1 run over 6 1/3 innings while driving in three runs with a triple. Since the start of the 2003 season he's 23 for 78 with 7 doubles and a triple. Pretty good hitting for a pitcher.

In his first start for the Braves, Tim Hudson didn't pitch that well, but only allowed only 1 run over five innings. It wasn't enough to get the win. Tonight, he pitched brilliantly, allowing one run over eight innings with no walks. It still wasn't enough for a win as Dan Kolb blows his first save in four chances and takes the loss for the Braves. Kolb walked two and allowed two hits in his one inning of work.

The Florida Marlins are depending on two pitchers to lead the rotation; Josh Beckett and A.J. Burnett. So far, those two have done that and more. Beckett has not allowed a run in fifteen innings, while Burnett pitched a complete game win tonight using only 103 pitches. They've only allowed six walks in thirty innings while striking out twenty six. A great start to the season.

Through four innings, the Washington Nationals have four hits; a single by Guillen, a double by Johnson, a triple by Wilkerson and a home run by Vidro. Vidro's was a solo shot, and the Nationals lead the Braves 1-0.

Armando Benitez has loaded the bases with two out in the 9th to give Jeff Kent a chance to win the game with a home run. It's 8-5.

Update: Benitez walks Kent. Now a Bradley double can win the game.

Update: Bradley singles hard to left. Jason Ellison, who had pinch run for Feliz, has the ball skip by him and the Dodgers win 9-8.

Good camera work by the Dodgers broadcast. They had the whole play from the high home camera at a wide angle. You could see that Ellison was going to miss it before it got near him. Going the opposite way, the low liner had a lot of English and was skipping rather than rolling. Ellison never got in front of it and it went by his backhand. I'm assuming it's a single and error rather than a double.

The latest addition to the Day by Day Database is pitcher comparisons. For example, here's a listing of the pitchers with the best K per 9 during the current decade. I hope you find this useful.

Pedro Feliz belts his first home run of the year to extend the Giants lead to 8-3 in the middle of the fourth.

Vin Scully just had a great line. Nakamura had doubled, lining a shot down the third base line. Phillips follows with a single in left that Feliz overruns, with Phillips winding up at second and Nakamura scoring. To Vin:

Watching Nakamura score from second and Phillips go from home to second is like watching the game in slow motion, but they got themselves around.

The Giants lead 5-3 after two.

If you missed my appearance on Sports Bloggers Live last night, you can hear the whole show, or just the baseball segment. We're discussing Mariano Rivera, Jake Peavy, Troy Glaus, Pat Burrell and Ichiro Suzuki.

Jeff Weaver puts the Dodgers in a big hole, allowing six hits and five runs in the first inning. Weaver through a lot of strikes, (20 of 29 pitches) because the Giants weren't giving him a chance to fall behind in the count.

Luckily for the Dodger, Kirk Rueter is on the mound for the Giants, and he gives up a single to Izturis and a home run to Repko to start the bottom of the first.

The Cubs will have to wait one more day for the return of Mark Prior. The game at Wrigley has been postponed due to rain.

I had forgotten the feelings of grief.

Within the first minute of Nine Inning from Ground Zero they all came flooding back. The documentary starts with Luis Gonzalez approaching the plate in the bottom of the ninth in game 7. Joe Buck describes it as "the chance of a lifetime." Mariano Rivera goes into his pitch as the scene fades to black and comes up again to see what is happening in the bowels of the rubble of the World Trade Center at the same time. Two months later, and there's still smoke rising from the debris. The shells of building still hang in the background as people labor to clean up the site. It's a scene from hell Dante could not imagine.

Nine Innings from Ground Zero chronicles how baseball helped a city heal. Ballplayers became volunteers packing relief supplies in a stadium parking lot. They became ambassadors, visiting the families and friends of the victims, providing comfort and relief. And they became heroes staging comeback after comeback when all seemed lost.

This movie was an emotional rollercoaster. I found myself moved to tears by the footage of collaspe of the towers and by Mike Piazza's home run in the first game at Shea after the tragedy. The first out of grief, the second out of happiness for the people of the Big Apple. Time dulls the memory of ordinary New Yorkers making food for the firemen, buying carts of bottled water for thirsty workers, lining the streets and cheering as rescuers drove south to the disaster.

The real stars of Nine Innings from Ground Zero are the fans who found solice in the game. Kieran Lynch lost two brothers on the 104th floor of the World Trade Center. He was in the muck and choose game 5 to start climbing out. When Brosius hit the home run to tie the game, he was hugging people he didn't even know. He was out of the muck.

This is a film that should be in your collection. I'm going to bring out once a year or so to remind me of what happened that awful day, because I so easily forget. But I'll also bring it out to remind myself just how inspiring this game can be to many people for many different reasons.

Pesky's Pole is a new Red Sox blog. Stop by and say hi, and check out his review of yesterday's ring ceremony.

A nice start to the baseball day in Chicago this afternoon as ERA champ Jake Peavy faces the Cubs and Mark Prior making his 2005 debut. Mark didn't appear for the Cubs until June of last year, so he's already improved over 2004. Peavy does not have a decision in two starts vs. the Cubs, although he pitched well.

The Giants return the favor and are on hand for the Dodgers home opener. Kirk Rueter will oppose Jeff Weaver. So far, Choi and Drew have been big dissapointments for the Dodgers, both batting under .100, but Jeff Kent has made up for their lack of offense with his .458 BA. Pedro Feliz, to his credit, is getting on base and hitting for average, but he has yet to homer. He's not Bonds, but he's doing a better job than I expected.

The Tigers travel to the Twin Cities to face Joe Mays as he returns from Tommy John surgery. Mays hasn't pitched in the majors since 2003; he'll be the replacement for Carlos Silva.

Enjoy!

The AP has released salary information for 2005. Not surprisingly, the Yankees and Red Sox are 1-2, with the Devil Rays bringing up the rear. I was a bit surprised to see the Phillies fourth. The Atletics have gone back to a low payroll, ranked 21st in the majors, just behind the Twins.

Who would have thought that someone pitching well would cause a problem for the Pirates?

Some folks were looking for pictures of the Red Sox ring. Here's a decent one.

Hal McCoy of the Dayton Daily News has the line of the day:

This is probably the best time for the Cincinnati Reds to bother the Cardinals, what with the Cardinals distracted over picking a new pope.

It's still early, and it's still close, but the AL East standings are inverted from 2004. Toronto is first instead of last, and the Yankees and Red Sox are bringing up the rear. The standings in the AL East have been static for so long, it's nice to see something different, even if it is early in the season.

It certainly was the left coast last night as Gustavo Chacin and Brad Halsey posted powerhouse performances. Chacin spoiled the Athletics home opener, allowing just two runs in six innings as the Blue Jays went on to a 10-3 victory. Chacin pithced well in the minors; he's very good at not allowing home runs and had an excellent 51-29 record. So far, in 25 major league innings he's posted a 2.52 ERA; a small sample but a good start.

In Arizona (not techinally a coast, but in the same time zone during daylight savings time) Brad Halsey made the Randy Johnson trade look worthwhile, tossing six shutout innings vs. the Rockies. He struck out 7 and walked only 1. With the Yankees last year his lack of control hurt; he walked 14 in 32 innings. So far, he's walked just 1 in 10 innings for the DBacks. The Diamondbacks bullpen was also spot on in their three innings. All four Arizona pitchers combined to throw just 118 pitches, 80 for strikes.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

Troy Glaus doubled in the first Arizona run. He now has eight hits on the season, all for extra bases.

Pat Burrell hit his fourth HR of the season, a monster shot into the upper deck in left field. The two run homer gives him 17 RBI in 7 games.

Brett Myers is off to an equally good start from the pitching side. He's struck out eight tonight in 5 2/3, but he just as he got close to 100 pitches, he hit a batter and issued a walk. He now has 15 K in 12 1/3 innings this season while only issuing 2 walks.

Ryan Franklin made his first start of the year after two relief appearances and came within a hair of a complete game. He got through 8 2/3 inning only throwing 83 pitches. That's a Maddux like game. No doubt the Royals helped him out, swinging early in the count; he only walked two and struck out one.

Ichiro collected two more his and now has 13 in 7 games. At this rate he'll wind up with 300 hits!

I'll be on Sports Bloggers Live in about half an hour, 7:20 PM EDT. Tune in early and listen to a great show.

Only Baseball Matters has become a group blog. With three new people joining John Perricone, there's more Giants information than ever at the site. It's always worth a visit and it just got better.

The Red Sox finish off the celebration of their World Series victory with an 8-1 drubbing of the Yankees. Wakefield, Mantei and Foulke were all masterful shutting down the Bronx Bombers. For Red Sox fans, you couldn't have scripted the day any better.

The Yankees defense betrayed Mussina again. Mike did manage five strikeouts, but balls in play were an adventure, although three of his seven runs allowed were unearned, there were other plays that went for hits between Williams and Sheffield that should have been caught.

This is why Bochy is the manager and I'm not. The Padre bullpen gets four strikeouts over the last three inning to perserve the 1-0 win for Adam Eaton.

And they needed to be that good, as the Cubs bullpen was perfect, retiring all nine batters their relievers faced, striking out 3. Nomar was 1 for 3 today but only has 5 hits (all singles) in the first seven games.

The Mets earn Willie Randolph a win in his first home game as a manager. Braden Looper earns his first save of the season with a perfect 9th.

The Mets had 13 hits, only 1 for extra bases.

Update: Correction, no save for Looper, just a perfect inning.

The Angels, down 6-2 in the 7th, come back to tie the game in the ninth. The Rangers brough in Cordero to start the 9th up one run, and Darin Erstad leads off taking a 2-2 pitch straight away over the center field fence. Erstad was off to a poor start, but is 3 for five today with two runs scored. It's Cordero's 2nd blown save of the season.

The Angels, down 6-2 in the 7th, come back to tie the game in the ninth. The Rangers brough in Cordero to start the 9th up one run, and Darin Erstad leads off taking a 2-2 pitch straight away over the center field fence. Erstad was off to a poor start, but is 3 for five today with two runs scored. It's Cordero's 2nd blown save of the season.

The Red Sox owners just stopped by the broadcast booth to give rings to Jerry Remy and Don Orsilo. You could tell the two were very moved to put on the jewelry. Orsilo says he's never taking it off.

The Astros' pen proves to be as combustible as the Mets' in giving up three runs so far in the 8th to return the lead to the New Yorkers. Russ Spring does the honors, giving up 2 hits and 2 walks. Mets legend John Franco is in to face his old team.

Update: Franco gives up a two-run single to Floyd, the only batter he faced. I guess he's still a Mets legend. :-)

Jorge Piedra was suspended today for steroid use. Now here's a player who's stats make him look guilty. He showed little power through the first half of 2002, but start slugging when he was sent back to A ball. Of course, he was in AAA in Colorado Spring last year, which I guess is a pretty good hitters park.

Adan Eaton and Ryan Dempster dueled for six innings, ending with Dempster leaving after 105 pitches losing 1-0. Interestingly, Eaton had thrown only 86 pitches when Bochy pinch hit for him in the 7th. The Padres go 1-2-3 in the 7th. I'm not sure I agree with the move. I understand the desire to get an insurance run, but is it reasonable to expect the bullpen to pitch better than Eaton had so far?

Russell Branyan has a pair of two-run homers against the Pirates today. He's now 4 for 7 vs. the Bucs this season. The Brewers lead 5-2 as they continue their domination of Pittsburgh.

After scoring a run in the 7th, the Astros come back with a double, triple and double to start the 8th and take a 4-3 lead over the Mets. Manny Aybar is the main arsonist in blowing a win for Tom Glavine.

After scoring a run in the 7th, the Astros come back with a double, triple and double to start the 8th and take a 4-3 lead over the Mets. Manny Aybar is the main arsonist in blowing a win for Tom Glavine.

It seems every time Mike Mussina makes a mistake it comes back to haunt him. He seemed to be doing well againt the Red Sox when he hit Bill Mueller. I'm thinking, "Watch the next guy hit a home run," and sure enough Mirabelli takes Moose deep. The Red Sox lead 2-0 in the third.

Update: Two great examples of why the knuckle ball can be so effective in the third. Jeter's up and on a 1-1 count he sees a knuckleball that starting out high. He thinks about swinging, then freezes as the ball looks high. The ball goes down the middle of the plate right at the top of the strikezone. Then, after a foul, Jeter takes a pitch that has him bailing, yet breaks back over the plate for strike three.

Update: In the fourth, Mussina doesn't get a strike three call against Bellhorn to end the inning. Since then, the Red Sox have gotten four straight men on and scored three runs.

The Mets score 3 in the bottom of the sixth to chase Andy Pettitte and put Glavine in line for the win. The Mets played little ball, and they had five singles, a sacrifice bunt and a double steal to get their three runs across. Willie Randolph's parents are in the stadium, and in a pre-game interview I learned that Willie's dad helped build Shea.

The game is in the hands of both bullpens now.

The San Diego Padres entered today leading the majors in on-base average with a .402 mark. Part of that, I'm sure, was starting the season in Coors, but looking up and down the lineup the only regular doing poorly in this stat is Phil Nevin. They're third in the majors in runs scored as well. With that kind of offense, they should be in for a very good year.

Andy Pettitte and Tom Glavine are locked in a nice pitching duel in New York. Both have struck out five through five while walking only two. Pettitte is winning on a first inning RBI double by Morgan Ensberg. Morgan is off to a good start now that he's playing every day.

The Boston Pops are at Fenway, and as the played Also Sprach Zarathustra, banners were unfurled over the Green Monster for each previous World Series victory. As the Pops reached the end of the piece, a banner the size of the wall was unfurled over the smaller flags, covering them with World Series 2004 Champions. A well choreographed moment.

Update: Terry Francona just came out to get his ring. They have an image of each ring on the scoreboard in center. The name of the individual player is in the side of the ring. It's not clear what order they're using, as Francona is followed by Burks, then Wakefield, then Nixon.

Update: Derek Lowe is actually there, in a Red Sox shirt, and the crowd is giving him a big cheer.

Update: Johnny Pesky just got his ring. This has to be a huge moment for him. He connects the playoff disappointments that started in 1946 with the victory of 2004. It's good he lived long enough to see this day.

Update: They just raised the banner in centerfield. They had a number of Red Sox greats there to help hoist the banner as they played Hail Red Sox Nation. Pesky and Yaz had a big hug after the banner went up.

Update: Now the Yankees are being introduced, and you can hear some fans booing the equipment manager. I guess A-Rod is really going to get it.

Update: Mariano Rivera gets a big cheer from the crowd. He seems to be taking it in good humor.

Update: Torre gets cheered. Seems everyone respects Joe. The rest of the order is getting booed. Jeter, A-Rod and Posada got the biggest boos.

Update: For the first pitch, the Sox brought in other Boston champs; Bobby Orr, Bill Russell, Richard Seymor and Teddy Bruschi. The fans are real happy to see Teddy, and he looks pretty healthy.

Here's an interesting article on how Orel Hershiser got the pitching staff to use Ameriquest Park to their advantage.]

Starting at spring training a year ago, Mr. Hershiser proselytized about the sinker to any pitcher he passed in the clubhouse, the practice fields, even on a street corner. The sinker, he said, could save them. It takes the wind, which is the biggest factor in the park, out of play. In Ryan Drese, he found an acolyte whose successful turnaround from fly-ball failure to ground-ball genius made him a living, breathing illustration for Mr. Hershiser's cause.

"You have to pitch according to your park," Mr. Hershiser said. "The ball is going to carry to right field. A ball that gets in the air has a better chance of being a homer. Part of pitching is executing pitches, but part is strategy, too."

They also let the grass grow, to slow down grounders in the infield. The result was their lowest home ERA since 1995.

I'll be a guest on SportsBloggersLive tonight at 7:20 PM EDT. Tune in!

Goat Riders of the Apocalypse publishes the second installment in their GM-a-palooza series, my critique of Brian Cashman.

While there are other interesting games happening this Monday, the one that really matters today is the one this afternoon in Boston. Starting at 2 PM EDT, pre-game ceremonies will take place in which the Red Sox will raise their World Championship banner and receive their rings, all with the New York Yankees looking on. I've seen tickets for this game going for thousands of dollars each on the web. It will be a day of celebration in Boston, and Tim Wakefield will try to beat the inconsistent Mike Mussina to make the celebration complete. Terry Francona is expected to be back at the helm of the team as well. And everyone can watch on ESPN HD.

Enjoy!

Over the weekend, I watched Reverse of the Curse of the Bambino from HBO. It tells the story of the American League Boston franchise from it's beginning as a power house of the major leagues to years of futility and playoff disappointment to ultimate redemption in 2004. It's definitely a documentary for Red Sox Nation.

The story is told through Red Sox fans; some famous, some not. Long time supporters of this blog, Art Martone and Edward Cosssette each make appearances. But it's the ordinary fans I like the best. The story of Paul Sullivan during the sixth game of the 1986 World Series is one of my favorites. He's watching the game with his brother, and once the Red Sox get two outs, the brother starts dialing their uncle in New York. They are going to rub his face in the victory. Every number except the last number. The second the Red Sox win, the last digit gets pressed. Pitch after pitch, he dials to the penultimate number as the game slowly slips away. He never gets to that last digit.

The editors are very kind to the Red Sox fans during the Bucky Dent home run sequence. You never see the whole event in real time. They show it in parts, fading into a ghostly fog going to interviews after each part of the sequence. The whole sequence has a "it didn't really happen" quality about it. Very well done.

I did get the feeling from the interviews that the Red Sox only won in 2004 because they finally got the fans not to believe in them. After 86 years, losing three in a row to the Yankees (the third game in an absolute drubbing) had finally pushed the faithful off the edge. As one fans says, "Go to hell, I'm never watching this team again."

I do have a couple of problems with the script. They bring on an expert to debunk the urban legends about Harry Frazee. We hear all the wrong information, and all we get from the expert is that the info is wrong, with little about why the sale actually happened. If you're going to debunk something, you need more than No No Nanette wasn't produced for another five years! However, Dennis Leary's comments on No No Nanette make the whole segment worthwhile.

(Six degress of Kevin Bacon aside. When I was a freshman in college, a musical all Oh No, No Net was produced at school. It was directed by Marisa Silver, who lived one floor up from me in Thayer Hall. Marisa went on to direct He Said, She Said, which starred Kevin Bacon and in which you can see the STATS Major League Handbook in Kevin's Apartment.)

To their credit, the curse debunkers get more time. They make two arguments as to why the Red Sox lost for so long; the acquistion of slow, right-handed power hitters at the expense of pitching and the Sox refusal for many years to integrate the team. My feeling is the first one holds more water, since it was true for the entire period. Remember, the Yankees were also slow to integrate, yet they won the World Series in six of eight years between the debut of Jackie Robinson and the signing of Elston Howard. But when you look back and see that the Sox could have signed Mays and Aaron at some point, you realize what a formidable team this could have been in the late 50's and 60's.

The story of the 2004 Red Sox was King Lear with a happy ending. In Lear, just as you think the tragedy can't get any worse, it does. The Red Sox took their fans as low as they could before conquering their arch enemy and capturing the ultimate prize. For fans of the Red Sox, this movie tells that story well.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

Ichiro is off to a very good start on the quest to hit .400. He's gotten 11 hits in the first week in 23 AB. He's also drawn 3 walks; if he can keep that walk rate up, he'll draw around 70; last year he drew 48. Twenty-two fewer AB would have raised his average to .384 in 2004.

Pat Burrell added three RBI today to bring his major league leading total to 15. He's been the heart of the order up to this point, and Thome and Abreu only had three combined RBI entering today. Jim and Bobby combined for five RBI today; those three hitting on all cylinders makes the Phillies a very dangerous lineup.

Through Sunday:

Oakland Starters	Zito	Others
IP	9 1/3	22 1/3
ER	12	4
ERA	11.57	1.61

The Twins defense didn't make any errors in the third inning, but they were slow reacting to plays. First, Santana didn't get over in time to cover first on a grounder between the first and second basemen. Then, Rivas was slow covering 2nd on a stolen base. The plays set up a sacrifice and a sac fly to give the White Sox a 2-0 lead over Santana.

Juan Encarnacion has eight RBI this season, all on grand slams. The Marlins will take eight a week from Juan, no matter how few hits are needed to get them.

Rodrigo Lopez follows up his excellent opening day start with an even more impressive eight innings against the Yankees. He added the strikeouts he didn't have vs. Oakland. Two starts and a 0.64 ERA.

Carl Pavano was hit in the head by a batted ball and has a mild concussion. It's not clear if he'll miss his next start.

The Orioles won big today by singling the Yankees to death. Fourteen hits, twelve for one base. The Orioles came into the day 9th in the AL in slugging percentage.

Pedro Martinez and John Smoltz both pitched like current Cy Young winners today, but Martinez kept the game in his own hands and earned the win. It was a remarkably efficient game for Pedro, using just 101 pitches to strikeout 9. He only allowed two hits.

Meanwhile, Smoltz struck out 15 in in 7 1/3 innings while walking none. One worrisome thing, however, is that when the Mets met the ball, they got hits. They were 8 for 15 when putting the ball in play against Smoltz. By comparison, the Braves were 2 for 20 when putting the ball in play vs. Pedro. Smoltz is going to need all those strikeouts to keep his opponents off the scoreboard.

Dmitri Young legged out his second triple of the season today, matching last year's total. Given Young's girth, I thought that was pretty impressive, and wondered about his career high. That was actually the 26th of his career! That's very impressive for someone that big. Just for example, both Garrett Anderson and Young entered today with 25 triples since the start of 1997, and Anderson has played more games. Young can run.

Two pitching matchups stand out today. There's a battle of former Cy Young Award winners in Atlanta as Pedro Martinez faces John Smoltz. Pedro pitched like in in his first start, striking out 12 over 6 innings. Smoltz lasted slightly longer than most of his save opportunities. The Mets have yet to win a game; this will be a good chance to get Randolph the W.

The late game on ESPN features an excellent matchup as Mark Buehrle of the White Sox faces Johan Santana of the Twins in the Metrodome. The White Sox are off to a great start, and the reason is their starting pitching. The starters have a 1.91 ERA this season and have only allowed 1 HR and 6 walks in 33 innings. Santana started slow and finished strong, picking up the win in his first start. We'll see if the White Sox try to swing early like the Mariners did to get to him in the first.

Enjoy! More later when I reach home.

After last night's poor performance, Oliver Perez has walked 8 in 9 innings. I wonder if there's something wrong with the young pitcher?

It appears Barry Bonds is still working out with Greg Anderson. I don't know whether to admire Bonds for sticking with a friend through a crisis or to marvel at Bonds over his stupidity. Giambi's story about how Anderson tested for steroids behind Jason's back shows how sleazy the man is. It's one thing to stay loyal to a friend; it's another to stay loyal to a man who used your name to help others break the rules of the game.

Brad Radke has now given up four home runs in his first two starts while walking none. Has Brad passed the point of two much control? Is he so insistent on being in the strikezone that batters are starting to zone in on his pitches and wait for the perfect one to drive? Not walking people is a great good, but you also need to be able to get batters out with pitches out of the strikezone. If anyone who has watched Radke pitch this season has any thoughts on this, I'd love to hear them.

After yesterday's drubbing at the hands of the Devil Rays, I'm wondering if Billy Beane should have traded all three of his star starters. Zito failed to strike out a batter while walking three in 3 1/3 innings. The man who is supposed to lead the rotation is the only one who hasn't pitched well.

Meanwhile, Nomo put up an impressive six innings, allowing only 1 hit, a solo home run. While I still have my doubts about Hideo's ability over the season, he quieted them somewhat yesterday.

I'm on the road, but Panera Bread has free wireless access in their stores. So I'm able to eat breakfast and update the day by day database at the same time. It's now current through Saturday April 9, 2005.

A number of opening day starters did poorly, and they get a chance to redeem themselves on Saturday.

David Wells gets his second start of the season in one of his many former homes, Toronto. He'll face former Cy Young award winner Roy Halladay, coming off a disappointing 2004 season. With Wade Miller making rapid progress in his rehabilitation, Wells could be out of a job if he has a bad April.

Barry Zito pitched poorly against the Orioles, and will try to turn things around against the light hitting Tampa Bay Devil Rays. The Rays send Hideo Nomo to the mound. Nomo fell apart last season as his home runs soared. The Trop isn't the place I'd want to go to attempt to reverse that trend.

Livan Hernandez is expected to be the work horse for the Nationals, but got off to a poor start vs. the Phillies. He'll face the Fish tonight in Miami opposed by Brian Moehler, who's making his first major league appearance since 2003.

Javier Vazquez comes into tonight's matchup vs. the Dodgers with a 37.80 ERA. Scott Erickson, continuing a comeback attempt, will make his Dodger debut. Erickson was ineffective in 2004 after missing all of 2003.

Finally, Oliver Perez and Woody Williams bring their 10+ ERAs against each other in the PP game as the Pirates face the Padres. Williams at least had the excuse of pitching at Coors for his first game. One would expect better perforances from the pair in Petco.

Enjoy!

Terry Francona has been released from the hospital. It seems his illness was caused by a virus. That's good news.

Take a look at the American League standings today. Every team except the White Sox and Rangers is two and two. I can't remember seeing something like this before.

Of course, if these were really evenly matched, we'd expect a distribution of 3/8 2-2, 1/4 3-1, 1/4 1-3, and 1/16 4-0 and 1/16 0-4.

The Day by Day Database is updated.

Roger Clemens struck out nine in seven innings tonight and allowed just one run and no walks as the Astros win 3-2 over the Reds. Brad Lidge gets the save (that's big news today). Clemens had a poor spring according to his ERA, a great spring based on his walk and strikeouts per nine. Tonight was an example of why the K and BB numbers are more indicative of how a pitcher is going to perform.

Dontrelle Willis gets off to a very similar start to his 2004 season. Last year, his first start was against Montreal on 4/8, and he pitched 7 2/3 shutout innings allowing five hits. He did a little better on the anniversary of that game, going the full 9 for the five hit shutout. Hitting wise, he did not match his 3 for 3 from last year, only going 2 for 4 today.

The Devil Rays pulled out a good win tonight, beating the Athletics 3-2 in 10 innings. Watching the last few innings, I couldn't believe how many scoring opportunities went by the board. Looking at the boxscore, I see that the A's were 3 for 17 in scoring opportunities, the Rays 1 for 8.

Nick Swisher needs to take some of the blame here. With two out and a man on second in the 6th and the 8th, Nick struck out. Then in the 10th, with a man on third and 1 out, Swisher struck out again. There are times when it's important to put the bat on the ball, and that was one of those times. By not making the adjustment to try to make contact, Swisher didn't do his job.

YES just showed a great replay of Hideki Matsui hitting a long sacrifice fly. They froze the frame just as his bat met the ball, and you can see his concentration on following the ball onto the bat. Perfect form.

I left the house right after the Brewers tied the game in the ninth, and I got home in time to see Milwaukee take the lead in the 12th. The Brewers bullpen has been outstanding in this game. So far, 5 2/3 innings, 2 hits, 3 walks and no runs.

Overbay singles in another run, and it's 6-3 Milwaukee. Veteran closer LaTroy Hawkins blew a save to follow the early season theme.

Update: Mike Adams converts a save, and the Brewers remain undefeated.

Mark Mulder did not have a stellar outing vs. the Phillies today. Mulder gave up nine hits and 5 runs in six innings today. Three walks, however, indicate that he may not have solved the control problems that surfaced last season. It's 5-3 Philadelphia in the top of the 8th.

Update: Mulder is taken off the hook by the Phillies bullpen. Madson and Fultz allow 3 hits and 3 walks over two innings to allow the Cardinals to come back and win the game 6-5.

Capuano allows the first three batters to reach, and the Cubs lead 3-2 in the bottom of the 6th.

Kerry Wood had the bases loaded with two out in the sixth and was facing Russell Branyan. It was a good matchup for Wood, as Branyan has had little success and a lot of strikeouts vs. Kerry. He was 0 for 2 with a K in the game already. Wood went 3-2, then walked Branyan to tie the game. That was it for Dusty. He's gone to Wuertz against JJ Hardy to see if the Cubs can get out of the inning.

Update: Hardy hits a popout to end the inning.

Lots of strikeouts in the Brewers-Cubs game so far. Springfield native Chris Capuano has K'd 6 through four, and Wood has added four in his four innings. They've also combined for five walks.

The Cubs have dropped the names of their players from the back of their home uniforms. As Bob Brenly commented, "They did it to confuse the new announcers!" :-)

The Cubs score a couple of runs in the bottom of the first on a two-out single by Dubois. Capuano had given up a single and two walks with two outs to load the bases before the big hit. As the broadcast pointed out, Dubois now has 7 hits and 7 RBI in his career.

Kerry Wood starts the Cubs season off with a walk to Brady Clark. It's a beautiful day a Wrigley; maybe they'll play two. :-)

Update: Carlos Lee doubles in the first run of the game.

Mike Hunssinger of The Book of Mike has a new blog about the Marlins, FishStripes. Check out his interview with Youppi.

Robert Saunders sends a link to a new blog by the authors of Freakonomics in support of the book. Steven Levitt has been posting about Billy Beane and Moneyball. Levitt thinks there's nothing there, and the A's are more likely to be mediocre over the next five years than very good.

Finally, convincing evidence of Billy Beane's genius

Billy Beane redux

Let's at least argue about Moneyball using data

Levitt puts out this challenge:

For all of you who disagree with me - and the betting markets - go to tradesports and bet on the A's. The market thinks they will only win 82 games. If they are as good as you believe, there is a lot of money to be made. And after you all bet and drive the odds up, I will bet the other side.

To summarize Levitt's arguments:

1. Moneyball says Beane won because he got good OBA players cheap.
2. The Athletics actually have had middle of the road OBAs.
3. The Athletics won due to great pitching.
4. Therefore, Moneyball is bogus.

I'd argue that Michael Lewis concentrated on one aspect of the Beane operation as it applied to offense. I believe Lewis intentionally left out the pitching side because it would just make the book too long. And Moneyball was concentrating on philosophy; finding value in the market.

It's a long experiment. Five years of 90 wins vindicates Beane in Levitt's view. I'm willing to wait. They only need 88 more wins this season.

The Cubs return to Wrigley and will try to put the wood to the Brewers on both sides of the ball. Kerry Wood returns to a struggling rotation for the home opener. He'll be opposed by Chris Capuano and a Brewers offense that was hitting on all cylinders vs. the Pirates. Keep your eye on the Wood-Branyan matchup. Branyan has just 1 hit and seven strikeouts vs. Kerry in 13 AB.

Philadephia travels to St. Louis for the Cardinals home opener. Mark Mulder continues his search as he debuts for the Red Birds, while the Phillies counter with Cory Lidle. Lidle finished strong once the Phillies acquired him, posting a 5-2 record and a 3.90 ERA.

Sidney Ponson stays out of jail long enough to make his 2005 debut against the Yankees. Ponson seems to be all or nothing against New York. He face the Yankees six times last season; in his two wins he pitched complete games and allowed only 1 run. In his four losses he allowed 39 hits in 24 1/3 innings and 20 earned runs. He'll face new addition Jaret Wright.

Cincinnati bring the best record in the majors into Houston this evening to face Roger Clemens. The Rocket had a rough spring; good K numbers but when the batters made contact they got hits. The Reds send former Angel Ramon Ortiz to the mound for his Reds debut. He was instrumental in the Angels drive to the World Championship in 2002, but batters have been able to hit him since.

Finally, in Seattle Chan Ho Park puts his two-seam fastball to the test for the Rangers. Orel Hersisher has been working with the veteran to diversify his repertoire of pitches. Park is the key to the Rangers improving this season. He'll be facing another former Angel, Aaron Sele. Sele has not had a good ERA or winning record since he last pitched for Seattle in 2001. He'll be trying to reclaim that Northwest magic. Unfortunately, his strikeout rate and declined and his walk rate has increased since that 15-5 season.

Enjoy!

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Moises Alou has a strained calf muscle that may land him on the DL:

Alou, San Francisco's 38-year-old right fielder, will have an MRI on his strained right calf Friday to determine his status. He left Wednesday's 10-4 loss to the Dodgers after the fourth inning with tightness in the calf -- the same injury that landed him on the DL during the 2000, '01 and '02 seasons.

"I think the DL is something we'll consider the next couple days based on how he reacts," trainer Stan Conte said Thursday before the Giants hosted the Dodgers. "Three of the last five years he had this problem and spent 15-17 days on the DL and didn't have any problems the rest of the year."

The Giants have a good team if they stay healthy. But it looks like they'll be without their two best hitters for most of April. Looking at the boxscore last night, they seemed to make Jeff Weaver's life very easy. Weaver threw eight shutout innings, averaging less than 13 pitches per inning. Given that he only struck out two, the Giants were likely swinging early in the count, and getting nothing out of the balls in play. They were 5 for 25 on balls in play, a .200 average. That's not going to win them many games as the month progresses.

Games in April count, too. Teams have both won and lost the division in April due to good or poor starts. The Giants are facing May 1 so far behind the division that a perfect Barry Bonds couldn't help them climb out of the hole.

Terry Francona appears to be doing better. Best wishes that he can recover quickly enough to be at Fenway on Monday for the home opener.

The Tribune-Review has an excellent article on the Pirates plate discipline. It shows that Lloyd McClendon has a very good handle on the problem:

"Plate discipline was one of the things I wanted to concentrate on," McClendon said. "On-base percentage is a tricky thing, but we had to work on it. If we can get the walks up, it means more guys on base and the more chance we have of scoring runs. You're able to turn that lineup over and bring your best hitters to the plate more often."

...

"The most important thing we want our guys to understand is we need to get into better hitting counts," McClendon said as spring training was wrapping up. "When you get into better hitting counts, you become better hitters. If you look at the numbers in the NL the past few years, guys in 2-1 counts were hitting .340, when the count was 3-1 they were hitting .330.

"What we've tried to accomplish is to be more patient so we can get ourselves into better hitting counts."

Good stats on how the Pirates were very poor last season at getting into good hitting counts. As the first three games of the season demonstrate, it's easier to talk about than actually change the way players approach the game. It's up to Littlefield to find players who already practice selectivity.

Correction: Fixed link.

Quite the pitching staff duel in San Diego last night. The Padres won in 12 innings when Rick White walked the X-Man Xavier Nady with the bases loaded. That has to be one of the worst things a pitcher can do. Three balls on the batter, you lose if the ball is outside the strikezone. Put the ball on the plate and take your chances! When a major league pitcher can't groove a strike, you have to wonder if he's a major league pitcher. So far, White has pitched 1 1/3 innings, given up five hits, three walks and three earned runs. The signs are not good that he'll hang around the Pirates very long.

The Day by Day Database is updated.

A reader sent this story about a scout for the Red Sox trying to recruit an Australian cricket star:

Former test captain Ian Chappell, who was an all-Australian baseballer in the 1960s and as a teenager flirted briefly with the idea of trying his luck in the US before his father told him to "shut up" and get on with cricket, provided a reality check. Even Gilchrist, Chappell said, would struggle to make it in the major leagues at his age.

"At 33 it's already too late, but after his retirement you can forget about it," said Chappell, whose nephew Jon, the son of Greg Chappell, is a talented baseballer who was recently released by the Toronto Blue Jays after a series of injuries.

"They want to get Australian kids over there in the college system for the simple reason that they want them over there young so they can teach them the game as the Yanks play it.

I have to agree. It's one thing for Japanese baseball players to come to the United States in their late 20's or early 30's; they've been playing the game their whole lives. But to try to learn the game at 33 just won't work.

A few years ago I had lunch with an Australian professor and we talked about baseball. He had played in college because he wasn't good enough to play cricket. :-)

Jake Peavy is looking like an ERA champion tonight. He's struck out 7 through four innings, allowing just 1 hit and 1 walk.

Tim Hudson had a mixed start for the Braves tonight. He got the win, but only pitched five innings. He allowed 10 base runners via the hit or walk, but only one run (two double plays helped). The four walks in five innings should be a concern. I doubt he'll get many wins if he pitches like that often.

Dave Roberts starts the season on the DL, now Eric Young appears to be hurt. He made a great catch, leaping against the wall in centerfield but injured his shoulder. Adam Hyzdu is going to see some playing time.

Update: Adam Hyzdu makes a great catch in the 2nd, diving to snare a liner. I'm thinking, "He's going to get injured, too!" but he came up just fine.

Danny Haren starred in the latest episode of Athletics: The Next Generation. Six innings, one run six strikeouts. That's two days in a row with a young A's starter going six one-hit innings. Youth is undervalued, so Beane is buying.

Curt Schilling was hit hard today in a rehabilitation assignment for Pawtucket.

"I felt great," he said. "Going into today, I wanted to get mentally ready. I stretched it out. No fatigue. I felt strong. I'm going to go out and compete against the Yankees on Wednesday. I'll be ready."

The World Series MVP, recovering from offseason ankle surgery, allowed 11 hits, including two solo homers, a triple and a double. He struck out six and walked none, throwing 77 of 104 pitches for strikes in a 7-5 loss to the Indianapolis Indians.

After throwing 47 pitches and struggling with left-handed hitters in the first two innings, he retired 12 of his last 16 batters, striking out four.

If Schilling is not blowing away AAA hitters, I'm not sure how he'll do against the Yankees. He's still a big question mark in the Red Sox rotation.

First in war, first in peace, and first in the NL East. The Nationals won their first extra innings game today, defeating the Phillies 5-4 in ten innings. Jose Vidro homered to lead off the tenth inning for his third RBI of the game. For the second day in a row, the Nationals gave up a slim lead but came back late to seal the victory. Brad Wilkerson might want to stay in Philly as he added four more hits today and now has nine on the season.

Aaron Harang just came out of the game after 6 1/3 scoreless innings. He leaves a man on first, so his line is not quite complete. He did allow only 1 hit while walking three.

Estaban Loaiza is trying to top Brad Wilkerson (3 for 3 today) by throwing a perfect game. He's retried the first twelve Phillies faced on just 51 pitches.

Jason Johnson has a one-hitter working against the Royals through four. Nate Fields took over where Greinke left off and is also shutting out the Tigers.

It's low hit Thursday so far.

Zach Greinke just took a line drive off his right forearm, opposite the elbow. Carlos Guillen hit a shot that Zach could not field nor get out of the way. Pena's taken him out of the game.

Greinke had allowed 4 hits and no runs through 2 1/3, striking out 1 and walking none. With luck it won't be serious. Nate Field is entering the game in relief.

Law blogger and professor Rick Duncan lists his top baseball movies and reviews his favorite, It Happens Every Spring.

I just received two movies from HBO in the mail, Nine Innings from Ground Zero and Reverse of the Curse of the Bambino. I'll be watching and reviewing these soon.

SI.com links to Derek Jeter's fielding chart! Thanks to Jacob Luft for the link.

On the thirtieth anniversary of the Big Red Machine, Blade Stevens is posting a diary of that great 1975 season. Relive the magic of Rose, Morgan, Bench, Perez and teammates daily as they power to the playoffs and one of the most memorable World Series ever.

Zach Greinke makes his 2005 debut for the Royals today in Detroit. His three career starts vs. the Tigers is a nice microcosm of what he's done in the big leagues so far. He's allowed 5 runs in 19 innings for a 2.37 ERA, and all five runs have come on home runs. Last season he allowed only 26 walks (very good) but 26 home runs (very bad). If he can cut down on the long balls a bit, he'll be able to win without much run support.

The Atlanta Braves send new acquistion Tim Hudson to the mound after a 2-1, 13 inning victory vs. the Marlins. The Braves may be looking for Hudson to go deep into the game today as six relievers combined for seven shutout innings last night. He'll face A.J. Burnett, who is facing the same tired bullpen.

Finally, the Pirates travel to San Diego, where the Padres held out NL ERA champ Jake Peavy until after the trip to Coors. He'll face Mark Redman. This will be the thrid straight year Redman has changed teams. The Pirates are coming off two drubbings at the hands of the Brewers, and hope that the pitcher friendly confines of Petco will at least help keep the game close.

Enjoy!

According the story in the Globe, Terry Francona did not have a heart attack. However, he's being transferred to Massachusetts General Hospital for further observation.

Francona told members of his coaching staff last night that he would undergo further exams and a "procedure." Bench coach Brad Mills, who managed the Sox in Francona's absence yesterday, said last night he had been told there was a chance he'd be called upon to manage the club in Toronto as well. The Red Sox, who are off today, play the Blue Jays tomorrow, Saturday, and Sunday.

"He keeps telling me he's going to be OK," said Mills, who spoke with Francona after the game. "But you don't get prodded and poked and tested as much as he was today without some concern. He's probably concerned a little bit, but he's confident things will wind up OK."

Once again, let's keep Francona in our thoughts.

The Day by Day Database is updated through yesterday. I was just using it to look at the batting leaders in strikeouts and see that MLB leader Mark Bellhorn has twelve at bats, five hits and seven whiffs. He either gets a hit or strikes out. The other interesting thing is that he hasn't drawn a walk yet.

Did the Yankees decide that since Bellhorn won't swing at pitches outside the strikezone, to see if they could exploit his high strikeout rate by giving him pitches at which to swing? Take away Bellhorn's walks, and he's not that good an offensive player. It did seem to backfire, as five hits in twelve at bats is a good performance, regardless of how the outs were made.

It was another 20-run night in Colorado as the Padres get their first win of the year, 14-6. How do you build a pitching staff in that high altitude? I'm starting to believe you need to develop a special high altitude ball for Coors; maybe one with extra high seams to catch what little air is in the ball park.

The blown save parade continued in Anaheim as the Angels and Rangers traded missed opportunities to stretch the game to 12 innings. The Rangers won 3-2 after Soriano led off the 12th with a home run. I was watching the game when the Angels scored their first run on back to back doubles by Vlad and Anderson. It was a good example of why these two are successful hackers; they each were fooled by pitches that ended up out of the strikezone, but were so strong and so adaptable they were able to belt both balls deep into the outfield for two baggers.

The bottom of the Dodgers order provided Los Angeles with more than enough runs to record the first win of the season for the Blue Boys. The 6, 7, and 8 hitters combined to go eight for thirteen with 9 RBI as the Dodgers defeated the Giants 10-4. Starters Perez and Rueter each pitched five strong innings, but the Dodger bullpen was able to carry the day.

In Phoenix, Troy Glaus had a tri-cycle, getting the double, triple and homer to lead the Diamondbacks to an 8-3 victory over the Cubs. Brandon Webb pitched solidly into the sixth, and the bullpen struck out four in four and 2/3 innings to finish the game. With Dempster giving up seven run in 3 2/3 innings, there's little doubt the Cubs are missing Wood and Prior.

Saarloos and Swisher stepped into their new roles with full gusto last night, each doing his part to rout the Orioles 9-0. Saarloos tossed six one-hit innings, using only 80 pitches. With that kind of efficiency, we'll be seeing him going eight or nine innings soon. Saarloos was pitching due to a series of mishaps:

When Rich Harden couldn't pitch the second game of the season because of a blister on his right middle finger, No. 5 starter Kirk Saarloos stepped right in and pitched as if he was in the front end of the rotation.

And:

The downside for the A's was the way in which a roster spot opened for Saarloos: Shortstop Bobby Crosby was placed on the disabled list with a stress fracture of the ninth and 10th ribs.

"I'm a little depressed, to be honest,'' Crosby said. "You work your butt off for six months and on Opening Day, you crack a rib.''

Crosby will be out an undetermined length of time. Athletic trainer Larry Davis compared the injury to Tim Hudson's oblique strain last year, an injury that kept Hudson out six weeks. Davis said there is no way to say if Crosby's recovery time will be similar.

Moneyball sensation Nick Swisher added two home runs to the cause. Nick is four for nine to start the season after a spring in which there was concern about his offense.

Congratulations to the Washington Nationals on their first win. Everything came together for the team as they handled the Phillies 7-3. It was an historic night also, as Brad Wilkerson hit for the cycle. Wilkerson may very well be more effective lower in the order with the power he offers, but he's also the guy getting on base for the team. Robinson was left little choice but to use Brad high in the order when Endy Chavez couldn't work his way on, but last night it worked out well for the relocated team.

There were two games in one last night. The first was a pitcher's duel between Day and Myers, with the Nationals getting out to an early 2-0 lead but the Phillies taking the lead in the sixth as Day tired. But the battle of the bullpens was very different. The Nationals relievers pitched 3 1/3 nearly perfect innings, allowing only 1 hit. Tim Worrell blew up for the Phillies, allowing 4 runs in 1/3 of an inning, including a two-run homer to Jose Guillen.

Good pitching, historic offense and a late comeback combined to make the Nationals first win a most memorable one.

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In keeping with the theme of the day, the Toronto bullpen wasted a good performance by a starter with a poor performance by the bullpen. After Towers held the Devil Rays to one run over six innings, Frasor, Schoeneweis and Speier allowed 7 runs over two innings.

The young Jorge Cantu had a big game, hitting his 2nd home run of the season and driving in three with the shot. Danys Baez got the five out victory to put the Devil Rays in the win column.

So far, Andy Pettitte looks like he's nver been injured. The Cardinals have sent nine up, and all nine returned to the dugout without doing damage. Pettitte has gotten two ground outs in every inning, telling me his pitches are working like they used to.

A nice pitching duel in Tropicanna this afternoon. Josh Towers is ahead of Mark Hendrickson 2-1 in the 6th. Neither has walked a batter, but Towers has six strikeouts while Hendrickson has none. The Blue Jays were able to bunch three hits together for 3 runs, while the lone Ray run came on a Crawford homer.

Shea Hillenbrand is showing why he's the ultimate singles hitter. His BA, OBA and Slugging percentages are all .400 after a 1 for 2 today.

Through eight innings this afternoon, the Indians are returning the shutout the White Sox handed them on Monday. Kevin Millwood gave the Tribe six good innings; he only struck out 1, but only six men reached base against him. The Indians were careful with Millwood, pulling him after 88 pitches. Matt Miller and Arthur Rhodes have continued the good pitching in relief.

Freddy Garcia gave the White Sox six good innings. Like Westbrook on Monday, Garcia pitched well enough for the win, but unless Chicago can come back from the 3-0 lead in the bottom of the ninth, he'll take the L.

Update: Continuing the trend of veteran closers not doing well, Bob Wickman comes in to preserve the 3-0 lead. He gives up a single to Everett, then back-to-back home runs to Konerko and Dye. The game's tied at 3.

Update: The hits continue. Rowand follows with a double over the head of the Indians center fielder Sizemore. The winning run is on second with no outs, and Wickman is getting hammered.

Update: An IBB, an error by Wickman on a sacrifice bunt and a sacrifice fly wins the game for the White Sox. A great eight innings of pitching wasted by the closer.

The good people at TPSRadio have asked me to do a weekly radio show. Every Wednesday at 8 PM Eastern Time you can hear me live (blogging with my voice, if you will). The first broadcast will be this evening, and I hope you'll tune in. The TPSRadio listening page can be found here. You'll have to disable pop-up blocking and download some free software, but it's easy. Enjoy the show!

The Brewers mauled the Pittsburgh Pirates again today. They did one better than Monday, defeating the Pirates 10-2; that's 19-4 over two games. It's good to see that they're not only hitting (22 hits in two games) but drawing walks as well (9 combined). It makes you wonder if the homers will really fly when they get home to Miller Park.

The Kansas City Royals received a big boost today as Runelvys Hernandez came back decisively from Tommy John surgery. He trew 100 pitches in going seven innings for the 7-2 win. He only allowed 5 hits and 1 run while throwing 61 strikes. He did walk 3. The only extra base hit was by Dmitri Young, who is now slugging 2.000.

Mariano Rivera and Alex Rodriguez combine for a blown save in the top of the 9th inning. Rivera loaded the bases, then struck out Nixon. Ramirez hit what should have been a double play ball to A-Rod, who booted it to allow all hands to advance, tying the game. Rivera has allowed singles to Ortiz and Renteria to allow three more runs.

Rivera just walked Mirabelli, his third walk of the inning. Rivera's outings against the Red Sox are going to cause much angst in the Big Apple. Red Sox lead 6-3, and Mariano is leaving the game.

I just saw a play I never saw before! Damon on first, Nixon up. On a 3-1 count, Damon takes off for second. It's ball four, but the throw goes through. Damon reaches the bag, but then comes off as he comes up from his slide. Jeter tags him, and Damon is out. He's not caught stealing, but the result is the same. Out advancing on a walk. Great play by Jeter.

Mike Mussina has only struck out one batter through four innings. The Red Sox are putting the ball in play, and in the fourth they found the holes. Four hits and 2 runs put the Yankees in a 2-0 hole.

Alex Rodriguez comes back in the bottom of the inning with his first HR of the season to cut the score in half.

Update: Tino Martinez takes Wakefield deep to tie the game and the crowd goes wild!

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KC scores a run on what appears to be a wild pitch or passed ball. But Pudge argues that the ball hit Sweeney in the foot, which would put Mike at fist and take the run off the board. The replay seems to indicate that is indeed what happened, but the ump is not reversing his decision. Even the Royals can have some good luck!

Update: Runelvys Hernandez starts the game off with a strike and then gets Infante to fly out to left.

Carlos Lee is paying off for the Brewers early. He got his second hit, second double and first two RBI for the Brewers in the first inning today. Russel Branyan also added a two RBI double as the Brewer continue to pound the Pirates. It's 4-0 in the 2nd.

Update: Lee has added a solo home run and two more RBI.

Terry Francona is in the hospital for tests after suffering "chest stiffness."

Epstein said he was taken to Cornell Medical Center in New York for what he called “precautionary testing.” He also said he didn’t think Francona would return for today’s 1 p.m. game against the Yankees.

You never know how serious these episodes are. It's good they got him to the hospital right away. With luck, it will be a bad case of acid reflux. Let's keep Terry in our thoughts today.

Update: It looks like the Globe is updating the link above, so click back there for more information.

Update: Nothing new on Francona at the start of the NESN broadcast. He's in the hospital undergoing tests.

Runelvys Hernandez returns to the mound today after missing a year due to Tommy John surgery. The Royals hope he can reprise his early 2003 success today vs. the Tigers. Detroit sends Mike Maroth against Kansas City. After losing 20 in 2003, Maroth cut his ERA by 1 1/2 runs last season by doing a better job of keeping the ball in the park. Dmitri Young is putting the ball out of the park, and we'll see if his home run tear continues today.

I've been trying to find out if DirecTV will be showing some MLB Extra Innings games in HD this season, and today the Red Sox and Yankees are on the schedule. Baseball in high definition is a beautiful thing. You can count the blades of grass. You can also get really nice wide screen replays showing the movement of all the infielders on rotation plays and shifts.

As for the game, it's the first one of the season started by team veterans. Tim Wakefield faces Mike Mussina. Mussina had his home run rate jump last year combined with a slight increase in walks per 9. This spring, it appeared his strikeouts were declining. Mike is 36, way beyond the age where a hurler's fastball goes. If his strikeout rate drops this season, the balls in play will hurt him.

Today marks the return to action of Andy Pettitte as Houston hosts Jason Marquis and the Cardinals. Pettitte pitched well for the Astros last year, but didn't have the stamina, rarely getting past the fifth inning. He'll be watched closely today as well.

A battle of former Mets lefties in Miami today as Mike Hampton takes the mound vs. Al Leiter. Leiter was one of the luckiest pitchers in the majors last season according to DIPS. Hampton had some luck, too. His run support was 5.7 runs per 9 in 2004. It's easy to have a winning record with that kind of offense.

On the West Coast, we get to see how the Giants do without their ace on the mound. Kirk Rueter hosts Odalis Perez under the lights. Rueter has walked more than he's struck out the last two seasons. I'm not sure he can go on being successful like that much longer.

Enjoy!

Finally, a closer who doesn't act concerned about saves:

But Lyon, just like he was during camp in Tucson, when he allowed only a single run and a measly four hits during Cactus League play, was the story. He recorded the final five outs for his first save in the majors since June 2003 after having missed all of last season due to elbow problems that eventually required surgery.

"It's just pitching," Lyon said. "I'm not really concerned about the closer's role. They have these little things called saves when you pitch the ninth inning and you're either up by three runs, two or one and if you do good, you get a little stat that says 'save' by it.

"Every other job in the bullpen is just as important."

Lyon earned a five out save yesterday. I wonder if he'd be up to pitching in the 7th in a tough situation and not finishing the game? One of the things I love about Foulke and Rivera is they don't complain about being brought in before the 9th. Maybe Lyon can become the "best relief pitcher who will pitch when he's needed."

Ron Gardenhire is trying to get Lew Ford to stay ahead of the curve:

The Twins are worried that the league is catching up to Ford, who has a tendency of pulling everything. He did finish strong in spring training, during which he batted .300 in 22 games, but he's going to have to prove he can stay one step ahead of the scouting reports.

"He's hasn't been swinging like he can," manager Ron Gardenhire said. "He's not on the ball but he should be fine. Lew is going to have to make adjustments. The league is starting to adjust to him. I don't want to start talking about [what the adjustments are] in the papers."

It's another example of the Twins being a smart organization. They have a good hitter in Ford, and they want to make sure he stays good.

Johan Santana had to adjust within the game last night:

"It's just a matter of establishing your pitches," Santana said. "I didn't have that much time to do it because they were swinging early. Second inning on, I started working everything, breaking balls got going."

Sure enough, he returned to his old form by retiring 14 of the next 15 batters, with only Beltre getting a single in the third. Santana worked five innings, allowing four runs on five hits with six strikeouts and one walk.

He won his 14th straight, a club record streak dating to July 17.

Did they Mariners, despite the loss, expose a Sanatana weakness? Is there an advantage to being agressive with Johan in the first inning? We'll see as the year goes on if teams that score early against Santana are swinging early in the count.

A healthy Luis Gonzalez means a lot to the Diamondbacks, and he's looking good tonight. He's hit two home runs off Greg Maddux. As Maddux ages, his long balls allowed have gone way up, from 14 in 2002 to 24 in 2003 to 35 last year. The game is now tied at 3 due to that weakness.

Colon allows two more base runners in the 2nd, but gets out of the jam again. Soriano, on an 0-2 count, checks his swing on a low, outside pitch, but Colon comes back with one that bends even farther outside and Soriano goes fishing to end the inning.

Suzuki singles, Reed walks, and the free agents Beltre and Sexson supply the power. The new additions each hit a double, and the Mariners are all over Johan Santana early. Ibanez singles and the Mariners lead 4-0, still batting in the bottom of the first.

Alfonso Soriano is leading off tonight for the Rangers. It's kind of suprising, since his strengths (power) are much better used in the power slots. But Alfonso leads off with a double, and Blalock walks to set the table for Michael Young.

Update: Colon works out of the jam. The Rangers did work him for 21 pitches, however.

Update: Erstad also returns to the leadoff spot. He also gets on base (via walk), but DaVanon grounds into a GDP to clear the bases for Vlad.

Update: And it's a good thing the bases were clear. Vlad drives the ball the opposite way for a monster HR over the right field power alley. Angels draw first blood and lead 1-0.

The Cardinals open the season with a 7-3 victory against the Astros, in typical fashion. Walker, Pujols, Rolen and Edmonds combined to go 8 for 17 with six runs scored and five RBI. Add to that an efficient seven innings from Carpenter and you have a team that looks every bit as good as 2004.

Oswalt only had 2 strikeouts through six innings. The home plate ump had a small strikezone, but the Cardinals were better able to take advantage of the calls.

Baseball Widow asks all the right questions about the Alex Sanchez suspension.

Roy Oswalt feels he is being squeezed by umpire Ed Montague. Oswalt is not saying much, just staring in a lot. He just walked Sanders on a 3-2 pitch that looked like it caught the low inside corner to me. It would appear that Oswalt's attitude isn't winning him any calls.

The Cardinals and Astros are underway with the Cardinals up 3-1 in the fourth. Singles by Walker and Rolen, followed by an Edmonds home run gave the Cards the first inning lead. Pujols is 0 for 2 so far; it's difficult to shut all four down.

Victor Martinez became a millionaire today as the Indians sign him to a $15.5 million dollar five-year contract. It's a throwback to the John Hart days of signing young players long term, avoiding salary arbitration and assuring they'll be with the team for their best years. As a catcher who can hit, Martinez would likely command a good salary in arbitration. Even if he were injured a couple of years into the contract, it's not so high that the Indians couldn't absorb the cost.

The contract is the largest ever for a catcher not yet eligible for arbitration, Cleveland general manager Mark Shapiro said. It also is Cleveland's biggest deal for a player not yet eligible for arbitration.

"There's a premium for the position he plays, and the teammate he is, and I think the leader he is going to become on this team," Shapiro said.

Locking up the 26-year-old catcher and cleanup hitter for an extended time was a prime motivation for the Indians to act now.

"I think (the length) was an important part of the equation for us," Shapiro said. "I think that there is a shared risk in any long-term contract. We wanted to make as strong a statement as possible, because our belief in Victor is so resolute."

Both sides benefit quite a bit. Martinez is set for life financially, and Indians have more certainty about the payroll in future years. If Martinez keeps developing, this contract will look like a steal.

The Giants finish off the Dodgers 4-2. Eyre and Benitez combine for 1 hit and 2 strikeouts over the last two innings. The Dodgers should be happy with Lowe; his defense let him down. Derek even struck out a decent number of batters. The Dodgers, however, failed to put the ball in play enough, striking out 11 times in 33 plate apperances.

With men on second and third and two outs, Lowe gets the grounder to Valentin. Jose boots the ball and throws late and wide to first for the error. Alou gets the RBI to give the Giants the lead and put Schmidt in line for the win.

I'm sure DePodesta will take a beating over that error. It should have been an easy out.

Josh Beckett has a shutout through four innings against the Braves, but he's not cruising by any means. He used 80 pitches to get through the first 16 batters faced; that's 20 per inning. The Marlins bullpen will likely be in this game early as well. Luckily, with a 7-0 lead the Fish have plenty of room for error.

Jason Schmidt is lifted for a pinch hitter after seven strong innings. A pretty typical game for the ace; nine strikeouts, two walks, only four hits. With the score tied at 2, he'll need the Giants to score in the 7th to get the win. Not a bad game after giving up a leadoff HR to Izturis.

Lowe is pretty much matching him. He's given up more hits, but only two runs while striking out five through six innings.

Smoltz does not last through the second. He's lifted after 1 2/3 innings, allowing seven runs and six earned. He only managed one strikeout. Delgado, who struck out the first time, singled in two to chase John from the game. Not a promising game for the soon to be 38 year old.

The San Francisco announcers were talking strategy with Durham on first. It was their opinion that you have to run on Lowe, since he was poor last year vs. base stealers. Two seconds later, Durham gets a bad jump and is out by a mile. Of course, it's followed by a Vizquel double and a Snow walk.

Juan Encarnacion takes Smoltz deep with the bases loaded to make the score 5-0. Smoltz is throwing strikes, but the Marlins are putting the ball in play and getting hits. John is approaching 40 pitches in the inning; I don't know how long he's expected to go, but at this rate the Braves bullpen will be in there early.

Update: Smoltz gets Gonzalez to pop out to end the inning. He threw 39 pitches in the first, 27 for strikes.

Mike Lowell drives in the first run of the Marlins season with a two-out single. Beckett and Smoltz each got in trouble in the first with two base runners. Beckett pitched out of it. Smoltz struck out Delgado, but couldn't get Lowell.

Cesar Izturis gets the Dodgers season off on the right foot with a home run off Jason Schmidt.

Update: Just saw it on Tivo. If was just a few rows short of going in the water. Also, Choi made a nice play on Durham in the bottom of the first. Lowe faced four batters, and got three outs on ground balls. Snow got the only hit, a line drive single.

Drama on both sides in the late innings of the Red Sox-Yankees game. Mariano Rivera fails to hold a one run lead in the 9th when Jason Varitek takes him deep to tie the game at 3. But in the bottom of the ninth, Jeter works the count full on then pokes Foulke out of the yard to win the game. Jeter hits it to right; he likes to go that way for his homers in Yankee Stadium.

So far so good for Carl Pavano. Through three innings, he's had a pretty easy time with the Red Sox. Just two hits and six strikeouts. He's also being very efficient, just throwing 41 pitches so far.

The Red Sox are betrayed by both in the third inning. Clement hits Jeter to lead off the inning. Then A-Rod hits a rocket to Renteria that instead of turning into a double play, winds up off the shortstop into left field. They try to get Jeter going to third, but the throw is late. They try to get A-Rod going to second, the throw beats Rodriguez, but Bellhorn misses the tag.

Mueller makes a nice play on a grounder by Sheffield, but Jeter scores. Then Matsui hits a 2-run homer into the right field seats for a 3-0 lead.

I noticed on the Matsui HR that it went out over an ad for a Japanese newspaper. I was listening to a sports radio show driving around this morning, and the hosts were wondering why the ad was in right when Matsui played in left. The want the ad seen where Godzilla homers.

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Eight more teams open their seasons today. The Braves and Marlins get their NL East battle started in Miami this afternoon as John Smoltz returns to the rotation to face Josh Beckett. Smoltz last started against the Marlins on 5/22/2001, not long before his last start on 6/9/2001 vs. the Yankees. He's 10-3 vs the Fish as a starter, and did not allow a single run vs. the Marlins as a reliever in 31 1/3 innings.

Beckett had a good 2004 despite the injuries. His K and BB numbers were still good; he just needs to stay healthy have have better support this season.

The Dodgers and Giants renew their age-old rivalry in San Francisco this afternoon. Barry Bonds won't be playing, but I'm sure there will be plenty of talk about the beleaguered slugger. It should be even more interesting on the field as Boston's #4 starter from 2004 becomes the Dodgers opener. Derek Lowe takes the mound against Giants ace Jason Schmidt. Two different approaches here. Schmidt will be using his power to get as many strikeouts as he can. Lowe will try to use his finesse to get his infielders as many chances as possible. On offense, it's the all-age team vs. Moneyball with money.

The Cardinals visit Houston to face their NLCS challengers. Chris Carpenter didn't get a chance to pitch in the post season, but he'll open for St. Louis this evening. Roy Oswalt gets the opener over Cy Young winner Roger Clemens. While the Cardinals still have their offense intact, the Astros have been decimated by the departure of Carlos Beltran. They'll need the best they can get from Oswalt and company this season.

The final opener pits the Rangers against the Angels somewhere in the Los Angeles/Anaheim area. 2004 Surprise Ryan Drese gets the opening day nod vs. the somewhat disappointing Bartolo Colon. The 18-12 record was fine, but he would have won over 20 with an ERA well under 5.00. Drese was effective vs. the Angels last year despite a lack of strikeouts. He kept the ball in the park and only walked 2 in 13 2/3 innings, good enough for 2 wins and a 1.98 ERA.

Enjoy!

I would have loved to see this (emphasis added):

The Safeco Field grounds crew was doing its dancing thing before the top of the fourth inning, shaking it to K.C. and the Sunshine Band's "I want to put on my boogie shoes." But their groove didn't match what went on just moments before in the owners' suite, where a bunch of gray-haired suits were jumping like tattooed teenagers in a mosh pit.

Mariners president Chuck Armstrong and consultant Pat Gillick, the team's former general manager, aren't terribly hip, but they seemed to enjoy watching their $114 million investment twice gambol around the base paths, courtesy of 776 feet of home runs by free-agent acquisition Richie Sexson.

Johnny Damon was on Regis and Kelly yesterday, and Regis was telling Damon how much Steinbrenner liked the centerfielder:

Damon, the Red Sox's center fielder and leadoff hitter, is a free agent after this season and the Yankees likely will need someone to replace Bernie Williams. The Yankees are unlikely to exercise their $15 million option on Williams for 2006.

Philbin told Damon, "So I'm sitting there with George Steinbrenner in his box last night. You come up to bat. I said, 'George, this guy is a great center fielder.' George loves you. He says, yes, you really are."

Off camera, Philbin kept telling Damon how much Steinbrenner had been raving.

Of course, if Damon moves to New York, he'll have to cut his hair and lose all his powers. :-)

I actually believe the Yankees solution should involve moving Jeter to center, A-Rod to short and finding a new third baseman. Jeter probably won't make the move, but Robin Yount did that and won the MVP. Jeter is better on fly balls than grounders, and he probably has a better arm than Bernie.

A lesson in how to motivate players by Lee Mazzilli.

ORIOLES PITCHER Rodrigo Lopez didn't know what was going on. He was sitting behind the desk in the manager's office at Bricktown Ballpark in Oklahoma City on Thursday and wondering why Lee Mazzilli had put him there.

"It was weird," Lopez said. "He told me to turn around and open the cabinet. There were two doors and I opened them up, and there it was."

Inside was a neatly folded jersey bearing the number - 13 - that Lopez had surrendered to the new Orioles manager last year along with his identity as a starting pitcher.

Nice move by Maz, and he's rewarded with a shutout.

There's speculation that Javier Vazquez is tipping his pitches.

Diamondbacks starter Javier Vazquez, meanwhile, said he was "speechless" about his own outing. After allowing seven earned runs on 10 hits in 1 2/3 innings, Vazquez seemed to agree with speculation he might have been tipping his pitches.

If that was the case, however, it doesn't explain the nine other runs and 13 other hits the Cubs collected off three other Arizona pitchers.

I'm rewatching the first inning of the game. The first two hitters got good balls to hit; Patterson got a single and Walker drove his deep for an out. Both were up in the strikezone. The pitch Garciaparra hit for a ground out had good movement down. Ramirez's linedrive was on a pitch up in the zone. The pitch to Burnitz was down; that was a good piece of hitting by Jeromy. Lee's hit was down, but in the middle of the strikezone. He struck out Hollandsworth on a ball up and out of the strikezone.

He may have been tipping, but I didn't see great location on his pitches. With the exception of Burnitz's hit, the Cubs batters saw fat pitches and hit them hard. If you throw a ball down the middle of the plate in the strikezone, most major league hitters will hammer it.

Thirty eight minor league players were suspended today for steroid use. Looking at the list, I get the idea that this is a Western team problem. Could that be right, or have they only tested the western teams so far? There were no players suspended from NL East or AL East affiliates. Are the east coast teams doing a better job of keeping their players clean? Or are those players just better at masking their use?

Update: It looks like this set of tests was conducted in Arizona. With 925 tests, that's a four percent positive rate. These test have been going on for a few years now. I would have thought they would have reached a lower rate of positive test by now, given the positive levels we're seeing in the majors. Looks like the risk/reward is such that minor leaguers are more likely to try to get away with the drugs.

A new addition to the Day By Day Database, pitchers game logs. Check it out and let me know if you see any problems.

The Cubs win in a blow out, 16-6. The Cubs had 25 batters earn their way on with a walk or a hit. They "only" managed 2 home runs. At least today, Chicago didn't miss Sosa and Alou.

Zambrano didn't exactly pitch well, although he did strike out eight in 4 2/3 innings. Of course, when you have a 9-2 lead, all you should be interested in is putting the ball over the plate.

Goat Riders of the Apocalypse is running a series on the best GMs, having various bloggers write about their favorites and what makes them good. Today, Evan Burnell of Fire Brand of the American League pens a piece on Theo Epstein.

Derek Lee doubles in top of the 8th. One more base on that hit and he would have hit for the cycle. I'm sure he'll take the 4 for 5 with 5 RBI game.

Roy Halladay put up the kind of stats that won him the Cy Young award two years ago. He struck out seven over seven innings while walking none. He was very efficient as well, throwing only 91 pitches, or 13 per inning. Toronto wins the T-Ball game over Tampa 5-2

Update: One other note, none of the batters on either team drew a walk.

Just to make sure the Diamondback fans don't forget Randy Johnson, Brad Halsey comes into the game and gives up two runs of his own including a home run by Aramis Ramirez. The Cubs are having their way in the dome, leading the DBacks 14-3.

Trevor Hoffman blows the 2-run lead in the bottom of the ninth as the Rockies tie the Padres 10-10 in a typical Coors slugfest. Hoffman finishes the job giving up a two run shot to Clint Barmes. It's only the third HR of Barmes' career.

The Rockies had a 7-3 lead after five, but fell behind 8-7 then 10-8. Cory Sullivan got the first hit of his career in the ninth off Hoffman to bring the Rockies within 1. Jeff Baker hit the first home run of his major league career as well.

There were eight home runs hit in the game. Who needs steroids when you have thin air?

The five through eight hitters for the Phillies did most of the damage to the Nationals today. They combined to go 9 for 15 with a double, homer and six RBI.

If I were a Phillies fan, I wouldn't be all that happy with Lieber. Ten hits in 5 2/3 innings isn't exactly a stellar performance. And to their credit, the Nationals got Jon to throw 99 pitches in that time, so maybe Robinson's coaching on selectivity are paying off.

Rodrigo Lopez continued his great post all-star game pitching from last year with a seven inning shutout of the Oakland A's. The Orioles won the game 4-0. The A's did get eight hits, but the Baltimore staff spread them out to prevent any kind of rally. And the usually selective elephants only drew one walk.

Vazquez did not appear to be a good replacement for Randy Johnson today. He lasted 1 2/3 innings, allowing 10 hits and seven earned runs. Ten of the thirteen batters who put the ball in play got hits.

The Twins and Mariners are underway in the bright sunshie of Seattle. Moyer has his first pitch called for a ball, but comes back to get Stewart looking at a 2-2 pitch.

Update: Ichiro takes the 2nd pitch from Radke into left field for a line drive single. He picks up where he left off last season.

Update: After Beltre reaches on a poor fielding play, Richie Sexson hits the first pitch he saw into the left field stands for a three run homer. Ichiro, Beltre and Sexson combine for three runs, just what the Mariners ordered.

Javier Vazquez tries to rise from the ashes in Phoenix. He gets his first pitch over for a stike, but Patterson ends up singling in the AB to get baseball underway in the southwest.

Update: New York results in Phoenix so far. Vazquez allows four hits and two runs in the first inning.

A nice defensive play by Gload and Takatsu finishes the shutout by the White Sox as they win 1-0. Westbrook and Buehrle each were marvelous, but Mark was a little better. Takatsu gets the first save of the new year.

And to top it all off, the game took less than two hours to play! I'd love to see more of that. There were only 215 pitches thrown in the entire game, and 146 were for strikes. Efficiency and effectiveness from both staffs.

Pedro Martinez won't get the win. Braden Looper comes in and gives up a single to Kearns followed by Adam Dunn's second home run. It's tied at 6 with no outs in the bottom of the ninth. I believe that's the first blown save of the season.

Update: Randa wins for the Reds by following Dunn's HR with one of his own. Looper faces three batters, gives up three hits, the last two home runs and starts the season with an ERA of ∞.

The White Sox break on top 1-0 after a Konerko double and some questionable defense by the Indians. They're in the bottom of the 7th with two men on for the White Sox.

Update: The Indians get a double play to end the inning. It's 1-0 after seven.

A very nice gift for the new owner in Milwaukee. The pitching staff was excellent, combining for 7 K and 0 BB. On the offensive side, every starter but Sheets had a hit.

Buehrle and Westbrook are locked in a teriffic pitcher's duel in Chicago. The game started less than an hour and a half ago, and they're already in the top of the 7th. Each pitcher has allowed just two hits, and both are averaging around 13 pitches an inning. Crisp leads off the 7th with a single for the Tribe so I guess that constitutes a threat in this game.

Brazelton start the Tampa Bay Devil Rays season off with a strike against the Blue Jays.

Update: Catalanotto flies out to begin the season for the Jays.

Sammy is two-for-two so far this afternoon. A nice start to his Orioles career. Luis Matos has supplied the power with a two-run homer to help the O's to a 3-0 lead in the fourth.

Oliver Perez had six strikeouts in five innings, but three walks and five hits led to six earned runs. Sheets pitches an excellent seven frames, striking out six but walking none. With a 9-2 lead, Ben is headed to starting the season with a winning record.

The Patriarch, Joe Kennedy, starts Greene off with a ball to inaugurate the season for the Rockies. He comes back to catch Green looking for the first out of the season.

Pedro had three bad hitters in the first, and since has been untouchable. He has 12 strikeouts and has thrown 103 pitches. The Mets now have a 4-3 lead and have to be very happy with this start from their ace.

Update: A three-run seventh gives the Mets a 6-3 lead and puts Pedro in line for the win. Aybar is on in relief.

Rooftop Report notes the Cubs signing Aramis Ramirez to a four year contract for over $40 million dollars. He also notes that Ramirez can opt out of the contract after 2006. It's all upside for Aramis; if he puts two fantastic years together, he can become a free agent and make even more money. I'm surprised the Cubs signed that deal, as it increases their uncertainty in the near future.

The Tigers could not ask for more from Jeremy Bonderman. He gets off to a great start, going seven innings, striking out seven and only throwing 102 pitches. He had great control, walking only 2 having 73 pitches result in strikes. Pena, another Oakland import, is 2 for 3 today as well. Those deals may finally be working out for the Tigers. It's 9-2 Detroit in the 8th.

Update: Dmitri Young finishes the day four for four with five RBI and three home runs. He was also plunked. He's not quite perfect, he only has a 3.250 slugging percentage. :-) A great day for the Tigers as they win 11-2.

Two of the three US capitols are represented as the Nationals take on the Phillies. Wilkerson gets a hit in the first official AB for the new Washington team.

Coco Crisp leads off for the Indians and gets a ball from Buehrle. Crisp ends up grounding out to start the game.

The A's and the O's are getting underway. Lopez gets Kotsay to foul off the first pitch. Sammy Sosa did his tour of right field running out to his position to great cheers from the fans.

Update: Kotsay has a ten-pitch AB and flies out. Great job, however, making Roderigo Lopez work.

Update: Lopez retires the side 1-2-3 and throws 18 pitches, 13 for strikes.

The balls are flying out of the GAB today. Carlos Beltran get his first as a Met, a two run shot to tie the game. It's 3-3 in the third.

Jeff Cirillo is making the most of his return to the Milwaukee Brewers. He has a double and a homer, and has driven in two of the three runs Milwaukee has scored today.

Pedro strikes out the side in the 2nd. Of course, it was the bottom of the order. :-)

Dmitri Young was plunked in his third plate appearance. A new pitcher came in, but I wasn't watching the game and it's not clear if Sisco was tossed or pulled, but he's not in the game.

Update: Thanks to comments, Sisco was pulled, not thrown. Both benches were warned, however.

Not a good start for Pedro Martinez. Singles to Griffey and Casey are followed by a 3-run HR by Adam Dunn. Pedro is throwing strikes (18 of 24 pitches), but they're hitting them.

Paul Wilson throws strike one to Jose Reyes, then gets the young shortstop to fly out to Dunn in left. Baseball's underway in Cincinnati.

Update: Kaz Matsui swings at a couple of ball fours, but the third swing sends the ball into the left field bullpen to give the Mets a 1-0 lead.

Update: Beltran grounds out in his first AB.

Dmitri Young does it again. Two AB and two HR. He's dancing in the dugout and the Tigers lead 5-0.

The announcers doing the Pirates game were talking about batting Tyke Redman third. It turns out the Pirates had a someone run computer simulations, and this was the lineup that produced the most runs! Great stuff, and a great use of technology. We'll come back at the end of the season and see if the Pirates improved over last year.

Jason Bay drives in Matt Lawton to give the Pirates a 1-0 lead. Bay and Perez living up to expectations in the first inning.

Matt Lawton bloops a shallow pop between three fielders in left center to get the Pirates first hit of the season.

The Pirates and Brewers are underway. Perez gets a strike on the first pitch, then gets Clark to fly out to the other Pirate star, Jason Bay.

Update: Oliver Perez starts like Bonderman, a perfect first with two K. Ben Sheets up next.

Dmitri Young gives the Tigers their first run of the year with a blast to right center. It was way back in the stands. An impressive shot.

Jeremy Bonderman has struck five batter through two innings. The Royals have 1 hit and one walk, but most of the time they're not coming close to meeting the ball.

A very slim Ivan Rodriguez gets the first hit for the Detroit Tigers, a single down the right field line. Ordonez is getting his first Detroit plate appearance now.

Jeremy Bonderman starts the Tigers season with a strike.

Update: Bonderman looks strong, throwing a perfect first inning and striking out two. Jose Lima's turn now.

Steve Stone has joined ESPN for the Royals-Tigers game today. The level of broadcast excellence on the network just went up a notch.

It's opening day! No matter where you are, the sun is shining, the birds are singing, and Casey hasn't stuck out yet. Every game is important today, but here's the best of the lot.

Milwaukee and Pittsburgh trot out their bright, young stars to the mound this afternoon as Ben Sheets meets Oliver Perez on the snowy banks of the three rivers. Ben is coming off a year with a great ERA but a mediocre record. That's been his history against the Pirates as well; he's 4-7 despite a 3.18 ERA. Perez used the dimenions of PNC to his advantage in 2004, reducing his HR 55% vs the road.

New Met Pedro Martinez takes on former Met Paul Wilson in Cincinnati today as the Mets and Reds face off on Opening Day. When I was young, Cincinnati always played the first game of the season; no other teams played that day. It was in honor of the city having the first professional team. This year, they'll be the fourth big league game to get underway. The story that's important from the Cincinnati point of view is the replacement for Barry Larkin. Rich Aurilia is getting the start despite a better spring from Felipe Lopez. If you're going to have a youth movement, go with youth! Half the Reds lineup has never seen Pedro, which I would think would make Martinez's change up that much harder to hit.

Washington will be able to root for a team for the first time since 1971 today. The Nationals open the season up the road in Philadelphia. Innings eater Livan Hernandez takes the mound vs. bionic man Jon Lieber. In time, this could make for a very good rivalry along the I-95 corridor.

Out west, the Cubs open their season with Carlos Zambrano on the mound. Prior once again starts the season on the DL, and Kerry Wood has been pushed back to the home opener. Maybe Carlos should have gotten the opening day start anyway. He's certainly pitched like the staff ace the last two seasons and he make every start. While Wood may have a more brilliant performance on a given day, I'd rather have Zambrano for his overall effectiveness. Javier Vazquez starts his new life away from New York. Has he fixed the problems that plagued him in the big Apple? Will playing in a good home run park accentuate his weakness? He has big (unit) shoes to fill in Phoenix this season. The Diamondback brought in three questionable pitchers (Vazquez, Estes and Ortiz). There a good probability of negative outcomes on all three.

Happy Opening Day! Enjoy!

The Red Sox get a run off Gordon, but Mark Bellhorn strikes out to end the contest. The Yankees take the early lead in the AL East.

A great game all around by the Yankees. They hit well, they pitched well (10 K, 3 BB, 0 HR) and mostly fielded well. Matsui and Tino Martinez had real gems in the field tonight.

On to real opening day tomorrow. At some point this has to become a Monday National Holiday. :-)

Tom Gordon is on to try to finish the game.

Update: Millar walks and Varitek doubles. They've been on base five times tonight for the Sox.

Update: The Red Sox announcers are trying to find some solace in the fact that the Yankees have left 14 men on base. They should be more concerned that the Red Sox pitching and defense allowed 25 men on.

Hideki Matsui hits the first home run of the young season, a two run shot off Mantei. The Yankees lead 8-1 in the 8th.

New York looks very relaxed at the plate tonight. Everyone is swinging the bat well.

Update: Everything is going wrong for the Red Sox now. Renteria makes a nice play to snare a hard hit ball by Womack, but loses his footing and can't make the toss for the force at 2nd. Then Jeter hits one back to Halama which he bobbles for an error and another run scores to make it 9-1.

Update: Bill Mueller makes a nice play on a slow roller by A-Rod to end the 8th. The Red Sox have 3 outs to score 8 runs.

With Manny Ramirez flying out to center in the 8th, the Yankees have done a great job against the 1-2-3 hitters of the Red Sox. They are a combined 0 for 12 with four strikeouts.

Tanyon Sturtze comes in the start the 7th for the Yankees in relief of Johnson. Randy threw 95 pitches, 60 for strikes. It wasn't an overwhelming performance by Johnson, but he did get a strike out an inning. With the Yankees offense, they'll take that every time from Randy.

Update: Sturtze has a great inning. He struck out the first two. Then Tino Martinez, in for defense, nabs a grounder down the line on a diving play and tosses to Tanyon for the third out. The crowd loves Tino and goes wild.

Blaine Neal makes his major league debut and it doesn't go well. Jeter walks, A-Rod singles him in and Damon boots the ball to put Rodriguez at 2nd. Then Sheffield moves Alex to third with a deep fly ball to Manny in left center. Embree will try to finish the inning. Yankees lead 5-1 in the sixth.

Update: Embree starts his season by giving up a double to Sierra. A-Rod scores to make it a 6-1 game.

Correction: This was not Neal's ML debut. I didn't find stats for him last night and assumed it was his first appearance.

Johnson gives up a two out walk to Millar and a single over Giambi to Varitek, but Payton grounds into a fielder's choice to end the inning. Johnson's thrown 95 pitches through six. I expect the Yankees to get one more inning out of him, then Gordon and Rivera.

Giambi is hit for the 2nd time in the game by David Wells. There was nothing intentional about it. Giambi has perfected the Don Baylor move of turning your body into the pitch to gain a base.

Update: Wells walks Williams to load the bases. Francona is pulling him from the game. The Yankees ended up 10 for 19 when putting the ball in play against Wells. David did K four in his 4 1/3 innings, which is pretty high for him. But if he gets hit this hard in a ball park that's good for him, what's going to happen at Fenway?

Update: Myers gets Womack to ground into a double play to end the inning. Can't have a much better relief appearance than that.

I was just going to note that Jeter hasn't had a difficult play tonight, when he nearly throws the ball away on a slow grounder. Giambi make a nice stretch to left, falls over, but catches the ball and holds the bag for the out. Yankees lead 4-1 in the middle of the 5th.

With a single by Womack, the Yankees have gotten the leadoff man on in each of the first four innings.

Randy Johnson is averaging 15 pitches an inning through the first four frames. At that rate, he should get through seven. The Red Sox are 3 for 11 putting the ball in play against Johnson.

The first balk of the year goes to David Wells with the bases loaded, giving the Yankees a 4-1 lead.

Update: Williams strikes out to end the inning. The Yankees are 7 for 13 when they put the ball in play tonight.

Twice in this game (once for each team) a runner has gone second to third on a grounder to the shortstop. Back in the 1980's, Pete Palmer and John Thorn wrote in the hidden game of baseball that this is a great play. The run potentials are such that even if you don't make it very often, you help your team in the long run. Both Ortiz and Sheffield made the play tonight.

Derek Jeter doubles leading off the third. He's already off to a much better start than in 2004.

Update: Sheffield doubles up the gap in left to give the Yankees a 2-1 lead. The Yankees are making contact and finding holes. They are 5 for 11 putting the ball in play after Sierra grounds out.

Henry Kissinger and Mike Wallace are sitting in the same luxury box. I'd love to be hearing their conversation:

Mike: Henry, did you ever think we'd live long enough to see the Red Sox win the World Series?

Henry: Not only that, but we outlived the Pope!

Giambi makes the first error of the season. He dove for a instead of getting in front of it. But Renteria grounds into a double play to negate the miscue.

Jason Giambi pulls an inside 1-1 pitch from Wells past the first baseman for his first hit of the season. NY has men on first and third with one out for Bernie Williams.

Matsui and Giambi have hits in this inning, both lefties. Wells is the type of lefty pitcher that lefty batters can hit.

Update: Bernie Williams drives one deep to Ramirez in left to score Matsui with a sacrifice fly. The Yankees and Red Sox are tied at one.

Update: Nice play by Renteria. Womack hit one in the hole, and Edgar was able to make the throw to 2nd to nab Giambi. It's one of those plays that would have been a base hit if he had to make the throw to first.

A well played game so far. Solid pitching, hitting and some very good defense.

New Red Sox outfielder Jay Payton lines a ball into left for a two-out single scoring David Ortiz. The Red Sox draw first blood in the game and the season with a 1-0 lead.

Update: Johnson K's Bellhorn to end the inning, but he didn't look particularly sharp or over powering.

Kevin Millar gives the ball a ride, but Hideki Matsui makes the first great play of 2005, bring the ball back into the park in front of the Canon sign in left field. It's 0-0 instead of 2-0.

David Ortiz gets the first hit and first extra base hit for the Red Sox, a double down the right field line. He ran full out, and managed to beat the throw, but looked winded. A slightly better toss would have had him.

Jeter bloops the 2nd pitch of the evening from Wells into centerfield for the first hit of the 2005 season.

Update: Ruben Sierra is batting fourth tonight. I'm not sure I understand splitting up your productive hitters with Ruben. He's had a great history vs. Wells. It's an example of depending too much on small sample sizes. Sierra strikes out swinging to end the first inning.

Randy Johnson start off Johnny Damon with a strike. Damon fouls it at the plate.

Update: Damon grounds out to Womack to start the season. The 2005 pennant race is underway!

Update: A perfect start for Randy. He strikes out Renteria, on a 2-2 pitch, then gets Ramirez looking on three pitches. (I thought the first pitch to Ramirez was high and outside, but Johnson got the call.) We'll see what Wells can do next.

Correction: Changed Womack to Renteria.

First pitch coming up on ESPN2 in a few minutes. What a great way to start the season. Boston at the New York Yankees, Wells vs. Johnson, A-Rod and Varitek, Giambi off steroids, Jeter and Manny, bombers vs. idiots. I'll be live blogging the game.

Alex Sanchez became the first victim of Major League Baseball's drug testing policy. He has been suspended for 10 games starting tomorrow with opening day. Sanchez denies use:

Sanchez said he was surprised by the suspension, adding that he uses milkshakes and multivitamins to build his energy -- and blaming the positive test on something he bought over the counter.

"I'm going to fight it, because I've never taken steroids or anything like that," said Sanchez, who was released by Detroit in mid-March and signed by the Devil Rays.

If taking steroids get you released by Detroit and signed by Tampa Bay, that's a good reason not to take them. :-) Sanchez's explanation follows Dr. Pellman's testimony to Congress:

12:34 PM EST. Dr. Elliot Pellman is addressing the two year ban. He's saying that a lot of positive tests come from accidental ingestion of contaminated supplements. He's saying that's why a first positive shouldn't lead to a long term ban, and he thinks that the MLB program compares favorably to the NFL's program. Finally someone is talking sense.

So we have a part time player testing positive who claims it was accidental ingestion. We don't know what came up positive. And because we don't know the substance, we can't evaluate the probability of a false positive, or the probability of a supplement being contaminated. You see here the advantage of the old policy. A first positive was kept quiet so if it was contaminated supplements, the player could stop taking them and be free from taint. Now, no matter how Sanchez came to be positive, he'll be branded as a cheater.

Ali-Reza Anghaie donated $50 or more and gets to dedicate this post:

To Lara, the most energetic Red Sox fan as measured against height and weight. Four foot eleven AND 1/2!

The AL East is almost as bad as the NL Central, but at least it's very difficult to pick the winner from the top two teams.

Predicted order of finish:

1. Boston Red Sox
2. New York Yankees
3. Baltimore Orioles
4. Tampa Bay Devil Rays
5. Toronto Blue Jays

The Yankees were very lucky last year during the regular season. They bascially should have been in a dead heat with the Red Sox. Both pitching staffs have age and injury question marks entering the season. Both have potent offenses. It's a tough call, but I'm giving the edge to the Red Sox because:

• I trust Theo to make the right moves mid-season to improve the team.
• The Red Sox core is a bit younger than the Yankee's core.

One big unknown is Jason Giambi. If he's healthy and can put up a .400 OBA and .500 slugging percentage, the Yankees have six top notch hitters in the lineup everyday. These teams are close enough for that to put NY over the top.

The Orioles will score lots of runs. Tejada, Sosa and Palmeiro is a good middle of the order. I suspect Sosa will rebound in a new environment. My big question for the Orioles is, "How many pitchers will wind up in jail, and are they better off with the staff behind bars?"

I'm assuming at some point Tampa Bay brings back the youngsters. I'd rather see a bad team with up and coming players than a bad team with has beens. At least Scott Kazmir is on the roster. Until they realize the importance of having players get on base, I don't expect this team to advance much.

The Blue Jays let Carlos Delgado go and replaced him with Shea Hillenbrand. They deserve to finish last. Money is being saved for the next two years, however. There will be no more excuses for J.P. Ricciardi starting next season.

This is my least favorite division this season. While it's possible that any team can win a championship in any given year, I don't see a lot of drama developing here unless you're interested in the race for the 3-6 slots.

Predicted order of finish:

1. St. Louis Cardinals
2. Chicago Cubs
3. Houston Astros
4. Milwaukee Brewers
5. Cincinnati Reds
6. Pittsburgh Pirates

I don't think the Cardinals are as good a team as they were in 2004. The infield defense up the middle leaves something to be desired. But they still have the biggest concentration of power and on-base in the National League in their 2-5 hitters Albert Pujols is just entering his peak years, so I expect the best is yet to come. Even if one or two of those four get hurt, they have enough offense to carry the division.

Any improvement in the Cubs will come from health, not transactions. The infield is great, the outfield is weak. I just don't put a lot of stock in Burnitz's Colorado numbers. A healthy Prior and Wood for a full season would greatly improve the Cubs chances of making the playoffs, but both start 2005 with question marks. I'm going to assume they don't stay healthy in picking the Cubs 2nd.

The Astros were a .500 team without Beltran, and they'll be one again. Bagwell and Biggio continue to age and fade, and Lance Berkman starts the year on the DL. I'm being generous picking them third, mostly based on having a good pitching staff. But Clemens didn't have a great spring, and Pettitte is still not 100%. It's possible a really bad April will bury the Astros to the point that they'll be lucky to climb back into third place.

The last three teams in the division are difficult to pick in any order. My pick of Milwaukee is based on having a new owner who might open up his pocketbook to improve the team as the season goes on.

The Reds are my toughest call. There are two forces on the Reds that are at odds with each other:

1. Despite their poor 2004 record, the Reds exceeded their Pythagorean project by nine games.
2. If Kearns, Griffey, Casey and Dunn are all healthy, they have a very potent lineup.

Lucky teams tend to regress the following year. Improvements in health should make the team better. These forces might just even out to leave the Reds exactly where they were last season.

The Pirates have two very bright stars on their team, Jason Bay and Oliver Perez. It's now Littlefield's job to try to surround these two with a solid cast of supporting players to bring the Pirates into the win column. He hasn't done that this season.

It looks to me like the Cardinals either romp again, or beat the Cubs in a race that's decided mid-September rather than mid-July.

This may be my favorite division this season. With the improvements in Seattle, four good teams will battle all season.

Predicted order of finish:

1. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
2. Oakland Athletics
3. Texas Rangers
4. Seattle Mariners

I'm as uncomfortable picking an order here as I am with picking the first four in the NL East. What gets me to pick the Angels is their offensive depth. They have a number of players who can work at multiple positions, which gives Scioscia a great deal of flexibility. And they have Vlad. I'm not crazy about the pitching staff, except for K-Rod at the end. But they should score enough runs. One problem on the horizon is Steve Finley's age; he has to decline sometime.

I mentioned in the AL Central comment that I'd discuss trading age for youth here. In the Athletics Nation interview with Billy Beane, Blez asks this question:

Blez: How much did the insane contracts, forgive my editorializing, for starting pitchers like Benson and Wright affect your decision to go ahead and move Hudson and Mulder? In other words, were you just taking an opportunity to move players who happened to play in a position that is suddenly overvalued?

Let me look at this question from the opposite point of view. The average age of players is at an historically high level. Right now, youth is undervalued. So Beane traded for youth. Terry Ryan realizes the same thing. While everyone else is paying for "proven" players, Beane and Ryan are paying peanuts for youngsters who are probably just as good. And the teams keep winning.

The Rangers should be better on offense this year as Blalock, Young and Teixeira approach their primes. Chan-Ho Park may be the key to improving the pitching staff. Hershiser has been trying to get him to throw a 2-seam fast ball along with his 4-seamer. A turnaround by Park would go a long way toward putting Texas over the top.

The Mariners were so awful last year they have to be better this season. Sexson and Beltre hitting behind Ichiro should increase the team's offensive output. However, my guess is that once again fans will be going to the games to see what kind of records Ichiro can break this season.

I expect a three way race like 2004, but if Seattle's offense bounces back, this will be the best division in baseball.

Renyel Pinto got Ichiro to ground out, but now has thrown 9 straight balls to the Mariners. That's not the kind of control that will get you to the majors.

Update: Pinto gets Sexson to ground into a force out, then strikes out Boone to end the inning. However, a wild pitch brought in a run. Nice rebound by the lefty.

The Athletics have signed Rich Harden to a four year deal. That will keep Rich and Oakland together until he's ready to become a free agent, and the A's never have to worry about his salary being driven up by arbitration. With the premium being placed on starting pitchers right now, that's a good thing to avoid.

I can see any of four teams winning this division, and I can see the Nationals finishing as high as third.

Predicted order of finish:

1. Florida Marlins
2. Philadelphia Phillies
3. NY Mets
4. Atlanta Braves
5. Washington Nationals

You could randomize the first four teams and get as accurate a prediction. This is a close division.

This is a division with great heart of the order hitters. Abreu, Thome, Burrell on the Phillies; Beltran, Piazza, Floyd on the Mets; Cabrera, Lowell and Delgado on the Marlins. It's one of the reasons I moved the Braves down; they really didn't replace JD Drew. Mondesi and Jordan do nothing for me in the corners.

The Marlins pitching looks to me to be on par with the Braves, and their offense looks like it's on par with the Phillies. I believe that will lift them to the top of the division.

I can see a Joe Altobelli effect in Philadelphia. Joe replace the ultra-intense Earl Weaver and led the Orioles to a World Series in 1983. Charlie Manual is an easy going manager who's replacing the extremely intense Larry Bowa. The players may be relaxed enough to win the division.

The Mets should be greatly improved with Pedro and Beltran. The keys for them will be keeping Reyes, Floyd and Piazza healthy for the season. My suspicsion is that Pedro will respond well to Shea Stadium and will return to his Cy Young form, following in the footsteps of Roger Clemens.

I like the Nationals. They won't be the worst team in the majors. Frank Robinson knows what he's doing. They have three decent starters are are playing in a pitcher's park. It's too bad they won't be able to go after better players mid-years. With some luck, they won't finish last.

This should be a fun division. Since I'm not working and live in driving distance of three of the teams, maybe I'll do a northeast corridor tour of the NL East this summer.

The AL Central is slowly growing out of being an also ran division. The main things driving it are the good farm systems of the Twins and the Indians and the free agent signings of the Tigers.

Predicted order of finish:

1. Minnesota Twins
2. Cleveland Indians
3. Detroit Tigers
4. Chicago White Sox
5. Kansas City Royals

Terry Ryan is reminding more and more of Branch Rickey, or at least John Schuerholz. He's not afraid to let a veteran player go to replace him with someone young (more about this when I discuss the Athletics). He let a perfectly good shortstop in Guzman go, but is replacing him a 25-year-old with better offensive numbers. He did the same replacing Pierzynski with Mauer and Mientkiewicz with Morneau (and those moves made the roster a lot easier to spell). If he can get the same or better performance from a younger, cheaper player, he goes for it.

And, if he has a player worth the money, he signs him to a long term deal. Johan Santana moved into superstardom last season and was handsomely rewarded. The Twins are no doubt the team to beat.

The Indians want to contend this year. Unfortunately for them, it's been very difficult to make the moves for pitchers that would solidify the rotation. The offense matured just as the price for starting pitching sky rocketed. If they can get Millwood to return to his Atlanta form, they'll have four decent starters. It doesn't help that CC Sabathia will start the season on the DL.

The Tigers got a little better with the addition of Ordonez. But a lot hinges on Guillen's 2004 not being a fluke, and Jeremy Bonderman living up to expectations. The Tigers are moving in the right direction, and again I expect them to have more wins than the previous season.

I'm down on the White Sox. Thomas is hurt, Lee and Ordonez are gone and they're counting on two old Cubans in the rotation. The increase in speed will not make up for the lack of power in my mind. The South Side will be looking at its 88th year without a World Championship.

The Royals had the good sense to keep Calvin Pickering on the team and start him at DH over Harvey. On the surface, the pitching staff doesn't look bad. Greinke is projected to be a star. If Pickering is powering and Greinke is K'ing, the KC fans will have something to cheer about.

I'm going to start my previews with the NL West, bascially because you can discuss a lot of issues facing baseball with this division. Steroids, age and Moneyball GMs all are highlighted here.

Predicted order of finish:

1. Los Angeles Dodgers
2. San Deigo Padres
3. San Francisco Giants
4. Arizona Diamondbacks
5. Colorado Rockies

I would pick the Giants third even if Barry Bonds had come back from the knee surgery. The team is too old, and I suspect the Geezers by the Bay will be spending a lot of time on the DL this season. When Bonds comes back, who knows how good he'll be? Will balls be dropping all over left field? Will pitchers start throwing at his knees? Will they challenge him in the strike zone?

When I look at things that can go wrong vs. things that can go right, I just see a lot more things that can go wrong. I appreciate that Sabean is trying to get a World Championship before Bonds retires, and rebuilding is not the way to do that. But I'm not sure a bunch of late 30-somethings is the way to go, either.

And if there is going to be a distraction from the press, it's going to be here. Bonds will be facing scrutiny about steroids, his mistress and his assault on Babe Ruth's milestone. Roger Maris never had it so bad.

The Dodgers and Padres are really a toss-up. The offense have enough good players to score enough runs for low ERA staffs to win. Greene and Burroughs should still be improving; Drew should make up for the loss of Beltre.

The Diamondbacks are the dark horse of the division. They're banking on the G-men, Glaus, Green and Gonzalez to return to form and generate some offense. And with Halsey making the rotation, they're also hoping that Vazquez and Brad more than make up for the loss of Randy Johnson. Vazquez will give up home runs in that park; the question is, can he keep his walks low enough to keep men off base.

The Rockies at first appear to be going with a youth movement. If only. Mostly, their young players are career minor leaguers as opposed to up and coming stars. However, as Milwaukee has found out in recent years, a rookie in his mid-20's can have a pretty good season. If that happens, it will at least by fun in Colorado.

Staying in Oakland has turned out to be very rewarding for Billy Beane as he will be a part owner of the Athletics with Lewis Wolff.

Lewis Wolff was introduced as the new managing partner of the A's at a small ceremony in the Coliseum and then announced that Beane and Crowley will have small ownership stakes in the club. It was a reward for the two men who have built the small-market team into a perennial playoff contender and a profitable business.

Beane also received a lucrative contract extension through 2012, while Crowley's deal was extended through 2008, although their salaries weren't disclosed.

"I'm excited about the future, and one of the great things now is the stability it brings," said Beane, who has led the club to four playoff appearances and the AL's second-best record during his seven years as GM. "(Ownership) is something I always hoped would become a possibility. ... We're partners, so Lew has said that when it comes to operating the franchise, he's going to give us a free hand."

The exciting thing here is that the A's have the third richest ownership group in baseball. That doesn't mean they'll spend lots of money, but it looks like they will be more flexible. And it also appears they have the means to build a new stadium.

Brew Grit has issued predictions for the 2005 season, including the Brewers finishing third in the NL Central.

Brad Halsey will be the fifth starter for the Diamondbacks. This sets up a great story line for the season; Randy Johnson vs. Vazquez and Halsey.

Susan Mullen donated $50 or more and gets to dedicate this post:

In memory of 9 year old Jessica Lunsford, murdered in Florida by a registered sex offender.

Jack Curry pens an article in the New York Times about how returning to Yankee Stadium will be different for Wells this time:

When Wells envisions facing his beloved Yankees at the Yankee Stadium he reveres on Sunday night, he wonders how he will be greeted. It is important to Wells that the fans offer him a vocal hug to show that he remains one of their homeboys.

"I'm the same guy, just a different uniform," Wells said. "Hopefully, they won't treat me any different than when I was in any other uniform."

But Wells may want to spend a minute recalling how the tense Yankees-Red Sox rivalry has unfolded recently and ponder the immediate future again. As much as Wells has immersed himself in Yankees history, with his passion for Babe Ruth and anything pinstriped, the B on his cap could destroy his status as a visiting cult hero.

"It's going to be different," Boston second baseman Mark Bellhorn said. "It's going to be interesting for him."

Sunday night's game offers a great contrast in styles between two different lefties. Wells and Johnson hooked up last June. The no decisions show the contrasts and similarities of the two. Johnson struck out 8, Wells two. Johnson walked 1, Wells none. And to keep things even, they each hit a batter. Both allowed 9 base runners.

Wells, as seems typical of soft tossing lefties, has better luck vs. right-handed batters. Johnson blows away both sides, but has the more traditional splits. I wonder if the Yankees switch hitters might defy convention and bat lefty vs. David?

It's going to be a cold, damp night, and I suspect Johnson's pitches are going to be stinging hands a lot more than Wells will. A slight edge to Randy in this one, but I suspect it will be a great seven inning duel, settled by the pens.

X-Rays on Bobby Crosby's left hand were negative. Crosby was concerned that he had a broken bone after being hit by a pitch. He's now optimistic about being in the opening day lineup.

It's a good day for this story about the Yankee Ring Ceremony.

The Baltimore Sun has a nice interactive feature, Interactive Baseball Cards. The front has a picture, the back has a bio and player stats. And since the Sun writes the bios they're not always complimentary. Have a look at the back side of Sammy Sosa's card.

The Baseball Crank finishes up his EWSL projections for the NL today. I have to say I think his standings are interesting. It takes a lot of guts to put the Braves last in the NL East.

Russ Oritz had a rough outing in his first game at the BOB yesterday.

Russ Ortiz knows you're going to be talking about him around the water cooler today at the office. You might rip him on the local sports talk radio circuit. Or curse him while you're sitting in traffic.

After you peek at the box score from Thursday night's 10-9 loss to the Boston Red Sox, you might want to do all three.

Russ Ortiz is a pitcher whose success always seems out of line with his ERA. He has a career ERA of 4.00, but a .632 winning percentage. Given tha his total runs per 9 innings is about 4.39, we can estimate his run support per 9 over his career at 5.75. That's good offense. I'll also assume he had pretty good relief support as well.

Russ Ortiz walks a lot of batters. He'll now be playing his home games in a real launching pad. Those walks are going to hurt him when his opponents start hitting home runs at a high rate. I'll stick to this evaluation I made when the DBacks signed Ortiz; the wins don't necessarily follow the pitcher.

A new affiliates program came my way this morning. Team Hub is offering a fantasy game based on team statistics. Their weekly game is simple and challenging. You pick 16 offensive and 16 defensive stats, and decide if your team is going to do better, equal, or worse than their opponents that week. Team Hub is also building a community where fans can interact with sports writers and blogs. If you join, include pinto@baseballmusings in the offer code and this site will receive $5. There is a special that's going on now through April 10th that allows you to play the baseball season for $25.

Since they're not paying me for this promotion (the people who will join are doing that), let me issue my concerns about the site. They're trying to build traffic through a pyramid scheme. You join, you refer five people and your membership is free. That of course is only true if your friends haven't joined already. Also, your membership automatically renews unless you cancel. So remember, if you join and find you don't like the site, it's up to you to stop them taking more money next year.

That said, they certainly are offering a unique fantasy game. They supply the statistics you need week-to-week to help make decisions. It's worth a look.

The final numbers on the pledge drive are in. One hundred eighty two readers donated $2642. The donations ranged from $1 to $500. I want to thank each and every one of you for your support. It's made a huge difference as I try to move from employee to small business owner.

And I want to thank everyone who visited just as much. By every measure available, March 2005 was Baseball Musings best month ever. I've been able to sell more Blogads, and are starting to see other advertising opportunities come along. It's convinced me that blogging full time is the way to grow this site to be self-sustaining.

So I'm going to re-evaluate my plans for blogging vs. traditional work. My dream was for a level of donations that would keep this site running for a year. That didn't happen, but the amount donated was more than I realistically expected to receive. The traffic increse during an exhibition season makes me wonder what will happen in April.

So feel free to keep donating. I won't be bothering you in every post any more, but I will remind you from time to time about donations. I'll be adding pitching stats to the Day by Day Database soon. If work like that is important to you, please consider joining your 182 fellow readers in supporting this site. Just click on one of the links below.