Balco Bonds Hits 748th HR
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by user Niteowl049
Baseball Notebook
Balco Bonds Hits No. 748
Just when it looked like Barry "Balco" Bonds was slowing down in his bid to pass Hank Aaron he hits one last Monday and one yesterday. The day Bud Selig has hoped would never come is approaching sooner than he thinks so he is going to be forced to make a decision one way or the other unless he is planning to ignore the event completely. Fans like me that don't appreciate cheaters passing legends like Aaron are dreading the day it happens but only an injury or suspension is likely to stop Bonds now.
Bonds has 97 games left to hit the 8 home runs he needs to pass Aaron and if he has a two home run game it speeds it up even more. Am almost resigned to it happening now but will rue the day it happens. Since the Giants were considering acquiring Manny Ramirez last offseason it is interesting to note that Bonds has 4 more homers than Ramirez this season but Ramirez has homered in last two games and may be ready to have a great second half.
Around the Bases
If a baseball fan was thinking of players that are unlikely to have an inside park home run Prince Fielder would be at the top of the list. Not many 262 pounders are going to hit inside the park home runs but Fielder did when Lew Ford lost track of the ball hit to him in the ninth inning and by the time he got the ball back to the infield it was too late as Fields sprinted or rather lumbered across home plate. Justin Morneau hit a walkoff homer in the bottom of the ninth off of Chris Spurling. Not sure why Ned Yost didn't use the best closer in baseball Francisco Cordero since it would have been only his second game in a row to be used. Instead Spurling pitched the ninth inning and gave up the 20th homer of season to Morneau.
Not counting Daisuke Matsuzaka who really is not surprising anyone pitching that well the most unsung of any pitchers this season has to be Fausto Carmona 8-2 of the Indians. Last season he was 1-10 even though he struck out 58 batters in 74 innings while he has struck out only 44 in 89 innings this season but has been more successful this season. The key to his success this season has to be that he has induced 188 ground balls in less than half a season in 2007 while allowing 146 last year.... It was a bad day for NL East yesterday as the Nationals were the only team to record a win.
Alex Rodriguez hit his 27th home run of the 2007 season in his 67th game leaving 14 more games before the halfway mark. He only needs 8 more home runs to match his 2006 total. Yankees are only 3 1/2 games behind the Tigers in the wild card race so even if they don't catch up with the Red Sox they have a chance right now to be in the playoffs. With Tyler Clippard back in the minors they will start Kei Igawa against Matt Cain and the Giants in San Francisco on Friday. Chien-Ming Wang 7-4 has won 6 of his last 7 starts. Wang is one the biggest bargains in baseball only making $489,500 this year. I used the word only in comparison with other baseball players not workers like me who worked for a living and made $220 a month at newspaper back in the 60's and that was before deductions. I would gladly have traded my minimim wage back then of $1.40 an hour for the $380,000 minimum salary major league rookies make playing baseball from February to October and some don't play but a few games into October before heading home.
Greg Maddux 6-3 won his 339th game of his career yesterday....Chipper Jones reached the 2000 hit milestone yesterday. At 35 and with him not having 500 at bats since 2003 it is unlikely he will get close to 3000 hits. Jones only has 2 home runs since the 2nd of May....Andruw Jones is not doing much to boost his value in free agent market this fall even though he does have 11 homers and 42 runs batted in. His .208 average this season is even lower than the average of Tim Hudson and Kyle Davies. Jones hit .202 in May and .147 in June.
His agent Scott Boras was angered that Jones was included in a list of 10 Most Overrated Players compiled by Jayson Stark of espn.com. Boras is going to be dealing with general managers who if they are smart come armed with negative stats about Jones when meeting with Boras. I am a Braves fan but still can see that Jones is not the same player he was a few years ago. His on base percentage is .307 and his slugging percentage is .400 exactly so barely out of the 300's.
Jones has 1 hit in his last 17 at bats and hitting .150 in his last ten games. He has struck out three times in each of his last two games. If he wants to command the kind of contract that Alfonso Soriano signed last offseason he is going to have to have a great finish to his 2007 season. Jones does have great numbers for the age of 30 like 353 home runs and over 1600 hits but with only 11 games left for Braves in this half of season he needs to gets untracked soon.
It took Roy Oswalt 7-4 seven tries to win his seventh game...Jack Cust hit 6 home runs and drove in 14 RBI's in his first seven games with A's but since the 14th of May has only 3 home runs and 11 RBI's over the last 30 games....Local pitcher Russ Springer 3-0 won his second game in a row pitching in relief in Cardinals wins Saturday and Sunday. On June 10th Jason Kendall had only 2 extra base hits for the 2007 season in 210 at bats but in the last five games he has hit 5 doubles and a home run in his last 22 at bats.
An early candidate for Comeback Player of the Year has to be Carlos Pena of the Devil Rays who is fourth in AL in home runs. Last season with the Red Sox he had one home run in 33 at bats. This year for the Devil Rays he has 16 home runs and 42 runs batted in and is slugging an astounding .683. He has hit his 16 homers in only 167 at bats compared to Justin Morneau with 20 in 90 more at bats and Gary Sheffield with 17 in 84 more at bats. Would be interested if any reader knows why the Tigers released him in spring training after the 2005 season when he had 18 homers and 44 runs batted in after 260 at bats or roughly half a season of at bats. In fact he played in only 79 games that season.
Stats Corner
Hitting
Magglio Ordonez leads major league hitters hitting .371 with Matt Holliday second with a .363 average....Alex Rodriguez hit his major league leading 27th home run leaving him nine homers short of 500th homer. Starting in 1998 Rodriguez has had at least 35 home runs in each year. Prince Fielder hit his 25th yesterday and Justin Morneau became the third member of the 20 home run club this season and is third in homers....Rodriguez is leading in runs batted in with 73 with Ordonez next with 64. Carlos Lee with 55 RBI's is the closest NL player to Rodriguez and is 18 runs batted in behind Rodriguez.
Matt Holliday leads in hits with 102 but Ichiro Suzuki is close behind with 100....Ordonez leads in doubles with 33 with Chase Utley next with 30....Rodriguez leads in total bases with 175 with Holliday second with 172....Rodriguez leads in slugging with .697 percentage and Carlos Pena is next at .683.
Pitching
John Lackey is still the only 10 game winner with three pitchers tied with 9 wins. Lackey tries for his 11th win today while Cole Hamels attempts to be the second member of the 10 wins club....Erik Bedard leads in strikeouts with 112 and Dan Haren has the lowest ERA with a 1.64 ERA....Kip Wells leads in losses with 11 but Anthony Reyes gave it his best shot yesterday blowing a 5-1 lead. He is now 0-8 for the season and may be receiving a one way ticket to the minor leagues anyday....Francisco Cordero leads in saves with 25 with the other Francisco with the last name of Rodriguez having 22 tying him with Jose Valverde who also has 22 saves.
Player From The Past:
Steve Bilko If there was ever a player destined to be a major league star it was Steve Bilko who played in the major leagues for ten years but only batted more than 300 times in a season once when he hit 21 homers for the Cardinals in 1953. He hit only 76 major league home runs but he hit 313 home runs in the minor leagues hitting 37,55 and 56 homers to win consecutive home run championships for Los Angeles Angels in 1955-57 seasons. Tommy Lasorda says that one time that he pitched a shutout but the headline the next day says "Bilko Doesn't Get A Hit" to show how much of a celebrity Bilko was and once Bilko was called up to the Reds and had to take a paycut to go to the major leagues. His career totals in majors didn't match the hype so he never became a major league star but a television program called Sergeant Bilko was named after him. Am interested in knowing if anyone reading this remembers Bilko.
