It will be Gutierrez, Martinez and Belliard in the bottom of the 13th for the Indians.

Update: Jenks is on to get the save. Jeff Liefer pinch hits for Gutierrez.

Update: Liefer runs the count full but strikes out swinging on a pitch down and in.

Update: Victor Martinez strikes out swinging. One out to go.

Update: Ron Belliard homers to left to bring the Indians within one. Is it too little too late?

Update: Broussard pops the first pitch up for the final out of the game.

The Indians were given this game on a platter. They had plenty of opportunities to score, but were 0 for 9 with men in scoring position. They're 0 for 23 on the home stand, according to the Cleveland telecast. If they don't homer, they don't score. Belliard's was the 51st of the month for the Tribe.

The White Sox win home field, and the Indians are one game behind the Yankees and Red Sox in the Wild Card chase.

Willie Harris triples off the right field wall with one out in the top of the 13th. Podsednik tries to squeeze him home, but the Indians get Harris in a run down. Podsednik ends up at second, and Konerko is pinch hitting.

Update: They issue the intentional walk to Konerko, and a pinch runner takes his place. Seems a waste of Paul's talents.

Update: Gload doubles to center to drive in two. The White Sox lead 3-1.

Update: The Indians get the last out of the inning. The White Sox are three outs away from home field throughout the playoffs.

Peralta grounds into a force out at second. The play was very close. Wedge came out to argue, but the play was extremely close. It easily could have gone either way.

The Cleveland fans are certainly getting their money's worth tonight.

The Houston are down to their last out in the 9th. They have a man on third and Orlando Palmeiro is pinch-hitting for Taveras.

Update: Palmeiro flies out to right to end the game. The Phillies are now just one game behind Houston with two to play. We could end up with a tie in the NL as well.

Gutierrez, hitting in Hafner's spot, walks with one out to put the winning run on base.

Update: Victor Martinez gets his third hit of the night to move Gutierrez to second with one out.

Update: Belliard walks to load the bases with 1 out. A long fly wins the game. Broussard is up.

Update: Broussard strikes out looking. It's up to Boone. Again.

Update: Boone grounds out and the game goes to the 12th inning.

Patterson grounds to Berkman, who throws out Burnitz at the plate. Cubs have men on 1st and 2nd with 1 out.

Update: Todd Walker limps to the plate but singles to right to put the Cubs up 4-3. He leaves for a pinch runner.

Update: The Astros get out of the inning down one run. Ausmus is scheduled to lead off the bottom of the ninth. He's the number 8 hitter.

Billy Wagner breaks Nick Johnson's bat and catches the resulting pop up to preserve the victory for the Phillies. Meanwhile, Brad Lidge blows the save as the Cubs tie the score at 3 in the top of the 9th. Chicago has men on 2nd and 3rd with no outs.

Lance Berkman hits a two run homer in the bottom of the 8th to put the Astros back in front 3-2. Washington just scored in the bottom of the ninth to cut the Phillies lead ot 4-3.

The Yankees end up with the bottom of the order up in the ninth. Sierra starts the inning with a strikeout against Timlin.

Update: Timlin strikes out Bernie with a high pitch.

Update: Cano singles to keep the Yankees alive. Timlin is going for a four out save here.

Update: Jeter grounds out to short. The Red Sox win 5-3. There will be two more meaningful games between these teams as they are tied at the top of the AL East.

Nomar Garciaparra is now the Phillies favorite player. He drives in Perez to give the Cubs a 2-1 lead in the middle of the 8th. Derrek Lee tried to score from first on a bobble by the left fielder but was thrown out at the plate.

Nomar is back to his normal hitting. With his 1 for 4 tonight he's hitting .322 since returning from his injury.

The Indians get out of a jam in the top of the ninth, getting Timo Perez to ground into a double play to keep the score at 1-0.

Update: It's Hafner vs. Marte to start the inning.

Update: Hafner singles to left to start the ninth.

Update: Franklin Gutierrez runs for Hafner, and Martinez doubles to send him to third.

Update: Boone grounds into a double play, although a poor running play by Broussard caused the 2nd out. They go to extra innings in Cleveland.
Update: Hermanson is on to try to save the game. This is a real save situation.

Update: Belliard grounds out to short, driving in Gutierrez. The Indians have life.

Update: Broussard is walked to put men on first and second so Hermanson can pitch to Boone.

Ugeth Urbina comes into the Phillies game with men on 1st and 3rd and 2 out and walks Wilkerson to load the bases for Carroll.

Update: Urbina gets a ground ball to Utley to end the inning. Phillies and Nationals go the the 8th with the score still 4-2 Philadelphia.

Derrek Lee drives in his 107th run of the year with a sacrifice fly to even the score with the Astros at one. The Phillies are leading 4-2 in the seventh in Washington.

Cano singles to left and Jeter homers into the right field bullpen to cut the lead in half. It's 5-3 in the top of the 7th as Wells approaches 100 pitches.

Update: Jeter's hit was the first by a righty off Wells tonight.

Update: A-Rod strikes out looking. This umpire takes his time making the hand signal, which drives me crazy.

Update: Giambi grounds out to first to end the inning. Wells is over 100 pitches.

Two singles and a walk and the bases are loaded with Red Sox for Trot Nixon in the 6th.

Update: No one's up in the Yankees' bullpen. It's Wang's game here.

Update: Wang walks Nixon to drive in Damon. Boston leads 3-1, the bases are still loaded with one out. Two relievers are now up in the NY pen.

Update: Giambi makes a bad throw to Posada on a slow grounder to allow Ortiz to score. The error leaves the bases loaded for Olerud and makes the score 4-1.

Update: Olerud hits a sacrifice fly to center field. Williams has no shot at Manny. The Yankees defense cost them two runs so far this inning.

Update: Giambi makes a nice pick on a hard shot by Mueller to end the inning. The defense does the damage, however, and the Red Sox are up 5-1 after six.

Mark Buehrle throws 88 pitches over 5 2/3 innings and comes out of the game. If Vizcaino can get out of the inning, Buehrle will be in line to get his 17th win. I assume he'll start game two of the ALDS.

Hideki Matsui gets his third hit off David Wells, a double that puts runners on second and third. Actually, I think Giambi could have scored from first on the hit, but he was held.

The righties against Wells are not timing his pitches well. They're hitting deep fly balls, but they're not connecting. Hideki has Wells' curve timed perfectly.

Posada ground hard to third, leaving the runners on base for Sierra.

Update: Sierra is just off as he hits a fly ball to straight away center for the third out. Maybe the switch hitters should bat lefty against Wells. All four hits off Wells have come off the bats of Giambi and Matsui.

Mike Lamb homers off Zambrano for the first hit and run of the game. He has 12 home runs this year, five in September.

Blum hits a line drive off Kevin Millwood's knee for a base hit. Millwood looked hurt, but he's staying in the game. The hit puts runners at first and third for the White Sox in a 0-0 game. Harris hits the first pitch for a single to right to put the Sox ahead 1-0.

Andy Pettitte retires the side on 13 pitches in the first, striking out one.

Damon once again was on second for Ortiz, but this time David bounces back to the pitcher. Wang looks Johnny back to second, then throws out Ortiz. Damon, for some reason, decides to head for third and is put out in a run down. Why he tried that:

1. With two out.
2. With Manny coming up.
3. After he retreated to second.

Is beyond me.

Update: Jerry Remy makes a good point. On the replay, it looks like Damon thought the pitcher threw to second. Wang made a motion like that, but threw to first.

Jason Varitek homers on the first pitch of the 2nd inning, a blast to dead center. The Red Sox lead 2-1.

Jimmy Rollins extends his hit streak to 34 games with a single leading off the third inning. He also puts himself in scoring position with a steal.

Update: Utley drives in Rollins then steals second. The Phillies take a 2-1 lead. Utley looks like the Phillies MVP to me.

Ryan Howard hits his 21st home run of the season to tie the Phillies-Nationals game at one. A big weekend from the big first baseman could win him the Jackie Robinson Award.

David Oritz comes to the plate and the fans start chanting "MVP!" I don't know why they're cheering for A-Rod at that moment. Ortiz singles to center to drive in Damon and tie the game at 1.

Brad Wilkerson doubles and works his way around to score on a ground out as Washington jumps out to a 1-0 lead on Cory Lidle in a game the Phillies need to win.

David Wells walks A-Rod and Giambi with one out.

Update: Wells hits Sheffield after A-Rod steals third. The bases are loaded with one out for Matsui.

Update: Matsui singles to center, moving the runners up a base. The Yankees take an early 1-0 lead.

Update: Wells strikes out Posada for the 2nd out of the inning and his 2nd strike out. Sierra flys out to right to end the inning.

Most batters put the ball in play against David, but only two of the seven facing him did so this inning.

It looks like the White Sox are taking it easy tonight. They lineup they're putting on the field isn't the top of the line. Maybe tomorrow they'll challenge Cleveland, but tonight they'll try to take home field with the backups.

It looks like the government raided the lab that produced "the clear."

BALCO founder Victor Conte and vice president James Valente identified Arnold as the source of a once-undetectable steroid called "the clear." Conte, Valente, track coach Remi Korchemny and Greg Anderson - the longtime friend and personal trainer of Giants slugger Barry Bonds - pleaded guilty to distributing steroids to elite athletes and will be sentenced next month.

Two sources with knowledge of the latest raids also told the Chronicle that the San Francisco grand jury is still hearing testimony in the BALCO case, suggesting the possibility of more indictments to come despite the four plea agreements.

A spokeswoman for the IRS would not confirm the latest raids, but Lt. Ed Ogle of the Champaign County sheriff's office told the Chronicle that deputies assisted federal authorities on a raid Thursday of Proviant Technologies, Arnold's lab in downstate Illinois. Federal agents raided the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative two years ago, carting away boxloads of documents.

Proviant doesn't seem like that large a company. And just to show how easy it is to make this stuff, Patrick Arnold isn't even a Ph.D.

Patrick Arnold received his B.S. in chemistry from the University of New Haven in 1990. While working as a synthetic-organic chemist at a major chemical company, Patrick was enrolled in graduate school programs at Montclair St. University and the University of Connecticut.

Imagine what a top-notch molecular biologist could do.

A Houston win guarantees them a share of the NL Wild card. They'll send their best second half pitcher, Andy Pettitte vs. the Cubs Carlos Zambrano. Pettitte's been the best pitcher in the National League since the All-Star break. His strike outs and walks have been particularly excellent.

Despite a rough September, Zambrano is 3-1. He's allowed six home runs this month; one more will be the most he's allowed in a month this year.

Over the last two seasons, the Astros are 104-64 from July through October, 3 1/2 games behind the Cardinals. If they figure out how to win early in the season, they may be able to compete win St. Louis for the division instead of just the Wild Card.

The Phillies phind themselves two games out of the wild card with three to play. They simply need to win all their remaining games to have a shot at making the playoffs. They're in Washington tonight to take on the Nationals.

Cory Lidle will start for Philadelphia. Lidle's been giving up a lot of hits lately, 28 in his last 22 2/3 innings, but only one home run. That might not bode well for him in Washington, where long balls are difficult to hit. Lots of singles tonight could be his downfall.

The Nationals are playing to finish above .500. Their next win is their 82nd, and they'll send Livan Hernandez to the mound to try for the win. He's been going deep into games but without good results. Over his last seven starts he's pitched 52 1/3 innings but with a 4.47 ERA and a 1-4 record.

Lyflines gives you all the possibilities for the AL.

Lou Piniella is officially leaving the Devil Rays at the end of the season. There's plenty of opportunities for Lou with interim managers in Baltimore, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh. And the post-season firings haven't started.

The White Sox magic number to clinch home field advantage is one over the Yankees and the Red Sox. A Chicago win gives them home field period. However, a Yankees loss does not. If the Red Sox and Indians sweep, then Boston gets home field. I believe the correct logic is (White Sox win) or (Red Sox loss and Yankees loss) gives Chicago home field.

Cleveland is in control of it's Wild Card destiny at this point. An Indians sweep and they are in as the wild card. Taking two out of three assures them of at least a tie for the slot. Over all, they have a 75% chance of coming out of the weekend with at least a wild card tie.

Tonight's matchup is the best of the series as Buehrle face Millwood. Despite just 16 wins, Buehrle is a very good Cy Young candidate. His winning percentage (.667) is excellent. He's third in ERA, doesn't walk many and pitches for a division winning team. Millwood is leading the league in ERA, yet has a losing record. He hasn't pitched anywhere near the number of innings as Buehrle, but has allowed the same number of home runs and more walks. Buehrle definitely deserves the award more than Millwood.

Buehrle against Cleveland is typical of his season. He's made four starts, pitched well enough to win all four (allowing just 9 runs in 27 1/3 innings) but his record is 2-0. Cleveland has touched him for the long ball has 4 of his 20 home runs allowed came off Indians bats.

Millwood's allowed 1 earned run in each of his last four starts, but he's also allowed five unearned runs in that time. Like Buehrle, Kevin's season against the White Sox is a microcosom of his stats overall. In four starts versus Chicago Millwood post a 1.33 ERA but an 0-2 record. White Sox hitters have yet to homer against the righty.

The big sluggers performed well head-to-head this season. Konerko has eight extra-base hits including three home runs to go with 11 RBI and 10 runs scored. Hafner's been to offensive star of the season series, however, with 12 extra-base hits, five home runs, 16 RBI and 9 runs scored.

Enjoy!

Instead of the usual games of the day, I'm going to take the big games separately today, and look at the series as a whole.

It's difficult to imagine two teams that are more evenly matched. Since the start of 2002, the Yankees lead the regular season series 37-36. The Red Sox taking two out of three this weekend would not only leave the teams tied at the top of the American League East, but tied over the last four seasons. They've played two great seven games series the last two years and split those games as well.

The teams are cut from the same cloth. Check out the Runs Scored and Allowed graph at The Hardball Times. These are lucky teams built on offense. Go down to the On-Base vs. Slugging graph and notice how these two teams are off the chart.

So it's likely to be a series settled by the offenses. The Red Sox put at least eight tough outs in the lineup every day. Look at the aggregate batting order (scroll down). Eight spots with higher than average OBAs. When Graffanino is in the lineup, you can make that nine. The Yankees tend to have a couple of holes in their order, but with Torre moving A-Rod to the two spot, the Yankees 1-5 are an on-base machine, with power in four of those slots.

It will be mostly veterans on the mound this weekend. The average seasonal age of the Red Sox starters will be 39 1/3. The Yankees send Johnson and Mussina on Saturday and Sunday, but go with the rookie Wang tonight. Chien-Ming is very good at keeping runners off base. Overall, he's allowed a mere .307 OBA to his opponents. With no one on, that drops to .286. It's when he allows someone to reach base that he gets in trouble, as both his opponents OBA and slugging percentages balloon. Maybe he shouldn't pitch from the stretch. He's not good at stopping the running game anyway (runners are 5 for 6 against him). A good strategy with the Sox would be to stick with the windup and get the batters out.

Facing Wang is David Wells. Wells has a bad knee. He's had a bad back for a while. He's a lefty pitching at Fenway. And like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get. He's had five outings in which he's given up six runs or more, and five outings where he's allowed nothing.

Neither pitcher walks many batters. It a situation with few walks, batting average becomes important. And while the Red Sox and Yankees are separated by just a point in OBA, they Red Sox have a five point lead in batting average (Boston and New York and 1-2 in the majors in both categories). That gives the Boston offense a slight advantage.

Ortiz vs. A-Rod. Manny vs. Sheffield. Jeter vs. Damon. The switch hitting catchers. Boston facing Wang and Johnson. Schilling's ankle. Wakefield's floater. Rivera coming in for two innings. The dreaded Bellhorn/Stanton matchup. Enjoy the weekend!

And if you're dieing to attend, you can buy seats at the Baseball Musings Ticket Store and help support this site at the same time.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

The Red Sox coming back sets up the possibility of a three-way tie at the end of the regular season. All we need is for the Red Sox to take 2 out of 3 at Fenway, and Cleveland to take 2 out of 3 at home. As Meatloaf once sung, two out of three ain't bad.

Ortiz ties the game with a homer in the 8th.

Update: The Red Sox have Damon and Renteria on 1st and 2nd in the 9th with one out. Big Papi is up.

Update: Ortiz singles to score Damon and give the Red Sox the win. The three way tie is still a possibility!

C.C. Sabathia pitches a great game as Cleveland shuts out Tampa Bay 6-0. Milliliter goes eight, striking out nine and allowing just five hits.

Derrek Lee's not going to win the triple crown, but he hit his 46th home run of the year to put the Cubs up 2-1 on the Astros. Right now, he might be Philadelphia's favorite player.

Frank Catalanotto hits his 8th home run of the year as he continues to pound the Red Sox. He has consecutive games with a homer against them, and three straight with a double now. The Sox are behind 4-1 in the top of the fifth as Hinske doubles to put men on 2nd and 3rd.

The Astros are up 1-0 on the Cubs after a solo shot by Lance Berkman. Lance is the one hitter on the Astros who appears capable of carrying the team. A win by the Astros clinches a tie for the NL Wild Card.

The Indians and Yankees are winning big tonight. New York chased Erik Bedard after two innings and lead 5-0 in the third. Cleveland scored in each of the first three innings and lead the Devil Rays 6-0. Fossum left after two also. Meanwhile, the Red Sox are on the board but trail Toronto 2-1 in the top of the fourth. A Red Sox loss and a Yankees win will put Boston in the postion of needing to sweep New York over the weekend. Of course, they've done that before...

On the Red Sox pre-game show, one of the listed keys to the game was to shut down Hinske and Catalanotto. Hinske scored the first run single handedly, and Catalanotto just knocked in the second run of the game with a double. That gives Frank seven doubles in 46 at bats against the Red Sox this season.

Eric Hinske makes things happen in Boston. He doubles, steals third, and Jason Varitek throws the ball into left field to allow Eric to score. Mueller was slow getting to third on the delayed steal which contributed to the bad throw.

Travis Hafner supplies the power for the Indians, hitting his eleventh home run of September. The two run shot drives in the first runs of the game.

Update: Ron Belliard adds a two run shot of his own. Cleveland is up 4-0 after one inning.

Jason Giambi just hit a ball into Boog Powell's Bar-b-que. The three run shot gives the Yankees a 3-0 lead in the first inning. Orioles fans, how often does someone hit the ball that far?

Update: The broadcast just said it was the 38th home run hit onto the concourse.

Bartolo Colon pitched five innings and picked up the win today as the Angels take 3 of 4 from the Oakland Athletics. He finishes the season with a 3.48 ERA in his bid for a Cy Young award. He also sets a career high in wins with 21.

On the Oakland side, they need to sweep the Mariners so Steven Levitt doesn't lose another bet.

The Red Sox traded two very young players whose names they couldn't spell for Mike Stanton today.

The Red Sox acquired left-hander Mike Stanton from the Washington Nationals on Thursday for right-handers Rhys Taylor and Yader Peralta.

If you're building a farm system you'd like the 19 and 20 year olds hanging around. Mike Myers isn't enough? All you have to do to beat the guy is bring in a righty. I guess they want one to pitch to Giambi and one to pitch to Matsui and bring in a righty in between. Somehow, it doesn't seem worth the two youngsters.

Polanco lines out to Konerko to end the game and give Chicago it's first division win in five years. It just goes to show the games in April and May are just as important as the games in September. Great pitching by Garcia and the bullpen today, which is the story of the season for this team. Now they get to wait to see who wins the lottery to play them in the first round.

Congratulations to the White Sox on the win. Guillen and Williams deserve a lot of credit for bringing the team to this point.

The White Sox third base coach just sent A.J. Pierzynski on a single to left. Monroe had the ball as A.J. hit third, so why Cora was sending him is beyond me. It was fun, however, watching A.J. trying to run hard as the throw beat him by a mile.

They're starting the bottom of the ninth. The score is 4-2 Chicago, and they're three outs away from the division title.

Update: Inge leads off with a single against Jenks.

Update: Wilson hits a soft roller to Crede. Joe was looking for the double play and took his eye off the ball, dropping it. Tigers have the tying runs at 1st and 2nd with no one out.

Update: Dmitri Young is pinch hitting for Infante. He strikes out swinging, and didn't look very good doing it. Jenks had him totally fooled on two separate pitches.

Update: Granderson is caught looking on a beautiful curve ball on the outside corner. It looks like Granderson was expecting a waste pitch and it hit the corner.

Paul Konerko hit his 40th home run of the year today. He becomes only the second White Sox player to have multiple 40 home run seasons.

If you look at the history of home runs in the American League, the White Sox stand out by their lack of the long ball across the decades. Up until the 1990s, the White Sox were last among the original AL teams in home runs hit by a wide margin, about 600 homers. In the last decade and a half they've passed the Senators/Twins. That's thanks to players like Frank Thomas, Belle, Ordonez and Konerko. Every other charter member of the AL is over 10,000. It's not surprising that the most successful decade for the White Sox in since the 1910's came with the arrival of some power.

Correction: Multiple 40 home run seasons.

After not hitting a triple all season, Carl Everett hits two in consecutive games. His first triple yesterday drove in the go-ahead runs for Chicago, and today his first inning triple puts the White Sox up 2-0.

Royal Authority is very happy that Kansas City signed their first round pick.

The good news here is that Gordon will make it to Arizona for the last few weeks of the Fall Instructional League. We were hoping he would sign quickly so he could get some seasoning at AA Wichita. That didn’t happen and now he’s missed a half a season of organized ball, so he’s got some catching up to do. And fast.

Mark Teahen must be looking over his shoulder.

We'll get an early clue if the four-way tie scenario will hold up when the White Sox play at Detroit this afternoon. A White Sox win means the best we can do is a three-way tie. Freddy Garcia hasn't been striking out batters lately, just 10 in his last 26 2/3 innings.

Aaron Small goes for win number 10 tonight against Baltimore. If the Yankees get a big lead early, I'll bet they pull Small to make him available for long relief Sunday or a start in a playoff game on Monday.

The Red Sox try to earn a split with the Blue Jays. Matt Clement was lucky to get away with six scoreless innings in his last start against the Orioles. Ten base runners in six innings probably won't cut it against the Blue Jays in Fenway.

C.C. Sabathia tries to figure out the Devil Rays tonight. Given the role of spoiler, the Devil Rays are filling the bill well, going 5-3 against Boston, LAnaheim and Cleveland.

Enjoy!

The Padres punctuated their push to pinnacle of Western preeminence by punishing the Giants 9-1. San Diego ran up the score without the use of a homer. Fifteen singles, four walks and a smattering of extra-base hits sent San Francisco into "Wait 'til next year" mode.

Pedro Astacio continued his surge to the end of the season. With Astacio pitching well, San Diego has two good starters to throw against St. Louis. With an extra day off in the most likely first round matchup, they could throw Peavy and Astacio twice on short rest, and depend on their lights out bullpen to keep the two from getting over worked. Bochy should think about this rotation:

• Tuesday - Peavy
• Thursday - Astacio
• Saturday - X
• Sunday - Peavy
• Monday - Astacio

If Bruce keeps their pitch counts down and is willing to use the bullpen extensively, the Padres might be able to shut down the Cardinals offense enough to win a couple of games. The Dodgers were able to do that with Hershiser in 1988 against the Mets. Maybe the Padres can do it with Peavy and Pedro.

There was an aroma in St. Louis last night:

Warming up in the bullpen, Brad Lidge enjoyed the sweet smell as Willy Taveras sprinted all the way home from first base on Morgan Ensberg's double to left field in the ninth inning Wednesday night.

The aroma got better for Lidge after he retired the St. Louis Cardinals in the bottom of the ninth, sealing a come-from-behind 7-6 victory that pushed the Astros closer to their second consecutive National League wild-card berth.

So an Astros win clinches a tie for the Wild Card.

Has Carpenter fallen out of contention for the Cy Young award? His ERA is up to 2.83 and he's posted a 5.73 mark in September. Is Dontrelle suddenly the front-runner or does it go to Clemens with his great ERA?

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

The Red Sox lose to Toronto 7-2. Ted Lilly did the job on the mound and Frank Catalanotto did the damage offensively. Frank went 3 for 5 and missed the cycle by a single. Lilly pitched into the seventh, giving up just two runs despite walking five and allowing six hits.

So the four way tie scenario has an important day tomorrow. Chicago and Cleveland have to lose and the Red Sox and Yankees need to win to have any shot at it. Then, Cleveland will need to sweep and the Red Sox will need to take 2 out of 3 from the Yankees at Fenway. Still lots of possibilities for a three way tie, however.

The Mets are slugging, the Phillies are singling, and the Phillies are winning the game. The Mets scored five of their six runs on four home runs, two by Marlon Anderson. The Phillies have 15 singles tonight and only three extra base hits until Victorino and Burrell went back to back in their seven run 8th to make the score 16-6. Looks like the Phillies will survive in the Wild Card race one more night.

Aaron Rowand hits his 13th home run of the season, a three-run shot in the 9th to give the White Sox an 8-2 lead. It looks like the Sox will reduce their magic number to 2 this evening and make the four way tie a little less likely.

If you missed tonight's show, you can hear the recorded version here. It's also available on demand at TPSRadio.

Coco Crisp leads off the 9th with a single. Baez is in pitching.

Update: Peralta hits into a 4-6-3 double play. It's up to Hafner.

Update: Hafner weakly grounds out to shortstop to end the game. Cleveland gives away a win against a weak team and a weak pitcher. The White Sox lead 5-2 in the top of the 9th.

The Tampa Bay Devil Rays are up 1-0 on the Cleveland Indians in the 9th inning. It's been a great pitching duel between McClung and Lee, the only run scoring on a sacrifice fly.

Whenever I see McClung pitch, he always looks good early, then gets hammered. Somehow, he put the hammer down on Cleveland tonight, allowing just four hits and no walks with four strikeouts. He's well over 100 pitches, so maybe Cleveland will face a pitcher they can hit in the 9th.

Alex Rodriguez hits a solo shot to tie the game in the 6th, and Jeter singles in the go-ahead run in the 7th. The Yankees are leading 2-1 behind another fine game by Chacon.

Meanwhile, the Blue Jays are having their way with the Red Sox, leading 7-2 in the 5th. Of course, the Boston offense is so explosive that no lead is really safe against them. However, the Yankees winning and Red Sox losing would be very good for a potential tie at the end of the season. They need to be separated by an odd number of games, and since New York doesn't play well on the road, Boston would be likely to take two out of three from New York in Fenway.

The Baseball Musings Radio Show is coming up at the top of the hour (8 PM EDT) on TPSRadio. I'm logged into the chat room if you want to come by and leave a comment or question I can read on the air.

Vernon Wells and Edgar Renteria went deep in Boston, accounting for all the runs in that game so far as the Blue Jays lead the Red Sox 2-1 after one inning. Javy Lopez hits a solo shot off Shawn Chacon to give the Orioles 1-0 lead over the Yankees after two.

Update: All the runs in the four big games came on home runs so far. Carlos Pena goes deep for Detroit to put the Tigers up 1-0 on the White Sox.

Update: Jermaine Dye breaks the home run streak, driving in Podsednik with a single. The White Sox and Tigers are tied at 1 in the third.

I have a problem and I wonder if anyone else out there is experiencing the same thing. I own a Zenith HD-520SAT receiver. A little over a week ago I noticed it no longer picks up the digital channel of WTIC in Hartford, CT. (It's channel 31, virtual 61-1.) If anyone gets Fox-61 over the air, would you please let me know if you've had trouble getting the high-def signal. I'd like to figure out what's wrong before the playoffs start.

Update: Suddenly it works! Never mind.

Paul Maholm wins his season finale, beating the Cubs and Mark Prior 3-2. Paul went 6 2/3 innings, striking out four and walking just one. His 2.18 ERA in a little over 40 innings has to make Pirates fans hopeful for next year. It looks like Pittsburgh's going to have a good, young rotation.

Not such a good finish to a disappointing 2005 for Mark Prior. He walked four today and gave up six hits in five innings. He was over powering on the mound, leading the NL in K per 9, but that didn't translate to a low ERA. He had bad luck with health and bad luck with the timing of hits against him. I would expect if he comes anywhere near these strikeout numbers next season he'll be a Cy Young candidate.

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With the Marlins winning just two of their last thirteen games to fall hopelessly out of the race, negatives undercurrents rising to the surface. A.J. Burnett got himself sent home and freed from a future with the team over comments about the negativity of the organization. Young superstar Miguel Cabrera got himself benched for being late for the job, and he lashed out as well.

Cabrera bristled at the prospect of a lecture.

"(Forget) the veterans," he said, momentarily breaking into English to deliver an expletive. "They haven't told me anything and they better not come tell me anything, either.

"I don't want to hear anything else. I want to play baseball, give what I have to give on the field of play, and win. That's all I want. . . .

"Everyone here is a grown man," he continued. "Everyone knows what he's doing. And I'm not going to go crazy worrying about these things."

Cabrera stopped, his indignation ebbing.

"Look, I just don't want to talk about it anymore. I'm sorry," he said. "Just leave that alone."

It seems there's plenty of blame to go around on both sides here. Burnett and Cabrera should be mature enough to realize what their jobs require of them, and perform them without complaint. If that means not getting positive feedback and showing up on time, so be it. Even players not eligible for arbitration or free agency are doing quite well.

Is the Marlins management not very good at managing people? To be where they are with Dontrelle Willis, Miguel Cabrera and Carlos Delgado putting up great numbers is a shame. The selfish acts by these two players indicate to me that this team isn't properly motivated. How much of their losing this season came from a lack of caring?

McKeon doesn't appear to be Larry Bowa. I don't hear about him yelling at players. He gave veterans Lowell and Pierre plenty of time (maybe too much) to work out of slumps.

I find this Fish season very puzzling without these problems. How much poor people management contributed will now be part of the review of 2005 in Miami.

It looks like the players and owners will change the CBA again by the end of the post season.

I'm fairly floored by this. Reopening the agreement once was amazing, twice is unbelievable. Fehr must be getting lots of pressure from above and below to make this happen.

David Gassko at The Hardball Times has a new measure of range, BBARF. I have not had time to digest it yet, but there's a discussion going on at the Baseball Primer section of Baseball Think Factory.

It's do or die down the stretch for the four teams competing for the three remaining playoff slots. The Yankees get things started in Baltimore tonight as Shawn Chacon faces Daniel Cabrera. The Yankees are getting Cabrera on a roll. He's posted a 2.25 ERA in September while striking out 29 in 24 innings. Chacon's not doing badly himself as he's on a streak of 16 consecutive scoreless innings.

Game three of the purple series gets underway at about the same time as the Red Sox host the Blue Jays. Ted Lilly hurls for Toronto against Bronson Arroyo. The long ball continues to bother Ted, as he's allowed 8 home runs in his last 24 2/3 innings. The Red Sox won the last five starts made by Bronson. He's been going deep into the games as well, averaging seven innings pitched over that time. He's only struck out 13 in his 35 innings during the streak, but he's also just allowed 12 walks and two home runs.

Seth McClung takes his convenience store ERA (7.11) into Cleveland tonight. He faced the Yankees and Red Sox in his last two starts and allowed seven runs in each game. Seth does not understand the term "spoiler." He'll face 18-4 Cliff Lee. Cliff is undefeated in August and September and only walked 17 in his last 10 starts.

The White Sox magic number is three to clinch bot the division and home field throughout the playoffs. They visit Detroit where Jose Contreras takes on Sean Douglass. Contreras is on a seven-game winning streak. He's posted a 2.06 ERA over the streak and has allowed just 43 hits in 52 1/3 innings. Douglass made two starts against the White Sox this season and allowed 9 runs in 9 2/3 innings.

Enjoy!

You can purchase tickets for these and other games at the Baseball Musings Ticket Store.

The Cardinals started their playoff batting order against the Astros last night. Good for them. Even though an Astros victory helps St. Louis toward an easier first-round opponent, St. Louis tried to win the game.

Oswalt pitched extremely well, striking out seven and walking none over seven innings. He threw 77 of 104 pitches for strikes. It looks like the Astros have two of their big three in shape for the playoffs. The Astros magic number is three to claim the wild card.

Right now the playoffs are shaping up to be St. Louis vs. San Diego and Atlanta vs. Houston. The St. Louis/San Diego series gets the extra day of rest this year (they play Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday). That means San Diego could bring Jake Peavy back in game 3 on short rest if they lose the first two, or the Cardinals could go with Carpenter if the reverse happened.

The losses by all four of the remaining AL contenders last night put a crimp in the chance of a four-way tie. Right now, Chicago leads all three teams by two games. That means the White Sox have to lose four of their next five games for a chance at the four way playoff to happen. There also has to be an odd number of games separating Cleveland and Chicago, and an odd number of games separating Boston and New York going into the final three-game weekend.

So over the next two days we need:

• Chicago to go 0-2.


• Cleveland to go 1-1.


• One of Boston or New York to go 2-0 while the other goes 1-1.

Then over the weekend the trailing teams each go 2-1.

Or this scenario also works:

• Chicago goes 1-1.


• Cleveland goes 0-2.


• One of Boston or New York to go 2-0 while the other goes 1-1.

Then over the weekend Cleveland sweeps the White Sox while the trailing team in the east takes two out of three. My gut is that neither of these is very likely at this point.

For the three-way division wild card tie, we just need the Yankees and Red Sox separated by one game going into the weekend series. Then a number of combinations end up with Boston, New York and Cleveland involved in a two-day playoff.

If Cleveland and Chicago wind up tied with a better record then New York and Boston (also tied with each other), there's only a playoff between the Yankees and Red Sox, and the wild card is determined by head-to-head record between Chicago and Cleveland, which Chicago wins.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

Thanks to everyone who commented in the previous post. The Red Sox game was fun as always. Not a great pitching night by the starters. Reed Johnson proved he doesn't have a right fielder's arm as both Ortiz and Manny tagged up on him, going to third and second on a fly into the right field corner.

The fans were as interested in the Yankees score as they were the game in front of them. People kept each other up to date by using their cell phone browsers. We were usually well ahead of the scoreboard operators.

Congratulations to LAnaheim and Atlanta, who clinched their divisions tonight.

Since I'm off to Fenway, I invite my readers to offer their insights on tonight's games. Please leave a comment here when you see something exciting or interesting. I hope someone posts on who's in the Cardinals lineup tonight.

This is not a good way to leave a team:

Burnett blasted the Marlins organization after a 5-3 loss in Atlanta on Sunday.

"I've got one more start here, and that's all that matters," Burnett said on Sunday, in an apparent reference to leaving the team as a free agent.

"It's depressing around here. There's nothing positive around here. There's nothing positive on the staff now.

"You give up one home run, and it's a funeral. ... A positive pat on the back is better than anything," he said. "I haven't seen a pat on the back since April."

He's been told to go home and won't be offered a new contract.

Ortiz and Ramirez drive in runs in the first inning to put the Red Sox up 2-0.

Gibbons appears to be using an Earl Weaver strategy today. He's starting his second string in game 1. Earl used to do this in double headers because most teams started their backups in the second game. Earl figured if he got lucky and won the first game, their was a good chance he'd sweep with the first string going against the scrubs in game 2. Otherwise, he was likely to get at least a split.

With the Red Sox playing their first stringers in both games, maybe Gibbons figures his first stringers can beat a tired Red Sox team tonight.

The Red Sox play a double header today, and game 2 looks like the best matchup as Chacin faces Schilling. A great game by Chacin will get him Jackie Robinson award attention. A great game by Shilling sets up a cool Sunday matchup vs. Mussina.

Mike makes his second start since his time off. He was very sharp in his last outing, walking none and using only 76 pitches in six innings. He'll face Bruce Chen who kept the Yankees off balance with his slow stuff in his last start.

The Braves and the Angels both clinch with wins tonight, although a Phillies loss also gives the Braves the division title.

The Astros visit St. Louis. La Russa is starting Matt Morris against Roy Oswalt. We'll see if he starts his playoff lineup or a bunch of scrubs and Albert Pujols. One could argue that it's in the best interest of St. Louis to lose these two games against Houston, as that would help them get the Western winner as their first round opponent.

Enjoy!

The Red Sox plan to go all out today.

With two of their remaining seven games to be played today, the Red Sox will treat this twin bill against Toronto with increased urgency. Starters will be asked to play both games, and bench players will remain there until called upon rather than see starting roles in one of the games. ``We try and take whatever happens and make it to your advantage,'' manager Terry Francona said after last night's rainout. ``It is hard to win doubleheaders. We may be more apt to play guys 18 innings than we would in June because of the urgency of our games.''

I'll be attending game 2 this evening with my good friend Jim Storer. I'm excited to see Gustavo Chacin in person, and I believe he deserves Rookie of the Year honors in the AL.

It appears Barry Bonds' knee isn't holding up all that well.

With two outs in the second inning and nobody on for the Padres, Bonds did something that probably impressed his teammates even more than the four homers he has hit since his return. He ran full speed into the left-center gap and caught an Xavier Nady drive. Bonds seemed to aggravate his knee injury on the play, limping badly as he tried to stop himself. He couldn't, until he got to center field.

Bonds labored to jog in from the outfield. His reward was a sea of high-fives as soon as he reached the dugout steps.

Bonds was playing his fourth straight game. Earlier, he said the knee felt a little better, but Alou said he would not have played Bonds "under normal circumstances." Even Sunday, Alou said, "he didn't look like he was standing on both legs like he did in the beginning, maybe because he played the night before."

If the knee is going to be ruined again, the Giants better win the division to make it worthwhile.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

The Phillies had the late lead and blew it. Instead of moving to within 1/2 a game of Houston, they are now down two in the loss column. Luckily for them, the game went so late there weren't many fans there to boo them. The Phillies need lots of help from the Cardinals and Cubs now.

K-Rod strikes out two as he gets the Athletics in order in the ninth. Oakland is now five games back with six games to go. Their comeback balls short, both in the game and in the season. Although likely to have the lowest winning percentage of the AL teams that make the playoffs, it looks like the Angels will be the first to clinch. The rest of the week will be devoted to the four teams competing for three spots.

Randy Winn is a one man offense against the Padres tonight. He's reached base all five times with four hits and a walk, and just tripled in the tying run in the top of the 9th. He then scores on a Snow single and now Bonds is up with men on 1st and 2nd and 2 out.

Update: Bonds grounds out to end the inning. He's gone 0 for 5 in the game. Trevor Hoffman gets the blown save, only his third of the season. The Padres are coming up in the 9th.

Update: I just saw a replay of the triple. Giles went back to deep center leaped and got the ball in his glove. He then hit the wall and the ball fell out. A great effort by Giles, but all for naught.

Update: Omar Vizquel makes two nice plays in the ninth as Benitez earns the save. The Giants pull within three of San Diego, but they still can't afford to lose. A great game by Randy Winn. The Padres blow a good outing by Jake Peavy.

The Mets get to Urgeth Urbina in the 8th. He doesn't get an out as he allows two hits, a walk and an error. The Phillies wish more rain had come early as the game is now tied at five with the Mets still threatening.

Update: The Mets take the lead on a Jacobs sacrifice fly. It's 6-5 in the 8th.

Eric Chavez hits a solo home run in the 8th inning to bring the Athletics within one of the Angels. If they're going to win, they'll need to beat K-Rod in the 9th.

The Yankees are up 11-0 after scoring five runs in the top of the 6th. I'm thinking Torre should take Johnson out now, giving him plenty of rest for his start against Boston.

Update: Johnson goes six shutout innings as the Yankees win 11-3. Alan Embree gives up the three runs in the 9th. Given his poor performance all year and with the Yankees, it's unlikely Embree will be on the post-season roster.

They Yankees move into a tie with Cleveland and 1/2 game ahead of the Red Sox. They're also just two games behind Chicago for best record in the AL.

The Colorado Rockies come back to defeat the Atlanta Braves 6-5. Todd Greene launched home run number seven, a three run shot in the 8th to give the Rockies the victory. If the Phillies hold on to their lead, they'll still have a chance to win the division outright.

Steve Finley, having his poorest power season since 1993, hits a two run homer off Blanton to extend the Angels lead to 4-0 in the fourth inning. Finley has only nine hits in 45 at bats against the A's this year, but four of them are home runs. That means 1/3 of Finely's home runs came against Oakland this season.

It started pouring again in the bottom of the fourth in Philadelphia. The Phillies are leading 3-1, and started swinging at anything close. They need to hold the lead for the next 1/2 inning to make the game official.

Update: The Phillies retire the Mets in the fifth to make this an official game. The rain let up, so now Philadelphia needs to hold onto the lead.

Bobby Crobsy, one of the architects of the A's comeback from 15 games under .500, may be part of their demise tonight. He allows Guerrero to reach leading off the second on an error, and it leads to two runs. The A's are down 2-0 in a game they can't afford to lose.

Ryan Klesko, mired in a terrible second half slump, hits his 4th home run since the All-Star break in the first inning to give the Padres a 2-0 lead over the Giants. Klesko had 14 long balls in the first half of the season.

The Yankees load the bases with one out. Crosby pops out, and Lopez gets ahead of Jeter 1-2. He loses Derek, however, on an inside pitch called for a ball and Jeter walks to give the Yankees a 1-0 lead in the fourth.

Lopez loaded the bases when he payed too much attention to Cano. Robinson's single put men on 1st and 3rd, and Lopez threw so many times to the base that he lost his concentration and walked the light hitting Flaherty.

Alex Rodriguez doubles down the third base line to drive in two more and give the Yankees a 3-0 lead.

Update: Giambi homers to right-center to clear the base and make the score 6-0 in favor of New York. The last three batters went up the ladder, driving in 1, 2 and 3 runs.

For the second day in a row, Jimmy Rollins extends his hitting streak with a leadoff home run. Utley doubles and Burrell singles him in as the Phillies jump on Seo for a 2-0 lead after one.

The Mets are Phillies are underway. The game is scoreless in the bottom of the first.

Curtis Granderson hits an opposite field home run leading off the ninth to send the White Sox to defeat. That puts Cleveland two games behind the White Sox with six games to play. The AL Central is still in play. Maybe the Indians should send Curtis a thank-you note. :-)

Don Adams, the star of Get Smart, passed away today. The show made me laugh as a child, and ten years after it was cancelled my college roommates and I still enjoyed watching it in reruns. Like Bugs Bunny cartoons, you got the jokes at a totally different level as you grew up. My thought go out to his friends and family.

In an odd coincidence, Adams death is bringing new readers to this site. Last week, and the Royals kept beating the Tigers to stay at 99 wins, I made a series of references to Don Adams' Get Smart co-star, Barbara Feldon. Feldon played Agent 99 on the show. Amazingly, a Google search for Barbara Feldon brings up Baseball Musings high on the list. So thanks, Don, for inspiring the posts. You made me laugh, and I consider that a great gift.

The Yankees and Orioles game started with Johnson and Lopez on the mound. Looks like this kills the chance of a Johnson-Schilling matchup on Saturday. No score in tonight game so far.

The White Sox and the Tigers are close in the 6th inning with the score tied at 3. All the runs tonight have scored via the long ball, with Konerko and Crede going deep for the Sox, and Inge blasting a pair for the Tigers. With a win tonight, the White Sox would extend their lead to three games over Cleveland.

Crede is having a great month for Chicago. After hitting .103 in August, he's come back with a vengence, hitting .420 after his 1 for 2 tonight with six home runs.

The Yankees, Red Sox and Phillies are all being delayed by rain. There's a lot of rain out there, so we could be seeing some double headers tomorrow.

Update: The Red Sox game is postponed. Schilling will pitch tomorrow night and Sunday. Wakefield will pitch the day game tomorrow and Saturday.

The union has countered Bud Selig's proposal for a 50 day first offense suspension with an offer of 20 days. Upcoming Congressional hearings probably moved the player's union along.

I actually like Tom Glavine's idea. Ten days for a first suspension so that if there's a mistake you don't ruin a player's career, but 100 days for the 2nd and then banishment for the third.

Two do or die games on the west coast pit the north against the south. Both bay area teams are four games back with seven to play, trailing a southern California team. One loss makes their situation precarious; two losses and they're done.

The Padres host the Giants with ace Jake Peavy hurling against Brad Hennessey. Peavy's handled the Giants well this year, posting a 2.08 ERA while striking out 18 in 13 innings pitched. Hennessey made just one start against the Padres and was knocked out in the third inning.

Peavy's pitched Bonds very carefully in his career. Barry has three home runs in 16 at bats vs. Jake, but Peavey's walked Bonds 11 times. PETCO has contain Barry's power, however. He's hit just 1 home run in 30 at bats in the new San Diego stadium.

Up north, the Oakland Athletics host the LAnaheim Angels. John Lackey takes the hill against Joe Blanton. The ERAs for the two pitchers are almost identical, Lackey's being .05 runs better than Blantons. The Angels scored 109 runs vs. the 83 Lackey's allowed, while Oakland's just scored 82 against the 85 Blanton's allowed. Scutaro is the only player on the Oakland roster to homer against Lackey.

The Angels outscored Oakland 53 to 40 this season, but have a 7-8 record against the Athletics. The A's have tended to win the close ones vs the Angels this year.

Also note that Randy Johnson goes for the Yankees tonight while Curt Schilling hurls for the Red Sox. There was hope these two would open the season against each other, but a showdown between the former teammates in the scheduled penultimate game of the regular season works even better.

Enjoy!

You can buy tickets for these and other big games at the Baseball Musings Ticket Store.

Racist hate-mailers need to be more specific:

The letter was mailed to Jeter at Yankee Stadium and called him a "traitor to his race," according to a story in Monday's editions of the Daily News. It warned him to "stop or he'll be shot or set on fire," said a law enforcement source who the newspaper did not identify. It was not clear whether the source was speaking on condition of anonymity.

Which race would that be? Has this idiot ever watched a Yankees game and seen Derek's mom and dad in the stands? Derek is living proof that race is meaningless.

As for being set on fire, Derek has 193 hits and 73 walks while scoring 116 runs from the top of the order. I'd say he's been on fire all year.

I hope publishing this letter and the others sent by this wacko help the police track him down before he hurts someone.

The Yankees and the Athletics both began the season playing so poorly it seemed very unlikely that either would make the playoffs. New York hit its low point after 30 games. With an 11-19 record the probability of them being better than a .550 team was very low. The 95% confidence interval for a .550 team after 30 games is 11 to 22 wins. Eighty-nine wins appeared to be the upper limit for Yankees success in 2005.

Oakland bottomed out later, posting a 17-32 record in their first 49 games. The highest winning percentage with 17 in its 95% confidence interval is .495, putting an 80 win cap on the Athletics season.

Both teams beat the odds. New York stands today at .587. The odds of a .587 team going 11-19 is .0123. The A's are 15 games over .500, a 30-game swing from their low point, good for a .548 winning percentage. The chance of a .548 team going 17-32 is .0036.

They beat the odds by remaking their rosters and having a slugger return to form. The Yankees brought in Cano, Wang, Small and Chacon. Jason Giambi's bat came back to life. The team that's gone 80-45 is very different than the one that started 11-19.

The big roster change in Oakland was getting Crosby off the DL. They moved Dan Johnson to the majors, moved Street to the closer role and brought in Kennedy and Witasick from Colorado. And Eric Chavez started to hit again.

No matter how the season turns out for these two franchises, they staged two of the great comebacks in baseball history. It was easy to write them off after their losing starts. The odds told us comebacks like this were unlikely. This year, the odds didn't tell the story.

Update: As a commenter pointed out, I did the calculation slightly wrong. The chance of a .587 team winning at most 11 games is .0123, and the chance of a .548 team winning at most 17 games is .0036.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

Oakland loads the bases with two out in the ninth inning, but once again fail to score. The A's were just 2 for 11 with runners in scoring position, one of hits being Kendall's second infield hit of the game in the ninth. The had opportunities to win this game, they just couldn't deliver. Now they need to sweep the Angels just to stay alive.

With the Athletics down 5-2 in the eighth, Kendall leads off with an infield single. Kotsay then singles to right and Kendall tries to go to third. I think everyone was surprised. The throw was good, but Kendall just beat it. It was a very high risk play down three runs. Chavez swings at the first pitch and fouls out to the third baseman. The A's still have men on 1st and 3rd, but now there's one out. The Rangers go to the bullpen.

Update: Benoit strikes out Crosby then gets Hatteberg to pop out to foul territory. A poor performance by the heart of the Oakland order.

It looks like Michael Young will win the American League batting title. He's one for two so far this evening to keep his average at .332. Michael's now gone 34 for 90 in September, a .378 average. He still leads Guerrero by 13 points.

The A's are losing 5-2 in the 8th. They're blowing a golden opportunity to gain on the Angels. Dominguez is pitching an excellent game, throwing 66 of 89 pitches for strikes.

Javier Vazquez is ending the season on a high note. He went seven innings, allowing three runs against the Padres to make his September ERA 2.93. He's really shown great control this month, striking out 29 and walking just five.

The Padres lose the game 4-3 in the tenth inning. With the Giants win, San Diego's magic number remains at four. They'll open a four games series in San Diego tomorrow, and the Giants will need to sweep to stay in the race. Two wins by the Padres and it's over. Even one will make it very tough for the Giants to win the division.

MLB.com details what happens in various tie situations. The Yankees, Red Sox and Indians finishing in a three way tie seems possible. For this to have a chance, however, the Yankees and Red Sox need to be separated by an odd number of games entering their weekend series. Beings selfish, I want as much baseball as possible, so I'd love to see the two day playoff between the three teams.

The Anaheim Angels gave the Oakland Athletics an opening, losing 8-4 to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Jonny Gomes goes three for five, missing the cycle by a double. Colon can blame his back for his poor start. He allowed six earned runs in five innings.

With a win tonight, the A's would move three games out of the division title. That means they won't need to sweep the Angels to take the division, just win three out of four and hope for help on the last weekend. Given that the A's host Seattle and the Angels visit Texas, the A's could get the help they need. The Angels magic number is five, so a split with Oakland will earn them at least a tie.

I'll be on the Lehigh Valley Yankee Fan Club Radio Show in about an hour. You can tune in now to Yankees talk.

Mark Buehrle helped his Cy Young chances today with a complete game four-hitter against the Twins. The White Sox take the game to move two games ahead of the Indians. Buehrle lowers his ERA to 3.19 and moves his winning percentage to .667. He's also benefiting from a poor performance by Bartolo Colon. Bartolo only lasted 5 innings, giving up six runs. If Buehrle pitches and wins the division clincher against Cleveland on Friday, he'll look very good for the award. Meanwhile, Colon misses the A's unless he goes on short rest.

The Astros lose 3-2 to the Cubs, reducing their lead over the Phillies to one game. The Astros have the day off tomorrow, the Phillies on Thursday. It looks like the Phillies have the easier week, playing the Mets and Nationals while the Astros have the Cardinals and Cubs.

I'm very interested to see how La Russa plays the two games vs. the Astros. Letting the Astros win favors the Cardinals, as it would help get them the Padres in the first round. I have to believe the Cardinals would rather play the .500 team in the first round.

Orlando Palmeiro bats for Andy Pettitte in the 7th and breaks Jerome Williams shutout with a triple. He then scores on a Taveras sacrifice fly to give the Astros the lead and Pettitte a chance for a victory. Williams flirted with disaster all day, walking six, but giving up just four hits through seven. The Astros should have scored a lot more by now.

Update: Burnitz homers off the lefty Gallo to hit an opposite field home run to return the lead to the Cubs, 3-2. It's the 9th home run Burnitz hit off a lefty this year. His slugging percentage is fairly even vs. lefties and righties this season.

Correction: It was Gallo, not Qualls who allowed the home run.

With a man on second and one out in the bottom of the ninth, Paul Phillips hits a fly ball to center field. Grady Sizemore goes back, but loses the ball in the sun. He's in the right spot, but the ball hits him and falls in for the game winning hit. The loss puts Cleveland just 1/2 game ahead of the Yankees and Red Sox.

The White Sox game was delayed by rain. The White Sox lead the Twins 1-0 in the third. With the Indians off tomorrow, wins by the Yankees and Red Sox create a three-way tie for the wild card and the East.

The Phillies hold their own in the wild card race, defeating the Reds 6-3. The keystone combination of Rollins and Utley delivered home runs, and Rollins just missed the cycle by a double. The duo scored three and drove in two.

The Indians are down 4-3 in the top of the ninth. Belliard and Broussard start the inning off with infield hits to put men on first and second. The third B, Aaron Boone gets the first chance to be the hero.

Update: Boone bunts to put two men in scoring position. The fourth B, Casey Blake gets a shot now.

Update: The fourth ball on the infield ties the game. Blake chops the ball at the plate. Belliard was running on contact and easily scores on the slow roller as Blake is out at first. Sizemore has the go-ahead run at third with two out.

Update: Sizemore is hit by the pitch. If it hadn't hit Grady, it probably would have been a wild pitch and given the Indians the lead. Now Crisp gets to hit.

Update: Crisp Ks to end the inning. The Royals will get a chance to end their home season on a winning note.

With a 4-3 lead in the top of the eighth, the Yankees brought in Mariano Rivera to get the last out of the inning. The Yankees scored four in the bottom of the eighth, and Mariano is on to finish the game. Should he be kept in? The Yankees may need to use Mariano a lot over the next week. With the game not on the line, shouldn't they save Rivera for a more pressing opportunity?

Update: Rivera pitches a long ninth inning to get the save. He threw 35 pitches total. With luck, the Yankees won't need him tomorrow.

Bernie Williams got a great send off from the Yankee Stadium crowd. This could be Bernie's last game in Yankee Stadium, so the crowd was showing their appreciation all through the game with standing ovations, curtain calls and chants of "Bernie Williams" all through the top of the ninth.

Emil Brown of the Kansas City Royals takes Jake Westbrook deep to tie the Indians at three in the sixth. After giving up three unearned runs in the first inning, Greinke's pitching a fine game, striking out five through six innings. Westbrook has seven K, and no walks. Both are throwing a very high percentage of strikes.

Victor Martinez adds another home run to the Cleveland attack, a three-run shot in the first to give the Indians a 3-0 lead. That's twelve straight games with a home run for the Indians.

Chien-Ming Wang faced the minimum 12 batters through four innings. One batter, Cattalanotto reached on a error in the first but was thrown out trying to advance on the bad throw by Giambi. Is this a perfect game? It's not like he really reached base. It's more like a dropped foul ball. There's an error but no harm.

Update: The questin is moot as Wang gives up four hits and three runs in the fifth. New York trails Toronto 3-1 in the bottom of the fifth.

John Maine walks batters and allows home runs. With two outs in the first, he walks Ortiz and then gives up a home run to Manny Ramirez. Manny hit the shot over the wall in straight center field. The homer ties Manny with Cal Ripken on the all-time home run list. The Red Sox lead 2-1 in the first.

Update: The Orioles are falling apart here. John Olerud hit a single by Tejada, as Miguel was cheating to his left and the ball went to his right. Tejada then was not ready for Varitek to try to score on the play, and took his time relaying the throw to the plate. By that time, it was too late, and the first baseman cut off the throw and tried to get Olerud at second. The throw was there, but the tag was slow and Olerud was safe. John then scores on a hit to make it 5-0.

The Orioles look like they don't want to play anymore. I can't say I blame them when the opposition is getting bigger cheers at Camden than the Orioles. Tejada still is prone to mental errors, baserunning and fielding.

Jimmy Rollins extends his hit streak to 30 games, the longest of the season, and gives the Phillies a 1-0 lead with a leadoff home run. The Phillies send eight batters to the plate in the first and score two runs total.

A rare walk by Josh Towers hurts him in the first inning. After a single by Jeter, A-Rod drew a walk, moving the Yankees shortstop to second. Giambi sent Vernon Wells to the wall in left center, advancing Jeter to third, they Sheffield hit a ball to deep left (that Wells caught!) to drive in Derek with the first run of the game. I guess you can call that long-small ball.

The New York Yankees face the Toronto Blue Jays today and send rookie Chien-Ming Wang against Josh Towers. I'm still wondering what happened to Wang's strikeouts. His walks are great, his home runs allowed are good, but his strikeouts are way down from his minor league numbers, where he was in the high 6s low 7s per nine innings. His K per 9 is just 3.5 with the Yankees, and I don't see how he can be successful long term with those numbers. In his second season as a full time starter, Josh Towers greatly reduced his walks and his ERA. He's walked 28 this season after walking 26 last year in about 1/2 the innings. The Jays rotation is looking good for next season if Halladay returns healthy. Chacin and Towers give them a very good 1-2-3.

Meanwhile, the Red Sox send gimpy David Wells against John Maine and the Baltimore Orioles. Wells' right knee received a cortisone shot, so we'll see how effective he pitches today. We've seen a Wells injury cost his team a game in the past. Maine walks lots of batters and gives up home runs at an impressive rate. He's just the kind of pitcher the Boston offense should crush.

The Phillies lost a tough one last night, as they fell to the pitcher with the worst ERA in the National League. They'll try to keep up with the Astros this afternoon as they send Cory Lidle against Randy Keisler. Lidle's had a horrendous second half, allowing a .351 batting average and a 7.04 ERA. Kiesler's only given up 3 earned runs in two start since moving from the bullpen. However, his 8 walks and two home runs have resulted in five unearned runs.

Houston will try to reduce their magic number to five with a win over the Cubs. Andy Pettitte is their late season ace and he'll take the mound against Jerome Williams. Pettitte is 11-2 with a 1.73 ERA since the All-Star break, the best ERA in the NL.

The AL Central remains close. The Indians face Zack Greinke today. After three horrible months, the youngster appears to have found himself in September. He's struck out 12 in the month while walking just four enroute to a 2.96 ERA. The Indians saved their power for the end of the year. They've hit 23% of their home runs this month and have only missed homering in one game in September.

On the West Coast, the Angels play early and the Athletics late. Bartolo Colon goes for win 21, and that victory would mean that the Angels just need to split with the Athletics to win the West. Colon's back is bothering him, but if the Angels win today it becomes less likely they'll need to start him on short rest against the A's on Thursday.

The Athletics are the ESPN game of the week. Juan Dominguez of the Rangers opposes Kirk Saarloos. Dominguez is posting the kind of numbers as a starter that will fit in very well with the Rangers offense. I expect to see him in the rotation next season. The A's are 25-23 since Steven Levitt bet on them to win 89 games. They'll have to spilt their last 8 to achieve that number.

Enjoy!

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

With the Braves winning and Philadelphia losing tonight, the NL playoff picture is coming into focus. The Cardinals have home field clinched. The Braves are going to win the east and have the 2nd best record in the NL. Those teams will host the first round. The Astros now have a two-game lead on the Phillies and are in a good position going into the final week of the season.

The Astros and Cardinals play two games early next week. What will the Cardinals do? If they lose those two games, Houston is likely to be the Wild Card, and St. Louis would get to open against San Diego. If St. Louis wins those two games, Philadelphia has a chance to catch Houston, and then the Cardinals might face the Phillies in the first round.

I'd rather have my team facing the Padres than the Phillies. Will La Russa start his scrubs or do his best to win those games?

Travis Hafner goes 1 for 4 in the Indians 11-4 victory over the Royals, but fails to hit a home run for the first time in seven games. His teammates made up for that, however, hitting four long balls to account for six of the runs. The Indians have homered in eleven straight games now, winning 10 of them. Cleveland's homered in every game up one in the month of September. Their 46 lead the American league.

The Indians keep pace with the White Sox and stay ahead of the Yankees and Red Sox.

Mike Timlin gives up a run in the bottom of the ninth but earns the save and the Red Sox a share of the AL East lead. I'd actually like to see the teams go into their three game weekend series separated by one game. That way, we have the possibility of a tie and a playoff game.

The White Sox jump out to a big 7-1 lead on the Twins after three innings. In the third, Chicago belted five consecutive hits vs. Joe Mays, capped off with Jermaine Dye's 30th home run, a three run shot. Matt Guerrier relieved Mays at that point and gave up a homer to Joe Crede.

The White Sox appear to be getting their groove back against the Twins.

It's absolutely amazing how big the Red Sox crowd is at Camden Yards. I have the game on in the back ground while I work, and I know when the Red Sox are doing well because the crowd is cheering.

Edgar Renteria just dumped a hit into left field to score two, and as the runners were coming down the third base line, the fans in the front rows were jumping up and down cheering. It's impressive that Red Sox fans will travel so far to root for their team.

The Red Sox lead 4-2 in the top of the ninth.

The Athletics are in the situation of not being able to afford a loss going into their four-game series with the Angels. The Rangers were up 5-2 through five innings, but Oakland battled back to scored five of their own over the next three innings to take the contest 7-6. The A's put 19 men on base with Ellis, Chavez, Kendall and Payton each reaching three times.

Barry Zito gave up seven hits in six innings, including a homer and double to Mark Teixeira, who drove in four of the Rangers six runs. Zito's returned to his April problems. His September ERA is 6.21; in April it was 6.60. In between, he pitched like a Cy Young candidate. Depending on how things go, his next start in game four vs. the Angels could be his biggest of the year.

The Houston Astros eliminate the Chicago Cubs from the playoffs by an 8-3 score. The Astros bullpen pitched three perfect innings to prevent a comeback by the northsiders. Qualls, Gallo and Burns each faced three batters and struck out one.

Matt Clement is throwing a no hitter through four innings. He's also walked six, loading the bases twice in the game but getting out of the jam both times.. He's thrown 84 pitches through four innings, only 44 for strikes. If the Red Sox are going to get a no-hitter today, they're going to need help from the bullpen. The Red Sox lead 2-0 in the top of the fifth.

Morgan Ensberg hit a single, double and triple today as Houston is leading the Cubs 5-3 in the top of the seventh. They're in a rain delay, but if the game ever gets going again, Ensberg can go for the home run and the cycle. The Cubs hope the rain stops. A loss eliminates them from the playoff picture.

Update: They've resumed the game in Chicago.

Update: Ensberg strikes out in the 8th. However, the Astros are now up 8-3 in the top of the ninth. It looks like the end of the season for the Cubs.

The Toronto Blue Jays dealt the Yankees a blow today as they chased Jaret Wright from the mound before he could get an out in the second. They scored their seven runs all off Wright on six singles, a walk, and two errors.

Aaron Small came in to relieve and pitched 6 2/3 scoreless innings. The buzz on the radio before and after the game was why Torre moved Small from the rotation to the bullpen. It seems that Aaron's earned the spot in the starting five more than Wright.

It's the name game today. There's an all wood matchup in Kansas City tonight as AL ERA leader Kevin Millwood faces part time starter Mike Wood. Kevin's been sawing down batters lately, allowing just seven earned runs in his last five starts. Mike's taken Cleveland to the wood shed so far this season, allowing just one earned run in 10 2/3 innings against the Tribe. Travis Hafner's been applying the wood on offense with home runs in six straight games.

Over in Los Angeles, it's Opie night as Oliver Perez takes on Odalis Perez. On the road, Oliver is giving up a .321 opposition batting average. Opening jitters give Odalis problems this season as hitters are 39 for 125 against him during his first 30 pitches, a .312 batting average.

Enjoy!

Congratulations soon will be in order for the LAnaheim Angels. Last night they came back from a 5-3 deficit with 2 runs in each of the 7th and 8th innings to take a 7-5 win against the Devil Rays. Meanwhile in Oakland, Kenny Rogers shut down the Athletics, allowing one run over 6 1/3 innings to give Texas a 3-1 victory and push the Athletics four games back in the standings. The Angels magic number is down to six, and even with four games head-to-head, it seems unlikely the Athletics will make the playoff this season.

The A's lost this race early. After a 6-2 loss to Cleveland on 5/29, Oakland was 17-32. The Oakland management showed once again how to adjust mid-season; their 67-37 record since is most impressive. From the 2000 season on, Oakland has won more games than any other team from July 1st on. They are 311-178 in that time, a .636 winning percentage. Next closest are the Yankees and Cardinals, each at 304-188, .618.

But games in April matter, and games in May matter. Just two or three more wins early and they're neck and neck with LAnaheim and still in the Wild Card hunt. Now they need to win every game, including sweeping a four game set against the Angels that starts on Monday. That's a tough challenge for a team that hasn't played well lately. It looks like the climb out of the hole didn't leave them enough energy to scale the mountain.

In the NL West, the Padres downed the Diamondbacks 5-3 behind a strong outing by Pedro Astacio. That puts Arizona on the brink of elimination and lowers the Padres magic number to five. Just a split of their four game series with Giants should seal the division for San Diego. Even just one win against San Francisco puts them in a good position to take the division. The big question for me is can they break the 1973 Mets mark for worst record winning a division*? The Mets that year were 82-79, a .509 winning percentage.

*I'm not counting 1994. The season ended that year with the Ranges leading the AL West with a sub .500 record. For some reason, division titles weren't awarded that year. I think it was a plot by the Braves to keep their consecutive division record intact.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

Those Phillies! Utley hits a three run shot (his 2nd home run of the game) in the top of the ninth to bring the Phillies within a run of the Reds. Abreu strikes out and gets thrown out for arguing, as does Manuel. Burrell strikes out. ROY Ryan Howard walks, then David Bell hits a two run shot to put the Phils on top 11-10. All off David Weathers.

Billy Wagner strikes out two as he gets the Reds in order in the bottom of the inning to secure the victory and move the Phillies a half game closer to the Astros.

Jose Contreras lowers the White Sox magic number by one as he makes Jermaine Dye's first inning homer hold up as the White Sox win 3-1. Since August 1st he's 8-1 with a 2.03 ERA. That gives him 1/3 of the White Sox victories in that time.

It's the first complete game of Jose's career. He struck out nine while allowing just six hits and one walk. He's clearly been the White Sox ace down the stretch, and is finally fulfilling the expectations that accompanied his arrival in the US.

Brian McCann caps a four-run inning to give the Braves a 4-3 lead over the Marlins. Josh Beckett pitched seven shutout innings, but with 112 pitches thrown, Alfonseca came out for the 8th. When he gave up hits to the first two batters, Todd Jones came in to try to stop the Braves before the game got out of hand. Instead, seven Braves batted against the closer as he blew the save and possibly the game. Farnsworth is in to try his hand at saving the game.

Update: Farnsworth gets the Marlins in order. That, for all intents and purposes finishes the Fish's season.

Jason LaRue and Ray Olemdo add home runs for the Reds to give them a 10-6 lead over the Phillies. Philadelphia blows a 6-1 lead and an opportunity to gain the wild card race is slipping through their fingers.

Travis Hafner continues his home run barrage. His two run shot in the third gives him home runs in six straight games, two short of the record. With a .310 BA, .416 OBA and a .608 slugging percentage, Hafner is a legitimate MVP candidate. We'll see if the late surge helps him in the voting the way it helped Guerrero last year.

Meanwhile, Jose Lima lasted 2 2/3 innings, giving him 162 for the year and qualifying him for the ERA title. The five earned runs allowed bring his ERA to the ironically lucky 7.11. That may be Jose's next job opportunity.

The Orioles were up 3-1 on the Red Sox in the 5th inning. With two out and two on, Manny Ramirez grounded to short. This time Manny was running. Tejada set himself, but threw too hard and the ball sailed over first base, allowing a run to score. Nixon followed with a hit to drive in two and give Boston a 4-3 lead over the Orioles.

Ryan Howard hits his 9th home run of the month, a two run shot to help extend the Phillies lead to 6-1. Ryan's great stretch run will resonate with voters for the Jackie Robinson Award.

Update: Cincinnati fights back with 4 in the 5th and 1 in the 6th to tie the Phillies at 6. Both teams are in the bullpen at this point.

Jermaine Dye is trying his best to get the White Sox in the playoffs. His three-run homer in the first put Chicago up 3-0. One more and he'll reach 30 for the 2nd time in his career.

The Phillies get doubles from Lofton, Utley and Burrell to jump out to a 3-0 against the Reds. Philadelphia is in position to pull to a game behind the Astros with a victory tonight.

Derek Jeter and Robinson Cano each homer to the opposite field off Ted Lilly to start the bottom of the first. Home runs were always Ted's biggest problem when he was with the Yankees. New York is off to a 2-0 lead.

Ryan Dempster pitches the ninth for the save, keeping the Cubs hopes alive for another day. It also gives the Phillies and Marlins a golden opportunity to gain ground.

The Astros put the first two runners on in the 8th. A double, wild pitch and walk gave them men on 1st and 3rd with no one out. Garner then had Adam Everett sacrifice. Not squeeze, sacrifice the runner on first to second.

I don't understand this at all. Why not take two shots at trying to score the runner from third with a hit or sac fly? Bagwell is up as a pinch hitter, but with first base open you can pitch very carefully to him.

Update: Bagwell gets hit by a pitch to load the bases. Now a ground ball ends the inning. With 1st and 3rd, no outs, a GDP ties the game.

Update: Vizcaino grounds to Lee who throws home to get the lead runner.

Update: Novoa strikes out Taveras to end the inning. I thought Garner managed that inning poorly. You want Bagwell up with a man on first so the opposition is forced to pitch to him.

Rafael Palmeiro will not dress for the rest of the season.

"He won't be dressing for the rest of the year," Orioles executive vice president Jim Beattie said. "We felt it wouldn't be appropriate for the organization."

The abrupt end to Palmeiro's season came one day after it was learned that he cited a vitamin he received from teammate Miguel Tejada as possibly causing the positive steroid test. The Orioles said Major League Baseball absolved Tejada of any wrongdoing.

At this point, I find it unlikely that Palmeiro will play major league baseball again. His skill have diminished to the point where his OPS was under .800 two years in a row. Given that he's shown to be untrustworthy, I don't see another team taking a chance on him next year.

Derrek Lee is in the process of extending his lead in the NL batting race. He entered the day just two points ahead of Albert Pujols, leading the St. Louis slugger .337 to .335. Lee knocked out three hits so far this afternoon, including two doubles. His three for three raised his average to .341 and his two runs scored helped the Cubs to a 5-4 lead in a must win game for them.

The Cubs are not officially eliminated from the wild card race. If they win all their games, and Houston loses all their games, and the Phillies and Marlins lose most of their games, and ...

THE CUBS CAN STILL TIE FOR THE WILD CARD!

Actually, as far as Houston is concerned, the Cubs so have a great deal of control over their destiny. Starting today, the teams meet seven times over the last nine games. It's fifth starter day this afternoon as Glendon Rusch hosts Wandy Rodriguez. Could you imagine what Chicago would be like if the Cubs staged a comeback while the White Sox were falling out of the race?

Another must sweep series starting today pits the Marlins against the Braves in Atlanta. Florida's playoff hopes are almost gone, four games back in the Wild Card and six back in the division. But they get to play six games vs. the Braves, giving themselves some control over that race. Josh Beckett takes the hill for the Marlins. Beckett is pitching well in September. He's not going deep in games, but he's 3-0 with a 2.88 ERA. He's striking batters out with 27 in 25 innings. He'll face John Smoltz. Smoltz is pitching on two extra days rest due to a bad shoulder. Smoltz's return to the rotation has been a rousing success. His numbers and durability are great this season. He's 9th in the league in ERA and fifth in inning pitched.

Enjoy!

Another leak (was it the same person that named Winstrol as the abused substance?) says that Palmeiro claimed he received the steroid in a B-12 shot from Miguel Tejada.

Palmeiro testified that he received B-12 from Tejada, a person familiar with the grievance hearing said Thursday on condition of anonymity because the proceedings were secret.

"Right now I'm in shock," Tejada, a former American League MVP, said after Baltimore lost to the Yankees on Thursday night. "I've never given anybody steroids before. I've been checked out three times already, and I'm clean. I've been clean all my life."

Tejada said he gave Palmeiro the B-12 "a long time ago."

"It doesn't bother me because I'm not guilty. I've done nothing wrong. I just gave him B-12, and B-12 is legal," Tejada said. "You don't get caught for B-12."

Palmeiro's lawyer denied that the Baltimore first baseman named anyone:

Palmeiro's lawyers, Mayer, Brown, Rowe and Maw LLP, issued a statement Thursday night saying they "are disturbed about the misleading reports being leaked by unnamed sources who claim knowledge of the investigation."

"Rafael Palmeiro has never implicated any player in the intentional use or distribution of steroids, or any other illegal substance, in any interview or testimony," the statement said.

The Arizona Diamondbacks picked up a game on the San Diego Padres yesterday when Alex Cintron hit a low pitch out of the BOB for a 7-4 DBacks victory. It was the last home run at the BOB, which will be renamed by Chase today at 2 PM.

The first series under the new name promises some excitement. The Diamondbacks magic number for elimination is four, but they get the chance to hold that level for three days as they go head-to-head with the Padres. The two teams are evenly matched, splitting eight games with each other so far this season. Hits are close (AZ 155-153), walks are even (56 each) and home runs are close (SD 22-21). The Diamondbacks, however, can't play this series close. They need to sweep, and the best way to do that is to win big.

For the second year in a row, the Angels are putting together a winning finish to the season. They've won six in a row, outscoring their opponents 30-20 over that stretch. Last night's three-run victory was the largest winning margin during the stretch. In 2004, the Angels won 7 of their last 9 to take the West from the Athletics, outscoring their opponents 52-30.

During that stretch last season, Vlad Guerrero put the team on his back, and with some help from Chone Figgins carried them to the title (and an MVP for Guerrero). Those same two players are leading the charge again, this time with some help from Adam Kennedy.

The Angels have a commanding three game lead on the Athletics and get to play a weekend series against the Devil Rays before facing Oakland for four starting Monday.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

The Indians defeat the Royals 11-6, earning their 90th win and handing Kansas City their 100th loss. Grady Sizemore did his job as a lead off man, going five for six with two doubles. They're now sandwiched between two Sox, 1 1/2 games behind the White ones, and 1 1/2 ahead of the Red ones.

The White Sox have to be happy with rookie Brandon McCarthy. Tonight he went toe-to-toe with Johan Santana and fought him to a draw. Both went 8 innings, allowing just one run on a solo homer. Each allowed four hits and walked one. McCarthy did Santana one better, however, as he struck out four to Johan's three.

The Twins got to Bobby Jenks in the 11th, scoring three runs on three hits and a walk. Joe Nathan is on to try for the save.

Update: Joe Nathan gives up a hit but gets the save. The White Sox are in danger of having their lead cut to 1 1/2.

Al Leiter, Tanyon Sturtze and Tom Gordon almost gave back a 7-1 Yankees lead. Mussina went six strong innings. Leiter went 1 strong inning, then allowed the first four batters to reach in the eighth, and Sturtze helped them score.

Gordon gave up a solo home run to Mora in the ninth to make it a one-run game.

The Yankees are now even in games with the Red Sox and lead by one. The two teams play every day down the stretch, finishing with three head-to-head in Boston.

Pedro didn't last, but Dontrelle did. The D-Train goes eight innings, striking out seven and Todd Jones comes on to get the save in a 1-0 lead.

It's an important win for the Marlins. They're six games back of the Braves with six games to go against Atlanta, staring tomorrow night.

Travis Hafner applies his power to Kansas City tonight. His three run homer in the third puts Cleveland up 4-1 over the Royals. He's now homered in five straight games, hitting six dingers and driving in 15.

Update: The Royals are showing no quit. They've come back with four runs in the fourth to tie the Indians at five. Mark Teahan hit a rare home run, a grand slam.

On a night he's not going to throw too many pitches, Mike Mussina is making the most of the ones he's throwing. Through four innings he's made just 48 tosses to the plate, and 38 were strikes. He's allowed no walks while striking out five and giving up an unearned run on a Jeter error.

Unfortunately for Mussina, Bruce Chen is pitching a one hitter and has yet to allow a run.

Update: Mussina continues to pitch very well. It's the sharpest I've seen him in a long time. He's getting all his pitches over for strikes and changing speeds well. Jorge Posada just gave him some support from the side of the plate with a solo home run in the bottom of the fifth. The game is tied at 1.

Update: Jorge Posada goes deep again. The Yankees had just taken a 2-1 lead when Posada put a ball into the upper deck in left to make the score 5-1.

With all the injuries to the Marlins infielders, Dontrelle Willis is batting seventh tonight. He actually does have a better batting average and OBA than the 8th and 9th hitters.

Dontrelle retired the first six batter and the Marlins scored in the top of the 3rd to give the lefty a 1-0 lead.

The Washington Nationals pitch the third shutout of the day as they defeat the Giants 2-0. The Giants lose a golden opportunity to gain on the Padres. Hector Carrasco burned himself out early striking out eight and walking four in 5 2/3 innings, but the bullpen was up to the task today, tossing 3 1/3 no-hit innings, retiring all ten batters faced on ten balls in play. The Nationals playoff hopes live another day.

Aaron Cook hung a loss on the Padres today to keep the hopes of the rest of the NL West alive. Cook allowed two runs in 8 innings plus; he came out for the ninth and gave two singles, and those runners eventually scored. Too little too late, however, as the Rockies took the game 4-2.

In 11 starts, Cook is now 6-1 with a 3.23 ERA for the Rockies. He lowered his 2005 Coors ERA to 3.76. Are the Rockies starting to find pitchers who can be successful in Denver?

Billy Wagner is pitching the ninth, his third appearance in a row. It's not even a save opportunity! Giles starts him off with a single to right.

Update: Chipper Jones grounds out to third. Bell bobbled the ball to lose the double play, but made a strong and accurate throw from his stomach.

Update: Andruw Jones strikes out. He's hitting less that .215 with runners in scoring position this year.

Update: Julio Franco strikes out to end the game. The Phillies keep pace with the Astros. The Braves lead over the Phillies is now four. The Marlins really need to win tonight. A win puts them six behind the Braves with six games against the Braves remaining.

Michael Tucker gets a single through the shortstop hole to drive in Bobby Abreu with the first run of the game. Tucker was just 3 for 14 with the Phillies this season, but that may prove to be a key hit in Philadephia's wild card drive.

Update: Shane Victorino follows with a pinch-hit home run, the first homer of his major leauge career. That makes the score 4-0 and chases Tim Hudson from the game.

Brandon Backe pitches seven innings, allowing one run to earn the victory over the Pirates this afternoon 2-1. His control was great as he struck out six and walked none. He's 4-2 since the start of August with a 3.11 ERA.

The Astros put pressure on the Phillies, who are batting in the top of the ninth in a scoreless game.

Griffey will go under the knife again.

He will have arthroscopic surgery to clean out his left knee and treat scar tissue around his hamstring. The hamstring injury threatened his career last season.

Griffey missed his 15th straight game Wednesday night because of a sprained right foot. He is batting .301 with 35 home runs and 92 RBI in 128 games. Griffey is tied with Mickey Mantle for 12th on the career home run list with 536.

It's not clear from this article, but it doesn't seem like the surgery is related to the foot injury. He'd probably need this even if he were still playing. The sooner they clean out his knee, the sooner he'll recover.

Jimmy Rollins extended his hitting streak to 27 games this afternoon. He singled leading off the game and doubled in the 6th, where he's now sitting at third with two outs. He's been a doubling machine during the streak. He now has 15 in the streak, along with 3 triples and a homer for a slugging percentage well over .550.

Rollins is left stranded. The Phillies and Braves are tied at 0 in the bottom of the 6th.

Lance Berkman gives the Astros a 1-0 lead with a first inning single. The relationship between Berkman's monthly batting stats and the Astros monthly won-lost numbers is very impressive.

Update: Another single, another RBI for Berkman. Houston leads 2-0.

I like this idea:

Earlier this month, the Baltimore Sun reported that the House committee is uncertain whether there is enough evidence to refer the case to the Justice Department. However, the committee is considering several other options.

One scenario, officials familiar with the situation told the Sun, has the committee making the documents pertaining to Palmeiro's case public. The committee received the documents related to the first baseman's positive steroid test from Major League Baseball on Aug. 12. A document release could happen in the next two weeks and would allow the public to decide for itself about Palmeiro.

The documents include the results of Palmeiro's tests, the tests' dates and the record of secret proceedings before a three-member arbitration panel after Palmeiro appealed the results. The appeal was denied, and the documents would show how Palmeiro defended himself while not offering an explanation as to how the steroid entered his system.

When someone test positive, I'm all for letting the public know what drugs the test found and the level that caused the positive. In the case of Mike Morse, this information helped to confirm his story. Instead of wondering if a player is fibbing when he says he accidentally ingested a contaminated supplement, we'll have evidence to evaluate his claim. Maybe this can be addressed in the next CBA.

It's going to be a Wild afternoon in the National League. A 1 PM EDT lunch at your local Sports Bar will let you watch the Astros play the Pirates and the Phillies challenge the Braves.

Zach Duke takes the mound for Pittsburgh in an effort to gain a split with Houston. Duke took his first loss in his first start since coming off the DL. He pitched poorly in his only start against Houston on August 12th, the first loss the Pirates suffered in one of his starts. Brandon Backe is finishing up his first full season as a starter, and what happened to his strikeouts? He struck out 7.3 per 9 in 2004, 5.8 per 9 this season.

In Atlanta, a good matchup as Jon Leiber faces Tim Hudson. Leiber is on a roll, posting a 1.89 ERA over his last five starts, beating the Marlins twice. At this point in the season, Hudson has pitched 11 fewer innings than last year but has given up 11 more home runs and 15 more walks.

The first place Yankees even the number of games played with the Red Sox today as New York finishes it's series with Baltimore and Boston has the day off. Mike Mussina returns to the rotation against Bruce Chen. Mussina is making his first start since being shutdown after a 6.68 ERA in August. Mussina posted a 3.43 ERA in July. He gave up the same number of hits, walks and homers in August as in July, but in seven fewer innings.

The pitching matchup of the day takes place across town, however, as Dontrelle Willis faces Pedro Martinez. Both teams are pretty much out of the races. The Mets with a win can move back to .500; the Marlins with a win keep their playoff hopes alive another day. Willis batted eighth in his last start; with more injuries, McKeon may have him seventh today. Pedro on the surface had the better season. The two are even in walks allowed, and Pedro gets lots more strike outs (207 to 148) and therefore allows many fewer hits (153-190). But Dontrelle keeps the ball in the park. The opposition hit just 9 home runs off Willis, compared to 19 off Martinez.

Enjoy!

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Brandon Webb tied a career high last night, striking out eleven Dodgers, leading Arizona to a 3-2 victory over Los Angeles and putting the Diamondbacks firmly in third place in the NL West.

At this pace, the Diamondbacks will win about 74 games this season, the Dodgers 72. That would be a 23-game improvement by Arizona and a 21-game slide by the Dodgers. A nice job by Joe Garagiola in his last year in the front office. It's not a winning season, but he's going out on a good note.

But what happened to the Dodgers? Given Adrian Beltre's poor play in Seattle and Jeff Kent's fine play in Los Angeles, the two big off-season moves were winners. My question is, where are the "real studs" that were supposedly packed in the LA farm system? Injury arguments don't work this season. Atlanta had injuries and they dipped into their farm system and won in a division where nearly everyone is over .500. The Cardinals lost Rolen for most of the season and Walker missed a third of the season and they found players to fill in.

This is supposed to be a Moneyball GM's strength, finding hidden talent. The Dodgers have the third lowest winning percentage in the league, trailing everyone in the NL Central except Pittsburgh. It appears the talent remains hidden from the Dodgers. How much blame for the season do Dodgers fans place on DePodesta? Tracy? Injuries?

The Angels extended their Western Division lead to 2 1/2 games last night as they rallied to defeat the Texas Rangers 6-5. Down 5-2, LAnaheim scored four in the seventh off a series or Ranger relievers to take the lead and the game. With a man on first and two out, the Angels put together four hits and an intentional walk to plate their four runs. They were so afraid of Vlad's power that they walked him with men on 1st and 2nd, only to have a single by Jose Molina drive in the tying and go-ahead runs.

I remember Buck Showalter starting the "Let's walk Bonds in any situation" craze that led to the huge number of IBB issued to Barry the last few seasons. I hope this trend doesn't continue with Vlad. Unlike Bonds, Guerrero is a hacker. He'll swing at pitches that are eye level, ankle level or a foot off the plate. Now, he's so big and strong that he can sometimes get away with that, but I'd rather take my chances with a hacker that a disciplined hitter like Bonds.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

The San Diego Padres took another step toward their division title with a 5-2 win in Colorado. Peavy gave most of the bullpen the night off as he went 7 2/3 innings, allowing just two runs before Linebrink and Hoffman finished off the Rockies.

Brian Giles knocked out two singles and drove in a run. His OBA now stands at .428 and Brian should be given some consideration for MVP.

A good way to build a team is to find two superstars and surround them with competent players. The Padres have their starts in Peavy and Giles, but they didn't do a good job of surrounding them with talent. One more good starter, one more hitter with some power or the ability to get on base a lot and this team would be NL West champs already. They're very lucky to play in such a weak division this season.

Ryan Howard found himself batting in the top of the 10th with the bases loaded and unleashed a grand slam to send the Phillies to a 10-6 victory with the Braves and keep pace with the Houston Astros. Howard has 19 homers on the season, and is looking like the NL Rookie of the year. Discounting the offense of the Rockies Rookies, it looks to me like a battle between and Howard and Rickey Weeks for the Jackie Robinson Award.

Kameron Loe just took a line drive to the head off the bat of Vlad Guerrero. The ball ricochetted to shortstop where Young caught it for the out. Loe didn't appear to be hurt, but the Rangers were smart and removed him from the game.

The ball appeared to hit the bill of his cap straight on, which may have cushioned the blow. They replayed the audio of the beaning, and it sounded pretty bad. Let's hope Loe is okay.

The Mets are not going out easily this year. For the second night in a row, the win a one-run game in their last at bat. It was their sixth loss in seven games. They've been outscored 51-28 in those seven, and half their run scored came in their only win.

To add to the misery, Miguel Cabrera left the game early after fouling a ball off his knee.

Florida also lost slugger Miguel Cabrera, who was forced to leave the game in the first inning after fouling a ball off his left knee.

Cabrera, the league's third-leading hitter at .321, completed the at-bat by striking out but left the game with a contusion to his knee. That left the Marlins with three regulars out of the lineup as second baseman Luis Castillo (hamstring) and shortstop Alex Gonzalez (elbow) are also sidelined.

Florida has six games left with the Braves. They're seven games back of Atlanta, so they'll need some help, but at this point, it's the only race they can control.

The good news is the Astros won 12-8 over the Pittsburgh Pirates, bringing them one step closer to a wild card berth. The bad news is the bullpen did a poor job of preserving a big lead. The relievers entered the game in the 7th with a 10-4 lead and made the game close. The allowed six hits in their three innings of work, but to their credit did not walk a batter. However, three of those six hits were home runs.

Offensively, Berkman, Taveras and Lamb did the damage, driving in 11 of the 12 runs. It seems as Berkman goes, so go the Astros.

Travis gets all of the ball in the eighth inning, sending the ball over the center field fence for a three-run homer and a 5-0 Cleveland lead. Travis has three homers and eight RBI in the three game series.

Update: Hafner adds a two-run homer in the ninth to make the final score 8-0. Elarton and Howry combine on the five hit shutout. All five hits were off Elarton, all singles.

The Indians pick up one game on the White Sox in the three game series, bringing them to 2 1/2 games of the division lead. They just need to play Chicago even the rest of the way to have a shot at the Central title as the two teams play three games to end the season. With the Yankees at the Red Sox and White Sox at the Indians, the last weekend of the season is shaping up to be very exciting.

Mike Timlin comes into the game with a man on and a one-run lead and gives up four straight hits, including a two-run triple by Gomes to put the Red Sox down 7-4 in the bottom of the eighth. The Yankees just won a squeaker 2-1 behind Johnson and Rivera, so if the Red Sox don't come back in the ninth, they'll be out of first place in the east.

With Cleveland leading 2-0 in the eighth, the Red Sox may find themselves on the outside of the playoff picture. Manny didn't pick a good day not to hustle.

Barry Bonds hit his fourth home run in four games as he helped the Giants to a 5-1 win over the fast fading Nationals. Bonds now has seven hits on the season, five for extra-bases.

If you missed tonight's show, you can hear the recorded version here. It's also available on demand at TPSRadio.

Manny Ramirez hits a solo shot in the fifth inning. The Red Sox are winning 4-2 in the top of the 7th. Manny just walked, and hustled faster to first than he did on the ground out. In my opinion, Manny should be on the bench. To quote Scotty, "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me."

Of course, as I wrote that, Manny goes first to third on a hard liner to center. It was a high risk play, but Manny made it. Barely. It appears he knows he screwed up and he's going overboard to make up for it.

The Baseball Musings Radio Show is coming up at the top of the hour (8 PM EDT) on TPSRadio. I'm logged into the chat room if you want to come by and leave a comment or question I can read on the air.

It happened again. On July 26th, Manny hit a comebacker to the pitcher and didn't run hard to first. The pitcher made a bad throw, but Manny was out anyway. In the first inning tonight, the same thing happened. Each time, Ramirez going full out is safe. Manny came out to play left in the bottom of the inning. Sending Manny to the showers was the appropriate response.

If Manny doesn't want to play full out for the playoff berth, he shouldn't be in the game.

ESPN has a report that Lou Piniella will not return to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays next year.

According to the Tribune, the Devil Rays will buy out the remaining year of Piniella's four-year deal. Piniella will receive $2.2 million of the $4.4 million he was to have received in 2006. The Rays will also pay $1.25 million in salary deferred from Piniella's first season in 2003.

Piniella, 62, will be free to take another managerial job next season, but has hinted he may take the season off, the Tribune reported.

When asked about his future by the Tribune, Piniella said only, "I can't talk about it."

I'm sure Lou will find another job. There are a number available, and given talent Piniella can direct his players to victory. Tampa Bay is the only team he's managed that wasn't well above .500.

Michael Cuddyer goes four for four with three doubles and a homer to help Minnesota to a 10-4 victory over Oakland, pushing the Athletics a little closer to toward elimination. Nine of Cuddyer's 44 extra-base hits came against Oakland this year in just 9 games. The Angels magic number falls to 10, and Cleveland's number for eliminating the A's from the wild card race is 7.

The Royals stay at 99 losses as Denny Hocking singles with the bases loaded, two outs and two strikes in the bottom of the ninth. The Royals come back to win 4-3. Kyle Snyder pitched great in relief, going 3 2/3 innings, striking out four and not allowing a run.

I suspect the Cone of Silence will be used in the Tigers locker room. They've been swept by the worst team in the majors, and this will only increase the calls for a new manager in Detroit.

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Michael Cuddyer adds a two-run double to his solo home run to give the Twins a 4-0 lead over the Athletics. The Twins have four hits in three innings, but three of them were for extra bases. Couple that with two Kennedy walks, and you have a big lead.

R.A. Dickey soaked up knowledge from Charlie Hough yesterday. He's looking to improve his knuckleball:

But Dickey said it won't be the last advice he gets from Hough. As soon as the duo finished talking, Dickey programmed Hough's number into his cellphone. He also told Hough he'd like to come to California a couple of times this winter for progress reports. Hough told Dickey he was welcome anytime.

It was everything Dickey could have asked. In advance of the meeting, Dickey said he planned to be "like a sponge and soak up every bit of information" he could.

Afterward?

"I feel like a sponge that's full of water," Dickey said. "And one that, when it's squeezed, you ring out every bit of performance possible."

When Tim Wakefield came to the Red Sox, he spent a lot of time with Phil Neikro, and it turned around his career. If Hough can do the same for Dickey, he'll be a valuable asset to the Rangers for a long time.

Michael Cuddyer hits his twelfth home run of the year to give the Twins a 1-0 lead in Oakland. Of his dozen homers, five are off the Athletics pitchers. He's hitting a long ball better than once every six at bats vs. Oakland this year, once every 51 at bats vs. every one else.

Sheriff Sully, a life long Red Sox fans, takes Red Sox Nation to task over their treatment of Foulke and others this year:

When it comes to the Red Sox, I have no ego. I understood that many before me never saw a World Series. And they certainly never saw the humiliation of the Yankees. Nothing can top that. And nothing can take those memories away from me. It’s a shame that so many have already tarnished those memories.

This season should’ve been one long celebration. Standing ovation after standing ovation at Fenway. It should’ve been about just enjoying the buzz and allowing nothing to take our glow away. Sox fans should’ve enjoyed this season as if they just had the best sex of their lives.

Alas, what was 86 years in the making took less than seven months to crumble.

And in the process, obliviously, the majority of Red Sox fans are living their worse nightmare.

They’ve become just like Yankees fans.

This reminds me of an Aimee Mann lyric:

Once you were just our dear friend Ron
Now you look out for number one
Who would’ve guessed that you’d become
What you hated

It looks like the Washington Nationals will go for around $450 million dollars. MLB paid $120 million dollars for the team. So it looks like each team will receive over $10 million each when the franchise is sold. Look at it this way; twenty nine teams get to buy a #2 starter for a year!

The Twins and Athletics play a noon-time game on the west coast as the A's go for the sweep of the three-game series. Rookie Scott Baker faces Joe Kennedy. Baker is doing well in his first year, posting a 2.87 ERA in six starts and one relief appearance. His best game was his last time out, holding the White Sox to one run over seven innings. He doesn't quite fit into the Twins rotation, however, since he's allowed 11 walks in 37 2/3 innings. That's high for the Twins, but most teams would be very happy with those numbers.

Joe Kennedy's home runs allowed are down a tad since leaving Colorado, but his strike outs are up and his hits allowed are way down. All that means he's cut his ERA in half since joining the Athletics.

A pair of 14-game winners face off in The Bronx tonight as Rodrigo Lopez gets matched against Randy Johnson. Rodrigo's post-break ERA is a run higher than before the All-Star game. His strike outs are way down; 5.7 before the break, 4.5 after. Fewer strike outs lead to more hits and a ballooning ERA. Randy Johnson should be well rested after his tirade in the Toronto game caused the Big Unit to be ejected in the second inning.

In the borough of Queens, Jae Seo of the Mets hosts Jason Vargas and the Marlins. The Marlins are in trouble in the wild card race, three games back with six games against the Braves coming up. Vargas allowed 19 earned runs in his last 22 2/3 innings. Seo was hit by the Nationals his last time out, but he continues to put up great strike out and walk numbers. For the season he's struck out 53 while walking just 10.

Finally, the Indians and White Sox play the rubber game of their series. Scott Elarton opposes Jon Garland. Garland's been up and down lately. Over his last five, he's had great starts alternating with very poor ones. He's coming off eight very strong innings against the Twins. A win tonight gives him 18 on the season and a shot at 20. After a poor August, Elarton's been right on in September. His 1.23 ERA helped him to a 3-0 record, and only one of his 29 home runs allowed came in September.

Enjoy!

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Bartolo Colon made a strong bid for the AL Cy Young award last night, shutting down the Texas offense for seven innings and earning his twentieth win of the season. The powerful Rangers were only able to score one unearned run against Colon and two relievers. Texas wasted a fine outing by Juan Dominguez. On a night when three runs would be enough to win Juan took the loss 2-1.

Oakland kept pace with LAnaheim, defeating Minnesota 8-3. The top three hitters in the Athletics lineup reached base 10 times on 8 hits and 2 walks. As this article points out, Mark Ellis is quietly in the batting race.

Ellis has back-to-back-to-back multihit games, and if he qualified for the AL batting race, he would be two points behind the Rangers' Michael Young, who leads the league with a .329 average.

Ellis will finish about 10 to 12 plate appearances shy of the minimum 502 needed to qualify, but the missing plate appearances could be applied to his total as hitless at-bats (e.g., an 0-for-10 could be added). If the resulting lower average still led the league, the batting title would be his.

Tony Gwynn won a batting title this way in 1996.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

Joe Crede leads off the bottom of the 10th with his second home run of the game. The White Sox move their lead back to 3 1/2 games while the Yankees and Red Sox gain a game on the Tribe.

Consecutive singles put men on first and second with one out for the White Sox. Riske is on the mound for Cleveland.

Update: A great play by Aaron Boone on a slow roller by Dye gets the second out of the inning. The ball was hit down the line, and Aaron's throw just nipped the right fielder. Aaron Rowand is up with men on 2nd and 3rd.

Update: Riske hits Rowand to load the bases for Uribe.

Update: That was the 19th time Rowand was hit this season.

Update: Uribe flies out to right to end the threat. The fight for the division goes to extra innings.

The Colorado Rockies are making the Padres look bad tonight, scoring 17 runs so far, 15 in the first three innings. San Diego is on their fifth pitcher, and only Chris Hammond didn't allow a run. He did manage to allow two base runners in the 1/3 of an inning he pitched.

Meanwhile, Wright and Carvajal have limited San Diego to 1 run and five hits through eight innings. The likely loss will move the Padres back to .500, and with the Giants win, their will be no reduction in their magic number.

Update: Rockies win by a final of 20-1.

A rare bad play by Aaron Rowand leads to the Indians tying the game in the 9th. With one out and a man on first, Victor Martinez hit a fly ball to center that fooled the White Sox speedster. He started in on the ball, then raced back but the shot was over his head for a double. Belliard grounded out to tie the game, and the Indians have a man on third with two out for Broussard.

Update: Jenks blows the save but not the game. The White Sox get a chance to win in the bottom of the inning, still tied at 6.

The Royals win the 2nd game of the double header, downing Detroit 4-2. They continue to hold at 99 losses. Maxwell Smart would love this team. :-)

Mike Jacobs singles in the 12th inning to drive in David Wright and give the Mets a 3-2 victory over the Marlins. Florida managed only two runs on eight hits and five walks, wasting a great performance by A.J. Burnett. A.J. threw eight strong innings, allowing two runs on two hits and a walk while striking out nine. For the game, the Mets only managed four hits. Defense cost the Marlins the game as an error led to the Mets first run.

Houston gaines on all three teams chasing them for the Wild Card as the Phillies, Marlins and Nationals lose.

Kyle Farnsworth pitches a poor ninth, giving up a hit and two walks. The Phillies score their only run of the game against the Braves closer, but it's not enough as Atlanta takes a 4-1 victory and lowers their magic number for the division by two.

Jorge Sosa picks up his 13th victory despite allowing six walks in 6 2/3 innings. On the night, the Phillies drew eight walks but couldn't push many runners across as they managed just three hits.

The Indians keep taking a lead, and the White Sox keep coming back. they score three in the bottom of the 7th and take the lead on a Jose Hernandez error. Chicago leads 6-5 in the top of the 8th.

Andy Pettitte goes to 11-2 since the All-Star break as Houston tops Pittsburgh 7-4. It wasn't Andy's best pitched game as he allowed 2 runs in just 5 2/3 innings. The bottom of the order provided most of the offense as Everett and Ausmus punched out six hits, scored 3 runs and drove in five.

Casey Blake blasts the third Indians home run of the night to move the Tribe ahead 4-3 in the seventh. The Indians pushed Buerhle over 100 pitches in six innings and Casey got him leading off the seventh. Neal Cotts is on in relief.

The Washington Nationals take one more step toward elimination when Moises Alou takes Livan Hernandez deep in the 9th for a 4-2 lead. Washington scores once in the bottom of the inning, but it's not enough and the Nationals lose a game in the magic number column.

Hernandez threw 127 pitchess. Yes, he's a work horse, but didn't Frank Robinson have one reliever he could bring in for that situation? I think this was a case of too much confidence in the starter and not enough in the bullpen.

Travis Hafner gets hits fourth extra base hit of the series, a solo home run to give Cleveland a 3-2 lead. Hafner and Boone have now driven in 9 of the 10 runs for Cleveland in the series.

Update: This series stays close. Uribe drives in Konerko with a single to bring the White Sox back even.

With the bases loaded and one out, Jorge Sosa strikes out Burrell on a border line pitch and gets Ryan Howard to ground out to first. The opposition is now 1 for 15 against Sosa with the bases loaded. His escape from the threat preserves Atlanta's 1-0 lead over the Phillies.

Joe Crede gets the first White Sox hit of the night, making Westbrook pay for a walk. Crede hits the ball out of the park for his 18th home run of the season and a 2-2 tie. All the scoring tonight came from two run shots from the third basemen.

*And I wonder, still I wonder, who'll stop Tim Raines?

A.J. Burnett is pitching a no-hitter vs. the Mets through six innings, but finds the score tied at one. Jose Reyes scored on a two-base error, steal of third and a wild pitch. Paul LoDuca homer for the Marlins only run.

Update: Carlos Delgado comes through with a home run to give Burnett and the Marlins the lead, 2-1 in the seventh. Delgado continues his hot hitting, batting .400 in September with six home runs.

Update: Victor Diaz pokes one down the right field line for the first Mets hit of the game, a double. Good news for the Marlins as Luis Castillo comes in to play second after McKeon pinch hit for Mordecai.

The Cleveland Indians waited a long time for their investment in Aaron Boone to pay dividends, but he couldn't get hot at a better time. He turns a Buehrle walk to Jose Hernandez into a 2-0 lead with his 16th home run of the year. He's knocked in five on three hits and two home runs in this series.

The Yankees and Red Sox are both out to big leads tonight. Gary Sheffield drove in the Yankees first run with a double and their last four with a grand slam. The five RBI give him 108 on the season.

The Red Sox are up 7-2 in the fourth inning. David Ortiz hit a second home run in this game to bring his season total to 46. That ties him with the 1978 Jim Rice for second place on the al-time Red Sox single season home run list. Jimmie Foxx holds the top spot at 50, well within reach of Big Papi.

Mike Sweeney doubles in the winning run in the bottom of the ninth against the Tigers to give the Royals a 5-4 win in game one of their double header. The Royals postpone for one more game picking up their 100th loss.

Update, Sept. 26, 2005: Welcome to all finding this site through a search for Barbara Feldon. My thoughts on Don Adams' death are here.

My eighth grade algebra teacher was an avid golfer. He used to tell us, "Hit 'em long and not too often." That appears to be Brad Eldred's motto as well. He hit his 10 home run of the season tonight in just his 155th at bat. Nineteen of his 40 hits went for extra bases. He's hitting just .258 but slugging .510, making his average hit a double.

The Pirates and Astros are tied at one in the third.

Jorge Posada drives in three with his 17th home run to extend the Yankees lead to 4-0 in the first. Jorge is having a down year offensively, but he's picking it up in September. With that hit, he's 18 for 49 in the month, a .367 batting average.

Update: The Orioles come back with 3 runs in the second to make Aaron's lead a small one.

David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez take Seth McClung out of the park to stake Curt Schilling to a 3-0 lead in the first. McClung gave up four hits in the first inning on 24 pitches.

Michael Martin pointed me to Cool Standings today, a site that breaks down major league baseball standings in very interesting ways. The coolest things on this cool site are the columns representing probability of winning or making the playoffs. Check it out.

Alex Belth at Bronx Banter shows that Yankees fans are correct, the Yankees are leaving a lot of runners on base. One of his commenter's presents a chart that shows the Yankees are rather inefficient in bringing runners home.

In general, I'm not a big fan of the left on base number. You need to couple it with total runs scored to get a good feel for what it means. If you're not scoring a lot of runs but leaving tons of ducks on the pond, then you have an offensive problem. However, it's a good problem, since the team likely has a high OBA, and eventually those runners will come around to score.

This is what happened in Boston last season. The sports talk hosts were complaining about all the runners left on, then in the second half of the season they started coming around to score. I'd much rather have that situation than few runners on/few left on base. In that case, you don't have much potential to score runs.

If, like the Yankees, you are a high scoring team, leaving lots of men on base really isn't a problem. Just as it doesn't matter how you get on base, it doesn't matter how you score your runs. It's nice to be efficient, but leaving two on to score one is fine as long as you do it often enough.

The Yankees problem this year isn't leaving lots of men on base; it's needing to score a lot of runs to win games due to the pitching and defense.

The Yankees look to move into the lead in the AL East tonight with a win over the Orioles and a Red Sox loss to the Devil Rays. John Maine takes the hill for Baltimore, and his weaknesses play into Yankees strengths. He walks a high number of batters and doesn't strike out many. He allows a fair number of home runs. The Yankees take pitches out of the strike zone and pound the ones over the plate. Aaron Small goes for his ninth win against zero defeats. If Small finishes 11-0 with an ERA around 3.00 in 80 innings pitched, does he deserve consideration in the Cy Young voting? Or maybe MVP? Too bad there isn't an award for biggest impact on a pennant race. Small might win that going away.

The Red Sox send Curt Schilling against Seth McClung in Tampa Bay. Schilling's line against Tampa in 2005 pretty much reflects his season as a whole; a decent number of strikeouts, few walks but lots of hits and lots of runs. McClung may be better suited as a reliever. His OBA allowed is 60 points lower in his first 30 pitches than in pitches 31-60.

Philadelphia still has a chance to catch Atlanta, and the two teams open a three-game series tonight in Georgia. For some reason, the Phillies send Gavin Floyd to the mound. Gavin's opposition batting stats look like Cliff Floyd's, so that's good news for Atlanta hitters. Braves' starter Horacio Ramirez did get knocked around by the Phillies his last time out, so this could turn out to be the slugfest of the night.

The White Sox send Mark Buehrle against Jake Westbrook to try to hold off the Indians advance. A great game by Mark tonight will go a long way toward earning votes in the Cy Young race. Westbrook is reaping the rewards of a better Indians offense. With a slightly lower ERA, Jake's record is 9-3 since the break compared to 6-11 before hand.

Enjoy!

Update: I'm told Sosa, not Ramirez will be pitching for the Braves tonight. Sosa's walked 11 Phillies in 15 2/3 innings this year.

Update: I'm told Lidle will go for Philadelphia. That makes a lot more sense. Cory is 2-0 vs. Atlanta and struck out ten Braves in 12 2/3 innings this season.

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The Pirates are working on signing Jayson Bay to a multi-year deal:

The Pirates have opened negotiations with Bay on a four-year deal that would eliminate his three seasons of salary arbitration eligibility. The amount of the contract is not known, but based on precedent in the industry, could be worth about $12 million.

Long-term security would be a refreshing change for Bay, who had his contract renewed at $355,000 in spring training after refusing to sign the one-year offer the Pirates made.

It's good to see the Pirates learned from their mistake with Barry Bonds. Pittsburgh battled Barry three years in a row in arbitration. The Pirates won those battles but Bonds couldn't wait to leave when he became a free agent. By avoiding those conflicts with Bay, maybe the Pirates can keep him around a while.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

Bobby Crosby tried to beat out an infield hit in the sixth inning and lands hard on his left foot as he reaches the base. He's thrown out and appeared to be in pain. I'm waiting to see if he comes out to play his position in the top of the seventh. The Athletics still have a 5-0 lead.

Update: Crosby came out to play short in the seventh. The injury wasn't as bad as it looked.

Khalil Greene homers twice, his second being the game winner as the Padres win a high-scoring close game 8-7. There were five lead changes in the game. The Padres move one game over .500 and cut their magic number to 8.

Travis Hafner drove in his third run of the game in the 8th to make the score 7-5. Bob Wickman put two men on, but he also induced Paul Konerko to pop up to end the game with those two on base. The Indians stay ahead of the Yankees and move within 2 1/2 of the White Sox. They also have the 2nd best record in the league right now.

The Kansas City Royals avoid losing their 100th game of the season with a 10-4 drubbing of the Detroit Tigers. The hitters distributed the offense, with Matt Stairs having the biggest game with a single, double, homer and three RBI. The bullpen was perfect as well, retiring all ten men they faced. How long can they stay at 99?

Update, Sept. 26, 2005: Welcome to all finding this site through a search for Barbara Feldon. My thoughts on Don Adams' death are here.

Nick Swisher and Mark Ellis hit consecutive pitches out of the park in the bottom of the second inning to extend Oakland's lead to 5-0. Ellis tripled and scored his first time up, so he has a leg up on the cycle tonight.

Bobby Jenks was throwing heat, but Aaron Boone made contact with the fast ball and singles in two runs to give the Indians a 6-5 lead. That's three RBI in the game for Aaron. Boone was slumping in September, batting just .192 coming into this game. His two for four, however, is making the difference against the White Sox.

The Tampa Bay Devil Rays bring the Red Sox and Yankees within 1/2 a game of each other with an 8-7 victory over the Red Sox. With series against the Red Sox, Angels and Indians over the next two weeks, Tampa Bay is off to a good start playing the role of spoiler.

After popping up with men on 2nd and 3rd, Carl Everett unloads on Betancourt, homering to the stands in right. The White Sox take a 5-4 lead against the Indians.

Bubba Crosby, who is having a woeful season offensively, came to life tonight with three hits, two runs scored, and the game winning RBI as he hit a walk off homer, his first four-bagger of the season, and only his 2nd extra-base hit of the year. The Yankees will at least keep pace with both teams they are chasing.

The old saying is, "You can make up the wins, but you can't make up the losses." However, your opponents can make up the losses for you. In what should have been a cake walk in Pittsburgh, the Astros get shutout again. It's the 17th time the Houston offense failed to score and the 9th time they've done it in a Clemens start. The Phillies and Marlins each gain 1/2 game in the Wild Card race and "make up" a loss.

Update: No wonder the Pirates were victorious!

An error by Blake gets the Chicago offense rolling. After a Uribe strikeout, three straight hits by the White Sox plate two runs to cut the lead in half. Everett pops out, and Millwood faces Konerko with men on 2nd and 3rd.

Update: Konerko doubles over Sizemore's head in centerfield to tie the ball game. Millwood's not been tough with runners in scoring position this inning.

Update: Pierzynski lines out softly to end the inning. I'm a bit surprised Millwood pitched to Konerko, but with a lefty coming up next, they probably felt they had a better chance with Paul.

The Oakland Athletics activated Bobby Crosby tonight and he'll be in the lineup against the Twins. The Athletics have hope with Crosby in the lineup.

Crosby already sat out April 5 to May 29 with two broken ribs after getting hurt opening day at Baltimore. The A's went 55-24 for a .696 winning percentage from the day he came back May 30 to Aug. 27, when he got hurt again -- also at Camden Yards. He collided with Orioles catcher Sal Fasano.

"I feel it," he said. "There's still a broken bone in there. ... Hopefully I can come out hot like last time I came off an injury. Last time it worked out well. Hopefully we can do the same thing."

Travis Hafner gets his half of the cycle, hitting a solo home run to extend the Indians lead to 4-0. He drove in the first run of the game with a first inning double.

Ian Snell entered tonight's game having allowed 22 earned runs in 29 innings, good for a 6.83 ERA. Tonight, however, he's slowed the Astros offense, trying to joing the ranks of pitchers who shut out the Astros in a Clemens start. It wasn't one of Roger's best as he's gone after allowing six runs, four earned in 5 2/3 innings. His ERA goes up to 1.89.

Alex Rios was benched by John Gibbons over the weekend after he failed to run out a grounder on Friday.

Ricciardi delivered the message to the talented, but sometimes lackadaisical, sophomore a day after manager John Gibbons pulled Rios from Friday's 11-10 loss to the New York Yankees for loafing down the basepath on a first-inning fly out.

"The guy don't run, you take him out," Ricciardi said. "Gibby did the right thing. It's not real hard."

The message sunk in. Rios is back in the lineup and knocked out two hits in his first two at bats, a triple and a homer. The Jays lead the Mariners 4-3 in the 6th inning.

You're never sure which David Wells is going to show up on a given night. The Red Sox got the bad one tonight. Through three innings, every Devil Rays starter has at least one hit, and four runs in the third put the Red Sox in a two-run hole. The Red Sox are in the bullpen early, Wells lasting just 2 2/3 innings. On top of the ten hits, he also walked an unusual two batters.

Freddy Garica has not had a man in scoring position tonight, but he's down 2-0 in the second. Travis Hafner doubled in the first driving in Sizemore from first, and Boone just hit a solo home run in the second. Cleveland has the power advantage early in the game.

Freddy Sanchez is showing some power tonight, hitting a double and a home run off Roger Clemens, helping the Pirates to a 2-0 lead. It's one of the more unexpected homers of the season as Roger only allowed ten coming into today and Sanchez hit two in 395 at bats before this game.

Michael Labuda points out that the White Sox magic number for clinching the Wild Card is nine, not ten. That makes my point from earlier today about the Yankees getting shutout of the playoffs even stronger.

That's another thing I don't like about the Wild Card. Magic numbers are not longer straight forward calculations!

The Royals television ratings are up this year. Go figure.

Ronald Blum notes the drop in home runs in 2005 and asks around for explanations. I thought this one from Johnny Damon was interesting:

Boston center fielder Johnny Damon cites better pitching.

"We haven't really faced too many chumps for pitchers this year," he said. "Young guys coming in have got some unbelievable stuff."

This strikes me as something we can test. It turns out the 23 year olds (June 30th age) are very good this year, posting a 3.75 ERA. But the 33 year olds are also very good, with a 3.65 ERA. The group aged 24 to 28 is the best run of ages. These players in their prime post a combined 4.28 ERA in 18,169 1/3 innings. All other pitchers post a 4.31 ERA in 21,601 innings. It seems to me all ages are pretty good this year.

I don't think Damon's point is that far off, however. As offense rises, good pitching becomes more valuable. Pitchers get paid more money, encouraging ballplayers to want to be pitchers instead of hitters. Teams do more work to find good pitchers. It's the market correcting for too much offense.

No matchup is better tonight than Kevin Millwood vs. Freddy Garcia as the Indians face the White Sox in round one of their battle for the AL Central title.

Millwood leads the American League in ERA but his record is just 8-11. In his last eight starts, Cleveland lost four games in which he allowed 3 runs or fewer. Kevin is keeping his team close, but the Indians offense needs to give him some support to win.

Left-handed batters possess a clear advantage vs. Millwood. In about the same number of at bats, lefties knocked out 20 more hits and drew 10 more walks. The White Sox, however, don't have many lefties to take advantage of this weakness.

One weakness that will work in the White Sox favor is the stolen base. Millwood does not stop stolen bases as opponents succeeded in 30 or 35 attempts vs. Kevin and his catcher.

Freddy Garcia is coming off a blow out loss to the Kansas City Royals. This year, Garcia's pitched his best against the tough competition. His ERAs are high vs. the Devil Rays, Marniers, Royals and Orioles but low against the Yankees, Indians, Twins and Athletics.

One strength these pitchers share is toughness with runners in scoring position. They're 1-2 in the AL in that category, Millwood allowing a .189 batting average, Garcia .203.

If it's going to be tough to drive in men from second and third, solo home runs might decide this game. Garcia's given up more than Millwood, 24 for Freddy, 19 for Kevin. The teams batters are 2-3 in September in hitting home runs, but it's really not that close. The Indians have 30 dingers this month while the White Sox hit 21.

Enjoy!

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Tracy Ringolsby points out that the Rockies are heading for a dubios distinction:

THE ROCKIES are in line for an unwanted pitching trifecta of leading the NL in walks allowed, wild pitches and batters hit. Only 10 teams have led the NL in all three categories in one season, and none since the Braves did it in successive seasons in 1977-78.

Remember, though, the Braves had knuckleballer Phil Niekro on that staff.

Dave Smith of Retrosheet reports the last team without a knuckleball pitcher to lead the NL in all three was the 1974 San Diego Padres. The only other teams that didn't have a knuckleball pitcher and topped the NL in wild pitches, walks and hit batters were the 1947 Brooklyn Dodgers, 1939 Philadelphia Phillies and 1919 St. Louis Cardinals.

You can see the team leaders in the various categories here.

The Baseball Crank explores an issue that's been bothering me for a while, where are the good lead off men? It seems the players with great OBAs today are also sluggers, making it difficult to find a player who fits the high OBA/low power profile of the table setter. That's still no excuse for batting someone with an OBA below .320 in the #2 slot.

Rich Johnson of TheSpectrum.com in Utah humorously details the White Sox collaspe (spelling corrected):

The collapse of the Soviet Union wasn't this surprising. If Yankee Stadium imploded, it wouldn't be as wild. I'm telling you, this could be a crash bigger than Black Tuesday.

If you've been wondering, this would be the biggest lead blown by a division winner.

Now, a mere seven weeks later, the White Sox have gone from the team with baseball's best record to a possible head-scratching laughingstock and are in danger of becoming the team to blow the largest regular season lead in Major League history. According to the Associated Press, that dubious honor currently belongs to the 1951 Brooklyn Dodgers, who had a 13-game lead on Aug. 11 but collapsed and allowed Bobby Thompson to make history with his so-called "Shot Heard Round The World."

The Red Sox biggest lead over the Yankees was 14, but the Sox were never that far ahead of a second place team. Cleveland not only trailed by more games, they're coming back in a more compressed time frame.

Unfortunately, this race will lack some of the drama of 1951 and 1978 because the White Sox are still likely to make the playoffs even if they lose the division. It's the flip side of the Wild Card. Chicago could post the biggest collapse in history, but still win the World Series. The 1951 Dodgers and the 1978 Red Sox were tragic teams. The White Sox collapse may have no consequences.

Luis Castillo injured his hamstring late in last night's game, possibly leaving the Marlins without either side of their keystone combination:

Second baseman Luis Castillo left the game in the seventh inning after he limped into third base on Jeff Conine's double. He was diagnosed with a tight right hamstring and is listed as day-to-day.

The Marlins already are without shortstop Alex Gonzalez (sore right elbow) and backup Damion Easley (sprained right ankle). If Castillo misses any action, utility infielder Mike Mordecai will start at second.

It's an especially tough loss offensively, since Castillo provided a great spark since moving to the lead off spot. If Mordecai and Andino are both in the lineup, you may see Dontrelle Willis bat 7th.

The following comment was posted yesterday afternoon:

Given the fact that the Indians & ChiSox play half of their remaining games against each other, I find it hard to believe that the Wild Card will come from the AL Central. Obviously with the way the Tribe is playing vs the way the Sox are playing, I'll give the edge to the Indians. Plus, being an Indians fan, I'd love to see it.

I just don't see how the Yankees won't make the playoffs as the Wild Card at least, especially given their puff schedule. If Chicago and Cleveland play each other even, it helps the Yankees. If one beats up on the other, it helps the Yankees. The only real question I have now is whether they win the division or not. They're playing too well right now and they have too many people on the team who know how to win.

The problem is, when Cleveland is not playing the White Sox, they're playing seven games against the Royals and Devil Rays. That's puff enough for anybody.

If you look at likely results, I see the Indians going 4-2 vs. Chicago, 3-1 vs. Kansas City and 2-1 vs. Tampa Bay for a 9-4 finish. I suspect the Yankees will go 6-2 vs. Baltimore, 2-1 vs. Toronto and 1-2 vs. Boston for a 9-5 finish. Since the White Sox magic number against the Yankees is 10, they just need to pick up three more wins vs. Minnesota and Detroit in this scenario to assure themselves of a playoff berth. I would not be at all surprised to see the Indians take the division and the White Sox win the Wild Card at this point.

As for knowing how to win, the Indians having the best record in the majors since 7/31/2005 (inclusive), four games better than the Yankees. It's my guess Cleveland figured out how to win at this point.

That doesn't mean the Yankees won't make the playoffs. They still have a shot at the AL East. The Red Sox get three games at Tampa Bay, so their schedule is a bit easier than the Yankees. They should be able to win each of their last four series, giving them the title. Of course, neither of these teams is as good as they were last year. There's questionable pitching on both sides. It's hard to know which Schilling or Wells shows up for any given start. Likewise with Randy Johnson and Mike Mussina for the Yankees. They Red Sox playing the last week at home works very much in their favor, however.

Oakland and LAnaheim play four games early next week. Each has a series outside the division, with the Angels drawing the Devil Rays and the Athletics the Twins. I'm not crazy about either of these teams at this point. The Angels do have six games against the Rangers, and given LAnaheim's lack of offense, the Rangers could take a few of those contests. The edge goes to the Angels, simply due to their two game lead.

The Braves are five games up with just 12 to play. They're in a good spot, but they do play nine games against the Marlins and the Phillies. Although it feels like Atlanta is slipping in this race, they still have the best record in the NL East in September, one game better than the Marlins and Phillies.

The real action in the NL is the Wild Card. Houston took control of the race with their victory and the Phillies defeat. Houston now gets four games against the Pirates, with Clemens, Pettitte and Oswalt starting the first three games. They do have seven vs. the Cubs, however. They'll see Prior, Zambrano and Maddux at some point, so a few more times shutout may be in the Astros future as well. Taking five out of seven from the Phillies and Marlins gave them a leg up, and their schedule gives them no reason to give up that lead in the fortnight remaining.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

My great thanks to Peter Gammons for his kinds word about this web log.

If you don't check out David Pinto's "Baseball Musings," you are missing out on one of the best blogs on the Internet.

I arrived in Boston in September 1978, the day the Boston Massacre started. My friends and I quickly became fans of the Boston Globe Sport Section, clearly the best in the country at that time. Peter's beat writing and Sunday Notes columns were must reads for the voracious baseball fans among us. It was an honor working with Peter for ten years on Baseball Tonight, and it's always a blast to get a mention in his column.

Castillo and Conine continue to do a good job at the top of the Marlins order. The pair is four for five with 3 walks tonight, scoring three runs and driving in two. With this lineup, the first four batters in the lineup all have OBA's over .370. They're not only setting up the bottom of the order, they're giving each other more plate appearances.

In the preview for the NL East, I mentioned the Phillies might benefit from an Altobellit effect. Listening to the game this evening, I heard Jon Miller mention a quote from Billy Wagner that appears to confirm that observation. I found it on-line here:

"Everyone made a big deal out of the Houston series," crowed Phils closer Billy Wagner, still fired up 45 minutes after the last out. "They kicked our tail. But we didn't sit around and talk about how terrible we played. We didn't let it ruin our season.

"You need a lot of heart and a lot of guts to deliver like this team has. Whether we make [the playoffs] or not, Philadelphia should be proud as hell of the way this team has battled."

Wagner conceded that this was a game the Phillies should have lost, and he couldn't help taking a poke at people who used to work for the team.

"Teams that get to the playoffs win games like this," he said. "When silly stuff starts happening, good teams take advantage.

"Things like this wouldn't have happened to this team last year. Positive things happen to positive teams."

Bowa accentuated the negative. Even a neutral Manuel would have helped.

Paul Byrd keeps pouring it on his opponents. He's been tough to score on in September, allowing just three earned runs in 29 1/3 innings for a 0.92 ERA. He's not allowed a home run in these four starts while walking 4 and striking out 14. He's an early pitcher of the month candidate in the AL.

Trailing 1-0, the Padres set themselves up to possibly take the lead. They put men on 2nd and 3rd with one out. Dave Roberts hit a shot to Johnson at first who held the runner at third and stepped on the bag for the second out. However, Olivo was at second and started for third. Johnson threw to second and got the catcher in an easy run down to end the inning.

Update: Olivo redeems himself in the ninth. Tied at one, Olivo singles leading off the inning and scores the winning run two batters later on a sacrifice + error. (It seems to me I've seen a lot of those lately.) The Padres win, and the Nationals lose another game in the Wild Card standings. Washington's post-season hopes are hanging by a thread.

I'll be appearing on the WTMA Sunday Night Sports Report at 6:45 PM EDT. You can hear it on 1250 AM in Charleston, South Carolina.

The Astros down the Brewers 6-1, meaning they'll maintain their Wild Card regardless of the outcome of tonight's Phillies Marlins game.

I'm very impressed with the Astros. The Brewers were surging, having won seven of their previous 10 games, including two against the Astros. Houston handled them easily, however, removing the Brewers faint playoff hopes. They have a very easy schedule down the stretch, playing two games against the Cardinals but otherwise sub-.500 teams. The seven games against the Cubs might be tough, as Chicago can still send Prior, Zambrano and Maddux to the mound.

The Philles have the Reds as their easy team. The Mets are out of contention and the Nationals may be by the time the Phillies play them. The Braves do have a tough schedule (nine games against the Phillies and Marlins), so Philadelphia may have a better shot at the division than at the wild card.

The Chicago White Sox score the winning run in the 8th inning on a Punto error, giving them a 2-1 victory. They maintain their 3 1/2 game lead over the Indians going into the three-game series with the Tribe.

The White Sox only scored four runs in the three game series against the Twins, but managed to win two of the three by scores of 2-1. They're now 32-17 in one run games, still the best in the majors. Will Chicago be able to shut down the Indians offense like that? Cleveland scores about 1/2 a run more per game than the Twins. In their first 13 meetings, the Indians averaged less than four runs per game against the White Sox. The Sox won 10 of the 13 played, but only out-scored the Indians by 10 runs. That means they really should have won 8.

It should be a close series. Two wins by the White Sox should settle the division. A sweep by the Indians and we'll start talking about the greatest collaspe of all time.

Update: It's a 3 1/2 game lead, not a 4 1/2 game lead.

Derek Jeter strikes out looking on a nice pitch on the inside corner, stranding tieing run Cano at second base. They lose a game to Cleveland in the Wild Card race. With the Red Sox losing big, however, they probably won't lose much in the AL East race, although as far as the Red Sox are concerned, any day your magic number goes down is a good day.

The top of the Atheltics order is off to a good start today. The 1 through five hitters are nine for ten with seven runs scored and five RBI. That includes two double and a Chavez home run. The A's are up 7-0 on the Red Sox in the second and chased starter Matt Clement after just 1 1/3 innings.

Not to be outdone by Jose Lima, Eric Milton gives up six runs in just 2/3 of an inning to raise his ERA to 6.84. Oliver Perz, not happy to be pitching in a blowout, allows five runs in two innings himself. Looks like it's going to be a long afternoon in Pittsburgh.

Jose Lima is performing as advertised. He's given up eight runs in four innings, all earned, raising his ERA to 6.95. Given that the Royals have not replaced him yet, maybe Bell is going to leave him out there to take one for the bullpen. With a little work, Jose can raise his ERA above seven.

Peralta and Hafner homered for the Indians. Peralta's turned out to be an excellent replacement for Omar Vizquel. At age 23, Jhonny is getting on base more and is developing power Omar never had. On top of that, Peralta has the second highest fielding win shares among AL shortstops.

Update: Lima did not come out for the fifth.

You might think that Jaret Wright has one of those "Hit this, win a prize" ads on his uniform. He was knocked out of a game a couple of weeks ago when an liner hit him in his collar bone. Today, he left the game in the third inning when the sharp end of a broken bat gets what appears to be Wright's pitching arm. Al Leiter comes on in relief with the Yankees losing 4-2.

The Toronto Blue Jays are using the classic Giambi shift with a twist. Instead of moving everyone toward first base, the Blue Jays put the shortstop in short right between the first and second basemen. The announcers gave the reason for the manuver as shortstop Adams having more range than second baseman Menechino.

The Indians look like they're not going to lose any ground in any of their races today as they send C.C. Sabathia to the mound hosting Jose Lima and the Royals. Lima needs just 6 2/3 innings to qualify for the ERA title and post one of the highest ERAs for any pitcher with at least 162 innings. Lima's given up 7 earned runs in 11 2/3 innings vs. the Indians this year. Sabathia, on the other hand, is 2-1 with a 2.37 ERA vs. the Royals.

Lima is not the only bad pitcher going today. Eric Milton is just 0.11 runs behind Lima, and already has enough innings to qualify for the ERA title. He'll face Oliver Perez. We'll see if Perez can go a few innings without getting thrown out of the game.

The Marlins face a must win game tonight as the Phillies go for a sweep. Philiadelphia sends rookie Eude Brito to the mound. Eude found his groove in his last start vs. the Braves, striking out 7 and walking 1 in six scoreless innings. He'll face Josh Beckett. Josh is tough to hit at home, allowing just a .203 batting average and a .297 slugging percentage. And you'll be able to see in all in HD on ESPN2!

Enjoy!

The other day I saw a comparison of Bonds' swing from this year compared to last year. The point of the video was that Bonds' mechanics were exactly the same.

What the video also showed, but wasn't mentioned, was that Bonds gained weight. His mid-section was clearly bigger than last year. Now I read this:

Barry Bonds used to commit any spare time before games to lifting weights, working meticulously to build up his leg strength for long nights of standing in left field and on the basepaths following his many walks.

His bum right knee no longer allows it. He is carrying a few extra pounds around his middle and vows to spend the off-season bringing his playing weight down from more than 228 pounds to about 200.

This surprises me. You'd think doctors would be concerned that a person rehabilitating his knees was gaining weight.

The Angels appeared to catch a break last night when Tigers starter Ramon Colon left after 14 pitches. But the Tigers pen was up to the task.

Detroit ushered in a hodge-podge of rookies, retreads and bullpen fodder to smother an Angels offense that had actually been showing some signs of life. A guy named Mark Woodyard made his major-league debut and had exactly as much success as lefty Doug Creek, who was pitching in his 278th major-league game.

That strange duo combined for 51/3 scoreless innings and their act was followed by the inimitable Chris Spurling. The Angels didn't have a base runner between Izturis's two-out single in the second and his one-out hit in the eighth.

Detroit ushered in a hodge-podge of rookies, retreads and bullpen fodder to smother an Angels offense that had actually been showing some signs of life. A guy named Mark Woodyard made his major-league debut and had exactly as much success as lefty Doug Creek, who was pitching in his 278th major-league game.

That strange duo combined for 51/3 scoreless innings and their act was followed by the inimitable Chris Spurling. The Angels didn't have a base runner between Izturis's two-out single in the second and his one-out hit in the eighth.

"Sometimes, it's tough when you're facing a potpourri of pitching," Manager Mike Scioscia said.

That potpourri would run out of steam in the 8th when the Angels would load the bases and tie the game at one on a fielder's choice, then take the lead on a double by Garret Anderson. Without that offense, Ervin Santana's fine performance would have been wasted. The Angels extend their lead over the Athletics to 2 games.

In San Diego, the Padres had a man on first with two outs in the 9th down 5-0 when they started banged out two singles to score a run and bring Chad Cordero into the game. Cordero walked a batter, then gave up the first Padre grand slam to Khalil Greene to send the game into extra innings.

Ramon Hernandez then ended the game in the 12th with a three-run shot.

"Khalil's homer was the biggest hit," said Hernandez, who ended the 3-hour, 45-minute duel with two outs in the 12th by lining Jon Rauch's curveball into the second deck in left. "Khalil's home run was the biggest hit," Hernandez said. "That really woke everybody up."

San Diego's magic number inches down to ten, while Houston's magic number to eliminate Washington from the Wild Card race is eleven.

Donn Clendenon passed away yesterday.

Clendenon hit three home runs and had four RBI in the Mets' five-game victory over the Baltimore Orioles. He hit .274 with 159 home runs and 682 RBI in 12 seasons in the major leagues with Pittsburgh, Montreal, the Mets and St. Louis.

"He was a true gentleman and an integral part of the 1969 team. We knew he had been sick a long time, and on behalf of the Wilpons and the entire Mets organization we send our condolences to his entire family," Mets spokesman Jay Horwitz said.

I have a friend who likes to pronounce both n's in Donn. I'm not sure how many players have every syllable of their name end in n. :-)

My thoughts go out to his family and friends.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

It looks like the Oakland Athletics are falling out of the wild card race. They lose to Boston 2-1, while the Cleveland Indians defeat the Royals 5-4. With the Yankees winning 1-0, the Athletics are now down five games in the AFILC. They're not out of the playoff hunt since they're in striking distance of the Angels, but it looks like the wild card is going to come down to the East and the Central.

Paul Maholm won his second game in his fourth start for Pittsburgh tonight, pitching eight shutout innings. He lowered his ERA to 1.24 and showed the ability to strike out batters as eight went down at the hands of the pitcher.

It looks like it's going to be lefty heaven in Pittsburgh next year. Perez, Duke and Maholm looks like the nucleus of a very good rotation.

Manny Ramirez drove in the winning run last night with a plunk, and tonight he just put the Red Sox up by one with a blast over the Sport Authority sign on the Green Monster.

Craig Biggio homered tonight to help the Astros to a 5-0 lead after three innings. Looking at Craig's stats, however, I wonder if we're seeing the last of the Hall of Fame second baseman. This is his fourth year with a sub-par on-base average, his strength for so many years. He's somewhat making up for it with power, but he's not longer a top of the order hitter. He'll be 40 next year, so it's not clear how much longer his power will hold up. The decision might be easier for him if the Astros can win a championship this year.

The first five Cleveland Indians reached base by a walk or a hit and all five scored. Crisp got the team on the board with a 2-run homer. That give Coco 22 hits, 9 for extra bases in 15 September games.

The difference in the starter's names is the Yankees-Blue Jays score. It's I-O in the ninth, as Gustavo Chacin goes seven and allows one run, while Shawn Chacon is through eight and the Blue Jays have not scored. Chacon has thrown 108 pitches, so it's not clear if he'll come out for the ninth to go for his first shutout.

Update: Tom Gordon makes the score hold up in the ninth. The Yankees keep pressure on both the Indians and Red Sox.

Chacon is now 5-3 with a 3.25 ERA for the Yankees. Lots of people are critical of moves Cashman made with this team, but Chacon and Small are two that are moving them toward the playoffs.

The Marlins scored an insurance run in the bottom of the 8th, but the Phillies used walks, hits and errors to score three in the top of the ninth. There are still no outs and the Phillies have men on 2nd and 3rd. I haven't seen the replay yet, but I'm assuming the the error by Castillo had a potential to be a double play.

Update: More hits and another error and the Phillies are up 6-2. Todd Jones faced five batters, gave up four hits without getting an out. The first two runs are charged to Willis, but only one will be earned.

Update: The Phillies score 10 in the 9th. The Marlins load the bases in the bottom of the inning, but fail to score, running their losing streak to four games. A Washington win tonight would tie the Nationals for third in the Wild Card race.

The Phillies are certainly sending a message in Florida. Two blowout victories make the Phillies look like the most likely team make the wild card from the East. Tomorrow becomes a must win game for the Marlins.

Update: Vilone comes in and gives up two more hits to make the score 8-2 in favor of the Phillies. At least Vilone got an out.

Dontrelle Willis is batting 8th today. Because of injuries, light hitting Robert Andino is playing shortstop. McKeon decided that Dontrelle is the better hitter, and he was moved higher in the lineup. Of course, Andino has a double, walk and a run scored, the only run in the game so far. Maybe batting behind the pitcher motivated the youngster.

Willis is also making that run stand up. He's gone 7 1/3 so far, only allowing three hits, all singles. His strikeouts returned, as he's got seven Phillies looking or swinging so far.

Johan Santana did indeed make his bid for Cy Young today, shutting out the Chicago White Sox for eight innings, striking out 13 along the way. He lowers his ERA to 3.05, .03 behind Kevin Millwood. His ERA against the White Sox this season is 0.86. The question is will the voters give the award to a pitcher with only 15 or 16 wins?

Johan Santana, despite not pitching as well as last season, is still a good candidate for the Cy Young award. His strikeouts, walks, home runs allowed are all very good, he just doesn't have the wins to go with them this season. A great game against the White Sox today would help nudge voters in his direction. He's done some of his best work against the south side Sox this season, going 3-0 with a 1.66 ERA. He's struck out 28 and walked just 3 in 23 1/3 innings against the division rival.

The Marlins try to move back into a tie with the Phillies this afternoon, and the matchup of Vicente Padilla and Dontrelle Willis gives hope to Fish fans. Padilla gave up two homers to the Astros in his last start after giving up just 1 in his previous 50 1/3 innings. Willis is working on a 1.11 ERA over his last 10 starts. Interestingly, he's not striking out a lot of batters, just 5.2 per 9 in that time. He's been pretty unhittable, however, giving up 50 hits in 72 2/3 innings. The Marlins defense is doing a great job behind him.

Whatever you do, don't miss Chacon-Chacin 2, Electric Boogaloo. Shawn was the victor in round one, but Gustavo predicts the I's will have it this time. :-)

Enjoy!

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Oakland put itself in a playoff hole last night as Keiichi Yabu hits Manny Ramirez with the bases loaded in the bottom of the tenth to give the Red Sox a 3-2 victory. Ken Macha had the quote of the night. Juan Cruz had hit Renteria and intentionally walked Ortiz to load the bases:

Macha said that Cruz hitting Renteria "pretty much sealed our fate.''

Cruz said that pitch, a fastball, just got away from him a little bit. Macha then replaced Cruz, after the intentional walk, "because I felt a little better about (Yabu) throwing strikes.''

Was Macha aware of the chance of Yabu hitting a batter? Manny was the 7th batter Yabu hit this year. That gives him 1.145 HBP per 9 innings, the second highest rate in the majors this year among pitchers with at least 50 innings pitched. Only Julian Tavarez is worse (8 HBP in 60 1/3 innings, 1.193 per 9).

With the Angels, Indians and Yankees all winning last night, the Athletics find themselves pulling up the rear in the race for the fourth playoff spot, four games behind Cleveland and one game down to LAnaheim.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

The first four White Sox batters reach in the 10th, giving Chicago a 2-1 lead over the Twins. Three singles and an error on a sacrifice leave the bases loaded as Joe Nathan comes in with none out to put out the fire.

Update: Nathan does his job, getting a force out at the plate and a double play ball to keep the damage at one run. Now it's up the the Minnesota offense.

Update: Bobby Jenks blows away the Twins in the bottom of the 10th to keep pace with Indians. It's Jenks first win of his major league career. He's now struck out 39 in 32 1/3 innings.

The Yankees hold on to beat Toronto 11-10. Sturtze and Rivera finally shutdown the Jays, allowing 2 hits over 2 1/3 innings. Rivera reaches 40 saves for the third year in a row and the sixth time in his career.

The White Sox and Twins just went to the 10th inning tied at one. The Brewers and Astros are one out from doing the same thing. Jeff Bagwell is coming in to pinch-hit, however.

Update: Jeff Bagwell singles to right to drive in the winning run for Houston. It's Jeff's 16th RBI of the season, and maybe his most important as it keeps the Astros in first place in the Wild Card race.

Barry Bonds hits his first home run of the season in the bottom of the first. Randy Winn led off the inning with a solo shot as well. That puts Barry 10 behind Ruth on the all-time list.

Chris Shelton puts the Tigers up 2-0 with his 14th home run of the season. Chris fell off from his hot start but is still slugging over .500. Vlad's shoulder can't be that bad as he's in the starting lineup tonight.

Moehler gave the Marlins five good innings, leaving with a 2-2 tie. But the Florida bullpen fell apart, allowing five runs to the Phillies for a 7-3 lead. The five relievers have thrown 26 balls and 24 strikes so far.

The Yankees scored 10 unanswered runs to take an 11-3 lead, but Toronto came back with 7 runs of their own over the last three innings to make it a one run game. Maybe the Yankees needed Johnson after all. None of their relievers have gone any length of time without allowing a run.

The Indians will spend another day in first place in the wild card race. Scott Elarton pitched well into the eighth, allowing just five hits and 1 run. The Yankees and Athletics are winning right now, and this puts pressure on them to stay in the lead. The White Sox are tied at 1 with the Twins. If Cleveland can pick up two games this weekend, they can take over first with a sweep of Chicago early next week.

Pedro Martinez pitches a complete game shutout against the Braves, preventing them from reducing their magic number tonight. With 10 strikeouts and just two walks, this is the game the Mets need Pedro to pitch against the Phillies.

Zach Duke picked up the first loss of his major league career tonight. He only gave up 1 run in four innings, but the Pirates offense was shut down by Brandon Claussen. Claussen is ending the season very well, going 5-1 with a 2.81 ERA since August 1st.

It turns out the Yankees didn't need Randy Johnson tonight, just Robinson Cano. The rookie second baseman hit a double and two home runs this evening, driving in five runs. The move to the bottom of the order appears to have worked. He now has 10 extra base hits and 13 RBI in his last 14 games. The Yankees lead 11-3 in the fifth inning.

Update: I had Cano's RBI wrong. He had five tonight, not six.

Mark Teahan gave the Royals a 1-0 lead in the fifth with a solo shot in the fifth, but the Indians do him one better, going back-to-back in the bottom of the inning for a 3-1 lead. Blake hit his 21st to give the Tribe the lead, and Sizemore followed with his 20th for insurance. That was enough for Jimmy Gobble, who is gone in favor of Kyle Snyder. Gobble did strike out six in his four-plus innings, but walked three and used 86 pitches.

Carlos Delgado continues his hot September hitting with a two-run homer in the bottom of the first vs. the Phillies. That raises his September batting average to .404 with five home runs and 12 RBI in 15 games. He' earning his free agent money down the stretch.

Youppi's! stay in limbo is over.

Youppi! will become the first mascot in professional sports history to move from one league to another when he makes his debut for the Canadiens in October 2005.

"It is with great pleasure that we can now count Youppi! as an official member of our organization," Canadiens president Pierre Boivin said. "Youppi! has touched the lives of countless fans of all ages with both his in-game enthusiasm and with his generosity throughout the Montreal community."

The Canadians denied rumors that the orange creature with the big caboose was suffering from depression after being jettisoned by the Expos. However, court documents indicate he applied to change his name to Youppi.

Vernon Wells hits a three run homer in the bottom of the first after an error and a walk. It's the 30th home run Randy Johnson allowed this year, matching his career high. He gave up up 18 all last year.

Update: The game's not on MLB Extra Innings, but I'm told Johnson was tossed in the second inning for arguing balls and strikes. Just what the Yankees need in the middle of a pennant race. Reminds me of when Clemens got tossed in the 1990 ALCS.

I signed up for free poll software. Here's one to start us off:

Take the poll here:
NL Wild Card Winner

See the results without voting: NL Wild Card Winner Results

The Yankees take an early lead on the Toronto Blue Jays as they score one run in the top of the first on a Jason Giambi double. It's just his 14th double of the year. That's the one part of Jason's game that didn't come back. Through 2003 he was fairly even in the two big extra-base hit categories, hitting 287 doubles and 269 homers. He's back to hitting home runs, but the doubles are few and far between. Is it that he can't run like he used to, or is he no longer driving the ball into the gaps?

Torii Hunter thinks he's going to be traded in the off-season.

Although he's under contract with Minnesota for the 2006 season and the Twins have a club option on him for 2007, the center fielder has put his condominium on the market, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported Friday.

"I'm putting it up for sale and will be renting an apartment," Hunter told the Star Tribune. "It's a business sometimes. I want to be here, but you never know what could happen. I've seen good friends leave here.

Hunter told the newspaper that he's heard from people he trusts that he could be traded this offseason. Hunter's 2006 salary of $10.75 million would be the highest single-season in Twins history. The Twins have a $12 million option on him for the 2007 season, or could buy him out for $2 million.

It seems a dubious reason to sell your house. Maybe the Minneapolis housing market is so hot that Torii wants to cash out.

Vlad Guerrero re-injured his shoulder last night.

"He's day-to-day; we're not going to play him if there's a risk of injury and [missing] substantial time," Scioscia told the newspaper. "If the lead shoulder is not impacting his swing and he's not at a risk of injury, he'll play."

Tim Wakefield takes the mound for the Red Sox tonight vs. Oakland's Joe Kennedy. How can Boston fans root against the patriarch? Wakefield was in full control of his knuckle ball in his last two starts, striking out 19 in 17 innings while walking just four.

There seems to be a wild card show down every day in the National League. The Phillies travel to Florida to face the Marlins tonight, both teams 1/2 game back in the wild card standings. Jon Lieber faces Brian Mohler. Lieber is 5-2 in his last eight starts with an outstanding 2.65 ERA. Moehler has not started since August 20th and pitched poorly in relief since then, posting a 6.55 ERA.

The Brewers get to play more than spoilers in the last two weeks of the season as they still have a shot at a Wild Card berth. They get to take the race into their own hands tonight as they start a weekend series with the Astros. Rick Helling came out of nowhere to post a 2-0 record and 2.40 ERA for the Brewers down the stretch. He's yet to allow a home run in 30 innings. He'll face stud or dud Roy Oswalt, coming off a dud of a performance against the Brewers last weekend.

Zach Duke will get a start in one of the Reds-Pirates games today. He's 6-0 with an ERA under 2.00. He hasn't pitched since an injury on August 23rd.

In a strange bit of scheduling, the Nationals spend the weekend in San Diego playing the Padres before returning to Washington to face the Giants. It's an all JP duel as John Patterson takes on Jake Peavy. Patterson is coming off a pounding by the Marlins, while Peavy has 77 K in 69 2/3 innings since the All-Star break.

Enjoy!

You can purchase tickets to these and many other events at the Baseball Musings Ticket Store.

If the Angels fail to reach the post season, some of the blame can be attributed to the Steve Finley signing. Finley did not perform offensively this year, and his lack of offense led to the defensive hole that lost last night's game.

The Angels, despite the fact that they have led the American League West for all but a few days this season, have not played well starting with the series before the All-Star break against Seattle.

The problem is basic -- lack of offense.

One of Scioscia's attempted solutions was installing Chone Figgins, his all-purpose guy, as his regular center fielder.

Figgins is an infielder learning to play the outfield. In the major leagues. In a pressure-packed pennant race.

Last night that hurt LAnaheim:

Colon no doubt thought he was sailing along with a 2-0 lead in the third inning. With Brandon Inge on first and one out, Chris Shelton hit a lazy fly to short center for the apparent second out.

As Yogi Berra might say, the ball ain't caught until it's caught.

Somehow, Figgins outran the ball, which is quite an accomplishment when said ball is in front of you. Instead of running to where the ball would land and stopping, which is standard procedure, he continued to run and the ball fell behind him.

Inge scored from first as Figgins scrambled back to get the ball. That was an official error, pure and simple, no argument.

Colon no doubt thought he still was in pretty good shape in the fourth with two out and two on when Curtis Granderson hit a blast to center. It was a blast, but it was going to stay in the park.

In the bottom of the inning, Bengie Molina would hit a similar blast that Granderson, the Detroit center fielder, would catch at the fence for a long out.

Figgins managed to misplay his ball into a three-run inside-the-park home run. It was not an official error. It was a colossal misplay.

Finley, a fine defensive outfielder, makes one and perhaps both of those plays.

In this case, the best defense is a good offense. :-)

Ozzie Guillen is not happy with the way the White Sox are playing:

There is no sadder statistic and none that tells the story of the sagging White Sox's season better than this:

The Sox started 10-0 against the Royals but are 3-5 since then.

The Royals haven't changed a thing, except managers. They are still the worst scoring team in the American League, the second worst in hitting and the worst in pitching. They are, simply, the major leagues' worst team.

And what does that make the Sox, who just lost two of three here, including Thursday's 7-5 game played on a dark, dreary, drizzling day that matched the mood in the visiting clubhouse?

"We flat-out stink," manager Ozzie Guillen said.

The collaspe the South Siders are on may make people forget the 1978 Red Sox. This is turning into a bigger, lengthier fall than that fabled crash. By this point in the season, the Sox had given up their lead and were playing the Yankees evenly down the stretch. Like that Sox fall, injuries are playing a role in this one as well.

And now, with just 17 games left in the season, there is concern about the arms of Garcia and Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez and Hermanson's back.

Rookie Brandon McCarthy has been told to be ready to relieve when Hernandez starts Saturday in Minnesota, and he has been told he might start in place of Garcia on Monday in the opener of a three-game series against—gulp—Cleveland.

"It's up to Freddy and Duque how they feel," Guillen said. "If something happens to either, we will put him in the spot."

Guillen has even rethought his rethinking on a six-man rotation. In other words, the pitching is a big question mark, if not a big mess.

What's been the strength of the team all year is now becoming a weakness. They've had a bad turn through the rotation, the starters posting a 8.62 ERA in the last six games.

Now they go to Minnesota while the Indians host the Royals. Odds are the Tribe won't lose any ground before they face each other on Monday.

It looks like the Oakland Athletics are pretty good at watching video and building a game plan:

``It's just not executing,'' Schilling said. ``I gave up 11 hits and eight of them were in the first two pitches against a team that notoriously works the count. But I had a feeling coming into this game that if they watched my last start, which a lot of teams do, they'd see how many first-pitch fastballs I was throwing and how many balls I left in the middle of the plate that were taken for balls. I thought they might come out and be aggressive and they did. Seven of the 11 hits were on fastballs. ``Five or six of those were balls that I just centered down the middle of the plate.''

Schilling obviously didn't adjust to the A's adjustments. It also makes me wonder if Schilling's victory on Saturday vs. the Yankees was more a poor game plan by NY than an improvement by Curt. Oakland shows once again that they'll go the extra mile to get an edge in a game.

We'll see if Schilling makes an adjustment in his next start.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

Curtis Granderson hit a ball off the wall in center field in Anaheim and never stopped running. I-Rod and Carlos Pena score easily, and there's not even a play on Curtis as he scores easily on the inside the park home run. That gives the Tigers a 4-2 lead.

Vlad leads off the bottm of the 4th with his second homer of the game. He didn't need to run fast on that one. It's 4-3 Tigers in the bottom of the fourth, the Angels needing a win to keep from dropping into a tie for first place in the AL West.

It looks like Gunderson stole a home run from Molina. It was a great catch against the wall. In the space of a few batters he gave the Tigers the lead and helped them keep it.

The Red Sox lose to the Oakland Athletics, bringing the Yankees to 1 1/2 games of first place in the East.

I have to say I'm more suprised by the rise of the Yankees and than the fall of the White Sox. Early in the season, the play of New York had me believing they were at best a .550 team, a team that would win no more than 89 games.

Sinc and including the game of 8/17, the Yankees are 18-9, 2nd only to Cleveland. The Red Sox are 16-13, so it's been a very slow climb for New York. With all the AL divisions close and with the Wild Card very close, this is truly a year where anything can happen. Stay tuned.

Andy Pettitte pitches eight one-run innings, his only mistake being a home run ball to Miguel Cabrera. Brad Lidge comes in to strike out the side in the 9th, giving him 92 strikeouts in 60 2/3 innings, 13.2 per nine innings. Wow. The Astros retake the Wild Card lead by 1/2 a game over the Phillies and Marlins and 2 1/2 over the Nationals. Houston is done with the NL East.

The Astros now host Milwaukee for three. This is the Brewers big chance to advance in this race. They are 5-7 vs. the Astros so far this season.

Garret Anderson draws a rare walk (23rd of the year) and Vlad Guerrero makes the Tigers pay with his 30th home run of the season to give the Angels a 2-0 lead in the first. With Oakland leading Boston 6-2 late, the Angels look like they'll need the win to stay in first place.

The Yankees Sweep the Devil Rays, winning by a score of 9-5 tonight. It took the offense a while to get going, but they scored 9 runs in the last five innings. Small pitches poorly, but still earns his eighth win against zero losses. The Red Sox are losing, so the Yankees can gain ground on both Cleveland and Boston tonight.

The Braves manage to avoid a sweep in Philadelphia, picking up a 6-4 win and knocking the Phillies out of first place in the wild card race. They'll either end the night 1/2 game behind Houston or a game behind Florida.

Chipper Jones continues his hot September, going 2 for 5 with two home runs and five RBI. That raises his September average to .320 with six homers and 16 RBI in 14 games.

Jason Vargas is outpitching Andy Pettitte tonight, but he's down 1-0 in the fifth. A hit, walk, fielder's choice and error led to the run (although it was earned). Pettitte is helping himself by inducing double plays, taking out two of the four batter that reached against him.

Update: The Astros give Pettitte a little more breathing room as Biggio and Ausmus homer in the fifth. The Marlins are down 3-0.

In a typical Yankees-DRays game for this year, the teams are tied at five at the sixth. Otherwise good pitcher Aaron Small has given up five runs on six hits. Six+ ERA pitcher Seth McClung pitched five good innings but allowed a grand slam to Cano in the 6th. As typical, this game will go down to the wire.

Update: Alex Rodriguez breaks the tie with his 42nd home run later in the inning. So much for Alex not being clutch. He's tied with David Ortiz for the AL lead.

The Oakland-Boston game was delayed by rain. Curt Schilling might wish it hadn't started. The first three batters reached on hits, pushing two runs across the plate. The Sox are coming up down 2-0.

Jorge Sosa loads the bases with Phillies without allowing a hit, then runs the count to 3-2 on Howard with two out in the bottom of the first. Howard gets a lot of the ball, but hits it deep to center field where Andruw Jones hauls it in. Twenty more feet and the Phillies are up 4-0 early.

Update: Chipper send the ball deep enough. He hits the ball into the right field seats to give the Braves a 3-0 lead in the third.

The Milwaukee Brewers are not yet dead. They sit 5 1/2 games out of the wild card, so the chances of them making the playoffs are slim, especially with four teams in front of them. But they're not going quitely. They've knocked out nine hits and drawn five walks in the first three innings vs. the Diamondbacks tonight, earning a 9-0 lead. It's even more lopsided than that, as Ohka is perfect through three innings.

Update: It's now 12-0 after four innings. Ohka still has the no-no intact.

The White Sox score three in the 8th to pull within one run of the Royals, 6-5. Mike MacDougal comes in to strike out Uribe with a man on second to end the inning and preserve the lead. One run games belong to the White Sox this year, but today they're on the wrong side of the score.

Update: Royals win 7-5. The Indians are now 4 1/2 games back. The two teams open a 3-game series in Chicago on Monday.

Vinny Castilla knocks in the go-ahead run in the 10th for the Nationals. The Mets announcers were complaining that Hernandez threw Castilla nothing but fastballs, and that's all Castilla can hit at this point.

Update: Washington sweeps the Mets. This may make up for the loss at the Battle of Brooklyn. The Nationals will gain on some wild card team tonight.

The Kansas City Royals score four in the seveth off Buehrle and Vizcaino to take a 6-2 lead over the division leading White Sox. With Cleveland taking a day off (their first of two over the remaining part of the season), their lead can shrink to 4 1/2 games if the score holds up.

The Royals have 12 hits, 7 of them doubles. They've also managed to draw four walks.

Washington had their back against the wall, down one in the ninth inning. But Braden Looper and the defense allowed them back into the game. A single by Zimmerman and an error by Gerald Williams opened the inning, and after a hit by pitch, Wilkerson got Matsui to commit the 2nd error of the inning, tying the game. They'll go to the bottom of the ninth tied.

Update: I just went back and watched the replay of Matsui's error. It's a tough error to give the second baseman. The infield was in and the ball was hit hard, but just to his right. I guess the official scorer believes Kaz should have knocked it down.

Jermaine Dye gives the White Sox the early lead with a solo home run off Greinke. Dye hasn't done that well against his former team. It's just his 4th home run vs. the Royals in 39 games since he left.

Cliff Floyd hits a grand slam in the fifth inning to give the Mets a 5-4 lead. That gives Floyd 30 homers on the season, one off his career high.

The Nationals jump on top of the Mets 3-0 in the top of the first. Preston Wilson has a big hit, and two run single with one out. Wilson's numbers with Washington are pretty consistent with his Colorado numbers this year, except that his power is down.

Jose Reyes leads off the game with a home run for the Mets, making the score 3-1. Reyes now has over 1100 plate appearances in the majors. So far, his stats indicate he's a number 8 hitter, not a leadoff man.

Update: Cristian Guzman drives in Washington's fourth run. After a year of horrible offense, he's putting together a good September, going 9 for 30 so far with that hit.

Steve Bauman writes with a very unusual play from last night's Red Sox game:

I was surprised you didn't "muse" over the strange play in last night's Red Sox/Blue Jays game.

If you didn't see it, Tony Graffanino hit a home run with Gabe Kapler on at first. Kapler was running full-bore, as it was a line drive and not a sure thing, but as he hit second base, he did a full-blown face plant into the turf. It turned out that he'd ruptured his Achilles' tendon, and he couldn't continue around the bases. (Obviously. Ouch.)

So Graffanino stays at second, and they pinch-run for Kapler in mid-play with Alejandro Machado, who finishes rounding the bases (and gets his first-ever run scored) with Graffanino following. A mid-play substitution, who knew?

The rule apparently states you can do this if the player would have been awarded that base, or bases. Obviously, if Graffanino's ball hadn't gone out, they could have just tagged Kapler out.

Home runs are special cases. For example, if someone hits a game winning home run (out of the field of play) but can't round the bases due to fans mobbing the field, the run still counts. In looking at the play by play for the game, it looks like the substitution happens before the homer. There should be a note inserted there.

White Sox ALDS tickets go on sale in a couple of hours. Of course, they first need to survive the on slaught of the Indians. Cleveland is five games behind Chicago, and have six of their last 16 games against the White Sox. You can buy tickets for those games here.

The Washington Nationals are hanging on the edge of the Wild Card race, and they'll go for a sweep of the Mets today. It's a good matchup, as Livan Hernandez faces Jae Seo. Livan is giving up many more home runs since the All-Star break, accounting for his 3-4 record in that time. Seo is going for his 8th win in 11 starts. Batters are just 5 for 38 against Jay with runners in scoring position, a .132 batting average.

The Athletics put themselves in a tough spot, losing two out of three to the Indians. They're 3 1/2 back in the wild card race and one back in the West. The weekend favors the Angels, as Oakland plays in Boston and LAnaheim hosts Detroit. Joe Blanton faces Curt Schilling this evening. Red Sox Nation will be watching to see if Schilling can put together two good starts in a row. Meanwhile, Angels' ace Bartolo Colon starts against Mike Maroth and the men from Motor City. Colon's eight game winning streak is on the line, and so is a 20 win season. He's 0-1 against the Tigers this season despite a 2.57 ERA.

In the NL Wild Card race, the Phillies go for a sweep of the Braves and the Astros look for a split with the Marlins. One-half game separate the three clubs. Sosa will face Myers in Philadelphia in a great matchup. Vargas takes the hill against Pettitte in Houston. A Phillies win today means a race for the wild card and the division down the stretch.

Enjoy!

You can purchase tickets for these and many other events at the Baseball Musings Ticket Store.

I live next door to Springfield, MA, and one of their citizens hit the big time yesterday.

On Tuesday, Doug Clark was teaching a history class at Central High School in Springfield, Mass.

On Wednesday, Clark was pinch-hitting for the Giants in the ninth inning of his first big-league game.

"I don't think it's hit me yet," Clark said after he drew a walk and was erased on a double play.

When Triple-A Fresno's season ended, Clark, 29, flew home to begin his side job as a substitute teacher. He was in the middle of class, in his second day on the job, when he got a message that Fresno manager Shane Turner called.

And he has a 1.000 OBA!

The Tampa Bay Devil Rays are upsetting their prospects.

On the heels of being called "cheap" by their top prospect two days ago, the Devil Rays took another hit from the agent of another prized youngster.

B.J. Upton's agent, Larry Reynolds, told The Tampa Tribune he didn't appreciate comments made Tuesday by GM Chuck LaMar that called into question Upton's future position in the major leagues.

"I'm tired of reading about the club's opinion of B.J. Upton in the paper," Reynolds told The Tribune. "If they don't think he can play shortstop, they should seriously think about trading him."

We can only hope they trade him to Baltimore so they can once again corner the market on BJs.

Full disclosure: Larry Reynolds is Harold Reynolds' brother and I've had conversations with him in the past.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

Roger Clemens does very well despite the emotional trama of the day. He gives up 1 run in 6 1/3 innings, and with the Astros scoring three, Clemens actually has a chance at a win.

Things are going well for the Phillies. They needed Houston to lose two, and now they need Florida to lose as well. So far, so good.

Andruw Jones hit his 50th home run, but that wasn't nearly enough as the Phillies pounded the Braves 12-4. The infield (including Lieberthal) racked up 11 hits and scored 8 runs.

A win tomorrow and the Phillies sweep the Braves and make the NL East a race again.

Jake Westbrook doesn't hold on to either his no-hitter or his shutout. A walk, single and Swisher three-run homer bring the Athletics back into parity with the Indians. It's 3-3 in the top of the sixth.

Correction: It was Swisher, not Chavez, who hit the home run.

If you missed tonight's show, you can hear the recorded version here. It's also available on demand at TPSRadio.

Jake Westbrook walked one but faced the minimum through five innings thanks to a double play. Zito is also pitching a shutout but the Indians are threatening with men on first and third with 1 out.

Update: Zito loads the bases with a walk and Victor Martinez delivers the sacrifice fly to give the Indians the 1-0 lead. Belliard follows with a bloop single to extend the lead to 2-0.

I'll be on the air in a minute. Stop by and chat here.

I'll be on the air in a minute. Stop by and chat here.

The Angels, down one run in the top of the ninth get the leadoff man on due to an error by Beltre at third. Izturis pinch runs, and Sorensen lays down a good sacrifice. But Mariner second baseman Jose Lopez, covering first, has the ball hit off his glove and start rolling for second. Lopez is lying on the ground, and no one is chasing down the ball! Izturis comes racing around third, Lopez recovers the ball, throws home, and just gets Izturis at the plate. Sorensen ends up at second, but a ground out leaves him there with two outs for Bengie Molina.

Update: Molina comes through with a single to right. Ichiro's throw is not in time, and the game is tied at 9 in the 9th.

Roger Clemens lost his mother today, but will pitch tonight vs. the Marlins. My thoughts go out to Roger and his family.

LAnaheim fights back from deficits of 6-0 and 7-4 to tie the Mariners at 7. They've knocked out 12 singles and two doubles to reach that score.

After two Giants walk in the 8th, Alou sends up Barry Bonds to pinch hit for Alfonzo. Bonds strikes out looking on a perfect pitch on the lower outside corner. But Pedro Feliz comes through with a double to score both runs and put the Giants three outs away from a sweep of the Padres. It's 4-2 in the top of the ninth with Benitez in the game.

Update: Sean Burroughs doubles in two in the top of the ninth to hang a blown save on Armando Benitez. The game is going to the tenth tied at four.

Update: Matheny fails to hold onto the ball on a good throw to the plate in the top of the 10th, allowing Mark Loretta to score on a Brian Giles single. Trevor Hoffman is on to see if he can earn a save.

Update: Hoffman gets the Giants easily in the 9th to stop San Diego's slide. A tough loss for the Giants as they lose two games to the Padres in just two innings.

St. Louis loses 5-3 to Pittsburgh today, delaying their clinching of the division. I was incorrect last night, St. Louis' magic number is indeed two. If they won just one more game and the Astros won all of theirs, it's not certain that the two teams would have the best record in the league.

Alfonso Soriano hit his 34th home run of the season today, helping the Rangers to an extra-inning win over the Baltimore Orioles. Alfonso has now driven in and scored 96 runs. I'm not surprised at the RBI total, but I am by the runs scored total. Alfonso is posting a low .314 OBA for the season.

This season of Soriano's reminds me of the 1992-1993 seasons of Joe Carter. He had a lousy OBA but good power and ended up scoring a lot of runs. Right now, Soriano isn't similar to Carter according to the list at BaseballReference.com, but I wonder if that will change with time.

Joe Saunders, making his second major league start, gives up back to back jacks to Sexson and Ibanez in the first inning to stake the Mariners to a 3-0 lead over the Angels. Seattle has Moyer on the mound, who is pitching better since the All-Star break. He's posted a 3.39 ERA in that time.

Randy Winn hits a home run into McCovey Cove to tie the Padres at 1. According to the broadcast, he's only the second Giant to hit the water this season.

When I looked at the Pittsburgh boxscore and saw Oliver Perez out of the game after just 1 2/3 innings, I thought he was hurt again. Instead, he was tossed after hitting Hector Luna in the 2nd inning. It's not great news for Pirate fans, but it's certainly better than losing him to an injury again.

After getting two lineouts to start the game, Twins rookie Francisco Liriano has four consecutive strikeouts. That gives him nine in his first four major league innings.

Matt Welch is not impressed with Mike Scioscia's playing of useless veterans down the stretch.

Ivan Rodriguez is not the only Tiger going for an odd record. Palacido Palanco is trying to be the first player since Eddie Murray in 1990 to have the highest batting average in the majors without winning a batting title.

Brian Ettkin makes the case in favor of Giambi getting the Comeback Player of the Year Award.

If nothing else, Giambi is putting this award on the map. I remember trying to find the winner one year and none of the obvious internet sites listed the award. Usually, it gets the same treatment as Best Supporting Actor.

What no one is talking about is awarding Giambi the MVP. Consider that he's leading the league OBA. That alone should garner a player some MVP votes. Consider also that he's generating win shares at a faster rate than either Alex Rodriguez or Gary Sheffield. I don't think he deserves the award since he hasn't played well all season, but there's good reasons to put him in the top ten.

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This is one of those great days with twelve hours of baseball. There are so many important games it's tough to list them all. The Cardinals will go for the division title today as they send Jason Marquis against Oliver Perez. Pirates fans can look forward to a pretty good lefty rotation next year with Perez, Duke and Paul Maholm. A win today by the Cardinals for all intents and purposes puts them in the playoffs. A loss by Houston tonight makes it official.

The Mariners go for a sweep of the Angels this afternoon. Except for the weekend pounding of the White Sox, the Angels offense is in the dumps. They've scored 54 runs in their last 16 games, and 22 of those came in the three game weekend series in Chicago.

At seven, the other AL contenders get underway with the Indians and Atheltics playing the rubber game of their match, Tampa Bay tries to beat Wang for the third time this year, and the Red Sox hope the good David Wells shows up in Toronto.

The best pitching matchup of the evening comes at 8 PM EDT when A.J. Burnett matches up vs. Roger Clemens. The Astros, for the first time in the series, have the pitching advantage, and they'll need to score a few runs for Clemens and Pettitte if they are going to earn a split in the series and pass the Marlins again.

Finally, the Rockies and Dodgers meet in Los Angeles as the men in blue try to stay alive in the NL West race. The Rockies send their second Kim to the mound, as Byung-Hyun Kim tries to match the performance of Sunny last night. BK's only one once on the road this season.

Enjoy!

Any night your magic number goes down is a good one. The Padres lost to the Giants 5-4 as San Francisco pecked away with five one-run innings. Barry Bonds drew his first two walks of the year, and his OBA after two games is a very Bonds like .500.

Lawrence is now a very poor pitcher. His overall stats aren't that different from past seasons, but since the All-Star break he's been walking lots of batters, including two last night in four innings. A decent second half by Lawrence and we're not talking about the Dodgers and Giants creeping up on the Padres.

Luckily for the Padres, the Dodgers lost last night. Sunny Kim and the bullpen made an early 6-0 Rockies lead stand up and won the game 6-4. Helton hit two doubles to bring his total to 38. In 2002 and 1999 Helton had 39 doubles, otherwise he'd be looking at seven straight years of 40 two baggers. Nonetheless, his lead in double in that time frame is impressive, leading Abreu by 38.

The Diamondbacks lost a chance to gain ground as well as Chris Capuano won his 17th game for the Brewers and lowered his ERA to 3.55 in a 3-1 victory. A healthy Ben Sheets paired with Capuano gives Brewers fans something to look forward to next season. The win also brings the Brewers to .500, meaning they would be in first place in the NL West.

I wish I had stayed up to see this double play:

Sexson grounded into a double play, second baseman Kennedy to center fielder Izturis to first baseman Erstad, Ibanez out.

Mike Scioscia did some defensive maneuvering in the bottom of the ninth, and it almost worked. The Mariners put men on first and third with no one out and Richie Sexson up. Mike replaced Steve Finley with Maicer Izturis and brought him in as a fifth infielder. It's a brilliant move as they not only hold the runner at third, but turn the double play. Scioscia then walks Beltre to pitch to the light hitting Greg Dobbs, who singles in the winning run to prevent the Angels from extending their lead over the Athletics. Sometimes you do everything right and it just doesn't work out.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

With the Cardinals winning 5-4 on a ninth inning David Eckstein single, St. Louis is now one win or one Astros loss away from clinching the division. Since they are leading the season series 11-3, a tie would give them the division and the Astros the wild card. They'll have over two weeks to prepare and get healthy for the post season.

The Yankees pull within 2 1/2 games of the Red Sox with their blow out win and the Red Sox blow out defeat. We should probably start thinking about the five way tie, where Boston, New York, Cleveland, LAnaheim and Oakland all end up with the same record. That would be sweet.

Todd Jones comes into the Marlins-Astros game in a real save situation. One out in the 8th, men on 1st and third, Todd gets Berkman to hit the first pitch for a double play. The Marlins hold on to their 4-2 lead, and Jones needs just three outs for his 37th save.

Update: The Astros go easily in the ninth. Jones throws just 13 pitches to get five outs and drop the Astros into third place in the Wild Card race. The Marlins were able to take advantage of their favorable pitching matchups. The Astros need to do the same with Clemens and Pettitte throwing in the next two games.

A great job by the Phillies bullpen tonight, pitching four shutout innings and striking out four batters. They kept the game close so the Phillies could come back after blowing a lead to take a 5-4 victory over the Braves. With the Marlins winning, the Braves magic number may not go down again.

Ben Broussard drives in all five runs for the Indians, hitting a three-run shot in the eighth to go with his two-run homer in the seventh. Millwood lowers his ERA to 3.02 in picking up just his 8th win.

I wonder why Kirk Saarloos was taken out so early. He had a shutout through six innings on 87 pitches. He wasn't throwing a high percentage of strikes, so maybe Macha thought he should go to the pen before things got out of hand. It didn't work out that way.

Cleveland remains in the Wild Card lead.

The Yankees post their third five run inning of the game. It's not a slugfest, however. New York has 18 hits, 16 of them singles. They've also walked eight times. It's a station to station blow out.

Update: They ended up scoring seven in the sixth.

Ben Broussard finally puts Cleveland on the board with a two run homer after 15 scoreless innings. The game is tied at two.

Ivan Rodriguez hit his 14th home run of the season tonight. But in looking at his year-to-date stats, I was flabergasted to see he's walked just seven times! The last two years he had really improved his game by being more selective at the plate, drawing 96 walks in the two seasons with an OBA in the .370s. He's having his worst season getting on base since his rookie year of 1991. Could it be with the weight loss and fall off in hitting that pitchers feel they can challenge him?

A number of the light poles just went out at Jacobs field. Some stayed on, so it doesn't appear to be a stadium wide power failure.

Carlos Delgado hits his fourth homer of the month to give the Marlins a 1-0 lead over the Astros. Delgado is slugging .791 in September with that homer, helping lead the Marlins to the top spot in the
Wild Card chase.

A rare bunt for the Oakland Athletics leads to a strange out. With men on first and second and none out, Kendall tries to sacrifice. The ball bounces straight up and hits Kendall in the chest, and the umpire called him out. On the replay, Kendall looked like he as in the batters box (foul territory). The home plate ump conferred and otherwise hobnobbed with his fellow umps and they did not overrule the play. Oakland does end up scoring after a force at second and a passed ball. They lead 2-0. The Indians have not scored in 13 innings in this series.

For the second inning in a row, the Devil Rays pitcher who started the inning does not get an out. Brazelton allows the first six batters to reach, and he's out of the game. The Yankees lead 8-2 and are still threatening as Beimel enters to put out the fire.

The bottom of the Toronto order did a lot of damage to the Red Sox in the 2nd inning tonight. Zaun, Hill and Gross combined for three hits, a double, a homer and five RBI to put the Blue Jays on top 5-0 early.

The Yankees chase Doug Waechter before the Tampa Bay righty gets an out. Jason Giambi hits a three run homer to bring his total to 30 enroute to the Yankees taking a 5-0 lead in the first.

The Yankees are going with a different lineup tonight, batting Rodriguez 2nd and Giambi third, with Sheffield in the cleanup spot at DH. I like this lineup because it bunches their big on-base hitters together, rather than breaking them up with Cano.

We'll see if Jaret Wright can hold this lead.

Update: Jaret allowed two runs in the bottom of the first. This game has slugfest written all over it.

Kenny Lofton tripled and scored in the first inning for Philadelphia to give them a 1-0 lead. It was Lofton's 98th triple of his career. Two more and he reaches that rare milestone of 100 lifetime triples. Coming into 2005, only 157 players had reached that plateau.

Sizemore led off the bottom of the first for the Indians with a double. Eric Wedge then had Coco Crisp bunt, and he sacrificed successfully.

Why? Crisp is hitting .431 over his last 13 games with seven doubles and three home runs! It seems there's a decent chance of Coco driving in Sizemore with a hit, leading to a big inning.

The Indians end up getting nothing as Peralta walked and Hafner hit into a double play.

Chris Jaffe presents a long and excellent article on pitchers aging patterns at Baseball Think Factory. One part I'd on which I'll comment:

So just to recap - from 1876 to the 1980s baseball went many changes - the pitchers were moved back twice, given a mound, lost the spitball and shineball, had several eras of high- scoring offense, and low-scoring deadness. It survived two world wars and other, smaller conflicts. It integrated, adopted night baseball, conquered the minor leagues, went to airline travel, coast-to-coast leagues, and paid grown men to put on silly looking costumes and serve as mascots. Yet throughout all this turmoil, one consistent held true: fastballers started earlier, got up to speed quicker, entered their prime earlier, peaked earlier, and - through at least the first stages of decline - performed considerably worse than junkers.

Then came the 1980s. Now absolutely none of that is true. The exact opposite is going on. Sure. OK. Why not? What the hell.

Ideas? Explanations? I'm empty folks. Not a clue. I can throw a few things out - the 1980s is associated with the rise of the split-fingered fastball. Does that have something to do with it? I dunno. Pitch counts? (shrugs). Maybe. You know what though? None of these really explains it because there are two separate things going on - not only are fastballers aging better, but everyone else is aging worse. How the heck does the rise of the splitter cause curveballers to pitch worse at age 34? It's the damnedest thing.

I would suggest weight training may be the cause of the shift. Weight training helps the pitchers throw harder longer, and healthy, strong muscles can stand more wear and tear. Just like weight training helped batters hit the ball farther, it makes sense that the same type of training keeps pitchers younger longer.

My daughter's music school put in a wireless network, so I can now do research and blog while she's taking violin lessons!

This post on Gabe Kapler was quoted in full in the Sidekick section of the Boston Globe today.

The Oakland-Cleveland series continues with the Athletics sending Kirk Saarloos against AL ERA leader Kevin Millwood. With Millwood at the top of the ERA leader board, I wondered how much evidence there was for him getting Cy Young consideration. It's turns out very little. Kevin's ERA and record represent a perfect balancing of luck. His DIPS ERA is 4.04, indicating he's been pretty lucky or owes thanks to his defense. His record of 7-11 (talk about luck!) given his ERA points to bad luck in winning games. In this case great ERA + poor record does indicate a pitcher not worth the award.

The Yankees play the Devil Rays this evening, and this game is mostly interesting due to New York's poor record against this lowly team. The best way to illustrate the problem is with walks. On the season, the Yankees have outdrawn their opponents 554-399, better than a walk per game. Against Tampa Bay, however, they've been out walked 57-50. This by the offense with the 2nd lowest total walks in the AL and the pitching staff that issued the most! A big reason for the poor record are the starts by rookies (Wang, Penn) in which the Yankees are 0-5 and four starts by Johnson in which he's had an ERA of 6.56. Shouldn't the Big Unit blow Tampa Bay away every game?

The pitching matchups in the NL Wild Card race favor the Marlins tonight as they send Josh Beckett against Wandy Rodriguez and the Braves pit John Thomson against Gavin Floyd. Wandy's overall record isn't that good, but he's improved since the All-Star break, cutting down on both his walks and home runs allowed. Floyd's problem is control. In the two games he's had it this year he gave the Phillies solid starts. If it's gone, he gets shelled.

Finally, the San Diego Padres try to reach the .500 mark again as they take on the Giants in San Francisco. Noah Lowry takes the hill for the Giants, and he's already allowed five more earned runs this month than he did in all of August. The Padres counter with Brian Lawrence. Brian walk and home run numbers are good, but his lack of strike outs is hurting him as balls in play fall for hits.

Enjoy!

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Deadspin links to an article on the traffic to ESPN.com. It appears Yahoo and others are gaining on the leader.

It's not surprising, given how ESPN pushed most of the interesting content to the pay side of the site. I used to love to visit their baseball page because you had a large number of columnists from which to choose. Now Neyer, Gammons and others are blocked out unless you pay. ESPN.com is becoming only good for headlines, and you can get those anywhere.

I understand the web site needs to turn a profit. It's too bad that doing so makes it less attractive to new customers.

It strikes me that this is going to be the first year since 1989 that Barry Bonds gets no MVP votes. A remarkable run. When ESPN did a player of the 1990s show, I aruged that Barry Bonds should get the award based on his MVP shares. I believe it went to Mark McGwire instead.

Tony Massarotti fears the return of the closer by committee in the Boston bullpen.

But back to the seventh for a moment. Having operated with a structured bullpen for the large majority of his managerial career in Boston, Francona now seems to have zero confidence in virtually every Sox reliever but Timlin and, seemingly, Papelbon. The manager certainly has every right, particularly during a season in which Red Sox relievers have been swimming in gasoline. No wonder the prices keep going up. But the committee approach? No, no, no, no. It doesn't work. We all saw that during the early stages of the 2003 season, when the bullpen failed so miserably that the Sox went out and acquired Kim from the Arizona Diamondbacks for Shea Hillenbrand. Kim stablized the bullpen – at least during the majority of the regular season – the same way Curt Schilling did this year, which is another frightening similarity between this year and that one.

I don't agree that a committee can't work. In fact, Francona should be praised for using (in his opinion his best pitcher with the game on the line. That was the save right there. The "best" relief pitcher's job is to get outs in precisely that situation, not mow down the the bottom of the order in the ninth. The Red Sox just need to decide who the best is right now.

I just watched the highlights on Baseball Tonight of the rest of the Bonds at bats. I have to agree with Gammons that Bonds looked a lot better than I expected. I was most impressed by his mobility in the outfield and his running of the bases. He didn't seem tentative at all.

The Giants won the game in the fourth as a trio of their senior citizens put together three hits for two runs. Durham homered, Alfonzo doubled and Matheny singled. Matt Kinney gave them five solid innings of scoreless pitching in early relief of the starter, and the rest of the bullpen was perfect.

By the way, there's a good article here on the impact of Bonds on the economics of the area:

"It's a huge boon to our business to have Barry back in the house," said John Epperheimer, the general manager of the restaurant. "When Barry's playing, fans'll have a bottle of wine as opposed to a glass. They'll start with a salad and stay around for desert."

Traffic at McCovey Cove, where eager fans typically paddle into San Francisco Bay to field balls sent over the stadium's right-field wall, picked up too. When Bonds came to bat for the first time in the second inning, seven kayakers and three boats were in ready position to collect a ball launched into the water. For most of the season, the cove was all but empty as fans stayed away without the opportunity to catch a souvenir from the game's greatest slugger.

"It's been a disaster for the whole year," said Ted Choi, who owns City Kayak. "With Bonds back, I think it'll be a night and day kind of experience."

Giants fans won't be happy that they helped the Dodgers, however. Jeff Weaver pitched one of the best games of his career, shutting out the Rockies on 3 singles and 1 walk. The Dodgers knocked out six doubles by six different players to score their seven runs. It's an unusual way for the Dodgers to win as they are last in doubles by 30 over the last two seasons.

The Padres are once again under .500 but lead the division by five games. They face the Giants six more times and the Dodgers three to end the season.

In the American League, the Angels fell to the Mariners 8-1. LAnaheim managed just four hits, two by Adam Kennedy. Looking at the lineup, isn't it time to make a Jack McKeon move and switch Kennedy and Cabrera in the batting order and move Vlad to the third hole? Right now, Vlad has two low on-base hitters in front of him. If the order were Figgins, Kennedy, Guerrero, Vlad would be coming up more often with a man on first, a situation that's less likely to end in a walk to the slugger.

The Indians, Angels and Yankees all stand at 62 losses, with the A's just behind at 63. The four-way division/wild card tie remains a possibility.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

David Ortiz hits his second home run of the game and John Papelbon pitches 2 2/3 scoreless innings to give the Red Sox a 6-5 victory in 11 innings. Ortiz hits the 40 home run mark for the 2nd year in a row.

Correction: I'm told by a commentor that Papelbon's first name in Jonathan, not John.

Barry Bonds gets the first two putouts in the 3rd. He ran in on a liner hit straight at him, then ranged to center to take a ball Winn could have handled. It looks like he has not problem getting to balls, but he takes a few steps to stop.

The Giants go 1-2-3 in the first. Barry will be the #1 batter in the bottom of the 2nd inning.

Update: Top of the inning is over. Bonds will be up in a minute.

Update: The Giants fans are very happy to see Barry coming to the plate.

Update: Eaton is being a wimp. His first two pitches to Bonds are outside.

Update: Eaton got back even with two knee high strikes. Bonds then fouled off four in a row, and it looks like he's really trying to knock the ball out of the park. He's really turning his body.

Update: Amazing. Bonds hits the eleventh pitch of the at bat to left center for what appeared to be a home run. But a fan reached over the wall, and it's called a double. Durham drives him in with a single, and the legend grows.

Great pitching by the Oakland Athletics tonight as they combine for a 2-0 shutout against the Indians. The four pitchers combined to strike out 11 and walk just two while giving up four hits. With the win, 1 1/2 games separate the three wild card contenders.

DirecTV lists the Padres-Giants game on channel 744 tonight. But when I go there, I'm told I can't get the game in my area. What gives? I'm paying for the game, why isn't on my system. Is anyone else with Extra Innings seeing the game?

Update: I had to reset my receiver. By the time I did, the Padres were off to a three nothing lead and Kevin Correia is gone from the game.

Keith Foulke and Mike Timlin combine to deprive Bronson Arroyo of a win. After Arroyo loaded the bases in the 7th, Keith came on and allowed two to score bring the Blue Jays within three, then Timlin enters to face Wells with two on and gives up a three-run homer to tie the game. It's a new game in the 8th.

Good pitching by a rookie and the bullpen will mean the Phillies will move up on one of the teams they are chasing for the Wild Card. Eude Brito strikes out seven in six scoreless innings, and the reliever allow just one run on a Hollandsworth homer. They're keeping the hope of a three way tie alive. :-)

Miguel Cabrera adds a solo shot to give the Marlins a 4-0 lead. He's already passed last year's mark in hits, double and triples and needs three more long balls to top his career high in home runs. He having a fantastic year and still have plenty of years to improve.

Update: Dontrelle Willis goes deep as well. That's the first home run of the year for Dontrelle and the third of his career. The Marlins now lead 6-1.

With his two for two so far tonight, Juan Pierre is now 12 for 33 batting in the seventh spot, a .364 batting average. The move was the perfect wakeup call for the Marlins centerfielder.

With Sabathia out of the game, the Athletics load the bases again, and this time score on a sacrifice fly. They still have two on and Chavez at the plate.

Update: Chavez walks to load the bases again. That's the seventh walk drawn by the Athletics this evening.

Update: Payton strikes out to end the frame. The A's just can't seem to put together a big inning tonight.

John Kerry's favorite players are having a fine night. Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz each homered to give the Red Sox a 3-0 lead over Ted Lilly and the Toronto Blue Jays. The Red Sox can take their magic number down to 17 with a win tonight.

I didn't realize until they just mentioned it on the Indians broadcast that Kevin Millwood now leads the American League in ERA. With a 7-11 record, should he win the Cy Young award?

C.C. Sabathia allowed the first two batters to reach in the fifth and sixth innings. In the sixth, he loaded the bases with two outs, but in each situation got out of the jam. Oakland's had plenty of chances to blow the game wide open, but continue to cling to a 1-0 lead.

Aaron Boone tries to steal, and this time is more succesful. The ball goes into centerfield, allowing Boone to reach third with one out. He's the tying run.

Update: A rare error on the second baseman on the throw into the outfield. It ticked off Ellis' glove, and the official scorer correctly gave him the error on the catchable ball.

Update: The Indians are unable to plate Boone. The game goes to the sixth inning with the Athletics leading 1-0.

Carlos Delgado hits his 29th home run of the season to score Jeff Conine and put the Marlins on top 2-0 in the first. Dontrelle is more than capable of winning that amount of run support.

Eude Brito, making his third major league start is shutting down the Braves tonight. The Phillies have staked him to a 2-0 lead, and the way Eude is pitching tonight he may make it hold up. The Braves have just one baserunner this evening, a walk to Chipper Jones.

How bad are things for the Twins right now? They have seven hits through four innings against the Tigers tonight, including a double and a triple, but scored only one run. Batgirl will need to add to her list.

Marc Scutaro walks and steals a base to set up the Athletics first run on a single by Jason Kendall. Oakland is not a running team under Billy Beane, but this year they have a pretty poor percentage on top of not running often. It was their 30th steal in 49 attempts, a success rate of just 61%.

Sabathia is a little wild tonight, walking three and striking out three through three innings.

Update: Crime does not always pay. The Indians try to run on Kendall and get thrown out. The A's are very poor at throwing out runners this year, so running against them is a good idea. Crisp, of course, follows the CS with a single. The running game is working for the A's tonight the opposite of what one would expect based on their season.

The Hardball Times now includes a Sparklines graph generator. Here's what the AL Central race looks like from August 1st on. Up lines are wins, down lines are losses, underlined indicates home games, and red lines indicate games decided by 2 runs or less.

Cleveland
Chicago

These are nice ways of conveying lots of information in very little space.

The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2006 is now on sale. Order today to ensure you're the first on your block to receive a copy!

The coin flips were held today to determine which teams would host one-game playoffs to break division or wild card ties. I'm still holding out for a three or four way tie myself.

A tough week for the Oakland Athletics gets underway tonight as they face the Wild Card leading Cleveland Indians. Dan Haren takes the mound against C.C. Sabathia in game one of their three game set. Oakland broke out the offense in Haren's last three starts, scoring thirty runs to win all three games, including the game against the Mariners in which Haren allowed five runs in 2 2/3 innings. Milliliter is on a seven game winning streak and lowered his ERA from 5.16 to 4.35 over that time. The Athletics do hit lefties well, however.

The Marlins and Astros start their four game series this evening with Marlins ace Dontrelle Willis facing Houston's fourth starter Brandon Backe. The rotation for these games appears to be set up for a split, with the matchups favoring Florida in games 1 and 2, Houston in 3 and 4. We'll see if one team can "break service" and change the dynamics of the Wild Card race.

The Astros are weak against left-handed pitchers, and Dontrelle is allowing a meager .239 BA to righties. Backe is a different pitcher at the Juice Box this season, allowing just 19 walks in 54 1/3 innings at home, 43 in 72 innings on the road.

Finally, stay up until about 11 PM EDT to see the return of Barry Bonds to the batter's box. I'm guessing the first pitch from Adam Eaton to be up and in.

Enjoy!

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Phil Allard interviews Rich Lindberg about the trials and tribulations of being a White Sox fan:

Phil Allard: I assume that if the White Sox won the World Series the headline in the Tribune the next day might be “Prior Says He’ll be Ready for Spring Training.”

RICHARD LINDBERG: You’ve got that right. I remember in ‘93 when Jordan announced his first retirement when the Sox were in the playoffs and Jordan completely dominated the headlines. The Sox got no press. You know, the Sun Times has this guy Jay Mariotti. He is the Howard Stern of baseball writers. He has a column and he has made Reinsdorf his whipping boy. It’s a personal vendetta. Reinsdorf tried to get him fired and of course it didn’t work and Mariotti increased his diatribe against Reinsdorf two notches. Everything he writes about the Sox comes up negative. A recent article was “Don’t Buy what Ozzie is selling.” Columnists will always find a subtle dig. If a player complains about playing time it’s brought to the forefront. I compare the White Sox coverage from the Sun Times and the Tribune with how other teams in the Central are covered by their home town papers and I see the positive level of enthusiasm in the single team cities.

Maybe Reinsdorf should start a competing newspaper.

Barry Bonds is likely to be tested at the plate this evening. Should he also be tested in the field? Legs have a lot to do with generating power in throwing. Should the Padres run on Bonds as much as possible? Should they even try going first to third on singles to left? Stretching singles into doubles? The experiments the Padres conduct on Bonds in the field will be as interest as the ones at the plate.

Barry Bonds gets his first look at major league pitching in nearly a year tonight. I'm wondering what Adam Eaton will throw to start off Barry's 2005 season. Will he try to hit the corners? Will he throw up and in to move Barry off the plate? Or does he go straight for the knees to see if Barry can stand in against that pitch? If there's a man on 2nd, do they intentionally walk him? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

There are 21 days left in the season, and the AL contenders have 19 or 20 games left. As the league heads for the wire, six teams are competing for four playoff spots.

The White Sox were the sure thing in August and are still the most likely team to make the post season. It's not that they are playing badly; their four game losing streak was preceded by a seven game winning streak. They've been a .500 team since August 1 while the Indians have the best record in the majors. The Indians gained 1 1/2 games per week during that time. At that rate, they still fall one game short of capturing the division.

The Yankees and Red Sox have the best schedules of the six teams. The Yankees stay in the division the rest of the year. While the Blue Jays, Orioles and Devil Rays look easy, New York has a losing record against the AL East this year. The main difference between the Boston and New York schedules is the Red Sox have to play four against the Oakland Athletics next weekend, while the only contender the Yankees play down the road are the Red Sox to end the season.

Oakland is going to have the toughest time reaching the post season. Their schedule pits them against Cleveland, Boston, Minnesota and the Angels. The next seven games are make or break for the Athletics as they play three vs. the Indians and four vs the Red Sox. Meanwhile, the Angels face Seattle and Detroit. It's a golden opportunity for LAnaheim.

Right now, the White Sox and Angels look good for division wins. Oakland faces the toughest schedule, and with their poor play lately are likely to finish sixth in this race. With their seemingly easy schedule, the Yankees could move past both Cleveland and Boston, leaving those two cities vying for the wild card. However, I believe Boston and Cleveland right now are better teams than New York, so I'm going with Boston for the Eastern win and Cleveland for the Wild Card.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

The Indians start the game with a triple, double, single and sac fly to take a 2-0 lead on the Twins. They know Silva is going to be around the strike zone so they're swinging early. The Indians just need a homer for a first inning cycle.

Update: Victor Martinez does it. A home run over the center field fence puts the Indians up 4-0.

Update: It looks like Silva may be injured as Joe Mays starts the second inning for Minnesota.

Update: The Indians keep on knocking the ball out of the park. They lead 10-0 and have hit three home runs after two innings. Sizemore is going for a cycle of his own, having already hit the triple and homer.

With the Brewers, Cubs and Mets all winning this afternoon, the three teams are tied at 1-game under .500 and 5 1/2 games back in the wild card race. The Cubs are on a bit of tear, going 8-2 over their last ten, outscoring their opponents 43-26. My thought last week was that once the Astros got by the Marlins, they could depend on the Eastern teams beating up each other. Now they have a challenge from their own division as well. It should make for a fun three weeks.

The wild looking Derrick Turnbow pitches a perfect ninth to send the Astros to a 4-2 defeat. With Florida defeated by the Phillies, Houston stays in first in the Wild Card race. Philadephia is now just 1 1/2 back as Florida and Houston open a four game series tomorrow.

The Washington Nationals scored five runs in the bottom of the eighth to take a 7-6 lead on the Atlanta Braves. Smoltz pitched seven good innings, but Boyer, Foster and Reitsma stunk up the 8th. Despite using seven pitchers through 8 innings, Frank Robinson has Cordero to pitch the ninth.

Update: Chipper Jones hits a two-out, two-run homer to give the Braves back the lead 8-7.

Update: Andruw Jones adds insurance with his 49th homer of the year. Cordero has now allowed eight home runs this year, four in September.

Update: Farnsworth comes on to get the save for the Braves. With Houston and Florida losing, the Nationals miss a golden opportunity to move up in the Wild Card race.

With two out in the top of the 9th, Rivera walks Ramirez and gives up a single to Millar. Olerud is pinch-hitting with the game on the line in New York.

Update: Rivera strikes out Olerud to end the game.

One of the commentators here likes to denigrate 1-0 games as being boring. I've seen three low scoring close games this week that were anything but boring. When the games always in doubt, it's very exciting.

I'm still wondering why Torre pulled Johnson in after 7. The worst case scenario is that Randy is injured.

The Angels get solo home runs in the first inning from Chone Figgins, Garret Anderson and Darin Erstad to jump out to a 3-0 lead on Orlando Hernandez. The Angels are giving the Indians hope that they can win the division.

Tom Gordon enters the game in relief of Randy Johnson. The Big Unit allowed just one hit over seven innings and threw just 100 pitches. I didn't see Randy struggling at all. I don't understand this.

Gordon gives up a single to the first batter he faces.

Update: With two out and a man on first, the Red Sox are going to Ortiz, and Torre is going to Rivera. A classic confrontation.

Update: Rivera walks Ortiz on eight pitches. It's up to Damon now in the 8th.

Update: Damon keeps fouling off pitches on a 3-2 count. One was a liner down the right field line that was just foul. He finally grounds out to Giambi, and the lead holds at 1-0.

The Phillies power their way to six runs in the third inning, chasing Ismael Valdez from the game. Two doubles, a triple and a three-run homer put half a dozen runs on the board with just one out. Randy Messanger got out of the inning with no more damage, but the Marlins are down 6-1.

Both Tim Wakefield and Randy Johnson are fooling the batters today. Tim struck out 9 in the first five innings, Randy K'd seven through six. The Yankees lead on 1-0 on a first inning home run by Giambi.

Johnson is really pumped today. He staring down batters and pumping his fist after strikeouts. I don't know what got into him, but he obviously sees this as a very important game for him.

Update: Wakefield gets three more in the sixth inning, setting a new career high with 12. The Yankees still lead 1-0.

Carlos Delgado give the Marlins an early 1-0 lead, driving in Cabrera with a triple in the first. After not hitting a three-bagger in 2004 and the first half of 2005, Carlos now has three since the All-Star break. Three in one season also matches his career high.

Andruw Jones connected with his 48th home run of the season, setting a new Braves single season record. The Braves lead the Nationals 3-0, and Washington's hopes for a playoff berth are slowly fading away.

The Tigers scored three runs off Jose Lima in the first two innings of today's game, raising his ERA to 6.63. Lima needs less than nine innings to qualify for the ERA title. If he and Eric Milton maintain an ERA above 6.61, they'll be among the five worst ERAs since 1900. Lima will be the only one to make it twice, as he posted a 6.65 ERA in 2000.

Update: Lima ends up going four innings, allowing four earned rusn. That raises his ERA to 6.66. He still needs seven innings to qualify for the ERA title. I wonder if he'll be released first?

I've never understood this:

Kapler, who went 2-for-5, was on first base with two outs in the ninth after reaching safely on a fielder's choice grounder. With New York playing back and the Sox leading by seven runs, the veteran outfielder violated baseball's unwritten protocol by taking the base on defensive indifference.

The gesture could easily have been interpreted as a sign the Sox were flaunting their large lead. Kapler said it was simply a brain cramp on his part.

``I pride myself on being professional,'' he said. ``I'm not showing anyone up. It was a poor error in judgment. I just want to make sure they all know that I apologize and fell asleep. It was nothing but me not thinking about the situation of the game.''

You're down 9-2, and a team is going to get upset that their opponent is making them look bad? Being down 9-2 looks bad, no matter what your opponent does. If the Yankees started scoring in the bottom of the ninth, were they going to stop at six runs so they didn't make the Red Sox look bad for blowing a big lead?

If the game doesn't matter to you in the ninth, then don't be mad at someone else for demonstrating that fact. Be upset with yourselves for getting in that position in the first place.

This blurb:

Construction is finished and the new Major League Baseball Western Operations Office will be up and running at the Camelback Esplanade in Phoenix later this week.

Laurel Prieb, head of the new office, has hired Valerie Dietrich as his special assistant and office manager. Dietrich was Joe Garagiola Jr.'s former assistant with the Diamondbacks and worked with the National League offices in New York for five years during the 1990s.

Made me wonder what this western office is all about. Here's the story from the July 29th Arizona Republic:

"We're here to make the world smaller for teams in the Western divisions of the two majors leagues and to be more responsive than you can be from New York City," said Laurel Prieb, who heads the office.

Prieb, a longtime executive with the Milwaukee Brewers and son-in-law of Commissioner Bud Selig, has been shuttling to and from the Valley for months with his new duties, but only recently settled his family in Scottsdale.

"I've been out here since mid-February and I've had great dialogue with all the teams in the West working out of the Valley, but to finally have the physical office will certainly take things to a level where baseball should be in the Western region of the country," Prieb said.

Seems like a good idea, although truthfully, in the internet age it doesn't really matter where you're located. You just need to have someone awake in New York until 2 AM, which seems to be fairly common in that city. I wonder how much of this is driven by Bud needing to get his son-in-law a job since the family is out as owners of the Brewers. It seems that if you're going to have people with responsible positions in Arizona, why not just put Garagiola in charge there? Joe's was more successful at running a ballclub than Laurel.

Today's game against the Marlins is close to a must win for the Phillies. The Marlins travel to Houston tomorrow to start a four game set with the Astros. The Phillies will need the teams to split so they have a shot at gaining on both.

Ismael Valdez faces Jon Lieber this afternoon. Valdez gets hammered by lefties, allowing a .534 slugging percentage to those batters. With up to five lefties in the lineup, this should be a good day for the Phillies hitters. Lieber is back on track after three poor months. Since August 6th, he's posted a 2.85 ERA, averaging just 1 walk per nine innings.

Rick Helling is thrust into the pennant race as he gets the job of trying to defeat Roy Oswalt and the Astros. Rick has kept the ball in the park so far this season, so his eleven walks in 23 innings haven't hurt him badly. Oswalt makes his third start against the Brewers, and despite his 1.20 ERA against the team is just 1-1. He was the victim of one of the many times the Astros scored no runs this season.

The way the playoffs are shaping up right now, the Angels and White Sox get paired in the first round. LAnaheim goes for the sweep of Chicago today as they send John Lackey against Orlando Hernandez. Lately, teams are working Lackey for walks as he's issued 13 free passes in his last four starts. El Duque has almost the same ERA pre and post All-Star Break, 4.88 before and 4.89 after. His record is very different, however, going 7-2 in the first half, 2-5 since. A nice example of luck evening out.

The Indians try to extend their winning streak to seven games tonight on ESPN2. Carlos Silva faces Cliff Lee. Cleveland's done a very good job of putting the ball in play against Silva, striking out just four times in 23 innings. Lee won six of his last ten starts without having a loss pinned on him. He's only allowed five home runs and 15 walks in the 65 and 2/3 innings during the streak.

Enjoy!

You can purchase tickets for these and many other events at the Baseball Musings Ticket Store.

The Indians won their sixth in a row last night, effectively knocking Minnesota out of contention and taking control of the AL Wild Card race. They lead both New York and Oakland by 1 1/2 games. They're also 6 1/2 games behind the White Sox. Last night, at the start of the broadcast, the Cleveland announcers were pointing out that with six games left against Chicago the Indians still have a shot at the division.

This is a huge change from 2004. Last season, the Indians closed to within a game of the Twins on 8/14, then embarked on a nine game losing streak that quickly took them out of contention. Through that same date this season, the Tribe trailed the Whit Sox by 12 1/2 games. Their record is 18-6 since that point, the best in the majors.

This Indians haven't been lighting up the score board that much during this six game streak. They've outscored their opponents 27-11. It's the pitching that's been superb. The starters allowed just one home run in this stretch and posted a 1.28 ERA.

And while Cleveland isn't scoring all that many runs, they are powering the ball. The Indians hit 13 home runs in these six games, account for 2/3 of their runs scored. Great pitching and power hitting. Earl Weaver would be proud.

It's a good day to watch Nine Innings from Ground Zero. My review is here.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

Dan Johnson's grand slam gives the Athletics a 4-1 lead over Texas after two innings. Johnson is hitting well over all, but it's only his third home run with men on base this season. The opposition is giving him nothing to hit with men on base. He's drawing lots of walks in that situation, but he's generating no power or batting average.

Andruw Jones 47th home run tied him with Eddie Mathews and Henry Aaron for the Braves record for home runs in a season. Looks like Jones will blow this record away.

It's been a good week for Scott Kazmir. On Sunday he faced the Blue Jays and pitched seven shutout innings, striking out nine and walking just one. Today he faced the Blue Jays again, allowing one unearned run while striking out eleven and walking just one. It could be he matches up well against Toronto, or it could be the youngster is starting to mature as a pitcher. The DRays are hoping for the latter.

Curt Schilling pitched very well today, helping the Red Sox to a 9-2 victory and preventing the Yankees from possibly moving up in the wild card race. Schilling appeared to have more leg drive today than he did on Monday. That's a very good sign for the Red Sox post-season hopes.

Jorge Sosa threw eight shutout innings today to lower his ERA to 2.55. That's half the ERA he had with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays last season. In three seasons with the DRays, Jorge posted a 5.17 ERA. What's the difference?

Jorge Sosa	With Tampa Bay	With Atlanta
ERA	5.17	2.55
K/9	5.9	5.9
BB/9	4.6	4.0
HR/9	1.29	0.85

Fewer walks, but a lot fewer home runs. Whatever the adjustment, it's paid off for the Braves in a year in which their rotation was set back by injuries.

The Angels had a great offensive day, scoring 10 runs on 10 hits and 2 walks. They were only two for six with runners in scoring position, but five extra base hits and two sacrifice flies moved runners around the bases.

The Angels are 2nd in the AL in batting average with runners in scoring position, trailing only the Red Sox.

ESPNews is reporting that Bonds will be activated Monday. I don't have a link to a story yet.

Update: Here's the link.

Today's filled with compelling matchups. After long evening, the Angels and White Sox get an early start today with Bartolo Colon facing Jon Garland. Colon's back is better so he'll be going for his 19th win. He's 7-0 in his last nine starts, walking only six batters in 66 innings. Garland's been up and down since the start of August, pitching everything from a complete game shutout to allowing eight runs in less than five innings.

The Yankees try once again to cut the Red Sox lead in the AL East with an early game as well. Curt Schilling faces Shawn Chacon. Watching Schilling last Monday it became clear to me that Curt can no longer drive off the mound. When Clemens faced Carpenter last Saturday, the announcer was describing the pitching mechanics of the Cy Young candidates. Roger used his legs to generate speed. Carpenter uses a method described as "tall and fall." He stands tall and lets gravity generate the speed. Schilling used to be the leg driver, but Monday he was falling. Watch today and see if you agree with me.

This afternoon, Clay Hensley gets his first start for the Padres. He's starting in place of Jake Peavy, who has a sore shoulder. Hensely's pitched well out of the bullpen, his zero home runs allowed being his biggest asset. He'll be opposed by Derek Lowe, who's regained his form after a month long slide. Derek's allowed just two earned runs in his last 24 innings.

The NL Wild Card action heats up tonight as the Phillies phace Phlorida in the City of Brotherly Love and the Astros try to get back on the winning track in Milwaukee. The Brewers aren't out of it yet. A win tonight against Andy Pettitte would put them at .500 and no more than five games back in the race.

Enjoy!

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Despite making two bad baserunning plays last night, Vlad Guerrero beat the White Sox with his baserunning in the 12th inning last night. He took his time getting to second base on a double, thinking the ball was going over the fence. Then Bengie Molina bunts, and Vlad comes roaring around third trying to score on the out. The throw from Iguchi was in time, but up the line, and Vlad made a great slide to avoid the tag and score.

Mike Scioscia was concerned about process:

Said Mike Scioscia: "It's a low-percentage play. Vladdy knows he shouldn't have been watching that ball. The ball wasn't carrying to left-center. We'll clean that up and, hopefully, not see it again. He's got to run. I already talked to him."

Never one to mince words, Angels starter Jarrod Washburn said of Guerrero, "He's got a golden horseshoe somewhere. ... It does seem like things work out for him. When you're a great player, they tend to."

It's said that the good teams get the lucky breaks. Looks like that goes for players, too.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

Roger Clemens pitched his worse game of the year tonight, allowing five runs in just three innings. His control failed him as he walked five and struck out just two. He also allowed two home runs after allowing eight in all his previous starts. Sounds to me like his hamstring is still tight.

Ryan Howard is starting to hit like Frank Howard. He hit his 5th in eight September games tonight, helping the Phillies to a 7-4 lead over the Marlins. For all the home runs, however, Ryanl does not have many RBI, only eight for the month. Are the Phillies opponents not pitching to him with men on base?

The Red Sox defense allowed Jorge Posada to score a run. He reached base on what was called a single, but Millar had knocked the ball down and couldn't get the handle fast enough. He almost threw Posada out anyway, so a clean pick gets Jorge easily. Then Cano hits a single to center, which Damon boots. Now Posada is heading for third and decides to try to score. Damon gets the ball to Renteria, who tries to throw home but ends up spiking the ball into the ground. Three boots (two official) and Posada touches all four bases.

Earlier today I jumped off the Giants' bandwagon and some comments agreed that San Diego wrapped up the NL West. But what is the probability of San Diego winning the division at this point. Since the Dodgers and Giants have the same record, it doesn't matter which one we use for the calculation.

The chance of the Giants catching the Padres in 23 games is the sum of the probabilities of San Diego winning X of games * the probability of San Francisco winning at least X+7 games, where X ranges from 0 to 16. (SD's magic number is 17). When I do this calculation, it turns out that either the Giants or Dodgers has a 1.14 percent chance of catching the Padres, or about 1 in 88. Those are long odds, but not horribly long.

The other thing that bothers me is independence. Since the Dodgers have six games against the Padres and the Giants seven, the wins and losses aren't all independent events. Given that, the odds are probably a bit better than 1 in 88. So it's a tough outcome to achieve, but certainly not an impossible one.

The Yankees and the Red Sox open up a three game series which is more meaningful than September series between the two rivals the last couple of years. The two teams are within striking distance of each other and the loser of the division may not win the wild card. While the wild card adds excitement among the also rans, it tends to take excitement away from division races, especially if the two best teams in the league are in the same division. That's not going on in the AL East this season. I know people argue that the excitement is transferred to the post season, but that's only if the division rivals meet in the LCS.

Former Yankees pitcher David Wells battles his old team once again this evening. He'll take on wonder pickup Aaron Small. Wells is 45-19 career at Yankee Stadium, 11-4 when he's a visiting pitcher. Small's strength this season is his ability to get lefties out, something that should help vs. the Red Sox. Lefties have a lower batting average and slugging percentage vs. Small than righties, and left-handed batters have not hit a homer off the righty this year.

The wild card leading Indians have a tough game tonight as they host Johan Santana and the Minnesota Twins. This could be the Twins last chance at the wild card, as these three games with Cleveland have the potential to bring them back into the race or leave them in the dust. Santana will face Jake Westbrook. Jake is not walking many nor allowing home runs lately, but the balls opponents are putting in play against him are falling for hits. He's given 46 hits in his last 29 innings.

The Marlins have the chance to send the reeling Phillies out of the wild card race as well. A.J. Burnett will take the hill against Cory Lidle. Lidle's fallen apart in the 2nd half, posting a 1-4 record with an 8.01 ERA. Burnett pitched two good starts against the Phillies this season, but his last one was miserable, allowing four home runs.

Finally, San Diego travels north to LA to square off against the Dodgers. I'll have more on this series and the chances of San Diego winning the division in another post I'm pondering.

Enjoy!

You can purchase tickets for these and many other events at the Baseball Musings Ticket Store.

John Dewan was my boss at STATS Inc. and my friend as well. I'm always known John to give back to the community in a very constructive way, and he's trying to do that once again with the Katrina relief effort. He writes:

Dear Friends,

Hurricane Katrina is the most devastating natural disaster to ever occur in the United States. One of the most remarkable things about it is the number of people affected who are extremely poor. In New Orleans alone, 35% of the population is below the poverty level. On top of that, the qualification for the poverty level is amazingly low. A family of four with income of $20,000 is not considered to be in poverty.

The focus of the Dewan Foundation ( www.dewanfoundation.org ) has always been helping the poor help themselves. We feel a special call to try to assist the poor involved with Hurricane Katrina.

For anyone who might be moved to join the Dewan Foundation in a common effort, we are proposing a matching gift program to assist hurricane victims. The foundation is committing $25,000 to Hurricane Katrina relief. Beyond that, the Dewan Foundation will match your contribution to the Dewan Foundation up to an additional total of $100,000 we receive through September 30. Think of this as a way to double your contribution.

We are especially focused in the area of rebuilding the education system, which we believe to be one of the most effective methods to fight poverty. We intend to move quickly and have already begun to make personal contacts in the Gulf area. We will report back to donors on the organization that ultimately receives the funds and on how the money will be used.

Hurricane Katrina has been a catastrophe of historic magnitude. Let this also be a time of historic generosity. We encourage you to open your hearts to the needs of those impacted by the hurricane, whether through the Dewan Foundation or any of the many other organizations doing important work during this crisis. If you have not already done so, please contribute generously to organizations providing relief assistance and to other charities helping hurricane victims.

Thank you.

John Dewan and Susan Dewan

The Dewan Foundation

To make a contribution to the Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund of the Dewan Foundation, please make a check payable to The Dewan Foundation and mail it to:

The Dewan Foundation

c/o ACTA Publications

5559 Howard

Skokie, IL 60077

I have no doubt your contributions to this foundation will be put to very good use.

That didn't last long. The Giants August star Noah Lowry was touched by the Cubs for five runs, sending San Francisco to their third straight defeat and dropping them seven games behind the victorious Padres. Barry Bonds did not play last night. I wonder how much his not returning hurt the team. There was hype he'd play Tuesday, and the Giants haven't won since that speculation started.

We had a good time at Fenway last night. Although it appeared to be a pitching duel from the boxscore, it really was a poor offensive night. Clement retired the first nine batters, despite starting seven of them with a ball one count. Byrd was getting Red Sox batters to swing early and put the ball in play, mostly resulting in outs. The Red Sox managed to load the bases in both the eighth and ninth, but failed to score each time. K-Rod had no control, throwing 13 of his 26 pitches for balls and walking two, but managed to strikeout the side.

Correction: Clement, not Arroyo was the starter last night. That's what happens when the state of Massachusetts decides to close all but one lane of the Massachusetts Turnpike after a Red Sox game. It took me an hour to travel six miles, adding a full hour to an already long drive. While I appreciate that my toll money is used to keep the road in very good shape, would it really have been so bad to delay the start of construction two hours last night to let the city empty? There was a lot of gasoline wasted by the state last night as they turned the Pike between Route 128 and Framingham into a parking lot.
The real fireworks came in the fourth inning when Figgins and Cabrera hit back to back doubles. Anderson then hit a line shot down the right field line that Nixon caught, leaping over the wall in foul territory to catch the ball. When I looked down at the bases after the catch, Cabrera was half-way to third. It was my impression that he left early, else how could he be so far toward third after the catch. The Red Sox and the second base umpire felt the same way, as the Red Sox appealed and Cabrera was ruled to have left the bag early. At the end of the inning, this led to an animated argument by Mickey Hatcher and the ejection of Hatcher and Scioscia.

I'm told from the comments that Cabrera did not leave early. I'll have to look for the highlights.

Rick Slokum writes:

I found this contest to win tickets behind homeplate at Fenway for the last Yankees/Red Sox game of the season. It's part of contest to sound like announcer Bob Sheppard. Pretty cool, though they're giving people less than a week to enter.

Do you think you might let people know about this? I can't go, but I'd like to see a Yankees fan behind the plate at Fenway for once.

I'm sure there have been many Yankees fans behind home plate at Fenway over the years. But here's the link to the contest. Start practicing saying, "Alavaro Espinoza." :-)

By the way, the contest is only open to residents of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

Kyle Lohse did not control his temper last night.

Lohse dented manager Ron Gardenhire's office door, apparently with a bat, injured his finger and might have permanently fractured his already strained relationship with the Twins, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported Thursday.

I would not want Ron Gardenhire upset with me. My guess is Kyle will be pitching somewhere else next year. Someone will find a place for a pitcher that only walked 37 in 154 2/3 innings.

The Pirates had Nate McLouth and Jack Wilson batting in the top two spots again today. With OBAs below .300, the table clearers sould provide the opposition with easy outs. The Diamondbacks, however, allowed these two five hits in eleven at bats as the pair scored three and drove in three. The easy outs weren't easy today, and the Diamondbacks lost 8-7 in 12 innings. San Diego's magic number to elminate Arizona is now 14.

I'm off to Boston for the Red Sox game. If you want to get some laughs this afternoon, check out Deadspin.

SawxBlog is another Red Sox blog worth reading. Stop by and say hi.

I'll be heading to Fenway for tonight's game against the Angels. Watch for the Ortiz walk off homer in the ninth. :-)

Tonight is an important game for the Washington Nationals. A win tonight splits the series with the Marlins and keeps them from losing any more ground in the wild card race. They'll send John Patterson to the mound to face Josh Beckett. Patterson's 2.44 ERA is fourth in the NL. His time missed his keeping him out of Cy Young talk, but his strikeout, walk and home run numbers are all impressive. He'll face Josh Beckett. Josh's last three starts are less than impressive. He's allowed 13 earned runs in 14 1/3 innings, walking nine.

The Giants return home to face the Chicago Cubs tonight, and once again all eyes are watching to see if Barry Bonds returns to the lineup. On the mound, however, is a very good pitching matchup as Carlos Zambrano faces Noah Lowry. Carlos is on a strike out tear, fanning 40 in his last 38 2/3 innings. Lowry turned his season completely around. He was 5-9 with a 5.07 ERA before the All-Star break, 7-2 with a 1.67 ERA since.

Enjoy!

You can purchase tickets for these and many other events at the Baseball Musings Ticket Store.

Ken Rosenthal at Fox Sports names the drugs Morse used:

Morse testified that he suffered a torn left-thigh muscle in 2000. As time passed, the muscle deteriorated to the point where the strength in his left thigh was about 50 percent of his right thigh.

In Oct. 2003, after completing Instructional League play, Morse feared his career was in jeopardy. In November and December, he took Deca Durabolin to increase the strength in his thigh muscle. In Jan. 2004, he took Winstrol to shed his excess muscle and weight. But by Feb. 1, 2004, he testified that he had stopped taking all substances.

So we can go to our handy-dandy half life chart and see if this makes sense. We see Winstrol has two different entries, one for 9 hours and one for 1 day, depending on the type of Winstrol taken. However, there is also this caveat:

Winstrol depot does not actually possess a classical half-life because it is un-esterified. Instead, the microcrystals dissolve slowly. Once they have all dissolved levels of the drug fall very rapidly. It is still an important consideration, and we have included it with a half-life of one day.

Could they be dissolving very, very slowly in Morse? The other steroid, Deca-durabolin has a long half-life of 15 days. I'm not sure when the test was administered, but let's say May for the sake of argument. That means 16 months went by since his last use of Deca-durabolin. That's 32 half-life phases, so there should be 1/2^32 the orginial amount in his body. In other words, it should be about 4 billion times lower. That's a pretty sensitive test MLB is using to detect that drug.

This site indicates Deca is likely culprit here.

During competi-tions with doping tests Deca must not be taken since the metabo-lites in the body can be proven in a urine analysis up to 18 months later.

So there you have it. Morse's story holds water. It also shows why a punitive suspension for a first time offense is dangerous. Here's a very low level of year-old drug use being detected. He's not an abuser. He's not juicing up to hit home runs. The anonymous slap on the wrist of the old system would be just fine here.

I hope the MLBPA continues to resist the idea of a two-year suspension for first time offenders. And when the CBA negotiations start again, I hope both sides adjust the rules for players like Morse.

The Giants may be getting Barry Bonds back soon, but they lost their superstar on the pitching side last night.

Jason Schmidt, trying for his 13th win, strained his right groin throwing a pitch to Oscar Robles in the fifth inning and had to leave the game, trailing 4-2 after he allowed four runs in a 34-pitch first inning.

Luckily, it led to one of the more colorful paragraphs I've read this season:

The horrid defeat aside, the Giants hardly can imagine a stiffer blow than a Schmidt injury. He hurt the same groin last year on Aug. 17 and stayed off the mound for 11 days. When he returned, he was not the Cy Young Award candidate he had been.

Schmidt was 15-4 with a 2.52 ERA at the time of the injury but 3-3, 5.44 thereafter.

The Giants used six relievers last night after Schmidt left. Whatever happened to the long reliever? Teams used to carry a pitcher whose job it was to come in when the starter broke down early and pitch most of the rest of the game. You'd think with 12 men on a pitching staff there would be a hurler capable of throwing more than 1 2/3 innings.

With the blown win last night, the Giants are now six games out of the division with 24 to play. With seven games left against San Diego, the Giants will pretty much need to take 6 of those to have a shot at the division.

The Daily News chronicles the Mets debacles at Turner Field.

Here's more information on why Chris Young was lifted so early from yesterday's game:

"It just wasn't worth the risk," Showalter said. ""I didn't like some of the things I was seeing."

What he saw in a scoreless first inning was a fastball that registered only 84-86 mph. Young had been regularly hitting 88-91 and touching as high as 94 on occasion.

Already figuring in were a pregame warning from pitching coach Orel Hershiser, who noticed a lack of life to Young's fastball in the bullpen, and the Rangers' already heightened state of awareness because of the rookie pitchers season-long workload.

Young entered with 153 2/3 innings this season, just 1 2/3 innings shy of last year's total, which was cobbled together at three levels.

I'd have to say good job on the part of the Rangers here. Something wasn't right, and they took action to prevent it from getting worse.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

C.C. Sabathia is back. He did everything right tonight, pitching a complete game victory against the Tigers. He allowed just one run and four hits. He walked none and struck out 10. Milliliter threw 103 pitches, 74 for strikes. He's allowed just 8 earned runs in his last 43 1/3 innings while walking 9 and striking out 40.

With Millwood, Lee and Sabathia at full power, the Indians could go into the playoffs with a post-season rotation as good as any in the American League, certainly better than the Yankees or the Red Sox. The Indians are looking good for the stretch run.

Vin Scully just reported during the Dodgers broadcast that an MRI reveals that the Dodger shortstop needs Tommy John surgery.

Alex Rodriguez and Jason Giambi combined to take the Yankees from a one-run loss to a one-run victory against the Devil Rays tonight. With two outs in the bottom of the 8th, Alex singled and Jason followed with his 27th homer of the year.

The adjustments to runs created give credit to players who do a good job of driving in runs. I've thought it was unfair not to make an adjustment for those who set them up. Without A-Rod's hit, Giambi doesn't get a chance to win the game.

Billy Wagner stood one out away from getting a save vs. his former club when David Bell committed an error on a grounder, allowing Vizcaino to reach base. Brunlett ran, and on a hit and run, Taveras beat out an infield hit. Biggio then took his friend deep for a three run homer and an 8-6 Astros lead. Houston is two outs away from a sweep.

Update: Lidge strikes out Utley to end the game and release the Phillies boo-birds. This was a huge opportunity lost for Philadelphia. They drop 2 1/2 games back in the Wild Card race.

According to this story, Hideki Matsui's home run tonight gives him 400 for his combined big league career in Japan and the United States.

If you missed tonight's show, you can hear the recorded version here. It's also available on demand at TPSRadio.

Dontrelle Willis has as many hits as he's allowed tonight. Through five innings, Dontrelle has a single and a double. He's also allowed a single and a double.

The change in the lineup is working again for the Marlins as they top five batters reached base 13 times so far tonight and Florida is up 6-0.

Update: Rick Short, in on a double switch to play second base, hits his first major league home run to close the score to 8-1. Short is 32 and is playing in just his sixth major league game. That's a long time to hang around for a cup of coffee.

The Baseball Musings Radio Show is coming up at the top of the hour. I'm logged into the TPSRadio Chat Room if you'd like to stop by and ask a question.

Frank Robinson is leaving his pitchers no room for error tonight. John Halama gives up one run, two hits and a walk in the first and he's out of the game. Righty Travis Hughes is now on the mound. If they were playing strat-o-matic, I'd think Frank was trying to mess up his opponents platoons.

Jaret Wright gives up four in the first, but Joe Torre hasn't pulled him yet. And Bronson Arroyo is hit up for two in the first as well, but he'll continue to pitch.

Nick Swisher started the Oakland rally leading off the ninth, and ended it with a bases loaded walk to give the Athletics an 8-7 comeback win over the Mariners. The Athletics scored five times in the ninth against Putz, Guardado and Nelson to avoid the sweep and stay with the leaders in the AL Wild Card race. Doubles by Kotsay and Chavez tied the game, then it was cat and mouse with poor bunts, intentional walks, plays at the plate until it came down to the good eye of Nick Swisher to win the game.

The Cincinnati Reds used eight pitchers today in their 14-5 loss to the Brewers. At least the organization got to see what their pitching prospects look like. It's the third time this year a team used eight pitchers in a game.

Another bad afternoon for a major league starter. Danny Haren last just 2 2/3 innings, giving up eight hits and five runs. Oakland is in danger of being swept by Seattle and running their record to 1-7 over their last eight games.

Seattle shortstop Mike Morse was suspended today for steroid use.

An apologetic Morse said in a statement the positive steroid test was a result of trace amounts of the drug lingering in his system from "an enormous mistake" he made in November 2003 while in the minor leagues.

"This positive test was due to the fact there were still some remnants of the steroid left in my system from the 2003 off season," he said.

Morse said he took steroids in 2003 after tearing his thigh muscle. He was suspended under the minor league policy in May 2004 and "promised never to make the same mistake again."

Again, since we don't know the drug, there's no way of knowing if it could really last in a player's system for two years. If anyone has any information about this, please post a comment.

This also vindicates the commissioner's office. When there were rumors of lots of positive tests out there, MLB said that there was one player who was in the appeal process. Now we know who and why, and that the rumors appear to be false.

Update: Here's a link to a list of steroid half-lives. The longest I see on that list is 18 days. That means that after a year of not taking the drug, you should have 1/2^20 of the original in your system, or 1/1,048,576 of the dose. Either he took a huge dose two years ago, the steroid he took isn't on the list, or he's not telling the full truth.

Update: Much more here at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

Michael Weiner, the general counsel of the Major League Baseball Players Association, argued the case in front of the board. In a statement released Wednesday, Weiner was as unhappy as Morse and Levinson that Morse is being hit with another suspension.

"With respect, we believe this result is unfair and unfortunate," Weiner said in the statement. "It punishes Michael Morse again for conduct for which he has already been punished.

"At the hearing, Morse candidly admitted he had used steroids following the 2003 season, when he was a minor league player, but also testified he had not used steroids since. Morse tested positive and was suspended twice during 2004.

"Although he tested positive again in 2005 under the Major League program, it was for the same substance and at an extremely low level, a level which would give Morse no competitive advantage, and the Panel believed that the positive test was a result of Morse's prior use."

I find that fascinating. From my reading of papers on testing in general, you would need a fairly high level of a substance to test positive, since the testing wants to avoid false positives. I'd love to know what drug he took, and why it's taking so long to get out of his system.

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Three of the four starters in the two games this afternoon didn't get to the fourth inning. The first to leaves was Chris Young, who suffered arm fatigue after the first inning. He was soon followed by Brad Radke, who allowed five runs in the 2nd inning. He didn't show up for the third.

Eric Milton did show up for the third, in which he gave up his fifth run. He also allowed two homers to bring his total to 39 for the season.

At least Chris Capuano is pitching decently. Through five he's struck out five, although he's allowed a homer and three runs. However, the Brewers are on top 9-3, so it looks like Chris should pick up a win.

Dontrelle Willis goes for win number 20 as the Marlins face John Halama and the Washington Nationals. Willis recovered from his rough patch mid-season and is in control, having walked nine batters in his last five starts. Willis does well against this franchise, going 7-2 with a 2.59 ERA against the Montreal and Washington editions of this team.

The Marlins will be trying to keep pace with the Astros and stay ahead of the Phillies. Those two teams are finishing up a pitcher's duel of a series. Just 10 runs were scored in the first two games. There might be a few more tonight as Backe faces Padilla.

And once again, we'll keep our eye out for Barry Bonds as the Giants and Dodgers meet again in Los Angeles. Jason Schmidt faces Jeff Weaver. The Giants won Jason's last six starts, with Schmidt getting a decision in five of those. His main strength during the streak is allowing just two home runs. That keeps the walks from hurting him too much.

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Bryan Johnson writes:

I (as well as several of my coworkers) noticed that the ball hasn't seemed to be jumping off the bat in the past month or so like it was the last few years.

Has anybody else said anything about this? Is it possible that the Commissioner's office took away the "juiced" baseballs? I don't think this would be a result of players being off of steroids, but I could be wrong. I know this sounds like a huge conspiracy theory or something, but I was wondering what you and possibly others have heard or noticed on this subject.

I noticed a couple of weeks ago that no one had a long hit streak. I used to print out that report every day as part of my stat package for ESPN, and I found that the number of long streaks was in proportion to the amount of offense in the league. But when I looked at runs scored compared to last year, they were still very close.

However, offense is down over the last couple of months and really down in September:

Month	Batting Average	On-Base Average	Slugging Percentage	Runs/Game
April	0.261	0.331	0.409	9.1
May	0.263	0.329	0.418	9.1
June	0.271	0.335	0.432	9.5
July	0.268	0.332	0.425	9.2
August	0.263	0.326	0.415	9.2
Sept	0.249	0.315	0.391	8.2

So yes, both Bryan's perception and the hit streak data were correct, there's been a big fall off in offense lately. As for the cause? Earlier in the year I remember reading a story about players being afraid to take supplements due to the steroid testing. I remember it being Omar Vizquel saying that players were smaller because they had stopped taking the off the shelf products. We might be seeing teams wear down because of that.

There's the possibility that steroids were used not so much to gain strength as to allow a player to go through a full season. If players cut back on use, they also may be wearing out.

But I believe this chart tells us what we need to know. Players are old. Last year was the oldest the majors have been since the end of WWII when baseball brought back everyone who had lost time to fighting. Old players aren't as durable as young players. Even now, teams are bringing up old players from the minors to make their first appearances. Where are the youngsters?

Update: While the players making their debuts this season seem old, it's actually the youngest average debuts we've had in a few years. The average debut age is 24.7 years this season, compared to 24.8 last year, 25.0 in 2003 and 25.3 in 2002. Still, in the late 1970's and early 1980's the debut age was in the high 23's and low 24's. The game is getting older.

After going back and forth on this, it looks like Mike Lowell is out at third base. Miguel Cabrera moves to the position, and rookie Jeremy Hermida and veteran Jeff Conine will platoon in left.

Hermida, who hit a grand slam in his first major-league at-bat last week, doubled in Castillo during the Marlins' three-run third inning.

Hermida played left field while Miguel Cabrera played third base, in place of Lowell.

Hermida has more extra-base hits in five games since being called up from Class AA Carolina than Lowell has in his past 15 games. And he has more RBI — five — than Lowell has in his past 22 games.

Juan Pierre is no longer leading off. I like both Lowell and Pierre, but the moves needed to be done. The Marlins are in an extremely tight race for the Wild Card, and they can no longer afford to carry unproductive veterans. Lowell had to sit, and Pierre had to move down in the lineup. Kudos to McKeon for having the guts to make the call.

Billy Wagner is upset about losing to the Astros again. He used the right philosophy last night, it just didn't work out for him:

Philadelphia Phillies closer Billy Wagner had no concern about Astros pinch runner Eric Bruntlett in the ninth inning Tuesday night. His focus was on Jason Lane, the batter trying to hand him the defeat he dreads most.

Unfortunately for the former Astros closer, Wagner couldn't put away Lane after Bruntlett stole second and third bases.

Lane ripped an RBI single to left field, breaking a tie and rewarding Astros righthander Roy Oswalt with a 2-1 victory at Citizens Bank Park.

The Astros tried the same thing later in the inning, but the runner was thrown out on the attempt to go to third. Again, if Wagner strikes out Lane, then the runner doesn't matter.

Wagner's sour grapes don't fit well, however:

"That's something that I was frustrated about. The last team I want to get beat by is Houston. They traded me. It's not (anything against) the actual guys; it's just that organization."

The Astros, who will try to complete a three-game sweep tonight, have not lost to the Phillies since May 18, 2003.

From the Astros point of view, this looks like a good trade. Billy didn't face his former team until the last two games, showing that if you can't get a lead, the closer doesn't do you much good.

The schedule maker did a good job this year, as Houston has four games next week with the new second place team in the wild card race, the Marlins. They're not backing into this thing all by playing weak Central Clubs. They're going to need to beat two close competitors down the stretch, and so far they're doing just that.

Lloyd McClendon no longer manages the Pittsburgh Pirates.

When Lloyd McClendon was summoned to PNC Park on Tuesday morning for a meeting with Pirates general manager Dave Littlefield, he didn't think he was going to be fired. Like a lot of people, McClendon thought it might happen after the Pirates had played the final 26 games of their season. But not yesterday.

"You could say I was surprised," McClendon said.

With the Pirates spiraling toward a possible second 100-loss season in five years, Littlefield decided to make a managerial change, relieving McClendon of his duties and replacing him on an interim basis with bench coach Pete Mackanin.

Upper management is blaming it on a lack of player development:

Managing general partner Kevin McClatchy, who was actively involved in the search process that led to McClendon's hiring Oct. 23, 2000, agreed that a change was necessary. He didn't think McClendon was developing the team's core of young players.

"There was concern there," McClatchy said. "I'm disappointed in some of the lack of improvement. Dave wanted to make sure we had the right manager in place so these players could continue to improve."

It's always difficult to judge whether there's a lack of talent or a lack of coaching when youngsters don't improve. I like the way McClendon is concerned about pitch counts, both from the batter's and pitcher's perspective. Maybe his failure was convincing his players to these things. I'd also suggest McClendon is the type of manager who would do very well in a situation where the whole organization appreciates this approach. I hope he gets another chance to prove himself.

As promised, here's video highlights from last night's Angels-Red Sox game. I'm sorry once again for missing the game winning homer, but these are things you might not have seen on the highlight shows.

Dial Up

Broadband

These little highlights are pretty easy to do with MovieMaker. If anyone goes to a game and captures video, put a little highlight reel together and send it to me, or send me a link and we can put together a little highlight show everyday. Let me know what you think of the idea.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

Since I got home late, I stayed up to watch the tied Giants-Dodgers game. I got to see my second walk-off homer of the night as Jeff Kent smacks a two-run shot in the bottom of the tenth to defeat the Giants 4-2.

A minute later, Khalil Greene strikes out with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth to send San Diego to a 6-5 defeat at the hands of the Rockies. The Padres once again are below .500 and fail to pick up a game on the Giants.

I just got back from tonight's Angels-Red Sox game. Like the last time I went to Fenway, David Ortiz won the game with a walk off blast. I'm going back on Thursday, so I expect another one, David. :-)

It was really a great game. Wakefield went the distance, really making Quinlan look really bad in his first two at bats of the game. He had the weakest swings I've seen on strikeouts.

I'll have some video tomorrow morning, although I forgot to hit the record button for Papi's homer. D'oh!

It was a very good night for Cleveland as the Yankees, Athletics and Angels all lost.

Lynn Henning explains the rules about check swings. There's nothing hard and fast in the rule book. It's just an umpire's judgement call.

The Daily News follows up on Mike Cameron's injury. His recovery doesn't sound like a lot of fun:

Inactivity has drastically altered Cameron's appearance. Whatever the actual pounds lost, his face is considerably thinner, making him look like a different person. Teammates joke he should now wear lightweight Gerald Williams' pants.

"Beat me while I'm down," Cameron said, clearly enjoying the banter at his expense, because it meant he was surrounded by his teammates.

Cameron, who makes his home outside Atlanta and was in uniform yesterday, will try to lift weights for the first time today. He's limited to walking around his neighborhood because he continues to get lightheaded when he attempts to run. Light still creates a glare and forces him to squint, so Cameron wears sunglasses to protect his eyes. He shouldn't require further surgery, but got a reminder of the titanium plates in both cheeks and above his right eye when he set off an airport metal detector en route to New York for a checkup.

Let's hope he makes a speedy and full recovery.

The Angles fly into Boston to open a three game series with the Red Sox in a possible preview of post-season pairings. I'll be in section 14 tonight at Fenway, so stop by and say hi if you're at the game. On the mound, John Lackey takes on Tim Wakefield. Lackey found a way to strike out more hitters this season and lowered his ERA a full run. Wakefield is coming off a month where his ERA was high, but he was able to ride the Red Sox wave to offense to a 5-1 record.

This series is the Angels pitching vs. the Red Sox offense. Both are very good, and we'll get to see first hand if good pitching stops good hitting.

Houston continues its series at Philadelphia with Roy Oswalt facing Jon Lieber. Some bad new from last night's win; Andy Pettitte was hit by a ball and his foot swelled. It's not clear if he'll miss a start with the injury. Oswalt is throwing lots of pitches early in the game lately, putting pressure on the bullpen. In his last start, he pitched well but was out in the sixth inning after reaching the century mark in throws. Lieber is pitching well down the stretch. He's only had one bad start in his last six games, but was shutout twice.

Finally, we'll keep an eye on the Giants-Dodgers game as the Giants try to make a late run at the division title. There's a chance Barry Bonds will be back tonight.

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The Astros-Phillies game ends in a 4-3 Astros victory, but I'm sure the third base coach for the losing team will be second guessed tomorrow. With two outs and pinch hitter Kata on first, Jimmy Rollins pulled a screaming line drive that hit the wall in left for a double. Kata, however, was held at third on the play. When the ball was hit, I thought the game was tied. It's one of those situations where the coach has to weigh the probabilities and make a snap decision. Maybe Kata's not that fast, just faster than Ryan Howard, the runner he replaced. Chavez then struck out to end the game.

I tend to like aggressive base running in that situation. The defense has to execute perfectly to get Kata at the plate. Rollins seemed surprised that Kata didn't score on the hit. I don't think the coach made the wrong decision; either could have worked and either could have been wrong. I just like the chances of scoring on that hit.

Pedro Gomez, hoping for something to do this baseball season, is reporting that Barry Bonds may be back with the Giants tomorrow night.

The 41-year-old slugger took 17 swings and hit five balls over the fence during his turn in the batting cage.

"I did pretty well today," he said. "When I get back on the field, I want to be playing where I left off."

More interesting, however, is the side bar which explains why Bonds spent so much time in Los Angeles:

As Barry Bonds joined his teammates for the first time in nearly three months, multiple sources have confirmed to ESPN's Pedro Gomez that Bonds' banishment to Los Angeles in late June was precipitated by a clubhouse fight with a teammate.

Bonds is alleged to have punched the unnamed teammate in the jaw, and the Giant put Bonds in a headlock. Late June is when Barry's knee swelled up again. Did this tussle help aggrevate the injury? If so, Barry's ability to be disliked may have cost him half a season and the Giants the division.

Kameron Loe made his third good start for the Rangers today, shutting out the disappointing Minnesota Twins for eight innings. In three starts now, Loe allowed just two runs and two walks in 19 innings for a 0.95 ERA. He walked 15 in 45 1/3 innings as a reliever.

Of course, it's too bad Loe's first name isn't Napoleon. Then he could marry Jae Seo and be Napoleon Seo-Loe. :-)

The Washington Nationals won their third in a row against a team they need to catch in the wild card race today. Livan Hernandez allowed two runs and collected 2 hits over 8+ innings for his 15th win of the year. Two more wins and he'll tie his career high set with the Giants. The Nationals are now just 1/2 game behind the Marlins who currently sit in third place in the NL Wild Card race with three more games in this series. Washington has plenty of chances to win this, as they end the season with three game series vs. the Mets, Marlins and Phillies. Washington not only received a team, they plunged right into a pennant race.

Two-nothing was the magic score in the AL Wild Card race today as the Indians picked up a 2-0 victory over the Tigers and the Athletics lost 2-0 to the Mariners to move the contenders into a tie, 1 1/2 games behind the Yankees.

The Athletics offense scored 0 runs in three of it's last five games. They are 2-5 in their last seven games, scoring 18 runs over that time, but 12 in one game.

The Indians haven't been setting the world on fire with their offense either. Over their last five games, they've scored just 18 runs. Luckily, they've allowed 15 for a 2-3 record.

I like both of these teams and am rooting for them to make the playoffs. But they need to start hitting the ball to complement their good pitching.

A terrific win for the White Sox under tough conditions. They make a special trip into Boston in the middle of a home stand and beat the Red Sox and Curt Schilling 5-3. The Red Sox only runs came on a three run homer by Graffanino with two out in the ninth. The Red Sox were listless at the plate and in field, as if they had made the long trip.

The White Sox won on three fronts. Brandon McCarthy pitched seven strong innings, shutting out the Red Sox with seven strike outs. Paul Konerko provided power with a homer, and a suicide squeeze brought in a run as well.

The White Sox did not need this game. They played, however, like it was pennant was on the line.

The NL Wild Card offers the best matchups today. Florida makes its way to the nation's capital as Jason Vargas faces Livan Hernandez. Vargas pitched poorly in three of his last four starts, allowing 15 earned runs in 25 innings on 29 hits. Livan is coming off a poor August in which he posted a 6.69 ERA.

The Astros meet the Phillies tonight, the game deciding first place in the Wild Card for a day. It's a great pitching matchup as Brett Myers hosts Andy Pettitte. Myers just turned 25, and his big leap this season is due to his increasing his strike out rate. From 2002-2004 he struck out 6.0 batters per nine innings. This season, it's up to 8.4 per nine. Andy Pettitte might be a serious Cy Young candidate if it weren't for his teammate, Roger Clemens. Pettitte ranks fourth in the NL in ERA at 2.50. This year, he's been most effective later in the game. The opposition is hitting .259 on his first 45 pitches, .220 after that.

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Barry Zito's throws coming out of the shadows in the late afternoon start in Oakland didn't faze the Yankees hitters. Barry lasted just 3 1/3 innings, giving up nine hits and six runs. It's his 2nd worst outing of the year. He gave up 11 runs, 8 earned in his 2nd start of the year on April 9th vs. the Devil Rays.

With the Angels winning this afternoon, the Athletics may find themselves in 2nd place in both the AL West and the Wild Card.

The Giants are taking a advantage of the poor play of the NL West to make a late move in that division. They won their fifth game in a row today, 3-2 over the Arizona Diamondbacks. The Giants have outscored their opponents 27-15 over the five games. The bullpen's been outstanding, allowing just 3 earned runs in 16 2/3 innings, a 1.65 ERA.

They're now in second place in the NL West, 5 1/2 games behind the Padres. Most importantly, they have seven games against the Padres, three in San Francisco and four in the south. This leaves the Giants with a difficult decision regarding Barry Bonds. Do they bring him back now and risk further injury? They can catch San Diego, and Barry in the lineup (assuming he can hit) makes them a much better offense. With Lowry and Schmidt pitching well, Bonds and Alou providing offense, it's perfectly reasonable to expect the Giants to be able to win a short series.

I'm surprised it's not over for the Giants. We'll see if Bonds or the pitching has enough to put them over the top.

The Cleveland Indians hit a lot of their home runs with the bases empty. They had two more solo shots today in a 7-5 loss to the Twins. That gives them 103 solo home runs on the season. They came into today 6th in homers in the AL, third in solo home runs and ninth in home runs with men on base.

The Kansas City Royals got off to a lead today that even their bullpen couldn't blow, defeating the Texas Rangers 17-8. The Royals had 18 hits and five walks. They were efficient scorers, leaving just five men on base. Jimmy Gobble allowed just one run in 4 1/3 innings, but the bullpen were a bunch of turkeys, giving up seven runs in 4 2/3 innings. Still, a big win like this is a rare treat for Royals fans.

We might have witnessed two star pitchers showing their futures today in Toronto. Scott Kazmir and David Bush battled for seven innings, Kazmir coming out on top in a 1-0 Tampa Bay win. Scott walked one and struck out nine while Bush walked none and struck out five. Bush's minor league numbers are very good, but he hasn't shown that much in the majors. I'm sure everytime Mets fans see a game like this from Kazmir they wish that trade hadn't happened.

It really looks like the NL Wild Card is going for the five-way tie. The top three teams all lost today, while Washington and New York won to each pick up a game on the pack. Two and a half games separate the bunch.

It was the Loaiza-Wilson show in Washington this afternoon. Esteban shutdown the Phillies with eleven strikeouts over eight innings. That matches his season high, also against the Phllies. Wilson had three-quarters of a cycle, just missing the triple. He drove in 3 and scored two with a single, double and home run.

Jae Seo pitched another good game for the Mets, allowing the Marlins just one run over seven innings. He struck out six and walked two. Kaz Matsui had an unusual good day, belting out three hits including a triple and scoring three runs. Burnett had another poor outing for the Marlins. In their last 12 games, the Marlins starters have a 5.45 ERA. Florida has a lot of complete games this year; I wonder if the staff is tired? Take Dontrelle Willis out of that mix and it's even worse.

Jason Marquis handled the Astros today, allowing just one run as he threw a complete game five-hitter. He was extremely efficient, throwing just 98 pitches, 71 for strikes. His only mistake was a home run ball to Lance Berkman.

So Philadelphia still leads the Wild Card by 1/2 game over Houston and Flordia. The Nationals are 2 games back with the Mets 2 1/2. It's going to be a fun four weeks.

Last Wednesday, the Mets looked in good shape to make their move in wild card race. They took game one of the series with the Phillies and had Pedro Martinez on the mound for game two. The Phillies spanked Pedro, and the Mets find themselves in a four game losing streak, 3 1/2 games back in the wild card race and last in the NL East. Today, the Mets send their best pitcher of the last month, Jae Seo against A.J. Burnett of the Marlins. Seo was 4-0 with a 1.78 ERA in August. Burnett is coming off a poor outing against the Cardinals in which he allowed 12 base runners in five innings on six hits and six walks.

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The Twins get consecutive hits against Millwood with runners in scoring position to score two runs in the bottom of the sixth. Santana is still throwing a shutout, trying to frustrate Cleveland's Wild Card hopes.

Update: Travis Hafner cuts the score in half with a home run off Santana in the top of the 7th. It's just the 2nd hit Johan allowed tonight.

Juan Dominguez of the Texas Rangers is throwing a no hitter through five innings. He's shutting out the Royals having walked three and struck out two so far. It would be a perfect cap to the Royals season to go hitless in a game.

Update: Emil Brown breaks up the no-no with a single leading off the seventh.

With a man on first and nobody out, the Astros are pinch hitting for Roger Clemens. His line for the night isn't that good, as he's allowed four hits and two walks through five innings, while striking out just two. I have to believe there's something wrong with Roger, othewise, why not bunt with the pitcher?

Update: Sounds like a pulled hamstring injury to Clemens.

Johan Santana is picking up where C.C.Sabathia left off last night. He's perfect through four against the Indians, striking out half the batters he's faced. Millwood's given up five hits through his four innings, but he's also pitching a shutout.

Update: Victor Martinez breaks up the no-hitter with a one-out single in the fifth.

Update: Nick Punto is helping out Kevin Millwood quite a bit. He's been thrown out twice trying to steal, and was almost picked off before the latest caught stealing, when he was thrown out trying to take third with one out. Punto is now 11 for 19 stealing, a rather poor percentage.

The Astros hit two more doubles in the second to take a 1-0 lead. The Astros were threatening, but the man on third was just caught in a rundown on a comebacker to the pitcher. The Astros have men on 1st and 2nd with 1 out and Clemens up.

Update: The Cardinals pick up two runs in the fourth to make the score 2-1.

Travis Lee is finishing the season on a very high note. He extended his hit streak to 10 games this afternoon with a two-run homer. Lee now has five homers and RBI during the streak.

The Astros almost got Roger a 1-0 lead in the first. Biggio was on first with two outs when Berkman doubled down the line in right. Biggio was thrown out at the plate.

I'm watching the game on MLB TV. I was able to buy a one day pass at MLB.com for $3.95.

Aaron Small pitched a great game for the New York Yankees today, shutting out the Oakland Athletics and pulling the Yankees into a tie for the lead in the AL Wild Card race. This was Small's first complete game and first shutout as a major leaguer. (It was his 8th start).

I don't quite understand why Small was moved out of the rotation in favor of Leiter. I suppose it has to do with starting experience. Small appeared to be doing a much better job of keeping runs off the board, however, and given Leiter's last outing I wouldn't be surprised to see their roles switch.

Aaron Small pitched a great game for the New York Yankees today, shutting out the Oakland Athletics and pulling the Yankees into a tie for the lead in the AL Wild Card race. This was Small's first complete game and first shutout as a major leaguer. (It was his 8th start).

I don't quite understand why Small was moved out of the rotation in favor of Leiter. I suppose it has to do with starting experience. Small appeared to be doing a much better job of keeping runs off the board, however, and given Leiter's last outing I wouldn't be surprised to see their roles switch.

Carlos Zambrano was better offensively than pitching wise today as the Cubs defeated the Pirates 9-5. Zambrano allowed five runs as he walked four over seven innings. But he drove in a run and scored another as he doubled and singled to raise his batting average to .265 and his slugging percentage to .441.

The New York Mets are busy purging their scouting department.

Unhappy with the production from their farm system, the Mets quietly conducted a purge of their organization over the past two days. Vice President Gary LaRocque, who joined the organization in 1997 and oversaw the minor leagues and draft during his tenure, was the highest-ranking employee to take a hit, though he likely will remain in some scouting capacity, deputy GM Jim Duquette said. The Mets have fired or demoted at least nine other members of the scouting department.

"It's still ongoing, so I don't have a number for you," Duquette said. "But there have been a fair amount of scouts fired or reassigned on the amateur side."

You would think that an organization that produced David Wright, Jae Seo and Jose Reyes would be fairly happy with their scouting department. There's a good case it's not the scouts' fault:

One person intimately familiar with the team's inner workings pointed to the number of draft picks the Mets have forfeited in recent years in order to sign free agents. The Mets had no first-round pick in 1999 and no second- and third-round picks in 2002 (for signing David Weathers and Roger Cedeño), '03 (Cliff Floyd and Tom Glavine) and '05 (Pedro Martinez and Carlos Beltran).

In 2001, the year the Mets had a rare extra pick after Mike Hampton signed with the Rockies, they used it to draft Wright 38th overall. Meanwhile, the Braves were compiling extra picks for losing free agents.

The Braves and the Athletics realize the value of the compensation picks, which is why both teams are willing to let players go. They can save money in the long run by stocking their minor league systems with the extra picks. Players on reserve make a lot less money than veteran free agents.

Another cool tie scenario is shaping up in the American League. We have a shot at a four team tie with LAnaheim and Oakland tied for the AL West title, while New York and Cleveland also finish with the same record. I believe the way the tie breaker works in that case is that Oakland and LAnaheim play a game for the division championship. Then the loser goes into the wild card pool, and there's a two day playoff for the wild card.

Oakland and LAnaheim would flip for home field in the division playoff. Once a winner is determined, the three teams left are assigned the letter A, B or C. Team A gets to play game 1 at home vs. Team B, and the winner plays at home vs. Team C. The team with the best head-to-head record in the group gets to choose to be A, B or C. As things stand right now, that would be the Angels if they were in the group or the Yankees if Oakland is in the group. I assume most teams would chose to be Team C, but a team with a great home field advantage might chose A. The team with the 2nd best head-to-head record selects next, and will almost always be team A. That's Cleveland if Oakland is involved or NY if LA is involved. The remaing team is certainly to be assigned B.

The best game in this group today is Cleveland at Minnesota. Kevin Millwood faces Johan Santana. The two pitchers have nearly identical ERAs; 3.18 for Millwood, 3.15 for Santana. What's interesting is that Santana beats Millwood handily on major pitching catergories; K per 9, BB per 9, home runs per 9. But Millwood's been tough with men in scoring position, allowing a .185 batting average with .259 for Santana. If either of these pitchers received more run support we'd be talking about a three way race for the Cy Young award in the American League.

This is the pitching matchup of the year. Chris Carpenter and the Cardinals are in Houston to face Roger Clemens and the Astros. I don't know how many times a single game decided the Cy Young award, but this could be it.

Here's the race as I see it. Clemens is having one of the great pitching seasons of all-time. His road ERA is 0.52. Since 1974, the next best road ERA (min 81 innings) belongs to Greg Maddux in 1995, 1.12, .7 runs higher! Clemens has only allowed 8 home runs all year. He just turned 42 and he's striking out batters at a rate of 8.2 per 9. Opponents OPS is .505! You couldn't play A ball with that kind of offense.

What Clemens hasn't done is win. The Astros were shutout in eight of his starts. Remember, this isn't a like a bunch of 3-2 losses were you had a chance to win if you pitched a little better. These are eight games where the best Roger could do was a no-decision. In those shutouts Clemens pitched 58 innings and allowed five earned runs. That's an 0.78 ERA. Clemens kept the Astros sorry offense in everyone of those games.

Then you have Carpenter, a great pitcher with a team loaded with offense. Even when everyone is injured, they have Albert Pujols, easily the greatest young player in the game. As a result, Carpenter has 19 wins going into tonight's contest.

And the two are closer than their ERAs indicate. Carpenter strikes out about the same number of batter per nine as Clemens while walking fewer. His fourteen homers allowed are still a very low number. And a big advantage is that Carpenter is able to start what he finishes. Each pitcher started 27 games so far this season, but Carpenter has six complete games to Clemens' 1.

So the voters have two worthy Cy Young candidates going head-to-head late in the season. Those voters on the fence can point to the result of this game as the reason to go one way or another. Unfortunately, it's not on the Extra-Innings package, and Fox doesn't appear to have a game scheduled for today. Maybe Fox should do a special and send a crew to Houston for tonight's contest.

Enjoy!

You can purchase tickets for these and many other events at the Baseball Musings Ticket Store.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

Vlad Guerrero reached the 300 HR milestone, hitting a solo shot in the 5th to extend the Angels lead over the Mariners to 3-1.

The Oakland Athletics hit for the cycle in the first inning, picking up two singles, a double, triple and home run against Al Leiter. Al's control was off as he walked one and hit two batters, all in 2/3 of an inning. The Athletics are off to an early 6-0 lead for Danny Haren.

Update: Jorge DePaula wasn't much of an improvement. He allowed four runs in the 2nd. Every player in the Oakland starting lineup has a hit except Nick Swisher, who's walked and been hit by a pitch.

Dontrelle Willis ran out of gas in the 9th, but Todd Jones came on to get the last two outs for a 4-2 Marlins victory. Willis showed great control tonight; 75 of his 111 pitches went for strikes, 68%. He should have five more starts, giving him a shot at 24 wins.

The Milwaukee Brewers are up 11-0 on the San Diego Padres tonight. It looks like they're headed back to the .500 mark. Brian Lawrence lasted only 1 2/3 inning, giving up five runs. Chris Oxspring is making his major league debut tonight, and Bochy is having him take one for the team. He's pitched 3 1/3 innings so far, throwning 72 pitches and allowing six more runs. Not a night to remember for the 28-year-old-righty.

Peralta makes a nice play in the shortstop hole to get Cuddyer leading off the sixth.

Update: Morneau breaks his bat and grounds out to second. He's really slow; it was a weak ground ball but the play wasn't close at first.

Jason Bartlett follows up with a hard liner up the middle for the first hit of the game.

If Sabathia is really back, that gives the Indians a very formidable staff for the stretch run. The more I see this team, the more I like them to win the wild card.

Lenny DiNardo pitched a pretty good six innings for the Red Sox tonight, striking out six and walking one. He gave up four runs, but three of them were unearned due to an error in the second inning. It's one of those innings, however, where you can't just blame the error. DiNardo gave up a walk and two singles after two were out to lead to the three runs. His defense let him down, but Lenny certainly contributed to the rally.

C.C. Sabathia is throwing a perfect game through four innings. The Indians offense scored three runs to give Sabathia a decent lead.

Update: Sabathia retires the Twins in order in the 5th with a strike out and two ground outs. He's thrown 64 pitches so far, 44 for strikes. He's also averaging a strikeout per inning.

Jason Michaels is doing a good job of setting up the heart of the order for the Phillies tonight. He's three for three with two doubles. He's scored all three times he's been on base.

With a .400 OBA, it's surprising he's not in the starting lineup every day. I take it he's not a great center fielder.

Two new blogs concentrating on the Atlanta Braves came to my attention recently. Joe Hamrahi is now writing Talking Chop.

Rowland's Office is the work of two local Atlanta writers, Charles Davidson and Christian Boone.

Stop by and say hi.

The Hall of Fame is refusing a donation of Barry Bonds' 700th home run ball.

According to the company, the ball was offered with no strings attached to the Hall's executive board. But Hall of Fame spokesman Jeff Idelson said Friday rejecting the deal was an obvious decision.

"The Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum will never accept an artifact from any company whose business is promoting gambling," Idelson said. "We have a responsibility to preserve the game's history.

The other day I was invited to a party in New York on the 7th kicking off a tour of the ball before it went to the Hall of Fame. I won't be going (it's my 19th wedding anniversary). I wonder what this announcement is going to do to the tour.

Via Balls, Sticks and Stuff, ProTrade publishes a fascinating piece by Gabriel Desjardins on outfield throwing arms. He does something similar to my Probabilistic Model of Range to determine how many bases outfielders save with their arms. Great graphics and a nice use of probability models.

Alex Belth uses a Bob Klapisch piece at Baseball Analysts to wonder about the relationship between pitching and writing.

Which brings me to another thought. Why do the best jock-turned-writers all seem to be pitchers? Jordan, Jim Brosnan, Jim Bouton. Glenn Stout pitched in an over-30 league for years. What gives?

I guess Alex doesn't consider Jose Canseco a writer. :-)

Any game between NL East rivals is going to be important at this point. Tonight, the Phillies open a series in Washington and the Mets travel to Florida.

Since the start of August, the Phillies have gotten tremendous production from Abreu and Burrell, each with OBAs over .400 and slugging percentages over .500. They each have 22 RBI over that time period. The Nationals have hit Philadelphia well this season. They've outhomered them 13-5, but each team scored 50 runs in their 13 contests and Philadelphia leads the season series 7-6.

The Mets send Victor Zambrano against Dontrelle Willis in Miami. Willis is going for his 19th win and is the only reliable starter as of late for the Marlins. Dontrelle is 6-1 career vs. the Mets with a 2.04 ERA. His only loss came in May of this year.

The Twins get a chance to climb back into the Wild Card race as the open a three game series against the Indians. Former Indians ace C.C. Sabathia faces hard luck pitcher Brad Radke. Milliliter may be returning to form. He's allowed 7 earned runs in his last 27 innings. Radke has two wins in his last five starts, although the Twins won all those games.

Finally, a big wild card game on the west coast as the Yankees visit the Oakland Athletics. It could be that the A's have no hope without Crosby. The Athletics are 53-24 when Bobby plays, 22-34 without the young shortstop.

Enjoy!

You can purchase tickets for these and many other events at the Baseball Musings Ticket Store.

Ervin Santana pulled off some magic last night, shutting out the Athletics for 8 1/3 innings to help the Angels to a 3-0 victory and a share of first place in the West. Santana's been inconsistent in his rookie year. In his 17 starts, I count 8 very good ones and 5 very poor ones. Given that he's just 22, he has room for improvement. We'll see if he can get his walks and home runs allowed down as he progresses.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.

The Padres score four runs late to take the lead, then hold on in the bottom of the ninth for a 6-5 win over the Brewers. The Padres are once again over .500, the first time since August 12th.

Roy Oswalt raised his record against Cincinnati to 15-0 tonight as the Astros kept pace in the Wild Card race with a 3-1 victory. Oswalt struck out 11, but didn't last long as he reached 100 pitched in just 5 1/3 innings. He's now struck out 108 Reds in 123 innings facing the team.

Since the start of the 2001 season, no one comes close to this record against the Reds. Kerry Wood is 8-4 for the second most wins, but no one else has more than 7.

The Nationals returned to a reason for their early season success tonight, late inning rallies. They scored four runs off Jim Brower in the 7th, and the bullpen has shut the Braves down for four innings. So far this season, the Nationals have outscored their opponents 198-179 from the 7th inning on.

I'm watching the DRays vs. the RSox and the field reporter for NESN relayed a story about Boston asking Bronson Arroyo to stop his musical performances for the rest of the season and concentrate on baseball. In a fitting end to the story, Travis Lee hits a two-run homer to give Tampa Bay the lead 4-2.

The Orioles released Sidney Ponson today.

Ponson, on the 15-day disabled list with thumb and calf injuries, has one season left on a three-year deal that would pay him $10 million in 2006.

"The Orioles did what we felt was justified and right, and indeed what we were compelled to do," said H. Russell Smouse, the team's general counsel. "There was really no alternative after a deliberate consideration of all the facts."

Ponson's agent, Barry Praver, also did not return a call. Praver and Ponson have not talked to the media since the 28-year-old pitcher's arrest last week.

"We will clearly grieve it," said Michael Weiner, the general counsel of the players' association.

The Orioles invoked the morals clause:

Every player on the 40-man roster signs a standard contract that includes a morals clause, paragraph 3(a), that reads: "The Player agrees to perform his services hereunder diligently and faithfully, to keep himself in first-class physical condition and to obey the Club's training rules, and pledges himself to the American public and to the Club to conform to high standards of personal conduct, fair play and good sportsmanship."

The Orioles believe Ponson violated that rule.

"It relates to his alcohol-related conduct over a period of time," Smouse said.

The Rockies ended up paying Denny Neagle most of his remaining contract when they tried something similar. I suspect the Orioles will find themselves in the same position.

But good for the Orioles for trying. They certainly gave Ponson a chance to clean up his act. I suppose if he were pitching like an ace and the team was in the middle of a pennant race, things might be different. Sir Sidney strikes me as someone who's wasted a lot of talent and the good will of his organization.

Jaret Wright was just hit by a line drive. It looks like it got between the neck and the shoulder, maybe it grazed his mouth. He's been taken out of the game after going 5 1/3 innings of 3 hit, shut out ball. Sturtze is on in relief.

Update: Sturtze allows the Ibanez, who reached base on the liner off Wright, to score. Wright will not get the win as the score is tied at 1 in the bottom of the fifth.

Tom Glavine is famous for giving up runs in the first inning. Today he allowed two, and that was enough to give the Phillies a victory as the Mets only managed one run off Jon Lieber and Phillies pen.

The win moves the Phillies to 6-9 against the Mets this season. The Phillies have a low batting average against New York, but hit 22 homers in the 15 games, so the Mets have only outscored them 79-70.

Eric McErlain writes:

For the fourth time in 3 days, Off Wing has been caught in the crossfire of another DDOS attack on another customer at Hostmatters. Though this has been going on for three days, neither the identity of the attacker or the actual target is known at this time. In addition, I cannot estimate when or if Off Wing will be coming back online.

For those of you who have blogs, could you please alert your readers as to the problem, and let them know that my hosting company is working to correct it. In addition, I'd like to ask that you also pass along the news that until this gets resolved, i'll be blogging at offwingbackup.blogspot.com.

I'm on the same host and I experienced the same thing on Tuesday.

There were nine pitchers with ERAs under 2.00 in August (25 innings pitched), five of them youngsters. Felix Hernandez and Roger Clemens are on that list, and Roger's been in the majors longer than Felix has been alive. But Noah Lowry beat them all, posting a 5-0 record in five starts along with a stellar 0.69 ERA. He allowed just 22 hits while striking out 33. Noah Lowry is the Baseball Musings Pitcher of the Month.

On the offensive side, another youngster had an outstanding month. David Wright is now the best hitter on the Mets. He posted a .470 OBA while driving in 27 runs and scoring 23. Across town, Alex Rodriguez knocked out 12 home runs while posting the highest slugging percentage of August, .733. (It was a good month to be a New York third baseman.) He was the only player over .700 in the month. David Ortiz led the majors in both RBI and runs scored.

It's a tough pick, but I'm going with Wright. The great OBA, the tough park; he even was six for seven stealing. David Wright is the Baseball Musings Offensive Player of the Month.

There's a good pitching matchup in Houston tonight as Aaron Harang faces Roy Oswalt. Harang is part of the resurgent Reds team that has one of the best records in baseball since the break. He's only allowed 2 runs in his last 14 innings pitched. Oswalt's been human lately with a 6.38 ERA over his last four starts.

The slugfest of the day goes to the Baltimore-Toronto game. A couple of months ago, this game looked like it would be an important one for the AL East race. Instead, tune in and watch hitters light up Hayden Penn and Dustin McGowen. Both have ERAs over 6.00.

Enjoy!

You can purchase tickets for these and many other events at the Baseball Musings Ticket Store.

Jeremy Hermida made the record books with his first at bat last night:

Only two players in baseball history had ever hit a grand slam in their first major league game. Only one other had done it in his first at-bat. And no one had ever pulled it off as a pinch hitter.

Yet with one swing, Jeremy Hermida - called up by Florida from the minors about three hours before the game - found his own special corner of baseball history. He had a pinch-hit grand slam in the seventh inning off the St. Louis Cardinals' Al Reyes in the Marlins' 10-5 loss Wednesday night.

He has the perfect career line. 1.000 BA, 1.000 OBA, 4.000 slugging percentage. He's scored a run and driven in four. If, in his next plate appearance, he draws a walk and then steals a base, he should probably retire. :-)

There were two great pitcher's duels in the West last night. The first, in Seattle, lived up to its billing:

He spent a dozen hours in transit on Tuesday, Caracas to Dallas to Seattle. He had never been to the United States before. He did not plan to come for another week. But he could not miss this.

Felix Hernandez Sr. was among the sellout crowd of 46,240 at Safeco Field. Many here were like him, their plans changed by a 6-foot-10 left-hander named Randy Johnson, who along with Hernandez's son brought about the most anticipated night of Seattle baseball this summer.

Both pitchers delivered and Johnson ended up with the victory in a 2-0 Yankees win. Randy's now pitched 17 innings at Safeco without allowing a run. Hernandez gave up two solo home runs, his only mistakes. His home runs allowed have an interesting history:

He calmed soon afterward, but not enough to prevent a misfire against

New York's No. 9 hitter, Robinson Cano. Hernandez left a changeup high and over the plate. The rookie pulled it to right field, barely high enough to clear the wall.

It was the first hit Hernandez allowed Wednesday, but not the first of his troubles against young ninth-place batters. Cano's clout marked the third home run Hernandez allowed in six big-league starts. At that point, all had been hit by ninth-hitting rookies.

Sheffield homered later in the game to break that streak.

In Anaheim, the John Lackey outpitched Joe Blanton for a 2-1 Angels victory, cutting the Athletics lead to one game. Oakland out hit and out walked LAnaheim, but couldn't push the runners across. Blanton goes to 8-10 despite a 3.54 ERA.

This post is part of the Instapundit Blogburst.

I'm giving to the Salvation Army, Mennonite Disaster Services and the Humane Society. That's money for today, money to rebuild, and money for the lost pets.

We're also to suggest ideas, so here are a couple.

If you can, open your house to a homeless family. I don't know if anyone will make it up to Massachusetts, but I can put up a family of three or four. And get your town to find room in their schools for the children whose education is being disrupted.

Longer term we need training programs for the people who lost their livelihood. There is going to be lots of rebuilding, so training in construction skills would seem to make sense. When people are able to go back to these devastated areas, that where the jobs will be.

Good luck to all, and once again my thoughts are with you.

The Day by Day Database is up to date.