Red Sox finish best road trip since 1977 (AP)

post from MLB News Blog on 16 June 2011 11:57:26 PM. © MLB News Blog

The Boston Red Sox concluded their most successful road trip in 34 years with another win. Adrian Gonzalez homered and David Ortiz, Darnell McDonald and Dustin Pedroia drove in runs to back right-hander Clay Buchholz and lead the AL East leaders to a 4-2 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays on Thursday night.

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Holliday back but Cards skid continues (AP)

post from MLB News Blog on 16 June 2011 11:45:28 PM. © MLB News Blog

Late home runs by Albert Pujols and Yadier Molina rallied the St. Louis Cardinals only to see them fall short yet again. Reliever Fernando Salas gave up a three-run homer to Danny Espinosa in the bottom of the 10th inning to give the Washington Nationals a 7-4 win Thursday night. It was the sixth straight [...]

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Braves beat Mets 9-8 on balk in 10th (AP)

post from MLB News Blog on 16 June 2011 11:45:28 PM. © MLB News Blog

Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez didn’t even see the balk that gave Atlanta its latest extra-innings win. Everyone else did. With a runner on third and two outs in the 10th inning, Mets reliever D.J. Carrasco stopped and then restarted his motion with Jason Heyward at the plate, bringing home the winning run to give the [...]

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Giants Go For Desert Sweep

post from The Giants Baseball Blog- A San Francisco Giants Blog and Fan Website on 16 June 2011 11:01:18 PM. © The Giants Baseball Blog- A San Francisco Giants Blog and Fan Website

First of all, I'm very sorry for our long, week and a half hiatus. I usually never take breaks that long in season, but unfortunately I got sick last week with the flu and am just know getting back into typing shape, but this will still be a smaller post.

One thing the sickness did allow me to do, was really take a good long look at the San Francisco Giants from afar. It's been about a month now since I've been out to AT&T for an actual game, so I have been watching everything on TV, which I'm not so much used to. Normally I'll watch about %20 live in attendance, %20 on TV, and listen to the other half or so, mostly just away games, but I got to watch them play all homestand against the Cards and Cininatti as well as this Arizona series so far, and they've really caughten some fire. Their bats were starting to heat up over the weekend, as you could start to see signs, but it wasn't until Aubrey Huff started going to left field like a natural righty, Billy Hall's signing and immediate impact in place of the oft-injured Freddy Sanchez and finally capped off by The Panda's anticipated return Tuesday night. They were looking so locked in offensively, they even go some surprisingly good play out of Eli Whiteside and the catchers spot over these last 5-6 games. We know this team will battle injuries all year long and should be deep enough to override most of their lineup mishaps. I liked the move for Hall, another low-risk possibly huge-reward type player who looks hungry. I mean, the only guy who's really been healthy and in their since Game 1, 2011 has been Huff, and he was hitting just .230 with 30-RBI heading into Arizona June 15th. (though he did have a few 3-hit games to add 14 points to his batting average)

There is no doubt in my mind, that if the Giants are indeed intent on winning another World Series, which, barring any setbacks to the rotation, looks like a legit possibility. That said, this lineup isn't producing quite as well at this pace as they were last year after the arrival of Posey lifted them to that next level. Even with Sanchez and Sandoval out there, that ".175 hitting catcher" and whoever has been at short, is going to rear up and bite them in the behind later on in the year if they don't end up upgrading. Again, they don't need another Posey, but someone who can handle the day-to-day duties and at least support a respectable average up over .250. I still wouldn't mind Pudge, but would rather have a little bit younger of a guy like Migeul Olivo or Chris Snyder if he got back and healthy in time to help out after going to the 60-Day DL last week! Right now, I like how Sabean is going at it though, not making any panic moves and staying the coarse while his team writes the ship. It's a weird thing to say, since he hasn't done too much to add to the team, but I think Sabean is the perfect guy to be leading this club's pursuit of players and I do think he'll get something done before the 31st of next month!

Giants Draft Picks: I also didn't get a chance to talk much about the Giants draft picks, but I did watch it. I didn't hear too much about SS top pick Joe Ponik before the pick and haven't had a chance to look at him play yet so I'll hold off on comment on him until a later date, but I really liked the 2-3 picks in Prep right-hander Kyle Crick out of Texas and Oregon State catcher Andrew Sussac, who I actually watched play a few times in the College World Series over the weekend as well as part of my slumber-stupor. He looks like a nice young player, quite possibly Buster's replacement a few years down the line at catcher, allowing Posey to go to 2nd or 3rd Base full time (which will eventually be his destination at some point especially in light of injury)? Could certainly be if Sussoc develops like he's supposed to! The Giants stuck mostly with polished college guys for the most part of the top of the draft, and we'll look at it a lot closer in the coming days after I get back in touch with our College Baseball Daily guru, Brian Foley! We should be back onto a normal schedule now, going back to every other day or so, possibly more, so check back after the game each day for updates! Thanks guys!

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Braves 9 Mets 8 June 16, 2011

post from The Mets Report on 16 June 2011 10:53:32 PM. © The Mets Report

What a roller coaster this game was. I went from thrilled and excited to utterly disgusted and then even more disgusted. Typical Mets game. This one went 10 innings tonight. It started out with a rough game by R.A. Dickey. He just didn’t have it and only went 4 innings allowing 4 earned runs. The ... Continue Reading

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Red Sox beat Rays, Buchholz leaves hurt (AP)

post from MLB News Blog on 16 June 2011 10:45:32 PM. © MLB News Blog

Adrian Gonzalez homered and David Ortiz, Darnell McDonald and Dustin Pedroia drove in runs to back starter Clay Buchholz and lead the Boston Red Sox to a 4-2 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays on Thursday night. The win was the 11th in 12 games for the AL East leaders, who concluded a 10-day, nine-game [...]

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Espinosas HR in 10th keeps Nats surging (AP)

post from MLB News Blog on 16 June 2011 10:33:25 PM. © MLB News Blog

Danny Espinosa’s three-run homer in the bottom of the 10th gave the Washington Nationals their sixth straight win, 7-4 over the St. Louis Cardinals on Thursday night. Ryan Zimmerman led off the 10th with a single off Fernando Salas (3-1). With one out, Salas hit Michael Morse with a pitch and Espinosa followed by hitting [...]

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Braves something, Mets something else (some
number of innings more than 9)

post from Capitol Avenue Club on 16 June 2011 10:20:57 PM. © Capitol Avenue Club

Every time I try to watch a game they have 3 hours of rain delays or suck or let Scott Proctor pitch to the tying run and end up going to extra innings. Hanson is hurt, Chipper probably is too. At least we get to see Randall Delgado make his MLB debut tomorrow. It’s getting [...]

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Yes, I'm kind of excited about the Moneyball
movie.....

They said it couldn't be done. I'm talking about the baseball blogosphere, particularly the sabermetric branch. The book "Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game" treats Billy Beane's approach as GM of the Oakland A's almost like a business school case study. And Moneyball had become iconic, and representative of, the "scouts vs. stats" battle prevalent in the blogosphere five or six years ago. Sabermetric bloggers have been skeptical over the last couple of years that the movie version of the book can be reasonably true to the Moneyball story while also entertaining the average theater goer. Bloggers guessed that the movie would result in something ridiculous.

Now I am seeing advertising for the movie Moneyball, and I'm excited about seeing the movie. Here is the movie trailer. And it looks pretty good. Sure, you can't tell everything about a movie from the trailer. But doesn't this make you want to see the movie? I write about sabermetrics and quantitative approaches to baseball here at TCB. And now Brad Pitt & Co. bring some of those concepts to life in the theater? Awesome. I wonder what Joe Morgan will say about the movie?

In honor of mentioning Moneyball and Bill Beane, I will show how the Astros fare on the Beane count.

Rob Neyer invented the Beane Count, named for Billy Beane. The Beane count ranks teams based on combining each team's ranking on offensive home runs and walks and pitching home runs and walks. Where do the Astros rank? I think you can guess. The Astros rank dead last in the NL. The Astros' Beane Count is the worst in the majors, outstripping the Twins at the bottom of the AL. (I'm not sure that the NL and AL rankings are directly comparable, because of the DH, but that's how it turns out anyway.) Also, does anyone see the irony that Beane's current A's team is ranked 10th in the AL for the Beane Count?

Any thoughts about the movie?

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High & Inside: 6/16/11

Baseball links from around the sabersphere...Is Bad Plate Discipline the Reason for the Marlins Struggles? | Marlins DailyEarlier in the year, when the Marlins were getting on base more, they were not reaching out of the zone for pitches, and when they[...]

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http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2011/6/16/2227972/high-inside-6-16-11

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