No News is Good News?

 

No indictment for Barry Bonds on Thursday and his trainer, Greg Anderson, was released from prison as the term ended for the grand jury investigating Bonds for possible perjury and tax evasion charges.  However, the government’s witch hunt marches onward as prosecutors announced that the investigation would continue with a new jury impaneled and Anderson subpoenaed once again to testify.  Anderson, jailed twice now already, faces up to a year or more in jail if he continues to refuse to testify.

 

Chasing the Hammer – Bonds meanwhile displayed his uncanny ability to block out all distractions just a few hours after that (non-) decision came down by crushing his 722^nd career home run to back Noah Lowry’s outstanding pitching in the Giants 9-3 win over San Diego.  Brian Sweeney gave up the long ball and went into the book as the 428^th pitcher to serve one up to the future HOFer.  Bonds blasted the pitch by Sweeney over the 404 foot sign in left center two pitches after fellow future HOFer Mike Piazza dropped his high popup just behind home plate to give the slugger new life.  The home run also came 30 years to the day after Hank Aaron hit the 755^th, and last, home run of his major league career while playing for the Milwaukee Brewers (who were owned by Bud Selig at the time) and left Bonds 11 behind Aaron’s NL record of 733 home runs.  Bonds will turn 42 on Monday.

 

Back-to-back-to-back, Jack! - The very next pitch after Bonds’ home run, Ray Durham followed suit with his 16^th HR of the year (and 6^th in his last 9 games) to take the team lead.  It also marked the first time this year the Giants have hit back-to-back home runs.  They seemed to enjoy the feat so much that Pedro Feliz followed that up with his 16^th, tying Durham once again for the team lead and giving the Giants back-to-back-to-back jacks for the first time since August 3, 2004 when Bonds, Feliz and J.T. Snow each took Cory Lidle deep to help Lowry earn his first major league win.  The three 8^th inning jacks on Thursday, combined with rookie Chad Santos’ 3^rd inning shot (his first major league HR), also gave the Giants 4 HR in a game for the first time this year.

 

Trivia Question – Aaron hit the 755^th and final home run of his career on July 20, 1976 while playing for the Milwaukee against the California Angels.  Aaron hit his final shot off of Angels’ reliever Dick Drago, though with over two months left to go in the season, no one in the park that day had any reason to suspect they were witnessing history.  With that in mind, here is today’s trivia question.  Can you name the starting right fielder for the Angels in that game?  (answer below)

 

The Longest Streaks Pt I & II – The Minnesota Twins, who had won their last six in a row, took on the Devil Rays – losers of their last six straight – at home with Johan Santana pitching, and the results were as predictable as one could expect.  The Twins beat the Rays 6-4 behind Santana’s six strong innings to go 21 games over .500 since May 1^st.  Minnesota now has won a major league best 7 in a row and trails the defending champion White Sox by just 4 games in the Wild Card standings after Chicago lost for the second day in a row to the Central leading Tigers.  The Twins are 9.5 games behind Detroit.  Tampa Bay, meanwhile, has lost a major league worst 7 in a row and they sit 20 games behind the Red Sox in the East and trail in the Wild Card race also by 20 games.

 

The Longest Game – The Oneonta Tigers beat the Brooklyn Cyclones in 26 innings on Thursday.  The game had been tied 1-1 since the 4^th inning when outfielder Mark Wright took the mound in the 25^th.  He managed a scoreless inning before Oneonta scored 5 runs against him in the 26^th to end the longest game in the New York Penn League history.  Tigers CF Deik Scram had been 0-for-11 in the game before his 2-run single broke the tie. Cyclones LF Dustin Martin did go hitless in 11 AB and Jacob Eigsti took an 0-for-10 in the loss.  The longest professional game in history was played between Pawtucket and Rochester on April 18, 1981 and it lasted 33 innings.  The longest game in major league history was ironically played between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Boston Braves on May 1, 1920 and it too went 26 innings, tied 1-1 when it became too dark to see and called a draw.

 

Heating up in Hotlanta

 

Despite sitting 11.5 games back of the Mets in the East, the Braves recent resurgence (11-4 in July, winners of 14 of their last 20) had them just five games back of the wild card leading Reds when GM John Schuerholz pulled the trigger on a trade. He brought closer Bob Wickman over from Cleveland for minor league catcher Maximiliano Ramirez.  This move signals that the Braves are once again buyers and not sellers. While the offense has sparked the surge (batting a major league best .347 and scoring 8.67 runs per game in July), the Braves have struggled mightily at the closer position this year with Chris Reitsma, Jorge Sosa and most recently Ken Ray each getting a shot at it..  Wickman is 1-4 with a 4.18 ERA and 15 saves in 18 opportunities for the season and has been inconsistent, to say the least.

 

Apr – 0-0, 5.14 ERA, 5/5 SV

May – 1-0 0.00 ERA, 3/3 SV

June – 0-4, 9.00 ERA, 3/6 SV

July – 0-0, 0.00 ERA, 4/4 SV

 

Though not a dominant closer, Wickman nonetheless saved 45 games in 50 tries last year. The timing of the deal, coupled with the Braves place in the standings, reminds DN&N of the 1993 Braves’ July 18th acquisition of Fred McGriff as Atlanta sat 8 games behind the Giants in the NL West.  Those Braves trailed San Francisco by as many as 10 games as late as  July 22 before storming back to win 104 games that year and slip past the Giants (who won 103) to capture their third of 14 straight division titles. 

 

From the Infirmary – The Nationals placed Jose Guillen on the disabled list Thursday with soreness in his elbow.  Head Trainer Tim Abraham’s office has been a busy place this summer as Washington has led the majors in injured players nearly all season and currently count 11 players on the DL.  There are 8 pitchers among those 11, and 7 of those players are on the 60-day list.  The Braves are currently carrying 9 disabled players (7 pitchers) and both the Yankees and Dodgers have 7 injured players each.

 

Meanwhile, the Red Sox announced Thursday that Tim Wakefield has been suffering from a stress fracture in one of his ribs and has been placed on the DL.  He has been dealing with the issue for the last 4-6 weeks and manager Terry Francona told reporters that healing has already begun.  Wakefield is the fifth Red Sox player (all pitchers) currently on the disabled list.

 

Quick Hits

 

Tom Glavine is now winless in his last five starts since June 23.  The veteran lefty hasn’t pitched that poorly (0-1, 4.32 ERA) yet remains stuck at 286 career wins, tied with Robin Roberts for 26^th all-time.

 

Gary Majewski, who took the loss for Cincinnati on Thursday, has allowed 5 runs in his three appearances for the Reds since being acquired from Washington.  He also allowed 3 runs in his final outing for the Nats to give him a 30.90 ERA in his last four games (2.1 IP, 8 ER, 10 H). 

 

Fernando “Grand Slam” Tatis will make his return to the majors after the Orioles purchased his contract from Ottawa.  He was batting .298 with 7 HR and 37 RBI in 90 games for the Lynx. 

 

Home and Away – Today, we take just a quick look at the best, and worst, home and road teams in baseball.  Perhaps the Cubs ought to consider an all road game schedule. 

 

American League – Home Winning Percentage

The Best                                                         The Worst                 

1. Minnesota – 27-11, .771                  14. Kansas City – 20-23, .465            

2. Boston – 32-13, .711                       13t. Four teams (Cle, Sea, Tex, LA) – .500

3. Chicago – 33-14, .702                                

 

American League – Road Winning Percentage

The Best                                                         The Worst                 

1. Detroit – 33-15, .688                       14. Kansas City – 13-39, .250

2. New York – 24-20, .545                 13. Tampa Bay – 17-37, .315

3. Chicago – 25-22, .532                     12. Minnesota – 17-29, .370

 

National League – Home Winning Percentage

The Best                                                         The Worst                 

1. St. Louis – 31-19, .620                    16. Chicago – 17-28, .378

2. Los Angeles – 28-18, .609               15. Philadelphia – 21-26, .447

3. New York – 27-18, .600                 14. Washington – 20-24, .455

 

National League – Road Winning Percentage

The Best                                                         The Worst                 

1. San Diego – 25-16, .610                  16. Pittsburgh – 10-36, .217

2. New York – 30-20, .600                 15. Milwaukee – 17-30, .362

3. Chicago – 25-22, .532                     14. Washington – 20-32, .385 

 

Trivia Answer – Hammerin’ Hank finished up his HOF career as the DH for the Brewers, belting his final 22 HR in the American League.  The shortstop of that Milwaukee team was none other than HOFer Robin Yount.  But who was playing in right field for the Angels on the day that the Hammer nailed down his last?  Of course that would be Bobby Bonds, father of Barry, who went 0 for 3 with 2 strikeouts but drove in one of the two California runs with a sacrifice fly in the Angels 6-2 loss.    

 

On Deck – With a lack of marquee match ups on the major league schedule this weekend, DN&N once again looks forward to Jose Canseco taking the field which he will do Friday against the Reno Silver Sox.  The Long Beach Armada take the field for the first time since Tuesday’s GBL All-Star game in which Canseco made his (dubious) pitching debut.  Jose is batting .292 (7 for 24) with 2 HR and 7 RBI in 7 games for Long Beach after going 0 for 3 in one game for San Diego.  He has not yet pitched in a regular season game. 

 

GBL Useless Factoid ~ The Oakland A’s yesterday acquired the contract of former major league pitcher Adam Pettyjohn from the Armada.  Pettyjohn is the 18^th player from the GBL to have been acquired by a major league team this season.  He went 1-6 while pitching for the Tigers in 2001 but suffered a major intestinal illness which has sidetracked his career.  Canseco has two other current teammates with major league experience, Chris Wakeland, who appeared in appeared in 10 games for those same Tigers in ’01 and Bud Smith, who threw a no-hitter for St. Louis as a rookie on September 3, 2001.

Questions or comments for Richard? Richard Van Zandt is a staff writer for Baseball Evolution who lives in San Francisco, California. You can reach him at richard@baseballevolution.com.