News and Notes: June 14, 2012

Derek Lowe blames Reds skipper Dusty Baker for brushback pitch | indians.com: News

It looks like Ubaldo Jimenez isn't the only pitchers that brought a grudge with him to the Indians:

After watching Latos' 96-mph fastball buzz him, Lowe motioned toward Cincinnati's dugout and barked at Baker. Lowe wanted to make it clear that he had no problem with Latos. In his opinion, the inside fastball was called by Baker.

"You can go ask him. He'll deny it like he has no idea," Lowe said of Baker. "To say it didn't come from Dusty ... Mat Latos was with the San Diego Padres the last four years, he has no idea what's going on. Again, you can ask him and he'll say he doesn't know [anything] about it, like he always does.

[snip]

"They've been trying to do this for years," Lowe said of Baker, "but I always came up with men on base. It's the first time it came up with no one on base. That's why I was pointing at him, because I knew why it happened. He shook his finger like he had nothing to do with it. I guess Mat Latos just figured he'd hit me to lead off the fifth inning on his own."

Apparently whatever happened between Baker and Lowe happened back when Derek was with the Dodgers, but whatever that wasn't public. It's strange that there'd be such animosity between a pitcher and an opposing manager. Anyway, let's just say that Lowe won't be pitching for the Reds as long as Dusty's there.

Brantley steady, extends hitting streak to 20 | indians.com: News

Brantley's been a hitting machine over the last three weeks, and the streak has pushed his OPS+ over 100 recently. This hasn't been a lucky type of streak, as almost all of Brantley's hits have been obvious ones (very few bloopers or choppers). This is the longest Tribe streak since Casey Blake (!) had a 26-game streak in 2007.

Matt Cain throws perfect game as Giants win 10-0

It's the second perfect game this season; before the year began, there had only been 20 in the modern era of baseball. In the first 50 years of the 20th century, there had only been 3 perfect games; with Cain's perfecto that means there have been 4 in the last 2.5 seasons.