70-61, one game ahead of Florida in the NL Wild Card and 4.5 behind the Braves in the NL East
The Phillies had yesterday off and open a big series tonight with the Mets in New York, but they got good news last night when the Braves traded for Todd Hollandsworth. He’s due to foul a ball off his shin and have his leg amputated in the batter’s box any day now.
Tonight’s matchup is Robinson Tejeda (who?) for the Phils and Jae Seo for the Mets. The Cubs remember Seo. He came up on a Saturday last month and got so much confidence by humiliating the Cubs that now he’s 6-1 with a 1.30 ERA.
74-56, one game ahead of Anaheim in the AL West
The A’s needed extra innings to finish off a four game sweep of the Orioles and a 6-1 start to their road trip. Now they’re in Anaheim taking on the second place Angels. The 10-5 12 inning win yesterday was fueled by a circuitous route to a “double” by former A Eric Byrnes. For a moment I thought Sammy Sosa was playing left for the Orioles. Then I remembered that Sammy’s on the DL with a bad toe, so he’s at home. He’s the only guy in the world who can go on the DL with a minor injury and not feel the need, or the obligation to actually go the park.
The ten run outburst was the fourth time in the A’s six game win streak that they scored in double digits. That’s pretty good.
Tonight’s series opener in Anaheim pits Barry Zito and his fabulous hair against Bart Colon and his enormous ass.
74-56, one game behind the Yankees and tied with the Angels in the AL Wild Card, seven games behind the White Sox in the AL Central
Yesterday I urged the Indians to crank up the offense with Scott Elarton on the mound for them and after he gave up five runs in the first they needed it. And what do you know? They got it.
Elarton limped through three innings, giving up seven runs, but Tigers hurler Jeremy Bonderman was even worse, giving up nine to the Tribe in three and a third. (To be honest, had the Indians tried to squeeze out another third of an inning from Elarton, I think he could have topped Bonderman, easy.)
Rookie phenom Fernando Cabrera got the win, pitching two and two thirds of one run relief (to raise his ERA to a whopping 1.40) and Rafael Betancourt, Bob Howry and the great (and immense) Bob Wickman finished out the game with three and a third innings of shutout relief. Though Wickman did manage to squeeze a walk and a hit into his “save”.
The Indians got two hits a piece out of Ronnie Belliard, Jhonny Peralta, Ben Broussard and Aaron Boone and three hits out of Casey Blake. Boone and Blake are red hot, which is not just a good sign, it’s downright dumbfounding.
Just think about the White Sox last night. Before their game even started in Texas, they looked on the scoreboard and saw that the Indians were already down 5-0 in the top of the first and that Dmitri Young had hit a grand slam. They were playing the Rangers who have been in the tank almost as long as the Cubs. They KNEW that with Mark Buehrle on the mound that their lead was headed to nine games.
Oops. It’s seven. It’s not like they’ve lost ten games in the standings to the Indians in five weeks. No, wait. It is just that.
