Kansas City Royals vs. Atlanta Braves – Box Score – June 18, 2010 – ESPN.
Derek Lowe just knows how to win. Or ensure that he’s facing a guy with an ERA over five, at any rate. Lowe now has nine wins, and he won’t spare even one for impoverished Kenshin Kawakami.
The Braves took the lead in the second with some NATIONAL LEAGUE BASEBALL. After the Braves loaded the bases with one out, Lowe laid down the difficult bases-loaded squeeze, scoring Hinske. Yunel made it 2-0 by scoring on a wild pitch. Lowe couldn’t hold the lead, giving up an RBI single to Jason Kendall, who is still alive, in the third and a solo homer to Billy Butler in the fourth.
The Braves broke back on top in the bottom of that inning. Hinske walked, and Yunel followed with a single. Melky doubled to score Hinske, and Lowe followed with a single to make it 4-2. Prado and Heyward couldn’t get Melky home, but Chipper came through with a single to make it 5-2. Chipper later hit a bases-loaded sac fly to make it 6-2.
Wilson Betemit, of all people, singled in a run in the seventh to chase Lowe. O’Flaherty limited the damage to that, but gave up a leadoff double in the eighth. Moylan came in and allowed the Grybo, but got a double play to limit the difficulty in that. Wagner struck out the first two, then walked Brayan Pena, of all people, before getting a grounder to end it.
good to see Chipper helping out
This problem of being able to create no distance between ourselves and the Mets has got to be exponentially more frustrating for the Mets.
They’ve gone 13-2 in June, winning 8 in a row if they win tonight, and they’ve gained only 3 games in the standings.
F*ck the Mets and f*ck the Yankees for playing like a bunch of washed up hacks.
Ick, you’d probably catch something.
Yeehaw.
Going to Mets/Yanks tomorrow. Maybe I can derail them.
From Derek Lowe: “I am a winner! Win-loss is the most important stat in all sports, and that’s what I am good at! All you number geeks out there, I show you win is the most important stat. I AM A WINNER!!!!”
@2 Feels like old time!!!
sdp-
I like your style, man.
ububba-
dude, you sure do go to a lot of games; I’m assuming you are not married or have kids
I was listening to the radio broadcast, and Jim and Don not only had a discussion about sabrmeterics (using that word), but both described themselves as “fans”. I never thought I’d see the day.
🙂
It takes a few “of all people”s to get thru a recap against the Atlanta Braves – Midwest Division
#11 – Yeah I think the Royals officially lead the league in ‘that guy is still in baseball?’ moments. Brayan Pena?
At least the Pirates with their ‘farm system for the rest of baseball’ approach has some value to the rest of the league. The Royals ‘grab all the washed up Ex-Braves’ model seems completely pointless.
@12 – Comedian Bill Burr says he thinks the Yankees and the Red Sox have vultures circling above the Pirates’ stadium, and anytime a player hits a triple they swoop down and grab him so they can stick him on their bench.
bill burr is awesome
By my count, eight ex-Braves (Pena, Betemit, Kyle Davies, Juan Cruz, Kyle Farnsworth, Anthony Lerew, Roman Colon, and Bruce “Jo-Jo Mark I” Chen) have appeared for the Royals this season. Colon and Cruz are not currently active and I think are no longer with the organization.
Mac, since I live in a Triple-A city, please don’t forget Omaha Royal greats Jorge Campillo and the mighty Scott Thorman. Also coaching in Omaha, former Brave great Tommy Gregg is the hitting coach.
Joe Simpson said tonight that the Royals had “8 or 9 players in AA make the All Star Game” so they were making progress.
Can the Royals really expect to be competitive any time soon?
Is the NL beating the AL this year? Seems so, but I don’t know. It’d be nice to see the “superior league” lose.
It seems the NL East is beating the AL, but the NL is 7 games under .500 against the AL, before the late games tonight.
So I just watched the US game. I don’t have cable, so I had to DL it, and I got the BBC feed. Their announcers lit into the ref for that goal-nullifying call. One of ’em said something to the effect of, “I saw three fouls on that play, and all were by Slovenian players.” Were the ABC/ESPN guys as critical? I kinda doubt it, but I’m still interested. Shame we couldn’t pull it out. Now if we beat Algeria and England beats Slovenia, it’ll be a 3-way tie for first with 5 points. Do we know who moves on in that situation?
Slovenia would only have 4 points – win, tie, loss.
Quick and dirty:
US is in the next round if they win, out if they lose. USA ties and England loses, US is in. USA ties and England wins, US is out.
Both USA and England tie, England has to score 2 more goals in their tie to force a coin toss (so England ties 2-2 and US ties 0-0 = coin toss – last resort tiebreaker).
If both teams tie and England scores 3 more goals than the US, then England goes through on total goals. If both tie and England scores 1 more goal, the same as, or less than the US, then the US advances.
Nice win.
Medlen vs. Greinke today will be VERY interesting. I say whoever scores first wins.
I wonder what is our record ever since we got rid of Frenchy…it must be pretty impressive…now we all know what was the problem!!! We stopped making the playoff after his rookie season and we are back to winning again after he left!!!
Frenchy’s last game as a Brave was July 9, 2009. Since then, the Braves are 85-60 (.586), or a 95-win pace for a full season.
#21 thanks for that. Dang.
#17 No.
#15 Jo-Jo Mark1 – priceless.
“We stopped making the playoff after his rookie season…”
this span of time should be known as the Honeymoon Stage.
look at the list of starting pitchers available this offseason:
Starting pitchers
Bronson Arroyo (34) Erik Bedard (32) Shawn Estes (38)
Kris Benson (35) Jeremy Bonderman (28) Dave Bush (31)
Jose Contreras (39) Kevin Correia (30) Doug Davis (35)
Jorge De La Rosa (30) Justin Duchscherer (33)
Josh Fogg (34) Jeff Francis (29) Freddy Garcia (35)
Jon Garland (31) Chad Gaudin (28) Rich Harden (29)
Aaron Harang (33) Livan Hernandez (36) Jason Jennings (32)
Hiroki Kuroda (36) Cliff Lee (32) Ted Lilly (35)
Rodrigo Lopez (35) Kevin Millwood (36)
Sergio Mitre (30) Brian Moehler (39) Jamie Moyer (48)
Brett Myers (30) Vicente Padilla (33) Carl Pavano (35)
Brad Penny (33) Andy Pettitte (39) Tim Redding (33)
Nate Robertson (33) Ben Sheets (32) Jeff Suppan (36)
Brett Tomko (38) Koji Uehara (36) Javier Vazquez (34)
Brandon Webb (32) Todd Wellemeyer (32) Kip Wells (34)
Jake Westbrook (33) Dontrelle Willis (29) Chris Young (32)
going into the next offseason, we’ll be handcuffed again with too many starting options and nowhere to put them. teams are looking for starting pitching and kawakami, imo, should be available.
FYI – The referee from the U.S. – Slovenia game is under review and likely to be dismissed from presiding over any other games in the World Cup. It’s a shame the Yanks were deprived of a win.
Of course, our guys need to just forget about it, beat Algeria, and move on.
Can we bomb Mali now?
#8
Sad to say, I’m part of a group that has Yankees season tickets. Just worked out that there were some good games this week.
I’d given away my tickets for today to the other group, but a business client from Japan wanted to go to a game while he was in town. (Had to be Mets/Yanks, right?) Almost shockingly, I found something reasonable on Stubhub.
But yeah, this week I should’ve rented a room on River Avenue.
Do you realize that Bruce Chen has now pitched in twelve major league seasons, that he’s now 33 years old (today is actually his birthday) and that he’s made over eight million dollars playing baseball?
@31
I guess people will always take a chance on southpaws.
Does anybody know what Bruce did during the 2008 season?
Mac @31,
I know. I was blown away to see him in the dugout last night. I haven’t even thought of him in like 5 years.
It is like watching Superman and remembering Marlon Brando is in it. Well, no, not really anything like that.
Like watching Superman and realizing Marc McClure is in it?
I forget who proposed it on here but I think if Seattle is willing it makes sense to trade Derek Lowe, Jair Jurrjens and Arodys Vizcaino for Cliff Lee. That way it clears up a log jam at pitcher and gives us a ton of money to work with next year which we will need for some bats. Plus it makes us better in the playoffs since I think Lee would be a great asset in a short series.
That trade hurts our short-term and long-term pitching depth for 3 months of better play. Not a great trade, IMO, except for the salary relief. And even that’s not a huge thing if Lowe keeps pitching well.
Derek Lowe, Jair Jurrjens and Arodys Vizcaino for Cliff Lee
You have got to be kidding. Why trade Jurrjens for an older lefty non team controlled version of himself?
I wouold think Seattle would be looking for some help with the bats
@35
I’m king rosterbater here and I completely despise that trade scenario. OFF WITH YOUR HEAD!
I’d think about that trade if you took out Vizcaino, but I don’t think the M’s would.
We would still have a great staff. Lee Hanson Hudson Medlen and Kawakami is a good rotation with Mike Minor ready to take Lee’s spot in 2010. We would get 2 premium draft picks from whomever signs Lee in 2011 and some serious salary relief for 2011 and 2012 that we could use to get some bats. It does hurt the depth but if someone gets hurt you can always go sign someone like Pedro.
and we would still have good depth as far as pitching prospects go. Teheran, Delgado, etc.
You’d be very, very lucky if one of your picks turned out as good as Vizcaino. You also have to pay them a signing bonus, which for a high first rounder is a lot. Big overpay for a very slight, if any improvement, some salary relief, and costs a blue chip starting prospect and a stud, cheap young starter. No way ever.
I think you’re underestimating the salary relief. That’s 15 million a year for two years to address the bats. The pitching will still be elite. Looking at 2011 and 2012 we will be hurting in the outfield and at the corner infield spots. Freeman won’t be ready, Glaus will demand a big raise, Chipper will be gone. We will need money to address those needs. Chipper’s money and Lowe’s money would help out a lot.
You are way overestimating the odds that you could spend 30m and get back 6 years of a Vizcaino and 4 years of Jurrjens. And you only get 1/2 season of Lee. No, thanks.
As far as the “P” word is concerned, I’m not really concerned about our pitching staff. When we get Jurrjens back, assuming he’s the same guy he was the last two years, we have a more-than-adequate top 3 with Hanson, Jurrjens, and Hudson, and Medlen’s a terrific #4 starter/long relief man. We can win a short series with those guys on the mound.
Center field is the much bigger question, as it has been ever since Andruw Jones left the team. But there may be no good way to get a good center fielder at an affordable price, and a semi-upgrade — someone like David DeJesus, who is better than Melky Cabrera, but not a whole lot better — just probably isn’t worth it.
I don’t think it’s ideal, but I’m looking for a realistic way to unload Lowe’s contract so that we can address the needs that are coming up and stay in contention. Dealing from strength seems to be the way to do that. I actually like our team this year, but I don’t really like next year’s team if we can’t address the corner infield spots and the outfield. I’m not tied to this idea (someone else posted this earlier this week and it got my attention). If you can think of a better solution I’m all for it.
If you really want to unload the Lowe deal, one thing we could do is put him on unconditional waivers, like the Jays did with Alex Rios. Everyone always needs pitching. We’re not going to be able to get any real return on him, and I don’t want to pay someone just to take him.
Either way, the important thing is to do what we can to lock up our young players, like we did with McCann. Escobar’s maddening, but I think he’d be worth signing to a reasonable deal. Prado, too. I’d say we should do it with Jurrjens, but he’s a Boras client, so it isn’t likely, though it’s worth a shot. Heyward and Hanson, obviously, should be given Tulowitzki/Longoria-style deals as soon as possible.
Whatever money we have, whatever money we can shed, we should use to lock up our young stars and sign our draftees, particularly the low-round guys like Alvord who will need to be paid way over slot.
That trade doesn’t even make sense because there’s no way that Seattle would want to sign up for 2 years of Derek Lowe at 15 million a year. Might was well offer to trade Pujols for Glaus and Lowe.
@48 – We can try that but I doubt that somebody would just take Lowe’s contract if they are not getting anything else of value along with it.
@49 – they might be willing if they look at it as paying out that money for the privilege of having Jurrjens and Vizcaino for the next few years.
The game thread is up.