Giants 5, Phillies 0 — Phillies (67-59) are tied for second in the Wild Card, .5 behind Houston, tied with Florida and 4.5 games behind Atlanta in the NL East
It was like watching the freakin’ Cubs last night. A soft tossing lefty (Noah Lowry) befuddled the Phillies, Jon Lieber couldn’t help but throw 0-2 meatballs and the lineup was all kinds of screwed up. Honestly, how did this team ever get to nine over .500 playing like this?
For the second straight game Charlie Manuel ran Ramon Martinez out to play first base. If Ramon is your best option, you should go out and set first base on fire. Either that or just play Vincente Padilla there, he couldn’t be any worse. He bats righthanded, right?
If Kenny Lofton can’t hit a lefty better than Ramon Martinez, I’ll eat my friggin’ hat. You play Lofton in center, Jason Michels in left and Pat Burrell at first. How hard is that? This isn’t rocket science.
Instead, Charlie uses Ramon, and Ramon does what he always does. He goes hitless.
The game was lost in the third when Lieber gave up a three-run jack to former Cubs’ teammate Moises Alou. Lieber had almost survived a leadoff double because Noah Lowry didn’t get a bunt down and Randy Winn flew to Bobby Abreu. So with two outs and a runner at third, all Lieber had to do was get Omar Vizquel out. He hit him in the leg. Then all he had to do was get JT Snow out (and JT sucks). That was when I remembered that Lieber hasn’t gotten a lefty out since 1996. JT singled in the run and Moises hit the world’s worst slider into the left field bleachers.
All that was missing was Don Baylor drooling on himself in the dugout and telling Daniel Garibay to get loose in the bullpen. That was a flashback I could have lived without.
Tonight, the Phillies send Padilla against Brett Tomko. Padilla’s had a lousy year, but pitched well against the Cubs a couple weeks ago. Then again, who doesn’t pitch well against the Cubs?
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Indians 11, Devil Rays 4 — Cleveland (69-56) is tied for the AL Wild Card lead with Oakland and the Yankees and 8 behind the White Sox in the AL Central.
The Indians are techically not tied for the Wild Card lead because their record of 69-56 gives them a .522 winning percentage and both Oakland and the Yankees are 68-55 which is .523, but it’s close enough.
Kevin Millwood picked up his seventh win, allowing four runs over six innings, but he gave up a homer to Travis Lee. Come on! It’s Travis Lee. That’s got to stop.
The Indians got homers from Coco Crisp, Grady Sizemore, Jhonny Peralta and then big two run homers from Victor Martinez and Ben Broussard in the seventh to take the lead for good. You would have thought they’d have done better than that considering that Tampa’s pitcher was former Bears’ defensive tackle Henry Waecther, best remembered for his safety in Super Bowl XX. But apparently Henry’s got a good two seamer because he pitched well, even working out of a bases loaded, one-out jam in the sixth. Oh, it says here it was Doug Waechter. Never mind.
Waecher left after six with the game tied at four and then Trever Miller and Jesus Colome gave up the jacks to Victor and Ben. Jason Dubois later came in for defensive purposes in center.
Yeah, I made that up. Jason’s back in Buffalo wandering around left field like an actual Bison.
That has to hurt, since Jeff Liefer (yes, the old White Sox) is up with the Tribe, who have him listed as a first baseman and only three outfielders (Casey Blake, Crisp and Sizemore) on their roster. Liefer is now best remembered for last year when he was in the Brewers’ organization and got stuck in the bathroom during a game and they had to hold up play while somebody pried the door open. So things are going pretty well for Jason right now.
The excitement came in the bottom of the sixth when Devil Rays catcher Pete LaForest (who the hell are these guys), not to be confused with former Cub and son of Hollywood Squares host Peter Marshall, Pete LaCock, nearly hit a three run homer that went just foul. Tribe announcer Rick Manning thought it was a home run because instead of watching the ball, he watched LaForest. I’ve got news for you, Rick, instead of watching a .206 hitter try to beg a homer off an umpire, just watch the ball. It’s easier. Instead of being 7-4 Tampa, Millwood struck out LaForest on the next pitch and the Indians scored seven times in the seventh to put it away. The seventh inning rally was started when Sizemore beat out a routine ground ball to SECOND base. I can’t help it, I watch Grady Sizemore and then I see Corey Patterson and I want to jam my remote control through my sinuses.
The Tribe is 14-5 in August and has picked up 5.5 games on the Sox in a week. That’s pretty good. It’d be better if they hadn’t gotten swept by the D’Rays two weekends ago in Cleveland. But as Peter Gammons reminds us, Tampa has the second best record in the AL since the All-Star break, topped only by the A’s. I guess this is important.
Tonight’s matchup is Jake Westbrook (a 2004 All-Star for Cleveland) against some guy named Ben Hendrickson. Yikes.
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No game yesterday — The A’s (68-55) are tied for the Wild Card lead with the Yankees and Indians and 2.5 behind the Angels in the AL West.
Oakland has three games in Detroit starting tonight (Danny Haren v. Nate Robertson) and four in Baltimore before heading to Anaheim for three big ones next week, then the Yankees visit Oakland next weekend for three. So it’s important for the A’s to do a very non-Cub thing this week, and not go 2-5 or 1-6 against Detroit and Baltimore.
The A’s somehow lost two of the three to the Royals over the weekend. Now that was a Cubs-like thing to do.
