Major League Baseball

[TheLancinator]

Originally Posted by Mugzy

I can't figure it out why they pulle Marcum on this day!

No kidding...he has a no-hitter going and his pitch count is still low, so why pull him?

[bsm1967]

Alright alright it was only the Twins but nice to get 15 runs on the board - two innings with six runs in each of them and one three run inning. Wonder why the bats went quiet in the other five innings ? Who cares - Grady Sizemore appears to be getting back to last season's form and Jhonny Peralta might just have stopped watching for Omar Vizquel over his shoulder at SS

[TheLancinator]

Bonds 'too old' to discuss Schilling remarks
Associated Press
Posted: 23 hours ago


HOUSTON (AP) - Barry Bonds said he's "too old" to respond to Curt Schilling's critical comments and also refused to talk about his pursuit of Hank Aaron's career home run mark on Tuesday.

A week ago, Schilling criticized Bonds on a radio talk show, saying the slugger has admitted using steroids and cheating on his wife and his taxes. The Boston Red Sox ace apologized to Bonds on his blog the next day, calling it an "irresponsible thing to say."

The 42-year-old Bonds said there is no need to address Schilling's comments.

"I'm too old for childish activities," Bonds said before the Giants opened a three-game series in Houston. "I don't really have any time for that at all. I didn't really hear them at first, I was told about them. I don't really have any comment to that. I've got children and I'm too old for that stuff."

Bonds has 745 home runs, 10 shy of Aaron's career mark.

About 50 reporters awaited Bonds in the Giants dugout 90 minutes before Tuesday's game. At first, Bonds was going to dodge the throng, but then reneged and sat down for about 10 minutes.

"I haven't done any interviews about myself at all. I'm not going to start now," Bonds said. "If you want to talk about us and the team, and how we're doing, that's fine. But I'm not doing interviews about me. I haven't done any at all, and I'm not going to start now."

Bonds said his health is the main reason for his .307 average and 11 home runs through the first month of the season. Once the questions turned back to his pursuit of Aaron, Bonds recoiled.

"I don't want any focus on me at all," he said. "We've been doing good with the team. I just want it to stay that way."

Houston is the sixth city the Giants have visited this year, but Bonds didn't have much to say about how fans have treated him on the road.

"I don't know," he said. "It's whatever you guys want it to be. You guys tell the stories, I don't. It's whatever you want it to be. I've got a job to do."

[bsm1967]

A sweep of the Twins and a BoSox win over the Tigers sees the Tribe back in first place with a half game lead over the Detroit mob Hope the home form continues with a sweep of the Reds

[TheLancinator]

MLB Experts Blog Five and fly: Still got it
By Tim Brown



Back-of-the-game progress for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays comes in the form of a soft-spoken, 37-year-old Dominican who before six weeks ago had nearly as many Tommy John surgeries (two) as he did major-league saves (six).

The last anyone had heard of Al Reyes, he'd thrown a fastball to Felipe Lopez on the final day of the St. Louis Cardinals' 2005 regular season, felt something familiarly catastrophic in his right elbow and trudged off to the operating room.

"One pitch," Reyes said. "I knew right away it was time for Tommy John."

A month later, his contract with the Cardinals expired.

So, free agency arrived in his mid-30s with his elbow packed in gauze and a year of physical therapy ahead, a somewhat flawed strategy as career arcs go. Five months later, the Devil Rays offered him $200,000 to come rehab with them, the alternative being no money to rehab with no one.

The Devil Rays, who blew four out of every 10 save opportunities in 2006, stood him up, dusted him off, handed him a baseball and last night Al Reyes pitched a scoreless ninth inning against the Texas Rangers for his 12th save in 12 tries.

They still have the statistically worst pitching staff in the American League, responsibility shared pretty equally by the rotation and the bullpen. But the Devil Rays are advancing on that now from two angles - starters James Shields and Scott Kazmir up front, Reyes on the back - everybody working toward the middle.

Armed with a fastball, slider and changeup, Reyes has done what he can to settle and encourage a young, jumpy bullpen. He lays an arm over its shoulder, whispers about command, about poise, about demanding more but living with the results. And then he walks out there in front of Shawn Camp and Brian Stokes and all the other guys who can't get it quite right and throws strikes and finishes games.

"He's not afraid," Devil Rays catcher Josh Paul said. "He just stands out there, hits the glove and gets three outs."

Were it so simple ...

"I can be like an older brother on this team," Reyes said. "That's important. We've been making progress. They keep throwing and they keep going out there. That's how they learn."

And when the middle innings come, where Devil Rays' wins go to die, and it goes bad again, and the private disappoint and public criticism intensifies, there is little to do but take the ball again.

"I think they hear it," Reyes said. "But, sometimes you can't listen to that kind of stuff. There are seven of us out there in the bullpen. We're the ones that have to step up and do good."

FIVE ...

• The St. Louis Cardinals' strategy of allowing Rafael Furcal to hit until his arms got tired began to see results last night; Furcal doubled in his first at-bat to extend his five-day run to 15 hits in 17 at-bats, then was hitless in his final three at-bats. Thing is, Furcal's days rarely end in the ninth inning anymore. His son, 16-month-old Rafael Jr., has a little Ernie Banks in him. "After the game, I have to play another game at home with him," Furcal said, smiling. "Like they said, 'Play two.'"

• How's Jerry Narron feeling about his bullpen in Cincinnati these days? Here's a clue: He had closer David Weathers pitch three innings Tuesday night in a 12-inning win in San Diego. Then he had starter Bronson Arroyo throw 129 pitches in eight-plus innings Wednesday, pitching straight into a game-winning, ninth-inning rally by the Padres.

• Wilson Betemit, who is having a difficult time holding off Adam LaRoche at third base for the Dodgers, is four for five (.800) with three home runs, a double and six RBI as a pinch-hitter, 10 for 67 (.149) with one home run, three doubles and seven RBI on all other occasions.

• Left-hander Andrew Miller, the Detroit Tigers' first-rounder from last June's draft, gets his first big-league start tomorrow night against the Cardinals. Miller comes up from Double-A Erie, where he pitched eight scoreless innings, to replace Jeremy Bonderman, who is having blister issues. Could be a good week for Double-A call-ups: Toronto right-hander Jesse Litsch debuted by beating the Baltimore Orioles with 8 2/3 sharp innings on Tuesday.

• Eric Gagne isn't getting many save opportunities these days, but, according to one scout, "his stuff is filthy." Gagne's fastball is back into the low- to mid-90's, and his changeup has been devastating. If they fall out of it, and he stays healthy, the Rangers could get something decent in return for Gagne - from Cleveland? Philadelphia? - and give the ninth inning back to Akinori Otsuka.

... AND FLY

The hamstring thing in Texas has officially gone absurd. After Kevin Millwood (left hamstring) and Brad Wilkerson (right hamstring) went to the DL this week, Rangers Manager Ron Washington, on Wednesday night in Orlando, pulled a hamstring charging out of the dugout to argue a call.

[TheLancinator]

MLB Experts Blog Five and fly: The wrong 'stuff'
By Tim Brown


Jason Giambi has gone to a risky place by telling USA Today "I was wrong for doing that stuff" and "That stuff didn't help me hit home runs" because the last player who admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs -- Jason Grimsley -- baseball suspended for 50 games.

In the coming months, when George Mitchell, aided by star witness Kirk Radomski, releases the findings of a so-called independent investigation, commissioner Bud Selig presumably will be presented with names of players who allegedly used steroids. Taken as a group, those players will be retired and active, and they will have used before and during the current anti-drug policy. The evidence will be hard and soft.

Then what's Selig to do? The endgame has been left intentionally vague.

More than two years have passed since Giambi's infamously nebulous confession at Yankee Stadium. Like Grimsley, Giambi apparently has not tested positive for a banned substance. Unlike Grimsley, Giambi appears to be -- again, but with more feeling -- admitting to using steroids before baseball's current policy was in place.

Giambi's apology was designed for him to come as clean as he could without losing the remainder of his contract -- about $80 million -- with the New York Yankees. And it was devised to soften the reaction from Yankees fans to cast Giambi as sympathetically as possible. The organization explored ways out of the contract (found none) and Giambi has been a mostly productive player if not exactly the one he was pre-grand jury.

Selig was reluctant to act on illegally leaked grand jury testimony, and the Yankees similarly were boxed out of their grounds to kill the contract. They still owe him $21 million this season, $21 million next season and $5 million to buy out a 2009 option. "That stuff didn't help me hit home runs" is not only not grand jury testimony, but it is likely untrue.

Experts in the field frequently cite steroids' recuperative value. They insist an athlete is better equipped to recover from workouts, injuries and the daily labors of a long season. From 1998 to 2003, Giambi missed 44 games. In three full seasons since, he's missed 128. While performance-enhancing drugs might not have helped him put the bat on the ball -- and even that is arguable -- they at least helped put him in the batters' box.

Of course, when he got there, chances were decent the pitcher he faced was artificially fortified, just as Giambi was.

That will be Selig's to sort out. For now, what's in front of him is Giambi, and another chance to do the right thing.

FIVE ...

• What's gotten into the Kansas City Royals, Tampa Bay Devil Rays and Washington Nationals? Yeah, it's getting a little weird out there. Barry Bonds has stopped hitting home runs, Johan Santana has lost four games, Fausto Carmona hardly ever loses and Billy Beane went a day without making a trade. Didn't he?

• The Kansas City Royals just won three of four in Oakland and before that won a game -- and lost two one-run games -- in Chicago. Odalis Perez has four quality starts in his last five, the Royals' bullpen hasn't blown a save in a week and Ryan Shealy just came off the DL. Up next: three in Colorado.

• Meantime, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays might never go back to Tampa. They just swept the Texas Rangers in Orlando and have won four in a row for the first time since about the same time last May. And, actually, they go back to Tampa on Friday for the first of six games against the Florida Marlins and Seattle Mariners.

• And our Nationals won three of four against the Atlanta Braves, getting terrific to reasonable starts out of Jason Bergmann, Levale Speigner and Matt Chico and coming off a three-game sweep of the Marlins. On deck: three at home against the Baltimore Orioles.

• Ichiro Suzuki had stolen an American League-record 45 consecutive bases when he was thrown out last night by the Los Angeles Angels' battery of Bartolo Colon and Jose Molina. Turns out, Jose Vidro missed a hit-and-run sign and Ichiro was out by about 10 feet. Afterward, Ichiro told the Seattle Times, "When we got the sign, I had a bad feeling about it." Like, that Vidro wouldn't swing? "In the game of baseball," he responded, "feelings like that are key."

... AND FLY

Kyle Farnsworth. Seriously. If Farnsworth had anything close to the proper perspective on Roger Clemens joining the Yankees' rotation, he'd be ironing Clemens' uniform right now.

[TheLancinator]

What does everyone think of Giambi's admission (finally!) that he used steroids? And how he is trying to make it sound like it didn't help him in his career?

[TheLancinator]

Clemens throws 58 pitches over 4 innings in minor league start
By FRED GOODALL, AP Sports Writer
May 18, 2007


TAMPA, Fla. (AP) -- Roger Clemens is four innings closer to his major league return, and pushing himself relentlessly.

With New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner watching from a private box at Legends Field, Clemens threw 58 pitches and gave up only a solo homer Friday night for Class-A Tampa in the first minor league start of his latest comeback.

"Right now I'm in high gear. In the next four or five days, hopefully I'll be able to step back and get a grasp on everything," the 44-year-old Clemens said.

"I've pushed my body to a point now in the last three weeks that hopefully I can start trying to retain some energy so I can get a little better results when I get on the mound."

The seven-time Cy Young Award winner allowed three hits and struck out two against the Fort Myers Miracle, a Minnesota Twins affiliate. He left to a standing ovation from a crowd of 10,257 -- up from 1,108 the Florida State League teams drew the previous night.

The Boss liked what he saw.

"He looked good. He looked fine," Steinbrenner said. "He was all we expected."

Erik Lis homered in the first inning off Clemens, who came out of the game after needing just eight pitches to get through a perfect fourth inning. He estimated he threw 50 to 55 pitches while warming up before the game, then did some additional work in the bullpen after the outing.

The Yankees said Clemens' fastball topped out at 91 mph and averaged 90 during the appearance.

"I had my mouth open a little bit in the first inning. That was good. I wasn't panting, but I was breathing pretty hard," Clemens said, explaining that he wanted to push himself to exhaustion.

"I think I'm a little further along than I anticipated. Several times I drove off the mound and felt my legs came with me. A couple of times they didn't."

Clemens agreed to a $28,000,022, one-year contract on May 6 and has been working out at the Yankees' minor league complex in Tampa since last Monday. He's scheduled to make a start with Double-A Trenton on Wednesday and could join New York's rotation as early as May 28 at Toronto or June 2 or 3 at Boston.

Asked whether Clemens might be ready after only one more minor league start, Yankees manager Joe Torre said, "That's a possibility."

"If he's doing what he wants to do -- as I say, he knows more about his body. But if there's total objection to it by somebody watching him, I'm sure he would rethink," Torre said after the Yankees' 3-2 loss to the Mets.

With the Yankees 10 games behind Boston in the AL East, Clemens wants a rapid return.

"I'm going to get ready as soon as possible," Clemens said. "I'm trying to push myself, but I'm also trying to be smart about it."

Yankees general manager Brian Cashman doesn't want to rush Clemens, either.

"I know that he's going to try to get back as soon as he realistically can. But ultimately the games will tell you. His body will tell you," Cashman said in New York.

"Tonight is game one. We'll get a clearer picture here or a better picture after one, but really probably after two games we'll get a feel for how close he is."

Clemens also brushed aside criticism from Yankees reliever Kyle Farnsworth, who said this week that no pitcher should be allowed to leave the team when they aren't pitching. Clemens' contract allows him to leave the team for personal matters when he's not scheduled to pitch.

"I'm not even going to comment on it," Clemens said. "It's not worth commenting on. I'm pretty tired of answering about it. Again, we've got far more serious issues to worry about right now than that."

Ninety minutes before gametime, a sign on the ticket window outside Legends Field -- the Yankees' spring training home -- read "sold out." Inside, there were plenty of empty seats, but fans gave Clemens a warm reception.

Many stood and cheered when he was introduced and trotted out to the mound accompanied by 4-year-old Nicholas Ketterer, who stood beside the pitcher during the national anthem and then helped him put resin on his right arm.

Lis, a ninth-round draft pick of the Twins in 2005, homered on a 2-2 pitch with two outs in the first. Dwayne White singled in the second and Toby Gardenhire, son of Twins manager Ron Gardenhire, doubled in the third for the Miracle.

The Minnesota manager said he was able to watch his son get the double off Clemens on television in the clubhouse before the Twins played Milwaukee.

"Everyone in the locker room was yelling," Gardenhire said. "It was such a neat thing to see him get the hit. I called my wife right away to tell her he got a hit. It is just a great night all around. I can't wait to call him and congratulate him for getting a hit off Clemens."

The 23-year-old Lis was born two months before Clemens made his major league debut in 1984.

"I was in complete shock," said Lis, whose father flew in from Chicago for the game.

Lis wound up with the ball. He said he wouldn't ask Clemens to sign it, but the Rocket said he planned to do it, anyway.

"When you throw a high two-seamer and it doesn't do much," Clemens said, stopping before finishing the sentence.

"He got it. I can only imagine what that feels like. The only thing I think I can come close to relating that to is I always told my mother I wanted to hurry up and make it to the major leagues to face Reggie Jackson, and I was able to do that."

Clemens helped the Yankees to two World Series titles and four AL pennants before leaving after the 2003 season with intentions of retiring. With a 348-178 record in 22 seasons, he's eighth on the career wins list and second all-time in strikeouts with 4,604.

The 13-time All-Star, who turns 45 on Aug. 4, was 7-6 with a 2.30 ERA with the Houston Astros last season.

AP Baseball Writer Ronald Blum in New York contributed to this report

[bsm1967]

Cleveland improved baseball's best home record to 15-3. The Indians have won eight in a row at Jacobs Field, outscoring opponents 64-28 during the streak. So who will be the next team to win at the Jake, hope it is not the Reds - they got a second inning roasting last night with the Tribe hitting them for six (sorry for the cricket analogy !)

[bsm1967]

Jeremy Sowers (0-4) remained winless in eight starts this season. He allowed seven runs and eight hits in six innings, leaving the lefty with a 7.13 ERA.

Sowers was 7-4 in 14 starts last season after being called up from Triple-A Buffalo in late June. With the emergence of Fausto Carmona and the expected return of Jake Westbrook (strained left abdominal) in late June, Sowers could be headed back to the minors and admitted the lack of progress is frustrating.

''It's not happening as fast as I would like,'' he said. ''I feel like I'm one away from a bad outing or one pitch away from a quality outing.''

Indians manager Eric Wedge isn't worried about Sowers.

''Jeremy is going to be fine,'' he said. ''He's going through what every young pitcher goes through when they get to the big leagues.''

Bollox - it was the Reds. Hope Westbrook is 100% soon

[TheLancinator]

[Mugzy]

BoSox seem to be invincible at the moment, glad to see the Blue Jays inching out of the basement despite all of their woes.

[TheLancinator]

Yeah, but the injury bug may start to catch up with them...with Beckett on the DL and Tavarez as our fifth starter, our rotation is getting a bit thin. We need Beckett to come back fast and Lester to come back sometime around the All Star break...

We'll see how the rook taking Beckett's spot in the rotation does today

[bsm1967]

Well two out of three against the Reds ain't bad - never nice to lose interleague games to your rivals across the State. And a victory over the Mariners last night was also welcome - sayonara Ichiro !

[jimorrison]

Originally Posted by thelancinatorZ

Yes there is...I believe that was the only walk-off homer to end the World Series...

You are almost right... it happened one other time. In 1960, light-hitting second baseman Bill Mazeroski hit a walk-off homer in Game 7 to lead the Pittsburgh Pirates over the New York Yankees.

Bill Mazeroski was recently elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame even though he didn't have close to HoF numbers in his career. So it would seem that hitting a walk-off HR in Game 7 of the World Series gets you a free ticket to Cooperstown!