Safety Squeeze: MLB Review for 8/2

Music to listen to: The Mirror Conspiracy by The Thievery Corporation

Time for the first edition of Safety Squeeze, your daily review of the happenings of the previous day in major league baseball.

Detroit 6, Texas 5:  So much for the much improved Texas bullpen.  New Ranger reliever Mike Adams, just traded to Texas from San Diego, gave up a solo home run to Brennan Boesch in the bottom of the eighth inning for the game-winner.  Colby Lewis also had a rough start for the Rangers, giving up five runs and ten hits over four innings of work.

Chicago Cubs 11, Pittsburgh 6:  It was fun while it lasted Steel City.  The Pirates have now lost five games in a row and ten of thirteen contests.  Pittsburgh is now back at .500 with a record of 54-54.  The last time the Pirates had a winning season was 1992.  It was also good to see Aramis Ramirez revert back to his 2008 form with a four RBI effort and Alfonso Soriano turn back the clock to his Texas Rangers’ days with two home runs.

Boston 3, Cleveland 2:  In what has been an entertaining series, the Red Sox earned a hard fought victory after a single by Jacoby Ellsbury in the bottom of the ninth inning drove in Jared Saltalamacchia for the game-winner.

BTW, you will never, ever read the words “walk-off” on this Blog accept for here.  I blame ESPN for this grammatical fallacy in sports journalism.

Josh Beckett went six solid innings in this contest, which is important since Boston needs more solid efforts from him with the struggles of John Lackey and the major injury to Clay Bucholtz.

Washington 9, Atlanta 3:  Break up the Nationals!  Behind a grand slam by Rick Ankiel in the fourth inning, the Nationals have won four games in a row and are only three games under .500, which would mark the best season ever for the franchise since moving to D.C.  The Braves have now lost three in a row, sit eight games behind Philadelphia in the NL East race and are now only 1.5 games ahead of Arizona in the Wildcard race.  At least Dan Uggla has hit in 24 straight games since his struggles in the first half of the year and Michael Bourn had two hits.

Toronto 3, Tampa 1:  How is David Price, who on talent alone is a top-10 MLB pitcher, only 9-10 this season?  That’s why Tampa won’t make the playoffs this year.

Florida 4, New York Mets 3:  How are the Marlins back at .500 after the 1-19 record they had in June?  If Florida has a winning record this year, the organization should give Jack McKeon a lifetime contract, seriously (insert the “that contract won’t be long because he’s old” joke here.)

Baltimore 8, Kansas City 2:  These are the type of games that make it tough to do a Safety Squeeze post.  Two former proud franchises who are pretty much playing out the string in early August.  Where’s George Brett and Cal Ripken, Jr. when you need them?

Cincinnati 5, Houston 1:  What’s the over/under on losses this season for Houston?  I would set the line at 101.

New York Yankees 6, Chicago White Sox 0:  A fun stat for you stat-heads out there.  Mark Teixeira hit a home run from both sides of the plate in the same game for the 12th time of his career, matching the record set by Eddie Murray and Chili Davis.  Who names their kid Chili?  Another fun fact is that his real name is Charles Theodore.  How do you come up with Chili from that?  Is it because he’s Jamaican?  Is that racist?  Too many questions for one game.

St. Louis 8, Milwaukee 7 (11 innings):  So Albert Pujols gets hit with a pitch so the Cardinals hit Ryan Braun to retaliate.  Add that chapter to an already annoying book about the unwritten rules of baseball.  As for the game, the Cards scored n the top of the 11th on a two-out single by Lance Berkman to score Matt Holliday.  Where was this Berkman the last two seasons?  I’m sure that Houston and the Yankees would like to know the answer to that as well.

Anaheim 5, Minnesota 1:  The Angels will always be from either Anaheim or California, not by their current team name…

Philadelphia 5, Colorado 0:  Hunter Pence went 2-for-3 in the contest with a walk.  The Phillies are winning the pennant and returning to the World Series for the third time in four years.

Seattle 4, Oakland 2:   Seattle has won four of six since their club-record 17-game losing streak.  At least the Mariners have that going for them.

Los Angeles 1, San Diego 0:  This game sounds as exciting as the score would indicate.

Arizona 6, San Francisco 1: Lincecum gives up two runs over seven innings, all on a two-run homer by Paul Goldschmidt, the guy’s first career home run, and the Giants still lose at home, the team’s fifth straight defeat.  The lack of offense by San Francisco is going to cost them a chance to do anything in the playoffs, maybe even miss the postseason completely.