Curveballs for Jobu 5/31/11

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

Today's honorary bat boy is Paul Spoljaric.

Blue Jays 11, Indians 1.
Our long national (international?) nightmare is over after Jo Jo Reyes snapped his 28 start non-winning streak that spanned nearly 3 years. Reyes got the win by pitching a complete game and allowing just a run. Jose Bautista went 2-3 with a walk to get his OBP back over .500 for the season. The Indians have lost 5 of 6 and I think it's safe to declare the sky is falling.

Yankees 5, A's 0.
I'm sold. Shoot me up with some stem cells. Even though it was the dismal A's offense, Bartolo Colon threw a 4-hit, complete game shutout while striking out 6 and walking none. Colon has a 3.26/3.35/2.91 (ERA/FIP/xFIP) line as a 38-year-old. *googles shady doctors in my area*

Angels 10, Royals 8.
Ervin Santana got off to a rough start but the Angels bats were able to bail him out. Santana's first 6 pitches went for a leadoff home rum, four pitch walk and a 2-run home run. But the Angels managed to battle back to overcome a 5 run deficit with home runs by Mark Trumbo and Peter Bourjos in the 8th and took the lead with a 2-run homer by Torii Hunter in the 9th. It was Hunter's second of the game and his 1,000 career RBI. Royals struggling closer Joakim Soria lost his job to Aaron Crow after blowing the save. This, kids, is why you don't change your nickname if it's something badass like the Mexicutioner.

Diamondbacks 15, Marlins 4.
Arizona mashed their way to 7 straight wins on the backs of Justin Upton (5-5, 2B, HR) and Kelly Johnson (4-7, 2B, 3B, 2 HR). Willie Bloomquist, Sean Burroughs and Xavier Nady also had plate appearances.

Reds 7, Brewers 3.
Jay Bruce just keeps crushing everything. Bruce went 3-4 with a triple and home run. He leads the National League in 2 of the 3 Triple Crown categories but I wouldn't hold my breath on him making up that 50 points of batting average he's down.

Phillies 5, Nationals 4.
Roy Halladay surrendered 10 hits including 3 home runs but he and the Phils both survived the un-Doc outing with a win. Chase Utley went 0-3 with 2 walks. I sense a hot streak right around the corner. Livan Hernandez tossed his automatic 6+ innings giving up 8 hits and 4 runs. You can pencil that in for almost every start.

Other games, but down here...
Tigers 6, Twins 5.
Mariners 4, Orioles 3.
Rangers 11, Rays 5.
White Sox 7, Red Sox 3.
Padres 3, Braves (10).
Astros 12, Cubs 7.
Giants 7, Cardinals 3.
Mets 7, Pirates 3.
Dodgers 7, Rockies 1.

Curveballs for Jobu 5/19/11

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

Today's honorary bat boy is Danny Clyburn.

Yankees 4, Orioles 1 (15).
Mariano Rivera blew his third save of the season leading to the longest game of the year for both teams. Thanks to his stem cell time machine, Bartolo Colon returned to 2002 and pitched 8 scoreless innings striking out 7. Of course, it was Robinson Cano who came through with a double in the 15th to put the Yanks up for good. After giving up the hit, Mike Gonzalez drilled the next batter, Chris Dickerson, in the head cracking his helmet. Dickerson was taken to the hospital and Gonzalez was immediately ejected.

Rays 6, Blue Jays 5.
Jose Bautista: 1-2, 2 walks. Including the rainout on 5/17, this is the third straight game that Bautista has not hit a home run. I think it's safe for us to label him a fluke again.

White Sox 1, Indians 0.
Jake Peavy outdueled Justin Masterson as both pitchers went the distance. It was Peavy who threw the shutout and got the win though as it was turn back the clock night for formerly great pitchers. Peavy gave up just three hits, striking out 8 without a single base on balls. Former Angels prospect Dallas McPhearson somehow had a personalized White Sox jersey made and snuck into their lineup and manned third base for them. Whether the White Sox were aware of this or not is still being questioned. He went 0-3 with 2 strikeouts.

Pirates 5, Reds 0.
Leave it to the Pirates, led by staff ace Charlie Morton, to derail the five game win streak the red hot, um, Reds had been on. Morton tossed the complete game shutout and is now pitching 2.62/3.75/3.91 (ERA/FIP/xFIP) for the season.

Mets 3, Nationals 0.
The Mets pulled even with the Nationals at 20-22. This should be an intense battle to see which team finishes the least furthest away from third place in the NL East.

Other games, but down here...
Mariners 3, Angels 0.
Red Sox 1, Tigers 0.
Rangers 5, Royals 4.
Twins 4, A's 3 (10).
Phillies 2, Rockies 1.
Cubs 7, Marlins 5.
Cardinals 5, Astros 1.
Diamondbacks 5, Braves 4 (11).
Brewers 5, Padres 2.
Giants 8, Dodgers 5.

Curveballs for Jobu 5/14/11

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

Today's honorary bat boy is Mike Laga.

Curveballs for Jobu had to take a brief hiatus to film its role in the upcoming Moneyball movie. It score the sweet role as Billy Beane's office chair.

Tigers 3, Royals 1.
Justin Verlander continued his assault on American League hitter by following his no-hitter up with another 5.2 innings of no-hit ball. Melky Cabrera broke up Verlander's bid to match Johnny Vander Meer as the only pitcher to throw back-to-back no-hitters. Verlander ended up only going 8 innings allowing the one run on two hits and struck out seven. Eric Hosmer went 0-4 with a pair of strikeouts but remains on track to replace BBQ as the best thing about Kansas City.

Phillies 5, Braves 4.
Ryan Howard wen 2-4 with his 9th homer of the season to lead the Phils and put them 5.5 games up on the Braves. The pesky Marlins sit just 3 games back in what should be an interesting NL East race. Eric O'Flaherty took the loss for the Braves. In a somewhat related story, I once drank whiskey until I tried to fight a bar stool at O'Flaherty's.

Marlins 6, Nationals 5 (11).
Marlins youngsters Mike Stanton and Logan Morrison both went yard. But you should probably just head over to MLB.com to watch the highlight of Omar Infante's amazing game winning slide into home and, as long as you're there, watch Roger Bernadina's near-impossible catch.

Red Sox 5, Yankees 4.
Stem cell aided pitching mutant Bartolo Colon went 6 innings allowing 3 runs (2 earned) and took the loss for the Yanks. Clay Buchholz won his third straight even though Daniel Bard and Jonathan Papelbon tried to make it interesting. The ghost of Russel Martin hit his seventh home run of the season.

Indians 5, Mariners 4.
Travis Hafner hit the 2-out, 2-run walk-off home run to continue the Indians unlikely winning ways. And why not? I fully expect Willie Mays Hayes to steal 100 bases for this team. On the other end of the spectrum, Brandon League is making a push to be the worst closer ever. In his last four games, League is 0-4 with 3 blown saves while giving up 10 earned runs on 12 hits and 2 hit batters. Amazingly though, no walks.

Other games, but down here...
Rays 3, Orioles 0.
Rangers 4, Angels 1.
Blue Jays 2, Twins 0.
White Sox 4, A's 3.
Cubs 11, Giants 4.
Reds 6, Cardinals 5 (10).
Mets 6, Astros 4.
Brewers 5, Pirates 2.
Rockies 12, Padres 7.
Dodgers 4, Diamondbacks 3.

Bartolo Colon, Stem Cells And A 95 MPH Fastball

I'm fascinated by this story. And for once, it has nothing to do with Bartolo Colon's ability to eat 47 pounds of buffalo wings without having to unhinge his jaw. Instead, Colon has tossed 37.1 innings for the Yankees while putting up a 2.81 xFIP (3.86 ERA for the Sports Center crowd) and has actually looked like the pitcher he used to be seven years ago.

Turns out that Bart used some rather unorthodox surgery to regain his 95 mile per hour fastball as a 37-year-old (albeit on stadium guns, so, let's call it 92 to be safe). Joseph R. Purita would like to take credit for Colon's return to relevance. I don't blame him either because it sounds like this guy is on to something. Here's a blockquote from the NY Times (I hope they don't charge me for this)...

A doctor in Florida would like to take some of the credit. Joseph R. Purita, an orthopedic surgeon who runs a regenerative medicine clinic in Boca Raton, said he and a team of Dominican doctors that he led treated Colon in April 2010. Purita said he employed what he regards as one of his more pioneering techniques: he used fat and bone marrow stem cells from Colon, injecting them back into Colon’s elbow and shoulder to help repair ligament damage and a torn rotator cuff.

See? I told you Dr. Purita wanted some credit. I'm pretty sure this is going to be a big deal down the line. Yanks GM Brian Cashman admitted that he was unaware of this procedure before he signed Colon and immediately contacted MLB once he found out about the situation.

While I doubt MLB can find any kind of violation against Colon's treatment, the doctor in question has used HGH and platelet-rich plasma therapy to treat ligament injuries. Selig will investigate.

Will this new treatment be a new breakthrough in science to keep players healthy or the next thing banned? I'm obviously in favor of any and all of these new developments in science but I'm also fine with steroids and HGH being administered under the supervision of a doctor. I realize that anything "stem cell" related is still a controversial topic so I dug up a clip of Christopher Reeve on Larry King to help shed some light on the subject.

Krazy Kripples
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