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Baseball fan following baseball since 1955. Have been fortunate enough to have seen Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Johnny Bench, Roberto Clemente and Dale Murphy play baseball in Kansas City and Houston. Served in Army in Hawaii and Vietnam with 25th Infantry Division.More By Niteowl049
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Baseball Notebook: Around the Bases May 5th
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Chase Utley and Lance Berkman lead the Majors in home runs with 13 and 10, respectively. The AL leader, Carlos Quentin, with 8 home runs, is listed 8th in the Majors at mlb.com. Quentin only hit 5 homers last season in 81 games, but he has 8 already this early in the season in 28 games.
Hunter Pence was 0 for 5 before hitting a walkoff homer in the 12th for the Houston Astros, as Eric Gagne blew his fifth save of the season in the 9th inning for the Milwaukee Brewers. Going back to his 3 blown saves in 3 save opportunities for the Boston Red Sox last season, Gagne has blown 8 saves in his last 17 save opportunities.
The early front runners for the MVP award in NL are Chase Utley and Chipper Jones. Utley has 5 more homers than any American Leaguer, and Jones is hitting .425 and has been hitting over .400 since the 13th of April. In April, Jones had 4 hits once, 3 hits five times and 2 hits five times. Jones has gone hitless only 3 times in 28 games. Jones is 56 points ahead of second place Rafael Furcal, and is 78 points ahead of AL leader Victor Martinez.
Steve Trachsel (1-4) may not be in the starting rotation much longer for the Baltimore Orioles. In his last two starts, he has given up 10 runs, 12 hits, and 7 walks in 6 innings. Also, his ERA is 7.43. He hasn't won a game since his first start on the 4th of April.
Darrell Rasner (1-0) did something that disabled Philip Hughes or [now Minor Leaguer] Ian Kennedy have failed to do all season: he won yesterday and has one more win than those two had combined.
What a difference a year makes....On May 5th of last season Alex Rodriguez had 14 homers and 37 RBI's. One year later, he has 4 homers and 11 RBI's and with him on the disabled list, he can only get further behind last year's pace. His on-base percentage has dropped from .422 to .343, his slugging has went down from .645 to .495, and his OPS went from 1.067 to .838. Also, his batting average was .314 in 2007, but it's only .286 this year. All four of these numbers are lower than his lifetime averages.
It is not surprising to see Brandon Webb (7-0) with the best record in baseball, but is surprising that Joe Saunders 6-0 is tied with Chien-Ming Wang (6-0) for the second best record in the Major Leagues.
The Tampa Bay Rays and Baltimore Orioles are one percentage point ahead of the New York Yankees for second place in the AL East. The Toronto Blue Jays have allowed 3 or less runs in 10 of their last 11 games. The Minnesota Twins, with their 16-14 record, have the longest current winning streak of 5 games, and have the only winning record in the AL Central. The Cincinnati Reds, Chicago White Sox, and Seattle Mariners have the longest current losing streaks, losing 5 in a row.
The Los Angeles Dodgers and, surprisingly, the Washington Nationals have the best record in the last 10 games (8-2). The Nationals are only 2 games behind the (4th place) Atlanta Braves in the NL East. The Boston Red Sox have the best home record (14-5), while the best road teams are the Los Angeles Angels and Oakland A's (10-5). While the Milwaukee Brewers have lost 3 in a row, the Houston Astros have won 3 in a row, and are only a half game behind the third place Brewers, who are only one game over .500.
The New York Yankees are the only team averaging over 50,000 fans per game in 2008 with an average attendance of 50,902 at home games, while the worst average attendance is by the Florida Marlins with 15,653. The Pirates aren't far behind, and are in a close second worst with 15,761 fans per game at home.
Victor Martinez has the longest current hitting streak this season with a 15 game streak.
Joe Nathan has the most saves this season without a blown save (11).
Ervin Santana tries to extend his record to 6-0 this season today with Daisuke Matsuzaka and Ryan Dempster trying for perfect 5-0 records. If Santana wins, that would give him a 6-0 record, tying teammate Joe Saunders for the most wins by an Angels pitcher in '08.
What is going on with Tom Glavine (0-1) this season? Glavine has made 5 starts and has failed to win a game. He has 12 walks and 11 strikeouts, which is very troubling to Braves fans like me. When Bobby Cox pulled him out of the game yesterday with a 8-6 lead and Glavine needing one more out to be the possible winner of the game had to be a bitter pill for Glavine to swallow.
Tim Hudson, John Smoltz and Jair Jurrjens have a combined 10-6 record. Chuck James is the only other starter to have won two games, but is back in the Minors now. The other three starters on the team (Glavine, Jeff Bennett, and Jo-Jo Reyes) are a combined 1-2. Unless the Braves can start getting wins from their fourth and fifth starters they won't contend this season since Hudson, Smoltz and Jurjjens are not going to win every game they start.
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