Looking at the Game of Baseball from all ends of the Spectrum
Magglio Ordonez is off to a poor start this first half and his July isnāt improving (4 for 20). With only 14 extra base hits so far this year, rumor has it they are calling him āSinglioā
Now thereās talk of platooning him with callup Clete Thomas.
Seattle prospect Jamie McOwen has a hit streak going thatās starting to get national attention. McOwen, a rightfielder for the High Desert Mavericks in the Class A Advanced California League, has now hit in 45 straight games. For the season, McOwen is hitting a nifty .355, one point behind the Cal League batting leader.
The 45 games is not a record in the minors. Not by a longshot. Similar to the majors, the hit streak record seems to be the hardest to conquer. He has 24 games to go. You have to go back to 1919 when Joe Wilhoit from Wichita had a 69 game hit streak. That remains the record today.
By the way, if the name High Desert Mavericks sounds familiar to you, then you probably heard the news story about the incredible 51-run game between the Mavericks and the Lake Elsinore Storm a couple weeks ago. The Mavericks came out on the losing side on that 33-18 wild one. McOwenās 2 for 6 performance in that game contributed to his streak.
Update: The streak is over at 45. Bus Leagues Baseball live-blogged what would have been the 46th game and McOwen came up short.
I had the idea that Austin Kearns was going to be the next superstar when he came up in 2002.
I remember when he was going to be the next Adam Dunn but much better. He was going to be faster, hit for better average, would be able to field and wouldnāt strike out as much. I remember this because I drafted him as a rookie in my APBA league.
Well, I am lucky because I had the luxury of trading him. The folks in DC arenāt so lucky. I guess a few of the fans there are a little tired of him already.
The Seattle Mariners defeated the Orioles last night behind a classic one-hitter pitched by Jarrod Washburn. The good pitching by Washburn was not necessarily out of character this season. The 9-0 win was.
After a few iffy seasons, Washburn has pitched well in 2009. He sports a 3.08 allowing 7.7 hits per 9 innings and has a WHIP of 1.10. Much improved compared to the last few years. Unfortunately for the Mariners, they havenāt been able to capitalize on his success on the mound. Despite the fancy-dancy stats, Washburn only has a 5-6 record.
Some are rumoring that Washburn will be tradebait considering this is his last year of his contract. The LA Dodgers are considered high on that list.
I was doing some research on another project and ran across this gem.
Not only does Angel pitcher Darren Oliver have a career winning record (a pretty sizable one at that with a 104-82 record) but he is 17-3 in his last five years.
| Year | Wins | Losses |
| 2006 | 4 | 1 |
| 2007 | 3 | 1 |
| 2008 | 7 | 1 |
| 2009 | 3 | 0 |
not what I expected on either count.
Sean Forman has implemented a new search modification to his Baseball Reference database.
For those searching on a common player name (or part thereof), you can put the word ātheā in front of the search term and the database will bring up the most popular searched player.
I just added a mod to the search box on the site. With the addition of all of the minor league pages, getting to someone like Alex Rodriguezās page via a search āA Rodā returns like 50 people. Now, if you type in āthe A Rodā it looks through our db and returns the most popular major league player who matches the search āA Rodā. Adding āthe ā to the front of any player search will send you to the most popular player matching that search.
I did my own test. I searched for āramon martinezā and got back three results including two minor leaguers. When I searched for āthe ramon martinezā, it took me directly to the page of Ramon Martinez who pitched for the LA Dodgers.
This trick works with initials too though your mileage may vary. āthe jason vā did return Jason Varitek as I intended it too. For that matter, so did āthe j vā.
Anyway, this mod might save a few mouse clicks for those of us who search Baseball Referenceās database on a frequent basis.
Iām fan about old baseball stadiums. Reading about their history, viewing what little photographs we have of them.
Chris Epting has put together a cool slideshow video of old photographs of historic baseball stadiums in their heyday and then comparing them with current photographs of the locations of where once stood. Sort of like VH1ās Where are they Now? but more depressing.
Sappy, sentimental, but poignant too for us amateur baseball historians.
Epting is the author of Roadside Baseball: The Locations of America’s Baseball Landmarks which I havenāt read yet but it is on my āto-getā list.
As hard as it may seem to believe, Rich Hillās ERA jumped a full point in his start against the Red Sox last night. Hill allowed 9 hits 9 runs in 3 plus innings.
Fortunately for Baltimore, the Oriole bats were working overtime. They achieved the biggest comeback in franchise history saving Hill from being the goat. Baltimore won by the score of 11-10.
It was also the biggest comeback by a last-place team over a first-place team.
George Sherrill the young stopper for Baltimore, got his 17th save of the year.
"One-run saves are tough. I haven’t been part of a winning team yet, so I guess when we get to 83 wins, that will be more exciting. Until then, this is probably one of the biggest."
One-run saves are indeed tough. Thatās why the good ones get paid the big bucks.
By the way, Iām donāt follow the Red Sox too closely but why is Julio Lugo leading off and Jacoby Ellsbury batting eighth? Lugo seems to be one of those players that just wonāt retire. And Iām not sure if I mean that in a good way or a bad way.
Sometimes info is easier digested in graphs, at least for me. Check out the website Flip Flop Fly Ball and youāll see what I mean.
Itās full of neat baseball-related graphs, maps and images that are kinda neat. For my buddy DonS, they even have a video montage of Ichiro Suzuki.
Hereās a fun boxscore to look over.
| Lake Elsinore | 8 | 3 | 5 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 5 | 33 | 32 | 1 | |
| High Desert | 1 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 4 | 18 | 26 | 5 |
Yesterday, High Desert had 8 players with a multi-hit game, four players with four rbis and 5 homeruns for the gameā¦ and they lost.
No, it was the Lake Elsinore Storm who defeated High Desert Mavericks 33-18 in a Class A California League matchup. Storm leadoff hitter Brad Chalk had 9 at-bats in the regulation nine inning game. Six Storm players had four or more hits. Matt Clark and Felix Carrasco combined for 11 rbis.
When the eighth inning started, the score was āonlyā 22-11. The Storm managed to put across eleven more and High Desert werenāt about to give up. However, their seven runs in the last two innings werenāt enough.
Looking at the scoreboard todayā¦ no score yet.
Bats must be tired.