What's Making Me Talk: It's All-Star Time

(Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)

Notebook Scribbles

Here are my thoughts that aren't long enough to drag out or just too stupid for someone to even think of. They are randomly scribbled notes in my notebook, duh.

I saw Eric Wedge blow-up like he's never blown-up before. By far the angriest I've ever seen him on Monday when a Ryan Garko roller was picked up on the first base line. The call was changed after the home plate umpire ruled it a foul ball and Ozzie Guillen came out to say something. Wedge went absolutely berserk.

In other Wedge news, he's going to remain as the manager for the Indians throughout the remainder of the season, no matter how bad it gets. I'm glad Mark Shapiro at least said something, rather then let doubt and uncertainty drift around.

Roy Halladay lost his second start earlier this week and then took a no-decision later. That's the first stretch of more than two starts where Halladay hasn't won a decision this season.

Tim Lincecum is a pretty good pitcher. A two-hit shutout earlier in the week and on Saturday he extends his scoreless innings streak to 23 with three hits over seven innings with nine strikeouts.

Juan Rivera hit a pop-fly to straight-away center field at Texas on Monday. It went over the fence for a home run.

Andre Ethier is a walk-off machine this year, it seems.

Ian Snell struck out 13 batters in a row for Triple-A Indianapolis. It looks like he's enjoying himself down there.

Cliff Lee was rocked on Tuesday, having his shortest outing since May 2006. That's even before his bad 2007.

Loving Martin Prado lately as he's taken over second base for Kelly Johnson because of his hot hitting. He went 4-for-5 with four RBI on Tuesday.

Dan Haren can handle the bat pretty well. He's 10-for-37 with a .270 average. Some guys can hit the occasional home run, but Haren isn't a slouch up there.

On the subject of hitting pitchers, Chad Billingsley hit his first career home run on Sunday. He also added his ninth hit of the year, two more than he had all of last season. That home run was also his third RBI, which matches his total from 2008. He's progressing as much as a pitcher can at the plate.

And we can't make pitcher hitting notes without mentioning Micah Owings was back to hitting this week and he hit his third home run of the year.

Jason Marquis stated his case for the All-Star nod with a two-hit complete game on Tuesday. He's now 10-5 with a 3.87 ERA. To think he was just a salary dump in the offseason.

Happy Canada Day! The Toronto Blue Jays celebrated by wearing red uniforms, something everyone is doing lately. Well not everyone, but they are all wearing those spiffy red hats. More on the hats in a second, but as far as celebrations go, Ricky Romero celebrated by pitching eight shutout innings.

I'm a fan of the red hats for two reasons. The Indians are 3-1 with them on and they are one of the few teams that actually look good in them. You either get your uniform enhanced because red is one of your colors, but not a main one, it doesn't look any different like the Cardinals or Angels, or it just looks ugly. Who has the worst combo? The red hats and the Royals' powder blue uniforms just don’t mesh.

Yovani Gallardo sat down 12 hitters via the strikeout on Wednesday. Mike Pelfry had half that number and record two more outs with seven less pitches. Oh yeah, he won too.

Jason Hammel must like July just as much as June. He rung in the new month with an eight inning complete game. Unfortunately his one run given up in the eighth lost the game.

Jim Thome is 12th all-time in walks as he recorded his 1,600th against the team he has 997 of them with, the Cleveland Indians.

Cubs' pitcher Randy Wells won his third straight decision on Wednesday. Not bad after starting out 0-3 with numerous no-decisions spread around.

I have down here, Texas 9, Los Angeles 7 with the comment "Now that's a Rangers game," right next to it.

I caught the tail end of the San Francisco and St. Louis game on ESPN Wednesday Night Baseball. Colby Rasmus is living up to the hype and he helped his rock-starness with a walk-off shot to win it for the Cards. Adam Wainwright was pretty awesome in that one.

Take note that the Cubs pretty much traded Joey Gathright for Jeff Baker, as the guy they traded Gathright for, Ryan Freel, was just cut to make room for Baker. You got all that?

You notice that I haven't really mentioned Manny Ramirez? I'm kind of Manny-ed out thanks to ESPN. So I'll talk about Casey Blake, who's been a real veteran presence for that club. Not to mention he's swinging a good bat.

The Indians made a mistake trading Franklin Gutierrez, but it was the only way to get both Joe Smith and Luis Valbuena. While I think Valbuena has the potential to be the Indians second baseman for years to come, and Smith can be a reliable part to a good pen, Gutierrez is taking off in Seattle.

A night after Derrek Lee hit knocked in seven runs, Shin-Soo Choo did it as well on Friday. He became the third player ever to do that, score four times, and steal a base. He joins the very elite company of Ted Williams and Willie Stargell.

A big part of Choo's night was Travis Hafner's presence in the lineup. If you ask me, after he hit a solo-shot off A's starter Trevor Cahill, both Cahill and A's relief pitchers avoided him like the plague. His next two at-bats were walks and the rest of the night when the game was over score wise, Hafner was probably just trying to hit something hard because everyone else was doing it and it looked so fun.

Hanley Ramirez's amazing streak of games with an RBI ended at 10 this past week. He's got 11 games though in the last 12 that he's had an RBI, with 26 total RBI in that span. That accounts for 44 percent of his total this year.

Adding onto that, Ramirez had seven games in which he had multi-RBI games. Putting that in perspective, Jhonny Peralta has had 10 of those all year and he's got just 35 RBI this season. Vlad Guerrero only has three multi-RBI games, his latest coming on Saturday.

Tim Wakefield surpassed Roger Clemens for the most starts in Red Sox history with 383.

Speaking of Wakefield, he was one of the three 10-game winners who pitched on Friday. None of them won, but at least he and Kevin Slowey didn't lose. Zack Greinke took a loss, but Slowey's night was ended after three innings and Wakefield gave up five earned.

Rodrigo Lopez is back from unknown whereabouts. It was his first start since June 26th, 2007 and his first win since the seventh of that month.

Tommy Hanson is having a pretty special year, unfortunately Adam Dunn ended his 26 inning scoreless inning streak with that 300th home run we talked about.

He isn't the only rookie Tommy H. starting pitcher to be doing good things though. Tommy Hunter of the Rangers won his first career start on his 23rd birthday. B-DAY!

Who says the Giants can't score? They had games in which they scored nine, 10, and 13 runs this past week.

Ricky Nolasco is back with a vengeance. Since getting recalled, he's given up two earned runs or less in all six starts. He struck out 12 hitters on Sunday. That's the Nolasco we know and love.

The Pirates had three players starting in center field on Sunday and hitting leadoff. Of course Andrew McCutchen was the only one wearing their uniform. Nate McLouth led off for the Braves and went 2-for-5 with two runs scored and two runs batted in. Nyjer Morgan was 3-for-5 with one run scored, one run batted in, and one stolen base for the Nationals. Isn't that funny!?

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