Thursday's six-pack
There is a tennis match going on at Wimbledon that is, by far, longest in tennis history. Here are some of the numbers involved........
-- John Isner/Nicolas Mahut played four sets Tuesday; they called it for darkness after four sets. They played for seven hours and six minutes Wednesday; it is 59-59 (seriously) in the fifth set, and will be resumed again Thursday morning on ESPN2.
-- Longest match ever, before this one, went 6:33 at '04 French Open-- this match was 7:06, just in the fifth set alone.
-- Isner has 98 aces, Mahut 95; the previous record for most aces in one match was 78-- next after that was in the mid-50's.
-- By the way, the guys who had the four highest ace totals ever in one match all lost that match.
-- Isner had four match points, but obviously, lost all four.
-- There have been 881 points played, 612 in the fifth set alone.
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Thursday's List of 13 (+3) Our weekly look at National League
16) Pirates-- AL DH's are hitting .244 this year, with .324 on-base %age. NL DHs are hitting a woeful .209 in interleague play. Might as well let the pitchers bat, and get rid of the freakin' DH.
15) Astros-- On bright side, Brett Myers has pitched 6+ innings in every start this season. Thats it for the bright side.
In his last four games as the plate umpire, Bill Miller has had eight walks and 60 strikeouts, so he is a boon to the pitchers when he's calling balls and strikes.
14) Arizona-- Top four positions in major leagues for RBI; keep in mind the NL has 16 teams, AL only 14.........
-- NL RFs-- 657......NL 1B-- 647.....NL 3B-- 595.....NL LF-- 565.
13) Cubs-- Last year, they had one home crowd less than 38,000; so far this year, they've had 11. This is a depressing team to watch. Would not expect the manager to be back next season, unless things get a lot better.
12) Nationals-- They're making money hand-over-fist with Strasburg, but they're in freefall, losing nine of last 12 games, seven of eight on the road. Kid from San Diego State lost for first time Wednesday, a tough 1-0 game.
11) Brewers-- Strange over/under numbers on interleague games; in games at American League parks, where the DH is used, under is 47-40-5. Over in the NL parks, where no DH is used, over is 57-44-3. Go figure.
10) Marlins-- Florida owner Jeffrey Loria is a Steinbrenner-wannabe who has no clue; he was gifted by MLB with the Florida franchise after he was the owner in Montreal. Now the state of Florida gave him a new stadium, so he goes and fires a highly-competent manager and probably will go for a name like Bobby Valentine to replace him to sell tickets. We won't even get into what a nightmare Vuvuzela Night was at the ol' ballpark.
9) Dodgers-- If LA were to add pitching for stretch run, they might look to Baltimore and Kevin Millwood, who has only one win this season, and has given up 18 first inning runs in his last six starts. Pitching for a less dreadful team might improve his performance, I suppose-- couldn't hurt.
8) Rockies-- When Ubaldo Jimenez starts, Colorado is 14-1; in all their other games, they're 24-32. Still, they're only four games out of first in a wide-open National League West. de la Rosa pitched well in rehab, so it is possible he could be back after All-Star break, which will help a lot.
7) Phillies-- Ryan Howard has come to bat with 237 men on base so far in 2010, most of anyone in baseball. Michael Cuddyer is next at 232, Mark Teixeira at 228 and Troy Glaus at 226. Howard knocked in 16% of those runners, a %age that is lower than usual for him.
6) Giants-- SF leadoff hitters scored 41 times this year, 13th in NL; their cleanup hitters have only 31 RBI, tied for last in MLB. As good as their starting pitchers are, they still need to score runs to win games.
5) Reds-- Joey Votto leads MLB with 21 runs scored from 7th inning on; Brandon Phillips is T2 with 19. Home attendance is up 386 fans a game over LY, but as summer goes on and Reds stay in contention, they figure to draw much bigger crowds. At least, thats the plan.
4) Cardinals-- Holliday is 13 for his last 26, so he'll be sad to see the end of interleague play this week. Only three of his 11 HRs came when he had two strikes on him-- nine of Pujols' 15 taters came with two strikes. The move putting Holliday at #2 in order has worked well so far.
3) Mets-- Rumored to be interested in Fausto Carmona, but Selig should step in, stop any Indians' trade of Carmona-- he's good, he's young (26), is under a reasonable contract for several years. They've already dumped Lee and Sabathia in last few years- they have to keep somebody.
2) Braves-- As I'm typing this, umpire Hoye just screwed Chris Young of Arizona on a 1-0 pitch with bases loaded, no out and Arizona down 6-5 in 10th inning. Lets review why a call like that is so critical........
Young has a .411 on-base percentage in any at-bat where count was 2-0, which it would have been if Hoye hadn't given Rivera that pitch; in all the ABs where Young had a 1-1 count, his OB% is .311, so he becomes 100 worse with a 1-1 count than 2-0. He fouled out to catcher, by the way.
1) Padres-- Impressive display of pitching at the Trop this week; with LA fading and Giants offensively-challenged, Padres look like a serious threat in NL West. So much for selling off Adrian Gonzalez/Heath Bell. Padres' bullpen has 2.62 ERA, 0.33 lower than any other bullpen in MLB.
