David Ortiz continues to carry the Red Sox, along with Manny Ramirez. Facing Seth McClung, against whom he was 3 for 6 with three home runs, Papi crushed a 2-and-0 pitch to straightaway center field for the winning run. Over his last 47 games, Ortiz's average has risen 33 points and he's now hitting .289 / .393 / .629. Over that same span, Manny has hit .333 / .417 / .684 with 15 homers.
Papi Does It Again (twice)
Giving Credit Where It's Due
Derek Jeter is playing some of the best baseball of his career at 32 years old. Everyone's favorite Yankee is hitting .352 / .426 / .490 with 24 steals in 26 tries. Jeter is second in VORP among all MLB position players. Here's the top 10:
Rk Player Team Pos Avg OBP SLG VORP
1. Travis Hafner CLE dh .305 .430 .635 61.3
2. Derek Jeter NYA ss .352 .426 .490 55.8
3. Albert Pujols SLN 1b .317 .427 .677 54.2
4. Vernon Wells TOR cf .323 .385 .603 53.8
5. Carlos Beltran NYN cf .285 .389 .630 52.3
6. Chase Utley PHI 2b .327 .389 .556 52.2
7. Joe Mauer MIN c .365 .442 .524 51.7
8. Manny Ramirez BOS lf .317 .429 .626 51.0
9. David Ortiz BOS dh .289 .393 .629 50.7
10. Grady Sizemore CLE cf .300 .378 .523 49.2
Schilling Steps It
Curt Schilling (14-4), delivered a much-needed stellar outing last night including an unreal sixth inning. With the bases loaded and one out, Schill threw peas - touching 97 - to strike out B.J. Upton and Tomas Perez. He followed that inning up with a nice seventh where he blew a 95-mile-per-hour fastball past Jorge Cantu for the K with a runner on to end the inning.
Jonathan Papelbon, who pitched a scoreless ninth, struck out two to tie Bobby Jenks and Todd Jones for the league lead with 30 saves.
Javy Lopez Trade Update
ESPN's Duke Castiglione is reporting that the Javy Lopez deal has been finalized and that the player to be named later is Adam Stern. The Tampa Bay Devil Rays may put a waiver claim on Stern, however, blocking his move to the Orioles. If that happens, Baltimore will get Stern after the season. Stern is batting .259 / .301 / .346 for Pawtucket - not very impressive numbers for a 26-year-old minor leaguer.
Soggy Balls at Coors?
On Tuesday, Brewers infielder Jeff Cirillo complained that the Rockies were using illegal waterlogged balls at Coors Field:
"It's pretty dramatic, wouldn't you say? Most shutouts in Coors Field, in the National League, when you take into account Petco, Dodger Stadium, where Washington plays. Those are huge parks." The Rockies have been storing balls in a humidor since 2002, but reportedly began leaving them in much longer this season. It's hard to argue with Cirillo after looking at the evidence. Here is a chart of Runs, Homers, and Hits allowed at Coors, along with rank:
Runs Rk HR Rk Hits Rk
2001 1458 2 1457 2 1270 4
2002 1440 1 1600 1 1232 3
2003 1243 4 1369 2 1146 2
2004 1412 1 1235 4 1240 1
2005 1285 1 1119 8 1254 1
2006 973 17 1114 9 1021 11
Pretty amazing. Joe Sheehan looked deeper at the evidence and produced this chart:
XBH/CT HR/CT XBH/FB HR/FB BABIP
2001 1 1 1 1 1
2002 1 2 1 1 1
2003 1 2 1 1 1
2004 1 5 1 1 1
2005 4 9 3 7 1
2006 14 15 8 13 10
XBH/CT: extra-base hits per ball contacted
HR/CT: home runs per ball contacted
XBH/FB: extra-base hits per flyball
HR/FB: home runs per flyball
BABIP: batting average on balls in play
These are drastic effects. The Rockies have completely changed the way the game is played at Coors, turning a hitters park into a pitchers park by messing with the balls. How is this acceptable to MLB? And can other clubs do it if they want their pitchers to have better numbers?
Timlin's Recent Struggles:
The Globe has this: Think the post-disabled list Mike Timlin hasn't been the same as the pre-disabled list version? You're not wrong. Timlin, a mainstay in the bullpen since 2003 as a setup man and erstwhile closer, hasn't been the same since arm trouble landed him on the DL from May 28 (retroactive to May 26) to June 13. Before the stint, Timlin carried a 1.40 ERA with 5.6 strikeouts per nine innings and .47 home runs per nine innings. Since then? His ERA is 4.71 over 21 innings, with 3.4 strikeouts and 1.29 home runs per nine innings. And, in the past two weeks, Timlin has given up two home runs that turned ties or leads into deficits.
Beckett's Continuing Homer Woes:
With Josh Beckett getting blasted for a grand slam by 23-year-old Shin Soo Choo last night, questions were raised about whether or not he's close to setting an MLB record for HRs allowed in a season. That blast was the 31st he's allowed this year. Beckett's got a ways to go before he tops Bert Blyleven's astonishingly bad season in 1986. Blyleven allowed 50! HRs while going 17-14 for the Twins that year. The bad news for Bert gets worse - he's also No. 3 on the list with 46 allowed the following season. Here's the top (bottom?) 10:
Rank Player (age) HRs Year
1. Bert Blyleven (35) 50 1986
2. Jose Lima (27) 48 2000
3. Bert Blyleven (36) 46 1987
Robin Roberts (29) 46 1956
5. Jamie Moyer (41) 44 2004
6. Eric Milton (28) 43 2004
Pedro Ramos (22) 43 1957
8. Denny McLain (22) 42 1966
9. Rick Helling (28) 41 1999
Phil Niekro (40) 41 1979
Robin Roberts (28) 41 1955
Javy On The Way?
Numerous outlets are reporting that the sox have acquired Javy Lopez from the Baltimore Orioles for a player to be named later. The Globe reports that the player must be one who is currently on the 40-man roster. At age 35, he's not the player he used to be, but he should still have enough pop in the bat to help the team in the short-term. Lopez is hitting .268 / .316 / .412 with 8 homers for the Orioles this season - not exactly huge numbers, but here are the numbers for the sox other catchers:
Jason Varitek .247 / .334 / .417 w/ 11 HRs
Doug Mirabelli .189 / .255 / .356 3
Ken Huckaby .214 / .229 / .271 in AAA.
The Orioles are expected to send up to $1.4 million to help defray the $2.75 million remaining in Lopez's contract, although the deal must be approved by the commissioner's office because at least $1 million is changing hands.
Notes Reader Poll
If you can have any 5 starters beginning next April to try to win the series in 2007, who would they be?
Here's my answer:
Johan Santana
Francisco Liriano
Roy Halladay
Dan Haren
Mike Mussina
So everyone doesn't have to go looking stuff up, here are the top 25 guys in baseball sorted by opponent's on base percentage.
DIPS is ERA with the same defense and batting average per ball in play. WHIP is baserunners per inning.
| PLAYER | TEAM | ERA | OBP | SLG | DIPS | K/BB | WHIP |
| Min | 1.96 | .251 | .285 | 2.58 | 4.28 | 0.96 | |
| NYY | 3.40 | .268 | .363 | 3.57 | 4.68 | 1.05 | |
| NYM | 3.59 | .268 | .345 | 3.65 | 3.77 | 1.01 | |
| Min | 3.11 | .273 | .388 | 3.26 | 5.00 | 1.06 | |
| LAA | 2.95 | .277 | .325 | 3.48 | 2.65 | 1.09 | |
| Tor | 3.04 | .282 | .370 | 3.51 | 4.35 | 1.09 | |
| Bos | 3.84 | .285 | .440 | 3.57 | 7.67 | 1.12 | |
| Det | 3.65 | .289 | .372 | 3.13 | 3.50 | 1.16 | |
| Ari | 2.74 | .290 | .371 | 3.22 | 4.31 | 1.14 | |
| Cin | 3.20 | .291 | .407 | 3.92 | 3.47 | 1.17 | |
| Det | 2.69 | .292 | .359 | 4.02 | 2.44 | 1.13 | |
| StL | 2.93 | .292 | .373 | 3.63 | 3.41 | 1.14 | |
| SD | 3.57 | .294 | .411 | 4.62 | 2.55 | 1.16 | |
| Oak | 3.72 | .296 | .409 | 3.95 | 3.74 | 1.15 | |
| SF | 3.18 | .296 | .363 | 3.68 | 2.29 | 1.19 | |
| Hou | 5.96 | .300 | .472 | 5.03 | 2.53 | 1.21 | |
| Atl | 3.55 | .300 | .404 | 3.64 | 4.00 | 1.18 | |
| CWS | 3.54 | .301 | .364 | 4.08 | 2.23 | 1.21 | |
| Col | 3.63 | .307 | .377 | 4.27 | 1.72 | 1.20 | |
| Cin | 5.37 | .309 | .447 | 5.08 | 2.13 | 1.27 | |
| Bos | 4.14 | .309 | .383 | 4.63 | 1.86 | 1.25 | |
| Bos | 4.76 | .309 | .454 | 5.28 | 2.43 | 1.24 | |
| Mil | 3.78 | .309 | .438 | 3.75 | 4.03 | 1.26 | |
| Cle | 3.82 | .309 | .371 | 3.51 | 3.17 | 1.26 | |
| LAA | 4.20 | .310 | .388 | 4.17 | 2.11 | 1.23 |
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