With the Padres up 1-0 in the bottom of the fifth, Jake Peavy faced Nomar Garciaparra. Nomar has one home run to his credit this season; Peavy's only allowed one all year. So you would think the odds of a long ball in that plate appearance would be pretty low. But Nomar hit a pitch out of the ballpark in centerfield, tying the game at one.

C.C. Sabathia won his twelfth game of the season tonight, taking the major league lead in wins as Beckett loses to the Rangers 5-4. Sabathia pitched well and the Cleveland's offense gave him plenty of support as he left with an 8-3 lead after seven innings. His control was great tonight as he struck out eight without walking a batter. The Indians bullpen was shaky, but the Tribe took the game 8-6.

The win gives Cleveland a 1 1/2 game lead in the AL Central as Detroit lost to the Twins 8-5.

The Colorado Rockies ended their losing streak tonight with a 5-0 win over the Astros. Jeff Francis issued four walks in his seven innings of work, but the Astros only managed three hits in support of those base runners. And the Rockies pen didn't blow a lead!

The 1-2-3 hitters for Colorado provided the offense, combining to go seven for fifteen with two doubles.

The Pirates got off to a 6-1 lead over the Nationals after two innings, and that might have kept fans in the park:

The Nationals' offense was about as effective against Gorzelanny (8-4) as was the planned fan protest by Pirates rooters unhappy with the club's refusal to spend money to upgrade a team stuck in a 15th consecutive losing season. Only a few thousand fans, if that, vacated their seats after the third inning and it appeared most returned quickly.

Given that the attendance was 27,000, a few thousand leaving would be a pretty big chunk. Still, it's much better to not buy tickets than to buy and walk out. Buying and walking out is a bit like divesting stocks from countries you don't like. If you sell the stock, someone else buys it, so you haven't changed anything. Boycotting products is what has a real economic effect.

Freddy Sanchez stayed hot, picking up two more hits and raising his average to .305 as the Pirates went on to a 7-2 victory. Sanchez hit .343 for the month of June.

The Red Sox decided to solve their centerfield problem by calling up Jacoby Ellsbury. The twenty-three year old has a history of high OBAs low slugging percentages. In 67 combined games in AA and AAA this season, he posted a .396 OBA. For his career through 2006, that number was .391. As the Red Sox showed with Pedroia this year, they're willing to wait for a good youngster to adjust to the majors. If he lives up to expectations, the Red Sox regular lineup will have eight players with OBA's over the league average, with five of those far superior to that. He also frees the Red Sox to use either Crisp or Pena in a trade.

Update: Ellsbury is one for two so far tonight with an infield hit. So his OBA is off to a good start!

Carlos Beltran hit two home runs for the second game in a row. It's not like CBP has been a great home run park for him. Before the second game of yesterday's double header, Carlos hit only two home runs in 26 games there. His power at that ballpark was for doubles, as he hit 14 of those. The two long balls give Carlos fourteen for the season, still way off his pace of last year when he hit 41.

Jorge Sosa tried to sacrifice in the top of the sixth, and it ended up a double loss for the Mets. The lead runner was thrown out, and Sosa limped off the field with what appeared to be a hamstring pull. Sosa had allowed three runs in five innings, including a monster home run by Ryan Howard.

The Minnesota Twins are racking up the extra base hits today. In the top of the sixth, they lead Detroit 8-2, and six of their eight hits have gone for extra bases. Cuddyer hit both a triple and a homer and drove in three runs. Ford is a base short of that with a double and homer for his three RBI. The Twins chased Miller after five inning, but Grilli comes in and allows a single and the two-run homer by Ford.

For the second day in a row, the Brewers pound the Cubs in the first inning. Nine men bat and collect four hits as Milwaukee scores four runs in the first. They scored five yesterday, but that was all they did as Chicago came back to win that game 6-5. However, the Cubs bullpen might be a bit spent today.

Update: Marshall lasts just two innings, giving up seven runs. The Brewers keep pouring it on, and it's 9-2 Milwaukee in the top of the fourth.

J.A. Happ gets off to a very poor start to his major league career as he gives up two home runs to the first four batters to put the Mets up 3-0 over the Phillies. He's now given up four hits to the first five batters. The Phillies are working with a make-shift rotation this weekend, which makes Hamels loss last night all the more frustrating. That's the game they needed to win.

Chad Gaudin pitches a very strong game against the Yankees, allowing just one hit in his seven innings of work. He walked three, but the Yankees could not turn any of those free passes into runs as the Athletics lead New York 7-0 in the bottom of the eighth. Gaudin brings his ERA below 3.00 to 2.92. Harden is one for his third relief appearance. He did not allow a hit or a walk in his first two appearance, but he's walked two so far this inning.

Joe Christensen shares his answers to Tracy Ringolsby's questionnaire. Joe's answer are aimed at the Twins.

Update: Sorry, forgot the link.

Kei Igawa home run troubles continue. Jason Kendall and Shannon Stewart go back to back in the third inning to give the Athletics a 2-0 lead. Igawa has now allowed ten home runs in 38 1/3 innings through the third today. That pace woud mean he would allow 52 homers in 200 innings.

The Twins continue to try to gain on the wild card leading Tigers as they send Kevin Slowey against Andrew Miller. Both are rookies, but so far Andrew is having the better year. In four starts he's posted a 2.70 ERA, although his K/BB/HR look worse than that. Andrew's been a killer with runners in scoring position so far, with opposing batters collecting just three hits in twenty four at bats. Slowey is a right-hander who is getting pounded by right-handed batters. Even though he's seen more lefties at the plate, seven of the nine home runs he's allowed have come off right-handed bats.

The Cubs try to make it two in a row against the Brewers as Chicago tries to fight back into contention in the NL Central. Sean Marshall hosts Ben Sheets. Marshall keeps free passes to a minimum, and he's a lefty that handles righties very well. Sheets returned to his role as ace of the staff. Like Marshall, his strengths are keeping his walks very low and handling batters with the platoon advantage very well. Righties are hitting .283 against Sheets, lefties .204.

Although they're not facing each other, Sabathia and Beckett each go for their twelfth win tonight. Given that they're facing last place teams (Tampa Bay and Texas), they should have a good shot at the W.

Finally, stay up late to watch two of the top three leaders in ERA battle in Los Angeles. Brad Penny leads the NL with a 2.04 ERA. Jake Peavy trails his teammate Chris Young 2.1414 to 2.1429, good for third in the NL ERA race. Penny and Peavy each garnered eleven decisions, Brad picking up ten wins to Peavy's nine. The differ by 2/3 on an inning pitched. Peavy in general looks like a slightly better pitcher. He strikes out more batters. He's walked two more batters than Penny, but has given up just one home run to Penny's two. It should be a tremendous battle, especially with the Dodgers trailing San Diego by one game.

Enjoy!

Aubrey Huff hit for the cycle last night, and the two of the hits held extra special meaning:

"Obviously for me, that's probably one of the most special days of my baseball career," Huff said. "The triple was my 1,000th hit, the double was my 200th double. The homer, we were lucky enough to get that back from a fan. And the single, I got it back. So I got all four balls. That's going to be a pretty good memento."

The last Oriole to accomplish the feat was Cal Ripken in 1984. The only other Oriole to do it was Brooks Robinson in 1960; Huff is the first Baltimore player to hit for the cycle at home.

Mike Hargrove continues to go to J.J. Putz early, and the Mariners are now ten games over .500. Last night he came into the game with the bases loaded, one out, and the score 5-2 in the top of the eighth. He did allow an infield single for a run, but he got Alex Rios to end the inning.

Putz's battle with Alex Rios to end the eighth was something to behold. Putz attacked with high heat, Rios swung, and Rios missed. After that, Rios took his bat and snapped it over his leg in frustration.

"I didn't see that," Putz said.

Most of the rest of the 41,862 on hand did, however. And more than a few will see replays. Putz can frustrate hitters, yes he can.

Putz is getting a lot of work for a closer. He ranks ninth in the AL in relief innings, the highest among regular closers. The only other closer in the top 20 is Chris Ray. I don't know if he's being over used at this point; he's on paced for about 81 innings. That's more than a lot of closers throw these days, but nothing drastic. I like this strategy of using the best pitcher in a real save situation, and I hope Hargrove keeps going to Putz in the eighth when the situation calls for the closer.

Royals Authority wonders if the Royals winning record in June (15-11 so far) is a fluke or a trend. The offense score a lot of runs despite not hitting all that well. Not surprisingly, they put up very good situational numbers, hitting .305 with runners in scoring position for the month and going 9 for 16 with the bases loaded. The batting stats say fluke, but RA points out that the good hitters in the month for the team are the youngsters. That is indeed a positive.

It's Bob Walk bobblehead night in Pittsburgh (worst name ever for a pitcher), and fans are planning to walk out of the game after the third inning. Pat Lackey is concerned that the club is trying to keep the protest from being televised:

The Pirates are actively attempting to crush dissent. The thing is, because the walkout is scheduled to be between innings, Fox Sports Pittsburgh and Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (the Nats' channel) cameras will be off, meaning that the Pirates plan might actually work. Local network KDKA does have a camera situated outside the park that can capture most of the images and pass them along to ESPN and other national outlets, but it's not particularly close to the park and won't be able to provide very high quality pictures. I suppose all Pirate fans can hope is that this plan somehow backfires on the Pirate owners and word gets out to bigger outlets that not only are fans protesting, but the Pirates are doing everything possible to make sure no one finds out about it.

Well, it would be fairly easy to walk out after the station comes back from commercial, which would make a lot more sense. And if ESPN really wanted to cover this, it's easy enough for them to send a camera man and producer to the game to film the walkout and interview protesters. Of course, given that the Pirates have the second lowest home attendance in the NL, most of the Pirates fans are protesting already by staying away.

Barry Bonds led off the eighth inning last night with the Giants trailing 3-2. Hernandez pitched him well, but Bonds worked the count to 3-2. Pitch four had nice movement over inside corner; Barry swung and pulled it foul. Pitch five just missed the low outside corner. It was close enough that a player without Barry's reputation for selectivity might have been called out. But after five good pitches, number six was a curve ball that hung in the strike zone. Bonds' eyes lit up. His swing was so perfect you knew it was gone as soon as the ball left the bat. The ball landed back in the right-center seats, and the crowd went wild. No matter how fans feel in other parts of the country, it sure looked like unanimous support at AT & T park. Six more to pass Aaron.

Livan through three strikes in that at bat. The two tough ones Bonds fouled off. The phat one Bonds crushed. It was an impressive piece of hitting, and a great example of why Barry is the greatest hitter of his generation; he swings at strikes and takes the balls better than anyone.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

Vin Scully made a good point tonight. With Chris Young on the mound, the Dodgers are running wild. They've stolen four bases tonight, and on the season base stealers are 24 for 24 with Young on the mound. But has it made a difference? Yes, the Dodgers scored two runs, both after steals. But Young has only allowed three hits, and the steals did not produce big innings. But a Kouzmanoff three-run homer has the Padres up 5-2.

Young is doing nothing to shut down the running game, but his ERA after three innings today is 2.21. The opposition is hitting just .193 against him. There's no real reason for Young to care about the running game. If the people behind the base stealers don't get hits, there's little chance of the them scoring. It's interesting that runners are doing so well against Young, but it's more interesting that it doesn't seem to matter.

The Rockies lost their 8th in a row tonight. With two out in the bottom of the ninth, Lee walked and Lorreta homered to left field, allowing Houston to walk off with a 9-8 victory. The Rockies, looking like contenders after sweeping the Yankees, haven't won a game since. They've scored 45 runs in the eight games, so runs aren't the problem. The staff that held New York to five runs in three games appears to have disappeared.

The Yankees must be asking, "Why us?"

If the Phillies are the team to beat in the NL East, the Mets showed the league how it's done today. They waited on Cole Hamels, forcing him to throw 110 pitches in five innings, drawing five walks. Carlos Beltran hit two home runs off him (both solos) and the Mets scored three runs. They added two more off the bullpen on an Easley long ball.

In the meantime, Maine pitched eight efficient innings, allowing just one run while throwing 101 pitches. He didn't issue a walk while striking out six, picking up the win as the Mets took the game 5-2. On the day, the Mets hit five home runs, and the starting pitching allowed just three runs in fourteen innings. The Phillies fall to five games behind the Mets, and also lose 1 1/2 games to the Braves who defeated the Marlins 12-3.

With the score tied at two in the bottom of the ninth, Ronny Paulino leads off the Pittsburgh half with a single against the Nationals. He reaches third on a sacrifice and a wild pitch, at which point Castillo comes in to pinch run and McLouth steps up, having pinch hit for the pitcher earlier in the game. Now McLouth strikes out in about one quarter of his plate at bats and has a .294 career OBA. The Nationals decide to walk him to set up the double play. In his career with a man on third and less than two out, he's 3 for 15 with two sac flies and nine strikeouts. Why not take a chance striking him out? It seems the odds are a lot higher than his driving in the run.

But he walks, Doumit walks on a full count, then Bautista hits a sacrifice fly to win the game anyway. So the IBB led to a better player getting a chance to hit and drive in the winning run. I can't call the IBB wrong; it just seems that McLouth is a bad enough hitter that it's worth the risk to pitch to him in that situation.

The Athletics-Yankees game ended in a 2-1 New York victory. It's one of three tonight in the American League. The Indians took down the Devil Rays 2-1, and the Red Sox just finished off the Rangers 2-1. Edwin Jackson pitched his second fine game in a row for Tampa Bay, going six innings, allowing one run. Jake Westbrook also allowed just one run, but managed to pitch seven frames. It all came down to Ben Francisco leading off the ninth. Playing in his fifth game, he gets his first extra-base hit, a walk off home run to put the Indians back into first place. (The Tigers lost 11-1 to the Twins.)

Tim Wakefield didn't pitch all that well tonight, giving up seven hits and four walks in 6 2/3 innings, including three doubles. His defense helped him out with two double plays, but Tim was lucky to have the Rangers go 0 for 7 with runners in scoring position. Papelbon got into a little trouble with two out in the 9th as Lofton beat out an infield hit that looked like a tie as Jon covered first (he almost was thrown out arguing the play). After hitting a batter, Papelbon struck out Michael Young looking at a pretty knee high pitch. The Red Sox will at least maintain their lead in the AL East tonight.

After Mussina pitched seven very strong innings, allowing one run, Farnsworth gets two outs in the eighth but allows two hits. So with Jack Cust due up, Torre goes to Rivera for a four out save. Rivera struck out Cust and two others, and only allows a hit batter to reach. The Yankees win the game 2-1.

I remember at the start of the season hearing that Rivera wasn't going to be used before the ninth this year. That's obviously gone out the window. Since May 23rd, he's pitched like the Mariano Yankees fans know and love. He's picked up seven saves, four of them going four outs or more. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Correction: Farnsworth allowed two hits, not one.

The Washington-Pittsburgh game is 1-0 in the top of the seventh, and looking at the two lineups, I'm surprised even one run is scored. The only person on either team having a great year is Dmitri Young. The first three hitters in the Washington lineup have 2007 OBAs of .292, .330 and .293. The highest OBA in the Pittsburgh lineup is .353. Too pitiful clubs.

The Nationals lead 1-0 on a home run by Ryan Langerhans.

Joe Mauer comes to the plate in the top of the fifth with the bases loaded and hits a grand slam to put the Twins up 6-0. Verlander is wild tonight. All three of the base runners walked, and Justin allowed five in total but only three hits. Through four innings of work, Santana struck out three and walked none.

Verlander just gave up his fourth hit of the game, and it looks like he's not long for this game.

With the score 5-3 and one out in the bottom of the ninth, Soriano and Fontenot single to put runners on first and third for Derrek Lee.

Update: Lee hits a sacrifice fly to make it a one-run game, the kind the Cubs have been losing all year. It's up to Ramirez.

Update: Aramis Ramirez hits the first pitch from Cordero into the left-center bleachers for a 6-5 Cubs win. Chicago climbs to .500 and 6 1/2 games behind the Brewers.

Update: The Cubs bullpen did an outstanding job today. Hill was lifted for a pinch-hitter after three innings, so the relievers threw six shutout innings against the Brewers. They allowed three hits and two walks while striking out seven. Of course, it will help if Marshall can go deep in the game tomorrow.

Yovani Gallardo last six inning in his third major league start and once again pitches well. He walked two and struck out seven, allowing just two runs and leaving with a 5-2 lead. Gallardo's ERA now sits at a low 2.79. He's turning out to be a very nice mid-year addition to the rotation. He now has 19 strikeouts and 7 walks in 19 1/3 innings.

The Phillies score in the sixth, seventh and eighth to make it a one-run ballgame as they trail the Mets 6-5. Coste and Helms homered to help the comeback.

Update: Billy Wagner strikes out all three Phillies he faces. The 6-5 win means the Mets will come out of the weekend ahead of Philadelphia.

Correction: The above update was originally in the wrong post.

Carlos Delgado just picked up his third hit of the afternoon, a single to go along with a homer and a double. He hasn't hit a triple all year, so a cycle doesn't look like a good bet at this point.

Jose Reyes' home run this afternoon was his seventh at Citizen's Bank Park, tying Mike Lowell and Adam Dunn for most by a visitor at that yard. Jose has over twice as many at bats there as Dunn, however, and quite a bit more than Lowell.

The Brewers pick up just three hits in the first inning, but use a walk, hit batter and a three run homer to put five runs on the board. Hill threw 45 pitches in the first inning. Meanwhile, Gallardo retires the side in order.

The Cubs could really use a sweep this weekend to make the NL Central close again. They're off to a bad start.

Hot Dogs and Beer is keeping a watch on the Phillies as they approach 10,000 franchise losses.

The Mets are up 3-1 in the top of the third as balls are flying out of CBP again today. Delgado and Reyes homered for the Mets, with Carlos driving in two of the three runs. Rowand hit his eleventh for the Phillies, one short of his total from last year.

Charlie Manuel tries to upset El Duque by having the umpires examine Hernandez's hat for a foreign substance. There's a spot of rosin on the hat, and the umps give it back. We'll see if the mind game works.

J.D. Durbin gets off to a good start in this game, striking out the first three batters on fourteen pitches. That brings his ERA down to 37.80.

The Mets and Phillies open a four game series with a double header this afternoon and this evening. It's not every day a pitcher with a 94.50 ERA gets included in Games of the Day, but J.D. Durbin gets the start for the Phillies vs. Orlando Hernandez this afternoon. Durbin allowed seven runs in 2/3 of an inning in his only appearance this season. Durbin's had a long minor career, not bad but not great. But in his very short time in the majors he's simply been wild and hit hard, never a good combination.

The night cap might be the best matchup of the day as John Maine takes on Cole Hamels. Maine faced the Phillies twice this season, both times in New York, and came away with a 3.09 ERA. He did not get a decision in either outing as the Mets spilt the games with the Phillies. Hamels is tied for most HR in the NL with Woody Williams, and he's pretty evenly split the long balls home and road. With his low OBA allowed, however, most of those home runs have been solo shots.

The other candidate for best pitching matchup of the day goes to Minnesota at Detroit where Johan Santana faces Justin Verlander. I suspect there will be a few strikeouts in this game. The Twins are six games behind the first place Tigers, so this is a chance to gain some ground before the second half of the season starts. Johan walks fewer and strikeouts more per nine innings, but Verlander gives up fewer long balls, and hence the better ERA. Johan is 10-3 in his career against the Tigers, although for most of that career the Tigers weren't very good. He's 3-2 since the start of 2006.

And a big series starts on the west coast as the Padres visit the Dodgers. The team are separate by just .001 in the standings, with the Padres in first place. Tonight's matchup appears to favor San Diego as Chris Young visits Hong-Chih Kuo. Kuo's 6.33 ERA appears high for his stats. That's because opponents are hitting .400 against him with runners in scoring position. Young is tough to hit in any situation. Since joining the Padres at the start of the 2006 season, Chris has allowed a .201 batting average overall, and .180 with runners in scoring position.

Enjoy!

There's a great round up on the Biggio milestone at the Houston Chronicle. They provide plenty of links to stats and photos as well.

Chris Carpenter threw without pain the other day.

Now Milton Bradley is headed to San Diego. I guess the oblique healed. I suppose it's possible that by the end of the year Milton will have played for all five California teams. After all, how can he not get along with Mike Scioscia and Barry Bonds?

MLB Fanhouse is already handicapping the action in the Padres clubhouse:

It's the second great trade in the last couple of weeks for the Padres, as they acquired Michael Barrett earlier in the week to also help an anemic lineup. Now the challenge for the Padres is keeping these two men who have, shall we say, "tempers", in opposite ends of the locker room so they don't rip each other's hearts out. After all, Michael Barrett has had heavyweight bouts with A.J. Pierzynski and Carlos Zambrano, while Bradley has had verbal spats with Eric Wedge and Jeff Kent. So are these two in the same clubhouse a recipe for disaster?

Given the recent poor reporting on trades, I'll believe this one when it's announced.

Rays Index notes how the Devil Rays are a frustrating team to watch:

But as good as the Rays have looked this season, would you be surprised that after 76 games the Rays have the exact same record in 2007 that they had last year? They do.

We can see the greatness coming. But it is not here yet. And that folks is frustrating as hell.

They're good players are very good, but their bad players are very bad. The Rays need to get their bad players to mediocre so they have a chance of not undermining the strengths of the team.

Dejan Kovacevic wonders what's going on with Zach Duke. The Pirates lefty was lit up yesterday, and now holds a 5.79 ERA.

The Marlins lead Major League Baseball in strikeouts and, as they showed in losing the first two games of this series, see precious few pitches they do not like. Duke got ahead of five of those first seven batters and had a two-strike count to four of them. Of the latter, Ramirez, Miguel Cabrera and Brett Carroll got hits.

"I didn't give them a chance to chase anything," Duke said. "Especially when you're facing a young team and they swing like they do, I didn't expand the zone at all."

But even that, somehow, seems insufficient in explaining not only this outing but all 17 that have contributed to Duke's 3-7 record, 5.79 ERA, his 141 hits that are the most in Major League Baseball and that outrageous .364 opponents' batting average.

Duke is right about not expanding the strike zone. He's picked up just 33 strikeouts in 93 1/3 innings this season, 3.2 per 9 innings. No wonder his opponent's batting average is so high. Given Oliver Perez's similar success and decline with Pittsburgh (and his revival with the Mets), I have to wonder what the problem is with the Pirates coaching staff? Is it just a bad pitching coach? Who is calling the pitches for Duke? I'm interested in hearing Pirates fans take on this.

The Indians offense is doing a much better job this season of turning defeats into victories.

A huge difference between the Indians this year and last year is the ability to rally. Thursday marked their 23rd comeback victory in 78 games (46-32); they managed just 27 comebacks en route to a 78-84 finish in 2006.

The Tribe has a .369 OBA and a .497 slugging percentage when trailing in a game this season. Those are pretty good numbers for an every day player, let alone a team. In 2006 those numbers were .336 and .447.

It looks like the Yankees are not going to trade the future for a win this year:

The Yankees went 1-7 on the trip, and their record remains three games under .500, at 36-39. They have slipped so suddenly, and lost so soundly, they have begun to question the wisdom of seeking major help through a trade.

More and more, to Torre and the front office, there is a sense that the season cannot be saved unless the existing players produce as expected. They are not seeking to make any significant trades, even one for first baseman Mark Teixeira of the Texas Rangers.

The Yankees are no longer interested in trading for Teixeira, who is on the disabled list and will command a better offer than they will be willing to make.

The Yankees are leery of dipping into the depth they have built in their farm system to make a trade for short-term help. That explains their reluctance to jump at Los Angeles Angels first baseman Shea Hillenbrand, who was told he would be designated for assignment on Friday.

Well, that and Hillenbrand isn't a very good ballplayer. But this is the right move for the organization. Sometimes a team needs to take a step back in order to insure long term success. So they keep the prospects today for success tomorrow. And if the current team can come out of their offensive funk, they can still figure in the wild card race.

Yesterday, my good friend Jim Storer and I were discussing what the Yankees needed to do to make the playoffs. We figure at a minimum they need to reach 92 wins, a 56-29 record the rest of the way. That's a .644 winning percentage. I checked the last 50 season using the Day by Day Database, and from July 1 to the end of the season, there are 46 teams that played .644 or better. (That's 3.7% of the team seasons in that time.) Two of those were the 2002 and 2005 Yankees. The 2005 team is the best comparison, since they were just one game over .500 at the end of June (39-38) whereas the 2002 team played great all year.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

With the Rockies leading 5-4 in the bottom of the eleventh, Hunter Pence legs out the strangest double I've ever seen. With Biggio on first after his fifth hit of the game (3002 for this career), Pence hits a medium roller up the middle. Fuentes, the pitcher, reaches down to grab it, but it rolls under this glove. The second baseman and shortstop are confused by this, and each think the other one is going for the ball as it rolls by both into the outfield. Meanwhile, Pence is running hard all the way and reaches second for a double.

After a hit batter, Carlos Lee hits a high pop up that lands over the leftfield wall for a walk off grand slam. All this with two outs. An amazing finish and a nice end to Biggio's milestone game.

The Yankees-Orioles game was suspended with the Yankees batting in the top of the eighth with an 8-6 lead. No word yet on when it will be resumed.

Aaron Cook ends June on an up note, holding the Houston Astros to one run over seven innings. Roy Oswalt matched that, but the Houston bullpen came in and allowed three runs in the 8th. Cook came into the game with a 6.93 ERA in June, and allowed at least five runs in three of his four starts. He went a fine 4-1 in May, hasn't won in June. It's now up to the bullpen to get him the W.

Update: Hawkins gives up three runs on two homers, so Cook won't get the win. The game is tied at four in the top of the ninth.

Jimmy Rollins tied the game with a triple earlier, then in the tenth singles in the winning run to give the Phillies an 8-7 victory over the Reds. Philadelphia moves into sole possesion of second place in the NL East, three games behind the postponed Mets. The two NL East leaders meet tomorrow.

Craig Biggio picks up his third hit of the night to reach 3000 for his career. Two big milestones on the same day, much like August 4, 1985, when Tom Seaver reached 300 wins and Rod Carew reached 3000 hits. Congratulations to Craig on the milestone and an outstanding Hall of Fame career!

Now however, it's time to hang up the spikes. He's a shell of the hitter he used to be, with an OBA under .300. He's not helping the club, and it's time to go out on a high note and take a coaching or front office job.

The Reds and Phillies are going to the tenth tied at six, and the rain is really coming down in Philadelphia. Down I-95 in Baltimore, it's raining even harder, and the Yankees just took an 8-6 lead as Jeter drives in two with a single. They're putting the tarp on the field in Baltimore. Both games are in the situation where they would be suspended if they can't resume play.

Alex Gonzalez rediscovered the power he showed with the Marlins in 2003 and 2004. He just hit his thirteenth home run of the season to give the Reds a 7-6 lead over the Phillies as the teams go to the bottom of the 8th. It's the fifth home run of the game and the third for Cincinnati.

Update: It's starting to pour at CBP, and some guy sitting behind home plate is on his cell phone waving. An usher ran over and told him to stop. It's not like there's a ton of fans being bothered by the guy at this point.

Update: Rollins triples in the bottom of the eighth to drive in Nunez, and the Phillies tie the game at seven. It's the eleveth extra-base hit of the game.

Update: The broadcast just pointed out this is the fifth season that Rollins is in double figures in doubles, triples,home runs and stolen bases.

Scott Kazmir left tonight's game against the White Sox after 5 1/3 innings. He struck out nine batters, but used 114 pitches. In ten of his seventeen starts, Kazmir failed to pitch past the sixth inning. It's great to strike out tons of batters, but Kazmir won't become an ace until he can do it more efficiently and last though the seventh. He also allowed six hits and four runs, so the White Sox were 6 for 13 when they put the ball in play. He's a tough pitcher to make contact against, but he's easy to hit when a batter does make contact. Chicago leads 4-1. Konkerko and Iguchi both homered.

The balls are flying out of Citizens Bank Park tonight. Four long balls, two by Phillies and two by the Reds accounted for seven of the nine runs tonight. Dunn hit his 23rd, while Utley launched a pair, bringing his season total to 15. There have now been 114 home runs hit in the Phillies home park, passing GAB for the most in the majors. (They have played two more games in Philadelphia.)

Randy Johnson doesn't last long in his first start off the DL. He allows six hits and two walks as the Dodgers score four runs against him. Nippert doesn't do much better as he comes in and allows two more and the Dodgers are up 6-1 in the bottom of the fourth.

Daniel Cabrera retires the first eight Yankees to bring up Andy Phillips, playing first base tonight. Phillips hits like a first baseman, depositing a hanging pitch into the leftfield stands for a 1-0 Yankees lead. I still can't figure out why any team would play Cairo over Phillips at first base.

Update: Brian Roberts makes Wang pay for issuing a walk with a two run homer to put the Orioles on top 2-1 in the bottom of the third.

Sorry, I missed Frank Thomas' 500th home run earlier today. Congratulations to the Big Hurt on that milestone!

Update: Peter Schmuck notes that milestones aren't what they used to be.

The great hunt for round numbers has been going on since the game's Golden Age, and there was a time when fans from all over the major leagues would stop and express their collective awe at a 300th victory or a 500th home run.

That, of course, was before it happened every day.

Russ Martin hits a two run homer in the first inning to put the Dodgers up 2-0 on the DBacks. It was the seventh home run Randy Johnson allowed this season, all at Chase Field. So far, Johnson's not locating his pitches well in his first start off the DL.

Maury Brown looks at the groups in line to buy the Cubs.

The Marlins defeated the Pirates 9-7 this afternoon. It marks the 13th time this season Florida scored nine runs or more, the most times in the NL and tied for second in the majors with a number of American League teams. The Marlins rank third in the NL in Runs/Game at 4.86. Not bad for a team that was sold off a year and a half ago. They've developed a very good 1-5 lineup, and were smart enough to bunch their good hitters together. Now they need to get mature and heal their young pitchers.

The Twins offense put a win on Carlos Silva's stat sheet today. Silva allowed Toronto to get out to a 5-1 lead after the top of the third, but the Twins stormed back against A.J. Burnett to take a 7-5 lead after five innings. Gave up singles to the first two batters in the fifth, then Fasor came on to make sure those two and two more Twins scored. Silva held the Jays scoreless over his last four innings of work, and Minnesota took the game 8-5. The Blue Jays fail to gain on the idle Red Sox, while Minnesota keeps pace with Cleveland.

Kenny Rogers gives up the first run since the end of the 2006 regular season in the top of the sixth inning. Lofton doubled and moved up a base on two line drive outs. Still, Rogers is pitching another great game, keeping Texas off balance and inducing a high number of ground balls. The Tigers lead 3-1.

Update: Scott Feldman throws a ball behind Gary Sheffield's back, and a couple of pitches later Sheffield puts one over the left field fence for a 5-1 Tigers lead. That's the best way to get revenge for almost getting hit.

The Cleveland Indians take three out of four from the Oakland Athletics, hurting Oakland's wild card chances. The big blow was a Jason Michaels home run in the bottom of the seventh that turned a 3-1 Oakland lead into a 4-3 deficit. In the series, the Oakland bullpen allowed five home runs while facing only fifty batters. A home run every ten plate appearance will go a long way toward defeat.

Scott Olsen struck out the first five Pirates he faced today, with LaRoche ending the streak with a single. The Marlins are all over Duke, using an error and five hits in the first inning to take a 4-0 lead.

Some praise for Mike Hargrove's use of the bullpen at U.S.S. Mariner. The Mariners have a poor GM and not the greatest manager, but they are doing well this season. It's a short term team, but if your goal is to get to the playoffs now, that's okay.

This is the rare day when I'm not crazy about any of the games. My Rangers-Tigers comment holds up from yesterday, but the most important game of the day has to be Los Angeles at Arizona. The Diamondbacks need the game to earn a split of the four game series and stay ahead of the Dodgers. Randy Johnson comes off the DL to pitch. He's pitched well but not often. He's only averaging six inning per game, which means he's going to put pressure on the bullpen. He's also allowed all six of his home runs this season in Arizona. On the bright side, his strikeouts and walks are back to their former levels.

He'll face Randy Wolf. Wolf is interesting in that his high strikeout rate hasn't led to a low opposition batting average. That's especially true away from Dodger stadium. On the road in 2007, Wolf allowed 17 extra base hits versus 16 at home. That may not seem like a big difference, but there have been 100 fewer at bats against him on the road this season. We could have a bit of a slugfest on our hands this afternoon.

Enjoy!

The Indians are really doing a job on the Athletics pitching staff. The A's lead the American League with a 3.56 ERA, but over the last three games the Indians scored 20 runs. Oakland managed to get off to a 9-0 lead, but Cleveland managed to bring the score back to 11-7 after seven innings, a grand slam away from tying the game. Oakland won 13-7, but you get the feeling they need to score in double digits to have a chance against the Tribe. Cleveland has the second best offense in the majors. Here's a case where good pitching is not stopping good hitting.

Jacob Jackson makes a good case for some team hiring Paul DePodesta as their next GM. While I agree with that sentiment, I have two criticisms of the article:

1. Jacob gives Paul too much credit for being able to see into the future:

   The opt-out clause in Drew's contract was probably more calculated and smart than anyone gave DePodesta credit for at the time. Critics howled when Drew's off-season opt-out left the Dodgers devoid of a starting right fielder last winter. Given the condition of Drew's shoulder, the Dodgers should feel relieved to be freed from the final three years of their commitment to him. Who's to say that DePodesta didn't forsee milking two productive years out of Drew during his peak, after which Scott Boras could be assured of leading Drew out of the contract and onto another team's hands during his post-age-30 decline?

   He's not that smart.



2. DePodesta carries a huge negative, and that's his inability to deal with the press. LIke it or not, talking to the press is an important part of of the job. Paul needs to learn how to talk to reporters, or else he's going to be the guy in the background, coming up with great players to sign or acquire, but not the guy running things.

If a team can live with the bad press, DePodesta's your man. Most teams, however, want their organization portrayed in a positive light in a local newspaper. He'd have to go to a city with more sabermetrically oriented sports writers.

Wednesday's 2-0 Diamondbacks win over the Dodgers was a poorly pitched shutout. Webb allowed seven hits and walked five in his seven innings of work, and the bullpen gave up two hits and a walk as well. But the defense helped out a lot:

Defensively, there was Tracy's nifty double play in the fifth. There was Byrnes' recovery play in right field, when he misplayed a line drive but threw out Luis Gonzalez trying to turn it into a double. And there was Snyder's throw to third to cut down the lead runner on a Juan Pierre bunt in the seventh, a play Melvin called "enormous."

The Dodgers, too, showed some leather, nipping Drew at third base as he went for a triple on a Pierre to Furcal to Garciappara relay. However, the Dodgers were 0 for 13 with runners in scoring position, which doomed them to a shutout. Two hits in those situations and they probably win the game.

The Twins came up in the bottom of the ninth inning last night trailing 5-4 with Joe Mauer leading off the inning. Joe smacked a hard grounder up the middle, and off the bat I thought, "There's a hit." But as the camera turned to show the field, Royce Clayton was crouching in front of the ball, and made an easy play for an out. Clayton played Mauer perfectly, and what would be a single in many cases started a 1-2-3 inning for a Toronto victory.

The Blue Jays obviously did their homework. And of course, it's so easy to do today. Mauer seldom hits ground balls to the right of where Clayton was stationed. By positioning himself correctly, Royce Clayton is increasing his range without having to move a long distance for a ball. That's why, at some point, I'd love to get positioning information for players, so we can separate those player who can move long distances to get to balls vs. players who know where to stand before a ball is put in play.

With the win, the Blue Jays move over .500 and to 9 games behind Boston.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

The Braves are taking out all their offensive frustrations on the poor Nationals. After scoring ten runs in the first two games of the series combined, Atlanta just let loose tonight, scoring thirteen so far through seven innings. They only failed to score in the second. Escobar is four for five in the leadoff spot with four runs scored. Chipper picked up three hits and four RBI before being lifted. Francoeur and McCann combined for five hits and five RBI. Even John Smoltz collected a hit. And the Braves pitchers are tossing a shutout, combining for nine strikeouts so far.

Dobbs hits a long fly ball to right in the bottom of the eighth with the Reds leading 7-6. Griffey starts back for the ball, and he looks like he'll have it easily. But a thunderstorm is on the way, and the ball keeps getting blown back. It hits at the top of the wall at the top of the scoreboard, and Utley ends up with a triple. Then the heavens open and the game is being delayed. They are in the situation where the game would be suspended rather than called, since the Reds broke the tie in the top of the inning, and Philadelphia gets a chance to come back.

Correction: It was Dobbs, not Utley who tripled. Dobbs was left at third and the Reds won 9-6.

Derek Lowe walks two batters and is the victim of an error as the Diamondbacks take an early 1-0 lead without the benefit of a hit. After the two walks, Loney's error loaded the bases and a sacrifice fly plated the run. The Diamondbacks need the win to jump ahead of the Dodgers.

The Reds are such a free swinging team, even Jamie Moyer can strike them out. He downed nine Reds on strikes tonight. It's only the twelfth time in his career Moyer reached the nine strikeout mark, and the first time since 7/28/2004.

However, Moyer might have worn himself out as he loaded the bases to start the sixth. The bullpen couldn't get the job done as the Reds score six runs in the inning to take a 6-3 lead over the Phillies. The Phillies chase Harang with a run in the bottom of the inning, and they're still batting trailing 6-4.

Update: The Phillies come back to tie it in the bottom of the sixth, and they're still batting.

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

Roger Clemens pitched five shutout innings against the Orioles tonight, but he wasn't sharp. He allowed just three hits, but he walked two without striking out a batter. He shouldn't have come out for the sixth. The first four batters reached, with the last being a three run homer by Aubrey Huff. Clemens gave up a total of four hits and one walk in the inning, and still hasn't struck out a batter.

Meanwhile, Bedard is also pitching a shutout. He's allowed just two hits and one walk and struck out seven so far. And now the Orioles have given him a lead he can hold.

Update: The Orioles win 4-0 and the Yankees losing streak goes to four. With the Red Sox getting swept in Seattle, the Yankees are blowing a golden opportunity to gain on Boston.

The Baseball Musings Radio Show is coming up in a little while at 8 PM EDT. You can leave questions during the show in the TPSRadio Chat Room. I really recommend you stop by the chat room. Lots of people make for a lively discussion and helps me with the show.

Matt Cain has to wonder if he's ever going to win another game. He pitched seven and two thirds strong innings today, allowing just two runs while striking out seven. But Greg Maddux allowed just one run, and picked up the win in the 4-2 Padres victory. Cain's ERA is 3.38 and his opposition batting average stands at .227. He deserves much better than that record.

Jered Weaver out-pitched Royals starter Jorge de la Rosa in almost every aspect of the game today. Weaver pitched more innings, allowed fewer hits, and struck out more batters. But he allowed one run and de la Rosa didn't. Despite ten hits and one walk in six innings of work, LAnaheim could not score of the Royals lefty.

And while Jorge got away with giving up a lot of hits, the Royals bullpen didn't give any ground. Three relievers pitched an inning, each retiring the side in order as they struck out four combined. They needed to be that good as the one run was all the Royals would get today, and they send the Angels to defeat 1-0. It's only the fourth time the Angels suffered a shutout this season.

Correction: Fourth shutout against the Angels, not the third.

The Cubs won their sixth game in a row today, defeating the Rockies 6-4. Zambrano pitched well again, striking out eight batters in six inning and allowing just two runs. Unfortunately for the Cubs, the Brewers won five of their last six and eight of their last nine. The story of the Cubs season is bad timing, and they've gained very little with this streak at this time.

It's unusual to see both a hitter and a fielder not hustle on the same play. With the score tied at three in the bottom of the eleventh, Bill Hall of the Brewers launches a long fly to right. Hall admired it, started jogging toward first, and then the ball hit at the bottom of the wall. Bill then starts running hard.

The ball then bounces to Carlos Lee, who throws an easy toss to second that just misses catching Hall sliding into the base. With a little mustard, the throw gets the runner easily. Houston now has runners on first and second with one out.

Update: Miller hits his first home run of the year to clear the bases and give Milwaukee a 6-3 win over the Astros. Whatever hope the Astros had of staying the the NL Central race faded in this series. They are now in fifth place, 14 games behind Milwaukee.

Khalil Greene certainly did not live up to the promise of his 2004 season. In his first full season, he posted an OBA of .349 and a slugging percentage of .446. It was something a 24 year old could build on. That hasn't happened. In 2005 and 2006, his OBAs were much lower, although he did maintain his power, hitting fifteen home runs all three years.

In 2007, he batting average and OBA are the lowest they've been in his career, but he's picked up his power. He hit his fifteenth home run of the season to tie the Giants at one this afternoon. He's not getting hits often, but he's already exceeded his triples total from last year and is very likely to exceed his doubles and home runs total as well. He's become a player that works at the end of a rally, supplying power to drive runners around. Just don't ask him to start one.

The Baseball Musings radio show will be on TPSRadio tonight at 8 PM EDT. Check out TPSRadio's other sports programming as well.

Feel free to leave a question in the comments to this post or during the show in the TPSRadio chat room and I'll be happy to answer it on the air.

Radar Magazine has the scoop on two new baseball films to be directed by Penny Marshall. All those years as secretary to Oscar Madison really paid off. :-)

Mark DeRosa picked up half the Cubs hits today and figured in all of their runs as Chicago leads Colorado 4-0 in the bottom of the fourth inning. Mark doubled in the second and scored, then hit a three-run homer in the third. Zambrano has struck out six through the first four innings.

For Baseball Prospectus subscribers, my latest column explores the idea of competitive revenue sharing.

A bit of rain in the Detroit area delayed the start of the Rangers/Tigers game.

Update: This game was postponed.

SportsAgentBlog.com notes that the shorter window for drafted players to sign may be one of the reasons bonuses are lower this season.

Kenny Rogers faces his replacement, Kevin Millwood, as the Rangers try to make it three out of three against the Tigers. Rogers hasn't allowed a run since his last appearence of 2006. He's gone through the post season and his first start of 2007 with nary a run allowed. Kevin Millwood doesn't have that problem. With lefties slugging a convenience store against him (.711) Millwood allows plenty of runs.

San Diego and San Francisco are set up for another close game as Greg Maddux takes on Matt Cain. Maddux is not effective on the road this season, posting a 4.89 ERA away from San Diego. Matt Cain is one of the big hard-luck pitchers of 2007. The Giants have lost nine games this season in which Cain allowed three runs or less.

The Dodgers took the first two games of their series with Arizona to lead the NL West, but the Diamondbacks can move trade places with the Dodgers with a win. Brandon Webb gets the call as he tries to defeat Derek Lowe. Lowe does an excellent job of keeping the bases empty as he's allowed a .266 OBA with no one on. The Dodgers might want to stack their lineup with lefties as seven of the eight home runs hit off Webb came off left-handed bats.

Enjoy!

The White Sox appear to be keeping Mark Buehrle:

Right when the trade talks were heating up for LHP Mark Buehrle, the White Sox found seller's remorse. Call it a reality check. Last winter the Sox started putting themselves in position to rebuild the rotation, dealing Freddy Garcia to Philadelphia for Gavin Floyd and Gio Gonzalez. Then the Sox sent one of their own young arms, Brandon McCarthy, to Texas for pitchers John Danks, already in the rotation, and Nick Massett, already in the bullpen.

So the Sox came to the reality that before they did anything rash they needed to reassess Buehrle's status in Chicago, and reopen talks. While he turned down a three-year, $30 million extension a year ago the reality set in that if he is really serious about a five-year, $75 million deal, similar to what Roy Oswalt got in Houston, the Sox at least owed him a serious conversation.

This makes sense to me. Good starting pitching is tough to come by. Why trade away your best pitcher when you can get pretty good value for your second line pitching? We'll see if they can actually make a deal, but this is the right move for the White Sox.

River Ave. Blues wants to see Robinson Cano go back to hacking at everything, rather than trying to be patient. His argument is that Cano is just not a patient hitter, so why try to make him one?

I'll just point out that Robinson is a player who's value lies heavily in his batting average, and batting averages can vary quite a bit from year to year. So if you assume for a moment that Cano is a .300 hitter, years he hits .330 are going to be great, and years he hits .270 are going to be awful. Compare that to Rickey Henderson, for example. Since Rickey had a number of weapons in his arsenal, his low batting average years were often very good seasons, since he could make up for the lack of hits by drawing more walks. From 1989 to 1997, Rickey's batting averaged varied from a low of .241 to a high of .325, but he maintained a .400 OBA in each of those years (low .400, high .439). It didn't matter what Rickey hit. It matters greatly for Cano.

Lion in Oil interviews Keith Law, formerly of the Blue Jays and currently of ESPN. Here's his view of the biggest problems in baseball:

I've never thought steroids were that big of an issue, and as a fan, I really don't give a Juan Pierre whether or not these guys used steroids or HGH or horse tranquilizers or whatever. The steroid "scandal" is about 90% media sanctimony, and I guess the only good thing there is that it gives me another point on which to rail on the mainstream sports media.

The two biggest issues in baseball to me are the seemingly intractable problem of pitcher injuries, and the totally tractable problem of penurious owners. The first one is a serious issue, because we're getting to the point where pitchers - particularly young ones - are almost treated like disposable assets, and we're seeing ridiculous contracts handed out to pitchers who have mediocre but existing track records because of the shortage (perceived or real) of pitching.

The skinflint owners, on the other hand, represent an easily fixable problem. The revenue-sharing system, as it is, is asinine, because it penalizes teams that run their businesses properly and rewards teams that run them poorly or that run them on the cheap. Competitive balance is innate to baseball, in my opinion, as long as you don't have owners who are draining the profits out of their teams each year rather than reinvesting in the product. This is their legal right as owners, but it's bad for the game.

J.J. Putz retired the last five Red Sox batters of the game to pick up his twenty second save of the season. It was the sixth time this year Putz pitched more than one inning to earn a save. Only David Weathers with seven has more long saves than J.J.

No one else is really close. Embree, Rivera, Gregg and Janssen all have three. (Janssen is a middle reliever who sometimes finishes games.) Putz came into a tough situation last night with runners at first and third and one out. He did allow a sacrifice fly to cut Seattle's lead to one, but he could afford to trade the out for the run. Note, too that George Sherrill came in one batter earlier to get the lefty, and responded by striking out Big Papi. He doesn't get a save, but that was a big strikeout in a pressure situation.

The starters in Arizona pitched poorly Tuesday night. Both Billingsley and Gonzalez lasted just four innings, allowing five runs each. But the relievers were magnificent. The two groups kept each side scoreless into the tenth. The Dodgers relievers allowed just four hits and no walks as they struck out six in their six innings of work. The Diamondbacks were not as sharp, but despite five hits and three walks in their first five innings of work, they kept the Dodgers off the scoreboard.

In the top of the tenth, however, Doug Slaten made a mistake:

He left a 1-1 change-up high over the plate, and Abreu clobbered it, the 11th hit and third homer Slaten has given up to a right-handed hitter this season. Righties are hitting .333 against him.

"I put it right there on a tee for him to hit," Slaten said of Abreu's home run. "He took advantage of it."

That was Tony Abreu's first career home run, the second player last night to have his first home run win a game in extra innings.

The loss moves Arizona from first to third in the NL West as the Padres use three solo shots to defeat the Giants 3-2. Kouzmanoff delivered the extra-inning home run in that game.

A true slugfest took place in Milwaukee last night as the Astros and Brewers combined for seven home runs. The Astros launched four of them, still lost 11-5. Three of the four Houston space shots came with the bases empty as the four blasts accounted for all five runs. Meanwhile, all three Brewers homers came with men on base, including a grand slam by Estrada. The three shots produced eight runs.

The Brewers are now 29-13 at home, the best home record in the NL by five games. Only the Angels at 29-12 have a better record in the majors.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

The Baseball Zealot writes:

Braves reporter Mark Bowman mentioned Baseball Musings when interviewed by MLB.com

http://dds.mlb.com/2007/daily/062607_mlbr.mp3

I think he was referring to the Day by Day Database.

His interview is toward the end.

The interview with Bowman starts around 27 minutes into the show. The blog mention happens at about 32:50. Thanks Mark!

Kenny Williams threat to bring about some changes seemed to wake up the White Sox tonight. They collected twelve hits and six runs against the Devil Rays while holding Tampa Bay to a single tally. They've scored eleven runs in their last two games while allowing five.

Brendan Ryan hit his first home run for the Cardinals, and made it count. He led off the eleventh inning of a 3-3 tie with his first shot to provide the game winning RBI. Brenden was off to a shaky start, going just three for nineteen in his first seven games. But he picked up three hits and a walk tonight to raise his batting average to .261 and his OBA to .320. The Cardinals defeated the Mets 5-3.

The movie Cold Turkey is a guilty pleasure of mine. It's not a great film, but there's a lot in there that makes me laugh. A town tries to give up smoking for a month to collect a huge prize. One of the citizens, Dr. Proctor refuses to quite and the towns people force him to leave for the duration of the contest.

I'm sure there are Yankees fans wishing Scott Proctor left tonight's game before the contest was over. Proctor pitched the ninth in a 2-2 tie. He allowed one hit and three walks, the third one forcing in the winning run. The bullpen was worked hard on the western trip, but the Yankees did not play yesterday. If your pitcher is throwing more balls that strikes with the game on the line, isn't it time to bring in someone else?

Travis Hafner delivers for the Indians in the bottom of the ninth. With men on first and second and two out, Hafner drives the ball into the wall in right-center, plating both runners and tying the Athletics at five.

Update: After an intentional walk, Shoppach does Hafner one better by homering to give the Indians an 8-5 victory. Embree gives up five runs in the ninth after giving up two in the ninth yesterday. The Indians move into a tie with the Tigers for first in the AL Central as Detroit loses 9-6 to Texas.

Shaun Marcum and Scott Baker are matching shutouts so far tonight, but the two are going about it in very different ways. Baker is blowing batters away. Through seven innings, he's struck out nine without walking a batter. And with just 81 pitches thrown, he's looking good for a complete game.

Marcum is using his defense. Through 6 1/3 innings, he 's struck out one and walked one, but twenty batters put the ball in play. Only three of those turned into hits, however. Baker also allowed just three hits so far, but with only 14 balls in play.

Update: The balls in play finally get to Marcum as a walk and two hits in the bottom of the seventh put the Twins up 1-0.

Update: The team are in extra innings tied at one. So far, the bullpens combined to allow two hits so far in over 8 innings of work.

If you haven't seen the future, watch here.

Homer Bailey is getting knocked around in Philadelphia. The Phillies lead the Reds 6-0 in the bottom of the second, and Bailey is out of the game. Ryan Howard, however, hits the first homer off Homer.

Jacque Jones appears to be going to Florida, but the deal hit a snag:

Jones, 31, has been traded, according to the Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, but the deal has hit a "major snag," a major-league source told FOXSports.com. As of 6:20 p.m. ET, the Cubs had yet to inform Jones that he had been dealt, another source said.

The snag likely involves money -- Jones is earning $4 million this season and $5 million next season. The low-revenue Marlins almost certainly would require the high-revenue Cubs to pay the majority of Jones' remaining salary as part of the deal.

Stay tuned. However, I don't really see how a player with a .623 OPS helps the Marlins. The current group Florida uses in center isn't good, but they're better than that.

Dan Lewis suggests the Mets go to a six man rotation when Pedro returns. I'd rather see teams working toward fewer pitchers in general, not more. But if you have a bunch of old arms, maybe it's a good idea.

The MLBPA is crying foul on signing bonuses, bringing up collusion:

MLB may be colluding to keep signing bonuses for amateur draft players down, according to a report by the Sports Business Journal.

SBJ is reporting that the MLBPA is investigating whether the league is threatening clubs with keeping signing bonuses down to a league-mandated level. Signing bonuses for amateur draft players are down approx. 10 percent lower than last season.

With revenue up, and free agent prices up, I would expect signing bonuses to be up as well. The problem is you never know when teams collectively decide that money is better spent on a proven player who is a free agent rather than a draft choice who may or may not work out. Still, my guess that crying collusion will be enough to scare MLB into making sure that it's not happening.

Seven pitchers aged 40 or older will start Wednesday.

The Yankees return from the west coast not to Yankee Stadium but Camden Yards as Andy Pettitte faces Jeremy Guthrie. Pettitte is the poster child for the Yankees bad luck this season as he's one game under .500 despite the offense scoring 63 runs for him while he's allowed 41. Guthrie is only 4-1 despite a 2.42 ERA mostly due to bullpen failure and a lack of support. Lefties hit him better than righties, although still not well, which should give Yankees a bit of an advantage.

The Athletics have three more games against the Indians in this series, and they'll need to win all three if they are going to gain on Cleveland for the wild card. The matchup tonight favors the A's as league leader Dan Haren faces the disappointing Cliff Lee. Haren is pitching great, but as his FIP shows, he's greatly outperforming his stats. Cliff Lee has the reverse platoon working in full force. Left-handed batters are slugging .612 against the south paw.

Rodrigo Lopez tries to maintain his perfect record against Ted Lilly and the Cubs. This is only Lopez's third road start, but his ERA drops over a run away from Coors. Lilly's home ERA is almost 2 1/2 runs lower than on the road.

Out west, Felix Hernandez comes off his first well pitched game since hitting the disabled list. He pitched a complete game on-hitter against the Red Sox at Fenway in April, and Boston is arriving just in time to catch the second wave of King Felix. He'll face Kason Gabbard who hopes to keep rolling along on the same path as his first emergency start. He's filling in for Schilling right now. Back on May 20, he pitched five innings against the Braves, striking out seven and walking one. This could easily be the matchup of the evening.

Enjoy!

Brew Crew Ball notes a minor league perfect game last night.

The Dodgers are going to move James Loney to first base, but they're going about it the wrong way:

Nomar Garciaparra is moving across the diamond.

After spending the past season and a half as the Los Angeles Dodgers' first baseman, Garciaparra will move to third base, perhaps as early as Friday.
"We're trying to get ourselves in a position where we can be the best we can be, and that option right now is there for us," manager Grady Little said Monday. "Nomar's 100 percent on board. He's been over there before. It's not a strange place for him."

It opens up a chance for streaking James Loney to play first base. Loney is hitting .429 since being recalled from the minor leagues June 10.

"This has a lot to do with the way James Loney is swinging the bat and the way he's playing, too," Little said. "The primary factor is to try to help us win games. And we feel like this is a move we want to give a shot at right now."

This is, of course, why Little was fired by the Red Sox. Nomar has an OBA of .316 and a slugging percentage of .332. Betemit OBA is higher than Nomar's slugging percentage; he's posting a .333 OBA and a .438 slugging percentage. So why is Nomar moving to third? Nomar's batting average is .275, Betemit .198. This would not happen if DePodesta was still the GM. Benching Nomar for Loney is the only move the Dodgers need to make. Betemit draws enough walks that he's okay OBA wise, and when he hits the ball it goes a long way. Some smart GM will snap up Wilson in a trade.

The Giants defeated the Padres in extra-innings last night, and Kevin Towers expects them to climb back into the race. The Giants are nine game under .500, despite scoring 315 runs and allowing .316. Look at the number of teams that are four wins or more below their projected total:

• Yankees
• Orioles
• Cubs
• Reds
• Padres
• Giants

The teams that many games above are the Nationals, Cardinals and Diamondbacks. There appears the bad luck is more concentrated than the good luck this year.

Brad Penny entered last night's game second in the NL in ERA to San Diego's Chris Young, 2.08 to 2.12. Penny passed Young last night, throwing eight innings on one-run ball against the Diamondbacks to lower his mark to 2.04. (Arizona's Chris Young drove in the only run of the night for the Diamondbacks.) This was Penny's longest outing in terms of innings all season. Through 6/3/2007 he averaged 6 1/3 innings per start with a 2.37 ERA. In four starts since he's averaged 7 1/3 innings, with a 1.21 ERA. The careful use of Penny early in the season appears to be paying off as the season progresses.

Did Julian Taverez's hamstring cost the Red Sox the game last night?

Tavarez held Seattle to two hits - Richie Sexson's double and Ben Broussard's RBI single - through four innings. But as he finished striking out Jose Vidro in the fourth - his only strikeout of the game - Tavarez stumbled off the mound awkwardly.

Eight of his next nine pitches were balls. And in the next 1 1-3 innings, Tavarez allowed five runs and four hits with three walks.

"It hurt a little bit, you know, my hamstring," Tavarez said. "But ... it didn't affect me at all. Things just went wrong."

Sure. Meanwhile, Jeff Weaver didn't pitch great, but he held on long enough to get the win. He used a lot of pitches to get through 5 2/3 innings, throwing 104 to twenty seven batters. The Red Sox had their chances, but only scored two runs. Seattle takes the game 9-4 and picks up a game on the Angels.

In his first thirteen games this season, John Lackey hit three batters. In his last three starts, he's hit five. He plunked two Royals last night, but otherwise pitched well, striking out seven and walking one. I wonder if batters are trying to crowd the plate more against John lately? His undoing was the defense however, as a Napoli error led to two unearned runs.

That would be all John Thomson needed to pick up a win in his 2007 debut. The Angels, the ultimate contact team, had every batter put the ball in play against Thomson last night. Twenty six batters faced him, but with all those bats on balls, only six managed hits. Thomson allowed just three runs, two earned over seven innings. I don't expect a zero K total to be effective over the rest of the season, however.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

The Colorado Rockies scored six runs in the top of the ninth inning to comeback from an 8-3 deficit to a 9-8 lead. Matsui started the inning with a walk, and five batters later Tulowitzki's three run homer put the Rockies on top. But Matsui wound up the goat. With two outs in the ninth, he committed an error that loaded the bases, and Soriano singled in two to win the game for the Cubs. Kaz giveth, and Kaz taketh away.

The Cubs have won six of their last eight one-run games, and are now 9-15 on the season.

The Toronto Blue Jays smacked three home runs tonight on their way to defeating the Twins 8-5. Matt Stairs broke a 5-5 tie in the eighth with a two run shot. The three dingers moved the Blue Jays into sole possession of second place in the AL team home run race with 93. However, what was different tonight is that two of the three homers came with men on base. Coming into tonight, they ranked 12th in the AL in percentage of home runs with men on base at 39%.

John Danks was a bit wild tonight, walking four batters in five innings and allowing four Tampa Bay runs. But the White Sox bullpen was close to perfect, pitching for scoreless inning, allowing one hit and one walk. That was enough for the White Sox to turn a 4-3 deficit into a 5-4 win. It's been a rough year for the bullpen, coming into tonight's game with a WHIP of 1.72 and a 5.93 ERA. They earned the win tonight, however.

Prince Fielder hit his NL leading 27th home run of the season, helping the Brewers to a 6-1 win over the Houston Astros. He remains on a pace to finish with a total in the high fifties. That would set a Brewers record by a wide margin. Richie Sexson twice hit 45 homers in a season, matching the total by Gorman Thomas. When he gets to 34, he'll be in the top ten. Eddie Mathews holds the Milwaukee record with 47 in 1953.

Shawn Green blasts the ball to the scoreboard in right center in the bottom of the eleventh to give the Mets a 2-1 win over the Cardinals. It was only the third hit of the night for the Mets, but the second home run. That's what I call efficient hitting!

New Cardinal Mike Maroth allowed just two hits through 7 1/3 innings, including a solo home run by Gomez. Sosa and the Mets bullpen matched him, however, as poor run support doomed Mike's premier. The Cardinals scored one run or less in three of their last four games.

Jeremy Bonderman loses his first game of the season. He walked four tonight, which was just the second time this season he walked more than two in a start. When he walked five earlier this year, Jeremy pitched eight shutout innings.

The Tigers have to hope this isn't the start of another streak. Bonderman started the season with five no decisions, then followed with eight straight wins. The Fibonacci series says he'll lose thirteen straight next. :-)

The Oakland Athletics got off to a good start against C.C. Sabathia tonight, knocking out six hits and scoring two runs over the first two innings. But Sabathia settled down, allowing three hits the rest of the way as Cleveland came back to win the game 5-2. C.C. showed his great control again, walking none while striking out eight (although he did hit a batter). He lowers his walks per 9 innings to 1.25

The Atlanta Braves pick up a run in the bottom of the fourth to break a 0-0 tie and a 17 innings scoreless streak. McCann picks up his first hit in a long while to plate the run. It was their first hit with runners in scoring position in twenty five at bats during the last six games.

Update: The Braves win 4-1. Hudson pitches seven strong innings, striking out nine and walking none. McCann comes out of his slump, going two for three with a homer and driving in all four runs.

On Baseball and the Reds looks at how various workloads affect Bronson Arroyo and Aaron Harang.

Craig Biggio enters tonight's game at 2996 hits. That means he can hit the 3000 hit mark in any game, so keep your eyes open! I still wonder how soon after his 3000th hit the Astros bench him. A .279 OBA is just abysmal.

The hospital released Justin Morneau today.

According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Twins GM Terry Ryan isn't going to make a roster move "until our people [doctors] have a chance to get together with Justin, and we find out how sore he is. If we're fortunate here, we could have Justin back in a couple of days."

The Feed looks at the best of the next generation of players by position.

Mike's Baseball Rants reviews the 2007 edition of interleague play. Five of the top six and nine of the top eleven winning percentages belonged to AL teams.

This post at Athletics Nation makes it sound like Oakland developed a glut of left-handed talent at first base. I wonder if Brian Cashman is calling Beane?

Chad Gaudin was running second to his teammate Dan Haren until he ran into the Astros and Reds in consecutive starts. He's allowed nine runs in his last eleven innings to raise his ERA from 2.43 to 3.05. He'll face good offense and a good mound opponent as he takes on the Indians and C.C. Sabathia. At age 26, C.C. is having his best year in terms of walks allowed. His BB per 9 this season is 1.35 vs. a career mark 3.13.

Jason Bergmann gets to improve his ERA against the hapless Atlanta Braves offense. He's done well against them so far this season with a 1-0 record and a 0.64 ERA in two starts. He's struck out eighteen Braves in just fourteen innings of work. Tim Hudson as the exact same ERA against the Nationals, but he's stuck out eleven in his 14 innings of work. He may need to pitch a shutout tonight to win.

The Astros and Brewers sport opposite records, but if Houston is going to climb back into the NL Central race, tonight's a good night to start. Jason Jennings faces Ben Sheets. Jennings walks a batter once every four innings, but allowed a home run every eight. He'll be on the road tonight, however, where he hasn't allowed a long ball all season. Sheets is keeping runners off base. He's only been in one bases loaded situation all season, and that resulted in a HBP.

The Dodgers trail the Diamondbacks by 1 1/2 games as Los Angeles visits Phoenix for a four game series. Brad Penny gets first crack at the DBacks lineup as he faces Micah Owings. Penny's control keeps getting better every month. In June, he's walked just three in 27 2/3 innings. Despite giving up all five of his home runs at home, Owings' ERA is almost two runs better in Arizona.

Enjoy!

This has nothing to do with baseball, but I turned on ESPN2's coverage of Wimbledon, and the camera angle is awful. You can't see the baseline at the bottom of the screen, partly because it's obscured by the Bottom Line 2, but mostly because the camera needs to pan down. To give ESPN the benefit of the doubt, it's probably a fixed camera, rather than one they can control. But you would think they'd ask someone to change the angle.

Fortune looks at the likely buyer for the Cubs, John Canning Jr.

For those who spend more time perusing box scores than M&A deal books, Canning, 62, heads the Chicago-based private-equity firm behind last month's $5.7 billion purchase of Nuveen Investments and the recent $7.3 billion buyout of computer retailer CDW Corp. (Charts, Fortune 500) Any deal for the Cubbies, however, would be led by Canning personally, not Madison Dearborn.

In Selig's mind, Canning has three things going for him. He has deep pockets to buy the team, he has Chicago roots, and, as part owner of the Milwaukee Brewers (he'd have to sell that stake), he's already a familiar face to the league's owners. He's also a big fan: Before becoming a private-equity mogul, he was a young catcher who failed in a 1962 tryout with the Atlanta Braves.

"I have enormous respect for John Canning, both as a person and as a businessman. But it's a process that will be fair and open," says Selig. "The Cubs are one of our treasures. It's a storied franchise with legions of fans all over. The only thing I would hope for is an owner who is very protective of the franchise and represents the city of Chicago well."

Including the stadium and the cable network and the bidding process for a publicly held company, the deal is likely to reach $1 billion. That's pretty good for a team that hasn't won a World Series in almost 100 seasons. If nothing else, the Tribune is going to make a tidy profit on their quarter century investment in the Cubs.

The Day by Day Database provides a breakdown of the Braves by situation during their five game slump. Some things to note:

• The Braves are 0 for 23 with one walk with runners in scoring position. The 95% confidence interval for a team with a .262 batting average is 2 to 10 hits. The probability of 0 hits is .0009. It's tough to get significant data with a sample size that small, but the Braves managed the feat.
• The 95% confidence interval for 153 at bats ranges from 30 to 51 hits. The Braves collected 23. This is another reason to think this just isn't bad luck, but something fundamentally wrong with the team.
• The team is batting .195 when not striking out. The balls they put in play are very easy to field.
• Number one hitters own a .400 OBA. No other batting lineup slot is at .300 or above.
• The Braves hit lefties and righties equally poorly, with a .212 OBA against each.

Looking at the individual players, Chipper Jones is obviously missed. But have you ever seen so many hitters go into a slump at once? McCann is 0 for 14. Andruw Jones went 1 for 12. Even Chipper, who accounted for the only run, is just 3 for 13.

I'm not sure how Bobby Cox can fix this. You can't bench the whole team. Do you send McCann, Francouer and Thorman back to the minors just to send a message? With the way Andruw Jones is hitting, he's not exactly trade bait at the moment. Maybe the can get better against Washington, but at least they were able to average four runs a game against the Tigers.

The Israel Baseball League kicked off its inaugural season.

There's a new web site honoring Hank Aaron and raising money for worthy causes. Check it out at We Know Better.

Joe Christensen keeps us up to date on Justin Morneau's condition:

Twins first baseman Justin Morneau will remain in the hospital for a third straight night tonight, while being monitored for a bruised right lung.

General Manager Terry Ryan said tonight that Morneau had a second chest X-Ray taken today, and once again, it showed no broken bones. But the doctors are taking no chances after Morneau coughed up blood Friday. Ryan said Morneau probably would be released from the hospital Monday and cleared to fly home.

"They don't want to have any complications when he gets on an airplane," Ryan said. "They're thinking probably tomorrow. They didn't want him to go today. They wanted to make sure everything is in order so there's no possibility of complications."

I thought two days of recovery time sounded optimistic.

Kenny Williams is ready to wheel and deal:

Last week, Williams said he would hold off on making trades because there was a chance his underachieving club might show some life, and players who have struggled might pick it up once some injuries healed.

But after watching the White Sox score only two total runs in consecutive losses to the crosstown rival Chicago Cubs, Williams is ready to shake things up.

"Something's got to happen. I'm tired of watching this," he said Sunday. "Change needs to happen and change is going to happen. When that happens, I don't know."

The big rumor revolves around Buehrle going to the the Red Sox. I'm not sure I understand that deal. I would think the White Sox would trade Mark for long term interests, for prospects. The front office of Boston is trying to balance winning with building a strong farm system. Given that the Red Sox have the third best ERA in the majors, trading prospects to improve a strength doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me. If they were getting a great centerfielder or shortstop, I could see them pulling the trigger. I would guess competition for Buehrle would be strong, so the Red Sox would need to pay a high price.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

Ken Griffey, Jr. would like to finish his career in Seattle.

Chris Sampson pitches a good game for the Astros, allowing three runs in seven innings and leaving with a 7-3 lead. But the Astros bullpen gives up four runs in the eighth inning to strip Sampson of a possible victory. The bullpen is doing a great job of striking out batters, better than nine per nine innings. But for all those strikeouts, they are giving up a lot of hits, more than nine per inning. It strikes me that the bullpen may not be all at fault here; the defense may be giving up some of those hits.

Update: Pence doubles to lead off the ninth. Berkman walks and after a flyout, Loretta doubles to drive both in and give the Astros a 9-7 lead.

Update: Byrd and Kinsler homer in the bottom of the ninth to tie the game and send it into extra innings. How many leads can this bullpen blow?

Update: Houston scores three in the top of the 10th, and Qualls holds the Rangers scoreless in the bottom of the inning for the 12-9 wins. It was a bit more difficult than it needed to be, but the Astros walk away with the W.

The Braves offense continues to sputter as they suffer their fourth shutout in five games. In scoring one run over that span, they've hit just .150, 23 for 153. More on this tomorrow.

The Arizona Diamondbacks moved into first place today with an 8-3 win over the Orioles. The DBacks came into the game having scored and allowed 314 runs, making them appear to be more of a .500 team than one that's eleven games over .500 (they must be collecting some of the luck the Cubs and Yankees are losing this season). Arizona's won 17 of 25 one-run games this season, accounting for most of their standing above .500.

Hunter Pence came into tonight's game seventeen plate appearances short of qualifying for the NL leader boards. With two hits and a home run tonight, Pence is hitting .348 with a .603 slugging percentage. Those numbers would rank him third in each cateogry. He should gain at least one PA per game, so by the middle of July we should start seeing him among the league leaders. The Astros are up 7-3 in the fifth inning over the Rangers.

The Red Sox forced Jake Peavy to throw 111 pitches in five innings today. And Peavy wasn't out of control, as 71 of those pitches went for strikes. The Red Sox scored three off Peavy, the only runs they would need as they went on to a 4-2 victory. Josh Beckett went well over 100 pitches as well, but lasted through eight innings for his eleventh win, the most in the majors. He struck out eight and walked just one, bringing his K/BB close to four (79 K, 20 BB) on the season. With the Yankees losing and Toronto winning, the Red Sox lead goes to 11 over the second place Blue Jays.

Yovani Gallardo showed Brewers fans that the team has another good young pitcher in the rotation. If you look at his minor league numbers (including this year), you see high strike outs, low walks and few home runs. In seven innings today he struck out eight, walked two, and kept the ball in the park. The Brewers lost in extra innings 4-3 to the Royals, but Brewers fans should be very excited about Yovani joining the rotation.

The Giants are running all over Mike Mussina and Wil Nieves today. They've stolen five bases in five attempts, including number five by Ryan Klesko. Ryan isn't exactly known for his speed. Someone figured out Mussina's motion, and every one in the lineup is running as Bonds also has a steal against Mike and Wil today. The Giants lead 3-0.

Cole Hamels left the Phillies game today after three innings and 48 pitches. Did anyone see if he was hurt?

Update: Hamels left early due to a rain delay. Philadelphia went on to win 5-1. The bullpen did a great job, allowing four hits and no runs over six innings of work.

Ken Griffey, Jr. hits his 20th home run of the season to put the Reds up 1-0 on the Mariners. In his old home town, Griffey ties McGwire for seventh on the all-time home run list with 583. Given that he now has 20 home runs less than halfway through the season, there's a good chance of Ken joining Sammy Sosa at reaching the 600 level this season.

Update: Griffey hit a second home run in the game to pass McGwire. Unfortunately, those were the only two runs the Reds picked up in the game as they lose 3-2 to the Mariners.

I'm scheduled to appear on Yankees Fan Club Radio at 6:20 PM EDT. Hope you'll tune in to that fine show.

Alfonso Soriano hit a home run for the third game in a row and in four of the last five. It's his eleventh homer of the month, and he's slugging .770 in June. The blast helped the Cubs to a 3-0 win over the White Sox. The Cubs take the Windy City Series 5-1, outscoring their cross town opponent 33-21.

Edwin Jackson finally pitches a good game and earns his first win of the season. He lasted six innings, allowing just two runs as the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Jackson strikes out a good number of batters, but today he just struck out two. He also only walked one, so maybe working on his control made a difference. But with 40 balls and 49 strikes thrown, maybe it was just the Dodgers swinging at bad pitches.

The Mets swept the Oakland Athletics today, taking game three of the series by a score of 10-2. Despite a 1-0 game yesterday, the Mets outscored the A's big, 20-3. Reyes, Valentin and Gomez did the most damage today, each going three for four, combing for five runs and four RBI. Valentin's three-run homer put the game out of reach at 8-2.

Johan Santana pitched six nice innings today, allowing two runs, only one earned. He also hit a triple, the first of his career. He's two for seven this season with a double and a triple. He's slugging .714.

His battery mate, Joe Mauer, slugged two home runs today. Joe's been struggling since coming off an injury, so if this is a sign he's turning around, that's a good sign for the Twins.

Minnesota won the game 7-4.

While I don't really understand playing Miguel Cairo at first base at all, there's really no excuse for batting him second, like today. Yes, he hits lefties better than righties, but it's not like he hits well against lefties.

Former closer Rod Beck passed away Saturday:

Neither Thurman nor Phoenix police disclosed the cause of the death.

Beck had two daughters, both of whom were at a camp in California and were being told about their father's death in person by their mother.

Beck was born and raised in California but had settled in Arizona after his professional career ended three years ago.

In 1993, at age 24, Beck developed into one of the game's best closers, saving 48 games for the Giants and finishing 12th in the National League Most Valuable Player balloting.

My thoughts go out to his family and friends.

Dustin McGowan pitched seven no-hit innings so far against the Rockies. He's faced one over the limit as he walked Matsui in the fourth. Opponents came into the game hitting .276 off McGowan.

Update McGowan is through eight and he's only thrown 93 pitches, 60 for strikes.

Update: Coverage is on ESPN. Baker singles to break up the no-no. Toronto still leads 5-0.

Update: That's it as McGowan retires the next three batters to complete the one-hit shutout. The deepest he's ever gone in a game before was 7 2/3 innings earlier this season against the Yankees. Five of his previous six starts were pretty good, so maybe he's turned a corner in his career.

The best pitching matchup of the day asks the political question, "Can Kennedy carry Maine?" The Patriarch faces one of the Mets best young pitchers as Joe Kennedy faces John Maine. Maine has allowed a meager .178 batting average with runners in scoring position this season. Kennedy posts a good ERA despite walking more batters than he strikes out.

The best bet for a slugfest takes place in Tampa Bay. Edwin Jackson is getting into rare territory as he approaches an 0-9 record. With a 7.85 ERA, and that measure getting worse every month, it's just a matter of time before he finds himself in the minor leagues. Only eleven pitchers have finished a season 0-9 or worse. The last was Edgar Gonzalez in 2004. Hong-Chih Kuo comes in with a 6.65 ERA in just six appearances. He's allowed 36 base runners in 21 2/3 innings.

Enjoy!

Update: Apologies. Somehow I missed Beckett vs. Peavy when I ran through the game earlier. That game could easily see each pitcher go eight innings without allowing a run.

Jon Lieber looks finished for the season. And some praise for Charlie Manuel.

Athletic Supporters looks at the reasons behind the DFA of Milton Bradley and finds them lacking. His conclusion:

Clearly something must have happened on Tuesday or Wednesday that set this entire series of events in motion. Bradley had to have crossed a line that the team felt put them and him in a place of no return. This front office is too smart to have allow this situation to happen otherwise.

This was about Milton being Milton.

Justin Morneau made a joke from the hospital yesterday:

It sounds like Justin Morneau was in good spirits tonight. Watching the Twins' 11-1 victory from his hospital bed, he sent a text message to the team's baseball communications manager Mike Herman: "Wally Pipp."

That makes Jeff Cirillo Lou Gehrig!

You'll know it's gotten really bad when Smoltz starts calling him Larry.

I think there's nothing wrong with this. A little clubhouse discontent never hurt the A's or the Yankees of the 1970s. It's good to see someone in Atlanta is still a fierce competitor.

With a 10-1 win over Pittsburgh last night, the Angels move to 15-5 for the month of June, the best record in the majors. While their pitching remains steady over time, the offense improved every month to the point they are hitting .333 as a unit in June. Even more impressive, they're doing it with Vlad having an off month! He drove in 22 runs so far, but Willits, Figgins and Cabrera are on base so much, it's easy to drive people in even when making outs (although Vlad is 8 for 24 with runners in scoring position). Even Shea Hillenbrand is posting a .368 OBA for the month.

With the Angels scoring 6.75 runs per game for the month and an ERA under 4.00, they sure look like a juggernaut right now. And it's nice to see the youngsters, Willits, Kendrick, Napoli and Kotchman (before the injury) contributing.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

John Lackey joins the ranks of blogging ballplayers, writing at Yardbarker. Here he talks about being moved back a day for the first time since he was drafted due to a knot in his shoulder.

Joe Blanton pitched a great game against the Mets today. He tossed eight shutout innings, allowing just five hits and one walk, lowering his ERA to 3.19. Orlando Hernandez almost matched him, going seven shutout innings, allowing six hits and one walk. That brought his ERA down to 2.77. The Mets bullpen pitched two stellar innings, allowing a single while striking out three. The only pitcher with a bad day was Santiago Casilla. He pitched the bottom of the ninth and didn't get an out as he allowed a double, an IBB and another double to give the Mets a 1-0 win over the Athletics. David Wright garnered the walk-off hit for New York, making him 25 for 74 in June, .338.

Eleven Royals earned their way on today against the Brewers as KC collected nine hits, one walk and a hit by pitch. The Brewers did something rare, however, turning four double plays in the game to remove a number of those runners. Coming into today, only the Cubs had turned fewer double plays in the majors (48) than the Brewers (50).

Chris Young is dealing against the Red Sox tonight. Through four innings he's allowed no hits. The Sox are not even putting the ball in play much as Young already recorded seven strikeouts (along with one walk). The Padres lead 1-0 on a double for former Wakefield catcher Josh Bard. He can't catch the knuckler but he can hit one.

Update: Drew gets the first hit of the game for Boston, a single leading off the fifth inning.

What's this? Nate Schierholtz, a twenty-three year old outfielder for the Giants won today's game when he singled in Klesko in the bottom of the thirteenth inning. Although he didn't start, he managed to go 2 for 3 with a double. He's now hitting .400 in eight games (10 for 25) with a double and a triple. Nice to see the Giants have someone under 30 who can hit.

Alex Rodriguez, for the second day in a row picked up four hits and a walk, including his 28th home run. He's one away from tying Lou Gehrig and Fred McGriff for 22nd on the all time list at 493. The Yankees recorded 17 hits today, but only managed five runs as they they went 4 for 18 with runners in scoring position.

The Braves went 31 innings without scoring a run when Chipper Jones hit a solo home run in the fourth inning Saturday afternoon. Unfortunately, they finished with five more scoreless innings as Detroit won 2-1 behind an eleven strikeout effort by Justin Verlander. The Braves scored 28 runs in their last eleven games, in which they've gone 3-8.

The Tigers win their sixth in a row, in which they've outscored their opponents 46-18. Bobby Cox (who set the ejection record today) praised the motor city squad:

The Braves already have faced Boston, Cleveland and Minnesota in interleague play, but Cox said the Tigers may be the best of all.

"Of all the teams we've faced, those guys might have the best overall team," Cox said. "They're a really solid team and I think their starting rotation will prove to be the best in their league."

The Texas Rangers defeated the Houston Astros 7-2 this afternoon. The Rangers offense, after getting off to a poor start, finally started clicking.

Rangers Offense, 2007

Month	Runs/Game
April	4.7
May	5.0
June	5.9

With the renewed offense the Rangers are now 11-9 in the month. One reason they are not doing better is their ERA is up as well, 5.46 for the month. If they can maintain this level of offense and get their ERA down 1/2 a run, they'll have a pretty good second half.

Alfonso Soriano led off today's game against the White Sox with a home run, the second day in a row he accomplished that feat. That's his tenth home run in June and seventeen of his thirty two hits went for extra bases. The homer helped the Cubs to a 2-1 win. They're doing better lately in one-run games as the win raises their record to 8-15. The White Sox are also suffering in close games as the loss leaves them at 6-11 in one-run contests.

I just got home from a day of graduation parties to see Renyel Pinto strike out Nick Punto.

Chien-Ming Wang and Matt Morris face off with identical 7-4 records and nearly identical ERAs in San Francisco this afternoon. Wang should prove a challenge for Bonds as the Yankees righty owns the lowest HR per 9 IP in the majors since the start of 2005. Morris matches well against the predominantly left-handed Yankees lineup, as he's allowed a mere .287 OBA against left-handed batters this season.

The more successful New York team sends Orlando Hernandez against Oakland's Joe Blanton later on the opposite coast. Blanton's hits allowed go way up when he leaves Oakland, accounting for his 5.22 road ERA. Hernandez pitched much better than his 3-3 record, but the Mets have only score 25 runs when El Duque is in the game.

There's always the chance for a good pitching matchup in Anaheim, and the Pirates and Angels don't disappoint. Ian Snell brings his 2.63 ERA to town. He's another righty that shuts down lefties, and they have an OPS of .601 against Ian. Kelvim Escobar also enters with an ERA under three. He's allowed just four home runs in 88 innings this season, tied with Chad Gaudin for best HR per 9 in the American League.

Enjoy!

Justin Morneau's injury last night looks to be minor:

Minnesota Twins slugger Justin Morneau spent Friday night in the hospital with a small bruise on his lung after he collided with Florida Marlins catcher Miguel Olivo.

Morneau was coughing up blood repeatedly when he was taken from the stadium on a stretcher, Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said. But X-rays taken at the hospital were negative and a CT scan was normal, team spokesman Mike Herman said.

Morneau, the 2006 American League MVP, was expected to miss a couple of games, Herman said.

That's good news. I had a friend puncture a lung sail boarding after he was slammed into the water by a gust of wind. I'm glad that didn't happen here.

Barry Bonds hit home run number 749 leading off the eighth inning last night, but it wasn't enough as the Yankees took home a 7-3 win. New York scored more runs last night than in their three previous games at Coors. Alex Rodriguez picked up four hits, a run and two RBI as two potential all-time home run leaders went head-to-head. Alex has 75 RBI in 71 games and 68 runs scored. He needs to pick up his scoring a bit to finish ahead of games played in both.

Matsuzaka and Maddux battled for six innings, and both bullpens were nearly perfect last night. The Padres could only come away with one run after Dice-K walked the first three batters of the game. Maddux ran into trouble in the fourth when he gave up four singles and two runs. That was all the scoring seen on the night as the Red Sox win 2-1. Matsuzaka continues his good strikeout numbers away from Fenway, putting down nine Padres via the K.

The Reds pounded the Mariners 16-1. Griffey only went 1 for 5 on his return to Seattle, but the rest of the team went 15 for 37. Phillips and Ross hit two home runs each, and Hamilton added a solo shot. Harang pitched eight innings of two-hit ball, and the only run scored by the Mariners was unearned.

The Angels came back from a 4-0 deficit to tie the Pirates at the end of regulation, then win 5-4 in eleven innings. A Figgins triple and a Cabrera single was all the Angels need to walk off with the win. Cabrera and leadoff man Willits combined for seven hits and all five RBI.

The American League races at the moment are not all that exciting. The Red Sox hold a 10 1/2 game lead, and the Angels are up seven on the Athletics. Detroit leads Cleveland by one, but the Indians wild card lead is 5 1/2. It would be disappointing to be playing for home field this early.

Correction: The wild card lead is only three games. I was looking at the distance between Cleveland and Minnesota.

Ryan Rowland-Smith debuted last night for the Mariners in a 16-1 loss to the Reds. Rowland-Smith pitched a very nice 1 1/3 innings in relief, allowing one hit while striking out two. He is, I believe, the first MLB player with a hyphenated name. There are none listed in the Lahman database.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

ESPN is reporting Milton Bradley is going to the KC Royals for Leo Nunez. However, Baseball Digest Daily is reporting that Bradley has an injury and the trade is not going through. Stay tuned.

Update: Here's the story with this unusual ending:

Although it's unusual to acknowledge a trade that wasn't made, the Royals decided to go public when word of the deal leaked out.

The Athletics have not yet made a statement on the situation.

The Rockies and Blue Jays end regulation tied at six, but a Tulowitzki homer in the 10th gives Colorado an 8-6 lead. With one out in the bottom of the tenth, however, the Blue Jays pick up four straight singles with one out, and an error on the last one allows the third run of the inning to score. Toronto takes the game 9-8.

Kei Igawa strikes out Barry Bonds in the fourth on three pitches. He threw two that dived over the plate and away from Bonds, then got Barry to chase some high cheese to end the at bat. Igawa has already collected five strikeouts as the Yankees lead 3-0 after four innings.

Jamie Moyer makes it three out of four great starts by 40+ pitchers. He throws six shutout innings against the Cardinals as the Phillies take the game 6-0. Moyer even managed six strikeouts. Utley and Howard combined for five hits and two RBI in the win.

Justin Morneau suffered a serious injury during tonight's 5-4 loss to Florida:

Minnesota Twins slugger Justin Morneau was taken to a hospital Friday night with an injury to his upper right chest after he collided with Florida Marlins catcher Miguel Olivo at home plate.

Morneau was coughing up blood repeatedly, was out of breath and had chest pains, Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said.
Morneau, the 2006 American League MVP, was taken away on a stretcher by fire-rescue workers after the game. He was sitting upright, wearing an oxygen mask and seemed alert.

I wonder if a rib broke and punctured a lung? Let's hope he recovers quickly.

The Tigers shutout the Atlanta Braves 5-0 on two hits, the third consecutive time the Braves suffered a shutout. They've now been shutout seven times, or in about one-tenth of their games. Since the Braves started their playoff run in 1991, the most times they've been shutout in a season is nine.

Matsuzaka walks the first three Padres, then after a pop out, Michael Barrett delivers an RBI single to put the Padres up 1-0.

Update: Dice-K strikes out Greene and gets Branyan to fly out to limit the damage to one run.

The Mariners hold a pre-game ceremony in honor of Ken Griffey. Buhner and Edgar attended, and Griffey spoke. He talked about flying back into Seattle from Oakland and got a bit nostalgic. The crowd gave him a standing ovation and there were plenty of signs asking him to return to the Mariners. It was a nice touch.

Tom Glavine salvages a horrendous June with eight innings of one-run ball against the Athletics tonight. He gets plenty of run support as the Mets take the game 9-1, helping Glavine to his 296th win. His only mistake was a home run to Shannon Stewart. Glavine came into the game with a 10.50 ERA this June.

The Devil Rays put Dukes on the inactive list to give him time to get his life straightened out. His life just got a little more complicated:

Dukes was benched for two games last month after his wife said she sought a protective order because she and the couple's two children were threatened by the player. Last week, he was given a personal day off after published reports detailed a pregnant 18-year-old girl's claim that Dukes is the father of her unborn child.

"The last couple of weeks has been a very frustrating time for everybody involved," Friedman said. "But people who do know Elijah know that at his core, he is a good person. He genuinely is. But obviously he's made poor choices and has done so repeatedly."

I'm guessing Dukes' good core is buried pretty deep.

Kenny Rogers picks up where he left off at the end of 2006, shutting out the Braves for five innings. He's being matched by John Smoltz, however. Rogers has allowed one hit so for , Smoltz two. The old men are having a good night.

Update: The Tigers get to Smoltz in the sixth as Ordonez singles in one, Carlos Guillen doubles in two, then Pudge then doubles in Guillen. The Tigers are still batting up 4-0.

Update: Rogers is done after six innings and 75 pitches, not allowing a run. The Braves have now gone 25 innings without scoring.

The Colorado Rockies lead the Toronto Blue Jays 5-3, which seems like a small gap considering the Rockies have out hit the Blue Jays 11-4. But three of the Jays hits were of the home run variety, so they are getting a lot out of a little. The Rockies have nine singles among their eleven hits.

Miguel Tejada goes on the DL.

Tejada last missed a game on May 31, 2000. He had started all 558 games since signing a free-agent contract with the Orioles before the 2004 season.

It's still an impressive accomplishment.

Mark Buehrle pitched well, but Carlos Zambrano pitched better. The Cubs hit two solo home runs in the first inning as Soriano and Ramirez took the lefty deep. But that was all the Cubs would get during Mark's seven innings of work. Meanwhile, Zambrano struck out twelve over eight innings, giving up just one solo shot to Paul Konerko. After an inconsistent start, Zambrano realized he was pitching for a contract. Over his last four outings, Carlos has a 1.14 ERA, giving up four earned runs in 31 2/3 innings while striking out 35. The Cubs win 5-1.

The Tigers are dumping pitchers to make room for players coming off the disabled list:

Seeking to bolster their rotation, the Cardinals have acquired left-handed pitcher Mike Maroth from the Tigers, FOXSports.com has learned.

The trade is the Tigers' second in three days as they prepare for the returns of left-handers Kenny Rogers and Nate Robertson from the disabled list. On Wednesday, Detroit sent left-hander Wil Ledezma to the Braves for left-hander Macay McBride, in part because McBride can be sent to the minors without restriction while Ledezma would need to clear waivers before getting demoted.

The Cardinals have also been actively dealing this week. Maroth becomes the second pitcher St. Louis has added, after they signed right-hander Tomo Ohka to a minor-league contract on Tuesday.

Mike walked more than he struck out this season (33 BB, 28 K), never a good sign.

The Devil Rays moved Elijah Dukes to the temporary inactive list. This sounds a bit permanent to me:

Details have not yet been released on the exact status of Dukes, but his belonging have been removed from his locker.

Stay tuned.

It's old man Friday as five pitchers age 40+ take the mound tonight. Kenny Rogers returns to action after nearly half a season on the DL against fellow quadragenarian John Smoltz. Rogers was last seen not allowing a run in three post season starts. Smoltz, a month over 40 continues to do what he's done for most of his career, strike out a ton of batters while not walking many.

If younger stars are your style, you might like the Cleveland/Washington matchup featuring Fausto Carmona and Micah Bowie. Bowie keeps the opposition's batting average low (.214) but allows a good number of home runs (7 in 47 2/3 innings). Carmona is showing his best control of the season this month, walking just three batters in 27 June innings.

Masters of movement meet mere miles from Mexico as Matsuzaka and Maddux match mound mettle. Dice-K is putting it all together in June, posting a 1.80 ERA in three starts. Unfortunately, he's been stuck with a 1-2 record. Maddux takes full advantage of Petco Park. He's 5-1 there with a 2.75 ERA.

Enjoy!

Purple Row is celebrating the Rockies sweep of the Yankees. What should be one of the best offenses in baseball scored just five runs in three games at Coors. Atkins summed up the feeling of players and Rockies fans (quote corrected from post):

"A lot of people who came here Tuesday to cheer them left unhappy (Thursday)," third baseman Garrett Atkins said. "That's a good feeling."

Colorado made it a four team race in the NL West as they are now just 3 1/2 games behind the Padres. Nice to see Colorado doing well. They upped the prices for the Yankees series and drew 145,000 fans. With the sweep, those fans might realize watching the Rockies is a bargain at the normal price.

The AP joins the Hearst Corporation in trying to get details about a PED investigation. The AP is going after the Grimsley search warrant:

In an application filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Phoenix, the AP said a sworn statement signed in May 2006 to obtain a search warrant for Grimsley's home in Arizona should be released in its entirety based on legal precedent and public interest.

When the affidavit, signed by IRS Special Agent Jeff Novitzky, was made public in June 2006, names of the players Novitzky said Grimsley accused of using performance-enhancing drugs were blacked out.

"Any privacy interests of individuals named in the affidavit are insufficient to overcome the public's right to access," the AP said in its court filing.

The AP also said that if prosecutors provided the complete affidavit to baseball steroids investigator George Mitchell, "then they should not be allowed to invoke the privacy interests of third parties as a shield to prevent disclosure to others."

I agree with this. There's nothing special about Mitchell or major league baseball. If they can know, we all can know. On the other hand, we can all just wait for the leaks. :-)

Deadspin gets in an excellent crack about Barry Zito in a story about an ex-Marine who killed an attacking bear by throwing a log:

Of course had that been Barry Zito, the campsite would have been littered with thrown logs and there would have been bears on second and third with no outs.

Redleg Nation rounds up reactions to Ken Griffey's return to Seattle this evening.

The Soxaholix uncovers the Yankees weakness in a bonus strip today:

Yes, it is their Achilles' heel, this slavish relationship with historicity.

Maury Brown at Biz of Baseball provides excellent analysis of the Jason Giambi situation from all sides. I agree 100% with this:

The notion that a high-profile player was willing to come forth and say that he was wrong for using steroids -- and by the way, MLB was wrong as well -- is what the game needs. Shoving the voice of reason into a corner will only perpetuate MLB's image as a league full of uncontrite Juicers.

Anibal Sanchez's season is over. Fishstripes provides the details. And that blog also wonders who is watching out for the pitchers on the team:

Dan is absolutely correct that the sudden increase in innings for Sanchez last season, and others, meant he was an injury waiting to happen.

But Brickell also has a point. How in the world wasn't this problem spotted before Anibal was sent to the minors and before exploratory surgery had to be performed. Really, I could see that Sanchez was still having shoulder problems, and I wasn't the only one. If it was identified sooner would it have changed the outcome? Probably not. But the fact that the existence of potential injuries aren't noticed until they happen doesn't inspire much confidence. Case in point, Dontrelle Willis.

I'm not sure whose job it is to evaluate the pitchers, though one would think it would be the pitching coach. But whoever it is, they are putting our young arms in jeopardy by sending them out to the mound when they are damaged goods.

The Oakland Athletics designated Milton Bradley for assignment Thursday. That gives the Athletics ten days to trade him, or he becomes a free agent. The Athletics cited the glut of outfielders as the main reason Milton was asked not to pass go, not to collect $200, but other wonder if Bradley's temper got the best of him again:

Though he had some on-field incidents with the Dodgers and a difficult relationship with manager Eric Wedge in Cleveland, Bradley had few troubles in Oakland apart from some give-and-take with the crowd at Fenway Park in a series at Boston last year. Several sources said that Bradley injured his shoulder last year while having a minor tirade in the clubhouse, but Bradley emphatically denied that.

Asked specifically if character issues led to Bradley's departure, Beane said, "Is Milton a fiery, emotional guy? Absolutely. He's not the first guy to be like that in this game and we don't get to the playoffs (last year) without Milton. As far as speculation, you can speculate all you want. I'm not going to contribute to that in any way. We had to manage our roster and it was time to go a different way.''

Well, that's certainly sidestepping the issue on Beane's part. A simple no would have sufficed. What's the old saying? If one person tells you you're drunk, ignore him. If two people tell you, sit down. It's time for Milton to sit down.

Felix Hernandez pitched eight shutout innings against the Pittsburgh Pirates Thursday night, returning to the form of earlier this season:

The Pirates were shut out for the second straight game and the eighth time this season, most in the major leagues. They haven't scored in 20 innings.

"Geez, I was worried," Hernandez said with a wry smile. "I wanted to throw a good game to keep the confidence up."

Hernandez said this was by far the best he's felt in seven starts since returning from a month on the disabled list on May 15.

"He was filthy," said Nate McLouth, who had one of the six hits off the 21-year-old ace.

Hernandez struck out nine and walked one. Now, the Pirates are not the best offense in the league, but dominating them to this extent is a very good sign. Here's Hernandez's day by day log. It may turn out to be very easy to determine where he was hurt and where he was healthy.

Miguel Tejada consecutive game streak may end tonight:

Orioles shortstop Miguel Tejada extended his consecutive games streak, to 1,152 yesterday, but that's where it is probably going to end.

Tests were taken on Tejada's left wrist late Wednesday night, and the results received last night confirmed that the four-time All-Star has a non-displaced fracture of his left wrist, an injury that could send him to the disabled list.

Orioles vice president Jim Duquette said last night that Tejada will be re-evaluated today before the start of a three-game series with the Arizona Diamondbacks. Duquette said that Tejada, who was drilled by a Doug Brocail fastball in the eighth inning Wednesday night, feels that he could play through the injury.

The trade off for Tejada and the Orioles is that if Miguel plays through the injury, he risks making it even worse and requiring surgery. If he stop playing it heals fairly quickly. He made a cameo yesterday, but they probably can't do that for two weeks:

Tejada's cameo yesterday didn't seem to bother his teammates or the Padres, as long as it didn't become a regular occurrence.

"If it's a day or two, that's fine," Payton said. "It's not something you want to do for a week, obviously. But it's a streak he takes pride in. You just don't want it to be in a spot where you end up jeopardizing your chance to win. And today that didn't affect us at all."

He's already put up an impressive streak. It just goes to show how much luck helped Ripken and Gehrig to 2000. It's also amazing to me that three shortstops are in the top five for longest streaks. Given all the collisions at second base on double plays and caught stealings, those three streaks are even more impressive.

As for the DL, Tejada should take the time off. He's the best offensive player on a very poor offensive team. The Orioles can't afford to lose him long term.

Hat tip, Jason McAdams.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

Joe Girardi refused the Orioles job:

"Baltimore is a fine organization, a fine team, and I'm flattered that they considered me to possibly be their manager," Girardi said Thursday afternoon on The Dan Patrick Show on ESPN Radio. "But the timing is not right for my family and I. That's basically it."

The Orioles' pursuit of Girardi began quickly after Baltimore fired Sam Perlozzo early Monday after his two-plus seasons as manager, and there were indications over the last 48 hours that Girardi was poised to take the job. He interviewed with the Orioles on Tuesday and was offered the job the same day, ESPN's Peter Gammons reported.

Wow. He says it has nothing to do with the Orioles and everything to do with his family. You have to wonder if he's waiting for the Yankees job, however.

Ted Lilly pitched well in terms of strikeouts and walks today. In seven innings, he struck out ten Rangers while walking just one. That kept his hit total low, allowing only six. Unfortunately, two of those were home runs, accounting for three of the five runs Lilly allowed. The Cubs, meanwhile, picked up thirteen hits and six walks, but could only score five runs. They were 5 for 19 with runners in scoring position, but only produced those five runs. Texas scored in the bottom of the ninth, and a well pitched but not great effort by Lilly goes for naught.

Jason Giambi agreed today to speak with George Mitchell.

"I will address my own personal history regarding steroids. I will not discuss in any fashion any other individual," Giambi said.

Giambi was quoted in USA Today last month as seeming to admit to steroids use several years ago -- during a period when baseball did not penalize most first-time drug offenders. Selig threatened to discipline Giambi and said he would factor cooperation with Mitchell into his decision.

"A direct conversation the commissioner impressed upon me the idea that the game of baseball would be best served by such a meeting," Giambi said. "I will continue to do what I think is right and be candid about my past history regarding steroids. I have never blamed anyone nor intended to deflect blame for my conduct."

Selig may still punish Giambi, but I'm guessing it won't be too harsh, due to his cooperation. Without the type of leverage Selig had against Giambi, I'm not sure anyone else will testify.

The majors scheduled just five games for today. Ted Lilly takes on the Texas Rangers and Vicente Padilla. Padillia pitched much better at home this year, posting a 3.93 ERA in Texas vs. 9.00 on the road. Lilly's had trouble away from Wrigley, posting a 5.04 ERA on the road, but he still has a 2-1 record.

Roger Clemens gets to toil in the thin air of Colorado vs. the undefeated Rodrigo Lopez. Roger pitched well over his three starts at Coors. He gave up four home runs in 16 2/3 innings, but managed a 3.78 ERA. Lopez has only allowed four home runs in his seven starts, but all four came at Coors.

Erik Bedard takes on former Orioles pitcher David Wells..(Is there a team Wells hasn't pitched for?) David gives up a lot of hits now, but he makes up for that with few walks and home runs. Bedard this season holds righties to a lower OBA than lefties, .301 to .326.

After two blowouts of each other, the Dodgers and Blue Jays play the rubber game of their three game series. Chad Billingsly is one reason the Dodgers are able to sustain so many pitching injuries. He's making his first start of the year, but is 4-0 out of the bullpen with an excellent strikeout rate. Shaun Marcum moved into the Blue Jays rotation earlier in the year because of injuries and is 3-0 with a 2.38 ERA in seven starts.

Finally, the Pirates take on the Mariners in Seattle. John Van Benschoten makes his second start of the year. He needs to do better than 3 walks in 5 2/3 innings. Felix Hernandez just hasn't recovered from his early season injury, allowing 25 earned runs in 37 1/3 innings since his return.

Enjoy!

Soccer Dad provides an excellent roundup of the various story lines surrounding the Orioles. I'm surprised pundits are recommending Girardi not take the Orioles job. There's downside to every job, but if Joe succeeds there, his reputation would be greatly enhanced. The bigger the risk, the bigger the reward.

Update: Baltimore ended their losing streak with a 7-1 win over the Padres. Jeremy Guthrie pitched another fine game, going eight innings, striking out nine and allowing just one run. The offense reached base 15 times, and there was a rare blowup by the Padres bullpen. Germano pitched okay, but Brocail came in and gave up four runs.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

For the second night in a row, the Colorado pitching staff holds the New York Yankees to one run. Fogg and Francis each go seven innings, allowing one run. It's impressive that put into one of the best hitting ballparks, the Yankees get totally shut down. With the two wins, both the Yankees and Rockies are two games over .500.

Update: The Braves are thinking the same thing about the Red Sox staff. For the second night in a row, the Red Sox shut out the Braves. It's one thing to get blanked by Beckett, but Tavarez came into the game with a 4.97 ERA, but even with that he's been a very effective fifth starter. He's making a good case not to be replaced by Lester.

Sammy Sosa hits number 600 against his former club, the Cubs. He becomes the fifth player to crack the 600 level behind Aaron, Bonds, Ruth and Mays. Now that he's reached the milestone, I wonder how long he'll stay with the Rangers. His OPS is just a bit over .750, so he's not exactly tearing up the league. It seems to me the Rangers could find a better DH.

Will Sosa get into the Hall of Fame? Or will the cork bat and steroid allegations hurt his chances?

Armchair GM says baseball players are just like us.

Sports Club Stats presents a new playoff odds calculator.

And Bugs and Cranks looks at the players who started out as poor fielders and worked their way into fine fielders.

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

The Biz of Baseball provides the transcript of Andy MacPhail's press conference today.

It turns out Bert Blyleven bet Johan Santana yesterday that if Santana pitched a complete game shutout, Blyleven would get his head shaved. Santana did the honors today. I wonder if Johan was intentionally pitching to contact so his pitch count wouldn't be too high and he could complete the game?

The Baseball Musings Radio Show is coming up in a little while at 8 PM EDT. You can leave questions during the show in the TPSRadio Chat Room. I really recommend you stop by the chat room. Lots of people make for a lively discussion and helps me with the show.

The Wall Street Journal's Opinion Journal sits down with Bill James:

After a lifetime of studying the game, Mr. James reckons he still has plenty to learn. The internationalization of the game is one source of new wisdom, he says. "One of the great things about the Cubans and the Japanese is that they develop their own traditions and a lot of the things we think they know they don't necessarily buy into. Incorporating those other traditions is a source of wealth for baseball, and if we're smart, we'll do more of it."

Ichiro Suzuki, the Seattle Mariners centerfielder and perennial hits leader, is one example. "He's a great player while violating 48 rules about how everybody is taught to hit," Mr. James says. Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez, the wily Cuban-born New York Mets pitcher, is another case in point. "We have a set pitching pattern, and then you get a guy like El Duque doing everything wrong and he beats you. It's a wonderful object lesson for all of us."

Dan Haren made a couple of mistakes today, but still managed to allow just three runs over seven innings to keep his ERA under two and increase his record to 9-2. Haren gave up home runs to Dunn and Hamilton in the fourth, but the Athletics fought back with homers from Cust and Stewart to turn a 3-0 deficit into a 5-3 victory. Dan had only allowed seven home runs this season, and it's the only the second time he allowed two in a game.

With the two run loss to the Brewers today, the Giants have scored as many runs as they've allowed, 293 on both sides of the ball. That makes their record of 30-41 even more amazing. It's the close games. With the loss today, the Giants are 15-26 in one and two runs games. It makes you wonder if the recently hired Bochy is on the hot seat.

Jason Wood spoils a great game by Jon Garland. Garland took a two-hitter into the eighth, but allowed the first two batters to reach base on a single and an error. The White Sox went to Jenks, and the Marlins went to Wood as a pinch-hitter, and he delivers a three-run homer to put the Marlins up 4-2 and put a potential loss on Garland's record. It's the third pinch-hit home run of the season for the Marlins, who are now just 18 for 103.

Update: The Marlins hold on for a 5-4 win. Konkerko hits a solo shot in the bottom of the ninth, but it's not enough. With the Mets recent slide, the Marlins are hanging on at the edge of the NL East race.

Benjie Molina answers Hall's grand slam with one of his own to help the Giants to a five run sixth inning. The Brewers are close to blowing a 6-0 lead as they now lead 6-5 in the bottom of the sixth.

Update: Jenkins picks up an RBI single in the bottom of the inning to extend the Brewers lead to 7-5.

For Baseball Prospectus subscribers, my latest column discusses the aging of major league pitching staffs, and if early workloads indicate success late in a pitcher's career.

The Baseball Musings radio show will be on TPSRadio tonight at 8 PM EDT. Check out TPSRadio's other sports programming as well.

Feel free to leave a question in the comments to this post or during the show in the TPSRadio chat room and I'll be happy to answer it on the air.

Barry Zito loads the bases in the first inning, giving up a single and a walk, then hitting Fielder in the shoulder with one out. But Bill Hall makes him pay with a grand slam to put the Brewers up 4-0. Batters were 1 for 10 against Zito with the bases loaded coming into the game.

Dave Stewart voices his complaints about J.P. Ricciardi and Dave Littlefield.

Dan Haren tries to subtract from his league leading ERA today as he faces the Cincinnati Reds in Oakland. Dan continues to dominate left-handed batters, who post a .215 OBA and slugging percentage against Haren. The Reds send Matt Belisle to the mound. Matt does a great job of keeping batters off base via the walk, but he ends up allowing too many hits, and two many long hits.

In Arizona, two good young pitchers face off as the Devil Rays send James Shields against Micah Owings. Shields has been hit a bit harder lately, giving up five home runs in 20 1/3 June innings. Owings has allowed just four home runs all season, and they've all come at Chase Field.

Last night Mussina and Fogg duel in Colorado, and today Pettitte and Francis may give us another one. Pettitte did not make it to Coors with the Astros, but his one time starting there for the Yankees did not go well. Francis got off to a rough start, but he's 5-2 since the start of May with a 2.27 ERA.

Finally, the JG-Men battle it out in San Diego as Jeremy Guthrie takes on Justin Germano. The undefeated Padres pitcher allows his defense to help him out as he strikes out few and walks fewer. Guthrie is becoming the new poster child for no-decisions. In nine starts, he's posted a 1.71 ERA, but only has a 2-1 record to show for it.

Enjoy!

The imaged Curt Schilling's shoulder, and like Yogi's head, found nothing:

Curt Schilling's right shoulder was normal, according to an MRI exam, but the Boston Red Sox likely won't take his next turn in the rotation following a cortisone shot.

"I had an injection yesterday, so I'm giving it a couple of days here to see how it plays out," Schilling told WEEI-AM on Wednesday. "The best case is that I'll be pitching on Sunday ... but that doesn't seem like that's going to be the case."

It may just be that Curt is at the point in his career when he has good days and bad days. He's made fifteen starts. Seven were poor. But of the eight were good, in seven of them he allowed two runs or less. The Red Sox should probably keep a long man ready for his bad days, and get him out early before there is too much damage.

The Cubs dumped Michael Barrett, trading him to the Padres:

The Cubs received catcher Rob Bowen and minor-league outfielder Kyler Burke.

The Padres, eighth in the National League in runs, have been searching for more offense. They are second in the league in on-base/slugging percentage at catcher, but Barrett would be an offensive upgrade over Josh Bard and Bowen.

I'm not sure "upgrade" is the right word. Bowen was having a good year offensively, and the tradeoff between Bard and Barrett is on-base average vs. power. Burke is very young (19) but so far has shown no power in the minor leagues. Not really what you want from a rightfielder.

This seems to me like the Padres helping out the Cubs, and maybe improving their offense at catcher a little.

I'm told the Orioles will announce Andy MacPhail's hiring at an 11 AM news conference. I don't see anything official yet, however. MacPhail did take part in Girardi's interview yesterday, so it's only a matter of time.

Jason Schmidt undergoes shoulder surgery today.

Also Tuesday, the Dodgers announced that right-hander Yhency Brazoban will have surgery Friday to repair a tear in his labrum and will be out indefinitely.

"The timing on him coming back doesn't look that good," manager Grady Little said.

Brazoban, who missed 29 games earlier his year because of a sore elbow, has appeared in just four games for Los Angeles this season, allowing three runs in 1 2/3 innings.

Right-hander Chin-hui Tsao (strained shoulder) threw from flat ground before Monday's game and was able to throw his breaking ball without pain, Little said. A decision on his return will be made after he throws from the mound on Wednesday.

Little also said infielder Ramon Martinez (sore back) is close to resuming workouts and could rejoin the team in Arizona next week.

Despite the rash of injuries to its pitching staff, Los Angeles is ranked second in the National League with a team ERA of 3.67.

The pitching staff numbers are impressive, striking out 7.8 batters per nine, with the bullpen's rate well over 9 per nine. They don't allow many home runs (2nd in the NL) nor walks (4th in the NL). They're winning on their depth.

Correction: Fixed a typo.

I wonder if Josh Fogg is making himself attractive to the Blue Jays? In his last two starts, he's pitched very well against Boston and New York, holding them to three runs in twelve innings. Most impressively, he's walked just two despite facing teams known for their selectivity at the plate. The Yankees had some chances, but were 0 for 9 with runners in scoring position. The loss drops New York nine games behind Boston and five games back in the Wild Card race.

Hunter Pence recorded three more hits last night, including a double and a home run, to lift his batting average to .344 and his OBA to .367. His on-base average is good, but it's made up almost entirely of hits. Now, that's a good thing. It doesn't matter how you get on base, and hits do more damage in general than walks. What's odd is that this doesn't fit into Hunter's minor league career very well. Coming up, Pence hit for a good average and drew walks at a rate of better than 1 every 10 at bats. This season, he's drawn just six walks in 189 at bats, or worse than 1 every 30 at bats. In a way, He's repeating Jeff Francoeur's rookie season, but Francoeur never walked much in the minors. I wonder, if because he's a rookie, that pitchers are challenging him more. If he's the type of hitter who sees a good pitch and hits it, great. At some point, however, pitchers need to pitch to this rookie more carefully. We'll see if his walk rate goes up then.

The Orioles played their first game without Sam Perlozzo, and the bullpen still stinks. The Baltimore offense actually chased Jake Peavy early, scoring three runs against him in the top of the sixth inning to narrow the Padres lead to 5-3, but the bullpen torched any chance of a comeback by allowing six runs in the bottom of the sixth, and the Padres went on to a 12-6 win. They don't have the highest ERA among AL bullpens yet, but they are getting closer every day. Their strikeouts and home runs allowed are pretty good. But the 102 walks in 202 innings are killing them. As a group, they allow a .266 batting average, but a .356 OBA. The more runners you put on base, the more are going to come around to score.

Josh Beckett picked up his tenth win of the year Tuesday night as the Red Sox defeated the Braves 4-0. He might pitched longer than six inning if rain hadn't stopped the game. Beckett had his typical good game against the Braves and actually won. Beckett has not allowed a run against Atlanta in four of his last five starts against them. Hudson continued to get stung by Boston, losing his sixth start in a row against them.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

Ken Griffey, Jr. hit home run number 582 tonight, helping the Reds to a 4-0 lead over the Athletics in the fourth inning. The solo shot leaves him one home run behind McGwire for seventh on the all-time list.

Ben Sheets hasn't quite returned to his 2004 form, but tonight he pitched a complete game against the Giants, lowering his ERA to 3.19. He only struck out four, but he also only walked one. He remains undefeated in June, with just seven walks in 27 2/3 innings and a 1.63 ERA. At the start of the season, I thought Sheets would be a key to the Brewers success, and so far that's working out.

Dontrelle Willis left tonight's game against the White Sox with a tight left forearm. The Fish just get Johnson back, and now it looks like Dontrelle's in trouble.

Johan Santana used Shea Stadium to his advantage as he pitches a complete game shutout against the New York Mets. Amazingly, Santana only struck out one batter in the game! In his five previous complete games, Santana averaged 10.2 K per 9. Santana got more balls in the air than on the ground, and used just 92 pitches to finish the game. That's one advantage of getting the hitters to make contact, you don't wear yourself out.

In the battle of the blues, the Dodgers are walloping the Blue Jays 10-1 in the bottom of the ninth. Six Los Angeles players collected multiple hits in the game, accounting for 13 of the team's 14 hits. The Blue Jays picked up just six hits so far tonight, all came from three batters collecting two hits each.

Magglio Ordonez continues his assault on Earl Webb's double record with his 34th two bagger of the year tonight. That puts Ordonez on a pace for 78 doubles, which would crush Webb's 67 in 1931. Even if Magglio returns to his career double rate, he should bang out another twenty-two this season, putting him at 56. This may end up being the best run at Webb ever. Could both the AL doubles and home run records fall in the same season?

Update: What might be even more amazing is that Sean Casey hit his first home run of the season today.

Correction: I can't add. 34+ 22 is 56. It's been a long day.

The Phillies, Tigers and Dodgers all score three runs in the top of the first inning. The Twins score five in the top of the second, and all without the aid of a home run. The Dodgers are still batting in the top of the second, having put another three spot on the board.

Update: The Marlins score three in the top of the first as well. Hanley Ramirez hit his 9th home run in that inning.

The Red Sox sent Curt Schilling home to undergo an MRI (when I was in college, we called it Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, NMR, but that name didn't go over well as a diagnostic tool). The clubs wants to make sure his shoulder is okay.

Home Run Derby remembers Sosa's milestone home runs in baseball cards. Look at the difference in body shape between 200 and 300.

And in an interesting coincidence, it's entry number 756 for that blog!

Shea Stadium holds the matchup of the day as Johan Santana faces Jorge Sosa. Shea is the kind of ballpark that should suit Johan perfectly. Santana strikes out a ton of batters while not walking many, and Shea should hurt the long ball a bit. Sosa has as many wins as Santana in only eight starts. He doesn't strikeout batters like Johan does, but Jorge is stingy with walks and doesn't allow too many home runs. It should be a good battle.

Two pitchers with histories against their opponent from time in the other league take the mound in Atlanta. Josh Beckett is 5-7 against the Braves in his career despite a 2.62 ERA against Atlanta. He lost four games in which he pitched well but the defense or offense let him down. Hudson is 3-8 against Boston in his career, and deservedly so. The Red Sox are very selective with Tim as he's issued nearly five walks per 9 innings to Boston batters. He's lost all three starts with the Braves against the Red Sox and five in a row (regular season) overall.

J.P. Howell is another youngster that looks like part of a solid future rotation for the Devil Rays. The lefty is allowing just a .304 OBA to right-handed batters. He'll face Arizona's Doug Davis. Doug was meant to be a stabilizing force in the Diamondbacks rotation. And with a 3.70 ERA, he should be doing much better than a 4-8 record. But the Arizona offense scored just 28 runs when Doug's in the game. In five of the games he started, the DBacks scored two runs or less.

Enjoy!

Matthew Cerrone recorded an interview with Omar Minaya that you can hear at 6:30 PM EDT at MetsBlog.com. From Matt:

The conversation is mostly about life as a GM, why it is different than just running a fantasy team, what it takes to make a trade - it's not so Mets-specific, as it is about the job.

He'll post about the discussion tomorrow if you miss the audio today.

Jerry Brewer looks at the up and down year experienced by the Seattle Mariners:

The Mariners have 81-81 written all over them. They're hitting .284 and allowing opponents to hit .284. They've scored 335 runs and allowed 337. They're as good as their 9-of-10 winning streak and as bad as their current five-game losing streak.

It's a transitional season for a franchise that finished 63-99, 69-93 and 78-84 the previous three seasons. Everyone wants to be the Detroit Tigers, who went from laughingstock to the World Series last season, but those success stories don't occur every year.

In reality, this team might only be good enough to frustrate the overeager among us.

Luck is evening out quickly for the Mariners. I still feel the team is better than expected, but with the Angels playing so well, it's going to be tough to catch them.

It looks like fans are on the way to crowning Prince Fielder the all-star first baseman:

Milwaukee first baseman Prince Fielder, who leads the NL with 25 home runs, surpassed Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols in the recent tabulation of fan voting, released Monday. Fielder, 25 and aiming for his first All-Star invitation, surged to 899,997 votes, just ahead of Pujols' 876,849.

Voting starts so early now, it's tough for fans to get a real feel of how good players are, so I can see where previous performance is going to count a lot. However, it's tough to ignore 26 home runs at this point in the season.

Big Brother is watching!

It turns out Thursday is the deadline for Jason Giambi to set up a meeting with the commissioner, not actually talk to him. I would not be surprised if they agree to a date to talk about when they might actually talk about steroids. :-) As always, Annie Hall comes to mind:

1ST MAN Well, you take a meeting with him, I'll take a meeting with you if you'll take a meeting with Freddy.

2ND MAN
I took a meeting with Freddy. Freddy
took a meeting with Charlie. You take
a meeting with him.

1ST MAN
All the good meetings are taken.

Although the deal with Andy MacPhail and the Orioles is not completed, it appears the new COO will be given power to run the club:

The Orioles wouldn't speak about hiring MacPhail, and he declined to comment yesterday. But a baseball source told The Sun that MacPhail and the club had agreed to a deal in principle and that it probably would be announced tomorrow once minor issues were resolved.

The source said MacPhail probably wouldn't have agreed to come to Baltimore if he didn't feel he would have autonomy to run the club. And Angelos, who has been criticized as meddlesome in the past, trusts MacPhail and so desperately craves a winner that he has given assurances that MacPhail would have significant control of baseball operations, a source close to Angelos said.

We'll see. George Steinbrenner was able to cede control to Cashman. Can Angelos do the same?

Chone Figgins picked up six hits against the Astros last night, missing the cycle by a home run. His biggest came in the bottom of the ninth when he tripled with a man on first to win the game 10-9. The six hits represent one eighth of Figgins' total for the season.

The Angels got off to a 4-1 lead, but then the Astros scored eight runs to lead 9-4 at the stretch. In the bottom of the seventh, the Angels scored five runs, and Figgins drove in the tying run with a single. All in all he drove in three and scored once, making up for what has been a dismal year.

There's a roundup of six-hit games at 6-4-2.

Update: I love this quote from Figgins:

"I don't think I ever went 6-for-6 in a video game," Figgins said.

All nineteen men who came to the plate in the Marlins-White Sox game Monday night recorded at least one hit. It's the seventh time this season that nineteen different batters picked up hits in a game, but the first time that only nineteen played.

Josh Johnson's return was spoiled by poor pitching on his part and two errors that led to four unearned runs. The White Sox took the game 10-6.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

Carlos Guillen fell a triple short of the cycle, and the Washington Nationals turned a blowout into a close game. Down 9-1, they scored four in the 6th and three in the bottom of the 9th to close the gap to 9-8. The Nationals picked up five straight hits off off Todd Jones to start the ninth, but left the tying run at third. Jones has now given up 18 earned runs in 27 2/3 innings.

Curt Schilling gave up six runs in 4 1/3 innings tonight, ending with a three-run homer to McCann. His two starts since nearly throwing a no hitter have been poor. Since that fine effort against Oakland, he's allowed twelve runs (11 earned) in 9 1/3 innings. He didn't strike out a batter tonight while walking two. According to the broadcast, that's the first start since July 1, 1993 in which Schilling failed to strike out a batter. He didn't fare well in that one, either.

He only threw 100 pitches in completing the one hitter. But you have to wonder if maybe he pushed himself too much in that game.

Prince Fielder hit home run number 26 in the bottom of the first to give Milwaukee a 2-1 lead over San Francisco. That puts him on a pace for 61. Even if he falls off a bit, he has a very good chance of reaching 50, would make Cecil and Prince the only father son combination to each hit 50 home runs each.

Carlos Guillen picked up a double and a homer through four innings against Washington so far tonight. He already has four triples this season, so he might be a good bet for the cycle.

Update: Guillen picked up the single. Can he get the triple? The Tigers are slashing the Nationals by a score of 9-1 in the top of the sixth, so Guillen may get two more chances to bat.

Eric Wedge moves Josh Barfield into the second slot in the batting order tonight, despite a .287 OBA. After a Sizemore single and a stolen base, Barfield singles to right to put runners on first and third. There's no platoon advantage, as Barfield actually gets on base worse against lefties than righties, although he hits for more power. And with 50 strikeouts in 240 at bats, it's not like Barfield is tough to fan. I don't really understand the move, except to try to instill some confidence in the young second baseman.

MLB handed down suspensions in the Padres-Cubs fight.

Chicago Cubs first baseman Derrek Lee and San Diego pitcher Chris Young were suspended for five games each Monday following a bench-clearing brawl last weekend.

Cubs hitting coach Gerald Perry was suspended for three games for his role in Saturday's fight at Wrigley Field.

Philadelphia third-base coach Steve Smith was suspended for three games and catcher Carlos Ruiz for one following an argument in Sunday's game against Detroit. The players' union appealed Ruiz's suspension, meaning it can't start until after the case is heard and decided.

Chicago and San Diego were off Monday, giving Lee time to decide whether to contest the discipline.

I'm guessing appeals by Lee and Young will bring their suspensions down.

Two of the highest scoring teams in the majors face off in Cleveland as the Phillies visit the Indians. The Phillies rank fifth in the majors at 5.1 runs per game, the Indians third at 5.4. However, the pitching matchup of Cole Hamels versus Cliff Lee looks like it favors the Phillies. Lee is on pace to give up 40 home runs in 200 innings pitched. Hamels also has a tendency to give up the long ball, but 13 of the 16 he allowed came with the bases empty.

The best pitching matchup of the day pits Chris Sampson vs. John Lackey. Sampson, despite giving up many balls in play, does a good job of not giving up two many hits. Lackey looks to increase his major league leading win total to eleven. He's very tough at night, with 9 of his 10 wins coming under the lights and an ERA two runs lower than during the day.

Enjoy!

Here's the press release about Trembley replacing Perlozzo. No mention of the MacPhail hiring, so that's not official yet.

Capitol Punishment looks at park factors at RFK by vectors.

Needless to say, you won't be surprised to see that the easiest place to hit homers at RFK is down the line, where the factor is about 102. A dead pull hitter, as Soriano demonstrated, is not harmed by RFK. It's -- as Guillen and Vidro and many other showed us -- when you move to the gaps and center where it's a problem. The gaps have a factor of about 79 and dead center is at 51. 20% fewer balls are go out to the gaps, and nearly half as many leave to center field.

Of course, with Washington moving into a new park in a couple of years, this isn't something you can build around.

I just received a tip that the Orioles are going to hold a news conference at 12:30 PM Eastern to announce a change in managers. ESPN says it's Girardi, but my source says Tom Trebelhorn. It's possible Trebelhorn is temporary until Girardi gets to Baltimore. (See update below, it's Trembley, not Trebelhorn.)

High-ranking sources have told ESPN The Magazine's Buster Olney that Andy MacPhail has reached an agreement to be the club's chief operating officer, and the Orioles also were arranging a meeting with Joe Girardi, furthering speculation that manager Sam Perlozzo is on his way out.

Update: During MacPhail's twelve seasons running the Cubs (1995-2006), Chicago's record was 916-1011, a .475 winning percentage, 22nd in the majors. Twenty third were the Orioles at 911-1014, .473. If they're going to hire someone new, shouldn't it be someone with a track record that's different from your team's own history?

Update: It looks like it's Dave Trembley, not Tom Trebelhorn getting hired.

Bullpen coach Dave Trembley, a longtime minor league skipper who has occasionally subbed for bench coach Tom Trebelhorn this season, has been named interim manager while club executives begin the search for a long-term replacement.

Update: Here's Trembley's official bio. His won-loss record as a manager isn't great but he was honored for this work:

Prior to being promoted to the big league club, Dave spent 22 years in professional baseball, including 20 years as a minor league manager...He compiled a 1369-1413 record, won two league titles and earned Manager of the Year awards in three leagues...In December 2001, Baseball America selected him as one of minor league baseball's top five managers of the previous 20 years.

Then again, how many people manage in the minors for 20 years if they're really great managers?

Aaron Gleeman compares Scott Baker's first 30 starts with other Twins greats. Although I don't see Johan Santana. :-)

A.J. Burnett's shoulder is acting up:

Toronto Blue Jays right-hander A.J. Burnett felt pain in his right shoulder during a throwing session Sunday and was scratched from his next scheduled start, June 23 against Colorado.

"He was a little tender so he won't make that one," Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said. "We'll probably throw him on the DL. We'll know something Tuesday."

"We're not going to throw him out there if he's still feeling it," Gibbons said.

Burnett, who did not speak to reporters, is 5-6 with a 4.00 ERA in 14 starts this season. He left a start in San Francisco last Tuesday after 4 2/3 innings because of pain in his shoulder.

Burnett looked like he was pitching better than his ERA. His luck might have turned positive, but it's going to be a while before we find out.

James Loney just suffered a bruised knee in his collision with the wall.

"I think a lot of my body parts hit the wall," said Loney, the right fielder who banged into the right-field scoreboard in the eighth inning of the Dodgers' 10-4 loss to the Angels while attempting to catch Gary Matthews Jr.'s towering fly ball. "It was kind of hard to tell. I know my knee hurt the worst."

Luckily for Loney, he emerged from the frightening collision with only a bruised right knee. It had looked much worse when he crumpled to the warning track and remained motionless while Matthews circled the bases for an inside-the-park home run. Trainers from both dugouts and every Dodgers player on the field besides reliever Brett Tomko and catcher Mike Lieberthal gathered around Loney.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

Chien-Ming Wang comes out of the game after 8 2/3 innings and two runs allowed. More interestingly, Wang set a career high with ten strikeouts. That's more than he struck out in his three previous starts. I always thought Wang could strike out more batters than he has in his career, given that he actually had good K numbers in the minor leagues. We'll see if this was a one night anomaly or a new trend.

The Yankees win 6-2 to split the season series with the Mets.

The Yankees picked up six hits through four innings, three singles, a Cairo double, an Abreu triple, and a Rodriguez home run. That puts the Yankees up 5-0 on the Mets. Alex's 27th home run of the season puts him on a pace for 65.

Update: Damon homers to right to make the score 6-0. Damon has a perfect swing to pop up the ball at just the right angle to get it to carry into the seats. It's just right for the rightfield line at Yankee Stadium.

The Minnesota Twins blew a 9-2 lead today but scored in the bottom of the ninth to defeat Milwaukee 10-9. What was unusual is that Milwaukee hit five home runs today, include two by Hart and number 25 by Fielder. In the 51 seasons covered by the Day by Day Database, the winning percentage when allowing five home runs in a game is .107 (98-820) coming into today. Even in the era of higher offense starting in 1993, the winning percentage when allowing five is just .090 (49-494). The Twins got lucky today.

James Loney, playing his third game in the outfield, tries to catch a deep fly ball by Gary Matthews and crashes into the wall. He was on the ground for a long time. At first, it looked like his left hand and his face took the brunt of the impact, but his knee ended up under the padding on the wall, and that's what was really banged up. The Dodgers took him off the field on a cart, and he limped with support into the dugout. Matthews ended up with an inside the park home run on the play. The Angels lead the Dodgers 9-3 in the top of the eighth.

The Dodgers replaced Loney with Betemit, playing his first game in the outfield.

Kevin Millwood's trying to correct his mechanics, and to a certain amount today it showed. He struck out 10 today in six innings, only the second time he's done that in 126 starts dating back to 5/18/2003. However, he did allow two home runs to Adam Dunn, which accounted for three of the four runs he allowed. Still that was enough to win today as the Texas offense exploded for twelve hits and eleven runs. Michael Young picked up two more hits today, giving him 25 in 15 June games after a terrible start to the season in April. That puts him on a pace for 193 hits on the season, so with a little luck he could reach 200 hits for the season again.

Fausto Carmona picks up win number eight as the Indians defeat an error prone Braves team 5-2. Only three of the Indians runs were earned. Carmona pitched three batters two many as he started the eighth with a home run to Thorman then walked two. However, his two earned run over seven innings gives him a 6-0 record with a 1.58 ERA in day games. It's not clear why there is a 3 1/2 run difference between his day and night ERA. Maybe the defense sees the ball better as he's allowed a lower hit rate during the day.

Barry Bonds delivers a home run at Fenway, adding that to the parks in which he's gone deep. Number 748 puts him eight homers short of the career record.

The Washington Nationals relievers pitch three perfect innings in support of Micah Bowie as the Blue Jays go down to defeat 4-2. As a starter, the opposition is just 20 for 105 vs. Bowie, a .190 batting average. The Nationals avoid the sweep and they've won six of their last nine.

The Padres' Mike Cameron hits a rare Wrigley Field home run off Rich Hill to put San Diego up 2-0 in the first.

Update: Cameron adds another, and Gonzalez adds his fourteenth. That doubles the number of home runs Hill allowed at Wrigley this season.

Correction: Fixed the name of the stadium.

The Detroit-Philadelphia game is not on TV, but Verlander pitches a perfect first to start the game.

Update: After putting two runners on with a walk and a hit batter in the second, Verlander gives up a single to Nunez, breaking both his no-hit and scoreless inning streak. The Tigers and Phillies are tied at one in the bottom of the second.

Peter Schmuck notes a couple of reasons why Peter Angelos allows Sam Perlozzo to keep his job:

But the situation is complicated by something that was not a problem when Johnson walked a decade ago or when Mazzilli was sent home from Anaheim in August 2005. Angelos has a personal affection for Perlozzo that has made him even more reluctant than usual to push the button on a managerial change.

Economic considerations and other contingencies also have given Angelos pause. Perlozzo has the rest of this year and all of next year remaining on his contract, which means the Orioles would have to pay him through the end of 2008. In addition, the club likely would have to buy out the contract of pitching coach Leo Mazzone, who is signed through next year and presumably would not want to stay around after the removal of the longtime friend who brought him into the organization.

Casey Blake extends his hitting streak to twenty six games with an opposite field single in the first. He's 33 for 101 in the streak, a .327 average. He's not exactly on fire, with only five multi-hit games in the streak. But his OBA is over .400 and with seven homers his slugging percentage is well over .600.

Chipper Jones leads off the second with a single, his 2000th hit. He's the third Brave to reach 2000 hits for the franchise.

Justin Verlander makes his first start since his no hitter as he faces Adam Eaton and the Phillies. After giving up seven runs in five innings against the Indians, Verlander is on a sixteen inning consecutive scoreless inning streak. Eaton also pitched well over his last two starts, defeating the White Sox and the Mets and only allowing two run in 13 innings.

The Red Sox go for a sweep of the Giants with Matt Morris taking on Tim Wakefield. The Red Sox outscored the Giants 11-2 so far, winning both a blow out and a 1-0 game. Morris isn't the strikeout pitcher he once was but this season he's keeping his walks and home runs down. Wakefield's run support is low as the Red Sox have scored two fewer than Tim's allowed.

Greg Maddux ventures onto the Wrigley mound today to face up and coming Rich Hill. Maddux has yet to win on the road this season, posting a 4.95 ERA away from the friendly confines of PETCO. Hill's been very good this season keeping the ball in Wrigley, having allowed just three home runs at home but nine on the road.

Finally, ESPN brings us the rubber game of the Mets-Yankees series. Orlando Hernandez would like to repeat his performance at Yankee Stadium last June 30th, but with a win instead of a 2-0 defeat. He's been tough to hit as opponents hold a mere .188 batting average against him. Wang continues to survive in the majors with a low strikeout rate. He walks on average one batter every four innings and he's only allowed 25 home runs in over 400 innings for his career. Plenty of pitcher give up that many in one season.

Enjoy!

Brandon Watson tied a 95 year old record by hitting in 42 straight games in AAA.

Did Billy Beane fall into the trap of acquiring a pitcher that played well against his team? In May, Ruddy Lugo pitched three straight days against Oakland. While I would think the three walks in 2 1/3 innings would turn off Beane, the A's picked up Lugo off waivers on Thursday:

The last guy you'd expect the A's to sign is right-handed reliever Ruddy Lugo, who they claimed off waivers today. In May, Lugo struck out the side against the A's in the ninth and punctuated it with fist pumps (he was in some childish snit about Nick Swisher), drawing some "bush league" comments. The Devil Rays promptly sent him to the minors -- a 9.28 ERA didn't help either. But Lugo righted himself in AAA. Maybe he'll be worth getting pumped up about -- or at least not leave the A's looking red-faced.

Saturday night, Lugo was a huge part of the debacle, allowing five hits, a walk and a hit batter in 2/3 of an inning. All seven base runners came around to score as Oakland lost 15-6 to the Cardinals. Somehow, I don't think Lugo will be with Oakland very long.

Happy Father's Day to all the dads who read Baseball Musings! The Day by Day Database is up to date.

Curtis Granderson hit a home run today for the Tigers, raising his slugging percentage to .578. Given that he hits for power and Polanco does a better job of getting on base, shouldn't Leyland reverse them in the order? Seven of Granderson's nine home runs were solo shots. It seems if he were batting behind someone with a good OBA, more of those home runs would come with men on base.

Hunter Pence hit the fifth triple of his career today, giving him 25 extra base hits out of the 58 hits he's earned so far. He's not much of a home run hitter, but his twenty doubles and triples gives him a rate of 69 combined per 600 at bats.

Daniel Cabrera allowed three home runs today, bringing his total allowed for the year to fourteen. That equals his career high allowed. In 2004 and 2005, he allowed that many in well over 140 innings, this year, in less than 100. Arizona's 8-4 win pins the seventh straight loss on the Orioles. Baltimore is only averaging three runs a game in the streak.

I have to disagree with this:

It was a costly victory, though. Left fielder Garret Anderson went on the DL after the game, having re-aggravated his right hip while making a backhanded catch in the first.

Anderson isn't hitting this year. He left the game with a .265 OBA and a .411 slugging percentage. Those should be fairly easy to replace. Reggie Willits, who replace him, owns a .424 OBA although he doesn't hit for much power. I'll take the player who doesn't make as many outs.

Paul Byrd allowed ten hits and five runs in five innings, despite striking out seven batters. The Braves went 10 for 18 when putting the ball in play against the Indians starter. That was more than John Smoltz needed as he struck out seven in six innings, allowing just two runs. Neither starter walked a batter, but the Braves came out on top 6-2.

Shaun Marcum continues to shine as a starter for the Blue Jays. With his seven solid innings against Washington today, Marcum now owns a 2.38 ERA as a starter and has struck out 39 in 41 2/3 innings. He's also undefeated starting at 3-0.

Alex Rodriguez hit home run number 26 this afternoon as the Yankees won a slugfest the with Mets 11-8. His two run shot puts him on a pace to break Roger Maris' American League record of 61 home runs in a season. Alex's current pace is for 63. If he should reach that level, he would be only the third AL player to reach 60 home runs, all for the Yankees.

The two games of the day turned out to be 1-0 pitching duels. Chris Young was ejected early from the Cubs game after he hit Derrek Lee with a pitch, and Lee and Young threw punches. But the Padres bullpen allowed just two hits over six innings to preserve the shutout.

Meanwhile, Zambrano took a no-hitter into the eighth giving up a hit to Marcus Giles. Then in the ninth, Branyan picked up just the fourth hit of the game, a home run to give San Diego a 1-0 victory. Zambrano went the distance for his second great start in a row. This was the kind of performance that will earn him a big contract next season.

Then in Boston, Matt Cain and Daisuke Matsuzaka matched seven, three-hit innings. The difference was a home run by Manny Ramirez. Dice-K had a good K game in Fenway, retiring eight Giants without a ball in play for his eighth win.

NBC Sports rates the best of the interleague rivalries.

Chris Young and Carlos Zambrano go head-to-head in Chicago this afternoon as the Padres and Cubs play the NL game. Zambrano is coming off his best start of the season. He's been controlling the long ball better lately. After giving up home runs in 10 of his first eleven starts, he's only allowed one in his last three. Young only allowed three home runs all season, all three to left-handers on the road. Maybe Zambrano can take Young deep. His twelve home runs this decade are second only to Mike Hampton's fifteen.

Matt Cain takes on Daisuke Matsuzaka in Boston this afternoon. The pitchers experienced opposite sides of the lucky coin this year. Cain posts a 3.31 ERA on the strength of five home runs allowed. But that's only earned him a 2-6 record as the Giants are 1-10 in one and two runs games when Cain pitches. Matsuzaka owns a winning record despite a high ERA. And for some reason, he doesn't strike out batters at Fenway:

Matsuzaka 2007	Home	Road
Innings	41 2/3	44
Strikeouts	27	58
Strikeouts per 9	5.83	11.86

Could it be a better hitter's background at Fenway?

Enjoy!

Derek Lowe pitched one of the great games of his career, holding the LAnaheim Angels to one run while striking out a career high eleven batters in just seven innings of work. He needed to pitch that well, as the Dodgers held on to defeat the Angels 2-1. The Angels mounted a weak comeback in the ninth, as they managed two infield singles to short with two out, but Garret Anderson grounded out to end the game. The Dodgers take a 1/2 game lead in the NL West, while the Athletics cut the Angels lead to four.

After a 14-3 loss to the Oakland Atheltics, in which Braden Looper left with a potential injury, La Russa summed up his team this way:

"Early in the season when we couldn't hit we could pitch. Now that we can hit, we can't pitch," La Russa said. "We have more problems than plusses and we have to reverse that."

The Cardinals allowed 93 runs in their last 12 games, 31 of those in their last two. Amazingly, they're 5-7 in that stretch. There's only been one good start in that time frame, and only one where the starter went deep in the game. Last night, the lack of starters going deep caught up with St. Louis, as Spiezio pitched an inning, giving St. Louis the best performance of the night.

Sports writer Larry Whiteside died Friday:

Whiteside had worked for The Boston Globe from 1973 until he was sidelined by Parkinson's disease in the past decade. The paper reported his death on its Web site.

"I am truly saddened by the news of his passing, as he was an extraordinary person," said baseball commissioner Bud Selig, who was the Milwaukee Brewers' owner when Whiteside covered their first four seasons. "He was one of the finest journalists and finest friends that I have ever encountered. I will certainly miss him."

My thoughts go out to his family and friends.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

Erik Bedard took a 3-0 lead into the top of the eigth, then gave up a home run and a single before giving way to Bradford. In typical Orioles fashion, the bullpen blows up. Bradford puts a man on, Walker gets an out, then Williams comes in gives up a hit and a pinch-hit home run to Orlando Hudson. Arizona scores two more in the top of the ninth, and the Diamondbacks are one out away from a 7-3 victory.

Update: They get the out and win 7-3. The Orioles losing streak goes to six games.

Sammy Sosa hits number 599, a grand slam to put Texas on top of Cincinnati 7-4. The Reds have added two since then, but the slam remains the difference in the game.

Sean Casey and Ivan Rodriguez are not having great seasons. Ivan has a very low OBA for a .300 hitter, and Casey's slugging percentage is low for a first baseman. But tonight they've combined for seven hits and eight RBI. Casey knocked out two singles and two doubles, while Ivan picked up three hits and a three run homer. The Tigers lead the Phillies 11-3 in the bottom of the sixth.

Jose Reyes had no trouble figuring out Roger Clemens. He picked up three hits, including a solo home run and drove both Mets runs. He also stole two bases. Roger must feel like he's back in Houston as the Yankees aren't scoring for him through five innings.

Update: The Mets win 2-0. Perez pitches 7 1/3 shutout innings, and the bullpen retires all five batters they face to close out the win.

Erik Bedard and MIcah Owings each retired the first nine batters they faced tonight. Bedard struck out five, while Owings induced seven fly outs and two on the ground. They've combined for 76 pitches, only 21 balls.

Update: Connor Jackson gets the first hit of the game with two out in the fourth, a double down the leftfield line.

Update: Owings gives up his first hit to Roberts leading off the fourth.

Correction: First hit in the fourth, not the third.

Derek Jeter singled in the first inning today. Derek always seems to be getting a hit, and it made we wonder in what percentage of games Jeter picked at least one base knock. Here's the highest percentage of games gathering a hit since 1957, minimum 1000 games played:

Player	Games with a Hit	Games Played	Percentage
Ichiro Suzuki	819	1020	80.3
Derek Jeter*	1357	1743	77.9
Nomar Garciaparra	959	1257	76.3
Tony Gwynn	1838	2440	75.3

So if you want to see a hit, attend a game with Jeter playing!

* Includes tonight

Lots of asterisks at Fenway as Bonds comes up. People are holding signs and wearing tee-shirts. The booing wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, however, unless they've turned the microphones down.

Update: Bonds just misses hitting the Pesky Pole, then pops out to Pedroia in shallow right for the second out, leaving a runner at third. The Giants lead 1-0 on a Roberts single and a Sweeney double.

Update: The Giants score a second run on a wild pitch, but moving Drew to the top of the Red Sox lineup pays off as Drew gets hit and Pedroia homers into the Monster seats to tie the game.

Julio Franco starts for the Mets tonight vs. Roger Clemens, probably one of the oldest batter/pitcher matchups of all time. I remember a great at bat between the two in Clemens' one hitter. I was at the game with a friend from England; it was his first baseball game. At one point, Clemens got ahead of Franco 2-0. He then threw a curveball that just missed the outside corner. Julio flinched at the pitch, and I turned to my friend and said, "He won't let that pitch go by again." The next pitch, Clemens busted him high and inside for ball two. On the fifth pitch of the at bat, Roger repeated the third pitch, except this time it broke about a foot off the plate. But Julio couldn't let it pass again, and swung and missed by a mile. A great example of setting up a batter by Roger.

Ted Lilly, pitching great, throwing 92 pitches through eight innings is lifted for the closer. I can't believe managers do this.

Update: The Padres go down 1-2-3, but I still don't like the strategy. The Cubs win 4-1. The Dodgers can take over first place in the NL West with a victory over the Angels tonight.

Firebrand of the American League hears a Red Sox/Twins/Phillies trade rumor that makes sense.

Mike Fontenot picks up his sixth extra base hit in nine games, putting the Cubs on top of the Padres 3-1 in the bottom of the seventh. That gives him two doubles, triples and home runs in his short stretch with the Cubs this year among his eleven hits. He also has driven in nine runs in nine games. Soriano follows two batters later with his eleventh long ball, and the Cubs take a 4-1 lead to the bottom of the seventh.

Lilly only has two K through seven innings, but the Padres are five for twenty three putting the ball in play today.

I'm interested to see the reaction Bonds gets in Boston tonight. Red Sox fans can be quite abusive, and there's not much room between a player in the on-deck circle and the expensive seats. Barry has the chance to add Julian Tavarez to pitchers against whom he's homered and Fenway Park to venues in which he's homered.

The Mets visit Yankee Stadium tonight as Oliver Perez faces Roger Clemens, with the Mets 1-9 in their last 10 and the Yankees 9-1. My good friend Jim Storer called to tell me today he heard the Mad Dog on WFAN say the Mets have a higher probability of being swept than they do of winning one game in the series. That's only true if you consider the last ten games as a meaningful representation of the winning percentages of the two teams. If you take their season winning percentages as more accurate, the highest probability is that the Mets take two out of three.

Jeremy Bonderman takes his undefeated record against the hot Phillies and Jon Lieber tonight. Opponents hit Lieber well in Philadelphia, with Jon giving up 130 points more in slugging percentage than on the road. Bonderman is walking less than two per nine innings, over a walk better than his career average.

One of the best pitching matchups of the day takes place in Colorado where James Shields shares the thin air with Rodrigo Lopez. Batters are hitting for power against Lopez in Denver, but he's only issued three walks in his four starts there, somewhat mitigating those extra-base hits. Shields yields a good number of home runs, but he also keeps base runners to a minimum with a .259 OBA against.

Finally, the Angels get to play in the city that bears their name as they travel to Los Angeles proper to face the Dodgers. Only Vicente Padilla owns a worse road ERA than Santana among pitcher with 30 innings away from home. Lowe's had the bad luck of pulling better starters than him lately. Despite a 2.31 ERA since May 1, he's lost two quality starts in that time and another in which he allowed four runs in eight innings.

Enjoy!

Fire Brand of the American League looks at the fallout from not signing Orlando Cabrera, and call that Theo's biggest mistake. In hindsight that may be true, but at the time it made perfect sense.

6-4-2 Blames the 1997 Marlins for the demise of the Dodgers. I'd say it's more like the Dodgers not understanding the insignificance of a small sample size. If the Indians won that series (and it was just a bit of luck that they didn't), would everyone have adopted long term contracts for young players and building from within? Could one misplayed ground ball really make that much of a difference?

I was watching the Marlins game last night, and they kept bringing players from the 1997 team into the booth. The theme was that this was one of the great World Series of all time, but because it was Cleveland and Florida, no one noticed. Game seven was certainly exciting, but game three was the only other one that served any late excitement, and even that one dragged on too long as the Marlins scored seven in the top of the ninth to break a 7-7 tie, and the Indians came back in the bottom of the inning to score four. Compare that to the 2001 series, in which you had three dramatic endings, including the final at bat of game seven.

Adam Everett broke his leg Thursday in a collision with Carlos Lee:

Everett fractured his right fibula in a collision with left fielder Carlos Lee while chasing a popup in the fourth inning. The Astros blew a one-run lead in the sixth and lost on a single by Jason Kendall off Brian Moehler in the 11th.

"It's tough," Everett said. "I felt like we were right on the verge of getting to play better. And it's just frustrating. That's the only thing I can say. It's a tough time of year. This is tough on everybody. It's not much fun."

Eric Bruntlett takes over at shortstop.

Bruntlett, 29, hit .279 in 60 games at Round Rock, with a .362 average and 15 runs scored in May. His teammates are confident Bruntlett can be effective with the glove as well as the bat.

"In my career, Eric Bruntlett has made a few spectacular plays when I've been pitching," reliever Brad Lidge said. "He's definitely a guy that can help us out."

It's difficult to replace Everett's range. But Bruntlett should provide more offense than a player with an OPS under .600. As long as Eric can make the routine plays, the Astros should be okay.

I wrote snarky comments about the Pirates and Nationals last night, and commenters correctly called me on those. The Pirates offense ranks 12th in the NL in runs per game at 4.20. Coming into last night's game, however, they had been on a bit of a roll, averaging over five runs per game in their previous eight. And while I still don't think Washington is a very good team, since May 11 they are 20-12, tied for the third best record in the majors (with the Phillies), while Baltimore is 12-19 in the same period.

However, the Baltimore media did react badly to the sweep:

Had the reeling Orioles reached their lowest point? Sam Perlozzo was asked that question after his team fell to the Washington Nationals, 3-1, last night, completing a humiliating three-game sweep. The Orioles' embattled manager stared straight ahead for a second while he formulated a response.

"Well, we're eight games under," Perlozzo said. "I'd say so."

His response was justified. It wasn't just any other sweep that the last-place Orioles (29-37) absorbed on their home field. It was a three-game sweep by the Orioles' so-called "geographic rivals" as designated by Major League Baseball.

It was a three-game sweep by a team that was a near unanimous pick to finish with the National League's worst record, has a third of the Orioles' payroll, a pitching staff mostly plucked from the scrapheap and a lineup that features several castoffs.

I'm waiting for the axe to drop on Perlozzo.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

Kaz Matsui is off to a good start this year, and he picked up three hits against the Red Sox tonight as the Rockies take two out of three, winning 7-1 this evening, pinning the first loss of the season on Josh Beckett. Matsui went 5 for 14 in the series. Coupled with the Yankees win, the Red Sox see their lead dwindle to 7 1/2 games.

I was a big worried that there were too many teams getting ahead of their divisions. But with the Mets and Red Sox coming back to the pack and the Brewers not able to take advantage of a weak division, we have six good races right now. That's always fun.

Tim Hudson outpitched Johan Santana tonight, allowing just two hits over 7 1/3 innings, leaving after just 84 pitches. Santana gave up two runs in his seven innings of work, walking three and striking out nine. Certainly an effort worth a win.

The score stayed 2-0 until the bottom of the ninth when Wickman came in to try to earn the save. After Castillo reached second on a single and a Mauer ground out, the Braves shifted the outfield on Cuddyer, expecting him to go the opposite way. Wickman gave MIchael a pitch he could pull, however, and he grounded it hard by the diving third baseman for a triple, putting the tying run at third with one out. Morneau picked up an infield single to first, but Cuddyer couldn't score.

That brough up Hunter, who grounded to Escobar, who threw home late. That tied the game, and Mark Redmond singled to left to make Reyes the winner and hang a loss on Wickman. The Braves fall 1/2 game behind the Phillies in third place in the NL East.

The Washington Nationals sweep their neighbors to the north, defeating the Orioles tonight 3-1. Not only does it have to be a bit of an embarrassment for Baltimore to get swept at home by a poor Washington team, but tonight they only managed to score one run against Jason Simontacchi despite nine hits and four walks against him in seven innings of work. In all, they put 15 men on base and scored just one run! I'm guessing after this series we'll hear more calls for Perlozzo's head.

Pirate fans got an idea of just how poor their offense is tonight as Kameron Loe pitched eight shutout innings. Loe came into the game with a 7.40 ERA and a .323 batting average allowed, but the Pirates could only manage five hits in twenty seven at bats against the Texas starter. Meanwhile, Texas batters hit three home runs, including a three-run shot by Laird for a 6-0 victory.

Cesar Izturis came into today's game against the Mariners batting just .247 with a .299 slugging percentage. But in the bottom of the eighth, with men on second and third, he delivered a double to put the Cubs on top 5-4 and give the team their second one-run victory in a row. He was only 7 for 56 with one double at Wrigley entering today. Maybe getting a big hit from an unlikely source will turn the Cubs around.

Chad Gaudin pitched a poor game today, but the Oakland pen saved the day. Gaudin gave up nine hits, four walks and five runs in 4 1/3 innings today. Over 6 2/3 innings, however, the Oakland pen totally shut down the Astros offense. They allowed just three hits and no walks while striking out six. That gave the offense enough time to score first in extra innings as Oakland kept pace with the Angels, winning 6-5.

Grady Sizemore hits a slow roller between first and the pitcher. Boone fields it, throws to Wilis covering, but the ball is to the home plate side of first. Dontrelle dives back with his throwing hand and Sizemore's spikes scrape the left hand. Dontrelle was rolling around in pain, but he's going to stay in and pitch.

The Yankees win their ninth in a row, an easy 7-1 victory over the Diamondbacks. The New York starters are going deep in games; it's the fifth time in this streak the starter went at least seven innings as Pettitte pitches eight. Andy was able to go that far because he was efficient, using just 101 pitches. The rotation sports a 2.98 ERA during the streak, while the Yankees offense is averaging over seven runs a game.

The Angels continue their hot play, defeating the Cincinnati Reds 9-7 this afternoon. With both Oakland and Seattle playing well, the Angels needed to keep their winning percentage high to prevent those two teams from catching up. Two big reasons for the Angels success are Casey Kotchman and Orlando Cabrera. Since the start of May, the two are are taking pressure off Guerrero to supply all the offense. Kotchman is finally hitting like a first baseman, and may be going through a transformation similar to Justin Morneau last season. The two combined to reach base five times today, scoring three runs and driving in two.

Orlando Hudson blooped a single to right in the top of the sixth, but limped to first base. He's out of the game, although from the replay it's not clear what happened. It looks like it must have been on the swing, since he could not run hard out of the box. The Yankees lead 4-1 going to the bottom of the sixth.

Justin Germano continues to impress in the Padres rotation. He pitched six innings today against the Devil Rays, allowing just four hits and no runs. His strikeout totals aren't high, but he just doesn't issue many walks. Tampa Bay batters drew one today, bring Germano's total to five for the season in 42 innings pitched. That's very different than the start of his career. Through 2006, he walked 17 in 28 innings. His ERA took a dive with his walk rate.

J.P. Howell pitched well, but no run support may doom him to a loss. The Padres lead 6-1 in the top of the ninth.

There was another shoving incident last night:

Sampson, who pitched seven strong innings, tried to console Wheeler when he came back to the dugout. Wheeler turned and shoved Sampson with both hands, then yelled at Sampson to go to the other end of the dugout.

The shoving was reminiscent of the scuffle between the Cubs' Carlos Zambrano and Michael Barrett two weeks ago, though this one was over in an instant. Wheeler (0-4) was contrite after the game and told Sampson he wanted to talk to him after the media finished asking Sampson questions.

"There's nothing going on," Wheeler said. "I love Chris. It was just frustration on my part. I'm a professional, I should be better than that. I take full responsibility."

Sampson said the outburst shouldn't be blown out of proportion.

"It's not a big deal," he said. "There's no issues there. I think of Dan like a big brother. It was bad timing on my part. I was trying to pat him on the back and tell him, 'We'll get them next time.' He was in the heat of the moment."

It's like the ghost of Billy Martin keeps possessing players.

There was an exchange last night between Brad Penny and Shawn Green. No one knew what it was at the time, but Penny accused Green of stealing signs at second base earlier in the game, relaying pitch location to the batter. Given that the Mets lost big, it didn't work very well.

There are six games this afternoon and six games this evening as it's getaway day during interleague play. The best pitching matchup in the afternoon takes place in Houston where Chad Gaudin faces Jason Jennings. In five starts, Jennings owns a 2.70 ERA, although with Houston's weak offense he's yet to earn a win. He's walked just seven in 30 innings. Gaudin ranks second in the AL in ERA, almost a run behind teammate Dan Haren. Chad strength rests in his three home runs allowed, the second lowest HR per 9 in the AL.

Also this afternoon, former Cardinal teammates Jeff Weaver and Jason Marquis meet at Wrigley as the Mariners and Cubs finish up their series. Weaver managed to get through four innings against the Padres without blowing up in his first start back from the DL. Maybe he should just face National League teams. Since his complete game shutout of the Pirates on May 9th, Marquis pitched more bad games than good ones, going 0-2 with a 5.10 ERA. He's only struck out one more than he walked in that time.

Tonight, two of the best pitchers of their generation face off in Minnesota as Tim Hudson and the Braves battle Johan Santana and the Twins. Johan's been vulnerable at home this season, posting a 4.11 ERA at the Metrodome. His walks, strikeouts and home runs are good home and away, it's simply 20 more hits allowed at home. Hudson greatly cut his home runs allowed vs. 2006. Last season he allowed a little over 1.0 per nine innings. In 2007, he's cut that by more than two thirds, down to 0.29 per nine.

Enjoy!

Josh Johnson is ready to return, while Anibal Sanchez goes to visit Dr. Andrews.

The battle between Bud Selig and Jason Giambi heated up with a leak from the commissioner's office:

Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig is heading toward suspending Jason Giambi next week if the New York Yankees slugger does not cooperate with former senator George Mitchell's investigation on steroid use, according to a high-ranking MLB official.

The official, who talked with Selig but has not been granted permission to speak publicly because of ongoing talks, said Selig wants Giambi's decision by Tuesday.

I don't see the point of this. If anything, Selig should have taken Giambi's remarks as a starting point, and encouraged him and others to speak out more. Now it will just be another labor/management fight that might set back all the cooperation the sides achieved over the last few years. If you are a subscriber to Baseball Prospectus, see my latest column for how I would handle this.

Baseball needs to create an environment where the players can talk publicly and honestly about past steroid use so we can all discuss the subject with facts. Selig's leak does just the opposite.

Lion in Oil links to video of Kuo's bat flip. No doubt he'll take the same career path as Babe Ruth. :-)

Two more blowouts from last night brought the total up to eight for the evening. The Indians took control of the game with the Marlins in the sixth inning, scoring six runs. That ended a 14 inning scoreless streak against the Fish. David Dellucci capped the scoring with a three run homer, and the Indians bullpen allowed two hits over four inning to preserve the win for Cliff Lee. Nice use of the bullpen, too as both Mastny and Betancourt pitched more than an inning in relief. The Indians won by a final of 7-3.

The Dodgers touched Jorge Sosa for six runs in 5 2/3 innings as they went on to a 9-1 victory. The six, seven and eight hitters for the Dodgers did most of the damage, going seven for twelve with four runs scored and five RBI. Once again, walks were a problem for the Mets as they failed to draw a single free pass. James Loney hit his first home run of the season. He's 3 for 9 since his call up with a single, double and home run.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

It's big win Wednesday as a number of teams win by large margins. The Yankees gain a game on the Red Sox, cutting the AL East lead to 8 1/2 games. New York took down Arizona 7-2. Matsui, Posada and Alex Rodriguez all homered, for A-Rod number 25 on the season. That leaves him 11 short of 500. More importantly, Mussina pitched like the Mike of old, lasting 7 2/3 innings, striking out seven and walking none for the win.

Meanwhile, the Rockies were rocking Fenway. Colorado hitters picked up 14 hits, five for extra bases as they triumphed over the Red Sox 12-2. The Rockies bullpen pitched four solid innings, allowing just one hit while striking out three. The Rockies are now 7-3 in their last 10 games.

The Padres averaged a run per inning as they blew out the Devil Rays 9-0. The Padres got off to a big lead early and Peavy cruised for seven innings, allowing two hits and three walks while striking out eight. He's still allowed just one home run this season.

And in the battle of the also rans, Pittsburgh downed Texas 8-1. Ian Snell continues to show why he's the ace of the staff, pitching the first complete game of his career, giving up just one unearned run. Snell is now 6-4 with a 2.63 ERA. Jose Bautista was just a home run short of the cycle.

Update: You can add Minnesota over Atlanta (6-0) and Oakland over Houston (7-3) to the list.

Adam Wainwright is about to start the sixth inning with a no-hitter and a 7-0 lead over the Royals. He's walked only one, facing 16 batters in the first five innings.

Update: With two out, Miles commits an error on a hard shot right at him. German follows with a solid single to break up the no-hitter.

Bill Hall continues to be a thorn in the side of the Tigers. He drew three walks in his three plate appearances last night. Tonight he was 2 for 2 with a walk when he came up in the eighth down 2-1 with a man on first. This time, he homers to give Milwaukee their first lead of the series, 3-2. He also has two doubles.

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

The Baseball Musings Radio Show is coming up in a little while at 8 PM EDT. You can leave questions during the show in the TPSRadio Chat Room. I really recommend you stop by the chat room. Lots of people make for a lively discussion and helps me with the show.

Edwin Jackson only lasts 1/3 of an inning as the Padres take a 5-0 lead into the bottom of the first. I thought this might be an easy win for Peavy, and the Padres offense gives him a great cushion.

Tim Lincecum keeps striking batters out, but his batters keep finding ways to score off him in June. He made his third poor start in a row today, allowing seven runs in 3 2/3 innings. This month, he pitched a high hit game on 6/3, a high walk game on 6/8, and a high hit and walk game today as he allowed seven hits and four walks against the Blue Jays. His ERA for the month is 9.82, and it looks like he needs to work on his craft some more. The Blue Jays lead the Giants 7-1 after four innings.

I find it interesting that Melky Cabrera engenders so much debate. My good friend Jim Storer called me earlier this season to basically tell me, "I told you so," about Melky's poor performance. You can see the debate in the comments to this positive post about Cabrera. My feeling is, someone who posted a .360 OBA at age 21 should be taken seriously. Playing often and well at an early age is an indicator of future success. For example, here's a list of everyone in major league history who posted an OBA of between .355 and .365 at age 21, with at least 400 at bats:

Name	OBA
Adrian Beltre	0.360
Jerry Browne	0.358
Melky Cabrera	0.360
Gary Carter	0.360
Orlando Cepeda	0.355
Willie Randolph	0.356
Ron Santo	0.362
Lou Whitaker	0.361

That's a pretty good list. If Cabrera turns out to be the Governor, he'll be a decently useful player. If he turns out to be Randolph, the Yankees will be very happy. I don't think Cabrera should be dismissed out of hand.

Utley doubles, Howard strikes out, then the White Sox walk Pat Burrell to bring up Nunez. He delivers a soft liner down the right field line to plate the go-ahead run, and the Phillies take a 4-3 lead in the bottom of the seventh. It's a rare single for a Phillies pinch hitter. The group for the Phillies came into the game batting .220.

Update: The Phillies load the bases and Aaron Rowand caps the inning with a grand slam. Jimmy Rollins may turn out to be right about this team after all. The Phillies lead the White Sox 8-3 at the end of seven.

Kyle Kendrick, called up to replace Freddy Garcia, singles in his first major league at bat. The White Sox and Phillies each scored a single run in each of the first two innings. If that pattern keeps up, the game will never end!

Jacob Jackson's first Hardball Times column is posted. He's trying to identify the next Jack Cust.

Jorge Posada decided to give free agency a try at the end of the season. While I'm sure Yankees fans would like to see Posada finish his career in the Bronx, I understand that the Yankees may not wish to commit to a long term contract. Maybe the Yankees should do what the Red Sox did with Tim Wakefield, a perpeturally renewing contract. In this case, the Yankees can agree to pay Posada a very healthy salary, and as long as Jorge keeps his production up, the Yankees keep renewing. I suppose they could pay a lose base amount, and then pay for each game he plays. That way, if he becomes a backup catcher, the Yankees can still afford to keep him around.

For Baseball Prospectus subscribers, my latest column discusses a way the Mitchell investigation can get at the true history of steroids abuse in baseball.

The Baseball Musings radio show will be on TPSRadio tonight at 8 PM EDT. Check out TPSRadio's other sports programming as well.

Feel free to leave a question in the comments to this post and I'll be happy to answer it on the air.

If you like lots of runs, tonight looks like a good night for them. There aren't many great pitching matchups on tap for today. The most extreme mismatch takes place in Tampa Bay, where Jake Peavy faces Edwin Jackson. Jackson brings an 0-7 record with a 7.39 ERA to the mound. He's an interesting pitcher, because his FIP is much lower than his ERA. He walks a lot of batters, but he really gives up a ton of hits. This really may be an example of someone who loses it when he gets in trouble. Batters are 7 for 11 against him with the bases loaded this season, and his slugging percentage allowed goes up 100 points with men on base. In contrast, Peavy's slugging percentage goes down with men on base.

The Athletics and Astros send out Joe Blanton and Chris Sampson, each pitching well but each just one game over .500. Sampson survives despite a high number of balls in play. His strikeout rate is extremely low, but his walk rate is lower. Blanton has an extreme home/road split. He's a Cy Young candidate in Oakland with a 1.91 ERA, but he's bring up the rear away with a 5.44 mark. It's all in the hits allowed, making me wonder if for some reason batters don't see his pitches well in Oakland.

The best matchup of the day take place in Los Angeles as two one-loss pitchers face off. Jorge Sosa comes into the game with a 6-1 record and 2.64 ERA. He's holding batters to a .256 OBA. Brad Penny turns up for the Dodgers. He was finally tagged for two home runs, but his slugging percentage allowed is a mere .320.

Enjoy!

Corey Hart analyzed Justin Verlander's pitches after the no-hitter:

Corey Hart, wearing No. 1, bid for Brewers hit No. 1 in the seventh. He hit a sinking one-out liner to right. Unlike the game-ending fly ball to right, this was not an easy out. But Ordonez did something he has done several times the last few seasons: He made a running, sliding catch.

"I know he was throwing a no-hitter, and I said, 'I've got to catch that ball,' " Ordonez said.

It was one of only three balls Verlander allowed hit to the outfield.

"He had ridiculous stuff tonight," Hart told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. "He threw his fastball really hard and his other two pitches (curve and change-up) were plus-plus. His stuff was awesome."

Verlander hit his spots with every pitch. The fastballs were down on the corners, and the breaking ball caught the plate at the last second. It was fun to watch.

Clarification: When I wrote, "Verlander hit his spots with every pitch," I meant each type of pitch, not each individual pitch.

The Cincinnati Reds struck out sixteen times last night. Escobar struck out 14 in his six innings of work, but the little red machine managed a 5-3 win.

When a major-league baseball team strikes out 14 times in six innings against the other team's starting pitcher (16 times in eight innings), the post-game clubhouse usually is a glum place while the official scorer applies an 'L' next to the team's name.

Since the start of the Day by Day Database in 1957, there have been 380 games in which the starter struck out 14 or more. The combined record in those games is 268-55, an .830 winning percentage. Last night's start was the 57th no decision. Yes, the Reds got lucky last night. When they put the ball in play, good things happened as they picked up a hit nine times and reached via an error twice on twenty balls in play.

With Joe Crede going down due to back surgery, Josh Fields gets a chance to shine at third base for the White Sox. Fields made good progress through the minors, improving as he moved through the system and was having his best minor league season in 2007 at AAA. I've never been a huge Joe Crede fan. His career OBA is .305. This is an opportunity for Fields to push Crede out the door.

Michael Barrett keeps arguing with his pitchers:

Hill was long gone by then, but he was involved in a familiar scene in the Cubs dugout early on, getting involved in an animated discussion with Barrett between innings after Seattle pitcher Jarrod Washburn singled home a run in the fourth. Pitching coach Larry Rothschild stepped in to calm Hill down, avoiding another made-for-ESPN scene as the TV cameras followed their every move.

Coming on the heels of the Barrett-Carlos Zambrano fight that occurred only 12 days earlier, the latest dugout drama is likely to fuel speculation that Barrett's days with the Cubs are numbered. If the No. 1 catcher can't get along with his pitchers, something has to give, and it's much easier to deal a catcher than a starting rotation.

Hill denied there was a problem, saying he was angry with himself.

"No, no, no," he said. "No disagreement. I just told him I was upset about the pitch. I just wish I made a better pitch to Washburn. He said 'Just hang in there and keep us where we're at and we're going to win this game.' "

Barrett talked around the subject, but conceded the talk was heated at times.

"It was the heat of the moment," Barrett said. "We just talked things through. Rich did a pretty good job overall. I think he was disappointed about hanging the slider to Washburn. It wasn't even a big deal. Whatever happened, I don't even know. We were just talking about pitch selection, and what we were going to do the next inning.

On top of that, Lou Piniella doesn't want to talk:

Manager Lou Piniella blew off the media after the loss, stewing in his office while Barrett, Hill and Will Ohman faced the music in the clubhouse.

The Cubs appear to be a team on the verge of a breakdown, with Piniella in the middle with nowhere to hide.

When does bad luck turn into bad managing? The Cubs have three slots in the lineup, #5, #7 and #8 in which they're getting substandard production, OBAs around .300 and slugging percentages below .400. The lack of production from the five hole creates a huge void in the order and wastes the talents of the number six hitters (no one to drive in, no to keep the rally going). Maybe Lou could come up with a better order. But this is a team of great strengths and even greater weaknesses. The two balance, so the Cubs score a decent amount of runs. But if there's a game that needs a timely hit, almost half of the order is unlikely to produce one. At this point, the GM needs to find better players to complement his superstars.

The Red Sox flipped Dustin Pedroia and Julio Lugo in the lineup last night, making the rookie second baseman the leadoff hitter:

You need only check one column on the stat sheet to understand why the move was made: Pedroia had an on-base percentage of .399, third on the team behind Kevin Youkilis and David Ortiz. Lugo was at .274 (.276 in the leadoff spot, tied with Rocco Baldelli of the Devil Rays for worst leadoff OBP in the AL). Contrast that to Hanley Ramirez, the former Sox prospect who began the night with a .425 OBP while batting leadoff for the Marlins.

Some teams wind up with a position that they just can't fill correctly. The Mets were famous for a long time for not being able to find a steady third baseman. The Mariners tried a new left fielder every year. Now the Red Sox keeping rotating in a new shortstop every season. Lugo is way off his career averages (which really aren't leadoff quality), so the youngster gets the chance.

Correction: Mets third basemen, not first basemen.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

Brad Lidge comes in for his first ninth inning save opportunity in a while, and promptly gives up a home run to the leadoff batter, Mark Kotsay. That ties the game at four, and makes Brad 0-3 in save opportunities this season. Luckily, Ausmus singles home Everett in the bottom of the eleventh to end the game with a 5-4 Astros victory.

Hong-Chih Kuo, pitching against the Mets, hits the first home run of his career. That gives him two career hits, both for extra bases (the other a double). He doesn't hit them very often, but when he does they go a long way.

Maine allowed three home runs so far, increasing his total for the season by 50%. The Dodgers lead the Mets 3-1 in the bottom of the fourth.

The Yankees defeat the Arizona Diamondbacks 4-1 for their seventh straight win, bringing themselves back to the .500 mark. This is the first time in the seven games that they scores less than five runs. They've outscored their opponents 53-21, or an average of better than 7-3. That's the kind of play I expected from the Yankees at the start of the season. We'll see if it turns out to be too little too late.

Cole Hamels got off to a rough start tonight, but recovered to earn his ninth win of the season. After giving up two home runs in the first, Hamels allowed only four hits and no runs over the next seven innings while striking out eight total. The Phillies take the game 7-3, gaining a game on the Braves and possibly another on the Mets.

The Washington Nationals peck away at Daniel Cabrera to score in four consecutive innings, taking a 7-4 victory over Baltimore. The Nationals scored five of their seven runs on three homers.

Meanwhile, down in Tampa Bay, it was Spinal Tap night. Scott Kazmir struck out eleven and the Devil Rays offense scored eleven as the Padres went down 11-4. Most of that scoring came after Kazmir left the game, so he didn't pick up the win despite six very good innings. Carlos Pena continued his power hitting, picking up a double, a grand slam and five RBI. The Tampa Bay win and the Baltimore loss puts the Devil Rays in fourth place in the AL East and allows them to keep pace with the Red Sox. Those two teams have yet to meet, meaning the Devil Rays have plenty of opportunity to move up in the AL East if they can dominate Boston.

Tim Wakefield and Aaron Cook battled tonight, with Boston taking home a 2-1 victory. Cook lowers his road ERA to 2.90 despite taking his first road loss of the season. In the past, Rockies pitchers tended to be just as bad on the road as at home, so players like Aaron Cook give the team some hope. Wakefield ends a rough five game streak in which he went 1-4 with a 7.98 ERA. He only walked one tonight after walking 15 in his last 29 1/3 innings.

The Royals put a hurtin' on the Cardinals' Brad Thompson tonight, scoring eight times off the right-hander in the first three innings. He's playing the role of Jason Marquis tonight as he stays in to pitch a scoreless fourth. Kansas City knocked out ten hits already, five for extra bases, but no home runs. They lead 8-0 in the fifth.

The Tigers fail to score in the bottom of the eighth, so Justin Verlander comes out to face Craig Counsell needing to get three outs for a no-hitter.

Update: Counsell strikes out on a check swing. Verlander dropped a nasty breaking ball in for strike two.

Update: He strikes out Graffanino on three pitches. It's up to Hardy.

Update: Hardy falls behind 0-2, fouls off a pitch then flies out to Ordonez in right. He was just nasty in the inning, moving the ball all over the plate, just overpowering the Brewers. It's the first no-hitter for the Tigers since Jack Morris at the start of the 1984 season. That campaign ended very well for the Tigers.

Congratulations to Verlander on a great game. He struck out twelve and walked four for a game score of 95. He was hitting the corners with fastballs in the high nineties all night. Just an outstanding performance.

Magglio Ordonez makes the play of the game as he catches a sinking liner by Corey Hart with a feet first sliding catch to preserve the no-hitter. It's the closest the Brewers came to a hit so far. Jenkins strikes out to end the inning, giving Verlander 10 K so far. Six outs to go.

Update: Verlander walks Bill Hall for the third time in the game, but Neifi Perez stops a sharp Gross grounder up the middle and turns it into a double play. Verlander needs three outs for a no-hitter. He'll face the top of the order in the top of the ninth. Justin just passed 100 pitches, finishing the inning with 101.

Curtis Granderson helped the Tigers to two more runs in the bottom of the sixth. His triple drove in a run, then he scored on a sacrifice fly. The three-bagger was Granderson's thirteenth of the season. Coming in game sixty three, he's on a pace for thirty three in 2007. The AL record is twenty six (Joe Jackson in 1912 and Tiger Sam Crawford in 1914) so he's halfway there. He's also on a good enough pace to be threatening the ML record of 36 set by Owen Wilson in 1912.

Bobby Abreu continued his hot hitting in the first inning with a three-run homer off Brandon Webb. The hit gives Bobby 20 in 39 June at bats.

Justin Verlander issued three walks through five innings, but that's it. The birds must be good luck as the Brewers have yet to pick up a hit while striking out eight times. The Tigers lead 1-0 on an Inge home run.

Update: Verlander retires the Brewers in order in the sixth, picking up his ninth strikeout.

The sea gulls returned to Detroit tonight. The announcers indicated that dogs were used before the game to try to chase them away. But they keep flying between the pitcher and batter. It's a good thing Randy Johnson isn't there. :-)

Cole Hamels breaks the three way tie for most home runs allowed in the National League as he gives up long balls to Konerko and Dye in the first inning. His sixteen home runs allowed ties him with Ervin Santana for the most allowed in the majors.

There a fascinating post on the genetics of whippets at John Hawks Antropology Weblog. It turns out, we now know what makes whippets fast.

It worked. "Bully whippets," as the heavyset dogs are known, turn out to have a genetic mutation that enhances muscle development. And breeders may not want to eliminate the "bully" gene after all. The scientists found that the same mutation that pumps up some whippets makes others among the fastest dogs on the track.

If a whippet receives two copies of the mutation, the whippet is muscle bound and slow. If it receives no copies of the mutation, it is thin slow. But if the dog gets one of each, then whippet is a racer. If you keep a stock of slow think whippets and slow muscular whippets and breed them together, you'll always get a litter of fast whippets! And it turns out, humans have the same mutation.

Moreover, the prospect of races being won by dogs intentionally bred to have a genetic advantage may bring new attention to the way that genes contribute to canine -- and human -- achievement, even when the genetic deck is not stacked. Inborn abilities once attributed to something rather mystical seem to lose a certain standing when connected to specific genes.

A mutation similar to the one that makes some whippets faster also exists in humans: a sliver of genetic code that regulates muscle development, is missing.

"It would be extremely interesting to do tests on the track finalists at the Olympics," said Elaine Ostrander, the scientist at the National Institutes of Health who discovered that the fastest whippets had a single defective copy of the myostatin gene, while "bullies" had two.

"But we wouldn't know what to do with the information," Ms. Ostrander said. "Are we going to segregate the athletes who have the mutation to run separately?" For the moment, it is whippet owners who find themselves on the edge of that particular bioethical frontier.

This of course, opens up a whole new way to cheat at sports that will leave steroids in the dust. A little generic engineering, and out emerges a fast athlete. Parents can test for the allele and decide to train their child for sports at an early age. The possibilities are endless.

In this light, steroids actually balance the playing field. Why should some players be rewarded just because they produce more testosterone? Sports will ban the shots, but they'll have a lot more trouble detecting genetic manipulation to achieve the same result.

A nice mid-western rivalry returns to the Motor City tonight as the Brewers face the Tigers. Jeff Suppan takes the mound against Justin Verlander. This is a good opponent for Suppan as Detroit lacks left-handed batters, who hit Jeff well. The Brewers, on the other hand, can stack five left-handed hitters against Verlander. Lefties are slugging 150 points higher than righties against the young Tiger starter.

Double W's take the mound at Yankee Stadium as Brandon Webb battles Chien-Ming Wang. Webb has yet to allow an earned run in June. He's also a road warrior, bringing to the game a 4-1 record and a 2.34 ERA away from Phoenix. All three home runs Wang allowed this season came at home, however.

Generations clash in Tampa Bay as Greg Maddux takes on Scott Kazmir. Greg is keeping left-handed batters off balance this season as they're managing just a .276 OBA against him. Kazmir owns a strange home/road split. His ERA is a run lower at home, but his record is 0-2 there vs. 4-1 on the road. The Devil Rays are averaging less that four runs per game in Kazmir's seven home starts.

Enjoy!

MLB.com hires Harold Reynolds. I assume this means he'll be part of the baseball channel when that premiers.

Welcome back, Harold!

River Ave. Blues complains about the seating arrangement at the new Yankee Stadium:

So the team will get its new playground, but we fans will get a giant surprise: The best seats in the house won't be there anymore.

The tier level seats in Yankee Stadium are one of the great joys of the current stadium, remodeled in the 1970s. The boxes hang low over the lower decks and offer an intimate view of the field and the game. With the Tier Boxes so low, even the Tier Reserve seats don't see as high up as they do in Shea Stadium or Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia.

All of that will change in the new stadium, and no one had reported this dismaying fact until Neil DeMause presented it in an article everyone overlooked in the Village Voice in March.

I was aware of this from the beginning. My uncle has seats in the upper deck behind home plate. Every year he asks to move down to the lower deck, and every year the people at Yankee Stadium tells him he has the best seats in the house. Maybe with the new park, he'll finally get to move to the lower level.

There's an excellent discussion in the comments. As for the people who say Yankee Stadium is just fine and they don't need a new park, they've never been in the bowels of the stadium. The halls are thin, it's low tech and it's just not a pleasant place. For broadcasters it's just awful. Do a game from Cleveland, and you drive a truck into an underground garage and plug in. Do a game from Yankee Stadium and you have to run wires over the right field fence. Believe it or not, it's not all about the fans. It's about having state of the art facilities for training players, for serving the media, for delivering food to concession stands, etc. I like the old stadium, too, but I'll probably like the new one just as much. The people who work there, however, are going to like it a whole lot more.

With a 5-3 loss to the Dodgers Monday night, the New York Mets have now lost seven of their last eight games. During this time, they're getting on base at a .302 clip. Up until the start of this streak, the high scoring offense posted a .349 OBA. And it's a result of not walking. Through June 2nd, the team BB/AB was .108. Now, it's .066. No wonder they've scored just 28 runs in their last eight games.

And it's the older players causing the trouble. Beltran and Delgado especially aren't hitting nor drawing walks. The Mets probably can afford to have one of them go into a slump, but not both.

Update: Odd that Reyes isn't feeling comfortable at the plate. He's drawn six of the Mets' walks in the last eight games and is doing a great job of getting on base.

Mr. Irrelevant likes Jeremy Guthrie for AL Rookie of the Year.

Coming into this season, it was Erik Bedard, Daniel Cabrera and Adam Loewen who gave Baltimore hope for the future. Despite Bedard's amazing strikeout rate, it's Guthrie who's their ace through first two-fifths of the season. The 28 year-old has only three wins (thanks, Chris Ray!), but check out these numbers: 2.70 ERA, 0.93 WHIP and five or more innings and three or less runs in each of his eight starts. If he pitched for Boston there's a good chance he'd be 8-0 and the talk of baseball right now.

And he keeps getting better. His batting average, OBA and slugging percentage allowed went down from April to May to June. Now he just needs the support from the offense and the pen to pick up some wins.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

The Hearst Corporation wants to know what George Mitchell knows:

When the United States attorney's office announced that it had reached a plea agreement with Kirk Radomski, a former Mets clubhouse attendant who said he sold performance-enhancing drugs to major league baseball players, the government said it would provide information from its investigation to baseball for its own inquiry into drug use.

Now the Hearst Corporation, which owns 12 daily newspapers, including The San Francisco Chronicle, says it is entitled to that same information. The company is arguing that the former Senator George J. Mitchell, who is conducting the investigation, is acting as a private citizen and that the federal government cannot selectively give information to such people.

If Mitchell was given the names, the public should have access to them, too, Hearst is arguing in a lawsuit it filed in federal court last week.

Let's face it, the names are going to come out sooner or later. Someone in MLB is going to leak the names. I don't know the law here, but I think the newspapers have a point. What gives MLB the right to the names and not the rest of us? I'd love to hear the lawyers out there weigh in on this. Does Hearst have a case?

Thanks to Maury Brown for the heads up.

Matt Morris allowed three runs in the first inning then shutdown the Toronto Blue Jays the rest of the way as the Giants take the game 4-3. That's Matt's third complete game of the season, tying him with Derek Lowe for the NL lead. I keep expecting teams to start hitting Morris hard, and he keeps truckin'. He's now 7-3 with a 2.56 ERA.

Barry Bonds follows a Klesko single with a Boeing home run, number 747. That ties the Blue Jays at three. Josh Towers put a ball over the plate on the outside half, and Barry smacks it into the center field seats. He needs nine more for the record.

Orlando Hernandez came into tonight's contest against the Dodgers with a .173 batting average allowed. Through three innings, the only base runner he allowed reached via a walk, so with an 0 for 9, his opposition BA is just .164.

The Cubs defeat the Astros 2-1 behind eight stellar innings by Carlos Zambrano. Carlos struck out eight and the only run he allowed was unearned. I expected this to be a blow out as both pitchers came into the game with ERAs over 5.00, but Zambrano lowered his to 4.89. Dempster pitched the ninth for the save. It's only the Cubs fourth win in 17 one-run games this season.

The Mariners blow their early 7-0 lead as the Indians score two in the eighth to tie the game at seven. This game is typical of the Mariners during their hot streak. They're scoring a lot of runs but allowing quite a few, too.

Update: Raul Ibanez is unstoppable tonight. He drives in pinch-runner Bloomquist with a double to the gap in right-center. That gives Raul two homers, a triple and a double in five trips, and the Mariners an 8-7 lead.

Update: That doesn't mean he can't be stopped. Ibanez tries to score from third on a shallow fly ball and is thrown out at the plate. If he slid, he might have been safe, but he gave Martinez a high target to tag.

Update: Morrow pitches the last two innings for the win, despite walking four and allowing three hits. Somehow, with all those base runners, the Indians just managed one run. Seattle is now 9-2 over their last 11 games.

Adam Eaton pitches his best game of the season, shutting out the White Sox for seven innings as the Phillies pick up a 3-0 victory. Since May 8th, Adam pitched in just one game where he failed to go at least six innings and his ERA over that time is 3.24. That despite giving up six home runs and twenty walks in 41 2/3 innings.

The Cubs needed Carlos Zambrano to pitch a good game tonight, and so far he's doing that and more. Through three innings he's allowed just one hit while striking out four. On top of that, he's hit his second home run of the season. That's number twelve of his career as well. The Cubs are up 2-0 and still batting in the bottom of the third.

Paul Byrd is out of the game, but tons of sea gulls are patrolling the outfield in Cleveland. There's a small crowd at this makeup game, and the feather friends are scattering every time there's a hit to the outfield. It looks like something out of a Hitchcock movie, but it hasn't bothered the outfielders yet. The Indians are mounting a comeback in the fifth, trailing 7-3 with two out and two on.

Seattle's Raul Ibanez hit one home run in April and none in May. Three games ago he hit number two, and he doubled his total for 2007 tonight. Twice he's hit two-run shots off Paul Byrd, and Jose Lopez added another to put the Mariners up 7-0 over the Indians. Byrd has not issued a walk nor struck out a batter. The Mariners are 11 for 23 tonight when they put the ball in play against Byrd.

Paul has only thrown 66 pitches to the 23 batters, so Seattle is seeing less than three per plate appearance. A more selective team might make Paul throw more, but they would also be working down in the count a lot. The Mariners aren't letting that happen.

Javier Vazquez has done a good job this season of keeping the ball in the park, allowing just eight home runs in 72 innings coming into the game. That's below his career mark of 1.2 per nine. But tonight, Burrell and Howard each hit solo shots to put Philadelphia up 2-0 in the top of the fifth. Adam Eaton has held the White Sox to just two hits and a walk through four.

The Mariners bats remain hot as they've picked up three singles and a run in the first. Byrd as always is around the plate and the Mariners are making solid contact.

Al Doyle notes that slow sometimes is better than fast.

In the middle of interleague baseball we get a day with an AL game, two NL games and two interleague games. The Mariners and Indians make up the second of their April rainouts. Seattle is rolling, having won eight of their last ten. Unfortunately, the Angels are 7-3 and Oakland is 8-2 over the same stretch. The offense is on fire, scoring sixty six runs in that time. Amazingly, they've done it with just five home runs. But the team is batting .317 with twenty doubles. This is exactly the kind of offense that should do well against Paul Byrd, who allows a high batting average but makes up with it by walking few batters. The Mariners don't walk much anyway.

Houston and the Chicago Cubs also make up a rain out. With Woody Williams and Carlos Zambrano on the mound, this came could easily turn into a slugfest. This is one time the Cubs need Zambrano to step up and go the distance, as their bullpen is worn out after 13 2/3 relief innings the last two days.

The best pitching matchup of the day takes place in Los Angeles as the Mets and Dodgers send Orlando Hernandez and Randy Wolf to the mound. Over 51 innings, opponents are hitting just .173 against Hernandez, and only .111 with runners on base. Wolf has an extreme OBA platoon difference. Lefties get on base at a .214 clip, righties .343.

Enjoy!

Via Instapundit, a reporter was booted from the press box during an NCAA baseball game for live blogging. The College World Series starts on June 15th. Baseball bloggers should live blog something just to piss off the NCAA.

That's an organization that needs to go. Over the years it's grown into a monster. What started out as an organization to improve the rules of sports turned into an intrusive regulatory body. I don't care how many athletic scholarships a university hands out. I don't care if alumni give cars or houses or bags full of money to recruits. If it's so damn important for a school to be good at a sport, let them waste all the money they want putting the best players they can find on the field. I won't send my child to that type of school, but if that's where their priorities lie, why is it anyone's business? Let the NCAA go back to making rules and awarding championships. Let the markets take care of the scholarships and recruiting. The NCAA has way too much power.

Red Reporter sees Mike Stanton's ERA as too low for his stats:

He's currently sitting at 4.38 which just shocked the hell out of me because that's pretty average, and average is not a word I'd use to describe Mike Stanton's performance this season.

But then I figured maybe I'm just remembering all the bad outings and mentally glossing over the good ones. That's entirely possible. I kind of believe it's why so many people hate Adam Dunn.

He notes Stanton's high WHIP and the number of appearances in which he allowed two base runners or more. However, Stanton's pitching tripod, strikeouts, walks and home runs are good. He's walking 2.6 batters per nine innings, and allowing home runs at a rate of 0.36 per nine, or about four every 100 innings pitched.

Because to that, his fielding independent pitching ERA a the Hardball Times is 3.36, meaning Stanton's ERA isn't low based on his stats, it's high. Now, batters are hitting a high percentage of line drives vs. Mike, so it's not all the fielder's fault. But given what he does well, and given the small sample size of innings, the hits are more likely just bad luck.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

The Brewers defeated the Rangers Sunday night 9-6 in twelve innings. Milwaukee knocked out twenty two hits, which seems like a lot for just nine runs. Six of those runs came via the homer, the most important being Jenkins three-run shot in the twelfth. But otherwise, the Brewers were 3 for 17 with runners in scoring position.

The Day by Day Database goes back to 1957, and it that time there are 245 games in which a team picked up at least 22 hits. This is only the eighteenth time a team with at least that many hits scored nine runs or less.

Lion in Oil looks at the so far wasteful signing of Jeff Samardzija.

The season hasn't fared much better for Samardzija since then. He's started 11 games thus far into the 2007 campaign, winning none. He's carrying 5.40 ERA, with a .333 opponents' batting average and 21 strikeouts through 55 innings.

On the plus side, his walks and home runs allowed are good, although the walks may be low because the hitters are getting really good pitches to smack around. Jeff, however, is set for life. Even after agent fees and taxes, Samardzija likely put about $5 million in the bank, and even with a conservative investment, he should be looking at $250,000 a year income for the rest of his life. And since he's not playing football, he'll be able to enjoy it pain free!

Ted Lilly threw a pitch that hit Edgar Renteria in the second inning, then Ted was thrown out of the game. The ump believed the beaning was intentional, and Renteria later left the game with an injured hand from the pitch. The Cubs bullpen was thin after Marquis was knocked around yesterday, but Chicago took a 4-2 lead into the bottom of the eighth when Dempster got the ball. The Braves scored three to send Chicago to a 5-4 defeat.

The Cubs are now 3-13 in one run games. Tonight was their whole season in a microcosm. Nothing seems to break their way. The Cubs own a nice size run differential against their opponents, but the luck of the one-run games is keeping them down.

Mike Timlin threw to the plate just fine. He enters the eighth inning with the Red Sox down 2-1 and men on first and second. Quentin bunts and Timlin goes to get the sure out at first, and throws the ball away. Both runners score and Quentin ends up at third as the Red Sox now trail the Diamondbacks 4-1. Boston made three errors in the game so far.

Update: The Red Sox get two men in scoring position in top of the ninth, but don't score as Arizona wins the game 5-1. That brings the Yankees to 9 1/2 games out.

Troy Glaus continues to generate offense for the Blue Jays, smacking two home runs today to raise his OBA to .401 and his slugging percentage to .557. The problem for the Blue Jays concerning Glaus is that he's only playing about 2/3 of the team's games. Today was Toronto's sixty second game, and Glaus' forty third. The Blue Jays took the Dodgers 11-5 this afternoon.

Trevor Hoffman may be the all-time leader in saves with 500, but he picked up the 58th loss of his career today as Seattle defeated the Padres 4-3. Hoffman didn't allow a hit, but an error on the leadoff hitter led to a series of outs and steals that moved Bloomquist around the bases to the plate with the go-ahead run. Trevor is 51-58 for his career; when he does blow a game, there's often not much of a chance to win it.

Correction: Fixed the losing team.

Lenny DiNardo pitches his second consecutive six inning shutout as he helps keep the Athletics off the score board in a 2-0 Oakland sweep of the Giants. The A's take five out of six from the Giants, shutting them out over the last twenty one innings. Dinardo lowers his ERA to 1.22 in 37 innings pitched. Oakland's pitchers and defense have not allowed more than four runs in their last thirteen games, and are 10-3 over that time period.

Albert Pujols smacked two home runs this afternoon as the Cardinals took the Angels 9-6. That gives Albert six home runs in his last seven games, and this is his second multi-homer game in that stretch. He's driving in twelve runs during that time. Despite Albert's success, the Cardinals are only 4-3.

The Royals take down the Phillies 17-5. This from a lineup that batted Grudzielanek third and started with three batters with OBAs under .300. But Ryan Shealy reached base four times to score four runs, and Grudzielanek drove in five with a home run, single and double. I guess the Royals were saving their offense for today! The Royals take 2 out of 3 from the Phillies, retarding the momentum they picked up in sweeping the Mets. The Mets lost, but by a closer score of 15-7.

Jason Hirsh defeats the Baltimore Orioles 6-1, earning his first complete game. Hirsh's numbers are better than his ERA. However, he's allowed over a .300 average with runners on and with runners in scoring position. He solved that problem today, facing only three at bats with runners in scoring position and not allowing a hit in that situation.

Paul Konerko continues to recover his stroke as he homers, doubles and singles today to help the White Sox to a 6-3 victory over Houston. He's now hitting .344 in June after batting just .229 through the end of May.

C.C. Sabathia pitches nine shutout innings against the Reds but Harang and the bullpen combine to do the same thing. The Indians have a man on first with one out in the top of the tenth, so if they score here C.C. still has a chance to win the game. At 112 pitches, Sabathia isn't likely to come out for the tenth.

As I wrote that, Barfield got picked off. Two out, no one on.

Update: The Indians don't score, Betancourt starts the bottom of the tenth for the Tribe. Harang struck out ten and walked two in seven innings. Sabathia struck out six and walked one. Neither saw the run support they usually do.

Update: The Reds win in twelve innings 1-0. Alex Gonzalez singled in the winning run in the bottom of the inning. Sabathia pitched well enough to earn his tenth win, but he'll have to wait until his next turn.

Tom Glavine gave up nine runs in 4 1/3 innings of work today, matching a career high in runs allowed. This is the fourth time an opponent tagged him for that many runs. The Tigers lead the Mets 11-6 in the seventh. Sheffield is three for four with a single, triple and home run. Gary's OBA is now .392 with a .543 slugging percentage, just what the Tigers were looking for when they hired him.

Bobby Abreu found his batting stroke again. He picked up three more singles today to make him 18 for 37 in June. His latest base knock sets up a three run homer by Alex Rodriguez which gives the Yankees an 8-6 lead over the Pirates in the bottom of the fourth. The long ball gives Rodriguez 61 RBI in 61 games. He's also just six home runs behind McGriff and Gehrig for 22nd on the all-time home run list.

Update: Abreu walks in the sixth, and once again A-Rod follows with a home run. That number 488 for Alex's career.

Andy Sonnanstine is pitching much better in his second outing. Through seven innings he's allowed just two runs on two solo homers while striking out ten. In fourteen big league innings, he still has not issued a walk while striking out fifteen. A great controlled start to his career.

On top of that, he's also picked up two hits, scored a run and driven in a run. Maybe he can be the DH when he doesn't pitch. :-) The Devil Rays lead the Marlins 6-2 in the eighth.

Matt Casey reminds us what it's like not to have a quality closer.

It's the battle of Ohio aces as C.C. Sabathia and Aaron Harang battle in Cincinnati. C.C. tries to become the majors first ten game winner. The Indians support him well, scoring seventy runs in his ninety innings on the mound, almost double the amount he's allowed. Harang, with a higher ERA is 6-2. The Reds are scoring many runs for Aaron as well as they've outscored opponents 60-43 with Harang on the mound.

The Seattle-San Diego game offers an excellent matchup of good, young pitchers as Felix Hernandez faces Chris Young. Hernandez was unhittable before the arm injury, but since returning opponents knocked out 42 hits in 25 2/3 innings. Meanwhile, for the season, opponents are hitting a mere .202 vs. Young.

The game to look forward to most is Boston at Arizona as Daisuke Matsuzaka takes on the legendary Randy Johnson. Dice-K is turning out to have a severe home/road split, with a 5.62 ERA at Fenway and a 3.55 ERA away. His strikeout rate looks like the difference. The Big Unit is back in Arizona and his strikeout rate is returning to the levels last seen when he wore that uniform, putting down 61 in 47 2/3 innings via the K.

Enjoy!

We just returned from the Harvard Class of 1982 reunion. Here's a picture with three of my four roommates. From left to right, Dory Altmann, Dan Wechsler, me, David Aceto. Jim Storer could not make the festivities. That's the entrance to our freshman dorm, Thayer Hall. This was a dangerous place to stand during freshman year, since it's situated below the third floor bathroom, the perfect place from which to drop water balloons. :-)

Blogging will resume shortly.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

Roger Clemens returned to the mound at Yankee Stadium today, and gave the Yankees six decent inning. Roger allowed three runs in six innings, walking two and striking out seven. His big mistake was in the fourth, allowing a two-out double to Jack Wilson which brought in two runs to tie the game.

But the Yankees offense should be able to win with that kind of pitching, and they broke the tie to send Roger from the game with a 6-3 lead. They've extended that to 8-3 as Damon and Jeter reached base five times and scored four runs.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

Sean Conway writes:

I need some help figuring out the cubs this year. They must be the most difficult team to reconcile from a stat to play-on-the-field/ record point. Consider this: they are solidly above average in hitting (runs, OPS), pitching (ERA, OPS against) and Fielding (efficiency, %), 25+ run diff, , and their closer only has one (devastating) blown save. And their 3 worst players beside the miserable J Jones have ben the guys we thought were the most solid (Z, Eyre, Howry) I can't really find any stat says they are not a good, balanced team. They make too many gaffs, and don't appear to be good situational hitters, but is that really enough to lower them from a .550 team to a .450 team?

I am an analyst for a living, and from that perspective the cubs look like a screaming buy, but i am also a cub fan that watches these games, and it's amazing the way they lose games; they also look like a classic "value trap." You tell me.

The Cubs looked like great team last night as Soriano smacked the ball over the fence three times and Sean Marshall pitched six good inning to lead Chicago over the Braves 9-1. But yes, the Cubs don't add up.

To me, a team that outscores opponents overall is a good team, despite their won-loss record. So I tend to go with luck here. After all, Cleveland way underperformed expectations based on run difference for two years. One thing I don't have data on is base running blunders, which seem to be a big concern of Piniella. It's possible the timing of those are costing the team wins without costing them a lot of runs.

Then it could be Lou just doesn't push the right buttons. The wrong reliever at the wrong time, and an otherwise good game ends up a one-run loss. The Cubs are certainly capable of blowing out teams. Is winning the close ones, then a matter of luck, skill, or managerial mistakes? I tend to favor luck, but I'm open to other suggestions.

As for the value trap, there are teams that luck abandoned for a season, but given the weakness of the division, I would expect Chicago's to have a good chance to turn things around.

My roomate Dan Wechsler thought it would be cool to blog from Boston Symphony Hall. He's an Expos fan so he's happy to see the Nats winning 3-0.

It's almost time to get back to reunion activities, but here's a quick games of the day.

The Mets at Detroit features two of the best teams in baseball, both involved in tight pennant races.

Homer Baily debuts for the Reds against cross state rival Cleveland and Cliff Lee. Lee's pitched poorly, which gives Homer a better chance to get his first win.

Boston at Arizona features another matchup of excellent teams. Josh Beckett makes his second attempt at going 9-0.

Chad Gaudin takes his gaudy 2.41 ERA to San Francisco as the Athletics face Tim Lincecum. Oakland pitchers hold the 1-2 spots in the AL ERA race and rank four pitchers in the top sixteen.

Enjoy!

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

Bill Russell and Bill Gates received honorary degrees from Harvard yesterday. As members of the 25th reunion class, we were close to them before the procession began. Here's Russell in his cap and gown:

Gates is standing next to him. Here's Gates by himself. Sorry for the quality, but I was using my cell phone:

After the morning exercises, Gates spoke in the afternoon at the meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association. The 25th reunion class sat on the stage for that one. As we left the yard, we passed very close to Russell.

If you turned off games early yesterday you missed a number of exciting endings. Six team won in their last at bat, the day capped with the Padres scoring five in the bottom of the ninth to defeat the Dodgers. Broxton gave up two infield hits, had Garciaparra make an error behind him, but then with the score tied and the bases loaded, walked in the winning run.

Of course, the best game of the day was won in the first inning, when David Ortiz' home run proved to be the only run the Red Sox scored and needed. Curt Schilling recorded the first 26 outs without allowing a hit. That single by Stewart was the Athletics offense for the day as the Red Sox took home a 1-0 win.

Boston holds a 10 game lead in the east, with the four teams behind them nicely bunched together, Tampa Bay in last place only 1 1/2 games behind Toronto after Young singles in two in the top of the ninth to defeat the Blue Jays 5-2.

And the Phillies are back in the NL East race after a three-game sweep of the Mets. Hamels allowed ten hits in seven innings of work, but the Mets only converted those into three runs. Maine pitched better, leaving after seven with a 3-2 lead. But Wagner blew the save to send the game into extra innings, giving up a home run to Burrell. Utley doubled in the go-head run in the then, and Burrell added a double to finish the scoring. Philadelphia now sits just five games behind New York in third place.

Standing in line waiting to march in for commencement, Bills Russell and Gates walked by on their way to get their honorary degrees. Pictures to follow.

Last night after our arrival in Cambridge, we were being driven to our dorm. I'm talking to the driver, and it turns out he plays baseball for Harvard. Shawn Haviland was pitcher of the year in 2006, and he and two others on the Crimson probably will get drafted at some point in the next two days. Here's his bio.

And yes, he's read Baseball Musings. :-)

I'm off to commencement, but here are the games to watch.

Boston at Oakland, Schilling vs. Blanton. The Athletics are doing a good job of shutting down the Red Sox offense.

Philadelphia at New York Mets. Hamels vs. Maine presents a matchup of good young pitchers. A sweep puts the Phillies just five games out.

And late, Jake Peavy continues his Cy Young season against the Dodgers. Jake is competing with Hamels for the NL strikeout lead.

Enjoy!

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

Aaron Boone homered for the Marlins today, helping them to a 7-4 victory over the Braves. Boone also picked up a single and two walks, raising his OBA to .383. At age 34, he's found a second wind and turned into a good replacement player at third and first for Florida. He's yet to ground into a double play this season.

Dave Stewart wants Bud Selig to attend Bonds record breaking home run.

I'm off to my 25th college reunion tonight through the weekend, so no Baseball Musings Radio Show this evening. I'm going to miss the draft, but I'm sure John Sickels will keep you posted. He ranks New England's Matt Harvey 9th among pitchers. Classmate Jim Storer saw him pitch last week and sent me cell phone video, but I can't get it to play on my computer.

For Baseball Prospectus subscribers, my latest article is now available. This week I look at how hitters are getting older, and how GMs and managers on average do a good job with older hitters.

Kevin Slowey makes the second start of his career after a fine first outing against the Oakland Athletics. He'll take on the LAnaheim Angels and John Lackey. Slowey allowed just five hits in his first start, and only one with runners in scoring position in nine at bats. Lackey tries to become the first ten-game winner in the majors. He's recorded a decision in all twelve games he's started. John's posting the lowest OBA and slugging percentages of his career in 2007.

Is it just me? If I were Charlie Manuel, I'd find a way to avoid throwing Adam Eaton against the Mets. Move Hamels and Garcia up a day? Anyway, Mets most likely get to see their offense go wild today.

I'm still waiting for Matt Morris to revert to form. He's been lucky this year given his strikeout rate to hold such a low ERA. He'll take on the Diamondbacks and Brandon Webb. The defending Cy Young award winner is off to a good start in June, holding the Mets to one unearned run in eight innings his last time out.

Enjoy!

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

Mr. Irrelevant picks his top ten sports blogs, and Baseball Musings ranks number nine! This ranking was in response to BallHypes computer ranking, in which this site went to eleven. That averages to a ten, which given all the fine sports blogs in existence, is a great honor. Now, if BM can just get on a Letterman Top Ten List...

Thanks to all my readers who visit and link to Baseball Musings!

The Padres picked up a 1-0 win last night despite being out-ht 5-2 by the Dodgers. Walks were aplenty in this game as seven were issued by both teams. But it was a hit by pitch that made the difference:

Pinch-hitter Russell Branyan was hit in the foot by a pitch from Rudy Seanez (2-1) with one out in the eighth, stole second and scored on Giles' hit to center.

That set up Trevor Hoffman's 499th save. What's amazing to me about Hoffman is that he's reached 500 saves in a relatively short time. He didn't reach the majors until he was 25. He didn't become a closer until he was 27. For all intents and purposes, he missed the 2003 season with injury. This is his 13th season as a closer, and in that time he's averaged close to 40 saves a season. Even though his strikeout rate dropped since the injury, it's still very good. He's looking at his sixth season in a row with an ERA under 3.00, and his 12th overall. An impressive career.

Former Red Sox pitcher Lenny DiNardo shut down his former team for six innings Tuesday night, despite issuing six walks:

But DiNardo did something against the Sox that he was never able to do for them in seven career starts. The 27-year-old lefthander held them scoreless, and when four Oakland relievers did the same, he conquered Matsuzaka and the Red Sox, 2-0, before a crowd of 31,127 in McAfee Coliseum.

The Sox hit into more double plays (5) than they had hits (3), which offset the six walks DiNardo issued in six innings. All three Sox hits were singles, by Julio Lugo in the first, David Ortiz in the sixth, and Mike Lowell (off reliever Kiki Calero) in the seventh.

The last double play was the weirdest, rookie Dustin Pedroia, who had been hit by a pitch, dropping to the ground to avoid a hunk of Ortiz's bat that went airborne when the Sox DH lined softly to third baseman Eric Chavez in the eighth. Pedroia was still prone when Chavez flipped to first baseman Nick Swisher to double him up.

It was a good pitching night in general, with ten teams holding their opponents to two runs or less. Three of those team lost, however as there were three shutouts!

Anaheim Angels All the Way notes that with the exception of a couple of teams, Joe Saunders fits nicely into other teams' rotations. Sounds like a good target for a trade.

Here's an example of using betting lines to gauge team strength. And here's the same thing for the NL. I surprised the Yankees are so high in the AL and the Marlins are so low in the NL. But that's the wisdom of crowds.

I was just looking at the Yankees/White Sox boxscore, and noticed D. Day pitching. And I thought his whereabouts were unknown!

Alex Rodriguez takes him deep for home run number 21 on the season. The White Sox are batting in the bottom of the ninth down 7-2. However, nothing is over until they say it's over. :-)

Andy Sonnanstine doesn't earn his first major league win despite leaving with an 11-6 lead. The Blue Jays score six runs in the bottom of the ninth as four relievers manage to retire just one of ten batters they face. Just to show how low the DRays bullpen can go, Tim Corcoran comes in, intentionally walks a batter to load the bases, throws a pitch that goes as a passed ball to tie the game, intentionally walks another batter, then can't find the plate against Aaron Hill and walks in the winning run. The Tampa relief ERA rises to 5.50.

Sonnastine did allow hits and runs, but he was around the plate. He did not walk a batter and struck out five. Sixty six of his eighty nine pitches went for strikes. His ERA is high, but it was an encouraging performance.

C.C. Sabathia needed to be close to perfect to win tonight, and that's just what he was. He allows just five hits as he wins a 1-0 game against the Kansas City Royals. He neither walked a batter nor hit one, and all the hits allowed went for singles. He used just 111 pitches to finish the game, raising his record to 9-1 and lowering his ERA to 3.40.

Franklin Gutierrez produced the offensive heroics with his first home run of the season. The seldom used outfielder batted night, but delivered the only run of the game and the second home run of his career.

Chase Utley homers in the top of the eleventh to put the Phillies ahead of the Mets 3-2. Despite 20 hits in the game so far, the teams only managed five runs.

This should make Ron Washington happy. The Rangers worked Nate Robertson for 30 pitches in the first inning, and all six batters reached base. All six also come around to as Diaz drives in four with a grand slam. Robertson gets charged with the ugly infinite ERA for the game.

Rick Vanden Hurk just finished the sixth inning against the Braves without a hit allowed. He's walked one, and 53 of 76 pitches went for strikes, 70%. The Marlins lead 2-0, and Smoltz is out of the game.

Update: Escobar leads off the seventh with a double, ending Vanden Hurk's no-hit bid. Escobar keeps hitting for power.

Andy Sonnanstine allows one hit in his first first inning, a double by Vernon Wells. But he threw strikes. He retired the Jays without allowing a run on fourteen pitches, eleven for strikes. A nice start to his major league career.

Pedro Martinez threw off a mound today:

The original plan was for the 35-year-old Martinez to throw 25 pitches. But after he threw the first 15 and took a break for water and a few words with Correnti and minor league rehab coordinator Randy Niemann, Martinez said he felt great and threw 31 pitches -- all fastballs -- before Correnti told Martinez he was done for the day.

"Wow! Am I?" Martinez said to Correnti. "I was shocked. It felt right at home."

His rotator cuff surgery last fall forced him to miss the playoffs and the Mets' run to the National League Championship Series, which they lost in seven games to St. Louis. Martinez by then was in a sling and recuperating, slowly working his way back. But in the clubhouse after Tuesday's throwing session, Martinez -- calm but jovial -- said his conditioning had prepared him well and his legs felt as strong as he could remember.

"I was very confident about the way I feel," said Martinez, who's bounced around from Port St. Lucie to Miami to the Dominican Republic during his training. "I've always said it since I started working that I have one thing in mind: get ready and get healthy."

The Mets strong start gives Pedro the luxury of not rushing back.

Game one of the Marlins-Braves double header is being delayed by rain and lightning. The Braves lead 3-1 in the top of the eighth.

Update: Play resumes about 5 PM Eastern.

Update: The Braves win 3-1. The Marlins manage just two hits and three walks in the game.

In case you haven't seen the Blog Show, their tenth show highlights their best moments.

This reminds me of Boston's first album. They took so long to come out with a second that people started to refer to the first as "Boston's Greatest Hits." :-)

(Sorry, Jamie.)

The Marlins kept the Braves off the scoreboard until one out in the seventh when Saltalamacchia connects for a two run homer to put Atlanta up 2-1. Woodward follows up with another to make the score 3-1.

Carlyle pitched seven strong innings, allowing just one run and one hit. If the score holds up, he'll get his second MLB win and his first since 1999.

Ozzie Guillen makes the most intelligent response to Gary Sheffield I've seen. It's not race, it's economics:

Guillen also told the newspaper that he believes there are more Latin players in baseball than African-Americans because players from Central and South American and the Caribbean can sign as free agents while American players have to go through the draft.

"It's not that they can control us; maybe when we come to this country, we're hungry," Guillen told the newspaper. "We're trying to survive. Those guys sign for $500,000 or $1 million and they're made. We have a couple of dollars. You can sign one African-American player for the price of 30 Latin players. Look at how many Latin players have won Cy Youngs or MVP awards the last couple of years, how many Latin players have been in the All-Star Game; it's quantity and quality."

Good news from New York, scalping is now legal. Let's hope other stats follow suit.

(Hat tip, Knowledge Problem.)

With the draft televised on Thursday, The Feed looks at reasons why teams may not want their moves to be so publicly visible.

Homer Bailey starts Friday for the Reds.

Correction: Fixed Homer's relationship to the Reds.

Andy Sonnanstine makes his major league debut for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays against the Toronto Blue Jays tonight. He's posted excellent numbers in the minors, and his 2007 line is consistent with his career. He strikes out a lot of batters and walks very few. I like what's happening with the Tampa pitching staff. Kazmir, Shields, Howell and now Sonnanstine do a lot of things right, and have plenty of time to mature. This could turn out to be a very formidable staff in the not too distant future.

Andy's first start won't be an easy one, however, as he faces Roy Halladay. Roy's been striking out batters without many walks for years. His 5.00 K/BB ranks third in the American League.

The Phillies are eight games behind the Mets as the two start a three game series with their veteran lefties on the mound. Jamie Moyer's allowed four fewer home runs in ten more inning on the road than at home this year. Tom Glavine, meanwhile, is giving up hits at a higher rate at home, accounting for an ERA two runs higher than on the road.

The big game of the night is the battle for the NL West between the Dodgers and Padres. Los Angeles returns Jason Schmidt to the mound, but may lose Saito to a tight hamstring. Chris Young battles for the Padres. He's only allowed two earned runs and sixteen hits in 27 1/3 innings at Petco this season.

Enjoy!

Batgirl blogs no more. She will be missed.

"Tell your Barry story."

There's a philosophical split between Ron Washington and some Texas Rangers players:

Consider his dispute with Teixeira, which Washington describes as "nothing personal, just two competitors going at it." In Washington's view, Teixeira and the Rangers' other hitters need to demonstrate more patience at critical junctures. The Rangers rank fifth in the AL in pitches per plate appearance, but Washington laments their "swing-swing-swing" mentality.

"A lot of times we make three outs on four or five pitches," Washington says. "I just can't see that late in the game when you're four or five runs down. You're at the point where the starter is out of the game, you're in the middle (of the bullpen), these are the guys you want to get to. I've never asked him (Teixeira) to do it when the closer is in the game. But the middle guys, you want to make 'em throw.

"He feels like he's going to only get one pitch in that type of situation to do something with. He wants to take advantage of it. I've got no problem with that. But can you guarantee with that one pitch that you're going to do something with it?

"I don't think any ballplayer on earth can guarantee that. You might pop it up, miss it, roll over it, jam yourself. Then you make one out on one pitch. I want to see him get a pitchers' strike right there. Make him throw a pitch. Make him throw a first-pitch strike, then fight."

Managers face difficulty changing the approach of an established hitter. If Washington wants that kind of team, Daniels needs to get him those type of players, or train them from the ground up.

I knew I should have stayed up to watch the Red Sox game. Down 4-1, Boston scored one in the seventh on a Pena home run (Crisp was sick) and two in the ninth to tie the game. Chavez struck out with the bases loaded in the ninth, then Crosby hit into a double play to send the game into extra innings.

That gave Mark Ellis another chance to hit for the cycle. He had the double, triple and home run, and in the tenth picked up the single. In the bottom of the eleventh, Chavez redeemed himself with a home run to end the game 5-4.

Felix Hernandez pitched poorly again, lasting just 5 2/3 innings, allowing eleven hits and four runs. But once again, the Orioles bullpen cost their starter a win. They allow four runs and Seattle takes the game 7-4. It was a hit parade for both teams as nine players knocked out two hits or more.

And both winning teams needed the victories to keep pace with the LAnaheim Angels. They blew out the Twins 16-3. Gary Matthews and Orlando Cabrera picked up four hits each, including a home run by Gary. Jered Weaver pitched seven strong innings, allowing just one run. With four wins in a row, the Angels own the longest current streak in the majors.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

A number of people e-mailed me about that AA manager who put on a show the other day after being tossed from a game (video at the link). Maybe I'm an old fart, but I don't see the humor in it. The guy acted like a five year old. I'm glad the Braves suspended him.

Combining bits of Earl Weaver, Billy Martin and Lou Piniella, the weekend tantrum by AA manager Phillip Wellman prompted his bosses at the Atlanta Braves to take action Monday.

The Mississippi Braves manager went wild Friday during his team's 7-6 loss at Chattanooga. His tirade took him on a tour of the diamond as he covered home plate with dirt, threw a base and crawled on his belly.

Wellman and the club declined comment, spokesman Nicholas Skinner said.

Sorry, this guy is nothing like the three managers mentioned above. The best thing about watching Earl and Billy argue were their mouths going 100 MPH. If they kicked dirt or threw a base, they did it because it was convenient to the argument. They didn't calmly walk around destroying the field. Wellman has a lot to learn.

MLB suspends Lou Piniella for four games, including Sunday.

"I will serve it and I will learn from this experience," Piniella said before Monday night's game at Milwaukee. "These things won't happen again."

Sure, Lou. Meanwhile, the Cubs are beating up the Brewers tonight 6-2 in the seventh inning. So far, they've out scored their opponents 16-3 in the two games Lou missed. Maybe he should get suspended more often.

The Marlins defeated the Braves 6-4 tonight, by Yunel Escobar keeps hitting. Chipper Jones' replacement picked up four hits today, including a double and his first home run. In three games he's batting .500 and slugging .917. It's Yunel's chance to make an impression, and so far he's making the most of it.

Matt DeSalvo, starting in place of Roger Clemens lasts just 1 1/3 innings before being lifted. He allowed four hits, a walk and three runs. Clemens could do better than that with a bad groin! The Yankees trail Chicago 3-1 in the top of the third.

Derek Lowe just finished inning number five with a no-hitter intact. Tony Abreu made a throwing error in the inning to ruin the perfect game. Lowe's only thrown 55 pitches and struck out four.

Update: Lowe retires the side in order in the sixth. Furcal makes a great diving stop on a ball up the middle by Jose Bautista, comes up and makes the throw to first for the third out. Nine outs to go for Lowe's second no hitter.

Update: Lowe's no-hitter came on 4/27/2002 against the Devil Rays. I guess he likes to pick on poor offenses.

Update: Lowe walks the leadoff hitter in the bottom of the seventh, then Sanchez grounds one hard up the middle for the first hit of the game. Now Lowe just needs to deal with preserving a five-run lead.

Update: The Pirates make it a close game, scoring five in the last three innings but losing 6-5. Lowe gave up home runs in the seventh and eighth to account for three of his four runs allowed. With San Diego and Arizona idle, Los Angeles take first place in the NL West by 1/2 game.

James Shields leaves the game after 7 1/3 innings. He allowed four hits, two of them solo home runs by John Buck. That give Buck ten home runs in 124 at bats. Last season, he hit eleven in 371 at bats, and his career high is twelve. Long balls continue to be a weakness for Shields, as he's now allowed eleven.

Update: The Devil Rays hold on for a 4-2 win. Shields runs his record to 5-0, but fails to catch Meche in the ERA race as Gil allows just two earned runs in six innings of work. The two are eighth and ninth in the race, separated by .08 runs.

Carlos Pena continues his power output, keeping on pace for the best year of his career. He doubled and homered so far this afternoon, pushing his slugging percentage to .631. Eighteen of his forty hits so far went for extra bases. It's only 130 at bats for Carlos, so I'm not getting my hopes up that he's finally matured as a hitter. But right now, he's giving the Devil Rays a legitimate power threat at first base.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

With men on first and second and nobody out, Chase Utley sacrificed in the first inning against Barry Zito. Now, while I like the sacrifice more with men on first and second than just a man on first, Utley owns a .555 slugging percentage. The whole point of a slugger is to move runners a long way around the bases. Zito isn't exactly a lights out pitcher with an ERA over 4.00, so why was Utley bunting there? Seems like a big waste of an out.

Update: In the third inning, Utley faces the same situation, but this time strikes out.

I wondered yesterday if the Yankees had an out in Rogers Clemens contract. It appears they do, although they have no plans to use it:

If the Yankees wanted to walk away from their deal with Roger Clemens, they could do so with no more money exchanging hands, the New York Post reported Monday.

However, Yankees general manager Brian Cashman told the Post: "It's not something I'm thinking about right now."

Clemens has a minor-league contract, so Cashman told the Post that either the Yankees or the Rocket could exit the deal at any time with no financial penalty.

Every day Roger spends in the minors saves the Yankees money. If they're more than 15 games out on Saturday, however, is it really that wise to bring Clemens to the majors? Once he's there, I believe New York is on the hook for the contract.

The Royals finish up in Tampa Bay today as Gil Meche takes on James Shields. Shields emerged as the Devil Rays ace this season, despite a multitude of no decisions that kept his record at 4-0. The Devil Rays lost three games in which Shields allowed two runs or less, including nine shutout innings against the Orioles. After a great start, Meche looked like he was reverting to his Seattle self against the Mariners and Rockies, but came back with a solid start against Baltimore his last time out.

The Marlins are not quite out of and not quite in the NL East race at nine games back. They get a chance to gain on the second place Braves as Sergio Mitre visits Tim Hudson. Both of Sergio's wins came on the road this season where he's only allowed one walk and one home run in nineteen innings. Hudson continues to take advantage of the decrease in power this year, cutting his home run rate by a third compared to 2006.

Boof Bonser faces Jered Weaver in Anaheim this evening. Over his last seven starts Bonser's ERA is 2.16 and he's striking out more than a batter an inning. Weaver struggled in his last two starts, throwing 193 pitches combined in just 9 2/3 innings.

The Red Sox start a west coast trip with their worst starter going against Oakland's best. Julian Tavarez may not be pitching that well, but the Red Sox won the two games he started against the Yankees, which makes his holding a place for Jon Lester worthwhile. Dan Haren has allowed just one home run to a left-handed batter this year, and the group is slugging just .201 against him.

Enjoy!

Due to technical difficulties, the Day by Day Database update will be delayed today.

Joe Christensen wrote a feature story on Tony Oliva, and in his blog gives us some background on the interview, including a great story about Tony and Telly Savalas.

Alex Rodriguez takes Jon Papelbon the other way into the bullpen for a 6-5 Yankees lead. With two out in the top of the ninth and the heart of the order coming up for Boston, A-Rod's 20th home run couldn't have come at a more opportune time.

Update: Posada strikes out to end the inning. Rivera will try to do what Okajima and Papelbon couldn't, hold a lead. He'll have to get through Ortiz, Ramirez and Youkilis.

Update: Ortiz fouls off a ton of pitches on his hands before hitting a deep fly ball to right that comes down in the glove of Abreu. One out.

Update: Rivera gets Manny to chase an outside pitch for strike three. Two out.

Update: Youkilis gets hit on the arm during a check swing. He's at first for Mike Lowell.

Update: Lowell strikes out on an inside pitch to end the game and Rivera picks up just his fifth save of the season as the Yankees win 6-5.

Tonight's game also demonstrated the problem at the starter/reliever boundary for the Yankees. Pettitte got in trouble, and the first reliever in allowed the go-ahead run to score.

Robinson Cano triples off the wall in center to score Matsui from first and tie the game at five. There's no one out in the top of the eighth with the go-ahead run at third.

Update: Okajima gives up the two hits and the run, but strands Cano at third. The teams go to the bottom of the ninth tied at five.

Francona just brought in Javier Lopez to face Bobby Abreu. ESPN flashed the graphic that Bobby was 0 for 11 with three strikeouts against Javier. Of course, Abreu lines a solid single to right-center to put runners on first and third with New York down a run with one out. Just once I'd like to hear the announcers talk about how an 0 for 11 is really meaningless.

With the bases loaded and one out in the bottom of the fifth Dustin Pedroia doubles off the wall in left center. Coco Crisp nearly runs up Willy Mo Pena's back as all three runners scored. Oritz follows with a single to right that Abreu misplays. Pedroia scores to tie the game and Ortiz winds up at third with one out. The Yankees blow another lead at Fenway.

Update: Ortiz scores on a sacrifice fly by Youkilis.

Once again, Sam Perlozzo decides that a reliever is a better option than his starter, and the reliever loses the game. Guthrie pitches well for eight innings against the Angels, leaving the game with a 3-2 lead. He did allow a run in the eighth, but he gave up two hits and came back to retire the last three batters. With just 88 pitches thrown, however, Ray came in to close the game. Why? Is it just because it was a save situation, and you have to use your closer? Figgins and Guerrero were due up, and both were hitless on the afternoon. Chone singled, Guerrero homered, and the Angels took home a 4-3 victory. I'm not sure how many more of these Orioles management can take before Perlozzo gets the axe.

Dontrelle Willis produced a very strange line today as the Marlins lost to the Brewers 3-0. In six innings of work, Dontrelle allowed seven hits and six walks while striking out none, but only allowed two runs. Two double plays and a caught stealing helped, but the Brewers went 3 for 8 with runners in scoring position, they just didn't push many runners across.

Ben Sheets pitched six quality innings, striking out seven for the win.

Albert Pujols hit two home runs today as the Cardinals defeated the Astros 8-6. The eight total bases bring his slugging percentage over .500. For his career, Pujols is a .621 slugger. It was a good day for St. Louis power as the Cardinals hit five homers in the game.

The Dodgers came back for a win today, 5-4,, tagging Salomon Torres for the loss and his fifth blown save of the season. Nomar Garciaparra went one for five today and continues to bat third, despite a low OBA and a low slugging percentage. His current OPS of .685 is well below his career mark of .899. He's over 200 at bats into the season. I appreciate Grady Little sticking with Garciaparra high in the lineup, but at some point he might want to move him down until he shows he's back to normal. Looking at the order used today, Grady has his best OBA and slugging players separated by poorer ones. He might get more bang for the buck by bunching these batters and moving Nomar down.

Muchlinski, who umpired home plate in the Twins-Athletics game must have a narrow strike zone. Santana issued four walks in six innings, and Gaudin gave up five free passes in five innings. Neither of these pitchers usually walk many. Despite the five base on balls, Chad only allowed two runs, and the bullpen made it stick as the A's took the game 4-2. In their four innings of work, the Oakland bullpen did not allow a hit, but did walk two.

The New York and Boston media faced off in a game earlier today and almost came to blows, according to this thread on Sons of Sam Horn. Here's the story at the LaHud blog.

Thanks to Eric Rubin '80 for the link.

Lou Piniella appears to have gone too far in his argument with Mark Wegner Saturday:

Chicago Cubs manager Lou Piniella was suspended indefinitely and fined an undisclosed amount by Major League Baseball for kicking dirt on a umpire.

It looks like the indefinite suspension was handed down to get Lou out of the dugout until MLB can make a decision about the length of the suspension. However, I wouldn't be surprised if it was a long one. Lou bumped the ump, and the whole fiasco was obviously for show, not because Lou thought the play was a bad call. Lou's out of practice at this, and he's going to pay for it.

Update: Whatever Lou did it worked today as the Cubs won 10-1. Of course, if he's out for a long time and Trammell manages a comeback, maybe he gets the job permanently.

Shane Victorino continued his late inning heroics with a walk off solo home run in the bottom of the ninth. He's now 21 for 64 (.328) from the seventh inning on, with three of his four home runs coming in that time frame. The Phillies won the game 9-8 on four home runs.

A good lineup is like a great comedy team. The straight man sets up the joke and the comedian supplies the punchline.

George: Say, you've got a pretty nice job here.
Gracie: Job? I could have had two jobs. This one at ten dollars a week and another one at forty dollars a week.
George: Then why did you take this job?
Gracie: Because I figure that if I lose a ten-dollar job instead of a forty-dollar job, I'll be saving thirty dollars.

The Padres setup and payoff worked perfectly today. Giles and Sledge reached base seven times from the 1-2 slots, and Gonzalez and Bard picked up six RBI right behind them on the way to a 7-3 win over the Nationals.

One big difference between comedy teams and baseball lineups, however, is that the straight man made more money. The comedians were often the more talented individual, but the skill needed to set up the jokes was difficult to find. In baseball, of course, it's the sluggers, not the table setters, who get the big bucks.

The Devil Rays recalled J.P. Howell and gave him his first start of 2007 against the Kansas City Royals. Howell responded with an eight inning performance in which he walked none and struck out seven while allowing just one run. The Devil Rays take the game 5-1.

Howell pitched well in the minor leagues this season. He struck out about a batter per inning with very few walks. He does allow a home run about every eight innings. (That's pretty much what happened today, as the only run scored on a homer.) The high ERA may be a result of a poor defense behind him. He allowed 12 unearned runs, 30% of his runs allowed. I guessing if the fielders were making a lot of errors, they might also be letting a lot of balls go through for hits.

Howell could become the third solid starter on this team. Kazmir, Shields and now Howell are solid in strikeouts, and Shields and Howell are great at preventing walks. Tampa Bay keeps getting just a little better.

Correction: Fixed Howell's minor league strikeout rate.

Jose Valverde earned his 20th save of the season this afternoon, tying him with Cordero of the Brewers for the NL lead. That gives him twenty two save opportunities on the season, the same number as last season. He's converted two more saves than in 2006, and at this rate should wind up well over 40. The DBacks will remain at most zero games back in the NL West race with the 4-1 victory over the Mets.

Tim Lincecum just allowed his second home run in the 4th inning against the Phillies. Utley and Rowand take him deep, with Rowand's 2-run shot putting Philadelphia on top 3-2. That's six home runs in six starts for Tim.

By the way, has anyone else noticed that Tim looks like Cameron Frye?

Adam LaRoche bags the first home run off Brad Penny this season in the second inning of the Dodgers-Pirates game. Penny's streak ends at 71 innings. The Pirates lead 1-0 in the third.

Victor Martinez homered today. His two run shot temporarily tied the game, but the Tigers come back with one in the second to take a 3-2 lead. The homer was Victor's sixth vs. the Tigers this season, meaning 3/4 of his his against the Tigers cleared the fence. He's 8 for 27 against Detroit after the homer, with 13 RBI. For the season, Victor's home run total is twelve.

The Dodgers and Pirates send two very good pitchers to the mound this afternoon as Brad Penny faces Tom Gorzelanny. The Pittsburgh lefty gives up nearly a hit an inning, but most of those hits are singles and he issues very few walks. He hasn't allowed a home run with men on base this season. Penny is now 70 innings into the season without allowing a home run. He's shutting down left-handed power, as opponents from that side of the plate are slugging just .258 against him.

There's another nice pitching matchup in Oakland today as Johan Santana takes on Chad Gaudin. Johan's been devastating on the road this season, racking up a 1.85 ERA and a 3-1 record. Maybe it's the playing surface in Minnesota, but fewer hits get through for Santana on the road. Gaudin takes advantage of the big park in Oakland and hasn't allowed a home run at home this season.

Finally, weather permitting, the Yankees and Red Sox meet for the last time for almost three months tonight in Boston. Pettitte and Beckett not only share names with double-ts, but ERAs in the mid 2.00s. The big difference in won-lost record comes from their bullpen support. Pettitte's relievers earned a 7.92 ERA, while Beckett's firemen are at 2.70.

Enjoy!

While I'm playing with game scores this morning, I thought I'd present average game scores for all pitchers with seven starts (game scores in starts only):

Average Games Scores in Starts, 2007 (minimum seven starts)

Pitcher	AvgScore
Jake Peavy	66.3333
Danny Haren	64.8333
Orlando Hernandez	62.7143
James Shields	61.6364
Josh Beckett	61.1111
Johan Santana	60.8182
Jason Bergmann	60.25
Richard Hill	60.1818
Oliver Perez	59.2
John Lackey	59.1667
Tim Hudson	58.75
Chris Young	58.6364
Cole Hamels	58.5833
Brad Penny	58.5455
Ian Snell	57.9167
John Maine	57.8182
Shawn Hill	57.625
Randy Johnson	57.5714
Ted Lilly	57.5455
Sergio Mitre	57.4444
Erik Bedard	57.1667
Brandon Webb	57.0833
Mark Buehrle	57
Thomas Gorzelanny	56.8182
Jeremy Bonderman	56.6667
A.J. Burnett	56.5833
Jason Marquis	56.5455
Kelvim Escobar	56.5
John Smoltz	56.3333
Chad Gaudin	56.2727
Matthew Cain	56.1818
Roy Oswalt	56.1538
Javier Vazquez	55.6
Joe Blanton	55
Randy Wolf	54.8333
Roy Halladay	54.6667
Matt Morris	54.5455
Justin Verlander	54.3636
C.C. Sabathia	54.1667
Gil Meche	54
Andy Pettitte	53.7273
Felix Hernandez	53.2857
Derek Lowe	53.25
Aaron Harang	53.25
Jon Garland	52.9
Fausto Carmona	52.8
Ben Sheets	52.6364
Joe Kennedy	52.6
Jeff Francis	52.4167
Noah Lowry	52.2727
Jon Lieber	52.25
Jarrod Washburn	52.1818
Braden Looper	52.1818
Boof Bonser	52.0909
Scott Kazmir	51.9167
Tom Glavine	51.9167
Micah Owings	51.75
Jamie Moyer	51.5455
Daisuke Matsuzaka	51.5455
Chris Capuano	51.5
Curt Schilling	51.3333
Barry Zito	51.1818
Jeff Suppan	50.9167
Claudio Vargas	50.9
Tim Wakefield	50.7273
Wandy Rodriguez	50.7
Livan Hernandez	50.5833
Greg Maddux	50.5455
Brian Bannister	50.4286
Paul Byrd	50.2222
Chris Sampson	50.2
Matt Belisle	50.0909
Chien-Ming Wang	49.75
Doug Davis	49.7273
Chuck James	49.6667
Daniel Cabrera	49.5
Carlos Silva	49.4545
Cha Seung Baek	49.25
Steve Trachsel	49.0833
Aaron Cook	48.6667
Freddy Garcia	48.6667
Jered Weaver	48
Jose Contreras	47.8182
Jason Hirsh	47.6364
Kyle Lohse	47.5833
Dontrelle Willis	47.1667
Bronson Arroyo	47.1667
John Danks	46.8889
Chad Durbin	46.6364
David Wells	46.6
David Bush	46.3636
Nate Robertson	45.9091
Jorge de la Rosa	45.9091
Paul Maholm	45.6364
Kyle Davies	45.6
Anthony Reyes	45.5556
Julian Tavarez	45.5556
Josh Fogg	45.4444
Robinson Tejeda	45.4
Bartolo Colon	45.375
Taylor Buchholz	45.1429
Mark Hendrickson	45.125
Ervin Santana	45
Scott Olsen	44.4167
Carlos Zambrano	44.1667
Adam Wainwright	43.9091
Ramon Ortiz	43.8
Matthew Chico	43.6667
Odalis Perez	43.25
Tomo Ohka	43.2222
Woody Williams	43.0833
Miguel Batista	42.8182
Adam Eaton	42.7273
Brett Tomko	42.625
Kip Wells	42.3333
Brandon McCarthy	42.2
Zack Greinke	42.1429
Mike Maroth	42.1
Mike Mussina	41.875
Matthew Albers	41.5714
Jeremy Sowers	41
Cliff Lee	40.8571
Kameron Loe	39.8889
Zachary Duke	39.3333
Vicente Padilla	39.3333
Kevin Millwood	39.125
John Patterson	37.8571
Edwin Jackson	37.6
Horacio Ramirez	36.875
Sidney Ponson	36.7143
Tony Armas Jr.	35.8571
Casey Fossum	35.8
Jae Seo	33.8

The pitchers at the top of the list are the ones that go deep in games, don't allow many runs, hits or walks, and strike out a lot of batters.

Bob Geren figured out a way to deal with his depleted relief corps:

Geren already has reached the point where he's extending the starters as long as possible; both Dan Haren and Joe Kennedy reached a season-high pitch count their last times out.

Starters going deep in games? Heaven forbid!

Red Reporter found something to interest him in the Reds season:

But I will say that Homer Bailey coming up is pretty damn exciting. There literally hasn't been a Reds starting pitching prospect in my lifetime that I've been this hyped up about, and even though I am pretty sure he'll struggle for his first season I still can't wait to see him in Cincinnati.

Baily sure looks like he has nothing to prove at AAA. He's equally effective down there against both righties and lefties. His walks are a little high, but his hits are so low opposition batters just don't get on base much against him. Looks like he doesn't have much left to learn in the minors.

Roger Clemens won't start Monday against the White Sox.

Roger Clemens was scratched from Monday's start against the Chicago White Sox because of a fatigued right groin.

As source told FOXSports.com's Ken Rosenthal that Clemens feels he needs another 4-5 days to prepare and is aiming to make his start against the Pirates next weekend.

Clemens first experienced the pain during his last minor league outing, for Triple-A Scranton on Monday. Rather than risk additional injury, he decided to be cautious, the Yankees confirmed during Saturday's game against the Boston Red Sox.

I don't know quite how Rogers Clemens' contract works, but it is prorated to his time in the majors. That makes me wonder if the Yankees and Roger have an out here. At this point, Clemens doesn't help that much, especially when you don't have the relievers to get a team from the sixth to the ninth inning. And Roger may not want to play for an also ran. I wonder if both sides just walk away from the contract and blame an injury? We'll see if he actually just misses one start, or if the injury starts to drag out.

Whenever I see a gem like last night's 1-0 double complete game won by Joe Blanton and lost by Carlos Silva, I like to turn to game scores. You would think an eight inning complete game loss like that would rank high, but his game score of 69 ranks just eighth on the list of losses. Interestingly, Mark Buehrle has the overall high game score of the season with his no-hitter, and the high loss as well with his 76 for his two-hitter, 2-0 loss to the Blue Jays on the last day of May.

Blanton's game, however, ranks third overall with an 87, sandwiched between Felix Hernandez's first two starts of the season. What's surprising to me is that in a year when offense is down, there aren't many outstanding game scores. Buehrle is the only one over 90. That's probably a function of a lack of complete games.

Peter's Red Sox Forever blog sums up yesterday's Red Sox game from the point of view of a Boston fan:

For the Yankees, this game was a horror show, especially the 7th inning, the inning that showed the whole country just how bad the Yankees really are, in the field and in their bullpen. Their losing record is no surprise, not after seeing that. Players out of place, missed fly balls, dual errors by Jeter, one leading to an injury, and a bullpen that would be more suited to a Single A club. And that was all in one inning, an inning that probably seemed 3 days long for the team on the field. For a Red Sox fan like me, it was about 35 minutes of great entertainment. Oscar worthy and Emmy winning. And then knowing that the 8th and 9th would be taken care of by the Darkman, Hideki Okajima, and Paps, well, that was just icing on the cake. Sweet and delicious. Every last bite!

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

I have a physicist friend who specialized in boundary layers. For example, when an underground fresh water stream flows into the sea, there is a boundary layer between the fresh and salt water that is neither. There is mixing is this layer, so the flow in this layer is different than in either the fresh or salt layer. In looking at the Yankees-Red Sox game today, it appears the Yankees have a boundary layer problem.

The boundary we're talking about here is between the starters and the closers. It seems that as the starter weakens, the initial relievers cause a lot of turbulence in the transition from starter to bullpen. Today it was Mussina and Proctor. Mike gives up home runs to lead off the sixth. Proctor comes in, gets out of the inning, but then melts down in the 7th, allowing five runs and costing the Yankees the game. In the games I've followed recently, that seems to be a pattern. An early exit by a Yankees starter leads to a period of instability where the first relievers in do a lousy job. Eventually they get through it, and the pitchers are okay the rest of the way, but the damage is done. The Yankees have to decide who is the best pitcher out of the bullpen to be the first man in.

Jorge Sosa took home his fifth win of the season as the Mets defeat the Diamondbacks 7-1. With 6 2/3 innings of one-run ball, Sosa lowers his ERA to 3.22. He did allow a home run today, but all four this season were solo shots. Home runs allowed are the difference between his good seasons and his bad ones. This year he's giving up about one every nine innings, but their not doing much damage..

It wasn't a great afternoon for Chicago fans as both the Cubs and White Sox go down to defeat. The Cubs lost their sixth game in a row, and have been out scored 38-16. Lou Piniella got himself thrown out of the game arguing a caught stealing call, another Cubs base running blunder. Atlanta wins the game 5-3 with Yunel Escobar making a strong ML debut, going 2 for 4 with a double, run and RBI.

The Blue Jays scored late to take a 9-3 win over the White Sox. McGowan allowed single runs in the first three innings, but settled down to give Toronto seven decent innings. Then Toronto scored eight runs in the seventh and eighth. A big blow was delivered by Alex Rios, his thirteenth home run of the season. The three run shot put the Blue Jays up one, a lead they did not relinquish.

Koyie Hill singles with two outs in the bottom of the sixth, bringing up the pitcher's slot. Down 3-1, Piniella allowed Rich Hill to bat, who came into the game batting .048. Rich smacks the ball into the power alley, landing at the wall in right center. He drives in the run, but Rich gets greedy and is thrown out at third. A nice hit, but you can put making the third out at third down as another Cubs base running blunder.

I'm watching the WGN broadcast, and they're playing clips from Zambrano and Barrett. Zambrano took responsibility, saying it was his fault. Barrett said he loved all his teammates, and he loved Carlos Zambrano. Both looked and sounded sincere, so it appears they put the fight behind them.

The Braves and Cubs continue their series in Chicago with Chuck James and Rich Hill on the mound. There's no word yet on how the Cubs are going to discipline Barrett and Zambrano, but we'll probably hear before the game starts. Rich Hill's been equally effective against lefties and righties, with both hitting .200 against him, and both with nearly identical (and low) OBAs and slugging percentages. James allows just a .245 batting average with runners in scoring position.

The Giants put up thirteen runs last night, but they'll be hard pressed to do that again vs. Cole Hamels. Cole trails Jake Peavy by six strikeouts in the NL race for that title. He'll face Noah Lowry, which means that a win for Cole isn't a given. However, Lowry's OBA allowed goes up 60 points on the road.

Enjoy!

Kevin Slowey made a fine major league debut last night, allowing just one run in six innings against the Oakland Athletics. Most impressively, 66 of his 99 pitches ended up strikes.

His opponent, Joe Kennedy, pitched well too, at least in the sense that he only allowed one run over eight innings. The Patriarch walked four, however, while striking out one. Neither starter figured in the decision, however, as the game went into extra innings tied at one.

The Twins got to the A's bullpen in the top of the tenth on two runs, the big hit the leadoff double by Castillo to set up the go-ahead run. Joe Nathan came on for the save and was unusually wild. walking two and allowing a hit and a run. The Twins held on, however, for the 3-2 victory.

The Indians launched a ninth inning comeback to keep themselves undefeated against the Tigers:

Jacobs Field and the Indians will not be denied. Rallying with five runs in the bottom of the ninth, the Tribe kept up its home field magic by knocking off the stunned Tigers, 12-11, in front of 41,365 delirious fans on Friday night.

David Dellucci's single off Detroit closer Todd Jones capped the rally, which saw Victor Martinez's three-run homer set things in motion. Josh Barfield's two-out single brought in the tying run to set it all up.

The first-place Indians have won all five games against the American League champs. They also set a franchise mark by going 19-4 in home games, the best start in the 107 years of the franchise.

The prodigious 1995 club had started 18-4 in home games, but will have to take a back seat to this club.

With three of the "home" games being played in Milwaukee this season, the Indians have only lost three times in 20 games at their true home this year.

It was a night of comebacks and answers. Detroit was off to a 5-1 lead when the Indians scored four times in the bottom of the sixth to tie the game. Detroit came right back with four in the top of the seventh. When Cleveland cut the lead to two in bottom of the eighth, the Tigers answered with two in the top of the ninth.

I'm wondering why Leyland stuck with Jones so long. He gave up two hits in the eighth and got out of the inning when a hard line drive was caught by Ordonez. Injured pitchers and plenty of rest was the reason:

Friday's collapse also can be traced in part to the absence of injured relievers Fernando Rodney and Joel Zumaya. They held leads in the eighth in 2006.

With the potential tying run on deck and two out in the eighth, Leyland made a rare request of Jones: Go more than one inning for a save.

"That's a little out of character for me, but things aren't normal," Leyland said. "He had three full days of rest. He was strong, so that's why I did it."

Jones needed 12 pitches to finish the eighth. By the time he searched for the game-ending out, he was beyond his previous season high of 29 pitches. He finished with 46 pitches and thus might need tonight off.

At some point, however, Leyland should have realized Jones didn't have his best stuff. After the Martinez home run with one out in the ninth, maybe? He only used two relievers the previous day, so someone should have been available. A bad decision by Leyland on this one.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

Thursday night the Blue Jays shut out the White Sox, ruining a great performance by Mark Buehrle. Tonight, the White Sox turned that around. Javier Vazquez pitched eight shutout innings as Chicago takes the game 3-0. A.J. Burnett was the victim tonight. He lasted 7 1/3, striking out twelve with just one walk.

Dmitri Young picks up his fourth hit of the night, and his eighth in a row. That sets a Washington Nationals record, and ties the franchise record held by Andre Dawson. The Nats and Padres remain tied at three in the bottom of the eighth.

The San Francisco Giants scored five runs off Adam Eaton in two innings, then picked up three more off Mike Zagurski in one inning of work. They've added five more to extend the lead to 13-0 over the Phillies. Every starter reached base at least once tonight, and Matt Morris becomes the second pitcher of the day to pick up three hits.

Update: Victorino breaks up Morris' no-hitter with two out in the bottom of the sixth.

Jose Reyes breaks up Brandon Webb's no hitter with two out in the bottom of the sixth with a drag bunt. Bob Brenly would not approve. The Mets don't score and Arizona continue to lead 2-0.

Carlos Zambrano continues to stink up Wrigley field. This afternoon he lasted five innings, allowing seven runs, six earned while striking out none. The most innings he's pitched in a game without a strike out was two on 4/23/2002. His ERA at Wrigley stands at 7.91. His value is slipping more and more each game.

The Braves won 8-5. It wasn't a contest until the bullpen came in and the defense allowed three unearned runs and the pitchers gave up another. Four Braves players picked up three hit games, including the pitcher Kyle Davies.

Update: Some fisticuffs in this game as Carlos Zambrano and busts Michael Barrett's lip:

Zambrano (5-5) was seen pointing at his head and yelling at the catcher in the dugout before the bottom half, while Barrett pointed toward the field. There was shoving, and Zambrano cocked his right fist as they were being separated. Manager Lou Piniella said he and several players walked Zambrano back to the clubhouse.

Piniella said he told Zambrano to take a shower and go home, then returned to the dugout. Moments later, a clubhouse attendant could be seen telling Piniella something. Derrek Lee jumped up and headed into the tunnel, and Piniella and pitching coach Larry Rothschild followed.

"Michael went up there," Piniella said. "I was watching the game."

Piniella also banished Barrett, who was being examined at a hospital, and said both players will be disciplined.

Sometimes altercations like this fire up a club. One of my favorite teams, the Oakland A's of the early '70s won three straight World Series with a team that didn't get along well.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

The Tigers are looking at using more Marcus Thames and less Sean Casey.

FishStripes doesn't appear to be very happy with the Benitez deal.

Over at Lookout Landing there's a great article about a Bert Lahr lookalike who's a big fan of Adrian Beltre.

Just a quick hit today:

Yankees play at Boston with Wang facing Wakefield. The Yankees need to sweep to make a comeback reasonable.

Jake Peavy pitches against Washington's Matt Chico in Washington. Jake might be able to lower his 1.47 ERA further.

The Diamondbacks send Webb against the Mets' Maine. It's a battle of first place teams as there is a three way tie in the NL West this morning.

Kevin Slowey makes his major league debut for the Twins tonight as he faces the Oakland Athletics and Joe Kennedy. Slowey is being compared to Brad Radke. Like Radke, he doesn't issue many walks. Unlike Radke, he strikes out a ton of batters. In the minors this season, he sports an 11 to 1 strikeout to walk ratio.

Enjoy!

Due to technical difficulties and my being on the road, the Day by Day Database update will be late today.