Thursday, June 23, 2011

Curveballs for Jobu 6/23/11

Curveballs for Jobu is Offbasepercentage's daily trip around the ballparks.

Today's honorary bat boy is Gookie Dawkins.


















Yankees 4, Reds 2.
Reds 10, Yankees 2.

I'm just going to skip over the Freddy Garcia and Mike Leake duel from game one to get to the good stuff. In the second match, my good friend Mevs from Diamond Hoggers enjoyed watching his boy Chris Heisey go crazy. Heisey hit 3 home runs including one to lead off the bottom of the first. Jay Bruce, perhaps the streakiest player in baseball, was a combined 1-7 as he continues to take the month of June off after his torrid May. If history has taught us anything, Bruce is in for a big July. Or not, what am I, a scientist?

Mets 3, A's 2 (13).
I love zany baseball and we got a small dose of it Wednesday night. Justin Turner produced the walk-off win in the 13th by a good old fashioned, bases loaded hit by pitch. Not quite as exciting as the walk-off balk but it will do. Brad Ziegler had trouble locating the strike zone and grazed Turner after giving up 3 hits and walking 3 in 1.2 innings. In 13 innings, the 2 teams only managed to use 12 pitchers which is roughly how many Tony La Russa uses in a normal 9 inning game.

Giants 5, Twins 1.
I don't what kind of smoke and mirrors are being deployed by Ryan Vogelsong but he tossed another 7 inning, 4 hit, 1 run gem to lower his ERA to 1.86 on the year. Coming into the game, Vogelsong was sporting a 1.92 ERA but his FIP said he was more of a 2.93 pitcher which is still quite impressive. His xFIP suggests he will be more of a 3.37 guy which is also still pretty good. I can't explain it but I am pretty lazy and didn't take more than a cursory look at his numbers.

Padres 5, Red Sox 1.
Clearly the Padres just have the Red Sox number. That or the 15 rain delays lulled the Red Sox to sleep.

Astros 5, Rangers 3.
Matt Downs hit a pinch hit home run in the 9th off of Neftali Feliz because baseball is a weird, weird game. The Astros scored 4 in the 9th to win Wednesday's battle of Texas. The Astros remain frighteningly terrible though.

Angels 6, Marlins 5 (10).
Hanley Ramirez is 4-9 after being benched by Jack McKeon and then plugged into the cleanup spot. I'd like to think McKeon has used his century of baseball experience to light a fire under Hanley but I suspect Ramirez is just high off of that old man smell. Either way, a single by Mark Trumbo in the 10th took a bad hop over Ramirez, who made a few nice defensive plays earlier, to score Bobby Abreu for the go ahead run. Torii Hunter is day-to-day after getting crushed by the outfield wall following a running catch. I'm almost positive that Mike Trout is, right now, the best outfielder the Angels have at any level.

Other games, but down here...
Phillies 4, Cardinals 0.
Indians 4, Rockies 3.
White Sox 4, Cubs 3.
Diamondbacks 3, Royals 2.
Pirates 5, Orioles 4.
Braves 5, Blue Jays 1.
Rays 6, Brewers 3.
Tigers 7, Dodgers 5.
Nationals 2, Mariners 1.

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