Rich Harden looks forward to the opportunity to put his injury woes in the past and pitch 200 innings a season for the Texas Rangers.
“I’ve learned to try to put it behind me. There’s always going to be those questions (about health),” Harden said Friday. “I basically use it as motivation to work harder and be out there very fifth day.
Pedro Martinez allowed five runs four earned and three hits in five innings of a rehab start Friday night for the Triple-A Lehigh Valley IronPigs, the Philadelphia Phillies’ top minor league affiliate.
Martinez threw 84 pitches total, striking out four and walking three, in what could be his final rehab start before joining the defending World Series champion Phillies.
A jolt went through the Philadelphia Phillies clubhouse when the club announced it had traded for Cliff Lee, the reigning AL Cy Young Award winner.
Yusmeiro Petit matched a career high with eight strikeouts and won for the first time since Aug. 23, 2008, a span of 11 starts.
Lee couldn’t help the Phils in a 4-0 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks on Wednesday night.
The Oakland Athletics are hitting the way the once-powerful Boston Red Sox used to.
“It looked like they didn’t finish hitting since (Tuesday) night,” said Mike Lowell, who had five RBIs for Boston. “I guess we ran into them at the wrong time.”
For the second straight night, the Athletics outslugged the Red Sox, winning 8-6 on Wednesday a night after they pounded out 21 hits for a 9-8 win in 11 innings.
Albert Pujols lined an RBI single over the head of center fielder Matt Kemp with two outs in the 15th inning, giving the St. Louis Cardinals a 3-2 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers and saddling the NL West leaders with their first four-game losing streak of the season.
The Cardinals are 11-2 against the Dodgers at 4-year-old Busch Stadium, and 17-3 at home against Los Angeles since 2004.
Adam Jones homered and drove in three runs, Nick Markakis also had three RBIs, and the Baltimore Orioles rallied to beat the Kansas City Royals 7-3 Wednesday night.
After Kansas City starter Zach Greinke pitched six innings of five-hit ball and left with a 3-2 lead, the Orioles went ahead with a three-run seventh that kept the Royals’ ace winless in July.
For 99 games, the Los Angeles Dodgers avoided losing three in a row. Game No. 100 was a stinker that ended a franchise-record run.
“We’ll be back here tomorrow trying to stop that stuff,” manager Joe Torre said. “We need to score some runs and take a little pressure off the pitchers.”
Adam Wainwright matched zeros with Chad Billingsley for five innings and gained momentum after Billingsley was roughed up in a six-run sixth inning of the St.
Ian Kinsler drove in three runs, rookie Elvis Andrus homered and had three hits, and the Texas Rangers beat the Detroit Tigers 7-3 on Tuesday night.
The Rangers have taken two straight from the Tigers after dropping the previous seven meetings and have won eight of nine overall.
Kinsler, who was in a huge funk at the plate that shrunk his batting average from .
Jamie Moyer pitched 6 2-3 shutout innings, Ryan Howard hit a two-run homer and the Philadelphia Phillies defeated the Arizona Diamondbacks 6-2 on Monday night.
Baffling the weak-hitting Diamondbacks with a mix of 80 mph fastballs and even softer changeups, the 46-year-old Moyer (10-7) worked out of jams in each of the first three innings.
Bobby Cox shrugged last week when asked how he would find room for Tim Hudson on his Atlanta Braves’ pitching staff.
Hudson was the ace of the Braves’ staff before his season-ending elbow ligament-replacement surgery on Aug. 8, 2008. Almost a full year later, the right-hander moved closer to his return to the majors when he pitched four scoreless innings for Triple-A Gwinnett against Lehigh Valley on Monday night.