6-4-2 — an Angels/Dodgers double play blog

The Angels optioned Brandon Wood to AAA Salt Lake, reports Rotoworld; the Angels also called up Sean Rodriguez to replace him as the designated benchwarmer. Also sent down was reliever Bobby Mosebach; the Angels called up catcher Bobby Wilson to be a designated reserve who will also never see a game.

Labels: angels, transactions

I'll probably keep updating this through the day as the deadline nears:

• Rotoworld reports that Billy Beane shipped ex-Angel Orlando Cabrera to the Twins for minor league SS Tyler Ladensdorf and cash.
• Rotoworld is also reporting that the Tribe has sent catcher Victor Martinez to Boston, though no confirmation on that and no list of returning players. It makes a lot of sense, since the Sox haven't had a good plan behind the dish since the collapse of Jason Veritek as an offensive force (and from memory, as a defensive one as well).
• Ken Rosenthal reports that the White Sox have traded for injured Padres starter Jake Peavy. Peavy has reportedly waived his no-trade clause. The Padres received left-handers Aaron Poreda and Clayton Richard, and righties Dexter Carter and Adam Russell.

  My feeling about this trade is it looks like it's about as good as the distressed Padres were going to get for an injured ace; the transcribe comments from a post-trade interview with Peavy at Gaslamp Ball indicate that Peavy thought he wasn't going to be with the team next year, and so this just accelerated an inevitable event.

• Rumor: Heath Bell and Adrian Gonzalez to the Dodgers for James Loney and unknown young players. I'm not saying it couldn't happen, but ... um, no. Not if the new ownership wants any credibility.
• Casey Kotchman got on a plane for the second time in as many years, this time to Boston, with the Braves getting Adam LaRoche. LaRoche was shipped to Boston on July 22 from Pittsburgh.

Labels: athletics, indians, red sox, trades, transactions, twins

Goodness, overdue...

Labels: minors

The Dodgers traded reliever Claudio Vargas to the Brewers for minor league catcher Vinny Rottino. This looks like an unsuccessful attempt to sell high on Vargas, whose ERA is insanely better than anything he's ever accomplished previously (his 255 ERA+ is more than double his previous best at 104), and didn't appear to be part of any of the Dodgers' plans going forward anyway. Rotoworld thinks the Brewers will try and convert him to starting thanks to injuries to Dave Bush and Jeff Suppan.

Rottino profiles as a reserve catcher, if that; he's had an undistinguished career in the majors so far, and the Brewers consistently opted for other backup backstops. Meh.

Update: Jon mentions that Rottino is a three-time PCL All-Star (what does that say about his ability to stick in the Show?), and will start at AA Chattanooga.

Labels: brewers, dodgers, trades, transactions

ESPN reports that the Mariners have sent Jarrod Washburn to the Tigers for rookie lefty starter Lucas French and minor league lefty Mauricio Robles.

On the surface, it looks like the fact that Jack Zduriencik got anything of value for one of Bill Bavasi's most egregious mistake contracts is impressive; the fact that he got a couple young lefties is even more impressive. French has a 1-2 record in five starts with a 3.38 ERA; he owns a 5.8 K/9 and a 1.73 K/BB ratio, which says he has a tendency to miss the plate a tad more than you'd like, but since he's only 23 — by far his most important attribute here — and he's pitching in the majors, you can forgive that. Robles was pitching in the Tigers' high-A Florida League Lakeland team after a promotion from West Michigan and the Midwest League earlier in the year. He's posting 10-to-11-ish K/9 rates pretty consistently, so he's someone with some interesting upside.

The reason the Tigers were probably willing to do this has a lot to do with Washburn's ridiculous 2.39 ERA this season. He's having an outstanding year, posting career figures in ERA, ERA+, WHIP, K/9, and K/BB; this package was the Tigers hoping to get some of that lightning in a bottle.

Lookout Landing:

Awesome awesome awesome awesome. French is a 23 year old average-looking ML lefty under club control for six more years and is basically what would happen if you went back in time and grabbed Washburn from 11 years ago. Robles is a 20 year old left handed A-baller and helps replace the three guys we gave up for Wilson and Snell. Amazing.

Updated update: Robles strikes out a lot of people. His swinging strikeout rate is 23%. 23%! Walks are too high but not a big deal. This looks like an absolute steal. Velo goes from 88-93, good curve, working on a changeup. If he gets the change working he's a starter in the bigs.

Dave Cameron at Fangraphs:

As a Mariner fan, this trade makes me want to jump up and down and hug someone. The M’s turned a 35-year-old lefty strike throwing flyballer who is due $3.5 million over the rest of the season and then becomes an expensive free agent into a 24-year-old lefty strike thrwoing flyballer who is due $0 over the rest of the year and won’t be a free agent until after 2015. And they got a 20-year-old lefty with huge strikeout numbers in A-ball to boot.

I concur. This is a great deal for the M's.

Labels: mariners, tigers, trades, transactions

David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003, which of course puts an asterisk by the Boston Red Sox' 2004 and 2007 titles, taints every accomplishment they ever had on the field, and crushes baby kittens into pulp. I share Jon's absolute indifference to the news (as well as his well-placed use of sneer quotes around the word "anonymous"), especially when Bill Plaschke gets up off his seat and does a 180 from last week's oddball micro-hagiography (no, Manny's slam doesn't deserve to be in the top 10 of any list of memorable Dodger home runs).

Labels: dodgers, drugs, ohnoes, red sox

Shocking, wasn't it? Matt Kemp getting a big clutch hit in the top of the tenth with a pair on in scoring position, and driving both of them home? This game had all the elements of being a repeat of the previous night's frustration: the pitching holding up fairly well, but sputtering offense punctuated by an inability to even get to scoring position, let alone get clutch hits, and amplified by the pitching giving up leads as soon as they were gotten. Rafael Furcal doubles home Brad Ausmus and Juan Pierre in the seventh? Meh. Rick Ankiel homered in the next frame to tie it, 3-3.

It felt more like a relief than ecstasy. Four-game losing streak, axed.

Yahoo box • Dodgers recap

Labels: cardinals, dodgers, recaps

The Cubs murdered the Astros 12-3, taking nine runs out of the hide of Houston starter Russ Ortiz, all of them earned, including two home runs; Ortiz only lasted 2.1 innings. The former Giants starter had an 0-3 record with a 12.23 ERA in five July starts, and was later placed on unconditional release waivers.

The Cubs' starter in that same game, Kevin Hart, also got the win, the third of his season. He, Jose Ascanio, and Class A infielder Josh Harrison were all shipped to Pittsburgh for reliever John Grabow and minor league starter Tom Gorzelanny. Gorzelanny was a 14-game winner in 2006 but has scuffled since. Tough deal for both pitchers, especially Hart: thanks for the win, here's your ticket to Pittsburgh.

Labels: astros, cubs, haha, trades, transactions

Per ITD, which adds that the Sherrill trade isn't final.

Labels: dodgers, transactions

Ken Rosenthal and MLB.com report that the Dodgers have acquired Orioles closer George Sherrill from the Baltimore Orioles for 3B Josh Bell and RHP Steve Johnson; both are currently at AA Chattanooga. 32-year-old Sherrill has 20 saves (3 blown) on the season, with a 2.40 ERA and an 0-1 record. It strikes me as likely that Sherrill will end up more as an insurance policy for Broxton, whose toe has been bothering him quite a bit lately; but Rotoworld disagrees, believing he will be a setup man. Though we don't know when the injury — originally labeled a nerve injury, now believed to be a sprain — to his toe was incurred, he was first marked unavailable prior to a June 17 game. After that date, he has accumulated a 6.59 ERA with a 1-0 record and seven saves, one blown. In fairness, the ERA is the product of five bad games in that span, as he's mostly held the opposition scoreless. It's not encouraging, and considering Broxton has said he'll have to deal with it for the rest of the year despite cortisone injections, the combination leaves us wondering just how much use he will, in fact, get, and whether it might be better for him to hit the DL.

The more interesting part is what the Dodgers are giving up. The Dodgers either feel pretty good about Casey Blake over the remainder of his contract, believe that Blake DeWitt is a legitimate solution at the position (he isn't), or have something else in mind by trading away the next obvious prospect at third base. Those who didn't like the Carlos Santana et al. trade for Casey Blake will have that déjà vu-all-over-again (that includes me) feeling about dealing Bell. Bell, according to his Baseball America writeup, had "the most raw power in the system" with "a good approach at the plate" and "and above-average arm at third base", though they note his flaws include "a lack of speed and range"; his nickname in the minors was "Baby Kemp", and was the Dodgers' eighth most valuable prospect by that publication's ranking. Steve Johnson started the season as the Dodgers' 15th most valuable prospect, and while he's relatively highly thought of, he's a 90-93 MPH pitcher with ordinary stuff who compensates by pitching smart.

All that said — considering the consequences in the postseason, if I squint hard and hold my breath, I can understand this trade. Broxton's ERA is especially depressing, and while it's not necessarily indicative of the level of work he's doing overall, it makes some sense to have an A-grade closer if that's your lack. Thinking of it as a one-year rental going into a postseason where the Dodgers are in some ways the favorites helps, too; Dodger fans of a certain vintage probably recall the end of the Jeff Shaw deal, so the news that he's currently on a one-year deal with no options attached is good news (though look out for Ned Colletti attempting to extend him). I don't want to say I like this deal for the Dodgers, but I do understand it. Trouble is, I'm not sure Sherrill is going to be any better than Broxton — or, as Jon points out, any of his likely in-house replacements.

Update: While the trade isn't official per ITD, regfairfield makes the following useful comment at DT:

There's a pretty good chance that we won't miss Bell or Johnson, no question about it.

However, when you keep trading guys you probably won't miss for guys that don't help all that much (read any reliever outside of the top 10 or 15 guys), if even one of those guys you won't miss pan out, you end up behind in the end. I'd have to imagine that Cody Ross alone has provided more value than any of Colletti's minor moves.

I'm not a big Cody Ross supporter, but the larger point is that this is of a piece with Ned's tendency to throw away good pieces for rentals of established but dubious older players. True, Joel Guzman fizzled, and the jury's still out on Andy LaRoche, but Edwin Jackson and Dioner Navarro hurt in the here-and-now in that Jackson turned out to be as good as the guy who ended up replacing him (Mark Hendrickson) and better than either of the guys who he was traded for (Danys Baez and Lance Carter) while being a lot cheaper; and he's much better now. Similarly, Navarro is a starting catcher and was sold way too low. The only genuinely good trade I can think of that Ned's executed in his tenure with the Dodgers is Milton Bradley for Andre Ethier.

Labels: dodgers, orioles, trades, transactions

News

Kevin Goldstein on three Angels minor league pitchers:

Sean O'Sullivan, RHP, Angels (Triple-A Salt Lake)
Tuesday's stats: 9 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 7 K
Sullivan is not a monster prospect by any means, but he has done a serviceable job as the Angels' extra starter this year. He had the best outing as a pro on Tuesday, with only a walk in the seventh preventing the perfect game. A wide-bodied righty who pounds the strike zone with three solid offerings, he'll likely be a permanent part of the back of the Angels' rotation in 2010.

Trevor Reckling, LHP, Angels, (Double-A Arkansas)
Tuesday's stats: 7 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 4 BB, 9 K
Scouts are still baffled as to how Reckling lasted into the eighth round of the 2007 draft, as he was the talk of the Midwest League and is now limiting the Texas League to a .238 average as a 20-year-old. Highly athletic, Reckling has an average fastball, but two plus secondary pitches in his changeup and curve. Only some occasional control issues have kept him from really taking off.

Alexander Torres, LHP, Angels (High-A Rancho Cucamonga)
Tuesday's stats: 8 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 6 K
Let's face it, it was about as good a night as you can get when it comes to Angels pitching, as O'Sullivan, Reckling and Torres combined for 24 shutout innings while giving up just seven hits. A 21-year-old Venezuelan, Torres' fastball and curve both rate as a tick above average, and he's striking out more than a batter per inning while ranking second in the California League with a 2.74 ERA.

Scores

Labels: minors

Blaming Jeff Weaver or even Jonathan Broxton for this loss really misses the point: the offense failed here, just as they failed yesterday and the day before and the day before. The Dodgers, oddly enough for a team with such a huge lead in their own division, are in the bottom half of the league in runs scored this month. That'll happen, but the temptation to blame your faults on the pitching (because they're the guys who get assigned wins and losses) is awfully strong. Colby Rasmus' broken-bat blooper in the ninth that tied the game — well, yes, that was the important thing that happened in a sloppy outing by Jonathan Broxton that included a wild pitch in Rasmus' at-bat, allowing Ryan Ludwick to advance to second. Similar comments could be aimed at Ramon Troncoso in the 10th, but I do wonder whether allowing him to bat for himself didn't screw him up somehow. (Incidentally, why does Troncoso not also get a blown save for giving up the tying run? Baseball rules are so bizarre.)

The Dodgers stranded 15 men, which gives you some idea of how badly the offense is operating at the moment, Clayton Kershaw, who has reason to be upset, went eight innings in what is almost certainly the best game of his career. There's no question about what he's becoming, and if the offense can kick back into gear again, this is a team that will be presently back to tearing the league up.

Also wasted: a highlight-reel catch by Manny Ramirez in the seventh to end the inning and rob Brendan Ryan of a possible homer; the stadium scoreboard operator was sufficiently fooled by the closeness of the thing that they actually fired off the home run fireworks before somebody realized Manny had caught it, dreds flying, against the left field fence.

Yahoo box • Dodgers recap

Labels: cardinals, dodgers, recaps

So I suppose the conventional wisdom would read this as the Tribe apparently reacting to the trade of their de-facto ace, Cliff Lee, by rolling over the very next game. Of course, this is the same offense (with Victor Martinez transliterated to first!) that badly handled a shaky Brian Fuentes two days in a row, so I'm not so inclined to that answer.

No, I think it had a lot more to do with John Lackey being on his game, and hooray for that. Cleveland got their first (and only against Lackey) tally in fourth on Kelly Shoppach's sac fly, but that was all they got until the ninth. There, Mike Scioscia decided it was time to let Bobby Mosebach get a look at the game to face the 6-7-8 batters, whereupon he got himself into trouble by walking leadoff man Travis Hafner. Shane Loux bailed him out by getting Grady Sizemore to bounce to second, and Asdrubal Cabrera to ground out to first.

But the real important story of this game was Howie Kendrick's career-high five RBI game, going 3-for-5 with a two-run homer, i.e. the kind of game we've been waiting for all year from him. Surprisingly, he's only had 15 such games in his four-year career in the majors, including four four-fer games. I haven't given up on Howie, but his 2009 has been a bucket of ice water poured on all the batting title expectations we had for him back in 2007. But enough of that: it's good that he's turning it around, and especially when Vlad appears badly hobbled for the rest of the season.

Yahoo box • Angels recap

Labels: angels, indians, recaps

Seriously, guys? Seriously?

Appears to be grayed out for the time being. The only online mention of it I can find from an MLB source so far is on By Gosh, It's Langosch, a Pirates blog.

Labels: gameday, mlbam

• For now, the Dodgers will stick with Jason Schmidt in the rotation, i.e. he will start Friday.
• Coming off a three game sweep of the Pirates today, the Giants announced they have traded for Pirates 2B Freddy Sanchez. Sanchez did not appear in the series due to a sore knee, a problem that nearly torpedoed the deal, but San Francisco went ahead with it anyway, sending minor league RHP Tim Alderson to Pittsburgh. Sanchez won a batting title in 2006 with the Pirates, and is hitting .296/.334/.442 in 382 plate appearances. Alderson is holding his own as a 20-year-old in AA Connecticut in the Eastern League, with a 6-1 record in 13 starts and a 3.47 ERA, an impressive achievement for someone so young; there are 20-year-olds who are playing for low-A teams. Baseball Prospectus rated Alderson the 60th best prospect in baseball prior to the season, and among the Giants top 11 prospects. It's a puzzling choice from that standpoint, but maybe his middling K/9 rates have something to do with it. On the other hand, the Giants have been rushing him a bit.
• Giants starter Randy Johnson has a torn rotator cuff, and Fangraph's Matthew Carruth believes it is possible Johnson is done, but he may try — despite already owning 300 wins — to come back to partake in a championship team one last time.
• Update: On the heels of my observation about Dusty Baker's misguided love of Corey Patterson, now I see that the Nationals have released him. Patterson spent most of his time in AAA Syracuse, and hit .133 in 15 plate appearances with the big league club.

Labels: dodgers, giants, injuries, transactions

Appearing in the D Magazine's Inside Corner blog. Author Bob Sturm starts with a Bill James essay appearing in The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract in which James writes

"If a pitcher’s strikeout rate is less than 4.5 per 9 innings, you can pretty much write him off as somebody who is going to have a real career.”

In fact, he writes, that if you desire a pitcher who has a chance to be one great pitchers of his decade, then you should know that all of those pitchers “were all above the league strikeout average early in their careers. Probably 7 of the 10 greats of any era led their league in striekouts at least once.” - One detail that may interest you is that in 2009, the league strikeout average rate is 6.8 per 9 innings.

Sturm then goes on to observe that Scott Feldman has a ... 4.49 K/9 this year. (B-Ref says 4.3, and no full season more than 4.4.)

Can Scott Feldman be the exception to the rule? My eyes say yes. Bill James says there is no example of this ever lasting for the long haul. I tried to call his bluff. I ran the numbers for every pitcher who has won 100 games in the big leagues since the year 1970. 40 seasons of major league baseball to see if I could find a few. 214 pitchers have won 100 games since 1970. Of those, 27 had a career K rate lower than 4.5 per 9.

Of those, only 1 pitcher has pitched in the last decade. Kirk Rueter. Kirk won 130 games with the Expos and Giants with a career K rate of 3.8 per 9. And there is your entire list.

Kirk Rueter was the first name to come to my mind, too. The top ten in major league history as measured by descending K/9 with more than 100 wins are

+-------------------+------+---------+------+
| Name              | K/9  | IP      | W    |
+-------------------+------+---------+------+
| Bill Gullickson   | 4.50 | 2,560.0 |  162 | 
| Eddie Plank       | 4.50 | 4,495.7 |  326 | 
| Jim Scott         | 4.50 | 1,892.0 |  107 | 
| Charlie Buffinton | 4.49 | 3,404.0 |  233 | 
| Preacher Roe      | 4.49 | 1,914.3 |  127 | 
| Kirby Higbe       | 4.48 | 1,952.3 |  118 | 
| Bob Groom         | 4.46 | 2,336.3 |  119 | 
| Mort Cooper       | 4.46 | 1,840.7 |  128 | 
| Whit Wyatt        | 4.46 | 1,761.0 |  106 | 
| Bob Shaw          | 4.45 | 1,778.0 |  108 | 
+-------------------+------+---------+------+
10 rows in set (0.01 sec)

(Note that some of the names on the list above appear to be 4.50 due to rounding.) In general, it's not an especially compelling list, 262 in all. If you filter for players who had above-average K/9 rates early in their career, the list would be even shorter. But the odds do not look good for a repeat performance from Scott Feldman.

Labels: predictions, rangers, sabermetrics

The Phillies got the alleged second-prize pitcher known or believed to be on the block, Cliff Lee, giving up four minor league prospects and Ben Francisco. The minor leaguers are AAA pitcher Carlos Carrasco, infielder Jason Donald and catcher Lou Marson along with Single-A pitcher Jason Knapp to Cleveland. Mostly, this is of interest to the Dodgers and Angels because this immediately drives up the stakes in the race — real or imagined — to pick up Roy Halladay. So does yesterday's announcement that the Yankees' Chien-Ming Wang will have season-ending surgery.

Update: Reaction at Let's Go Tribe is pretty heavily down on this move, while The Good Phight is pleased, unsurprisingly.

Update 2: Fangraphs is back up again — if slow — and has Dave Cameron's take on the deal.

Lee, you know about - last year’s AL Cy Young winner, he reinvented himself and has sustained his excellence this year as an All-Star caliber LHP. The Phillies hold a no-brainer club option for 2010 at just $9 million, making him a massive bargain. He’s a top shelf starting pitcher making a fraction of his value and without a long term commitment required. He’s an extremely valuable asset.

...

Sorry Cleveland - you got hosed here. This is just not a good deal for the Indians in any way, shape, or form. Ruben Amaro just cleaned Mark Shapiro’s clock on this trade.

Labels: indians, phillies, trades, transactions

It's been a busy day in the Pacific Northwest, as Lookout Landing relays a report that OF Wladimir Balentien was traded to Cincinnati for RHP Robert Manuel. Balentien had loads of power in the minors (only once in his minor league career did he ever post a SLG under .500 in a full season), but his at-times diffident OBPs led to questions about his ability to hit in the majors ... sound like anyone we know (*Cough*Howie Kendrick*cough)? Manuel, 25, has pitched 4.1 innings in the Show, all scoreless; he appears to have had some time as a closer for AAA Louisville, with 10 saves. His K/BB ratio there was an outstanding 3.80 while maintaining a 7.3 K/9. It's an odd deal for the perpetually pitching-starved Reds to be making, but maybe not, especially when you consider Dusty Baker is calling the shots (in part) over there; he thought Corey Patterson was a good player, too.

Labels: mariners, reds, trades, transactions

One of the most wholly inexplicable trades I've heard tell of for some time: the Mariners are sending AAA catcher Jeff Clement and SS Ronny Cedeno and three minor league pitchers, Nathan Adcock, Brett Lorin and Aaron Pribanic, to the Pirates for SS Jack Wilson and right-handed starter Ian Snell. Like Juan Pierre, Wilson has always (to me, anyway) had the smell of a guy whose destiny was to be overrated, both defensively and offensively. Wilson's low OBP but relatively high batting averages ensured the latter; while I can't currently get to Fangraphs (it's apparently being slammed by furious/curious Mariners fans) to look at his UZR, the Rate2 numbers at BPro tell the story of a mediocre-to-good defensive shortstop. As for Snell, his problem has been walks. This year his K/BB ratio has been 1.18, as close to unity as he's ever been in his career. At 27 you wonder if he's ever going to figure it out.

As for what the Pirates are getting ... holy cow, Clement was the Mariners' first-round pick (#3 overall) out of USC in 2005, and they're giving up on him? He had season-ending knee surgery in early September last year, and a terrible spring; the M's apparently had soured on him as a defensive catcher as well, giving 2004 fourth-rounder Rob Johnson (career major league line .201/.265/.319) the nod as reserve catcher. The word was Seattle was trying to remake Clement as a first baseman, as his bat seemed strong enough for the position, but he forgot how to hit in spring training this year, which put him on the outs with the organization. Ronny Cedeno ... well, his .167/.213/.290 line in 206 plate appearances as a 26-year-old is pretty damning. As for the three pitchers, they look all to be roughly the same guy, can throw strikes, not doing it consistently, having varying levels of success at it, and none getting past high-A ball, i.e. none of them will be ready for the Show for at least a couple years. Just off the cuff, it looks like quite a steal for the Pirates, who have been said to be shopping Wilson for years now.

More reaction from Lookout Landing, which has a bunch more to say about the three pitchers shipped off to Pittsburgh, especially Lorin, whom Jeff calls "[t]he prize of the three-headed pitching bounty".

Update: U.S.S. Mariner reposts Dave Cameron's analysis of the deal at the still-slammed Fangraphs website. He has the reverse take on Wilson — an underperforming offensive player with an above-average glove who hasn't got a lot of years left in his career at 31.

Pittsburgh is the easy winner of this deal, as they get some interesting young talent and shed some salary without losing much that will hurt them. The Mariners could still salvage this by moving Wilson before Friday’s deadline for a younger SS with more long term potential, but if they stand pat with Wilson as the team’s shortstop for 2009 and maybe 2010, color me disappointed.

Labels: mariners, pirates, trades

There's something utterly, horribly inappropriate about Bill Plaschke being the one to announce Vin Scully's retirement; it's almost as if your alcoholic uncle who borrowed large and unpaid sums of money from your recently deceased father were allowed to also deliver the eulogy at his funeral.

So, Scully will be with us through 2010, and then no more; then it's back to the relentless, ordinary, and at times, clumsy duo in the booth yesterday, Steve Lyons and Eric Collins. I have normally been a proponent of the idea that there are plenty of triple-A broadcasters who could do a competent job in the booth, but Collins has underscored the difficulties with that line of thinking. To me, he's polished but never outstanding, while Lyons reminds me too much of the flaws that Bob Brenly brings to the Cubs broadcasts. While this story isn't finished yet — and I never thought I would openly pine for the return of Charley Steiner to the TV booth, but I do — it seems like the Dodgers are in for a number of years of mediocrity in the booth. At least they'll have a good team, barring any catastrophic trades.

Labels: dodgers, radio, tv

Wow. This had elements of Monday's gruesome defeat, only with Mike Scioscia recognizing that his closer is having command issues earlier this time; but I get ahead of myself. The Angels tied the game in the third on an Erick Aybar RBI double, and almost took the lead as Chone Figgins tried to score from first. A good throw from Cleveland center fielder Ben Francisco nailed Figgins at the plate in a very close play.

Bobby Abreu then came up, and drove in the go-ahead run to cash in Aybar from third on an RBI single, but that was it. As it happened, Angels starter Jered Weaver didn't have a whole lot, and immediately gave up a walk to leadoff man Travis Hafner. A single and a sac fly later, the game was tied. The Tribe picked up another run in the sixth on a solo shot by Jhonny Peralta that just cleared the short fence in right field (the ball landed only one row back in the seats, but it was far enough away that LF Robb Quinlan couldn't get to it), and so it was no surprise when Mike Scioscia called on Matt Palmer.

Palmer did an excellent job, getting a double play when he needed it, working around a hit and a walk over three innings. And as seems to be the case when he's on the mound for the Angels, the bats mysteriously come to life; sure enough, in the eighth, with Cleveland rookie starter David Huff tiring, the Angels pounced. Relievers Joe Smith and a wild Tony Sipp (the latter walked the first two batters he faced) combined to allow all their inherited baserunners to score. Even more strangely, when Gary Matthews, Jr. came to the plate with the bases loaded and two out, he punished a pitch into the gap to clear the bases, putting the Angels ahead by a comfortable three-run lead, 7-4.

As it turned out, the Angels needed every one of those runs. Brian Fuentes was, once again, out of gas, managing to load the bases with nobody out, and even giving up a run before being pulled. Scioscia brought out Jason Bulger, who got Victor Martinez to ground into a tough 3-6-1 double play, and then got Peralta out 6-3 on a smash to Aybar, who made a brilliant throw from fairly deep in the hole. Bulger got his first major league save and looked smart while doing so in a tough situation to pick up a great win. That's doubly true with the Rangers' 7-3 win over Detroit; the AL West won't be won or lost anytime soon, that's for sure.

Yahoo box • Angels recap

Labels: angels, indians, recaps

I basically stopped watching this game just as the Angels got started — if not for a rain delay that pushed opening pitch back by about an hour, there would have been only an hour overlap — but I kept flipping back and forth anyway for a time. (The one downside of FiOS: no picture-in-picture, and nobody at Verizon seems to recognize what the unused button on the remote is supposed to be for, or when that functionality might actually be implemented.) In the sixth, I stumbled onto what turned out to perhaps be the critical at-bat of the game: with the game scoreless, men on second and third, and two outs, Joe Torre decided to have Chad Billingsley bat for himself. Predictably, he struck out against Adam Wainwright.

The adding-insult-to-injury part came in the bottom half of the frame, as Bills gave up a leadoff walk to Skip Schumaker, which was the beginning of a very long half inning; the Cards batted around, Bills got chased, and when the dust settled, it was 6-0, St. Louis. The sputtering Dodgers offense managed only one extra-base hit — Andre Ethier's two-out double in the third — and assembled eight hits and a couple walks, but Dodgers pitching surrendering nine walks and eight hits told a story you didn't want to read.

And thus, with a whimper, the Dodgers lose three straight for the first time all year.

Update: Shoot me for failing to mention that Mark Loretta got the last out of this game. Good grief.

Yahoo box • Dodgers recap

Labels: cardinals, dodgers, recaps

Labels: minors

Meta: Sick

I've been feverish and in bed, in addition to other things going on (though I'm feeling better this morning). Posting will be slow.

St. Louis Scuffle: Cardinals 6, Dodgers 1

The Dodgers actually managed to touch Chris Carpenter up for nine hits, but the only batted ball to drive in a run was Rafael Furcal's sacrifice fly in the third. Really kind of a long grind of a game, with the Dodgers constantly getting a man on with no or one out, only to strand them.

The Cards beat up on the Dodgers bullpen in the seventh for four runs, with Joe Torre using three pitchers for three outs. James McDonald took the brunt of it, with both his bequeathed baserunners scoring. And the Dodgers lost despite getting a quality start from Randy Wolf.

Yahoo box • Dodgers recap

Fuentes Falls: Indians 8, Angels 6

With a 6-4 lead going into the ninth, the Angels seemed like they were about to notch a win, but Brian Fuentes imploded for four runs, his worst outing as an Angel so far and his third loss of the season. Bad things happen when you leave pitches up, but to blame Fuentes for the totality of this game is to blame the last man standing in a long row of bad or at least dubious pitching performances, as every Angels pitcher surrendered at least one hit, and starter Joe Saunders only held on through five.

The good news, as seems to be the case lately, was the Angels' offense, which provided fireworks in the guise of four home runs, three of them back-to-back-to-back in the second; Kendry Morales was in on two of them, and the others provided by Juan Rivera in his first at-bat since returning from the DL, while Mike Napoli crushed one that hit the rock pile in center and seemed to keep traveling, skittering across the batter's eye. One of those games, I guess.

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For Monday and Tuesday...

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