Right shoulder tightness forced knuckleballer Tim Wakefield to the 15-day disabled list on Sunday.  The Boston Red Sox placed Wakefield on the DL and will make a later move to call-up a pitcher from the Minors to take Wakefield’s turn in the rotation on Tuesday against the Texas Rangers.

Wakefield, 42, will miss at least two starts due to his stop on the DL.  In 23 starts, Wakefield is 7-8 with a 3.67 ERA.  He missed most of last year’s playoffs with a similar injury.

One option the Red Sox will not have is Bartolo Colon who is not ready to return from his injury that sidelined him on June 17 when he hurt his back swinging at the plate during Interleague play.

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On Saturday night, the Arizona Diamondbacks were dealt a tough blow when second baseman Orlando Hudson left in the sixth inning after his glove collided with Atlanta’s Brian McCann when he tried to field an errant throw from pitcher Juan Cruz.  Hudson injured his left wrist and tests following the game revealed a dislocation fracture of a bone in the wrist.

The injury will sideline Hudson for the rest of the season after surgery to put the bone in his wrist back in place.  Hudson will need further surgery to repair ligament damage.  The three-time Gold Glove winner is hitting .305 with eight home runs and 41 RBI.

Augie Ojeda is likely to replace Hudson at second while he recovers.  Last season, Hudson missed the last 16 games of the season when he tore a ligament in his left thumb and Ojeda was also his replacement.

Hudson will also miss the postseason if the Diamondbacks make it.

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The Tampa Bay Rays have finally ended outfielder Rocco Baldelli’s waiting game to return to Major League action.  However, it was not to provide depth as expected.  Instead, the club made the move as a roster replacement for outfielder Carl Crawford who was placed on the 15-day disabled list with a subluxation of his right middle finger tendon.

Baldelli’s return comes after missing most of 2007 and all of 2008.  He last played on May 15, 2007 after a hamstring injury forced him to go on the DL.  During Spring Training, Baldelli was diagnosed with a mitochondrial disorder which slows causes fatigue and makes it difficult to recover from exercise. 

Crawford played in 107 games before the injury and is hitting .273 with 57 RBI and 25 steals.

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The Seattle Mariners moved Willie Bloomquist from the active roster to the 15-day disabled list due to a strained right hamstring suffered in the 10th inning of Saturday’s 8-7 loss in 11 innings to the Tampa Bay Rays.

Bloomquist’s roster spot was taken by Tug Hulett who was recalled from Triple-A Tacoma.  Hulett received a previous recall from July 10-17 with the Mariners and played one game during his first Major League stint going 1-for-3.

Bloomquist played every position except for catcher and first baseman in 71 games with the team.  He is hitting .279 with 32 runs scored and 14 steals.

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The Cincinnati Reds reinstated pitcher Aaron Harang to start Sunday’s game against the Astros.  To open a roster spot, Homer Bailey was optioned to Triple-A Louisville.  Bailey returns to Louisville without a win this season — he is 0-6 with a 7.93 ERA in eight starts.

In addition to the return of Harang, catcher David Ross was designated for assignment and 27-year old Ryan Hanigan was given an early birthday present — he turns 28 on August 16 — with a call up back to the Majors.

Ross, 31, hit .231 with three homers and 13 RBI in 52 games with the Reds this season.  Now, the Reds will have 10 days to trade or place Ross on waivers.  If Ross clears waivers, the team will likely release him since he is a free agent at the end of the season.

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The Toronto Blue Jays need all the offense they can get and received some help with the return of outfielder Vernon Wells on Sunday from the 15-day disabled list.  To clear a roster spot, Kevin Mench was sent to Triple-A Syracuse.

Wells was on his second stint on the DL where he was placed on July 10.  In 64 games, Wells is hitting .287 with nine home runs and 42 RBI and was the team’s home run leader until Matt Stairs hit his 10th home run on July 25 while Wells recovered from a strained left hamstring.

Mench hit .233 with eight RBI in 37 games with the Major League club.

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The Colorado Rockies activated recently acquired Livan Hernandez and designated pitcher Kip Wells for assignment.  Hernandez was activated to start Sunday’s game against the Padres and Wells most likely has played his last game in a Rockies’ uniform.

Hernandez joined the Rockies after he was waived by the Minnesota Twins last week.  In 23 starts with Minnesota, Hernandez went 10-8 with a 5.48 ERA.

Wells struggled with the Rockies which included missing 74 games with a blood clot in his pitching hand.  In 15 games as both a starter and reliever, Wells went 1-2 with a 5.27 ERA. 

The big injury news yesterday was the loss of Carlos Lee for the year from the Astros, as well as the White Sox losing Jose Contreras to a ruptured Achilles tendon.

The bad news continued to roll in today for some other contenders, too. Arizona second baseman Orlando Hudson dislocated a bone in his wrist in last night’s game when he tried to make a play on a throw from the pitcher, and bent his glove backwards against burly baserunner Brian McCann. Arizona announced today that he’s done for the season and the postseason, and may have played his last game in a D-backs uniform, as he is a free agent after this season.

Augie Ojeda will replace him at second, but losing this defensive and offensive stalwart is a big blow to the D-backs, who are fighting with the Dodgers for the NL West lead. This is an eerie reprise of last season, when they also lost Hudson late in the season to a hand injury. Without Hudson, Arizona lost the NLCS to the Rockies. This year, they’ll be happy to make the playoffs at all. With Los Angeles’ recent acquisition of Manny Ramirez, this injury makes the Dodgers the clear divisional favorite, and the Wild Card is well out of reach of either team.

Another key injury to a contender was announced by the Tampa Bay Rays. In last night’s exciting 11-run contest against the Mariners, Carl Crawford checked his swing in the 10th and “heard something pop” in his left middle finger.  That pop was a right middle finger tendon subfluxation, which translates roughly as “done for the season” in baseball-speak. Though he’s awaiting a second opinion, Crawford either faces six to eight weeks’ recovery time or season-ending surgery.

Either way, he won’t be a part of the stretch run for the Rays. Fortunately for them, Rocco Baldelli (himself the victim of all sorts of injuries in his once-promising career) has been playing well in the minors, and they activated him in response to Crawford’s injury. The Rays were considering bringing him up soon anyway, so this merely accelerates the time table. Baldelli has been suffering from fatigue disorder, and has spent most of the past two seasons trying to shake it.

So losing Crawford may either represent perfect timing for Baldelli’s return, or their first real bit of bad luck in a charmed season. Crawford’s importance defensively and offensively is no small shakes, as his speed is vital in both areas. Baldelli is slower, but has more pop in his bat, although the real question will be his health.

And, lastly, in news to former contenders, Todd Helton was transferred from the 15-day to the 60-day DL, likely indicating he, too, will not be back this year. The Rockies are seven games out of first in the NL West, but it would take a run like the one they had in 2007 for them to make the playoffs again.

Baseball is an interesting game. Despite how much failure it entails, we still love it. Batters get out 7 out of 10 times, and they’re all-stars. Teams lose 70 games, and they’ve had a good year. A batter strikes out 200 times, but if he hits 50 home runs, he’s a super star.

So why are sports writers so worried about getting a thing or 2 wrong now and then? Just once I’d like to see Buster Olney or Ken Rosenthal or even Will Carroll admit they screwed up and published an inaccurate report or trade rumor.

Well I’m here this week to buck that trend…and maybe everyone will still love me afterwards! There were quite a few predictions I made at the start of the season that, well, haven’t exactly come true. Let’s review some of them, shall we…

1) The Detroit Tigers are the team to beat in the American League.

Wow, was I off base on that one or what? At least I had a lot of company. After starting off the season 0-7, the Tigers went 10-7 the rest of April to pull themselves from the depths of the American League Central. A 15-10 July brought the team back to respectability, but losing 10 of their last 16 games hasn’t helped them dig out of the third place hole. The offense has shown it can hit behind a resurgence from Miguel Cabrera (.296/.359/.509 with 21homers and 85 RBI), but the pitching staff has been just flat out awful. Jeremy Bonderman is out for the rest of the season, Father Time has apparently caught up with Kenny Rogers, and Nate Robertson had been smacked around more than a pinata.

At 56-59 and 8 1/2 games out of first place, 2008 appears on the verge of being lost.

2) Jeff Francoeur appears ready to break out.

I guess I’m guilty of being biased on this one. Our relationship with Francoeur has been chronicled for some time here at BDD. When I saw the bulked up Francoeur back on opening night, I really thought he’d take the next step to being one of the league’s up and coming power hitters. Instead, after 111 games and 434 at bats, Jeff sits with a line of .228/.288/.350.

I’m not sure he deserved to be sent to the minors, especially with no viable replacement at the major league level, but this season has no doubt been a disaster. I’ve finally hopped off the bandwagon.

3) The Los Angeles Dodgers will be the surprise team of the National League West.

The Dodgers haven’t been as bad as Francoeur, but they haven’t been that good either. They just happen to be in the worst division in baseball. Andruw Jones has been an absolute bust, and surgery on Rafael Furcal’s back has created a gaping hole atop the Dodgers lineup. The team batting line is .258/.322/.382. That’s right, a .382 slugging percentage. LA has just 82 home runs in 115 games. Thankfully, their pitching has been superb, sporting the best ERA in the National League (3.67). If the Dodgers were to get into the playoffs they could do some damage with the depth of their pitching staff. Derek Lowe, Chad Billingsley, Clayton Kershaw, Hiroki Kuroda, and a healthy Brad Penny could prove to be tough in a short series. But the playoffs are a long, long way off.

4) The New York Mets made a mistake by releasing Ruben Gotay.

It turns out the whole Gotay thing was much ado about nothing. In fact, releasing Gotay opened the door for Fernando Tatis to resurrect his career in New York. Gotay will be a candidate to be released again this year after going just 19-for-85 this season and appearing in 68 games.

On the other hand, Tatis is 57-for-188, batting .303/.350/.505, and has 9 homers and 33 RBI in 64 games…mostly starts for the injured Moises Alou and Ryan Church. Sure, it’s a small sample size, but then again, anything that Ruben Gotay does is in a small sample size as well. What I’m trying to say is, of the two small sample sizes, I’d rather have Fernando’s.

Unfortunately for me, I thought that Ruben was the better option at the beginning of the season. So much for my prognostication skills.

So there you have it. I was wrong. I admit it. Please don’t hold it against me. Just don’t tell my wife I caved in!

Update (8/12/08): To his credit, Will Carroll sent me a nice little note this evening stating, ”I’ll tell you flat out I’ve been wrong many times.” I appreciate the note Will. Something tells me I won’t be hearing from Buster Olney or Ken Rosenthal anytime soon.

Chhhhanges

After much consideration, we have decided to do away with the daily recaps. As our friendly sabermetric friends will tell you, statistics don’t lie. And unfortunately, the amount of people visiting the “Short Stops” entries has diminished substantially since the beginning of the season. So instead of wasting time on something of interest to very few people, we’ve decided to turn our attention to other more interesting projects and writing endeavors. The scoreboard, with links to the boxscores and play-by-play detail, and the following day’s probable pitchers will now appear in the daily newsletter.

See You in September

I’m going back to school in September…just not the school I’m used to attending.

I’m not sure how worthy I am of my new educational opportunity, but nevertheles, I am extremely honored and flattered to be invited by Dayton Moore and the Kansas City Royals staff to take part in the team’s private scouting and development school in Surprise, Arizona. Surprise is the home of the Royals spring training and instructional league facility. More importantly, our own Voros McCracken resides in Surprise…but I digress! The intensive training program runs from September 21 through September 28.

There are no promises or guarantees here, and I’m not going to quit my day job, but I do intend to make the most of this opportunity and will do my best to help support the front office in Kansas City. Where my career goes from there, I have no idea. I plan on sharing my experience in Surprise with the BDD community and hope to give our readers a little insight into what goes on behind the scenes at both the scout school and the instructional league.

I want to thank Dayton, the Royals, and everyone associated with BDD (staff and readers alike) for providing the support and impetus to take this next step toward my dream.

Joe Hamrahi is the founder and managing editor Joe Hamrahi of BDD. Joe’s also a CPA, a financial executive, a baseball analyst, and a proponent of using all available information (read stats and scouts!) in order to make better baseball decisions! Joe can be reached at jhamrahi@baseballdigestdaily.com.

David Price, the first overall pick from the 2007 First-Year Player Draft, inched a bit closer to the Major Leagues on Saturday. The lefty phenom was promoted from AA Montgomery to AAA Durham and will make his first start for the Bulls this Wednesday against Norfolk.

Price went 7-0 with a 1.89 ERA in nine starts and 57 innings at Montgomery. He struck out 55 while walking just 16.

Prior to joining Montgomery, Price went 4-0 with a 1.82 ERA in six starts at Class A Vero Beach.

Next stop…Tampa Bay!