Daily Roundup, 06/28/11

You know how yesterday was pretty boring? Well. Today made up for it.

- Doug Davis against the Yankees a couple of weeks ago: 7.1 IP, 3 H, 1 ER. Today against the Giants: 4.1 IP, 12 H, 10 ER.
– In one day, the Giants went from last in baseball in runs scored to fifth worst.
— The Cubs got swept in their doubleheader against the Giants, but in one game they scored seven runs. (And lost. To the Giants. In the other they scored three.) Ryan Vogelsong started one game; Barry Zito started the other. And yep, Vogelsong started that game where the Cubs scored seven.
—- Miguel Tejada homered in the first game. Where, did I mention, the Giants scored thirteen runs.

- That wasn’t the most runs scored tonight. That was by… the Mets.
– Against the Tigers. Over their last three games they’ve scored 14, 8, and 14 runs against the Tigers and Rangers.
— We all know about the Mets’ futility when it comes to grand slams. They’d been out-grandslammed 19 to nothing since the last time they hit a grand slam, August 1, 2009. That is 299 games without a grand slam. Justin Maxwell hit two grand slams against them in that time.
—- Tonight, they broke the grand slam drought with a grand slam off the bat of – JASON BAY?
—– Oh, and then an inning later Carlos Beltran hit another grand slam. No, I’m not kidding. They went from no grand slams in 299 games and almost two years to two grand slams in two innings. Stuff like this is basically why Rebecca, Jordan, and I run this site.
—— Both grand slams were off Daniel Schlereth. How does that even happen?
——- Josh Thole also homered, his first of the year. The Mets had not homered in a week, and they had only ten home runs as a team since May 21.
——– And all this in Comerica.
——— The Mets are now over .500.

- The Mets were not the only New York team that blew out another team today. The Yankees did so against the Brewers.
– Zack Greinke had walked only nine batters in 60.1 innings coming into tonight’s game. That’s insane. Tonight he walked three and hit another with a pitch in giving up seven runs over two innings. He also struck out no one.
— This was Greinke’s 180th career start, and the very first in which he recorded no strikeouts. He even had one in this game, when he only managed to retire two batters. By the way, that strikeout was against .363 hitter and MVP runner-up Magglio Ordonez.
—- All in all, Brewer pitching walked eight Yankees, including Ramiro Pena, Eduardo Nunez, and Robinson Cano (who is obviously a much better player than the other two, but who doesn’t walk much).
—– The Yankees won 12-2. Milwaukee had 11 hits and the Yankees, 10. How does this even happen?!
—— And it’s not like Milwaukee was striking out a lot. They only struck out four times – three by Hector Noesi in relief. Noesi struck out those three Brewers in two innings, when his major league K/9 so far before tonight was 3.2.
——- Speaking of counting stats, check out the “lol Brewers, lol” section here, thanks to our friends at River Ave Blues. Yes, they all happened. And yes, the Brewers had no errors in the game.
——– This was called a triple.
——— Not from the same game, but so was this.

- Today was the first day both New York teams won by 10 or more runs since July 27, 1985. Funnily enough, that day, the Yankees beat Texas and the Mets beat Houston.
– Phil Niekro got the win for the Yankees that day, over the Bobby Valentine-led Mets. He was backed by, among other things, one of Willie Randolph’s five home runs in the 1985 season.

- In the very hyped Red Sox/Phillies game tonight, Josh Beckett gave up five runs. He gave up five runs in the rest of June – after giving up four runs all of May.
– Cliff Lee did not give up runs. This was his third straight complete game shutout.
— Cliff Lee has five wins in June. The Marlins have three.
—- The Red Sox batted Darnell McDonald fifth in this game.
—– Maybe then it’s not so surprising that Cliff Lee had a no-hitter through five – but it was broken up by Marco Scutaro.

- The Rays beat the Reds. The Pirates are now the only team who hasn’t beaten every other MLB team – they are 0-9 lifetime against Oakland. Maybe this isn’t so unpredictable (it’s the Pirates!), but it’s a cool note.
– Johnny Damon had a .705 WPA tonight. The Rays won on a walk-off home run. Johnny Damon did not hit it.

- Clayton Richard is pitching for the Padres tonight. This year, he has a 2.25 ERA at home… and a 5.85 ERA on the road. He’s 3-4 away… and 0-5 at home. (Though if the current score holds up, he’ll get a win at home.)
– Matt Stairs just got his first RBI in this game; it’s his 44th game. Yes, these are all silly counting stats. They are still insane.

- In thirteen innings in a 3-2 final at Coors, the Rockies only struck out five times and the White Sox three.
– Both starting pitchers Gavin Floyd and Jason Hammel had the same line: 7 IP, 6 H, 2 R/ER, 2 BB, 0 K.
— Tulo scored from first on a bloop single as the eventual walk-off run.

- The Indians have homered off JJ Putz two nights in a row.
– Through the fifth inning in this game, all the runs driven in were by pitchers.
— The bottom of the ninth in this game: Ryan Roberts walk, steals second, steals third. One out, flyball to the outfield that does not score him. The Indians then pitched to Wily Mo Pena who… hit a walk-off home run.
—- This day was bananas. B-a-n-a-n-a-s.

- And just to prove that last point: Nick Punto AND CJ Wilson tripled today. And yes, they were actual triples. And Ichiro homered off Tommy Hanson. And Mets grand slams! By Jason Bay! Seriously, guys. Baseball is super great.