Article:Baseball Notebook: Around the Bases May 7th

Gavin Floyd Two Outs From No-Hitter

Joe Mauer is the last batter on the Twins a pitcher would want to face when they are two outs from pitching a no-hitter. Gavin Floyd was in that situation against the Twins and Mauer doubled to end the no-hitter.

Floyd has been a different pitcher this season. In his last two seasons with Phillies he had ERA's of 10.04 and 7.29. Then last year his ERA was 5.27 with the White Sox. This season he is 3-1 and has a 2.50 ERA and has given up only 20 hits in 39 2/3 innings. Last year he had 49 strikeouts and 19 walks in 70 innings but this year he has 19 strikeouts and 18 walks in 30 less innings. The main thing is that he is the only White Sox starter with a winning record and is leading the starters in ERA.

Jermaine Dye is off to a slow start this season. He is 5th on the team in homers with 4, 5th in RBI's with 12. The White Sox have six starters hitting .257 or lower this season with Joe Crede hitting .257, Paul Konerko at .220, Orlando Cabrera at .214, Nick Swisher at .196 and Juan Uribe at .195. Swisher is in a horrendous slump with only one homer and 3 RBI's since the 17th of April and after the first five games in May he is 1 for 17 and hitting .053 for the month.

Slumping Tigers Lose 5th in a Row

The Detroit Tigers lost to Tim Wakefield 3-1 yesterday as Wakefield allowed only 2 hits in 8 innings as the Red Sox defeated the Tigers 5-0. Since the Tigers swept the Yankees they were swept themselves by the Twins and if they lose to the Red Sox today they will have been swept by the Red Sox. It is hard to believe a team with this powerhouse batting order can only manage 2 hits but that is exactly what happened yesterday. The big guns of the Red Sox Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz both hit their 7th homers of the season. Ortiz is officially out of his slump. His batting average for May is .429 with 2 homers and 6 RBI's and is slugging .810 in May.

Chamberlain Sets Up Yankee Loss

The Yankees were ahead 3-2 in the eighth inning when Joba Chamberlain entered the game. The setup man instead of setting up Mariano Rivera for a save in the ninth inning gave Rivera the day off when he let three runs cross the plate in the eighth inning in the 5-3 loss to the Indians.

Highlights of Other Games

Andy Sonnanstine 5-1 pitches Rays to 5-4 win over the Blue Jays. With the Yankees, Orioles and Blue Jays losing yesterday the Rays distanced themselves from all those teams and remained 3 and a half games behind the Red Sox....Brian Bannister 3-4 has lost 4 in a row after winning 3 in a row. Royals were 8-5 on the 14th of April but have been 6-13 since then. Garret Anderson drove in all 5 runs for Angels in their 5-3 win over the Royals....The A's won 4-2 over the Orioles in a game that had no extra base hits by either team as the two teams combined to hit 13 singles. Emil Brown drove in his 28th run of the season for the A's and Frank Thomas was 2 for 3 raising his average to .212 and to .273 with the A's. He is hitting .333 for the month of May.

Sidney Ponson 2-0 wins again for Rangers in 10-1 win over Mariners and lowered his ERA to 1.33. Michael Young, David Murphy and Josh Hamilton drove in 3 runs each in the contest with Hamilton extending his major league leading RBI total to 36....Nate McLouth continued his torrid hitting for the Pirates hitting his 8th and 9th homers of the year and has driven in 28 runs this season in their 12-6 win against the Giants. Xavier Nady drove in his 31st and 32nd runs of the season which tied him with Lance Berkman for the NL lead in RBI's.

Chipper Jones raised his average to .426 and hit his 10th homer of the season in the Braves 5-3 win over the Padres. Jones is now 60 points ahead of second place Rafael Furcal who is hitting .366....Carlos Zambrano 5-1 pitched the Cubs to a 3-0 victory over the Reds....Mike Jacobs hit his 9th homer of the season in the Marlins 3-0 shutout win of the Brewers. The Brewers were 11-6 on the 19th of April but have been 5-10 since then....Lance Berkman was 5 for 5 and Carlos Lee drove in 5 runs for a 6-5 defeat of the Nationals by the Astros. On the 19th of April the Astros were 6-12 but have been 11-4 since then for a 17-16 record.

Ryan Ludwick was 4 for 4 for the Cardinals in their 6-5 win against the Rockies. Braden Looper 5-1 was 2 for 3 raising his average to .385. Rick Ankiel hit his 6th homer and threw out two runners at third base....Randy Johnson 2-1 won his 286th game in a 6-4 defeat of the Phillies. The win tied him with Robin Roberts of the Phillies. Johnson needs one more win to tie Bert Blyleven with 287 wins and 2 wins to tie Tommy John with 288 wins. The only other pitcher he needs to pass on the way to 300 wins is Bobby Mathews with 297 wins.

Blake DeWitt led the Dodgers with a 3 for 4 game with 4 RBI's in the 5-4 defeat of the Mets. Juan Pierre finished April hitting only .250 but with him hitting .458 in May his average is now .316.

Not Your Run of the Mill Stats

Batting

Extra Base Hits AL - Manny Ramirez 19 NL- Chase Utley 26

Home Runs Per At Bat AL - Carlos Quentin HR every 12.5 AB's NL - Chase Utley HR every 10.3 AB's

Grounded Into Double Plays AL- David Ortiz 8 NL- Pedro Feliz, James Loney 8

Stolen Base Success AL - Jacoby Ellsbury 11 for 11 100% NL - Michael Bourn 13 for 13 100%

Batting Average With Runners in Scoring Position AL - Emil Brown .484 NL - Ryan Doumit .526

Least Missed Swings AL - Ichiro Suzuki - 15 of 232 NL - Cesar Izturi 6 of 157

Pitching

Lowest Batting Average Allowed AL - Gavin Floyd .149 NL - Ben Sheets .171

Strikeouts Per Nine Innings AL - Javier Vazquez 8.94 NL - Chad Billingsley 11.76

Run Support Per Nine Innings AL - Chad Gaudin 7.75 NL - Brad Penny 8.93

Least Home Runs Allowed AL - Chien-Ming Wang 1 in 45 Innings NL - Jair Jurjjens 1 in 44 Innings

Blown Saves AL - Hideki Okajimi, Jamie Walker 3 NL - Eric Gagne 5

Best Catchers Throwing Out Base Stealers AL - Joe Mauer 6 of 15 40% NL - Paul Bako 7 of 18 38.9%

Worst Catchers Throwing Out Base Stealers AL- John Buck 0 of 14 0% NL - Carlos Ruiz 2 of 16 12.5%