A's 17 Royals 3....Rangers 14 Yankees 2
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by user Niteowl049
Baseball Notebook
Baseball Daily Digest
The Jeff Weaver 0-6 saga continued in Detroit yesterday as he was shelled again losing 7-3 to the Tigers and giving up 6 runs and 10 hits in 5 innings. In 22 innings he has allowed 35 runs to cross the plate and has given up 50 hits and the opponents are hitting .459 against him for an average 20.45 hits per 9 innings and has an astronomical ERA of 14.32 He is on the brink of being released since the Mariners have a chance to win the AL West and almost any minor league pitcher can pitch better than Weaver. In his last two seasons his record is 8-22 in 193 innings pitched allowing 152 runs and 263 hits. Hope he is enjoying being paid $8 million this season because he is not likely to ever make that kind of money again and his shadow may never darken a major league diamond again after yesterday. In a sidenote Ichiro Suzuki is hitting so badly this season that six Mariners in the boxscore yesterday had higher batting average than Suzuki. He finally got his 33rd hit which is how many he needs each month to have 200 hits except he didn't reach it till the 10th of May. He is on a pace to have about 170 hits right now.
Rangers pummeled the Yankees 14-2. Just when the Yankees pitching seemed to be back in order Chien-Ming Wang who had pitched a near perfect game last Saturday against the Mariners gave up 7 runs and 11 hits in 6 1/3 innings. The Yankee bullpen couldn't stop the scoring and instead of putting out the flames poured more gasoline into the fire and allowed 7 more runs to cross the plate. Mark Texeira appears to be out of his slump hitting 3 doubles and driving in 3 runs in the Rangers win. You can be sure George Steinbrenner did not enjoy seeing his team trounced in front of the Yankee Stadium crowd of 52,147.
A's wore their hitting shoes to the ballpark yesterday as they pounded the Royals 17-3 with a 18 hit barrage. Dan Johnson and Jack Cust both homered twice in the contest. Cust has hit 3 homers in 15 at bats while it took Mike Piazza 103 at bats to hit one homer and is outslugging Piazza with a .867 percentage to the .379 slugging percentage by Piazza.
Johnson had a perfect 4 for 4 day and Shannon Stewart was 4 for 6. Eric Chavez and Johnson both drove in 4 runs. The amazing thing is that the bottom three hitters for the A's went 1 for 15 in the game. The A's needed this win to keep pace in the AL West plus they will go into tonight's game with C.C. Sabathia 5-0 facing them knowing they can hit well and Joe Blanton 3-1 is capable of beating the Indians. One more note about the game yesterday Joe Kennedy 1-2 allowed only 4 hits in 6 innings to take the win.
Jose Contreras 3-3 threw a 5 hit complete game shutout against the Twins defeating them by a 3-0 score....Kelvim Escobar 4-1 pitched a complete game shutout against the Indians pitching a 7 hitter as the Angels took a 8-0 victory.
Orioles took an easy 11-6 win over the Devil Rays as they took a one percentage point lead over the Yankees in a tie for second place. Tim Wakefield pitched 3 hit ball over 7 innings in the 8-0 win by the Red Sox over the slumping Blue Jays who learned that they will have to do without bullpen closer B.J. Ryan the rest of the season. Blue Jays have lost nine of their last ten games and are ten and a half games behind the first place Red Sox in the AL East.
Sergio Mitre allowed 3 hits in 8 innings but didn't get the decision as the Marlins scored three times in the bottom of the ninth when Josh Willingham hit a three run homer in the 3-0 win over the Dodgers.
Reds defeated the Astros 9-5 as Adam Dunn hit his 11th homer of the season and Ken Griffey Jr. hit his 6th. In 59 at bats in April Griffey had one homer and 9 RBI's but in only 37 at bats in May he has 5 homers and 10 RBI's and is hitting .432 for the month of May. Aaron Harang 5-1 didn't have his strikeout pitch working recording only 2 strikeouts but it was all he needed yesterday to record the win.
The Astros broadcasters mentioned an interesting fact about Juan Castro of the Reds saying he had never been hit by a pitch in a major league career dating back to 1995 and over 2331 plate appearances. For comparison sake Alex Rodriguez has been hit six times this season and 112 times in his career.
Braves behind the pitching of Tim Hudson 4-1 took a 5-3 win over the Padres. Kelly Johnson delivered the big hit of game driving in 3 runs in the sixth inning with a triple. Braves moved into first place by themselves in the NL East with the win....Pirates registered a 6-4 win over the Cubs despite the Cubs hitting three homers. Carlos Zambrano 3-3 took the loss and will have to pitch better if the Cubs are to contend in the NL Central race.
Rockies defeated the Giants 5-3 sending the Giants to their third straight loss but Giants lost no ground since the Dodgers and Padres ahead of them also lost. Barry Bonds was walked twice giving him 35 walks for the season and he is on a pace to have about 160 walks by end of the season.
Stats Corner
Hitting
Todd Helton took over the major league lead in hitting with a ..393 average to the .389 posted by Derrek Lee....Alex Rodriguez has 15 homers to lead the majors and Adam Dunn and Barry Bonds are next with 11. Ian Kinsler who is tied for second in AL with Vladimir Guerrero and David Ortiz with 9 homers has been in a terrible slump having not hit a home run since the 29th of April and after hitting 9 homers and having 22 RBI's in April has not hit a homer and drove in only 2 runs in his first 8 games in May. He is 3 for 26 for the month of May and hitting .115 for the month.
Rodriguez still leads in RBI's with 39 but Vladimir Guerrero and Carlos Lee are gaining on him....Matt Holliday leads the majors in hits with 53 with Derrek Lee and Jose Reyes next with 51. Reyes takes a fourteen game hitting streak into the Mets game with the Brewers today....Magglio Ordonez and Alex Rodriguez lead in extra base hits with 24 and both are on a pace to have 100 extra base hits....Leading the AL in least swings missed is Placido Polanco with 6 misses in 219 swings. The NL leader is David Eckstein with 6 misses in 193 swings.
Leading in AL in batting average with runners in scoring position is Victor Martinez hitting .486 while the NL leader is Barry Bonds hitting .538.
Pitching
Josh Beckett leads in wins with 7 with nine pitchers having 5 wins. Jeff Suppan and C.C. Sabathia try for their sixth win today...With his loss yesterday Jeff Weaver joined Kip Wells as the only members of the 6 losses club....Erik Bedard and Jake Peavy are tied with most strikeouts with each having 56. Sabathia is next with 53 and Peavy and Sabathia and Cole Hamels with 52 all pitch tonight.
Aaron Cook and Dontrelle Willis lead in hits allowed with 59 and Roy Halladay and Aaron Harang are next with 58....Jeff Weaver leads in earned runs allowed with 35...Carlos Zambrano leads in home runs given up with 10....Tim Wakefield leads AL in lowest average allowed to opponents with a .189 average against him with Jame Shields second allowing hitters to hit .198 against his offerings. The NL leader is Jason Marquis with a .175 average and Jason Bergmann next with .177....Josh Beckett leads in run support on days he pitches with 9.84 runs per 9 innings and NL leader is Dontrelle Willis with 9.00 runs per 9 innings when he pitches.
Glance at the Standings
American League
AL East: Red Sox lead AL East with a seven game lead over the Orioles and Yankees....If Blue Jays lose tonight they will be two games behind the Devil Rays.
AL Central: Tigers took a half game lead over the Indians in AL Central race winning their 9th in last 10 games.
AL West: Angels and A's both win as the Angels maintained their one game lead over the A's. Angels travel to Texas to play the Rangers while A's host the Indians this weekend. Only the White Sox have less runs scored than the A's but on the positive side is the fact that only the Red Sox have given up less runs than the A's pitching staff.
National League
NL East: Braves moved into first place by themselves while the idle Mets slipped into second place a half game back of the Braves. The Braves win pushed the Nationals to 13 games back after 34 games putting them on a pace to finish over 50 games back of the NL East winner.
NL Central: The idle Brewers gained a half game on the Cubs who lost to the Pirates yesterday to stretch their lead to seven games. The Brewers take their six game winning streak into Shea Stadium as they visit the Mets this weekend. Brewers are only team in division with a winning record.
NL West: Rockies were only NL West team to post a win yesterday and are only two and a half games behind the Giants who are in fourth place. No NL West team has a winning record in their last 10 games.
Big Surprise: Players Not to Cooperate In Mitchell Steroids Investigation
It was no big surprise the player's union is balking at cooperating with the investigation by George Mitchell into the use of steroids in baseball. When has the player's union ever cooperated with any agency investigating steroids unless forced to do so by the court system or Congress?
I don't know why Mitchell would be asking for anonymous records in the first place. Why not ask for medical records of specific players or for all players? This investigation was announced by Bud Selig on the 30th of March of 2006 and here it is 14 months later and they are just now beginning to interview players.
There is not much chance players will cooperate in the investigation since many of them probably are guilty of using steroids at some point in their careers. Time has come for Mitchell to get serious about this investigation and bring it to a conclusion in the next month or two. Instead it will probably drag on for many more months and possibly another year before we get to read the report of the committee.
The best case scenario is for Congress to become involved and order players to talk to either Mitchell's investigators or other entities that are investigating the use of steroids in baseball. If not for Congress getting involved Mark McGwire would have been cooling his heels in his home instead of being forced to answer hard questions about his use of steroids. If anyone ever looked guilty he did that day and his refusal to talk only reinforced that thought. Of course in his case it was a prime example of stonewalling so no relevant questions were answered during his testimony.
He refused to talk about the past and for good reason from his viewpoint since if he told the truth he would have verified what Jose Canseco had written in his book was true and possibly cost him a chance to enter the Baseball Hall of Fame. However, his lack of truthfulness may have prevented him from garnering many votes for Hall of Fame last January.
Jason Giambi did admit he was guilty of using steroids in his leaked testimony to the grand jury in the BALCO case and for that I respect him. He didn't make up any stories like Barry Bonds about clear and the cream being flaxseed oil. It may have been that Bonds didn't actually know what he was taking so he could avoid perjury charges but proving he was lying won't be easy to prove in court.
So for now we will sit on the sidelines wondering what Mitchell has found in his investigation while the player's union and investigators probably go to court or to Congress to get the players to tell what they know about steroids.
