All Star Selections...Griffey Jr. Hits 585th HR
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by user Niteowl049
Baseball Notebook
All Star Selections
A few minutes ago I cast my final vote for the All Star team choosing Chris Young and Roy Halladay as the final members of the All Star teams. The two players on NL starting lineup that don't belong are Carlos Beltran and Barry Bonds. Those two spots should have been filled by Matt Holliday and Carlos Lee. For the most part the fans did get it right this year but fans apparently didn't look at first half stats when voting Bonds and Beltran in.
In the AL my only change to starting lineup would be Jorge Posada replacing Ivan Rodriguez. However I would take Manny Ramirez off the reserves list and replace him with either Gary Sheffield or Sammy Sosa. Ramirez has 11 homers less than a third of the 35 of last season at the halfway mark in this season. His batting average is 36 points lower than last season...his on base percentage is 56 points lower and his slugging percentage is and his slugging percentage is 151 points lower than last season.
Around the Bases
Ken Griffey Jr. hit his 585th career home run in a 11-7 loss to the Cardinals and shortly after the game it was announced that Jerry Narron will be officially dismissed as manager of the Reds today. Narron played a major role in the rejuvenation of the career of Josh Hamilton and hope this doesn't setback Hamilton as he tries for NL Rookie of the Year honors....John Lackey won his 11th game of the season as the Angels hold on to their four game lead in AL West over the Mariners who surprisingly lost their manager Mike Hargrove due to his losing interest in managing. It is safe to say that Hargrove will never be hired again as a major league manager because nobody wants to take chance on hiring a manager that may lose interest again.
Kameron Loe 5-6 of the Rangers defeated the Red Sox 2-1 pitching allowing one run in six innings for his fourth consecutive win. In his last four starts he has allowed 6 earned runs in 27 innings while in his two previous starts before the four game winnng streak he had given up 14 earned runs in 8 innings....The loss didn't hurt the Red Sox though in the standings since every team in AL East lost yesterday.
Yankees fell to 37-41 for the season losing to the A's by a 11-5 score. Since their nine game winning streak ended on the 14th of June with a record of 33-31 they have had a 4-10 record. Dan Haren 10-2 won the game even though it was his first start of the season in which he allowed more than three runs and allowed five runs to score yesterday but it didn't really matter since the A's pounded out 16 hits including home runs by Dan Johnson and Jack Cust. From May 20th to June 16th Cust had not homered after hitting 8 in his first 13 games. Cust has 5 homers in his last 11 games and is back on track again.
Chien-Ming Wang 7-4 is the only Yankee starter with a winning record with the other four starters combining for a 11-16 record so the other four starters as a group have only four more wins than Wang. Tonight, Roger Clemens 1-3 faces the Twins and Boof Bonser 5-4 in Yankee Stadium at 6:05 PM EDT and the game will be televised nationwide on ESPN.
Jeremy Bonderman 9-1 pitched eight scoreless innings to take a 1-0 win by the Tigers over the Twins and Scott Baker 2-3 who pitched the complete game loss allowing an eighth inning home run to Marcus Thames which proved to be the margin of victory....Braves battled back to tie the Marlins in the ninth inning tying the game at 5-5 in the top of the inning but Josh Willingham singled in the winning run in the bottom of the inning to give the Marlins a 6-5 victory as Willingham went a perfect 5 for 5 at the plate with all the hits being singles.
Kyle Kendrick 3-0 pitched the Phillies to a crucial win over the Mets by a 5-3 score. A loss would have given the Mets a seven game lead over the Phillies but the win left the Phillies five games behind the Mets and only a game behind the second place Braves. Kendrick didn't have any strikeouts in 6 2/3 innings but induced 14 ground balls. Kendrick was 4-7 with Reading in the Class AA Eastern League before being called up by the Phillies. For a 22 year old pitcher to be pitching this well at the major league level is a huge accomplishment. Kendrick turned down a football scholarship to Washington State as a quarterback to sign with the Phillies.
Greg Dobbs deserves to be playing everyday the way he is hitting in limited action this season. He has 34 RBI's in 157 at bats while Pat Burrell has two less RBI's in 57 more at bats than Dobbs and has only eight less RBI's than Aaron Rowand in 144 less at bats. Only Chase Utley and Aaron Rowand are hitting better than Dobbs who is hitting .287....Astros clobbered the Rockies 12-0 as Lance Berkman drove in four runs and Hunter Pence went 4 for 5 after going 3 for 23 in his previous five games raising his average to .340.
Cubs defeated the Brewers 5-1 as Jason Marquis 6-4 outpitched Dave Bush 6-7. Brewers lost a game of their lead to both the Cubs and Cardinals and now travel to Pittsburgh to face the Pirates....Troy Percival 2-0 won for the second time in the last three games for the Cardinals while Ryan Ludwick homered twice in the 11-7 win over the Reds. Ludwick has 128 less at bats than Scott Rolen yet has two more home runs than Rolen.
Tim Lincecum 3-2 pitched the Giants to a 13-0 win over the Diamondbacks and has allowed no runs and seven hits in his last 14 innings while in the two previous games he had allowed 13 runs and 12 hits in 7 innings....Chad Billingsley 5-0 pitched the Dodgers to a 5-0 win over the Padres in his third start of the season.
Stats Corner
Hitting
Magglio Ordonez holds a slim lead over Ichiro Suzuki with a .369 batting average with Suzuki hitting .365. Matt Holliday is leading NL hitters with a .349 average....Alex Rodriguez has only one home run in his last eleven games but still is leading majors in home runs with 28 to 27 for Prince Fielder who also has only one home run in his last eleven games as well....Rodriguez leads in runs batted in with 79 while Vladimir Guerrero is second with 73....Suzuki leads in hits with 119 to 116 by Holliday.
Ordonez hasn't doubled in last ten games but still leads in that category with 34 with Chase Utley next with 31....Curtis Granderson has an amazing 15 triples in 79 games leading Jimmy Rollins with 10. In 2005 Carl Crawford led AL in triples for season with 15 and Granderson has equaled that number in half a season....Rodriguez leads in total bases with 200 with Holliday next with 192....Rodriguez leads in slugging with a .680 percentage with Ordonez next at .617....Dan Uggla leads majors in extra base hits with 49 with three players tied with 48.
Pitching
C.C. Sabathia leads in wins with 12 with Josh Beckett and John Lackey tied for second with 11 wins with three pitchers tied with 10 wins each. John Smoltz tries for his 10th win today while Woody Williams has a chance to lose his 11th game of the season....Erik Bedard still leads in strikeouts with 129 with Johan Santana next with 120....Brad Penny leads in ERA with a 2.00 even mark and Jake Peavy is next at 2.09.
Paul Maholm and Kip Wells lead major league pitchers in losses with 11. Three pitchers are tied with 10 losses....Cole Hamels, Ervin Santana and James Shields lead in home runs allowed with 19 each....Doug Davis leads in walks allowed with 54 and Scott Kazmir is next allowing 52 walks.
