Buddy Bell wins his first game as manager of the Kansas City Royals. Zach Greinke got his first win of the season as well, pitching five three-run innings. The bullpen was excellent, pitching four 2-hit innings and allowing no runs. Mike MacDougal got this side in the 9th on eleven pitches to earn his third save.

Brad Halsey showed New York fans what they are missing. He threw seven scoreless innings vs. the Mets, striking out six and walking only one. He even picked up his first hit of the season, going one for three and driving in a run. I'll throw this out to the Yankees fans: Who would you rather have, Johnson or Halsey? You can answer long or short term.

The Nationals beat the other NL East first place team, topping the Atlanta Braves 5-4. It was a harrowing ninth inning for Chad Cordero, who gave up three hits, including a homer to Julio Franco. He induced the last two outs with men on 1st and 3rd.

With the Phillies getting a good start from Randy Wolf, their win over the Giants brings all five teams within four games of the division lead.

The Pirates defeated the Marlins 5-4 tonight. Oliver Perez improved part of his game, walking no one. He did allow three more home runs to bring his total to 15. He only gave up 22 in all of 2004. But the lack of walks helped; all three homers were solo shots. Perez allowed four runs, but the bullpen and the Pirates offense made that hold up. It wasn't a great game by Perez, but he showed signs of improvement.

Mike Hampton pitched well in his return from the DL, he just didn't pitch very long. He left after four scoreless innings and 58 pitches. It's not clear from the play-by-play if he was injured again.

The Atlanta bullpen has not picked it up for the lefty, however. Bernero, Colon and Gryboski combined to allow five runs over two innings, blowing a 3-0 Braves lead to the Nationals.

Mark Teixeira is three quarters of the way to the cycle as the Rangers are pounding the Tigers 8-1. He's 3 for 4, and needs the homer to complete the feat.

Kenny Rogers is pitching well again, allowing just one run through six innings so far.

Hideki Matsui breaks a long home run slump with a 2-run shot in the second off Zack Greinke. His last home run was April 8th. He went 46 games without a long ball.

I was a guest on Lance Williams' show 1954 and Counting today. Follow the link to hear the interview and/or subscribe to Lance's podcast feed.

In the strikezone, that is. Kevin Brown struck out two Royals on pitches in the dirt that ended up going past the catcher. Looks like he has good movement on his pitches tonight.

Billy Beane on the Athletics losing streak:

"Temporary irrationality aside, I think this is the kind of situation where I need to be very rational,'' Beane said, subduing the impression left by his flushed cheeks.

David DeJesus starts off Buddy Bell's tenure by stealing an extra-base hit from Derek Jeter. Jeter hit a ball to the wall in deep left center, but DeJesus ran it down.

Damon went after a fly ball triple into the triangle at Fenway, and hit his head on the rail of the bullpen. He finished the inning in the field, but did not come out to lead off the bottom of the third. The Red Sox should be careful with Damon after this.

The Kansas City Royals hired Buddy Bell as their new manager today.

The 53-year-old Bell managed at Detroit from 1996-98 and Colorado in 2000-2002, compiling a record of 345-462. He is the first Royals manager in about two decades with previous experience as a major league skipper - something owner David Glass insisted upon after Tony Pena resigned May 10 to help guide the young club.

"I think it's critically important at this stage of our development," Glass said Tuesday. "We haven't hired an experienced major league manager since Dick Howser."

Of course, it would be nice if the experience included a winning record. This is Bell's third job, and all were with poor clubs. The Tigers improved a great deal in his 2nd year with them, but still did not have a winning record. His only finish over .500 was in his first year with Colorado, when the team went 82-80.

Bell has not shown the ability to get a poor team winning. Maybe the third time's the charm.

Update: With a little more research, a clearer picture of Buddy Bell comes into view. He's a bunt and run man. In his two full seasons with the Tigers, he was 2nd in the AL in Sac Hits + Caught Stealing, or outs invested in one run strategies. I can understand that, since despite playing in a power hitter's park, the Tigers were 12th in total bases over that time. But he shows the same thing in Colorado. In his two full seasons with the Rockies, the team was 2nd in the NL in Sac Hits + Caught Stealing, despite having the most total bases in the NL during that time period. He likes to give outs away, especially via the caught stealing. He's doesn't appear to be a good judge of when to send base runners.

Update: Fixed a typo.

What would Branch Rickey do?

FishStripes wonders why the Marlins would turn down a deal to have a casino finance a Florida stadium, but then talk about moving to Las Vegas.

Inspired by this Bill James interview, Dan Agonistes examines the outcomes of bunts in more detail to see when a sacrifice is worth it.

In the wake of the last minute signings of Jered Weaver and Stephen Drew, Baseball Analysts looks at way the draft might be changed.

1. Adopt an NBA/NFL-style pay scale for first round draft slots.

2. Allow teams the right to trade draft picks.

3. Open up the negotiations to more than one team (perhaps an American and a National League club could each have the right to negotiate with first round draft picks).

4. Keep the system the same for high school players and underclassmen but allow seniors the right to negotiate with all teams.

5. Disallow the right to a supplemental draft slot for teams that fail to sign their first round picks.

I really like suggestions 2 and 3. Trading draft choices makes perfect sense for teams that are cash strapped and can't afford to sign a big name prospect. I also like the idea of competition for players embodied in 3. It gives a player at least a chance to find his fair market value without having to sit out a year.

It case you've been away and missed the announcement, Baseball Musings has a new partner, eFantasy Software. Using their engine, I'm now able to offer fantasy games on this site in all four major sports. If you like fantasy games and want to help support this site, this is a great way to contribute. You can also find the link in the sidebar under Partners. Enjoy!

Brad Halsey returns to New York this evening as the Diamondbacks visit the Mets at Shea Stadium. Both teams are within three games of first place in their respective divisions. With Brad's ERA at 3.34, he's put up a better mark than any regular Yankees starter this season. Halsey has cut back on the walks this season; last year he issued 14 free passes in just 32 IP; in 2005, he's up to 12 in 59 1/3 frames.

He'll be opposed by Kris Benson. Since being ripped by his former team and New York pundits, Benson's posted a 3-0 record and a 2.29 ERA. He's walked too many in that time, but he's only allowed 1 home run.

The Indians are slowly chipping away at their division rivals, and get another chance to gain ground tonight as they face the Twins. They'll face Carlos Silva, one of the stingiest pitchers when it comes to walks on the Twins staff.

Four of the Twins' five starters -- Carlos Silva (.30), Brad Radke (.36), Johan Santana (1.19) and Kyle Lohse (1.65) are in the top 10 in the American League in fewest walks per nine innings.

The Twins also lead the majors by holding opponents to a .292 on-base percentage, as well as with a 3.68 strikeout-to-walk ratio.

Carlos goes against the big lefty, C.C. Sabathia. This will be Milliliter's fourth start against Minnesota this season. He's walked 10 in 18 2/3 innings against the Twins, 5 in 27 2/3 innings vs. all other clubs.

A very nice pitching matchup on the West Coast tonight as Wes Obermueller faces undefeated Jake Peavy. Obermueller started two games, fared poorly, went back to the bullpen, and now is in the rotation again. He's greatly improved in his last two starts, allowing just 1 run and five hits in fourteen innings. Peavy has not allowed a run in his last 17 innings pitched, including a bullpen saving complete game his last time out. He's striking out over six times the number of men he's walking this season.

Enjoy!

The Washington Nationals are officially up for bids. If you have a spare $300-$400 million dollars, it's MLB has a team for you. Sounds like the current MLB owners are going to make a tidy profit. The Expos were sold to MLB for $120 million dollars. If they go for $400 million, the 29 other clubs will basically get to spilt $10 million in profit each. That's enough for everyone to buy a front line starter for one year.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch uses VORP to look at the best pitchers age 25 and under.

Sean Kirst speaks with Buddy Kerr, a former New York Giant who would like to see a reunion of the NYC Giants and Dodger teams as we approach the 50th anniversary of their departure for California. The Mets, the child of that move, don't seem interested.

Yet as we move toward the summer of 2005, a spokesman for the New York Mets says there are no plans to reunite or honor surviving members of the old Giant and Dodger teams at Shea Stadium.

"Somewhere along the line," said Bob Golon, a baseball historian, "the Mets really lost touch with their historical heritage."

It wasn't always like this:

Golon, a researcher from New Jersey, wonders if the best year to bring them back would be 2007, the 50th anniversary of the last season the Giants and Dodgers spent in New York. It would be one small step, Golon said, toward reviving a rich National League tradition.

He remembers how the Mets, in their early years, built upon their roots. They took their colors, blue and orange, from the two teams they replaced. The insignia on Mets caps also came straight from the Giants, and it remains the most time-honored symbol of baseball in New York.

With their American League monuments and "Yankeeography," the Yankees understand the power of history. The Mets, for their part, seem to suffer from National League amnesia, which is a shame when so many white-haired guys who thrilled New Yorkers could use one grand last call.

And maybe a new generation of children could appreciate where the Mets came from, and why.

It would be another sell out for the Mets. Who wouldn't want to see Willie Mays back at Shea?

The Dallas Morning News gets Nolan Ryan's opinion of the Rangers.

But here's what Ryan likes best about the Rangers' pitching: The lineup around it.

"That'd be a good ballclub to pitch for," he said, smiling. "Being in that lineup, a pitcher may not feel much pressure."

Unlike, say, Houston, where Roger Clemens is putting up Kenny Rogers numbers and has half the wins to show for it.

That didn't take long.

Update: Batgirl has the real story behind Frank Thomas' hip injury. :-)

The Padres and the White Sox continued their domination in one-run games yesterday. The White Sox went into the 9th with a 3-2 lead, but allowed two runs. In the bottom of the 9th, the White Sox played the type of little ball I like. They got the first two men on (with a stolen base in between) to put men on 1st and 2nd with none out. At that point, Guillen had Podesdnik bunt, putting the go-ahead run in scoring position. One out later, Timo Perez had the game winning single.

The Padres got another stellar performance from their bullpen. Darrell May went five inning, allowing 1 run. The relievers went the last four, giving up just two hits and no runs while walking two. Miguel Ojeda had a rare hit (7/44 entering Sunday), a game winning double with two out in the bottom of the ninth to give the Padres a 2-1 victory.

The White Sox now have the most one-run wins, 16, and the Padres have the best record, 13-4.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

Aaron Harang today joined the list of starters to outpitch Roger Clemems. Harang went seven shutout innings, striking out 10. Clemens, once again, pitched well enough to win allowing just four hits through eight innings and striking out 7. His one mistake was giving up a 2-run homer to Joe Randa. That was all the Reds needed. It was only the third homer Clemens has allowed all year. The Astros bullpen allowed seven in the 9th to make the final 9-0. It's another quality start won by the Reds since the release of Danny Graves.

The Washington Nationals are going through a rough stretch right now, but at .500 they're hanging in the division race. Three and a half games behind the Braves and Marlins, they host Atlanta this afternoon in the nation's capital. Kyle Davies takes the mound for the Braves, and the rookie has not allowed a run in two five-inning starts. He's not being economical at all, going over 90 pitches in each start, but he has struck out 12 in 10 1/3 innings. Tomo Ohka hurls for Washington. Ohka has walked 21 and struck out 16 this season, but he's turned that around lately, striking out 6 and walking 2 in his last two appearances.

After sweeping the lowly Royals, the Angels fly to Chicago to play the top of the division as they face Mark Buehrle and the White Sox. Jarrod Washburn takes the hill for the Angels. Washburn's road ERA is 2.11, five runs lower than his home ERA this season. It's not clear why, but he's allowed many more hits in Anaheim. Buehrle's last start saw him go nine four-hit innings vs. the Angels, a game won 2-1 by Chicago in extra innings.

The big division battle of the day takes place at Fenway. The Red Sox retook 2nd place with two decisive wins over the New York Yankees. They stand three game behind the Orioles as the two teams open up a four game series. Rodrigo Lopez faces Bronson Arroyo. Lopez has tumbled in May after a fine start in April. He's pitched the same number of innings in both months, but his strikeouts have falled from 26 to 13. At the same time, he's doubled the number of homers allowed from 2 to 4. Arroyo's strikeouts have fallen precipitously from 7.2 K/9 in 2004 to 4.9 in 2005. So far it hasn't translated into a higher batting average allowed or ERA.

Enjoy!

Extrawack describes a trip to see the Newark Bears. It seems the ballpark isn't in the best part of town, and the fans are staying away.

I've seen the Bears play in Bridgeport. Bridgeport replaced a bad neighborhood with a nice new ballpark, and set it up so you don't need to go through the dangerous areas to get there. Maybe the construction described in Newark is moving the area in that direction.

On this Memorial Day I'd like to say thank you to my military readers for their brave service. I hope you all come home safe and sound.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

In the battle of the inept offenses, the Cleveland Indians completed a sweep of the Oakland Athletics this afternoon. The Indians scored a very respectable 16 runs over the three games to the Athletics 6. The A's are now below 3.8 runs per game.

The Indians may have some Jo-mentum going into this week's series against the Twins and the White Sox. Jody Gerut was 1 for 2 with 2 walks today to raise his average to .371, his OBA to .463 and put his slugging percentage at .514. It's a testament to the poor quality of the Cleveland offense that in eleven games with those stats, Gerut has only scored five runs and only driven in three.

The long layoff didn't appear to hurt Roy Halladay this afternoon as he pitched a near perfect game against the Minnesota Twins. Roy extend his scoreless inning streak to 24 with a two-hit shutout. He struckout 10 and the only free pass came when he boinked Cuddyer with a pitch. He only used 99 pitches, and was over the plate all day with 72 strikes. He's clearly back to his 2003 Cy Young form.

Update: Fixed a typo. Halladay struck out 10.

The Phillies, despite their disappointing start, are only four games back in the NL East, although still in last place. Their division is proving to be very close this season. They go for their fourth win in a row and a sweep of the Braves this afternoon as they send Brett Myers against Tim Hudson. Myers comes into today 3rd in ERA and 2nd in strikeouts in the National League. His K/BB is 4.35, 5th in the NL. Lefties are hitting for power off Hudson his year, as he's allowing a .519 slugging percentage against the sinister hitters. It might be a good day for Jim Thome to show his power.

The Blue Jays are starting to fade in the AL East, and send Roy Halladay against Joe Mays of the Twins to try to stop the fall. Halladay is coming off his first long rest of the season; he hasn't pitched since May 21. He's currently fifth in the AL in ERA; the Blue Jays were trying to send him to the mound every fifth day, but a strained muscle sidelined him for a couple of days. It's a good plan as long as they can keep him healthy.

Mays is trying to get through the season with everyone putting the ball in play. He only has 18 strikeouts this season in 53 1/3 innings, but he's also only walked 12. He did have a complete game shutout vs. the Blue Jays 10 days ago, allowing only seven hits while striking out 2.

Enjoy!

Lynn Henning of the Detroit News wants to sit down with Ivan Rodriguez and interview him about his weight loss. So far, Pudge has avoded the interview:

When Rodriguez was approached several weeks ago, requesting some chat time during a weekend series against the Angels, he said: "Uh, not today. Later this weekend."

When he was approached later that weekend, he said: "This week sometime," meaning during a series against the Devil Rays.

When approached during the Devil Rays series, he said: "Later. Not now."

And when approached last weekend, at which point he said he couldn't talk today, he was finally asked just when, specifically, he might be free for 10 minutes of conversation?

"I don't know," he said, shaking his head.

At this point it's an important story. When you lose 30 pounds in a few months, then shed 50 points off you OBA and your slugging percentage, people wonder if it was a wise decision. Henning also points out how unusual it is to lose that much weight that quickly:

I remember 22 years ago when Kirk Gibson, following his brutal 1983 season, decided to change his body, his mind, his attitude, his work ethic, the whole shebang. He went on a bootcamp-like offseason program that trimmed 15 pounds in four months.

That was a significant amount of weight for an athlete of his size and scope. And it happened only by way of an intense, relentless effort that began in October and extended into February.

A couple of years ago, Bobby Higginson got busy with a trim-down campaign during the Tigers' offseason. He watched his calories, worked out even more strenuously than had been the rule during previous winters, got busy doing pilates, and voila, showed up at Lakeland, Fla., 10 pounds lighter.

It didn't come easy. But he worked hard to lose 10 extra pounds he didn't believe he needed.

Now we cut to Rodriguez and to a man who lost twice as much weight as Gibson and three times as much as Higginson -- in the same amount of time.

So why won't Ivan talk about it? It's having a negative impact on the team. If he had lost the weight and became an even bigger offensive powerhouse, it would be more of a curiosity. But he's pulling down an otherwise good offense. The fans and his teammates deserve an explanation.

Update: Fixed link.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

What happened to Aubrey Huff's power? He hit his third home run of the season today. Just his third. While his batting average is down 60 points from last year, his slugging percentage is down about 130 points. His strikeout and walk rates look to be about the same. Could he have lost some strength?

Derrek Lee hit his 15th and 16th home runs today in a 5-1 Cubs victory over the Colorado Rockies. He's now half way to his career high of 32, set last year. At this rate, 50 homers is not out of the question.

He's not just hitting for power. He's getting on base over 45% of the time, and he's stolen 8 bases in 9 attempts. He's the complete package this season.

It's nice to see John Olerud back in the majors, and especially nice to see him go 3 for 6 in his return. His three singles were part of a 27 hit attack against the Yankees today. Amazingly, only four of those 27 hits went for extra bases as the Sox spanked the Yanks 17-1.

The Cubs made a move today to gain some insurance against more injuries to their staff. They traded LaTroy Hawkins to the San Francisco Giants for two starters, Jerome Williams and David Aardsma. Both will go to the minors.

LaTroy has always been a better setup man than a closer, but the Giants will try him in that role until Benitez returns. A Hawkins/Benitez 1-2 punch in the bullpen should be very effective.

Jerome Williams is still young, and his major league career so far shows much promise. His strikeouts, walks and home runs are all okay. Aardsma's minor league numbers show he's a wild power pitcher. If he gets his walks under control, he should be an effective hurler. This looks like a good trade for the future as far as the Cubs are concerned.

The Yankees and Red Sox are streaking in different directions as they face each other in game two of their Memorial Day weekend series. The Yankees have won five in a row while the Sox are on a four game skid. Undefeated Matt Clement will face 4-2 Carl Pavano in a matchup of winter pickups. The Red Sox have only lost 1 of Clement's starts, his poorest of the season in which he allowed seven runs in 4 2/3 innings. Even in that one, however, the Red Sox scored eight to prevent Matt from taking the loss. Clement has only allowed two home runs this season, ranking him 2nd in the AL behind Kenny Rogers in home runs per 9 innings at 0.28.

Pavano is coming off back to back starts in which he lowered his ERA from 4.80 to 3.69. Clement's strength is Pavano's weakness. Only Lima and Radke in the AL have allowed more home runs this season than Carl's 11.

The surging Rangers and Chan Ho Park host the first place White Sox as Chicago continues their tour of the best in the west. Texas is on a seven game winning streak and will have to face 8-1 Jon Garland. While Park has shown flashes of excellence at times, he's mostly pitched well enough to keep the powerful Rangers offense in the game. Garland has been extremely effective vs. left-handed batters this season, allowing just a .241 BA, a .282 OBA and a meager .353 slugging percentage. He was equally effective against lefties and righties last year as well; he just allowed much higher averages.

Ben Sheets returns to the Brewers rotation this evening as the Brewers host the Astros. Milwaukee played well without Ben starting, going 19-14 in his absence. Keep an eye on Ben to see if the ear infection has effected his balance. He'll face Ezequiel Astacio who has so far posted a 10.61 ERA, 11.21 in his starts. He's allowed 8 homers in 18 2/3 innings, so if you like the long ball, Miller Park is the place to be tonight.

Enjoy!

The Angels scored nine runs last night, coming back from 4-1 and 8-3 deficits to defeat the Royals 9-8 in ten innings. The Angels offense didn't quite play as well as that, however. In the ninth inning, the Royals made two errors. So while Mike Wood was charged with five runs, only one of them was earned. Wood gave up three hits and a walk in the seven batters he faced, but he never should have had to see that many hitters. It's the kind of loss that might make a managerial candidate hesitant to take on the job.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

Thank goodness for better imaging. Although X-Rays were negative, an MRI of Mark Prior's right arm showed a slight fracture. No clue how long this will keep him out of action.

Pedro Martinez and Brian Moehler put on a clinic tonight in Dolphins Stadium. Both pitched eight superb innings with Pedro coming out on top 1-0. The two combined to strike out 16 and walk none. Moehler allowed fewer hits (4 to 5), but two of them were back-to-back doubles by Cameron and Floyd, and that's all the Mets needed. Pedro goes to 5-1, and Brian lowers his ERA to 1.97.

In general, aggressive baserunning is a good thing. It generates excitement and puts pressure on a defense. But the Red Sox were just too aggressive in the top of the 6th tonight. The Sox had Randy Johnson on the ropes, getting five straight hits off the lefty but only 1 run. On the fourth hit, Bellhorn tried to score even though Womack had the ball in left before Mark reached third. The play wasn't close. Then Ortiz hit one up the middle that Cano bobbled. It went as a hit, but Damon tried to take an extra base and score on the bobble. Cano fired a strike to the plate and got Damon easily.

Instead of having a big inning, they score just one, and the Yankees hit two homers in the bottom of the inning to score five. Randy Johnson, despite a very poor outing, is in line for the win.

Adrian Beltre is off to a terrible start for the Mariners this season. Coming into today, he had a .262 OBA. So was last year the fluke or this season? If you average the .262 and .388 of last season, you get .325, which is very close to his .328 career OBA. Talk about regression to the mean!

Is it time to move Jacque Jones to the top of the lineup? Based on his career stats, he's more of a power hitter than a guy who gets on base, so batting lower in the order would appear to be appropriate. But this season, Jones is drawing walks at a higher rate than usual, but the bottom of the Twins order is not driving him in. Coming into tonight he had only scored 18 runs despite reaching base 61 times by a hit or a walk. With two hits through four innings tonight, he now has a .390 OBA. That might be much better in front of Mauer and Morneau.

Brad Hawpe just hit Mark Prior with a line drive. Prior is on the ground in pain, and it looks like his right elbow in injured. He's coming out of the game with the score 1-1 in the top of the fourth. The ball was deflected in the air and caught by Ramirez for the out. You could see the welt on Prior's arm as he was led off the field.

The Red Sox hit New York tonight trailing the Yankees by 1/2 a game in the AL East. It will be a game of contrasts as Tim Wakefield faces Randy Johnson; lefty vs. righty and fast vs. slow. Johnson has struggled lately, only striking out 12 in his last 20 2/3 innings. Wakefield has become hittable himself, allowing 19 safties in his last two starts, and 11 runs in his last 12 innings pitched. Toss a coin, this could be a duel or a blow out.

The Dodgers visit the Diamondbacks for three games starting tonight, and the boys in blue need a sweep to pull even the snakes. Los Angeles sends their most consistent starter, Derek Lowe to the mound against Shawn Estes. Lowe's shown great control this season, walking just 14 in 65 2/3 innings. Estes has been very good at holding runners this season. There have only been two stolen base attempts against the lefties, and only one of them has succeeded.

Enjoy!

An interesting article in the Dallas Morning News on the Rangers defense. Hank Blalock's 53 game errorless streak ended Thursday, and the article concentrates on how flawless the Rangers are playing.

So, if the question is about him, Blalock can quickly turn the subject to how Mark Teixeira has played flawlessly at first base this season. Or how catcher Rod Barajas has thrown out almost everybody who has tried to steal. Or maybe he can interest you in a little talk about the outfield's infallibility. Or even the pitchers holding runners and fielding their position well.

"Everybody on defense has a lot of confidence in everybody else," Blalock said Thursday afternoon. "It's almost like when an offense starts taking walks because they know the next guy will get the job done. We have faith in one another to get the job done."

Showalter understands that defense is about more than errors.

Showalter agreed when the supposition was tossed in front of him that team defense has been the Rangers' most consistent asset this season.

"Winning is about two things: run production and run reduction," he said. "And there is a lot to run reduction that doesn't show up in statistics."

Showalter pointed to multiple examples, including the outfielders keeping runners from taking extra bases, then ending innings before they could score and pitchers quickening their moves to home plate to keep runners from stealing.

With all this praise for the Texas Rangers defense, their ability to turn a batted ball into an out must be called into question. The Hardball Times graphs fielding independent pitching vs. defensive efficiency, and according to that, Texas' defensive strength is the staff, not the fielders.

There is, however, one thing that leads me to believe that the chart may not be accurate. If you scroll down to the pitching table, you'll see that the Rangers pitcher's have allowed a high percentage of line drives. Since line drives often turn into hits, the defense may be better than the DER is telling us. When I get the data for the Probabilistic Model of Range, the Rangers will be the first team examined.

The Angels beat the White Sox at their own game last night, earning a one-run, 3-2 victory over the boys from the south side of Chicago (which, I've heard, is the baddest part of town). The Angels pitching staff may deserve a collective pitcher of the week award. In the six games since the Angels lost Guerrero, the offense has only scored 15 runs, but the pitchers have been equal to the task, only allowing 15 runs, 14 of them earned. In 55 innings, that's an ERA of 2.29. They've done it with the strikeout, whiffing 45 batters in those 55 innings, or 7.4 per 9. That's taken a lot of pressure off the defense, and they've allowed only 41 hits.

They've also issued just 13 free passes and given up five home runs. As you can see, nearly everyone's contributed. Thanks to the staff, the team is staying at .500. A little offense from the slumping stars could have turned a 3-3 record into 6-0.

Eoin Vincent informs me that Peter Gammons mentioned Baseball Musings on WEEI Radio yesterday. Thanks very much, Peter!

I just can't say enough about the game Jake Peavy pitched last night. I've been keeping my eye on his since he returned from the DL last July and started charging toward the ERA title. Pitchers who win an ERA title by just qualifying are a little suspect in my mind; after all, it's still a small sample. But Jake has continued to baffle batters this season, and last night changed the way he pitches to save his team's bullpen:

"It's very satisfying," said Peavy, a power pitcher who acknowledged ignoring strikeouts to concentrate on finishing. "I'm just glad we could rest that bullpen. We're going to need those boys the next couple of days."

His teammates noticed.

"Jake is mature well beyond his year," Roberts said. "To see that our bullpen went through some things the last couple of nights, for him to take the mound to be the stopper and to go so deep in the game, he stepped up."

He threw just 94 pitches, with 64 going for strikes to complete the shutout. He struck out 2 and walked none on his way to a two-hit shutout. Bravo!

This reminds me of a game I saw at Fenway in 1988. Roger Clemens had been struggling with an injury, but on that day he didn't try to strike batters out and pitched a masterful 1-hitter. These two games make me wonder if power pitchers should drop the power every once in a while and pitch to contact. It's a change that may catch their opponents off guard.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

Nationals Web Radio is a new blog dedicated to the Washington Nationals. The entries have short text descriptions, but the meat of the posts are audio. If you're into podcasting, subscribe to their RSS feed to stay up-to-date on the Washington team.

Alex Rodriguez hit his 17th home run of the year and the 398th of his career to put the Yankees ahead to stay tonight. He's now having he kind of year the Yankees expected when they traded for the young slugger. He has 49 RBI in 47 games played, and he's scored 43 runs. His 30th birthday is July 27th, and he's likely to be well over 400 homers by then. He'll only need to average 30 homers a year during his 30's to reach 700.

Jake Peavy seems to be doing his best to give his relievers a rest tonight. Through three innings, he's being very efficient, having thrown only 33 pitches. He's getting the Diamondbacks to make contact, as he hasn't walked or struck out a batter.

The Baltimore Orioles hit three homers to defeat the Mariners 5-2 tonight, giving the Orioles their 30th win. Melvin Mora hit his tenth homer, making the Orioles the first team with 3 players with 10 home runs.

Later, Richard Hidalgo hit his 10th for the Rangers in route to an 8-1 victory over the Royals. That gives the Rangers three players with 10 home runs, too, and temporarily puts them in first place.

Through four innings, Oliver Perez has as many hits (2) as the entire Reds lineup. He's also has seven strikeouts. The broadcast just showed all of them, and Oliver has had great movement on his breaking pitches this evening. The pitches are really diving as they cross the plate.

It doesn't appear to be Wade Miller's night. Not only has he given up 3 runs so far in the first, but he walked Shea Hillenbrand!

Update: Russ Adams hits a gapper with the bases loaded to drive in three more. The Blue Jays are sending the 10th man to the plate this inning with a 6-0 lead.

The Oakland Athletics were swept by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays today as Nomo defeated Haren 2-1.

Let me let that sink in:

The Athletics were swept by the Devil Rays.

The team that's the model for small market efficiency lost its fifth game in a row and now sits nine games out of first place. They have a .370 winning percentage with a record of 17-29.

To compete in the AL a team is going to need at least 90 wins; that's a .555 winning percentage. The stats are saying right now that Oakland is not a .555 team. Over 46 games, a .555 team would have a 95% confidence interval of 19 to 32 wins. The probability of a .555 team winning just 17 of 46 games is .0087, significant at the .01 level. What is becoming clear is that the team as currently constructed is not a contender.

What happens next? Is Macha's job on the line? Will there be reassignment of players? Is Billy Beane safe? If the A's want to make the playoffs this year, they will need to remake this team quickly. They've blown a golden opportunity to gain ground on the Angels as the Rangers have.

Baseball Digest Daily interviewed Bill James. You can read Part I here. Here's an excerpt where Bill talks about speed:

BDD: Years ago you talked about how overrated speed was in the major league game. That was a bold statement to make back then since Ricky Henderson and Tim Raines were coming into their own and had become huge stars. Yet, since that time, stolen bases have been on the decline. Do you think teams have started to understand the impact of speed at the major league level? And were players like Raines and Henderson effective in your mind because of their speed? Do you still feel that speed in the minor leagues plays a much larger role than at the major league level?

BJ: Raines and Henderson were extremely effective players whose speed made them even more effective. The importance of speed in baseball is inversely proportional to the quality of play. At the lowest levels of the game—eight-year-old kids trying to play baseball with limited ability to catch and throw—speed is immensely important. As the players become more and more skilled, it becomes less important. It’s less important in the World Series than it is in regular season, for the same reason.

Baseball Musings is happy to announce a new business partner, eFantasySoftware. Using their engine, I'm now able to offer fantasy games on this site in all four major sports. If you like fantasy games and want to help support this site, this is a great way to contribute. You can also find the link in the sidebar under Partners. Enjoy!

Darren Viola finds that Retrosheet.org is a good way to make up for dead brain cells.

It's nice to see Todd Walker back in the lineup for Cubs. He returned yesterday, and Chicago can certainly use his OBA at the top of the order.

The Twins-Indians series keeps serving up gems. Tonight, Brad Radke takes on CC Sabathia. Radke's in a bit of a slump, having walked one batter in each of his last two starts, bringing his total to three for the year. :-) The Twins have given Milliliter trouble this season. He's walked five against Minnesota in 10 innings; he's walked five against all other opponents in 27 2/3 innings.

Toronto can move past the Red Sox into second place in the AL East with a win tonight. Gustavo Chacin hosts Wade Miller. The Blue Jays are hitting .335 with 11 homers against the Red Sox this season. Their nearly 7 runs a game vs. the Red Sox have allowed them to accumulate a 5-2 record head-to-head despite a 5.08 ERA.

The Padres try to take back the NL West lead against the Diamondbacks in Phoenix. It's an excellent pitching matchup as Jake Peavy face Brandon Webb. Both are undefeated, and both are pitching very well. Peavy needs to give the Padres a long outing tonight as the bullpen has been stretched very thin recently. Webb pitches well vs. the Padres but doesn't have much to show for it. His 2.96 ERA in seven starts only yielded him a 1-2 record. Peavy has a 6.94 ERA vs. the Diamondbacks, but pitched much better against them since the start of last year.

Enjoy!

Javy Lopez is down at least six weeks with a broken hand.

Lopez, who was struck in the hand by Bret Boone's foul tip in the third inning of the Orioles' 3-2 victory over the Seattle Mariners on Tuesday night, will have a plate inserted in his right hand by Dr. Mark Deitch, a hand specialist at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center.

Orioles head trainer Richie Bancells said that by having the surgery, it could help the catcher return to the Orioles' lineup two weeks sooner than if he let the hand heal while in a splint. Bancells said Lopez will likely begin motion work with his hand three weeks after the surgery. It will be three more weeks before Lopez can resume baseball-related activities.

Lopez was providing power from the catcher's slot with 19 extra-base hits. His injury makes it more important for Sammy Sosa and Rafael Palmeiro to regain their power strokes.

The Texas Rangers took advantage of the Vlad Guerrero injury and strength of schedule to move into a tie with the LAAOA last night. Texas banged out 14 hits and Pedro Astacio shutdown the Royals for seven innings to achieve a 7-3 victory. David Dellucci had another hit, walk and hit by pitch to raise his OBA to .480.

The Angels offense continues to struggle. They've scored 12 runs in five games since Guerrero injured his shoulder. Their 2-3 record is a testament to their superb pitching. Garcia rebounded nicely from the pounding Baltimore gave him two starts ago. He's allowed just two earned runs in his last 15 innings while striking out nine and walking 1. With the Twins loss last night, the White Sox have a comfortable six game lead in the AL Central.

The Dodgers starting pitching continues to deteriorate. Wilson Alvarez stepped into the rotation vs. the Giants and was out of the game after three innings and six runs. LA starters now have a combined 4.91 ERA. Meanwhile, the Giants have won four in a row and are tied with LA for third place in the NL West.

The see-saw battle for first in the NL West saw another installment as the Diamondbacks defeated the Padres 12-11. It was only the Padres 4th loss in one-run games vs. 12 wins. It was a see-saw battle in the game as well, as there were five lead changes. It shouldn't have been a close game as errors led to five unearned runs against Brad Halsey. Is the SD bullpen showing signs of wear? For the 2nd day in a row, Bochy emptied the pen, and for the second day in a row Akinori Otsuka did not retire a batter. In the last two games he's faced six batters, given up four hits, two walks and five runs. Some stater needs to take one for the team and go nine innings.

Troy Glaus hit his 13th home run, tying him with Adam Dunn for the NL lead. Twenty eight of Troy's 46 hits this season have been for extra bases. If you divide total bases by hits (or Slugging Pct. by Batting Avg.) you get the average number of bases per hit. For Glaus it's 2.20, third behind Dunn and Tino Martinez among ML players with at least 130 PA. That means Troy's average hit is a double. Just the kind of player that can drive players home.

Evan Brunell gets a sneek peek at some new Red Sox merchandise. :-)

Could Red Sox fans be feeling the breath of the dreaded Yankees on their necks? Could they be a little worried as the Orioles pull out to a four game lead? Could Sox fans really turn on heroes like Millar, Bellhorn and Foulke?

Let's start with Millar. Can a 33-year-old suddenly decline? The answer is yes. Is there any evidence that Millar's start is more than just a random fluctuation? No. Given Millar's career .288 batting average, his 95% confidence interval for hits is 34 to 56 over 156 at bats. And there is a 6.5% chance that he would have less than 37 hits at this point in the season. His batting numbers aren't significant yet.

Next is Mark Bellhorn. Yes, Bellhorn strikes out a lot, but he did that last year as well. While his numbers are down from last year, they're down just slightly from his career averages. Mark is 30 and past his prime. Declines may not happen at this age, but they should be expected.

Keith Foulke? I'd be worried about Foulke. His K per 9 is down 2, his walks per 9 is up 1, and his HR per 9 is up 1 vs. his career through 2004. Still, it's a small sample size. Foulke plays a position, however, where large sample sizes are difficult to come by. Little mistakes by a closer can turn into large losses for the team. The report that he was injured that appeared on Dirt Dogs has been denied. Maybe he's just getting old, too.

Renteria, like Millar, is within his 95% confidence interval for hits. Most likely, Millar, Bellhorn and Renteria will regress to the mean and hit better over the course of the season.

Meanwhile, the negativity is creeping into the Red Sox clubhouse. Head idiot Johnny Damon earns his title:

"We're a really bad team right now," Damon said. "We need to win tomorrow. It's a must win. We need to get back to that stage where every game is a must win instead of just saying 'Oh, we'll be OK.' It's a different year."

Damon said the Red Sox are good enough to get back to the World Series, but they must get going.

"We were in trouble on that West coast swing, and we were in trouble these first two games here," Damon said. "New York's climbing. We have to start doing something or it could be a long summer. ... We have a big series this weekend. Whether or not the Yankees are going to overtake us or not, we can't let that happen."

This is not a bad team. It's a good team going through a bad stretch. The Sox can talk to the Yankees about that tomorrow. It's good that fans and players are complaining; you always have to fight complacency. Management did that over the winter when they tried to improve at shortstop and starting pitching. Many teams when they win the World Series stand pat. I'm sure they're now looking at ways of fixing the problems they have. If you remember, the Sox were underperforming the first half of 2004. Trades and regression to the mean improved the team in the 2nd half last year. It's way to early to panick.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

Kyle Davies keeps throwing shutout innings. He followed up his 5 inning debut with 5 1/3 shutout vs. the Mets tonight. The bullpen backed him up with 3 2/3 of their own. He also improved his walks allowed from 3 to 1. Twelve strikeouts in 10 1/3 innings, four walks; an impressive start.

Rodrigo Lopez pitched another gem in Camden Yards. His ERA at home is now 3.00 in 39 innings. Away, however, it's an evil 6.66. It's hard to put a finger on the difference. He's given up the same number of homers in 15 fewer innings.

Ted Lilly pitched a good game vs. Boston tonight, allowing only 1 run over 6 2/3 innings. Boston is not hitting lefties well this season. Entering tonight, they were batting .283 vs. right-handers, but only .261 vs. lefties. Their slugging falls off even more, from .459 to .400.

If you missed tonight's show, you can hear the recorded version here. It's also available on demand at TPSRadio.

Carl Crawford picks up the tough half the cycle in the first inning tonight as the Devil Rays score ten runs off Blanton and Reames and lead the A's 10-0. Crawford led off with a triple, then hit a three run homer in his 2nd AB. The Drays had 8 hits in the innings, six for extra bases.

Tony Womack looks like the odd man out tonight. The Yankees are back to their original outfield alignment of Matsui, Williams and Sheffield, but Cano is staying at second and batting second. Maybe the Yankees have learned a lesson; their usually someone in the minors who can play as well as a veteran in his mid-30's, and for much less money.

The Baseball Musings Radio Show will be coming up at the top of the hour. If you'd like to send me a question to be answered, feel free to leave a comment here.

The Cincinnati Reds got the rare combination of good pitching and great hitting today as they mauled the Washington Nationals 12-3. The departure of Graves must have woken the staff. In their three game sweep of Washington, the Reds allowed nine runs, only seven earned. They've gotten quality starts in all three games; they had not won a quality start prior to this series. The Nationals have now lost five of their last six.

Rany Jazayerli at Baseball Prospectus (subscription required) finds that since 1991, the gap between drafting college and high school players has closed. Before 1991, you receieved a much better return on drafting college players. Since then, however, that advantage has almost completely disappeared. It's not clear why that has happened.

I'm man enough to admit it: I'm completely befuddled by these results. Not only did the gap between the value of college and high-school players shrink to almost nothing in the 1990s; this has occurred even though the pendulum swung back towards taking more high-school players.

In my 10 years of writing for Baseball Prospectus, this is the most surprising conclusion I have ever reached in an analytical study. I suspected that the advantage enjoyed by collegiate players had diminished, but I didn't anticipate the degree to which it has. And I certainly did not suspect that high-school players would jump in value relative to college picks even as teams were drafting more high school players, not less. This seems to violate the basic principles of economics. Prices don't drop when demand goes up, but in this case the "price" of high-school talent--the difference between the value of the draft pick and the return on the player drafted--has gone up even though the demand for high-school players has also increased.

I wonder if the increase in the number of teams from 26 to 30 has anything to do with it? This has created more jobs at a time when the US population for that age player was bottoming (the baby bust of the late 1960's through the 1980's). That would create fewer college players to draft, so the teams had to turn to the high schools.

Viva El Birdos follows up on my post from yesterday on the Cardinals and finds that the opposition defense is responsible for all those extra runs.

It looks like Pedro Martinez wasn't too happy to meet Jerry Seinfeld.

Carlos Lee cracked a two-run homer in the bottom of the first to put the Milwaukee Brewers on the board. The two RBI extend his NL leading total to 43. Twenty nine of those have come this month, and he's now tied with Bobby Abreu for most in the majors this May.

Rick Duncan links to a report on Boston Dirt Dogs about a possible Keith Foulke injury. I haven't seen another story confirming this yet.

I also disagree with Rick's conclusion:

The Sox are going nowhere without a healthy Keith Foulke.

The Red Sox haven't had Keith Foulke all year, given the way he's been pitching, and they're doing just fine. My feeling is, that if Foulke is injured, the Red Sox would be much better off with someone healthy toiling in the closer role.

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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Roger Clemens had to leave last night's game with a strained groin, allowing the Cubs to come back against the Astros bullpen. Things just keep getting worse for Houston. Luckily, Clemens felt the tightness and stopped before it became truly serious:

After the future Hall of Famer began feeling tightness in his right groin in the third inning, he focused on control and guile to finish with five scoreless innings against the Cubs.

Unfortunately for the Astros, they couldn't capitalize on the two-run lead he gave the bullpen. Even worse than the 4-2 loss before a crowd of 38,805, Clemens might have to miss a start because groin injuries aren't easy to overcome for pitchers, especially those who are 42 years old.

"I'm not concerned right now," Clemens said after holding the Cubs to two hits and one walk over five innings while striking out six. "I'll know more tomorrow. Like I said, I know enough about my body that I didn't tear it. I think it's more than just a mild strain. I'll deal with it the best I can and go from there.

"I probably could have finished the game if it was my elbow or my shoulder, but my legs, if I was to drive a ball in over 90 miles per hour, I probably would have torn it."

He's pitching great this season, but at 42, his body may betray him at any time.

A quick one today as I'm out for the rest of the morning. The Twins and Indians face off again today in game 3 of their 4 game series. Carlos Silva faces Kevin Millwood. They have nearly indentical ERAs, good enough to have won most of their games. But Silva has only gotten 23 runs in support, Millwood 21.

The Blue Jays try to gain another game on the Red Sox in a battle of fine youngsters as Bronson Arroyo faces Gustavo Chacin. Arroyo has already faced the Blue Jays twice this season and has allowed only 3 runs in 13 innings. Chacin has struggled in his last three starts, allowing 11 runs in 13 1/3 innings. Twenty five batters have reached by a hit or walk during that period.

San Diego and Arizona battle for first in the NL West again as Darrell May face Brad Halsey. This is May's third start of the year; he has a 5.19 ERA beginning the game as opposed to a 3.68 ERA in relief. After two mediocre outings, Halsey pitched a no-strikeout, no-walk game against the Astros in which he allowed just 1 run in seven innings.

Enjoy!

The San Diego Padres moved back into first place last night with a convincing 9-5 win at Arizona last night. San Diego pounded out 15 hits, including seven for extra bases. Dave Roberts had the rare double triple, hitting two three baggers in the game. Dave's unusual in that he has many more triples (23) than homers (13) in his career. The Padres used their entire bullpen in the game, finishing with Hoffman throwing 1 pitch to earn his 14th save.

One run contests moved the Rangers a step closer to first place in the AL West. Ryan Drese got a chance to lower his ERA against the hapless Royals and allowed only 2 runs over seven innings. It wasn't a stellar outing, however, as he allowed 8 hits and 3 walks while striking out only 2. Richard Hidalgo hit two more home runs to bring his total to 8. He's having the type of season where he hits for power and that's about it. He's only batting .216 but has a .425 slugging percentage, so his average hit is almost a double. Showalter uses him low in the order with those long hits can drive in runs. And the Rangers needed those long balls last night to defeat the Royals 4-3.

The White Sox improved their record in 1-run games to 15-6 with a 2-1 victory over the LAAOA. Buehrle and Colon matched single runs; Bartolo through 7, Mark through 9. The White Sox won it with a combination of little and long ball in the 11th. A single, sacrifice and ground out put a runner at third, and a double by Iguchi won the game. The Angels lineup is very sad without Vlad. The highest OBA and slugging percentage in the order belonged to Bengie Molina, who only has 56 AB this season.

The Giants were battery powered last night as Mike Matheny and Jason Schmidt each homered to help defeate the Dodgers 5-3. More importantly, Schmidt had his strikeouts working after returning from the DL, mowing down seven in five innings. Jeff Weaver's implosion continues. I was watching the Giants version of the telecast last night, and it was the opinion of the broadcasters that Weaver was getting lazy with this pitches. He'd get into pitcher's counts, then put the ball over the plate instead of hitting a corner. I'd love to hear Dodgers fans thoughts on this.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

The Phillies lost a game they should have won last night. Brett pitched seven shutout innings, but the bullpen blew a three run lead, capped off by Damion Easley hitting a two-out home run off Billy Wagner in the bottom of the ninth to tie the game. Michael Weintraub was at the game and reports:

Words fail me at this point about the game. I have to see the boxscore, to see what Myers's pitch count was, but Manuel should be crucified for taking him out after seven innings of 2-hit ball if it was less than 100. (I just checked, it was 104. Still... I want Manuel's head on a stick.)

Benches cleared, a balk that shouldn't have been a balk brought in the first Marlins run, a pop-bunt was completely missed by David Bell, resulting in the luckiest foul ball I've ever seen, and NL player of the week Pat Burrell was nowhere to be seen, even when a LOOGY was in and Endy Chavez was due up.

I had my seats by the Phillies bullpen, all set to yell "SIT DOWN ADAMS" if Terry Adams got up to throw. Fortunately, the Phils DFAd him this afternoon before the game. Unfortunately, his replacement was the losing pitcher.

Tonight I am ashamed to be a Phillies fan.

That's Amaury Telemaco (:-)) who got the loss, although all he did was walk a batter. Fultz gave up the double that ended the game.

As for Myers, I agree he probably could have gone another inning. He's 24, not 20, and has made over 30 starts two years in a row. Unless the Phillies saw something that indicated he was actually tired, one more inning would not have hurt. He had a very easy 7th.

Oakland Athletics fans have to be excited to see Eric Chavez heating up. With a three for three tonight, he's extended his hit streak to seven games and is 12 for 30 in that time period.

David Bush came out after three innings tonight. It wasn't clear if he had an injury; the broadcasters didn't notice anything. It could be that he was just pitching badly, giving up 3 runs, 5 hits and 2 walks while striking out none. In nine starts, Bush has only thrown 48 2/3 innings, and he's yet to win a game. One has to wonder if he's really ready for the majors at this point in his career.

Sometimes even a small sample size makes you wonder. With two AB tonight, Alex Rodriguez has now faced Wil Ledezma five times. He has 1 walk and four home runs, including two tonight. That gives Alex a 1.000 OBA and a 4.000 slugging percentage against the lefty. You can't get any better than that.

The Soxaholix knows why the weather is so bad in Boston year (edited for content):

We had the snowiest wintah evah, now the coldest spring evah and our second "freak" nor'estah in May … Who the **** knew hell freezing ovah would have such adverse effects on the local conditions?

John McCain wants to create a federal bureaucracy to handle drug testing.

"It's obvious that a vital component of this whole business is who does the testing," McCain said. "If it's not USADA, then clearly it has to be an organization that is entirely credible. And USADA seems to me to be a likely candidate for that."

He was the only senator present for most of Tuesday's Commerce Committee hearing on a bill that would authorize funding for USADA, starting at $9.5 million in 2006 and rising to $11.1 million in 2010.

This is a waste of tax payer dollars. Does anyone think that there is really a majority of voters who want to spend money cleaning up professional sports? Let the leagues take care of this themselves. If the fans don't like what's happening, they'll stay away.

Steve Lombardi is wondering if the new Yankee Stadium should have a retractable roof.

Another great pitching matchup in Florida tonight as Brett Myers faces Josh Beckett. Myers strikeouts are way up this season. Through 2004 he struck out 6.0 batters per 9. That's up to 10.3 per 9 this season. That's probably 1.3 hits per game that he's eliminating with his high K numbers. Beckett, with one home run allowed this season is first in the NL in HR per 9 at 0.16.

Sergio Mitre gets the pleasure of getting called up to face Roger Clemens as the Astros visit the Cubs. Mitre has been hittable in his brief major league appearances, allowing 71 hits in 51 1/3 innings. Clemens has only allowed 10 runs in his nine starts, but the Astros have only scored 14 with Clemens on the mound.

Enjoy!

If you missed my segment on Sports Bloggers Live last night, you can listen here (real player).

Curt Schilling can't balance on his reconstructed ankle.

Apparently, Schilling has been feverishly searching to have a shoe made to help him with balance issues he has suffered since offseason surgery was performed on his right ankle. After acknowledging the recent positive step of having a removable boot-cast taken off the ankle, Schilling got into the shoe topic. ``We're working our butts off trying to find somebody out there to build me a shoe I can actually pitch in,'' said Schilling, who wouldn't put a timetable on his return. ``There are issues now, and there have been since spring training, with some of the fine points of my mechanics. One of them is balance. I just cannot seem to get a grasp on it right now, and I don't think I'll be able to unless I have a shoe that fits and works. ``We've been spending a lot of time and working a lot of hours with different people to have a shoe built that I'm going to be able to throw in.''

What if it's not the shoe? What if in reconstructing the ankle he lost enough flexibility that he can't balance? There was not a lot of information released about Curt's surgery, so we don't know if there are screws or pins in there.

Try balancing on your right foot, and shifting your weight around. Your ankle flexes to compensate for the weight shift. I suppose you can build a shoe to compensate for a specific balance problem (like pitching from a wind up) but I wonder if you can compensate for all the ways a pitcher might need to balance? This doesn't sound like good news for the Red Sox.

Update: I spoke with a friend who had similar surgery on his ankle. He's recovered very well from it and competes in triathlons. He told me his ankle can take a pounding. He also told me that he's discouraged from playing basketball, since rolling his ankle would be very bad. The forward-backward movement of running seems to be okay, but the sudden side-to-side movement of basketball isn't. It's that side to side movement that Schilling would generate when he's balancing on his foot in his pitching motion.

Roch Kubatko of the Baltimore Sun looks at how the Orioles personnel have changed since the departure of Mike Hargrove.

Hargrove remembers everything being so different in his four seasons as Orioles manager, a tenure that ended in 2003 after another fourth-place finish. He remembers ground balls rolling between Tony Batista and Deivi Cruz on the left side of the infield, Rule 5 pick Jose Morban, a raw Single-A shortstop, serving as the designated hitter four times in six games, minor league third baseman Jose Leon playing first, Brook Fordyce catching, Jack Cust trying to run the bases, Damian Moss posing as a starting pitcher.

None remains in the organization.

Neither does Hargrove.

Working with the new runs created formula in the last post made me want to see which teams are overperforming and underperforming their run expectations this season. Here's the chart showing runs vs. runs created for all 30 teams.

Team	Runs Scored	Runs Created	Games	Runs Per Game	RC Per Game (RC/Games)
NYA	246	242.0	44	5.6	5.5
BOS	237	241.2	43	5.5	5.6
BAL	236	247.6	43	5.5	5.8
TEX	234	223.5	44	5.3	5.1
STL	232	222.0	44	5.3	5.0
LAD	214	219.0	43	5.0	5.1
ATL	212	192.2	44	4.8	4.4
TOR	211	204.9	44	4.8	4.7
COL	200	208.8	42	4.8	5.0
FLA	195	199.1	41	4.8	4.9
NYN	211	212.2	45	4.7	4.7
MIN	198	202.6	43	4.6	4.7
SD	202	206.5	44	4.6	4.7
CHA	205	193.7	45	4.6	4.3
TB	205	212.3	45	4.6	4.7
DET	188	192.2	42	4.5	4.6
CIN	195	199.2	44	4.4	4.5
SF	188	199.5	43	4.4	4.6
CHN	183	199.4	42	4.4	4.7
ARI	195	204.5	45	4.3	4.5
PHI	199	215.2	46	4.3	4.7
MIL	190	192.6	44	4.3	4.4
SEA	184	168.3	43	4.3	3.9
LAA	184	168.8	44	4.2	3.8
KC	183	167.2	44	4.2	3.8
WSH	184	193.4	45	4.1	4.3
CLE	170	174.7	43	4.0	4.1
OAK	169	164.1	43	3.9	3.8
PIT	163	173.1	42	3.9	4.1
HOU	160	172.0	44	3.6	3.9

This should be encouraging to Baltimore fans. The Orioles are in first place and scoring less than predicted. There is untapped potential offense there! It also should be somewhat worrying to White Sox fans, as Chicago is not only exceeding it's expected won-lost record by three games, but it's partially built on an overachieveing offense.

It's difficult to believe the KC Royals are outperforming their expectation, but they are tied with the Angels and the Braves at .4 per game over their predicted value. The Royals are hitting 20 points lower with runners on than with the bases empty, but the hits they are getting are long hits. So they are doing a good job of drving runners around despite a low BA and OBA in the situation.

The Phillies are at the other end of the scale, .4 below their expected runs per game. With men on, the Phillies OBA goes up but their power goes down. It looks like opponents have found holes where they can pitch around the dangerous hitters with men on base. A return to form by Jim Thome would improve that situation.

The St. Louis Cardinals are 8-4 since Scott Rolen last played on May 10th, bring their record to 28-16. They are scoring more runs without their slugging third baseman, even through they're not hitting as well:

Cardinals 2005	Through 5/10	Since
Runs per Game	5.2	5.5
Batting Average	.270	.261
On-Base Average	.342	.325
Slugging Percentage	.449	.399

I don't have situational hitting broken down by date, but I would guess that they're hitting better with men on base or men in scoring position since they've lost Rolen. That's the beauty of having so many great offensive players; one goes down and the team remains strong.

I would not expect this level of scoring to last with these averages. Runs created (newest formula in The Bill James Handbook 2005) predicts the Cardinals should have score 53 runs instead of 66 over this time period, or about a run per game less. It's an example of a good team getting the lucky breaks.

Ervin Santana went the distance in his second major league start, shutting out the White Sox 4-0 on Monday night. It's a total reversal of his first start, and Santana credits his slowing down to the victory:

"I had concentration every pitch, every inning, every hitter. The key for me was to keep the ball down and mix up my pitches," Santana said. "My first start I was too fast and this start I slowed down. When I go too fast, all my pitches are up, and when I slow down, everything is down."

I watched some of the game last night, and he wasn't slow in taking time between pitches (game time was 2:18). He took his time with his delivery. He calmed himself and concentrated between each pitch. His ball had good movement, often starting low and breaking lower. I saw batters swing and miss at pitches that looked like strikes at the knees, but broke down and out of the strike zone. A nice job by the rookie.

(Given his first and last name, "Black Magic Woman" seems the appropriate song to use for this player. Maybe his nickname should just be "Black Magic.")

Jon Weisman explores the conventional wisdom about Eric Gagne and finds it lacking.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

The Braves gave Danny Kolb another chance at a save tonight. It was an easy sitution, with Kolb entering the game with a three-run lead in the 9th. Danny didn't do much to impress. He held the lead, but gave up a run on a solo shot, two other hits and a walk. I doubt that an inning like that will change minds in the Braves organization.

Chris Capuano and defeated Shawn Chacon 2-1 in Milwaukee tonight. Chacon went only four innings, and was lifted for a pinch runner after he singled in the 5th. I assume Shawn somehow hurt himself; it seems like you would pinch hit before you'd pinch run.

Capuano held the Rockies to 3 hits in 8 1/3 innings and lowered his ERA to 3.09. Chris has cut down his homers allowed. In 2004 he gave up 18 dingers in 88 1/3 innings. So far in 2005 he's allowed 7 in 67 IP.

The Reds win another quality start. They've now won two in a row after losing the first seven in which the starter pitched well. Milton gave up all three runs on two homers bringing his season total to 17 in 10 starts. At this rate he could easily give up 60 this season.

The Indians bullpen bends but doesn't break as Cleveland earns a 2-1 victory. The pen gave up a run in the 7th, but the Tribe loaded the bases in the bottom of the 8th and got a sac fly to put them back on top. Wickman made it interesting in the 9th, giving up a double and a walk, but got out of the inning for his lucky 13th save.

With the offense continuing to be weak, the Indians are going to need many more pitching performances like this to keep up in the Central and wild card races.

Carlos Delgado continues to show why any number of teams should have been persuing him in the off season. Three more hits tonight, including the three-run homer. He's now brought his OBA over .400 and he's slugging .561. Willis gets his 8th win.

No hits in St. Louis through four innings tonight. Both Dave Williams and Chris Carpenter are being very efficient this evening; both are just over 40 pitches thrown so far.

As I wrote the above, Mackowiak reaches on a hit.

For the third game in a row, Jon Lieber has allowed two home runs. He's now given up 16 earned runs in his last 15 1/3 innings pitched. Delgado hit a three-runs shot followed up by a Cabrera solo. Nine of Lieber's 14 HR allowed have come with men on base this year.

In a game that I thought would be a slugfest, the Indians lead the Twins 1-0 in the 6th. Elarton threw 92 pitches to get through 5 1/3 innings before yielding to the bullpen. Not a bad move in this case, as Cleveland's bullpen ERA is two runs lower than their starters. Both teams are putting the ball in play, as there have only been three strikeouts between the two clubs. The defenses are doing a good job tonight to turn those balls into outs.

The Cincinnati Reds released Danny Graves today. (Via Reds Reporter, who was on this story yesterday.) I think the fact that Graves was walking two more per 9 than then was striking out had more to do with the relase than the hand gesture.

The Reds are bringing up another pitcher, keeping their staff at 13. This would have been a perfect time to trim down.

I'll be on Sports Bloggers Live tonight. The show starts at 7 PM Eastern, and I'm scheduled for around 7:30.

Rooftop Report has a link to a story that says Carlos Zambrano's elbow injury comes from typing two much on a computer.

I've had problems with my right arm from typing. Of course, I was 30 at the time and had been typing every day for six years. An ergonomic keyboard fixed that. But I noticed it when my daughter was crawling and I wanted to crawl with her, I couldn't put any weight on my right hand.

Firebrand of the American League is noticing the decline in Manny Ramirez. Evan sees that Manny is hitting poorly vs. left handed pitchers. I find his home/road numbers more disturbing. Road numbers are a good way of canceling out park effects. It's not a big enough sample size to be meaningful yet, but it's something to watch. Manny's seasonal age is 33 this year, and while it's not terribly old, it's old enough that serious declines can happen.

Alex Belth says all you need to know about the Yankees-Mets series over the weekend:

Or, if you want to be crass about it, the Mets just out-sucked the Yankees.

I'm not surprised by the Yankees shoddy defense. They are last in the AL in defensive efficiency. But the Mets, at .708 are third in DER in the NL.

Balls Sticks and Stuff has a nice set of illustrations showing how Bobby Abreu uses a golf grip. If he keeps hitting like this, I'm sure others will adopt it as well.

If the Cleveland Indians are going to climb back into the AL playoff race, this week is a good time to start. They're 11 out of first in the Central but just six out of the wild card, and they're playing the leading Twins in a four game series. The Indians have held their own vs. the Twins this year, splitting six games so far. That's been a bit of luck as they've been outscored by Minnesota 25-17 in those games. Looks like it could be a high scoring contest tonight as Scott Elarton hosts Kyle Lohse. It seems balls in play off Elarton are turning into hits very easily, as opponents are batting .386 off Scott. Lohse had three bad outings to start the season, but has been bringing his ERA steadily down since then.

It's first vs. last in the NL East tonight as the Marlins host the Phillies. It's a good pitching matchup as Jon Lieber faces Dontrelle Willis. Lieber's ERA has ballooned 1.5 runs over his last two starts. It's not clear what's changed, except that more balls are falling in for hits. Willis has not lost at home this season, and is posting a 0.69 ERA in Miami.

Finally, first meets first as the White Sox travel to Anaheim to play the Angels. Jon Garland puts his 8-0 record on the line vs. a Vlad-less Angels lineup. Garland's done a very good job this season of having opponents put the ball in play to his fielders. Without a lot of strikeouts, the opposition is hitting only .220 off Jon. Given that the Angels live by putting the ball in play, this should be an interesting matchup. He'll be opposed by Ervin "Magic" Santana who was hammered by the Indians in his first start (and if you get hammered by the Indians, you must have been pitching badly).

Enjoy!

The Los Angeles Dodgers have hit a bad streak that's landed them three games out of first place in the NL West. In their last 11 games they've gone 3-8, with a complete reversal of their previous performance:

2005 Dodgers	First 32 Games	Last 11 Games
Runs per Game	5.4	3.8
Allowed per Game	4.5	6.0
Record	20-12	3-8

Over their first 32 games the Dodgers outscored their opponenets by 27 runs; over the last 11 games they've been outscored by 24. Obviously, there are people to blame on both sides of the ball. Izturis and Choi are doing a good job setting the table, but Drew and Kent are not providing the follow-up. Kent was off to an MVP type start. Neither Kent nor Drew has homered since.

Among the starters, only Lowe has a decent ERA and two of the three wins during the period. It looks like the Dodgers are temporarily going with four starters, as the Odalis Perez injury takes effect. Penny and Weaver have combined to give up seven homers in 31 innings, while Yhency Brazoban has been very hittable desipte great strikeout and walk numbers. He's given up six runs in four outings since Gagne returned to the closer role.

I'd be more worried about the pitching than the hitting. Drew and Kent are likely just in slumps; anything can happen in a few games. But Weaver has a history of giving up the long ball, while Penny and Erickson are coming off injuries. It enough to concern a Dodgers fan.

There were five complete games yesterday, and the majors continue to run ahead of last year in this category:

Starters	2004	2005
Games Started	1282	1292
Complete Games	42	61
CG Percentage	3.3	4.7

The number of complete games hasn't reduced the number of pitchers teams are carrying. As of today, nine teams are carrying 11 pitchers, twenty teams are carrying 12 pitchers, and one team is carrying 13 pitchers. The Reds have 13; no wonder their pitching staff has been so unlucky. :-) It seems Cincinnati philosophy is you can't have enough of a bad thing.

What surprises me is that more teams haven't cut down to eleven. When I was young, teams would bring an extra pitcher north from spring training because starters could not go as deep in a game early in the year. They would work under the assumption that once the starters were up to speed they'd replace that extra pitcher with a position player. That doesn't seem to happen any more.

Roch Kubatko does a very good job of describing Sidney Ponson's problems this season:

It can be one bad inning or one bad pitch, a struggle to get the last out or one ball in the proper location.

Sidney Ponson began yesterday tied for the most wins among Orioles starters with five, but a 5.94 ERA suggested he has been flawed. Entire outings usually don't go bad for him, just small segments, which can lead to bigger problems.

If you go through his games, you see a number of three-run innings surrounded by otherwise good pitching. He's been farily lucking that the offense has bailed him out:

He usually can expect lots of offensive support, except when Lidle scatters six hits and goes the distance. Ponson's ERA was the sixth-highest in the American League before yesterday, but his run-support average of 8.04 was the fourth-highest.

As an accounting function, wins go to the pitcher. But if there was a way to do it, some of Ponson's victories belong to the offense.

Barry Bonds has started rehab on his knee.

Bonds' quest for the home run record is going to make for a great book someday, no matter how the race ends. With his father a major leaguer, you have a person spends his entire life in baseball. He comes up as a lead off hitter, and a good one. He then morphs into a slugger, because his team won't pay him unless he drives in runs. He wins 2 of the next three MVPs, and probably should have won all three. Yet he fails the Pirates in the playoffs every year. He leaves the stingy team for a big contract in his home town, has a monster year but the Giants lose the division on the last day of the season. By now it's becoming clear he's the greatest hitter of all time. He continues to have great seasons, then bulks up late in his career and goes on a home run tear, setting the single season record and threatening the all-time record for long balls.

All the while, however, his attitude and demeanor create foes in both the press and among teammates. There's enough animosity toward Bonds that an IRS agent starts looking for links to steroids and starts a major scandal. On the brink of the record, his knees, leaked testimony and a jilted lover all conspire to end his career. We're just waiting to see if he fights back and wins the title, or if he's defeated by the forces allied against him.

I'm not optimistic that Bonds will break Aaron's record at this point. He's still a National League player, which means he has to run around the outfield. I can't believe his range is going to be any good. So if the Giants want to win games, at some point they have to make a decision about bring in defensive replacements for Barry. That will give him less chances to bat and break the record. And who knows how good his batting will be. Legs are extemely important in generating power. If he can't push off as hard, or plant as firmly as he did before, he's going to be less of a home run threat. If pitchers are no longer afraid of the home run, they might start coming after him, which would drive his OBA and slugging down further. It's quite possible that Bonds comes back and finds he just can't play the game anymore.

We will see. Whether it's a steady advance to glory of a precipitous decline, it going to be a fascinating story to watch.

Tom Seaver Fan Club is a new blog about the Mets, past and present. Stop by and say hi.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

Javier Vazquez threw a complete game shutout this afternoon, besting the Tigers 1-0. After three horrbile outings to start the season, Vazquez has been nearly untouchable, posting a 1.50 ERA over his last seven starts, not allowing more than two earned runs in any of those appearances. He's walked 4 and struckout 46 over that stretch, and he's now gone four starts in a row without allowing a home run. Given Randy Johnson's problems this season, even without Halsey the Diamondbacks look like they got a steal of a deal in the trade with the Yankees.

The first round of interleague play finishes up today. There is an excellent pitching matchup in the Sea World game as Casey Fossum of the Devil Rays takes on Brian Moehler of the Marlins. Moehler does not quite qualify for the ERA leader board at this point, but if he maintains his 2.17 ERA after today he'll be in the top 5. Never much of a strikeout pitcher, Moehler has gotten good defensive work behind him this year, lowering his hits allowed. Fossum has had great strikeout numbers working out of the bullpen; he needs to see if he can keep that going in his starts.

The Yankees hope they are still Pedro's daddy as The Bronx meets Queens in the rubber game of the first subway series of the year. Pedro had a cortisone shot this week; I don't know if he's hurting of if the shot will help his pitching. Carl Pavano, coming off a complete game shutout, will face the Mets. Pavano has had mixed success at Shea; he's 3-4 but with a 3.86 ERA. He hasn't lost in Queens since October of 2001, however.

Matt Clement tries to hold on to his perfect record aganst John Smoltz and the Atlanta Braves in Boston this afternoon. Clement was roughed up by the Athletics his last time out, but the Boston offense bailed him out in the 8th with four runs. Smoltz has not allowed a home run in his last six starts and has a 1.74 ERA over that time.

Enjoy!

Freakonomics looks for the source of the name "Black Sox" and finds the dry cleaning story lacking in substance.

I just saw highlights of the Koo at bat vs. Randy Johnson yesterday. I'm really wondering if Koo intentionally tried to fool everyone when he stood way off the plate and took three strikes vs. the Reds. Johnson was obviously overconfident against the pitcher, and Koo hit a double off a drawn in outfield. Then, Johnson fails to cover the plate on a sacrifice, and Koo scored from second on a bunt! No excuse for that.

It was the ultimate insult for Johnson, who has traditionally overpowered the Mets, but no longer intimidates them. Nine of the first 16 batters Johnson faced recorded hits. Three times the Mets struck him with grounders back up the middle. Johnson gave up 12 hits, the second most in his career, and nine of them came in the first three innings. The only player in the Mets' starting lineup who could not handle him was Mike Cameron, now 1 for 22 with 13 strikeouts in his career against Johnson.

"I really don't know what to say," Johnson said. "If I'm not doing it, then I guess I'm not doing it right now. Am I trying to do it? I'm trying to win."

Yankees Manager Joe Torre said: "I know he's not pleased where he is now. We expect more, and I know he does."

Johnson should be fined, if for no other reason than to drive home the message that Randy is no longer invincible and he needs to do more than go out to the mound to win a game.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

Juan Encarnacion homered today to help the Marlins to a 4-3 victory over their fellow sea creatures, the Devil Rays. Juan now has a .365 OBA and a .493 slugging percentage. Compared to his career averages of .313 and .441, the 29 year old is having the best year of his career. In most seasons, Juan is a below average offensive outfielder. This season, he's found a way to help the Marlins.

The Texas Rangers put on a fireworks show today, hitting eight home runs, four off of rookie Ezequiel Astacio. Astacio has now allowed eight homers in 18 2/3 innings. This was not a problem for Ezequiel in the minors. Through 2004, he had allowed only 40 homers in 698 innings, 0.52 per 9.

I noticed Ozzie Guillen made a sucessful double switch in the Chicago squared game today. I've never understood why this manuver is considered the mark of a good manager. Anyone who's played a simulation game without a DH catches on to this move very quickly.

Carlos Zambrano deserved the win today. He left with a 1-0 lead after seven, but the Cubs bullpen blew up in the eighth, allowing four runs. The North Side pen has pitched well this season, coming into today with a 3.61 ERA. Unfortunately, they've now blown half their save opportunities.

The Hardball Times has their first installment of 2005 Win Shares posted. This year they've improved the display greatly, allowing sorting on any column. Thanks to Studes and his team at HBT for this great resource.

I have not seen the highlights, but Bob McManaman describes a catch by Jose Cruz, Jr. last night that can only be described as lucky. It reminds me of Lou Piniella sticking out his glove in the 1978 playoff game against the Red Sox to stop a hit from going for extra bases.

It's tough to pick contests today, but I'll start with Washington at Toronto as Tony Armas, Jr. faces Roy Halladay. (Shouldn't MLB have changed the schedule to make Baltimore face Washington? And they could have send the Phillies against Toronto, since the Phillies were briefly called the Blue Jays and the two teams did meet in the World Series.)

Armas has pitched okay since coming off the DL. His strikeouts have not returned yet, however. Halladay has been up and down this season; six good starts, three poor ones. He has been in control, however, only walking 11 in 69 innings.

The Diamondbacks and Tigers look evenly matched today as Shawn Estes faces Nate Robertson. Estes usually needs a lot of bullpen help as he's usually has thrown over 90 pitches by the end of the 6th inning. Nate Robertson has been a victim of his defense this season. He's given up 10 unearned runs so far in 2005. It a big reason he has a good ERA but a poor record.

Enjoy!

Vlad Guerrero injured his shoulder last night, and it's not clear how serious the injury is at this point. The loss of Guerrero would be a serious blow to the Angels offense, as he's the only regular who has been producing at a decent rate. If he's going to be out for any length of time, it gives the Rangers a chance to surge into first, and the Athletics and Mariners a chance to climb back into the race.

A reader has started a new fan forum for the Oakland Athletics, the Oakland A's Fan Forum. Stop by and say hi.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

Congratulations to my nephew Alexei Saba on his high school graduation today!

There was an unusual play in the Yankees-Mets game. In the 9th, with Womack on first, Sheffield hit a ball into the hole that ticked off Wright's glove and into Reyes mitt. Reyes made a strong throw, but it was too late to get Sheffield. Mientkiewicz, when he made the catch, turned to look at the umpire to see what the call was. While he's turning his head, Womack scooted to third, since Wright was out of position. It looked to me that if Mientkiewicz had come up throwing, it's possible he could have caught Womack at third. I was amazed that he bothered to look at the ump rather than paying attention to the runner.

The Cincinnati Reds finally won a quality start. Aaron Harang went 7 1/3 innings, allowing only 1 run. The game was on the line until the end. Danny Graves allowed 2 hits in the ninth, and the Indians had runners on 1st and 3rd when Blake grounded out to end the game. Still a 1-7 record in games in which the starter had a quality outing is just unacceptable.

Bill Mueller and Kevin Millar have more hits (3) than Wade Miller has allowed (2) through six innings.

The Chicago White Sox won the first round of the Windy City Championship today, defeating the Cubs 5-1. The White Sox got homers from Dye and Crede today to bring their total to 46. The came into the day 5th in the American League in homers. For a team that was going to go for speed, they're certainly supply some power.

Kenny Rogers gave up a run in the 2nd inning, ending his scoreless innings streak at 31. Not bad for a 40 year old.

Jim Lampley has found the perfect solution to steroid use: Let's live in a police state!

In China, sports authorities determined after the disqualification of the women's swim team at the 1992 World Championships that they wanted to be on the clean side of this controversy. So these days in China if a state-supported athlete tests positive for an Olympics-banned substance they face a fine and a jail term. The second positive test brings a lifetime ban. When the Chinese try to win the medal count from us at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, they will be competing cleanly. Will we?

While we're at it, let's have the government kidnap talented children and force them to do nothing but train for their sport for the rest of their young lives. And forgive me if I'm skeptical of claims of the Chinese being clean. I find it hard to believe that a country that will go to the extent they do to train world class athletes would refrain from using drugs. They may not be using substances banned by the Olympics, but does anyone really think their not trying to develop other, undetectable substances? The biochemists are always ahead of the detectives.

The Cleveland Indians have currently dug themselves into a deep hole. They are 11-17, 11 games out of first place in the AL Central and six games out of the wild card. Is there hope? Maybe not this year, but as I look at the morning paper I see the Buffalo Bisons at 24-15, leading the IL North Division and the Akron Aeros at 23-15, leading the EL Southern Division. Given the records of these two teams, somebody in their minor league system can play the game. Maybe it's time to bring up some new faces; the current ones aren't getting the job done.

The record of Buffalo appears to be a bit of luck, as they've only outscored their opponents by 14 runs. But the Aeros' record is for real. They've scored 188 run and allowed 155, which translates to a .595 winning percentage. Those players may not be able to turn the team around this year, but things look very good for the future.

It's the first day of interleague play and the regional rivalries are up. The Red Sox get to see a familar face this evening as Tim Hudson and the Braves visit Fenway. The Braves will face another league switcher, Wade Miller. Hudson has not fared well during the regular season at Fenway. He's 1-3 with an 8.53 ERA and has walked an amazing 16 batters in 19 innings. Miller has not had success vs. the Braves. He's 1-3 with an evil 6.66 ERA against Atlanta.

All eyes will be on Texas tonight as the Rangers host the Astros and Kenny Rogers looks to extend his 30 inning scoreless streak. Rogers has been depending on his defense quite a bit during this run, as he's only striking out 3.6 batters per 9 innings. The Astros will send Brandon Backe to the mound. Backe's coming off a shutout of the Giants.

The I-70 series also features a nice matchup as Mark Mulder and the Cardinals visit Zach Greinke and the Royals. Mulder's done a great job of keeping batters off base with walks (13 in 55 innings) and off the plate with homers (just 2 allowed so far). Greinke is 0-4 despite a 3.09 ERA, 6th best in the AL. Zach has allowed 19 runs, but his teammates have only scored four this season when he's been on the mound. That's 1.35 runs per 9. It's tough to win with that kind of offense behind you.

Enjoy!

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

When my good friend Jim Storer and I get together, at some point we start quoting Annie Hall. This one gets used a lot:

I feel that life is divided into the horrible and the miserable. That's the two categories. The horrible are like, I don't know, terminal cases, you know, and blind people, crippled. I don't know how they get through life. It's amazing to me. And the miserable is everyone else. So you should be thankful that you're miserable, because that's very lucky, to be miserable.

Which brings me to today's Hal McCoy column on the Cincinnati Reds:

It is easy to point a crooked finger at the Reds pitching staff and say, "Ah, there is the rub, there is the problem." And while for the most part the pitching has been three steps below miserable, it isn't the only mystery wrapped around an enigma.

This statistic boggles belief: The last seven times Reds starting pitchers have produced a quality start — three runs or fewer in six or more innings — the Reds are 0-and-7. Lost all seven games.

Three steps below miserable is getting pretty close to horrible. And the 0-7 in quality starts is pretty amazing. The team winning percentage in Quality Starts this season is around 70%. That makes the probability of winning 0 games in seven quaility starts .000219.

The Dallas Morning News compares Kenny Rogers' current streak to Orel Hershiser's:

Hershiser, now the Rangers' pitching coach, won't even try to quantify what Rogers' 30 innings in 2005 might equate to in 1988 numbers. But he can quickly enumerate the circumstances that make the current streak more impressive.

Rogers is doing this at an advanced age (40), in a league that features an extra hitter in the lineup, at a home park that is notoriously unfriendly to pitchers and in an era of unbridled offense.

"After the second start, it becomes a big deal, no matter what era you are talking about," Hershiser said. "That's back-to-back shutouts, and it doesn't happen much. You get to a third start, and that's pretty rare air. You go farther than that and you are in the stratosphere.

"What Kenny's doing is harder because this is such an offensive-oriented era. You have to weigh all those factors accordingly."

With Houston near the bottom of the majors in runs scored per game, Rogers has a good chance of extending the streak tonight.

In the first of a two part series in the Boston Herald, the Red Sox explain how they train their hitters as they come up through the minors:

The Red Sox want the hitters to know the pitcher, to know what he throws on certain counts and where he likes to throw it. If they get the pitch they're looking for, they are going to put a good swing on it and if they do not get the pitch, they will remain selective and try to wait for it. And with two strikes, Red Sox hitters will know that rather than giving up, it is time to bear down. Expand the strike zone some but do not concede the at-bat. They have already seen the score, and know how many outs there and how many runners are on the bases. The situation determines what they have to do, whether it is get on base, knock in runners or move them along. That is the plan. Executing the plan will determine the players' rise or fall within the Red Sox system.

It sounds like the ghost of Ted Williams is roving the Red Sox minor leagues. Actually, it's Orv Franchuk:

``When players first start with us, it's almost like they think the philosophy means you need to take pitches and you need to walk,'' Red Sox minor league hitting coordinator Orv Franchuk said. ``To us, that is just a byproduct of our system. If you're selective, the on-base percentage and the walks are going to be there. But for me, the whole thing boils down to the batter being aggressive and the batter getting on base.

``When you get on base,'' the former Oakland A's [stats, schedule] roving instructor added, ``you're going to score runs and when you score runs, you're going to win ballgames.''

I love the plan. The question is can they find the talented players who can learn and execute what's desired?

John Thomson injured his right middle finger and will miss three months of the season.

While the initial diagnosis was a strained tendon flexor, the first-place Braves worried it was much worse. An MRI confirmed their fears, showing the right-hander actually has a partial tear to the supporting structure around the tendon.

Surgery won't be required, but it will be at least a month before Thomson can pick up a baseball to begin his rehabilitation.

This is more bad news for the Braves. Kolb is out as the closer, and now they're down one starting pitcher. With four teams within 1 1/2 games of the NL East lead, the Braves appear to be in for a real fight for the division this season. On the positive side, Hampton, Smoltz and Hudson are as good as any starting three in the NL.

Brad Halsey is putting his defense to work tonight, having walked none and struck out none. It looks like the Astros aren't going very deep in the count, as Brad has only thrown 79 pitches through seven innings. The Diamondbacks lead 3-1 in the top of the eighth.

What's going on at Coors? The Rockies beat the Giants 3-2 last night, and this afternoon Colorado is up 3-1 in the 8th. There have been five home runs, but they've all been solo shots. Where are all the base runners? Have these two offense become so poor that they can't even hit at high altitude?

Update: 3-1 is the final score. Kudos to the Rockies bullpen in this game. Acevedo, Witasick and Fuentes pitched 2 2/3 inning of three hit ball, walking none and throwing 29 of 38 pitches for strikes.

Joe Mays pitches his first complete game since 2002, shutting out the Blue Jays 4-0. The Twins starters continue to be very stingy with walks; Mays walked none today and for the years the starting corps has allowed just 28 walks in 252 1/3 innings; that's less than a walk per 9 and the lowest by far in the majors.

What happened to Jason Marquis today? Jason had walked 14 in his first eight starts, but walked six today. That coupled with seven singles sent him to the showers after four innings. It's difficult to believe the umpires were squeezing him as Meyers has not walked anyone in the game. The Phllies lead 4-3 in the fifth.

Dave Fairbank:

Regardless of objections, Congress is moving on drug-policy legislation, full pee ahead.

Please read the whole thing.

Take a look at the Devil Rays lineup today. What a motley collection of poor hitters. They have two people with any ability to get on base, and they're batting 8th and 9th. No one has any power except the 35-year-old journey man first baseman. How can this be?

The Devil Rays have been miserable since their inception. Has there ever been a season in which they didn't have one of the top draft choices? After seven seasons, they should be swimming in talent. Stretches like this for the Mets produced Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry. Stretches like this for the Athletics produced Canseco and McGwire. Where are the Devil Rays superstars? Looking at the hitters in the lineup today makes it abundantly clear how poorly this franchise is managed.

I just saw the new Star Wars movie. I was disappointed. Too much action without enough reason.

The Devil Rays and Tigers finish up their series in Detroit with a nice matchup of young pitcher as Scott Kazmir faces Jeremy Bonderman. Kazmir is doing one thing poorly, walking batters. He's issuing free passes more than once every other inning. If Scott can get that down to 1 every three innings, it looks like he'll be fine. He has time to figure out that. That's what Bonderman did this season. Jeremy walked 3.4 per nine coming into 2005. This season, he's cut that to 2.3, and his ERA has dropped nearly two runs.

There's a matchup of former Yankees starters in Texas tonight as Brad Halsey and the Diamondbacks face Roger Clemens and the Astros. Clemens has gone at least seven innings in each start and has allowed 3 runs only once. Yet the Astros are only 3-5 in his starts. Halsey has faltered lately, with control becoming an issue. After walking 3 in his first six games, he's walked 8 in his last two.

Enjoy!

I have to disagree with Rick Duncan at Pesky's Pole, who equates a statement David Ortiz made before a game with the statements on New York citizens that got John Rocker into so much trouble. Here's the statement Rick notes:

Once, when Grady Little was manager, Ortiz stuck his head into the manager's office during the manager's daily pregame briefing with reporters and offered his playful assessment of what was to take place on the field that night.

"We're going to kick their ass, drink their beer and rape their bitches."

Here's what I wrote to Rick when he e-mailed me a copy of the article:

Thanks for sending me the article. I don't agree with your conclusion. Rocker said his comments away from the heat of battle. His comments were aimed directly at a group of people who had nothing to do with baseball. He was making a political statement. Ortiz was psyching himself up for a game. If Ortiz had said, "We're going to kill the other team," everyone would know that he wasn't litterally going to kill anybody, even though that would be considered offensive if made in a political context. It's very different from him saying in an interview away from a game that he's going to kill all white people. Now, I believe Rocker was unduly punished for his statements. People have a right to speak freely. Rocker should have been shunned, released, traded, booed, but the commissioner should not have suspended him. The Braves have a right not to have a player who thinks like that on their team, but the commissioner doesn't have the right to police the speech of anyone. In Ortiz's case, I don't think he approves of rape. Maybe I'm wrong. But the contexts are very different, so to cast him as John Rocker just doesn't hold water.

To sum up my point better, Ortiz used an offensive metaphor in the context of battle, whereas Rocker spoke what he believed to be true. Ortiz didn't litteraly mean what he said, while Rocker did. That's a big difference to me. As always, I'm interested in your comments on the subject.

Via Instapundit, Ron Bailey reports on a talk by Anjan Chatterjee on neuro performance enhancing drugs. I found this interesting:

The executive's son seems to be handling the divorce all right and has thrown himself into high school sports. He is a talented middle distance runner who can compete at the county level, but isn't quite good enough to compete at the state level. However, the executive's physician can offer his son Viagra, which not only corrects erectile dysfunction (presumably not a problem in an adolescent male) but also is known to boost the lungs' capacity to absorb oxygen, which might augment his running performance just enough for him to get a college athletic scholarship.

And I thought Rafael Palmeiro was taking it for the sex.

The article points out that about 1/2 the people polled think that same performance enhancers are okay to take, the other half consider them cheating.

What sets the stage for social and political conflict over enhancement technologies is that people on both sides in the poll were completely convinced that their view would be shared by everybody.

We're seeing the same thing in the debate about steroids. The comments I've gotten on steroid use show that many people are not willing to debate the subject. What is clear is that this debate is moving out of muscle and into the mind.

Danny Kolb is no longer the closer for the Atlanta Braves.

“We’re going to put Kolb in the middle somewhere for a while and let him work on some stuff,” Cox said before the Braves’ game against San Diego. “We’ll do the closing by matchups and whoever’s rested and things like that.”

Smoltz goes into the rotation, pitches great, but has just a 3-3 record because:

1. His run support is bad.


2. The bullpen has pitched poorly, posting a 6.53 ERA in Smoltz's starts. Kolb has blown two saves in games Smoltz pitched and has allowed 6 ER in 3 1/3 innings in those games.

Kolb has walked more than he's struck out, and he's not striking out that many. He's never been a strikeout pitcher, but he's already walked more than he did all last year. He's pitching more like he did in Texas than he did in Milwaukee. According to this article, he's not listening to Mazzone.

Kolb hasn't yet come around to the Mazzone mantra - work off the fastball and change speeds. The fastball is fine, but the rest is still a work in progress.

Mazzone has taken some tentative steps toward developing an off-speed pitch that Kolb will be comfortable throwing. The longtime pitching coach has no complaints about Kolb's 90-plus mph fastball, mixed in with the occasional slider.

My question is, why isn't what worked for him last year not working for him this year? Is this a case of a pitching coach trying to mold a pitcher to the coaches style, when what the pitcher throws works just fine? If any Braves fans have information on this, I'd love to hear it.

Up to date the Day to Day Database is.

I'm the designated hitter this week at Baseball Analysts. My column on how RFK is a real retro stadium is posted there.

Troy Glaus has two more extra-base hits tonight to move ahead of Derrek Lee into the NL lead with 26. He's driven in two and scored two to help the Diamondbacks to a 7-4 lead over the Astros.

If you missed tonight's show, you can hear the recorded version here. It's also available on demand at TPSRadio.

Another 1-0 game as the Nationals shutout the Brewers. Hammonds drives in Wilkerson from third after Brad was hit by a pitch to start the inning. Loaiza once again pitches well enought to win but doesn't get the decision due to poor support.

The Baseball Musings Radio Show on TPSRadio is coming up at 8 PM Eastern. Feel free to leave a question here in the comments that I can answer on the show.

Did David Wells come off the DL a little early? Wells didn't make it out of the second today, giving up 7 earned runs and 9 hits in 1 1/3 innings. Wells has been extreme this year; he either gets hammered or is untouchable. Given that the getting hammered games are happening more often, maybe the Red Sox don't need David in the rotation. The starters were 8-3 with a 4.60 ERA in 19 games when Wells was on the DL. Overall they were 12-7.

It's a good thing the Mets had a 10-3 lead going into the 9th inning. The Reds have scored three so far, the last two on a home run by Ken Griffey Jr., his 6th of the year. The Reds now have 2 outs and none on.

Update: The Mets get the last out and win 10-6.

Ryan Drese was one of my favorite pitchers of 2004. In 2005, he's proving to be one of the worst. He got hit hard again today, giving up nine hits and five runs in just 5 1/3 innings, including four doubles and a homer. His ERA is now a lofty 6.37 and opponents are hitting .321 against him. He's lucky to be 3-3; if he were pitching like last year, he might be leading the league in wins.

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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It hasn't been a good day for home teams in the top of the ninth so far. The Indians took a one-run lead into the top of the inning and gave up two to lose 2-1. The Pirates led the Cubs 2-1 going into the top of the ninth and allowed 2 runs to give the Cubs a 3-2 lead. Right now, the Pirates are fighting back with the bases loaded and one out. Some shabby Cubs defense has put the Pirates in a position to win with a hit.

Update: The Cubs turn a double play with the bases loaded to pull out the victory. Chicago pulls ahead of Pittsburgh to claim third place in the NL Central.

Jake Westbrook went three batters too many this afternoon. He had shutout the Angels through 8, but with 1 out in the ninth he allowed three straight hits to tie the game at 1. Westbrook has only gotten 12 runs in his 9 starts this year. He won't get the win, and with men on first and third, he might very well get the loss.

Update: Rhodes gives up a sacrifice fly to Bengie Molina and the Indians go quietly in the bottom of the 9th. The Angels continue to win with their anemic offense, and the Indians continue to lose with theirs.

Frank Thomas had a good night as he started his minor league rehad last night. He reached base in his three plate apperances with a single, double and a walk. His return may cause a problem, however:

Thomas said he would prefer to spend the maximum 20 days with Charlotte before reporting back to the Sox. General manager Ken Williams said a timetable hasn't been set on Thomas' return and it could be sooner than 20 days.

"We want him to be healthy and to play pain-free on a daily basis," Williams said.

If Thomas spends the entire 20 days in Charlotte, it will create an interesting predicament for him, Williams and Sox manager Ozzie Guillen.

Thomas then would be eligible to join the Sox the week of June 6, when the Sox begin a six-game trip to Colorado and San Diego—two National League cities. If Thomas is activated, he either would have to play first base or just pinch hit.

"That's a problem," Thomas said. "We'll see. I'm not going to be against [playing first], but I want to be healthier before I even attempt to take ground balls and play some first base."

I'm surprised by this. I would think Frank would want to rejoin the team as soon as possible. Also, why not put him at first? The White Sox first basemen aren't exactly burning up the league. A healthy Thomas makes that offense a lot better.

A real strange play in the bottom of the first of the Cleveland-LAAOA game. With Sizemore on 1st, Victor Martinez hit a grounder to Erstad at first. Erstad bobbled the ball with his foot on the bag. As he reached for it, the umpire saw Erstad's foot come off the bag. Erstad picked up the ball and threw to second, thinking he had the force at first. The shortstop Cabrera took the throw, but his tag of Sizemore was late.

Scioscia came out to argue the play at first. The replay showed the play at first was very close; it wasn't clear to me that Erstad's foot came off the bag. The umpires confered, and decided that they would not overrule the call. However, given that the batter wasn't forced, they then called Sizemore out at 2nd, saying he was forced. However, the replays make it look like Cabrera's foot wasn't on the bag, however, the replay angles were not good. So the Angels ended up getting an out, and Colon got out of the inning.

Warning Track Power is a new blog about the KC Royals. Stop by and check out his handicapping of the Royals Manager sweepstakes.

The Standing Ovation is a new blog that has fans acting as correspondents for their teams. It's a great idea; with luck, someday these blog journalists will be credentialed and be able to do their reporting from the press box.

I would like to take issue with A's Fan charge of eastern media bias. He uses as an example of this Miguel Tejada. He neglects to mention that plenty of attention was paid to Ken Griffey Jr. and Alex Rodriguez, who plied their early years in even more obsure Seattle. The reason Miguel didn't get the press is that he wasn't as good as the other three shortstops; he didn't have a good OBA until 2002. I know Oakland fans loved him, and he's certainly an excellent player, but until 2002 he was the 4th best shortstop in the AL offensively.

The media has to have an eastern bias where baseball is concerned because 22 of the teams play in the eastern and central time zones! If you turn on Baseball Tonight at 7 PM Pacific Time, you're going to see Eastern Games because that's what's been played.

If you'd like to spend the afternoon watching offense, the Reds-Mets game may be the place to be. It's a battle of high ERA lefties as Eric Milton bring his 7.21 ERA to Shea to face Tom Glavine and his 5.77 earned run average. Glavine turned in his third good performance of the year against the Cardinals in his last start. But overall, Glavine has as many walks as strikeouts, and he's walking one every other inning. That combined with a .309 batting average allowed has been pretty deadly for the veteran.

Milton is coming off a drubbing at the hand of his former team, the Phillies. Once again, home runs are the problem. He allowed 43 last year in just over 200 innings. The 14 he's allowed this year put him on a pace to allow 64 over 200 innings. Of course, if he continues to pitch this badly, it's unlikely he'll be around to toss that many frames.

Atlanta and San Diego resume their battle of the first place teams as the Braves send Horacio Ramirez to face Adam Eaton. With their win last night, San Diego now has the best record in the majors in 1-run games, 12-3. Eaton has pitched well, but he's also need help from the pen as he's averaged less than six innings a start. Ramirez is not striking out batters. His 3.74 per nine is below the point most pitchers are successful. Luckily, he has a defense behind him that is very good at turning batted balls into outs.

Finally, Milwaukee at Washington offers two teams doing better than expected. The Nationals are in third place, only two games back, and the Brewers are in 2nd place in the NL Central, five back of the Cardinals. Esteban Loaiza has pitched well but not won this season. He's only allowed 21 runs in his eight starts, but the team has only scored 13 times when he's on the mound. Esteban is going to need to start throwing shutouts. The Brewers are 6-2 when Chris Capuano starts, although he's not always around for the decision. He's been solid, but the Brewer's great bullpen has helped him out. The Milwaukee pen has posted a 2.28 ERA in Capuano's starts, allowing just 18 hits in 23 2/3 innings.

Enjoy!

Barry Zito walked seven Red Sox batters last night. Barry Zito has never before walked seven in a game. There are four game in which he's walked six, but he hasn't had one of those since 7/23/2003. Up until last night, walks hadn't really been a problem for Barry. His strikeouts have fallen off to 5.5 per 9 from a career average of 7.0. More balls in play means more hits and more runs. Last night it was the walks that led to three runs and kept the Red Sox in a game that the Athletics should have won. They scored five runs off starter Matt Clement; with Zito on the mound that should be a victory. But Barry wore himself out with 115 pitches in his five innings and turned the ball over to a bullpen that continued to walk batters and blow the lead.

The Yankees and Padres continued their winning ways last night.

Carl Pavano pitched about as well as one could expect, tossing a five-hit, complete game shutout at the Seattle Mariners. He struck out seven, and the only free pass was a plunked Bret Boone. While it was the team's third shutout of the streak, make no mistake that it's the offense that carrying the team. In the ten games, they're averaging 7.7 runs per game, hitting .309 with a .384 OBA and a .537 slugging percentage. In other words, the entire team is hitting like an MVP.

Even Jason Giambi got into the act last night, going 3 for 4 with his fourth homer of the season. A-Rod launched number 13, and now is just six away from 400.

The San Diego Padres faced a tough challenge from John Smoltz last night, but got to Danny Kolb to eke out a 3-2 win and extend their streak to six games. The Padres bullpen continues to be one of the best in the NL. Their 2.86 ERA is only topped by the Milwaukee Brewers. They pitched four innings of 1-run ball to keep the team in the game until the heart of the order could put together a rally in the 9th, capped off by Greene's game winning RBI.

The use of the bullpen is somewhat worrying, however. They've thrown more innings than any other set of NL relievers; at some point, the starters have to give them a rest. Right now, however, they've propelled the Padres into the NL West lead. The pitching staff has only allowed 14 runs in the six game streak, and the bullpen is only responsibel for 2 of those in the 16 1/3 innings they've pitched.

Jere Longman of the New York Times writes one of the more well researched pieces on steroid use I've seen. He's debunking the myth that steroid use was purely the slugger's domain:

Two of the five players suspended from major league rosters for steroid offenses this spring were pitchers, as were 29 of the 63 players who failed more stringent testing in the minor leagues.

This revealing portrait - 31 of 68 suspended players being pitchers - has emerged because baseball has begun suspending and naming major leaguers for first-time steroid violations and has begun publicizing the names of transgressors in the minor leagues, where suspensions have been levied since 2002.

"I think at the heart of the issue is, everybody is always seeking a competitive edge," said Tony La Russa, manager of the St. Louis Cardinals. "It just doesn't mean pitchers or hitters. If that gives you an edge, then everybody is going to seek to do it. So it probably shouldn't surprise anybody."

The reasons for pitchers using the drugs aren't clear yet. In general, many players aren't using them to bulk up.

Boston reliever Mike Timlin, who has pitched for six teams in a 15-year major league career, theorized that pitchers used steroids "more for recovery and longevity rather than just all-out strength."

"It's kind of blown out of proportion, even with hitters," Timlin said. "Hitters are not looking for all-out strength or size. What they're looking for is to have a regular amount of strength day in and day out. That's why they take it. That's why pitchers take it."

And finally, someone admits that we really don't know how steriods increase strength:

Although steroids and growth hormone are believed by many to facilitate recovery, allowing athletes to train more frequently over longer periods with greater intensity, scientists said the process was not well understood.

"It's tough to get rats to bench press or throw a fastball," said Yesalis, the steroids expert.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

It's been a year since Johan Santana had a game this bad. On 5/23/2004, Johan gave up 7 earned runs in three innings vs. the White Sox. Tonight, the Blue Jays hit him for 7 runs in 5 1/3. If it only happens once a year, the Twins will be happy.

Jon Garland is the first pitcher to eight wins, defeating the Texas Rangers 5-2 with help from his bullpen. Garland was throwing strikes tonight. Only 31 of his 102 pitches were called balls.

The big change in Garland continues to be keeping the ball in the park. He's only allowed 3 home runs this season in 59 2/3 innings; last season he gave up 34 in 217 innings. If he maintains this rate for the year, he'd allow around 12 homers.

Johan Santana continues to have first inning troubles this season. With the Blue Jays going three for six in the first inning tonight, opponents are now batting 13 for 37, .351 against Santana in the opening frame. The Blue Jays lead 3-0 in the fourth, scoring all their runs on those three first inning hits.

The Reds are ahead of the Mets 1-0 in the sixth, but Kaz has two hits; Kaz Ishii that is. The two Kaz's are batting 8th and 9th, but the pitcher now has a better BA, OBA and Slugging percentage than the 2nd baseman.

Ramon Ortiz is spinning a gem. No walks, just four hits, and 50 of his 71 pitches have gone for strikes.

Update: Matsui gets into the swing with his third home run of the season to give the Mets a 2-1 lead.

Wes Obermueller has retired the first 15 batters he's faced this evening. He's being pretty efficient, only throwing 55 pitches so far. He's right at 60% strikes. He's not overpowering as he's only struck out one. He's had 8 grounders and six fly outs so far.

Update: Obermueller just saved his perfect game. Schneider hit a high bouncer over the mound. Obermueller used his 6' 2" frame and the top of the mound to jump and snag the ball. If it gets by him, it's likely an infield hit.

Update: He's now perfect through six.

Update: Jamey Carroll breaks up the no-hitter with 1 out in the 7th.

Bobby Abreu hit his 11th home run of the year tonight to give the Phillies a 1-0 lead (Burrell followed with a solo shot of his own). Bobby is now hitting .336 with a .453 OBA and a .629 slugging percentage. This is Abreu's 8th full season in the majors, and none of them have been poor. Last July I wondered if we should be thinking about Abreu for the Hall of Fame. Once again, he's putting up numbers that can't be ignored.

If you want to buy the Nationals, you have until May 31 to get your bid in to Bud.

It appears a number of Tigers fans want Carlos Pena out of the lineup. I have to side with the fans on this one. Take a look at Pena's career with the Tigers. A .243 BA, .332 OBA and .448 slugging percentage are nothing to write home about for a first baseman. That's in 1300 AB. If he were going to be something special, we'd know about it by now. He turned 27 today; he should be having his best years now. It's unlikely he'll turn out to be a great player, so why not find someone younger and better?

Via Instapundit, Tapscott's Copy Desk reports on a journalistic scandal involving Mitch Albom.

Update: Broken link fixed.

Beer Leaguer is a new blog about the Phillies. Stop by and check out his take on the Byrd-Chavez deal.

Palace of the Fans makes good use of the Day by Day Database to research the Yankees streak. It's good to see these programs are useful to researchers. If you'd like to see anything added, feel free to send me a suggestion.

Baseball fans have two chances to see a pitcher go 8-0 tonight. Jon Garland goes first as the White Sox host Texas and Pedro Astacio. Garland has done a remarkable job not only keeping hitters off base, but keeping them out of scoring position. Opponents have had 190 AB against Jon, but only 69 with runners on and only 35 with men in scoring position. (In general, AB with runners on make up a little less than half the at bats.) Astacio has also had few opponent at bats with men on (63) but he's been hammered in that situation, giving up a .365 BA and a .651 slugging percentage. He's giving up long hits when they can do the most damage.

The last game of the night features Dontrelle Willis going for his 8th win in 8 starts. Ken Rosenthal offers some insight into Dontrelle's improvement:

The biggest difference in Marlins LHP Dontrelle Willis is that he is pounding righthanders inside, holding them to a .196 batting average compared with .288 last season. Willis worked with new pitching coach Mark Wiley in spring training to keep his chin in line when throwing to righties. By going inside on them, Willis opens up the outside corner, adding to his effectiveness. He also is changing speeds on his fastball, showing an 87-mph batting practice version on occasion.

Dontrelle is extremely effective against lefties so far this season as well, allowing a meager .184 batting average aganist the few who dare face him.

Derek Lowe is running into bad luck again. His K, BB and HR number are all fine to good. His defense let him down in his last start, and his run support of 3.12 per 9 innnings leaves his record at 2-4 despite a 2.94 ERA.

Enjoy!

Roch Kubatko provides some background on Jeff Fiorentino, the Orioles A-Ball call up who is 6 for 10 to start his MLB career.

Fiorentino always was among the first players to arrive at U.S. Cellular Field for the four-game series in Chicago, looking young enough to be carded in bars until he's 50. Teammates have nicknamed him "Screech" after the skinny, curly-haired character from the television series Saved By the Bell. At least he's being accepted by the group.

It looks like a pretty good nickname. Nice to see the Orioles are going with a youngster rather than trying to patch holes by trading for veterans. Fiorentino is 22; the advantage of drafting out of college is that these players don't need a lot of development time in the minors before they are ready for the majors. He's likely to be better than Matos over the long term; the broken finger may have pushed Matos out of a starting job for good.

The five-man rotation of the Arizona Diamondbacks has their own version of fantasy baseball:

The five-man rotation has a friendly but spirited little competition. The pitchers accumulate points for productivity, and Estes just happened to finish last during the first month of the seasonlong wager.

It's a contest Estes and Ortiz both participated in during their time together with the San Francisco Giants, and they decided to resurrect the idea with the Diamondbacks during spring training.

"It's something we can rag on each other about and have a little bit of fun," Ortiz said, "but at the same time, all the things you get points for are things that help the club. And that's really what this is all about."

They earn points for hitting and pitching well, and lose points for a poor performance. The pitcher with the fewest points in a month has to take the others out to dinner. It appears to be having a positive effect on the staff:

The contest, in addition to making the pitchers focus even more on each start, has spurred some camaraderie and chemistry among the five hurlers, four of whom are new to the organization this year. Only Webb, who is off to a 5-0 start after going 7-16 a year ago, was on last season's club that finished with 111 losses, the most by a National League team in 39 years.

A game within a game that encourages winning; what a great idea. I wonder if the batters will start doing something similar?

Two bloggers make points about leaving men on in last night's games. The Soxaholix is complaining about the Red Sox left leaving runners, including two innings in which Boston had the bases loaded with less than two out and didn't score. Was Watching exagerrates the number left on base (13 not 23) but his point is still well taken; the Yankees had a lot more opportunities than they converted.

Both approach the Left On Base stat as a bad thing. That's not really true. Leaving lots of men on base is often a sign of strong offense, one that puts lots of men on base! Here's the thirty teams this season, ranked by most left on base:

Team Left On Base, 2005 Season, through May 16.

Team	LOB
SD	310
NYA	304
BOS	302
PHI	296
ARI	295
OAK	290
LAD	282
CIN	275
TB	275
STL	274
WSH	274
NYN	274
SF	273
TOR	267
MIL	267
TEX	265
CHN	264
BAL	262
COL	260
MIN	259
PIT	253
HOU	251
CLE	251
SEA	250
CHA	248
FLA	248
ATL	248
DET	237
KC	235
LAA	223

Last year, if you listened to Boston sports radio during the first half of the year, the question on everybody's mind was what good is all these people on base if you don't drive them in. Eventually, they come around to score, and that's what happened in the second half of last season. If you look at the chart above, you see that the Yankees and Red Sox, the two higest scoring teams in the majors, are near the top. They leave a lot of men on base because they put a lot of men on base and score a lot of runs. So if you're a Phillies fan, I'd be encouraged by this chart. Your team gets plenty of opportunities and with some luck those will turn into runs.

And just note that the Angels, who have left the fewest, also have not generated a lot of runs this season. They're not leaving a lot on simply because there's not a lot to leave on. Right now, I'd much rather have Oakland's offense than Los Angeles's; both are weak, but at least the Athletics have the opportunities to drive in runs.

Update: Bill Ferris writes:

I agree with your point that LOB isn't necessarily a bad thing and can be indicative of a good offense. However, I don't agree with the Oakland versus Anaheim conclusion at the end.

I believe it was Tom Tippett that came up with run efficiency average, which is the runs scored divided by (total bases+walks+hbp) as a measure of throughput. I atttached an excel sheet which has TBW, REA, and TBW/game. The Angels and A's are both at the bottom in terms of TBW/game, so neither offense is good. However, the Angels have been more efficient at getting those runners home, while the A's are down near the bottom again.

Also interesting to note is that the White Sox have been very efficient despite not having a particularly strong offense.

REA is measuring what has happened, not an ability. I believe the current lack of power on the Athletics is an anomaly. When the power returns to Chavez and Durazo, the men on base will start coming around to score.

The Bird Watch visited Shea Stadium to see the Cardinals play and didn't think the old stadium was so bad.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

Jon Weisman looks at the Dodgers recent slump and puts the blame on the starting pitching. They've certainly been allowing home runs lately. Through May 6, Dodgers starters had pitched 167 innings and allowed 14 home runs, 0.75 per 9 innings. Since then, however, they've thrown 52 1/3 innings and allowed 12 HR, or 2.06 per 9. Penny has continued the trend tonight, allowing home runs to Cabrera and Encarnacion in four innings of work.

David Dellucci has drawn three walks tonight, bring his league leading total to 35. Dellucci's career high is 47 set during the 2004 season. At this rate, he'll draw well over 100 free passes. He's a .262 career hitter! Suddenly, he's walking like Barry Bonds (and none of them have been intentional). Pitchers might want to try putting the ball over the plate to David.

I'm driving in my car, I turn on the radio.

And I was listening to sports talk radio over the weekend from the New York area. What I heard was lots of bad stuff about Kris Benson. His manager from the Pirates ripped him, and the Mets pundits couldn't wait to pile on, all based on 10 2/3 bad innings since coming off the DL. What they didn't notice, of course, was that Benson struck out 9 and walked only 2 in those innings. Tonight it came together for Kris against the Reds.

Benson went 7 2/3 tonight, striking out 8 and walking only 2. The Reds managed just four hits off the righty. If Pittsburgh had a better offense, Benson would have been better than a .500 pitcher with the team. He's a good, not a great hurler; with a good team he would have been a winner, and no one would be questioning his heart.

Cliff Lee has made one mistake tonight; he walked Darin Erstad. Now, when you've only allowed 3 hits through five innings, one walk doesn't seem so bad. But the batter after Erstad is Vlad Guerrero, and Vlad continues to be the only offense for the Angels. He doubled, driving in the Angels first baseman for the only run of the game so far. Paul Byrd is pitching well, too. He's being very efficient this evening, having thrown just 53 pitches through five innings.

Aaron Gleeman opines on how good Julio Franco plays for an old man.

At the end of this season Franco will join Mel Ott, Ted Williams, Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Barry Bonds, and Cap Anson as the only players in major-league history to lead their age in RCAA more than once. Normally I'd say being in such elite company is something Franco could tell his grandkids about when they grow up, but in this case they're probably old enough to read about it for themselves.

And, of course, all the others had real competition at the same age. He also includes a piece of the New York Times story on the trade of Franco from the Phillies. The article describes it as a trade where the majors players were Von Hayes and Manny Trillo. As Bill James states in his 1983 Abstract:

Manny Trillo, it should be noted, was strictly a throw-in in what was described in the papers as the Manny Trillo trade. Manny's been a good ballplayer, but he's a 32-year-old glove man who wants a big contract to stay with the team more than a year. Nobody much wants him. The essence of the swap was Hayes-for-Franco, a rare exchange of two true blue-chip prospects.

Hayes had a decent career, but never developed into a home-run hitter. His best years were 1986-1987.

Charlie Muse, the creator of the modern batting helmet, passed away. His contribution to the game no doubt saved some players careers and possibly their lives. My thoughts go out to his family and friends.

Rich Lederer points out that closers used to be called firemen, but they never seem to be used in emergency situations anymore.

When you call 911, do you expect the fire department to do everything they can to put out your fire, or would you want them to hold back in case they're needed elsewhere?

Managers need to understand the win probability or expectancy when considering pitching changes. Choosing your best reliever to come in and close out an inning during a threat in the seventh or eighth--even if it means using a lesser option in the ninth--is generally a more prudent use of your bullpen than calling upon your so-called closer for the last three outs of the game when nobody is on base.

I agree. I hope that the rise in complete games has something to do with managers changing their thinking about how to use their bullpens. If that is true of lifting starters, maybe it will become true for the use of closers.

Hee Seop Choi uses Yard Work to appeal for more playing time. :-)

Athletics Nation interviews Michael Lewis about his long term project call Underdogs (Sweet Polly Purebred does not make an appearance). Here's a sample:

Blez: You've been around to a lot of the minor league ballparks to see a lot of the kids. What's it like to be a part of that minor league existence, even for just a short little while? I think so many people see the players are the major league level and all the money they make, but they don't see how many kids just struggle at the minor league level and fight to get to where they get to.

Lewis: When they're 22 and unmarried, it's one thing. The life is not pleasant. They eat badly. They sleep badly. Long bus rides. They get out of shape during the season. The skinny ones get skinnier and the fat ones get fatter. How that happens, I don't know. Where the life becomes much more poignant is when they're married and have small children and are making $14,000 a year and I could be making $40,000 a year doing something else, how long can I cling to the dream? What's surprising to me is how many of these players, immediately upon going into minor league baseball married some girl and got her pregnant and put a degree of pressure on themselves that they really didn't need. In many cases, it's very transparent that the insecurity of life in minor league professional baseball is the origin of the decision to get married. They're looking for some stability in this inherently unstable life. But there's an awful lot of pressure on them and if you think about it and think about what's going on and what you're watching. You're watching a vast pool of potential big league baseball players at the last window of the process. There are three or four million kids playing little league baseball and in the end there are a few thousand playing minor league baseball. Then you're going to take those and turn them into the few hundred who play big league baseball. There's a ruthlessness about it and an arbitrary quality to it. A lot of the decisions that are made aren't exactly fair.

Two stadium travelers liked RFK:

RFK Stadium could hardly be further removed from the brick-encrusted, sushi-serving, retro-crazed baseball venues currently in vogue. Pete Farrell thinks that's a good thing.

"After you've seen [retro stadiums] for the 83rd time, when you walk in there with the musty concourse and the paint peeling, it's like 'Ahhhhh, this feels right,' " Farrell said.

I'll echo that. It's not a perfect baseball stadium, but there's nothing wrong with it as a major league facility. It's easy to reach by both car and train. There are no obstructed seats. There were plenty of consessions, even though there wasn't enough food sold in the stands (I just saw beer vendors in the seats.

Washington may want to take a lesson from the Red Sox. Forced to stay in their aging park, the Red Sox ownership has remodeled and done a marvelous job of it. Why not do the same with RFK? It has to be a lot cheaper than building a new park, and as the Red Sox have shown, you can remodel and still play ball. Now that football is no longer played there, DC United can be moved to the Redskins Stadium, and the lower deck seats can be rearranged to give fans better sight lines. The field can have a state of the art drainage system installed, and I'm sure you can stick luxury boxes in somewhere. They just need a creative architect.

There may be other reasons to build a new field, such as better training facilities for the players. But it's not a bad park, and with a little work could be a very good one.

Joe Starkey has some positive comments about Pirates GM Dave Littlefield.

More to Littlefield's credit, he said when he arrived that he would stock the organization with pitching. He has. The Pirates own a wealth of talented, young left-handers (Perez, Sean Burnett, Zach Duke, Tom Gorzelanny, Paul Maholm), which are akin to gold nuggets in the baseball world.

We need to see more moves like the trade that brought in Bay and Perez, and a little less of the stop gap one-year players.

The Texas Rangers make their way north to Chicago this evening to face the White Sox. Chan Ho Park will take on Orlando Hernandez. The Rangers have won Park's last four starts and have scored 38 runs over that stretch. This helped cover up Park's control problems which resulted in 16 walks in his last 23 innings. The White Sox have won El Duque's last five starts, but the average score was 4.2-2.4. Orlando has only allowed 2 home runs all season, and ranks 5th in the AL in HR allowed per 9 innings at 0.42.

There are two games with consequences for the NL East and NL West this evening. The Braves visit the Padres as John Thomson faces Padre rookie Tim Stauffer. Stauffer got the win in his major league debut against Cincinnati, but it wasn't that impressive a start. Adam LaRoche is hitting .359 in May after a .206 BA in April. He's tied for 8th in the NL with 27 RBI; he's hitting .354 with runners on and four of his six homers have come with men on base.

Both teams will be keeping an eye on the score board to see how the Marlins play the Dodgers in Los Angeles. Brian Moehler faces former Fish Brad Penny. Moehler has been very effective as both a starter and reliever this season. In his four starts, he has a 1.99 ERA. Penny's made two good starts and two bad ones. He's coming off a pounding at the hands of the Cardinals in which he gave up 12 hits in 4 2/3 innings.

Enjoy!

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Here's an interesting bit from Hal McCoy's Red Notes.

Reds pitchers wonder why the team's videographer and psychologist sit in on meetings before each series when the opposing team's hitters are discussed.

Said one pitcher, "The video guy tells us how to pitch to hitters and sometimes says, 'We have to avoid this guy.' We? I want to flip him a ball and say, 'You go get out Jim Edmonds or Albert Pujols.' The team shrink doesn't say anything ... just stands there and listens."

Is the videographer a scout also? If he's someone with baseball expertise his advice could be valuable, but it's not clear from the note why he gets to comment. Is the psychologist reporting back to the manager on the state of the Reds pitcher's minds? Or is he there to treat the staff for depression? Given that only the Rockies have a worse ERA in the NL, there are a few pitchers on the Reds who might need his help.

Congratulations to Manny Ramirez on his 400th home run. According to The Bill James Baseball Handbook 2005, Manny has a 13% chance of hitting 700 home runs and a 4% chance of passing Aaron. He'll be 33 in a couple of weeks; if he plays through age 40, that gives him most of eight seasons. An average of thirty homers a year takes him well over 600 and pretty close to Willie Mays.

Manny has 164 homers for the Red Sox, 11th on the Boston all time list. He needs six to tie Jackie Jensen for 10th. Manny needs 67 homers in a Boston uniform to pass Mo Vaughn for fifth place on the all-time team list. There's a big gap between 4th and 5th as Dewey Evans has 379 round trippers. It's conceivabe that if Manny finishes his career with Boston he'd wind up third on the list behind Williams and Yastrzemski.

So, will Boston keep an aging Ramirez around if he's going for 600 or 700 home runs? They tried to dump his contract after the 2003 season, putting Manny on waivers. Let's say that Manny has 550 career homers at the end of 2008 when his current contract expires. It would probably make good baseball sense to let Manny go at that time and put the money into younger players with a up side. But it might also attract a lot of attention to keep Ramirez and watch him go for 600 and Mays. (Although A-Rod may have passed Manny by then. In seasonal age he's four years yonger and only seven homers behind Ramirez.) My guess is that if the situation comes up, the Red Sox would offer a significant pay cut if Manny wanted to stay.

Brandon Backe pitched a complete game shutout last night against the San Francisco Giants. Both complete games and CG shutouts continue to be vs. the same period last year:

Through six weeks	2004	2005
Games Started	1102	1112
Complete Games	33	51
CG Percentage	3.0	4.6
CG Shutouts	11	17
CGS Percentage	1.0	1.5

The only teams without complete games so far are Boston, Tampa Bay, Cincinnati and San Diego. The Padres have a magnificent bullpen this season. Cincinnati has poor starters, as does Tampa Bay. Boston starters are much better than their relievers; it's not clear from the information I have why they don't have a CG. Clement went eight shutout innings against Baltimore on 4/21 and threw 110 pitches. Foulke was brought in to record the final three outs. Clement had given up two hits in the 8th, but both were infield singles. It appears their starters are on a very tight pitch count.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

It was a fun trip. It started with a letter from Michael Wechsler stating that his brother and my former roommate Dan would be in Washington attending the same conference as Dave Spiro. So I called Dan as I was driving down and we tried to make arrangements to get together, although Dan had a working dinner that night and probably couldn't make the game. That was the first coincidence.

When I walk into the hotel lobby eight hours later, Jack Ramsey is sitting there, down to cover the Wizards game. I used to see Jack at ESPN, so I went over and introduced myself. Jack was very gracious and we chatted for a minute. I then dropped my luggage in the room and Dave Spiro and I headed for the game.

Of course, it started raining. We bought umbrellas from a sidewalk salesman and made our way to RFK. It was very easy by subway. RFK is a decent enough place, very much like the cookie cutter fields of the 60's and 70's. If you've been in the old parks in Pittsburgh or Cincinnati, you'd feel right at home there. We couldn't see the main scoreboard from our seats, but we were dry. The auxillary scoreboards did not give enought information. They'd flash the name of the batter, but if you missed it that was it. The outfield does not drain well. Twice they dumped the tarp, and twice it took them 20 minutes of moving water to get the field looking playable.

Dan decided to skip his meeting and joined us at the park. Dan is from Montreal and was saddened by the move. He still rooted for the former Expos, however (see video). It was almost 10 PM when the game started, so we only stayed a few innings. The crowd was pretty evenly split Cubs and Nationals. I guess the Cubs national following is bigger than the current base in Washington. Cheers for the Cubs were as loud as cheers for the Nationals.

When we got back to the hotel, I ran into Ethan Cooperson. You'll sometimes hear Ethan's name as the statistican credited in national football and basketball broadcasts. He's an old friend from STATS, Inc. and a fellow Harvard alum, and he looks as dapper as ever. The third coincidence.

All it all, it was a lot of driving but well worth it. I'll have to go down again with the family and see the sights as well as a game.

I was listening to the Yankees game as I drove through Connecticut today, and I had to call my dad after Tino Martinez hit two more home runs in the game. Dad says Tino is a gentleman, and he's really happy to see him doing this well.

With 10 home runs halfway through May, it's time to start wondering if Tino can set the May record. It's currently held by Barry Bonds, who hit 17 in May 2001. The AL Record is 16 held by Yankees great Mickey Mantle, who hit 16 in 1956. Mark McGwire also hit 16 in May 1998.

Here's a video that captures last night at the Washington Nationals game. It includes interviews with fans and rain delay action.

To see it quick, here's a version appropriate for dail-up.

If you'd like the high quality movie, you can download this version (15 MB). (You may want to right click and save target as.)

Michael Eglinski sends this article by Bill James on what's wrong with the Royals.

I had a nice time at the Nationals game last night, despite the nearly three hour rain delay before the contest started. I'll have more on that later and all the unexpected people I met. I'm about to drive back to Massachusetts, so blogging will be light again today. So a very abbreviated games of the day:

Toronto at Cleveland
Texas at Minnesota
Baltimore at Chicago White Sox

I'll be back tonight.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

The Detroit Tigers have handled the LAAOA pretty well so far, taking two of three and posting a 2.08 ERA vs. the Angels. Today, Bartolo Colon faces Jeremy Bonderman in the Motor City. Bonderman picked up his first win against the Angels on May 7, his last start. Bonderman has cut his home runs allowed by 1/2 a homer per 9 this season and has become a first class starter. Colon has nearly identical K, BB and HR rates and hasn't walked a batter in his last two starts.

Pedro Martinez will try to match Tom Glavine's great start from last night as St. Louis continues to play without Scott Rolen, who had surgery yesterday. Pedro will face Mark Mulder, who is proving to be worth the trade to the Cardinals. His hits per 9, BB per 9 and HR per 9 are all down from last season.

In Minnesota, the Rangers try to win game 2 of the series against the Twins. They got to Joe Nathan last night, scoring the first earned runs of the season off the closer in extra innings for a 9-6 victory. The Rangers will send the AL ERA leader, Kenny Rogers, to the mound tonight against the Twins. He'll face Carlos Silva. Rogers has only allowed 1 home run in 45 1/3 innings this season, third best in the AL. Keeping the ball in the park, the 18 walks he's allowed haven't hurt him that much. Silva is winning the competition among the Twins starters to see who can walk the fewest batters this season. (I get the feeling the Twins pitchers are fined $10000 every time they walk a batter :-)) He's only walked 1 in 36 innings. Three Twins starters are walking fewer than a batter per 9.

Enjoy!

The Braves Dodgers game last night treated us to the rare opposing grand slams in the same inning. In the top of the 8th, Adam LaRoche blasted one off a tiring Jeff Weaver to give the Braves a 4-2 lead (note to Jon Weisman; Tracy didn't pull Weaver soon enough). But in the bottom of the inning, Bradley connected with his 2nd homer of the game, also a grand slam to take the lead back for the Dodgers.

Bradley's had a huge power surge this season. He's hitting a HR every 13.6 AB compared to one every 39.3 AB through 2004. Kent, Choi and Bradley are quickly becoming a dominant murders row.