Sabathia Wins 11th...Fielder Hits 27th

Baseball Notebook

Around the Bases

Prince Fielder hit his 27th home run of the season and has a good chance of being the starting first baseman for NL in All Star game in San Francisco next month. If the Brewers win the NL Central race he should get serious consideration as MVP. Ben Sheets won his fifth straight decision while winning his ninth game....C.C. Sabathia joined Josh Beckett as the only 11 game winners this year pitching his second complete game in the win over the A's....Jeremy Bonderman 8-1 lost his first game of the season last night to the Rangers who won their sixth of their last eight games....White Sox won only their second game of their last eight....Roy Halladay 9-2 won for the fifth time in six starts since coming off the disabled list.

Jeff Weaver 2-6 allowed only one earned run in 5 2/3 innings to help the Mariners defeat the Red Sox 9-4. Weaver has allowed only one earned run in last 14 innings. The most positive thing about his win is that unlike his win last week against the under .500 Pirates he defeated the best team in baseball in the Red Sox....Braves got just what the doctor ordered as they got to face the Nationals and came away with a 4-1 win behind the pitching of Tim Hudson 7-5 winning his first game since the 30th of May.

Royals got a boost yesterday from the pitching of newly acquired John Thomson 1-0 who defeated the Angels 5-3. It was his first start of the season and he allowed two runs in 7 innings while in an unusual stat having no strikeouts or walks in the contest very unusual for someone pitching seven innings....Shawn Green hit a walkoff homer in the 11th inning to give the Mets a 2-1 win over the Cardinals. Mike Maroth making his first start for the Cardinals was very effective limiting the Mets to one run and two hits in 7 2/3 innings.

Brad Penny won his 10th game of the season as the Dodgers moved to within a half game of the Diamondbacks....Astros may be trying to make sure Craig Biggio gets his 3000th hit in Houston as he was held out of last night's game against the Brewers and needs four hits over the next two nights to reach 3000. So it is very likely he will get his 3000th hit in Minute Maid Park against the Colorado Rockies this weekend. His average is progressively getting worse as he has gone from .281 in 2004 to .264 in 2005 to .246 in 2006 and is currently hitting .238 this season.

Minor League News

Manny Parra of the Brewers Triple A Nashville Sounds pitched a perfect game defeating Round Rock 3-0. It was only the third perfect game thrown in a nine inning game in the 104 year history of the Pacific Coast League. It was only his second start since being promoted to the Sounds when Yovanni Gallardo was called up by the Brewers. His dream is to pitch to Barry Bonds and if he pitches anywhere close to the way he pitched last night that dream may be realized sooner than he thinks.

What is it going to take for Craig Brazell to be called up by the Royals? He is leading the minor leagues in home runs with 28 and has 55 RBI's and is playing for the Omaha Royals in the Pacific Coast League. With the Kansas City Royals only having two players with more than 5 home runs it seems like a no brainer to give Brazell a chance at the major league level. He can't be any worse than Alex Gordon the minor league player of the year last year who has 5 homers and 18 RBI's in 70 games with the parent club.

Stats Corner

Hitting

Magglio Ordonez continues to lead the majors in batting with a .379 average twenty points ahead of second place Ichiro Suzuki hitting .359....Alex Rodriguez leads in home runs with 28 but Prince Fielder hit his 27th last night so A-Rod better start hitting home runs again soon to keep his lead....Rodriguez who was idle yesterday still leads in RBI's with 77 to 69 for second place Vladimir Guerrero...Suzuki leads Matt Holliday in hits 110-109....Curtis Granderson hit his major league leading 14th triple last night with Jimmy Rollins next with 9. If Granderson can hit 27 triples this season he will have the most triples since Chief Wilson hit 36 in 1912. In the last 58 years Dale Mitchell hitting 23 in 1949 has the most triples in a season in that time span so Granderson has a real shot at having one of the best seasons in the history of baseball.

Pitching

Josh Beckett and C.C. Sabathia lead majors in wins with 11 with Brad Penny and John Lackey next with 10 wins. Eight pitchers have 9 wins. Dan Haren tries for his 10th win and Paul Maholm tries for his 11th loss today.... Erik Bedard leads majors in strikeouts with 129 and Johan Santana is second with 114.... Dan Haren leads in ERA with a 1.78 with Brad Penny next at 2.04....Zach Duke leads in hits allowed with 129 with C.C. Sabathia next with 122.