Last night I had to head out to dinner with the pops, so I missed a good deal of the baseball action. Looks like the longshot on Pirates didn't pan out, though they pushed the Phils to extras before Ryan Howard unloaded on some poor, unsuspecting sap. The Cards and Giants both picked up 1-run victories. The Giants were nearly the first 2-unit play, but with the majority of the forum on them, I didn't want to push my luck. Let's see what we can churn out on this Thursday:
NL
Jorge Cantu, Hanley Ramirez, Jeremy Hermida - Tim Redding may be turning and watching a few fly today, as Cantu is a career .389 batter in 18 AB with a homer and 8 RBI, Ramirez is 8-for-16 with 3 homers and 7 RBI, and Hermida is a terrifying 10-for-17 with a homer and 9 RBI.
Casey McGehee - McGehee has seen Justin Lehr 16 times in the Minors, and has collected 6 hits off him.
Lance Berkman - Berkman boasts 6 homers off ace Chris Carpenter in his most recent 30 AB.
Albert Pujols, Skip Schumaker, Julio Lugo and Matt Holliday - Somehow Brian Moehler has really held the Cards down, and the numbers don't add up - Pujols is 6-for-13 off Moehler (0-for-4 this year), Schumaker is 5-for-13, Lugo is 6-for-17, and Holliday is 4-for-9, but they have just 1 home run between them.
James Loney, Matt Kemp and Casey Blake - A few Dodgers have solid numbers against De La Rosa, with Loney heading the pack. Casey Blake is batting .300 with 2 homers in 20 AB, Kemp is a solid 6-for-13 with a homer, but the slick-fielding first baseman Loney is 7-for-11 with a homer and 7 RBI.
J.A. Happ - Already posting a 7-inning, 1-run performance against the Pirates should be nice evidence that Happ will pitch well against them again, especially considering the Bucs hit just .174 off him as a team.
AL
A.J. Burnett - Coming off an awful outing, Burnett should be prime to bounce back against a Rangers club he's already knocked off twice. Both of Burnett's wins over Texas have come by 6 runs or more.
Josh Hamilton - Hamilton is 4-for-9 in his career off Burnett, but just 0-for-3 this year, so...
Kevin Youkilis - Just 3-for-7 off John Danks, but I wanted to highlight Danks' 0-3 lifetime mark against the Sox with an ERA over 6.
Franklin Gutierrez, Russell Branyan, and then some... - The two Mariners with the most success against Kyle Davis are Gutierrez (6-for-13, 3 RBI) and Branyan (3-for-7, 4 RBI), but a handful of others (Hannahan, Johjima, Johnson, Langerhans, Ichiro and Saunders) have good numbers in too few at-bats to make a real judgment call.
Ervin Santana - There's no better time for Santana to regain his form than tonight against the A's, a team he has dominated to a ridiculous degree. In 15 career starts against Oakland, Santana has pitched 100 innings, allowing just 68 hits with an ERA of 1.35. He defeated them once already this season.
TOP PLAYS
1)
Florida Marlins (2* PLAY, RL -1.5, -115) vs. New York Mets - There is no team on this planet that Tim Redding would want to face LESS than the Marlins. Despite a solid return to the rotation for Redding 5 days ago against the Phils, today he takes his operation on the road to face a team that hit him for 7 runs in 4 innings earlier this year. The Roundup gives evidence that there are 3 Marlins that hit Redding beyond hard, and if Florida puts up fewer than 5 runs in today's game, I'll be positively floored. Anibal Sanchez gets the start for Florida, his second off the DL. Sanchez shut down the Braves 5 days ago, and looks like he's healed from his shoulder issues. In addition, Sanchez shut out the Mets for 5 innings in Florida way back at the start of the season, and that was when the Mets looked a bit less like a Double-A club and more like, well, Jose Reyes, Carloses Beltran and Delgado, etc. This game could very well be a blowout, but even if the Marlins somehow only score 5, a 2-run victory is still highly probable.
2)
New York Yankees (RL -1.5, -110) vs. Texas Rangers - I don't see the Rangers winning this series, not with Dustin Nippert making his first career appearance in the Bronx. He has been rather bad on the road (as opposed to dynamite in Arlington), and with Rangers-slayer A.J. Burnett getting the start for the Yanks, New York is in position to take another game by a very large margin. Burnett got rocked by Boston, so he'll be looking to dominate, and the Yankees offense just continues to put up a bevy of runs.