Posted by Bill Chuck on Thursday, April 23, 2009 at 11:06 pm

1. When Micah Owings pitches, he hits like a pitcher (0 for 4 with four strikeouts), but when he pinch-hits, he hits like a hitter (2 for 3, two doubles, two RBI).
2. On April 15, Ian Kinsler of the Rangers went 6 for 6 with two doubles, one triple and one homer. Last season, Mike Holliman of the Tigers went 6 for 23 with two doubles, one triple and one homer.
3. In 17 Milwaukee starts last season, CC Sabathia gave up 24 earned runs, he’s over halfway there already; in four starts with the Yanks he’s given up 13 earned.
4. Lyle Overbay’s 88th lifetime homer on April 18, was the first walkoff of his major league career.
5. While Sidney Ponson went 4-1 in his last four starts with the Yankees last September, his ERA was 6.52, so it’s really not that surprising that he’s 0-2 with a 7.04 start with the Royals.
6. If you subtract that ugly July 25 game last season in which Brad Lidge gave up five runs in two innings against the Braves, the Phillies closer only surrendered 10 runs the entire 2008 season. In fact, from April 6 to July 22, Lidge only gave up six earned runs and the entire season only two homers. So far this season, he has given up seven earned runs and three homers.
7. Last season, Jeff Francoeur had 205 plate appearances with two outs and then he drove home 24 runs. Already this season, the more aggressive Francoeur has driven home 8 in his first 20 two-out plate appearances.
8. In 2007 and 2008, the Pirates threw two shutouts in each season. So far they have equaled that total with four, you can blame Joe Kerrigan.
9. Chien-Ming Wang is no stranger to giving up a lot of runs in a game. Last season in 15 starts he had games in which he gave up 8 runs, 7 runs, 6 runs (7 earned) and twice 5 runs.
10. Because of their shabby bullpen, I’m sure the Tribe will be tempted to bring Kerry Wood in early. Five times last season out of his 65 appearances, Wood pitched two innings and twice in the game following he surrendered runs.
11. Since the 2000 season the Wild Card team in the AL has averaged 96 wins (High: Oakland 102 wins in 2001, Low: Seattle in 2000, 91 wins) while in the NL the Wild Card team has averaged 91.3 wins (High: the 2002 Giants with 95, Low: the Dodgers in ’06 with 88).
12. In the first month of the season last year Jason Varitek hit .243 with three homers and seven RBI with 18 hits and 19 Ks.; so far this season he’s tracking in a similar fashion.
13. Jarrod Washburn is 3-0, his longest winning streak since he won six straight, April 17 – May 15, 2004.
14. Nick Markakis is one of baseball’s rising stars; last season he picked up his 18th RBI on May 14 in his 40th game, this year he did it in his 14th game on April 21.
15. Hitting in the hammock between Ryan Howard and Raul Ibanez, Jayson Werth is ideally suited to keep innings alive as he hits into very few DPs; over the last two seasons he’s hit into two, three when you include this year’s.
16. While everybody is paying attention to the struggling David Ortiz power drought, but through 14 games Magglio Ordonez had 17 hits, all singles.
17. Jake Peavy threw 1,284.1 innings before allowing his first career grand slam homer this week to Edgar Renteria. Hall of Famer Jim Palmer threw 3,948 innings without giving up a granny.
18. Johnny Damon, Hideki Matsui, Xavier Nady, Andy Pettitte, and Jose Molina are all free agents after this season and chances are all will be gone from the Yankees.
19. As Pudge Rodriguez creeps up on Pudge Fisk’s record for all-time games as a catcher, I-Rod is only four steals behind Carlton’s 128 for fifth place among catchers.
20. Barry Zito is one of nine pitchers with 123 wins and one of three of those who have under a hundred losses (Zito has 95), the other two are Tom Browning (123-90) and Mel Parnell (123-75).
21. Last season, the AL had 24 team shutouts, already this year there have been 11. There have been 18 in the NL already compared with 30 all of last season.
22. Rich Harden came into this season averaging 9.0 strikeouts every 9 innings. So far this season, he’s averaging 15.6 per 9 innings.
23. Ian Kinsler definitely deserves more love, last year he hit .413 with runners in scoring position; this year through 13 games his RISP average is .500.
24. In the WYSIWYG category, Josh Beckett started the season with a 3.78 ERA for his career and he has a 3.79 for this season.
25. Tim Wakefield now has 31 complete games in his 17 big league seasons, the same number of complete games as “Rapid Robert” Feller had in his 37 starts in 1940.
26. Orlando Hudson’s, Ian Kinsler’s and Jason Kubel’s feats of hitting for the cycle are the 39th, 40th and 41st since the start of the 2000 season. No other decade has had more than 29 (1970’s).

Bill Chuck is the creator of Billy-Ball.com (www.Billy-Ball.com) and, with Jim Kaplan, is the author of the book, “Walk-Offs, Last Licks, and Final Outs – Baseball’s Grand (and not so Grand) Finales,” with a Foreword by Jon Miller, published by ACTA Sports, and available worldwide.Bill Chuck is available for radio appearances, and writing for print or the web. Please contact me at Bill@billy-ball.com or by calling 617-566-2784.