An arbitrary and capricious roundup of today's MLB action:

Francisco Liriano's bid for a 2nd no-hitter was ended in the 8th by Adrian Beltre. Liriano allowed a run on 2 hits and no walks, with 9 strikeouts. It was his first game without a walk since last Sept. 7. In a long half-inning before Beltre's hit, Minnesota sent 10 men to the plate and scored 5 runs, as many as they'd scored in any game for Liriano this year.

• All 5 Twins runs in the 7th were unearned due to an error by Elvis Andrus, who had 2 in the game and has 13 this season. Andrus made only 16 errors all last year, so he must be having a worse year defensively, right? Not necessarily. Andrus is making more plays, and more double plays, than last year, and his dWAR rating already exceeds last year's mark.

Humidor, schmumidor: The Rockies and Dodgers staged an old-fashioned game of Coorsball, combining for 7 HRs. Colorado won the long-hitting competition, 4-3, but LA spiced their attack with 14 other hits and prevailed by 10-8. The ball was flying so well that even James Loney got some liftoff with a 4th-inning grand slam against Ubaldo Jimenez to put his club in front for good. Matt Kemp, still scorching hot, hit his 20th, while the Rockies were represented by the usual suspects (Cargo-Tulo-Helton) plus Seth Smith, the talented batsman with the banker's name. Mr. Smith is now hitting .314 with a .906 OPS.

• Although 5 of the 7 runs off Jimenez were unearned, he allowed 11 hits in 5.1 IP and fell to 1-7; in the last calendar year, he is 8-14 with a 4.31 ERA in just over 200 IP.

• By the way, Coors Field this year was already allowing 23% more runs than an average park before this game.
• LA rookie Rubby De La Rosa improved to 3-0 with 5 competent innings, and has won both his starts. He may be a gem, but I still say his name oughta rhyme with "Tubby."

Jordan Zimmermann notched his 8th straight quality start for the Nationals, holding the Padres without a run for 7 innings while striking out 10. But Tim Stauffer matched him zero for zero, and Zimmermann got no decision in Washington's 2-0 victory. It was the 32nd time this year that a pitcher allowed no runs in 7+ IP without a decision. Last year, there were 22 such games at about the same point in the season. In the 8 games, Zimmermann has a 2.26 ERA, a K/BB ratio over 4, and a WHIP just south of 1. San Diego fell to 14-26 at home.

Seventeen-forty-seven: A formative year in colonial American politics? A new brand of vodka that pours you a shot, then hides your car keys and drives you home in an oxcart? The cost of parking at Yankee Stadium on half-price-for-seniors day? No, 17.47 was the ERA that KC's Vin Mazzaro lugged into today's game against the Angels in, of and for Anaheim. (I picture it in a custom-made carrying case, like one of those "What's your number?" commercials.) Lo and behold, seven scoreless innings issued from Mazzaro's right arm, and if it was not quite a thing of beauty -- he walked 5 without a strikeout, and threw but 53 strikes in 102 pitches -- well, the baseball fates owed him one, and today that debt was paid, at least in part.

• The Royals won just their 8th road game; the Halos fell to 15-20 at home and remained 5 games behind the Rangers.

Saturday, Dan Uggla had his first 2-hit game since May 15. He did it again Sunday, and added a 2-run HR, snapping streaks of 23 games without a HR and 13 without an RBI. Brian McCann, who has recently rediscovered his power stroke, added his 9th HR, his 5th in the past 11 games, to nudge his slugging average near the .500 mark. Atlanta is 21-15 on the road and remains 2 GB the Phils.

The Mets cracked a scoreless tie in Pittsburgh on a fly-ball double play in the 7th inning. With runners at the corners and 1 out, Jason Bay flied to CF, deep enough to score the run, but the man on 1st, Angel Pagan, had (for reasons known only to him) gone all the way to 2nd while the ball was in the air; he failed to retouch 2nd base on his return and was called out on appeal. Later, PH Scott Hairston and Jose Reyes hit back-to-back HRs of RP Daniel McCutchen. For Reyes, it was his 2nd HR in 3 days, both off McCutchen, and the 3rd time he's homered in 5 career AB against McCutchen. Not to detract from Jose's feat, but McCutchen is just a wee bit homer-prone; he has allowed 23 HRs in 136 career IP, or 1.52 HR/9.

• As some folks predicted, Reyes has fallen slightly off his insane doubles-and-triples pace in recent days, but has compensated with singles and HRs. He is back atop the NL batting race at .346, and is now on a pace for 359 total bases and 7 HRs. No MLB player in history has topped 337 total bases with 7 HRs or less.
• Each of the 3 games so far in the Pirates-Mets series has given one of the teams a chance to reach .500 with a win; each time, the team on the brink was turned back.

Felix Hernandez labored (126 pitches and 14 baserunners in 8 innings), but he did enough to make his pals' late lumber work pay off in a 7-3 win that kept Detroit from taking sole possession of 1st place. Miguel Olivo hit 2 HRs and Justin Smoak added his 12th, and each drove in 3 runs. Brennan Boesch had a rough day at the plate, 0 for 5 with 2 inning-ending GIDPs, and struck out to end the game.

• King Felix now has 78 wins at age 25, tied for 5th-most among AL pitchers in the DH era through age 25:

The Cubs scored 3 in the opening stanza off Roy Oswalt, but then rested after their great work, while the pesky Phillies scratched back with their typical small-ball attack, hitting their magic number of 4 runs on just 7 hits that all stayed in play. Oswalt (7 IP, 3 ER) allowed just 1 hit after the 1st inning and picked up his first win since April 21.

• Cubs lefty Sean Marshall came into the weekend with an 0.95 ERA in 29 IP, but was touched for 2 runs each of the past 2 games, unable to navigate Philly's string of LHBs in a crucial spot in each game.
• The Phils are 5-1 when scoring exactly 4 runs this year.

Hunger in the midst of plenty: While his teammates were romping to a 14-1 win with 17 hits, J.D. Drew went 0 for 5 with 4 strikeouts. Drew is hitting .227 with 16 RBI in 51 games. We all know RBI are overrated, but wouldn't you have thought that Drew, who had 100 RBI in his last year with the Dodgers, would have driven in 70 at least once during his 5-year, $70-million deal? The deal's in its last year, and the odds don't look good.

• Kyle Drabek (8 ER in 4 IP, 45 strikes in 91 pitches) is still a long way from being Roy Halladay. In 2 starts against Boston this year, he has allowed 12 ER and 5 HRs in 9 IP, with 15 hits and 7 walks.  The question remains for Toronto's front office: Since Drabek is just 23 and hasn't pitched at AAA yet, what are he, his 5.79 ERA and his 6.4 BB/9 all doing in the majors at the same time?

W-L records aside, who's been the most valuable lefty SP since 2008? Here are the WAR totals before today:

• So, now can I mention Jon Lester's career record of 70-27?

Derek Jeter had 2 singles and 2 RBI, giving him 2,993 career hits and 3 multiple-RBI games this year. The Yankees scored 9 runs without a HR, the first time in 14 games this year that they've topped 5 runs without the long ball.

Selected HR totals in Yankee Stadium this year:

• 3 - David Ortiz
• 2 - Kevin Youkilis, Adrian Gonzalez, Melky Cabrera, Eric Hosmer, Jose Bautista
• 1 - J.D. Drew, Carl Crawford, Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Mike McCoy, Daniel Murphy, Austin Jackson
• 0 - Derek Jeter. (Jeter hit both his HRs in a 12-5 rout in Texas on May 8.)

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 12th, 2011 at 10:44 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.