Hicks Names Juan Gonzalez as Steroids User
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by user Niteowl049
Baseball Notebook
Tom Hicks: Second Thoughts On Signing of Juan Gonzalez
In an interview yesterday Tom Hicks the owner of the Rangers wishes now he hadn't signed Juan Gonzalez for $24 million saying that Gonzalez had just come off steroids about the time he signed him during his last stint with the Rangers. Over those two years Gonzalez had 32 homers and 105 RBI's. The year before he signed with Rangers he hit 35 homers and drove in 140 runs for Indians in 2001.
If Gonzalez had hit 500 homers falling 66 home runs short of the mark he may have made the Hall of Fame but now he will be another one of those players that waits for the phone call in January that will never come. Hicks has done something no other owner has ever done to my knowledge directly accusing one of his players of using steroids. He did mention regretting signing Chan Ho Park to a $65 million contract who was a colossal failure with the Rangers. Park had a 22-23 record with Rangers in four years after 33-21 record his last two years with Dodgers.
Around the Bases
Yankees started their road trip with a 3-1 loss to the Rockies and fell nine games back of the Red Sox. Mike Mussina had a quality start but was outpitched by Josh Fogg who pitched even better....Kyle Kendrick 1-0 won his second start as the Phillies defeated the Indians 9-6. Phillies gained a game on both the Mets and Braves and are only 2 games behind the Mets and a half game behind the Braves. Ryan Howard hit his 16th homer and drove in four runs in the contest.
Brad Penny 9-1 allowed one run in seven innings as the Dodgers won over the Blue Jays 10-1....Tigers bashed the Nationals 15-1 taking no chance of losing the lead like they almost did on Monday night.....Josh Beckett 10-1 became the second 10 game winner with his 4-0 win over the Braves. Tim Hudson 6-5 only has one win in his last seven starts and his ERA for June is 6.10. Johan Santana 7-6 finally had some runs to work with in the Twins 9-0 win over the Mets pitching a complete game shutout allowing 4 hits while striking out only one. His previous low strikeout total this year was four.
Ben Sheets 8-3 pitched a complete game 6-2 win over the Giants who lost their sixth in a row....Tim Lincecum 2-2 pitched had his fourth straight ineffective outing and his ERA for June is 10.61. Lincecum may have been rushed to the majors too soon. In his last 4 starts he has given up 22 earned runs but in the four starts previous he had given up only 7 runs. Prince Fielder had 3 RBI' s extending his NL lead to 59....Devil Rays blew an 8-2 lead after five innings with the Diamondbacks eventually winning with a Chris Young walkoff homer in the 10th inning. Al Reyes gave up the last four runs blowing his first save.....Homer Bailey 2-0 defeated the A's 5-2 as the Reds rookie allowed only 2 hits in 7 innings. Chad Gaudin 6-2 was the loser. Ken Griffey Jr. hit his 19th homer of the season and 582nd of his career.
The Orioles extended their losing streak to nine games as Jake Peavy 9-1 struck out seven enroute to a 12-6 win by the Padres....Tom Gorzelanny 7-4 pitched the Pirates to a 5-3 win over the Mariners. Gorzelanny only twice has allowed more than 4 runs in a game in 15 starts....Hunter Pence and Carlos Lee homered in the 9-5 win by the Astros over the Angels. Pence continues to be the top rookie of the year candidate in NL as he leads the Astros in slugging with a .582 mark. Despite playing in only 46 of the first 71 games Pence is second on club in hits with 65 and is leading the team in batting with a .344 average.
Yankees are best team in baseball over the last ten games with a 8-2 record. The worst team in that span is the Orioles with a 1-9 record....Padres and Tigers have longest current winning streak with 3 game streaks....Orioles are the worst with a 9 game losing streak....All six NL Central teams won yesterday....Only the Giants lost in NL West....Tigers are only team in majors with more than 400 runs scored with 431....White Sox have the least runs scored with 269....Padres have allowed the fewest runs with 231 with the Devil Rays allowing the most with 422 almost 200 more than Padres have allowed.
