Walkoff Walk

The Chicago Cubs just won on a walkoff walk over the Milwaukee Brewers! Jake Fox was the hero, drawing ball four after Geovany Soto was intentionally walked to load the bases. Mike DeFelice was the loser and allowed me to post this:

God Bless America and God Bless the Shrimp!

Long weekend Creampuffs! Spending the holiday weekend in crutches is no fun at all, we should all pity these poor, poor wusses. It takes a real man to run a BBQ.

• Adrian Beltre, Mariners: Beltre finally decided to have surgery on his ouchie shoulder and will miss the next 6 to 8 weeks as a result. Hurry back Adrian, you're a free agent next year!
  
  
• MIke Lowell, Red Sox: Rob broke down the repeated hip break downs earlier this week. Lowell's trip to the DL is only for some R & R, including the All Star break in his time off is by design. He should do what I do on vacation and drink Thai whiskey while provoking in international incidents.
  
  
• Khalil Greene, Cardinals: Deep, troubled sigh.
  
  
• Antonio Bastardo, Phillies: El Wed-lockless came out of his last start in Tampa complaining of shoulder tightness and clearly diminished velocity. Bastardo's first few starts were excellent but things quickly turned for the young lefty. There is no timetable for his return nor the return of his father. CUZ HE'S A BASTARD.
  
  
• Aaron Miles, Cubs: Hyperextended his elbow fighting off a wallaby. Teammates are quite disappointed as the wallaby was the only way to get Miles out of the lineup.
  
  
• Jorge Posada, Yankees: Posada took a foul tipped-fastball to the left thumb and is currently day-to-day. Posada's pretty old, he should really live each day moment-to-moment.
  
  
• Mark DeRosa, Cardinals: Oh no! The Cards offensive lynchpin is down with a strained tendon! Whomever will save Albert Pujols from himself? While not headed to the Differently Abled List, DeRosa missing any time at all will cause much tongue clucking among Cardinals fans. Cluck all you want, DeRosa isn't that good when he's healthy.
  
  
• Oppression and Tyranny, Freedom Haters: Out with a case of the USAs! USAs! Have a good Fourth peoples.

Hey kids, she loves you yeah yeah yeah

• CAN Atlanta put the finishing moves on the Phillies tonight and complete the sweep? Get your business in order, Uncle Cholly. The Mets are comin'.
  
  
• WHAT is Barry Zito going to do when Albert Pujols steps to the plate tonight? Bert is 5-for-9 lifetime against Zito with two ding-dongs.
  
  
• HOW boring are the milquetoast Houston Astros and the snoozy games they play?
  
  
• REMEMBER Bruce Chen? He's back, in Royals form. The ChiSox are going to roll, y'all.
  
  
• DO you have a television set? Does your television set receive the MLB Network? The nationally broadcast game of the night is the Cubs and Brewers at 8PM EDT.
  
  
• WILL you come with me to Guido Beach this summer? Seriously, I think that motion picture was filmed in Wildwood during my prom weekend.

This ends your official broadcasting week, friends. Be back here tomorrow, though, for a Very Special Edition of What's Up Creampuff? with our best buddy Drew fka LTB. Otherwise, enjoy your American patriotic apple pie fireworks and baseball holiday weekend.

I'm headed to Philadelphia for the Mets/Phils tilt and to scout out the city for our big upcoming Citizens Bank Heist. Leave your own plans in the comment section so we can figure out the best way to stalk you. You too, jingoistic baby.

Until Monday, same WoW channel.

• Erik Manning puts together the Quad-A All Star team, made up of elderly non-prospects who are excelling on the Triple-A level. Finally, Shelley Duncan gets his due. His meaningless, completely anonymous due. Fangraphs.
  
  
• Patrick Sullivan chooses the best players at the midpoint of the season. But he puts a a twist on the affair and goes all the way back to July of 2008 to pick out the best players over the past calendar year. Hit the bricks, Marco Scutaro. Baseball Analysts.
  
  
• J evaluates ESPN Sunday Night Baseball's broadcast trio of doom and shits his pants when Joe Morgan starts chit-chatting about BABIP without having a darn clue as to what that thing is. 3:10 to Joba.
  
  
• It's official. Rany Jazayerli and his happy traveling party of B.P. folks were blacklisted by the Royals for calling out their horrible training staff. I've been banned by better places than Kauffman Stadium, screw 'em. Rany on the Royals.
  
  
• Curtis Granderson took reader questions over at his column at Big League Stew. We learned that he likes Angelina Jolie's fat lips and he cannot lie. The Grandstand.
  
  
• Karim Garcia, who once pissed in the bushes outside a bar in Florida during spring training, is alive and well and living in Korea. Diamond Notes.

Many teams have off today, so the afternoon schedule is mostly snooz-a-rific. Six National League teams will do-si-do us towards the holiday weekend, unless your day off is Monday, and in that case, go screw.

• Diamondbacks at Reds, 12:35PM: The two struggling lineups will go face-to-face with tough luck pitchers Aaron Harang and Doug Davis, each of whom sport sub-4.00 ERAs and losing records. If you like hitters lunging at balls outside the strike zone and whiffing, this is the game for you. Except Joey Votto, that kid's on a 10-for-25 hot streak since coming back from the deel.
  
  
• Mets at Pirates, 12:35PM: Yesterday, I mentioned that this would be the Mets weekend series, which is ridiculous, because I'm going to root root root for the home team when the Mets visit the Phillies on Saturday. Instead, this is a mere makeup of a game postponed by rain showers back on June 3; if the Pirates hold form, it'll be a four-game sweep. Tim Redding and his 6.35 ERA will do his best to prevent that.
  
  
• Astros at Padres, 3:35PM: Wait, these two teams have been playing each other all week long? Whoops! But hey, get excited Padres fans because your team just hired Bob Melvin! San Diego looks for the split of the four-gamer behind Kevin Correia, he of the 4-1 record with a 2.41 ERA in his last five outings.

Part of the reason batters wear helmets with earflaps nowadays is the unfortunate incident that happened to Red Sox star Tony Conigliaro back in 1967. Just two seasons removed from leading the league in homers as a 22-year-old, the outfielder was smashed in the face by a Jack Hamilton pitch, crumpling to the ground with a broken cheekbone and a damaged retina. His career lasted a few more productive years before he was forced to retire due to worsening eyesight.

At the same time his baseball career was taking off, he was signed by RCA Victor to a recording contract and made a few appearances on the Merv Griffin show, as evidenced below:

Fast fact: In Italian, Conigliaro means "rabbit". And in Gaelic, Mervyn Griffin means "rich dead closeted queer".

(video obtained thanks to the Classic Television Showbiz blog)

When pitching half of one's games at Coors Field, it's usually a good idea to induce as many ground balls as possible and keep fly balls to a minimum. That's good for new Rockies manager Jim Tracy who can brag that he has three of the best ground ball pitchers in the National League this year.

With some neat stats via Fangraphs, here are your top pitchers in the National League as measured by ground ball-to-fly ball ratio:

First, the non-Rockies on the list. Pineiro's success is obviously not his ability to punch out hitters with the high heat. But his sinkerball is inducing a bevy of groundballs that the Cards infielders are eating up and throwing across the diamond to Gold Glove guy Albert Pujols. He's also giving up just over one walk per nine innings pitched, one of the best rates in the game and good enough to keep runners off base when he gives up the rare tater tot.

We already know from the Mets-Brewers liveglog from yesterday that Mike Pelfrey has the ability to draw a GIDP when in trouble, and when he's walking almost as many guys as he's striking out, he's going to be in trouble a bunch. The Mets are among the worst defensive teams in the majors, mostly because half of their starting lineup lately are playing out of position. Otherwise, Pelf's ERA would be a lot better.

As for the Rockies threesome, Cook's FIP is so high because he's giving up a bunch of home runs. More than 15% of fly balls hit off of him go for tater tots, versus just 5% for teammate Ubaldo Jimenez, but Cook still has a 3.77 thanks to leaving over 77% of his runners on base, one of the top ten rates in the NL. Jimenez also strikes out a ton of dudes.

I can't explain Jason Marquis' success as a Rockies pitcher without delving into the dark arts. However, the other two pitchers in the rotation, Jorge De La Rosa and Jason Hammel, boast sub-4.00 FIPs thanks to K/9IP rates over 6.0 and HR/9IP rates under 1.0.

So while the Rockies are just middle of the pack when it comes to both fielding percentage and UZR metrics and none of the Rockies infielders are among the top three players at their position in the National League. Yet since Jim Tracy took over a month ago, the Rockies defense has been converting many more batted balls into outs.

Whether or not it's Tracy's influence on the Rockies infielders to improve their work ethic in the field, the smart fielding is helping the wormballing Colorado pitchers.

Here's what happened in baseball last night when I realized I had to let go:

Mets 1, Brewers 0: In between conversations about Canadian rock music and fat people, we followed along to Mike Pelfrey and Yovani Gallardo engaging in a good old-fashioned pitchers' duel. The Mets one run was scored when Luis Castillo smacked a grounds rule double down the third base line that could have gone for a triple had some cheesehead dame not tumbled over the tarp to grab the live ball.

Dodgers 1, Rockies 0: The second 1-0 game of the day was won on the back of a pinch hitter. Good move, Mr. Torre. With Brad Ausmus on second in the eighth inning, Joe sent in Rafael Furcal to pinch hit for eventual game-winner Ramon Troncoso. Furcal's game-winner came off hard-luck loser Jason Hammel, who went the distance and struck out five while walking none. The Dodgers are now a MLB best 17-8 in one-run games but 0-29 in games where they fail to score as many runs as the opposition. Area needs improvement, Torre!

Reds 1, Diamondbacks 0: The third 1-0 game on Wednesday was perhaps the most predictable, with a struggling Diamondbacks team facing a free-swinging Reds squadron. Joey Votto's sixth inning single plated Chris Dickerson while Johnny Cueto scattered four walks and one hit in six innings to earn a hard-fought W. The D-Backs have now lost nine of their last 11 games.

Braves 11, Phillies 1: Not a 1-0 game but at least both teams earned a run total made up solely of the digit 1. That's so binary. Jair Jurrjens waited all the way until the seventh inning before giving up his first hit of the night; by that point, his Braves friends had battered Cole Hamels and the Phils relief crew like scrod. Delicious, flaky scrod. Martin Prado made the most of his new starting job at second for manager Bobby Cox, going 2-for-4 with 3 runs and 2 RBI. Don't look now but the top four teams in the NL East are now separated by just three games.

Cardinals 2, Giants 1 (10): This one had the potential to be a 1-0 until the Giants tied the game in the eighth at one apiece. Then, in the tenth, Chunky Pablo Sandoval dropped a foul pop-up off the bat of Colby Rasmus, who then proceeded to clobber a ding dong outta the park for the walkoff win. With Albert Pujols on deck, fella was gonna get a good pitch to hit.

Yankees infielders Alex Rodriguez and Cody Ransom, and general manager Brian Cashman served as Chefs for a Day at El Nuevo Caridad Restaurant in Washington Heights today and served some picante dishes to some special kids. I can spot at least 12 health code violations in that picture, and eleven of them are in Alex's pants.

• DID you enjoy the liveglog? I hope so, it ate up any time I would have had to do a proper TQ.

Please head over to the fine website Pyle of List tonight. They are trying out a new experiment in liveglogging, similar to a MST3K style with hilarious audio commentary. I wish them the best. See you tomorrow, folks. Same WoW channel.