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7/10/2009
Billy-Ball Daily
Bill Chuck (Billy-Ball his own self)
FROM THE BILL CHUCK ALL-STAR FILES…
By Baseball Newstalgist, Bill Chuck
July 10, 2009
Happy birthday this weekend to eight-time All-Star Andre Dawson, two-time All-Star Andy Ashby, and two-time All-Star Ron Fairly. To those of you who are attending the All-Star game, I wish I was there with you.
1. There have been three walkoff homers in All-Star Games, all involving the Red Sox. The first was Ted Williams’ three-run blast in the 1941 game off the Cubs Claude Passeau that gave the AL a 7-5 victory. The second was hit by Stan Musial in the 12th inning of the ’55 Game off Boston pitcher Frank Sullivan to give the NL a 6-5 victory. The last walkoff was hit at Shea Stadium by Johnny Callison of the Sox reliever Dick “The Monster” Radatz in 1964, the three-run dinger gave the NL a 7-4 win.
2. Through Wednesday, Zach Greinke leads the majors with the most innings pitched (127.1) without tossing an intentional walk.
3. This is the 25th Home Run Derby the first, in 1985, was won by Dave Parker. The most have been won Junior Griffey, who has won it three times, although he is not the only Junior to have won, Cal Ripken, Jr. won it in 1991.
4. Derek Jeter is truly entering rarified company on the all-time hit list. Over just the next few weeks he will pass the following Hall of Famers: Jimmie Foxx, Ted Williams, Harry Heilmann, Nellie Fox, and Max Carey.
5. Through Wednesday, Chris Dickerson had 12 RBI in 181 at bats, Ted Williams holds the All-Star record with 12 RBI in 46 at bats.
6. First time All-Star Brandon Inge already has more hits, runs, homers and RBI than all of last season is batting about 60 points higher.
7. The Brewers played exactly half of their first 84 games at home and Prince Fielder had similar numbers in most categories: 30 walks at home, 31 on the road, 37 strikeouts at home, 35 on the road, 9 doubles at home, 11 on the road, 1 triple at home and on the road, 10 homers at home, 12 on the road. However, Fielder’s batting avg. was .276 at home and a whopping .340 on the road.
8. Justin Duchscherer (2005, 08), Keith Foulke (2003), Dan Haren (2007), Tim Hudson (2000, 04), Barry Zito (2002, 03, 06), Andrew Bailey (2009): All Oakland A’s All-Stars, all pitchers. The last non-pitcher representing the A’s was catcher Ramon Hernandez in 2003.
9. Through Thursday, Carl Crawford had 78 homers and 87 triples reminiscent of Bert Campaneris’ career totals of 79 homers and 86 triples.
10. Reliever Todd Jones ended his career with 43 wild pitches in 1072 innings. Mariano Rivera has about 1060 innings under his belt, but with only 11 wild pitches.
11. Through Wednesday, Garrett Atkins had seven doubles in 232 at bats, Dave Winfield holds the All-Star record with seven doubles in 36 at bats.
12. Ben Zobrist entered this season with 15 homers and 57 RBI in 145 games played in his career. So far this year, Zobrist has 17 homers and 50 RBI in 78 games.
13. Through Wednesday, Brad Hawpe already has 26 doubles this season topping last year’s total of 24 and approaching his high of 33 that he had in 2006 and 2007.
14. In 2008, at the break David Wright had 17 homers, in 2007-16 homers, in 2006 – 20 homers, in 2005 – 11 homers; this year, he has only handful.
15. Since 2003, only Albert Pujols, Manny Ramirez, Mark Teixeira, and Carlos Lee have at least 1000 hits, 200 doubles, 200 homers, and 700 RBI.
16. Of the active pitchers with at least 2500 innings pitched Andy Pettitte has the fewest complete games with 25, followed by Jaime Moyer with 31, and first time All-Star Tim Wakefield with 32.
17. This week Paul Konerko and Andruw Jones joined Andre Ethier and All-Star Torii Hunter hitting three jacks in one game, but none have accomplished what Hall of Famer Gary Carter’s feat of a two-homer All-Star game and a two-homer World Series game.
18. Through Wednesday, Heath Bell leads the majors with the most innings pitched (36.1) without surrendering a homer.
19. Albert Pujols will lead the majors with over 80 RBI by the All-Star break. The first player to have 100+ RBI by the All-Star Game was Hank Greenberg who had 103 at the 1935 break…Greenberg was not a member of the All-Star team.
20. There are 25 first-time All-Stars heading to St. Louis for this year's game which makes Warren Spahn’s record 14 All-Star appearances all the more amazing.
Bill Chuck is the creator of Billy-Ball.com (www.Billy-Ball.com) and, with Jim Kaplan, is the author of the book, “Walk-Offs, Last Licks, and Final Outs – Baseball’s Grand (and not so Grand) Finales,” with a Foreword by Jon Miller, published by ACTA Sports, and available worldwide.
Bill Chuck is available for radio appearances, and writing for print or the web. Please contact me at Bill@billy-ball.com or by calling 617-566-2784.
NINE TO KNOW - JULY 10, 2009
Here are nine things you need to know in order to talk baseball today.
1. Sweep: Okay, we get it, the Yankees are not kidding around. They throw a relief pitcher Alfredo Aceves in for a spot start so in order to compensate Mark Teixeira hits his first dinger in 96 at-bats and the Yankees beat the Twins, 6-4. The Yanks swept the three-game set in Minnesota and the season series from the Twins, 7-0. On top of that, the Yanks have won eight straight on the road, their longest streak since 1998. Talk about: This is the first time the Yankees have swept a season of at least seven games since 2003, when they also went 7-0 against the Twins.Mariano Rivera picked up his 23rd save.
2. Sweep: It was fun while it lasted for the Blue Jays, but the All-Star break is coming a week too late. The TB Rays finished off a three game sweep of the Jays, 3-2, as David Price outpitched Roy Halladay. Doc is 10-3 and has lost twice to the Rays this season who do well at home against everyone and great against Toronto winning 12 of their last 14 home games vs. the Blue Jays. Talk about: Halladay allowed three runs and nine hits in seven innings. He walked none and struck out eight in what could be his last Toronto start. Could be, you never know.
3. B2B CYA?: Could Tim Lincecum be on his way to back-to-back Cy Young Awards? He’s got my vote as last night he moved to 10-2 after his Giants defeated the Padres, 9-3. Lincecum carried a no-no into the 7th inning when his scoreless innings streak ended at 29, third longest in San Francisco history. By the way, Lincecum is making $650,000 this season. Talk about: Hall of Famer Gaylord Perry pitched 40 straight scoreless innings in 1967 and then 39 in a row in 1970 for the Giants.
4. Jayson is Werth it: Jayson Werth certainly is hitting like an All-Star. Last night, he homered for the fourth straight game, his seventh homer in the last 12 games, as the Phils topped the Reds, 9-6. The great Chase Utley ran the circuit as he hit an inside-the-parker as the Phils now have four (count ‘em, four) sluggers with 20+ jacks before the All-Star break: Raul Ibanez has 22, Ryan Howard has 21, Chase Utley has 20, and Jayson Werth has 20. The 2000 Toronto Blue Jays are the only other team to accomplish this. Talk about: The Phils are finally feeling at home this season taking three of four from the Reds to win just their fourth home series. The Citizens Bank champions are 6-1 on this homestand, improving to 19-23 at the bank they call home.
5. A bad Boston combo: Even when you have the best bullpen, if your starters don’t go deep, you’re asking for trouble. Last night, the BoSox got only five innings from starter Brad Penny and poor relief pitching from Manny Delcarmen, Justin Masterson, and Ramon Ramirez and the bad combo resulted in an ugly 8-6 loss to the Royals, one of the worst hitting teams in baseball. Boston is 5-5 in their last 10 and is only 3-4 on the 10-game homestand that started with Seattle and Oakland. The result (other than indigestion) is the Sox have dropped into a first-place tie with Yankees. Talk about: Congrats to David Ortiz who slammed his 300th career homer, the 19th active player to reach the milestone. Nine of his 11 home runs this season have come against right handers and nine of 11 have been at home.
6. In football news: Florida defeated Arizona, 14-7. The Marlins scored 10 times in the 8th inning, the most runs they ever scored in one inning. The Dreadfulbacks had a 7-0 lead enabling the Fish to match their team record for the biggest comeback victory and Arizona to set a club record for the largest blown lead. Talk about: I think this is cool; the Marlins sent up 14 batters in the 8th including Ross Gload, Brett Carroll (who hit a three-run homer) and Hanley Ramirez. Each was a pinch-hitter and each batted twice in the inning.
7. In the NL Central battle: The Cardinals behind Joel Piniero opened a two-game gap between them and Milwaukee as St. Louis topped the Brew Crew, 5-1. The Cards took two-of-three as Pineiro (7-9), who went the route, improved to 2-6 in his last nine starts. It was Pineiro's 12th complete game of his 10-year career. Talk about: The Brewers didn't leave a man on base for the ninth time in team history and first since June 17, 2008, against Toronto.
8. I love my walkoffs: The Nats split two games, winning the first for a Pirate and losing the second to extend their losing streak to four games. Now I know, you are accustomed to me garbling sentences, but believe me that one made sense. Let me explain. Washington and Houston completed their suspended 11-inning game that began on May 5. The game resumed with one out in the bottom of the 11th inning (with Nationals at the plate, despite the action being in Houston) with a runner, Elijah Dukes, on first. Nyjer Morgan, who was with the Pirates when the game began, was sent in to pinch-run because Dukes is now in the minors. Morgan scored as the result of a wild throw by Miguel Tejada giving Washington an 11-10 win. The winning pitcher was Joel Hanrahan who is no longer with the Nationals because he was traded to Pittsburgh to get Morgan. The last time a team won a suspended walk-off after it was moved to the visitor's home stadium was in 1975 when the Yankees and Twins played a game on July 12 at Shea Stadium and then resumed it on July 19 at Metropolitan Stadium.Talk about: In the regularly scheduled game, Lance Berkman hit a three-run blast to lead Houston to a 9-4 win and extend Washington’s current losing streak to four.
9. BUY IT.
Walk-Offs, Last Licks, and Final Outs – Baseball’s Grand (and not so Grand) Finales, is a terrific present for any occasion and is available on Amazon.com. Read an excerpt on SI.com. More of my Red Sox notes can often be found on http://sawxheads.trufan.com/.
Check my Tweet for #10 – http://twitter.com/BillyBall
Bill Chuck is the creator of Billy-Ball.com (www.Billy-Ball.com) and, with Jim Kaplan, is the author of the book, “Walk-Offs, Last Licks, and Final Outs – Baseball’s Grand (and not so Grand) Finales,” with a Foreword by Jon Miller, published by ACTA Sports, and available worldwide.
Bill Chuck is available for radio appearances, and writing for print or the web: Bill@billy-ball.com or 617-566-2784.
Bill Chuck is the creator of Billy-Ball.com (www.Billy-Ball.com) and, with Jim Kaplan, is the author of the book, “Walk-Offs, Last Licks, and Final Outs – Baseball’s Grand (and not so Grand) Finales,” with a Foreword by Jon Miller, published by ACTA Sports, and available worldwide.
Bill Chuck is available for radio appearances, and writing for print or the web: Bill@billy-ball.com or 617-566-2784.
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