Tag: Milwaukee Brewers (Page 13 of 13)

Sunday MLB Roundup: Sabathia continues to impress

– C.C. Sabathia looked masterful against the Pittsburgh Pirates on Sunday afternoon. He gave up one hit, and struck out eleven in a complete game effort as the Brewers defeated the Pirates 7-0. Many have questioned the official score keeper’s decision to score an infield hit by Andy LaRoche as a single.
Sabathia continues to impress

Sabathia limited the Pirates to Andy LaRoche’s infield single leading off the fifth inning, on a play Milwaukee manager Ned Yost argued was an error on the pitcher, and the Brewers beat Pittsburgh 7-0 Sunday for their eighth victory in nine games.

“He accomplished a no-hitter and wasn’t given what he deserved. That should have been a no-hitter,” Yost said. “That’s a stinking no-hitter we all got cheated from. I feel horrible for CC.”

No-hitter or not, C.C.’s been looking sharp since joining the Brewers.

– Jason Werth hit his third home run in two days as the Phillies defeated the Cubs 5-3 Sunday to split the series. Carlos Zambrano missed his scheduled start in order to rest his tired arm. He’ll expected to start Tuesday against the Astros. The Phillies remain one game back of the Mets in the NL East.

– The Chicago White Sox are in a dead heat with the Minnesota Twins in the AL Central. The White Sox, who are just a half game up on the Twins, defeated the Red Sox on Sunday to avoid a three game sweep at Fenway. Jim Thome hit a two-run homer in the first inning, which tied Mickey Mantle for 14th place on the all-time home run list with 536. Unfortunately for the White Sox, the Twins were able to demolish the A’s 12-4 behind a home run and four RBI’s from Justin Morneau.

– The New York Yankees continued to slide on Sunday, losing to the Blue Jays 6-2. Roy Halladay won his fourth consecutive start, and defeated the Yankees for the fourth time this season. It’s been a tough season for the Yanks, especially considering this is their last season at Yankee stadium.

– Brandon Webb failed to earn his 20th victory of the season against the LA Dodgers. The Dodgers were able to hit a couple homers in the first inning, and never looked back, cruising to an 8-1 victory. The Dodgers are now two and a half games back of the D’Backs in the NL West.

Top 10 Active MLB Control Artists

Show me a pitcher who doesn’t walk many batters, and I’ll show you a pitcher that wins games. Plain and simple, if you don’t hurt yourself by putting guys on base, you’re going to be in games and win a good portion of them. Here, we take a look at those active pitchers with the best control, i.e. those hurlers who yield the least amount of walks per nine innings. Interestingly, the Top 10 consists of all starting pitchers……

1. Carlos Silva, Seattle Mariners (1.634)–Okay, so Carlos Silva has lost more games than he’s won (59-60), but he’s pitching for the pathetic Mariners this year. What I’m saying is, 4-14 for a team that is 46-75 isn’t bad. And check this out…in 2005 with Minnesota, Silva pitched 188 1/3 innings and walked only nine batters. That’s just sick.

2. Jon Lieber, Chicago Cubs (1.725)–Journeyman Jon Lieber has been in the bigs since 1994, and has never walked more than 51 batters in a season. There’s no doubt his career ERA of 4.26 would be much higher if it weren’t for his excellent control.

3. Greg Maddux, San Diego Padres (1.803)–What, you expected not to see Mr. Maddux on here? Control is to Greg Maddux’ game what hot sauce is to Buffalo wings.

4. Ben Sheets, Milwaukee Brewers (1.960)–Sheets has never won more than twelve games in a season, but part of that is because he can’t stay off the disabled list. Sheets has nearly four times as many career strikeouts (1181) as walks (303) in seven-plus seasons.

5. Curt Schilling, Boston Red Sox (1.962)–It’s too bad that if we play word association, I’ll say “Curt Schilling” and you’ll say “bloody sock.” Then again, that also sums up the grit and determination of this guy. If I need to win a game, he’s one of maybe five pitchers I’ll give the ball to.

6. Mike Mussina, New York Yankees (1.987)–If you can see the concentration in a pitcher’s eyes, you know he’s focused on putting the ball over the plate and trying to get the hitter out. And how about this? In 18 seasons, Mussina has only hit 58 batters and thrown 71 wild pitches. Also, his 265-151 career record shows that my theory above has a bit of validity.

7. Mark Buehrle, Chicago White Sox (2.060)–Though he’s only won 117 games in almost nine seasons, Mark Buehrle is a workhorse (has never pitched less than 200 innings in a full season) who keeps his White Sox in games.

8. Roy Oswalt, Houston Astros (2.084)–Do you get the feeling Roy Oswalt hasn’t yet reached his potential? The guy is 122-62 since breaking into the majors in 2001, with a 3.20 ERA and 1286 strikeouts. And his control (360 walks, 16 wild pitches) isn’t too shabby, either.

9. Paul Byrd, Boston Red Sox (2.119)–I’m not sure that Byrd throws harder than 80 miles per hour, but there’s no doubt he can still get hitters out, which is why the Red Sox just obtained him from the Indians. And he gets better with age….in 2005 with the Angels, Byrd walked 28 batters in 204 1/3 — that’s 1.2 batters per game.

10. Roy Halladay, Toronto Blue Jays (2.127)–With a 124-64 record over 11 seasons with mostly mediocre Toronto, Roy Halladay has consistently been one of the game’s best pitchers during his career.

Source: Baseball Reference

Couch Potato Alert: 8/15

– I do not know if you heard but Brett Favre has un-retired. And he will be playing this season in New York for the Jets. Sorry ESPN, his first game back will be on the NFL Network on Saturday at 8 p.m. EST. Maybe Rachel Nichols can give updates from the sidelines on Favre’s progress in grasping the Jets offense for ESPN News.

– The men’s 100-meter finals in track & field take place on Saturday evening. It could be the most competitive event at the Olympics, as all of the contenders have beaten one another in the past. Asafa Powell of Jamaica was defeated by USA’s Tyson Gay at the World Championships so badly that he disappeared from the scene. His countryman, Usain Bolt, returned the favor by beating Gay this past May. All three will run in Beijing, and it might just be the best 10 seconds of the Olympiad.

Michael Phelps is on target to break Mark Spitz’s record of seven gold medals at one Olympic competition. The 100-meter butterfly is this evening, with the 4 x 100 medley relay wrapping up the swimming competition (and Phelps’ quest) on Saturday night.

– The top matchup in baseball this weekend could be a possible playoff preview between the Milwaukee Brewers and Los Angeles Dodgers at Chavez Ravine. Both teams made significant additions to improve their chances of playing into October, so this should be a good series.

Things unraveling in Milwaukee – Prince Fielder, Manny Parra fight

Things have gone from great to bad to worse for the Milwaukee Brewers since the All-Star Break. After winning eight of their first nine games following the break, the Brewers dropped five straight, including a four-game sweep at the hands of NL Central rival Chicago. Milwaukee is now five games behind the cubs in the division and even worse, they’re fighting with each other.

In a 6-3 loss to the Reds on Monday night, Prince Fielder and Manny Parra got into a scuffle in the team’s dugout after Parra gave up multiple runs in the fifth inning. Fielder shoved him twice before being retained by teammates. (Video of the incident can be seen at the link above.)

Yost downplayed the altercation after the game.

“It’s not a big deal,” Yost said. “For eight months a year, we’re a family, and at times things happen.

Tempers flare up. But it’s within the family, and it’s a little bit rude when your neighbors are fighting next door for you to go over and ask what happened. That’s kind of the case here. It’s nobody’s business what happened.”

“It’s already taken care of,” Parra said. “Nothing needs to be talked about. In the Minor Leagues, there’s no cameras on it, [but] stuff like that happens all the time.

Frustration is going to boil over when a team is losing. And this situation will probably blow over soon enough. (Fielder has already apologized about the way he handled the altercation.)

But the fact remains that the Brewers are collapsing while the Cubs continue to stay hot. And what a disappointment it would be for the team to give up multiple prospects to acquire CC Sabathia and they don’t even make the postseason.

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