It wasn’t so long ago (the Nationals were playing out in Los Angeles, to be specific) that we wrote about walk-off grand slam home runs. They’re really, really unusual — a walk-off grand slam that results in a single run victory has happened (by our count) just 25 times in major league history. A two out walk-off grand slam is even more unusual. And, as we noted in our previous post, an inside the park walk-off grand slam home run has happened just once.
Which makes last night’s walk-off grand slam off the bat of Brian Bogusevic in Houston (albeit, on a 2-2 and not a 3-2 count, but wouldn’t that be something) even more special. The fact that thousands more watched it live than normally would have (during an MLB “live look-in”) is stunning.
The GWRBI (GS) came off the arm of Chicago reliever Carlos Marmol and sent the fans in Houston into ecstasy, and it was a bomb: Bogusevic scorched the ball to dead center and it hit above the yellow home run line in Minute Maid Park. A shot. The grand slam gave the Astros a 6-5 victory.
That’s five walk-offs in a single night in baseball, equaling the season record of five set back in late May. Still . . . still, the Houston walk-off was the most uplifting (so to speak) and jaw-dropping. Oh, and Bogusevic’s walk-off grand slam was hit by a pinch hitter . . .
The Washington Nationals won yet another one run game, defeating the White Sox in Chicago by a score of 2-1. While the Nationals were able to scratch out only three hits against the Chicago starting staff and bullpen, it proved to be enough to make Livan Hernandez (now 5-8) a winner. He deserved it: the big righty threw 6.2 innings, scattering seven hits and striking out nine.
Washington scored its runs on Danny Espinosa’s 7th inning home run with Michael Morse aboard, giving the Nationals just enough to edge the Pale Hose. Espinosa’s average has been climbing steadily over the last ten games. Chicago’s fans had to be disappointed: Philip Humber threw brilliantly, matching Hernandez pitch-for-pitch and holding the Nationals scoreless through six. Humber held the Nationals to just three hits while striking out four and had a no-hitter through five.
The three game series must have provided a sobering moment for the White Sox whose biggest boppers have not-so-suddenly turned into hitless wonders. The boo-birds were out for Adam Dunn, the off-season mega-bucks free agent (and former National) who’s hitting .019 from the left side of the plate. Dunn is hitting .176 on the season. His four strikeouts today against the Nationals gave him 100 strikeouts for the year. His blood-draining power production (or lack of it) has turned much of the south side against him: he has 40 hits, only seven of which are home runs.
Hernandez was brilliant, but so was the Nationals’ bullpen. Washington’s trio of relievers — Tyler Clippard, Sean Burnett and Drew Storen — held off the Chisox through the 7th, 8th, and 9th, with Clippard and Burnett notching holds, and Storen registering his 19th save. Burnett looked particularly effective, good news for the young lefty who struggled in the early part of June. Burnett has given up no runs and just two hits in his last seven outings. Burnett has lowered his ERA a full point over the last three weeks. The Nationals now head to Los Angeles, where they will duel with the Belinskys.
Tom Gorzelanny should have been the news on Saturday, but it was Jake Peavy instead. While Gorzelanny threw seven stellar innings of seven hit baseball, Jake Peavy was the pitcher who captured the headlines. Peavy, who has been battling shoulder problems since his arrival in Chicago from San Diego in 2009, tamed the Nationals with four innings of one hit baseball, picking up the win in a 3-0 White Sox victory over the Nationals.
The single run victory was enough for Peavy, who threw 55 pitches, 38 of them for strikes. Washington hitters could do little so solve him. Peavy, who was once one of the National League’s premier starters, entered the game as a reliever — the first time that has happened in his major league career. “Peavy was unreal,” Nats’ interim manager John McLaren said after the Nationals’ loss. “I was with him during the World Baseball Classic. He had some pitches that were unhittable. He just had really good stuff.”
But Peavy’s four inning gem was more a matter of circumstance than solid strategy. The big righty entered the game in the fourth inning after starter John Danks left the game with a strained right oblique and reliever Brian Bruney appeared to run out of gas. The White Sox were forced to use Peavy after Friday’s fourteen inning marathon burned out the Pale Hose bullpen. “I don’t want to make a big deal of it,” Peavy said. “I needed to do it for my team. That’s the bottom line. We had to find a way to win the game, and give us a chance to win the series tomorrow.”
There is obviously some kind of record involved here somewhere, though it’s not a good one. On Friday night in Chicago, the Nationals bullpen collapsed not just once, not just twice, but three times — in the 9th, 10th and 12th innings, putting a game that was clearly winnable in the we-were-lucky-to-win-that-one column. Luckily (for that’s how it seemed), the Nationals eventually prevailed (9-5), scoring four runs in the top of the 14th inning, to come away with their fourth win in a row. The win put them clearly in third place in the N.L. East, as the New York Madoffs lost once again.
“That’s as much intensity as I’ve seen in the game in 24 years,” interim manager John McLaren said following the victory in Chicago. “It was incredible. The passion [our players] had, and their will to win. We made some mistakes pitching, but we were able to overcome it.” The final box score tells the tale of the Nationals’ woes, and of their eventual triumph: Drew Storen, Todd Coffey and Tyler Clippard were each credited with a blown save, while end-of-the-bullpen rocket man Collin Balester pitched two nearly flawless innings for the win.
Pale Hose manager Ozzie Guillen has outdone himself: the outspoken South Side monument, known for his legendary rants, authored yet another one on Monday night — disputing a call from umpire James Hoye that shortstop Alexei Ramirez was out on a grounder. Guillen argued that the ball had dropped foul. This most recent “rant” is well worth watching, as it has Guillen kicking Cubs’ backstop Geovany Soto’s mask into an elegant trajectory, a visual that sparked Chicago wags to speculate that Guillen could be the Bears new punter.
Guillen’s latest antics mask (er . . . veil) his larger frustrations. The White Sox are 35-39 and 5.5 back in the A.L. Central race, and while that’s a damned sight better than they were a month ago, Guillen’s team is among MLB’s embarrassing underachievers. Free agent acquisition Adam Dunn is hitting .178, the pricey Alex Rios is at .210, “next big thing” second sacker Gordon Beckham is at .230, and the pitching staff (non-anchored by the now regularly injured Jake Peavy) is a shambles. Usually Guillen, one of the game’s great on-field captains, knows how to press the right buttons. But this year he seems to have lost his touch.
White Sox rooters have taken notice: South Side Sox is leading the charge against the front office, walking point on fan scapegoat Juan Pierre, whose play in left and on the base paths has been less than stellar. “If the rest of the lineup was doing what they were supposed to do, maybe we could live with Pierre,” the blog opines. “They aren’t though, so something needs to happen. That something is Pierre to the bench, or given his release. Pick one.”
Cole Hamels pitched his first complete game of the season, shutting down the Washington Nationals and besting Livan Hernandez, giving the Philadelphia Phillies a 4-1 victory at Citizens Bank Park. The sole run scored by the Nationals came off the bat of Michael Morse, who put a Hamels’ offering into the right field seats. Hamels was the Philadelphia hero on a night when Phillies fans welcomed Jayson Werth back to Philadelphia with a mix of cheers and boos.
The Hamels masterpiece should not have come as a surprise. The Phillies’ lefty is 9-0 in his last nine starts against the Anacostia Nine, with a 2.73 ERA. “Hamels was the story, he was really good again, hitting his spots with his fastball,” Nats’ skipper Jim Riggleman said following the game. “It’s a good fastball, but he had a good changeup, as he always does.”
In The Valley of the Lost Bats: For the first time this season, MASN commenters F.P. Santangelo and Bob Carpenter wondered aloud what would happen to Danny Espinosa if his struggles at the plate continue. It’s possible that Riggleman could sit the second sacker, putting Jerry Hairston at second. Espinosa is hitting .219 and has struck out ten times in the last 10 games . . . The comment was telling. Back on April 22, Carpenter was asking where the Nats’ offense would be without Espinosa. Now he’s wondering if the kid can get back on track . . .
But if you’re going to sit Espinosa, you’d also have to sit Adam LaRoche, whose troubles at the plate make Espinosa look like Ruth. LaRoche is 0-17 in his last six games, his last hit coming on April 27 against the Mets. Then too, if you’re going to sit Espinosa, you’d have to swallow hard in defending Jerry Hairston as the heir — Hairston is not exactly hitting the ball on the screws: he’s 7-33 in the last ten games. Hairston is a good ballplayer, but he’s not DiMaggio. His lifetime BA is .256 . . .
And while we hate to say “we told ya so,” a little Alberto Gonzalez medicine would look good right now. The MASN boys regularly laid into Gonzalez for not being able to put the bat on the ball, but last year he hit better than either Desmond or Espinosa are hitting right now. Sure, Alberto didn’t like his part time gig in D.C., and it was time for him to head out. But it would be nice to see him at third now that Ryan Zimmerman is down. Then again . . . Alberto isn’t hitting the leather off the sphere for the Friars. After a good start, he’s hitting a torrid .172, and the Padres have settled into an infield of Jorge Cantu, Jason Bartlett, Orlando Hudson and Brad Hawpe, with Alberto on the bench . . . San Diego’s infield is (admittedly) mere filler, but not all that bad when you think about it . . .
Alberto Gonzalez isn’t the only former D.C. batsman who’s struggling at the plate. Pale Hose acquisition Adam Dunn has been almost embarrassing in Chicago, where he’s having problems acclimating himself to his role as a designated hitter. “What’s Wrong With Adam Dunn?” FanGraphs asked yesterday. Dunn is hitting a measly .157 in Chicago and looks terrible at the plate. Last night, he was the final batter faced by Francisco Liriano in his no hitter, lining out to end the game. “There are three reasons why Dunn is struggling so far,” FanGraphs says. He is having bad luck, “he has not found his power stroke,” and “his strikeouts are up.”
We love FanGraphs, but that doesn’t tell you a whole lot: the reason Adam Dunn is hitting poorly is because he’s hitting poorly. Right. The question is: why is he hitting poorly? The answer may well be that Dunn has not mastered the intangibles of the D.H., which requires you to be in the game and ready to play despite the fact that you sit the bench. D.H.-ing is a lot like entering the line-up as a pinch hitter four times a game; it takes real discipline to do it well. Dunn hasn’t developed that discipline yet, or he wouldn’t be hitting .157 — and the Chicago South Siders would look like contenders, instead of bums. Which, at 11 and 20, is . . . what . . . they . . . are.
Jason Marquis was masterful on Friday night against the San Francisco Giants, pitching a five hit complete game shutout of the McCoveys — as Washington blanked the Giants, 3-0 at Nationals Park. The victory may have marked the most satisfying win for the Nationals all year: the victory featured stellar starting pitching, timely hitting, and good defense. Washington’s three runs were provided by a two run homer from left fielder Laynce Nix and a single from Marquis. Ian Desmond went 3-3.
After the victory, Marquis downplayed the game as a duel between him and Lincecum: “I never worry about the opposing pitcher other than when I step in the box,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s Cy Young or the fifth starter on any team; you still have to make pitches to keep your team in the game. I have to be on top of my game and not worry about what anybody else is doing.” Even so, Marquis was the better pitcher at Nationals Park on Friday — he threw 96 pitches, 64 of them for strikes and he’s now 3-0 on the year.
The Nationals scoring against Lincecum came on a hefty home run shot into the right field seats by Laynce Nix, who was 2-3. Nix raised his season average to .314. “That was the first time I faced Tim and I was fortunate to get a pitch over the plate I could handle,” Nix said. “He’s a great pitcher, no question about that. He’s got great stuff that is tough to pick up. He had good stuff tonight.”
Book ‘Em, Danno: Pale Hose manager Ozzie Guillen was suspended for two games and fined by Major League Baseball for violating the league’s “social media policy and other regulations regarding the use of electronic equipment during the course of a game.” Guillen was thrown out of Wednesday’s game at Yankee Stadium. When he returned to the clubhouse he tweeted about the incident: “This one going to cost me a lot money this is patetic (sic),” Guillen tweeted. A second tweet followed: “Today a tough guy show up a yankee stadium.” Guillen put a good spin on his suspension: “I hope the [White Sox] players play better without me, because with me, they aren’t playing too good.”
Say hello to my little friend: This is going to be ugly. Major League Baseball has placed Braves pitching coach Roger McDowell on administrative leave and is investigating charges that he made homophobic comments to fans prior to the Atlanta-San Francisco game at AT&T park last Saturday. The allegations were made by fan Justin Quinn, who participated in a press conference on McDowell’s actions; standing with his wife and two daughters, Quinn said he saw McDowell making obscene gestures during batting practice. After McDowell made the comments and gestures, Quinn said that he told him he shouldn’t say those things in front of his children. According to Quinn, McDowell then picked up a bat and threatened him: “How much are your teeth worth?” McDowell also allegedly told the fan that “kids don’t belong at the f —king ballpark.” Nice.
They call it a ‘Royale’ with cheese: Cincinnati Reds’ pitcher Mike Leake pleaded guilty on Friday to a reduced charge of “unauthorized use of property,” after being arrested for shoplifting at a local Macy’s department store on April 18. Leake held an in-dugout press conference on Friday to explain his actions, which stemmed from a mix-up when he attempted to exchange shirts he had purchased from the store. “It was a serious lapse in judgment,” Leake told the press. Cincinnati fans have been predictably supportive of Leake during this troubled time: a sign at Cincinnati’s Great American ballpark read — “we gave you the bunt sign, Mike, not the steal sign.”
