Jose Offerman Arrested...Hunter Hits 9th Grand Slam
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by Niteowl049
Baseball Notebook
Jose Offerman Arrested
Jose Offerman after being hit by a pitch in the calf retaliated by hitting pitcher Matt Beech and catcher John Nathans with a bat. Offerman playing for Long Island in the Atlantic League an independent baseball league was arrested by police.
Nathans suffered a probable season ending concussion and Beech had a broken finger after being hit by Offerman. The 38 year old Offerman definitely overreacted to being hit by an offspeed pitch. Nathans was nauseous in the clubhouse after the incident.
Offerman had not played in majors since 2005 when he played for the Phillies. He could face a lifetime suspension by the league and in my estimation should never be allowed to play organized baseball again.
Around the Bases
Mariano Rivera took the loss in the Orioles 6-3 win over the Yankees. It was the third straight appearance in which Rivera had given up three hits and in those three appearances over three innings he has given up five runs and nine hits. Rivera has not allowed a walk since the 8th of June. Erik Bedard had pitched seven shutout innings for Orioles and struck out eight....Daisuke Matsuzaka 13-9 at one time looked like he had a chance for 20 wins but with only six weeks left in season it looks unlikely he will reach 20 wins after losing to Rays 6-5 yesterday.
Torii Hunter hit his third grand slam of season and ninth of his career as Twins beat the Mariners 6-1. Ichiro Suzuki finished the game with 172 hits and almost a cinch to have 200 hits for his seventh straight season....Fausto Carmona 14-7 pitched the Indians back into a first place tie with Tigers in AL Central by defeating the Tigers. In his only other major league season last year he posted a 1-10 record so could be a Comeback Player of the Year candidate.
Gil Meche 7-11 lost his fifth straight start for the Royals and has a 5.10 ERA in his last ten starts....John Maine won his 13th game of season as Mets defeated the Pirates 10-8. Maine allowed three runs after having given up six runs in his last two starts....Ryan Langerhans has been consistently bad this season hitting .068 for Braves, .000 for Athletics (2 games) and .158 for Nationals. It is not saying much for the Nationals farm system that they don't have anyone better than Langerhans to call up.
Tim Hudson 14-5 defeated the slumping Giants 6-3 enroute and has an 8-0 record in his last ten starts. Barry Bonds hit his 25th home run of the season and is tied with Albert Pujols for 6th in home runs in NL. Russ Ortiz 2-3 took the loss for the Giants and hasn't won since the 20th of April....Cubs continue to slump as they have lost 8 of their last ten games while the third place Cardinals have won 7 of their last ten games.
Joel Pineiro 2-1 since joining the Cardinals starting rotation after being used exclusively by Red Sox in the bullpen. Pineiro had been traded to Cardinals by Red Sox for a player to be named later after having been sent to minor leagues so he is making the best of his opportunity to have a fresh start with the Cardinals....Chris Young and Ubaldo Jiminez both pitched six scoreless innings but the Padres bullpen allowed all three runs in the Rockies 3-0 win.
Brad Penny 14-3 became the third NL pitcher along with Carlos Zambrano and Tim Hudson to win their 14th game. All three pitchers should be candidates for Cy Young Award unless they falter in the last six weeks of the season.
Mariners are one percentage point ahead of Yankees in AL wildcard race with Tigers and Indians who are currently tied for AL Central lead in third place a game behind the Mariners.
In the NL wild card race the Padres have a half game lead over the Braves and a one game lead over the Phillies and Rockies are two games behind.
The Stat of the Day at baseball-reference.com reports that the Phillies have won the least games by three or fewer runs this season having done it twice. This new feature was mentioned to me by Peter a long time reader of this journal. Not sure if he wants his last name used so am not giving out that information.
Another reader Ron Sayles posed a very interesting question which may be moot the way the Brewers are currently playing. The question is: Has any team won a championship in both leagues since 1900? Any readers knowing of any other team even playing in both leagues are welcome to reply in the comments section.
