Barry "Balco" Bonds Hits 749th HR
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by user Niteowl049
Baseball Notebook
Balco Bonds Hits No. 749
Barry "Balco" Bonds hit his 749th homer of his career and his 15th of the season. It was his third homer in his last ten games. I had predicted he would hit a home run off of Kei Igawa. I just had the wrong pitcher since he hit it off of Scott Proctor. Think it is safe to say barring a long slump by Bonds or an injury he will pass Hank Aaron next month. Can't see Bud Selig meting out a last minute suspension to prevent him from passing Aaron.
I don't use the words breaking the record since in my mind he did not break the record since he cheated so use the alternative phrasing of passing Aaron instead. Just looking at his photos of his early years with the Pirates and his current photos of him in a Giants uniform are all the evidence I need to know he was on something.
No exercise program that I know of increases the head size or foot size which went from size 10 1/2 to size 13 at an age when most people his age maintain the same size the rest of their life. My shoe size has been the same since I was in my 20's and now I am 62 so something is wrong when a man in his 30's suddenly goes up 2 1/2 sizes in his shoe size.
Sammy Sosa was shown hitting a home run early in his career off of Roger Clemens on television the other night and he was a skeleton of the player that hit over 60 home runs in 1998. He almost looked sickly he was so skinny. While some people call the size circumstancial evidence it arouses suspicions that a player was on something to me.
3000 Hit Countdown:
Craig Biggio 2993...7 more hits to reach 3000
Around the Bases
MLB.com has a new feature where you can go to their scoreboard page and click on a half inning of a game and you can view on their video player the action in that half inning. So if your team has a big inning in a game you can see exactly what happened that inning....Carlos Zambrano 8-6 is back in top form and has allowed only 4 runs in the last 32 innings and has won 3 of his last 4 games. His best game of the four was a 1-0 loss in which he gave up only two hits in 9 inning complete game....Rockies and Blue Jays scored five runs between them in the 10th inning as the Rockies scored twice in the top of the 10th and Blue Jays scored three times in bottom of the tenth to take a 9-8 win.
Sammy Sosa hit his 13th homer of the season and 601st of his career as Rangers won three games in a row for only the second time this season.He finished the game with 57 RBI's....Milton Bradley was a Kansas City Royal for only a few hours since he apparently injured his oblique in his game with the A's and the trade was voided. Bradley can help a team once he is injury free but with his excess baggage he may cause more problems than he is worth....Why is Senator George Mitchell waiting till July till interview Jason Giambi? This sham of an investigation will take forever if they continue to dilly dally around instead of finishing the investigation and issuing the report in a timely manner. The way it is going it may be next year before a report is issued.
Tom Glavine 6-5 finally won his 296th game in the 9-1 win for the Mets over the A's. With only two or three starts left before the All Star game he will have to wait till later in July to win his 300th game assuming he doesn't go into another prolonged slump....Josh Hamilton took the lead among major league rookies in home runs hitting his 11th of the season last night....Aaron Harang 8-2 gave up only 2 hits in 8 innings in the 16-1 Reds win over the Mariners....Orlando Cabrera drove in the winning run for Angels in the 11th inning in their win over the Pirates who had blown a 4-0 lead.
Phillies shut out the Cardinals 6-0 and beat the pitcher with most losses without a win in majors in Anthony Reyes 0-9. The win moved the Phillies into second place ahead of my Braves who are reeling and since the 15th of May are 13-22. Braves only managed two singles off Kenny Rogers and the Tigers bullpen.
Andruw Jones is hitting .199 and only has 53 hits with the Braves having only 7 games remaining in the first half of the season. When an everyday player has only 53 hits at this point in the season something is terribly wrong. He has 11 homers after having 41 last season. His on base percentage is a mediocre .296 while slugging only .383 after a .531 percentage last year. In April he hit .261, in May .202 and now has bottomed out at .127 for the month of June.
Scott Boras his agent is probably staying up nights thinking of ways to put a positive spin to such a terrible season when he negotiates for a big contract for Jones when he becomes a free agent. He is 495th on list of batting averages at mlb.com with only Julio Lugo at .198 having a lower batting average among hitters with at least 200 at bats. Looks like Lugo may be another one season shortstop for Red Sox who since Nomar Garciaparra left have not had a shortstop last more than one season.
Jeff Suppan 8-7 won for the first time since the 1st of June as Brewers took stretched their lead in the NL Central to 8 1/2 games over the second place Cardinals and Cubs. Suppan despite winning the game gave up five runs in five innings and has given up 14 runs and 19 hits in his last 9 innings. Opponents are hitting .296 against Suppan this season. Suppan and Dave Bush have the worst ERA's among the Brewers starters with 4.90 and 5.48 ERA's respectively.
Daisuke Matsuzaka 9-5 outpitched future future Hall of Famer Greg Maddux 6-4 allowing only one first inning run in the 2-1 Red Sox victory over the Padres....All AL East teams won except the Devil Rays yesterday and Orioles won their third straight game tying them for last place with the Devil Rays....In the AL Central, Tigers were only team to win giving them a one game lead over the Indians....With their win yesterday the AL West leading Angels extended their lead to 7 games ahead of the A's and 8 games ahead of the Mariners.
The NL leading Mets are 5-14 for the month of June. Luckily for them they lost only two and a half games off their lead during that stretch. They haven't won more than one game in a row all this month....Brewers have won 8 of their last 9 games and are 11 games over .500 and have a 8 1/2 game lead over Cardinals and Cubs. In the NL West the Dodgers moved into a half game lead over the Padres who were leading the division going into Friday's games. Giants were 24-22 on the 23rd of May and a month later they are 30-42 giving them a 6-20 record since then. Giants made a grave miscalculation thinking their older players had one more good season in them. They have lost 12 of their last 15 games. Giants have 12 players born in 1977 or earlier meaning they have 12 players who will turn 30 or older this season. Seven of those players will be 35 or older this season.
Stats Corner
Hitting
Magglio Ordonez leads majors in batting with a .383 average with Matt Holliday at .358 in second....Alex Rodriguez is still leading in home runs with 27 with Prince Fielder next with 26. Adam Dunn and Justin Morneau are the only other members of the 20 home run club with 20 each....Rodriguez leads Ordonez in RBI's by 75-68....Ichiro Suzuki and Matt Holliday lead in hits this season with 106....Rodriguez leads Holliday in total bases by 183-179.
To have a chance at a 30-30 season a player needs to have 15-15 or close to that over the first half of the season. Here are some of those who have a chance to reach 30-30 with homers first then stolen bases: Grady Sizemore 11-22...David Wright 12-16...Brandon Phillips 13-15...Eric Byrnes 11-14...Jimmy Rollins 13-13...Ian Kinsler] 13-11.
Pitching
John Lackey, C.C. Sabathia and Josh Beckett are the only ten game winners this season with five pitchers tied with 9 wins. Randy Wolf and Justin Verlander try for their ninth win today....Erik Bedard leads in strikeouts with 121 with Jake Peavy next with 110....Dan Haren continues to lead all pitchers in ERA with 1.78 ERA with Jake Peavy next with 1.98....Zach Duke leads with hits allowed giving up 129 hits in 89 innings which is 40 more hits than innings pitched. Jeff Suppan is next allowing 117 hits in 101 innings.
Vicente Padilla leads in most earned runs allowed with 60....Kip Wells and Woody Williams are next with 59....There is a three way tie for most home runs allowed with Woody Williams, Cole Hamels and Ervin Santana giving up 17 roundtrippers.
