Curveballs for Jobu

Curveballs for Jobu is Off Base Percentage's daily trip around the ballparks.

Today's honorary bat boy: Tim Teufel

Yankees 9, Diamondbacks 3. Dan Haren had gone seven innings, allowing three runs and was at 109 pitches. Naturally, it was time for Arizona manager A.J. Hinch to go to his bullpen, or The Rudy Steins as I like to call them. The Yankees said "yes, we have no problem hitting against AA pitchers," and in the eighth, NY broke it open with six runs against Esmerling Vasquez (6.00 ERA, 1.50 WHIP) and Chad Qualls (8.88 ERA, 2.26 WHIP). Meanwhile, Andy Pettitte continues to amaze. The southpaw threw seven innings of two-run ball and Alex Rodriguez homered (first since June 3) and drove in three for the defending champions, who are a season-best 1 1/2 games up in the East.

Cardinals 9, Bluejays 4. Jose Bautista came in to the 2010 season with 59 career home runs, never hitting more than 16 in any of his four full seasons. After hitting two off Jaime Garcia, Bautista has a ML-high 20 home runs and his OPS+ of 146 is 48 points higher than his career mark. Oh, yes, something about the winning team. Matt Holliday, whose nickname on Baseball Reference is "Big Daddy", has had a fun four games, going 11-for-17 with five home runs. St. Louis stays a game up on Cincinnati in the Central because....

Reds 4, Athletics 2. This was just a case of playa-hatin'. In this particular incident, Oakland pitcher Dallas Braden didn't respect Bronson Arroyo (8 IP, 2 ER) or the 305, and the Reds kept Whitey winless since May 9. Coco Crisp sighting: two-run home run in the third for Oakland's only runs.

Mariners 2, Cubs 0. A lot of Mariners' trade talk centers around Cliff Lee, but is Jason Vargas available? Another dominant start-7 IP, 4 H, 7 K, 1 BB-for the lefty, who last year was demoted to the bullpen after a dreadful start against the Royals, if you can believe that. This season, he's been a perfect compliment for the ridiculous Lee. Imagine if the Mariners had an offense.

Adam Lind's Golden Sombrero

A golden sombrero is awarded to a player who manages to strike out four times in a single game (real golden sombrero not included). It's quite the feat unless you're Ryan Howard or Mark Reynolds. Unfortunately, cycles and no-hitters are all the rage nowadays. Not for me, though. I will pour over the box scores to bring you the finest at swinging and missing.



The Blue Jays and the Yankees engaged in a strikeout fest that the Jays pulled out in the bottom of the 14th. Over the 14 innings, the two teams combined for 30 strikeouts. Yet, I'll only be handing out two sombreros. This made me a little sad. Greedy, I know, but still. This video always cheers me and will probably make another appearance or two in this feature.



Enough nonsense. Adam Lind is the recipient of my first sombrero. He's having a disappointing season after breaking out last year. I'm inclined to cut him a little slack since it was a 14 inning game but he's destroying my fantasy team. Let's see how won his sombrero while going 0-6. *shakes fist*

Bottom 1st: Lind struck out swinging against Andy Pettitte. To be fair, Pettitte struck out the side swinging in the first. That sentence doesn't look right.

Bottom 6th: Lind struck out swinging against Pettitte again. Lind did at least manage to fly out in the 3rd.

Bottom 8th: Lind struck out swinging for the third time against Pettitte. Hat trick!

Bottom 12th: Lind struck out swinging against Chan Ho Park.

To recap, Lind struck out swinging four times against two pitchers with a combined age of 73-years-old. Put on the hat and go for some tequila. Yet it wasn't as bad as...