- Coming into tonight, Evan Longoria had a .776 OPS, or a 123 OPS+. In 2008, he had an .874 OPS – a 127 OPS+. Moar steroidz plz.
- Jason Varitek hit a home run
– the Red Sox still lost.
— in fact, they’ve lost their last six games at Fenway to the White Sox, and the last 11 of 13 against Chicago. Weird.
—- Philip Humber doesn’t have the greatest peripherals, but he’s been very solid. 7.2 IP of 4-run ball isn’t ridiculously great, but against Boston, at Fenway, it’s not bad at all.
—– Alfredo Aceves, on the other hand, gave up 6 ER (8 R) in 5 IP and took his first loss since May 2009. Granted, he barely pitched in 2010 – but he’d gone 12-0 since his last loss.
- San Francisco pitcher Ryan Vogelsong has five RBIs, or as many as Pat Burrell has in his last 31 games.
- The Twins hit their first home run since Monday.
– Last Monday.
— the Mets haven’t hit a home run since Daniel Murphy hit one on Yankee Stadium not this weekend, but last weekend.
—- The Pirates beat the Mets at Citi Field tonight. They hadn’t won at Citi Field at all before now, a span of eight games.
- Cliff Lee tonight: 5.1 IP, 7 H, 6 R/ER, 3 BB (!!!!), 4 K.
– against the pretty punchless Nationals too.
- Jeremy Guthrie pitched a complete game, allowing no earned runs. He, you guessed it, lost.
- Brett Anderson and his sub-3 ERA gave up 9 ER/10 R to the Yankees. I know it’s the Yankees but whoah.
– He hadn’t given up an extra base hit to a lefty all season. He gave up two home runs to lefties (Curtis Granderson and Robinson Cano) tonight.
— He actually hadn’t given up a home run to a lefty since 2009.
—- Mark Teixeira stole home. Honestly, it was more As derpery than stealing home, but Mark Teixeira stole home.
—– the Yankees are 23-4 against Oakland since the start of 2008 (!!!!! they are 18-7 against Minnesota in that same time span – a team they have owned for a very long time), but Freddy Garcia, who got the win tonight, was just 1-9 against the team in his career.
- Carlos Marmol has the line of the night, though: 0.1 IP, 5 H, 6 R/ER, 1 BB, 0 K.
– This early on, and as a reliever, I’m surprised this only raised his ERA to 3.47.
— This after Carlos Zambrano’s 8 IP of one-run ball with seven strikeouts.
—- Marmol gave up a home run to Hunter Pence. That’s the first home run he’s given up in over a year, and the first home run he’s given up to a RHB since 2008!
—– oh, and all of this was against the Astros.
- Max Scherzer, a very good pitcher, gave up seven runs in 6.2 IP to the punchless Twins…
– and didn’t get a loss. Actually, his team won.
— 2011 Justin Morneau hit two home runs in this game.
—- might I remind you the Twins lost?
