News & notes
Posted by Andy on September 19, 2007
Wow-it's a pretty exciting end to the regular season. There are divisional races in the AL East and all three divisions in the NL, and the Wild Card is the NL is also up for grabs. Here are a few items of note:
- Micah Owings doubled last night (oh, and he pitched a 2-hit shutout), giving him 9 extra base hits on the season, tied for 2nd most in the last 20 years. He's got a shot at tying or breaking that record, held by Jason Marquis with 10. Also, since 1956, he's got the highest SLG for any pitcher with at least 50 plate appearances.
- After a brutal start with the Red Sox, Eric Gagne ran off 6 scoreless outings in the previous 7 appearances before falling apart last night. In 250 career relief appearances with the Dodgers, Gagne allowed at least one extra-base hit in 46 of those games (18%.) Meanwhile, in 15 games with Boston, he's allowed an XBH in 8 of them (53%.) Ouch. Or another way to look at it is that he had 206 appearances (82%) with Dodgers allowing no earned runs, and just 8 with Boston (53%.)
- Jason Werth tripled twice for the Phillies last night (I wish Rollins had those 2 triples) making it the 12th instance when someone tripled twice in a game this year. That man, Curtis Granderson, has done it twice.
September 19th, 2007 at 10:27 am
Overshadowed by Owings, Yovani Gallardo has posted the second-highest XBH total for any first-year pitcher over the same span.
September 20th, 2007 at 5:31 am
Do most people know that the team that finishes with the best record in the AL gets to pick whether the opening series is played over 7 days or 8 days? I think that's a huge advantage. See here for the story.
As or right now, the Red Sox, Indians, and Angels all have 90 wins and the Yankees have 88...so it's totally up for grabs.