I love Monday mornings.  Well, not always.  But during the baseball season, it seems there is always fresh content- big stories to knock around. Like 14 runs by the Diamondbacks  in the fourth inning of yesterdays game against the Pirates. (Good thing there probably weren’t many Pirate fans at that game!)

But then there are some other fun ones.  The Angels come into New York this week, bringing with them World Series hero Hideki Matsui.  Matsui is doing well for the Angels in his first week, prompting Torii Hunter to call him the Los Angeles Godzilla of Anaheim in this piece by Jeff Miller. The Angels have gotten off to a rough start, but they finally got their win, and are feeling good heading into the Bronx.  Sweeny Murti writes about the dilemma facing managers who face Matsui.  Since he is a lefty, theory says you should bring in a lefty to face him- but Matsui hits lefties like crazy- which is how he earned his new nickname from Hunter.  Well, later this week, Joe Girardi will have to make that call, and in the Murti sound bite you hear Girardi discuss the different ways to look at that decision.

Speaking of Joe Girardi, in case you hadn’t heard, his plan was to remove CC Sabathia after Kelly Shoppach, even if he still had a no-hitter going.  His pitch count was just too high.  In the Sweeny Murti piece, you hear about a couple of other pitchers that were pulled while going for a no-hitter.  From the Murti piece:

n the last 20 years there have been 8 no-hitters thrown in the month of April. In only two of them did a pitcher throw more than 110 pitches (Scott Erickson and Kent Mercker, both in 1994. Erickson threw 128 pitches and was hammered in his next start, while Mercker threw 131 pitches then didn’t pitch again for 8 days.). Back in 1990 Mark Langston of the Angels had a no-hitter through 7 innings and was pulled after 99 pitches. Mike Witt came in to complete the no-hitter.

Lastly, Mike Leake started a game for the Reds making him the 21st player to go straight to the Majors after being drafted.  While this might seem like an honor, its rare that it actually means a pitcher is any kind of phenom.  It just means they have something that can be used to get hitters out, but may not good enough to be protected and nurtured.  Leake pitched for Arizona State, a school that has sent 3 of the 21 players straight to the majors, the only school to send more than one, according to this Benjamin Hoffman post. Mike Morgan might be the most successful- if length of career is a marker for this- of the pitchers that went straight in.