MLB
Sunday, September 26
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Streaking and Slumping Pitchers
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Streaking
Cole Hamels (12-10, 2.93 ERA), Philadelphia Phillies
Just like his team, Cole Hamels is on fire. He’s 5-0 with a minuscule 0.82 ERA over his last six starts. The under has cashed in eight of his last nine outings.
Hamels early-season struggles seem like a distant memory. The talented lefty credits Roy Halladay and Roy Oswalt with his turnaround.
"You don't have to be that guy," Hamels told reporters after the Braves to one run on six hits in eight innings of work. "You don't have to carry the whole team on your back. When you have one big-time guy, that puts pressure on you."
Fausto Carmona (12-14, 3.79 ERA), Cleveland Indians
The Indians have only won twice in Carmona’s last nine starts but the big righty is pitching much better these days. He’s held opponents to three or fewer runs in each of his last five starts.
The under has cashed in five of his last six appearances and he’s given Cleveland quality starts in four of his last five outings.
Brian Duensing (10-2, 2.19 ERA), Minnesota Twins
If you haven’t seen much of Duensing this season, you’ll get your chance in the postseason. The 27-year-old lefty looks like Minnesota’s No. 3 starter behind Francisco Liriano and Carl Pavano.
He has eight quality starts in his last nine starts and the Twins are 7-2 in his last nine turns in the rotation.
Slumping
Livan Hernandez (10-12, 3.75 ERA), Washington Nationals
The man with the bionic arm appears to be tiring. Hernandez was only charged with five earned runs in his last start, but Houston touched home eight times with the Dominican native in the game.
He’s been charged with four or more runs in four of his last six trips to the mound and 2-7 in his last nine appearances.
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Sunday Night Baseball: Red Sox at Yankees
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Boston Red Sox at New York Yankees (-130, 10.5)
Boston trails New York by 6.5 games going into Saturday’s action, but the Red Sox play five of their remaining nine games against their arch rivals.
Spoiler Alert
The Red Sox knocked the Yankees off their perch atop the AL East Friday night, but it’s the longest of longshots that the Sox will steal their rival’s playoff spot.
Still, Boston 3B/OF Bill Hall is aiming high.
“I don’t think spoiler is what we’re looking at,” Hall told reporters after Friday’s victory. “We want to sweep the series and go to Chicago and sweep there too. We’re looking to win out.”
The next best thing for Boston would be to prevent the Yankees from winning the division, a goal that is well within reach.
No Dice
Boston sends Diasuke Matsuzaka to the mound Friday night, a scary proposition for Boston backers. It’s been a long season for Dice-K (9-6, 4.86 ERA), but he’s been especially bad of late, allowing at least four earned runs in each of his last seven starts.
Matsuzaka has faced the Yankees only once in 2010, an 11-9 loss at Yankee Stadium on May 17. He avoided taking the loss thanks to a late-inning Red Sox rally, but Matsuzaka was clearly overmatched, allowing seven earned runs on nine hits and failing to make it out of the fifth inning.
Plan B
The Yankees will counter with right-hander Dustin Moseley. Phil Hughes was originally slated to make the start, but manager Joe Girardi bumped Hughes to Wednesday in an effort to limit his workload. Hughes has already logged 169 1/3 innings in his first full big-league season as a starter.
Moseley has been shaky for the Yankees, but had one of his best outings of the season in his only appearance against the Red Sox. Moseley limited Boston to two runs over 6 1/3 innings and earned the win in a 7-2 victory on Aug. 8.
Mr. September
After struggling at the plate for the last three months, Alex Rodgriguez has found his stroke in September. Rodriguez homered twice and drove in three runs in Friday’s series opener.
A-Rod is batting .333 for the month, and boasts an impressive 1.056 OPS. His six September home runs are more than he has hit in any other month. The Yankees’ already-potent lineup is a different animal altogether when Rodriguez is on his game.
Problems for Papelbon
Red Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon has struggled mightily this season. His ERA (3.94) and WHIP (1.20) are higher than in any season since he took over the closer’s job in 2006. Papelbon has blown a career-high seven saves and his K/BB ratio (2.96:1) is also his worst since ‘06.
Papelbon’s woes have prompted some to wonder aloud if a switch to young fireballer Daniel Bard is in order, but manager Terry Francona has stood behind Papelbon.
“We’ve talked about how he set the bar higher,” Francona told the Boston Globe this week. “He’s not there right now. But that doesn’t mean he can’t really be good. I also don’t think it means you immediately take that guy out of that role.”
Papelbon got the save on Friday night, but did allow one run on a Mark Teixeira home run.
Trends
New York is 3-4 at home and 7-6 overall vs. Boston in 2010.
Boston has won five straight on the road and is 7-3 in their last 10.
The over is 6-1 in Diasuke Matsuzaka’s last seven starts.
The Yankees have lost three in a row and are 3-6 in their last nine home games.
The over is 5-2 in New York’s last seven.
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Hot Lines: Today's best MLB bets
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Boston Red Sox at New York Yankees (-140, 10.5)
The Boston Red Sox are 6.5 games out of first in the American League East and trail the Wildcard race by 5.5 games. Needless to say, the BoSox season is all but over.
But don’t tell that to the team. Boston isn’t accepting a spoiler role in Sunday’s finale with the Yankees nor is it folding before the final week of the schedule is played.
"I don't think spoiler is what we're looking at," outfielder Bill Hall told the New York Post. "We want to sweep the series, and go to Chicago and sweep there too. We're looking to win out. I don't think anybody in our clubhouse is throwing in the towel, and not taking a spoiler role. If we knock them out, it's going to be us going in. That's not really a spoiler role, that's a motivation for us to try to make it to the playoffs."
The Red Sox opened the series with the Yankees by taking a 10-8 win Friday night. As of Saturday, Boston is just 4-10 in the last 14 meetings between these rivals in the Bronx, but it has won back-to-back games in Yankee Stadium going back to August 9.
Pick: Boston
New York Mets at Philadelphia Phillies
If the New York Mets weren’t already pissed at the Philadelphia Phillies for past September wars, they sure are now following Chase Utley’s full-bodied slide on Ruben Tejada in the Phillies 3-2 win Friday night.
Utley took out the Mets second baseman during the fifth inning, attempting to break up a 5-4-3 double play started by third baseman David Wright. Philadelphia’s slugger slid late, taking Tejada with him as he crossed the bag.
While Tejada doesn’t hold a grudge against Utley, who ask if he was OK after the collision, the same can’t be said for the rest of the New York clubhouse, which painted a target on Utley and any other Philly infielder for the remainder of this series.
"Nobody is going to go and push us around - we're going to have our teammates' backs," Wright told reporters. "I think cooler heads will prevail, but we've got to let them know that we didn't appreciate it.
"(Utley) is a second baseman, if he wants guys sliding like that into him, then it's perfectly fine. He knows how to play the game and if he doesn't mind guys coming in like that when he's turning a double play, we don't have any problem with it."
Bettors can expect infielders and base runners to be watching their backs during Sunday’s finale, keeping stolen bags at a minimum. Heading into Saturday's Game 2, these teams have played under the total in six of their last seven meetings and boast a 7-21 over/under count in their last 28 head-to-head clashes.
Pick: Under
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This Day in Baseball
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On September 26 in Baseball History...
1908 - Ed Reulbach of the Chicago Cubs became the only pitcher to throw two shutouts in a doubleheader, beating the Superbas 5-0 and 3-0.
1916 - Washington manager Clark Griffith excuses several regulars for the remaining games of the season so he can use some new players. Included is Walter Johnson, who has already won 25 games for the seventh-place club. In a league-leading 371 innings, he did not give up a home run, an all-time record.
1921 - Babe Ruth hits home runs 57 and 58 to beat the Indians 8-7, and the Yankees take a two-and-a-half-game lead. The four-game series draws 147,000 people.
1932 - Chuck Klein closes the season with 38 home runs and 20 stolen bases and becomes the only player of the lively-ball era (1920 and after) to lead his league in these two departments.
1953 - Billy Hunter becomes the last St. Louis Browns player to homer in a game. The Browns lose anyway 6-3 to Chicago.
1954 - Art Ditmar of the Athletics defeats the Yanks 8-6 in the last game the franchise will play in Philadelphia before moving to Kansas City. Yankees catcher Yogi Berra plays his only game at third base in his career and Mickey Mantle plays shortstop.
1955 - Ted Williams finishes the season at .356, well ahead of Al Kaline's .340, but does not have enough at-bats to win the batting title. The same thing happened in 1954. Williams was walked 136 times in 1954 and 71 times (an American League leading 17 were intentional) this year. A rule change will be made to recognize plate appearances, not times at bat.
1959 - At Milwaukee the Braves beat the Phillies 3-2 behind Spahn's 21st win. He is now ahead of Eppa Rixey as the winningest National League lefty.
1961 - Roger Maris of the Yankees tied Babe Ruth 34-year-old record with his 60th homer, off Baltimore's Jack Fisher.
1965 - Minnesota gains its first American League pennant by defeating Washington, 2-1. Jim Kaat (17-11) wins the clincher.
1971 - Jim Palmer becomes the fourth member of the Orioles 1971 pitching staff to notch his 20th victory. Only one other team in Major League history - the 1920 White Sox - boasted four 20-game winners.
1978 - New York District Court Judge Constance Baker Motley rules that women sportswriters cannot be banned from locker rooms in the state.
1979 - Atlanta's Phil Niekro notches his 20th win of the season by beating his brother Joe, the National League's only other 20-game winner of the season, 9-4. The Niekro brothers are the second pair (the other was Jim and Gaylord Perry) to win 20 games in the same year. Phil Niekro, who finishes at 21-20, is the first pitcher since fellow knuckleballer Wilbur Wood in 1973 to win and lose 20 games the same year, and the first National League pitcher to do so since 1905.
1981 - Nolan Ryan of the Houston Astros became the first to pitch five no-hitters, hurling a 5-0 victory over Los Angeles at the Astrodome.
1983 - Bob Forsch of the St. Louis Cardinals pitched the second no-hitter of his career, defeating Montreal 3-0.
1987 - Padres catcher Benito Santiago extends his hitting streak to 28 games in a 3-1 loss to the Dodgers, setting a new Major League record for rookies. Pittsburgh's Jimmy Williams had held the record with a 27-game streak in 1899.
1993 - Randy Johnson of the Seattle Mariners became the eighth pitcher to strike out 300 batters in a season with 13 strikeouts in 10 innings of a 3-2, 12-inning loss to Oakland.
1998 - Curt Schilling became the fifth to strike out 300 batters in consecutive seasons when he fanned Kevin Orie in the seventh inning of Philadelphia's 4-3 loss to Florida in the first game of a doubleheader.
