Yankees Win on Jeter Homer...Thome Hits 500th
| 12
|
by Niteowl049
Baseball Notebook
Derek Jeter Homer Keeps Yankees in AL East Race
Derek Jeter hit a three run homer in the eighth inning, as the New York Yankees took two out of three from the Boston Red Sox and are now only four and a half games behind the Red Sox. Jeter is a money player and proved it again last night. Roger Clemens allowed one run and two hits in six innings, setting up Jeter with the chance to win the game. Curt Schilling pitched one inning too many, as he gave up the three run homer to Jeter. Joba Chamberlain (2-0) gave up his first earned run in 17 innings, but took the 4-3 win and has struck out 23 in 17 innings. Chamberlain celebrates his 22nd birthday next Sunday and he has exhibited a lot of poise for a 21 year old.
Both teams play teams with losing records as of today the rest of the season, but the Red Sox have a series with the Minnesota Twins and the Oakland A's, who may be out of the race, but can still cause problems, while the Yankees play the bottom three teams in the AL East. The Yankees play Baltimore Orioles and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in nine of their last thirteen games.
Thome Hits 500th Homer
Jim Thome couldn't have found a better time to hit his 500th home run. His historical homer came in the bottom of the ninth inning defeating the Angels 9-7. His home run gave him 28 for the season. Excluding the 2005 season (when he was injured at batted only 193 times), he has hit at least 25 home runs every season since 1995. At the age of 37, he could someday hit 600 home runs if he can stay healthy.
Around the Bases
Carlos Pena hit his 40th home run of the season, giving him 39 more home runs than he hit last season. Another comeback player of the year candidate, Fausto Carmona, has 17 wins, after posting a 1-10 record last season. So both players have made drastic improvement over their 2006 numbers. This may be one time that the AL Comeback Player of they Year award should be shared by two very deserving players.
The Detroit Tigers won their fifth in a row to close the gap between them and the first place Cleveland Indians in the AL Central to four and a half games. They travel to Cleveland for a three game series and need a sweep since this is their last series with them this year. Adrian Beltre hit his 25th homer of the season, matching his total of last season and needs seven RBI's to reach the 100 mark. In his last two seasons, he has had a total of 50 homers, only two more than the 48 he hit in 2004.
The Philadelphia Phillies defeated the New York Mets 10-6 to sweep the three game series. Greg Dobbs hit a pinch hit grand slam in the sixth inning, which shows how much depth this team has for a player to come off the bench and deliver a game winning hit despite being a part time player. Dobbs has 52 RBIs, despite having only 292 at bats. The Phillies need only 6 more RBIs from Aaron Rowand and 5 more from Jimmy Rollins to have five Phillies with 90 or more RBI's. I doubt that there are many teams that have that many players with 90 RBIs. Schedule favors the Mets, since they play the Washington Nationals and the Florida Marlins six times, each with one makeup game with the St. Louis Cardinals. The Phillies play the Nationals seven more times, the Cardinals three more times, and the Atlanta Braves three more times. So both teams will be playing losing teams in the last two weeks of the season.
Tim Hudson (16-8) pitched a complete game shutout over the Nationals, taking the 3-0 victory. Hudson is now 135-68 lifetime and has won 67 more games than he has lost. Carlos Villanueva (8-4) pitched his fourth quality start this season in four starts defeating the Cincinnati Reds 5-2. This has to make the Milwaukee Brewers fans wonder how far they may have been ahead of the Chicago Cubs now if Villanueva had started all season instead of Chris Capuano. Villanueva has allowed only 3 runs in 18 innings in his last three starts and has a 1.50 ERA in those three starts. Joe Dillon was the hitting star of the game driving in four of the five Brewers runs. Francisco Cordero picked up his 43rd save in the contest.
Rookie Josh Anderson had five of the 22 hits garnered by the Houston Astros yesterday in their 15-3 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Cubs defeated the slumping Cardinals to hold on to their one game lead over the Brewers. The Cardinals are now seven games behind the Cubs with only 14 games remaining in the season and are eight games under .500 while the Cubs are six games over .500. The Colorado Rockies hammered the Florida Marlins 13-0 to keep their playoff hopes alive behind a 22 hit attack.
Jake Peavy (18-6) became the first NL pitcher to win 18 games, as the San Diego Padres defeated the San Francisco Giants 5-1. Peavy is winning the Triple Crown for pitchers in NL with his 18 wins, 225 strikeouts and major league best 2.39 ERA and is only one win behind Josh Beckett. If he wins his 19th game before Beckett wins his 20th, he will be leading in the major league Triple Crown. The Arizona Diamondbacks held on to their slim 2 game lead in the NL West with their 6-1 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers.
The magic number for the Los Angeles Angels to clinch the AL West is 6. It is only race that has a division leader with more than a 4 1/2 game lead. The Phillies, who are 3 1/2 games behind the Mets in NL East, are only a game and a half behind Padres in NL wildcard race, while the Tigers, who are 4 1/2 games behind the Indians in AL Central are only 2 1/2 games behind the Yankees in AL wildcard race. The Chicago White Sox are the second worst team in majors with a 64-85 record. NL Central has the closest race with Brewers behind the Cubs by one game but the Cardinals are close to being eliminated from the race. The World Series champs the last two years (White Sox and Cardinals) have a combined 134-163 record this season.
No World Series winning team has won back to back World Series since the Yankees won the 1998, 1999 and 2000 World Series consecutively. A different team has won in each of the last seven World Series.
