Now we start the silly season. The AL teams play a couple of series against NL teams, and vice-versa. I think it is stupid. Each league plays with different rules. And the games count in the standings.

I can see that the fans might appreciate local teams playing against each other for local or regional bragging rights, but the games shouldn’t count. Consider them exhibition games or something like that. But they do count, so I don’t have to worry about any pitchers starting against each other.

So they have:

NY Yankees vs.NY Mets
Philadelphia vs.Baltimore
Atlanta vs.Boston
Tampa Bay vs.Florida
Washington vs.Toronto
Chi White Sox vs.Chi Cubs
Cleveland vs.Cincinnati
Arizona vs.Detroit
St. Louis vs.Kansas City
Milwaukee vs.Minnesota
LA Angels vs.LA Dodgers
Oakland vs.San Francisco
San Diego vs.Seattle
Houston vs. Texas
Colorado vs.Pittsburgh

I guess Atlanta and Boston face off because the Braves started out in Boston before wandering west and then south. I notice that they have the Washington Nationals (ex-Montreal Expos) lining up against the Blue Jays. And Colorado and Pittsburgh get to avoid the travesty and play against each other. Maybe next year they will try Washington and Baltimore against each other?

So the pairings are: NYC, Mason-Dixon, Boston, Florida, Canada, Chicago, Ohio, AZvsMI???,I-70, North Woods, LA, Bay, S Pacific vs N Pacific, and Texas. Not sure about that Arizona/Detroit pairing, Sunbelt/Rustbelt maybe?

Today looks like a slow travel day. Only 6 hitters have games today. One pitcher is scheduled to start. There are only three games scheduled in the AL tonight.

I just happened to look in on the scores this afternoon and saw that Colon was pitching for the Angels, after 3 days rest, and had only given up 1 run in 8 innnings. Unfortunately, he was pitching against Westbrook who had given up 0 runs after 8 innings. So I was watching the ninth inning on Yahoo and Westbrook is pitching the top of the ninth and he gives up 2 earned runs before the side is retired. Now, I’m worried, will the Angels bring in Colon to get the complete game? If he’s tired, he could easily give up the winning runs. Or will the Angels bring in a reliever, meaning that Colon has the win in the reliever’s grasp. If the reliever fails Colon doesn’t get the win, but he won’t get the loss or any earned runs either. What will happen? The Reliever is in.

(Play-by-play for bottom half of the ninth.)

– B. Molina at designated hitter
– J. Paul catching
– S. Shields relieved B. Colon
– B. Broussard struck out swinging
– C. Blake grounded out to shortstop
– J. Gerut struck out looking

0 runs, 0 hits, 0 errors
LA Angels 2, Cleveland 1

Colon gets the win. Shields did a pretty good job relieving there, got the save. Unfortunately, the Dingleberries already have him.

What do the number foretell this week. I had 5 wins in nine starts last week. There are only seven projected starts this week.

Those HR numbers just jumped. Even with Tino hitting 6, looks like everyone else stepped up as well. And I guess with all those HR, I didn’t have as many baserunners trying to steal. 4 SB for the week is not very good, especially since a couple of other teams had 15 and 13 , respectively.

HR – 18; LA 8.2; PTS 10
R – 48; LA 35.5; PTS 10
RBI – 56; LA 33.6; PTS 10
AVG – 0.272; LAA 0.260; PTS 9
SB – 4; LA 5.7; PTS 9
W – 5; LA 3.2; PTS 9.5
S – 3; LA 2.1; PTS 3
K – 55; LA 36.8; PTS 8
ERA – 2.98; LAA 4.07; PTS 9
WHIP – 1.23; LAA 1.35; PTS 8

No one on DL that I know of, although Ken Harvey is not playing much with his stiff back. Tino Martinez is going HR crazy, 6 in one week. Hermanson picked up three saves for the week. Kenny Rogers has had a pretty good week starting. And I can’t believe that Randy didn’t get any strikeouts in his last game.

Team report for Rocky Coloradans
Owned by Jack Heneghan

Hitters Team HR R RBI AVG SB

————————–
Javy Lopez Bal C1 FS-AS: 7 22 21 .281 0
WK: 1 3 2 .111 0
————————–
Josh Bard Cle C2 FS-AS: 1 2 3 .192 0
WK: 0 1 1 .167 0
————————–
Tino Martinez NYY 1B FS-AS: 12 25 29 .286 1
WK: 6 10 15 .391 0
————————–
Joe Crede CWS 3B FS-AS: 3 15 15 .270 0
WK: 0 1 3 .261 0
————————–
Ken Harvey KC CI AS: 0 1 1 .130 0
WK: 0 0 0 .000 0
FS: 1 3 5 .220 0
————————–
Juan Uribe CWS 2B FS-AS: 4 16 18 .275 1
WK: 1 4 2 .269 0
————————–
Derek Jeter NYY SS FS-AS: 4 30 18 .327 5
WK: 2 6 5 .423 1
————————–
Julio Lugo TB MI FS-AS: 1 16 17 .262 9
WK: 1 3 3 .174 0
————————–
Manny Ramirez Bos OF1 FS-AS: 10 24 34 .248 1
WK: 3 4 7 .238 0
————————–
Gary Sheffield NYY OF2 FS-AS: 6 25 29 .318 6
WK: 2 5 5 .261 2
————————–
Aaron Rowand CWS OF3 FS-AS: 3 19 13 .258 5
WK: 0 1 4 .308 1
————————–
Torii Hunter Min OF4 FS-AS: 4 19 20 .252 11
WK: 0 1 3 .235 0
————————–
Shannon Stewart Min OF5 FS-AS: 4 24 17 .281 3
WK: 2 7 5 .320 0
————————–
Frank Catalanotto Tor DH FS-AS: 1 14 10 .290 0
WK: 0 2 1 .312 0

TOTALS 60 262 254 .2771 43
OFF PTS 10.0 10.0 10.0 9.0 9.0

————————–
*Travis Lee TB CI AS: 0 10 9 .299 1

Pitchers Team W SV SO ERA WHIP
—————————-
Randy Johnson NYY P1 FS-AS: 4 0 50 3.77 1.047
WK: 2 0 7 3.86 1.214
—————————-
Bartolo Colon LAA P2 FS-AS: 4 0 39 2.91 1.177
WK: 0 0 3 3.60 2.200
—————————-
Kevin Millwood Cle P3 FS-AS: 1 0 40 3.54 1.303
WK: 1 0 12 1.64 0.818
—————————-
Kenny Rogers Tex P4 FS-AS: 4 0 22 1.49 1.196
WK: 1 0 2 0.00 0.667
—————————-
Kyle Lohse Min P5 FS-AS: 2 0 17 5.65 1.360
WK: 0 0 0 4.50 1.000
—————————-
Gil Meche Sea P6 FS-AS: 3 0 26 5.25 1.375
WK: 1 0 7 4.97 1.421
—————————-
Dustin Hermanson CWS P7 AS: 0 6 5 0.00 0.656
WK: 0 3 1 0.00 0.273
FS: 0 8 12 0.00 0.764
—————————-
Damaso Marte CWS P8 FS-AS: 2 2 16 1.93 1.714
WK: 0 0 1 0.00 7.500
—————————-
Gustavo Chacin Tor P9 FS-AS: 4 0 26 3.35 1.283
WK: 0 0 1 7.71 2.143

TOTALS 24 8 245 3.45 1.241
OFF PTS 9.5 3.0 8.0 9.0 8.0

—————————-
Justin Speier Tor P7 AS: 0 0 4 7.04 1.435

Looks like threee of my starts were cut short today by rain. Unfortunately each of the starters had given up 2 runs by the time the rains came and they had only gotten in 2, 3 and 5 innings before the delay. Not good for the ERA.

This is getting strange. I picked up points in ERA and WHIP because other teams dropped down. (that’s the problem with pitching, they are so much more likely to have a negative effect than a positive one.)

Colon’s start got rained out so he will start a doubleheader today. The hitters went 9/47 (.191) but no one made a charge in average last night.

Looks like Lohse isn’t starting tonight, meaing I have only 9 projected starts for the week. The Twins are sitting Lohse so the rest of the rotation stays in synch. Looks like Lohse’s stiff shoulder is going to be an ongoing problem. Between Colon starting tonight and the rest of the weekend, I have 6 starts coming up, with only two of my pitchers going head-to-head. We’ll see how they do.

Only had 17 At-Bats last night, and 2 hits (.118 avg). It was a travelling day for most teams.

This is starting to get scary. A more realistic value to strive for is in the low 70’s.

I did figure out what happened to the Shamu Scoring mixup. Shamu dropped a relief pitcher in the Monday moves and replaced him with a starter. But the commisioner didn’t enter the moves until Tuesday morning so I saw the pre move stat first and once the relief pitcher was dropped fromthe roster adn the starter was added, Shamu lost the save and added the starter’s win from Monday night.

Lots of groin injuries and slight sprains starting to crop up, buty they will play hurt. And these guys only have 20 more weeks to go.

I’m not sure what happened, but I now have 2 more points for those 2 wins instead of 2.5. And I had lost .5 points in saves since I didn’t have one and The Shamus did and we were now tied. For a net 2 point gain.

I just looked again and found that The Shamus are now now tied with me for wins since they got 2 last night, as well, and that they don’t have the save and I didn’t lose the .5 point for the tie. For a net gain of 2.

Somewhere in the past few hours, a statistician decided that the Shamus got a win instead of a save and corrected the numbers. Either that or my mind is completely shot.