Burnett Pitches Yankees To 7-2 Victory Over Rays

A.J. Burnett 2-0 pitched the Yankees into a second place tie with the Rays and held them to three hits in eight innings while striking out nine enroute to their 7-2 victory.  Derek Jeter homered and drove in three runs while Nick Swisher hit his fourth homer of the season.

A.J. Burnett throws a pitch as the Yankees defeat the Rays 7-2 last night in Tampa Bay.

Yankee outfielder Xavier Nady suffered an injury to his right elbow during the game and will be having an MRI taken today to determine the extent of the injury. This is a major concern for Nady and the Yankees since he has had Tommy John surgery on that elbow in the past. If this is a serious injury Nick Swisher will be playing even more often and the Yankees will be down to four outfielders unless they call up a minor leaguer.

Javier Vazquez Strikes Out 12: Loses to Marlins 5-1

Javier Vazquez showed last night that strikeouts are not everything in major league baseball. Vazquez one of the best strikeout pitchers in baseball had 12 strikeouts but they made little difference in the loss of the Braves to Marlins by a 5-1 score. Baseball-reference.com lists Vazquez ninth among active pitchers in strikeouts but three of those pitchers have retired and Tom Glavine could retire in the next few weeks if he doesn’t want to go through rehabilitation again. John Smoltz is also on the list but not pitching right now and Pedro Martinez is looking for a team to sign him. Chris Volstad 2-0 pitched seven innings allowing one run and lowered his ERA to 1.50. Josh Johnson, Anibal Sanchez and Volstad have pitched 32 innings and have allowed only three runs and struck out 31 and allowed only one homer combined.

So he is really third when you consider pitchers actually pitching right now. Randy Johnson and Jamie Moyer are the only players ahead of him with Moyer being 14 years older than Vazquez and only about 250 strikeouts more than Vazquez. Vazquez will probably get 3000 strikeouts someday but his low victory total of 127 means he will have slightly over 200 wins by the time he retires considering he has won 15 or more games only twice in eleven seasons. His Hall of Fame chances do not look good right now.

Baseball Roundup

Mariners scored in the bottom of the tenth inning to defeat the Angels 3-2 to commemorate the return of Ken Griffey Jr. to Seattle. The Mariners are 6-2 without Ichiro Suzuki in the lineup so they should be even better when he returns from the disabled list today….The Orioles and Rangers were tied 3-3 after nine innings but the two teams scored six runs in the tenth inning as the Rangers scored twice in the top of the tenth inning and the Orioles came back to score four of their own in the bottom of the frame. Adam Jones homered to give the Orioles the win….John Buck homered twice and drove in five runs in the 9-3 victory by the Royals over the Indians.

There were four extra inning games yesterday in the American League and in the Twins-Jays game Ricky Romero of the Jays and Glen Perkins of the Twins allowed two runs in eight innings. Joe Crede drove in the winning run in the bottom of the eleventh inning to give the Twins a 3-2 win….The A’s defeated the Red Sox 6-5 in twelve innings. Travis Buck hit a high bouncer for an infield hit that drove in the winning run.

Both teams are having injury concerns with the A’s having Eric Chavez scheduled for an MRI. The Red Sox took Daisuke Matsuzaka out of the game with arm fatigue. Jed Lowrie the Red Sox shortstop will be going to a hand specialist for his injured hand. The first three in the Red Sox batting order are all hitting .206 or lower. Jacoby Ellsbury is hitting .194, Dustin Pedroia is hitting .206 and David Ortiz has a .172 average while Mike Lowell is only hitting .188.

Bronson Arroyo 2-0 took the win over the Brewers last night by a 6-1 score. Carlos Villanueva the Brewers closer appearing in a non closing situation since the 2-6 Brewers haven’t had that many chances to save games gave up three runs, four hits and a walk in one inning. In his last two appearances he has given up five runs and six hits in two innings and has an ERA of 11.25. Braden Looper who is the fifth starter for the Brewers is the only starter with an ERA under 6.14 with his 1.80 ERA. The Brewers are really missing C.C. Sabathia and Ben Sheets this season and did nothing over winter besides acquiring Looper to improve the starting pitching. The hitters are not doing that much better with Ryan Braun hitting .200, Prince Fielder .179, J.J. Hardy .156 and Jason Kendall hitting .095.

The Diamondbacks defeated the Cardinals 7-6 in the fifth extra inning game of the day when Eric Byrnes who was for 1 for 17 when he stepped into the batter’s box singled in the winning run for the Diamondbacks in the tenth inning. Chris Carpenter had to leave the game with a rib cage injury that happened when he was batting in yesterday’s game. The Cardinals loss allowed the idle Cubs to take a percentage points lead over the Cardinals.

2009 Milestones

Hits

Alex Rodriguez needs 96 hits to reach 2500 hits

Manny Ramirez needs 101 hits to reach 2500 hits

Jason Giambi needs 23 hits to reach 2000 hits

Jim Thome hugging his wife Andrea after hitting his 500th home run in 2007.

Home Runs

Jim Thome needs 7 home runs for his 550th home run

Manny Ramirez needs 23 home runs for his 550th home run

Gary Sheffield needs one home run for his 500th home run

Carlos Delgado needs 30 home runs for his 500th home run

Jason Giambi needs 4 home runs for his 400th home run

Vladimir Guerrero needs 7 homers for his 400th home run

Andruw Jones needs 28 home runs for his 400th home run

Ivan Rodriguez needs 4 home runs for his 300th home run

David Ortiz and Lance Berkman need 11 home runs for their 300th home run

Brian Giles needs 15 home runs for his 300th home run

Carlos Lee needs 18 home runs for his 300th home run

Adam Dunn needs 20 home runs for his 300th home run

Alfonso Soriano needs 26 home runs for his 300th home run

(Paul Konerko and Jermaine Dye reached their 300th home run this week so if the seven mentioned above hit their 300th home run this season that would make nine players hitting their 300th home run in 2009)

Scott Rolen with 273 homers, Miguel Tejada with 271 homers and Magglio Ordonez with 268 homers also have a chance of hitting their 300th home run.

Randy Johnson needs five wins to reach 300 wins but has struggled this season with an 0-2 record and an 11.42 ERA.

Wins

Randy Johnson needs 5 wins for 300 wins

Jamie Moyer needs 3 wins for 250 wins

(There are very few pitchers in majors anywhere close to 200 wins. If  Randy Johnson does win his 300th this season he may be the last 300 game winner and 250 wins may become the magic number for future Hall of  Fame pitchers.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/W_career.shtml

Strikeouts

Randy Johnson needs 199 strikeouts for 5000 strikeouts

Javier Vazquez needs 168 strikeouts for 2200 strikeouts

Tim Wakefield needs 89 strikeouts for 2000 strikeouts

(Only Vazquez, Johan Santana with 1607 strikeouts at 30 and C.C. Sabathia with 1399 at 28 are young enough to have a chance at 3000 hits. The emphasis on pitch counts is changing statistics for pitchers and the less innings a pitcher pitches the less strikeouts they will record.