Yankees Fall 12 Back of Red Sox
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by user Niteowl049
Baseball Notebook
Around the Bases
Johan Santana 10-6 won his fourth straight game defeating the Yankees 6-2. Santana has only given up 4 earned runs in his last 28 innings in those four wins while walking only 4 batters. He has an amazing 1.85 ERA on the road while is 3.91 at the Metrodome. Lefthanders are hitting .144 against him while righthanders are hitting .239. The loss for the Yankees leaves them 12 games behind the Red Sox who defeated the Rays. On May 29th the Yankees were 14 1/2 games back of the Red Sox and in the time since then they have only gained 2 1/2 games on them.
Edwin Jackson 1-9 seemed to be on the road to pitching better in his last three starts before yesterday but reverted to his old form and allowed seven runs in five innings. This could have been his last start as the Rays have time to address this situation during the All Star break and see who is ready to move up from their farm system into the rotation. Rays can't afford to send a pitcher out to the mound with a 7.26 ERA much longer....Blue Jays moved into second place in the AL East replacing the Yankees who slid back to third place. Vernon Wells hit his 12th homer of the season yesterday and now has 46 runs batted in. So he needs 20 home runs and 60 runs batted in during the second half to match his record from last year. For some reason he was hitting leadoff yesterday maybe due to the fact that even Aaron Hill has more runs batted in than Wells and they have so many power hitters who have been better at driving in runs.
Kenny Rogers 3-0 won a huge game by pitching the Tigers to a 6-4 win over the Indians in a game which if lost would have pushed the Tigers four back of the Indians but the win closed the gap to two games. Rogers has only allowed 2 runs in 17 innings in his three starts. He has only 210 wins in 18 seasons due to him only winning more than 15 games only five times....Jarrod Washburn 8-6 won his third straight game defeating the Royals 4-0 as the Mariners won their first game since Mike Hargrove unexpectedly resigned....Rangers defeated the Angels 4-2 and Eric Gagne picked up his 11th save. Gagne has a microscopic 1.07 ERA and lefthanders are hitting .098 against him which is surprising since he is a righthanded pitcher. Righthanders are hitting .178 against him.
On June 8th, Matt Chico 4-5 gave up 8 runs in 4 inning to the Tigers but since then in his last three starts he has given up one run in his last 14 innings but only has the 6-0 win yesterday over the Cubs to show for it. His problem is despite being a lefthanded hurler he is allowing lefthanded hitters to hit .308 against him so he is not pitching according to "the book"....Brewers fell back into their habit of taking a first inning lead and then losing the game as they scored three times to the start the game but never scored again. They lost to Cubs recently the same way scoring five times in the first then not scoring again and losing. The Brewers wasted the three run homer by rookie Ryan Braun in losing to the Pirates 5-3. Adam LaRoche finally is getting on track hitting his 11th run and driving in his 47th and 48th runs of the season and has been hitting .467 so far in June.
Watched the end of the game as the Phillies defeated the Astros 8-3 behind the hurling of Cole Hamels 10-4 and the hitting of Ryan Howard who hit his 20th home run and drove in three runs giving him 62 for the season tying him for fourth in RBI's in the NL and that was despite missing two weeks while on disabled list. Checked on Hamel's minor league stats and he was 14-4 with a 1.43 ERA and struck out 276 batters in 201 innings so it is no surprise he is pitching so well at the major league level. Even Pat Burrell contributed in the win hitting his 10th home run of the season and raising his average to .207 and is hitting .300 in July.
Hunter Pence is letting Josh Hamilton know he is going to try to pass up the NL rookie home run leader who has thirteen by hitting a home run in his third straight game to give him 11 for the season. Pence should be close to having enough at bats to qualify for the batting title and as of today among batters with 250 at bats he is second to Matt Holliday who is hitting .352 while Pence is hitting .346. He is second in slugging among hitters with 250 at bats with Prince Fielder slugging .604 with Pence at .598. After watching the game I can see the Phillies have the firepower to win the NL East. It is a matter of how the starting rotation and bullpen perform over the rest of the season that has me concerned.
The Rockies scored two touchdowns and a field goal in their 17-7 win over the Mets who scored only one touchdown (used football terminology for football fans eager for baseball season to be over with.) Rockies have been an up and down team going from long losing streaks to long winning streaks then another long losing streak and now they have swept the Mets. They were 20-7 during their hot streak after sweeping the Yankees but then were 1-9 so they have not shown much consistency and are seven games behind the first place Padres in NL West. Yesterday they hammered 20 hits against the Mets. Garrett Atkins and Todd Helton each drove in five runs in the contest.
Chris Young pitched seven innings of scoreless baseball but it wasn't enough to give him a win since the Padres were being held scoreless too until the Marlins catcher Miguel Olivo couldn't handle a throw to home plate in the bottom of the ninth inning that enabled the winning run to score in the Padres 1-0 victory. Braves moved to within three games of the Mets in NL East with their 5-2 win over the Dodgers.
Payrolls and Performance
Yankees lead in highest payroll with $195 million but are 17th in majors in overall standings with their 39-42 record at the exact halfway mark for them and if they have same record in second half they will be 78-84 which would mean $195 million would have gone down the drain....Red Sox are second in payroll with $143 million but they are first in majors with a 52-31 record so at least they are getting some positive results from their payroll.
Padres are getting the most for their money leading the NL West despite being ranked 24th in payroll with $58 million. AL Central leader Indians are doing almost as well having a $61 million payroll. Three of the top five teams in payroll lead their division...Red Sox, Mets and Angels. Brewers are 18th in payroll at $71 million but lead the NL Central.
Five of the bottom eleven teams in payroll are last in their division and have the following payroll rankings:
20. Reds $69 million
21. Rangers $68 million
22. Royals $67 million
28. Nationals $37 million
30. Rays $24 million
Nine of the top ten teams in payroll are in first or second place in their division with the Orioles tenth in payroll with $95 million the only team out of contention at this time. So far this season the haves are doing better than the have nots when comparing place in standings to their payrolls.
