Red Sox push back Beckett's start
BALTIMORE -- Red Sox ace Josh Beckett will be pushed back three days in the rotation and is now scheduled to make his next start on Tuesday at Yankee Stadium. This, after the right-hander felt some numbness in the pinky finger and ring finger of his right hand during his last start against the Blue Jays, in which he gave up eight hits and eight runs over just 2 1/3 innings.
Beckett and manager Terry Francona both said that the injury could have been caused by the pitcher sleeping on his arm.
"I think sleeping is definitely part of it," Beckett said. "I sleep like most 28-year-old guys. The only thing is, I have a different stress load on my body. It ends up costing me time on my job."
However, Beckett added that the issue was not isolated to just Sunday, and that he's dealt with it on and off this season. But he said that this is the first time it got to the point where taking some time off was necessary.
"Yeah, it's just something I've been dealing with," said Beckett. "At some point and time, [we] just have to figure out what the [heck] it is. Obviously, it's not what I want, but at this juncture, it's something that needs to happen. Obviously, there's something going on."
Beckett, asked if he would undergo tests to make sure there is no aneurysm or anything else of that magnitude, said he has been given assurances that there are no such issues, and that those type of tests probably won't be necessary.
"I haven't," said Beckett. "I'm not a big fan of those arthograms. I think they cause a lot of unneeded soreness. I think, if it gets to that point, we'll do whatever we need to do. I don't think that's what it is. Any time something is wrong with your arm and you're a baseball player, or especially a pitcher, you think the worst first. I've been kind of reassured by people that it's not that."
Still, he wants to get the problem under control.
"It feels all right," Beckett said. "I just have some numbness in fingers that obviously I'm not used to having. As far as pain goes, there's not very much pain at all with it. It's just, like I said, you have to figure out what it is or it gets so bad to where it gets to be a really bad problem.
"It's something that we've dealt with. Like I said, I've never had to deal with it on that level. It's something we've monitored over time. It hasn't ever festered [like this] until now."
With off-days on both Thursday and Monday, the Red Sox were easily able to rearrange the rotation. Paul Byrd, Jon Lester and Daisuke Matsuzaka will start the weekend series in Toronto.
Beckett, assuming the numbness goes away, will open the three-game showdown at Yankee Stadium, followed most likely by Byrd and Lester.
Is Beckett confident he'll pitch Tuesday?
"I don't know," Beckett said. "It's still seven days away, so we'll see."
After a breakout season last year, Beckett has struggled a bit with his consistency this year, going 11-9 with a 4.34 ERA over 23 starts.
"I haven't ever dealt like it on this level, on the day that I was pitching," Beckett said. "Some days were bad, some days were good. But I've never had to deal with it on this level on the day that I pitched."
Copyright 2001-2008 MLB Advanced Media, L.P. All rights reserved.
Gonzalez tops Rays for first victory
OAKLAND -- Tuesday's two-run showing represented the 14th consecutive game the A's have scored four runs or fewer.
The team hadn't seen such a mark in Oakland since 1978. Nor had it entered a game with a 3-21 record over the last 24 games -- as it did Tuesday -- since 1994.
And the A's were playing a first-place team and facing an All-Star pitcher. Not exactly ingredients a slumping team would conjure up for a win, but the A's mixed in a few special plays and some solid pitching to walk away against starter Scott Kazmir and the Rays with a 2-1 victory.
"We got what we needed," Bobby Crosby simply said.
Indeed the A's did -- and it was Crosby's two-run shot to left-center field in the second that supported a strong home debut effort by starter Gio Gonzalez, who entered the game feeling more like the Energizer Bunny than a Major League pitcher.
"I'm at a loss for words for how I felt out there," said Gonzalez, who notched his first big league win. "There were a lot of emotions. I'm just excited we got out alive."
Leading 2-1 after the third inning, the 22-year-old pitcher ran into trouble in the fourth after walking back-to-back batters with one out. Any sense of uncertainty felt by A's fans, though, was put to rest when Gonzalez proceeded to strike out the next two hitters to end the inning.
The jitters hit Gonzalez yet again in the fifth after he allowed a double to Ben Zobrist before giving up a base hit to Jason Bartlett to put runners at the corners with no outs. Akinori Iwamura put down a bunt minutes later, and Gonzalez grabbed the ball while Zobrist headed for home.
"I heard Suzuki yell, 'Go home!'" Gonzalez said of his catcher, Kurt Suzuki. "So I got him and ... he stopped running or there would have been a big collision."
With one out and one runner wiped away, Gonzalez only had to turn the opposite way to get the second out. With B.J. Upton at the plate, the A's pitcher caught Bartlett straying too far off second before getting Carlos Pena to fly out and end the inning.
"That's the difference between top-notch pitchers and average ones," A's manager Bob Geren said. "Those guys can get out of trouble."
It also doesn't hurt to have a squeaky clean defensive bunch either, as Gonzalez learned. That much was evident by Ryan Sweeney's seventh-inning highlight grab in right field to rob Bartlett of a possible double. The A's rookie hurt his right hand in the process and will see a doctor at 9 a.m. on Wednesday, but Geren is well aware of Sweeney's bulldog mentality.
"He always guts it out," the skipper said. "I asked him to stay in for defensive purposes. I didn't want to have him out of the game."
Sweeney's catch came in the midst of yet another bright spot in Tuesday's win in the form of relief pitching, thanks to a combined four scoreless innings from Jerry Blevins (two innings), Joey Devine and Brad Ziegler.
"Our bullpen was spectacular," Geren said. "You couldn't ask for much more."
That's become the norm for Ziegler, who left the game with his second career save and extended his career-opening scoreless streak to 38 innings. Even more, the side-armer passed Mike Torrez for the longest scoreless streak by a pitcher in Oakland history. As if that's not enough, Ziegler set an American League record for the longest rookie scoreless streak that was previously set by the Yankees' Hank Thormahlen in 1918.
So how in the world does Ziegler make it look so easy out there?
"I'm glad it looks that way," he said, "because it sure doesn't feel that way."
And while it was a night to remember for the A's relief pitcher, none will remember Tuesday's events more vividly than Gonzalez, who couldn't wipe away a larger-than-life grin on his face following the victory.
He has a few baseballs from the game and the lineup card -- all material possessions that don't quite match a little something else he was given.
"The real souvenir was to watch the game and have all the fans out there," he said. "I talked to my father before the game, and he was saying how you want to perform well at home. You want to perform your best for the fans."
The 14,284 in attendance rewarded Gonzalez with a large applause upon his exit. And even though he felt uncomfortable tipping his hat because of his rookie status, he admitted feeling "super happy."
"That was a step in the right direction," Crosby said of the win. "We need to turn the page."
Copyright 2008 Sporting Life UK Ltd, All Rights Reserved.
Wall ball is deja vu to Red Sox
KANSAS CITY -- The Royals bench couldn't even see it live. The flashing red lights of the scoreboard ruined their view of the unbelievable play in left center.
Finally, the replay aired on the CrownVision big screen. It seemed like they had to wait minutes, but the Kansas City bench finally got to see the ball roll on top of the fence before Ross Gload knocked it off into his glove.
"We were all standing around looking at each other and saying, 'Has anybody seen that play?'" first-base coach Rusty Kuntz said.
The answer to that was no. They saw videos of the ball getting stuck after it fell out of Johnny Damon's glove at Yankee Stadium on the Fourth of July, but they had never seen a ball roll on the outfield fence the way it did in Tuesday night's 8-2 Boston win. This one was unique.
Denny Matthews, who has broadcast Kansas City games for 40 years, thought so. Royals coaches and players thought so. Even the Red Sox thought so.
They've now been live and in person for two of the weirdest plays in recent history.
"That was one of the more interesting plays you'll ever see," Jason Bay said.
It happened in the seventh inning. Bay hit a deep fly ball to left center, and Mitch Maier quickly closed in on it. These are his favorite plays. He hasn't spent much time in the big leagues, but Maier's thought plenty about running toward the wall and making that impressive jump for a SportsCenter-worthy catch.
"Those are the plays you dream about," he said, "diving and taking away home runs."
Maier leaped into the wall, and the ball landed right in the palm of his glove. He was so close to making that special catch, but the ball bounced out. As far as he was concerned, Bay had just hit one over the fence.
But he hadn't.
As Maier lay on the grass, the ball rolled on top of the wall for a few seconds in a straight line, hardly moving one way or the other. Maier guessed the wall was a foot wide.
"Now is probably the time to get a lottery ticket," Red Sox manager Terry Francona said. "How many times do you see a ball do that on the wall?"
Gload continued sprinting from left field. He saw it, leaped for the top of the eight-foot fence and instinctively swatted the ball with his left hand into his glove. Bay's home run instead turned into a double.
"It was just a reaction play really," Gload said. "It has nothing to do with my skill level or anything."
"That was a pretty unique play," said Red Sox catcher Jason Varitek. "We've been a part of some weird plays out on the fence this year. The ball hadn't carried as well here as it normally does, especially to left field. He really tattooed the ball and it stayed in. Gload made a phenomenal play just pulling that ball back in and just keeping it from being a homer, because I think it was going to roll the other side."
This latest installment of the unlikely comes about a month after the Red Sox experienced it the first time. They were playing the Yankees on July 4 when Kevin Youkilis hit a deep fly to left field.
Damon followed it all the way to the fence and leaped to catch it. He had it in his glove before his body came crashing into the wall. The ball popped out and rested on top.
For two seconds, at least, it stayed up there, rocking slightly back and forth. The ball finally came down onto the field, and Damon, who had fallen to the ground, couldn't find it. A Yankees official behind the wall pointed where the ball was. Damon grabbed it, and threw it in. Youkilis had a triple.
That play made its rounds on TV for days. Odds are the same will happen for this one.
Bay, Gload, Maier and one level top of a fence made for an unforgettable series of events. Still, Maier would've rather never seen a ball roll on top of an outfield wall.
"I should have caught it," he said.
Copyright 2001-2008 MLB Advanced Media, L.P. All rights reserved.
Dodgers' top Draft pick out for season
LOS ANGELES -- Ethan Martin, the Dodgers' first-round pick in last month's First-Year Player Draft, is scheduled to undergo season-ending knee surgery.
Martin, a right-handed power pitcher taken with the 15th overall pick out of Stephens County High School in Georgia, suffered the injury during fielding drills. He signed earlier this month for a $1.73 million bonus.
Martin, 19, was named the 2008 Georgia State High School Player of the Year by Gatorade after going 11-1 with a 0.99 ERA as a senior. He also had 141 strikeouts in 79 innings. He was named a 2007 AFLAC All-American after his junior season, during which he went 6-1 with 81 strikeouts and a 1.41 ERA.
He was rated by Baseball America as having the second-best fastball among Draft-eligible high school pitchers. He is also rated by the publication as having the third-best secondary pitch. Dodgers assistant general manager Logan White projects Martin to compare with Diamondbacks pitcher Dan Haren.
Chris Withrow, the Dodgers' first-round pick last year, has not pitched this season because of arm and control problems.
Copyright 2001-2008 MLB Advanced Media, L.P. All rights reserved.
Taveras injures left quadriceps
DENVER -- Rockies center fielder Willy Taveras left Tuesday's game against the Padres after the fifth inning with a sore left quadriceps. He's listed as day-to-day.
Taveras hit an RBI single in the inning and stole second and third base before scoring on Brad Hawpe's fielder's choice.
Once he returned to the dugout, Taveras told trainer Keith Dugger he felt a slight pain in his leg. Dugger then told manager Clint Hurdle, who decided to take Taveras out rather than risk further injury. "The trainer felt that would be the best move at the time," Hurdle said.
Taveras leads the Majors with 38 stolen bases. His swipe of third base Tuesday made him 13-for-13 in steals of third, and he now has eight multi-steal games this year. Taveras missed a bulk of the second half of last season, including the playoff series with the Phillies, with an injured right quadriceps.
After the game, Taveras said this injury isn't nearly as bad as last season's, a good sign for the Rockies. "It was just a little sore," he said. "I didn't want to push it. I'll see how it feels [Wednesday]."
Copyright 2001-2008 MLB Advanced Media, L.P. All rights reserved.
Garza quenches Rays' thirst for sweep
MIAMI -- Matt Garza has been an enigma this season, great stuff with occasional lapses between his ears.
On Thursday afternoon at Dolphin Stadium, Garza showed everyone what he's capable of accomplishing, as the 24-year-old right-hander flirted with a no-hitter -- and ultimately gave up just one hit -- in a 6-1 Rays win over the Marlins that completed a three-game sweep over their Interleague rivals.
The Rays moved to 47-31 on the season while claiming their 15th series win -- as well as their sixth sweep, surpassing the previous team record of five sweeps in a season. In addition, the Rays reached a franchise-high mark of 16 games over .500, a place in the win-loss column unfamiliar to Rays teams past.
Garza faced the minimum through six innings, putting on display the breezing air of someone in a zone, a fact all too obvious to the Marlins.
"You could sense [at the beginning of the game that Garza was going to have a good outing]," Marlins manager Fredi Gonzalez said. "We weren't getting any really good swings on him early."
Garza knew he had something special going on, as did his teammates, who honored the time-worn custom of not talking to a pitcher when he has a no-hitter going for fear of upsetting the positive karma.
"I tried to stay away from him," Rays catcher Shawn Riggans said. "I didn't want to change anything I've been doing the previous inning, so I was letting him do his thing and I was definitely watching that scoreboard. That's the best pitching performance I've ever caught so it was fun, a lot of fun."
Hanley Ramirez finally broke Garza's spell when he led off the bottom of the seventh with his 17th home run of the season, a towering shot over the left-field scoreboard.
"Slider down and away, 0-0 count, he's a good hitter," Riggans said. "Hats off to him, but I would have liked to see him pop it up."
Ramirez's hit proved to be the only blemish on Garza's complete-game masterpiece, which saw him strike out 10 of the 28 batters he faced.
"That was really impressive," Rays manager Joe Maddon said. "His stuff, from the very first inning, was that good. It wasn't like he had to build on anything. He had a great tempo all day long. He was pounding the strike zone, throwing his breaking ball for a strike, even in fastball counts. That was just a well-composed, dominant performance. He was virtually unhittable."
Only three weeks ago, replays of a spat in Texas between Garza and catcher Dioner Navarro played throughout the never-ending TV news cycle. Since then, Garza has worked with a specialist to curb his emotions -- and the results speak for themselves.
"I've made huge strides," Garza said. "Mentally, I think I would have lost it giving up that slider to Hanley. ... I regrouped. He hit a good pitch. It was outside of the zone and he went out there and got it."
Maddon has noticed the difference in Garza.
"In this game, I know for a fact, when you can correct the mental mechanics a lot of times your performance increases," Maddon said. "You do deliver the ball better, you have a better arm stroke, you have better mechanics, etc., because you have control of yourself. You have control of your emotions, you're able to breath.
"What you're seeing is a guy who is much more under control and now you're seeing his true abilities."
Evan Longoria and Riggans led the Rays' offense Thursday.
For Longoria, it came down to continuing what he began Wednesday night when he had a home run, two doubles and three RBIs. Thursday he added a home run and two doubles.
Riggans, who hails from nearby Fort Lauderdale, started behind the plate for the Rays, and he used his bat to celebrate his homecoming.
In the second inning, Riggans hit a bases-loaded shot to deep center field that Cody Ross hauled in with a circus catch to turn extra bases into a sacrifice fly, but the run gave the Rays a 1-0 lead.
"Oh man I thought I had it," Riggans said. "Thought I had it -- 190 pounds, that's all I got right there -- so I thought we had something, but, you know, drove in a run and got our team going early. We got the 'W,' so that's all that really matters."
Riggans also chased home Longoria and B.J. Upton with a fifth-inning double to the gap in left-center field that put the Rays up, 5-0. Ben Zobrist added his second home run in as many days to equal the final margin.
The Rays sweep gave the team its first road sweep this year.
"I think that speaks to composure in difficult settings," Maddon said. "... We have to build away from [Tropicana Field]. We have to win these road games in tough environments. It's a wonderful first step."
Copyright 2001-2008 MLB Advanced Media, L.P. All rights reserved.
Raburn, Thames notch big homers
SAN FRANCISCO -- With Marcus Thames now in the everyday lineup, the Tigers had to find another bat Tuesday that could come up with a big home run off the bench. Enter Ryan Raburn.
His 425-foot home run couldn't compare to Thames' shot for distance or significance in the record books. He'll settle for providing Tuesday's turning point.
"That one's about as good as I can hit it," Raburn admitted of his go-ahead, pinch-hit solo shot in the eighth inning of the Tigers' 5-1 victory over the Giants.
Until Raburn jumped on a high fastball from Giants starter Jonathan Sanchez and sent it to the depths of the left-field seats, Sanchez and Tigers starter Kenny Rogers had put on a battle of contrasting left-handers. The 25-year-old Sanchez, armed with a lower-90s fastball to complement his breaking stuff, not only took a no-hitter into the sixth inning, he didn't allow a ball in play out of the infield through five. The 43-year-old Rogers and his curveball kept pace by scattering runners early before settling in and finding his command.
It was shaping up to add another chapter to Rogers' list of stingy no-decisions. He had allowed just three earned runs over 29 innings in his previous four starts, but had no wins to show for them. One was the Tigers' 1-0 loss in 12 innings at the Angels on Memorial Day; more recent was a 2-1 walk-off victory over the White Sox on Thursday.
"I want to win as much as anybody," Rogers said afterward. "I want to pitch good and win. I know they're trying harder to give me runs. I've been kidding Marcus the last few days. I said, 'You don't love me. You've hit one for everybody else, two for some [starting pitchers].' Then last night he hit two, and I said, 'Man, you have just put an elephant on your back.'"
Sanchez actually kept Thames contained with two strikeouts and a fly ball to right. It wasn't until the ninth inning that Thames extended his home run streak to five consecutive games, taking a Vinnie Chulk fastball an estimated 465 feet to straightaway center field. That matched the franchise record of five straight games with a homer last reached by Willie Horton in 1969 and shared with Hall of Famer Hank Greenberg, Rudy York and Vic Wertz.
Thames' last eight hits have been home runs -- the longest such streak in the Majors since Mark McGwire had 11 in 2001, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
Lost in that moment, however, was his play to help keep the game tied heading into Raburn's at-bat. After sixth-inning singles from Curtis Granderson, Edgar Renteria and Placido Polanco broke up Sanchez's no-hit and shutout bids to put the Tigers ahead, Fred Lewis' leadoff single and Ray Durham's walk set up a Giants rally in the bottom of the inning.
Randy Winn sacrificed the runners up for Bengie Molina, whose sinking line drive to left looked like an RBI single until Thames reached down for a backhanded grab. Lewis scored on what became a sacrifice fly, but the catch kept it at that.
"I got a good jump. I just told myself to go ahead and go after it," Thames said. "That's the only thing [outfield coach] Andy [Van Slyke] teaches us. I just got a good read on it and it helped us out and got us out of a jam. I knew he was going to score, so I wanted to make sure I gathered myself."
Rogers retired the side in order in the seventh before his spot in the batting order came around to lead off the eighth. Raburn, 3-for-14 in his big league career as a pinch-hitter, sat on Sanchez's fastball and got one over the middle of the plate on the second pitch.
"From what I'm told from guys that have pinch-hit before, they always said to be ready for the fastball," Raburn said. "If I got one close enough to hit, I was going to be hacking. I put the barrel on it."
It couldn't compare to Thames in terms of distance. The drama was pretty good, though.
"Well, that was huge," manager Jim Leyland said. "He jumped on a fastball and got every bit of it. He caught that guy at the end of his outing and he jumped on one."
A walk and another Polanco single chased Sanchez from the game. Carlos Guillen barely beat out a potential inning-ending double-play throw to allow Renteria to score and stretch the lead further before Thames' home run and a Jeff Larish pinch-hit RBI single seemingly put the game away.
Three batters and three singles into the bottom of the ninth, however, closer Todd Jones was facing the potential tying run at the plate. Rookie John Bowker couldn't provide the huge home run this time, but it took a sliding catch from defensive replacement Brent Clevlen in left to get the out. Jones took care of the rest to finish out a scoreless inning.
Copyright 2001-2008 MLB Advanced Media, L.P. All rights reserved.
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