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He also finished the night with 16 strikeouts, a team record. From AP-
Florida Marlins pitcher Ricky Nolasco struck out nine consecutive batters against the Atlanta Braves on Wednesday night, one short of the major league record.
The streak ended with a leadoff double by Adam LaRoche in the sixth inning, and Nolasco finished with a club-record 16 strikeouts. After throwing more than 120 pitches, he was lifted by manager Fredi Gonzalez with two outs in the eighth. The Marlins were leading 5-2.
The big league record for consecutive strikeouts in a game is 10 by Hall of Famer Tom Seaver for the New York Mets on April 22, 1970, against San Diego.
Seaver struck out 19 in that game at Shea Stadium, including his final 10 batters in a 2-1 victory.
The Mets were my favorite team while I was growing up on Long Island. I watched that 1970 game on television. The 19th strikeout was a outfielder named Al Ferrara.
Another setback for the veteran lefty has he tries to re-establish himself in the major leagues.
Houston Astros left-hander Mike Hampton has a partially torn rotator cuff and hopes to pitch again this season.
Hampton (7-10, 5.30 ERA) went on the 15-day disabled list on Tuesday. He left his last start on Aug. 13 with shoulder soreness. An MRI taken Wednesday revealed the extent of the injury, the team announced.
The Astros said Hampton will not have surgery to repair the injury.
The 36-year-old has started 21 games this season, his most since 2004. He missed the 2006 and 2007 seasons after separate elbow surgeries.
I always thought this type of injury required surgery. If Hampton is operated on at some future date, I think his playing career will be at an end. He was a good pitcher but his career has been downhill ever since his signing with Colorado before the 2001 season.
He was released by the Boston Red Sox less than two weeks ago. From AP-
John Smoltz agreed to a deal with the St. Louis Cardinals on Wednesday, giving the 42-year-old former ace a chance to rejuvenate his career in the middle of a pennant race.
Smoltz joined the NL Central leaders shortly after he cleared waivers, following his release by Boston. He was 2-5 with an 8.33 ERA in eight starts for the Red Sox.
General manager John Mozeliak said Smoltz likely would start Sunday at San Diego, and probably would get at least a few turns in the rotation. Mozeliak said Smoltz didn’t ask to start as a “negotiating ploy.”
“He had very little demands,” Mozeliak said on a conference call. “He had no demands. From everything he had heard about this club, he was excited to take this opportunity. The reason for the start was just to get him work and know what we have.”
The Cardinals hope Smoltz either can fill a void as the fifth starter or provide right-handed relief in the bullpen.
The Cardinals are six games up in the NL Central, so they can spare a game too in the standings. That said, I don’t understand this move. Why put yourselves at risk with a pitcher who looks finished career wise?
There must be a ‘I need another ancient relief pitcher’ virus going around the offices of MLB teams at this moment. From the St. Petersburg Times-
The Rays had interest in adding veteran Russ Springer to their bullpen anyway. After going through two extra-inning games in four days, they believed it was even more important to make a move.
The 40-year-old right-hander was claimed on waivers from Oakland, with the Rays assuming the nearly $1 million remaining on his $3.3 million contract.
*****
Springer was 0-4 with a 4.10 ERA in 48 games with Oakland but had a 1.61 ERA over 25 games since early June.
The addition of Springer required Tampa to make another personnel move.
The Rays’ decision to designate IF Joe Dillon for assignment to make room for Springer wasn’t cut-and-dried. Ultimately, the Rays decided to go with eight relievers and three bench players in large part because they had played two extra-inning games this week.
Though Dillon rarely got off the bench, Maddon said he didn’t like having to cut him loose. In addition to being a fan of Dillon’s approach to the game, Maddon will have to be especially creative with the way he uses his bench.
That’s an understatement. Only three bench players severely limits a manager’s options. One of those backups has to be a catcher, the most likely player to get injured in any given game. Managers are a cautious lot, and will be cautious in using their only backup catcher. That limits a team’s strategy moves with only three bench players even more.
Springer, like the recently traded David Weathers, has been all over the major leagues for fifteen plus years. He is a decent reliever, but for the reasons I already stated, I don’t understand why Tampa needed this guy.
The injury has to be considered career threatening. From AP-
Colorado Rockies left-hander Alan Embree is out for the season after a line drive fractured his right tibia on Friday night.
Embree will have surgery Saturday.
“There will be some type of compression screw put in there,” Rockies manager Jim Tracy said.
Atlanta’s Martin Prado hit a 3-2 fastball from Embree back up the middle in the seventh inning Friday night. The ball ricocheted off Embree’s right shin to third baseman Ian Stewart.
“It sounded awful,” Rockies catcher Chris Iannetta said. “I couldn’t even track the ball it was hit so hard. It sounded really bad.”
*****
Embree, who signed as a free agent with the Rockies this past offseason, was 2-2 with a 5.84 ERA in 36 appearances.
Embree is 37-43 lifetime in a career that started in 1992. Other than 4 games he started in 92 for the Cleveland Indians, he’s been exclusively a left handed relief specialist for 10 MLB teams. I have always liked Embree, he was a key part of a winning Star tournament team of mine, but his career looked to be in decline before this injury. If he reestablishes himself as a quality pitcher in 2010, I’ll be greatly surprised.
The lefthander has won 305 games lifetime, 224 of them for Atlanta. From ESPN-
Tom Glavine wanted to end his career with the Braves.
If this is the end, it wasn’t on his terms.
Atlanta released the winningest active pitcher in the big leagues on Wednesday, a stunning move just when it seemed he was ready to return to the Braves.
The move was first reported by ESPN The Magazine’s Buster Olney.
The 43-year-old Glavine, who was coming back from shoulder and elbow surgery, threw six scoreless innings in a rehab start for Class-A Rome on Tuesday night and proclaimed himself ready to pitch in the majors again.
Instead, the Braves cut him, another move that figures to draw the ire of Atlanta fans after the team failed to re-sign John Smoltz during the offseason.
Glavine described himself as “very surprised” in a text message to The Associated Press. Atlanta manager Bobby Cox called it “the hardest thing I’ve ever been through.”
The players were most shocked by the timing of the decision: Why was the 305-game winner allowed to make three rehab starts, then told he wouldn’t be pitching anymore for the Braves?
Financial considerations may well have played a part. Does a team want to pay a large sum of money for a player of limited usefulness both long and short term? Major league teams are a business first and foremost. Their management looks at the bottom line just like those working for non-sports companies.
Casey Stengel in his years at the helm of the New York Yankees was quick to dump players once they were no longer useful to him. A pitcher would win 16 games one year, struggle the next and soon find himself traded to Kansas City. Casey felt no obligation to keep around a player because they were once good. He had to concern himself with today and tomorrow not yesterday. Perhaps Atlanta was thinking the same way.
This takes place the day after the Florida Marlins shell the veteran righty. From AP-
The Milwaukee Brewers made big changes to their thin bullpen on Tuesday.
One day after reliever Jorge Julio allowed five runs while facing six batters in the sixth inning of Milwaukee’s 7-4 loss to the Florida Marlins, the Brewers released the right-hander.
Julio entered Monday night’s game in Miami with Milwaukee leading 4-2. He gave up two hits, hit two batters, walked one and another reached on an error. Signed to a one-year, $950,000 deal in the offseason, Julio was let go Tuesday after going 1-1 with a 7.79 ERA in 15 appearances.
The Brewers called up right-hander Mike Burns from Triple-A Nashville. Burns was 6-2 with a 2.98 ERA for the Sounds.
Milwaukee’s manager says the bullpen is thin. Which it is, particularly after David Riske was lost for the season after elbow surgery.
Julio, who has played for eight ML teams since 2001, throws very hard. Something baseball managers like. I expect a ninth team to take a chance on him before the 2009 season is over. Perhaps even by the 4th of July.
He became the 25th player in baseball history to reach that milestone. From AP-
Gary Sheffield crossed home plate and thrust his arms in the air after unleashing his 500th homer with another vicious swing, and then the surly slugger was humbled by the site of his new Mets teammates pouring out of the dugout.
Sheffield was greeted with hugs and high fives after becoming the 25th player to reach the milestone with a tying homer in the seventh inning Friday. The party switched focus in the bottom of the ninth when Luis Castillo hit a two-out, run-scoring single to give the Mets a 5-4 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers.
“I was so excited that, you know, when I looked over to the dugout, those were the guys,” said Sheffield, who signed with New York on April 4 after being released by Detroit four days earlier. “I appreciate every one of those guys. They’ve been very special to me.”
Last night’s homer came against the franchise Sheffield started his career with. He was drafted by Milwaukee in 1986.
Should Sheffield be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame one day? Besides his home runs, he has a career .292 batting average but more impressively a .394 career on base percentage. There is no question, Sheffield has been an offensive machine for two decades. The case against his induction is fairly strong. Sheffield has been a defensive liability his entire career, has had behavioral and discipline problems on and off the field, and as a result traveled extensively. Not too many HOFers have played for eight teams in their career.
Tim Kurkjian of ESPN writes-
Sheffield was not named in the Mitchell report, but in his testimony before a grand jury in the BALCO case in 2003, he acknowledged using “the cream” and “the clear,” but said he didn’t know they were steroids at the time. Still, that admission raises questions about steroid use even though he has never tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs. From 1988-98, he had two 30-homer, 100-RBI seasons. From 1999-on, which appears to be the height of the steroid era, he had seven straight years of 25 homers, and six of his eight 100-RBI seasons.
Sheffield’s case is a tricky one. He has always played hard, he has often helped his team win, and he has been a middle-of-the-order hitter in the postseason with three different organizations, including a world championship team (the 1997 Marlins). He is not DiMaggio, obviously. He is not Schmidt, Griffey or Yastrzemski. Despite having similar numbers, he is not even close to being Frank Robinson, all things considered.
The marks against him are noticeable and troublesome, but his numbers — especially 500 home runs — are very impressive. His case is debatable, but I believe he’s a Hall of Famer.
His drug use is another factor to weigh for Sheffield. Should all players caught up in that scandal be excluded from the HOF? I don’t have a vote on who goes to Cooperstown, if I did, I don’t know if I would vote for Sheffield.
 Longtime Atlanta Braves pitcher John Smoltz has snubbed the team and signed with the Red Sox. ESPN:
John Smoltz has pitched his entire major league career with the Atlanta Braves, but he is on the verge of a deal with the Boston Red Sox, according to sources.
Smoltz, 41, has pitched in 708 games for the Braves, winning 210 games and earning 154 saves. He has been been rehabilitating his shoulder since having surgery last season, and there have been reports that the has made excellent progress.
Smoltz’s departure from Atlanta would come in a winter in which the Braves have struggled to fill holes in their rotation; Atlanta was unable to land Jake Peavy, after extensive trade talks, and was unable to sign free agent A.J. Burnett.
Despite the qualifiers, AJC is reporting it as a done deal. The Braves are shocked.
John Smoltz’s career with the Braves is ending. The iconic Atlanta pitcher, who’s recovering from June shoulder surgery, has agreed to a contract to pitch for the Boston Red Sox and will likely inform the Braves of his decision today, a person familiar with the situation confirmed.
[...]
Smoltz, who contacted Braves players Wednesday night to inform them of his decision, has said many times in the past year that he wanted to finish his career with the Braves. However, the team had not offered a major league contract to Smoltz that was anywhere near the amount that the Red Sox have reportedly guaranteed him. The Braves were expected to go no higher than $3 million guaranteed, regardless of other offers he got.
“John is a great guy. He follows his own head, and I just don’t know what’s going on with him right now,” Braves Chairman and CEO Terry McGuirk said today. “We’ve offered less of a guarantee, but we’ve offered a substantial guarantee. Coming off an injury like this, we feel like it’s the right thing that we should be doing (in regards to our offer).
“We’ve offered him a package that would get him in the $10 million range, if he were to pitch a full season and pitch well. For him to walk away from that and to go to another place, I’m just shocked and surprised.
“I read today in something that his agent said the other set of incentives (from the Red Sox) were “more attainable.” If John Smoltz pitches like John Smoltz pitches, I think (what we offered) is attainable. If he’s not healthy, it’s not going to happen.”
According to a person familiar with the situation, Smoltz would have been required to pitch 200 innings next season to reach the maximum incentives in the Braves’ offer. Incentives in the Red Sox proposal are more easily attainable.
One can’t blame the Braves, who have a much more limited payroll than the Sox, for hedging their bets on a player who has been constantly injured in recent years. Nor, really, can fans blame Smoltz for preferring $5.5 million to $3 million as his career winds down. Still, it’s a shame to see him play in another uniform.
He also played professional hockey and had two brief stints a major league baseball player. RIP.
Tom Burgess, who played briefly in the major leagues before serving as a coach under Joe Torre and Bobby Cox, has died. He was 81.
A member of the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame, Burgess died Monday at his Lambeth home after a battle with cancer, Baseball Canada said.
Burgess spent most of his professional playing career in the minors but had two short stints in the big leagues as an outfielder and first baseman. He went 1-for-21 (.048) at the plate with the 1954 St. Louis Cardinals and didn’t get back to the majors until eight years later, when he batted .196 with two homers and 13 RBIs for the 1962 Los Angeles Angels.
After his playing career ended, Burgess managed at many levels for St. Louis, Atlanta, the New York Mets, Texas and Detroit. He was third base coach for the Mets under Joe Frazier and Torre in 1977 and for Atlanta under Cox in 1978.
Burgess also coached and managed for Baseball Canada and Baseball Ontario.
“Tom could not give enough back to baseball,” Tom Valcke, president of the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, said in a phone interview Thursday. “He would teach anyone, anytime, everything he knew, as long as they wanted to learn and to work.”
As well as the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame, Burgess also is a member of the London, Ontario, sports Hall of Fame and the Rochester Red Wings Hall of Fame.
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