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Hernandez holds Nats in check, Mets win 7-0
June 7, 2009
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Livan Hernandez gave the New York Mets everything he had before leaving with an upset stomach.
It was enough to end a difficult road trip on a positive note.
Hernandez allowed four singles over seven innings and the Mets scored five first-inning runs in a 7-0 victory over the Washington Nationals on Sunday.
New York went 2-4 on its six-game trip, getting swept in Pittsburgh before taking two of three from the woeful Nationals. The Mets open a three-game series against NL East-leading Philadelphia on Tuesday at Citi Field.
Hernandez (5-1) walked four and struck out four to win for the fifth time in seven starts, departing after 116 pitches. The right-hander has won seven consecutive games against the Nationals and improved to 10-5 lifetime against his former team.
"Obviously we need good pitching, and that's outstanding pitching," Mets manager Jerry Manuel said, adding he was surprised when Hernandez begged out because he was ill. "That's not normal for Livo. He can throw 160, 170 pitches and not flinch, but you know he's battling some different things when he comes in and says that."
Hernandez had enough confidence in the Mets bullpen not to try and gut it out when he felt bad. Pedro Feliciano and Bobby Parnell combined to pitch the eighth and Francisco Rodriguez finished the five-hitter, completing New York's third shutout.
"I want to go seven innings and that's it," Hernandez said. "The relievers came in and made two innings and that's it. I think it's good for me today."
Washington lost for the 10th time in 12 games and dropped to 2-7 against the Mets this season.
The Mets, limited to four runs in splitting the first two games of the weekend series, took advantage of Craig Stammen's wildness in the first to build a 5-0 lead.
In 55 games, the Mets have scored 49 runs in their first at-bat, the second-highest total in the National League. New York's first-inning batting average is a lofty .342 (77 for 225).
"That's what we need to do is jump on teams early -- which we've done all year -- but also add one or two here and there when we have the opportunity," third baseman David Wright said. "We did that today."
Alex Cora led off the game with a four-pitch walk and scored on Fernando Martinez's double over the head of center fielder Elijah Dukes. Martinez went to third on Carlos Beltran's groundout and Wright walked. Martinez scored on a wild pitch as Wright stole second and Daniel Murphy's RBI single made it 3-0.
Murphy advanced on Ryan Church's double and scored on Brian Schneider's sacrifice fly. Stammen then uncorked another run-scoring wild pitch to cap New York's big first.
"When you're a contact-pitcher type of guy, you can't pitch behind in the count. That's all (Stammen) did in that first inning," Nationals manager Manny Acta said. "He's got to pitch ahead because he's not a miss-bat type of guy."
Stammen (0-2) blanked the Mets over the next four innings, but the damage was done. The rookie right-hander gave up six hits, walked two and struck out two.
"I got behind some people and then left the ball up a little bit and they got a hold of some pitches," Stammen said.
Wright added a two-out RBI single in the seventh and Beltran doubled in a run in the ninth.
Notes:
Washington finished with four wild pitches. ... Nationals LHP Scott Olsen, on the 15-day disabled list with left shoulder tendinitis since May 18, will make a rehabilitation start for Class A Potomac on Tuesday. Olsen will throw 50 pitches or three innings. ... Wright's first-inning steal was the 105th of his career and moved him into a ninth-place tie with Roger Cedeno on the Mets' career list. ... Nationals C Josh Bard drew a career-best three walks.
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Ethier strikes again: Walk-off homer in 12th sinks Phillies
June 6, 2009
LOS ANGELES -- Andre Ethier wishes it was last October.
Ethier had his second winning hit against the Philadelphia Phillies in two days, hitting his second homer of the game with two out in the 12th inning to give the Los Angeles Dodgers a 3-2 victory Saturday.
Brad Lidge had his second blown save in less than 24 hours, giving up a tying home run to pinch-hitter Rafael Furcal with one out in the ninth. Last postseason, Lidge was perfect in seven save opportunities.
Ethier's performance against the Phillies this weekend is in sharp contrast to last year's NLCS, where he had no RBI in 22 at-bats against Philadelphia.
"I can't believe it -- two days in a row," said Ethier, who hit a game-ending two-run double off Lidge in the ninth inning of Friday night's 4-3 win. "You can go through half a season, a whole season, without having that opportunity, and I had it two games in a row."
Ethier sent a full-count offering from Chad Durbin (1-2) over the center-field fence to complete his fourth career multihomer game. In the fourth, he drove a 1-2 pitch into the right-field pavilion off Joe Blanton.
"I had just let a good pitch go, but I was just staying with the at-bat, staying with the moment," said Ethier, whose home run Tuesday night against Arizona snapped a 24-game drought. "On a 3-2 count, you're just up there trying to put a good swing on a pitch in the zone."
Cory Wade (1-3) pitched two perfect innings of relief for the Dodgers, whose bullpen leads the majors with 17 wins.
Lidge converted all 41 save opportunities last year in the regular season.
But in this four-game series between the teams with the two best records in baseball, the two-time All-Star has looked more like the pitcher who temporarily lost his closer's job with Houston in May 2006.
"Obviously the breaks went with me last year, and right now they're not," Lidge said. "But you've got to be careful not to be negative and pessimistic in your mind, because that can hurt you. That's one of the reasons why I'll continue to stay optimistic.
"I feel good, but I know that something needs to change -- in terms of the results," Lidge said.
Lidge has coughed up leads in six of his 19 save attempts this season. He has a 7.27 ERA and has yielded seven home runs in 26 innings. Furcal's homer was his 85th in the majors and first as a pinch hitter.
"Last year's last year and this year's this year," Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said. "He's got the same stuff he had last year, but that's baseball. Right when you think you've got this game whipped, it can jump right up and bite you. But he'll always be my guy. If you do something else with him, I think that could hurt his confidence."
The Phillies have lost consecutive games for the first time since May 13-14, when the Dodgers swept them in a two-game set at Philadelphia.
Pinch-hitter Matt Stairs hit a two-run single in the seventh inning against rookie reliever Ronald Belisario to give the Phillies a 2-1 lead.
Hiroki Kuroda pitched two-hit ball over six innings for the Dodgers and struck out five in his second start off the disabled list, departing after 94 pitches with a 1-0 lead that was provided by Ethier's first homer.
Kuroda's biggest out came on his 96th and final pitch, when he struck out last year's major league home run and RBI leader, Ryan Howard, on a fastball high and away to strand runners at the corners.
Blanton allowed a run and five hits over six innings and struck out five. The Dodgers, who have the best record in baseball at 38-20 and lead the NL in batting average, runs and on-base percentage, have totaled only five runs in 41 innings against opponents' starting pitchers over their last six games. But they have won four of them.
Notes
» On the 50th anniversary of Dodger SS Maury Wills' major league debut, the club presented him with second base when the team took the field for the Phillies' second inning. This time, he didn't have to steal it. Wills swiped 104 bases in 1962, a modern-day big league record at the time.
» The U.S. Postal Service in a pregame press conference behind home plate officially assigned Dodger Stadium its own Zip Code -- 90090. It used to be "Los Angeles, 90012."
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Lightning nearly strikes twice for Lester
Left-hander flirts with perfection, loses bid in seventh
By Maureen Mullen, Special to MLB.com
June 7, 2009
BOSTON -- Lightning supposedly never strikes twice, but sometimes it comes very close. That was the case on Saturday night at Fenway Park in the Red Sox's 8-1 win over the Rangers.
Jon Lester, who pitched a no-hitter on May 19, 2008, against the Royals at Fenway, took a perfect game into the seventh inning.
"It's hard not to think about [a no-hitter] when you've got the Green Monster out there," Lester said. "It's in your face the whole time. It's hard not to think about it, but I've got to try to continue to execute pitches."
But instead of a perfect game or a no-hitter, Lester (5-5) posted a two-hit, complete-game, 11-strikeout win before 37,828 fans.
With one out in the seventh inning, Michael Young sent Lester's first pitch into left-center field for a double, ending Lester's second brush with baseball history. Lester then walked the next batter, Andruw Jones, on six pitches.
"I was just happy that it was a well-struck ball," Lester said of Young's hit. "It wasn't an infield hit or a blooper or anything like that. So I gave it up to a good hitter."
Young got both of the Rangers' hits in the game, adding a single in the ninth.
"That was just lights-out," Young said of Lester's performance. "That was one of the best games I've seen in my career by a pitcher, topping at 98 [mph], pounding the strike zone. [He] used all his pitches, back-doored his cutter, threw his cutter in, curveball, changeup. You have to give him credit. He flat out threw a good game."
Jones and Elvis Andrus were the only other baserunners for Texas, both reaching on walks. Andrus, the No. 9 batter, who was the only member of the Rangers' lineup not victimized by one of Lester's 11 strikeouts, scored Texas' only run. He led off the ninth with a walk, went to second on Ian Kinsler's groundout, took third on Young's single and scored on Jones' sacrifice fly to Jacoby Ellsbury in center.
"We couldn't find the fat head of our bat, and he left nothing over the middle of the plate," said Rangers manager Ron Washington. "We have to tip our hat, take a shower, and let it go down the drain and come back tomorrow.
"His cutter was the key. He was back-dooring it, and I don't know if the gun was juiced, but he was popping 94, 95, 96 out there. The guy had good stuff, and he was in the strike zone with it. He made us swing the bat and we never could center the ball. You just have to tip your hat to him."
It was the second time this week that a Sox pitcher took a no-hitter into the seventh, as Josh Beckett had a no-no for 6 2/3 frames on Wednesday in Detroit.
Through six innings, Lester recorded 10 strikeouts, and he struck out the side in the fourth on 13 pitches. He threw just 61 pitches, 43 for strikes, through the first six frames, retiring the first 19 batters he faced.
"It was fun to watch," pitching coach John Farrell said. "He was obviously powerful, [and had] good command of all his stuff. And I think the one thing over the last few games that's really started to emerge is the use of his changeup as well as his four-seam fastball to arm side of the plate. I think that not only gives him a chance to spread the plate's width but to really begin to work back and forth, disrupting hitters' timing."
The outing was Lester's third career complete game and the first since his no-hitter. Having recorded a career-high 12 Ks in his last outing, on May 31 in Toronto, he has 23 strikeouts in his past two starts. He threw first-pitch strikes to 23 of the 31 batters he faced on Saturday night.
"It felt good," Lester said of his outing. "I was able to throw strikes with a lot of different pitches tonight and command both sides of the plate, which helps. [Catcher Jason Varitek] did a great job of honing that and making sure that I didn't get ahead of myself and try to think two, three pitches ahead, and just focus on that one pitch."
Lester appeared stronger in this game than he did in his no-no, according to Varitek.
"When he threw his no-hitter, he got some ground-ball outs, but he was battling through his stuff," Varitek said. "[On Saturday night], he was good from jump street.
"With Jonny, it's location. He was able to move the fastball around both sides. He's continuing to get better with the changeup. When he can do that, he can develop depth to both sides of the plate. That was key, because those guys were swinging from the get-go."
Although no outstanding defensive plays were required to maintain the potential perfect game on Saturday, as with Lester's 2008 gem, it never gets old for the defense to play behind a performance like that.
"No, not at all," third baseman Mike Lowell said. "His stuff was so good. I think he was getting such quick strike ones and strike twos. He was really, really electric. [The Rangers are] still a pretty good offensive team, you know. But he had great stuff. He had stuff to throw a no-hitter, absolutely. But you need to be a little luck, too. I thought he was outstanding."
Jason Bay joked that he was getting bored in left field.
"I really didn't get much, other than the hit in the gap," Bay said. "I really wasn't moving around a lot. It was actually kind of fun, because that means guys are -- like Beckett the other day, I didn't have a lot of action in left field then, either -- that means guys are doing their jobs.
"You get late in the game like that, and you're hoping. You're out there, and you're pulling for a guy, and you realize there's still three innings left against a very good-hitting team. So after we got up to about an 8-0 lead, I went over and told Jake [Ellsbury], 'Hey, you're diving for everything. I got your back, you got mine. Tell [right fielder] Rocco [Baldelli]. It's pretty obvious stuff. But that's the guy that we need him to be, the guy he can be. Granted, you don't expect that for nine innings every night out of a guy, but that was a blast to play behind."
The Sox scored their first run on Lowell's solo homer over the Green Monster in the second inning. The hit was initially ruled a double, but the umpires reviewed the play and ruled it a home run, the fourth time the Sox have been involved in a reviewed play this season and the first time it went their way.
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