A-Rod Hits 18th HR, Griffey Jr. Hits 572nd HR
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by user Niteowl049
Baseball Notebook
Baseball Daily Digest
Alex Rodriguez homered for the third straight day yesterday giving him 18 for the season as the Yankees defeated the Red Sox 6-2 and moved to within 9 and a half games of the Red Sox. Still the pressure is on the Yankees not the Red Sox tonight since a loss would put them right back where they were before the game on Monday and allow them at best to gain only one game on the Red Sox if they win on Wednesday.
Chien-Ming Wang 3-3 became the first starter on the Yankees to win 3 games in their 43rd game of the season. J.D. Drew the $14.4 million dollar man was 0 for 5 and is only hitting .244 with 2 homers and 13 RBI's. He is 5th on team in homers and 7th in RBI's with even Julio Lugo having twice as many RBI's as Drew and only has one more RBI than Alex Cora who has batted 62 less times. Kevin Youkilis has 10 more RBI's than Drew and is making $14 million less than Drew. Only Manny Ramirez makes more than Drew. Why would the Red Sox sign him for more money than David Ortiz and Curt Schilling? At least his agent Scott Boras is happy pocketing a huge cut of the $14.4 million. Next time Red Sox are paid Drew needs to put on a mask and back up to the pay window to get his check because he is committing grand larceny against the Red Sox and should be ashamed of himself. Guess there is not much chance he will tell the Red Sox to pay him half his salary till he starts hitting again.
C.C. Sabathia was the victim of the pitch count epidemic last night being removed before he even made 100 pitches despite a 1-1 score at the time. 300 game winners may be a thing of the past with the pitch count keeping starters from pitching far enough in a game to get a win or even a decision of any kind. Indians took a 5-2 win in the game against the Mariners. Ichiro Suzuki hit in his 14th straight game.
Rangers pounded the Twins into submission by a 14-4 score behind a 15 hit attack which included 3 homers including a grand slam by Gerald Laird. Rangers have scored 14 runs in back to back games and have hit 9 home runs total in those two games. Vicente Padilla 2-6 was the winning pitcher but was removed in 6th inning after making 99 pitches. Sammy Sosa drove in 3 runs giving him 35 for the season which places him 5th in AL. Rangers have to be happy with their decision to sign Sosa. With the season about 8 games from being a third over Sosa is on a pace to have over 105 RBI's.
The old pitch count bugaboo raised it's ugly head again and it reminds me of a time when a starting pitcher was expected to finish a game and nowaday they aren't allowed to finish a game. Pitch counts are making it almost impossible to win 20 games or have 300 strikeouts in a season. May reach the point in a few years where 250 wins will be the criteria for getting in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Reds scored three times in bottom of eighth inning to take a 8-7 win over the Nationals. Ken Griffey Jr. hit his 9th homer and 572nd of his career....White Sox defeated the A's 8-5 in a game which had 26 hits but 23 of them were singles. Jose Contreras 4-4 was the winning pitcher while Joe Blanton 4-2 took the loss. Nick Swisher drove in all 5 runs for A's while Shannon Stewart raised his average to .271 and after hitting .242 in April is hitting .313 for the month of May.
Diamondbacks edged the Rockies 6-5 in a win paced by Carlos Quentin hitting two homers and driving in 5 runs.... Brewers won their second game in a row by defeating the Dodgers 9-5 behind the hitting of Prince Fielder hitting his 13th and 14th homers of the season and has 35 RBI's good for 3rd in NL behind teammate J.J. Hardy and former Brewer Carlos Lee. Jeff Suppan 6-4 took the win while Brett Tomko 1-5 took the loss. The win enabled the Brewers to take a six and a half game lead over the Astros and Cubs. Astros had moved to within four and a half games out during the weekend but Brewers are showing signs of coming out of their slump. Tonight's game could be a pitching duel with Ben Sheets 4-2 facing Randy Wolf 5-3.
Giants shut out the Astros 4-0 last night in San Francisco behind the pitching of Noah Lowry 5-4. Astros starter Chris Sampson 4-4 took the loss despite only giving up one earned run in 6 innings. Barry Bonds was 0 for 2 as his average dipped to .287. Bonds has 4 hits in his last 26 at bats and after hitting .356 in April is hitting .204 in April. He has not homered in his last 11 games and 31 last at bats. His slugging percentage in April was .814 while in May it is .408.
Stats Corner
Hitting
Derrek Lee is leading in batting average with .394 with Jorge Posada next with .374 average. Alex Rodriguez leads in home runs with 18 to 14 each for Brewers teammates Prince Fielder and J.J. Hardy....Rodriguez with 43 RBI's leads that category with Hardy second with 41.... Derek Jeter and Matt Holliday lead majors in hits with 62....Rodriguez leads in total bases with 115 with Hardy second with 112....Rodriguez leads in slugging percentage with .689. In a huge surprise Albert Pujols is 143rd in the list at mlb.com with a .455 slugging percentage and 47th in NL....Magglio Ordonez leads in extra base hits with 30.
Pitching
American League
Josh Beckett leads in wins with 7. John Lackey, Roy Oswalt and Cole Hamels try to win their seventh game today....Erik Bedard continues to lead in strikeouts with 75 and Jake Peavy has the best ERA at 1.64....Francisco Cordero and Jose Valverde lead majors in saves with 17....Two of the better pitchers in baseball lead in hits allowed with C.C. Sabathia and Jeff Suppan both giving up 72 hits this season.
Glance at the Standings AL East: Even with their win over the Red Sox the Yankees are still 9 and a half games back of Red Sox but are much closer to last place with them being a game and a half ahead of last place Devil Rays. If Yankees lose and Orioles and Blue Jays win today the Yankees would fall into fourth place in AL East.
AL Central: Indians are a half game ahead of the Tigers with their win yesterday. Twins at 3-7 are only team in AL Central with a losing record in their last 10 games.
AL West: A's and Mariners failed to take advantage of the Angels being idle yesterday and both lost and fell further behind the Angels. While the Angels have been 8-2 in their last 10 games all the other teams in division have been 4-6. Angels have a 5 game winning streak. Rangers have won the last two days but they have put themselves into such a hole that they may never climb out of it with them being 9 games behind the Angels.
National League
NL East: Nationals were only active team in NL East but lost and fell to 13 games behind the Mets. On this date last year the Nationals had the same 16-29 record but were 11 games behind the Mets.
NL Central: Brewers are making up some of the ground they lost during their losing streak and are 6 and a half games ahead of Cubs and Astros. They are now 11 games over .500 and this time last season they were one game over .500 and 6 games out of first place. No team in the division has a winning record in last 10 games so that kept the other teams from taking much advantage of their losing streak.
NL West: Dodgers loss to the Brewers enabled the Diamondbacks and Padres to close to within a half game out of first in NL West. The Dodgers four game losing streak has let the Giants get back in the race and they are in third but only 2 and a half games behind the Dodgers.
