MLB News and Rumors

Red Sox fans attending Game 2 of Sunday’s day-night doubleheader will be lucky enough to watch Allen Webster’s major league debut.
Webster is the top pitcher in the International League, according to scouts that Nick Cafardo has spoken to. He flashes a 97 mph fastball and a “tremendous” changeup that he doesn’t waste. Webster was acquired in the deal that sent Josh Beckett, Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez to the Dodgers.
Webster has a 0.90 ERA in Pawtucket so far this year with 12 strikeouts in 10 innings. John Farrell said he’s been up to 85 to 90 pitches in starts so far.
To hear what Farrell, Cafardo and NESN’s Tom Caron had to say about Webster, watch the video above.

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Tim Lincecum posted the worst season of his career, and the San Francisco Giants reportedly will look to trade him this offseason.Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe wrote a column on Sunday containing several baseball notes. Some were based on quotes from baseball personnel, and others seemed to be based on informed speculation. Here’s what he wrote about Lincecum:He will be available in trade, and it will be interesting to see who bites on the two-time Cy Young winner. The Giants insist his problems this season were strictly mechanical, but opposing teams wonder why his usual 96-mile-per-hour fastball was around 92 most of the season, and why his first-inning problems (28 runs) were the worst in baseball.It’s no surprise that the Giants would look to deal him. Lincecum won two Cy Young Awards and a World Series with the Giants, but he was sub-par this season and nearly lost his spot in the rotation. His gradual drop in velocity is alarming. He can still be an effective pitcher, but if he doesn’t regain h

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Detroit Tigers manager Jim Leyland has something to think about before Sunday’s second game of the American League Championship Series — whether to change closers for the 169th game of the year. After closer Jose Valverde was hammered for a second straight postseason game, Leyland hinted that a shift might be imminent. “We’re going to discuss this as a staff,” Leyland said Saturday after the Tigers won Game 1 over the New York Yankees 6-4 in 12 innings, “and now is not the time to discuss it because we really haven’t made any decisions. We want to put our heads together as a staff and talk about it. We’re certainly going to talk about it. I don’t have any final information, but it will be something we will discuss.” Whether Valverde is hiding an injury will be discussed. Clearly something isn’t right. Valverde was throwing his fastball 90-93 mph, a couple of ticks below what it has been for most of the season. His split-finger was essentially a slow, hittable fastball wit…

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PHOENIX Patrick Corbin had the game of his short career. His bases-loaded triple, punctuated with a head-first slide into the bag, broke the game open in the fourth inning. He commanded his full repertoire and was so economical that he had innings of six, seven, eight and 10 pitches.

About the only thing rookie left-hander Corbin could not do in a 10-2 victory over San Francisco on Sunday was talk himself into a complete game.

Some day

“You never want to come out of a game, especially when you are throwing well, but I understand,” Corbin said after pitching a career-high eight innings and driving in four runs.

“Maybe in a couple of years I will say something to Gibby (manager Kirk Gibson).”

Corbin has beaten San Francisco twice this season, a good sign for a team that will play the Giants 18 times a year for the rest of their lives. This time, he did it as a multi-tasker.

With the game tied at 2 in the fourth, the Giants opted to walk Gerardo Parra intentionally to get to Corbin with one out and the bases loaded. It made some sense. Corbin had struck out looking on a 93 mph fastball in the third.

This time, he got the head of the bat out early and grounded a ball inside the bag at first, clearing the bases for his first career RBIs.

“You are sitting fastball, just trying to put the bat on the ball. My first at-bat, he threw two heaters in, and I just stood there. I didn’t even take the bat off my shoulder. He got to two strikes again. That’s what I was sitting on,” Corbin said.

The inning was not over. After Adam Eaton walked, Aaron Hill doubled inside the bag at third for a 7-2 lead. It was more than enough for Corbin, although he chipped in his fourth RBI with a broken bat single to center field in the seventh.

“I think that’s my career high,” Hill said with a chuckle about Corbin’s four RBIs.

“He did a great job. It was a fun day for him. It was fun to watch.”

The D-backs (72-74) avoided a weekend sweep and remained 4 games behind St. Louis in the second NL wild card race after the Cardinals beat Los Angeles on Sunday. The D-backs must catch both those teams, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee and Philadelphia to make their second consecutive postseason appearance.

Economical Corbin (6-7) used only 93 pitches, giving up a run in the first and another in the fourth. After the big fourth, Corbin was at his best, retiring nine of the next 10 batters while throwing eight pitches in the sixth inning, 12 in the sixth and seven in the seventh.

After giving up a single and a double to open the eighth inning, Corbin struck out Pablo Sandoval and Buster Posey on breaking balls and got Hunter Pence to fly it.

“Probably the most impressive inning, because he had guys on and got out of it,” Gibson said. “He’s had some games where he’s had low pitch counts, and as soon as he hits the seventh inning, he’s done. It was good to see him get through the additional inning. He’s a young kid. Gained some confidence. Gained some endurance.

Corbin talked to pitching coach Charles Nagy about staying in for the ninth, but the D-backs wanted to get Josh Collmenter an inning of work.

While Corbin did a lot of the hitting work, Hill and Justin Upton also contributed as the D-backs broke a streak of 12 consecutive home games of scoring four runs or fewer, a streak that tied a franchise record set in 2004.

Upton is driving the ball again, starting to look like the player who finished fourth in the NL MVP voting last season. He doubled and homered, driving in three runs. His two-out, two-run off Giants’ starter Ryan Vogelsong in the third inning hit the overhang in right-center field about two feet short of the home run line, bouncing back into play. His bases-empty homer in the sixth was his second in as many days.

“I tried to stay positive all year and keep going. That’s all I could do. Obviously I wasn’t squaring the ball up early in the season, but have strung together a couple of good days. It’s been nice. You try to be consistent and stay with your routine. Sometimes it clicks, sometimes it doesn’t. It obviously took awhile this year,” said Upton, who is third in the NL with 90 runs scored.

“He’s on a bit of a roll. He’s starting to get the head (of the bat) out. He’s driving balls. Like to see that. Obviously, he’s important to us.”Follow Jack Magruder on Twitter

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It’s hard to tell what’s going to happen when a prospect makes his very first major league start, with all the pressure in the world weighing down on his shoulders. And there’s even more pressure when said prospect is the No. 1 pitcher in your organization.

So when Wily Peralta took to the mound for the Milwaukee Brewers on Wednesday night against the Marlins, Brewers manager Ron Roenicke had no idea what to expect in the first inninga crucial beginning that could make or break Peralta’s first outing with the team.

Throwing fastball after fastball, touching the mid-90′s, Peralta allowed a single to start his first outing. And after getting a groundout, he walked a batter a problem that has marred his entire season. But with two runners on, Peralta turned one of the most important plays of the game with just one out in the first inning.

Giancarlo Stanton hit a groundball, as Aramis Ramirez touched third base and launched it to Corey Hart who turned the double play, getting Peralta out of a dangerous first inning, and setting the tone for the rest of his outing.

“I think it’s really important (to get that double play),” Roenicke said. You hope that first inning goes well. When we got that double play, he’s like, ‘Alright, I got through that,’ and he started pitching really well.”

From there, Peralta showed the potential that Brewers scouts have been salivating over since he was brought into the organization as a teenager. While he still walked four batters, he allowed just one earned run in his six innings on the mound. Reliever Kameron Loe would allow two of his inherited runners to score, as his box score showed two more earned runs, but Peralta was solid through six, striking out three and allowing just five hits.

It was a performance that Hart saw worth praise after the game.

“Wily was great,” Hart said. “We were all kind of sad that (pitcher Mark) Rogers was done for the year, but you look to see what we got, and he did a great job and made a good impression. He’ll come back with high energy and the confidence next time.”

Perhaps most impressive about Peralta was his high number of first-pitch strikes, as 14 of the 17 batters he faced started with an 0-1 count. Peralta also showed off an impressive changeup all night long a pitch that many scouts worried he couldn’t employ as his third effective pitch.

And with a slider that many consider to be his out pitch on the mark, Peralta looked the part of a No. 1 prospect.

“Really happy with the way he threw,” Roenicke said. “That first outing, you just don’t know what’s going to happen. You think it’ll go one way or the other, either it goes like it did or he gets hit around.

“Stuff was real good. Threw some really nice changeups. Threw some really nice sliders. We were all pleased with what he did.”

Follow Ryan Kartje on Twitter.

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Josh Beckett received no run support as Los Angeles’ struggles against Colorado continued at Coors Field.

A two-week absence from facing the Colorado Rockies pitching staff did nothing to re-stoke the Dodgers’ offensive fire, as a punchless Los Angeles squad fell meekly at Coors Field on Monday, 10-0.

In a game that drew attention for Josh Beckett’s first start in a Dodger uniform following Saturday’s blockbuster nine-piece trade, the former Marlins and Red Sox World Series winner did everything he could to put his team in a position to win. Not entirely reflected in his 5.2 inning, 7-hit, three earned run stat line, Beckett (0-1) did a mostly effective job keeping Rockies hitters off balance under a steady wind that drove the ball to right field and showed a deft experience that belied the mile an hour or two that has fallen off his fastball. With the effort he provided Monday, Los Angeles should have some guarded optimism over the extent to which he can add to a pitching staff currently without the services of starters Chad Billingsley and Ted Lilly.

Starting pitching was the least of the Dodgers’ concerns in the first Rockies home shutout of 2012.

Against a staff with the highest ERA in the Major Leagues and one that after nine innings of shutout ball improved to within four-tenths of a run of the 29th-ranked Cleveland pitching staff, Los Angeles was 1-8 with runners on base with three strikeouts and Matt Kemp’s inning-ending double play in the eighth.

Since the All-Star Break, the Rockies, who began their Aug. 6-8 series at Dodger Stadium 30 games under .500, have gone 3-1 against the Dodgers with two shutouts while allowing 1.75 runs per game. In their other 38 post-break games, they’ve allowed 5.6 runs per game.

Once again, Jim Tracy’s unique pitching cadence in which Colorado starters throw roughly 75 pitches and are followed by long relievers capable of throwing three-inning stints disrupted a Los Angeles lineup that has dropped back-to-back games against fifth place National League teams.

This time it was Jeff Francis (5-4) and Josh Roenicke who shut the door against Los Angeles after Drew Pomeranz, Alex White, Adam Ottavino and Roenicke had breakthrough performances in the Rockies’ series victory at Dodger Stadium earlier this month.

Francis, whose ERA lowered to 5.44 during his fifth win of the season, retired Andre Ethier twice on a pair of tappers back to the box, allowed only three hits and struck out six Dodgers while breezing through L.A.’s re-tooled lineup.

The pitching matchup was a reprise of Game 1 of the 2007 World Series, a game won 13-1 by Beckett and the Red Sox.

“There’s going to be some extra buzz because he’s pitching,” Francis said to reporters before the game. “No doubt.”

As for L.A.’s continually evolving pitching staff, Beckett settled down after allowing a massive homerun to the first batter he faced, Rockies centerfielder Tyler Colvin.

With the wind howling out to rightfield, Beckett was able to keep the ball lower in the zone after that point and was successful using cutters and off-speed pitches in addition to his four-seam fastball.

Showing a feel for pitching that made a 5-11 record and 5.23 ERA in Boston seem somewhat extreme, Beckett did a good job of setting up pinch hitter Dexter Fowler to start the bottom of the fifth before running a cut fastball by him that started inside and darted out over the inner half of the plate for a called strike three. Two batters later, it was his breaking ball that struck catcher Wilin Rosario out in a three-pitch at bat.

He struck out six in his 5.2 innings and was the victim of a two-out Colorado rally in the fourth. Other than Colvin’s homerun and a triple by Chris Nelson, the Rockies were not consistently making great contact.

“I was the second-best pitcher out there,” Beckett said to reporters after the game, as reported by the LA Times.

With a revitalized Chad Billingsley succumbing to elbow pain and needing a second DL stint last weekend, it is imperative that the Dodgers continue to at least get similar performances from Beckett like his outing Monday as number five starter Joe Blanton attempts to regain his form. Blanton is winless in four Los Angeles starts with a 7.71 ERA, allowing an increasing number of hits against in each of his last three outings.

Ted Lilly isn’t showing any encouraging signs at all in his attempt to rehabilitate a sore left shoulder, and according to Mattingly last week would not likely be a candidate for a starting role, should he return within the season’s final month. At this point, that’s beginning to feel like a longshot.

In the larger scope, there’s really not much to find fault with in a Dodger pitching staff that under Mattingly and pitching coach Rick Honeycutt has chiseled out a 3.43 ERA, the second best in the National League.

It’s the offense that needs to improve, and wringing more production out of a reinforced lineup will be the biggest need heading into the season’s final 33 games. It continues on Tuesday at Coors Field against Tyler Chatwood (3-3, 4.98), another pitcher you would expect the Dodgers’ lineup to be able to find a rhythm against at Coors Field.

Of course, there’s what Beckett said in his Dodger Stadium introduction after Saturday night’s win.

“Yeah, but we don’t play baseball on paper.”

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The wheels appear to be turning on a blockbuster deal between the Dodgers and Boston Red Sox involving All-Star first baseman Adrian Gonzalez.

The Dodgers have demoted hard-throwing right-hander Rubby De La Rosa in the latest move involving a player said to be a potential piece in the deal.

De La Rosa was placed on waivers by the Dodgers, but pulled back after he was claimed by a team. He now could end up as a “player to be named later” in a trade with the Red Sox for Gonzalez.

Gonzalez, a four-time All-Star, was won by the Dodgers in a waiver claim on Friday, as was Red Sox pitcher Josh Beckett. The teams now have 48 hours to consummate a deal involving those players, or the Red Sox could pull one or both back, or let either or both go without a trade, with the Dodgers then becoming responsible for their contracts.

Red Sox outfielder Carl Crawford, who also might be part of the deal, has already cleared waivers. Crawford, who underwent reconstructive elbow surgery Thursday, has five years left on a seven-year, 142-million contract. He isn’t expected to be ready to play for at least 10 months.

Gonzalez is owed 127 million over the next six years. Beckett is owed 31.5 million the next two seasons.

De La Rosa, 23, is among the Dodgers’ top prospects. His fastball velocity has hit triple digits, but he underwent Tommy John surgery in August of last year and only recently returned to the mound.

De La Rosa pitched two-thirds of an inning Wednesday night, giving up two runs, but his fastball was clocked as high as 96 mph. Other Dodgers prospects who are being discussed as part of the deal are pitchers Zach Lee and Allen Webster and outfielder-first baseman Jerry Sands.

When they demoted De La Rosa on Friday, the Dodgers promoted utility man Alex Castellanos, who was batting .347 with 17 home runs and 52 runs batted in for the triple-A Albuquerque Isotopes.
-Mike Hiserman

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MILWAUKEE With just three home runs given up in 82 innings before Saturday’s start against the Phillies, Michael Fiers had established himself as not only one of the best young pitchers in baseball this season, but also as one of the best, regardless of experience, at limiting long balls.

But in a fashion that fell in line with his last start a 2.2-inning stinker that Fiers repeatedly called “terrible” to reporters after the game the terrific Mike Fiers Brewers fans had been used to all season didn’t show up until midway through the second inning.

After walking two of his first three batters in the first inning, it was clear that Fiers was struggling with his off-speed pitches, allowing Phillies hitters to sit on fastballs in the zone. And against John Mayberry Jr. in the second inning, the Phillies outfielder promptly took one of those pitches deep for a two-run home run. Then, against the next batter, catcher Erik Kratz, Fiers’ struggles with his off-speed pitches again resulted in a home run the first time he’s allowed back-to-back home runs in his major league career.Fiers allowed just one run after the back-to-back long balls, but for the Brewers, who were plagued by a pair of baserunning mistakes later in the game, it was too little too late in the 4-3 loss.

“They were really just sitting on the fastball,” Fiers said. “On a day like this, when my off-speed stuff isn’t up to par, my fastball has to be commanded very well.”

But for the second straight start, Fiers wasn’t commanding much of anything very well, leading to questions of whether fatigue may be playing a part or whether Fiers may be experience the inevitable ups and downs of a rookie season, which he hadn’t had to deal with up until this point.

Brewers manager Ron Roenicke had talked briefly about the potential of Fiers’ innings being limited before, but when asked about whether Fiers’ workload resulted in him being tired on the mound in his last two sub-par starts, Roenicke wasn’t so sure.

“I don’t know,” Roenicke said. “He really hasn’t pitched more innings. In college he threw 150 innings his first year. He’s going to be a guy we’re going to talk about with innings, but I don’t necessarily see it as fatigue. I think he was just missing some spots, and then he turned around and threw the ball well.”

Fiers said after the game that he had heard rumors of a potential innings limit or limited work, but the organization hadn’t mentioned anything definitive to him yet.

“I feel like I could finish the season out strong, and that’s what I hope to do,” Fiers said.

Fiers had started the season stronger than any pitcher in baseball with an outstanding 1.80 ERA in his first 12 starts. Since then, however after failing to last six innings in just one start Fiers lasted a combined 7.2 innings in his previous two starts.

“It’s hard to tell (whether this is just rookie hiccups),” Roenicke said. “You’ve got good hitters and when you’re not on your game all the time, they don’t miss too many mistakes, especially when you’re not throwing your off-speed over the plate.”

Follow Ryan Kartje on Twitter.

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