Granderson takes over HR, RBI lead (AP)

Even without Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez in the lineup, the New York Yankees still pack a wallop. Curtis Granderson hit two of New York’s five home runs, rookie Ivan Nova won his 10th straight decision, and the Yankees beat the Baltimore Orioles 8-3 Sunday night for a split of a day-night doubleheader.

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http://www.mlbnewsblog.com/2011/08/29/granderson-takes-over-hr-rbi-lead-ap/

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Rangers rally by Angels, West lead now 3 (AP)

Josh Hamilton broke out of a slump with a long two-run homer and the tiebreaking RBI single for the AL West-leading Texas Rangers, who rallied for a 9-5 victory over the chasing Los Angeles Angels. Hamilton’s homer in the third off Jered Weaver tied the game at 4, and his single in the seventh put [...]

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http://www.mlbnewsblog.com/2011/08/29/rangers-rally-by-angels-west-lead-now-3-ap/

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Show #162: Irene 2, Braves 0

Hanson’s injury.   Lowe and JJ on the upswing?  Potential NLDS rotations and the post season hope meter.[...]

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http://www.atlantabaseballtalk.com/show-162-irene-2-braves-0/

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Catching Up With the 1994 Royals, Part 2: Mark
Gubicza

The following is a guest post by Clam Simmons, a librarian living in New England. Clam is not my pen name or persona. Clam is on twitter @orangehunchback. He recently contacted me about writing a series of pieces about the 1994 Royals. These are their stories.

Catching up with the 1994’s Royals: Pt 2: Mark Gubicza by Clam Simmons

Mark Gubicza Creates Double Trouble

Last week a Royals Nation transplant named Mr. X left me a frantic voice message. He shrieked that I needed to fly out to Orange County, California immediately. Mr. X told me that while he was getting his quarterly trim and shampoo his barber, completely unprompted, dropped some deep thoughts about Hal McRae’s skill set as a manager. Meanwhile Mr. X. noted the barber’s height and the barber’s southpaw grip of the electric clippers. Mr. X. explained that he tried to stay cool but when he glanced over and saw Mark Gubicza’s name on the California state beautician’s license he completely freaked out and ran out of Tommy Chan’s 90210 Hair Club with uneven bangs.

Readers, I get messages about 1994 Royals sightings all the time. Yesterday I had three citizens of Royals Nation report Rusty Meacham sightings. They all said they saw Meacham driving a mini-van full of poodles around Belton, Missouri in broad daylight. Get a grip people. Let Rusty live his life. First rule of RoIJo(Royals Internet Journalism): it’s not news if you catch Wally Joyner buying toilet paper, it’s only news if you catch Wally Joyner stealing toilet paper. Don’t bring your Velveeta to this Tony Muser cheddar party.

I quickly forgot Mr. X’s story but then two days later my fax machine started blowing up. The fax was two images: a screen shot of Gubicza telecasting an Angels’ day game and a photocopy of Mr. X’s phone records highlighting the time of the call he made to me from the parking lot of Tommy Chan’s 90210 Hair Club. I did some internet research and discovered that the day game and the phone call were synchronized. I did even more internet research and discovered that said Angels’ game was an away game. I smelled gold. I cashed up at three different plasma banks and bought a ticket to Los Angeles.

When I first contacted the salon about Gubicza Tommy Chan told me that no one named Gubicza worked for the 90210 Hair Club. On the fourth day someone different answered the phone and I was told that Mark would be taking walk-ins on the following Monday. The following Monday morning I ambushed the tall lefty when he pulled into the parking lot. It felt like it was April 19, 1994 and I was Kirk Gibson and he was still Mark Gubicza. I hopped on top of Gubicza’s Isuzu Amigo and told the former 20-game winner I wouldn’t get off until he gave me an interview. When I started to dent the hood Gubicza agreed to ten minutes in a Ralph’s parking lot. Thankfully I brought batteries for my recording equipment because Mark Steven Gubicza coughed up some stunning revelations.

CS: I just wanted to let you know that I noticed that you’ve been starting to show up two places at once. Royals Nation wants to know, is this a phase?

MG: Let me put it to you this way.  Have you seen that show about Urkel?

CS: You mean Family Matters?

MG: Yes.

CS: Yeah I guess I’ve seen it a couple times.

MG: Do you remember the season seven finale where Urkel kind of hates his life because Laura Winslow does not love him and in a fit of genius Urkel invents a cloning machine that creates a cooler, more confident version of Urkel named Stephan Urquelle?

CS: No. I have not seen that one.

MG: What if I told you that the Urkel cloning machine exists at a research lab at Pepperdine University and it’s called the Pepperdine Duplicator.

CS: Mark Gubicza are you saying you cloned yourself? 

MG: No comment but I will say that people think Pepperdine is expensive because it’s by the ocean and has a great location. They’re wrong. It’s expensive because ninety percent of tuition goes to funding the Duplicator’s hydro-accelerator.

CS: I’m sorry… let’s take a step back; did you not want to be a baseball player when you grew up?

MG: Great question. I’m not going to answer your question directly but I will hint at an answer in the form of my next question to you. If you had a profession that you paid you very well but left you unfulfilled wouldn’t you pay a million dollars to undergo an experimental hydro-procedure to create a duplicate version of yourself so that you could follow your true passion?

CS: I don’t have a million dollars.

MG: I think you just answered my question.

CS: Right…so do you talk to the other Gubicza?

MG: Time’s up. You will have to excuse me, but there’s a scalp at Tommy Chan’s with dry and damaged hair and it’s screaming for moisture.

CS: Please answer the question. It’s my last one and you will never see me on the hood of your Isuzu ever again. Do you talk to the other Gubicza?

MG: Or only communication is knowledge, the knowledge that I made the sacrifices necessary to allow for his creation.

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Rockies Pile on Early, Hang on Late to Beat the
Dodgers 7-6

It looks like the Rockies, having had a 17 game Sunday losing streak, are going to give a long Sunday winning streak a try. I for one welcome these efforts. If this afternoon's game felt like a repeat of yesterday's to you, where the Rockies took a big lead and crumbled, you aren't alone. Happily, this game had a better ending.

The Rockies started the game out with a bang, scoring five runs in the top of the first inning, including a bases-clearing double by new Rockie Kevin Kouzmanoff. After LA pulled to within 5-2, Seth Smith and Kouzmanoff provided RBI hits in the 5th to make it 7-2. Then everything seemed to be coming undone, as Jhoulys Chacin walked the bases loaded and allowed two runs on no hits in the 6th and Matt Lindstrom allowed two more runs to cross in the seventh to make it 7-6.

Fortunately, the bullpen was able to hold the one run advantage this time and the Rockies were able to knot up the season series at 9 with LA. Carlos Gonzalez's RBI streak ended at 11, but he did provide 3 hits to extend his hit streak to 15, while Smith and Kouzmanoff each had multi-hit games. Meanwhile, Chacin got the win despite his wildness (11-10), striking out 6 in 5 plus innings, and Rafael Betancourt set down the Dodgers in order in the 9th to record his 4th save. Colorado now heads to Arizona to see if they are going to make any noise in September. Anything less than a sweep there and I'd say the playoff dreams can probably die.

Graph:

via www.fangraphs.com

We Salute: Kouzmanoff (.230 WPA), Betancourt (.184), Rex Brothers (.133)

We Are Disappointed in: Lindstrom (-.129 WPA), Jonathan Herrera (-.093), Chacin (-.062)

Roll Call: Roxman4ever, Shoemaker, Paleface Destro, prettyinpurple, jrockies, SDcat09 (most prolific), Resolution, Yokel, controlled_slide, maris61, glaucophane, CentralCaliRox, everever, purplesocks, nodakroxfan, Bostjan Cernensek, black_knight101, Rox the Casbah, Junction Rox, WanderingRoxFan, Hollidayrain, steakman, Northsider1964, theshiva, Gr3yStreet, wtnelson, SurfaceThought, PetroCW, Cargo's Ball Sack5, Charlie77, free7694, coffeeis4closersonly, CarRo2010, Thebuster, jasonwrites, Chrysicat, papality
Total Users: 37
Total Posts: 841
Total Threads: 1

Panda Rating: Relieved Panda

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Astros Take Another Into Extras With Giants,
Emerge Victorious 4-3

I don't know what it is about the defending World Series Champions San Franciso Giants but they seem to bring out the best in the Astros.

This was another low scoring affair due to both starting pitchers being on for their respective teams. For the Giants Matt Cain went 8 innings, struck out 6, walked 1, while allowing 2 earned runs on five hits. For the Astros Bud Norris facing his hometown team went 7 innings, striking out 10, walking 1, while allowing 2 earned runs on 3 hits. After both starters exited it became a battle of the bullpens and one in which you'd expect the Giants to win. If you're looking at hits and walks you could certainly say the Astros should of lost the battle giving up 6 hits and 2 walks, while the Giants bullpen gave up only 2 hits and 1 base on balls. The difference though was that the Astros offense made those hits count.

In the top of the tenth the Astros scored a run on a Jason Michaels double that credited Jimmy Paredes with the run. The Giants answered in the bottom of the inning with a run scoring single from Mark DeRosa that scored Andres Torres. Unfortunately for the Giants DeRosa was thrown out at second after he over slid the bag and Angel Sanchez got close enough for the second base umpire to call him out. Bruce Bochy came out to argue the call and was tossed from the game. Carlos Beltran would of course follow with a single and Pablo Sandoval was put on when the count was put in his favor. Mark Melancon would fan Brandon Belt to end the inning.

Surprisingly the Astros scored again in the top of the eleventh on a Matt Downs single to center field that score Jose Altuve, Downs would be thrown out after the throw was cutoff. Brian Bogusevic would ground out to end the game and his 0-5 night, which probably means he'll be sitting for tomorrow's game.

David Carpenter came in for the bottom of the eleventh hitting Aubrey Huff who was bunted over by Miguel Tejada. He then got Aaron Rowand to strikeout and Mike Fontenot to ground out for his first career save.

With the victory the Astros were able to split this series and take the season series 4 games to 3 and Astro fans were able to relish a small victory that have been few this season.  Up next for the Astros are the Pirates who have fallen from grace since the All-Star Break.

One thing to note is that in the top of the 9th Carlos Lee was injured on a double after sliding into second base awkwardly. He was replace by Jose Altuve in the inning, but you have to wonder if his injury is serious enough that he'll be replaced on the roster. I expect that at the very least he'll be given tomorrow's game off, which I'm sure will delight many of you.

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Granderson takes HR lead as Yanks split (AP)

Curtis Granderson homered twice to take over the major league lead with 38, rookie Ivan Nova won his 10th straight decision, and the New York Yankees beat the Baltimore Orioles 8-3 Sunday night for a split of a day-night doubleheader. Granderson hit a three-run drive in the third inning and a solo shot in the [...]

Read The Full Article:
http://www.mlbnewsblog.com/2011/08/29/granderson-takes-hr-lead-as-yanks-split-ap/

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Dodgers dispute Ethiers knee injury (AP)

All-Star right fielder Andre Ethier was held out of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ starting lineup Sunday because of a sore right knee, and the team wants to find out the exact nature of the injury. Ethier went public with his problem in Sunday’s Los Angeles Times, which caused a clamor throughout the clubhouse and resulted [...]

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http://www.mlbnewsblog.com/2011/08/29/dodgers-dispute-ethiers-knee-injury-ap/

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Rangers 3B Beltre to begin rehab stint (AP)

Adrian Beltre will begin a rehabilitation assignment Monday with Triple-A Round Rock, and the All-Star third baseman hopes to be back in the lineup for the Texas Rangers a few days after that. Beltre has been out since July 23 because of a strained left hamstring. He aggravated the injury Aug. 6 when rounding first [...]

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http://www.mlbnewsblog.com/2011/08/29/rangers-3b-beltre-to-begin-rehab-stint-ap/

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Kennedy NLs first 17-game winner (AP)

The foundation of Arizona’s success this season has come from its ability to get production throughout the lineup, so it was no surprise when two of the team’s newest players came through against San Diego. Ian Kennedy? He’s been doing this all season. Kennedy pitched seven effective innings to become the National League’s first 17-game [...]

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http://www.mlbnewsblog.com/2011/08/29/kennedy-nls-first-17-game-winner-ap/

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