4/29/2009 Jordan Schafer

1 AB, 0 R, 0 H, 0 RBI, 3 BB, 0 K, 0 LOB, 1 SB

Prepare for Metamorphosis. Ready, Kafka?

He’s ready.
Last night it was plainly obvious that he is the best option the Braves have for a leadoff hitter. In fact, based on last night, from my seat, he looked like the 2nd or 3rd best hitter in the entire lineup. And he didn’t even get a hit. That might be a testament to how poor the Braves’ lineup is, but either way, Schafer is better than most everyone except Chipper at this point.

Here’s his line from the past three series the Braves have played (9 games):
21 AB, 3 R, 6 H, 12 BB, 5 SO, 2 IBB, 1 SB, .285 AVG, .606 OBP, .429 SLG

And here’s his line from the three series before that (9 games):
35 AB, 5 R, 9 H, 1 BB, 16 SO, .257 AVG, .278 OBP, .314 SLG

That is drastic improvement.
We all sort of know it will happen at some point and chances are Cox will wait just a bit longer (my money is on the start of next week), but the change is imminent.

On a side note, I had the good fortune of attending this game. It was a great night in Atlanta to enjoy a game. Perfect weather and I sat beside two guys from South Africa who were, perhaps, two of the more…ummm…interesting people I’ve ever met in my life. Good times were had by all.

But I will confess it is quite frustrating just how much you miss while enjoying the scene of the game while actually at the game.
Vasquez pitched well and finished the 8th inning…quite a feat now-a-days. He gave up 5 earned, but mostly on seeing-eye singles. Truly bad luck. It was kind of lost on me, though. Until I saw the box score this morning, I had no clue. I guess my new friends from South Africa and their pretty friend from there in Georgia had me more distracted than I had thought.

I did make note of Schafer getting his first MLB Stolen Base though. So the evening wasn’t completely a loss.

4/29/2009 Yovani Gallardo

Yovani Gallardo does it all himself: 8 IP, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 11 K, WIN, 1 HR, 1 RBI

Gene Macha had an easy post game interview on Wednesday. Other than the choice of Carlos Villanueva over Trevor Hoffman getting the save opportunity, there was nothing to talk about that was not Yovani Gallardo.

MLB.com summed up this press conference with a Macha quote:

“This ought to be pretty fast,” Macha said after settling into a seat in front of reporters. “Hitting: Gallardo. Pitching: Gallardo. Any questions?”

This is only the 7 th time in MLB history this has ever happened. The last game won by a starting pitcher’s home run was on 8/28/2002, when the Dodgers Odalis Perez went deep off Rick Helling of the Diamondbacks. Other pitchers to achieve this feat are guys like Early Wynn and Jim Bunning, both in the Hall of Fame.

In his last 23 innings Gallardo has been especially stingy with only 2 runs surrendered. This is an organization that has lost both Ben Sheets and CC Sabathia over the past season, and still has to compete with big market teams like the Cardnials and the Cubs. Yovani is definitely a big piece of this club if they expect to keep that competitiveness.

Gallardo does it all in brilliant outing[Adam McCalvy / MLB.com]

4/28/2009 Felix Hernandez

King Felix gets his 4th win: 8 IP, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 8 K, WIN

The Seattle Mariners have the 28th lowest OPS in baseball. And they also have the lowest team ERA.

They have quietly assembled a very solid starting rotation with Hernandez, Bedard, and Washburn. Bedard has a history of being wonderfully inconsistent, showing flashes of brilliance followed by an outing or two where he struggles. Jarrod Washburn when healthy is a solid option that can be used with confidence.

With King Felix as an ace and the rest of the staff being strong, the Mariners might actually have a chance to compete in the AL West. But then again this could all be a mirage and they could very easily stop getting everything to bounce their way like it has been in the early part of 2009. If the M’s are going to compete, they will need luck and health on their side.

This game 2 of a double header showed Hernandez at his best. You saw great examples of his ability to get ahead of the count early and keep hitters off balance with changes in velocity. When he gets ahead in the count, Felix is absolutely deadly.

Felix Hernandez pitches a gem as Mariners split doubleheader with White Sox[Geoff Baker / Seattle Times]

4/27/2009 Dexter Fowler

Dexter Runs Wild on Chris Young: 2-4 2 BB 3 R 5 SB

On a night when Albert Pujols strikes out twice, Murphy’s law is in full effect.

The Rockies had some serious green light action going on between third base coach Mike Gallego and basically any one on the roster with young legs. 11 bases were stolen last night in Colorado and the Denver police have Ian Stewart, Ryan Spilborghs, Clint Barmes, and Dexter Fowler listed as the prime suspects.

Fowler is clearly the ring leader of the bunch, as his crimes include 5 bags instead of the 2 taken by other players. He has been having a bit of a break out year in pretty much all aspects of the game, and is the current front runner for the NL Rookie of the Year award.

.302/.393/.491 is a great line for a veteran. Consider that Fowler is in his rookie campaign and it is eye popping. Quietly he has started to give indications that he will live up to his lofty prospect status.

Every crime scene has a victim. In this case it was the big 6 foot 10 inch Padre right hander Chris Young. The stolen bases fueled a big offensive day for the Rockies.

Fowler Swipes 5 Bags.[Thomas Harding / MLB.com]

4/26/2009 Jay Bruce

Capping the big inning 3-3, BB, 2 HR, 3 R, 4 RBI, outfield assist

Honestly, my man-love affair with Micah Owings almost led me to lead off with him, not only getting his first win as a Red with a six-strikeout performance, but going 2-for-3 with a double and a run scored.  But I’m not going to do that.

Instead, I will talk about one of the best young bats in the bigs.  Jay Bruce did everything right on Sunday, blasting one two-run shot around the left-field foul pole before pushing another, even farther, into the Sun Deck in right field.

All of that offense, however, obscured the fact that Bruce was also getting it done in the field as well. Bruce played rally-killer in the seventh, throwing out Yunel Escobar to end the frame as he tried to stretch a single into a double.

The Reds need consistency.  It’s one of the biggest flaws in the team, as Dusty Baker has elected not to find a veteran guy to bring off the bench and keep the ship generally righted.  If these kids can keep themselves in the hunt through June, that could certainly change.

“I like it to equate it to spring time,” Baker said. “It’s hot one day, cold the next day. You have a well-pitched game against you like we had (Saturday), that makes you look bad.

“And when you have a young team, you tend to be a little more inconsistent than an older team. If I had all those answers, we’d never look bad.”

So Bruce raises his batting average to 14 points shy of .300, which is where he needs to be for a team that could get more use from a Barry Larkin style hitter than an Adam Dunn style hitter.

Or maybe it’s all just some guy from Dayton.

Owings gets first win since joining Reds [Jeff Wallner / MLB.com]

4/25/2009 Mark Teixeira

Mark Teixeira not getting anything to hit 0-1 5 BB

How scared are AL pitchers of Nick Swisher? Apparently not at all. The Red Sox pitched around Mark for all 4 hours of this marathon game. Thankfully for the Yankees, their other slugger Alex Rodriguez will be back in action soon. He was able to resume running today for the first time since before the injury was found. Without Rodriguez, opponents have no reason to pitch to Teixeira.

The strategy backfired for Boston, as Mark managed to score three of the five times he was on base thanks to a great day for Robinson Cano. Robinson Cano was 3-6 with 5 rbi. Boston will go for the sweep tomorrow as they throw rookie Justin Masterson versus Yankee veteran Andy Pettite.

On an unrelated note, Congratulations to Mark for recording his 1,000 th career hit versus the Sox last night. Here is to 1,000 more and change.

MLB.com Box Score[MLB.com]

4/23/2009 Albert Pujols

Albert Pujols isn’t Superman. Or so we think.:
4 AB, 4 R, 3 H, 3 RBI, 1 BB, 1 SO, 2 LOB, 2 HR, 1 IBB, 1 SB, 9 TB

Cardinals 12, Mets 8

Congrats to El Hombre.
He had what would have to be the fullest statline we’ve chronicled to date.
There is a lot of ground that could be covered here:
The two HRs. The SB. The IBB. The RBI’s, etc.

But I would like to focus on the one thing he actually did wrong…so far as the boxscore can show, of course.
The Strikeout.

It was his 4th of the season. He’s played in all 16 of the Cardinals’ games. So one out of every four games, he strikes out. So what?
Well, if you play that out over a full 162 games, he’s on ‘pace’ — dangerous to talk pace in April, I know — to Strikeout 40.5 times. Again, so what?
Well, according to Baseball Reference’s Play Index, only seven times in the history of baseball has a player hit 40 HR and struck out 40 or fewer times in a season. That’s it. Only SEVEN.

And, if you want to take it a bit further, only ONCE in the history of baseball hit 50 HR and K’s fewer than 50 times. Johnny Mize, 1947.
However, no one has ever hit 50 HR with 40 or fewer SO. And that is where Pujols could be heading.

He’s never hit 50 HRs in a single season. His career high is 49 in 2006. And he’s never struck out fewer than 40 times either. His career low is 50, also in 2006.
So he’ll probably Strikeout today a couple times and blow all of this out of the water. But then again, he might not strike out again until next month. We know he won’t play all 162 games. He’ll get days off to rest, we hope, as health will be the primary factor in all of this. If he has to hit the DL twice, or has a nagging injury he can play through, the odds of getting to even 40 HR are basically shot. We know that. And pitchers will pitch to him less and less. We also know that.
But it is kinda fun to think of the possibilities. That is, if you are a Pujols fan. And it seems hard to not be.

And for some extra nuggets…
He also has 4 Doubles and 5 Intentional Walks on the year. So he’s on pace (there’s that word again) to have the same number of those as he does SOs too.

So maybe LaRussa wasn’t just blowing smoke when he said this:
“Perfect player, in my opinion.”
And Pujols himself added this:
“If my swing is good,” Pujols said, “I’m going to hit the ball hard everywhere. My job is to try to see a pitch that I can hit, and drive it.”

I can attest to this fact about him hitting the ball hard and I am pretty sure Daniel Murphy can as well. Wednesday night, the Cards played the Mets on ESPN. Pujols had a ho-hum 2-3 night and his out was a deep fly to Murphy on the warning track in Left. His next AB, he hit a grounder to LF that Murphy had to pick just as if he were playing 3B. He absolutely crushed a ball that basically ate up a guy in Left Field. I’d say his swing is good.

Thanks to Matthew Leach / MLB.com for the quotes.

4/23/2009 Wesley Wright

The definition of garbage time 1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 0 K

Poor guy.

Seriously, to say Wright is a guy who has struggled at the major league level would be a vast understatement.  A solid bullpen worker at Jacksonville (AA) in 2007 before having a rough go in Las Vegas the same year.  This, of course, led to a call-up in 2008, where he pitched 55 2/3 innings in 71 games with a less-than-impressive 5.01 ERA…the definition of a LOOGY.  Things look no better for the role player in 2009, especially his ERA, which has ballooned to almost seven, though he does boast a win on the year.

Though, in his defense, he worked a scoreless ninth inning yesterday to keep the Astros in it.  Too bad the offense couldn’t back him up for win number two.

But, hey, he’s getting paid a lot more than I am to play a kid’s game, right?

LA Dodgers 2, Houston 0 [MLB.com]

4/22/2009 Derek Holland

Derek Holland’s MLB Debut:  2.1 IP 0 R 0 ER 2 K

Holland does well in his first regular season game.

Yep, I still love MLB Debuts.

Holland’s did not come as I expected it to.  I honestly thought he would come in as a starter, pitch well, and never leave the rotation.  However as a minor leaguer, you have to break into the bigs any way you can.

Holland impressed Texas brass with a solid 2 inning relief effort.  He entered the game with the bases full, and only allowed one inherited runner to score as Adam Lind hit an infield single.

Derek then went on to throw two more innings, holding the hot Blue Jay offense scoreless.

Update: Team President Nolan Ryan talks about the decision to call up Holland

How about Derek Holland’s big league debut?[Richard Durrett / Dallas Morning News]

4/22/2009 Chris Getz

No puns, just a strong performance from a rookie 3-4, 3 R, 2 RBI, SF

On a night when most were singing the praises of John Danks for his outstanding pitching effort, little was made of second baseman Chris Getz, who very quietly went 3-for-4, getting the White Sox on the board early as they never looked back in an 8-2 trouncing of the Orioles.  With rumors already swirling that Gordon Beckham is poised to step up and man the right side of the Comisky infield, games like this will need to become more regular in nature for the 20-game MLB veteran.

White Sox 8, Baltimore 2 [MLB.com]