Balco Hits 751st...Wilkerson Hits 3 HR's

by user Niteowl049

Baseball Notebook

Balco Bonds Hits 751st:

Crunch Time For Bud Selig as Barry "Balco" Bonds homered for the 17th time this season and the 751st time in his career as he edges closer to passing Hank Aaron on the career home run list. Now that major league baseball is confiscating anti-Bonds signs at the ballparks it makes you wonder if they will put an end to the booing when Bonds walks to the plate. It would be difficult to enforce that though when thousands are booing him at the same time. His home run yesterday against the Reds makes his fourth consecutive home run that was hit in a game that ended in a loss for the Giants. Brandon Phillips was the offensive star for the Reds hitting a grand slam homer.

Allan Huber "Bud" Selig ....(I would want to be called Bud too if I was stuck with a monicker like that....can picture his mom calling for him saying "Allen Huber Selig you better get in this house this second....bet he stayed close to the house to avoid having his name called) is nearing crunchtime and will soon have to make a decision whether to show up the day Balco hits No.756. He ignored the use of steroids in 1998 so he in fact endorsed the use of them by that action and now he may try to ignore the celebration when the player that benefited the most from steroids passes Aaron. He is going to have to decide one way or the other soon. I think he will be making a huge mistake to not show up since he should be celebrating right along with Balco since Balco owes his place in history to Selig. They may both be admitted to the Cheaters Hall of Fame on the same day since Selig did nothing about steroids till forced to by Congress.

Around the Bases

Tom Mastny 6-2 is almost surely the only player in major leagues born in East Bontang, Indonesia but last night that didn't matter as he took the win in a 5-4 eleven inning win for the Indians over the Tigers with Casey Blake hitting a homer in top of eleventh to win the game. The loss pushed the Tigers to three games back of the first place Indians in the AL Central.

Chien-Ming Wang 8-4 and the Yankees are on track again as the Yankees shut out the Twins 8-0 but they could have shut them out 23-0 and it still wouldn't have helped gain any ground on the Red Sox who won with Daisuke Matsuzaka 10-5 taking the win. It was the sixth straight game for Matsuzaka to not allow more than two runs to score in a start. In his last start he pitched eight innings and allowed only one run and didn't get a decision so he went one better this time by not allowing any runs in eight innings and that was enough to get the win. Yankees don't even play the Red Sox again till the 28th of August when they host them at Yankee Stadium so they need help from other teams to gain any ground.

Billy Butler drove in six runs for the Royals as they clobbered the Mariners 17-3. Ryan Feierabend 1-3 did nothing to impress new manager John McLaren as he allowed the Royals to score 10 runs and garner 8 hits in an 1 1/3 innings. Jorge De La Rosa 6-9 was the beneficiary of the 16 hit attack. The loss was the second in a row since Mike Hargrove managed his last game on Sunday. The after effects of his shocking resignation may be felt for a long time by the Mariners. It is like in a storm when the captain of a ship falls overboard and nobody else knows how to take over the wheel. For the Mariners sake let us hope the storm will end shortly and that McLaren can right the ship before they start fading out of the AL West race.

Brad Wilkerson hit three home runs and drove in six runs to lead the Rangers to a 8-3 win over the Angels. Kevin Millwood 5-7 allowed two earned runs in 8 innings to take the win while Angels starter Ervin Santana 5-9 struck out 11 but took the loss. The first six hitters in Angels lineup were 2 for 23 while the hitters hitting below them were 4 for 9.

Joe Blanton 8-4 pitched a complete game 3-1 win over the Blue Jays as he became only the third pitcher in majors to pitch three complete games and the game only took 2 hours and 8 minutes to complete. Jack Cust hit his 15th homer leading the A's in that category despite having 142 less at bats than runner up Eric Chavez who has 12. Cust only has six less RBI's than team RBI leader Nick Swisher who has 45 and Cust has had 109 less at bats. One negative for Cust is that he is second on team in strikeouts with 66 with Chavez leading with 72 but even that can be forgiven when you consider Cust leads the team in on base percentage with a .402 mark and in slugging with a .610 percentage with Travis Buck at .489 second on the team.

Hunter Pence hit a 13th inning walkoff homer against the Phillies as the Astros won the game 5-4. The home run by Pence was his tenth of the season and he had also homered on Monday. Pence is hitting .563 for the month of July with 9 hits in 16 at bats. Pence is slugging .590 which is third in NL for hitters with at least 150 at bats with only Barry Bonds at .614 and Prince Fielder at .600 ahead of him. Carlos Lee showed the importance of running full speed to first base as a potential game ending double play he hit scored the tying run in the ninth inning. Adam Eaton pitched 6 innings allowing three runs and the Phillies bullpen pitched 7 innings allowing two runs and Phillies pitchers only allowed the Astros to score twice in the last 11 innings of the game.

Lance Barksdale the umpire at first base was like a tenth player for the Astros as he called Lee safe when he appeared to have been out by half a step enabling the tying run to score. Haven't seen the replay on that but it sounds like from what I read on wire reports that the game should have ended with that play....just saw the play at mlb.com and Lee did appear to be out.

Shane Youman 1-0 defeated the Brewers 6-2 as the Pirates benefited from four Brewers errors. It was Youman's first major league win. Youman is another LSU graduate currently playing in the major leagues. Rickie Weeks made one of the errors when he lost a groundball in the sun....Cubs defeated the Nationals 3-1 as Carlos Zambrano 10-6 took the win. Tim Redding 0-1 took the loss. Nationals are at the point of desperation to call up a pitcher like Redding with a 21-35 record. Redding has had only one winning season with a 3-1 record with Astros in 2001.

Rockies blasted the Mets 11-3 behind a 18 hit attack led by Kazuo Matsui who was 5 for 5 and Ryan Spilborghs who hit a grand slam homer....Randy Johnson is back on disabled list again and with only four wins has 284 career wins and turns 44 in September. Since the earliest he can come back will be about the 17th of July time may be running out for him to ever win his 300th game. He has only made 10 starts this season after having 35-34-33 starts in the last three years. Last year Johnson struck out 175 batters in 202 innings with 27 more innings pitched than strikeouts but this season he has struck out 72 in 56 innings with 16 more strikeouts than innings pitched.

Standings at a Glance

American League

The top three teams in AL East the Red Sox, Yankees, and Blue Jays all have 4-6 records in their last ten games. Rays have lost nine in a row falling three games behind the fourth place Orioles. The AL standings are in the exact order a lot of post season prognosticators had predicted....Indians won their sixth in a row and are 8-2 in their last ten while second place Tigers are 5-5 in their last ten to enable the Indians to stretch their lead to three games over the Tigers in the AL Central....A's gained a game on Mariners and Angels yesterday and are three and a half behind the Mariners who they have to pass before trying to catch up with the Angels in AL West.

National League

Mets, Braves and Phillies all lost yesterday in the NL East. If not for a bad call by Lance Barksdale the Phillies would have tied the Braves for second place last night....Brewers failed to go 15 games over .500 for the first time this season but still have best winning percentage in NL with a .578 percentage. Cubs are 9-1 in their last ten games and have moved to within 5 1/2 games of the first place Brewers in the NL Central. Pirates could move into fourth place today with a win and Phillies victory over the Astros....In the NL West the Padres lead the Dodgers by two percentage points with the Diamondbacks a game and a half behind. Giants lost to the worst team in baseball as their road record fell to 14-25 tying the Rays for the worst road record in baseball.