Yankees Win Twice, Tied for 2nd

by user Niteowl049

Baseball Notebook

Baseball Daily Digest

It seems like the Yankees always win when they need a win the most and yesterday they won twice beating the Rangers 4-2 and 5-3. Had a feeling they would win with Andy Pettitte and Mike Mussina pitching in the doubleheader.

Pettitte would have won except for Luis Vizcaino blowing the save in the first game. Mariano Rivera has collected a save in each of his last three appearances. He only had two blown saves before April 28th. In his last eight games Alex Rodriguez has not had a home run or RBI and had only one extra base hit which was a double. If someone had told you that Ian Kinsler would have 24 RBI's while Mark Texeira had 7 after the games of May 3rd you would think they had too much to drink but Kinsler actually has more than three times as many RBI's as Texeira.

Gil Meche 3-1 is showing why the Royals paid him $55 million for five years and on Thursday afternoon he gave up only 2 runs and 2 hits in seven innings and has had three starts this season in which he allowed no earned runs. He led the Royals to a 5-2 win over the Angels while Jered Weaver 1-3 took the loss. Last year Weaver had only 2 losses in 19 starts and this year has 3 losses after 4 starts. Vladimir Guerrero hit his 9th homer of season in the game.

Both Daisuke Matsuzaka and Horacio Ramirez allowed 7 runs before leaving the game as the Red Sox defeated the Mariners 8-7. Matsuzaka saw his ERA balloon to 5.45. Manny Ramirez hit the game winning homer his second of the game in the eighth inning. Ramirez is still hitting for low average but he is starting to hit home runs since he only had 3 all season before hitting two yesterday. Ichiro Suzuki is having a terrible start to his 2007 season. He has 2 hits in his last 19 at bats and his average has plummeted from .315 to .272 during that span. He only has 25 hits and won't reach 200 hits at this rate since he needs to average about 33 hits a month to reach 200 hits.

James Shields 3-0 pitched the Devil Rays in a 6-4 win over the Twins. Shields struck out 8 giving him 45 good for second best in the majors.

Ken Griffey Jr. hit a home run and drove in two runs yesterday giving him a total of 3 homers and 13 RBI's for the season. He came into the month of May with one homer and 9 RBI's. Despite the great day by Griffey the Astros scored three runs in bottom of the eighth to take a 7-5 win over the Reds. Wandy Rodriguez pitched well for the Astros but due to a blown save didn't get the win. Rodriguez has made five starts and has only had one bad outing and in the other four starts has limited the opponents to three or less runs and has pitched at least six innings in all his starts.

Pirates defeated Brewers 4-2 by scoring four runs in the seventh inning at Miller Park in Milwaukee. Tom Gorzelanny 4-1 took the win for the Pirates. Dave Bush 2-3 the only Brewer starter with a losing record took the loss....Mets posted a 9-4 win over the Diamondbacks moving into a first place tie with the idle Braves. Tom Glavine failed for the third consecutive game to win his 294th game. Carlos Beltran hit his seventh homer and drove in his 25th run in the contest.

Matt Cain 1-2 started the game with the Phillies with a 1.54 ERA but by the time the smoke had cleared after he allowed 7 runs in 3 innings his ERA stood at 3.08. Phillies took the game over the Giants by a 9-7 score. Adam Eaton 3-2 pitched almost as badly allowing 6 runs in 5 innings but took the win and his ERA after the game is now 8.18.

Transactions

Mets apparently saw all they wanted to see of Chan Ho Park returning him to the New Orleans Triple A affiliate. In his only start for the Mets he gave up 7 runs in 4 innings and left the game with a 15.75 ERA. Park may be at the end of the road soon as his chance of reaching the majors again this season is very remote.

Yankees placed Phillip Hughes on the disabled list after being injured during a no-hitter he was pitching earlier this week.

Jack Cust has been acquired by the A's from the Padres to replace injured Mike Piazza as the DH. Cust has modeled 14 uniforms in his ten year career with the A's being No.15. He has 5 homers in 70 major league games and 191 homers in 1089 minor league games.

There may be a transaction soon involving calling up Tim Lincecum of the Giants. He is ready to step up to the majors after being overqualified in the minors. To give an indication of how far he is ahead of competition in Pacific Coast League with Fresno he is 4-0 and has 0.29 ERA after 31 innings and has allowed only 12 hits while striking out 46. During spring training he was compared to Bob Feller and Sandy Koufax. He may start Sunday for Giants but still not confirmed. If he is called up snatch him up for your fantasy league because if ever there is a sure thing Lincecum is.

Stats Corner

Derrek Lee leads all hitters with .415 average with Matt Holliday next with .385 average. B.J. Upton leads American League hitters with a .381 average....Alex Rodriguez leads in homers with 14 with Chipper Jones next with 10....Rodriguez is still stuck on 34 RBI's for the eighth game in a row and now Vladimir Guerrero is creeping closer with 29 RBI's for second place....Rodriguez has the highest number of total bases with 88 with Jimmy Rollins next with 79...Rodriguez leads in slugging percentage with .846 with Barry Bonds next with .783 percentage.

Josh Beckett with 6 wins and Dontrelle Willis with 5 wins continue to lead in wins. Willis will attempt to win his 6th game today and John Maine will try to win his 5th....Jake Peavy leads in strikeouts with 46 with Johan Santana and James Shields both having 45....John Maine has a 1.35 ERA to lead majors....Six pitchers lead in saves with 10....Adam Eaton has the dubious distinction of leading majors in runs allowed with 30 allowed in 33 innings.

Glance at the Standings

Blue Jays, Devil Rays and Yankees are tied for second place in AL East with the Yankees two percentage points behind the Blue Jays and Devil Rays....Indians have won 9 of their last 10 games as they hold a 2 game lead over the Tigers in AL Central....Angels have worst record of any division leader in baseball with a 16-13 record in the AL West. The fact that the A's are only two games behind the Angels is phenomenal considering that they have four outfielders on disabled list and another Travis Buck waiting for results from MRI taken yesterday plus losing their designated hitter Mike Piazza for four to six weeks.

In NL East the Braves and Mets lead the Marlins by four games....Brewers lost but still lead the second place Pirates by four and a half games. Cardinals are 10-16 and are in last place seven games behind the Brewers in the NL Central....Giants loss yesterday dropped them to third place in NL West.