Clemens Wins 350th...Damian Miller 3 Homers, 11 RBI's in Last 2 Games
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by user Niteowl049
Baseball Notebook
Clemens Wins 350th
Roger Clemens 2-3 pitched his best game of the season last night for his 350th win defeating the Twins 5-1 and allowing only two hits in eight innings. Clemens deserves credit for pitching well against one of the better middle of the batting orders in baseball in Joe Mauer, Mike Cuddyer, Justin Morneau and Torii Hunter. I have to hand it to Clemens for pitching that well at the age of 44 and soon will be turning 45. His next start will be in Yankee Stadium on Saturday against John Lackey and the Angels and will be telecast on FOX as their game of the week. The win was important in that it kept the Yankees from going five games under .500 and instead moved them to three games under .500 but the win didn't help in the standings since the Red Sox and second place Blue Jays both won. Starting the day that Clemens lost against the Mets the Yankees have been 6-10 till today.
Around the Bases
Fausto Carmona 9-4 got back on the winning track after losing three of his last four starts extending the Indians lead in AL Central to 2 games over the Tigers. The defeat was the eighth consecutive loss for the Rays as they managed only four singles against the Indians in their 10-2 loss....Red Sox won their 50th game in their 81st game the exact halfway mark for the 2007 season and if they can duplicate the first half in the second half will finish 100-62. During the game Manny Ramirez hit a ball he thought was over the fence and had broken into his home run trot a little too early and when he saw it bounce off the wall he speeded up and barely made it ahead of the throw to second base. Was hoping he would be thrown out not for no other reason than that I am getting tired of players that stand at the plate admiring what they think is a home run then barely getting to second base or getting thrown out at second. Have seen Barry Bonds thrown out after admiring what he thought was a home run a little too long.
Mark Buehrle left the mound with what he thought would be a win last night but the White Sox bullpen imploded and let the Orioles escape with a 7-6 win....Royals won in eleventh inning 3-2 over the Mariners after Emil Brown hit a walkoff sacrifice fly to win the game.
Damian Miller homered twice and drove in seven runs in the Brewers 10-3 win on the road against the Pirates. Miller did not have a home run until last week when hit a walkoff homer to defeat the Astros last Wednesday. One of his homers last night by the Lacrosse, Wisconsin native was a grand slam. In his last two games he has hit three home runs, drove in 11 runs and raised his batting average from .234 to .287. Jeff Suppan left the game with the score tied 3-3 and Carlos Villanueva 6-0 took the win.
Craig Biggio added another page to his Hall of Fame resume last night as he had his 1000th extra base hit. The only retired player ahead of him on the list that is not in the Hall of Fame is Rafael Palmeiro who was more juiced than the juciest California or Florida orange. Biggio should pass Ernie Banks, Rogers Hornsby and Mike Schmidt by the end of the season. Biggio was hitting .238 after the game before the night he notched his 3000th hit but now is hitting .257 after having 10 hits in his last 18 at bats....Hunter Pence has had 25 multi-hit games this season and in nine of those games has had three hits or more. Ichiro Suzuki has had three or more hits ten times this season.
Russ Springer 4-1 who was born about 4 miles from here took the win in the Cardinals 11-3 win over the Diamondbacks. Last night Steve Phillips of ESPN predicted the Diamondbacks would not play as well the second half of the season and so far in their first three games of the second half they have lost all three games and been outscored 28-4....Tom Glavine failed in his first attempt for his 298th win giving up six runs in the third inning as the Mets eventually lost the game 6-2 to the Rockies. Glavine gave up nine hits and five walks in the contest.
Since the 29th of May, Andruw Jones has had two hits in a game only twice....With the Mariners still having two games remaining in the first half Ichiro Suzuki has 121 hits which is amazing considering he only had 25 hits after the first month of the season. If he had maintained that pace he would have had 150 hits at the end of the season but in May he had 46 hits and 47 in June. Suzuki hit .305 in April... .357 in May... and .427 in June. He merits consideration for Hall of Fame even if he doesn't reach 3000 hits because of his age. He will be 34 in October and already has 1475 hits in six and a half seasons and should finish this season with close to 1600 hits.
Not Your Everyday Stats
Hitting
Home Run Frequency AL - Alex Rodriguez 10.6 AB's Per HR NL - Prince Fielder 11.3 AB's Per HR
Sacrifice Flies AL - Orlando Cabrera 7 NL - Carlos Lee 13
Stolen Base Success AL - Jason Bartlett 100 per cent 16 of 16 NL - Michael Bourn 100 per cent 13 of 13
Batting Average With Two Strikes AL - Mike Redmond .359 NL - Willie Harris .311
Times on Base AL - Ichiro Suzuki 153 NL - Todd Helton 154
Percent Fewest Missed Swings AL - Placido Polanco 4.6% 25-543 NL - David Eckstein 6% 21-348
Pitching
Strikeouts Per Nine Innings Pitched AL - Erik Bedard - 10.7...134 in 112 innings NL: Jake Peavy - 9.6...119 in 112 innings
Fewest Baseruners Per Nine Innings Pitched AL - Jeremy Guthrie 8.25 NL - Jake Peavy 9.8
Run Support Per Nine Innings AL - Jeremy Bonderman 7.9 NL - Aaron Harang 6.81
ERA at Home AL - Joe Blanton 1.80 NL - Chris Young 0.94
ERA on Road AL - Josh Beckett 1.71 NL - Jake Peavy 0.94
Fewest Home Runs Per Nine Innings AL - Chad Gaudin .44....5 in 101 innings NL - Brad Penny .16....2 in 112 innings
Pickoff Throws AL - Steve Trachsel 130 NL - Ben Sheets 105
Blown Saves AL - Todd Jones, Joel Peralta, Chris Ray and Matt Thornton 4 NL - Chad Cordero, Brian Fuentes and Salomon Torres 6
Note: Fuentes is on the NL All Star team. No wonder the NL All Stars lose so often.
