Looks like Zimmerman’s hit streak is snapped.
Boo!
Not that I thought he was gonna break it or anything…but I was rooting for him
(good guy) and…good god…Washington needs something to believe in.
Also: My Brew Crew just keep winning despite having a starting rotation full of number 2 and 3 guys. I am by no means complaining…but this season has gone WAY better than I expected.
I think the Brewers, Reds, or Cards could win the NL Central. It will come down to injuries and who gets hot. Still, the Brewers will need to do a repeat of last year and bring in Peavy as a rental.
I’d be surprised if the Reds don’t sweep tonight. Johnny Cueto is turning into a monster.
Still, he may have an off day, the Dbacks could suddenly find hits, etcetera.
Sorry about not knowing whom Haren was. It’s hard enough to be microscopically caught up in the teams I love (Bengals, UK Wildcats, Reds, in that order), let alone be a scout for the opposing teams pitcher for 162 games.
Dale…I think your team sucks. I wish I could say it was my team that was good, but watching that meltdown in the seventh…yeesh.
The Reds win again (I think, it’s the ninth, but I had to stops watching after 10-3).
Are we for real? Are we? God, I wish I knew. I’m so tired of false hopes for this team.
The Diamondbacks do indeed stink this year. There is no other way to say it. I don’t know what this team can do to turn it around. That team which was so hot the first month and a half in 2008 has underperformed since then.
Still, it is a long season. The D-backs don’t really have a lot of players to sell at the trade deadline, so they won’t gut the team and give up on the season. Outside of the Dodgers, there aren’t any decent teams in the NL West.
I used to love watching the Diamonbacks back when they had Randy and Curt pitching. That team that beat the Yanks in the Series that year (2002? 2001?) was a fun team to root for.
That was quite a game between the Angels and the Red Sox. Angels 5-4 in 12 innings.
Boston left about 257 guys on base, and David Ortiz went 0-7 and left about 43 men on.
Damn Tigers let the Twits win the last 2 when they had them in their hands. It is sad, they could have gotten a little spread. Verlander had a terrific game today and gets a no decision.
Damn, right now the NL Central is pretty hotly contested. You’ve got St Louis and Milwaukee at 21-14 and Chicago and Cincinnati at 20-14. Shit’s tight!!
Bummer to lose 2 out of 3 to the Yankees, but you can’t win them all. Still in first. Sabathia pitched very well, whaddya gonna do.
mhendo, in fact Ortiz set a new Red Sox record by leaving 12 men on base. Wow, that’s actually a pretty amazing number.
I’m not surprised it was a record.
I watched the game from the fourth inning onwards, and saw all but 2 of Ortiz’s at-bats. I’m no expert on swing analysis, but he just didn’t look at all comfortable or confident at the plate. I haven’t watched a whole lot of Red Sox games this season, but if he’s been swinging all year like he was today, i’m not surprised that he’s OPSing .650.
It’s amazing, though, how a myth/legend endures even when it’s contradicted by current performance. Every time Ortiz stepped to the plate, especially on the two occasions when the bases were loaded, the Angels’ announcers were talking about how dangerous he is, what a clutch hitter he is, how he can hurt you in these situations, and on and on, ad nauseum.
They did have the grace, though, to point out that when he came to the plate with first base open, in a tight situation, Scioscia chose to pitch to him rather than walk him, which is some measure of Ortiz’s current doldrums.
By the way, has anyone been watching any Rangers games?
Their young shortstop, Elvis Andrus, has been making some amazing plays. Check out his range in this clip.
Everyone knew he had amazing abilities in the field, but his minor league career has been a story of mediocre hitting. The Rangers must be happy that they’re getting a .281/.317/.427 line out of him so far this season.
The Texas Rangers almost let a huge lead slip away tonight. Wow, from 10-3 to 10-8. Still, a nice win over the Angels. But, I hate watching a team almost choke away a huge lead. Just get up there and throw strikes.
The A’s are getting the living daylights pounded out of them tonight in Detroit in between long rain delays. I bet both teams just wish they could call this off. Even as a paying fan, I wouldn’t want to watch 13-1 in the rain. I thought the A’s might be starting to turn things around after those nice wins earlier this week. How wrong I was.
Of course the D-backs lost, although they made it close tonight.
What the Hell is up with the Marlins? This team is in a horrible slump right now. They’re got far too much talent to play like this.
Maybe it is just one of those nights in baseball.
The Angels almost came back from a 10-3 deficit.
Yankees came back to beat the Twins
Rays came back to beat the Indians.
Red Sox bench Ortiz. About time.
Of course, not every team came back. The A’s managed to lose 14-1 to Detroit.
I fell asleep in the 8th inning of the Yankees game, when they were down 4-2. I missed the comeback, but it’s nice to wake up expecting a loss and seeing a win!
It’s his image. Once an image is attached to a player it’s hard to shake, even when it’s not supported, or even contradicted, by evidence; look at the image Paul Lo Duca picked up as being “Mr. Heart and Soul.” There was nothing to it, but that was the image attached to him.
Ortiz’s struggles are weird. It’s no surprise a big fat guy is starting to lose it at 33; players like Ortiz usually don’t last very long. What’s strange is how he’s losing it; his inability to hit home runs. Normally, big slow guys fall out of baseball because they become too bad at everything else - their batting averages collapse and they can’t run and have no defensive ability. Cecil Fielder was out of baseball at age 34 but he could still hit the ball a mile, just not enough to make up for his inability to do anything else. Ortiz’s sudden inability to hit home runs is bizarre, and I’m inclined to think he’s still got some home runs in him, and that a break is just what he needs.
… and the Mets came back from 4 runs down to beat the Giants 8-6. There hasn’t been any Mets talk, on this page anyway, perhaps because every positive has a “but” attached to it. They’re in first place, but the last two years have made that something difficult to be proud of. The starting pitching seems better, but Oliver Perez’s spot is totally up for grabs and Livan Hernandez is probably living on borrowed time as well. The hitting is improving (but for home runs), but not when Johan Santana is pitching. David Wright is back among the living, but Delgado may be done for the season and Reyes is hurt, tired, slumping, or possibly just thinking about something else. They’re playing really aggressively (7 stolen bases the night before, and that without Reyes), but are making a lot of stupid baserunning mistakes also (and have gotten the benefit of a more than a few bad calls).
I still say they’re not markedly inferior to the Phils, and the Marlins will need to get the benefit of a bunch of best-ever seasons to compete, and I don’t know what the hell to think about the Braves. At least the Mets probably won’t finish in the cellar, even if Zimmerman hits .900 the rest of the way.
I don’t find David Ortiz’s struggles that surprising or perplexing. He is off the juice now. That is all. Manny probably got him started. After all, he only got very good after he left Minnesota and came to Boston.
Mariners might be coming around. They lost the last two games against Texas because Morrow blew saves. They held on against the BoSox when Aardsma came in the ninth. I am not confident in Morrow as closer. I’d actually rather he would have turned into a starter this season. Now it is too late for that. I don’t know if they will contend, but I think they can finish above .500.
Got to love the steroid era. Players doing surprising well, must be steroids. A player struggling more than expected, must be lack of steroids. It isn’t like these occurrences have been happening since the beginning of the game or anything.
**Ichbin
**
At this point it is really difficult to get excited about something the Mets do in May.