Nine to Know for April 17

Here’s what you should be talking about, reading about, or writing about in baseball today:

1. Matt Wieters hit his first career grand slam in the 10th inning at U.S. Cellular Field as the Orioles topped the White Sox, 10-4. Last season, Alex Rios, Giancarlo Stanton, Mike Morse and Ryan Roberts hit extra-inning grand slams.
2. The Tampa Bay Rays behind James Shields topped the Red Sox, 1-0. The winning run scored on a Daniel Bard bases-filled walk. Bard has walked 84 in his career (including seven yesterday) and yesterday was his fourth walk with the sacks filled. He had three last season including two in one game against the Jays.
3. One more thing about that Sox game: The last time Boston lost 1-0 at Fenway was July 25, 2008 against (you know who) the New York Yankees. The winning pitcher was another reliever turned starter, Joba Chamberlain. Yesterday was the Sox 50th 1-0 loss at home since 1918. They’ve won 69.
4. Justin Verlander moved to 1-1 on the season and 14-2 lifetime against the Royals as he tossed his 14th career complete game as the Tigers edged Kansas City, 3-2. While Verlander has a 2.13 ERA overall his ERA in innings 2 through 8 is 0.00. Verlander has given up one run in the 1st (3.00 ERA) and including two yesterday, he’s given up five runs in the 9th for a 33.75 ERA.
5. Dillon Gee and the New York Mets continued to show the Braves really can’t hit as they defeated Atlanta, 6-1. The Braves, with five hits last night, are hitting .224. By the way, on the Sesame Street win tote board, Gee now has 16 career wins; Joey Jay had 99.
6. Roy Halladay and the Phils topped Tim Lincecum and the Giants, 5-2, in the first regular-season meeting of multiple Cy Young Award winners since Johan Santana and Randy Johnson met up on May 16, 2009. The Phils scored four times in the 1st, which means that Lincecum has now allowed 50 career 1st inning runs including nine this season. Lincecum only allowed eight all of last year and only permitted more 1st inning runs in two other seasons: 10 in his rookie year of 2007 and 16 in 2010.
7. The Minnesota Twins defeated the Yankees, 7-3, last night behind the pitching of Carl Pavano. Pavano is 1-1 with a 5.23 ERA however his WHIP is only 1.065. Those of us in the Billy-Ball.com newsroom were curious what the lowest WHIP was for a qualified starter with an ERA over 5.00 for a complete season and we found that Randy Johnson holds that honor. In 2006, he had an ERA of 5.00 with a WHIP of 1.239. In 2009, Ricky Nolasco had a 5.06/1.254 combo. BTW: Josh Beckett has an ERA of 5.68 this season with a WHIP of 1.105.
8. The Nationals defeated the Astros, 6-3, last night as Stephen Strasburg (2-0) walked one and struck out five and saw his ERA rise from 0.69 to 1.42. While I know the opponents were the Hapless Astros, the Nationals are in first place and they did have Strasburg on the mound and it was a beautiful 84 degree night, but in spite of all that, the Nationals drew only 16,245 to the ballpark last night.
9. Kendrys Morales homered for the first time since he shattered his ankle celebrating a walkoff homer on May 29, 2010, as the Angels topped the A’s, 6-0. Jered Weaver went 6.2 innings and struck out six including the 1,000th of his career.

Here are the active (on MLB rosters) pitchers with at least 1,000 K’s:

Tagged as: Carl Pavano, Daniel Bard, Daniel Gee, James Shields, Justin Verlander, Matt Wieters, Roy Halladay, Stephe, Stephen Strasburg, Tim Lincecum