Clemens Signs With Yankees

by user Niteowl049

Baseball Notebook

Clemens Free Zone Ban Lifted: Rogers Signs With Yankees

Am finally lifting the ban on mentioning Roger Clemens now that he has actually signed with the Yankees. For him to be reportedly coming back by end of May was a shock since he didn't pitch for Astros last season until the 22nd of June.

He will have a higher ERA because of the DH since in his last year with Yankees it was 3.98 but last year it was 2.30 with the Astros. He will have to depend on a shaky Yankee bullpen to hold leads in games he pitches and doubt that he will go past six innings very often in any situation.

Know the Red Sox nation won't be happy knowing Clemens will be back but he will have to do more than just show up to pitch. Having the DH in AL could cause him some problems since he won't have the benefit he did in NL of pitching to pitchers. Instead of pitching to pitchers he will be pitching to David Ortiz, Travis Hafner and Jim Thome so will be surprised if he can be as effective as he was with the Astros.

Baseball Daily Digest

Nick Swisher hit his 6th homer of season for A's and Joe Blanton 3-1 takes the win as the A's defeated the Devil Rays 5-3. Jack Cust also homered for the A's. Three of the last five batters in the A's batting order are hitting .222 or lower but those numbers should improve. A's moved to within one game of the first place Angels in the AL West and after an off day today they will travel to face the Royals on Tuesday.

C.C. Sabathia 5-0 became the fifth pitcher in majors to post five wins and Trot Nixon went 5 for 5 and drove in 4 runs in the 9-6 win over the Orioles. Sabathia struck out nine giving him the AL lead in strikeouts with 53....Curt Schilling 4-1 pitched well as Red Sox prevented the second place Yankees from gaining ground on them.

Tigers pounded out 17 hits of which 10 were for extra bases in their 13-4 shellacking of the Royals as they won their seventh in a row. Gary Sheffield is still hitting for a low average at .218 but his power numbers are improving as he had two homers and nine RBI's in all of April but in May so far he has two homers and five RBI's and is hitting .313 for the month.

Yankees took an easy 5-0 win over the Mariners behind the three hit pitching of Darrell Rasner 1-1 in 5 and a third innings. If you throw out the 15-11 win by the Mariners the Yankees have allowed only 7 runs in their five wins this month. Ichiro Suzuki continues to be mired in a horrific slump as his average tumbled to .260 for the season. Suzuki has 4 hits in his last 31 at bats....Rangers defeated the Blue Jays 3-2 as Michael Young was 2 for 4 and hit his 4th homer. Young was hitting .198 after going 0 for 13 in Yankees series that ended last Thursday but since then he has been 8 for 13 with 2 homers and 6 RBI's against the Blue Jays in the last three games and has raised his average to .233 while hitting .308 for the month of May. A.J. Pierzynski singles in winning run in White Sox 4-3 win over the Angels in ten innings.

Braves overcame a 4-1 deficit to score five runs in the bottom of the seventh inning to take a 6-4 win over the Dodgers and keep them in first place tie with Mets in NL East....Jake Peavy 4-1 struck out ten in seven innings of one hit and one run ball as he and the Padres edged the Marlins 3-1....Cubs defeated the slumping Nationals 4-3 as Daryle Ward hit a ball over a drawn in outfield in the ten inning win. Schedule maker is watching out for Cubs as they have taken 5 of their last six games against the Pirates and Nationals with the Pirates coming to Wrigley Field starting Tuesday.

Red hot Brewers blew a 4-0 lead against the Pirates letting them tie the score at 4-4 but then coming back to win their straight game scoring two runs in the eighth inning. Ben Sheets pitched into the seventh inning allowing only two runs so appears ready to become the pitcher the Brewers hoped he would be this season. Prince Fielder has been a huge part of the Brewers success as he hit two homers yesterday giving him 9 for the season and placing him second in homers in NL.

Braden Looper 4-2 is becoming the leader of the Cardinals rotation as the rotation which has been in shambles has only won seven games with Looper winning four of those. They posted a 3-1 win over the Astros on Sunday but still are not the Cardinals team of last year Anthony Reyes and Kip Wells have a combined record of 1-11 this season. This team seems doomed to not repeat this season as the pitching and hitting both have been mediocre at best. Albert Pujols has only hit one homer since the 22nd of April. They are in last place by themselves and are already eight games behind the first place Brewers in NL Central.

Josh Hamilton homered twice and drove in three runs in the 9-3 win by the Reds over the Rockies. Ken Griffey Jr. is back as can be indicated by looking at his April stats of him hitting .254 with 15 hits in 59 at bats while in May he already has 11 hits in only 23 at bats and hitting .478 for the month.

Tim Lincecum, the highly touted Giants prospect didn't live up to his billing pitching 4 1/3 innings allowing 4 earned runs, 5 hits and 5 walks but didn't get the decision while his opponent Cole Hamels 4-1 took the win while striking out nine giving him 52 in the season good for second place in NL behind Jake Peavy with 56. Ryan Howard hit a homer in the 8-5 win over the Giants. Howard hit three homers in April but has two already in May but is only 2 for 18 for the month of May. Howard hit 13 homers in May last season so maybe this will be his month.

Stats Corner

Derrek Lee continues to lead the majors in hitting with a .414 average with Todd Helton moving closer with a .394 average as he is hitting .444 for the month of May....Alex Rodriguez still leads in homers with 14 despite not hitting a homer in his last 11 games and only having 3 RBI's in that span....Vladimir Guerrero is closing in on Rodriguez in RBI department with Rodriguez leading with 37 and Guerrero having 30.

Matt Holliday leads majors in hits with 49 and Derrek Lee is next with 48. Lee and Chase Utley lead majors in doubles with 17....Jose Reyes and Jimmy Rollins are tied for lead in triples with five....Pat Burrell and Todd Helton lead in walks with 30....Adam Dunn and Ryan Howard lead in strikeouts with 40 and 39 respectively. Jose Reyes leads in stolen bases with 19 with Shane Victorino next with 13.

Josh Beckett leads in wins with 6 and will try for his seventh win on Tuesday night against the Blue Jays. Four pitchers have 5 wins with two of them John Maine and C.C. Sabathia having perfect 5-0 records....Chris Capuano and Roy Oswalt try to join the list of five game winners when they make their starts today.

John Maine has best ERA in majors at 1.37....Jake Peavy leads in strikeouts with 56 in 46 innings....Carlos Zambrano leads in home runs allowed with 9....Livan Hernandez leads in walks with 28....Felix Hernandez has allowed the lowest batting average by opponents with hitters hitting .194 against him. At the bottom of the list for starters is Jeff Weaver who is ranked 419th with a .500 batting average allowed by opponents.

Glance at the Standings

Yankees are second place in AL East and five and a half games back of the first place Red Sox. Blue Jays have fell to last place and are seven and a half games back. Yankees and Orioles could gain a half game on idle Red Sox with wins today.

The hottest team in baseball the Tigers have won seven in a row and are only ten percentage points behind the Indians in the AL Central. Twins who have lost the services of Joe Mauer to the disabled list are next and three and a half games back of the Indians.

In the AL West the A's and Mariners are in a tie for second place and only one game behind the first place Angels.

Braves and Mets continue to lead in the NL East with with Marlins in second and five games back.

All of the first three teams in NL Central won yesterday as Brewers held their five game lead over the Cubs and seven game lead over the Reds.

NL West has Dodgers in front of Padres by one game. No NL West team has won more than half of their last ten games so this division seems to be wide open as of today.