I looked for the same pitch my whole career, a breaking ball. All of the time. I never worried about the fastball. They couldn't throw it past me, none of them.
--- Hank Aaron
Would you believe that the dog ate my homework?
No? How about this - I wrote up a nice TDIB piece for you, and forgot to save it.
Never get old, kids.
Anyway. You all remember the Blue Jays going down to Texas and watching the Toronto pitchers getting the living crap beaten out of them? Maybe that Ranger lineup isn't quite so intimidating when you get them out of Arlington. For the second night in a row, Texas was held without a hit, let alone a run, until the eighth inning.
Or maybe it's just a case of good pitching beating good hitting. Oakland is on fire, folks. They've now won 29 of 40, which is a pretty nifty .725 clip. They've closed to within half a game of the second place Rangers and are three back of Baltimore in the Hunt for the Wild Card.
How is the New Big Three doing? Glad you asked. Since returning from the DL, Rich Harden is 4-1, 1.42 - he's given up zero runs in three of his last five starts. Since the A's turned it around at the end of May, Danny Haren is 6-0, 3.38.
And here is Barry Zito's month-by-month ERA:
April - 6.60
May - 3.49
June - 3.05
July - 1.57
In the fifth inning of last night's Baltimore-Seattle game, Rafael Palmeiro ripped an RBI double for the 3000th hit of his career. He is just the fourth man ever to combine 500 HRs with 3000 hits. The others are Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and Eddie Murray. Rafael moves in some very fine company. I originally wrote several paragraphs about why Palmeiro was never as powerful an offensive force as Fred McGriff, and while that's still true... never mind. Well done, sir. Cooperstown awaits. You're going to go in standing up, without a throw. As you should.
Here are today's games:
AL
New York (Johnson 9-6, 4.16) at Boston (Clement 10-2, 3.85) 1:20
Chicago (Buehrle 10-3, 2.58) at Cleveland (Westbrook 6-11, 4.67) 1:20
Texas (Rogers 10-4, 2.54) at Oakland (Blanton 5-7, 4.44) 4:05
Tampa Bay (Hendrickson 3-6, 6.33) at Toronto (Towers 6-7, 4.51) 4:07
Kansas City (Carrasco 4-3, 3.57 or Howell 1-3, 8.65) at Detroit (Johnson 5-7, 3.87) 7:05
Los Angeles (Colon 11-5, 3.42) at Minnesota (Santana 7-5, 3.98) 7:10
Baltimore (Chen 7-5, 3.87) at Seattle (Moyer 8-3, 4.64) 10:05
NL
San Francisco (Tomko 6-10, 5.01) at Los Angeles (Perez 4-5, 4.97) 4:05
Pittsburgh (Duke 1-0, 1.93) at Chicago (Maddux 8-6, 4.67) 4:05
Houston (Oswalt 12-7, 2.39) at St.Louis (Marquis 8-6, 3.89) 4:15
Washington (Loaiza 5-5, 3.57) at Milwaukee (Capuano 10-6, 3.63) 7:05
Colorado (Francis 8-6, 5.16) at Cincinnati (Milton 4-10, 6.92) 7:10
Atlanta (Hudson 6-5, 3.78) at New York (Zambrano 4-7, 3.58) 7:10
Arizona (Vargas 3-4, 6.70) at San Diego (Peavy 7-3, 3.14) 10:05
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20050716121051379