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-- Our long Northwest nightmare is over: Ichiro Suzuki's 2-out single ended Seattle's scoring drought at 30 innings, dating to last Sunday, and snapped the Rangers' shutout streak at 3 games and 33 innings. Texas pitcher C.J. Wilson immediately announced his retirement.

• Well, no ... but the Rangers did retake the lead 3 batters into the next inning, en route to a 5-1 triumph. So while the Mariners' zero streak is over, their losing streak has reached 8 games.
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This flew under my radar--apparently the Marlins plan to rename themselves the Miami Marlins when they move to a new downtown stadium next year.

(Sorry to anybody who has been missing my content for the last couple of weeks...been very busy on the personal side!)

With a pair of home runs off Carlos Zambrano Saturday at Wrigley Field, Mike Stanton now has 42 HRs in his first 188 career games -- tied for 17th in MLB history through 188 games, along with Albert Pujols, Hank Sauer, Richie Sexson and Matt Nokes.

It was his first multi-HR game this season and gave him 20 HRs for the year. He's the 28th player ever with 20+ HRs in each of his first 2 seasons.

The right-handed Stanton continues to show more power against righty pitchers:

• vs. RHPs, 35 HRs in 511 ABs, 6.8%;
• vs. LHPs, 7 HRs in 161 ABs, 4.3%.

In his first game ever against Zambrano, Stanton struck out in his first trip, but drove a HR the opposite way on a 1-2 pitch leading off the 4th, then did the same on a 2-0 pitch with 2 aboard in the 5th, knocking the Big Z out of the game.

Here are the players with at least 40 HRs in their first 188 games:

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With 2 out in the 8th and a runner on 3rd, Yankees CF Brett Gardner got a great jump on a sinking liner by Eric Thames and caught it belt high on the dead run towards the infield. By using his wheels and terrific OF instincts to keep that run off the board, Gardner gave CC Sabathia a little piece of Yankee history.

Sabathia allowed just 1 run in 8 innings, and after 110 pitches, he turned over a 4-1 lead to Mariano Rivera in the 9th. It was Sabathia's 5th straight game of at least 7 IP and no more than 1 run allowed. No other Yankee managed even 4 straight since Clemens in 2000. The last Yankee to do it in 5 straight games was a long time ago, and you'd have to be a real student of Yankee history to guess who it was. I'll tease you for a little while before revealing the name and the year.

Through Sept. 2 of that year, our 24-year-old mystery pitcher was 15-5 with a 1.71 ERA, with 200.1 IP in 26 starts (averaging over 7-2/3 IP) -- despite a K rate of less than 2 SO/9. He slumped in his last 6 starts and wound up the season 16-9, 2.40, with 4 shutouts and 11 CG in 32 starts.

With 58 Ks in 236.1 IP for the year, he averaged 2.21 K/9. It was the last season ever by a qualifying pitcher with such a low K rate but an ERA+ of at least 100.

Opposing pitchers accounted for 12 of his 58 strikeouts -- 12 Ks in 58 ABs, or 20.7%. He fanned just 46 "real" hitters in 829 ABs, or 5.5%.

(For the pitcher's name, click "Read the rest of this entry.")

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Colby Lewis shut down the Mariners on 4 hits over 8.2 IP Friday, and Neftali Feliz got the last out for the Rangers' 3rd straight shutout, following Derek Holland's 5-hitter on Thursday and a combined 6-hitter on the last day of the 1st half. It matches the club's longest shutout streak in the last 30 years, done in May 2008.

-- The only other shutout streak of at least 3 games in the franchise's 51-year history (including the expansion Senators) was a 4-game streak in April 1981, featuring individual shutouts by Doc Medich, Danny Darwin and Rick Honeycutt and a combined effort started by Fergie Jenkins.

-- No team has had more than 3 straight shutouts since Baltimore had 5 in a row to close the 1995 season (two by Mike Mussina).

-- Scheduled pitchers for Saturday are C.J. Wilson and Felix Hernandez. Wilson is 24-11, 3.29 since converting back to a starter last season, but he has never thrown a shutout. He is 2-0 against Seattle this year, with a CG win (12 Ks, 1 ER) in his only start in Safeco.

-- The 2 straight shutouts suffered by Seattle matches their franchise record, done last on July 31-Aug. 1 of last year.

-- It was the 8th shutout loss for the M's this year, and the 4th started by Doug Fister. They've scored 2 runs or less in 15 of his 19 starts; Fister is 3-11 with a 3.18 ERA.

-- Four hits in 31 ABs trimmed Seattle's team batting average to .222. Ichiro Suzuki was 0-4 and is hitting .264.

-- The Mariners have lost 6 straight, scoring 9 runs total.

Friday night in Houston, Pittsburgh's Jeff Karstens needed just 83 pitches to blank the Astros and lift the Pirates into 1st place by percentages points, thanks to losses by the Cards and Brewers. Karstens allowed 5 singles and no walks, with 2 Ks, and threw only 19 balls in his 2nd career shutout. He faced just 30 batters, thanks to a pair of DPs started by the rookies on the left side of the infield, Chase d'Arnaud and Josh Harrison.

• The last 9-inning CG on fewer than 83 pitches was June 12, 2009 by Luke Hochevar (80 pitches, 3 hits, 1 walk, 1 run, 23 balls).
• The last 9-inning shutout on fewer pitches was July 1, 2008 by Aaron Cook (79 pitches, 5 hits, no walks, 21 balls).
• The Astros went 1-3 with runners in scoring position, raising Karstens' BA with RISP to .145 (9 for 62).
• No batter has driven in a baserunner with a hit off Karstens since Chase Utley's ground single on June 3 -- a span of 51.2 IP. In his previous 6 starts, Karstens allowed 9 total runs, on 7 HRs and a pair of groundouts (one was a DP and both were unearned).
• In his last 8 starts (gamelog), Karstens is 5-0 with a 1.26 ERA. He hasn't allowed more than 3 ER in his last 15 starts. He's 8-4, 2.34 on the season, despite allowing 17 HRs in 107.2 IP; all but one were solo shots.
• For a 9-inning game, it was the lowest verified pitch total by the Pirates since Doug Drabek threw an 80-pitch shutout on Sept. 30, 1990, for his 22nd win in his Cy Young Award season.

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With the caveat that a 50-game sample is not really enough to form sound conclusions, let's take a look some park factor trends this year:

--  ESPN's park factors* for the first half of 2011:

• Runs: Coors Field 1.47, Rangers Ballpark 1.44, ..., Tropicana Field (TBR) 0.76, AT&T Park (SFG) 0.74
  (B-R one-year park factors: Coors Field 124, Rangers Ballpark 116, ..., Tropicana Field 90, AT&T Park 89.)
• Hits: Coors Field 1.24, Fenway 1.22, ..., Dodger Stadium 0.85, Busch Stadium 0.84
• HRs: Rangers Ballpark 1.64, Progressive Field (CLE) 1.63, ..., PNC Park (PIT) 0.58, AT&T Park (SFG) 0.56
• Doubles: Fenway 1.36, Rangers Ballpark 1.28, ..., Safeco Field (SEA) 0.82, Busch Stadium (STL) 0.69

* ESPN's Park Factor for a team's park is the ratio of the avg./G in that team's home games to the avg./G in that team's road games; averages are based on combined totals for both teams in each game.

Let's put those ratios into actual numbers of events ... First, the most run-friendly parks so far:

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[A light schedule is better than no schedule....]

-- Derek Holland began the 2nd half in Seattle with an ERA of 4.68 this year and 5.22 for his career, but also with 3 career shutouts in 49 starts, including a 4-hitter in his last outing a week ago. Tonight, Holland became the first Rangers pitcher with consecutive shutouts since Charlie Hough had 3 straight in 1983. The Mariners, who ended the 1st half on a 5-game skid and scored 18 runs in their last 9 games, went down 1-2-3 for the first 5 innings; Holland lost the perfecto and the no-hitter in the 6th, on a walk to Franklin Gutierrez (.218 OBP before tonight with 6 walks in 157 PAs) and a single by Chone Figgins (.183 BA), but he quelled that threat and powered through a pair of 2-out hits in the 9th to get Adam Kennedy for the last out and the shutout.

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I had never heard of Ravelo Manzanillo before a few minutes ago when I read about him on The Greatest 21 Days. His brother Josias had a much longer major league career.

I noticed that Ravelo had a season with a really high walk rate despite amassing 50 innings pitched. I checked it, and here are the only guys since 1901 to pitch at least 50 innings with a BB/9 and a K/9 both as a high as 7:

It's amazing how much more frequently this has been done in the Steroids Era, especially if you ignore Bobby Witt and Mitch Williams specifically.

Mark Trumbo and Nelson Cruz are both in line to join a pretty exclusive club for players who have a high OPS+ despite a low OBP. Read the rest of this entry »