Fred Lewis Hits for Cycle, Cust Hits Walkoff Homer
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by user Niteowl049
Baseball Notebook
Baseball Daily Digest
Jack Cust hit a three run walkoff homer as the A's who were losing 7-5 going into the the bottom of the ninth took a 10-5 win over the Indians as the A's moved within a game of the first place Angels in the AL West. Cust has 6 homers and 14 RBI's in only 28 at bats. He replaced Mike Piazza when he went on disabled list and has done even better than Piazza who had only one homer and 8 RBI's in 103 at bats. Milton Bradley had tied the game at 7-7 with his second homer earlier in the last inning. The entire starting lineup for the A's had hits in the 15 hit attack.
Jae Seo 2-3 pitched his best game of the season allowing the Blue Jays 2 hits in 7 scoreless innings as he received the win in the 2-1 victory....Shaun Marcum making his first start of the season for the Blue Jays pitched six innings of no-hit ball. Marcum was lifted due to exceeding the pitch count. No wonder there are so few no-hitters pitched these days with the pitch count ruining chances for no-hitters. The win ended a 6 game losing streak by the Devil Rays and sent the Blue Jays into a tie with Devil Rays for last place in AL East.
Royals trounced the White Sox 11-1 despite starter Javier Vasquez only giving up four of those runs in six innings. The White Sox bullpen allowed 7 runs and 8 hits in 3 innings of relief as the bullpen poured charcoal starter into the fire instead of putting the flames out....Red Sox made an amazing comeback as they were trailing 5-0 entering the bottom of the ninth inning when they scored 6 runs to take a 6-5 win over the Orioles. Josh Beckett trying for his 8th win of the season had to leave the game after pitching 4 innings due to a finger injury.
Nelson Cruz hit a walkoff homer as the Rangers defeated the Angels 7-6. Ian Kinsler hit his first homer since the 29th of April giving him 10 for the season and he is second in home runs in AL....Horacio Ramirez 3-2 defeated the Yankees 2-1 in a pitching duel with Andy Pettitte 2-2 who took the loss for the Yankees. Ichiro Suzuki is showing signs of breaking out of his month long slump in May. In five of first six games this month he was held hitless but now has a seven game hitting streak.
Torri Hunter had 7 RBI's last night in the 16-4 win by Twins over the Tigers. It was a rude awakening for Tigers starter Virgil Vasquez 0-1 who was making his first major league start as he gave up 6 runs and 9 hits in 2 2/3 innings but the bullpen let the game get completely out of hand allowing 10 more runs to cross the plate and let Twins hit safely 13 more times.
Mets took an easy 9-1 win over the Brewers as Oliver Perez 4-3 allowed only one run and two hits in 8 1/3 innings while the Mets mounting a 14 hit attack with Damion Easley hitting his 5th homer of the season and drove in 4 runs. Chris Capuano 5-1 took the loss for the Brewers while allowing 4 runs but reliever Elmer Dessens allowed 5 more runs to score in the ninth inning.
Ian Snell 3-2 and the Pirates blasted the Braves by a 13-2 score with the Pirates having 18 hits in the contest but only three doubles and fifteen singles showing you can score a lot of runs without hitting home runs....Ted Lilly 3-2 pitched the Cubs to a 4-1 win over the Phillies and moved to within 7 games of the first place Brewers in NL Central. The win was marred by an injury to Derrek Lee causing him to be removed from game with neck spasms. Lee is currently leading the majors in hitting with a .390 average.
Jason Simontacchi 1-1 pitched the Nationals to their 6-4 win over the Marlins. The win extended their winning streak to three games the season best for the Nationals....Wandy Rodriguez 1-3 took his first victory of the season in the 5-2 win by the Astros over the Diamondbacks. Craig Biggio had two hits leaving him 34 short of 3000 hits which he should reach by the end of June.
Fred Lewis had 5 hits in 6 at bats to lead the Giants to a 15-2 win over the Rockies in a 22 hit attack. Lewis was a single short of hitting for the cycle when he came to bat in the seventh inning but not only garned the single he needed for the cycle but added another single before the inning was over. The first three Giants in batting order were 10 for 18 with 6 RBI's. Lewis now has 7 hits and 7 RBI's in only 14 at bats. It was only his third game this season. Matt Cain 2-3 took the victory for the Giants.
Justin Germano 1-0 pitched 7 inning of shutout baseball as the Padres shut the Cardinals out by a 3-0 score. The heart of the Cardinals batting order was 1 for 9 and the batting averages at end of game for Albert Pujols was .248...Jim Edmonds ...208 and Scott Rolen...204 with the three of them having 9 homers total and the team as a whole has 16 which is one less than Alex Rodriguez has hit this season. Now they face the Dodgers and their pitching staff which is second best in NL in ERA with a 3.19 mark.
Dodgers erased a 5-3 deficit and went on defeat the Reds 10-5 as the first three Dodgers in lineup were 9 for 13 and drove in 5 runs. Rafael Furcal led the way with a 4 for 4 day. Ken Griffey Jr. hit his 7th homer and is hitting .336. He has 6 homers and 14 RBI's in May after having one homer and 9 RBI's in April and is hitting .438 for the month of May.
Six teams yesterday scored 10 or more runs with 9 teams having at least 13 hits. Giants and Twins both had 22 hits yesterday. Twelve teams were held to two or less runs so some pitchers did have a good day.
Stats Corner
Hitting
Derrek Lee leads majors in hitting with a .390 mark with Todd Helton the leader among active players in career average hitting .383....Alex Rodriguez is still stuck on 15 homers with four National Leaguers next with 11....Rodriguez leads in RBI's with 39 and Carlos Lee is next with 35. Matt Holliday leads in hits with 56 with Derrek Lee second with 55.
Jose Reyes leads in triples with 7....Rodriguez became the first player to reach 100 total bases having that many exactly and Matt Holliday is next with 98....Adam Dunn leads in strikeouts with 49 with B.J. Upton next with 45. Upton is hitting .345 even with all the strikeouts....Reyes leads in stolen bases with 21 to the 15 by Juan Pierre....Chase Utley leads in extra base hits with 26 with Magglio Ordonez second with 25.
Josh Beckett with 7 and Roy Oswalt with 6 lead pitchers in wins with John Smoltz, Dontrelle Willis and Jason Marquis trying for their 6th win today....Ervin Santana leads in most home runs allowed with 11 with Carlos Zambrano next with 10.
Standings at a Glance
American League
AL East: Red Sox stretched their lead over the second place Orioles and Yankees to eight games yesterday. Devil Rays and Blue Jays are tied for third and are 10 1/2 games back of the Red Sox. On this date last season the Red Sox and Yankees were tied for first with 21-14 records. Yankees lead major in runs scored with 200.
AL Central: Top 3 teams in AL Central lost with the Twins and Royals gaining a game on the rest of the division. Twins moved to within a game and a half of the third place White Sox.
AL West: Angels are barely holding onto their lead in the AL West as their loss to the Rangers let all the other teams gain a game on them. A's are now only a game behind the Angels with the Mariners a game and a half back. A's are only team in divsion with a winning record of 6-4 in last ten games while the other three teams are 5-5 in their last ten.
National League
NL East: Braves are only a half game ahead of Mets after their loss and the Mets win yesterday. Mets have best road record in majors with a 14-5 record. Mets and Braves are 7-3 in their last 10 games while the rest of the division is below .500 or below in their last 10 games.
NL Central: Brewers loss yesterday coupled with wins by the four closest teams saw them lose ground to contenders in NL Central. Cubs and Astros both won and moved to within 7 games of the Brewers who are 9-7 on the road this season and 16-5 at Miller Park.
NL West: Giants may have scored 15 runs but it didn't help them gain on the Dodgers as they remain 3 1/2 games back of Dodgers who won their third straight game.
