Curtis Granderson broke his left pinky when he was hit by a pitch in the fifth inning. Granderson stayed in the game to run the bases, but X-rays at Tropicana Field revealed the damage.

Curtis needs to do a better job of avoiding those inside pitches.

Update:

@statsguru “What are we going to do today, Sprain” .. “The same thing we do every day Pinky … update the Disabled List!”

— dianagram (@dianagram) May 25, 2013

Update: Sanchez gets ahead of Carroll 1-2. Carroll looks at strike three high on the inside corner. One down.

Update: Mauer takes the first two pitches for a 1-1 count. He swings at the third and lines the ball into centerfield for the first hit of the game. All in all, another great effort by Sanchez.

Update: Sanchez issues his third walk of the night with one out in the eighth, but the no-hitter is still intact.

Update: That’s all the Twins get as Sanchez completes eight no-hit innings. He struck out nine to balance the three walks.

The Yankees lead the Rays 6-0 as they bat in the top of the fifth. David Phelps retired all 12 batters he faced in that game, striking out two. He’s only thrown 44 pitches.

Update: Just turned on the Yankees game, and Ken Singleton is giving FanGraphs some love. James Loney, with the highest line drive percentage in baseball, doubles down the rightfield line, hitting the wall on the fly, for the first Rays hit of the game. The Yankees lead 8-0. Phelps retired the first 13 in the game.

Update: Meanwhile, Anibal Sanchez strikes out two more as he retires the Twins in order in the sixth. Sanchez threw a no-hitter against the Diamondbacks on Sept. 6, 2006.

Payback! sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb-big-… twitter.com/PhilHughes65/s…

— Phil Hughes (@PhilHughes65) May 24, 2013

Background here.

Sam Sapenaro, 26, was working her second job as a member of Kauffman Stadium’s K-Crew on Thursday night when a nearby fan yelled for help. Sapenaro said she rushed over and found the girl unresponsive and with no pulse.

Sapenaro said she began performing CPR with help from a man who was with the girl. The man also turned out to be a nurse. The girl was resuscitated, but stadium medical personnel had to revive her a second time after her pulse faded again.

“We were on her in the first 15-20 seconds of her going down,” she said. “Timing is everything when something like this happens.”

My thoughts go out to the young woman for a speedy recovery.

Chris Tillman takes the mound for the Orioles as the Blue Jays debut a new start, calling up Sean Nolin. Sean spent just 30 1/3 innings at AA between the end of 2012 and the start of 2013, but struck out 34 without allowing a home run. He did walk 11, however, not bad but not great. Tillman allowed eight home runs so far this season, but six came with the bases empty.

The Indians continue their series with the Red Sox as Justin Masterson faces John Lackey. Masterson pitched decently against his former team since leaving Boston, although his first three starts were much better than his last three. Lackey is 2-4 mostly due to poor support. In his four losses, the Red Sox scored a total of seven runs.

Finally, the Rockies try to knock San Francisco out of first place as Tyler Chatwood squares off against Tim Lincecum. Chatwood makes his fourth start of the season, and has yet to allow a home run in 2013. Two of his starts were at Coors. Lincecum still strikes out batters at a high rate, but his walk and home run rates remain higher than in his Cy Young days, and batters manage hits more often against him.

Enjoy!

Cabrera’s season is becoming historical in more than just RBI. In fact, his high RBI total is due to his ability to put the ball in play for hits. He’s batting .391, on a pace for 259 hits. That would be just three short of Ichiro Suzuki‘s record of 262. So right now, Cabrera is positioning himself for a second triple crown, a shot at an RBI record, a shot at the hit record, and a shot at hitting .400. Why? Look at the following graph (click the image for a larger view):

Cabrera and Strikeouts

Miguel pulled off a mean feat, drastically cutting his strikeout rate during a period of a rapid increase for the majors. Fewer strikeouts means more balls in play. Combine that with an extremely high number of runners on base, and you have an RBI monster. Combine few strikeouts with a very high BABIP and a ton of home runs, and you have a plate capable of hitting .400.

Cabrera may change the paradigm of a power hitter, one that doesn’t strike out much. Maybe that’s the way the K trend gets reversed.

That’s not the only 20 on the night for Machado, however. The two doubles give him 20 on the season, breaking the tie for the major league lead with Mike Napoli. We’ll have to keep our eye on Manny to see if he threatens Earl Webb‘s record.

Update: Machado hit his third double of the game. The Orioles trail 4-3, however.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Harper rip a Jeremy Affeldt delivery into right field. The ball skidded all the way to the fence, where it was recovered by Hunter Pence, but Harper pulled up at second with ease. He’d score minutes later. I’ve seen Bryce Harper double before, but this one was different. This one was an in-between grounder/line drive, and it was hit between the first and second basemen, and it made it all the way to the wall. I couldn’t remember the last time I saw something like that.

I was watching the San Francisco feed of the game, and both Giants announcers were impressed. They noted that the ball got to the wall very quickly. I hope Harper saves his body enough that we get to see what he can do when he reaches in prime in five years.

“I’m happy so far that he’s healthy,” Cashman told the Star-Ledger. “But he’s obviously got a ways to go. We’ll see. But so far so good.”

An optimistic schedule would put Pineda back with the Yankees by the All-Star break.

The general idea here is simple. Jesus Montero has been a bad hitter and he has been a bad catcher. Now he will begin the process of forgetting everything he’s learned about catching, so as to better focus on the hitting part. In Tacoma, it’s expected that Montero will DH and play first base, and so while I’m sure this is a shot to his pride, having been a backstop for so long and all, demotions are humbling and all of Montero’s big-league plate appearances are humbling, too. He’s been a top prospect on account of his bat. One could consider this a move on the Mariners’ part to shine a spotlight on that, only. People have seen this coming for years. Maybe not the bit where Montero gets demoted, but definitely the bit where he doesn’t catch anymore.

Despite the injury to Michael Pineda, there’s still a shot the Yankees come out on top in this deal.

Boston started off hot, going 18-7 through April 28th. April 28th was the day fortunes turned for the Indians as well, as they were 8-13 going into that game, 18-6 since.

McAllister’s 3-3 record does not reflect his 2.65 ERA. Part of that comes from allowing five unearned runs, bringing his run average to 3.53. A high unearned run total persists throughout his major league career, having allowed 114 runs, 28 unearned. That’s nearly a quarter of all his runs, where historically unearned runs make up about 11% of the tallies. He may be the type of pitcher who gets thrown by errors.

Dempster is giving up home runs at a rate of 1.5 per nine innings, his highest rate of his career. In fact, his rate skyrocketed once he joined the American League. Combined with his high walk rate, Dempster sports a 4.27 ERA.

Enjoy!

Gausman, the fourth overall pick in the 2012 draft, will make his big league debut Thursday against the Toronto Blue Jays.

“He has the best stuff and the most consistent control of just about any pitcher that we have in the organization, so we thought employing his strength for our major league team was the way to go,” Duquette said in matter-of-fact fashion Wednesday.

Duquette looked beyond the fact that the right-hander is 22 years old, has only 13 games of professional experience and never has pitched above the Double-A level.

“The future is now,” he said. “He’s throwing strikes with three pitches. He does that consistently. And he has excellent control.”

I also wonder if Duquette wants to get Gausman away from the poor defense at AA. Despite striking out 49 batters in 46 1/3 innings this season, Kevin allowed 44 hits. Five of his 21 runs were unearned; the combination of a high BABIP and a number of errors indicates he’s being hurt by the team around him. I suspect the catcher is poor, too, as Gausman was charged with seven wild pitches despite control that yielded 1.0 BB per 9 IP. I’m guessing he throws some good pitches in the dirt, and he’ll love having Matt Wieters gobble up those balls.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch says the surgery will take place Friday by team physician Dr. George Paletta. Garcia visited Dr. James Andrews on Wednesday morning.

Garcia will a good chunk of the prime of his career with shoulder problems. He’s been an extremely strong pitcher for St. Louis, with just 167 walks in 551 innings and just 41 homers. The Cardinals keep testing the depth of their system as far as starting pitching is concerned. Somehow, they seem to weather these major injuries.

The Diamondback stand tied with the Giants for first place in the NL West, one game ahead of the Rockies as Arizona sends Trevor Cahill against Colorado and Jorge de la Rosa. Cahill appears to be intent on stopping hits this season. Batters hit just .219 against him, but with a .309 OBP. He’s willing to issue a walk to prevent a hit, and this also shows up in his RISP numbers. Batters are 5 for 50 against him but with six walks. That’s a .100 BA but a .210 OBP. He’s also induced ground ball double plays in 17% of GDP situations (8/47). That’s 8th in the majors among pitchers with at least 40 GDP situations. de la Rosa won all three of his starts at home, and all four of the home runs hit off him came on the road this year.

The NL Central boasts three teams playing .600 ball, and one of those is the Pirates. The Cubs send their ace, Jeff Samardzija against the now healthy Francisco Liriano. Jeff’s losing record comes mostly from the Cubs scoring just 28 runs in his nine starts. Liriano is blowing away batters, and so far his high walk rate hasn’t hurt him. We’ll see how long he can keeps his home runs allowed at zero.

Finally, rookies take the mound in San Diego as Tyler Lyons makes his major league debut for the Cardinals and Burch Smith tries to get his ERA under control for the Padres. Tyler comes to the majors with an excellent minor league record in the three-true outcomes. His strikeout rate there stands at 8.0 per nine innings, with just 2.3 BB per 9 IP and 0.8 HR per 9 IP. Burch owns a very strange stat line through two starts. He struck out ten in 6 1/3 innings, which is great. That high K rate has not led to a low hit rate, however, as he allowed 11 hits, four of them home runs, and issued three walks. That’s good for a 15.63 ERA. His minor league record is much more in line with what we expect from a high K pitcher.

Enjoy!

Trout hit for the cycle and drove in five runs, Josh Hamilton celebrated his 32nd birthday with a homer and a triple his first two times up, and Howie Kendrick also went deep in the Los Angeles Angels’ 12-0 rout of the Seattle Mariners on Tuesday night.

Trout, last season’s AL rookie of the year and MVP runner-up, became the youngest AL player to hit for the cycle and third youngest in the major leagues since 1930. He’s also the sixth player in Angels history to complete the cycle and the first to do it since Chone Figgins on Sept. 16, 2006, at Texas.

I’m not sure Mike wants to be compared to Chone Figgins at this point, but he was a pretty good player at that point in his career.

Keep your eye on Trout moving up stats through seasonal age 21 leader boards. He would need great years in doubles and triples to make the top ten, but he should crack home runs and runs scored.

In other words, batting average comprises a smaller percentage of the Braves offense that it does for their opponents. When BAs are equal, the team (or player) with the lower percentage is going to be better. Note that I’m not praising hits over walks here. If the Braves got to a .321 OBP with more hits and fewer walks, that would be fine. What’s important is the team is not concentrating on batting average as a measure. They get on base and they produce power on offense, while limiting those traits on defense. That’s a formula for winning.