Padres right-hander Casey Kelly, the key piece in a trade that sent Adrian Gonzalez to the Red Sox in December 2010, made his big-league debut at Petco Park a few days after Boston shipped Gonzalez back to the West Coast. Kelly, the 30^th player taken overall in the 2008 draft, had worked just 37 2/3 innings in 2012 due to elbow issues before arriving in San Diego to face the Braves on Monday.

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I've wanted to write about this for years, and now that Adrian Gonzalez and James Loney have been traded for each other, I have an excuse. Casey Kotchman wasn't traded for either but in my mind fits in the same group of “Promising Young Southern California First Basemen of the Mid-Oughts” that is as meaningless to the rest of the world as it is cumbersome to say.

But this is my habit. Association by guilt. Say Jake Peavy, I immediately think of Dennis Tankersley. Going back further, mention Ron Oester, and I think of Tom Herr, Glenn Hubbard, Johnny Ray, and Steve Sax. It's a reflex reaction. I can't not think of the other members of a set when I think of one.

When we examined Sandy Koufax's workload a while back, reader LynchMob asked whether anyone had thrown more than 193 pitches in a game since Koufax did it on May 28, 1960. I found two documented cases, both by members of the following year's Dodgers:

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When Seattle right-hander Felix Hernandez spun a perfect game against the Rays last Wednesday night, he became the third pitcher in Mariners history to notch a no-hitter. Randy Johnson was the first, in June 1990, against the Tigers. Chris Bosio followed that nearly three years later against the Red Sox.

One of my favorite Bill James toys is his Game Score, which attempts to measure a starting pitcher's effectiveness in a single game on a scale (roughly) of 0 to 100. Like any other tool, it isn't perfect, but it provides a useful gauge. When you get past 90, you're in elite territory. Both Johnson's and Bosio's no-hitters scored 89, the former because Johnson walked too many (six) and the latter because Bosio struck out too few (four). Still, a no-no is a no-no, and there is no-no denying the greatness of their performances.

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In our earlier look at players who were immune to scoring runs, reader blocher asked about guys who hit a lot of home runs but otherwise didn't score much. He mentioned Andre Dawson's 1987 campaign, in which Dawson hit 49 homers but scored only 90 runs.

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What if dogs played baseball?

Years ago, when I was writing for a long-forgotten blog, I asked myself this question and made the mistake of doing so out loud. My theory in life is that you ask anything in the hope of finding something, but this crossed a line. In our house, “What if dogs played baseball?” has become code for, “There are no stupid questions, but that is a stupid question.”

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On July 30, Jerome Williams became the first person in more than a quarter of a century to get credit for a save while allowing at least five runs. When he recorded the final 12 outs of the Angels' 15-8 victory over Texas in the opener of a four-game showdown between the two teams, Williams joined a short list of men so credited since the save was introduced as an official statistic in 1969:

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Once upon a time, Josh Hamilton was going to hit .400 and Albert Pujols was washed up. Then magic (well, regression) happened and it no longer was so.

When last we checked, Hamilton and Pujols were headed in opposite directions. After beginning the season at .404/.458/.838 through 35 games, Hamilton slumped. Pujols hit .213/.248/.307 during that same stretch (May 16, to be precise) and then caught fire. Not literally, of course—that would be painful.

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A while back, Ben Lindbergh wrote about players who share a name with Hall of Famers. In the comments there was a discussion of similarly named contemporary players such as the slick-fielding, lousy hitting shortstops known as Alex Gonzalez and the mediocre pitchers called Bobby Jones.

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Where has Upton's power gone?
Long time passing
–Not Pete Seeger, or even Kyle Seager and his 11 home runs

In 2011, Justin Upton hit 31 home runs. Fifteen major leaguers hit more. As of July 29, 2012, Upton has hit eight home runs. Nineteen men have hit more... in a single month. Josh Hamilton and Jose Bautista have done it twice. Trevor Plouffe has done it.

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Yonder Alonso is a slow man playing for a bad team. He has 86 hits this season and 27 runs scored, a ratio of 3.19 to 1. That's worst in MLB among batting title qualifiers.

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Before the season, a popular narrative in some circles held that Billy Beane had lost his touch. His A's hadn't finished with a winning record since 2006, and Moneyball had run its course. Once Brad Pitt plays you in a movie, there's nowhere to go but down.

Beane traded away young pitchers Trevor Cahill, Gio Gonzalez, and Andrew Bailey. He signed aging veterans like Bartolo Colon, Johnny Gomes, and Manny Ramirez (since released). He picked up guys off other teams' junk piles: Brandon Moss, Brandon Hicks, and Brandon Inge. If your name was Brandon and nobody else wanted you, Beane would give you a shot.

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