strong as a can

friday mlb notes
this is gonna be short, since i'm actually busy at work today.
-who says coors inflates statistics?

cory sullivan - at coors: .244 obp, .220 slg. on road: .490, .783
brad hawpe - home: .392, .372. road: .452, .976.
garrett atkins - home: .395, .525. road: .469, .595.
jason smith - home: .304, .238. road: .519, .870.

i guess there's good reason the rockies are 7-3 on the road and 8-7 at home.

-angels uber-prospect howie kendrick arrived in the bigs this week, under the notion of replacing macier izturis. but he immediatedly got a start at second in place of adam kennedy and it seems obvious la may want to shop kennedy, as he's in the last year of his contract. the angels may be wary to dump one of their few decent bats for a guy with only 300 ab's at any level above high a. but the mets could sure use an upgrade at 2b, and st. louis may have a need there as well. is kendrick ready? he's off to a .386 avg, 586 slg for salt lake (aaa), and everything i've found on this guy says you can throw the awful bb rate right out the window since he's never hit less than .342 in the minors.

-let's stick on the angels for another minute. how long can they keeping throwing casey kotchman's name on the lineup card? i thought it was nearly impossible to have a worse hitting first baseman than darin erstad, but la has done it. kotchman is off to a sub-.400 OPS start (that's tony womack territory!). unfortunately, they don't have much in the wings. kendry morales is off to a slow start in salt lake, and dallas mcpherson has k'd in more than half his ab's there as well. mcpherson is hitting a lot of extra base hits, but i doubt they'll try and move him to first. should la try what the cross town dodgers did (i.e. pull up a guy like loney from AA)? that may be there best bet - mike elyward (their first baseman in arkansas) is 3rd in the texas league in both avg (.372) and ops (1.027).

-i can't believe i'm saying this, but claudio vargas looked phenomenal on tuesday. he was absolutely painting the corners with his fastball en route to an utterly dominating performance against the dads. he only struck out 4 in 7 innings, but allowed just 4 hits and walked not a batter. i watched this game live and just couldn't believe what i was seeing, as vargas froze hitters left and right. i have no doubt, though, that he'll be back to normal in no time.

-early bid for comeback player of the year in the al? phil nevin. tim salmon is probably cursing him, as nevin has posted an ops just shy of 1.000 thus far. granted he plays in texas, but nevin's bat speed looks good he's posting a road obp/slg of .350/485. not bad for a guy who was traded from the offensively useless padres and then left to rot last year.

-ace, i'll get to arroyo-pena next week.

tuesday mlb notes
-i was catching the phils-rockies game last nite (on fsn mountain - great channel) when ryan howard stepped up with runners on. before he knocked in a run with a single, they flashed his stats and the fact that he had 5 jacks but only 9 rbi's seemed like a low rbi:hr ratio to me. surely that must mean the guys in front of him just aren't getting on, right? so today i looked at those regulars with the lowest rbi/hr rate to see if he was an aberration.

indeed he is not. ignoring part time players (like damon hollins, with 3 hr's and 4 rbi's), there are 8 players with rates <= 2. here they are:

dunn - 1.88 (15/8)
shelton - 2 (18/9)
papi - 2 (16/8)
el caballo - 2 (16/8)
soriano - 2 (12/6)
nady - 2 (10/5)
bay - 2 (10/5)
howard - 2 (10/5)

not all of these guys have luggage in front of them in the batting order, so what's the deal? next i tracked what percentage of their pa's these guys are coming up with runners in scoring position. keep in mind the league leaders in this category is ryan zimmerman at a whopping 47% (too bad for the nats he's just not doing much) and dunn (36%), while their counterparts on the low end are chone figgins (15%) and shelton (18%). so you'd figure league average is somewhere in the mid 20's. now let's see where the aforementioned hitters are, along with an comment as to why their rbi/hr rate is so low.

dunn - 36%. hitting .120 with risp. yuck.
papi - 26%. hitting .167 with risp. very "clutch".
el caballo - 25%. most of his pa's with risp have resulted in bb's (5-13, 9 bb's).
bay - 25%. hitting just over .250 with risp, which is well below his overall .290.
howard - 24%. hitting .300 with risp, but also drawing a lot of bb's (3-10, 4 bb's).
nady - 21%. hitting over 100 points less with risp than his overall avg.
soriano - 20%. hits leadoff now, following clayton + pitcher (livan only hits 1/5 games)
shelton - 18%. hitting .308 with risp, but the guys in front just aren't on much. also slumping this week.

so there's nothing surprising here - even if you hit a lot of jacks, you won't drive in as many runs as expected if either (a) you suck with runners on, or (b) you hit a lot of solo homers. wow. quite a newsflash. the only reason i'm including this section is because i spent a lot of time on it. also, i found some of it really interesting (zimmerman hitting twice a game with risp!). i guess it's also evidence to support the whole "rbi's are overrated" thing, but everyone who reads here already knows that anyway.

-can people stop focusing on barry's lack of power? despite hitting well under .250 he leads the majors with a .541 obp and his ops is .930. the league leader in obp last year was helton at .445. only 16 players in the majors finished the season with an ops > .930. bonds is in one of the worst "slumps" of his career, and even if he finished the season at this pace he would still be a very very good player. i really can't wait for him to get going and prove his naysayers wrong.

-someone cut some chickens heads off for dan johnson. that poor guy started the year 1-37. you have to be really, really mentally strong to overcome that any time in the season, but especially to kick things off. if he went 13 for his next 13 he'd still only be hitting .280. geez.

-more on fsn mountain for a minute. the channel shows both the rockies and the d-backs, for whom mark grace is the (hilarious with phrases from the 90's) color man. last week he called steven a. smith a "tool". then a few games after that he referred to chad tracy as a "mac-daddy". the other announcer asked him to define that, and without skipping a beat grace finds a guy in the crowd surrounded by 4 hot girls, and says "there! that's a mac daddy!" and somehow ties it back to chad tracy's ability to hit line drives. it was funny live. i swear.

-number of regulars at each position (out of 30) with a bb/ab rate >= .1, followed by the best and worst:

c: 7. ausmus (.22 - waaa?), mccann (.04)
1b: 19. helton (.39), dougie mink (.06)
2b: 10. freel (28%), polanco (1.3%)
ss: 6. jeter (.22), berroa (.017)
3b: 18. mueller (.23), randa (.018)
lf: 15. bonds (.64), p. wilson (.03)
cf: 10. beltran (.28), erstad (.015)
rf: 13. lane (.30), encarnacion (.014)

there's only really 6 full time dh's, 5 of which meet the criteria. thome leads with a .34, and rondell white comes in the bottom with a perfect 0.0! no walks in 67 ab's. how is this guy still getting penciled in the lineup (it sure ain't cuz he's mashing the pitches he doesn't take)?

friday mlb notes
-don't look now, but former mets outcast ty wigginton has bopped 6 homeruns already. veterans typically go to tampa as a last resort and many have been unsuccessful at re-starting their career there (see: mcgriff, fred; martinez, tino; et al). and sure it's early, but wigginton's bat speed looks good and he's been a nice surprise for the d-rays.

-on tuesday, bill mueller walked in each of his 4 at bats. on the opposite end of the spectrum, gary matthews jr k'd 4 times on the same day. i've tabbed jayson stark to find out the last time this happened (extra inning games excluded) and am awaiting a response. not really.

-with sean casey going down, the craig wilson issue is temporarily fixed. but really, i have no idea why wilson was the odd man out there in the first place. wilson has always produced when given the chance. duffy has been struggling, and while not ideal, burnitz has and could play some center. it is ludicrous that jim tracy would sit the buc's second best hitter (to bay).
UPDATE: from si - "The Pirates have not approached Craig Wilson about a long-term contract. By contrast, Wilson and his agent have approached the Pirates more than once to express their interest in such a deal, including once this past December, only to be rebuffed without negotiation."
so the pirates will spend money on th 37-year old burnitz but not on the 29-year old wilson. waaaa?

-javy vazquez made big news on wednesday taking a no-no into the 7th before dougie mink laced a single to left (read: hit an check swing excuse me dribbler up third that didn't roll foul). but the mets-braves game that day had TWO pitching perfomances that were easily just as impressive. tim hudson had a perfect game thru 5, and thru 8 innings had only surrendered 1 hit and 1 walk with an amazing 80 pitches. tom glavine had only 60 pitches thru 6 innings and finished the 8th with 94 pitches, 4 hits and no free passes.

-best platoon of the early 06: toronto's reed johnson (31 pa's, only a handful vs. rhp) and my man frankie c (33 pa's, 0 vs. lhp).

johnson - .458 avg, .581 obp (though no extra base hits)
cat - .462 avg, .576 obp, .731 slg

and while i'm on the bj's outfield, i'd be wary of alex rios' hot start. he's come out of the gates on fire, hitting .390 with 5 hr's. but he also has the dubious honor of having a lower obp (.386) than avg (yes joe morgan, this is statistically possible) and is on pace for a measely 15 walks in 600+ ab's.

-fashion police - has anyone seen danny graves in the dugout? this may be a bit mean, but he honestly looks like a chubby, unattractive female. give that man some testosternone injections please.

-with a tie game in the bottom of the 9th the other day, jerry narron opted to keep adam dunn on the bases after drawing a leadoff walk despite having tony womack available (i mean if you're not going to use him as a pinch runner what in god's name are you keeping him around for?). not running for dunn could have easily cost the reds, as dunn only advanced to second on a one out single (instead of third, where he could have scored on a sac fly, etc). if it seems like i've been pointing out a lot of questionable decisions by leyland and narron this year, well, that's because they deserve it.

-gabe gross has already pinch hit 11 times this year. and he's 5-10 with 3 homers and a walk. wow. just wow. lenny harris can cross the brewers off his calling list.

tuesday mlb notes
-did anyone see that play by vizquel on sunday nite? text book take the feed from second, turn and fire to third. he caught cody ross rounding the bag expecting a double play. just a thing of beauty.

-there has been a lot more hype and way more stories discussing the ability of jeff francoeur, but don't overlook ryan langerhans in the bravos lineup. he didn't have the jaw-dropping 2005 that francoeur did, but there's a reason langerhans was (a) called up first (admitted age could've played a factor there), and (b) inserted into the 3 hole in chipper's absence (age irrelevant here). langerhans has consistently put up better obp's than francoeur on his rise through the minors, and his power potential is nearing that of the young rightfielder. though he could maybe learn a thing or too about diving for sinlges late in a tie game.

-espn has told us enough times about the homerun frenzy by chris shelton and fat albert, but shelton's 2006 is amazing in more than one way. somehow, despite the over-mentioned 9 jacks and overlooked 17 extra base hits, shelton drew only his second walk of the season yesterday. while he is protected by carlos guillen, you'd think he wouldn't be challenged so much right now. he does have 16 k's though, so i suppose the bigger question is why jim leyland has his two best hitters slotted 6th and 7th in the lineup everyday. i mean shelton is only ripping an x-base hit more often than the two guys in front of him even get on base (magglio and dmeat hook have obp's <.300, leading to 6 solo shots by shelton and 3 two-run jobs).

-given that their best hitter (at least for now) has only 2 walks, you can imagine detroit is pretty terrible in that category. though they are better than the angels (21 bb's in 13 games, no player with more than 3 - thanks for the tip ahren), the tigers have been awful at drawing a walk. guillen and granderson (6 apiece) count for 46% of the teams 26 free passes, meaning the other 7 starters have accounted for 14 bb's in 13 games. wow. the fact that those two guys each have 6 is not too strange either, given that they're "protected" by craig monroe and placido polanco respectively (neither of which has an OPS >.650).

-i hypothesized in the offseason that the addition of jim thome would bring more than a dh better than timo perez: that his plate discipline would rub off on that bunch of free swingers. so how's my theory faring? here are the 7 returning starters' bb/ab rate differential from 06 (with thome) to that of the last 3 seasons (03-05, taguchi's only for 05). remember beane's standard is 1 bb in 10 ab's (rate of .10).

dye: +.15 (.24 in 2006, .09 in 2003-2005)
uribe: +.08 (.14, .06)
iguchi: +.05 (.13, .08)
crede: +.02 (.08, .06)
konerko: even (.12, .12)
aj: even, though i should say equally terrible (.05, .05)
podsednik: -.05 (.04, .09)

so is thome the reason the chisox are 5th in the majors in bb's? yes and no. yes in that he has 14, or 25% of chicago's walks. no in that (at least so far) we can't say his philosophy at the plate is wearing off on his teammates. besides the obviously small sample size of 2006, only two have exhibited big jumps. and dye was showing phenomenal plate discipline during the 05 postseason, so perhaps that has simply carried over.

-don't miss out on nate silver's new column on page 2 about the game's most valuable players. here's to hoping espn keeps pimping one of baseball prospectus's (bring me 6 shlitzeses) finest.

friday mlb notes
-i was following this on the internet (and so can't confirm it) but doug davis was throwing roughly 80% sliders yesterday. that seems like an awful lot.

-jason isringhausen is really off to a bad start, and his struggles continued yesterday in allowing what turned out to be the game-winning homerun in the top of the 11th. in response tony larusa has said he wants to use izzy in "classic" save situations. in other words, rarely when the game is on the line.

-don't let derrick turnbow's start (5 saves, 0.00 era) fool you. he has yet to record a 1-2-3 inning, and yesterday he began his inning of work with a 4-pitch walk to aaron "i'll swing at anything within 4" miles. he's allowed more bb's than k's and has a whip of 1.60. that said, it is still pretty impressive to be that successful without pitching very well. imagine when he gets in a groove.

-let's stay on milwaukee's pen for a minute. you know, the one in which the guy with 5 saves and 0.00 era has arguably been their 6th best reliever. of the brewers' 8 relievers, only 2 have given up a run (capellan and fernandez). helling, kolb, wise, de la rosa, and lehr (none with a whip > 1) have combined to throw an out less than 17 scoreless innings, allowing only 7 hits and 5 bb's in that span. if you're looking for a reason milwaukee is off to a hot start look no further than that quintet. their starts have been very eh, and of their regulars, only 1 (carlos lee) has an ops over .765 (though that number jumps to 3 if you include koskie and super-sub bill "don't call me annie" hall).

-thus far in 2006, todd helton is leading the majors in bb's at 13 (followed by the giambino, pujols, and the brothers giles with 11 a piece). this is no surprise, as matt holliday and garrett atkins are not off to great starts. but the real shocker (readers required to make hand gesture here) is that none other than ryan freel is second in the majors in bb's/ab at a .47 clip (big bro giles leads at .5). further evidence that freel is better than the player he's most oft compared, chone figgins.

-we're a week and half into the season, and there are still 3 regulars with no strikeouts. placido polanco leads the way with 37 k-less pa's, followed by david wright (35 pa's) and joe "uncle" buck (22 pa's - shocking given his sub-.700 ops). it's sad to say, but it's really only a matter of time before derek jeter is getting sloppy seconds from wright.

questioning managers decisions
-can seatlle please give roberto petagine a shot at dh?? jurassic carl is struggling and world traveller/slugger petagine is 2-2 with a double and a homer in his pinch hitting duty. he also mashed all spring.

-jim leyland TWICE this week let marcus thames (2 homers in 13 ab's, hitting .462) rot on the bench in an ideal pinch hitting situation. earlier this week leyland allowed omar infante to hit with 2 outs in the 9th down a run. then yesterday, with the bases loaded and two outs, down 3, leyland let lefty cutis granderson hit (and k) against a lh reliever. excellent work. by the way, (although obviously much older) thames would probably be better than wily mo pena if given the ab's.

-cincy's skipper kept tony womack in there to face a lh reliever down 3 in the 8th the other day. can aurilia vs. a rhp really be worse than womack vs. a lhp? also, with the switch-hitting lopez, then freel, then dunn coming up, at the very least you would've forced your opponent to burn through his pen a little.

hof debate
-given that ozzie smith is in the hof (career .262 avg - .337 obp - .328 slg, highs of .380 obp and .383 slg), where does that leave omar vizquel (career .275-.341-.358, highs .397, .436)? vizquel has something like 9 gold gloves as well, while smith has 13. ozzie also leads in the "number of sons who were on american idol" category, 1-0.

tuesday mlb notes
who's hot (besides the weird new analyst on 24, who's also the great-granddaughter of the ny football giants founder)
chris shelton. went 1-8 in the last 2 games, dropping his average to, uh, .536. 5 jacks and 10 ribs in week 1. now if he could only get a better picture for his espn profile.

ramon hernandez. started the year 5-5 and has kept rolling. hitting a robust .632 in 7 games.

jose vidro. perhaps the addition of soriano was all the motivation he needed. entered tuesday's action hitting .406 with 9 rbi's.

who's not (besides this scary teacher/rapist)
scott podsednik. reached base just twice in the first 6 games. has an obp under .100 and a slg under .050. even tony womack is laughing.

jeff francoeur. 2-33 to start the year. last year it took him 23 games to accumulate 31 outs. this year, 8. ouch.

questioning manager decisions
-what was the deal with joe girardi deciding to pitch to david wright with 2nd and 3rd and no outs in the bottom of the 9th on saturday (tie game)? on deck: nady, diaz, hernandez. i don't follow this move at all.

-i was going to rip frank robinson for bringing in mike stanton to face biggio, tavares, berkman, ensberg, the pitcher's spot (only bruntlett was left on the bench), and lane in the bottom of the 12th yesterday. but his only rh reliever left (rauch) pitched saturday and sunday. i guess he gets off the hook.

-this is nitpicking, but ned yost may want to split up weeks and fielder (who could combine for 300 k's) in the lineup. yesterday they had runners on 2nd and 3rd with less than two outs and both with down on strikes.

-why does tony larusa love so taguchi? yesterday facing a rh starter, taguchi got the start over both skip schumaker AND john rodriguez. both schumaker and j-rod are lhb's and have shown much more offensive potential than the 130-lb taguchi.

we're not gonna protest! we're not gonna protest!
i would like to get some reader opinion on a few hot issues in the news of late:

(1) the illegal immigration debate here in the states
i don't claim to know a lot about our immigration laws, or even about what the hell everyone is yelling about, so i don't hold a strong opinion. but it seems ludicrous to me that people out there are trying to say illegally entering the u.s. is okay. i'm all for people immigrating legally, but what is the upside to having illegal aliens living in the country?

(2) the labor debate in france
as to the riots and protests in france, i would like someone to explain them to me. i've read a few articles on cnn, from which i've inferred that lots of young people are mad because the government tried to pass a law affecting working folks under the age of 26. beyond that, not much was clear other than the fact that the protestors succeeded and the prime minister killed the law or something.

(3) the continuing duke saga
honestly, how mad would you be if you were a duke lacrosse player? your coach resigned, your season was cancelled, the campus hates you - all for something it looks more and more like you didn't do. no player has been charged and apparently the dna tests did not implicate a single player either. i have a feeling that school is going to have a major fucking lawsuit coming against them if it turns out all the players are innocent.

on an entirely different note, i'd just like to point out that the eastern conference of the nba will be sending at least 3 teams to the "playoffs" with losing records. it's feasible that 1/2 of their playoff teams will be under .500. that league fucking blows.

end of the week mlb notes
-much fanfare has been made about detroit's offensive outburst enroute to starting the year 3-0. while this has been impressive, the tigers performance on the mound during this intial trio of games must not be overlooked. in just under 18 innings, their starters have yet to allow a walk. in fact, their starters went to 3 ball counts just 7 times in that span (which is roughly 10% of the batters they faced). this is more important for the tigers' long term success than a bunch of jacks against a crappy knuckleballer.

-the brewers staff is picking up right where they left off last season, with quality starts in each of their first 3 games. and this is without ben sheets, no less, who was throwing 96 in a rehab assignment yesterday. a lot of fanfare goes to leo mazzone, but people are going to start noticing the work of pitching coach mike maddux. i am confident he will have #4 starter dave bush exceling like never before.

-since i'm on pitching, let's all point and laugh (or cry as it may be for me) at joe torre's mismanagement of the yanks staff. thank you for bringing scott proctor with the game tied in the 9th instead of rivera. i mean, it's obviously more important to bring mo in with a 3 run lead for that crucial save, so thanks for saving him. seriously, when are managers going to realize they should use their best pitcher in whatever situation he's needed, not just when it's an appearance that fits his title.

-note to all san francisco base runners: if barry bonds is up and you're on first DO NOT advance on a wild pitch or passed ball. he doesn't need help drawing walks, and it seems safe to say you'd rather have barry up with a runner on than steve finley up with 2 on (especially because the second option has a very strong likelihood of happening on its own). ray durham i'm looking in your direction. before the expected runs argument is thrown at me, i'll say, yes, i think the giants expected runs with bonds up and a runner on 1st is higher than 1st and 2nd with whoever follows bonds in the order. commence yelling.

-with jimmy rollins streak ending, i found myself (for some reason) a little disappointed. while i generally think rollins and the streak are a bit overrated (for example, he only ~.370 during the streak which seems surprisingly low)), i think he's a nice player who seems to genuinely love the game. i was surprised to see my reaction on opening day when he hit that double late in the game - i gave a little "yes!", realized what i'd done and looked around as if someone was going to judge me for rooting for him.

-the free week of mlb extra innings has been phenomenal as always. in fact the opening week in general was awesome, with all the televised games plus an auction fantasy draft AND some time playing diamindmind. nina has (again) taken to calling baseball my "other woman" and i will be paying the price for my mistress tonite when seeing this movie. rest assured i'll be thinking of how i got willingham, hermida, conor jackson, zimmerman, and murton for a total of $7.80 in a $26, 23 player, nl-only keeper league as banderas prances around the screen.

-in case you missed it, here's an excerpt (on page 2 yesterday) of a book by some guys at baseball prospectus (including one who posts on the 2+2 poker page) debunking the mystery of clutch hitting. hopefully bill simmons will read it...

opening day ---> best day of the year
what a great day yesterday was. i couldn't smell the freshly cut grass from my office (in fact my carpet smells a little rank), but you can bet i was soaking in the action as best as possible. here are some tidbits i picked up:

-oliver perez was downright filthy. obviously that's evident by looking at the box score - 9 k's in 5 1/3 is never too shabby. but it's the manner in which he did it that impressed me. 8 of those k's were swinging, and at one stretch from the 3rd to the 5th he recorded 5 straight outs on swinging k's. in fact 21% of his strikes were swings and misses. by comparison, opponent doug davis only garnered 12% of his strikes in that manner. how did two other strikeout pitchers fare in their good performances? the unit came in at 11% and schilling at 14%. i realize one factor is that perez was up facing a squad of big swingers, but still - i'm guessing he's no longer being clocked at 88.

-another note from the mil-pitt game - why the hell did jim tracy let perez hit with the bases loaded and 2 outs in the top of the 6th only to pull him after 2 hitters in the bottom half? tracy claimed he gave perez the hook to ensure he got the win - interesting logic. perez started the bottom half of the inning with 2 k's...

-trivia: how had the first hit of the season? first double digit ab (how's that for random)?

-i've seen a few things about how the nats were screwed against the mets (which is true, loduca did drop that ball). but why isn't anyone mentioning that soriano had absolutely no business trying to score? (somewhere dale sveum is smiling) you're down a run. there's no one out. if you hold him up you'd have 2nd and 3rd. i realize clayton and schneider aren't big boppers, but cmon. any major leaguer should be able to score a runner from third with less than two outs.

-the number of lead off batters curt schilling allowed to reach base was the same as the number of times prince fielder put the ball in play (i.e. zero). in other news, papi is not human.

-a bunch of guys made their first opening day start. here's how a few of my favorite fared:
matt murton: 3-5 and a bb, with a 3 run bomb in the first inning. nice start.
prince: 4 k's swinging. don't be overly concerned.
richie weeks: 1-2 with a bb, hbp, and sb.
kinsler: 1-2 with a bb. got the first hit off schilling.
ronny cedeno: 1-4. cubs fans should just be happy dusty didn't give neifi the start.
josh barfield: 1-4.
conor jackson: 2-4 with a rbi and a bb, but couldn't make throw out holliday with the game on the line.
edwin encarncion: 0-4 with a bb and 3 k's. we could see 20 hr's and 150 k's here.

-bobby cox must be pleased with reitsma's "save": 1 1/3 2 earned runs. what's the over under on devine taking over?

-dontrelle willis somehow needs 107 pitches to get through 5 innings, despite only allowing 4 runners and striking out 3. in the same game roy oswalt needs only 91 pitches to get through 8 (he allowed 6 runners and notched 8 k's).

-i can't leave out the yanks. what a display. they were just ripping the ball all over the place. oakland's outfield made a few diving catches or things would've been even worse. the thing i was happiest to see, though, was the plane of giambi's swing. he was very clean through the hitting zone, something which he couldn't do consistently last spring. i don't think he'll be hitting 5th for too long. also, am i the only one that thinks damon should hit in the bottom 3rd of the order? jeter's a better leadoff hitter, and giambi could hit 2.

-answers: first hit of the 2006 season? livan hernandez. he and glavine combined to go 3-4 in that game. first double digit pitch ab of the year? mark loretta (too bad it resulted in a fly out dp). i still can't believe the sox got him for mirabelli.

wow
espn's new gamecast is pretty awesome. i can't link it directly, but check it out through the scoreboard.