Jumping Ship

Tonight I had the rare chance to actually watch some Baseball Tonight, and SportCenter. I rely heavily on online material and data bases for my information and I thought that while I watched my beloved Twins lose for only the second time in 10 games that these programs could help me with some material of their own. Sure enough the only thing they did was piss me off. How can the call themselves the leader in sports but only focus on a few teams (BoSox, Yanks, Mets, and any game that they covered in the day (last one for Baseball Tonight). I am fine with some east coast biased; we all know it is there. But what tickled me funny was how much talk was going on about the 50 win Rays (tied with BoSox in wins, but winning division by percentage points). I have loved the Rays back when the Devil still invested their god-awful team. But now that they are winning they actually talk about more than just Carl Crawford. For everything I watched tonight I heard more about the Boston-Tampa brawl and their impeding game then I did about actual baseball tonight. I am coming to a place where I might have to say that if I want to watch Web Gems and Top Plays that I should just tune in for the last 10 minutes, as I have developed a distaste for such poor coverage of the league.

Edgar (Victor) Gonzalez- When a player who hits only 64 career minor league homers in over 3000 games hits 2 in one game it shouldn’t go unnoticed. So I just wanted to give this 30 year old some props for hitting 2 out in Denver. Wait what am I thinking? Nick Punto could hit 2 as well, but that is if he is going to make contact. Enough with my rant, here is what I saw tonight:

Gavin Floyd- When is he going to slow down? Fanning 10 Indians tonight in 6 innings led to his 9th win of the season.

Nick Swisher- Another 2 home runs and 5 RBI (one being another grand slam). Ending a month with a bang (3 HR 9RBI in last 4 games), especially since in those games he basically equaled his May totals.

Jim Thome- Bash Brother number II hit a homer to go along with Swisher’s as the White Sox socked it to the Indians 9-7.

Mike Aviles- He has keep up his average, but his power that everyone was so thrilled about is almost non-existent now (3 homers in 88 at-bats). As I said here and here, he will provide decent numbers (17/3/15 and a .319 average with 2 stolen bases) Translate that to 400 at bats and you get 68/12/60 and 8 stolen bases. Once the full scouting report gets out he might see his average drop to the .290 range. I would be surprised if those homer numbers are actually high, but batting in the lead-off spot like he has did tonight and the 2-hole like has done since being called up might allow for those runs to increase.

Matt Capps- Blow yet another save tonight by serving up a 2-run walk-off home run by Ken Griffey. June was his roughest month blowing 4 saves, yet finished with his best numbers yet. There isn’t anything to worry about because who is going to replace him? Seriously who?

Eric Byrnes- He left Monday’s game with a strained left hamstring. Coming off a career year he hasn’t been anything but disappointing. Recently coming off the DL when he was listed with both hammies strained, he re-injures one of them. Expect him to land back on the DL.

Aaron Harang- Finally a good start from this Harang-atang (seriously look at that mug shot). He pitched 7 strong innings of 7 hits and 3 runs allowed. It was only his third quality start since he was used as a reliever, and it was his first time over 7 strike outs since his 9 in his relief appearance. Last year June and August were his best months, and career wise May and August are his best months. With this good start look for things to finally turn around for this workhorse.

Greg Smith- Pitched his second complete game this season tonight against the Angels. He allowed just a solo home run by Mike Napoli in the 5th, but other than that he was fortunate as his Ground ball-Fly ball ratio was a homer-riffic 5-19, but was lucky that they found a teammates glove all but for four hits, and his 3 strike outs. Going off of yesterdays post about inning limits (as the A’s should be watching closely), Greg’s highest innings in a season pitched in the minors was in 2006 with 148 innings, and last year he pitched in only 122 innings. That means he should be able to throw another 50ish innings (aka another two months). We could be looking at a potential ROY, and he was part of the Dan Haren trade with the DBacks, so he has the talent to do so.

Juan Pierre- Sprained his MCL and will likely be out 4-6 weeks (MLB.com). This is quite a hit to the Dodgers are he has been quietly stolen 35 bases. This one-category winner was on pace for over 70 thefts, but now will likely finish the season in the high 40’s because the MCL is a key ligament in taking off.