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Pirates 1, Cubs 0

Charlie Wilmoth, Bucs Dugout — Sat, 26 May 2012 06:10:32 -0000

The Pirates' run of great pitching continued, as the Pirates held off the Cubs, 1-0, on Friday.

A.J. Burnett got through 5.1 scoreless innings, striking out six and walking two, and four relievers finished out the shutout, striking out six batters of their own. Jason Grilli struck out the side in the seventh, meaning (as someone pointed out to me on Twitter) that he now has seven straight strikeouts. The Cubs had 10 hits, and mounted rallies in the fifth, sixth, eighth and ninth, but never managed to score.

The Pirates' offense wasn't much better, striking out six times and walking only once, but they squeezed a run in the second on an RBI single by Rod Barajas.

Eighth Inning Decision Looms Large, But Dodgers Unable To Solve Harrell All Night

Eric Stephen, True Blue LA — Sat, 26 May 2012 06:21:05 -0000

The key moment of Friday night's 3-1 Dodgers loss to the Houston Astros came in the bottom of the eighth inning, when the Dodgers were threatening against the Houston bullpen after being unable to solve the Lucas Harrell puzzle all evening.

The Dodgers had the bases loaded with one out, down two runs, and the Astros brought in southpaw Fernando Abad to pitch with James Loney due up. Loney, hitting just .175/.214/.225 (7-for-40) against lefties this year and .213/.254/.300 in 369 plate appearances against lefties over the last three seasons, was pulled for a pinch hitter.

Outside of right-handed hitting Matt Treanor, who as the backup catcher is rarely used as a pinch hitter, manager Don Mattingly had a trio of right-handed choices on his bench: Scott Van Slyke, he of the pinch-hit three-run home run on Sunday; Jerry Sands he of the pinch-hit double during the five-run rally Tuesday in Arizona; or Ivan De Jesus, he of the pinch-hit sacrifice fly Tuesday as well as the game-winning two-run double.

Mattingly went with De Jesus, the one of the three with the least power, though a home run wasn't what Mattingly was looking for in that spot.

"Out of all the guys we had there, [De Jesus] is the best hitter of all of them. But obviously Scotty can be a little dangerous," Mattingly said after the game. "I needed more of a hit there, and not necessarily to pop the ball, though that would be nice. Ivan's been swinging the bat pretty good and I felt like he was our best option, and it didn't work out."

De Jesus struck out, and A.J. Ellis flew out to end the rally, the Dodgers fell. But as that was really the Dodgers' best scoring threat of the night, the larger problem was not being able to do anything off Harrell, who induced 16 groundouts on the night.

"He pounded the strike zone, he got ahead in the count. He attacked us all night long," Mattingly said of Harrell. "He did a good job."

Harrell was supported by an Astros offense that had five extra-base hits off Clayton Kershaw, who took his second loss of the season.

"I didn't have as great of command as I would have liked," Kershaw said. "Overall I thought I pitched okay, with just a couple mistakes here and there. In a game like that, it will cost you."

Mattingly agreed, adding, "He didn't seem as sharp as usual, but typical Clayton he just kept battling and fighting and kept us in the game."

The Astros scored an unearned run in the first helped by a throwing error from Elian Herrera, then added two more on a home run by J.D. Martinez in the third inning. It was an at-bat Kershaw regretted.

"Martinez hit a good pitch actually. I shouldn't have been behind in the count obviously," Kershaw said. "I probably threw one too many of the same pitches and he did a good job with it, and it cost us the game. My job is to put up zeroes every inning."

Up Next

The Dodgers look to snap their fifth two-game losing streak of the season on Saturday night, at "Bark in the Park Night" at Dodger Stadium. Chad Billingsley takes the hill for the Dodgers, facing Bud Norris for Houston.

Brewers 7, Diamondbacks 1 - The Odds Were Not In Our Favor

snakecharmer, AZ Snake Pit — Sat, 26 May 2012 05:53:21 -0000

Record: 20-26; Pace: 70-92; Change on 2011: -3

Alright everybody, let's do this. It's the first time the Diamondbacks have faced the Brewers since last October, and we all remember how that turned out. But, c'mon, we're back in our home ballpark, where we won our two games in the NLDS. Plus, we're riding a one-game win streak, and we've got our Opening Day starter, Ian Kennedy, on the mound! Let's go!

... Hey, where'd everybody go? In particular, where did our offense go? Ohhh, right, they all remembered how killer Yovani Gallardo is in his career against the Diamondbacks. So they all decided to go hide in the woods, then, that's it? Huh. Well, somebody better climb over the electric fence and bring them back, because we're going to need them the rest of the weekend.

The two teams traded zeros in the first inning, with both pitchers throwing fewer than 10 pitches apiece. Rickie Weeks took care of that in the 2nd inning, as he knocked a solo home run to the left-center bleachers. Still, Ian Kennedy was looking good, he even had four strikeouts through the first three innings.

Then came the 4th inning. Nyjer Morgan singled to lead off the frame, and advanced to second on Kennedy's fourth balk of the season. That ended up not mattering much though, because he was brought home by a two-run home run by Ryan Braun. Aramis Ramirez singled, and two outs later Travis Ishikawa was hit by a pitch to move Ramirez to second, who scored on a single by Cesar Izturis. Just like that, the Brewers' 1-0 lead was a 4-0 lead.

And that 4-0 Brewers lead was insurmountable, especially with Yovani Gallardo on the mound. Pay no attention to the 4.62 ERA, folks, Gallardo owns the Diamondbacks. In five regular season starts and two 2011 NLDS games, he has a 6-0 record and a 1.23 ERA, and that ERA will surely go down after tonight's matchup. Jason Kubel led off the 2nd inning with a walk, but Chris Young ground into a double play, and Kennedy singled to lead off the 3rd inning but Willie Bloomquist ground into a double play. Finally in the 4th inning, our leadoff runner did score, but that was only because Kubel took matters into his own hands and hit a home run to center as a birthday present to himself.

Ian Kennedy, unfortunately, continued to struggle. He bases were loaded with two outs in the 5th on an error by Bloomquist, but Willie got another chance to end the inning and this time did so successfully. The base runners kept coming in the 6th with a double, a single to left (which didn't score the runner), and a walk. Kennedy was replaced by Brad Ziegler, who got Ryan Braun to harmlessly ground out.

Josh Collmenter came in for the 7th inning and did fine, but had his first problematic outing as a reliever in the 8th inning. Former Diamondback and new waiver-wire-acquisition Brewer Cody Ransom singled to lead it off, and Corey Hart followed shortly thereafter with a two-run home run. Collmenter also gave up a single to Nyjer Morgan, and was then pulled for Bryan Shaw, who got two outs via the strike-em-out, throw-em-out double play. Craig Breslow made a mess of the 9th inning by loading the bases with nobody out, but thankfully allowed only a sacrifice fly to make it 7-1. Still, when you say "Oh good, it's only 7-1," you know it hasn't been a good evening.

Yet hope remains while company is true, and a few of us stuck it out for the sad attempts at comebacks. They were such sad attempts though, I'm not even sure you can call them attempted comebacks. In the 7th, 8th, and 9th innings, the Diamondbacks had two runners reach base; in the 7th and 9th, it was even the first two batters reaching base. In the 7th, Chris Young ground into his second double play of the evening, followed by a Lyle Overbay strikeout. In the 8th inning, after Francisco Rodriguez walked Willie Bloomquist, Ryan Roberts went first-pitch fishing and ground into an inning-ending double play. At least there were no double plays in the 9th inning, where we faced a seriously struggling reliever named Jose Veras - after walking Upton and Kubel, CY struck out looking, Overbay almost got a hit to center but it was caught, and Josh Bell struck out swinging.

Source: FanGraphs

30 Going on 31: J Kubel, +19.6%
Not Elektric: I Kennedy, -17.3%
Needs An Alias: C Young, -25.9%

As you can see, our hopes never really got off the ground tonight, which is too bad because the fans were pretty into the game, especially the ones mercilessly booing Braun all night long. The fans around here, meanwhile, were a mix of downtrodden and sardonic, aka the usual. Twenty eight people stopped by, and ish95 led the way. Dc came in second and Rockstarr was third. All present were: Clefo, imstillhungry95, txzona, snakecharmer, Jim McLennan, Rockkstarr12, hotclaws, AzDbackfanInDc, rd33, BattleMoses, Muu, luckycc, Ridster09, CaptainCanuck, Stupendous Man, dbacks79, Bryn21, AZDBACKR, G.O.B., ackbartehtrap, piratedan7, 4 Corners Fan, Marc Fournier, leemellon, rfffr, dbacks25, Wimb, and shoewizard.

Wimb wins Comment of the Day in a landslide victory, and he did so on his first comment in over a week! The lucky chum.

Excuse me!

Waiter, what’s today’s Diamondbacks special?
"why sir today we have gargling vortex of suck, vintage 2008-2010"
Jolly good, put that on my tab next to Russ Ortiz and that dead horse that been flogged since the 2007 offseason.
"very good sir"

Time for another drink then?

http://www.thetilehurstend.co.uk

by Wimb on May 25, 2012 9:09 PM PDT reply actions 9 recs

Tomorrow is making-a-case-to-be-the-ace Wade Miley against Zach Greinke. Don't forget to put on your black jerseys! And if you find any Diamondbacks hanging in your closet attached to said jerseys, kindly return them to Chase Field at your earliest convenience.

21-27, Pitching Numbers and Notes

Matthew, Lookout Landing — Sat, 26 May 2012 06:32:52 -0000

BLAKE BEAVAN

#P	BF	Str%	nBB	Sw(ms)	K(sw)	GB/FB/LD/IF	1B/2B/3B/HR
101	27	68.3	2	50 (9)	1 (1)	11 / 9 / 3 / 1	4 / 0 / 0 / 1

Only one strikeout for Blake Beavan tonight, but aside from the 0-2 home run given up to Albert Pujols, it was a solid outing for Blake. I intentionally used the passive tense there because Blake's 0-2 pitch wasn't terrible. It was a fastball, elevated above the belt and outside. It obviously wasn't an unhittable pitch, but it wasn't a meatball by any means and Albert Pujols pulverized it. Albert Pujols' struggles have been hilarious, but he's still crazy good. That's why celebrating his struggles now is important. You may not get another chance for awhile. Live in the now.

Beavan generated ten swing and misses in his last start against the Rockies, a career high. Tonight he nearly matched that with nine. The fastball continues to be a bafflingly effective weapon for him.

Pitch	#	Sp	Zone%	Ball	Called	SwStr	Foul	GB	FB	LD	IF
FA	73	91.5	39.7	20	14	7	14	9	9
SL	18	81.2	44.4	7	4	1	2	2		1	1
CU	7	75.8	42.9	3	1	1	1			1
CH	3	81.5		2						1

TOM WILHELMSEN

#P	BF	Str%	nBB	Sw(ms)	K(sw)	GB/FB/LD/IF	1B/2B/3B/HR
17	4	58.8	1	7 (2)	1 (1)	1 / 1 / 0 / 0	0 / 0 / 0 / 0

Not much to say about Tom Wilhelmsen tonight. A walk and a strikeout, but a quiet inning overall.

Pitch	#	Sp	Zone%	Ball	Called	SwStr	Foul	GB	FB
FA	10	95.8	40	4	2	2	1		1
CU	5	78.6	20	3	1		1
CH	2	89.2	50				1	1

BRANDON LEAGUE

#P	BF	Str%	nBB	Sw(ms)	K(sw)	GB/FB/LD/IF	1B/2B/3B/HR
16	6	68.8	1	8 (0)	0 (0)	3 / 1 / 1 / 0	2 / 0 / 0 / 0

The first part that sticks out about Brandon League's outing is the zero missed bats. All eight swings made contact, with five of them putting the ball in play. Now, those balls in play weren't especially damaging when three were on the ground, but those getting through and hurting is the price that can be paid when a pitcher walks one and intentionally puts another on base.

Looking at just the cold numbers here, League's outing appears better than it looked on television. On some other night I might take the opportunity to caution against overreacting to a blown save here, but screw it. It's Friday and ~~the Mariners~~ Brandon League just blew the game in a way that's about the most irritating way possible. I'm just going to walk away. Oh hey, the replay on ROOT is about to start. Screw you, Mariners.

On the mitigating side, you can check out Brandon Morrow's start tonight.

Pitch	#	Sp	Zone%	Ball	Called	Foul	GB	FB	LD
FA	13	94.8	38.5	5	3	1	2	1	1
CH	3	85.3				1	1
IBB	4

21-27, Hitting Numbers and Notes

Matthew, Lookout Landing — Sat, 26 May 2012 06:03:27 -0000

Batter	#P	PA	RB	1B/2B/3B/HR	nBB	SO (sw)	Sw (cnt)	GB/FB/LD/IF
M Saunders	15	5	2	1 / 0 / 0 / 0	1	1 (1)	7 (6)	3 / 0 / 0 / 0
A Liddi	15	4	1	0 / 0 / 0 / 0	1	2 (1)	7 (2)	1 / 0 / 0 / 0
I Suzuki	16	4	1	0 / 1 / 0 / 0		0 (0)	9 (9)	2 / 0 / 1 / 1
K Seager	20	4	3	0 / 1 / 0 / 0	2	0 (0)	7 (6)	0 / 1 / 1 / 0
J Smoak	8	4	2	1 / 0 / 0 / 1		0 (0)	5 (5)	1 / 1 / 2 / 0
J Jaso	19	4	2	0 / 0 / 0 / 0	2	0 (0)	5 (4)	1 / 0 / 0 / 1
J Montero	16	4		0 / 0 / 0 / 0		0 (0)	9 (7)	4 / 0 / 0 / 0
M Carp	21	4	1	0 / 0 / 0 / 0	1	2 (1)	11 (9)	1 / 0 / 0 / 0
C Figgins				0 / 0 / 0 / 0		0 (0)	0 (0)	0 / 0 / 0 / 0
M Kawasaki	9	3		0 / 0 / 0 / 0		0 (0)	6 (5)	2 / 1 / 0 / 0
B Ryan	1	1		0 / 0 / 0 / 0		0 (0)	1 (1)	0 / 1 / 0 / 0

#P = number of pitches seen, RB = reached base, nBB = unintentional walks and hit by pitches, sw = swinging strikeouts, cnt =contact

The Mariners aside from Alex Liddi swung and missed eight times. Alex Liddi swung seven times and missed five of those seven times. Which makes his pair of strikeouts completely unsurprising.

Jesus Montero put four balls in play, but all four were on the ground. That's not the path to success for someone with foot speed slower than the internet's embrace of tolerance for all viewpoints.

Justin Smoak had a great game tonight. It will likely be overlooked with yet another Brandon League meltdown. What I didn't notice when watching bits and pieces of game was that Smoak pounced on hitable pitches. Over four chances at the plate, Smoak saw just eight pitches and swung at five, connecting on all five swings.

Stat of the Night: Plunked

Noah Jarosh, Brew Crew Ball — Sat, 26 May 2012 05:30:31 -0000

Far be it from me to steal the thunder of a certain frequent commenter on this site, but the stat of the night is hit-by-pitch related.

The Brewers were hit by three pitches today. Corey Hart, Aramis Ramirez, and

The Milwaukee Brewers currently lead the National League with 29 HBP as a team. Lead isn't a strong enough word. The Brewers are miles ahead of all National League competition. Coming into today, the Cubs were second on the NL. They had been hit by a pitch 16 times. Nearly half as much as Milwaukee has. Twenty-five teams had between 9 and 18 home runs. The team with 18, the Indians, are third in the MLB.

Only one team has kept pace with the Brewers: The Tampa Bay Rays. By virtue of Luke Scott being hit by a Franklin Morales pitch, the Rays remain one HBP ahead of Milwaukee.

So what makes these two teams so much more apt to be hit by pitches? I don't know. Maybe team's take offense to something the Brewers and Rays do? Perhaps it's a philosophy: The Brewers have had sixteen more baserunners than the average team because of being hit by pitches.

It seems like at least something small must be going on to cause so many plunks. It's hard to imagine that two teams are getting hit at such a greater pace than the other 28. Then again, you wonder how the Mariners have managed to have only been hit three times this year.

Astros Solve Kershaw Puzzle; Beat Dodgers 3-1

CRPerry13, The Crawfish Boxes — Sat, 26 May 2012 05:17:13 -0000

Crossword Generated by Armoredpenguin.com

Pitching

Lucas Harrell outpitched reigning Cy-Young Award winner Clayton Kershaw tonight, generating seventeen groundball outs en route to 7-1/3 almost shutout innings. Oddly for a pitcher who only gives up five hits and three walks in a game, Harrell struck out zero Dodger hitters. Sadly, Wesley Wright loaded the bases after replacing him, then Wilton Lopez walked in the Dodgers' first run (earned by Harrell). Myers closed the game and earned the save.

Kershaw yielded only a two-run homer to J.D. Martinez, plus an unearned run in the first inning. However, the Astros hit four doubles against the lefty and it seemed as if every time an Astro made contact against the ace, the ball traveled to the warning track. The Dodgers' bullpen kept the Astros scoreless once Kershaw exited the game after the seventh inning.

Hitting

Jose Altuve scored the first run by leading off with a double, then advancing to score on a botched throw to first. J.D. Martinez hit a two-run homer in the third inning. The Astros worked three walks against Kershaw, who had only given up twelve all season prior to tonight, and hit four doubles against him. Overall, a very good hitting night despite the low run total.

Defense

The Astros made three defensive plays that were highlight-worthy in this game. Chris Johnson made a great bare-handed catch-and-throw to nail a runner at first, Harrell charged down a bunt with enough time to throw out the lead runner at third, and Justin Maxwell laid out in center to make a diving catch less than two inches off the grass to rob the Dodgers of extra bases on the only hard-hit ball against Harrell all evening.

Puzzle Solution

Two Solo Homeruns Not Enough to Erase Poor Pitching and Questionable Defense

baseballgirl, Athletics Nation — Sat, 26 May 2012 05:29:22 -0000

Ho hum; another game, another loss. Lost in the last week of poor play has been the magic of the first two months of the season, when the A's were consistently over the .500 mark. With tonight's boring loss to the Yankees, the A's slip to two games under .500, with little hope of resurfacing, unless some offensive help comes soon. If you're looking for a silver lining, the A's did score 3 runs tonight, a marked improvement on the last two games, and two of the runs came via the long ball.

Tyson Ross was pedestrian tonight, but was not helped by a huge error by Coco Crisp, opening the door for a two out rally by the Yankees; which would be the difference in the game.

The Yankees took advantage of the error by Coco in the fourth inning, after Ross wobbled, but put up three innings of zeros. After a strikeout, a single, and a strikeout in the fourth, the error allowed the run to score, but also let Teixeira hit in the inning, resulting in a homerun. Granted, those runs weren't earned, but Tyson Ross still gave up the homerun. Down 3-0, the A's would fight back with a solo homerun by Reddick in the fourth (his 12th), but Ross would give it right back up to the Yankees in the fifth. A solo homerun by Cano extended the lead to 4-1, and a two-run Swisher homerun (boy do I miss him) gave the Yankees a 6-1 lead.

The A's real chance was in the fifth inning, as a Donaldson single and a Barton double put runners on second and third with no outs, but an incredulous Kurt Suzuki watched as his sure base hit was caught for only a sac fly. The A's would tack one more on as Ka'aihue homered, but they would lose 6-3. Blevins and Miller mopped up nicely, but Tyson Ross' 4.1 inning, 6 run (3 ER) start buried the A's early.

We do it again tomorrow in the battle of the heavyweights; Colon vs. Sabathia. We'll see you here at 1PM.

Current Series

Yankees lead the series 1-0

Fri 05/25	WP: Ivan Nova (5 - 2) SV: Rafael Soriano LP: Tyson Ross (2 - 5)	3 - 6 loss
New York Yankees Pinstripe Alley @ Oakland Athletics Athletics Nation Saturday, May 26, 2012, 1:05 PM PDT Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum CC Sabathia vs Bartolo Colon Mostly sunny. Winds blowing out to right field at 15-20 m.p.h. Game time temperature around 65. Complete Coverage >
Sun 05/27		1:05 PM PDT