Results tagged ‘ Nationals ’
Mets limp to Astroland (in Houston)
The Mets are looking lost right now. Since the All-Star break they are 2-5 to start off their second half of the season, losing three out of four to the Braves, and two out of thee to the Nationals. I refuse to say that the Mets aren’t playing hard, they are, Angel Pagan’s triple and him scoring on the wild throw, Angel made a heads up play going to home on that throw. The Mets need to keep their heads up as they go to Houston to take on the Houston Astros.
Angel Pagan batting
Angel Pagan scoring.
Josh Willingham impresses the Mets with his two run shot off Mike Pelfrey. (photo by AP)
The Astros just won their game last night and currently are on 49-46 this season, one game away from the first place Cardinals, How did the Astros win the game? Look at this:
The Houston Astros have won 7 of their last 10 games and are on a three game winning streak, all against the Cardinals. Miguel Tejada, Carlos Lee, Hunter Pence and the ‘stros are coming around nowadays. I have a feeling the way the Astros are playing they are going to make things harder on the other teams, including their next opponent, the Mets. The Cardinals and Astros series was strange in that the Cards did play well, they didn’t come up with a win in the series. I always though the Cardinals and Astros rivalry was interesting since 2004 when they met in the National League Championship series and again in 2005.
Here’s the box score.
|
St. Louis
|
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 8 | 0 | |
|
Houston
|
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 12 | 0 |
The scoring plays
Top fifth
Mark DeRosa hits a solo home run.
Bottom sixth
Michael Bourn scores on a ground out by Carlos Lee.
Top seventh
Yadier Molina singles to bring home Ryan Ludwick.
Brendan Ryan flies out and Mark DeRosa scores.
Bottom seventh.
Kazuo Matsui singles to bring home Ivan Rodriguez.
Bottom ninth.
Chris Coste doubles to bring home Ivan Rodriguez.
Miguel Tejada singles to bring home Jeff Keppinger who scores the winning run.
Jose Valverde wins the game for the Astros, while Ryan Franklin loses for the Cardinals. Chris Carpenter (who went 8 innings) of the Cardinals took on Roy Oswalt who went 7 innings.
Congrats to the Houston Astros for being a contender again, and making this an interesting matchup. The Mets versus the Astros begins this Friday.
Josh Willingham pokes fun at Mike Pelfrey as Nationals take series.
Here’s the box score for the Mets vs the Nationals.
|
NY Mets
|
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 1 | |
|
Washington
|
0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | X | 3 | 8 | 1 |
Here’s how each team scored.
Bottom 4th
Nick Johnson walks, eventually Ron Belliard flies out to bring Johnson home.
Top 6th.
Angel Pagan hits just passed Nyjer Morgan’s reach, and then sloppy defense allows Pagan to score all the way, it would have been a triple, but he scores.
Bottom 6th.
Adam Dunn doubles, and two batters later, Josh Willingham blasts a 2 run home run off Mike Pelfrey. This is Josh’s 13th home run of the season.
Pelfrey had a quality start but on a losing end. Craig Stammen earns the save while Mike MacDougal saves the game.
Looks like the Nationals are still playing like they are contenders after all. They played like contenders. They’ll have to carry their magic to the Padres, while the Mets limp to the surging Astros who just beat the Cardinals 4-3 on Miguel Tejada’s game winning hit.
Here’s another interesting game.
Orioles versus the Yankees.
|
Baltimore
|
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 9 | 0 | |
|
NY Yankees
|
4 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | X | 6 | 11 | 1 |
Scoring plays
Bottom First.
Derek Jeter Doubles.
Mark Teixiera Singles
Alex Rodriguez singles, Jeter scores.
Nick Swisher singles to bring home Hideki Matsui and Jorge Posada.
Botton third
Jorge Posada Homers.
Top seventh
Nick Markakis sac flies to bring home Robert Andino.
While Aubrey Huff strikes out swinging, wild pitch and Adam Jones scores.
Bottom eigth
Jorge Posada doubles to bring home Alex Rodriguez
Top ninth,
Adam Jones and Nick Markakis both hit solo home runs.
That’s all the scoring for the day.
AJ Burnett wins the game pitching 7 innings giving up 6 hits and two runs.
Jason Berken loses pitching 6 innings and giving up five runs, including Jorge Posada’s solo shot.
Mariano Rivera earns the save. The Yankees are on a roll and have a two game lead in the AL East thanks to the Red Sox loss to the Rangers. The Yankees are on a six game winning streak since the All Star Break
Here’s another one.
|
Tampa Bay
|
0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 8 | 1 | |
|
Chi White Sox
|
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 0 | X | 4 | 7 | 0 |
James Shields was okay, but he did not win the game, as the reliever Dan Wheeler blows the save.
Matt Thornton gets the save for DJ Carrasco.
Here are the scoring plays
Top fourth
Pat Burrell hits a solo home run
Top sixth
Ben Zobrist singles, and Gabe Kapler hits a two run home run, and Zobrist also scores.
Bottom sixth
Scott Podsednik hits a solo home run.
Bottom seventh
Gordan Beckam walks
Scott Podsednik singles.
Alexei Ramirez triples, Beckham and Podsednik score.
Jermaine Dye singles bringing home Ramirez.
That’s all the White Sox needed.
It was Dan Wheeler’s turn to be shaken up.
That’s it for today.
The postseason I hoped for…
Since the beginning of the year, I was hoping for this year’s postseason series to turn out this way. First off, I did not base this out of how the teams overall were doing, but how the team could have done it if they were playing their best ball.
So here it goes, and you might be surprised on who I picked to go to this year’s post season
National League.
NL East – Washington Nationals. Adam Dunn did go to this team, believing that the Nationals were a contender, well he’s playing very good this season with 24 home runs and 65 runs batted it. Ryan Zimmerman is hitting 15 home runs and 56 RBIs. Nick Johnson has only six home runs but is batting at a .305 average. Josh Willingham has 12 home runs. Alberto Gonzalez is batting at a .308 average. Just looking at the five players gives me the impression that this team was good, too bad their overall record doesn’t reflect it at all. John Lannan as the Nats’ ace should have won at least 13-15 games now, and even with their record is their best pitcher with 7 wins.
The Nationals should have been 56-32 by now had they played better.
Ryan Zimmerman should be getting credit for his work at 3rd base, his team’s record, that’s another story. 
Adam Dunn, Nationals outfielder.
John Lannan, the Nationals Ace, He’d be fighting for a Cy Young had his team supported him better.
NL Central- Chicago Cubs. The Cubs if fully healthy would have been lead by Derrek Lee and Aramis Ramirez, had they been fully healthy thoughout this season they would be leading this team in home runs with about 25 apiece. Carlos Zambrano, Rich Harden, Ted Lilly, would lead the way for the pitching staff, and what a good pickup with Kevin Gregg as their closer. Even if Gregg wasn’t going to pitch good as the Cubs’ closer, the team can always rely on Carlos Marmol to close out their games. I was projecting close to a 100 win season for the Cubs too.
Derrek Lee, Cubs’ first baseman.
Aramis Ramirez, Cubs’ third baseman
NL West- Los Angeles Dodgers. A good season, it would have been a better season had Manny Ramirez not miss 50 games due to a drug suspension. The pitching staff would have been better had Kuroda not been injured. The Dodgers made a good pickup with Orlando Hudson, a switch hitter and a second baseman who can run. Russell Martin the catcher could have done better, with his offense, his defense is great, but he needs to swing the bat. The Dodgers probably have the best outfield with Manny Ramirez, Matt Kemp, and Andre Ethier playing, and a good backup with Juan Pierre, who’s usually ready to step up. He’s done great when Ramirez couldn’t play, and honestly he should be starting at left field. The Dodgers are 60-34, but they should be 75-19 if they played their best ball.
Manny Ramirez had he not been suspended would have been hitting at least 34 home runs, instead of 10. Even in his absensce, the Dodgers have stepped it up big time.
Chad Billingsley has step up his game this year too. 
Matt Kemp’s doing his best.
NL Wild Card- New York Mets, had this team been fully healthy, Jose Reyes, Carlos Delgado, Carlos Beltran, and David Wright would be leading the way. Johan Santana, Mike Pelfrey, John Maine, Oliver Perez, and Livan Hernandez would be a good pitching rotation with JJ Putz and Francisco Rodriguez closing out the games. This might have been the year in which the Mets can take their revenge on the Phillies, well not everything can work out that way. I’d say the Washington Nationals would have been their bitter rival, had the Nats’ efforts not been in vain either.
Sure these players are missing in action right now, but they’d be at least second place right now had they been around.
At least David Wright’s doing good, for a team currently underachieving.
American League.
AL East.- New York Yankees. CC Sabathia, AJ Burnett, Joba Chamberlain, Andy Pettitte, were the original starters. They have been pitching pretty good. Mark Teixiera was a good pickup at first base, Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez and Johnny Damon are doing everything they can to lead the Yankees to another division title under second year manager Joe Giradi. Regardless of how the Yankees do, I hope Joe Giradi sticks around longer, at least another 10 years. Had Alex Rodriguez not miss April, he’d be leading the team in home runs, but it’s Mark Teixiera instead with 23, and Alex with 19, not bad. If they had hit better, they’d be in the 30s right now. The Yankees are sure hitting the long ball and that’s why they’ll win the AL East. Nick Swisher has been a great add also, hitting 14 home runs, he did lead the Yankees in that category briefly.
Too bad the Yankees didn’t have Xavier Nady the whole year.
AL Central- I had the Cleveland Indians winning this division. Cliff Lee is good, had Fausto Carmona been better, the Indians would be on top. Mark DeRosa was a great pickup for the tribe as well as Kerry Wood. Grady Sizemore, Travis Hafner, Victor Martinez, Jhonny Peralta, and Ryan Garko can play. Had they played their best, their manager, Eric Wedge wouldn’t be sitting on the hot seat right now, they’d be contenders. The Indians have the second largest active drought since it’s been about 61 ye
ars since the tribe has won a World Series.
AL West- Oakland Athletics. Matt Holliday, Jason Giambi, Orlando Cabrera were great pickups, but they aren’t great right now. At least Jack Cust is leading the way with 16 home runs as their desginated hitter. Dallis Braden, Trevor Cahill, Brett Anderson,Josh Outman, and Andrew Bailey are leading the pitching staff, but their wins are in single digits. Maybe with better offense they’d be arond 12-13 game winners each by now. Matt Holliday’s been struggling this season, had he been doing great the Oakland team would be Oakland A+’s
AL Wild Card- Chicago White Sox. John Danks, Jose Contreas, Mark Burhlele, Clayton Richard, and Gavin Floyd are leading the way this season. Paul Konerko, Jim Thome, Jermaine Dye, Alexei Ramirez, and AJ Pierzynski are leading the White Sox offense, with home runs. Jermaine Dye’s 21 home runs are quite impressive this season. Paul Konerko has 18 home runs too. If the White Sox can’t take the AL Central Crown, then they can have the Wild card instead.
Jermaine Dye
Paul Konerko in the 2005 World Series
Jim Thome the Designated hitter/first base.
That’s all I’ll say for now.
John Lannan completes a shutout as Nationals defeat Mets.
John Lannan pitches nine shutout innings against the New York Mets, only allowing seven hits. Lannan threw 106 pitches in which 80 of them were strikes. Oliver Perez pitches six innings, giving up four hits, and four runs. Brian Stokes and Bobby Parnell pitched no-hit innings.
Here’s the box score
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |  |
R | H | E | |
|
NY Mets
|
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 0 | |
|
Washington
|
0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | X | 4 | 4 | 0 |
Since the Mets did not score, I’ll discuss how the Nationals scored their runs
The scoring innings
Bottom 4th
Ryan Zimmerman walked.
Adam Dunn singles and Zimmerman goes to third.
Josh Willingham pops out.
Alberto Gonzalez hits a sac fly to score Ryan Zimmerman for the first run, Dunn to third.
Wil Nieves singles to bring home Adam Dunn. Alberto Gonzalez goes to second base.
John Lannan grounds out.
Bottom 5th
Nyjer Morgan is hit by pitch.
Cristian Guzman flies out.
Ryan Zimmerman walks, Morgan stole 2nd base while Zimmerman was batting.
Adam Dunn singles, scores Morgan, Zimmerman to third.
Josh Willingham sac flies to score Zimmerman.
Austin Kearns grounds into a force out.
The Mets had seven hits, one each by Angel Pagan, Luis Castillo, David Wright, Daniel Murphy, Oliver Perez, and two hits by Jeff Francoeur, (the best hitter of the game that is)
Mets players grounded into two double plays, and left five on base.
The Nationals had four hits, one by Ryan Zimmerman, one by Wil Nieves, and two by Adam Dunn. Nationals leave six men on base, but they won by four runs.
There were no home runs hit in the game.
Oliver Perez pitched good, despite allowing four runs, he just didn’t have any run support at all, because John Lannan was great at handling pressure situations and stranding baserunners.
At the end of the day, the Mets are 44-49, and the Nationals are 27-66, even though they played better than their record indicates.
Here are some other scores that have reached their ends.
Braves beat Giants 8-1, in which Brian McCann homered.
Brian McCann drove in four runs, Chipper Jones, Garret Anderson, Yunel Escobar, and Martin Prado each drive in one run, while Juan Uribe hits to bring home Matt Downs for the Giants.
Martin Prado had three hits while Brian McCann and Yunel Escobar each had two hits for the Braves.
Randy Winn had two hits for the Giants also.
|
San Francisco
|
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 8 | 0 | |
|
Atlanta
|
1 | 0 | 3 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | X | 8 | 12 | 0 |
The Indians beat the Blue Jays 2-1, and Scott Rolen homered for the Jays. Victor Martinez drives in two runs.
|
Cleveland
|
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 9 | 0 | |
|
Toronto
|
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 7 | 1 |
I hope the summer is turning out great for everyone.
Mets beat up the Nationals, and more USA Softball
The Mets
defeat the Washington Nationals by a score of 5-2, behind Livan Hernandez’s
pitching and Mets timely hitting over the Nationals.
Here are
the scoring innings for each team
Top
first, Mets score two runs. Angel Pagan singles. Luis Castillo sac bunts to
move Pagan to second; Castillo out. Daniel Murphy doubles and Pagan scores.
David Wright fouls out. Jeff Francoeur doubles, and Murphy scores. Jeremy Reed
grounds out to end the inning.
Top
second, Mets score three runs. Alex Cora singles. Brian Schneider grounds out,
as Cora goes to second base. Livan Hernandez grounds out. Angel Pagan singles,
Alex Cora scores, Pagan to second on wild throw. Luis Castillo singles; Pagan
scores and Castillo to second on throw. Daniel Murphy singles, brings home Luis
Castillo for the third run. David Wright lines out to center to end the frame.
Bottom
fourth, Adam Dunn singles. Dunn goes to second on Guzman’s groundout. Austin
Kearns singles, Dunn to third. Willie Harris pops out. Josh Bard singles to
bring home both Adam Dunn and Austin Kearns. Alberto Gonzalez grounds out.
Top
ninth, The outfielder swap for the Mets was well worth it, as Jeff Francoeur
homers to make it 6-2 Mets at Nationals Park. Ryan Church also homered for the
Braves as well that night. The Mets-Braves trade is working out for both teams.
Livan
Hernandez wins pitching seven innings, allowing five hits and two runs.
JD Martin
pitching for the Nationals loses the game pitching only four innings and giving
up five runs and eight hits.
The Braves beat
the San Francisco Giants by a score of 11 to 3. The Atlanta Braves are
on a offensive explosing as of late. Interestingly enough, it comes on
a start by Tommy Hanson. Chipper Jones and Garret Anderson also homered
for the Braves, off Jonathan Sanchez.
Here’s the link to the last nights game.
http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/gameday/index.jsp?gid=2009_07_20_nynmlb_wasmlb_1&mode=gameday
Mets are at it versus the Nationals tonight.
Here’s last night’s World Cup final results.
United States 3, Australia 1 (Jul 20, 2009 at Oklahoma City, OK)
———————————————————————-
Australia……….. 000 100 0 - 1 4 0 (3-3)
United States……. 003 000 X - 3 7 1 (6-0)
———————————————————————-
Pitchers: Australia – Smethurst, Justine; Murch, Aimee(4) and . United States – Abbott;
Osterman(6) and .
Win-Abbott(2-0) Save-Osterman(1) Loss-Smethurst, Justine(2-1) T-1:57 A-4737
HR AUSTRALI – Stacey Porter.
HR USANT – Lauren Lappin.
Weather: Partly Cloudy, 91, Winds:SSE19
The play by play for that game is here via a PDF File
http://www.usasoftball.com/uploads/2009world%20cup/champ%20pxp.pdf
You can actually see the game at ESPN2 tonight at 7pm eastern, 4pm Pacific time if you missed the game or if you want to watch the game again. You can watch it online at ESPN360.com, just look for the game “Australia vs USA World Cup of Softball”.
Team USA has two more torunaments, the Japan Cup and the Pan Am games at Venezuela, I’m not sure if they have TV coverage though. Monica Abbott and Cat Osterman were the best pitchers for Team USA, and Lauren Lappin, Caitlin Lowe and Natasha Watley all came in the clutch. Kaitlin Cochran and Ashley Hansen were also huge for Team USA. Jennie Finch who usually plays pitcher, also played first base. It is usually rare to see a pitcher play a position and vice-versa.
The following players have homered at least once in this tournament for Team USA
Jennie Finch
Natasha Watley
Ashley Hanson
Jenae Leles
Lauren Lappin
Alissa Haber
Andrea Duran
Monica Abbott is the only pitcher with two wins in the tournament, and Stacey Nelson, Katie Burkhart, Cat Osterman, and Jennie Finch each have one win as well. Cat Osterman has the only save in the tournament in the final game as she saved Monica Abbott’s title clinching win.
Here are your final standings.
USA 6-0 wins Gold
AUS 3-3 wins Silver
CAN 4-2 wins Bronze, lost to AUS in tiebreaker game.
JPN 3-3
NED 2-4
ITA 0-6
This was taken from http://www.usasoftball.com/events.asp?uid=4674
Other things in mind, the Rays and
the White Sox. Jeff Niemann is 8-4 versus Clayton Richard 3-3. Evan Longoria
and Carlos Pena have to wake up their bats against him. Jermaine Dye and Paul
Konerko can keep swining their sticks and the White Sox will beat up the Rays.
I predict a big day for the White Sox, but the Rays have other plans.This
should be the game of the week.
Oliver Perez versus John Lannan
play tonight. Ollie needs to play his A-Game and the Mets need to keep on
hitting against Lannan. Adam Dunn and Austin Kearns need to keep hitting and so
will Ryan Zimmerman. It’s too bad that the Nationals are a good team but their
record doesn’t reflect that. That’s all I’ll say for now.
Mets go for it at Pittsburgh amongst other things…
1. The New York Mets will try to win at least once today, same matchup, Mike Pelfrey for the Mets and Ross Ohlendorf for the Pirates. Game starts around noon time. Let’s hope the Mets bats get going in this series, it has in the first game when Livan Hernandez pitched well but an uncharastic issue occured in the Mets bullpen.
2. Randy Johnson will attempt again to win his 300th career game with the San Francisco Giants against the Washington Nationals in a two game day. He will oppose Jordan Zimmermann. The second game of the double header, the Giants will send out Matt Cain to take on Ross Detwiler.
3. The Chicago Cubs will take on the Atlanta Braves and this game is available nationally on MLB Network, so any fans wanting some national attention worthy MLB action, tune in to that game. Of course if you regularly see Cubs or Braves games on televison, you should stick to your teams’ brocasting feeds instead due to blackout restrictions. MLB Network will show another game instead. Matchup today is Carlos Zambrano (who is coming off a five game suspension for his actions in a game hosting the Pirates for arguing a safe call.) Jair Jurrjens will take the mound for the Atlanta Braves
4. The Yankees are coming off from a loss to the Texas Rangers last night, so they should be looking forward to improving from their mistakes, heck they had about a streak of errorless games before this series so this should be no problem to them. Pitching matchup is Brandon McCarthy for the Rangers taking on Chien-Ming Wang for the Yankees who’s looking forward to making a better impression in the starting rotation this time around since having rehab assignments in the bullpen.
5. The last matchup I’ll talk about for today, Phillies vs Dodgers. The Phillies have won six straight games thanks to an awesome pitching effort from JA Happ outdueling Chris R Young of the Padres. Ryan Howard blasts a two-run home run of the inning in last night’s game. The score last night was 5-1 in favor of the Philadelphia Phillies over the San Deigo Padres. What a sweep! Next opponent, the Los Angeles Dodgers, Cole Hamels vs Clayton Kershaw. Two young lefties going at one another. The Dodgers are really good at home this season, even though Manny Ramirez is halfway through his fifty game suspension. Last night the Dodgers beat the Arizona Diamondbacks 1-0 behing strong pitching from Chad Billingsley. Casey Blake’s sac fly was the only run producing play of the game.
Now for other things.
Orlando Magic take on the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA Finals tonight on ABC
Game one is at Los Angeles at Staples Center. Who do you think will win this series?
That’s all, for the rest of the info go to these sites mlb.com and nba.com for NBA Finals coverage.
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