The Braves offense shows up for Tommy.

Giants bullpen starts its regression to the mean....

Good thing Diaz screwed up the two bunt attempts

Stay classy Brewers

Prince Fielder better go down tomorrow

I guess Karstens did deserve it.

Finally a win against the Brewers.

Garrett Jones hit his 8th solo homer in 15 games.

Phils win 9 in a row, NL East race might be over in August.

Unfortunately, I think this also means the Holladay race is over as well.

Jose Guillen going off again, but it's a bit different than previous episodes.......

Guillen: `I suck’ and am `embarrassed by the money I’m making’ - Kansas City Star

How do all of these sentences make sense together?

Know what though? Kudos to him (and David Ortiz earlier this year) for both being like "yeah I suck right now."

Love this quote: “Sometimes, I feel I should take money out of my own pocket and buy tickets for every fan. Because you know what? For a $12 million man, these are not the numbers you should be expecting. I admit it. I’m not playing to my potential.”

Ugh.

I know it's been discussed here already but Kung Fu Panda really is the best baseball nickname in quite a while.

Walk off Winner for Werth! Phils win 10 in a row. What makes it even better is that he hit it off of Notre Dame grad Jeff Samardzija. Stupid Domer!

+1,000,000!

:D

+10,000,000

Time to bookmark the wild card standings I'm afraid.

Bora$ has got to be one of the most evil men in sports...no?

Rumour has it Strasburg will be not be signing with the Nationals before the deadline next month. What a joke.

hxxp://masnsports.com/2009/07/nats-wont-sign-strasburg.html

Great game tonight. Park has impressed the hell out of me recently. After he looked like he was cooked early in the season he has been doing GREAT out of the pen recently.

that's so frigging obnoxious

dola - doesn't sound like the Nats are actually negotiating in good faith though.



Gomez, citing a source close to the negotiations, said the Nationals have had ongoing dialog with Strasburg's advisor Scott Boras, but they have made no offer other than the mandatory minor league tender that all clubs must make to their picks within 10 days of the draft. That is a standard minor league deal that pays the player $1,000 per month but does not include any bonus money.

IIRC, he was effective in the same role with the Dodgers last year. Putting him as a starter is just not his thing, though.

Another series win for the Astros. They've won 11 out of the last 14 series they've played (not counting the split against the Dodgers)...

Hopefully Roy can complete the sweep tomorrow against Carpenter. We've only swept one series all season and that was back in early May...

This roadtrip needs to end NOW

If the Nats really won't pay Strasburg and he goes unsigned, wow. What is the record # of years for a franchise moving/being contracted after moving once already?

And I'm not saying that he's necessarily worth the money or the hype. But once you take him at #1 with the Boras factor, you have to be willing to get it done.

Let's hope this is a brilliant ploy, but I really don't think you can pull this on Boras. He doesn't care what people think about him or his clients.

That's what pisses me off more than anything...the last place team should get the best player at the draft...not the most signable. And having to worry about the player's agent is ridiculous. There is enough risk in the draft why does an agent have come into play?

Argh.

I agree 100%.

I mean at this point why bother with the draft anyway. If people slip due to signability concerns you might as well do away with the draft completely and just make everyone a UFA and let the big-money teams skip the farce of having a draft (says a fan of a big-money team)

Rumor is the Chisox made an offer for Halladay as well and got shot down.

By whom? Toronto, or Halladay? :D

lol, well played :D

Yeah. This has been absolutely ugly so far. If they can't win with Lincecum going tomorrow, then I'll start to get rather worried.

In his short career, he has more wins against the braves then any other team so he's either gonna get a win, or hes due for a loss :D

I don't think it's a surprise that 4 of the losses during the Royals current 8 game losing streak belong to Chen and Ponson. Our rotation falls off significantly on the bottom end. Need a couple more prospects to hurry up. Greinke, Bannister, and Hochevar all look solid at this point.

Again with this? He's had some good starts, but solid?

Now THAT'S the team I want the Nationals to be. Perhaps when there is more than one pitcher with a full MLB year under his belt they can get a win more than every fifth game.

Well, here's the numbers since his return from the minors. Note that the Royals have gone 19-45 during the stretch where he put up these numbers, including 5 wins from him..........

8 starts
5-1 record
52.0 innings pitched
3.81 ERA
1.13 WHIP
2.46/1 K/BB ratio

His ERA has dropped from nearly 11 to 5.09 over the course of two months. It's only two months, but that's more like what was expected from this guy as a 1st round pick. The Royals will take these kinds of numbers anyday from one of their starters.

I suppose we'll see. I wouldn't be surprised to see the guy go 4IP 6ER next time out, so it's hard for me to see that as "solid".

Brad Penny had this stretch this season..................

11 starts
63.2 innings pitched
3.68 ERA
1.35 WHIP
3.25 K/BB ratio.

And I would never use "solid" to describe my feelings for Penny. Holding my breath would be more accurate.

It remains to be seen is Hochevar is having a good stretch, or if he's turned the corner.

Royals fans along with many other teams would be happy to 'hold their breath' for Brad Penny. That's not holding your breath. When you have Sir Sidney Ponson and Bruce Chen in your rotation, you're doing more than holding your breath. You're turning blue in the face at that point.

Ok, I'll buy that Hochevar is "relatively solid".

Looks like Adam LaDouche got traded to the Red Sox for two scrubby prospects.

If Adam's hot, he can carry a team for a week or two per season. Otherwise he's so damned inconsistent.

dola-
Garrett Jones with his 9th solo homer of the year in like 18 games.

Well, LaRoche has an OPS+ of 108 this year, so it's more than just a week or two it seems.

I'm hoping that LaRoche's second half splits continue this year, otherwise he's just a marginal improvement over Kotsay.

I'm talking like he would be our only offense for a week or two at a time. Then he'll go into these very nice slumps.

He'll bat 7th or so on the Sox, he was our cleanup hitter.

Basically LaDouche is a crazy chick.....when it's good it's really good. If it's bad, run for your life.

:lol:

re: scrubby prospects

Argenis Diaz is a wizard with the glove, but has no bat. Don't know anything about the other guy.

You know the Mets are in bad shape when, as a fan, you see an ESPN headline of "Report: Mets exec dares prospects to fight him" and not only are you not surprised that it took place, but you don't even need a half of a second of thinking to know that it's Tony Bernazard and that this is the guy who Minaya relies on more than any other.

Pfft...and he's got a grand total of 11 RBI...WTF? Is he anti-clutch or what??

;)

Argenis Diaz is a guy I've always liked, but he's become expendable with the SS depth behind him in the system now that Iglesias is signed. Basically Jack Wilson, except he'll be making league minimum instead of $6 million a year. Great range as a fielder, has struggled with consistency on the easy plays but that may have been complacency, not much of a bat, some decent speed. Hunter Strickland isn't a name, but he was regarded as a sleeper by some front office people, partially because of his great makeup. Would have been relegated to a bullpen role in Boston, but maybe Pittsburgh will try to keep him as a starter now.He also has pretty big L/R splits and could slide into a platoon with Lowell.

I know you were kidding but that stat line did make me curious.

Coming into today, he's 0-14 with RISP, but he's walked four times and scored all four. He's hitting .400 with nobody on base (16-40) and .087 (2-23) with anybody on base. That is pretty much anti-clutch.

I guess the way to pitch to him is to intentionally walk the guy in front of him.

Feels so fuckin good to take 2 of 3 from the Brewers.